Cistern

And then I attended two actual plays in front of audiences.

So one was an event called Horror in the Cisterns, which was a Call of Cthulhu adventure in the context of a project called A Viking in the Sun, which is about education about Vikings in the Mediterranean region using creative media.

And they literally played in the Sheriffiye Cisterns in Istanbul's old town in front of a small audience.

And that included Istanbul's RPG publishers and actual play channels and organizers.

And I was also there.

But the pan is a pocket universe unto itself, a ghostly frieze, untouched.

Here in its dead center, the lone trace of civilization is the Cistern, a matte black dome rising from bone white clay.

Yurts and habs cluster all around it using make-shift proboscises to leach charge from its solar skin, motile sponges to gather condensation from its base.

Shabby figures sprawl in each slice of shade, most of them refugees too exhausted to speak.

Both are swathed in sun-proof Aramisium, merc-sigiled armor.

One holds a brutal gray scatter gun in lap.

As the roll skiff approaches the Cistern, some shade seekers estimate they have something left to lose and sidle out of sight.

The most desperate scurry forward.

It's the size of an enormous keg, I guess.

And that's going to be important for, yes, the narrative chapter that comes up, because there in the chapter called Cistern and Buckets, Tashtego is going to fall into the head.

That's right.

Yeah.

Chapter thirty-eight.

Jeremiah in the cistern.

Now Shephatiah the son of Mattan, Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, Jucal the son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur the son of Malchiah heard the words that Jeremiah was saying to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, ‘He who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but he who goes out to the Chaldeans shall live; he shall have his life as a prize of war and live.’ Thus says the Lord, ‘This city shall surely be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon and be taken.’” Then the princes said to the king, “Let this man be put to death, for he is weakening the hands of the soldiers who are left in this city, and the hands of all the people, by speaking such words to them.

For this man is not seeking the welfare of this people, but their harm.” King Zedekiah said, “Behold, he is in your hands; for the king can do nothing against you.” So they took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchiah the king’s son, which was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down by ropes.

And there was no water in the cistern, but only mire; and Jeremiah sank in the mire.

Ebed-melech rescues Jeremiah.

When Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch, who was in the king’s house heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern—the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate—Ebed-melech went from the king’s house and said to the king, “My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they did to Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern, and he will die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city.” Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, “Take three men with you from here, and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.” So Ebed-melech took the men with him and went to the house of the king, to a wardrobe of the storehouse, and took from there old rags and worn-out clothes, which he let down to Jeremiah in the cistern by ropes.

Then Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah Put the rags and clothes between your armpits and the ropes.

I tracked their route with a sick fascination.

They all pointed toward the north garden, where Yuna's last signal faded toward the door the logs called Cistern Entry.

That was when I realized we weren't mapping a static place at all.

The island itself was shifting, or we were, or the blue orchids were the only still points in a moving reality.

I say, the word's barely mine.

Basement.

Cistern.

Wherever the clusters are thickest.

And then they sing a song.

Yay! The Cistern of Blood.

That's right.

Gross.