Lahar wasn't sure if he was supposed to kneel when the goddess arrived. The Temple of Water occupied the coast and faced outward with a channel of seawater filling most of the entryway. He tiptoed along the dry portion and into a long room of stark white concrete decorated with blue glass. To his right stood tiers of benches on his right, with a round glass altar on the left. He startled at the sight of a man with boar tusks coming from an apartment in back.

"Are you the priest?" asked Lahar. He wore a blue and white robe tailored to his bulky frame. Lahar felt shabby in his rough brown tunic.

"I am. You're here early."

"I hiked into Starshore yesterday and slept in the wild. I suppose I should've been cleaner when entering a temple."

"You're apologizing for *your* appearance? I don't hear that much. I was an ugly man until very recently, deformed by magic, and I only asked for the tusks back as an experiment. My name is Miras, by the way."

Lahar whistled. "So it's true that this water goddess has all sorts of magic to hand out? I've heard rumors. Some of my neighbors have come here and returned knowing how to use spells."

"It's true, yes. Those who pray to Ruyo, Lady of Waters, unlock useful abilities."

Spellcasters were an elite. His home village outside the city used to have a dozen people who could use basic tricks of wind and flame, and two with abilities that helped them at the forge or the healer. In the last few months the supposed new Lady of Waters had somehow made it possible for *anyone* to learn the basics or more.

He asked, "But what does it mean to pray? To your goddess, I mean. I've said the routine prayers of the Steadfast Church, but that's..." He waved one hand uncertainly. The air around him clung to his skin, warm and humid but not so bad as the outdoors.

Miras said, "Abstract? A way of speaking to bolster your own confidence and resolve, but not directed at a person?"

"Uh, yes. They say this lady went around ending the war and fighting monsters across the sea, so I guess she's powerful. But she's not going to show up in person and protect me if I get attacked by some rampaging wild spirit, right?"

The priest winced. "Probably not. The Church has had to rethink things lately, and it's still changing. I'm not a master of the theology myself, yet. There are some ideas that have to flow and shift, and other truths that never change. I think that's a lesson in itself. But you're here for the magic, aren't you?"

Lahar shuffled his feet. "Yes, mostly. But I'm curious. My neighbors said they didn't do much to get the blessing. I want to know what I'm agreeing to."

"It's good to ask. In technical terms, you're permanently sacrificing a share of your magic 'pool' to Ruyo, and each prayer you offer at a shrine carries away a bit of what energy you have today. So the well is smaller and you're drawing a bucket for someone else once in a while."

"But I don't have any magic at all."

"Exactly. It's a good deal for most people. Besides, with practice that pool or well grows deeper anyway. Less of a benefit for professional mages, but even some of them have joined, to get better water magic specifically."

Lahar nodded, reassured by the rules, but... "You sidestepped the moral part."

Miras said, "The Lady has a few personal rules. Her magic is to be used mainly to empower and protect, and though it can be used offensively, that's not her specialty. She values personal freedom and the power of free minds to flow around any obstacle. She doesn't demand specific rites from people."

"And you're still working out what you're trying to teach?"

"We are. We adapt."

Crossing his arms, Lahar said, "Kind of an empty vessel then." The altar itself was an oddly wispy thing, a glass cylinder with flecks of white and rose coral floating within it.

Miras huffed and snorted, and Lahar couldn't tell if he was angry. The priest finally said, "There's some truth to that. But since we're speaking of water, that's something that adapts to its container. How would your village handle a Khyberian showing up and wanting to farm?"

"We'd stab the bastard! Those horsemen slaughtered --"

"Yes, I know all too well about the war. But I'm told there are ordinary farmers a lot like you or me in the northern lands. What if one of those people were dropped off in your town?"

Lahar scowled, thinking of tales of the recent war. "He wouldn't know the language, or the soil. Might take him years to fit in if he tried. Forever, if he didn't."

"I think so. Standing on our dirt isn't magically going to make a Kyberian civilized, but he might adapt over time. Some parts of a person change, others don't. So I think that's what we're dealing with in the Church: an old and basically sound doctrine, faced with a new world where there are living gods doing the best they can. The Lady's advice has been to care for others and respect their liberty, and she's acted on that idea. What final form the altered Church takes I don't know. I'm one of the people who've been trusted to shape it."

"Why you?"

Miras tapped one of his tusks, making him look something like a beast. "The Lady rescued me from being possessed and warped into a monster. She didn't need to take the trouble. Nor to visit me several times after and try to fix my hideous face, my hands, my skin." He looked at his hands, which still had oddly large, black nails. "I was considered handsome once. Now I'm humbled and I try to teach people to focus less on outward appearance."

"So she does reshape people?"

"Yes, it's something of a hobby for her. Partly for healing, though she's not yet as good as a professional healer mage."

Lahar paced, hearing his boots echo on the stone floor. His presence was making ripples of sound, just as the temple was making an impression on him. "I guess there are power-hungry people who'd also like to come in and bend your religion toward *their* way of thinking."

"I'm sure they'll try. The Church was worried that Lady Ruyo was like that, at first, and the existing priesthood is trying to teach her. Not that they're completely holy men themselves."

Lahar said, "I came here wanting to get the magic, but now I'm worried about making sure this whole thing doesn't become a blight on us all." He sighed and walked up to the glass altar. "The craftsmen do good work in this city. Or was this all made by spells, by the goddess conjuring it all from nothing?"

"Mostly ordinary work, magic-assisted. You can see telltale markings in the concrete where it was stretched and sculpted. The Lady herself had almost no hand in it. She says that building a temple to yourself is like trying to hide in your own shadow."

"And distasteful."

"That too."

Lahar laid his calloused hands on the altar, his dirty nails clicking against it. He thought silently, *"May the Lady of Waters have great success at common sense and judgment, and at making something worthy of all the attention!"*

Like a flooding river, a cold sensation ran up into his arms and washed deeper into him before fading. He stepped back and staggered, looking at his hands. "That felt strange!"

Miras smiled. "Congratulations." Three more people had just entered the temple and he beckoned them in, but he added, "I may as well show you the basic technique now."

He ended up practicing with the three newcomers, who had been here before. Miras and the rest showed Lahar how to dip his hand into a bowl of water and make some of it flow upward to surround his skin, even coming along when he waved and spread his fingers. Getting it right took only a few minutes. He grinned at watching the fluid flow unnaturally at his command.

A few dozen more people arrived and Miras ended the lesson to speak with them, as a sermon. This part Lahar was familiar with, since it was a more typical ceremony. A discussion of faithful work and endurance and the virtue of perseverence. When it was done the preacher invited others to come up and request the Lady's blessing, which led to another round of training.

"I'm still weak at this," Lahar said.

One of the townsfolk told him, "This shrine can grant several levels of power. You have to practice and come back another day, though."

"Thanks," he said, repeating it for Miras. "I've got a tent to get back to."

The priest took him aside, saying, "We have a few guest rooms if you're short on money."

Lahar's cheeks reddened. "I'm an honest miller, not a bum."

"Didn't say otherwise. We don't yet have a clear set of rules for who can use the rooms, but since it's at my discretion, you're invited."

#

Lahar spent the night in a tiny cell with a vaulted roof, in a side area of the temple. Better than his tent, anyway. The entire building had gone up within months, an impressive feat in its own right that showed it had the support of the city-state's powerful mage guild and its government. He figured the city-folk were especially jealous of plots of land, so he wondered about the money that'd changed hands in setting the whole thing up.

In the morning, he roused himself to practice with a bowl of water that'd been left for him overnight. He'd already worked with it and other supplies several times in between sightseeing in the city yesterday. He'd learned to make the water slowly chill, a feat that he'd been told would make him popular wherever the beer was warm.

When he'd actually washed with the water instead of playing with it, he packed up and shouldered his backpack. He peered into the private apartment area that branched off nearby, since the door was open.

A woman sat at a table, yawning and stretching in a way that showed off her long-flowing brown hair and impressive bust. She wore a tunic in blue and white with a water-drop emblem on each shoulder. She leaned too far back and flicked one hand behind her to conjure a burst of water that pushed her chair forward again. The spray vanished an instant later, leaving the scuffed white floor dry and clean. What Lahar had taken for gloves were actually long sleeves of sleek grey skin up to her elbows, with webbing between her fingers. Something like a dolphin.

The woman spotted him. "One of Miras' guests?" she said in a friendly alto, without any of the weird foreign accents common to travelers.

Lahar's eyes widened and he blurted out, "Are you her?"

"Lady of Waters, open for business." She frowned at a mug. "After more tea."

Lahar backed away, feeling spooked, and retreated to the main temple room. This was supposedly a goddess! What that meant, he wasn't sure, and even the tusked priest seemed uncertain. Lahar sat on a bench and debated whether to approach her again or flee. What did one say to a mighty immortal, or someone who might be scamming everyone but legitimately had unique powers?

While he was waffling, Lady Ruyo walked into the room, quieter than Lahar's own bootsteps had been. "You're the only inn guest this morning. I'm suprised. You looking for the magic blessing?"

Lahar stood up and composed himself. "Yes, please. I don't know how I'm supposed to treat you. Should I be kneeling or something, ah, Lady?"

She waved him off. "We're all still learning. You're a local, it sounds like."

"Yes, ma'am. I run the mill in Ochre, a village west of here."

"Nice place. I've been there a few times with my parents."

"You have parents?"

"I didn't drop out of the sky." Her bright blue eyes studied him. "You've got the first magic already. If you've practiced and prayed again, I can do the blessing directly. That seems to work a bit more strongly when I do that in person."

Lahar walked to the altar and touched it again. "I feel strange about doing this with you here."

Ruyo laughed. "I know. I'm still not used to receiving prayers, either. People ask things from me that I don't know how to give, and I'm not sure my wishes have a real effect when they ask."

"Like what?"

"Fertility. Luck. Safety at sea; even that one is more vague than what I know how to give. Ask me for an enchanted lifeboat that folds up small, and I can do that for the right price. That wasn't even my direct doing; I helped some enchanters design it after I had a tough boat ride."

Lahar asked, "You? You had trouble with a boat?"

Ruyo shook her head and smiled at some memory. "I was alone in an open dinghy and it rained the entire damn time. And then I had to fight a battle on the far side, mostly by waving angrily at people and brandishing a weapon." She clapped her hands and conjured a sword made of ice, as if drawing it from a scabbard.

"Wow!"

"You can learn to do this kind of thing too. Really though, my magic is more for --"

"Empowering and protecting?"

"My priest must've told you, huh?"

Lahar decided to get the task over with. Leaning over the altar, he thought, *"I wish for this Lady of Waters to be better at sailing and fighting and blessing people!"*

Ruyo had stepped closer. "I sensed that. Hold out your hands, please."

Her sleek grey hands slipped against his fingers, gripping him gently. He felt the chill of the temple's power again but coming from her, flowing through him with a sense of carving a channel through earth. Ruyo said, "Done. You're now at what my friend Nusina calls the second tier, and you can conjure water from nothing. You'll never lack for drinking or washing, and there are some other tricks like light-making you can learn."

"Thank you, Lady!" Despite himself he bowed slightly. "But why are you doing all this?"

"I was a merchant before my new job. I still think of my job that way; I get the power I need and I spend it to make people richer. And less likely to be horribly killed; long story. I'm still learning what I can do."

"Like changing Miras the priest? And your hands?"

"Yes. I don't think I'm in charge of the concept of healing, but it's something I can do."

Lahar thought. "And you're all still looking to define a revised Church."

"We are."

"Would... would you be interested in trying this changing magic on me?"

"What for? You're good-looking already."

He smiled at that. "It's not just you who's exploring. It sounds like you mean to keep being important. So, I could try changing myself, being changed by you I mean, as a way to learn what's going on. To try being different."

"You don't sound like you know exactly what you want."

"I don't. But I've been a miller all my life, and I got held back from going to war, so this is the first really new thing that's ever happened to me."

"I'll do it," Ruyo said. "Sit, and hold out your hands again."

She kneaded his flesh, flowing a slippery aquatic spell into his arms like a bubble encasing them. As he watched, his skin became like hers, stripping bare all the hair up to his elbows and leaving him with a rubbery grey coating. Sensitive skin fanned out between his fingers. A few little scars had faded.

Ruyo released him, saying, "That's all I can do today. A body can only handle so much change at once." Indeed his arms ached.

Miras had walked in unnoticed. "It's probably for the best, Lady."

"Miras! Good morning. Are you looking to undo the tusks?"

"Not yet. I'm still learning from the experience. Lahar here might find he wants to turn back when people call him a freak."

Lahar said, "I thought you were preaching about inner beauty these days."

A shrug. "Whether people accept that depends on things none of us can control."

Sunlight shined through a skylight onto the altar of glass, scattering light. One beam glinted across his left arm and added yet another reflection to the world. Lahar said, "If I go around looking like this, and I'm a decent person who doesn't force anyone into my scary freakish power, that'll reflect well on both of you."

Ruyo smiled upon him, saying, "That's right. Behave yourself, and you're a good advertisement for me. Say, you probably don't get to the coast often. Would you like to see some real dolphins now that you're copying their look?"

"Please! I've heard they're interesting. Can you turn someone into one?"

"As far as I know, not completely. But if you like what I did to you, I'll probably be back in town this time next month to take it farther. Or undo it. That's roughly when you'll be capable of more magic too, if you practice."

Lahar had arms like a handsome sea creature, and he didn't know how that'd change his life. Probably not very much. But his body had flowed into some new shape and he'd made the acquaintance of this supposed goddess and her priest. It was up to him to see how far he wanted to let the current carry him.

"Let's go see the dolphins," he said, and wondered whether he would ever return to his mill. Probably yes, but not the same as before, and that was all right.