The Twelfth Moon || ✔️

25. The Temple Of Sariranyasa

I hadn't even noticed when Jerr and I had walked past the walls of Rahas. It took Jerr announcing we'd arrived at this Temple for me to become fully aware of my surroundings again."I don't see anything," I said confused.

"It's right over there." Jerr pointed at the black rock formation near us. It was big, but it didn't surpass the ground that much. It surely wasn't big enough to be a Temple.

"I still don't see anything."

"It's in the black rocks you're looking at," he chuckled. My eyes traveled down, to where the stone the ground, and they fell upon an opening in the rocks. As Jerr and I approached the entrance of the Temple, I couldn't see anything past it but pure darkness.

I gulped at the thought of going in, but my curiosity took the better of me and I entered the cave Jerr was motioning me to go in.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness fairly quickly. We walked in a stumbley cave hall for a short while before we reached some steps someone had carved in the stone. It didn't take me long to realize that most of this rock formation was located underground, and that it was in fact immense.

I looked back at Jerr, and he nodded at me to begin walking down the stairs. By the Moons, this could very well be a plan of Aven to get rid of me without anyone knowing, and I could be walking right into his trap. But something told me that I could feel safe with Jerr. He surely wouldn't go to all these lengths, only to get rid of me?

The deeper we walked in the cave, the cooler the air around us became. I could hear some trickling water, the sound of it becoming more clear with every step I took.

And then I passed a corner and the darkness was suddenly gone. My breath got stuck in my throat and I think I actually gasped as I took in the scenery before me.

The dark narrowness of the steps made room for a large clearing in the cave, every bit of it still made in that dark, black stone. However, someone had been here many, many Moons ago and carved out pillars that were neatly positioned in a half circle towards the back of the Temple.

Light seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, and I was too puzzled to really take the time and figure out where it was coming from. The entirety gave me a magical feeling, anyway.

In front of us, in the heart of the Temple, was an enormous statue of a Wolf, seated on his hind legs and looking straight ahead. A source of radiant light shone upon it, giving it the clearest view of the entire Temple. I had no idea where the light came from, but it somehow made sense. The statue was so immense, I knew it'd take me a short while to reach the top of it if I ever decided to climb it. The wolf appeared to have been carved out of our Moon itself, its stone was made from a radiant silverish white. I had no idea who had been able to make this statue, or how they'd even done it. The wolf sat pridefully and I felt it watching over us, even if it was only made of inanimate stone.

The statue was surrounded by a pond, existing of the deepest, blackest water. It reminded me of a dark night without the stars or our Moon to light up our world.  There were some small rock formations where I could hear the calming sounds of the black water flowing into the pond in several small waterfalls. Some large white and pink flowers floated in the water, accompanied by large, green leaves. I recognized the Lotus flowers my father had once shown me in a book.

Everywhere around us, plants of all different kinds were growing, climbing up the pillars and Temple walls and swallowing them up entirely. The green leaves were decorated with flowers in blue, pink and purple colors. The flowers were everywhere. Even the ceiling wasn't spared as every inch of it was draped with flowers twirling and flowing down. Some of them even appeared to be glowing in a warm, golden light, only adding to the magical feeling this Temple was already providing.