The Whispering Cistern
As told in the taverns of the City of Tulara
They say the old cistern under the University was never just a cistern.
The water there runs too deep, and the stones around it are older than any brick in Tulara. Some claim the place was dug by the first city that stood here, long before our halls of learning. Others whisper the cistern was carved by hands that were not human at all.
But the story most often told goes like this;
On a night with no moon, if you slip into the tunnels and kneel by the cistern’s edge, you may whisper a question into the water. The echo that returns will not be your own. The voice might be low and gruff, like a stone dragged across stone. Or it might be high and lilting, like a child at play. But it will answer, and answer true.
True, yes, but not always kind.
One boy asked if the girl he fancied would love him. The water answered, “Only after the sands have buried her smile.” He laughed, and yet a month later she died in a storm, her body never found. A scholar once whispered for the key to a riddle. The water spoke the answer plain — and when he gave it, his rivals knew he had stolen knowledge from the cistern, and he was cast out in disgrace.
The danger is not in the asking, folk say, but in the thirst. The cistern does not speak to the curious — only to those who burn with want. It knows hunger when it hears it, and hunger is what it feeds.
So the elders warn their children: if ever you find yourself wandering the tunnels on a moonless night, keep your mouth shut. Do not whisper, do not hum, do not even sigh into that water. For the cistern has a long memory, and it is always listening.
Summary
Among the most persistent tales told in Tulara is that of the Whispering Cistern, a subterranean reservoir that predates the founding of the University. Oral accounts describe a deep chamber of stone, lined with damp bricks and still water, accessible through the maintenance tunnels beneath the older colleges.
The legend holds that on moonless nights, the cistern will answer whispered questions. The response never comes in the seeker’s own voice but in that of another — sometimes harsh and gravelly, sometimes childlike, sometimes eerily familiar. Most importantly, the answer is always said to be true, though never without consequence.
Historical Basis
Field Observations
Cultural Notes
Variations & Mutation
Interpretations
The Whispering Cistern
A poem by Thalmar FignissBeneath the stones where scholars dwell,
A silent pool lies clean and still.
On nights when moonlight dares not fall,
A whisper answers every call.
It will not speak to those who pry,
But thirsting hearts who ask it why.
The voice may croak, or sing, or sigh,
Yet nary a word is ever a lie.
A boy once begged to win his bride,
“She’ll love of you until she's died”
The sands came down, after a week had gone,
But his love remained, and languished on.
A sage once asked to solve a test,
The cistern answered, and answered best.
But the wisdom was stolen, and the shame was sown,
And he was left wandering all alone.
The pool remembers; it listens deep,
It never wakes, it never sleeps.
So guard your tongue, and hold your breath,
For thirst will bargain well with death.
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