The morning mist still clung to the river like a thin ghost, silver and shifting. Asma stood at the edge of the water where the soil was soft and dark. The tiger-charm cord rested in her palm, heavy as if the river had poured the weight of memory into it overnight. Alok had gone back to his lodging, but his words kept echoing through her head—the artisans along the Brahmaputra.
Who were they? Why did their work feel so alive?
When the first sunlight cracked through the fog, something shimmered on the water. A reflection that didn't belong—a faint circle carved into the rippling current, like a symbol drawn from light itself. Asma blinked, and it vanished. Yet her heart told her it was not imagination.
She followed the bank until the bamboo thinned and the river split into a narrower branch choked with reeds. A crumbling archway stood half-swallowed by creepers there—old stone carved with spirals and tiger motifs. Beneath it, steps led down into darkness.
A faint humming rose from below, not mechanical but human—many voices, soft and layered, as if people were still at work deep underground.
Her pulse quickened. She glanced back, but the village was hidden behind fog. The world felt suspended between breath and silence. Taking a deep breath, she descended.
---
The steps were slick with moss and led into a vaulted corridor whose walls glowed faintly with minerals. The hum grew clearer, vibrating in her bones. At the end of the passage, light flickered—orange and blue like twin flames dancing together.
She entered a wide chamber. Rows of figures bent over stone tables, hammering, engraving, polishing. Their skin glowed translucent, like river glass. Tools floated, metal chimed without hands. Ghostly artisans worked as if centuries hadn't passed.
Asma froze. The air smelled of brass dust and wet clay. One of them, an old man with hair like drifting mist, lifted his head. His eyes were molten gold.
"You bear our mark," he said, his voice a ripple through water. "The tiger watches again."
"I… found it by the river," she managed.
"The river never gives without purpose," another voice murmured—a woman whose translucent fingers traced circles over a half-finished charm identical to Asma's. "It remembers its makers, and now it remembers you."
They beckoned her closer. The tools on the tables vibrated in harmony with the cord in her hand. When she set it down, the brass tiger gleamed, awakening with a low growl that echoed off the stone.
"What is this place?" she whispered.
"Our guild," said the old man. "The Artisans of the Flow. We forged memory into form—every charm a promise, every pattern a prayer. When greed entered our craft, the river judged us. We were bound to our work until one worthy touched what we left behind."
"And that's… me?"
The chamber pulsed once, light moving through its walls like breath. "Perhaps. Or perhaps you are the one who will decide whether memory is mercy or curse."
A door of liquid light unfolded at the far wall. Inside, shapes moved—echoes of Asma's grandmother, younger, laughing beside a boy holding the same cord. Asma's chest ached. The ghosts whispered:
"History is not written. It is woven. You hold the thread."
---
The vision shattered like glass. She stumbled back into daylight, gasping. The entrance behind her had vanished; only reeds and riverbank remained. In her hand, the tiger charm was glowing faintly, its eyes alive with molten amber.
Alok appeared, breathless, mud streaking his shoes. "Asma! I was searching for you. The villagers said you vanished near the old ruins."
"They weren't ruins," she said softly. "They were working—still crafting—beneath the river."
Alok frowned. "Who?"
"The Artisans' Guild."
He laughed nervously, but the sound faltered when he saw the charm. "That's new. The metal—it looks freshly cast."
"It was," she said. "By hands that shouldn't exist anymore."
They walked along the bank in silence. Birds scattered from the bamboo as the wind picked up, carrying a smell like molten metal. In the distance, thunder rolled though the sky was clear. The river seemed restless, its rhythm uneven.
"Asma," Alok said quietly, "I found something too." He unrolled an old map, fragile as dried leaves. "These marks—each symbol of a tiger—trace the old guild sites along the Brahmaputra. But there's a line here that no record explains. It connects them all like a vein."
She traced the line. It curved directly through their village, ending at the bend shaped like a serpent. The same bend where she had first found the cord.
"The guild bound their souls to the river," Alok murmured. "If the line is real, maybe they're not gone. Maybe they are the river now."
A shiver coursed through her. The river's surface rippled, though no wind stirred. For an instant she saw faces there—craftsmen, women, children—all fading as quickly as they appeared.
"They want something," she whispered.
"They always do," said a voice behind them.
They turned. A woman stood by the reeds, cloaked in fabric that shimmered like wet silk. Her eyes glowed the same molten gold as the artisans' had. She smiled gently, but the air around her bent like heat.
"You found what was lost," she said. "Now you must decide if it should have remained so."
"Who are you?" Alok asked.
"I was once their apprentice," she said. "Now, I am their guardian. The river gave me shape when time took theirs. The guild's promise was broken—someone must restore it, or the river will reclaim what breathes upon its banks."
Before Asma could speak, the woman dissolved into spray. Only a single phrase lingered in the air, soft as mist:
"Return what was never yours."
---
That night, the river roared louder than ever. The villagers lit lamps and placed them on the water, whispering prayers to calm whatever storm brewed beneath. Asma sat by her window, the charm glowing faintly on her table. Each flicker matched the rhythm of her heartbeat.
Alok's notes lay open beside her—maps, symbols, half-translated inscriptions. One phrase repeated in every margin: The artisans serve the flow.
She wondered what that meant now that the flow itself was changing.
Outside, lightning streaked across the clouds though no rain fell. The lamps on the river's surface spun in perfect circles—as if guided by unseen hands.
The charm pulsed once. Then again.
She heard the faintest whisper rise through the wind: "We are not finished."
Asma stood, her reflection splitting across the windowpane. In her eyes, for a heartbeat, glimmered the same golden hue as the artisans' souls.