Chapter 20 #2
Roy had feared that something might have happened to the crypt since they’d entered it, that it had collapsed beneath the winter-rotted foundations of the library, but everything remained the same: the books displayed behind glass, the congregation of the entombed Protectorate; the seven sarcophagi of the Elder Scribes, the cracked lid of the central one lying upon the great dais, where Percival and Roy had left it.
“We need to get their attention,” Percival said, sidling up next to Roy. “How should we go about this?”
“It’s safe to say that the Orphic Basilica repurposed this space in the crypt as a shrine to the Elder Scribes following their deaths,” Roy said.
“In my eyes, if something were to happen to the ones it buried, if someone were to trespass on their resting place, the consequences for such an act of sacrilege would be severe.” He smiled.
“And . . . ?” Percival asked.
“And I intend to see what those consequences are.”
His smile fading, Roy wrapped his hand around the sleeve of his tunic, curled his fingers into a fist, and then pummeled the glass, striking it over and over, hard and swift.
Percival did not stop him, not with a hand on his shoulder or a cry of protest, but he did raise his arm over his face, sheltering it from the glittering shards of glass that soared at him and then fell at his feet.
Once the hole in the glass was large enough to thrust his arm through without cutting himself, Roy reached inside, grabbed one of the books—engraved on the cover of which was one of those strange symbols he’d seen, Neil Eldreave imprinted beneath it—then turned on his heel and hurled it at the wall.
A cloud of bone-dust, grit, and ash ballooned outward, concealing the book as it crashed to the ground.
He retrieved another from the shelf he’d ransacked and flung it against the lid of the nearest sarcophagus, which it struck with a loud thud.
“See me!” Roy bellowed. He pulled a third book out and threw it at the coffin of a member of the Protectorate. “See me!”
Percival cautiously removed a book himself, one only a little larger than his hand, and pitched it against the wall, where it exploded into a whirling confusion of ink-stained pages. He blinked in amazement at the destruction he’d caused, then returned to the shelf and ripped out another.
As the book smacked against the wall, sending up curls of earth and dust, Roy followed it with another.
The breeze within the chamber stirred quicker and quicker, rising from their feet to their waists.
He grew peripherally aware of a chorus of screams, then saw the pale gray fog ascending from underneath the ground.
Fear twisted within him, sharp as thorns, snatching at his breath and roiling through his stomach, but he only gritted his teeth tighter and ran back to the shelf, hauling stacks of books into his arms and pitching them in twos and threes against the wall.
Percival was right on Roy’s heels, screaming and hollering with him.
“See us!” they shouted, nearly overriding the pandemonium of noise.
Roy was half surprised that Percival was voicing the chant, as he probably had no clue what he was doing but simply felt good doing it, but Roy didn’t let Percival in on his plan.
Some reckless part of him wanted to see the look of bewilderment on Percival’s face. “See us for who we are, you cowards!”
They did not cease their looting and littering until there were no more books on the shelf, and even then, they carried on with their summoning. They reprimanded those who were unable to respond to their grouching, those whose souls had long departed this life.
Perhaps most egregious to the sanctimony of a library, they made a ruckus.
Percival dashed to the lowermost of the coffins of the Protectorate, which were on the walls surrounding the sarcophagi of the Scribes, and shook them, sweat percolating on his brow and dripping down his temples, his cheeks red as roses.
Roy threw book after damaged book at the lids of the Scribes’ sarcophagi, his voice going hoarse as he shrieked blasphemies, droplets of tears and perspiration running down his face.
When he eventually tired of damaging sacred property, he lumbered around the exterior of the cairn, panting and clutching his stomach, and flung his fists weakly at the walls.
Blood beaded from the cuts he’d made on his knuckles, peppering the backs of his hands.
It was then, once Roy was beginning to lose momentum, that two spears of ruby light cut through the crypt. He and Percival halted in their ministrations, then twisted to the entryway. There stood a ghost, its eyes trained on Roy.
Roy watched, his feet fixed to the ground, as the shadow lifted a silhouetted hand. It curled its fingers into a fist, then slashed diagonally. Not an attack, Roy thought, but a gesture of some kind.
“Valusvar,” Roy said. “Or Kharuan. Something about the swords . . .”
Percival boomed, “What is this, Roy? What the fuck is this?” The muscles of his throat stood on end, and his veins bulged like thick cords of rope. Then his face fell. “You told me about a . . . a shadow when we played the drinking game. This is it, isn’t it?”
Roy nodded weakly.
“Fuck, I shouldn’t have questioned it. What is it?”
“It’s a ghost, Percival,” Roy answered, dragging a long breath of cold, stale air into his lungs. The ghost made the same gesture as before, slashing out its transparent arm, and Roy added, “I think it wants the swords.”
The ghost drifted closer, its feet not quite touching the ground.
It rolled its head back, casting crimson light upon the coffins of the Protectorate, then dropped its brightening gaze to the swords.
It was standing upon the edge of the dais now, each of its steps forward earning a step back from Percival and Roy.
It rose higher into the air, remnants of darkness unfurling from the soles of its feet.
It stretched outward like kneaded dough, its eyes taking on a spine-chilling liquid quality.
Roy monitored its ascension, a small, choked sound of fright escaping his lips.
Then came a voice, shrill and desperate, issuing from the general direction of the ghost and resounding throughout the chamber. Please, please, please, it hissed. Help me, help me, help me. Its pleas were abruptly cut off by a high, wavering scream.
Roy jumped, his heart climbing up his throat, and stumbled back into Percival, who clutched Roy by the nape of his neck, his harsh, ragged breaths bursting across the shell of Roy’s ear.
They stared, horrified, as the ghost started to crumble apart and fracture, breaking off into infinitesimal pieces of shadow.
It curled its body inward, like a snake coiling to strike, then dove down and plummeted soundlessly into the sarcophagus at the heart of the chamber, the sarcophagus in which they’d found the swords.
Percival shouted, “Run! Run, now!”
But Roy could not move. He was locked in place, his eyes fixed on the central sarcophagus.
He could feel the air shivering, then slowly realized why.
The chorus of screams from before had thinned out and was now narrowing into one voice, an articulate and oddly aristocratic one.
It sounded sharp and clear in Roy’s mind.
Fret not, mortals. I mean you no harm and bear you no ill will.
Then a creature sat up from inside the sarcophagus, made from the bones of the Elder Scribe that had been buried within and outlined with shadow. Its strange eyes had dimmed but not died out.
Roy whispered, “Who are you?”
The ghost cocked its head with a strangely feline curiosity, as if in anticipation of their reactions. I am Atticus Walestone, though in the latter half of my days, unbeknownst to my peers, I also went by Razkamun.
Roy doubled back, reeling, and nearly knocked Percival over.
He stared, uncomprehending. While he hadn’t read much of Walestone’s bibliography, as he wasn’t particularly interested in the cosmos and the possibility of other worlds existing beyond his own, he had mentioned to Percival during their drinking game that some kind of amorphous magnetism had drawn him toward Razkamun’s oeuvre.
Perhaps he hadn’t discerned any specific parallels between Walestone’s and Razkamun’s works, as the two scholars seemed to have engaged with entirely different fields of study, but Roy supposed Walestone had likely planned for this, considering the detestable criticisms Razkamun’s papers had received.
As Roy thought on it, he couldn’t remember ever coming across a sketch of Razkamun, either, but this hadn’t troubled him.
Many old-world scholars had preferred to remain anonymous, terrified as they were of backlash.
“What?” Percival shouted. He spun to Roy. “We argued about Razkamun when we first got here, and now your addlebrained hero is going to kill us in these fucking tunnels.”
But this wasn’t his hero . . . and yet, it also was.
Because he’d always admired Walestone, too—his eccentric interest in cosmology was unorthodox, sure, but also courageous—and knowing they were one and the same .
. . It somehow clicked. And part of that was the fact that they had nothing to fear from this ghost.
As if sensing Roy’s assent, Walestone leaned forward. I heeded your summons, scholars—not to cause fright or alarm, but to deliver a warning. There is a great evil afoot, a tremble in the air. As he said this, he stared raptly at the swords.
Roy wasn’t sure what that look meant, but something more pressing nagged at him.
“There are more of your kind, as we’ve seen in the library, but only you have thus far made yourself known.
Why haven’t any others?” Roy recalled, then, the unseen barrier that had prevented him and Percival from making out the whispers within the catacombs.
They had heard voices, but only a few, and those only slightly, like they were indeed caught behind, or enclosed within, some sort of obstruction.
Although I have come to your world from my own, Walestone said, others may be hesitant to do so.
As though completely disregarding what Walestone had revealed, Percival demanded, “Release them from whatever cage contains them.”
You argue it was I who captured those adrift souls. Walestone’s red eyes flickered in a horrifying imitation of anger. But how could that possibly be when I have withstood my own suffering?
Roy assured Walestone, “We’ll come to your aid and find a way to release you and your kind, if you might tell us what occurred. You can have peace. Freedom.”
My memories are a frail web, Walestone said, his elegant voice shaking with grief. I have roamed too long a path to reflect and remember my end.
Roy looked down at his feet, ashamed and slightly disappointed. He’d expected Walestone to impart some crucial piece of information after millennia of drifting through the afterlife. Perhaps he was still clinging to the echoes of his grief, though, something to feel so he did not lose his way.
“No memories?” Percival pressed, his face paling. “None?”
There have been . . . impressions, of late, Walestone admitted. Screams. Cries. Pleas for mercy.
Roy recalled what he’d heard the last time they’d been in the catacombs. See what they made of your kind! Oh please, I say! I plead to the Above! Heed me! They butchered us and killed our young—
Color washed back into Percival’s face. “You’ve been looking at the swords this entire time!” he shouted. “Tell us! What are they?”
The bones stitching the ghost’s form together had begun to shiver and clatter, though at Percival’s shout, Walestone stilled.
Again, my memories are not as reliable as they once were.
But I . . . He squinted at Valusvar and Kharuan.
I believe those swords, if employed correctly, might be the cornerstone of our liberation. You both unsheathed them, yes?
“Just one,” Percival said. “Valusvar. When I lifted it, I accidentally pointed it at Roy, and he saw these . . . visions of his own death.”
Yes, the visions, Walestone said with burgeoning recognition. A method used by the wielder to incapacitate unsuspecting victims. But there is another power, scholars. Another . . .
Roy was about to say something, but Walestone began to tremble, the bones holding his form collapsing to the base of the sarcophagus. Wind snagged on him like tearing cloth, and then he was gone.