Chapter LXIII
LXIII
THE DRIPPING, SILHOUETTED FA?ADES AND SLICK streets of Fornax are menacing and silent and cold.
I jog, numb soles slapping against wet stone.
Hurrying but cautious. No lights here to fight the steadily deepening dusk, but a sliver of moon has already started to rise and I don’t think I’ll be left completely blind tonight.
Even so, I keep to the main road, the widest and straightest of the ways.
Water still trickles. Dead shadows and empty structures yawn everywhere.
I feel as though I am treading the spine of a corpse.
Stranger still is the increasing feeling of familiarity with each passing landmark.
Even in the gathering gloom, I see Caten.
Nothing directly recognisable, but the Republic shouts from every line and though I haven’t seen any great cities since coming to this world, if there are any, the people I’ve come to know would not build them like this.
This is too grand, beautiful but far too proud of the fact.
Some common remnant from the distant past, perhaps?
It’s too similar to be coincidence. The statue on my right that could almost pass for Vorcian.
Friezes on the walls to my left that could have been ripped straight from some Catenan myth, though I don’t recognise any of the characters or situations.
A man holding a glowing ball. An eagle fighting a wolf.
I do not pause to study them more closely.
Cannot. The last of the bloodied light is bleeding from the west now and all that paints the way ahead is silver and black, glistening rivulets and shining drops flowing everywhere.
My father’s presence on the hill far behind grows fainter. And fainter. And then is gone.
And then the statues begin.
These are not like the ones carved atop the pedestals; in fact when I first see them I freeze, certain in the dim that I have met enemies, and only willingly push on after almost a minute of crouching warily behind a column.
They kneel at the edges of the road, lining it for as far as I can see.
Darker shadows, their wet forms glinting dully in the wan moonlight.
As I focus on them, they pulse softly in my mind. My father confirmed last night that I’ve been sensing the Will imbued in him that’s keeping him alive. Which means I was right about why I could sense a weaker version of the same thing from my spear.
And also means that all these statues are imbued, too.
Finally, I pluck up the courage to creep closer.
There are hundreds of them. Androgynous bodies with what look like flat, wide discs for their bowed heads.
All the same height, the same build, the same pose.
I crouch beside one. It is exquisitely made.
Entirely constructed of what looks like obsidian, polished completely smooth.
Though not one piece, I realise after a moment.
Each limb looks separately made and articulated. Down to the joints in the fingers.
I peer closer. Where a face should be, the symbol of the Hierarchy is precisely etched.
I stare, and shudder, and without touching it, move on.
I continue through the gauntlet of disquieting statues for ten minutes. Twenty. There are thousands of them, not just along the road I’m travelling but along every street I pass. They and the hollow, dripping city leer around me. The exertion is enough to keep me from freezing, at least.
Finally I spot the building Lir was surely talking about.
At least a hundred feet tall and wider, grander than its surrounding counterparts, its sloping roof supported by huge columns covered with intricate friezes.
More depictions of events I don’t recognise.
More displays of myths I do not know. It feels wrong, somehow.
Catenan civilisation that is not Catenan.
Familiar and foreign, all at once. Like looking into a mirror and seeing a stranger.
But it is what I’m looking for. Even disregarding its size, the rows of kneeling statues provide a path leading directly to its central, triangular archway.
I approach uneasily. Water still dribbles like a liquid silver curtain across the entrance, fed by some remaining catchment higher up. The moon reveals an inscription running along its length. More ancient Vetusian. For the safety of Luceum.
“Well that’s promising,” I mutter.
I stand there, then turn and examine the way back. The strange statues lining the way draw my eye, but they are as they were before. There is nothing out here to suggest what might be in there.
“Inside.”
I flinch around wildly, staring for the source of the word. A woman’s voice. No one near me, but the whisper was as if it were in my ear. I stare madly into the shadows for five seconds, heart pounding. Ten. There’s only the trickling of water.
If I was uneasy before, I’m near frozen in place now. Shivering. One armed and without a weapon. I could simply avoid this place. Press on and hope that I can answer whatever questions Lir might have for me on the other side.
But the truth is, I have no idea if that’s even possible. I might be killing myself in trying. And Tara, Pádraig, Lir—they wouldn’t have sent me here unless they thought I could pass whatever test lies inside.
I climb the steps to the archway and, ducking my head against the icy beads of water splashing down, pass through into shadow.
THE INTERIOR OF THE BUILDING IS NOT DARK FOR LONG.
I am not more than ten steps inside when I spot silver again up ahead. Soon I’m stepping through another archway, and into the cold light once more.
I falter to a halt.
I’m at the entrance to a massive, elongated atrium, lined with two rows of thick columns and beyond them, smooth walls that glisten wetly as they stretch upward.
Between the columns are more of those black statues.
Hundreds of them, polished and faceless except the three lines joining at an apex, standing eerily at attention.
Though these, at least, do not pulse with Will the way the ones outside do.
The majority of the three-hundred-foot space is slightly sunken, creating a pool no deeper than a foot; the water reflects the dazzling yellow pulse of the column that rises from its centre, stark against a monochrome sky above.
The pool seems to quiver. Perfectly calm and yet somehow agitated to my eye, bending the light as I look at it, hurting my head.
The light itself, casting long shadows everywhere away from the pool, emits from a massive white obelisk. Veins of golden light wrap around it, throbbing.
I’m off-balance enough that I don’t realise what it is, for a second. Despite it filling my view. Despite the scars on my back burning on instinct.
An Aurora Columnae.
I stare, dazed, trying to understand the importance of it.
It’s far brighter than the Aurora Columnae that I know—the glow from the one in Tensia was barely visible—but there’s no doubting it.
It feels impossible to see one here like this, when in the Republic, each one is guarded constantly.
When every known one is under the complete control of Caten.
I don’t move, bathed in the golden light, gaze finally moving on.
Two statues stand to stiff attention in the water, too, between me and the obelisk.
Different from the ones I’ve already noted; these are made entirely of silver, and rather than being smooth, every inch of their bodies is inscribed with symbols reminiscent of those painted on by warriors for battle.
Their heads are thin but instead of a disc, they are wrought, glinting endless knots.
Each holds a spear and, unlike the hundreds of black forms lining the sides of the pool, these ones emit that same, faint pulse of Will that I sensed within those I saw outside.
There’s an unsettling vibration deep in my chest. The cold, biting only a few moments ago, has vanished to something thick and warm. “The worthy and the riven will proceed. Walk to the menhir.”
I flinch at the whisper, but again when I look around, there’s no one. The worthy and the riven? I have no idea what that means. As for the rest, though, it’s not as if I needed the instruction. There’s nowhere else to go. Nothing else to do.
I step into the pool.
The water is warm and, more unsettlingly, doesn’t seem to ripple when I stand in it. I frown, then crouch down and scoop some one-handed, letting it dribble through my fingers back onto the glassy surface. It’s absorbed silently, without a single splash.
I wade slowly forward. As I do, I start to spot sharp glittering beneath the surface. Metal, scattered at the bottom of the shallow pool.
Weapons.
There are blades down there, and spears, and knives.
Some are gold, some are iron or stone. Many have wooden elements, but none appear to be rotting or warped.
Even through the distorting lens of the water, it’s easy to tell that each one has the same markings as Tara’s, Pádraig’s, and my own.
Nine distinct sections, each part with a different symbol.
I walk carefully, considering them. This test is for warriors and druids alike; surely a warrior would be expected to take one. But that is not how warriors here think. A weapon is special to them. A part of them. Particularly to the nasceann.
I ignore them. Walk on, past the lines of empty black statues and then between the two pulsing silver ones, until I stand in front of the Aurora Columnae. It towers above me. Its radiance bright enough that I have to shield my eyes.
“Place your hand on the menhir.”
This is it. Unsurprised by this instruction, too, even if the whisper still unsettles me more than I can say. The nasceann ability, the need to go through this test, makes so much more sense now, even if I still don’t understand how weapons alone can be providing Will to their wielders.