Chapter 20 #2
I rested a hand on Brindle’s head as we reached the door. Was he coming in or staying out?
And miss you making a fool of yourself over a man sworn to reject affection? I’d never turn my nose up at that kind of entertainment.
I’d glimpsed the hall into the new room on our way past, but it curved in such a way that I’d seen no more than the smooth white stone walls and empty insets where the other hall had cups.
“Was this place raided in the past?” Hefertus asked as we entered the hall in a cluster. The man was ridiculously unflustered for someone in a trap. Did he think he could wish his way out of it?
Perhaps. And perhaps you could, too.
Prayers weren’t wishes, though sometimes they felt the same.
“Can we hurry and forget the empty shelves?” Owalan asked, agitated.
“Perhaps one of us should wait with the golems,” the Inquisitor suggested when he was still just outside of the door.
He stood with his body turned back the way we came, the picture of reluctance.
Until he’d spoken, I’d forgotten he was there.
Some people disappear into the background, but he seemed to disappear into the foreground — there, but forgotten.
With his flamboyant flag of long white hair and his black fitted clothing adorned with silver, you’d think he’d be more noticeable.
I could see his point. The last time we walked through a door as a group, it had gone poorly. Why do it twice? It made sense to leave someone to watch our backs. Almost superstitiously, I looked up at the ceiling. Was it just me, or did the demon seem to be breathing?
Sir Owalan shook his head vehemently. “We need everyone. You’ll see when we get there. I can’t explain.”
“I need you to explain,” the Inquisitor said quietly. His fingers danced up and down the hilt of his sword. “Or I won’t be going anywhere.”
Sir Owalan’s dark eyebrows met in the middle. “Some things must be seen with your own eyes, Inquisitor. Stop questioning and believe.”
What a ridiculous thing to say. Worse, he trotted off down the hall the moment he was done speaking and no one could ask for further clarification.
“The golems are by the stairs,” Sir Coriand said with an assured smile. “I’m sure they’ll keep an eye on things.”
Which was no comfort at all. Did they have the ability to think for themselves?
I should hope not.
Or the ability to rescue us from this room if we became trapped?
The laughter echoing in my head was all I needed to hear from the demon.
There’s no turning back now. Hold your faith fast and ignore the demon. I’ll keep him in check.
The Inquisitor cursed under his breath, but after one longing look backward, he joined us in the hall. Before we reached the end of the hall, we found words carved into the stone of the floor. They seemed like a continuation of the verse from the plaque in the main room.
“Can you read it?” Adalbrand asked me, but before I could answer, Sir Coriand read the verse aloud.
Choose now holy vessel,
Be careful, be clear,
For the bones of others,
Will root out your fear.
Wash your cup with sorrow,
Bathe your vessel with blood,
But choose your gift wisely,
Be it fire or mud.”
“That does seem to indicate there will be a cup somewhere,” Sir Sorken said. He had his hands jammed into his belt and was looking around with a vaguely curious expression. Could I get away with that? I loved how it made him look like he didn’t care.
Sir Adalbrand snorted at that and then walked deliberately over the words like they didn’t daunt him at all.
His chin was held high, eyes watchful. He had a way of walking that made him look like a hero striding through a tale.
He could choose to use it or not, I’d noticed.
Right now, he was employing it in full measure.
I swept into his wake as we turned the final curve and spilled out into the vault beyond.
And what a vault it was. It rivaled the main hall we’d just left.
The ceiling soared up into the rock and it must have been drilled through from the top, for pinpricks of light shot down from the ceiling — so many of them that they lit the room so that the white stone was bathed all over with the soft light of the world above.
If I had thought that the statues in the main room were impressive, the ones filling this cavern were teaching me that I had dreamed too small.
Lining the circular room and looming high up the walls were statues of Saints.
Saints standing and sitting and praying and dying, mouths open as if about to break out into a heavenly chorus.
They were carved in intimate detail and by the hand of a master — no, it had to be many, many masters to have worked so many.
Or the demon-possessed.
What?
I’m just saying that we have skills.
I doubted that. Everyone knew that the God had given to men the right to create art. The devil and his minions could only subvert what was already made.
And what would you call taking over another’s hands and will? Not subversion? Would you like to try it, then?
The figures were angelic.
Breathtaking.
The light from above bathed them in a soft glow so that every apple-cheeked curve almost seemed to blush and the dip of every throat became a well of secret shadow.
The faces I saw were smitten with rapture — almost to the point of pain, necks and arms stretched in flowing lines of sinew and muscle as they reached to the heavens.
Clothing was optional, included only where the folds and translucent waves could best highlight the figures underneath.
But weapons were in plentiful supply, and like the statues in the main room, some were brandished, some were carried in sheaths or belts, and some were buried in thighs and biceps and chests.
Do you like them, pretty snack? Shall we make you into one?
I could barely take in the sheer decadence of this much human talent stored up in one tiny hidden corner of the great rolling earth. It snatched my breath like a clawing wind. It ought to be in a cathedral somewhere that men may marvel at it.
And yet, I recognize none of them, my girl. Are they so old that I can’t see a single one that I know? Who is that with the tri-forked beard? What maiden swoons there in the arms of that warrior and why do his limbs almost appear as tentacles?
Mayhap Sir Branson was simply as poorly educated as I was.
The demon laughed long in my mind.
They’re ours. All ours!
Who were his?
Tell me, my girl, if these are Saints, then why does this dashing one holding the sword seem to be wearing nothing but a tabard, and why does he look so lasciviously upon the maiden in the crown? Better yet, solve this riddle — why does her crown look so very like a pair of antlers?
What was he saying?
I told you! They’re ours. They belong to my twisted kingdom and they shall drive you mad!
Hefertus burst forward. “There are keys! It’s an organ.” He looked over his shoulder at Adalbrand, his eyes boyish with excitement. “Come look at this, brother! I would wager no one has played these pipes in a thousand years.”
I hadn’t even noticed the ivory keys at the far end of the room. I’d seen keys just like that once before on the great pipe organ in Saint Rauche’s Citadel. They came in layers.
“Hefertus played when he was in training. He was said to be gifted,” Adalbrand said from beside me. When I glanced at him, he looked amused, but the amusement was painted over a troubled energy. His eyes darted from Saint to Saint as if he could not place any of them either.
“Look,” Sir Coriand sounded breathless. “Their mouths are the pipes. Imagine the hands of a master here. What would Master Harkumenus’s Fifth Choral sound like played on that instrument?”
“Forget the music,” Sir Sorken said in a happy rumble. “Imagine the craftsmanship. To carve each one perfectly on the outside and also on the inside so it can sing the note? I thought the fountain was a marvel.”
“This is truly a miracle,” Sir Coriand agreed.
“I don’t like this,” Sir Adalbrand muttered. He seemed to be moving his body at an angle, as if to shield me with himself. I didn’t think he even realized he was doing it.
This man is honor carved right through. Let’s see how honor deals with this next thing, hmm, sweetmeat? Let’s see how you manage with your vulnerable soft flesh. This is going to be so delightful that it almost makes up for being trapped within a canine cage.
Did he know something I did not?
Within the ring of hundreds of ivory figures piled one upon another was a smaller ring. And now my heart truly stopped — or at least stuttered. Because these statues were familiar. Once again, they were us.
They stood — towering over the humans they reflected — on swaying lacework platforms. Those platforms hung from chains in the roof — chains constructed of something that looked like ivory stone, but stone would fracture under so much tension.
I scanned them, tension running up my spine. Everything within me screamed at me to run.
There was the Seer, missing her head. It sat at her stone feet with one of her hands.
And there was the Hand of the God — not depicted as a pile of dust as one might think, but rather hanging from a carven noose, his neck plainly broken.
Each of the statues extended one hand and held it out flat, facing upward — except the dead, whose hands had turned to face the floor.
Leading up to each one was a stairway of lacy white stonework and bones that looked human.
These stairs swayed with the platforms, like ships upon the high seas, and between the statues there were more chains hanging like the long moss that flows from the branches of trees in the deep south.
They tinkled lightly against one another whenever they swayed too far.
I glanced behind me to the door, gripping my sword tightly.
Too late to run, oh, it’s much, much too late. Look!
I looked.