3.

 

A quarry lay near to the cathedral: a huge, rectangular pit twisting down in a pair of narrow ledges that a single man, the Builder, could follow. Without the huge man there, all that lay in the lonely pit was a single, dented shovel.

Further up, Bueralan saw the cathedral sitting in front of the marshland of Leera. In the afternoon’s final, melting orange-red light, the building looked as if it had emerged from fire and destruction. The twisted limbs of trees behind it were like giant fallen bodies, the hands held up in supplication, in forgiveness to the god who lived inside the tall, imposing building they had fallen behind. If such a god had paid attention, the saboteur did not know: but the cathedral was big enough, sprawling enough and tall enough that it spoke of an institution of belief, of an institution of care and neglect to the people around it, and not a single individual, though he knew it was a single individual who resided inside, and no more.

No more, unless …

There were no horses outside, nothing to suggest the passing of Dark. He would have taken comfort in that if he could not turn and look over the ruined city behind him and know that there was simply nowhere else for them to be.

The cathedral door opened easily.

Inside, the light from thousands of half-melted candles greeted him, a faint, still air of smoke falling like a curtain, and limiting his vision.

Bueralan stepped inside, his hands dropping to the hilt of his swords, the blades the old man had given him. The candles lined the walls and the edges of the alcove, the smoke thick from the sheer number of them, but it was not until he stepped into the next room that he fully appreciated what the half-melted white stumps obscured. Through their smoke, he could barely make out the thick, new pews and the windows against the wall. Likewise, he struggled to know the full size of the impossibly huge, blank roof that the smoke swirled around—just as it obscured the length of the cathedral, the path he slowly followed. All that he could make out clearly was the shadows of flames along the ceiling and walls, dark fingers that beckoned him to come further, to walk deeper.

It was not long until he came across disturbed candles and the fatalism that he had felt earlier was realized.

Kae sat on one of the long pews, snuffed candles around him. With his eyes closed and his back straight, it looked as if the swordsman had stopped to pray, had found peace. Until Bueralan noticed the first of his broken swords at his feet. The second lay next to it, also broken. What both had broken against was unclear. What was worse, however, was the darkness around his stomach, and the realization that it was not a failure of the candles to complete him, but of flesh.

Bueralan continued down the aisle, pressing through the smoke, the taste of the unreal in it growing, suggesting more and more unworldly a presence.

Ahead, the pews became a jumbled collection, strewn across the floor with the candles.

There, he found Ruk and Liaya close to each other. The first’s legs had been stripped to bone, as if acid, or worse, had consumed the flesh, while the latter had died behind him, her hands on his back, her intent to help him clear, the contents of her pack strewn across the floor, a dark pool of blood and chemicals that reinforced the act. On her, however, the marks of death were not cannibalistic, but it was clear that what had struck her had done so from above, coming down through her face, her throat, her chest. Ruk’s sword lay just beyond him, in the darkness, torn from his grasp but with no blood, nothing to suggest, as with Kae, that he had wounded anything.

Aerala he found shortly after, her bow shattered, her spine likewise.

It was when he bent to close her eyes that he heard the laughter: a young girl’s laughter. A child’s laughter.

He did not draw either sword. There was no point, he knew: even had he not been exhausted by the week’s ride, he would not have been able to kill, or to defend himself against whatever had killed the others. What had killed them all, he corrected. He knew that he would find Zean shortly, and Orlan. He would find what had killed all of them and then he would follow. He doubted he would even, at the moment it came, resist.

The smoke parted.

It revealed the end of the cathedral, a huge, bare stone wall with a single, closed door to the left. But it was the dais that drew Bueralan’s attention, the upraised platform that held hundreds of melting candles in a series of circular patterns, while in the center of them sat a child. A pale-skinned, blond-haired girl, who wore a simple dress of white and regarded him with clear, green eyes.

If not for what surrounded her, he would have thought nothing of her.

But at her feet lay Zean, having fallen on the short flight of steps to the dais, his body a mix of cuts and slashes, a knife and sword close to him.

While behind her—

Behind her was Samuel Orlan, a series of dark, shadowed hands having dropped from the smoke and drawn him against the bare wall, still alive.

“God touched,” the girl said. “Another god-touched man to visit me. But the last to ever be touched by one of the old gods, yes?”

Bueralan made no reply.

“It is wise not to draw your weapon on me. I am protected here. I cannot be hurt and you would not survive, just as your friends did not.” She lifted up a small, dark crystal, held it before her. “But I have a gift for you, Bueralan. One that will show how kind I can be—to you and your blood brother, Zean.”

“You have to capture a man’s soul in a bottle for it to be true,” he whispered.

“A stone or a bottle, you believed in neither.” She rose, stepping through the candles, to stand over Zean’s body. “But it matters not. Any item will hold a soul and I have done it for you. I have done it despite the fact that you killed my favorite. She was to bring me back my father’s power, but you snapped her neck, so, so easily. I do not hold it against you, though. It was not all you, I know that. My father had his own desires, so I have forgiven you for your part, and to show you that, I give you my gift.”

She placed the crystal in his hand and he knew—he knew—she spoke the truth.

“Don’t.” Orlan’s voice was a damaged rasp. “Strike her. Strike now. Don’t believe. The dead are her power—the dead are used for all her lies. She will never—she will never give up even one!”

His hand closed around the crystal.

“Return to your home,” she said softly. “Take Samuel Orlan with you. I cannot kill him, not now, not yet. But if he stays, I will not know such restraint as you see now.”

From the huge dome of the cathedral there emerged a sound, similar to flesh moving against stone, a sense of movement that did not linger above where he stood, but which resonated through the entire length of the building.

“And remember,” said the girl, “that you may call on me. But once, just once. But, dear Bueralan, call only when what is at stake is innocence.”