We moved onward. Sometimes I caught glimpses of the hidden traps that the revenant was guiding me around—a gleam of metal tucked between a saint’s clasped hands. The teeth of a spiked portcullis slotted into the ceiling, poised to fall. As we wound our way deeper, it made me pause more often, scrutinizing each crack and irregularity before allowing me forward.
The droplets of blood led us down another spiraling stair, at the foot of which I almost tripped over the body of a nun sprawled across the flagstones. Her eyes were open; her staring, upturned face was contorted into a tortured expression of guilt. Heart hammering, I knelt to check her pulse.
“Still alive, unfortunately. But the priest didn’t hold back with his relic. She won’t wake for another hour or two, at a guess.” Casting its attention down the corridor, it suddenly went alert. “Quickly—hide.”
I squeezed behind a statue the revenant identified as harmless, flattening myself into the shadows. A door stood nearby, huge and grimy with age, heavily banded in iron, with a pair of hooks bracketing it on either side. One held a lantern, and the other was bare. I watched as the door swung open, revealing Leander on the other side.
He paused for a long moment, listening. Then he stepped out, slipping a piece of parchment into his robes. In his other hand, he held the missing lantern. When he turned to hang it back on the hook, it nearly slipped from his grasp.
It took him three tries to hang it. Afterward he slumped against the wall, his face blank with pain. He pressed an unsteady hand to his side. When he drew it away, blood shone red on his fingers. His harsh breathing was the only sound in the corridor.
His hand tightened into a fist. Slowly, he straightened to his full height. He stood for a moment with his eyes closed, almost as though praying. Then he lifted the skirts of his robes and wiped the blood from his fingers. When he set off, only a slight limp betrayed his injury. He stepped over the unconscious sister without looking down.
It struck me as his footsteps receded up the stair that if I had only seen him then, I wouldn’t have been able to guess that he was injured, such was the skill of his acting.
“He’s growing reckless,” the revenant observed.
Attacking a sister was a risky move. The curists had already noticed the change in his behavior. Either his actions were growing desperate, or he was so close to executing his plans that he cared less about discovery. Neither possibility boded well.
I waited a moment longer before I snuck out and took down the other lantern—the one Leander hadn’t touched. Before I entered, I glanced over my shoulder. The corridor lay empty behind me, the half-smiling statues gazing silently into the dark.
All other thoughts fled after I closed the door and raised the lantern. Its light trickled over a dusty confusion of jewels, gold, carved chests, books bound in leather. Some were arranged on shelves, others piled unceremoniously in the corners. An iron chandelier the size of a cartwheel hung overhead, frozen waterfalls of wax cascading from its unlit candles.
“Stop gaping like a peasant,” the revenant said. “This is nothing. You should see the vault in Chantclere; you can get lost in it.”
I lifted the lantern higher. “There’s an entire suit of armor down here.”
“That isn’t just armor. That’s a dreadnought.”
I picked my way over, interested. The armor had been fashioned for a true giant, a man Jean’s size. Though crusted black with tarnish, the intricate engravings on the metal still showed through. The ball of a mace sat on the ground beside it, attached to the chain and hilt of a flail. The ball’s spikes almost reached my knees. Even for someone of near-inhuman strength, I wasn’t sure its weight would be possible to wield in battle. “Was that a type of knight?”
“No one wore it. It’s a construct animated by Old Magic. It walked around on its own with no one inside. Don’t worry, nun,” it said at my reaction. I hadn’t moved a muscle, but my heart had almost stopped. “It’s an antique. It’s been inert for centuries. Do you see that small hole in the center of its breastplate? The key that belongs there is carried by the human who controls it. Doubtless it got lost hundreds of years ago.”
I swallowed, sweeping the lantern’s light around, seeing the room’s contents anew. The light fell on a silver reliquary shaped like a hand, the base decorated with seed pearls to resemble the edge of a lace sleeve. I had heard of a reliquary like that—the one containing the hand of Saint Victoria. Rarely for a saint, she had left a whole hand behind intact, its withered skin and fingernails still attached. According to legend, it bound a fury so violent and maddened that no one could control it after her death.
This wasn’t a treasury. It was a room where dangerous things, forbidden things, were locked away.
I tore my gaze from the glittering objects before I could recognize anything else. Leander had left with a piece of parchment. I went over to inspect the books, setting my lantern down nearby. They were piled together in a heap, a tangle of chains securing them to the shelves.
The wealth they represented was staggering. The scriptorium in Naimes had only a handful of books like these, with leather covers and gilt flashing on their spines. Most had been scrolls or sheafs of sewn-together parchment. I had learned my letters by copying them, stooped over a desk trying to force crabbed shapes from my scarred hands under Sister Lucinde’s patient instruction. To have been exiled down here, left in a haphazard pile despite their worth, these books had to be brimming with heresy.
Shiny fingerprints marked the dust on the covers. It wasn’t hard to identify the volume Leander had handled. When I lifted it, its chain rattled unexpectedly loudly in the silence, and I froze; but after a moment’s waiting, I heard no answering sound from the corridor outside.
I could tell even in the dim light that the book was old. Its cracked, flaking cover showed patches of fabric beneath the leather, and when I opened it, it smelled as musty as the inside of Saint Eugenia’s reliquary. But to my surprise, it wasn’t filled with unsettling diagrams or dark incantations. It seemed to be a list of items.
Year of Our Lady 1154, I read. A gold-plated candelabra, fashioned in the shape of lilies, set with three rubies and eight sapphires, gifted to the Cathedral of Bonsaint by the Archdivine. I turned the pages, frowning. More descriptions of precious objects awaited me, relics and paintings and altar cloths embroidered with thread of gold.
“This is a record of treasures bequeathed to the cathedral.” What was it doing down here? I flipped onward until I came to the empty space where the missing page had been, the vellum cut near the binding.
“Interesting,” the revenant said. “I think the priest might be looking for an artifact.” It hesitated. “Nun, do you remember what I told you about the shackles in the harrow?”
“You said they were Old Magic,” I said cautiously.
“I wasn’t lying to you. Those were Old Magic runes. You know them as holy symbols, but there’s a simple explanation.”
My stomach dropped. Even though I had anticipated this, some small part of me had still hoped the revenant wouldn’t try to mislead me. I kept my voice calm, betraying nothing. “Go on.”
“In the immediate aftermath of the Sorrow, your Clerisy hadn’t banned Old Magic yet.” I felt it choosing its words with care, as though picking its way around unseen traps it might trigger if it wasn’t careful. “At that point, you understand, it wasn’t officially ruling over Loraille. When the humans weren’t busy dying, they were all arguing with each other about what should replace the monarchy. Then, of course, there were saints popping up everywhere, and the Clerisy was practically drooling over how quickly it was rising to power—”
“Get to the point,” I interrupted. “What does this have to do with Old Magic?”
“Fine, since you’re asking so nicely. The truth is, a number of Old Magic artifacts were used in the war to battle spirits. I faced them from time to time.”
I tried to envision that—Old Magic being unleashed side by side with the saints on bat
tlefields. Instinctively, I shook my head in denial. Nothing I had read about the War of Martyrs mentioned anything like that. But people had been dying by the thousands to the swarms of newly risen spirits, facing impossible odds. If they had been sufficiently desperate…
When the possessed soldiers had attacked Naimes, if there had been an Old Magic artifact capable of holding them off—saving everyone…
“That’s how I know about dreadnoughts,” the revenant continued. “They couldn’t do much against unbound revenants, granted, aside from tickle us a little—but I can’t emphasize enough how distracting it is to have someone tickling you in the middle of a battle. It completely spoils the mood.”
I studied the dreadnought. If that mace were consecrated, it could tear through spirits like cobwebs. But it wasn’t consecrated. It couldn’t be. Old Magic was anathema to the Lady; it had destroyed the order of Her creation. It couldn’t coexist alongside Her blessing. Could it?
There was an easy way to find out—I could touch the armor. Then I would know.
I looked at the dreadnought. I didn’t move.
“You’re rambling again,” I said hollowly.
“Some might call it rambling. Others might call it a valuable firsthand account of one of the most important events in—fine, stop!” I had started to reach for Saint Victoria’s reliquary, which was definitely consecrated. The revenant continued sourly. “After the War of Martyrs, amid all the confusion and death, it seems likely to me that the origins of many Old Magic artifacts were forgotten and their power instead attributed to the Clerisy. Those shackles, for example, were probably stored in a crypt somewhere as the sacred manacles of Saint Mildred the Hideous or similar.”
I saw an obvious flaw in its logic. “Not everyone could have died. Someone must have known what they really were.”
“Certainly, but were they going to say to the other humans, ‘These shackles are capable of subduing a revenant, but oh well, the Clerisy has decided that they’re evil, so let’s destroy them’? Of course not. Humans are stupid, but not that stupid. So the humans who knew the truth kept the knowledge to themselves. And over time…”
“Everyone forgot,” I finished slowly. “Old Magic runes gradually became seen as holy symbols.” That was where the revenant was headed with this, and to my unease, I found myself lacking a convincing counter-argument. We were taught that holy symbols were the Lady’s divine language, their secret meanings revealed to the minds of the saints as shapes etched in sacred fire. This explanation had satisfied me as a novice; now it seemed somewhat weak. But I wasn’t ready to trust the revenant’s explanation, either. I ventured doubtfully, “So you believe an Old Magic artifact like the shackles might have ended up among the cathedral’s treasures, and Leander’s searching for it.”
“Yes.” It sounded relieved. Perhaps it had been worried I would have a crisis. “Without the missing page, we can’t know for certain. But it seems very likely.”
Regardless of whether the revenant was spinning clever half-truths or lying outright, the fact remained that Leander was looking for something. It didn’t have to be an artifact. He could be searching for a powerful Fourth Order relic, like Saint Victoria’s hand. His penitent was useful, but it couldn’t do everything.
I was still holding the book. I glanced back at the entries before and after the missing page. The final entry read, Year of Our Lady 1155, A tapestry depicting the Battle of the Lakes. And the next, after where the page had been sliced out: Year of Our Lady 1155, A marble statue of Saint Agnes.
I thought aloud, “Whatever it was, we know it was given to the cathedral in 1155, around fifty years after the War of Martyrs ended.” That didn’t help narrow things down much. I slid the book back onto the shelf and turned to go, picking up the lantern.
A flash of gold caught my eye. The light had reflected from another book, its pages shining brilliantly even through a layer of dust. I paused.
“You don’t need to look at that,” the revenant said hastily, which made up my mind. I turned back, raising the lantern.
It was an illuminated manuscript. I had seen illuminated manuscripts in Naimes, but never one like this. Unable to help myself, I leaned closer.
The open pages depicted a swirling mass of gaunts, painted in vivid color and shining with gilt. The scene seemed to move dizzily before my eyes. At any moment one of the gaunts’ heads might turn, its grasping hands might close, the withered stalks of grain woven around the border might rustle in the wind. I felt like if I leaned too close, I might tumble into the image as though through a window.
“The Great Famine of 1214,” I said under my breath. The picture didn’t need words. I simply knew, such was the skill of its creator.
With careful reverence, I removed one of my gloves and set my fingertips to the edge of the thick vellum page. Another illustration awaited me on the next, this one of a plague specter trailing its miasma as intricate designs through a mazelike array of city streets. The closer I looked, the more details I picked out. A cat peeking from a window. A child’s doll abandoned on the cobblestones. Three rats investigating a spilled tankard.
Now that I had started looking, I couldn’t stop. I turned more pages, each seeming to breathe with life, even as they depicted images of Death. An ashgrim, its fire-blackened skull half-concealed within a whirl of smoke and silver embers. A diagram highlighting the differences between a witherkin and a wretchling, enclosed in interlocking circles whose scrollwork seemed to spin like wheels before my dazzled eyes. I paged past shades and feverlings, undines and furies. The whole time, at the back of my mind, I wondered what was here that the revenant hadn’t wanted me to see.
Then I reached the manuscript’s final section. The introductory page was ornately lettered, shimmering with gilt. It read THE SEVEN REVENANTS, HERALDS OF DEATH.
SIXTEEN
Silence came from the revenant.
I thought of the faded tapestry in Naimes, the one of Saint Eugenia confronting the revenant, and knew I had to look, even if I ended up regretting it. Slowly, I turned the page.
The spirit that confronted me was unlike anything I had seen before. It was a skeletal, six-winged figure radiating a starburst of lines that I took to signify light, like the rays of the sun. A halo shone behind its head. It wore a half-melted crown, the gold dripping in shining rivulets down its skull. At the bottom, letters read CIMELIARCH THE BRIGHT.
I turned the page. The next revenant lurked in a pall of shadow, only the bones of its arm and hand clearly visible, holding a set of scales. This one was labeled ARCHITRAVE THE DIM.
A chill crawled down my spine as I turned more pages, met each time with unearthly skeletal figures, veiled or crowned or holding objects—the scale, a sword, a chalice—and all of them winged, some with a single pair, others more. And beneath them, spelled out in gilt: CAHETHAL THE MAD. OREMUS THE LOST. MALTHAS THE HOLLOW. SARATHIEL THE OBSCURED.
“You have names,” I realized aloud.
“Names given to us by humans,” it said in distaste.
I gazed at Sarathiel the Obscured, taking in its remote, beautiful countenance, the eyes serenely half-closed. A fine crack ran diagonally across its features, dividing them in two, as though its face were a porcelain mask. Mist poured from the tipped chalice held in its skeletal hand, pooling beneath its silver pinions. Three sets of wings framed its body, one pair spread and the others folded. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me that revenants had wings—I had felt them. But the images almost defied comprehension.
No one knew how the revenants had been created. Perhaps they weren’t human souls. Maybe there was nothing human about them at all.
The silence lengthened. At last the revenant said, “Sarathiel is the one who was destroyed by Saint Agnes. I hear that Oremus’s relic was destroyed as well when it stopped cooperating with humans, and Cahethal went insane and buried its last vessel beneath a rockslide. Cahethal’s reliquary might still exist intact, but if it does, it’s trapped beneath a m
ountain where the humans can’t reach it. There are only four of us left.”
I hadn’t heard any of that before. I’d known about what happened with Saint Agnes, but not the others. Only four high relics remained. That knowledge wouldn’t have troubled me a few months ago, when the idea of needing high relics to protect Loraille had seemed like something out of an old tale, but now it seemed woefully inadequate.
If Sarathiel, Oremus, and Cahethal were gone, that left Cimeliarch, Architrave, Malthas, and one other. I felt inexplicably certain that I hadn’t yet seen the revenant—my revenant.
I turned the final page.
RATHANAEL THE SCORNED, read the lettering.
Above it hung a skeleton twined in a ragged shroud, with two pairs of tattered, crowlike wings. Its fleshless skull grinned out at me, the eye sockets bound behind dark wrappings. It held an iron torch clasped in front of its rib cage, the top spiked like a crown, the flames roaring up, enveloping its body and wings in fire. The silver of its form had a dark, tarnished look like an old mirror, but I couldn’t tell if that was intentional or a result of the gilt flaking with age.
Some powerful spirits held objects, like riveners did swords. It represented something important about their nature, but I had no idea what the torch might signify and doubted the revenant did either—only how ironic it was that I’d ended up with the revenant associated with fire.
I absorbed its deathly visage, trying and failing to match it with the voice in my head. The revenant had devoured the populations of entire cities; it was also the entity who ordered me to eat my pottage.
“I’ll have you know that I’m very good-looking by undead standards,” the revenant remarked, after I had stared for a long time without speaking.
I frowned in annoyance. Just like that, the spell was broken. “Why are you called ‘the Scorned’?” I asked.
Vespertine Page 19
