Father Reginald’s young adept was a half-elven lass a few years younger than me, brown hair cut to a precise bob.
From the other side of the room, watching, she’d been shivering since we’d entered, her fingers wrapped around a small metal lute while her eyes danced all over the room, frantically scanning for any threat. When they passed over me there was a small involuntary flinch every time.
As much as it pained me to admit, I couldn’t blame her for that. Not with what hung from the church’s altar.
I’d settled in, far enough off to the side from the rest that she could safely ignore me, close enough to still hear the discussion between Voltar and the Priestess of Tildae who’d taken charge of the young adept.
“Do not press her too much,” the Priestess of Tildae said sternly, eyes firm as she stared at Voltar. “She’s had a very bad shock, and I’ll not have my patient be unsettled by your questioning.”
“I will only ask questions Miss Lionel is comfortable with,” Voltar assured her.
“Patients are not the best judge of their own limits,” she snapped, and Dawes gave a reluctant nod of agreement.
“To your satisfaction then.”
How much of this was genuine concern, and how much was an effort to keep us from asking questions this group would find inconvenient?
“Still if you make that poor girl so much as twi-“
“Delilah?” The adept said, voice a little shaky. “I want to help them.”
Delilah frowned, giving first me and then Voltar scouring looks. “Clara, you don’t need these-”
“I said I’m willing,” Clara said tiredly. “If I don’t want to answer a question of theirs, I won’t. Mr. Voltar?”
Seemingly not wanting to risk anything causing Delilah to cut this short, Voltar launched into the most important question first.
“Miss Lionel, when you left Father Reginald last night, did you notice anything out of the ordinary? Did he seem upset, distressed, or anything like that? Did you notice anything when you left?”
She shook her head, not looking Voltar in the eye, gaze focused on a patch of the floor.
“Father Reginald seemed happy. People in this part of the city were finally becoming receptive to us being here in addition to the Olgen, Halspus, and other temples in Belton. I left him that night, he was content, and I walked home with not a thing I spotted out of sight.”
“Would there have been someone who Father Reginald might have been meeting that night?”
“No!” she said vehemently, only to pause and then shake her head. “He’d open the church up for someone in need, someone he knew. But there’s been a string of robberies locally, he wouldn’t open it up for a stranger.”
A string of robberies? Potentially worth looking into. It could have been someone practicing their craft in preparation for a greater challenge. And even if it wasn’t the killer, thieves tended to keep their ears low to the ground. Good odds they might know something useful.
“The room you went to,” Voltar asked, and I did not miss the brief deepening of Delilah’s disapproving frown, “the one that remained sanctified even after what happened. What was that room, and how did it survive whatever removed the rest of the church’s blessing?”
“Father Reginal’s safety place. He always believed there should be a redoubt,” the adept said, eyes distant. “He said he’d lived through some bad days, and that he’d learned you always kept a place you could be sure was safe. I thought he was foolish, it was Belton, nothing ever happens here.”
Logic I could agree with. You learned fast to have a place to flee to where you could be as safe as you could manage. If you didn’t have a bolthole, it left you out in the open, the worst place to be.
“I thought it was just foolish talk,” Lionel said, the shakes coming back worse than before. “But then I opened the doors…and that thing burst out! The only reason I survived is because it knocked me to the side and it started attacking everyone, it punched off Miss Harver’s head and tore Mr. Malden’s head off and it just…I couldn’t think what to do so I ran inside and saw Father Reginald turned into that thing and I…I ran inside the office, wrenched it open, and hid inside there till the Watch officers opened the door. I just…I should have fought!”
“You’d be dead,” I replied, and everyone’s gaze turned towards me, hers with another wince. “It was a possessed statue made of solid stone. No offense, but you wouldn’t have done much to it. You just would have gotten yourself killed.”
“I could have brought some of them inside with me,” she continued, not looking any of us in the face, staring at the floor.
Dawes hesitantly put a hand on her shoulder, and she didn’t shy away.
“There are times where the choice we make is to save ourselves,” he said solemnly. “Asking ourselves if we could have done differently will never change that, and it won’t help the dead. Letting it eat at you won’t help.”
From there the conversation turned to safer questions. I’m sure Voltar could deduce something from the assortment of details about Father Reginald's personal life and the affairs of this small church, I puzzled out very little.
***
“That seems like a young woman with an awful lot to hide,” I noted once we were well out of the range of even enhanced hearing. Elves could still hear, but the chatter of the Watch around us and my low tone should help disguise my words.
“Recognizing a kindred spirit?” Voltar said in a similarly low tone as Dawes joined us, having tarried a while longer with the young adept.
I snorted. “Perhaps, but no, so eager to help, only to just happen to lack the answers we need?”
“It’s entirely possible the girl doesn’t know,” Dawes said. “She’s been through a tremendous shock. Or are you claiming she’s faking?”
“No,” I replied. “But both can be true.”
“Both are true,” Voltar said. “She hid the key.”
Both of us perked up at that, turning our attention to him as he ushered us over to a corner.
“That key was hidden by the apprentice, in a small hollowed brick down the corridor from the doorway. I talked with the first Watch on the scene, and she was still inside the chamber when they arrived. Following her tracks and consulting on when she was being watched the least gave me approximate locations to try. My second guess was the correct one. She was slightly sloppy replacing the brick on the wall, while it all shares the same dry crumbly mortar, there is a difference between natural disintegration and material hurriedly shoved back into cracks to fill them.”
“So you removed the key?” I frowned. In terms of time, we didn’t lose much if we assumed they wouldn’t be able to check that brick until tomorrow morning. If they could check it beforehand, they would know, and depending on how much they wanted to protect what was inside, it could get messy.
“Not quite,” Voltar clarified. “I made a mold of the key.”
He reached inside his coat pocket, pulled out a small box, and opened it. Inside a semi-solid substance filled the box, split along the seam that had. Embedded on either side was one of the two faces of the key.
I looked at the mold, the indentations of the key still firmly pressed into it, then looked back up to Voltar.
“They’ll arrange for things to be removed as quickly as they can, and the Watch are only here for tonight,” I said.
“Then what luck that I know a good locksmith who doesn’t ask questions,” Voltar replied, smiling slightly. “Meet me back here in three hours, and I want you to bring something with you from my house.”
***
Three hours had been pushing it, and even with the carriage both I and Tagashin had come in on still ready and waiting. I wished I had the kitsune with me and the driver to help load the cargo, but she was keeping an eye on the gaggle of clergy outside and inside the church keeping an eye on us.
Hells, maybe they knew about her, and someone was keeping an eye on her. Either way, I’d have appreciated the extra hands as the carriage came to a stop outside the church, a few minutes past that three-hour mark.
I scurried down from the driver’s bench, nodding my thanks to the driver and leaving a small tip in her hands. I didn’t care if she was a long-time helper of Voltar, you always tipped those who worked under you.
It kept them from selling you out for a song and a few coins down the line. Basic, simple, everyday sense.
“Hurry Miss Harrow, time is wasting,” Voltar said from the doorway, the ass. Dawes at least moved to help me. Who knew where Tagashin was and the Watch didn’t seem to care at all.
“I am hurrying,” I hissed, reaching inside the carriage for the first bulky box. “Do you want to help, or just grandstand up at the entrance?”
I wish it was simply empty, or filled with something lighter than the actual equipment. Unfortunately, a very valid point had been raised that our watchers might be able to discover what was inside. And some of them might even know what it was.
Honestly, Intelligence must have given this to Voltar. I couldn’t imagine they’d let him keep an entire ritual apparatus to summon a dead soul if they knew.
Voltar had ventured closer to help, a smug grin on his face. Not very characteristic of him, but he’d insisted on playing the part. I didn’t doubt his logic, but I felt it was an overly flamboyant embellishment to make the assorted clergy feel like they were getting one up on us.
I suppose the other reason was to make it clear we had failed. No reason to panic the priests by making them suspect we had successfully raised up Father Reginald’s soul for a chat.
Getting inside, Walston was gone, and the mutton-chopped sergeant left behind took some time to cajole into helping with the unpacking.
The device was several pre-cast ritual circles that were collapsible. Together, they provided the base shape for a spell to communicate with the dead, once the ritual was read aloud and the proper sacrifices made. The Watch set about fitting those together and trying to fit them onto the cracked, uneven floor around the altar while Voltar gestured for me to come closer.
“As they say in Delanten,” he said, producing a key from his pocket. “Voila.”
His accent was atrocious, but I let that detail pass without comment.
“Your locksmith is a very fast worker,” I whispered, looking at the key.
No visible imperfections compared to the mold, not even the slightest bit of excess material or slightly malformed tooth. Magework, more than likely.
“Yes, and I did get a replacement piece for the ritual set in case I was followed,” Voltar replied before raising his voice. “Unfortunately, the arrangement of the array needs to be precise since I was unable to secure a necromancer to aid us. You’ll have to bore holes in the floor.”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
The groans and moans of the Watch in protest were entirely authentic since they’d have to try digging through the rock.
“I do want to protest trying this again,” I said, gesturing at the boxes. “This is probably going to end up pointless. The poor priest’s soul is probably already in Tarver’s realm, enjoying….what do they promise for that afterlife?”
I’d never studied it. Outside of my disinterest in the deities in general, no use looking into someplace I could never be allowed to enter.
“Ilatea, a place of music, artistry, and an awful lot of partying. Not the kind Lord Montague hosts. But, and I may be correct in surmising this, the poor Father Reginald, being transformed partially into a devil upon death, may find his soul being torn between two planes, and thus find himself stranded here. Or perhaps being fought over.”
“Souls don’t tend to stay here when there’s much attention on them,” I countered as I pretended to pull out some of the ritual equipment.
My studies of necromancy were not extensive, as I’d never taken to it like I had other magical fields, and also the illegality. It was hard enough to study the completely forbidden art of Diabolism safely, to find books and records and avenues to research that weren’t likely to blow up in my face. Adding a second one to study just a bit less illegal and inaccessible had been out of the question.
That didn’t mean I knew nothing, and one was that most souls used in necromancy were those without an important claim. Every soul had a tug, a pull on it after death based on their accomplishments and who they had favored in life. Priests, favored of the various gods, even those innately related to an outer plane like us Infernals, traveled fast to an afterlife. Others lingered, some taking years or even longer to leave. With some, it was a pull and tug between anchors on the mortal plane and those in others, so some stuck around for decades, even centuries.
A soul caught between planes was definitely not one of those cases.
“Should have got the priests to help with this,” I said, as we kept to the central chamber for now. We were approaching the time when we could slip off to the sealed, still sanctified chamber, but we needed to burn time a little longer.
“Yes, and I am sure Bishop Derrick would have potentially lopped my head off for such a suggestion,” Voltar said. “I have no desire to irritate her and risk decapitation.”
I cocked my head to the side. All priests of Zaviel despised the undead, the desecration of bones and souls well after their deserved rest. Still, nothing had indicated that the strangely aged bishop was any kind of threat with a blade.
“She has a reputation then?” I asked.
“She killed a lich,” Dawes said behind me, tone distant. “Before I met Voltar, I was on the campaign in the north, when the Ilte rebelled under Charlie Fawlkes for the second time.”
Charlie Fawlkes, of a dynasty before the current one. I knew the name and about the two rebellions raised in the northern parts of Anglea in the highlands and mountains of Iltenland. The first had been a hard-fought bitter war that ended in a reluctant peace and Fawlkes’ exile. The second had sparked when promises to the Ilte for their help in overthrowing Her Most Profane Majesty turned to dust once the Empress assumed her throne. They’d been receptive to another try when a Prince Charlie in his sixties returned from the mainland for the first time in decades.
Another long-fought war campaigned across Iltenland again. And the crushing defeat that had led to the execution of the man once known as Shining Prince via cannonball through the stomach. No merciful mistake of exile at that time.
“Lich?” I said. “A third party, or was the Shining Prince not all legend says him to be?”
Dawes smiled thinly. “A lot about that campaign goes unsaid. I’m not sure why the official story excludes it, it’s not as if Her Majesty has ever shown any favorability to Charlie Fawlkes before or after she had him tied in front of that cannon. Whatever idealism that man had the first time around, it was dead by the time of the second rising. Bitterness and desperation, combined with age, I suppose. That was a campaign against mostly undead and old men and women unwilling to put down the old colors. A party of eight ventured to end the Lich himself. Bishop Derrick was the only survivor. In her teens back then, coming out with its decapitated head and a gleaming sword.”
I whistled. “Lucky girl. And powerful too. The skin then, is that from the-?”
Dawes grimaced. “I don’t know. What was left of us when that campaign was over. I try to forget it. Especially coming back from up there. Just because the lich was destroyed, didn’t mean what it raised went with it. I hear occasionally they still find one roaming those old battlefields.”
It sounded like a touchy subject. I wouldn’t pry anymore.
Voltar pretended to join me in looking over the ritual paper.
“As for Bishop Gallaspie-”
“I can guess,” I said. “Age and attitude alone tell me enough there. Silver spikes?”
The punishment that used to be reserved for any Infernal found outside their city’s Quarter. Delivered by a Priest of Halpsus, a pair of silver spikes through the eyes to capture the soul and prevent it from going to the hells. Supposedly, there were vaults under their main cathedral containing thousands of them.
“Before you were born,” Voltar said. “He was noted as one of their best Diabolist hunters, and quite good at it.”
Fun. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be adding my name to his list of kills.
“Do you want me to pretend to read the ritual scroll? Before or after we head into the room?”
“After. The Watch will take a while longer to assemble it. Let’s make use of that time, then we can fake our failed ritual.
The precautions may seem a bit much, but this many religions presenting a united front so soon was troubling outside the personal capabilities of the two Bishops leading this group. The pantheon had been described to me as a big family, which meant a lot of them spent most of their time squabbling and fighting. Some of them were diametrically opposed to each other just because of what they were deities of.
What might bring them all together was hopefully just a threat against a priest of the pantheon.
***
The key worked, and let us into a small, cozy room set up as a private office. A wooden ornate desk and a comfortable chair were the centerpieces, along with various drawers set around the room, but a few things stood out.
The first is a metal door firmly locked on this side across from the room, thick and strong and definitely not fitting the soft decor of the rest of the room.
The second, the floor was ringed with divine sigils forming the wards, at least three rings of the silver and gold little tablet embedded in the ground. Various deity's symbols glowed in the candlelight, making my eyes hurt, and they’d do more than that to my flesh if I stepped on them. Even still, I didn’t miss the most important part of the room.
In the brick and mortar fireplace, ashes and burnt pages of paper lay among a dying fire, little embers floating in the air.
I cursed, trying to not tread on any of the divine wards, but Dawes was already on it, stamping out what was left of the fire. Dawes was shortly behind him, and by the time I reached the fireplace, the flames were out.
“Someone knew what they were doing,” I muttered as I sifted through the ashes and little scraps of paper. Nothing left. There must be some outlet for the smoke, but no one had noticed during the chaos of the attack. It had probably dissipated shortly after.
“The girl seemed to genuinely be suffering from battle fatigue,” Dawes commented. “But I’m not an expert in the workings of the mind.”
“It is possible to both be traumatized and have enough wherewithal to cover up evidence,” Voltar noted, continuing to check drawers in the desk. “Hrrm, only one drawer emptied. Interesting. I’ll go through the rest of the desk then. Be careful with the rest of the furniture, I want them to think no one else made it inside for as long as possible.”
Where would I hide things? The floor was always an obvious suspect for things you didn’t mind taking time to remove. Very secure, very easy to disguise as just part of the floor, and depending on where they were, easily upscaled to fit your storage needs.
This, however, with divine warding all over the floors and leaving such a tight space? Say even moving part of the floor out caused one of them to be jostled even a little, creating a hole through which something might enter or leave?
No, it wouldn’t be the floor.
Inside the furniture was probably not a good idea to check either. Any easy to remove panels would either be hidden to the point I’d need to break them to find anything, or too obvious to actually hide anything. The most well-hidden ones also had the issue of taking even longer to get the contents than hidden in the stone floor.
I turned my attention to the chimney, considering the brickwork.
“It was a hollowed-out brick you retrieved the key from, right?”
“Hrrm?” Voltar turned his attention away from the papers he was going through. “You think they’d hide in a similar place?”
“I think it’s worth checking,” I said as I went over to the fireplace.
Examinations proved my suspicions correct, pulling out a hollowed-out brick. An empty one. The next two were empty as well, but on the third, I found something I definitely did not expect.
The material was black steel, a circle around an inverted lute. Splatters of dried blood covered most of its surface while the artifact pulsed with a power I knew too well, and one that made my hand burn. I dropped it, holding on by the chain.
“Shit,” I said mildly. “Diabolism focus.”
On a hunch, I reached further inside the brick and pulled out a second one.
“Diabolism foci,” I corrected myself.
Doctor Dawes had frozen, eyes wide as I dropped the both of them on the ground, far away from any of the divine wards.
Voltar kneeled down, taking a look at the two of them.
“Could you move them? Not to be lazy, but poking a diabolic artifact with my unprotected finger seems a bit unwise. Even with a glove perhaps a bit dangerous.”
“It burned me too,” I said, eyeing them. “Let me check the astr-Fuck!”
I closed my eyes, that brief bit of burning, incandescent light flooding them with tears. I tumbled backward, someone grabbing me and halting my fall.
“Miss Harrow, are you alright?”
Dawes. I blinked tears out of my eyes, realizing he’d caught me right before I landed on one of the lines of divine wards.
“I..yes I’m fine,” I said, blinking more tears out of my eyes. “Those are divine in nature, and diabolic. The two types of magic mixed together. That or something close enough it nearly blinded me.”
“Incredibly dangerous,” Voltar said, staring down at the pair of amulets.
I laughed without any humor behind it. “Underselling, Voltar. It’s like putting a lit match and gunpowder right next to each other. One slight mistake and the entire mixture goes up with enough force to kill if you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, it sprays Diabolic energy right into your face. Divine as well although that’s less dangerous to have run through your body. Just a tad, mind you, it could still harm you quite badly without direction. No, these must be precisely made, or just trying to use them would backfire horribly.”
“What would even be the advantage of it?” Dawes asked. “I’m not much of a mage, but these two kinds of magic are opposed, are they not?”
“They’re opposed, but that doesn’t mean they are impossible to combine,” I said. “As for why to combine them? Maybe it was an experiment? A limiter? Who knows, but those are definitely Diabolism Foci.”
“Why did she leave them?” Dawes asked, keeping a safe distance away. Probably the smartest option. “She had time to burn those papers, to remove things from those other hidden places, why leave these?”
I peered down, looking at the amulets, looking careful at the surfaces.
“They look especially clean,” I said and pulled my own out for comparison, displaying it’s weathered surface to the both of them. “And I don’t mean diabolism leaves marks or anything, but more in the sense of physical. Probably haven’t been using their own as long as I have mine, but even in the safest environments, you get some wear and tear. Some diabolists, especially those who make deals for power? They need a focus to cast. Symbol of the deal made, what their power channels through. Without it? Powerless. So a smart precaution is to have two, maybe even three if you can afford it.”
“Ah,” Voltar said, straightening up. “I see what you mean. Backups she forgot about?”
“Depending on how long this has been running, it could have been months or even years since they were put there,” I said, grabbing the pair by their chains and moving them back into the little hollowed-out brick. “Dawes was right, she seemed genuinely shocked by what occurred, and I don’t think it was an act. She had the wherewithal to burn the most important documents, grab the things she could eaisly remember being there. These however she forgot about and might not remember for a while. You want me to put these back?”
“Not yet. There’s a couple of possibilities,” Voltar said as we all looked down at the Foci in the brick. “Priests going over the Hells is not unheard of, and this is as remote a posting as you can manage in the capital. Perfect to practice away from most prying eyes. This chamber, and wherever those stairs lead, would work to hone their craft in secret.”
“Problem,” I said, pointing to the lines of divine wards. “These weren’t thrown up quickly, these are forged wards, created by someone probably beyond Father Reginald’s skill, and not by the same craftsmen. The styles change too much, I’m guessing three or four people worked on these. Not cheap to make, not easy to sneak this many away with only a few noticing. Either Tarver’s church is riddled with Diabolic infiltrators, or this had church approval. And not just Tarver’s.”
Some of this symbology I didn’t recognize, and some of it I did as definitely not Tarver. Halspus, Zaviel, and Tildae were the most common, and an occasional one from another deity. One could argue that it was the result of our possibly renegade priests trying to get their hands on any ward they could. However there’d be cheaper ones, ones not as well crafted, defective ones mixed in. No, this was representative of something more.
“Add in an assortment of priests showing up so suddenly,” I said. “Two possibilities.”
“Can’t be an entire group of rogue priests turned Diabolist,” Dawes said, face pale but tone firm. “A horrifying thought but there couldn’t be that many.”
“I agree, but not because I doubt there would be that many priests who might pursue the arts,” Voltar said. “Rather that they would be nowhere near as open as they have been about things or as accommodating as they’ve chosen to be. If this is a secret cabal of Diabolists being cracked open, they would not be this bold, they would be going to ground or attempting to flee the city. And that’s assuming they would hold together under central leadership. And I have my doubts about some of those priests being involved, especially Gallaspie.”
I shook my head slightly at that last point. Just because a man liked shoving silver spikes in the heads of Infernal didn’t make him less likely to fall. More likely, depending on the devil to try and tempt him.
“The other possibility then,” I said. “The various religions of the pantheon have decided to support their priests training in Diabolism.”
We all stood in silence, considering the pair of foci below us as my statement settled.
“We’ll need to tread carefully,” Voltar said. “At least until I can talk to my brother. Intelligence needs to hear about this. Which means I will be taking one of these as evidence. Hopefully, we can get confirmation about their mixture of divine and diabolic magic tonight. Miss Harrow, can you take the other?”
“Hrrm?” I looked at Voltar curiously. “I can, although why?”
“Because,” he said somberly. “I want at least some evidence to survive if they realize we were in here and make a choice on how much they want this protected.”
On that cheerful note, we looked at the last part of the sealed room. I sighed, gripping my own foci tightly.
“Single file, behind me,” I said. “And let's hope they weren’t trying to summon a devil. If they did, back up the stairs as fast as you can, and we hope the wards hold it back.”
There was a reason corruption could only make approximations of devils. The real things were too powerful to be emulated by the leftover traces of even the most powerful diabolic workings.
As I took my first step down the dark stairway, I could only hope none lay at the bottom.