Green Bridge, June 6th
“I know who killed Rolland Gorp.”
Cyrus stared up at Merrily in disbelief, curiosity lighting a tiny spark of life in his eyes.
“Did you kill him?” he asked. His heart fell at the thought of how she might answer.
She shook her head. “No.”
He took her outstretched hand and let her pull him to his feet. She swayed slightly, and her face was pale, but her grip was firm.
“Who did?”
She stared at him closely, tilting her head slightly as if looking through his eyes, into… something.
“Mr. Filtch killed him.”
Cyrus scoffed. “He’s a feeble old man. How? Why? Do you have evidence?”
“You can ask him yourself,” answered Merrily cryptically. “Tonight. He’ll tell you.”
Cyrus could feel something returning, where moments before there had been a void. It was something that made him question, analyze, consider—care.
“I doubt he’d talk to me, and I don’t know where he lives—”
“I’ll take you,” she interrupted him. She backed a few steps away, up the dark street. One hand was pressed slightly to her abdomen, as if in pain, but her movements were insistent.
“Merrily, this doesn’t add up,” he protested. “There are parts missing. How do you know all these things? Why haven’t you told me before now?”
“I’ve asked questions. I’ve found answers. Follow me, and I’ll show you,” she insisted. Though her face was a mask and she spoke quietly, tension screamed out in her voice. She swayed again, and then held herself upright. Something was fighting something else inside her. Cyrus was briefly enraged at the conceptual placeholders his ignorance forced him to employ. What were these ‘somethings’ inside him and her, that fought themselves and saved each other?
She trotted up the street, and he started to follow. Then a thought struck him.
“Merrily. Wait. Keep your secrets if you wish, but I want none for myself. I’m going to get Captain Vigg. I want a law man with me in case this goes badly, or in case Filtch says what you think he will. If you’re serious about getting answers, you’ll wait until we can do it the right way.”
“There’s no time!” she hissed.
He shrugged, turning away. “Then a murderer will walk free, and Obilly Smallhat will die in his place. Consider what part you will have played in that outcome.” Not turning to look back at her, he walked in the opposite direction—toward Farley Island.
After a few steps she caught up with him. He looked at her from the side; her eyes were troubled, but her gait was confident. She had drawn an arrow and set it to her hunting bow.
“Filtch isn’t the only one who owes me answers tonight,” he remarked. Merrily was silent.
✽✽✽
At William Hall, the man at the shabby front desk rubbed sleep from his eyes and blinked confusedly at Cyrus and Merrily.
“It’s past eleven o’clock at night, Mr. Stoat,” he explained patiently. “Vigg ain’t in ‘til the mornin’. Been many a year since Vernon Vigg stood a night watch.”
“He’ll want to hear what I have to say,” insisted Cyrus. “Or, rather—what Mrs. Hunter here has to say.” Merrily looked at the floor, her head cocked to one side as though she were suppressing some explosion within.
“No doubt he will. In the morning. Vigg ain’t one for bein’ woke up.”
Cyrus leaned forward on the table, trying and failing to ward off a cliché.
“It’s a matter of life and—”
“Get him.” The interruption came from Merrily, standing close beside him. Her gaze locked the Billy in a prison from which he could not escape. She had not spoken loudly, but in a voice of command that permitted no negotiation. “The Queen requires it,” she added.
The Billy stood up and walked to the door of Bastings, leaving the desk unattended. “C’mon,” he muttered. “He lives just a block from here.”
As they made their way out into the night, Cyrus gave Merrily a sidelong glance. “When did the Billies start taking orders from you on behalf of Queen Anne?” he asked.
Merrily glanced quickly at him in the darkness. “The Queen and I have an arrangement,” she answered. “She needs things done. Sometimes I do them. The Billies know not to interfere.”
“You have too many masters, Merrily,” replied Cyrus darkly. She said nothing.
Vernon Vigg’s home was a small, snug, two-story affair wedged in between two larger townhouses near the southern shore of Farley Island. A tiny yard was faintly visible in front, and a well-tended flower garden.
“Prosaic,” remarked Cyrus. “I’m a bit disappointed.”
The Billy pounded vigorously on the door and waited. After no reply was immediately forthcoming, he pounded again. Cyrus picked up a small stone from the garden and flung it at the shuttered window on the second floor. Eventually a resentful shuffle was heard on the inside of the door, and it opened to reveal Captain Vigg, dressed in a tatty nightshirt and cap. He held in his hand a single sputtering candle.
“Corporal Blowch,” he observed. “And Cyrus Stoat, and Merrily Hunter. Is the city on fire? Has there been an armed revolt?”
“It is not, sir, and there has not,” answered the uncomfortable-looking Blowch. “Mrs. Hunter informed me that the Queen’s business requires your attention, sir. I’ll leave it to Mrs. Hunter to elaborate, as I’ve left the desk empty at William.” And with that, he stumped off into the night.
Vigg looked expectantly at Merrily.
“I know who killed Rolland Gorp,” she said quietly. “I was taking Cyrus to question him, but he insisted on coming to see you first.”
“Did he, now,” mused Vigg. “There was a time when we thought Professor Stoat capable of handling this investigation himself. And who is the perpetrator of this crime, who you’ve now flushed out of hiding?”
“Filtch,” she answered shortly.
He stared at her.
“The janitor? I see, Mrs. Hunter. The janitor, who must have seen eighty winters and can barely stand up straight, stabbed Rolland Gorp to death, falsely implicated a goblin, and covered up all contrary evidence linking himself to the crime?”
“He did,” she answered. “And if we don’t go and see him tonight, you’ll lose your chance to get to the truth.”
“Why is that?” asked the captain, holding the candle closer to her. He scrutinized her face, but she stood upright, erect, proud.
“Because if you wait, he will be gone.”
Something unspoken passed between them, Merrily and Captain Vigg. After a moment, the lawman nodded. “Wait here while I make myself up like a Billy Goat,” he said resignedly, and reached for his uniform coat.
✽✽✽
At the bridgehead, Vigg—now wearing a rumpled dress uniform—abruptly commandeered the two Billies on guard duty. “With me,” he ordered the two surprised men. “We’ve a generous assortment of lies to sort out tonight; whose lies they are remains to be seen.” The two men wordlessly seized their oaken staves and followed behind them. Vigg himself carried a short, stabbing sword in a dusty and stained scabbard at his hip, along with the traditional oaken staff.
Merrily walked ahead of them through the dim streets, her way lit by the June full moon overhead and the sputtering oil lamps along the street. Cyrus walked behind her, and then the policemen. She led them swiftly along the broad avenues of the central landward districts.
A memory struck Cyrus. It was the same path the would-be revolutionaries had followed from the Cathedral of Saint Bob two years ago on their path to destiny, in the person of Queen Anne. The evening began with Cyrus riding beside the Queen—he even let her borrow Daisy for added effect—and ended with him on a rooftop, being stabbed in the femoral artery by the late Robert Franco. Whatever happened afterward, Cyrus was not a witness to it.
He rubbed his right leg in irritation. Old Franco may have taken the leg away, but Gregory had done far worse bringing it back. The thought of it brought an odd surge of sympathy for his former adversary.
And then, ahead of him, Merrily stopped abruptly. Cyrus looked around. They were standing outside the cathedral. Its pretentious buttresses and self-righteous arches loomed over them like a disapproving lawyer with his fly unbuttoned. Under the pale light of the full moon, the gaudy building managed to achieve a measure of dignity that Cyrus felt it surely didn’t deserve.
“This isn’t where Filtch lives, is it?” Cyrus asked, looking around curiously. “This is an expensive neighborhood.”
“What do you know about the history of the Cathedral of Saint Bob?” she asked tensely.
He scratched his head and looked at the full moon above.
“Construction began in I Reginald:2. Finished in I:Maude 20. It’s rather small, by Imperial standards; they wanted to get it up in a hurry. First Bishop was a fellow named Crocklin—”
“Do you know what the site was before the Ecclesia bought it?” she interrupted.
He looked at her in confusion. “I don’t, honestly. I’m sure I could find the answer, but why don’t you enlighten me, Merrily, and explain why it’s relevant.”
“It was a block of flats,” came a voice from behind them. They all spun around. There stood Bishop Wildrick, dressed in his nightclothes and carrying a rusty oil lantern. His thin frame was erect, and his face stern. “But before it was a block of flats—hundreds of years before—it was the Church of the Joyful Commandment of the Third Testament. It was the seat of the Ecclesia’s Minster in the north of Uelland, until Horace II had it torn down and its treasures sold to finance his campaign of exile and murder. When the Ecclesia set about building the Cathedral of Saint Bob, we placed it on the site of the old Church of the Joyful Commandment as a testament to the enduring power of God’s holy vessel on Earth.” He paused. “May I ask what brings you to the doors of this Church of God this night? Not a history lesson, I presume.”
There was a silence among them all, though Vigg and Cyrus looked pointedly at Merrily. At last she spoke.
“There is a murderer in your cellar, Bishop,” she said quietly.
“You are mistaken,” he answered. “I went to the cellars just hours ago to retrieve holy elements for the Compline. There were no murderers there.”
“You went to the wrong cellar,” she answered. Looking nervous, and a bit desperate, she went on. “The cathedral is built on top of the old Church of the Joyful Commandment. But Horace only razed the upper structure; the under-temple remains. Houses were built on top, and over the years the entrances were lost or forgotten. The builders of the modern cathedral excavated and replaced the upper levels of the under-temple, but not its lower floors. Filtch… is there. I know how to get in.”
Bishop Wildrick looked in consternation at the three Billies. “You cannot search the cellars of our cathedral. I forbid it. The Ecclesia has an understanding with Queen Anne—our priests and congregations supported her against General Logwall. No church in Green Bridge may be invaded or searched by the Crown.”
“Whatever understanding you have with the Queen, Bishop, does not extend to harboring a murderer,” replied Captain Vigg sternly.
“There is legal process!” demanded the Bishop. “You may not enter without a special warrant from the Queen’s Bench!”
Merrily slung her hunting bow across her back and approached Wildrick, who eyed her cautiously. She leaned in next to him and whispered something in his ear. The Bishop’s face blanched, even under the flickering yellow light of the oil lantern, and he drew back to stare her in the face. There was horror in his eyes. They stared at each other for a long moment. Then the Bishop wordlessly turned and walked next door to the large, ornate rectory.
Cyrus watched Merrily closely. She did not look at him.
After a minute, the Bishop returned. He carried in his hand a key.
“I will bring you inside the church, and I will come with you. We will go only where Mrs. Hunter leads. When you have found what you are looking for, we will leave immediately.” And with that he ascended the broad, sculpted steps to the Cathedral of Saint Bob.
They followed.
✽✽✽
The open space of the nave faded into darkness above them, lit only by moonlight coming through the stained-glass windows and by their feeble lamps. The glass panels cast dark blue and green hues on the floor and on their bodies like a wash of cold water. Looking at Merrily, Cyrus saw the face of a corpse.
Wildrick led them to a narrow, spiraling stair set into one of the massive piers at the west end of the entrance. They descended in single file; first the bishop, then Merrily, then Cyrus, and finally the three Billies. At the bottom, Wildrick turned, holding up his lamp to look questioningly at Merrily.
“Second deep,” she said. “East end.”
“The second deep houses departed priests, awaiting resurrection,” muttered Wildrick darkly. “We should not lightly disturb their rest.”
“Does anything about this excursion seem ‘light’ to you, Bishop?” asked Cyrus incredulously. “If any of the residents object, I’ll explain the urgency of the situation.”
Wildrick led them to another stair, and they descended further.
The crypt below the cathedral was surprisingly clean. Cyrus, who had spent more time in crypts than most people, appreciated the attention to detail. The sarcophagi were neatly ordered, their effigies retaining pristine sculptural craft. There was no dust to be seen. He remarked on this to the bishop.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“We clean it every week,” Wildrick answered. “Very quietly, and preceded by the Rite of Memory. When God raises them up, we’d like to give a good impression of the mortal administration.”
The sepulchral stone faces drifted past in the darkness.
“Do you really believe that?” asked Cyrus. “It’s been a millennium since the Fifth Prophet, and the origins of the older scriptures are entirely lost. At some point, when God keeps failing to show up, don’t you have to ask whether you might be viewing the whole business from the wrong perspective?”
“This from a man with two legs,” remarked Vigg dryly, behind him.
“Pay attention, Cyrus,” hissed Merrily softly. “Now is not the time for a theological debate.”
There was a silence in the cold darkness as they shuffled forward.
“Faith is a choice, Professor,” whispered Bishop Wildrick. But in the dim light of the oil lamp, his face seemed troubled.
They finally reached the far wall of the long, broad crypt. The stonework was simple and unadorned.
“Now what?” asked Cyrus of Merrily. “How do we get to the under-temple?”
She approached the sarcophagus on the north wall and put her hands under the edge of the lid. Cyrus waited for the Bishop to object vehemently, but he did not. He simply watched.
Merrily heaved on the lid. It swung open with surprisingly little effort, and Cyrus saw that it was set with clever iron hinges, well-oiled and concealed beneath the lid. She propped it open with a stout rod resting on the inside of the stone box.
Wildrick, Cyrus, and the Billies hurried forward to look inside. Instead of a wooden inner coffin, there was simply a blank, open space. A thick rope, secured to an iron peg, led down into the darkness. They all peered into the well intently.
“You don’t seem surprised that Bishop Crocklin isn’t at home,” observed Cyrus to Bishop Wildrick, nodding at the empty stone vessel. The thin churchman looked away, keeping his expression neutral.
“I know my own church, Professor,” he replied.
Merrily swung her leg up and over the wall of the sarcophagus, grimacing visibly. She paused for a moment to press again at her abdomen.
“What’s wrong, Merrily?” asked Cyrus.
“Pulled a muscle at exams,” she muttered. He smiled; this was the old Merrily. An unconvincing liar.
She lowered herself into the darkness, and one by one the others followed.
✽✽✽
At its base, the shaft opened into a narrow chamber with squared walls, littered with the remains of ancient furnishings now nearly unrecognizable in their decay. A portal led into a narrow passage that ran toward some larger space, from which a pale light emerged. But Cyrus’s eye was drawn first to a figure slumped against the wall in the passage. He approached it cautiously; it did not move. Cyrus lifted the head to see the face. He drew in a sharp breath.
It was Gerald Hornhugger. His eyes were lifeless. He was, Cyrus reflected in a detached horror, the second of Cyrus’s students to take an exam that morning and die before midnight.
Captain Vigg knelt down next to him and looked closely at the body. Then he gently pulled the torso away from the wall and looked at his back.
The shaft of an arrow protruded from between Hornhugger’s shoulder blades, its head buried deep in his back. A pool of blood was still fresh and sticky against his shirt.
“Been dead for just a few hours,” remarked Vigg. He tugged at the shaft, but it was firmly lodged. Shining his lamp on the floor, he picked up a stick of wood; it was the other end of the arrow shaft.
Vigg stood up and walked over to Merrily, who held her ground calmly. The Billy captain held the shaft next to the others in her quiver and peered at them. Merrily didn’t move.
“This is one of your arrows,” he stated flatly.
“Now hang on, Captain,” interjected Cyrus. “There are dozens of fletchers in Green Bridge, and they have many customers. Just because this arrow—“
“I killed Gerald,” said Merrily. Her voice was flat, and she leaned against the stone wall of the passage.
“Well,” remarked Cyrus. “That was unhelpful to your defense.”
“Merrily Hunter, I arrest you for the crime of murder,” said Captain Vigg sternly. One of the Billies seized Merrily’s hands and held them behind her back; she cried out involuntarily in pain. The other removed her hunting bow.
“I killed him because he was going to kill Professor Stoat,” she continued through clenched teeth. The Billy behind her held her wrists up, forcing her down slightly.
Vigg looked at Cyrus.
“We all need to go take a trip back to William Hall,” the law man said firmly.
“How do you know Hornhugger was going to kill me?” demanded Cyrus, holding up one hand to Vigg. “Did he tell you?”
She lowered her head. “Because Robert Franco—Robert of Gorham—told him to. And he was going to do it. He would do anything that Father said. I tried to stop him, and we fought. I killed him.”
“Wait. Father?” asked Cyrus in astonishment. “And—Roberto Franco? He’s died two years ago! What does Franco have to do with anything? And where is Filtch?”
“If you want to know who killed Rolly,” Merrily said, raising her head and speaking with obvious pain, “then you must go forward.” Her emerald eyes, now strangely dim, stared down the passageway, toward the silvery light beyond.
Cyrus looked at Captain Vigg. Captain Vigg looked back at Cyrus. Neither spoke.
Then Wildrick, lurking behind them, stepped forward. He held his lamp high in front of him.
“I would like to know who is in the cellars of my cathedral,” he announced firmly, “and who he has killed.” And with that, the bishop walked slowly forward.
Cyrus and Vigg followed, and the two Billies. One policeman held each of Merrily’s arms, and she walked between them with difficulty.
They emerged into a broad, airy space, some two hundred feet long and half as wide. A bar of pale white light emerged from an opening at the far end of the chamber, illuminating a smooth block of stone adorned with the Unbroken Circle. It was, perhaps, some deep shaft from the surface world that permitted moonlight to descend at certain times of the year. Fragments of ancient, decayed wooden benches were scattered in the space before the altar, some few still retaining a semblance of their original shape. Statues were set in regularly-spaced alcoves in the walls, though by the dim light Cyrus could not make out their features. The space was empty of people.
Lining the walls near the entrance, and extending out some ways into the floor, were stacks of crates, chests, and open barrels. From the barrels emerged the heads of spears, pikes, swords, and a variety of other warlike implements. Moving into the room, Cyrus flipped open the lid of a chest, and found that it was packed with neatly stacked crossbow bolts. Vigg, nearby, opened another; it contained a full suit of boiled leather armor.
They both look up in surprise at Bishop Wildrick. He returned their gaze steadily.
“Our brothers in Uellodon were slaughtered like pigs,” he said plainly. “Never again. When the Republican Guard comes for the Ecclesia in the North, they will find that God’s soldiers wear harder armor than faith, and wield sharper weapons than prayers.”
“Poetic,” remarked Captain Vigg dryly, “though I’m not certain Queen Anne will appreciate your sense of style. But this cache of arms didn’t kill Rolland Gorp all by itself. Who did?”
He turned back to Merrily. The two Billies who had been holding her arms lay on the ground, their forms lifeless. Merrily stood alone, looking around in apparent confusion. Behind them, Bishop Wildrick gasped, and backed away toward the wall. Captain Vigg drew his short sword.
“I killed Rolland Gorp,” came a man’s voice from behind Merrily.
He stepped out from behind her. He was slim, not scrawny; his form was lithe, but bent, twisted. He walked with a slight limp, which he made seem as graceful as a dance. In one hand he held a long knife, covered in blood. In the other he held a steel rapier with an ornate guard and hilt.
“Who, by God’s balls, are you?” demanded Cyrus. The shadows covered his face, but the man certainly didn’t move like Filtch.
“Robert Franco,” came Bishop Wildrick’s voice. The bishop, apparently recovering his courage, had come to stand beside Cyrus and Captain Vigg.
“Franco’s dead,” snapped Cyrus. “Beatrice Snugg poisoned him.”
“Indeed,” said the man before them, stepping closer. As he approached, they saw that his face was terribly scarred; it was scarred in the way that Filtch’s was scarred. But this man carried himself with a terrible, deadly grace, not the shuffling, ignorant persona of the janitor.
“Robert Franco is dead,” the scarred, twisted thing continued. “I am finished with him. Sometimes I am Demiter Filtch, and sometimes I am other men. I was Henry Howling once—and for a time before that I was Robert of Gorham.” He smirked at Cyrus. “The Dark One may have given you back a leg by witchcraft, Stoat, but I can take it away again if you like.”
He cast aside the knife and extended the blade toward Cyrus. Cyrus instantly recognized the weapon, and his heart sank. Only one person could have given it back to him.
Merrily backed away from both Robert and Cyrus slowly, creating an equal space between the two men.
“You are a murderer, whatever lies you tell of yourself,” snarled Cyrus. He drew his own broadsword. Vigg was right; there was only one way this ended. “And you, Merrily Hunter, you are worse than a murderer—you are a murderer and a hypocrite.”
“I am an instrument of God’s will,” replied Robert softly. “I snuff out all that is an affront to Him, so that only the pure and the good remain. I put an end to the demon Snugg and her gold, her mercenaries, her soft temptations that drew men from the love of God and into the love of things. I put an end to the demon Gorp and his filthy lies of a new star beyond God’s firmament. And I will put an end, once and for all, to Cyrus Stoat and his web of false history. I am an instrument of God’s will, and so is Merrily Hunter.”
Merrily sank to her knees, clutching at her belly. Blood was welling up between her fingers.
“You are an abomination, Robert of Gorham!” rang out Wildrick’s voice, suddenly strong and vibrant. “You were meant to be a holy man! When your order sent you to us, they promised us someone who would strike down the wicked and protect the innocent. Instead you have stirred up the city against the Ecclesia and brought us to the edge of destruction! Your killings have no purpose and no justification! You have never deserved sanctuary in this house of God, and I renounce it now. You are not welcome here.”
Cyrus risked a glance at Merrily. She had collapsed onto her back, still clutching one bloody hand to her belly. Her breathing was shallow, and a line of blood trickled from each corner of her mouth.
“Drop the sword—whoever you are,” commanded Captain Vigg, slowly circling around to Robert’s flank, putting the man in a line between himself and Cyrus. He was crouched low, in a surprisingly agile posture for a man of his considerable girth. He held the short sword close to his body, point extended.
Robert looked at him with a faint smirk. Then he dove to the side and down, tumbling into a graceful roll that drifted past Vigg’s too-slow thrust. Robert came to his feet behind him, and in a flash the point of the rapier emerged from the front of Vigg’s chest, just below the sternum. Captain Vigg looked around in confusion, and then sank to his knees slowly as the blade was withdrawn.
Cyrus closed the distance to Robert in a bound and swung heavily with his broadsword, bellowing in rage. The sword was blocked in a flash by Robert’s Sixte, and a steely note rang out through the ancient hall. The scarred, twisted face smiled up at him gleefully.
“You’ve gotten uglier in your old age,” remarked Cyrus, kicking at his opponent’s knee. But the knee moved before he could make contact, and Robert scuttled away. He crouched and lunged directly at Cyrus, executing a swift sequence of attacks and feints that forced Cyrus to overcorrect to his upper left. Cyrus dodged backward to recover before the sequence could end with the rapier in his chest, kicking over a barrel of spears in front of him to slow Robert.
“The poison of the demon Snugg did this to me,” growled Robert, “but no poison can banish the strength of God from His chosen servant.” He circled slowly around the fallen barrel. “You’ll find that this body strikes more than fear into the hearts of men, Stoat.”
He flipped a spear into the air with one foot, catching it and flinging it at Cyrus in one swift, fluid motion. Cyrus instinctively tried to turn, but he was too slow. The spear struck him in the chest, ripping his cloak from his shoulders but glancing off the steel breastplate he’d habitually worn outside his shirt for over two decades.
Cyrus looked up and managed a smirk. “You’ll have to work harder than that to strike anything into my heart, you degenerate antique.” In the corner of one eye, he saw Bishop Wildrick kneeling over Merrily; the bishop had removed her leather vest and was pressing something to her abdomen. It was coated in red.
Robert flew at him, and Cyrus was forced back to the defensive. Robert used his twisted body like a spider, rolling back and forth to attack Cyrus from the flanks. He used his hands to move himself with facility equal to his feet. Cyrus labored to keep up with the flurry of attacks, his heavier sword slowing him down and preventing him from riposting effectively. More than one of Robert’s thrusts glanced off his breastplate, and Cyrus focused on protecting his unarmored flanks and thighs. Losing mobility against this man would mean losing his life.
He maneuvered himself up against a stack of chests, then jumped backward and used his arm to flip himself over it, placing the stack between himself and Robert. It gave him a moment to catch his breath; he found his chest heaving. The twisted, scarred thing on the other side of the stack grinned at him, also panting.
“You’re old, Robert,” Cyrus said, starting to circle around the boxes again. “You’ve lived in the shadows, stabbing men who couldn’t defend themselves, or didn’t know they should. How long can you keep dancing around with me like this?”
He lunged forward, presenting a feint high to Robert’s right and inviting a parry in Sixte. Robert didn’t accept the invitation, but instead counter-attacked immediately. But Cyrus expected it, and brought the blade of his heavier sword down across his opponent’s body, shifting his weight to avoid the counter. Cyrus’s broadsword dragged heavily across Robert’s chest, leaving an ugly red line beneath his ragged shirt.
And yet Robert moved as if he hadn’t felt the cut, bringing the ornate hilt of his family’s blade up and into Cyrus’s chin. A flash of jarring pain and dizziness hit Cyrus, and he stumbled backward. He raised his own sword instinctively into Seconde, barely blocking the finishing thrust that should have impaled his abdomen.
He brought his right foot up, kicking Robert firmly between the legs. That ought to buy some time, he thought. And it seemed he was right; Robert ducked slightly, grunted, and backed away. But then he stood up again, smiling despite the bloody gash across his chest.
“I had them removed, Stoat,” he said. “They are a weakness of the flesh that no man who loves God should tolerate.” He raised the rapier again, crouching and advancing forward with surprising swiftness.
Cyrus was once again forced to the retreat, and Robert’s ferocity seemed to have grown with his injury. Cyrus found it was all he could do to protect his flanks and legs, deflecting numerous blows onto the breastplate. He hastened his retreat, but the rubble on the floor made movement hazardous. Robert began a flurry of attacks at his head, and Cyrus desperately and clumsily waved his broadsword up and down, unable to look where he was going.
Something grabbed at his feet, and he fell backward, twisting his ankle. A cry of pain escaped him, and he landed on his back; the stone floor struck his head heavily and the breath whooshed out of his lungs. He gasped, without air, like a fish on the deck of a boat. Stars danced in front of his eyes, and his vision began to narrow into a long tunnel of black.
Robert stood over him, grinning, breathing heavily. The point of his rapier found Cyrus’s neck.
“Dead end, Cyrus Stoat,” he said.
Yes, thought Cyrus. This is how.
There was a sound, and the last thing he saw was the shaft of an arrow protruding from Robert’s left flank.
He closed his eyes, and the blackness became complete.
✽✽✽
There was no time. He drifted outside of time, outside of perception. There was only an interior awareness, an echo of self that jumbled his thoughts and memories and fantasies into one sickly mass. He heard voices from people he should know but didn’t, all speaking at the same time, and silence enveloping all of them. He felt sensations that were contradictory, from organs he didn’t know he possessed.
And then there was a light. It was pale, white, silvery, and it came from a figure. Her face was beautiful beyond any reckoning, and it was somehow familiar to him. Her arms were slender, and her wings spouted fire from their tips. She smiled, and said a single word. The sickly mass of jumbled self and memory vanished, and he knew himself. He could feel her moving inside him, knitting him back together—
He blinked, and he was looking at the pale moonlight filtering down from the shaft above the altar. His head ached with roaring pain, and his ankle was badly twisted. Nothing seemed to be knit together after all, but he could see and feel and move.
Before the altar, he could see Merrily. She was standing straight up, in no apparent pain, with her back to him. At her feet lay the crumpled form of a man, limp. But beyond her, just visible at the edge of the moonlight, was a third figure. It was tall, and its shape was male, though it had long hair. Its body looked strong; muscular, even. It was wearing what appeared to be leather body armor, and a long black cloak. In its right hand was a knife, dripping with blood. But Cyrus’s eye was drawn to its face; for it had none. Where the face should have been was a metal surface, curved slightly. No marks or indentations marred its surface. It was simply blank. If it was looking at Merrily, or the body on the ground before it, or at Cyrus, he could not tell.
And then it rose silently, gently, and impossibly, straight up and through the shaft in the ceiling. No ropes lifted it, and no platform raised it. It simply floated upward, and was gone.
Cyrus struggled to his feet and limped over to Merrily. He took her by the arm and looked in her eyes. There was a long, fresh scar on her left cheek that hadn’t been there before, but it had scabbed over, as if it were several days old. Her shirt was wet with blood, but no more was coming out. He glanced down at her chest; there was a large hole burned in her shirt, still smoking slightly, and by the moonlight he could see the flesh beneath it. There was a faint scar there as well.
He looked down at the limp body on the ground. It was Robert. His eyes were open, but lifeless. Merrily’s arrow could be seen in his side.
Cyrus raised his eyes to her face again. There were tears, now, but the pain was gone. She put her arms around him and held him, and he held her in return. She began to sob.
Looking over her shoulder, Cyrus saw Bishop Wildrick, kneeling next to Captain Vigg. Wildrick was administering the Last Rites. Cyrus gently led Merrily back toward them, and she sat down next to Vigg. Vigg’s face was pale, and his eyes distant; his breath was shallow and irregular.
“I have given a statement to the Bishop,” he said. “He will swear, and testify, if need be, on what I have told him. Robert Franco admitted to the murder of Rolland Gorp; he had no accomplices. He killed my officers when we tried to arrest him.” His eyes turned to Merrily. “And he killed Gerald Hornhugger,” he added. His voice was coming with some difficulty. He reached up a hand to wipe the tears from her eyes.
“Why?” asked Cyrus. There was no time to waste; Vigg would understand the question.
“You asked me once what business I was in, Professor Stoat,” said the dying man. “I gave you the wrong answer then. I would like you to believe, in the end, that it was of justice.”
He closed his eyes.
“God bless you and keep you,” Bishop Wildrick said quietly. “God make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you. God turn his face toward you and give you peace.” He folded Vernon Vigg’s hands across his chest and brushed his eyes closed.
There was a dull, low musical tone in the air, and then another. The three looked around in confusion for a moment. The tones continued.
“Those are the bells,” said Wildrick. “The cathedral bells. Someone is ringing the cathedral bells.” He stood up, picked up the oil lamp, and made quickly for the portal.
“Come on!” shouted the bishop over his shoulder. “Come on! They’re ringing the bells!”
Cyrus looked at Merrily, and they stood up. She wordlessly retrieved the rapier from Father’s still body. Then she turned to follow Bishop Wildrick.
“Wait,” Cyrus said, grabbing her arm. She turned back, looking at him. Tears clouded her green eyes.
“Who is the man with the metal face?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied. And he could see that it was true.