Soulkeeper Read online

  Her fingers closed about the handle. She felt weirdly resigned to her fate no matter what choice the three Vikars, and likely Deakon Sevold above them, reached. Shouldn’t she be worried? Then again, what could she fear? The Sisters themselves answered her prayers. Death lost much of its fear against that comfortable confirmation. She thrust open the door and stepped out.

  No Oathkeepers waited with their shining silver armor, black-masked faces, and immensely sharp scythes. Just a young novice looking mildly impatient.

  “The summons, please,” she said.

  “None to hand over,” the acne-faced teenager replied. “I mean, none to hand over, Mindkeeper. Vikar Thaddeus requests you meet him at the Sisters’ Remembrance.”

  That was odd. Not at the Old Vikarage, in Thaddeus’s private study, or even at the Grand Archive? The Sisters’ Remembrance was a short walk from Lyra’s Door along the western side of the wall surrounding the Londheim Cathedral. Its purpose was as a glorified resting hall for the ashes of former Vikars, Deakons, and wealthy patrons of the church. Adria hadn’t visited it since her training days as a novice, when she’d been forced on several “educational” tours through the portraits, statues, and expensive belongings of long-dead men and women. Funeral pyres were good enough for the laymen, but apparently Deakons deserved golden urns spotted with gemstones and laced with silver.

  “I will leave immediately,” Adria said. “You may go, novice.”

  The boy (because that was all he really was, a young boy being assaulted by the changes leading into adulthood) quickly bowed and hurried off. Adria remembered scurrying around with hundreds of vague orders and requests during her own time as novice. She almost missed not having a shred of responsibility beyond following basic orders.

  Adria returned to the main hall. Sena lingered at the lectern with three women wearing laughably large hats that were supposedly in style all the way east in the capital city of Oris. If that was the style there, then Adria loved her cramped, twisting city that much more.

  “Faithkeeper, if I might have a word?” she said.

  Sena quickly apologized to the women and followed after Adria, who slipped away to one of the walls and crossed her arms. She was careful to keep her limbs still to hide her growing nervousness.

  “Yes, Mindkeeper?” Sena asked once she had joined her. Adria noted the hint of annoyance in her tone. She’d interrupted a discussion with potential donors to the Low Dock church, and Low Dock did not have many donors in the first place.

  “Vikar Thaddeus has summoned me,” she said. She need not explain why. Sena’s face immediately molded into a controlled mask, as smooth and emotionless as the porcelain sticking to Adria’s skin.

  “Only you?” Sena asked softly.

  “It seems so. Perhaps he…”

  Adria paused. Another young novice hurried in through the door of the church, a sealed scroll in her hand. She spotted Adria, rushed over, and offered up the scroll.

  “From Vikar Caria, Faithkeeper,” the novice said.

  Adria took the scroll, dismissed the girl, and quickly unrolled it. Her eyes flitted over the text in less time than a heartbeat.

  “It’s a summons to the Faithkeepers’ Sanctuary,” Sena said. “I’m to speak with Vikar Caria.”

  “They’ve come to a decision,” Adria said. Sena nodded in agreement. The two shared a look. It was possible they both walked into a clandestine arrest, and if so, this was likely the last time they would speak with one another. Adria started to stammer something meaningful, but words did not come easy. Sena abandoned them entirely and embraced Adria with their foreheads touching.

  “I pray Alma keeps you in her mercy,” Sena said. “No matter our path, stay strong. The Sisters blessed us for a reason.”

  “And if that reason is to die a martyr?”

  Sena pulled back, and she smiled despite their worry.

  “You Mindkeepers,” she said. “Always ready to believe the worst in people.”

  Adria hurried out of the small church before she might lose her nerve. The old woman who had taken up a permanent residence at the bottom of the steps called after her as she rushed past.

  “Something serious, keeper?” she shouted, then cackled as if it were the best joke ever told.

  Adria ignored her and carried on. The walk to the Londheim Cathedral was one she’d taken a thousand times. She knew each stone by heart, or at least, there was a time she did. Houses seemed bigger or smaller than they once were, full of alcoves and deep shadows that were not there a mere month prior. Many windows were boarded over, and those that weren’t were covered with heavy drapes. Why? Did the people fear that the hunting owls would crash through open windows?

  A tired family passed her by, and while normally she’d never give them a second thought, something about them felt… unusual. She glanced over her shoulder but could see only their ash-gray coats and wide hats. Something had been strange about their faces, but she could not voice exactly what.

  Adria grew more unnerved, and it seemed all of Londheim conspired to frighten her further. Her walk took her past a boarded-up home with an elderly woman sitting with her back against the shuttered door.

  “Good afternoon, Mindkeeper,” the woman said. She smiled, revealing a clean set of white teeth. “May your day be bright.”

  False teeth, Adria told herself as she continued on. Just like the hair on the little girl hopping ahead of her, which fell all the way to her shins. Surely it couldn’t be real. Her parents dashed from where they huddled in an alley and grabbed the child when they saw her coming.

  “Don’t play in the road,” they scolded as Adria passed. She felt their eyes on her mask. “It’s not safe.”

  Not safe? What did they fear now? Her? And if so… why?

  But her mind did not want to grapple with that. Nor did it want to acknowledge how these apparent refugees shared similarly long hair and blood-red eyes. A family trait from the southern coast, she told herself. That was all. Her eyes flicked to empty spots where gargoyles had perched mere days before. Where had they gone? Had they been destroyed, or did they hide elsewhere, waiting for night to come so they might feed?

  Adria did her best to push her unease out of her mind upon reaching Church District. She bypassed the grand steps leading up to Alma’s Greeting, curled around the southwest corner, and followed the northerly road. The Scholars’ Abode passed by on her left. It had been added two centuries after the cathedral’s major renovation, not too surprising given the scholars’ late addition to the sacred division of the Mind. The building lacked a lot of the cathedral’s interlocking architecture. Instead it contained rows and rows of doors, each one leading to a private bedroom and study for the assigned scholar. There were stories of scholars not leaving for years, having their food delivered and their bedpans changed by novices. Needless to say, scholars were often viewed as reclusive, scrambled-brained versions of Mindkeepers.

  The Sisters’ Remembrance came next, and it looked downright gaudy compared to the Scholars’ Abode. It was twice the height of the abode, and the front entrance was flanked by giant pillars that were intricately carved with a wavy semblance of fire. Four stained-glass windows triple the size of a man were built on each of the four sides. A large statue of Anwyn stood on a raised dais in the center of the rooftop, one arm covering her breasts, the other reaching to the left with an open palm, forever waiting to receive the dove from Lyra’s care. Her head bowed low, and coupled with the slight hunch of her shoulders, it gave Adria the impression that the goddess struggled under a terrible unseen burden.

  Vikar Thaddeus stood beside the front entrance, his hands resting comfortably atop his cane. His face was solemn. No novices accompanied him, nor any members of the sacred divisions. Adria climbed the three steps to the door and bowed low in respect to her Vikar.

  “You summoned me?” she said.

  “Indeed I did,” Thaddeus said. “I’m sure you’ve surmised the reason.”

  “The reason, yes
,” she said. “But not the place. Why are we at the Remembrance?”

  Thaddeus removed his spectacles and cleaned them with a bit of cloth folded into a pocket of his pristine vest.

  “What do you know of this particular building?” he asked her. “Of its history?”

  She started to answer and then stopped herself. What did she know of the building? She’d paid little attention to the tours during her training, and once she’d attained her rank of Mindkeeper, she’d used her access to the Grand Archive to study far more interesting matters.

  “Not much,” she said. “For centuries it has housed the ashes of those our society deems important. As for its construction… I guess I have always assumed it was built around the same time the cathedral underwent its first major renovation.”

  Thaddeus smiled at her.

  “You’re mostly correct,” he said. “Mostly.”

  He extended his arm toward her, and she gently slid closer so he might use her shoulder instead of the cane. They did not enter the Remembrance as Adria had expected. Instead he led her down the steps and around the building’s corner. As they walked he spoke.

  “The building was constructed not long after the major renovation, but you err in thinking it has always served as a tomb for dead Vikars’ ashes. In those earliest days of the faith, our church had a much different purpose for this stone memorial.”

  On the northern side was a single set of stairs dug into the earth to reach a simple wooden door. It looked out of place against the rest of the building’s opulence. Adria had seen it before but assumed it was used by novices so they could work and clean without being noticed at the front. Thaddeus pointed at it with his cane, confirming their destination. They carefully took the steps one at a time.

  “Is it locked?” Adria asked as she reached for the door.

  “Not this one,” Thaddeus said. “But this is merely the first door of many.”

  She pushed the door open. Her heart shuddered at the sight beyond. She’d expected a cramped hallway into some tucked-away corner of the Remembrance. Instead she revealed a dark stone tunnel carved into the earth.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  Thaddeus reached around the corner of the door and retrieved an unlit lantern. He pulled a small but ornate tinderbox from his pocket and handed it and the lantern over to Adria.

  “The first major renovation to the Cathedral of the Sacred Mother was about eight centuries ago,” he said, calmly watching her light the lantern. “Around that same time the Keeping Church underwent the first of several major schisms.”

  “You mean the heretical purge,” Adria said. It seemed like clockwork every half century a radical thinker would desire to worship one of the Sisters as greater than the other two. Little scripture supported these theories, for even the oldest scraps of paper discussed the intimate link between the three Sisters and their role in creating, transporting, and cherishing the soul.

  “Indeed I do,” Thaddeus said as he accepted the lantern back from her. “But where nowadays we view church schisms as arguments of the power and roles of the Sisters, back then things we take for granted as bedrock tenants were still being established. There were people who wished to worship beings separate from the Sisters entirely. They gave names to creatures and things and lifted them up as equals to the divine three. And for them, I must admit to the shame of our church, our forefathers built the sunless cages.”

  Adria’s eyes widened behind her mask.

  “Here?” she asked. “Below the Remembrance is a church-sanctioned prison?”

  “Of sorts,” Thaddeus said. He watched her closely, and even her mask was not enough to protect her from those silver eyes. “Are you afraid, Mindkeeper?”

  Of course she was. The church would have imprisoned and hidden away only a specific type of prisoner… one she might well qualify as.

  “How many heretics have starved away in the sunless cages below the Remembrance?” she asked.

  “Two hundred seventy-three,” the Vikar said. “And I have studied each and every one of their supposed sins in preparations for today. I am not here to trap you, Adria. I am here to illuminate you. More is at stake in Londheim than you know.”

  He gestured into the darkness with his lantern.

  “I have never doubted your faith, or your resolve,” he told her. “Do not make me question it now.”

  Pride swallowed down her fear. Together they walked the stone tunnel’s steadily downward slope. After fifty steps the tunnel turned sharply to the right and ended at another door. A window with two thick bars was built into its center, and a helmed man peered through it.

  “Greetings, Vikar,” the burly man said.

  Thaddeus smiled politely. The door opened with a loud creak of rusted metal. Inside was another tunnel, this one lit with four equally spaced lanterns hanging from the wall. Despite them the air did not reek of smoke, which meant there was some manor of ventilation dug into the stone. Thaddeus released his hold of Adria’s shoulder and led the way with loud, echoing cracks of his cane upon the smooth stone floor.

  “To the best of my research this prison has not been used since the late 1200s,” Thaddeus said. “The church even discussed sealing off the entrance at one point, but the cost kept it from happening. Easier, and cheaper, to ignore it entirely. And so for two hundred years we’ve forgotten this little stain upon our history. I myself had been down here only once in the past twenty years, but then…” He shrugged. “But then the world changed.”

  They passed cell after cell, the iron bars rusted and twisted. Doors hung on broken hinges. The insides, however, were immaculately swept and cleaned, as if with enough dusting one could hide the purpose of these dark cages. Adria wondered how many souls lingered on after death instead of ascending in the reaping hour. She had never been one to believe tales of ghosts and hauntings, but if there were such places, this would be one of them. The air stuck to her skin, pulling her downward, threatening her with a burden centuries older than herself.

  Thaddeus’s voice quieted, as if he, too, felt the omnipresent weight.

  “Before you came to me, we had been aware of only one other man capable of drawing power from the old scriptures and lessons. That’s who I’d like you to meet, Adria. I want you to see the danger in what you represent.”

  A lone man sat resting against the back wall in the next cell. Adria was stunned that he still wore the black-and-white robes of a Mindkeeper. Equally stunning was the leather strap buckled around his head, completely covering his mouth. A small lock dangled from its center. His hands were chained together, as were his feet. Holes in his outfit revealed fresh cuts and bruises. His brown hair was long and dirty, his skin tanned, and his face broad like many of the southern coasters. His pale gold eyes observed them calmly, as if he awaited them in a private study instead of a forgotten prison.

  “Who is he?” she whispered.

  “Mindkeeper Tamerlane Swift.”

  She recognized that name. Tamerlane was a member of the leadership council, a passing face she’d seen a handful of times during her education prior to her assignment in Low Dock.

  “Why is he imprisoned?” Adria asked. Her heart feared the answer. “Does healing the sick deserve such cruelty?”

  Thaddeus leaned heavily on his cane. He stared at the man as he would a dangerous animal.

  “Lyra’s Devotions were culled together from many sources,” the Vikar said. “Some were considered falsely attributed to the Goddesses, or not worthy of belonging in a collection of praises. Perhaps you are aware of them?”

  “There are thousands of scrolls filled with apocryphal material,” Adria said, mesmerized by the man. “They are not my area of study. The apocrypha tend to be the domain of the scholars.”

  “Then let me illuminate you,” Thaddeus said. “While some apocryphal writings are disregarded because of their poor quality or questionable sources, others strongly contradict established tenets of faith. Writings full of anger and retr
ibution, by an author who would elevate the power of the soul over the Goddesses themselves. Do you know of what I speak?”

  “The Book of Ravens,” Adria said.

  “That’s right. Have you read it?”

  “I have not.”

  “I have,” the Vikar said, and he glared at the imprisoned man. “It does not contain blessings like Lyra’s Devotions. No, it carries curses.”

  Adria’s throat constricted as she pieced it all together.

  “Is that why his mouth is covered?” she asked. “To prevent him from cursing the guards?”

  Thaddeus solemnly nodded.

  “His voice is his weapon, and it is far harder to take that away than a sword or a pistol.”

  Adria took another step closer to the prisoner. Her fingers touched the iron bars. She had never met a true Ravencaller before. They were largely figments of ancient times, their teachings relegated to bored teenagers seeking to add excitement to their tedious life. No one took them seriously, yet here was a respected Mindkeeper who had betrayed his faith to follow writings long since condemned as heretical. Why would he do so? What had spurred him down such a dark path?

  “Why not cut his tongue out completely?” she asked.

  “Because we hoped with enough convincing he might undo his curse.”

  “What was the curse?”

  “Come,” he said. “I will show you.”

  Thaddeus led them to the last cell in the long tunnel. Lanterns illuminated the square cage. The door had been completely removed from its hinges. Dozens of pillows covered the cold ground, and in one corner she saw an ornate table recently brought down from the surface. Two Mindkeepers stood just within the entrance, and they bowed respectfully at the Vikar’s presence. And there, in the center of those pillows, lay the cursed man.

  His skin was thin and stretched, its texture and yellowish color reminding her of uncured leather. Scabs covered his bald pate like a pox. He was naked from the waist up, granting Adria an unwelcome sight: the twisted, unnatural spiral of his ribs as they jutted against their fleshy restraints. The man gasped in his breaths with a low, droning moan. His teeth were gone, leaving behind only black gums. Of his face, only his eyes remained the same, while his nose, lips, and chin all twisted and stretched as if someone had turned his skin to mud and given it a good stir.