Vespertine (Vespertine #1)(90)

“If I’m not using my full power, and I don’t need to hide myself from many clerics… yes, that shouldn’t be difficult, assuming you don’t mind heights. You don’t, do you?”

Mystified, I shook my head.

“Good. Once we’re inside, I expect I’ll be able to locate the priest’s chambers by smell. Even if he hasn’t left traces of Old Magic, the stink of priestly repression is impossible to miss. Let’s go.”

“Not until you answer my question.”

“What question?” It sounded a little testy. I waited for it to think back over our conversation, and felt its tremor of surprise before it cut itself off, as though slamming the lid on a chest filled with keepsakes it didn’t want me to see. “Of course I’m all right,” it snapped. “Stop dawdling.”

I didn’t take it personally. I knew why it had reacted that way: it wasn’t used to anyone caring.

The route to the cathedral twisted confusingly through a maze of shops and houses. I could tell I was growing close when I heard a lonely voice calling out, “Only five pawns! Five pawns for a splinter of the holy arrow!” and then I looked up to see the cathedral’s mullioned windows glowering above me in the night, each pane of glass cut into a diamond, winking dimly as I passed. I gave a wide berth to the cathedral guards stationed around the entrances and squeezed through a filthy alley in the back, relieved not to have faced the full scope of the cathedral. It was easier to look at up close, under the cover of darkness.

Meanwhile, the revenant searched for a place where we could climb without being spotted. “There,” it said at last, drawing my attention to a panel of false archways carved with a frothing mass of spirits. I guessed the scene was meant to evoke a battle in the War of Martyrs, though it was hard to tell, since most of it was caged behind scaffolding for repairs. No one was standing guard, likely because there weren’t any possible entries: only a windowless wall above and a stinking gutter below.

I clambered up the scaffolding, and at the revenant’s direction set my boot against one of the lowest outcroppings of masonry at the top. A rush of power propelled me upward, tingling through my limbs and outward into my fingers and toes. I flowed up the wall as though I weighed nothing, the revenant effortlessly finding handholds in the dark.

More statues awaited me above, standing in endless carved rows. There were hundreds of minor saints in Loraille, one for every spirit bound; I didn’t know all their names even after seven years as a novice. I sent silent apologies their way as I hoisted my way past, boots scraping on their heads and arms.

Spirit-shaped grotesques crouched along the nearest roofline, which connected a series of flying buttresses to a higher wall above. I grabbed a downspout shaped like an undine, whose grimacing mouth would spew water from the gutter when it rained, and squirmed over the edge.

Warmth still radiated from the lead roof, baked into it by the sun. I drew in a deep breath of night air. Even from up here, I could faintly smell the procession’s incense. Stars spread coldly overhead, and far below, the procession looked like a long ribbon of light twisting through the streets, its many candles sparkling.

“This way,” the revenant said. I clambered along on all fours until I reached a walkway that stretched behind the buttresses. Here I could no longer see the procession, my view obscured by a jumble of rooftop angles. The wind moaned in the dark, passing through the multitude of carved saints and spirits. I felt the revenant shiver, and moved a little faster.

The door it prodded me toward wasn’t locked. It opened easily, admitting me into a narrow, dusty stair that I guessed was used to access the roof for repairs. My pulse started quickening as soon as I closed the door behind me, shutting out the wind and what little light remained. I was panting by the time I burst out the door at the bottom, into a musty wood-paneled hall illuminated by a single round window. The walls were hung with old paintings of dour-looking clerics, whose shadowed eyes seemed to judge me as I bent over my knees, catching my breath.

I wanted to ask the revenant how it could be afraid of the dark if its senses allowed it to see straight through walls, but I doubted it would welcome the question. I could tell it felt touchy about me merely knowing its secret in the first place.

“I only sense one human with a relic here,” it said once I’d straightened, heading off any possible conversation on the subject.

“That’s probably the sacristan,” I said. It was his duty to look after the cathedral’s valuables in everyone else’s absence.

Another door lay at the end of the hall. This time I emerged onto a high marble gallery that looked out over the darkened nave. There were no lamps here, but the huge windows cast fragmented pools of moonlight over the collection of holy objects lined up on display.

I didn’t approach the balustrade, knowing that if I did I would bring the altar into view below, and I didn’t want to look at it again if I didn’t have to. I walked along the wall instead, watching my dim, distorted reflection ripple over the dented bronze of a church bell, probably recovered from an important chapel that had fallen during the Sorrow. Next I passed a saint’s yellowed linen smallclothes, reverently preserved beneath glass. Halfway down the gallery I encountered a giant wagon wheel, each of its spokes longer than I was tall. I paused to read the engraving on its plaque: A WHEEL OF THE SIEGE-ORGAN OF MARSONNE.

I had read about the siege-organ before: a colossal pipe organ mounted on a wagon drawn by two dozen draft horses, its consecrated pipes unleashing a thunder of holy sound that disintegrated any spirit within range. Though powerful, it had proven impractical to use in battle, its delicate valves and bellows constantly breaking as it bumped over the roads of Loraille. It now stood in Chantclere’s cathedral, stationary forevermore, probably used to blast shades out of the vault every evening.