Chương 27: Part 27 - Sanctum

Must we not question the wellspring, the fount giving of that which it does not possess? A mouthful of water stifles more than thirst: inquiry wants for breath and must fall silent. - Attributed to Qavazhe Vae Sazhocel, Second of the Cevaceiqan Kings. Royal archives (restricted), Ce Raedhil. The gateway barrier plucked at Jackie's hair and clothing, arresting her momentum as she ran through the portal with the lost Aesvain child in tow.

She stumbled, unable to find her footing as she tried to lead him safely to the side before the crowd swarmed through behind them. Her attempt was only partially successful, assisted at the end by a collision with an armored halberdier that had leapt through just behind her. She spun around to shield the young boy from any further impacts, wincing at what would no doubt be a nasty bruise in a few minutes. When they had made it a few steps clear she crouched down to look him over for injuries.

The kid was staring wide-eyed back through the gate, but seemed physically fine. A strange gust of wind tugged at her hair- Blinding white light erupted from behind her, leaving her dazzled merely from the brief reflection in the child's eyes. The accompanying sound was so tremendous that she struggled to breathe for a moment afteward. She was left gasping and blinking away tears while the boy fell backward with a startled yelp.

Jackie caught him and scrambled further back just as Jesse fell through the gate with wisps of smoke trailing from his clothing. She felt her heart pound painfully against her ribs as he crumpled to the floor. Mark charged through the gate moments later with a trio of halberdiers close on his heels, quickly dragging Jesse away and clearing the path for the rest of the terrified refugees to swarm through. On and on they came, some led or dragged by others as they groped blindly ahead of them.

Jackie heard screams from the other side of the gate, shouted curses and the clatter of armor. The stream of refugees was followed by a loose column of gold-cloaked soldiers backing through the gate with halberds raised, forming an encirclement around the portal as more of the rear-guard came through. There was a burst of warm light from the far side, then another. A moment later, Gusje ducked in among the soldiers with a snarled curse on her lips and wisps of smoke still curling up from her gauntlet.

Jyte sprang backwards through the gateway at the tail of the retreat, and as he arrived his men swarmed in to close the gap and turn the doorway into a forest of blades. The attacking horde of corpses slammed into their raised halberds, and the formation shuddered as those behind braced the front line. Rotting hands clawed through the gaps with mindless frenzy. Countless attackers grabbed at the blades to try and force them apart even as they were torn to pieces by the defenders.

Mark leapt forward to slam his hand on the gate switch, but it had no effect. One of the Aesvain soldiers stumbled and withered hands snaked forward to seize his cloak. He was pulled forward before the men beside him could react, his screams cutting off with a wet crunch as he disappeared through the gate.

"Jyte, keystone!" Mark yelled. The Aesvain captain nodded sharply and cast his halberd aside before diving forward. The attackers reached out to tear at his cloak while his own men seized him by the legs to keep him from being pulled through. With a grimace and a grunt of effort he braced himself against the floor and grabbed the keystone with one hand. Rotten fingernails scraped at his face, fingers closing around his arm as he pulled - The view into Sjatel disappeared with a sharp flash of light.

The men supporting Jyte collapsed backwards as their opponents in the bizarre tug-of-war likewise vanished, and for a moment everything was still. Jyte lay on the ground, breathing heavily with a dozen severed arms still grasping his cloak. Mark turned and ran to Jesse's side, feeling for a pulse. It was several long seconds before he sagged in relief, dropping to the ground. Jackie hurried over, half-carrying the boy.

Jesse was sprawled on the stone floor, his hair singed in patches and his hand still clutched tightly around the grip of his sword.

"Is he okay?" she asked.

"God, it looked like he got struck by the lightning."

"He's got a pulse," Mark confirmed, checking him over in detail.

"Weak, though. The asolan will fix him up if anything can, at least as much as he's injured. His hair's all burnt, clothes are scorched - holy shit, his arm." Jackie sucked in a breath. Mark had pulled back Jesse's sleeve on his sword arm, shining his flashlight on skin covered in branching, swollen lichtenburg figures that radiated towards his shoulder.

"The way the strike goes," she mused, "it must have hit the sword, like a lightning rod." She frowned as she looked at the blackened tracery on his shirtsleeve.

"But he would have to have been holding it up in the air - Christ, Mark, do you think he was trying to get hit?" Mark looked up at her and blinked.

"Why the fuck would he - oh, shit," he muttered.

"The gateway. He was trying to draw the strike so it wouldn't hit the gateway." They both looked back down at Jesse, lying insensate on the ground. Jackie shook her head.

"That has got to be the quickest, stupidest thinking I have ever seen," she sighed.

"But, wait - that doesn't make any sense. It already bypassed the dome overhead, so it wouldn't divert for a ground…" She trailed off, and Mark slowly eased himself to his feet.

"Don't think about it too hard," he advised.

"He's been extra mysterious today. I'm just going to assume that he knew that he was doing and the gateway was under threat, which means he's the reason why some zombie isn't picking me out of his teeth right now." He shrugged, although the tension in his shoulders made it a perfunctory, awkward gesture.

"If later we find out he was just being a giant heroic dumbass and got himself Kentucky-fried for no reason, then we'll make fun of him. I don't see a version of this where we lose." Jackie studied Mark quietly for a moment, then turned her attention back to the small child still mutely clinging to her hand.

"What do you think, little guy?" she asked, injecting a heavy dose of manufactured cheer.

"You got a name?" The child stared blankly ahead, not focusing on her or reacting to her words.

"Ahh, shit," she muttered, looking around the room at the huddled knots of refugees.

"This might be above my pay grade. Mark, I'm going to see if I can find anyone who knows the kid."

"Good idea," he agreed.

"I'm going to… Hm." He frowned, taking in the darkened, cramped room that held the gate. The pitiful light from hundreds of half-charged qim did little to illuminate the space, a problem exacerbated by the matte black stone covering every surface. A few flashlight beams made shifting islands of brighter light, letting him easily identify where Arjun and Gusje were standing.

"Yeah, first things first," he said.

"I'm going to figure out where the fuck we are."

"This is obviously the door," Arjun insisted, gesturing at the squarish frame set into the wall. Mark swept his flashlight over it once more and squinted.

"I don't know," he muttered.

"Doesn't look like a door to me. More of a panel."

"There's nothing else that looks door-like on the wall," Arjun said, leaning in close to run his fingers along the seamless frame.

"It's in more or less the right place for a door. We just need to find the latch or lock…" The two men searched around the frame for several minutes, pushing and prodding the blank stone until at last Arjun stepped back with a scowl.

"All right," he said.

"I'll at least concede that this door, which must be a door, is not at all intuitively designed."

"You think?" Mark grunted, rising from where he had crouched down beside it.

"Let's face it, Arjun, we're not getting this thing open. We should step back and look at other options." Arjun made a frustrated noise and began tapping around the base of the frame with his foot.

"If you have any other promising candidates, feel free to try those," he said.

"I walked all around the room. It is approximately fifteen by seventy meters, with the gate at the far end. There are geometric protrusions emerging from the floor by the wall along the long sides, but the wall itself is smooth and unbroken except for one place." He brandished his finger at the offending frame, glaring in annoyance.

"Right here, directly opposite the gate and centered in the room. It has to be the door. We just don't know how to open it."

"I won't even suggest grenades this time, way too many people in here," Mark said.

"Besides, setting off explosives in a sealed box is… not smart." Arjun nodded absently, continuing to pace back and forth in front of the frame. Mark looked back at the refugees restlessly huddled together across the long, narrow space. The shock of the attack was beginning to fade, and being stuck in a lightless enclosure of bare stone was not helping the general morale. The air was becoming stiflingly warm.

Another flashlight beam swept their way as Gusje threaded a path between the knots of Aesvain sitting on the floor. Mark nodded at her as she approached.

"Hey," he said.

"How's Jesse doing?"

"No change," she replied, shaking her head.

"Still breathing, but still asleep. Jackie's looking after him." She tilted her head back toward the gate at the far end of the room.

"Jyte also tasked a few men to stand by him." Mark frowned.

"What for?" he asked.

"He's not in any danger from the refugees, is he?"

"No, actually the opposite," Gusje said soberly.

"He's been doing counts and it seems that we did better than he thought in terms of people and supplies lost. I think he credits most of that to Jesse. I think they all do."

"Huh," Mark said.

"Well, he did do a heck of a number on them. I still think getting struck by lightning at the end was overdoing it." Gusje walked a bit closer and gave Mark a warning look.

"I wouldn't make light of it around the Aesvain," she said.

"They're taking this seriously. Three men were injured fighting for a spot on Jesse's guard detail. It might be wise to avoid talking about it - at least, until they've been exposed to your peculiar sense of humor for a bit longer."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Mark asked, adopting a wounded expression.

"I have a great sense of humor." If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"You're an acquired taste," Gusje said, pushing past him to stand next to Arjun.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Arjun stepped back and made an ill-tempered gesture towards the frame on the wall.

"Go ahead," he said.

"Maybe you'll think of something we haven't. We've tried pushing on the door, the various parts of the frame, the wall beside the frame, we've tried hitting it, kicking it…" Gusje stepped forward as Arjun continued to list off the various and increasingly improbable ways they'd attempted to open the doorway. She touched the smooth stone of the door panel, then placed her palm flat against it. There was a hissing rush of cool, dry air as the panel slid into the wall beside the frame, revealing a hallway beyond.

Mark and Arjun stared at the open door, then exchanged a look.

"I'm sure we tried that," Mark said.

"We definitely touched the door. All over."

"There was no visual marker in the middle of the door," Arjun mused, stepping closer to peer at the recessed edge of the panel.

"It's possible there was a spot we failed to notice."

"And she, what - just happens to touch it the first time?" Mark said.

"Nah, it wasn't where we were touching it. There's either something about Gusje that opened the door, or something about us that keeps it from opening." He shouldered his pack and walked up to the shadowed entrance to the hallway, then turned back to look at Gusje.

"Either way, it looks like you're coming with us." After some back-and-forth with the Aesvain contingent, it was a rather large group that ended up venturing through the door. Mark, Gusje and Arjun were joined by Ajehet's eight-man squad, as well as a rather frayed-looking Tesu. The captured scriptsmith was finding his close confinement with the Aesvain to be stressful, so when Mark had stopped back to discuss the scouting trip he was an enthusiastic volunteer.

Even then Mark's initial inclination had been to leave him behind, but the building they were in appeared to have heavy scriptwork laid into it and Tesu was their foremost authority on the subject despite his allegiances. Mark's opinion of his usefulness dropped sharply when he was unable to offer even a basic explanation for the selective response of the doors.

It had been easy enough to establish that Gusje was the crucial element, as each of the others took a turn attempting to open the next door they encountered with no success. The recalcitrant slab of black stone slid open as easily as the last when Gusje laid her hand on it, however.

"I couldn't even begin to guess," Tesu muttered sheepishly as they walked forward.

"Making a door that opens with a touch, perhaps, but one that knows who is touching it?" He shook his head and looked at the doorframe behind them with a furrowed brow.

"I thought there had to be a mistake when you told me about the first door. I allowed that maybe they might have made a wondrous device for a singularly important purpose. But now, seeing another just like it…" Tesu walked quietly for several seconds, and Mark looked back at him with an arched eyebrow.

"I am forced to consider," the scriptsmith said quietly, "that the best minds in Tinem Sjocel do not meet even the most basic standard of our forebears." His tone was so profoundly defeated that Mark let it pass without offering a rejoinder. They continued on without further experimentation, letting Gusje open the doors as they found them. The air grew chill as they walked. The darkened halls seemed to go on forever, and the hypnotic beat of their footsteps threatened to lull them into a complacent trance.

At once, Ajehet froze and held up a hand. At the end of the corridor there was not inky blackness, but a steady warm light. Someone ahead had hung a string of qim. They advanced slowly, with their lights extinguished. Mark led the group with his rifle at the ready, peeking into a small room stuffed with crates, linens and furs. Two men in plain tunics sat at a small wooden table at the far end of the space, one reading a book and the other nursing a small cup.

At Mark's entry, the reader looked up, startled, and sprang to his feet. A moment later his companion did the same, staring at the newcomers in uncomprehending shock.

"Hey guys," Mark said, raising his hand and smiling at them.

"Sorry to bother you, we just-""How dare you!" thundered the man with the book, recovering from his surprise.

"You debase yourselves. Even Aesvain should know better." Mark blinked, nonplussed, and looked at the suddenly stony expressions of his Aesvain companions.

"Okay, maybe we got off on the wrong foot, here," he muttered.

"The penalty for violating the Sanctum is death," the man with the cup replied, grabbing a long, thin sword from a rack behind him.

"You may have the advantage, but we will not shirk our duty." He began stalking toward the group with his blade raised. Mark raised his rifle and shot the man in the upper thigh, dropping him to the ground. The other stared for only a moment before darting through a side door and disappearing into the darkness beyond. Ajehet gave a short, sharp whistle and took off after him in a blur of motion with three others from his squad at his heels. As their footsteps faded Mark rolled his eyes.

"Seems like your buddy has some different thoughts about duty," he said, walking toward the fallen man. The man shot him a venomous look, gritting his teeth against the pain.

"He knows his purpose," he hissed.

"As do I." His gaze slid past Mark and locked onto Tesu, who was standing back against the wall with a look of abject terror. Disgust spread over the man's face, and he spit on the ground.

"You wear the robes of a scriptsmith," he rasped.

"Why would you do this?"

"Please," Tesu said, his voice wavering.

"We didn't know, we had no way to know…"

"You know the law," the man insisted, blinking heavily.

"You know." He frowned and slumped backwards, his eyes rolling up in his head.

"Ah, shit," Mark said, hurrying closer to the man. The dark stone floor had hidden the expanding pool of blood beneath his body, and as the man's hand slid from his wound Mark saw it pulse weakly from where he had been shot - once, twice, then not at all. Mark stepped back, shaking his head.

"Artery, dammit," he muttered. He let his gaze linger on the man's body for a second, then turned to Tesu.

"All right, you know something," he said.

"Spill. Who are these folks? Where the hell are we?" Tesu's eyes flicked to Mark, then back to the body on the ground.

"From… what he said," Tesu stammered, "We are back in Tinem Sjocel. He is from the garrison abbey at Draatyn Asidram." Mark frowned.

"I've heard that name before," he muttered.

"Tasja mentioned it," Arjun said.

"Some religious order of soldiers, associated with Maja. He said there were more soldiers there than at the royal palace."

"Fucking wonderful," Mark growled.

"We couldn't have popped out anywhere else, huh? Tesu, you know anything about this garrison abbey?"

"We're not-" he began, cutting off as Ajehet jogged back into the room. The scout's right arm was bloody halfway to his elbow, and he flashed them a tight grin.

"He did well," he said cheerfully.

"Made it almost to the exit - almost." The smile faded a bit from his face, and he gave Mark a serious look.

"We found something you should see. This way." Mark glanced at Tesu, who seemed to be inches away from fainting, then shrugged and followed Ajehet out of the room. It was only a short distance before they found the runner's body, eyes staring sightlessly upward as his hands clasped over a bloody wound in his chest. Beyond him they could see the three others that had joined the chase standing near an opened door. A cold draft rushed through from outside. It was bitter and dry, knifing through their clothing.

Gusje stopped to look warily at the crack in the door.

"Damn, that's chilly," Mark muttered.

"Where the hell did we pop out?"

"On top of the sky," Ajehet said.

"Look." They opened the door and found themselves staring out over a pale and starlit mountain ridge. Ice-encrusted snowdrifts huddled in the lee of the rocks around them and sent crystalline streamers of dry powder from the top of a nearby peak. Below them was a calm sea of cloud-tops stretching to the far horizon.

"Huh," Mark said.

"Well, it's a pretty classic place to put a bunch of warrior monks."

"I was trying to say before that we're not in Draatyn Asidram," Tesu said from behind them, shivering with more than the cold.

"The garrison abbey is far down the mountain from here." Mark walked over and clapped him on the shoulder, grinning.

"First good news I've heard all day," he said.

"Where's here, then?" Tesu shook his head solemnly.

"Someplace much worse," he whispered.

"High up in the mountains that catch the clouds, looking down over all Tinem Sjocel. The soul of the land, what they live to protect. The Sanctum." He looked up at Mark with plain fear written on his face.

"The seat of Maja." The wind whistled through the open doorway, and the Aesvain shifted uncomfortably.

"So, what, there's an actual no-shit god somewhere back in there?" Mark asked, jerking his thumb towards the door.

"Is it dangerous?" He paused a moment, looking around, then lowered his voice.

"Can it hear us?" he asked. Tesu shook his head.

"Maja does not leave His inner chambers," Tesu said.

"Those few that have presumed to approach were denounced as unworthy and told to leave lest Maja take offense. Entrance to the Sanctum itself is restricted to a token force of honored guards, which we've, ah, encountered." Mark raised an eyebrow at that, but Tesu continued on with a noticeable quaver in his voice.

"I have no special knowledge of these things, but I believe that Maja will likely not deign to acknowledge us if we maintain a respectful distance and do not intrude on His chambers," he said.

"But when the garrison abbey learns of our arrival… you saw how the two we met reacted. They will see only armed Aesvain intruding on their most sacred ground. They will all march here."

"Of course they will," Mark sighed.

"I suppose they'll send relief for those two we ran into before too long. When nobody comes back down off the mountain they're going to start asking questions."

"Sooner than that, I'm afraid," Tesu said.

"Draatyn Asidram has a special division of scriptsmiths assigned to provide and maintain equipment. They receive the best of anything they ask for. I'm almost certain that we'll find a twinplate in the guards' chamber."

"So they'll be expecting a check-in," Mark groaned.

"Oh, for fuck's sake. I just want one day without impending doom. One day." He turned to walk back inside.

"Come on, let's find this twinplate. With any luck they've left their codebook and schedule lying around." He disappeared back through the doors, followed by Tesu and the Aesvain. Gusje, however, stayed in place. The wind tugged strands of hair out of her plait and drew tears from her eyes that blurred the starry tapestry and the wild, rolling plain of clouds below, but she bore it. Even the cold was thrilling, biting and bone-deep when the wind gusted.

The desert had held nothing like it even on the coldest of mornings.

"It's quite something, isn't it?" Arjun said, moving to stand beside her.

"Come on, let's walk closer to the edge. Whatever is coming our way, we've got at least a few moments to look." The two descended a short, narrow set of stairs that left them on the icebound scree of the mountaintop and walked along the path that led away from the Sanctum. It was a series of cairns and sticks more than a trod path, but passable and free of any treacherous slopes. To their right, the world dropped off into the sea of clouds. Arjun squinted into the wind and whistled low under his breath.

"Look at that," he muttered.

"Gusje, perhaps your eyes are better than mine - do you see that faint light there?" he said, pointing.

"I don't think that's a star." Gusje turned to look, following his outstretched finger. Nearly at the horizon there was a warm, burning light. It fluctuated in a manner that was not quite like the twinkle of the other stars. She bit her lip, trying to remember where she had seen that same pulsing light against the clouds - and nearly choked on a breath of chill mountain air when she remembered.

"The Lighthouse," she said.

"That's Ce Raedhil!" She stared at it the faint light in the distance, remembering the colossal tower that had lit the city with its mere reflection.

"We must be very high up," she muttered.

"I imagine so," Arjun chuckled.

"Even walking around today it's been harder to catch my breath." Gusje frowned, considering his words.

"It gets harder to breathe when you go high up?" she asked.

"I know a few men who claimed to have climbed the cerein, but none of them mentioned that."

"You have to go up a long, long ways before it makes a difference," Arjun said.

"And don't ask me to explain why. I may be better at speaking Ceiqa now, but if it has words for oxygen and atmospheric pressure nobody has mentioned them to me."

"It seems like we're missing a lot of words," Gusje said, nettled.

"Important words, things we should know but don't. Maybe we had them once, long ago." She paused, looking at Arjun's face.

"There it is again," she said.

"Whenever we learn anything about the way people used to live, before the desert turned, you all have this expression like you've seen something terrible. That look you're giving me right now." Arjun nodded, turning back to look at the Sanctum. The building was a dark shadow against the starfield above, but clinging bits of ice and snow gave hints of its shape. The front was a towering edifice, angular and forbidding. It hunched over the snowy tundra as if pondering a judgment upon those who dared trespass within.

Behind it, stretching off until it was lost in the darkness, a buttressed ribbon of stone ran across a mountain saddle until it terminated at the base of a far peak. The edifice was massive, especially considering the remote location, and Arjun considered it for a few moments before turning to Gusje.

"Where we come from, things are very different," he said.

"Closer to how they used to be here, before the evident disaster, although I believe your ancestors were even more advanced. Many of us have written about what might happen if we were to destroy ourselves, or how that might come about. All of us that are here have heard at least a few stories of that sort, but they're just that - stories. None of it is real." He gestured at the looming building and started to make his way back towards it, although his pace wasn't hurried.

Gusje fell into step beside him with a curious look.

"The others may see different things, when we encounter remnants of what you were," Arjun said.

"But I see the end of one of those stories. The death of a people very much like my own. I see the amazing things your ancestors made and what it all amounted to, and I wonder if any of them saw it coming." They walked the rest of the way back to the Sanctum in silence, and even after they had closed the heavy doors against the wind it seemed to Gusje that some of the cold had wandered inside along with them.