Greythorne (Bloodleaf 2)

“I’ve never heard this part of Empyrean canon,” I ventured.

“It’s not,” Edgar replied. “It’s Ursonian canon. He believed that when we die, the part of our makeup that tethers our souls to our physical body takes the shape of a guide to help us through the borderland to the After. He saw it himself once, in his youth, when he almost crossed to the other side.”

“I died once,” I said. “Mostly. I never saw anything like that.”

“Then your quicksilver binds were never fully severed,” Brandt said.

“Quicksilver?” I asked.

“What blood is to your flesh, quicksilver is to your soul,” Harkness replied, “and the divine spark is to your consciousness.”

“We all have two bodies,” Edgar said. “One is material; that is our flesh and blood. The other is subtle, able to traverse the spectral and astral planes. When we live, the two exist together. When we die, we leave our material self behind on the material plane and move on to the next world, our consciousness and soul together as one.”

“What you might call a ghost,” Harkness said. “If you believe in that kind of thing.”

When we came to the bottom of the stairs, we stepped out onto a floor of packed dirt and gravel. Edgar removed a torch from a sconce on the wall and lit it with his candle. The other two priests followed, lighting the low ceilings of the crypt cavern with a flickering orange glow. Along the passages sat small stone boxes, stacked at least four high, each scratched with old runes.

“The Stella Regina was built on a network of catacombs,” Brandt explained. “Ossuaries housing bones from many centuries before writing was developed. But those earliest of ancestors were not without their ways of record keeping. Look.” We moved past a column to a catacomb wall, where several symbols were scratched into the stone. The first I recognized. A wheel, representing time. Then two shapes, each overlapping the other. Beyond that, pictures of animals: birds, bears, crows, cats, foxes, horses, bats . . . They looked like oversize paper-and-plaster heads.

“The Day of Shades,” I said.

“Yes,” Edgar replied. “A celebration of the natural passage of one’s subtle self, comprising the soul and the consciousness, through the borderland and into the beyond on the night when the curtain between the planes is the thinnest. It was a tradition to this area long before Renalt claimed it, and it will likely remain long after Renalt is gone.”

“It’s a wonder the Tribunal never put a stop to it,” I said. “They do so dislike anything that can’t be explained by their Book of Commands.”

“Until recently,” Harkness said, “they had no reason to bother. Just the harmless traditions of backward country folk, too far from the capital to make the effort of eradication worth it. Not when Syric was still so full of sinners to persecute.”

“And now . . .”

“We’ll adapt,” Edgar said reassuringly. “We always do.”

Cesare’s body was resting in an open, central room, around which several smaller alcoves held stone coffins in radiating spokes like a clock. The first recess, at one o’clock, held the most ostentatious sarcophagus, decorated by intricate floral carvings and bearing the likeness of the person held within it. This version was much younger than the statue in the fountain in the plaza above, but even without the lines of age, Urso was immediately recognizable. He was dressed in the simple robes of a monk, but clasped in his stone hands was a sprig of bell-shaped flowers. Sombersweet.

I jumped when Edgar laid a soft hand on my shoulder. “Cesare’s coffin is ready to receive him, but we need your help to move him there.”

“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

The pulley system had laid Cesare’s body onto a litter. The three priests put their torches aside, and each of us took a corner and lifted him onto our shoulders, quietly shuffling to the open casket in the eleventh alcove. Only one stone casket would remain empty after this, the one sitting at the highest point of the circle, number twelve.

“Empyrea keep you, my brother,” Edgar whispered as he unfastened the stretched cloth from the litter’s frame.

“May you find safe crossing across the gray river,” said Brandt.

Harkness murmured, “Ligat sanguinem, sanguinem facere.” Bound by blood, by blood undone. The same words that Simon had used at the making of the bloodcloth. But on Father Harkness’s lips, it sounded more like an invocation than an incantation. I wanted to ask him what he meant by it, but Edgar and Brandt were already lifting the stone lid over the casket, and I felt panic rise up inside me.

“No, don’t!” I cried. “Not yet. Please. I can’t bear the idea of him being trapped in there forever. Just alone and confined in the dark.”

Father Edgar gave me a knowing smile. “Don’t worry, child. He is not going to be trapped in this box. This is just a place to house his material remnants, no different than laying an old cloak away in a drawer.” He nodded to Brandt, and they finished settling the lid over the coffin. And despite Edgar’s reassurances, I still shuddered as Cesare’s face disappeared behind the slab of stone.

12

Edgar made good on his promise to get me to my rendezvous on time, but not by leaving the crypt; instead, he led me through it. The main section, where Cesare was laid to rest, was a hub for many interconnected tunnels branching out in all directions. While the other two priests retired to their cots, Edgar led me down a dry, dusty passage.

The way narrowed as we went and was made even more uncomfortable by the fact that, after a few hundred feet, there were no more neatly arranged ossuary boxes. Rather, the deepest catacombs were lined with layers of bones and stacked skulls.

I tried to keep myself calm in the cramped, dark space by rehearsing Zan’s breathing techniques. One, in. Two, out. Three, in. Four, out. This isn’t the Nothing Dream, I told myself. This isn’t the Nothing Dream.

Thankfully, we ended our march before the tunnel ceiling became too low for me to stand; I didn’t relish the idea of crawling on my hands and knees in the dark, skulls staring at me from either side.