“How many floors are there above this one?” asked Hawk, fighting down a sudden surge of vertigo. He had an irrational and thoroughly unpleasant feeling that at any moment gravity might invert itself again, his feet would leave the floor, and he’d go falling up toward the ceiling. His eye started to glaze over, and he had to look away. Fisher took him unobtrusively by the arm.
“More floors than you can comfortably imagine,” said the Burning Man.
“How long will it take to reach the top?” Fisher asked.
“Who knows?” responded the Burning Man. “No one’s ever climbed all the way to the top before. Apart from the dangers of the climb itself, for this was intended to be a pilgrimage, I feel I should warn you that there are wonders and terrors in my Cathedral—veils and mysteries beyond anything you’ve ever seen or dreamed of.”
“Don’t put money on it,” said Hawk. “We’ve been around, Isobel and me.”
“Right,” agreed Fisher.
“Who goes first?” asked the Seneschal, eyeing the narrow steps uneasily. “Normally I’d lead, but without my power …”
“You can follow me,” said the Burning Man. “No one knows the layout of this place better than I do.”
“And that’s why you’re not going first,” said Lament firmly. “I wouldn’t put it past you to deliberately lead us into danger, just for the fun of watching us fight for our lives. I’ll go first.”
“I don’t think so,” said Hawk. “No offense, Walking Man, but you said yourself you’ve lost most of your powers. If we do run into anything nasty, the man at the front is going to have to bear the brunt of it. You may have lost your powers, but I’ve still got my axe. So I go first.”
“With me right behind you,” said Fisher immediately. “Seneschal, you tuck in behind me.”
“I don’t mind bringing up the rear,” offered the Burning Man.
“I don’t trust you there, either,” said Lament. “Who knows what you might get up to behind our backs? No, you go next, and I’ll bring up the rear. And if you even look like you’re thinking of doing something treacherous, I’ll boot you right off the edge.”
“O ye of little faith,” said the Burning Man. “So much cynicism in a holy man.”
And so they started up the narrow stairway, pressing their right shoulders firmly against the inner wall, to ensure they wouldn’t drift too close to the open edge on their left. The steps were solid marble, pale and perfect, and reminded Hawk uncomfortably of so many teeth jutting from the wall. The steps were spaced just far enough apart to stretch and tire the legs, and Hawk paced himself carefully. There was no telling how many rest stops they’d be able to take. The group moved slowly up the inner wall of the gallery, trying not to look down too often at the increasing scale of the drop below. It sucked at the eye, pulling them away from the wall with almost physical force. Hawk kept his gaze fixed firmly on the steps directly ahead of him, and advised the others to do the same.
The Burning Man walked alone in his own space, a careful distance between the Seneschal in front and Lament behind, because his flames were too hot to tolerate close up. The pain bothered him more when he couldn’t distract himself by talking. Now and again he had to stop and hug himself until he had it under control again and could carry on. He left black, sooty, sticky footprints on the pale steps. Lament watched all this, and was quietly disturbed. More than once he had damned an evil man to burn in Hell for the suffering he’d caused in life, but to see the effects of Hell close up was upsetting. Even after all the Burning Man had done, Lament still felt a little sorry for the man.
They climbed and climbed, like insects crawling up a wall, and the great domed ceiling slowly formed itself out of the distance before them. It was covered in one great painting of a blue sky with clouds, almost unbearably real.
They stopped there for the first real rest. They sat down carefully on the steps, shoulders still pressed to the wall. No one was really out of breath yet, but already they were feeling the strain in their back and leg muscles. They leaned against the wall, trying not to imagine how far there was still to go, or what might be waiting for them once they got there. It was one thing to be brave and heroic and certain down on the floor of the gallery, but it didn’t come quite so easily sitting on a narrow step above a drop you didn’t even like to look at. Hawk let his fear and uncertainty move through him and watched it from a distance, acknowledging it but not letting it get to him. He’d been through this before. A thought struck him out of nowhere, and he looked down at the Burning Man.
“Why did you ring the bell in here?”
“I didn’t.”
“Someone did. Everyone in the Castle heard it.”
“There is no bell,” said the Burning Man. “Only the sound of a bell. It’s a warning. Part of the Cathedral’s original design. It’s there to warn the surrounding countryside of imminent danger. I created the whole warning system, back when I was still a holy man, and a fool. It still rings, despite me.”
“Hold everything,” said Fisher. “How can you have the sound of a bell without the bell to make it?”
“Magic,” said Hawk.
“That just makes my head hurt. Something has to create the sound in the first place, doesn’t it?”
“Think of it as a mental exercise,” said the Seneschal. “Like the sound of one hand clapping. One of those religious riddles with no obvious answer.”
“Exactly,” said the Burning Man, looking back at Lament. “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin, holy man?”
Lament smiled. “Depends on the tune.”
The Burning Man sniffed, and then beat his blazing hand against the wall as though trying to distract one pain with another. “I built a lot into this Cathedral. Most of it’s been forgotten over the centuries. What it can do, as well as what it contains. No one remembers now, all the many innocent people impressed by force to build it, all the materials requisitioned from unwilling owners, all the peasants put off their land so the Cathedral could be built in the most propitious spot.”
“More lies,” said Lament, unmoved. “It was never like that. I’ve read old reports in church libraries. People traveled for miles just to be a part of such a marvelous project. No one was ever forced, and all materials were freely given, for the greater glory of God. Everyone knew good could not come from evil beginnings. This was to be a place of joy and celebration, and no stain of any kind could be allowed on its construction.”
The Burning Man laughed softly. “All right, so maybe I exaggerated. You’re so easy to manipulate sometimes. But you shouldn’t believe everything you read in a church library. History is always written by the winners.”
“Keep your petty nature to yourself,” said Lament. “We are here to put things right at long last, and nothing will stop us now.”
“Never say things like that,” warned Fisher. “It’s when you start getting all confident and cocky that everything suddenly goes pear-shaped, and nasties start jumping out of the woodwork at you. Usually with bloody big teeth.”
“You understand nothing of what’s happening here,” said the Burning Man spitefully. “You’re here because the Transient Beings want you here to open the Gateway. You’re just pawns in a larger game.”
“Why would they need us?” asked Hawk. “I thought you said they’d soon be powerful enough to force the Gateway open from their side.”
“They’re impatient,” said the Burning Man. “They can feel their time coming round at last.”
Fisher stirred unhappily, hefting her sword in her hand. “I’d almost feet happier if we actually had something physical to fight. This place wears you down, like fingernails scraping over your soul.”
“It would be something of a relief,” said Hawk. “To have something to strike back at. But I think the threats here are more spiritual in nature. We have to concentrate on who we are, and what we believe in.”
“What do we believe in?” asked Fisher slowly. “I mean, after everything we’
ve seen, everything we’ve been through, all the different people we had to be at different times, what is there left to believe in?”
Hawk looked at her and smiled. “We believe in each other.”
“Yes,” agreed Fisher, smiling back at him. “There is always that.”
“Their legendary love,” said the Seneschal, so softly no one else heard him.
Hawk looked cautiously down at the long stretch of steps they’d climbed, and then up at the long trail of steps still to go, and remembered another set of steps, from years ago. He’d been much younger then, a second son that nobody wanted, determined to prove his worth by climbing Dragonslair Mountain, to kill the dragon in its cave at the summit. He’d expected to die facing the dragon, but the climb alone almost killed him. The ascent was brutally hard, and the weather punishingly harsh, and the last part of the mountain had to be climbed by hand, over treacherous loose rocks and shifting scree. He could have turned back many times, but he didn’t. And when he finally reached the cave at the very top, he found a friend in the dragon, and a love in the dragon’s captive, the Princess Julia.
He smiled, remembering. Every now and again he got something right.
They started climbing again. Back and leg muscles ached viciously, and finally screamed in protest, but still they all pressed on. Hawk slowed his pace even more, but it didn’t help. Time seemed to pass at a crawl. Their heads hung down, and they were too tired even to look down at the increasing drop. They finally reached the wide, gently sloping dome of the ceiling, and passed through the single trapdoor in the painted blue sky, climbing through into the next floor. There were more steps along the inner wall. And more floors above that one. They trudged on, trying hard to think only of the steps immediately ahead of them.
There were wondrous works of art everywhere now, magnificent and glorious, unseen by mortal eyes for untold centuries, all of them stained and disfigured with the blood of the slaughtered innocents. The Burning Man’s treachery had put his mark on all the Cathedral, and he laughed to see it.
They’d just reached the ninth floor when Lament suddenly called a halt. Of them all, the Walking Man had felt the strain of the climb the least, and since it was the first time he’d called for a pause, everyone stopped and looked at him. He didn’t seem tired, or even out of breath. Instead, he was staring thoughtfully at a simple, ordinary-looking door set directly into the wall they were passing. Lament reached out to touch the door, and let his fingers trail lightly across the pale brown wood.
“What lies beyond this door, murderer?”
“Treasures and horrors,” said the Burning Man easily. “Dreams and nightmares in physical form, long lost to the world of men. Many precious things were brought and stored here, to add to the splendor of the world’s greatest Cathedral. You can take a look if you like. None of these doors are locked. But remember, here you open doors at your soul’s risk.”
“Oh, shut up,” snapped Fisher. “Why can’t you talk like normal people?”
“I don’t think we really have the time to go treasure hunting,” said the Seneschal testily, mopping sweat from his face with his sleeve. “Maybe on the way back …”
“There is a wonder that’s supposed to be here,” said Lament. “A glory from the life of Christ.”
“Oh, that,” said the Burning Man. “If it’s reliquaries you’re after, you’ve come to the right place. Beyond that door lies the Ossuary, the Museum of Bone. We were brought all kinds of religious shit while we were building the Cathedral, so I had it all put in here on display. Take a closer look at the door, Walking Man.”
Lament leaned in closer, until his nose was almost touching the pale brown door. His keen eyes slowly made out a fine network of interlocking lines or cracks, as though the whole door was one great jigsaw puzzle. He scowled thoughtfully as he tried to make out the patterns. It was all fitted so perfectly together. Then, finally, he recognized the shapes that made up the door, and he jerked his head back in shock and outrage. He spun around dangerously fast on the narrow step and glared at the Burning Man.
“What have you done, abomination? This is bone! Human bones! The whole door is constructed from human bones!”
“So it is,” said the Burning Man. “Why else do you think it’s called a Museum of Bones? Go in, go in. You haven’t seen anything yet.”
The door opened easily at Lament’s touch, and he went in. The others followed him in, giving the Burning Man plenty of room, as always. The long narrow room leading off from the door was composed entirely of human bones. No pains had been taken inside the room to conceal its nature. Arm and leg bones had been forced together to form the walls, with fingerbones packed in to fill the occasional spaces. The ceiling was a sky of skulls, gazing down with empty eyes at their first visitors in centuries. Two rows of commonplace glass display cases stretched away down the room, holding assorted objects within. At the very end of the Ossuary stood a blasphemous bone altar, with grasping hands for candleholders and a skull for a drinking vessel. The very floor rose and fell beneath their feet in waves of closely packed ribs.
“Where did you get so many bones?” asked Hawk, his voice hushed, not sure whether he was in a chapel or a graveyard.
“It wasn’t easy,” admitted the Burning Man. The bones under his feet blackened slowly from the heat. “I tracked down the burial grounds of every saint and holy man in the Forest Kingdom, every priest and hermit and religious nut, and had them all dug up so that their bones could be brought here to increase the Castle’s sanctity. The bones of saints have always been venerated, things of worship for the common herd. I just extended the concept. In the end, there were so many bones, I felt I ought to do something useful with them, so I had them made into this Ossuary. Isn’t it splendid? So much beauty that was only wasted in the cold earth.”
“How many?” asked Lament softly. “How many people did you drag from their graves, and from their rest?”
“Oh hell, I don’t know,” said the Burning Man. “I lost track after a while. My attitude then was, you can’t have enough sanctity. I had a lot of people working under me, locating the bodies, checking for frauds, paying off the right people so the holy corpses could be disinterred and brought here. Some of the people who did that for me are still here, down in the gallery with all the other sacrificed souls. Do you feel the same about them now you know what they did?”
“This is sacrilege!” said Lament.
“Nonsense. The church has always collected holy relics, so they could show them off to the faithful, for a small fee, as physical proof that what they were teaching was true. I thought you’d be more sophisticated than that, Walking Man. Bones are just bones.”
“They’ll all have to be returned,” said Lament. “So that the families of the desecrated dead can at last be comforted. You never gave a thought about the distress your grave-robbing would cause to the families of the holy men, did you? No, of course not. What was a little human suffering, compared to the glory of your Cathedral?”
“You see?” said the Burning Man. “You’re beginning to understand. But these bones aren’t going anywhere. What I did to them here can’t be easily undone.”
“I will see them all put at rest,” said Lament. “Whatever it takes.”
The Burning Man grinned. “Oh, I love it when you talk like that. Hell loves nothing more than to see a good man fail to keep his word.”
Lament ignored him, studying the ranks of display cases suspiciously. “What have you got here? More horrors, or the wonder you promised?”
“Depends on your definition,” said the Burning Man, leaning casually against a wall. The bones blackened and cracked under the heat of his flames. “What kind of wonder did you have in mind?”
“Well, the Grail,” said Lament, and then stopped as the Burning Man laughed again.
“Oh dear, are you still looking for that? And all the other religious paraphernalia? Rubbish, rather than relics. Most of it’s fake, anyway. If all the supposed splinter
s from the True Cross displayed in churches were ever assembled in one place, you’d have enough wood to build a new Ark. Junk is junk. But there are a few genuine wonders here you might like to see. One of the Transient Beings, The Engineer, passed through here briefly, and was much taken with my collection. He paused awhile to manufacture killing tools from the bones of saints. The holiest of bones to make the deadliest of swords. The ultimate perversion, the most delicious blasphemy. The Engineer only made six of these blades, but they went on to become very famous, over the centuries. You know them as the Infernal Devices.
“The Engineer took three with him when he left. They ended up in the Armory of the Forest Kingdom. Three swords remained here, waiting patiently for someone to come and put them to use. What do you think? Do you dare awaken them and take them for yourselves? You’re going to need powerful weapons when the time comes to face the powers and dominations beyond the Gateway.”
He gestured with a flame-wrapped hand, and as though a curtain had been swept from their gaze, the others suddenly saw the three Infernal Devices standing together in their own little alcove in the bone wall. Three great long-swords, in chased silver scabbards. Fully seven feet tall, and six inches wide at the crosspiece, their foot-long hilts were bound with dark leather. There was nothing graceful or elegant about them. They were killing tools, designed for butchery and slaughter and the ruining of lives. And yet still, somehow, there was a dark glamour to the swords; something that called to the darkest places in a man’s soul and promised satisfaction for his most private, bloody dreams. The Seneschal was already moving toward them when Hawk grabbed him firmly by the arm.
Beyond the Blue Moon (Forest Kingdom Novels) Page 43