The Stone of the Stars

by Alison Baird

  Damion headed for the chapel.

  HE SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT of this before. How many tales had he heard of the Paladins’ Door, the secret passageway that led to the warren of tunnels beneath the castle? Designed to shelter the inhabitants in times of siege, they were later used by persecuted knights as a refuge from the Inquisition. Damion and the other orphan boys had spent long hours searching for the hidden door in the gloomy vaulted cellars of the Academy: they were certain the monks knew where it lay but would not tell them, for fear they would get lost in the maze of tunnels. They became convinced that it was in the chapel crypt, for this was the one place where they were not allowed to go. Now that he was an ordained priest Damion could enter it whenever he pleased, but he had forgotten his boyhood dreams—until this moment. There were no such things as ghosts; there was no other exit from the crypt; therefore, there must be a hidden door in here somewhere. Damion ran his hands over the stark gray walls of the crypt, pressing every stone that he could reach. He felt foolish, but also determined to find the answer to the mystery.

  Even so, he was surprised when one stone in the north wall gave way at his touch.

  A gritty, grinding noise came from the wall, and Damion felt a section of it shift beneath his hands. He leaped back, thinking for a confused instant that he had upset some delicate balance and the whole wall was about to cave in on him. In the next moment, he found himself staring at a black gap, man-high, from which breathed a musty smell.

  For a brief, exhilarating moment he was a boy again. I was right! he exulted. It is the Paladins’ Door. The old rumor was true! This is where our “ghost” went—through the tunnel, and down to the catacombs!

  Damion hesitated before the opening. It was pitch-dark inside, and there was something sinister about its appearance. But his curiosity was piqued. Through this dark door hundreds of Paladins had passed, vanishing from history, from the world that persecuted their kind. Had they left any traces of their presence in the silent passages below? He picked up his lantern and approached the entrance. The tunnel was large enough to walk in, though he would have to stoop a little. Fascinated, he entered, and followed where the Paladins had gone before.

  The tunnel sloped downward, twisting and turning, for a considerable distance. But of course it would: the castle’s inhabitants had wanted to feel completely safe from attacking armies. After he had walked for about three minutes it began to level off, and he emerged into a large echoing space that his lantern could not entirely illuminate. Swinging it to and fro, he saw what seemed to be a labyrinth of stone passageways, walls and barrel-vaulted ceilings of rough gray masonry, crude archways opening onto bleak, empty chambers. He advanced, holding the lantern high. Before its light the shadows retreated, flinching back into archways and tunnel mouths as he approached, stealing out again behind him. To his left he glimpsed a long arcade, with a low wall of stone beyond. He lifted his lantern over the parapet, and saw light spring up from below. It was his lantern’s reflection, with his face beside it staring up at him. An expanse of water lay there, black and stone-still beneath the vaulted ceiling. Large cisterns like these would have been needed to sustain the people during sieges; later in time, the hiding Paladins would have depended on them too.

  Turning to examine a nearby wall, he saw with rising excitement that it was scratched and scrawled with writing—brief messages in Elensi, from these fugitive people of centuries past, to all who might come after. He leaned close, studying the scribbled phrases.

  Then he heard the singing.

  High and pure and remote as a star, a woman’s soprano voice pierced the silence of the catacombs, singing what sounded like a hymn. The sound echoed through the vaults and shadowy spaces, so that he could not tell from which direction it came.

  Beast and being, star and spirit,

  Circling ever in a trance,

  Know ye not ye tread the measure

  Of the universal dance?

  To its strains celestial moving,

  Every dancer, small or great,

  Passes into light, or shadow;

  Makes its choice, and binds its fate.

  Other voices—high and deep, rough and clear—joined in at the final verse, until the catacombs rang with the sound. Damion felt the hairs on the back of his neck rising. They might have been voices of ghosts, of refugees who had fled to this dark warren centuries ago.

  Light or dark shall own the victory

  When the ageless music dies,

  And the tally of our choosing

  Shall decide which way it lies.

  So the sphere of starry Heaven

  Spins upon this thread of chance:

  On the choice of every creature

  Hangs the doom of all the Dance.

  “Who is it?” he burst out, without thinking. “Who’s there?”

  There was a sudden silence in the maze of catacombs. As he stood there wondering whether it might not be wiser to make a break for it, the searching beams of lanterns appeared up ahead of him, reaching long fingers of light through archways and tunnels. Figures sprang forth, black shadows against the light: all approaching him. And then behind them a fair, slender figure, crowned with light, stepped into view.

  She was dressed in the traditional garb of the Festival Queen, or Princess: a white robelike gown and a gilded circlet upon her head into which six lit tapers were set. The flickering candle-flames illuminated her face: recognizing it, he cried out in disbelief.

  “Lorelyn! What are you doing down here?”

  “Father Damion!” she exclaimed. She rushed toward him, her crown of candles tilting precariously. “I didn’t know you’d be here too! They never told me—”

  But before she could reach him a burly man strode out of the shadows to one side and confronted Damion. “Who’re you, and what are you doing here?”

  “I might ask you the same question!” Damion retorted.

  From behind the man an elderly woman hastened toward him, her cane clicking on the stone floor. “Father Damion!” she exclaimed. “There, Brais, it’s all right, he’s a friend. I’m so glad to see you, Damion. I do hope this means you’ve decided to join us.” She turned to Lorelyn. “Put out your candles, dear, before you have an accident.”

  It was old Ana. Was this her Nemerei coven, then? His first, absurd impression—that these must be descendants of the original Nemerei, still dwelling in the catacombs that had sheltered their ancestors—quickly faded as he swept a glance over the group assembled before him. Most of them looked like common folk, farmers and people from the villages and city. He even recognized one face—Ralf, a village idiot from one of the mountain hamlets, waving his crooked arms and moaning. Ana turned toward him and appeared to listen carefully to his wordless utterances. “Yes, that’s right,” she said, for all the world as though she understood him. “It was he who found the scroll.” She turned back to Damion.

  “What are you all doing down here?” he demanded.

  “Discussing our plans. We are the Conspiracy against the reign of Valdur,” Ana answered. “The Nemerei, the prophets and servants of the Light.”

  “How did you get into these tunnels? It can’t have been through the chapel.”

  “There are other entrances, well-hidden ones quite far from here,” Ana explained. “The designers of these tunnels intended that the castle’s residents should be able to escape a besieging army by traveling for some distance underground before coming up to the surface again.”

  Damion turned to Lorelyn, who had removed her gilded headgear and was blowing out its candles. “Lorelyn, why are you here?”

  Before the girl could reply Ana broke in: “Damion, why don’t you come apart with me and I’ll explain everything?” She turned to Lorelyn. “You had best go back to the chapel now, my dear, and wait for the Academy procession to begin. Janina“—she spoke to one of the younger women—“show her the way back, will you? And take a couple of the men with you, just to be safe.”

  “I don’t un
derstand, Ana,” said Damion when the girls and their escort had left. “What is going on here?”

  “These are my friends, the other Nemerei I told you of back on Selenna. We are celebrating Trynalia—it’s a Nemerei festival too, you know.”

  “But why down here?”

  “Because it is safer, naturally.”

  Damion scanned the group, looking for a figure tall enough to have been the robed thief in the chapel. “Which one of you played at being the ghost prince?” he demanded accusingly.

  A murmur arose among the people in the corridor and then died away again.

  “I think I know the person you mean,” said Ana at length. “He has been using the catacombs, but he is not one of our number.”

  “But he must be. Wasn’t it he who took the scroll for you? I saw him, in the chapel—”

  “The scroll? No, we have had the scroll in our keeping since late autumn,” Ana told him.

  Damion stared at her, and she smiled. “Come with me, Damion.”

  Stay calm, Damion counseled himself, she and her friends may be insane but that doesn’t mean they’re dangerous. He followed the old woman, and she led him down one of the side tunnels. They passed through a low doorway at its end into a large rectangular chamber. It was full of wooden chairs and benches, and at its far end a wooden table was set up like a crude altar, with a guttering votive candle at each end. Between them lay the parchment scroll.

  And before it, head bowed as if in prayer, stood a short stooped figure in the gray robe of a monk. The figure turned toward them as they entered, and Damion saw framed within its cowl the face of Prior Vale.

  THERE WAS A LONG SILENCE. Damion started forward, then stopped again. He could not seem to find his voice, and behind him Ana just stood quietly, letting the two men confront each other.

  At last the prior gave a cough. “Ahh, Brother Damion,” he said. “This is a surprise. I didn’t know they’d let you in too. Who sent you?”

  “Sent me? I don’t understand,” the young priest rasped. “What is happening here, Prior?”

  The monk glanced from him to Ana and back again. “The abbot didn’t tell you, then? He didn’t send you here?”

  The abbot! Damion thought. “Why would he? Prior Vale, what are you doing here?”

  “Observing the Nemerei ritual. Our brotherhood has been doing this for years now—centuries,” the prior explained, approaching him.

  Damion continued to stare. “No one ever told me about any of this!” he burst out.

  “Well, you see, the location of the Paladins’ Door and the catacombs is a very old secret,” the monk replied. “The original monks of Saint Athariel swore a sacred vow to protect the Nemerei from the Inquisitors during the Interregnum. Only a few of the most senior monks are allowed to know where the door is—that is part of the vow.”

  “But Prior—they’re witches!”

  “We’ve never called them that. The Faith and the Nemerei teachings aren’t so very different. We believe in many of the same things.” But the prior looked uneasy as he spoke, as though not quite convinced by his own words.

  Damion swept his gaze about the candlelit chamber. The walls were carved with bas-relief designs in the shapes of people, birds and beasts, stars—Elei work, from its delicate intricacy. He was reminded of the carving on the ark of the scroll. The human figures had the perfect—some said idealized—beauty that characterized all Elei sculpture. On the wall behind the table was carved an Elvoron, that most ancient of Elei symbols: it depicted the Elmir bird and the Vormir serpent, each biting the tail of the other, their curved bodies joined to form a circle. Elmir—light, order, spirit, and Vormir—dark, chaos, matter. Together they were a whole, their seeming strife no more than the competing stresses in a stone temple that create stability through counterbalance. Beside them was a female figure: the Queen of Heaven—or possibly her daughter, the Tryna Lia—with the sun and stars above her and an upturned crescent moon beneath her feet.

  Ana spoke from the doorway. “I think some of the monks are a bit dubious about the whole business nowadays,” she added, watching the prior’s face, “but of course it’s impossible for them to break a sacred vow made by their predecessors.”

  “There—you see?” The monk spread his hands helplessly. “Abbot Hill agrees, and he is head of our order. I cannot disobey him.”

  “Which of the Brothers took the scroll from the sanctum?” Damion pursued, remembering the robed figure.

  “Oh, the abbot gave the Nemerei the scroll to guard back in autumn, after your two intruders came to the library,” Prior Vale explained. He gestured to the roll of parchment. “Some of the Patriarchs tried to make out that it was a heretical document, too, and wanted it destroyed. So we couldn’t leave it where it was. At first we were going to pretend that we had destroyed it. But as it happened there was no need for us to lie, because no one noticed it was gone. Until that night when you opened the ark—but you assumed that fellow masquerading as the ghost had stolen it. The abbot decided to let you and Lorelyn spread the story. It gave us an explanation for the scroll’s absence, should anyone come looking for it.” He gave a little cough, and fell silent.

  “Look here,” the young priest said, anger rising in him, “you know this is wrong, Prior. That vow of yours has ended up tangling you in a web of lies! And you still know more than you’re telling me, that’s plain. Who was that man in the monk’s robe, and what was he doing? He obviously knows about the catacombs. Ana says he’s not one of her crowd, but—”

  “He isn’t.” Ana shook her head. “He is on no one’s side but his own.”

  She offered no further explanation, and Damion appealed again to the prior. “How can you, a man in holy orders, have anything to do with a secret cult like this? There have been terrible things happening in the countryside—crimes the villagers say are witches’ work—”

  “That is nothing to do with us,” said Ana calmly.

  “Well, why don’t you just practice this—this religion openly, if it’s so innocent? The Interregnum is long over. There’s no danger now.”

  “Isn’t there?” Ana interjected. “We don’t wish to be secretive, Father Damion, but the fact is there are still many who would disapprove were we to practice our rites by the light of day.”

  “All the same, you’ve got to tell the Patriarchs about this, Prior.”

  “And break our solemn vow?” exclaimed the Prior. “I’m sorry, Damion, but the abbot won’t allow it. He will swear you to silence as well.”

  “But—”

  “You must settle this later, gentlemen,” Ana interjected firmly. “We have other matters to discuss tonight.”

  “Such as?” Damion demanded.

  “The signs that are now appearing—the signs that mean the prophecy has begun to unfold. The sun has hidden her face at noon, and those who have the gift have begun to prophesy and have visions. Before long a new star will appear in the sky, shining even by day.”

  “You believe the Apocalypse is near,” Damion said, recognizing the signs from the scroll. He threw a sidelong glance at the prior. Many a sect throughout history had come to believe that the last battle was at hand, and been left looking foolish when nothing happened. “So that’s why you wanted the scroll. But why is Lorelyn here? How did she learn about this, if it’s so secret?”

  The prior looked even more uncomfortable. “I—” he began, fumbling for words.

  “We asked to see her,” Ana said. “And the prior brought her here. He did not tell her the real reason until they were in the Chapel of the Paladins.”

  Damion turned on Prior Vale, incredulous. “You lied to Lorelyn?”

  Vale’s face flushed. “It wasn’t lying exactly,” he replied. “The abbot—”

  “The abbot asked the nuns to choose Lorelyn to lead the Procession of Light through the chapel this evening,” Ana intervened. “Naturally she assumed she was going to receive some final instruction before the event: it was not necessary for the g
ood prior to lie.”

  “What do you want with her?” Damion demanded.

  “She is a Nemerei, like us. A very powerful one, gifted from an early age. The ‘voices’ she claims to hear are the mental voices of other Nemerei, communing mind to mind. She needs to be trained to use her gift properly. And she may prove to be central to our plans. Come, sit down and I will explain it all to you both.”

  Ana turned and gestured toward the doorway: Damion saw Ralf and Brais standing there, with many more figures behind them. At her signal they filed into the chamber in silence and seated themselves on the chairs and benches. Vale followed suit. Damion stood for a moment, his hands clenched tightly at his sides. Then he took a seat beside the prior.

  Ana went and stood in front of the table-altar. “My dear friends, and brethren of Saint Athariel,” she said, changing to a more formal tone of voice, “the time has come for us to discuss our plans. The day that we have long awaited draws near. First I must decipher the visions some of you have seen.”

  “You mean the palace?” called a woman’s wondering voice from the back of the room. “The one with the walls of white marble, and towers—”

  “I saw it, I had that dream too!” a man exclaimed excitedly. “The palace stood on a hill, in a place where there were mountains—I saw a lady standing before it in a blue cloak, with a little child in her arms.”

  Damion tried to speak, but could only manage a small strangled sound.

  “My dream was different,” said another woman. “I saw a lady sitting in a chair, rocking her child in her arms. In my dream it was still a tiny babe—such a beautiful child, with great eyes as blue as its mother’s, blue as the sky.”

  More voices were raised, and Ana lifted her hand to calm the gathering.

  “How can this be possible? How can we all have had the same dreams?” demanded Brais.

  “Because they were not dreams, my friend,” she answered. “They were visions. To some the gift of the Second Sight is given, and at this time all those with that gift will have glimpses of what has been, and of what is yet to come. I realize that some of you here tonight are new to our circle, and I will try to explain all I can.