Perhaps Joel just wanted to find that Nalizar was doing something nefarious.
Father Stewart stopped talking. Joel blinked, realizing he hadn’t been paying attention. He looked up, and Father Stewart nodded, his thin white beard shaking. He gestured toward the chamber of inception behind the altar.
Joel stood up. Fitch, his mother, and Melody sat alone on the pews—the regular inception ceremony for the eight-year-olds wouldn’t come for another hour yet. The broad, vast cathedral hall sparkled with the light of stained glass windows and delicate murals.
Joel walked quietly around the altar toward the boxy chamber. The door was set with a six-point circle. Joel regarded it, then fished the coin out of his pocket and held it up.
The main gear moving inside had six teeth. The center of each tooth corresponded to the location of one of the six points. The smaller gear to the right had only four teeth. The one to the left, nine teeth, spaced unevenly. The three clicked together in a pattern, one that had to be perfectly attuned to work with the irregular nine-tooth gear.
Huh, Joel thought, tucking the coin in his pocket. Then he pushed open the door.
Inside, he found a white marble room containing a cushion for kneeling and a small altar made from a marble block, topped by a cushion to rest his elbows on. There didn’t seem to be anything else in the room—though a springwork lantern shone quite brightly from above, mounted in a crystalline casing so that it cast sparkling light on the walls.
Joel stood, waiting, heart thumping. Nothing happened. Hesitantly, he knelt down, but didn’t know what to say.
That was another piece in this whole puzzle. Was there really a Master up in heaven? People like Mary Rowlandson—the colonist he’d read about the night before—believed in God.
The wild chalklings hadn’t killed her. They’d kept her prisoner, always stopping her from fleeing. Nobody knew their motives for such an act.
She’d eventually escaped, partially due to the efforts of her husband and some other colonial men. Had her survival been directed by the Master, or had it been simple luck? What did Joel believe?
“I don’t know what to say,” Joel said. “I figure that if you are there, you’ll be angry if I claim to believe when I don’t. The truth is, I’m not sure I don’t believe, either. You might be there. I hope you are, I guess.
“Either way, I do want to be a Rithmatist. Even with all of the problems it will cause. I … I need the power to fight them. I don’t want to run again.
“I’ll be a good Rithmatist. I know the defenses better than almost anyone else on campus. I’ll defend the Isles at Nebrask. I will serve. Just let me be a Rithmatist.”
Nothing happened. Joel stood. Most people went in and came out quickly, so he figured that there was no point in waiting around. Either he’d be able to draw the lines when he left, or he wouldn’t.
He turned to leave.
Something stood in the room behind him.
He jumped, stumbling back, almost falling over the small altar. The thing behind him was a brilliant white. It stood as high as Joel did, and was in the shape of a man—but a very thin one, with spindly arms and only a curved line for a head. It held what appeared to be a crude bow in one hand.
The thing looked as if it had been drawn, but it didn’t stick to the walls or floors like a chalkling. Its form was primitive, like the ancient drawings one might find on the side of a cliff.
Suddenly, Joel remembered the story he’d read from before, the tale of the explorer who had found a canyon where the drawings danced.
It didn’t move. Joel hesitantly leaned to the side and could see that the thing almost disappeared when looked at from that angle.
Joel leaned back to look at it from the front. What would it do? He took a hesitant step forward, reaching out. He paused, then touched the thing.
It shook violently, then fell to the ground, pasting itself to the floor like a chalk drawing. Joel stumbled back as the thing shot away underneath the altar.
Joel dropped to his knees, noticing a slit at the base of the altar. There was darkness beyond.
“No,” Joel whispered, reaching out. “Please. Come back!”
He knelt there for the better part of an hour. A knock finally came at the far door.