Scar Night Page 0,32

lectern. Next to him, three others sat on high-backed chairs facing the aperture of the pit. There was Adjunct Crumb, sitting closest to the Presbyter, Rachel Hael beside him, and a young man who must be her brother.

Deepgate’s new aeronaut commander?

The fourth chair was empty.

They expected someone else. But who would ignore a summons from the temple?

In front of the group lay a body wrapped in silk printed with a hundred blessings. Dill’s gaze lingered on the shroud for a moment before he remembered his duty and climbed up beside the soulcage to help the guard hook it up.

Iron rattled and scraped as the guard dragged the loose chain over the floor. He passed the hook up to Dill, who attached it to the top of the cage, then clambered down to unhitch the horses. The mares trotted back into the corridor on their own, and he hurried to close the doors behind them.

Click.

The temple guard had by now unlocked the winch. He cranked the handle, drawing in the slack. The Presbyter, Adjunct, and guests looked on silently as, slowly, the chain grew taut and, inch by inch, the soulcage began to rise, wheels and all.

“Frailer specimen than Gaine.” Mark’s whisper was strikingly loud in the still of the Sanctum. The commander had leant closer to his sister, looking at Dill out of the corner of his eye. Rachel Hael did not reply, just sat there, staring ahead. The brother slumped back in his chair, nonplussed.

Mark Hael was just as lean as his sister, but there the similarity ended. Deepgate’s aeronaut commander lounged in his chair, arms dangling, an expression of boredom on his deeply tanned face. Rachel looked corpse-pale by comparison. She sat primly upright, dressed in the same grubby leathers she had worn earlier.

Presbyter Sypes was propped against the lectern as though it was all that kept him standing, his sunken eyes fixed on the aperture below. Adjunct Crumb sparkled beside him like a heap of treasure, hands folded neatly in his lap, his whole head scrubbed and pink as a perfume pot. He caught Dill’s eye and gave him an oily wink.

The soulcage swung out over the open abyss and the guard paused to rest, flushed and panting.

Everyone waited.

For a long time, Presbyter Sypes stared down into the void below the soulcage while Rachel, her brother, and Adjunct Crumb all appeared to be deep in their own thoughts. A breeze stirred the air. Candles flickered. Shadows swayed like wind-blown branches over the floor. Minutes passed. Sypes’s eyelids drooped.

Adjunct Crumb suddenly cleared his throat. The Presbyter’s eyes flicked open. He sniffed the air, frowned, then muttered something Dill didn’t catch.

The Adjunct grimaced.

Presbyter Sypes seemed to remember where he was, and nodded to the guard, who began to lower the cage through the aperture into the waiting abyss. Once it was out of sight, the guard locked the winch, and Dill heard a murmur like cogs whirring in a clock.

“Death,” the Presbyter announced, “is always close. Death is the pause between each breath, the space between each heartbeat.” He lowered his head. “When Ayen sealed the doors to Heaven, she damned us all to Hell. Ghosts of good men abandoned, for ever destined to walk Iril’s corridors among the wicked…”

Dill wiped bone-dust from his sword hilt. A fine weapon; solid and heavy—a sword worthy of a temple archon. And he would grow accustomed, he supposed, to its weight.

“…endless corridors, waist-deep in blood where purulent demons and wraiths, lunatics, murderers, foulest bastards, blasphemers, and whores are damned to wander lost for all eternity…”

Flecks of gold leaf had come away from the curved hand guard. Dill ran a finger over its polished surface. Gold-leafed lead or not, old swords were definitely superior to new swords.

“…but Ayen’s spite strengthened the Maze. Nourished with souls over which it had no claim, Iril grew sentient, cunning…”

Ancient weapons had a presence, a personality, and steel could be sharpened.

“…even now trying to find ways into this world. Had her eldest son, Ulcis, not sought to depose her…”

Dill would ask the priests to sharpen the blade for him. Now that he was actively in temple service, they would have to listen to him.

“…a hundred years of war in Heaven. Only to be cast out, his shattered legion of angels fallen…and imprisoned in the abyss beneath our temple…”

The weapon’s guard could be replaced too, restored to battle-readiness. Deepgate’s smiths would probably want to emblazon it with a suitable design: something in the spirit of the Ninety-Nine—

“…Ulcis offered salvation