An awful mix of terror and finality settled like lead in Atticus’s stomach. He could not regret his choices now. He could not dither, could not back down or bow. He could only see to the end of his promise, even if it meant not living to witness the fallout.
Squaring his shoulders against the cries of grief sounding from behind the Protectorate’s barricade, Atticus hurried down the stairway. He felt the grinding of old stone under his feet, heard a dry and hoarse breeze whistle about him. Then the floorboards that had once concealed the entryway again rippled closed, enveloping him in a darkness thicker than any he had ever known.
The blackness was suffocating, stifling. He stumbled down the first few stairs clumsily with his hands stretched out on either side, only for the walls to disappear and then reappear with wearisome irregularity. He envied the fire-wielding scholar he’d seen moments before. Historians had compiled theories as to why some mystics were more attuned to the elements than others, some claiming that it was a product of their birthplace or lineage, but none had found an answer.
Atticus shoved aside that mystery. It only reminded him of the hundred, thethousand, others he hadn’t the time to unravel. Why could he levitate on runes but not manipulate the wind? What other mystical shortcuts could have he created? What did the enemy want? Why had they come for the Orphic Basilica?
The question was irrelevant. They had breached sacred grounds. They had made possible the eradication of millions of books, the expurgation of uncounted years of knowledge passed down from smooth and calloused hands alike and by word of mouth. They had launched upon the scholars first, though, not the books. And although Atticus knew it was immoral of him to think it, he could not quell the relief that swelled within him at the thought of those people as the intended target.
Hate me, scorn me, Atticus thought at them, the dying and the dead,but without books, without stories, we will be stranded, forgotten in a world unknown.He was comforted by the reminder that, at least, Maude was following through on her promise to keep the heart of the academic community beating.
After what seemed like hours of hurtling down the stairs, puzzled by the dizzying configuration of the library’s subterranean tunnel network, Atticus spotted the scholars at the foot of the staircase, beyond which stretched a corridor built of ancient but well-preserved cobblestone. He counted the throng at perhaps two or three hundred people, excluding some stragglers jammed into the narrow exit of the corridor at the back. It was not an impressive number by any means, certainly not enough to prevent a siege, but Atticus was relying as much on numbers as on the durability of the glamour rune that would be imbued into the catacombs... and, of course, Holyborn.
Atticus remembered his terror when, during the second year of his apprenticeship, Master Eldreave had let him in on the secret of the sword’s abilities. Atticus had nearly sprinted out of Eldreave’s office and told his friends, but Eldreave had clutched his arms, holding Atticus in place.
“Master,” Atticus had whimpered, a hot dagger of pain slicing up his arms. “You’re hurting me.”
Eldreave lowered his brows. “Speak a word of this to anyone, and I will permanently revoke your right to study here. I will send you and your family on a carriage and out of this city, off this continent, until you have drawn your last breath. I will make your life a living Hell, and I assure you, Atticus Walestone, I am a man bound to his promises.” He tightened his grip. “This one specifically.”
Once Eldreave at last let go, Atticus staggered away, rubbing the feeling back into his arms. “Why are you telling me this, then? If you cannot trust me with something as big, as...important, as this, then why—”
“I am not imparting this information out of trust,” Eldreave interjected. He sounded offended, as if astounded that Atticus had even suggested his possible reliability. “This is a matter of obligation. Our field of work is purely confidential—student and professor, tutor and scholar—as decreed by the greats of thanatology, dating as far back as Edmond Azren, the first to brave purgatory.”
Atticus frowned, puzzled. That was the first time he’d heard of purgatory.
“Don’t fret about that, though. You won’t be learning psycho-thanatological immersion for a little while yet,” Eldreave said, then returned to the topic at hand. “I am telling you this, Walestone, because I want you to be prepared.”
“For what?” Atticus asked, swallowing the knot in his throat. “What are you asking me to do?”
Eldreave opened a drawer in his desk, then riffled through the disarrayed books and documents inside and procured a sheet of parchment. He snapped the drawer shut. “Oh, this isn’t a request, child. I am giving you a directive.” He ran a hand over the parchment and slid it across the desk.
Atticus had picked up the sheet of parchment, turned it around, and held it out for his own inspection. Scrawled across the parchment in swooping penmanship had been a rune about half the size of Atticus’s hand—an incredibly complicated design, sketched with unfathomable precision.
He had come across hundreds of runes throughout his apprenticeship. He’d learned that any mystic could draw and invoke a rune but that only elemental mystics could summon their core magic, as these were inborn, rather than granted from runes.
But the rune before him... He hadn’t been able to repress the shudder of bone-rattling fear that came over him. The longer he’d looked at it, the less sense he’d made of it. It almost seemed alien, profane.
“When the time comes,” Eldreave said, “when evil draws near, you will invoke the glamour rune, and in doing so, fortify the Orphic Basilica. You will require hundreds of our students for this invocation.” He stood, then walked toward the cabinet on his left and opened it. Mounted on the back was a black-scabbarded sword. He nodded to it, then closed the cabinet. “That is Holyborn, a sword of unmatched power. Though its origins are unknown, my colleagues and I have unsheathed it several times, and in each instance, we briefly saw purgatory.”
“And you want me to . . . wield Holyborn?”
“When the time presents itself,” Eldreave had repeated, then elaborated, “Unsheathe the sword, grasp the hilt, and then drive the blade into the ground at your feet. The doors to purgatory will open and, thereupon, free the ghosts within.”
“Has this been done before?”
“No,” Eldreave had said, “and let us hope it remains that way.”
Atticus snapped back to the present, pulling himself from his memories.
If not for Eldreave, Atticus would have spent his entire life ignorant. He would have combed deeper into the lore of purgatory, yes, but he never would have imagined that a microcosm of the spirit realm had been festering in the Orphic Basilica all along, suspended for millennia and, if not for the sword’s unspeakable abilities, inaccessible. And he most definitely would not have known of the caretakers preceding him, for they had moved on, not into purgatory, where they would be forever tormented by the misery and madness inflicted upon them by the red-eyed devils... but into the Above.
Atticus looked out over the crowd of scholars staring at him expectantly.Is that where they think I’m taking them? To paradise?he thought.I’m sorry to disappoint you, my friends, but the only way out of this madness is long and hot and paved with bones.
He closed his eyes and called into his mind the glamour rune, that convoluted symbol he’d had memorized since Eldreave showed him all those years ago. Then he sketched it into the stale, noxious air before him, cupped his hand over it, and pressed it into the cobblestone wall.
The rune glowed a brilliant cerulean, pulsing like the heartbeat of some mythic sea creature. Atticus recoiled instinctively from the glaring blue light. It flared brighter, as though in response to his reaction, and sent a wave of azure illumination across the perplexed crowd behind him.
See past the source, the memory of Eldreave’s voice came into his mind.See the result, the potential.
