Chapter Twelve: Tacenda

Tacenda had always heard the Seelenstone spoken of in the strangest, most contradictory of tones. Villagers would bless the Nameless Angel herself for bestowing it upon the Approaches. They seemed proud of the relic, which stilled the souls of the church’s followers, preventing them from rising as a geist or other foul creature.

But it also prevented a soul from returning to the Bog. And so while the Approachers were proud of the Angel’s blessing, most resisted conversion to the church. Tacenda understood. The Seelenstone was an amazing blessing—but was like a gifted ox when you had no cart to pull or no field to plow. Somehow, she was both grateful for the thing and uncomfortable with it as well.

She hadn’t imagined that they’d keep it in the catacombs. Rom led her down a tight and spiraling stair, his lamp illuminating ancient stones, weathered not by wind or rain, but by the infinite passing of human steps. The air grew chill, damp, and they entered a realm of roots, worms, and other sightless things. At the bottom, they found no door, but a strange stone mural depicting angels in flight.

Rom pressed a specific part of the stone—a little knob, disguised as a small angel’s head, which sank into the rest. Some ancient mechanism made the stone slide open. It wasn’t much of a barrier—anyone with enough time could probably have found the bit to push—but it was a reminder. Even in the most holy of places, even in the home of an artifact meant to still spirits, it was wise to keep a locked door between yourself and your dead.

They passed through the opening and entered the catacombs—which predated the existence of the priory in its current form. Tacenda had expected skulls, but she found only narrow passages. The walls were set with rows of odd stones, perhaps three handspans wide. Shaped like hexagons, many were marked with the symbol of the Nameless Angel.

“No bones?” she asked as Rom led her to the right.

“No,” he said. “Nobody here wants to put bodies on display. These people deserve rest, not spectacle. Those stones on the walls can be removed, each revealing a long hole burrowed into the wall. We set the body on a plank, push it in, then seal it up.”

She nodded, following silently.

“There’s lots of [space] here,” Rom said. “Whoever built these catacombs made plenty of [space] for bodies. But your people don’t often choose to be buried here, as is proper.”

“We...” But how could she respond to that? It was true. “The Bog is our heritage. I’m sorry.”

“Your people,” he said, “balance between two religions. I think you want to worship both at once, sufferin’ the priests when they visit, but then goin’ off to give your true devotion to the Bog. That troubles the prioress, I know, but I’m in no place to chide. I followed two gods myself, you might say. Most of my life, it wasn’t virtue—but the thrill of the hunt—that was my master.”

He led her around a curving tunnel, then rested his hand on a symbol engraved on one of the tombs. The rising wings, the symbol of the Nameless Angel. The same one wrapped around Tacenda wrist, above the hand where she carried her viol.

“I’d heard about this Bog of yours,” Rom said, “before I came. So I wasn’t surprised by it. But this Nameless Angel...many of the local priests would rather wear her symbol than that of the church.”

“Avacyn is...was the Archangel,” Tacenda said. “And she presided over entire hosts of other angels. It is...was...her church, but she was always a far-off divinity. The faithful here, like my sister, always preferred a more personal angel.”

“You mistake me,” Rom said. “I was pleased to find it. After Avacyn’s betrayal, finding news of another angel who still loved her people...well, it gave me hope. Hope that even a crusty, bloodstained hunter like me might be able to find peace.”

His lips turned down as he said that last part, for some reason, but then he just shook his head and ledher down one of the many branching paths in the catacombs. He was right—there was a lot of space down here. She’d always imagined a couple of small crypts, not this network of tunnels. Eventually, they reached a small stone room with padded benches along the sides.

And there it was, the Seelenstone itself: a white rock like a large goose’s egg, decorating a pedestal in the center. Rom closed the shades on his lantern to show that the stone glowed with its own soft light. A shifting, milky radiance, like the colors of oil on water. They spun in a serene pattern, as if the Seelenstone were filled with different iridescent liquids, flowing in an eternal circular procession.

Tacenda’s breath caught. It was beautiful.

“They say it gets brighter each time an Approacher gives themselves to the church,” Rom said.

“Can...can I touch it?”

“Best not, young miss,” he said. “But you can look. Here, sit and watch the patterns.”

Unable to tear her eyes away from the transfixing course of colors, Tacenda stepped back until she found one of the benches, then sat down, laying her viol in her lap.

“They always put the new priests down here, as one of their first duties, to watch the stone,” Rom said softly. “We don’t guard it always, but it makes good practice for someone to meditate here while remainin’ alert all night. It’s been a little while since I had that job. But I remember sittin’ here for nights on end, just starin’ and thinkin’. About all the years this stone has seen.

“It was first given to a lone priest, who kept it in a shrine. Then a church was built for it, and the catacombs to house the dead. Finally, the prioress came—and she saw a proper building here at last. The stone has seen all that and more. Perhaps I shouldn’t be presumptuous, little miss, but this is your heritage as much as that Bog.”

“Lord Davriel told me earlier that my people talk too much about destiny. He said I should stand up for myself and decide my own path, rather than believing in things like fate.”

She looked toward Rom to find light from the Seelenstone flowing across his face. “What do you think?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Seems to me that it’s basically impossible to choose for yourself. I mean...if I do what Davriel says, how is that any different from doing what my village tells me? That’s not independence. It’s just choosing a different influence.”

Rom grunted, and Tacenda continued watching the shifting lights. She recognized that Rom had brought her down here to keep her from being caught in the conflict between Davriel and the prioress. Instead of fetching water, he’d just asked if she was interested in seeing the stone.

Davriel...she remembered that look in his eyes, that shadow, when they’d found Brerig dead. Davriel had the second darkness in his eyes. A void to consume all life, and leave the world as cold as he was...

“Rom?” she asked. “Did you ever think about the demons you killed, when you were younger? Did you worry about the hurt you were causing them?”

“No,” the old hunter said. “No, when I was young, I can’t say that I did.”

“Oh.”

“When I was older though,” he said, “and the angels went mad? Aye, I thought about it then. I wondered, was my entire life just going to be about the killin’? Was there no way to stop it? Make a world where men didn’t need to fear either the darkness or the light?”

“Did you...find any answers?

“No. That’s why I finally walked away.” He glanced upward, then waved to her, gesturing. “Come, let’s go see what the damage has been upstairs.”

Tacenda nodded, picking up her viol and joining him. As they left, however, she noted something she’d missed at first. She’d been so focused on the Seelenstone, she hadn’t seen there was a mural on the wall here too—carved stone, depicting the defeat of a terrible demon from a story she didn’t know.

“That mural,” she said. “There’s a knob like the one you pushed, under the demon’s feet. Is it a secret doorway too?”

“Aye,” Rom said. “You’ll spot more than a few of those down here. Most lead to nothin’ of note—little chambers where we store embalming equipment or dust bins.”

“Oh.”

“That one though,” he continued. “That leads to a tunnel out of the catacombs, into the forest. This place down here, it’s not just for the dead. It’s a place to barricade ourselves, if something attacks. We can hide down here, get out through one of the secret exits.”

She nodded, thinking about that fact. Even the priory—perhaps in particular the priory—needed a place of retreat, should an attack come. All buildings and villages were really just fortresses out in the darkness, careful to close their gates and lock them tightly at night.

As they left, she glanced over her shoulder one last time at the iridescent stone. Strange that she’d lived in Verlasen all her life, but had never come here to see the Nameless Angel’s gift.

And who is she to you? Have you ever seen her? Perhaps it was best the Nameless Angel had vanished long ago. Stories had been enough for Willia—who had been drawn to anything that spoke of fighting against the darkness—but never for Tacenda.

She hurried after Rom, but as they wound back to the stairs, she noticed light coming from one of the other corridors. She tapped Rom on the shoulder, then pointed.

“Oh,” he said. “That? Just where we prepare the bodies of the dead and keep them until it’s time for burial.”

She froze as Rom continued on. The bodies of the dead, waiting for burial? Like...

Tacenda couldn’t help herself. She turned down that corridor. Rom called after her, but she ignored him. Soon she stepped into another small chamber, this one lit by flickering candles atop mounds of sloughed wax. The back wall held a carved relief of the Nameless Angel—her face hidden behind her arm—holding a carving of the Seelenstone.

Three bodies, in their burial regalia, lay on slabs along the wall. One was a young woman with short hair. Though others would mistake the two of them, Tacenda couldn’t understand how. Willia was leaner and stronger than Tacenda, her hair shorter but somehow more golden. And Willia was the far more pretty one—despite the fact that they had the same face.

Rom stumbled up, then noticed the bodies. “Oh! What a fool I am, young miss. I should have realized.”

Tacenda stepped up to Willia, lowering her viol in one hand, touching the other to the corpse’s cheek. No, not a corpse—just a body. Willia’s soul was still out there, recoverable. Just like that of Jorl and Kari, whose bodies also adorned the room.

Willia looked so strong, even in death. While the faces of the others were frozen masks of terror, she just looked like she was sleeping. Tacenda held her hand to Willia’s cheek, trying to impart some of her warmth to the comatose body—like she’d done in singing to her sister during long, cold nights, before either had known the extent of their powers.

You must choose your own path, make your own destiny, Davriel had said. That seemed an easy platitude when you were a powerful lord—when you didn’t have a village to care for or a family to protect. Maybe it wasn’t destiny that had kept Tacenda in her place by the cistern, singing away the first darkness. Maybe it had been something stronger.

“Is this where you’ve gotten to?” snapped a sharp voice. Davriel emerged into the room, and his cloak flared around him, as if stretching its arms after the cramped walk through the corridors.

“M’lord!” Rom said, bowing. “Is the prioress... I mean...”

“Merlinde and I have reached an amicable agreement,” Davriel said. “In which she agreed she was wrong and I agreed that killing her would be far too much of a hassle. Tacenda, I have what I came for. I wish to be away from this place before its stench starts to cling to my clothing.”

She drew her hand away from Willia’s cheek. The best way to help her—the only way—was to go with this man. “We came to see the Seelenstone,” she said, following after him. “Do you think perhaps it might be able to help us somehow?”

“Last I looked,” Davriel replied, “it was nothing more than a pretty piece of rock with a simple dampening ward set upon it. Your songs are several orders of magnitude more potent.”

“It’s a powerful relic,” she said, feeling a spike of protectiveness. “Given to us by the Nameless Angel herself!”

“An angel nobody has seen for decades,” he said with a sniff. “The old story is nonsense. I don’t know where the stone originated, but I doubt it’s from an angel. Why would she give such a supposedly powerful relic to an insignificant little group of villages? It would be far more effective in a larger population center.”

“Not everything is just about raw numbers.”

“Of course it isn’t,” Davriel said, reaching the steps. “The true import is in how those numbers add up.”

He took off up the stairs. Why was he suddenly so impatient? She’d practically had to bribe him to get him to investigate in the first place.

Tacenda hung back with Rom, who walked up the steps with a slower, more deliberate pace, gripping the handrail tightly.

“He’s wrong,” Rom said. “The Seelenstone’s magic might not be powerful, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s here to shelter the souls of the faithful, and the charm bein’ simple don’t mean that ain’t important. Just like faith. Don’t mean to speak ill of his lordship, but that’s the problem with bein’ smart as he is. You get used to figurin’ things all out in your head, and when the real world don’t match up, you make excuses.”

At the top of the steps, she noted a place farther down the hallway where the stark white walls had been marred by terrible black symbols, in shapes that made her eyes squirm. Had he summoned demons in the middle of the priory?

They reached the door out. “Thank you, Rom,” Davriel said, “for your service. If I’m ever forced to exterminate the members of this priory, I’ll kill you last. Miss Verlasen, we are off.”

He strode out into the light. Rom hastily raised his lantern. “My lord, you will want—”

Davriel held out his hand and summoned a jet of flame to light his way as he strode across the priory grounds.

Seeing that, Rom sighed. “I’d best be checkin’ on the prioress,” he told Tacenda. “Watch yourself this night, young miss. It’s a dangerous dark watchin’ us. That it is.”

She nodded to him in thanks, then hurried after Davriel. Though he didn’t seem to notice the heat from the flame in his hand, it made her face begin to sweat.

“Why are we in such a hurry, all of a sudden?” she asked. “Have you discovered something useful?”

“Not really.”

“Then why are you so eager?”

The demons saw them coming, and Crunchgnar rolled the carriage up to them along the dark road. “I,” Davriel declared as it arrived, “have decided that I’m going to take a nap.”