looking back into the darkness the way they had come. He could remember when that whole enormous cavern had been ablaze with light. When he was a young man, each member of the council had kept a boat here at the docks beneath the temple. The catacombs had been full of noise and messengers in livery and soldiers transporting grain. In winter they had used ponies to pull sleds over the ice, smart brown beasts with sharpened hooves and ribbons in their manes.
Then, standing on Bishop’s Keys, he had been surrounded by a storm of light and brilliant colors and the high, strident voices of the priests. Now everything was dark, save for the torches in his guardsmen’s hands. He could hear the water slapping against the wooden bottom of his barge as the men stowed it along the slip and covered it with tarpaulin.
He shivered, and with cramped, arthritic fingers, he plucked at the sleeves of his robe. Then he turned and walked quickly over the stone promenade. His men fell into place a step behind him. Their torches spit and flared, grabbing at the cavern’s roof unsuccessfully until they passed under a lower vault. There the echoes of their footsteps seemed flatter and less resonant. Rough carvings protruded down into the light, though Lord Chrism’s blindness robbed them of detail. Even in his memory they had no detail.
This part of the temple had been built during the reign of the ninth bishop, in winter many years before. The principle of the elevator had been forgotten then. From Bishop’s Keys the architects had built stairways that reached toward every section of the temple, hollow fingers of stone that stretched up half a mile, some of them, a lot of steps for an old man.
Here the cavern had assumed a disklike shape, the walls still out of sight, the ceiling not more than nineteen feet above their heads. In front of them, the first of fifty stairways rose up from the floor, a narrow spiral cased in stone. It stood alone, like a tree with the ceiling in its branches. Farther on, the stairways grew closer together and more numerous, until the three men were walking as if through a stone forest, among groves of trees irregularly spaced and sized. These were the servants’ stairs, leading up to kitchens and guardhouses. At the base of each there was a door, black now, mostly, though some still showed a feeble glow. That was how the chamber had been illuminated in the old days—the staircases were sheathed in alabaster, and inside, the spirals had been lined with lights, red, green, violet, the colors coded to their destinations and the caste of people who could use them. Then each stair had formed a column of light nineteen feet from floor to ceiling, the colors bleeding through the thin, transparent stone.
Then this entire chamber had been alive; now it was dead. Lord Chrism hurried on. Ahead of them, a wall stretched to both sides. Lord Chrism turned to the left and walked along it, past a gaping doorway. A single bulb hung from the keystone of the arch. Once guards had been stationed there around the clock. It was the entrance of an old granary, one of one hundred and seventeen cavernous storage bins cut into the rock beneath the temple. The electric light gave contour to a mass of carving all around the arch, a beautiful woman in a variety of different poses. Each granary was dedicated to one of the one hundred and seventeen lovers of Immortal Angkhdt; this one, named after the so-called White-Faced Woman, had served the Church of Morquar the Unkempt, and all the shrines between the river and the Morquar Gate. All winter and well into spring, for more than a lifetime, it had fed the people of that district. Now it was empty. They were all empty, and people everywhere were forgetting God.
In the summertime and autumn, generations of men and women had slaved to fill these granaries, working with increasing desperation as the weather grew colder and the power of the priests increased. When Lord Chrism’s father was a
Then, standing on Bishop’s Keys, he had been surrounded by a storm of light and brilliant colors and the high, strident voices of the priests. Now everything was dark, save for the torches in his guardsmen’s hands. He could hear the water slapping against the wooden bottom of his barge as the men stowed it along the slip and covered it with tarpaulin.
He shivered, and with cramped, arthritic fingers, he plucked at the sleeves of his robe. Then he turned and walked quickly over the stone promenade. His men fell into place a step behind him. Their torches spit and flared, grabbing at the cavern’s roof unsuccessfully until they passed under a lower vault. There the echoes of their footsteps seemed flatter and less resonant. Rough carvings protruded down into the light, though Lord Chrism’s blindness robbed them of detail. Even in his memory they had no detail.
This part of the temple had been built during the reign of the ninth bishop, in winter many years before. The principle of the elevator had been forgotten then. From Bishop’s Keys the architects had built stairways that reached toward every section of the temple, hollow fingers of stone that stretched up half a mile, some of them, a lot of steps for an old man.
Here the cavern had assumed a disklike shape, the walls still out of sight, the ceiling not more than nineteen feet above their heads. In front of them, the first of fifty stairways rose up from the floor, a narrow spiral cased in stone. It stood alone, like a tree with the ceiling in its branches. Farther on, the stairways grew closer together and more numerous, until the three men were walking as if through a stone forest, among groves of trees irregularly spaced and sized. These were the servants’ stairs, leading up to kitchens and guardhouses. At the base of each there was a door, black now, mostly, though some still showed a feeble glow. That was how the chamber had been illuminated in the old days—the staircases were sheathed in alabaster, and inside, the spirals had been lined with lights, red, green, violet, the colors coded to their destinations and the caste of people who could use them. Then each stair had formed a column of light nineteen feet from floor to ceiling, the colors bleeding through the thin, transparent stone.
Then this entire chamber had been alive; now it was dead. Lord Chrism hurried on. Ahead of them, a wall stretched to both sides. Lord Chrism turned to the left and walked along it, past a gaping doorway. A single bulb hung from the keystone of the arch. Once guards had been stationed there around the clock. It was the entrance of an old granary, one of one hundred and seventeen cavernous storage bins cut into the rock beneath the temple. The electric light gave contour to a mass of carving all around the arch, a beautiful woman in a variety of different poses. Each granary was dedicated to one of the one hundred and seventeen lovers of Immortal Angkhdt; this one, named after the so-called White-Faced Woman, had served the Church of Morquar the Unkempt, and all the shrines between the river and the Morquar Gate. All winter and well into spring, for more than a lifetime, it had fed the people of that district. Now it was empty. They were all empty, and people everywhere were forgetting God.
In the summertime and autumn, generations of men and women had slaved to fill these granaries, working with increasing desperation as the weather grew colder and the power of the priests increased. When Lord Chrism’s father was a
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