The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [130]
“Ah. And how long have you been here, Sir Elden?”
“The space of a month, not more. I came with the sacritor to do the work of the resacaratum.”
“In this remote place?”
“The worst infections fester in the places most difficult to reach,” the knight replied. “We have discovered heretics and shinecrafters in plenty. You may have seen some of them on the tree in the pass.”
For an instant Stephen was so startled that he couldn’t reply.
“I did,” he said finally. “I thought them criminals.”
It was too dark to make out Sir Elden’s face, but his tone suggested that he had heard something in Stephen’s comment he didn’t care for.
“They were criminals, Brother, of the very worst sort.”
“Of course,” Stephen said carefully.
“These mountains are fairly crawling with the get of shinecraft,” the knight went on. “Foul beasts conjured from beneath the earth. I myself witnessed a woman give birth to a most hideous utin, proving that she had had intercourse with unclean demons.”
“You saw this?”
“Oh, yes. Well, the birth, not the intercourse, but the one is reasoned from the other. These lands are under siege by the armies of evil. What, did you think Sister Pale’s inspection of you was spurious? The first nineday I was here, a wirjawalv entered the town, murdered four citizens, and injured three more.” He paused. “Ah, here we are.”
“I should like to hear more of these things,” Stephen said. “We must travel farther into the mountains. If there are dangers we may encounter there…”
“There are dangers in plenty,” the knight assured him. “What business takes you into this heathen land? What fratrex sent you hence?”
“My mission must remain confidential, I fear,” Stephen replied. “But I wonder, is there a collection of scrifti and maps to be found in Demsted?”
“There are some,” the knight replied. “I myself have not examined them, but I’m certain the sacritor will allow you to see them once you’ve satisfied him as to your need and the authenticity of your claim. Meanwhile, come, let us stable your horses and see you to your lodging. I’ll fetch the sacritor, and you can become acquainted.”
It was too dark to make out much of the temple from the outside; it was bigger than Stephen thought it might be, with a domed nave in the style of the Hegemony. He wondered briefly if it might actually be that old, if some forgotten mission had pushed farther into the mountains than the histories knew.
But as Sir Elden had pointed out, though Demsted was remote, it wasn’t isolated. And if its church was really that ancient, one of the many sacritors or monks who had lived there would have noticed and made note of the fact.
The knight opened the door, and they entered. The marble floor was worn to polished, and the paths where feet were used to tread actually were slightly channeled, heightening Stephen’s impression of great age.
But the architecture wasn’t that of the Hegemony, at least no temple of the Hegemony he had ever seen, whether depicted or manifest. The doorways were high, arched, and narrow, and the columns that held the high ceilings oddly delicate. Instead of the usual hemispheric dome, the central nave seemed to have a steep cone, though the flickering candles and torches that lit the altar and the prayer niches weren’t sufficient to illuminate the upper reaches of it.
More than anything, he realized, the building reminded him of the few sketches he had seen of the audacious construction from the era of the Warlock Wars.
They went beyond the nave into a quiet corridor lit by only a few candles, though the stone still was so polished that it shone like glass, making the most of the light. Then they passed through a door into a comfortable room that Stephen quickly recognized as a scriftorium. Behind a heavy table, a man sat hunched over an open book, an Aenan lamp brightening the pages but not his face.
“Sacritor?” Sir Elden ventured.
The man glanced up, and the focused light of the lamp grazed his face, revealing middle-aged features lengthened by a small beard. Stephen’s heart