Resisting an absurd urge to take Mearn’s hand, Jain forced himself to go first. The footing was firmer than he had feared it might be. He paused when his feet reached wet flagstones, and in a moment she joined him, doubtless cursing loss of farsight just as he was. The air was cold and dead. They stood within a vestry of some sort, so black that the forest seemed bright behind them. In the inner corners, two fainter glows showed where archways led through the nave. They advanced cautiously, finding the paving clear of traps or obstacles.
From the sumptuous jeweled church of the College itself to humble rustic shrines, every holy place Jain had ever seen had been designed to illustrate the eternal conflict between the Good and the Evil. Always there would be a bright window and a dark window, and a balance standing upon an altar. Even ancient ruins that he had noted in his travels as a recorder had shown evidence of the same basic plan. This abandoned, forgotten place had none of that; it predated the fashion or had been built by maniacs. There was no altar, no furniture at all that he could see, and the framework itself seemed perplexingly lacking in symmetry. The proportions and angles were wrong, the empty arched windows placed at random, no two quite the same height or shape or size. The roof was a dark mystery.
He had just concluded that the crypt was empty when he made out a small group of people standing in the far corner. He pointed at them. Mearn nodded uneasily, then headed that way without a word. Should they go slowly to show respect, or hasten so as not to keep the archons waiting? He let her set the pace and she went slowly—perhaps she was as scared as he was; perhaps hurry would be impossible in that ominous sanctity. The flagstones here were dry and bare, but uneven. Each footstep was swallowed by a silence that seemed too solid for mortals to disturb, as if the very air had congealed into sadness.
Eight cloaked figures stood in a rough circle, their cowled heads bent in meditation. All eight wore the same plain garb; Jain could see no significance to their grouping. Obviously they were the archons assembled. He had been worrying that the Keeper might preside over such gatherings. Archons would be bad enough. At least they were human.
As the newcomers arrived, the nearer figures moved slightly, opening a gap. They did so without looking around, which suggested that their sorcery was still operative. Jain and Mearn stepped into line, closing the circle but staying closer to each other than to the flanking archons.
He glanced surreptitiously around the silent figures, wondering why they did not tell him to stop making such a racket, for his heart was hammering like a woodpecker. They continued to ignore him, studying the ground. He saw then that the group was not located, at random, or because the archons had wanted to be in a comer. They were gathered around a particular dark patch of floor, about the size of a bed. Its surface was slightly raised, perhaps uneven and lumpy, although he could make out no real detail in the gloom. After a while, as his eyes continued to adjust, he began to suspect that the patch was wet. A leak in the ancient ceiling would not be exactly surprising. Then the chill creeping remorselessly into his flesh made him wonder if water would freeze here.
And finally he realized that of course the black layer was ice. This was why the Chapel was so sacred. He was looking at Keef’s grave, last resting place of the first Keeper. That somber ice was composed of the tears the pixies had shed for Keef over a thousand years. This was the very heart of the College and Thume itself.
For some reason Jain thought then of the name the Outsiders were reputed to use for Thume: the Accursed Place. He had never understood that term and no one had ever managed to explain it to him, but now it seemed oddly appropriate for a realm that would take a tomb as its most revered relic and then hide it away where almost no one ever saw it.
The vigil continued. Eventually the archon on his left moved slightly aside. Jain heard a faint sound at his back and a woman stepped into the gap, wheezing nervously. Her face was only a pallid blur, but he recognized her as Analyst Shole. He edged closer to Mearn, to make the spacing more even. Stillness returned.
He hoped this assembly would do something soon and dismiss him before he froze to death here in the dark, or died of fear.
“May we serve the Good always,” intoned one of the cowled archons—Jain could not tell which.
“Amen!” chorused the others. He jumped, wondering if he should join in.
“May the Gods and the Keeper bless our deliberations.”
“Amen!”
Mearn and Shole stayed silent. Jain decided to take his cue from them—he was only a lowly archivist. And an innocent one, he reminded himself. He had done nothing wrong. He had nothing to fear. It was not his fault.
“Analyst Shole,” whispered the same voice as before, deadly and impersonal like a winter wind. “You and Archivist Meam delivered the woman Thaile of a male child. You removed all physical results of that birth. You transported her to the College.”
Shole muttered an incoherent agreement.
“Tell us exactly what power you used on her memories.” Jain waited for the reply and then knew that there was not going to be one. The archons were reading the answer directly from the woman’s thoughts. They were, after all, the eight most powerful sorcerers in Thume—except for the Keeper, who was more than just a sorceress. His flesh crawled.
“You have not spoken to the novice, or used power upon her, since that day?” Whoever was speaking, it was not Raim.
“No, noble sir.”
“We are satisfied. You may leave.”
“I would have used greater power except you . . . except I had been instructed—”
“We know. You may go.”
Shole spun on her heel and in seconds her footsteps were lost in the massive, immovable silence.
Jain braced himself. Now it would be his turn! He wished he could make out faces, but they were hidden from him. He could not tell how many of the eight were men, how many women. He was unable even to determine the color of their dark robes.
“Archivist Jain? You received the woman Thaile at the Meeting Place and spoke with her.”
Jain thought back to that meeting on the bench—what he had said, and she had said, and what she had been thinking until Mist arrived and how he had then left the two of them . ..
“You have not spoken with her since.” That was a statement, but he nodded. He was chilled through and yet sweating. He hoped he would be dismissed then, but now the inquisitor asked Mearn about her meetings with the girl in the past week.
Silence. Surely he would be allowed to leave soon? He was drowning in this icy darkness. He needed warmth and sunshine, and life. This laborious inquisition was not his business!
“Her Faculty is extraordinary,” murmured another voice, as if musing aloud in the middle of an inaudible conversation.
“It might explain her suspicions,” another said. “Just possibly. But not her recovery of the man’s name.”
“Someone has been meddling!” That sounded like Raim, but perhaps only because he had used those words earlier.
“She cannot possibly understand,” another said sharply. “She must be compelled to enter the Defile tonight.”
“No,” said a spidery voice. “No one has been meddling.” The archons turned at once to face the speaker and sank to their knees. Mearn copied them an instant later, then Jain moved so fast he almost overbalanced. He kept his gaze fixed on the floor, knowing that the Keeper herself had joined the meeting. Fear tightened icy fingers around his heart. He could not remember ever knowing worse terror, not even the horrors of the Defile itself. He recalled awful stories of Keepers who had wiped out whole armies of intruding Outsiders, and of the deadly, unpredictable discipline with which they ruled the College. Keepers were laws unto themselves, utterly unpredictable, heedless of precedent, devoid of mercy.
The voice came again, a dry inhuman rustle beyond fear and passion and hope. ”I warned you that the drums of the millennium were beating, that Evil walked the world. I warned you that we are threatened as never before. You know that this girl must be the Promised One, and yet we almost lost her. The first night she was here, I found her at the mouth of the Defile.”
Several of the archons gasped, but none spoke. The cold of the floor bit into Jain’s knees like sharp teeth, but deadlier yet was the thought of the Defile in less than full-moon light.