“Take over my duties for me,” the Keeper commanded. “I must deliver this to the Aviary. Summon me if there is need.”
The Kenkari, the Keeper’s chief assistant, nodded and took up his place at the door, ready to receive the soul of any new arrival. Box in hand, the Keeper, his brow furrowed, left the great door and headed for the Aviary.
The Cathedral of the Albedo is built in the shape of an octagon. Coralite, magically urged and pruned, swoops majestically up from the ground to form a high, steeply pitched dome. Crystal walls fill the space left between the coralite ribs, the crystal planes shine with blinding brilliance in the light of the sun, Solaris.
The crystal walls create an optical illusion, making it appear to the casual observer (who is never allowed very close) that he can see completely through the building from one side to the other. In reality, mirrored walls on the inside of the octagon reflect the interior walls of the outside. One outside cannot see inside, therefore, but those inside can see everything. The courtyard surrounding the cathedral is vast, empty of all objects. A caterpillar cannot cross it without being observed. Thus do the Kenkari keep their ancient mysteries safely guarded.
Within the octagon’s center is the Aviary. Located in a circle around the Aviary are rooms for study, rooms for meditation. Beneath the cathedral are the permanent living quarters of the Kenkari, the temporary living quarters for their apprentices, the weesham.
The Keeper turned his steps toward the Aviary.
The largest chamber in the cathedral, the Aviary is a beautiful place, filled with living trees and plants brought from all over the elven kingdom to be grown here. Precious water—in such short supply elsewhere in the land, due to the war with the Gegs—was freely dispensed in the Aviary, lavishly poured to maintain life in what was, ironically, a chamber for the dead.
No singing birds flew in this Aviary. The only wings spread within its crystal walls were unseen, ephemeral—the wings of the souls of royal elves, caught, kept captive, forced to sing eternally their silent music for the good of the empire.
The Keeper paused outside the Aviary, looked within. It was truly beautiful. The trees and flowering plants grew lush here as nowhere else in the Mid Realms. The emperor’s garden was not as green as this, for even His Imperial Majesty’s water had been rationed.
The Aviary’s water flowed through pipes buried deep beneath the soil that had been brought, so legend had it, from the garden island of Hesthea, in the High Realms, now long since abandoned.* Other than being watered, the plants were given no further care, unless the dead tended them, which the Keeper sometimes liked to imagine that they did. The living were only rarely permitted to enter the Aviary. And that had not happened in the Keeper’s inordinately long lifetime, nor in any lifetime that any Kenkari could remember.
*For a history of the High Realms, see Dragon Wing, vol. i of The Death Gate Cycle.
No wind blew in the enclosed chamber. No draft, not even a whisper of air could steal inside. Yet the Keeper saw the leaves of the trees flutter and stir, saw the rose petals tremble, saw flower stalks bend. The souls of the dead flitted among the green and living things. The Keeper watched a moment, then turned away. Once a place of peace and tranquillity and hope, the Aviary had come to take on a sinister sadness for him. He looked down at the box he held in his hand, and the dark lines in his thin face deepened.
Hastening to the chapel that stood adjacent to the Aviary, he spoke the ritual prayer, then gently pushed open the ornately carved wooden door. Within the small room, the Keeper of the Book sat at a desk, writing in a large, leather-bound volume. It was her duty to record the name, lineage, and pertinent life-facts of all those who arrived in the small boxes.
The body to the fire, the life to the book, the soul to the sky. That was how the ritual went. The Keeper of the Book, hearing someone enter, halted her writing. She looked up.