The Harrowing of Gwynedd (43 page)

“Very well. It starts the same way the other variation did, by naming the eight components. I remember that the Master never spoke the
nomena
aloud, because he thought it interfered with the proper mind-set. So I'll do as he did.”

Not pausing for their reaction, he brushed his forefinger quickly over the eight cubes in the same order as before, beginning with the four white ones and then naming the four black ones. Each sparked to life as he touched it, and Evaine and Joram followed his progress easily,
Prime
through
Octave
.

“The first half of the next part also goes the same,” Queron whispered. He set his first and second fingers on Prime and Quinte and intoned the familiar
cognomen
as he changed their places: “
Prime et Quinte inversus
!”

Quarte and Octave followed, their
cognomen
also almost sung.

“
Quarte et Octave inversus
!”

When he had switched the second pair, they were left with a central square of black and white alternating, with a cube of the opposite color at each outer corner. And now, instead of transposing Prime with Septime and Sixte with Quarte, as he had done before, he picked up the white Prime from the upper left diagonal and set it carefully on Quinte, the upper left black cube, with a
salutus
sung in one of the eerie Gabrilite plainsong chants:

“
Primus est Deus, Primus in aeternitate. Amen
.”

Touching his right hand to his breast, he made a profound bow to the altar, then picked up black Sixte, setting it gently on white Seconde as he sang the next
salutus
:

“
Secundus est Filius, Coaeterus cum Patre. Amen
.”

Again he bowed profoundly before picking up black Septime to place it on Tierce.

“
Tertius est Trinitas: Pater, Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus. Amen
.”

Another bow before picking up the final cube, Quarte, to set it on Octave and complete the checkered cube.

“
Quattuor archangeli custodes quandrantibus sunt. Quattuor quadrant coram Domino uno. Amen
.”

The completed cube glowed with the soft, opal fire of its original components, a jewel-like miniature of the larger cubes of black and white marble that supported the white altar slab on which it rested. Queron raised his clasped hands to his lips, closing his eyes briefly as he gathered his concentration to continue, then drew his hands apart at chin level, palms turned toward one another, and began to chant.

“
De profundis clamavi te, Domine: Domine, exaudi orationem mean. Adorabo te, Domine
…”

He turned his hands over the cube as he prayed, palms cupped gently as if in blessing, fingertips slightly overlapping. All of them could feel the power gathering—a taut, tingling sensation that began at the crown of the head and quickly permeated to the toes.

“
Fiat lux in aeternam. Fiat lustratio, omnium altarium Tuorum
,” Queron murmured. Let there be light in eternity. Let there be purification of all Thine altars …

Light began to glow beneath Queron's hands, emanating from the cube matrix. As he tipped his palms apart and raised his arms, light fountained upward between them—a miniature pillar of fire centered over the matrix, as thick and high as a man's forearm. He brought his hands briefly to cover his eyes as he continued to sing, then crossed them on his breast and bowed profoundly.

“
Quasi columna flammae me duces, Altissime, in loca arcana Tua
…” Like a pillar of fire Thou shalt lead me, O Most High, into Thy secret places …

The pillar remained as his psalm ended, hovering in the stillness. Fearlessly Queron stretched out his right hand toward the top of the pillar, lowering it onto the flame.

“
Gloria in excelsis Deo
…”

But the flame did not appear to burn, and gave way beneath his touch. The pillar fattened as he compressed it, pooling wider and wider out from the cube matrix as his hand descended, living light washing over the surface of the altar all the way to the edges and then brimming over in a cascade of luminance that was swallowed up by the black edges of the base slab. Queron's hand touched the top of the matrix as the light reached the corners of the mensa slab—and gave at the pressure, the entire altar beginning to sink, the light continuing to glow across its top and sides.

“Sweet
Jesu
, where's it going?” Joram whispered.

“Back into the dais,” came Evaine's awed reply, “though somehow, I don't think the Master's spell ever did
this
.”

Queron's expression suggested that it most certainly had not, but he kept on singing the
Gloria
and the altar kept sinking—and kept sinking even when the white mensa drew level with the floor of the dais, becoming flush with the level of the dais, sinking beyond that, until even the now-kneeling Queron could no longer keep his hand on the small cube. It did not stop until the top of the mensa had sunk its height and half again below the top level of the dais, just as Queron's singing ended. Evaine and Joram were also on their knees, peering uneasily into the hole made by the altar's retreat.

“Why did it do that?” Joram murmured, as Evaine conjured handfire and sent it into the opening.

Queron gasped as the light revealed an extension to the opening, stretching back toward the north, and dropped onto his stomach to lean down for a closer look as the other two also peered down.

“There's a passageway and what might be stairs leading down!”

“I suspect we were meant to step onto the altar as it was sinking,” Evaine said. “Getting down shouldn't be too difficult, but getting back up might be a problem.”

Queron was already swinging his legs down into the opening, easing himself over the edge to drop lightly to the white mensa, avoiding the stacked cubes.

“I don't think I'll have any trouble bringing it back up. It concerns me more to stand on the altar, but that's obviously intended, in this case.” He squatted down to peer into the side opening. “Ah, there
is
a stair—a spiral one. Anyone else coming down?”

Joram looked uneasy and muttered something about hoping there were no nasty surprises waiting, but he gave a hand to Evaine as she sat down on the edge of the opening, gathered her skirts around her, then eased down with Queron's aid. Joram followed when Queron had stepped into the stairwell, bracing the heels of his hands on the edge and avoiding the ward cubes. The only real surprise, not nasty at all, turned out to be their discovery of a small, unfinished chamber that apparently lay directly under the Portal chamber and its lobby. It was a roughly hewn room not much larger than the cells back at the sanctuary, with traces of further digging that might eventually have become other passages leading—who knew where?

“Well, it's obvious that whoever built this complex got interrupted before they could finish it,” Queron said, when they had finished their perusal of the chamber. “Didn't you say that this was an Airsid complex?”

Evaine nodded. “We've occasionally come across their traces before, but I don't know a lot about them except that they're supposed to have been at least the philosophic precursors of the Varnarites.”

“Who, in part, were the precursors of the Gabrilites,” Queron agreed. “What I don't understand is that altar up there. When the Master—” He broke off as an odd look came across Evaine's face. “What's wrong?”

She shook her head. “Nothing's wrong. But when your Master worked the spell, you
did
say that he always did it at the bluestone altar in your chapter house?”

“That's right.”

“And he did it as a meditation and ritual purification of the altar. Also correct?”

Queron nodded.

“Suppose the ritual had come down from a much earlier tradition that used a black and white cube altar rather than a bluestone one,” Evaine said, “and suppose that the ritual not only purified the altar, but also operated the mechanism for opening the way to another, more secret inner sanctum.”

Joram nodded emphatically. “And if the original tradition had been transmitted incompletely, as sometimes happens, no one would have been any the wiser. Or maybe the additional meaning got lost in melding the different strands of discipline that made up the Gabrilite tradition.”

“That's certainly possible,” Queron agreed. “But if there
was
a tradition of secret chambers under black and white altars—good God, what about the altar down in the ruins? It's right in the middle of
ancient
remains! Maybe there's another chamber under
it
. What if
that's
where the Varnarites hid their most important archives?”

An hour later, the three of them were gathered around that altar, Joram carefully clearing away debris from around its base so that it
could
sink, if their theory proved correct, while Evaine helped Queron clean off the top. They found a large triangular chunk of the shattered mensa on the floor nearby, and Queron eased it approximately back into place before setting out the ward cubes again in their starting configuration. He skimmed silently through the setting of the
nomena
and
cognomena
, and spoke the
phrasae
instead of singing them, his hands trembling a little in the light of the handfire Evaine and Joram had conjured to hover above the matrix he was erecting. Since the altar was already raised, he was able to go directly to the purification configuration.

“
Primus est Deus
…,” he whispered, setting the first black cube atop the first white one.

“
Secundus est Filius
…”

The next white cube was set on the next black one, beside the first.

“
Tertia est Trinitas … Quattuor Archangeli custodes
…”

The last two cubes were set into place.

“
Adorabo Te, Domine
…
Fiat lux in aeternum
…”

Again, as he spread his hands over the matrix, light grew beneath them, flaring to a flaming pillar as he drew his hands to either side. He did not bother to sing the
Gloria
; only reached out his hand to cup the top of the pillar of fire and press it downward. And as the light dispersed at his will, spreading over the mensa and down the black and white sides, the entire altar began to sink.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-
TWO

And thou shalt put it under the compass of the altar beneath, that the net may be even in the midst of the altar
.

—Exodus 27:5

This altar's descent was not as smooth as the one beneath the
keeill
, but the fact that it sank at all seemed wonder enough, in that instant when it actually began to move. They could hear the stone grate in passage, the track doubtless clogged at least partially by the debris of decay and destruction, but the mass sank steadily—not only to the level of the dais floor, as they had always believed was as far as the
keeill
's altar would go, but slowly beyond that point, without further wobble or tremor. As it reached the depth of a normal step, Joram carefully stepped down onto the altar surface, careful not to disturb the still-glowing ward cubes, and prepared to hang onto the edges of the opening as he continued to sink—just in case it should go farther than he wished to go.

But it halted at the expected depth, just even with his shoulders, with a grinding jar that suggested it was not going any farther. Joram grinned roguishly and ducked to look at the side opening he had been watching grow, summoning his handfire down for a closer look.

“Well, well, well. This one appears to be a dog-leg stair instead of a spiral. Are you two coming down, or do I get to go into the great unknown all by myself? Incidentally, I think this is the way it was supposed to work—to step onto the altar as it sank. Otherwise, I can't imagine how anyone would get down here at all conveniently—unless they had a ladder stored somewhere, which hardly seems like the Airsid way.”

“We'll keep that in mind, next time we come,” Evaine said.

She braced her hands on his shoulders as he reached up to help her down. Queron sat at the edge of the opening and swung his legs in, vaulting down with only minor assistance from Joram.

“What
I
want to know is what's at the bottom of the stair,” Queron said. “Whatever it is, it
should
be a finished structure, unlike the
keeill
. This has all been here for a very long time.”

Since it had been Queron's spell that let them discover the cube altar's secret, they let Queron lead the way, Evaine following the Healer and his handfire down into the narrow stairwell, Joram bringing up the rear with more light. After the stair had descended the equivalent of several storeys, turning back on itself a full three hundred sixty degrees, they found themselves emerging on a landing that opened on an area of such vast darkness that it swallowed up most of the effect of their handfire. Immediately to their right, either a corridor or another chamber once had opened off, but that way was now permanently blocked by a massive collapse of stone and rubble that also had smashed the floor immediately adjacent. Loose tiles grated and shifted slightly underfoot as Queron moved closer to inspect the blocked entryway.

“We won't get any farther in
this
direction,” he said, turning back to the others. “However, there's certainly something out
there
.”

He gestured into the heavier darkness as he conjured more handfire, and the others followed suit, scanning with Sight as well as with vision and hearing. The extra handfire made little difference.

“There's something straight ahead,” Evaine said after a few seconds, sending a sphere of handfire lower along the ground in that direction. “It's a power source of some kind, damped but still quite potent. Is anyone else reading that?”