Chapter 103

Chapter 103: The Nameless King’s Tomb

The night signal bell rang three times, and before the third ring ended, Vanna had already reached the great hall.

Old Bishop Valentine was already waiting there. The respected elder wore a black priest’s robe and stood in silence before the holy statue of the storm Goddess Gamona with his eyes closed in prayer. When he heard someone step into the hall, he knew without turning that it was Vanna.

“Inquisitor Vanna,” Valentine said in a deep voice, “the Grand Cathedral of Storms has sent an order to gather Listeners.”

“Directly from the Grand Cathedral of Storms?!” Vanna was startled. She quickly stepped to the front of the statue, letting her whole body fall into the glow of the lamps. “So it isn’t just that they found a new Anomaly or new manifestations?”

“If it were only a new Anomaly or new manifestations, the signal bell would not ring three times in a row.” Valentine shook his head. “The news came straight from the Gravekeeper at the ‘tomb’. They say the body of the Nameless King is stirring. We still do not know what message He is trying to send, but it seems… the existing list is changing.”

As he spoke, the old Bishop turned his head and quietly met Vanna’s eyes.

“This time we need to send a Listener into the tomb itself to hear the information straight from the body of the Nameless King. Right now the Deep Sea Church is on duty at the tomb, and the Listener will be chosen from the followers of the storm Goddess. The specific person has not been decided yet. You and I are both on the list of candidates.”

Vanna steadied herself and asked calmly: “When do we leave?”

“Now.” Valentine nodded and motioned for Vanna to follow. He walked toward the back of the Goddess’s statue, where a door covered in sacred symbols already stood open, showing a deep, long passage beyond. “The psychic channel is ready.”

Vanna bowed to Gamona’s statue, then turned and followed the old Bishop.

They passed through the door and then along the long passage. In the flickering lamplight, the two devout believers reached the deepest part of the ancient Cathedral – a special secret room at the end of the corridor.

It was a small room. Unlike the Cathedral’s main concrete and brick structure, this little chamber was built entirely of stone. Gray, uneven stones were packed tightly together to form the walls and ceiling. In the center of the room, the floor dipped into a fire pit. Flames crackled there, burning fiercely in the stone hollow – yet there was no fuel at the base of the fire, as if the flames had condensed from the air itself.

Aside from the flames in the center, the chamber held no furniture or decorations. Only a faint sound of running water came from nowhere, echoing from all directions. Every wall looked wet, and even the floor seemed to have tiny streams flowing over it at any time. It gave the feeling that this stone room was not a part of the Cathedral at all, but… a flooded cave on the seabed.

This was not Vanna’s first time in this chamber. As an Inquisitor, whose rank in the city-state was equal to that of a Bishop, she also had the right to use this psychic channel. This unremarkable room was the “port” that built the Channel.

Every city-state’s central Cathedral had similar facilities, and every Church had its own version of the same art. The priests of the storm Goddess used such “flooded caves”. The priests of the Death God built their connecting paths in “pale chambers”. These gloomy places actually had a wondrous purpose: they could peel a user’s spirit from the body and send it into a vast psychic space shared by all, no matter how far apart the city-states were or how wild the storms on the Boundless Sea became.

These sacred miracles were made possible by the divine blessing of the gods. They let distant branches of the Church on the Boundless Sea communicate in time. In older ages, when ocean-going ships were not as reliable as they are now, this was even the only way many city-states could keep in touch and confirm each other’s survival.

The chamber door slowly closed. The big dark metal door gave a dull thud, and the complex runes carved across its surface began to move quickly, tangling and locking together like living things, sealing the room completely.

Vanna and Valentine stood together by the fire pit at the center of the chamber. They lowered their heads, gazing at the leaping holy flames, and quietly recited the holy name of the storm Goddess Gamona.

The faint sound of water kept coming from all around them, and as they recited the name it grew louder. In the end the sound turned into waves, even roaring. A damp breath filled the whole room. In the growing humidity, Vanna saw the trickling streams on the floor suddenly turn into rolling waves that began to rise very fast.

She kept her eyes on the flames in the center of the room. The fire burned as steadily as ever, blazing within the rising waves.

Vanna closed her eyes and calmly let the phantom seawater drown her completely.

The cold touch faded quickly. When she opened her eyes again, she no longer stood in a flooded stone chamber. Instead she was in a vast, hazy space. It seemed to be a plaza, almost without end, old and grand. Many huge pillars stood at the edge of her sight. The tops of those pillars were all broken, as if shattered and scattered into the distant sky. A dim flow of light hung over the plaza, and something seemed to hide deep within that light, but it was not something mortal eyes could pierce.

Vanna steadied herself. She saw that many figures were already standing on the plaza – black silhouettes that only had outlines. She could not see their faces, but from the familiar auras each one gave off she knew they were all devout Saints of the storm Goddess. They came from many city-states, from the moving Cathedrals, and even from the Grand Cathedral of Storms.

Only Saints could be candidates to become Listeners – for some “voices”, only powerful Saints could complete the Listening rite and stay conscious.

“Looks like we are among the last ones.” A shadow drifted closer. Because they knew each other well, Vanna recognized him as Bishop Valentine even before he spoke. The old man’s tone sounded a bit embarrassed. “I was also the last to arrive at the last meeting…”

“Do the Saints from other city-states live in their secret rooms or something…” Vanna muttered. “Every time a summons goes out, half of them gather in less than ten minutes…”

“Ever since Saint Folsom wrote ‘first’ on the attendance book in the plaza twenty years ago, they have been competing to arrive early,” Valentine shook his head and said. “Honestly, I do not understand it. The Goddess will not give them extra favor for that.”

Vanna did not comment. Just then, a sudden rumbling sounded from the far end of the crowd, cutting off her thoughts and all the talk between the Saints’ shadows.

Vanna and Valentine both looked up at the same time and saw the ground at the center of the plaza rising. The cracked old stone tiles rippled like water. In the overlapping waves, something huge was rising quickly. First came a pale spire, then slanted stone walls and old pillars.

In almost a moment, the thing came fully into Vanna’s view – a huge building made of pale giant stones.

It was a gloomy “palace”, an ancient building raised in a long-lost age. A pyramid formed its main body, with several obelisks and towers around it. No city-state in the world used such a style, and its heavy, suffocating air felt nothing like a place meant for the living.

Rather than a palace, it was more like a giant tomb.

In fact, that was exactly what it was – a tomb belonging to some ancient, mighty being.

Like everyone else, Vanna’s gaze was drawn to the base of the great pyramid. Under countless watching eyes, the tomb’s gate finally opened.

The heavy pale stone doors slid aside, and a very tall figure slowly walked out of the tomb.

It was the Gravekeeper of the Nameless King’s tomb.

In Vanna’s eyes, it was hard to say whether “he” was still a living human.

His body was wrapped in layer after layer of shroud. One half of his body and shroud were burned almost pitch black, while the other half was bound in heavy rune chains. Some of those grim chains even stretched straight out of his flesh, their tips wrapped around pulsing blood vessels and nerves. This ancient Gravekeeper looked like a terrible creature made of mortal flesh, iron fetters, and a deathly curse. He stepped out of the Nameless King’s tomb and walked with heavy steps toward the shadows gathered on the plaza.

Even though this was not her first time seeing the Gravekeeper, Vanna still drew a breath without thinking, feeling her muscles tense.

Then she saw the Gravekeeper walk straight toward her.

The choice had been made.

The Gravekeeper passed every person on the plaza without hesitation until he stopped in front of Vanna. Only one eye was exposed on his head, the rest wrapped in shroud and chains. That single eye looked calmly at Vanna – though she was already quite tall, the Gravekeeper still stood a whole head above her.

“You may enter the tomb.” The Gravekeeper spoke, his voice hoarse, as if from a corpse. Then he raised his right hand, which looked as if it had been burned by fire. In it he held a quill and a roll of parchment.

“Write down what you hear.” The Gravekeeper gave his brief order.