Chapter 104

Chapter 104: The Note

Looking at the quill and parchment sheet the Gravekeeper handed to her, Vanna took a quiet breath and forced her emotions to calm at once.

“How long can I stay inside?” She raised her head and fixed her gaze on the nameless Gravekeeper.

The Gravekeeper lowered his head a little. This being, who carried both the aspect of life and of death, seemed to weigh the strength of the soul before him, then gave a cold answer: “An instant, or eternity.”

This answer meant the message about to come from the burial chamber would be brief and singular, but it might point toward a very, very dangerous “source”, and the Listener might die because of it.

Vanna nodded lightly and withdrew her gaze from the Gravekeeper.

She stepped toward the great tomb not far away. The Gravekeeper followed behind her, dragging his decayed, dark chains across the ground with a sharp, grating noise. The shadowy figures gathered on the plaza only watched in silence, seeing off a chosen Saint as she went toward the mausoleum.

At the mausoleum’s gate, Vanna stopped. She looked up at the towering pale stone door. The ancient, desolate air it gave off stirred her heart a little.

This was not the first time she had seen this tomb in the psychic conclave, but it was the first time she had been chosen to enter it as a Listener.

Vision 004, the “Nameless King Mausoleum” — this ancient burial place, lodged in some strange rift of time and space, was not a Vision controlled by the Deep Sea Church. It was an ancient relic guarded in turns and shared by all the orthodox Churches. From the outside, it was a mausoleum in the heavy style of the ancient kingdom of Critt, and all the evidence that existed showed that this tomb really was a legacy left by that old kingdom. Yet no one knew who had built it, and no one knew why this ancient mausoleum had become a “Vision”.

People only knew that the Master inside this tomb would, from time to time, send messages to the outside world. The corruption carried in those messages was, in most cases, enough to kill a mortal. Yet on the other hand, the messages were reliable and precise enough to reveal the “true information” about certain powerful Anomalies and Visions directly.

Whenever the Master of the tomb sent a message out, a “Gravekeeper” would come forth from the burial chamber and choose a Listener to enter the mausoleum. The Gravekeeper himself was part of Vision 004. He had no name or surname, was loyal to his post, and kept its secrets. He would first choose from the souls gathered near the plaza, and if there were none, he would randomly take a chosen one from anywhere in the world.

In the age before people had summed up the patterns of Vision 004, such “random choosing” had taken hundreds, even thousands of lives — until, thousands of years ago, the birth of a natural-born Saint broke this terrible cycle for the first time.

That Saint came back alive from the Nameless King Mausoleum and made public the first gift from the “Nameless King”: the first list of Anomalies and Visions.

Everyone knew that the classification system and list of Anomalies and Visions were a gift left to later generations by the ancient kingdom of Critt. Very few, however, knew how that gift had truly entered the world. The ancient kingdom had left behind Vision 004, and only after thousands of failed selections did Vision 004 finally manage to reveal the first version of the register.

Only after that did the major Churches slowly learn how to use the psychic conclave to approach the tomb on purpose and send Saints as “Listeners”, so that this ancient Vision could be used by people in a relatively safe way.

“Enter the mausoleum and prepare the Listening Rite.” The Gravekeeper’s low, hoarse voice came from behind her, and Vanna stepped forward.

The sound of the stone door closing slowly came from behind her, and the Gravekeeper’s presence faded from the air at the same time. That ancient Warden once more became part of the mausoleum. Now he watched every move of the soul that had entered the tomb through invisible senses.

Pale flames flared up along both sides of the corridor leading to the chamber. Vanna followed the path lit by the fire deeper into the tomb. Her gaze swept over the walls on both sides. On the walls built of massive stones, she could just make out “markings” that looked as if they had been scraped out by fingernails.

“Walk straight ahead. Do not look back.”

“Do not ask the Gravekeeper about the Master of the chamber, or about his name.”

“Do not run, do not shout, and do not pray to any deity.”

“Keep humility and awe, but do not kneel.”

“After you enter the chamber, do not speak.”

These were the records left over countless years by countless “Listeners”. In ancient times, most Listeners died in this passageway. Among them, perhaps one in a hundred, or even one in a thousand, had enough strength to leave these warnings for those who came after, in the last moments before their death.

These precious “reminders” had long since been written into the manuals each Church used to train Saints. Vanna knew them by heart and did not dare forget a single word.

But at that moment Vanna suddenly felt a bit curious. She had heard that there were reminders left by her predecessors in this passage, but she had not expected to find only these reminders. What about the hysterical ones, the ones who went mad, the ones who lost hope at the end and begged in despair, or raged and destroyed things? Had they not left any traces in this passage?

Human nature was complex. Before the Churches managed to gain control over Vision 004, the Gravekeeper had brought hundreds and thousands of people in here. Among them there must have been those whose minds broke, those who blamed heaven and earth, and surely there had been people who carved mad ravings on the walls of the passage, even curses spat at the curse itself… Yet all the way here, Vanna had seen only the encouragements and admonitions left by her predecessors, as if…

As if only steadfast and noble souls were allowed to leave marks here.

Vanna felt a bit confused, but in the end she did not call out to the Gravekeeper to ask her questions.

In theory, she could speak to the Gravekeeper while still in the passage. That did not go against the tomb’s “rules”, and there were indeed records of the Gravekeeper answering Visitors and even taking the initiative to explain things. But this was Vanna’s first time entering as a Listener. She was very cautious and dared not do anything extra.

With her nerves stretched tight like this, the young Inquisitor finally reached the end of the passage. In the wavering light ahead, she could already see the “Nameless King Chamber” at the very deepest point.

She stepped through the stone door at the corridor’s end.

A wide, ancient burial chamber appeared before her eyes.

Inside the great pyramid-shaped room, the four slanting pale stone walls were covered with blurred markings. Two rows of dark metal braziers stood on either side of the entrance. Pale flames burned in them, sending up hazy smoke. In the center of the chamber there was no coffin or anything like it — only a stone chair. On that chair sat the Master of the mausoleum.

It was a headless body that seemed to belong to a tall man. His limbs were held fast by chains. His arms and chest were covered in thick black hair like an animal’s. His feet were twisted and deformed, like warped animal limbs, and at the same time looked as if they had been burned by fierce flames, blackened and rotten.

This body simply sat still on the throne, as if it had no reaction at all to Vanna’s visit.

But Vanna remembered clearly what she had been taught. The moment she saw the “Nameless King”, she took out the parchment sheet and the quill. She gathered her mind to face the coming mental corruption and got ready to write down what she heard…

Vanna opened her eyes.

She saw that she was lying flat on the ground of the gathering plaza. The distant, towering broken pillars linked the chaotic sky with the shattered earth. Farther away, clusters of shadowy figures were gathered.

Several shadows were walking toward her. One of them seemed to be Valentine, the Bishop.

“You are awake. Leave.”

The Gravekeeper’s hoarse, low voice suddenly came from beside her. Startled, Vanna raised her head with difficulty and saw that she was lying right at the entrance of Vision 004. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the tall Gravekeeper turning to step through the stone door of the mausoleum. Then there was a loud rumble. The huge tomb sank quickly down beside her and vanished into the plaza’s floor.

Before Vanna could react to what had happened, several shadows had already reached her side. One of them spoke in Valentine the Bishop’s voice: “Vanna, are you all right? I saw you walk out of the mausoleum and collapse right at the door…”

“I…” Vanna slowly pushed herself up. She felt as if all her strength had been drained away, but now it was slowly returning, and that let her head clear bit by bit. “How long was I inside?”

“An instant,” another Saint’s shadow beside her said in a deep voice. “You went through the door, it closed once, and then you walked back out again.”

Vanna froze for a moment. Then she heard Valentine the Bishop speak again: “What about the parchment sheet? Look at what you wrote.”

“Oh, right, the parchment sheet!” Vanna finally came fully to herself and at once felt that she was indeed holding something. She quickly lifted her hand — and in the next second, her gaze froze.

The parchment sheet that had been whole in her hand was now, for some reason, only a tiny torn scrap. On the little piece a few centimeters long, there were only a few scrawled numbers and letters:

“Anomaly 099 – Doll.”