Chapter 154

Chapter 154: .

The archive was managed by an old priest. He was already quite old, with a hunched back and thin, messy white hair. On his head he wore a complex lens array made of brass cranks and crystal lenses, and his clothes still smelled faintly of machine oil.

The old priest sat behind a dark, ring-shaped desk. Using the lenses, he studied a mechanical device that looked like a Rubik’s cube. With the help of several delicate tools, he had taken the cube apart into a pile of tiny parts. The light of a gas lamp shone on the pieces, making them glimmer.

When Vanna walked over, her tall figure blocked the light at the side. Only then did the old priest raise his head. He pushed the lenses away from his eyes with a finger. When he saw who it was, he smiled and said: “Oh, Inquisitor, what kind of help do you need today?”

“Where are the records of all kinds of disasters and accidents in the city-state around the year 1889 kept?” Vanna nodded to the old priest as she asked.

“The disaster records for 1889?” the old priest muttered. He tapped a spot on the wide ring-shaped desk. At once there came a soft sound of gears rubbing under the tabletop. A section of the desktop slid down, and from inside rose a mechanical console covered with cranks, numbered dials, and little levers.

With a chorus of creaks and clicks, the old priest began to operate the clever machine with practiced ease, moving the levers and numbered dials. After he entered the needed information, Vanna heard the deep growl that large machines made when they started to work. She felt the floor under her feet tremble a little. Countless gears and rods ran happily under the push of a steam core. Then she heard a clear ding from the device in front of the old priest, and a strip of printed paper slid out of the machine.

“Go straight along this aisle. At the third row of shelves, turn left. Walk to the end and turn right. One of the shelves there has its lights on. The row with the light is the one you want. The contents are mixed. Every event that could be called a disaster is recorded, even the smallest steam scalding accident. If you need help, just ring the bell.”

As he spoke, the old priest handed her the paper strip. He gripped it with a prosthetic hand. The brass palm and forearm had a fine mechanical structure, and through a small clear window on the back of the hand, one could see a cluster of gears ticking away inside.

Vanna thought that he was probably a Guardian veteran who had retired from the front lines. In the civil departments of the Storm Church, this kind of veteran was not rare.

Their bodies were already damaged, and they had proved their faith and loyalty with blood and sacrifice. With the help of steam-engine or magic prosthetics, they could go on serving the Holy See. Posts that dealt with files and archives became the final home for some of these veterans.

In a way, this was a kind of favor to the warriors. The archive department was fairly easy and well supplied, a place fit for them to grow old in peace. From another angle, it was also a good use of talent. The bodies of these veterans might no longer suit fighting Heretics, but their wills were still tough. And the work of guarding books and records had always needed a tough will.

A trace of respect rose in Vanna’s heart. She took the paper strip with both hands and lowered her head slightly: “Thank you.”

“When you are done, remember to put the books back properly, and do not touch any books that are not in the register,” the old priest said, waving his hand. “Many of the books here have been sitting for a very long time. Do not disturb them for no reason.”

After he finished, he returned to his “work” and paid no more attention to Vanna.

Vanna did not mind. Holding the paper strip printed with entries from the register, she walked toward the depths of the archive. On both sides of her, bookshelves so tall that she could only call them grand stood in neat rows. One after another, they reached up to the dome above, like ancient guards standing in formation and looking down at the small figures below. Bright electric lamps and carefully placed gas lamps lined the spaces between the shelves, making the place as bright as day. Even between the deepest shelves, not a single patch of dark shadows remained.

Vanna found the shelf the old priest had mentioned. A row of small bulbs lit up along it, marking the files she was allowed to read.

The files were not placed very low, but luckily Vanna was tall. She did not need a ladder to take them down, which made her feel relieved.

Pushing a ladder back and forth in such a huge library would not have been an easy job.

She took a quiet breath, found the starting point of the files on the shelf, pulled out the numbered volume, and began to read quickly.

What she wanted to find was simple: the great fire eleven years ago, or rather, the fire that had been packaged as a factory leak accident.

In fact, this was not the first time she had investigated this matter. As an Inquisitor, she was always a little sensitive to every “unusual event”, including things that happened to herself. After she learned that only she still remembered the great fire from her childhood, she had secretly looked into some records from that year. But those short and shallow searches had not given her anything useful.

At the time, she had soon put the matter out of her mind.

After all, she had been only twelve when the accident happened. She had not yet been a believer of the Goddess, and she had not had any special mind. It was not impossible for a panicked child, who had also breathed in toxic smoke, to have some false memories. There was no need to get stuck on this. So after she read a few public files, she had let the matter go.

But now she had suddenly found that someone else in the city-state of Pland had gone through the same great fire she remembered.

The doubts and countless guesses she had once pushed aside rushed back at once. Her “professional alertness” as an Inquisitor roared in her mind.

Because of this professional alertness, she had refused Heidi’s suggestion to “turn back to the antique shop” at the time. Instead, she had calmly waited until today and come straight to this archive hall, which enjoyed the Goddess’s favor, to look into the original records that were not open to the public.

The reason was simple. There was a dangerous air around this matter. Wiping away the memory of a great fire sounded easy, but in fact it touched the minds and memories of tens of thousands of people. The event had also been tied to large numbers of cultists and their acts of destruction that year. If all this had truly been the work of some “hand behind the curtain”, then that hidden hand would never sit still while someone noticed the truth.

The scraps of memory left in her own mind, the scraps left in the mind of the girl named Nina F… these “remnants” were very likely the mistakes left by that hidden hand. The one behind the scenes might not yet have noticed these mistakes, but if he did… she herself was not afraid. But Nina F and her uncle, and the girl named Shirley, were all ordinary people.

So at the time, she had refused Heidi’s suggestion and had asked Heidi not to bring the matter up again. On one hand, she did not want to alarm the enemy and wanted to investigate in secret. On the other hand, she wished to avoid dragging innocent people into danger.

Before she had enough information, she absolutely could not show any interest in that antique shop beyond what was needed.

As she slowly flipped through the file in her hands, Vanna’s thoughts rose and fell.

For some reason, the moment she sensed a shadow, she also felt as if countless unseen eyes were peeping at her and following her. That awful feeling of being watched from the dark was like thorns in her back and made her a little restless.

She put down the file and picked up the one next to it.

At the same time, she thought about the things that had happened in the city-state recently.

Many of the the Suntists active in the city had already been arrested. It seemed that the firm actions of the city-state had scared those Heretics, or perhaps all the channels they used to slip in had truly been destroyed. In any case, the number of the Suntists in the city had dropped a lot, while the Heretic prisons under the great Cathedrals were now packed full.

The goal of those the Suntists in the city-state had long since been found out.

They were searching for the “Sun fragment” that had briefly appeared eleven years ago and might still be hidden somewhere.

The Sun fragment… the great fire eleven years ago…

And the “vision” that Heidi had glimpsed earlier in the City Museum.

Vanna’s hand stopped turning the pages. Clues that had not caught her attention before suddenly linked together in her mind. As she once again examined the fire in her memory, those clues stood out even more.

The young Inquisitor took a light breath. She was now sure that these events were linked and that the great fire eleven years ago had truly happened. At the same time, her eyes drifted over some words in the file:

“…On X month, X day, in the XX block, a serious Heretic worship event occurred. Three households of residents built altars in their homes and offered blood and prayers to some unknown abomination that had never appeared in any record. This caused panic and nightmares among a large number of nearby residents. Later, the sacrificial ritual was reported and destroyed, but the clues left on site could not be linked to any known Eldritch God or Evil Spirit…

“By theory, such a ritual should not have had any effect. It should have been only the blind trial of ignorant fools, driven by their private desires. But the mass panic and nightmares among local residents did happen. Later investigation proved that the area had indeed been affected by supernatural power at that time…”