Ashwalker's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The Ashwalker knelt again in the ring of cooling glass and worked. The pull was gone. The cathedral was empty. It pressed its palms flat and drew the next arc of the base, watching the stone split and fill with light. Then, at the far end of the nave, the great doors it had entered by scraped open. Ash blew in across the floor. A figure walked through the doorway. It was thin, half the Ashwalker's height, wrapped in torn black cloth, its face hidden inside a hood. Two orange points burned where eyes should be. In one gloved hand it carried a staff crowned with pale fire. Behind it came two animals. A stag, tall as the figure, its hide split with molten cracks, obsidian antlers branching from its skull. A fox at the figure's heel, black-furred, ember-veined, small flames at its ears and tail. The three of them stopped a dozen paces from the ring of glass. The Ashwalker rose. Its own chest cracks brightened. It had been certain nothing living remained in reach. "You froze the river," the hooded figure said. The voice was dry and even. "We saw the bridge. We could not cross it. We came the long way around." The stag lowered its head. The fox sat. The figure planted the staff and did not step closer. "I am called Cinder Shepherd. These are what I keep. We have walked a long time to find whatever pulled us here." The Ashwalker looked at the three of them and understood. The pull had not been meant only for it. Something in this cathedral had called every living thing that could still answer, and this was what had answered. The Ashwalker said, "There is nothing here. The source was a carving." Cinder Shepherd was quiet a moment. Then: "There is you. There is the throne behind you. That is enough to have come for." The Ashwalker looked down at the half-formed ring at its feet. It had knelt to build the seat of a dead kingdom. The kingdom was not dead. Three living things stood in its cathedral, and one of them had named itself and asked, without asking, for a place inside these walls. The Ashwalker could order them out. It could finish the throne alone and rule an empty room. Or it could let them stay and rule something that could kneel or refuse. It stepped out of the ring of glass and walked halfway to them and stopped. "Come in," it said. "The doors stay open." Cinder Shepherd tapped the staff once on the floor. The stag moved forward. The fox followed. The Ashwalker turned back toward the unfinished throne and knew the work had changed. It would not be building a seat for itself alone now. It would be building the first seat of a court.