Nathaniel Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Nathaniel Blackwood knelt in the cathedral crypt and pressed his palm to the iron gate. It was warm. Behind it something old was waking, and he had sworn to seal it shut before it did. But he held no record of how the first priests bound it. Without their ritual, any words he spoke might crack the seal instead of mending it. He had proof of the danger. Last week he had tested a simple warding chant. The gate had shuddered, and a hairline crack had opened across its face. So he went into the forest to the one place that might hold the answer. The little shop stood among the trees, its windows glowing yellow. Books climbed its walls in crooked stacks. A carved sign by the door asked what forbidden knowledge a visitor sought. Nathaniel had heard whispers of the master inside. He pushed the door open. A figure rose from a table of scattered notes. His skin was gray as ash, his eyes two points of gold. He looked less like a man than something dredged from the bottom of the sea. This was Erasmus Voidwhisper, the traveling scholar who read languages no living tongue could speak. Nathaniel's throat tightened. He needed this creature, and he feared him in equal measure. "You want the binding of the cathedral gate," Erasmus said. It was not a question. "Many have died reaching for it." Nathaniel set a coin purse on the table. "The gate is cracking. I have days, perhaps fewer. I need the exact ritual." Erasmus did not touch the coins. He crossed the room and lifted a silver bowl from a high shelf. Carved tentacles wound around its sides, and green stones stared out like watching eyes. "The words were never written," he said. "But this bowl remembers. Fill it, and it shows the past." They worked through the night. Nathaniel poured water into the bowl while Erasmus murmured over it in a dead liturgical tongue. The surface went dark. Then images bloomed: robed priests, a burning altar, a gate the same as the one below the cathedral. Nathaniel leaned close and watched their hands, their steps, the shape of each spoken word. "There," Erasmus said, tracing the vision. "Salt at the four corners. Blood of the binder. And these words, in the old speech." He wrote them out, line by line, translating as the bowl showed the rite whole. Nathaniel closed his notebook. He had the ritual now, every step. His hand shook with relief. Erasmus caught his wrist. His grip was cold. "You saw the priests who bound it first," he said. "Now count them. Eleven stood at that gate. It took all eleven to hold the god down." Nathaniel looked at the vision again. Eleven figures ringed the altar, each speaking a part. "You have the ritual," Erasmus said. "But you cannot perform it alone. Find ten who will bleed beside you, or the god walks free."