Saint Camber (41 page)

“I doubt anyone had been through here for fifty or a hundred years before I came,” Camber said, gesturing toward the left as he ushered Joram into the ruined corridor. “One of Willowen's work crews broke through into an upper level of this complex when they were clearing away some collapsed masonry to get at a clogged drain—which led me to take a much closer look at the old master plans for this house. Mind your head.”

As he ducked to avoid a fallen beam, he glanced back at Joram. The following handfire cast an eerie silvery wash on ancient, crumbling frescoes lining the hallway—half-glimpsed scenes of monastic and academic life so badly damaged by time and damp that little detail could be read. The air was musty and stale, and did not move except as their garments stirred it with their passage.

“Anyway,” Camber continued as they walked, “I eventually worked my way down to this level through a series of passages, most of which I've since sealed. That was after I'd discovered that the corridors leading to the outside had long since fallen in—or possibly been deliberately slighted when the school was abandoned. And, of course, I'd already set up my private Portal. Unless I've badly misinterpreted the building plans, the Portal is the only way into this area now. Watch your step. What I want to show you is just beyond this next bend.”

As they made a sharp turn to the right and halted, Camber's gesture caused the hovering handfire to float a little higher and ahead to illuminate a vast double door of iron-bound oak, half of which dangled precariously from one rusted hinge. Above the doorway, carved into the lintel with graceful chisel strokes, was a Latin inscription:
Adorabo ad templum sanctum tuum, et confitebor nomini tuo
.

Joram scanned the carving intently, moving a little closer in the ghostly light.

“It's from the Psalms,” he said. “I forget the exact verse. It says, ‘I will worship toward Thy holy temple, and will give glory to Thy Name.'” He glanced at his father. “Is this a chapel you want to show me?”

“Not exactly. I think your ‘temple' is a more apt translation. Let's go inside. I want you to tell
me
what it is.”

Pushing the door ajar, Camber ducked and stepped through, holding the opening until Joram could follow gingerly behind him. The handfire, bright enough in the outer corridor, seemed to dim almost to nothing in the vastness of the inner chamber. Camber cupped his hands and breathed light into another sphere, set that to hovering an armspan from the first one with a wave of one amethyst-ringed hand.

“I'm afraid it's in a terrible state of repair,” Camber murmured. “This place was old long before it was abandoned. The earliest date I've been able to locate so far is on a ledger stone there to the left of the altar dais—and that reads either 603 or 503. The stone is badly damaged. Take a look around and then tell me what it reminds you of.”

Joram gave only a perfunctory nod, for he was already sweeping the chamber with sight and other senses, questing out into the sheer otherness of the place.

The chamber was far larger than he had first supposed, wider and higher than even the central transept of the cathedral in Valoret, which was said to have the largest dome in the Eleven Kingdoms. Circular in shape, its walls set with time-dulled mosaic designs of leaves and seas and golden-gleaming fire, it was vaulted by a tangle of arches and geometric patterns whose intricacies vanished in the subtleties of shadowed height.

From the dome's central boss hung a heavy metal chain terminating in nothingness. Beneath the chain, on a raised circular dais of seven wide steps, stood what remained of a square altar with black-and-white sides, its once-burnished mensa smashed almost to powder by whatever had fallen from the empty chain. Fragments of shattered stone and glass and twisted metal littered the dais around the altar. The pavement of the dais, also badly damaged, repeated the black-and-white checkerboard pattern of the altar sides, though on a far smaller scale.

Camber cleared his throat and glanced at Joram after a few minutes had passed.

“Well?”

“I think I understand the Gabrilite connection you mentioned earlier,” Joram said, after a thoughtful pause. “It's—something like the chapter house at Saint Neot's, in that it's round and has a square altar in the center. I've only seen those design features at Saint Neot's before this. But this has—a strange feel to it.” He glanced at his father. “Does that make any sense?”

Nodding, Camber looked around the chamber. “It does. I felt the same way, the first time I came here. And now that I've been reading some of the ancient records connected with this place—well, come and take a close look at the altar.”

They crossed the rubble-strewn floor in silence, only the slither of leather soles on stone intruding on the quiet. Up the seven shallow steps they climbed, to tread gingerly on the black-and-white tile of the dais floor. The pavement was swept fairly clean on the side of the altar from which they approached, and Joram glanced around it curiously. One triangular section of the altar slab remained in place, nearly half the original top, and he could see now that an inscription had once been carved around the edge. Faint traces of gilt paint still clung to the curves of the incised lettering.

“
Benedictus es, Domine Deus patram nostrorum,”
Joram read in a low voice, filling in the sense of missing letters and parts of words.

“‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord God of our fathers,'” Camber translated. “I believe it's from Daniel. And the rest would read:
et laudabilis in saecula
—‘worthy of praise forever.' It's not a usual quotation for an altar stone, so far as I've been able to discover.”

Merely grunting in reply, Joram bent to pick up a fragment of glass from the tile. The piece was a clear, smokey amber, remarkably free from bubbles or other imperfections. Running diagonally across one jagged corner was a streak of cloudiness which Joram suspected was once part of an etched design. He could not quite visualize the original object it had helped to form.

“What do you suppose this was?” he finally asked, laying the glass on the altar slab.

“An unusual sanctuary lamp, I think,” Camber replied. “I've found some drawings which I'm fairly certain are from this place. If so, this was part of a great lantern of eight sides, done in silver wire and amber glass etched with equal-armed crosses.” He indicated the debris of glass and twisted metal with a sweep of one leather-clad arm. “But as to whether it fell or was pulled down for some reason, I couldn't say. Judging by the size of that chain, I should think it unlikely that the lamp fell by itself—but if it was pulled down, why? Or, was it blasted by some great energy? I don't think the altar was ever deconsecrated, by the way.”

“No?”

“See for yourself,” Camber replied. “When I first laid my hands on the altar, I thought my senses must be playing tricks on me. If I wasn't new to magic, I was at least new to priesting, and I hadn't expected—Well, see for yourself. Remember every other altar you've ever touched; remember the one in the haven chapel, after Cinhil celebrated his last Mass—and then tell me what this one says to you. In fact, don't touch the table slab at all. Lay your hands on the black stone underneath.”

With a puzzled glance at his father, Joram wiped his hands against the leather of his riding tunic and moved closer to the altar. He wet his lips in concentration as he held his palms a fingerspan above the black undersurface for several seconds, then closed his eyes and let his hands rest gently on the stone. After a long moment, he exhaled softly through slightly pursed lips and raised his head a little.

“I see what you mean,” he finally said, eyes a little unfocused as he continued trying to pin down the sensations he was experiencing. “There's power here still—far, far more than I would expect, after so many years—and more than can be explained even if the altar were still in use, which it clearly is not. Or is it?” He looked up shrewdly. “What was done here? You know, don't you?”

Camber smiled drolly, the expression somehow almost mischievous on Alister Cullen's weathered face, and folded his arms across his chest.

“I have my suspicions, at least in part. Look closely at the altar, at how it's constructed. Then try searching some of your earliest childhood memories. That's where I found the connection.”

Frowning, Joram stepped back a few paces and eyed the mass of stone from another angle, his expression clearly proclaiming that he saw nothing unusual in its appearance. From an obsidian base, perhaps a hand-span in thickness and extending that much around the edges, side panels of alternating black and white squares rose to waist level, four squares to a face. The now-destroyed table of white marble, originally the same size as the base, had once rested on four fluted columns as big around as a man's arm, two white and two black, though one of the black ones was fallen now, its shaft snapped clean across the center by the same impact which had smashed the marble mensa.

Camber watched Joram's perplexed gaze follow the lines of the stones, then shook his head resignedly and reached into the front of his leather tunic and withdrew a small black velvet bag. Untying the scarlet cords which bound its neck, he leaned down to blow dust from a portion of the black understone of the altar. He tipped the bag gently above the cleaned ebony surface and captured the polished cubes with his right hand as they tumbled out, four white and four black. The cubes seemed to glow in the baleful light of Camber's handfire, casting hardly any shadows. Camber's bishop's ring glittered in brilliant contrast to the quieter shimmer of black and white cubes.

“Wards Major?” Joram whispered.

Nodding, Camber sorted the cubes with his fingertip, moving the four white ones until they formed a solid square. The velvet bag he laid aside as he looked up steadily at his son.

“You remember the spell, Joram,” he said softly. “It was the first one I ever taught you. Your mother thought I should have waited until you were older, but I knew that your brother Ballard would show you if I didn't, and then you both might have gotten yourselves into trouble.”

With a smile, Camber moved the four black cubes so that they stood at each corner of the larger square he had already formed, black not quite touching white. Then, glancing up to be certain he had Joram's attention, he gently placed first and second fingers on
prime
and
quinte
and switched their places, repeating the process with
quarte
and
octave
. He looked up at Joram again, hoping for comprehension, though he did not really expect to see it.

“You never learned this one, did you?”

Joram studied the configuration in silence, fair brow furrowed in consternation. Then: “But—you can't set Wards Major like that.”

“That is very true.”

“Then …” Joram's eyes took on a faraway look. “You mean that—something
else
would happen if you tried to work the spell using this arrangement?”

Camber nodded.

“You wouldn't get a Ward Major,” Joram continued tentatively.

Again Camber nodded.

“Which means that—the cubes can be used for more than one spell,” Joram finally murmured. He stared at the cubes fixedly for several heartbeats, swallowing audibly before daring to look up at his father again.

“What—what
would
happen if you went ahead with this setup?”

“I don't know. I've not tried
that
arrangement.” He picked up the white cube in the upper left-hand corner, normally named
prime
, and held it lightly between thumb and forefinger. “Without actually naming the components and risking finding out precipitously, however, I want you to consider yet another variation. If I place
prime
on
quinte
, and
sixte
on
seconde
, and
septime
and
quarte
on
tierce
and
octave
—what will I have?”

Joram stared hard at the cubes, trying to visualize them as Camber had described, then shook his head. “Go through it again.
Prime
on
quinte
—”

“
Prime
on
quinte
.” Camber nodded, stacking the two cubes, white on black, as Joram watched.

“And
sixte
on
seconde
,” Joram continued, picking up the black
sixte
and putting it on its white counterpart.

“And
septime
and
quarte
on
tierce
and
octave
,” Camber finished, suiting actions to words as he put the final two cubes into place. “Now,” he said, looking at Joram discerningly once more. “We have a cube. What does that tell you?”

When Joram started to shake his head in bewilderment, Camber brought the flat of his right hand down on the altar with a slap.

“Look at the cubes, Joram! Look at the altar! What do you see?”

Joram looked, then took a step backward and looked again, this time at the altar itself. Camber watched with a satisfied nod as his son made the connection at last.

“I see—a cube made of eight alternating black and white cubes,” Joram finally whispered. “And the—altar is also made of eight black and white cubes.” His eyes sought his father's. “Are you saying that the altar cubes are part of a giant Ward Major matrix?”

Camber sighed and scooped up the little cubes in his palm, letting them fall, one by one, back into the black velvet bag. He did not look up or speak until he had retied the bag and tucked it back into his tunic.

“That I don't know. I don't think it's a Ward Major matrix, but I'm beginning to suspect that it
is
a matrix. At very least, I think the altar may be symbolic of the cubes we use. In fact, the very appellation of ‘Ward Major cubes' is probably a misnomer. I've found sketches of a full dozen additional cube matrices already, and there are logically dozens more possibilities. Unfortunately, I haven't yet figured out what any of them do, including this one—which appears to be the only one worked in three dimensions, by the way.”