XXI. Res Cogitans

Soren drew his shield. The expanse of darkness before them, stark, unrelenting, began to form faint shapes, figures, images upon Soren’s mind’s eye. For a moment he thought he saw an armored woman—

Mere illusions, he thought. This—this is always the case with darkness.

“Don’t stop moving, they said,” said Cybele. “What in God’s name are we moving toward?”

Soren’s body glowed white, yet only briefly, as did Cybele’s.

“Forward. That’s all I know,” said Soren. He did not perceive any thoughts that weren’t his own, yet nonetheless, a sense of direction came to him as if he was remembering it himself.

And Soren decided he would not think about Little One’s presence inside himself, for there was nothing to be done about it.

“Sophie told me Little One has been accompanying other ‘lambs’ for ‘quite some time now.’ I suppose we have no choice but to trust the little fae…”

Soren nodded. The only martial spell he recalled was a deafening blast of force, or: vis exsurdans.

He recalled his instinctual invocation of the spell in Cybele’s memory cloister.

It is through adversity that new memories come about; Soren understood this from past conversations with the Sisters.

Yet this remained unpredictable—as so much of the Cathedral was, too.

“My own cloister—we must find one,” said Soren.

Cybele’s body tensed slightly as they walked onward in the dark. His grip on Gauvain’s dagger, as molten hot as it was when he first obtained it, tightened.

“And—I hope we do, dearly so.”

They walked close to each other, on and on, beating lights in each of their hands. The invocation of magic via imagination seemed to be but one way of casting a spell, for it had required no incantation. It came to Soren intuitively, though he was sure that must have required Little One’s help.

“And what of these ‘fae?’ Do you remember them at all?” asked Soren.

“Not particularly,” said Cybele. “Maybe I was told stories about them… truth be told, I was able to recollect much about my life in Elestie before we first met. I had been here for some time already, though.”

“How long?”

“I’m not sure. ‘Younger lambs’ are supposed to have their own separate procession, so Maria had told me, but of course that didn’t bear out after our troubles in the Nave.”

Cybele looked downcast.

“I hope the Sisters are all right, too. I’m… not sure if they know everything. It was first with Tennieson that I knew I had—”

Cybele shivered.

“Will this… be enough? Procession, perhaps, for—absolution?”

Soren’s expression became stern.

“We shall see. I’m afraid I’m not a priest, and though I cannot speak on behalf of the Almighty, He yet forgives us for the sins we commit.”

“And yet, none of my prayers have been answered,” said Cybele. “Have yours?”

Soren’s grip on his shield tightened too. He looked away from Cybele.

“What was it you said?” continued Cybele. “‘Why have we been forsaken?’ What—what did you mean by that? Because if God won’t answer you, then—”

“Never mind that. We are here, we have both been judged once already by the Queen’s sword.”

Soren stood tall.

“Steady yourself, Cybele. Whatever else we are here for, it is not to die again.”

But what if it is?

Soren shook these thoughts away. He looked at Cybele, whose expression became stark with fear, before he swallowed, nodded, and looked back toward the darkness again.

All deserve grace, Soren thought. All deserve mercy. No matter that letter, and whatever that diabolical Serville had planned for him.

But—

What of combat? Of his helplessness before the knight, his visions of gore and death upon his companions, of himself upon that bloody battlefield by Leutere?

Then within a blink, Soren saw a faint amber light, far in the distant, silent, cavernous darkness.

Of a sky without stars but now for one, quiet, infernal.

Cybele stopped. “What is that?”

Soren held Cybele’s wrist, moving them forward.

“Whatever it is,” said Soren, whose hands glowed white for but a second, “we must press onward.”

Cybele lagged behind before his pace picked up speed to match Soren’s.

The amber light steadily grew in brightness, a hollow in the teeming darkness around them. There was no breeze, no other sound, and the smell was of dank must. Each step forward sent reverberant fear throughout Soren’s mind and body, growing harsher, as he held his shield in front of himself. He blinked—

A woman stood before them, towering multiple feet above Soren, further still above Cybele. Her pointed nose cast a shadow across her smooth, supple, beautiful face. She wore a silken black gown which covered her body, down to her feet. A black scapular lay atop the gown, and she woe a black veil over her head. Only her folded hands, which she held down in front of herself, were visible. Her skin was snow-white in color, absent of any complexion, and her eyes—

Perfectly white where the iris and pupil would be, gradating to black at their edges—and even now, that blackness of her eyes reflected nothing at all, as when Soren first saw her.

“Isabeau.” Soren spoke with a quiet, astonished tone. Her eyes glistened in the amber light emanating from her, and her gentle smile, her pale gray lips, lifted into a wide grin.

Then came fear.

“It is rude to refer to me by name. That is above your station, my love.”

Isabeau looked at both of them. Cybele’s mouth hung agape, his body turned still like ice, as the dagger dangled at his side.

“So it seems my shepherds have left you little lambs alone, too. They know that is a sin. But I will find them again.”

Her grin faded to a flat, stern expression.

“Did they not think I would be here? How foolish.”

The blackness at the edges of her eyes crept toward the glistening whiteness in their centers.

“Oh, what to do. What to do with lost lambs.”

She walked forward—Soren and Cybele stepped backward, almost instinctively. She stopped, restored her gentle smile.

“Are you afraid? But why? What is it that you lot think I do here? You could not possibly begin to imagine all that I’ve done to make your very existence here possible at all.”

“W—we—” Cybele, staring that dark surface beneath them, sighed deeply, rapidly. His hands began to tremble.

“Go on, little lamb,” said Isabeau, leaning slightly toward Cybele.

“We—only seek passage. To complete the procession. To be absolved of—of our sins. Please—please don’t hurt us—”

Vis exsurdans. But that would not do, thought Soren, I don’t know her power. We have nowhere else to run toward except—which direction? At all? Perhaps Little One would help but I did not know her mind and she did not know mine and what might she even do to help us in this situation and did she mean to bring us here in particular?

Soren did not let down his gaze, consciously avoiding a glare or some harsh stare.

“My dear Cybele. Absolution remains in the hands of God, and I am His keeper. Please do not tell me your shepherds intended to complete the procession without me.”

And her voice, gentle, high-pitched, warm, did try to restrain Soren’s nerves, but he would not let that be so. Not this time, or any time at all.

“And why would I harm you? Perhaps, in fact, I should be requesting your restraint, given the blood on your hands.”

Cybele’s gaze broke from Isabeau and toward his hands, caked with dried blood, and he looked at his clothing, saw the blood stains upon them.

“Tell me, Cybele. Is that your blood?”

And her gentle smile turned into a rancid scowl, her brow furrowed furiously—

“You are afraid of me, while you have drawn the blood of your own kin!” she yelled, piercing their ears with a sharp, bellowing tone.

Cybele fell to his knees, and silently began to weep.

“And you.” She turned to Soren, whose gaze held steadfast.

And in an instant she smiled gently again.

“Your cloister awaits you, I see. But, more than that, you are of the inquisitive and curious type, aren’t you, Soren? I long suspected that.”

She stepped forward, and leaned toward him, closer than she had toward Cybele.

Soren remained stalwart. He felt his heart racing as if to burst any moment now—

“You, too, have noticed the unspeaking maw of God. You may yet understand why I bring my Cathedral to its knees.”

She looked toward the darkness above, her irises gleaming like stars beneath the amber light.

“Long have I decided to take my faith into my own hands. God beckons that we know Him while He does not speak—that is my purpose. And, I decree that it is now your purpose, as well as Cybele’s. Why continue to suffer existence so? Why before the empty maw of the divine?”

She looked down again at Soren.

And her smile turned into a long, wide grin again.

“Be not afraid, for you need not a body to journey with me. I will keep your soul intact; after all things, it is the soul which forms the mountain by which we climb to Heaven—”

Isabeau held out her hands, palms facing outward as Soren heard the movement of old, croaking flesh around him every which way—

“Together.”

Soren skipped backward as his body glowed with white light and a long, pale, ancient wrinkled arm with long, black, jagged fingernails lunged out of the darkness toward him and crashed into his shield, sending him skidding across the surface on his knees.

He felt pain in his hands, feared they might have been broken, yet he did not let go.

“What is it that you fear? Do you not want to hear His voice?”

And she looked toward Cybele, broken from his trance as he looked at Soren then toward Isabeau with his dagger raised and his teeth clenched and his brow furrowed in terror—

An arm came out of the darkness, wrapping around Cybele’s leg before it pulled and Cybele fell against the ground yet did not let go of the dagger.

“Soren—”

And he vanished into the darkness.

Soren rose, felt his legs quivering, and called out to God—

And there was a flash of white light in the darkness, and Soren made out two figures, one tall and armed with a sword—

Isabeau tilted her head slightly, still smiling gently at him.

And Soren prepared for another arm as he strode forward with but one phrase in his mind: vis exsurdans maxima.