Chapter 21: The Rite of the Hollow Temple

Chapter 21: The Rite of the Hollow Temple The temple had been built by men who believed that stone could outlast the memory of famine, of flood, of the old gods’ indifference. Its spires showed first, punching through last year’s fire-killed scrub like the bones of a forgotten beast. Even from half a mile away, with the sun behind them and the wind at their backs, Apollo could feel the place’s hunger. He did not slow. If anything, he kept a dogged, childlike pace, willing the others onward with the stubbornness of a man who knew there was nothing behind them but bad weather and recent ghosts. Nik noticed it first. He pointed with his chin, the rest of him too busy shifting most of Thorin’s half-dead weight up the slope. "Is that a watch post, or am I seeing things?" "Temple," Lyra said, not even pretending to guess. She’d walked this part of the world before; her body settled into a wary, animal readiness as they drew near. "Old one, maybe from the time before the empire. Doubt there’s anyone left inside." But she did not speak as if she believed it. Thorin, awake for the first time since the marsh, squinted against the wind. "Used to be a shrine at the crossroads. That one’s bigger. Wrong shape for a church, though." His voice was hollowed out, but steady. Apollo watched the silhouette of the building resolve itself: walls blackened by rain, roof patched with something that might have been hides or slate. A set of flags hung listless along the parapet, color bled out by decades of sun. The closer they came, the more the air changed, denser, tainted by a sweetness he could not name. The dog went tense at his ankle, hackles up, but did not whine. He tried not to read symbolism into the place. Tried not to see in its sullen arches the memory of a different temple, one built by his own hands, ruined by his own stupidity. He failed. Every step toward it was a step toward the past. They passed the outer wall, crumbled, more suggestion than barrier, and found the courtyard littered with the leavings of travelers less desperate than themselves: bundles of sticks, half-burnt candles, a wax doll impaled on a nail. "Offerings," Lyra said. "Or warnings." Nik set the barrow down and stretched his back until it cracked. "If there’s shelter, I’ll risk the gods’ disapproval," he said, not bothering with the usual sarcasm. The air was too thick for it. They approached the main door, battered wood rimmed in rust and old blood. It stood open, not wide, but enough for a body to slip through if it wanted. The inside was dark, riven by shafts of colorless light. Apollo scanned the entryway, saw the shadow-shapes huddled along the pews, and felt the pressure in his teeth, familiar, but wrong. It was the same sensation he’d had in Marrowgate, that night with Cassian and the Blackhearts: a slow, deliberate squeezing of the world’s edges, a charge that made his bones go hollow and his vision sharpen to a knife point. But this was older, more practiced. It reached across the distance and pressed on him, waiting to be recognized. Lyra stopped just inside, voice low. "There’s people," she said. "A lot of them." She pointed to the altar, where a cluster of figures knelt, heads bowed, hands raw from prayer or penance. The scent of old incense was drowned by the sharper tang of sweat and unwashed skin. Nik grunted. "Devotees?" Lyra shook her head. "They’re not praying. They’re just...waiting." Apollo saw it, too: the slackness in the limbs, the glazed, hungry way the nearest face watched the dust motes swirl in the light. Not sick, exactly, not the fever that had eaten through Marrowgate, but something deeper, a rot that was more of the soul than the flesh. He stepped past Lyra, ignoring her hiss of warning, and walked down the center aisle. The echoes of his boots came back strange, elongated. The nearest of the faithful turned to look at him, and the movement was so slow it barely qualified as alive. Their eyes were wrong. The irises had leeched to a muddy gray, the pupils shot through with filaments of white. When one blinked, the lid closed the wrong direction, bottom to top, like a curtain. He swallowed, counted the faces. Twelve at the altar. Four more scattered through the nave. All were dressed in the same dirty white, the hems of their robes caked with mud and, in places, something darker. A priest stood at the altar, back to the room, hands clasped in front. His cowl hid most of his head, but the skin at the nape was smooth and unmarked by age. He spoke, voice clear as glass. "Are you here for redemption, or for a place to hide?" Apollo stopped at the first row of pews. The others filed in behind him, Lyra now openly gripping her knife, Nik with one hand on the barrow and the other holding Thorin upright. The dwarf’s face had gone sallow and cold, but his eyes were awake, even lucid. "I’m told you offer sanctuary," Apollo said, the formal words feeling strange in his mouth. The priest turned, revealed a face so ordinary that Apollo flinched; there was something about the mouth, the way it pinched at the corners, that made the whole head seem unfinished. The eyes were pale blue, rimmed in red, no sign of the earlier mutation—but the gaze was as empty as the echo of a hollow bell. "We offer absolution," the priest said, stepping down from the altar. His robe was immaculate from the knees up, but the hem trailed behind him, stained in a way that suggested years of crawling or worse. "If you seek safety, you must first be cleansed. The world outside is sick, here, we are made new each day." Lyra snorted, but the sound died in the hush. "We just need a roof for a night," she said. "All who enter are welcome," the priest replied, "but to stay, you must join us in the rite. It is our one rule."