I also needed some time to think, to sort through the chaotic swirl of emotional feedback from the last few hours. Cristobel had sacrificed himself to get into my head, as if being there would be a better place from which to direct me. But it wasn't, because while his soul energy was permanently part of the Chorus now, his personality wasn't fixed. Some of it would last, like the others, but not enough. Yet, there was no regret on his part, no sense of failure in doing what he did. It was as if his death and transference was part of the grand design.
If my Vision is True.
First, Philippe, and now Cristobel. What the hell were they doing? They were taking advantage of the psychic nature of the Chorus, of the manner in which I leeched knowledge from those I broke, but it was a fatal choice. Why couldn't they have just written down what I had needed to know? Or told me over coffee? Why the need to die to pass along their knowledge?
The body must die, the Chorus reminded me.
"I'm getting tired of that answer," I muttered.
Cristobel nudged me at the next split in the tunnel, and the Chorus added a marker to their map of the underground. I took the left fork-as directed-and stumbled slightly as the floor dipped downward.
"I realize this is a matter of interpretation," I said, "but this eagerness to jump into my head is starting to feel a little bit fanatical. Like you guys are trying to start a cult or something." Making light of the situation, trying to get some sort of reaction from my spirits. Some hint of why two Architects were co-habiting my head-space now.
Was I an easy escape hatch? The assassins in the church had been primed to take out Father Cristobel. A surgical strike against an Architect. Cristobel had expected them to show up-eventually-but he couldn't have anticipated my arrival. Nor the opportunity I presented him.
What about the assassins? They had been unwitting pawns, unaware of the nature of the stone ring affixed to their chests. Whoever was running them had been remote viewing through their eyes, and once their master ascertained the situation was properly engaged, he had sent the mental command to detonate the rings.
Who? I wondered.
Images of sigils flashed before my eyes, an encyclopedic catalogue of magick circles. Keys from Solomonic lore, Enochian matrices, others I didn't recognize. Geomancy. I knew the word, knew the style of magick, but had never seen it other than a neat parlor trick of spotting and tapping ley lines. Some of the magick circles stayed in focus long enough for me to begin to understand their construction and purpose. Geomancy went much deeper than that. A properly schooled geomancer could redirect ley flow; he could build the sort of oubliette that had been erected around the chapel.
The stone rings on the assassins. Soul lock, conduit window, magick bomb: all wrapped up in one simple ring.
Who was the geomancer in the society? Which one was he? I ran through the list of secret names for the Architects: Visionary, Hermit, Crusader, Navigator, Thaumaturge, Mason. .
Jacob Spiertz, Cristobel provided.
"Where is he?" I asked. And, equally important: Why him? What was his rationale for wanting Cristobel dead? Was he the Architect of the original plan as well? The man who had given the go-ahead for Bernard and the Hollow Men's experiment with the theurgic Key?
Cristobel didn't answer, and the Chorus shied away as I grabbed at them. "Tell me," I growled, and when the Chorus darted away from me again, I froze them with an angry explosion of Will. They shivered and whimpered as I tore at them, ripping through them like I was swatting a frozen cobweb with a stick. Their strands shattered and melted, dissolving into white smoke that curled backward into the pit in my soul. I hacked and hacked, looking for Philippe in the strands, looking for the source of the glitter of amusement I still felt. "Tell me, you son of a bitch."
Telling you won't help. Cristobel manifested on my visual field, floating beside the wall of the passage. His serene face puckered with a hint of apprehension. The knowledge isn't enough. You have to understand what it means. You have to Know what has happened, and in doing so, you will See what is to come.
I went physical, flailing at him, even though it was a pointless effort. You can't hit a spirit. You can't touch a phantom of your own imagination. Not with your fists. All I did was scrape my knuckles on the wall, which didn't give me any of the satisfaction I wanted.
You can't fight him, Cristobel said, floating just out of reach now. My own brain taunting me with the immaterial nature of the spirits in my head.
"I don't want to fight him," I said, trying to catch my breath. "I just want him gone. I'm done with his games."
My left shoulder ached, and my hip was on fire. The bullet wounds from earlier. Surface wounds that weren't fatal, but all this exertion was tearing the scabs open. The rest of my exposed skin had suffered as well, tiny scabs from all the flying shards of glass. Trying to punch out a spirit and tearing up my hands was only compounding the trauma suffered by my flesh. I needed to get out of these tunnels and find a sanctuary. Somewhere where I could get some help. I needed to find someone I could trust in the midst of all this chaos.
The Watchers were all insane, and I was caught in the middle.
I could burn the Architects out of my head. I had done it before, when I had ascended the spire and faced Bernard. I had detonated the Chorus so as to drive back the soul-dead who had surrounded me. Samael's children. The zombies of Portland who had wanted to devour my light. I had driven them back by sacrificing the Chorus. I could do it again.
A spike of pain went through the base of my spine, and my legs gave way. I banged my face against the floor, and lay there, squirming like a stuck bug. The spike reversed, coming back up and exploding in my brain, and I cried out. My vision flared white, and in the stark emptiness that the ossuary became, I saw a negative man seated on a black throne. Black flames licked from his naked skull, and his chest was a ferocious storm of black smoke. You cannot be rid of us, Philippe said. That is not the way.
"I. . am. . not your pawn," I gasped through the pain.
We are all pawns, he reminded me. There is always a grander game than the one we control.
I don't want control," I said. "I just want to be free."
You always have been, he said, leaning forward. You are free to make your own choice. That is why I cannot tell you what you must do. His eyes glittered with black tears. Do you understand, my son?
When I reached for him, the vision vanished, and I was left groping for nothing in the dark. In my head, I could still see him sitting on that chair-the colors all normal now-the memory of those last few moments in the library before I spiked him. The expression in his eyes.
Philippe knew what he had been doing; he knew the pain his death would bring to those he considered his children, but he also knew the alternative was much worse. He chose his own fate, willingly, because that was the right path. The hard path, but the right one.
You are free to make your own choice.
In that conundrum lay the obstinate madness of his actions, of his long manipulation of his fellow Watchers. He couldn't tell us what his plan was, because to know of it would be a temptation. What if we could change it? What if we thought we could make a better choice?
But we couldn't. He was Hierarch. His understanding of the Weave was deeper and wider than any vision we would have. He Knew, and had twisted the threads so as to bring about the end he had already Witnessed. Did it mean we were on predetermined paths that we couldn't change? Probably. But to walk those paths meant we had to chose them ourselves. I was in the thick of a war for the succession of the Hierarch that had its roots nearly a decade back, and in the midst of all the coming conflict, I didn't know who I could trust. I didn't know who wanted what, and from that ignorance, Philippe knew I would have to make my own decisions.