Hauling my glance away, I forced myself to study the layout as if this were an enemy fortress to be penetrated: which it was, for me tonight, whether or not it bore any guilt for what had happened to my little girl. The thought of her started a rage brewing that soon got strong enough to serve for courage. My witch-sit didn’t operate here; counterspells against such things must have been laid. Normal night vision was adapting, though, stretched to the same ultimate as every other faculty I had.
The noncommunicants’ section was as far as could be from the altar, at the end of the extreme left side aisle. So on my right hand were pews reaching to the nave, on my left a passage along the north wall. The choir loft hung over me like a thundercloud. Directly ahead, at the end of a field of empty benches, rose one of the screens that cut off most of the transept from view, ornamented with a black crux ansata.
This isn’t helping me figure out how to burgle the joint, I thought.
A monk went past me on soft-sandaled feet. Over his robe he wore a long surplice embroidered with cabalistic symbols. Halfway to the transept halted before a many-branched sconce, lit a candle, and prostrated himself for minutes. Rising, bowing, and backing off seven steps, he returned in my direction.
From pictures, I recognized his outer garment the one donned by choristers. Evidently he’d be been relieved and, instead of taking straight off to shuck his uniform, had acquired a bit of merit first. When he had gone by, I twisted around to follow his course. The pews did not extend the whole way back to the vestibule wall. They left some clear space at the rear end. The choral balcony threw it into such gloom that I could barely see the monk pass through a door in the corner nearest me.
The idea burst forth like a pistol from the holster. I sat outwardly still, inwardly crouched, and probed from side to side of the basilica. Nobody was paying attention to me. Probably I wasn’t even visible to celebrants or worshipers; this placement was designed to minimize the obtrusiveness of infidels. My ears, which beneath the clamant song picked out the monk’s footfalls had detected no snick of key in lock. I could follow him.
Then what? I didn’t know and didn’t greatly care. If they nailed me at once, I’d be a Nosy Parker. They’d scold me and kick me out, and I’d try some different approach. If I got caught deeper in the building: well, that was the risk I’d come courting.
I waited another three hundred million microseconds, feeling each one. The monk needed ample time to get out of this area. During the interval I knelt, gradually hunching lower and lower until I’d sunk out of sight. It drew no stares or inquiries. Finally I was on all fours.
Now! I scuttled, not too fast across to that shadowy corner. Risen, I looked behind me. The adept stood like a gaunt eidolon, the initiates handled the four sacred objects in complicated ways, the choir sang, a man signed himself and left via the south aisle. I waited till he had exited before gripping the doorknob. It felt odd. I turned it most slowly and drew the door open a crack. Nothing happened. Peering in, I saw dim blue lights.
I went through.
Beyond was an anteroom. A drapery separated it from a larger chamber, which was also deserted. That condition wouldn’t last long. The second of the three curtained openings gave on a spiral staircase down which the hymn came pouring. The third led to a corridor. Most of the space was occupied by racks on which hung surplices. Obviously you bowed one after receiving your instructions elsewhere, and proceeded to the choir loft. At the end of your period, you came back this way. Given six hundred and one singers, reliefs must show quite often. Maybe they weren’t so frequent at night, when the personnel were mostly clergy with more training and endurance than eager-beaver laymen. But I’d best not stick around.
I could ditch my outer garments, that’d hamper a wolf, under one of those pullovers. However, somebody who happened to spy me barefoot, in skin-tight briefs, would be hard to convince of my bona fides. I settled for unsnapping the sheath from my inner belt and stuffing my knife in a jacket pocket before I stepped into the hall.
XXVI
Lined with doors for the length of the building, the corridor might have been occupied by any set of prosaic offices. Mostly they were closed, and the light overhead was turned low. Names on the frosted glass ran to such as “I-2 Saktinos, Postal Propaganda.” Well, a lot of territory was controlled from here. A few panels glowed yellow. Passing by one, I heard a typewriter. Within the endless chant, that startled me as if it’d been the click of a skeleton’s jaws.
My plans were vague. Presumably Marmiadon, the priest at the Nornwell demonstration, operated out of this centrum. He’d have returned and asked his brethren to get the stench off him. An elaborate 11 too expensive for the average person, would clean him up sooner than nature was able. At least, he was my only lead. Otherwise I could ransack this warren for a fruitless decade.
Where staircases ran up and down, a directory was posted on the wall. I’d expected that. A lot of civilians and outside clergy had business in the nonreserved sections. Marmiadon’s office was listed as 413. Because an initiate in the fifth degree ranked fairly high—two more and he’d be a candidate for first-degree adept status—I’d assumed he was based in the cathedral rather than serving as a mere chaplain or missionary. But it occurred to me that I didn’t know what his regular job was.
I took the steps quietly, by twos. At the third-floor landing, a locked wrought-iron gate barred further passage. Not surprising, I thought; I’m getting into officer country. It wasn’t too big for an agile man to climb over. What I glimpsed of that hall looked no different from below, but my skin prickled at a strengthened sense of abnormal energies.
The fourth floor didn’t try for any resemblances to Madison Avenue. Its corridor was brick, barrel-vaulted, lit by Grail-shaped oil lamps hung in chains from above, so that shadows flickered huge. The chant echoed from wall to wall. The atmosphere smelled of curious, acrid musks and smokes. Rooms must be large, for the pointed-arch doors stood well apart. They weren’t numbered, but they bore nameplates and I guessed the sequence was the same as elsewhere.
One door stood open between me and my goal. Incongruously bright light spilled forth. I halted and stared in slantwise at selves upon shelves of books. Some few appeared ancient, but mostly they were modern—yes, that squat one must be the Handbook of Alchemy and Metaphysics, and yonder set the Encyclopaedia Arcanorum, and there was a bound file of Mind—well, scientists need reference libraries, and surely very strange research was conducted here. It was my hard luck that someone kept busy this late at night.
I glided to the jamb and risked a closer peek. One man sat alone. He was huge, bigger than Barney Sturlason, but old, old; hair and beard were gone, the face might have belonged to Rameses’ mummy. An adept’s robe swathed him. He had a book open on his table, but wasn’t looking at it. Deep-sunken, his eyes stared before him while a hand walked across the pages. I realized he was blind. That book, though, was not in Braille.
The lights could be automatic, or for another worker in the stacks. I slipped on by.
Marmiadon’s place lay several yards further. Beneath his name and rank, the brass plate read “Fourth Assistant Toller.” Not a bell ringer, for God’s sake, that runt . . . was he? The door was locked. I should be able to unscrew the latch or push out the hinge pins with my knife. Better wait till I was quite alone, however. Meanwhile I could snoop—
“What walks?”
I whipped about. The adept stood in the hall at the library entrance. He leaned on a pastoral staff; but his voice reverberated so terribly that I didn’t believe he needed support. Dismay poured through me. I’d forgotten how strong a Magus he must be.