"Whatever did he want the books for?" Lionel asked softly.
"He thought he wanted to destroy God," said Jacob.
Lionel blinked back his astonishment. "But he would have had to ... end the world."
"He was mistaken," said Jacob sadly. "All he really wanted to destroy was himself."
Doyle had searched for and found a rope in one of the corners of the church after Kanazuchi went below. When the rumbling stopped—an earthquake or some sort of related seismic disturbance, Doyle decided, and no one later contradicted him— he secured one end of the rope around his waist, let the other fall down into the chamber, and called out to them to take hold. Then his powerful arms lifted the survivors and then-rescued books, one by one, to the floor of the moonlit cathedral.
Jack Sparks was the last to ascend; after remaining below alone and committing his brother's body to the memory of their lost family, he grasped the line and Doyle pulled him up, up into the light.