The Domes of Calrathia

Chapter Eight: Sifting the River Lethe

I was awake before the footfalls reached my door. Sitting up in bed, I gracefully dropped to the floor and fell on my hands and knees. Peering under the crack of the door, I saw the shadow of someone appear on the other side. I tensed, holding my breath and reaching for my sword. 

Just as I gripped the hilt, there was a polite knock. Perhaps my behavior was unusual, but I had learned to be wary of those who approach in the deep of night. I grabbed my sword and quietly made my way over to the door. Bracing myself, I cracked the door open, prepared to slam it shut if necessary. Out in the hallway stood Charon in his white robes. 

He bowed. “I apologize for stirring you from your slumber, but the Mistress Berenice requests your presence.” 

“At this hour? For what purpose?” I asked, suspicious of the mannequin. 

“She requires your assistance with a funeral rite.” 

My brow furrowed, confused. “What kind of burial? Of whom?”

Charon merely raised his arm. “All I am allowed to say is that she desperately requires your assistance. The specific rite can only be performed by a male of the family or otherwise trusted friend. You are the only candidate.”

“Why me? Why not Gereon?”

“Only Berenice can answer that question. Will you answer her summons?”

I considered it for a moment, weighing my options. Curiosity and concern won me over, however. I threw on my cloak and buckled my scabbard. Entering the hallway, I hesitantly acquiesced to the mannequin. 

Charon gave a gracious nod and led me down the passage. We went a ways before stopping at the threshold of a stairwell that tunneled deep into the earth. I looked around in puzzlement as we began our descent. I knew Terminus was an old city, but the masonry of the walls took on an even stranger design as we pressed on. The stonework turned smooth, and yet I knew this was not carved from natural rock. Running my hand along the wall, I felt an unmistakable condensation. 

“There is a wide network of underground tunnels and rivers crisscrossing Terminus,” Charon explained as we continued. “They are used for many purposes. Many of the channels are used as fisheries, while there are also wide chambers for livestock and vegetables. The city below sustains the city above. It is how the citizens of Terminus continue despite the frigid weather. And more, the tunnels also serve as useful catacombs for the dead.”

We were guided down the steps by faint lighting etched in rows along the wall. I knew of many mechanisms that could illuminate the dark, but this one was strange. It gave a strange yellowish light, like electricity, but it emitted no heat that I could detect. Its dim yet constant glow led us further and further down until I began to wonder just how far we had descended. 

Finally, at last, the stairwell widened into a large tunnel. Before me was a wide river with a meandering current. The smooth walls continued, the lights forming concentric circles alongside us. Near the river was a small marina where a single gondola was moored. Berenice awaited us there, still cradling her sword with her arms. 

Unlike her usual dress, she wore a simple black gown with a flowing skirt that trailed behind. Her head was covered with a similarly black veil in her golden hair. Her quick blue eyes brightened a little when she saw me behind Charon, walking down. 

“Thank you,” she said as we approached. “I am sorry I disturbed your slumber. I did not think Gereon would agree to my request.”

“Charon was light on explanation. What is this?” I asked. 

She gave a deep sigh. “I cannot say.”

“Can at least tell me why you cannot say?”

She remained quiet. Her head was bowed, an expression of sorrow upon her face. I glanced over to the small boat moored to the marina. It was big enough to comfortably fit six people and a gondolier. Wreaths and vines and flowers were carved into the faded wood. Both ends of the boat curved upwards into sprouts of trees. However, I noticed near the bow was a casket, big enough to fit only a newborn babe. 

I looked from the casket to Berenice, barely holding back tears, and all question fled from my heart. I did not need to know who was in the casket. I knew enough. 

“I shall do whatever you ask of me.”

Berenice gave a quick, grateful nod, and Charon helped her into the boat. I followed, and we took opposite seats of each other. Charon untethered us from the marina, and he took up a large oar. Gently, he paddled us down the river. 

Berenice placed her sword across her lap. She was quiet for a few minutes as we drifted down the tunnel. Then she spoke, “tell me, Astronomer, what does your School teach about death?”

How should I have answered that question? I still ponder that to this day. Perhaps it is a fault of my own mind. I was trained to think in orbits and ellipses. My eyes followed the patterns of the sky, spinning and dancing and teasing in their unfettered delight. Was it so thoughtless that I began with such geometric terms? 

“We know the land of the dead is beyond Okeanos, the River of Stars. It is on that channel, which encircles all worlds and all worlds yet to be, that the dead are carried to the next life. But of that distant Firmament, no man is allowed to voyage that far and still live.”

“And of the dead? What is their fate?”

“We are taught that the Potentate pans the waters of Okeanos for souls, where even the littlest babe outshines the celestial fires. Of those resplendent and beautiful, he shall add as gems for the adornment of the Bride who is yet to come. Of those wretched and sickly, he tosses them into the stellar wind. There, the Whirls of Time shall gather them into one great mass, so dark and terrible that it will crush anything that treads near.”

“Do you believe that?” She did not say that as an accusation, but rather with a tender somberness. “Do you believe the Potentate has any care for this child?”

Again, I was left befuddled on how to console this woman. The answer began obviously, but it escaped from my lips before I could speak. How could I say something so assuredly when I entertained such dark doubts of my own? I had wanted my life to be in service of my School, which I loved more than anything… and then I was given my sentence. Where was that merciful hand that I had been promised? Where was my justice? 

I felt Master Algol’s ghost behind me, his eyes mocking even as he drew his last breath. With his own accusing hand, he sealed my fate, ensuring no one was left to pick up the pieces of his treachery. No one except me. 

How could I answer that question any other way? 

“There’s a story I want to tell you. It’s not a true story, but it’s true enough, and maybe it will set your heart at ease. There was once a Master of a household, who had numerous secret affairs with many consorts. Breaking all marriage vows, this man had no dignity nor shame. However, upon learning that an illegitimate child had been born, he sought out to have the babe mutilated and murdered as punishment. A servant, seeing all this, secreted the child away, to a place where the infant would never be harmed again.”

Berenice broke down and began crying. I jumped in my seat, surprised at her sudden outburst. I glanced over to Charon, who gave me no acknowledgement. He continued rowing us down the winding, silent tunnel. 

It took Berenice several moments to collect herself. She wiped tears from her eyes. “I am sorry. Tell the rest of the story.” 

I grew distant in my thought. “The Master was clever, and he found a way to pin his crimes on the servant. The wife of the household ordered the servant to death. The servant was stripped. He was tortured. He was nailed to his coffin and then left to die. And for the child’s safety, the servant could not say a word. Not for his honor. Not for his life. Not a word.”

“What are you trying to say?”

I looked at her with the eyes of a dead man. “Only that a very small servant was able to care that much.”

I wish I had said those words innocently, but even then, I looked around to see if the Potentate would rescue me from my fate. Would one so mighty care about such a lowly servant? I awaited my answer, but time and again, I received nothing but silence. It was for this reason I had no choice but to press on to Calrathia. It was there I would receive the judgement I so desired. 

Ahead of us came a fork in the tunnel. Charon led us down a passage that turned from smooth walls to jagged rock. Evidently, this was some later addition to the tunnel network. As we left the dim yellow light, I finally noticed something strange in the water. Below us were many kinds of plant-life. Dark tangles of green bobbed in the deep water. However, there were also nodules of quiet light flickering from greenery. And as we continued further down, I saw blue lights coalesce in the deep. We continued down this passage until the whole river was awash with these little blue lights. 

I meant the River of Stars as a mere metaphor, but I saw very clearly with my own eyes that such a thing might be truer than I ever thought. I could not discern the surface from the water, and it appeared to me that we were gliding along the night sky itself. I cupped my hand and drew those twinkling lights close. 

“Thank you, Sirius,” Berenice said, glancing to admire the view herself. “You have been kinder than I deserve, and I will repay you with a story of my own. When I was but a small child, I grew very ill. My father called all manner of physicians and healers to my care, but they could do nothing to bring me back to health. Despairing, my father turned to a priest to conduct last rites for my death. I had just been placed in the family tomb when the priest asked whether I should live.”

Berenice ran her hand through the water and let it slip from her fingers. “My father was greatly troubled by this question and asked what the man had meant. The priest told him that I could rest easy in my grave, or to suffer a sword through my heart, so terrible that I may as well have died, anyway. My father told him that such is the fate of all who have lived. And so he rebuked the priest, that he loved his daughter too much to spare her pain.”

“What happened next?”

“The infant placed upon the grave drew breath once again. The young girl who was dead found life again. The priest became a holy man, even though he insisted otherwise. My father waited in horror of when I should suffer, but he passed first. I was left to Messalina, and you know enough of the story afterwards.”

Charon’s oar struck upon rock, and the gondola shook in the water. I tightly gripped the sides of the boat to remain balanced. Berenice simply grasped the sword in her hands. Water lapped into the boat and settled at our feet.

“That was my father’s final words upon his passing, warning me of what was yet to come,” she said. 

“What a horrible fate,” I remarked. 

Berenice looked at me with some confusion. “Horrible? Not at all. There is only one way the heart can be tormented so. Many who live do so without loving anything worthwhile. They pass from this world as wisps, feeling and touching nothing. It is the fate of those who love to suffer the most. I do not know when my tribulation shall come, but I know that I shall find something worth dying for.”

Berenice turned back and placed her hand on the coffin. She caressed her fingers along the varnished wood. 

I realized the second truth about what she had said, and I wondered what end was waiting for her. Great suffering had already struck her heart, and I could scarcely imagine a worser fate in store. It is said a woman can only give her heart three times: to her father, to her husband, and to her child. A man may find a cause or a flag or a city, but a woman is bound by blood and in blood and so it was ordained from the beginning. Two had already been laid in funeral cloth before her, and I did not want to know who the third would be. 

The gondola stopped alongside a rocky shore. From my vantage point, I could see the tombs of many great men outstretched before me. On the periphery was a grave of a smaller sort, built of a heap of rubble instead of hewn stone. It was crude, but I know it had been fashioned with more love than the rest of them put together. Charon stepped out of the gondola, holding the casket in his arms. The three of us approached the open tomb silently. 

Charon placed the casket in the grave, and it was there that Berenice lost what composure she had left. She threw herself over the tomb, weeping and wailing with the grief of a mother over an unborn. Charon and I bowed our heads respectfully. At this juncture, there was no consoling the unconsolable and nor should there be. In the same sense that a man is commanded to protect, a woman is commanded to grieve. Thus and only thus, can the tragedy of death be properly mourned.

I have often reflected upon the mystery of death, as my own demise was so imminent in my mind. Why had Man been exhorted to die? As all evil drew from evil, why then had the Potentate chosen this greatest punishment? Some heretics whimper and moan that life cannot exist without death. I say their definition of life is banal. Things not need be the way there are, and yet they are. The only answer I have found satisfactory is that there is a greater beauty that is yet concealed from our fallen eyes. We look at bones and rotting flesh, unwilling to see what has been laid bare before us. Man is so clearly not his carcass, and I think that is a great comfort. 

Of what followed next, I must reserve for the sake of Berenice. I cannot disclose what happened next at that tomb, for it would be inappropriate. That which belongs at the grave should remain at the grave until the time should come for the grave to be no more. I will disclose that I followed Charon’s instructions exactly, and that I mourned a child I never knew. 

When we finished the funeral rite, Berenice fell upon my chest, hugging me tight. “I am so sorry that you came to this cursed household. I know you are to depart soon. Leave! Leave and don’t return! You, who have showered nothing but grace upon me, I ask you to never look back! Guard your possessions well and leave me to suffer what I must!”

It was only after many warnings that I keep my belongings close when Berenice allowed us to depart on the gondola once more. Charon took us on a roundabout way back, but we soon stepped on that same marina on which we had departed. Berenice left me without a word. On her shoulder, she bore her heavy sword. Yet she still quickly climbed those steps until I could see her no more. 

I was left alone with the mannequin on that boat, wondering what exactly had transpired. I turned to what had been concealed under the mask of an elderly man. 

“I know you have your oaths, but tell me this. What is the secret of your Mistress’s blade? Why can’t she let go? Surely you can reveal that much.”

Charon placed the oar back into the gondola. “Among the nobles of Terminus, it is custom to commission a sword upon the birth of a male. It is to be bequeathed to that heir when he comes of age.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then it must be passed to the next male heir. If there are no more males of the household, it is passed to his mother. If the mother refuses, then it is passed to the next female of succession. It is then her burden to carry until she takes a husband. Until that day, she must carry that weight to her death. The sword will then be cast to the depths, to be forgotten.”

I looked to the steps that Berenice had so recently climbed. “Why doesn’t Berenice take a husband, then?”

“It is for her to decide who is worthy to bear that burden. I have no right to question her judgement on the matter. I can only say that the sword is the only thing she has left of the child. It is the only memory permitted to her.”

I nodded my head in understanding. “I know that feeling all too well. I possess a book that is the last memory of my School. It is the last thing I have left of my School. I would not depart from my torment for the world.”

Link to Chapter Nine