Sun Cathedral

  The Cathedral's interior was ridden with tension. Priests whispered about the manhunt of a boy, the one who had defeated a corrupted apparition within Solthar— that too in the Trials—while some pondered about the incoming festival, yet the Bishop’s study remained quite, devoid of any nonsensical chatter.

  The study was a pool of amber against a sea of shadows. The man sat by his large desk, ledger open and fingers stained with ink. And the pen against it was a scrapy brittle. Outside, the Cathedral bells had fallen silent, leaving only the faint clink of summer rain against the windows. He lingered there alone for the night as the faint hiss slid along the stone walls. It’s hush eerily similar to the silence the empire wore like an armor. And the silence was disguised as obedience.

  He paused, rubbing his temples in thought, clean, ironed robes whispering with each movement. The chair’s wooden joints groaned under the weight. Malvar didn’t turn when a whisper resounded in the hall, right outside his door.

  "Come in," he said, assuming it was someone of the clergy, yet no door opened. No familiar click or creak.

  "The boy is still free. Your chase is rather incompetent." The voice was unfamiliar to him as it split the silence in the once eerily quiet room. A shrill ringing accompanied his ears, and Malvar assumed it to be his fatigue getting to him. The festival preparations had drained even him of all life.

  "He is a liability," Malvar answered, eyes not leaving his desk, the papers. "For now. The hunt shall narrow down to pluck him out from where ever he hides, then he must be questioned under the divine law."

  "They say the boy’s name with fear. You have seen him, yes?"

  "Once, briefly, during the Trials. He was… ordinary," He responded. "Nothing to fear unlike the way they have been talking about him."

  "Extraordinary things rarely wear extraordinary skin, they blend in amongst the ordinary."

  "Who are you to speak of him?" Malvar’s brows furrowed together at those words. "I am unaware as to how he is special."

  The figure chuckled a dry sound, like coarse, rough sand shifting.

  "Enough chat. Why are you here?" Malvar’s jaw tightened when he asked, yet he did not make an effort to turn and send the persistent guest away. "I am not in the habit of entertaining shadows at this hour in my study, please leave at once."

  "Here? Why wouldn't I be here? I have been here far longer than you have drawn breath. I have heard every confession whispered in fear."

  "You speak in riddles and I have said, already, that I do not have the time to entertain y—" When he looked up, Malvar's voice halted, lodging itself into his throat alongside that numbing fear. Malvar wondered, for a moment, if his mind was playing tricks on him, hoping that maybe what he saw was simply an illusion. A mistake.

  In the mirror, an entity loomed behind him, so large like a blot of enormity that encompassed the entirety of the reflection. As though the mirror had become its skin. It's limbs, clawed and so large and sharp, hovered on either side of his face, ready to rip him apart. The very claws stretched into arcs, curving inward like a cage. Caging his face.

  It had no eyes but he knew it stared at him through the mirror, threatening it to shatter with the weight of it's nonexistent gaze.

  Bishop Malvar did not scream. For those like him could not survive by screaming where no one would hear. But something cold and ancient unfurled in his chest: fear.

  "Riddles, no. I speak in truths you have learned to ignore. Tell me—" It's tone was a curl in the air, "what lies beneath your Cathedral?" Now, it belonged to no man or woman.

  "Stone. The foundations laid by men wiser than you or I, raised to honor the Sun." Malvar could not falter, yet his voice wavered. If he breathed wrong, the claws would finally close in. He knew the demons—such abyssal wraiths felt no remorse, nothing besides their innate desire to kill, so he chose to maintain himself before it. Express himself with faux bravery. But it knows.

  "And beneath the stone." It spoke again, but did not question.

  "More stone. And if there is earth beneath that, it too lies under the Sun’s dominion."

  "Then, why does the ground remember?"

  Malvar’s lips pressed thin. He did not dare answer.

  The entity leaned forward in the mirror, though the shape in the glass grows clearer the closer it moves. The mirror seemed deeper than its surface. Malvar felt him slipping deeper into the vastness of the darkened gaze, and it was cold, chilling.

  "You know. You have always known. The god in the deep places," it said. "You keep it’s heart locked in your holy walls."

  "You will find no solace in me. Leave, abyss!" Malvar commanded, firmly. He had not known it will be his final words.

  The candle snuffed out with the darkness swallowing the room for half a breath. Then, the light returned and the mirror showed a different reflection.

  When the attendants broke the door the next morning, Malvar was still seated with his back rigid and eyes locked to the mirror. His skin had withered into paper-thin folds, and lips pulled back over teeth in a soundless scream. There was no sign of resistance, nor any scars as though, as if his soul had been stripped away, pulled clean without trace.

  The parchment lay on the desk with their ink running in long black streaks, as though the words themselves had tried to flee from whatever presence has made itself known the night prior.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  · ? ·

  The congregation murmured politely with their eyes cast downed. The smooth and measured Bishop’s voice tried to frame the tragedy with comforting words, calling Malvar 'a man taken by illness.' Yet the truth lurked beneath the unspoken syllables, and it was without doubt something far too raw to hide behind ceremonial phrasing.

  "He was seen in good health." He had said to a merchant who had once been an acquaintance with Malvar.

  The man shook his head at those words, eyes wide and red-rimmed as if the news had weighted him down heavily. "It was like, as if, he just stopped breathing, right there at his desk. I had met him the day before all well, the next… he was gone. As you said, he was… he was a healthy man or maybe he was just concealing his illness to appear strong. Praise the Sun."

  Silvanus had placed a hand gently on his shoulder, face composed compared to everyone else around him. Their's told a story of disbelief and fear.

  "Grief has a way of striking suddenly," he murmured, keeping his tone low and even. Then, he moved further down the line, nodding and murmuring condolences to others but his mind was elsewhere, turning over each detail with an obsessive caution.

  Something was missing.

  The sun above burned steadily, casting long lines across the chapel floor, as if drawing a spotlight on the sudden void left by a man who had seemed too vital, even too alive, to vanish so abruptly and suddenly.

  Silvanus stood at the edge of the gathering, apart from the clergy. He adorned his usual monotone fit, cool eyes sharp and unblinking as he observed the ritual with the detachment of one trained to notice inconsistencies others would easily miss. Every gesture, every whispered condolence felt rehearsed to him. Not like his had been any different, but acquaintances did not behave in such a manner. There was a thin veil cast over something more sinister as the people who had witnessed Malvar’s death spoke with fear clouding their eyes. Their hands shook as they spoke, something close to worry or even horror.

  A natural death would leave traces, an illness, fever, exhaustion, but none of that was reported. Surely, there had to be one visible trace of an illness on Malvar's appearance.

  He let the mourners speak among themselves, letting them recount the mundane details, the stories of Malvar’s generosity and laughter, while he stepped quietly towards the far end of the hall. There, away from the throng of priests who seemed intent on maintaining decorum, so he allowed himself a moment of silence.

  The altar loomed far in front of him. The coffin was a stark reminder of finality.

  He had not been allowed to visit the scene of the death—his attempts had been politely rebuffed by the clergy, who called it a matter of 'respect for the deceased' and 'confidentiality in divine matters.' Silvanus thought it was strange, Malvar was just another man, so what was there to hide? Silvanus had his own name for such things: the scene of the crime. The room where Malvar fell. That single space held all the answers he did not yet acquire.

  And that denial from answer, that restriction from the clergy, only deepened his suspicion.

  The murmur of the mourners was interrupted by the scuff of hurried footsteps echoing across the hallway. Then, man with oversized glasses slipping down his nosebridge, stumbled into the hall. Ink stains marked his sleeves and the edges of his fingers showcasing long hours spent committing, carving words into the parchment. He froze for a moment as his eyes observed the room before spotting Silvanus standing apart at the far corner but not far from him. A flicker of surprise and relief passed his face.

  "By the Sun… Inquisitor Silas," he loudly whispered, rushing to him, nearly knocking over a small stool in his haste. "I hadn’t expected to see you here at the funeral." His voice trembled with nervous excitement at the man before him.

  Silvanus’s gaze sharpened. He tilted his head, studying the scribe carefully as if trying to recall who that was.

  "Quillan," He greeted him flatly, "Have you visited the scene of his death?"

  Quillan's shoulder drooped at the cold tone. Straight to the point as always!

  "Of course, Inquisitor!" He responded, before timidly returning to his usual posture as his voice turned a few heads. "I have, Inquisitor. Is there something you wish to know?" He questioned, pushing up his heavy glasses.

  Silvanus’s jaw tightened. He stepped closer, his presence suddenly heavy with authority, yet tempered with curiosity.

  "Do tell me everything," Silvanus requested with a whisper, "But choose your words carefully."

  The scribe shuffled closer, eyes darting to the priests gathered around the altar, then back to Silvanus. "It… it was strange, Inquisitor," he said, whispering along, "when the attendants broke in, they found… they found him at his desk, yes, but…" He swallowed hard, clutching the edge of his ink-stained sleeve. "His body was charred, as if everything inside him— organs, blood, all was taken, leaving behind bones and rot. A work of something paranormal."

  Paranormal… Silvanus narrowed his eyes as he turned to the coffin. That could only be the doing of the abyss—

  "The… the words… he had written had vanished, Inquisitor. All the sheets he had written, all those orders were left blank. I—I have never seen such a thing. None of the clerks dared touch those papers afterward." His voice dropped to a fearful hush.

  Silvanus’s mind raced. So some invisible hand had indeed orchestrated this as he suspected, and the usual comforts of ritual and ceremony were meaningless lies.

  Someone among the clergy who wanted the Bishop dead? But who…?

  The scribe glanced nervously toward the hall again, then back at Silvanus. "I… I must go, Inquisitor. I should not have spoken so freely. Some truths… are not meant to be spoken within these walls, after all." His words fell like stones into the hushed hall, and without waiting for a response, he stumbled backward, nearly colliding with a mourner, before hurrying out into the shadows beyond the chapel doors. Silvanus remained, thinking if Malvar’s end was the work of unseen forces, then those forces were not finished with them, yet.

  The Inquisitor’s thoughts spun all while connecting threads of suspicion, with every other pointing to truths. Ones he had yet to uncover.

  He turned his gaze back to the coffin, the stillness of the body now more menacing than comforting. Not wasting another breath in the suffocating space, he moved slowly toward the outer doors of the chapel, his polished boots were silent against the worn stone. Outside, the late afternoon light painted the city in shades of dull gold and shadows, faintly through the dense clouds and smog. The festival preparations were already taking shape in the streets in the form of banners and busier streets.

  The Midsummer Festival of Solthar was held every few years in midst of the warm months for the people to show their love for the longest day. Though, this time, it was suffocating. Silvanus felt the undercurrent of tension threading through the city, subtle yet undeniable. With the hunt for heretics, and the Cathedral looming over the skies of Solthar and passing orders for arrest with an iron fist.

  He could sense it in the way merchants would cast wary glances, how the priests hurried past with hollow smiles, and in the hushed conversations that stopped abruptly when he passed.

  As he walked, his mind turned over the countless possibilities. He needed answers, someone who had seen more than the rest, someone whose memory held the all that the Church tried to forget. Silvanus recalled, there was that man, the retired scribe, once a minor priest of the city, now tucked away among trinkets and relics. He had visited him before, and he made sure he would remain there, and so Silvanus decided to take the next turn, leading him to that very antique shop tucked away in the shadows, away from the Sun's gaze.