Resurrection Act
It’s well into the afternoon by the time Isabel rides back to Mondirra. She can’t help but feel that the visit to the Warder estate has been a waste of time. She’s found some evidence—a scratch on a carriage that she wasn’t able to see, and a mention of a new research partner but not the man’s name.
It’s too much to be a coincidence, she tells herself, but still, she isn’t certain. There could be any number of fine coaches across the countryside that left varnish on the warehouse door, and there were more ways to find a set of red robes and prayer beads than having studied at Alcos’s church. She didn’t have enough to find the murderer, much less to have him arrested. A long time has passed since the days of the Inquisition, when a Sentinel’s word was more than enough to convict an accused necromancer.
It would have been better to spend the day finding the site near the warehouse. By the time she gets back to the city, it will be nearly dark—too late to safely put herself in what she expects to be the murderer’s lair. Black magic is stronger at night, and it weakens in the light of day. One needs light to defend against evil, her teacher’s voice says in her mind. The necromancer and the vampire both flee the sunrise.
What’s done is done. If she doesn’t return to another grisly scene, she’ll try to enlist the help of a cleric or two and search for the site in the morning.
The blue field is quiet and the sun is sinking behind the western hills, staining the city walls in soft orange, when Isabel reaches the city. If she hurries, she still has time to go to the Temple District before it’s fully dark. She brushes down her horse and tethers her to a post in the tall grass, and goes upstairs for her sword. The weapon is part of her uniform, and she should be fully dressed to petition the high priest.
Brother Risoven calls out to her as she passes through the chapel on her way out. “Are you leaving again?” he asks.
“Just to the temple,” she says. “I’ll be back soon.”
“I’ll keep your dinner warm, then.”
He turns and lights another candle, for another soul recently departed. He must have been caring for the bodies unearthed in the warehouse all day. Isabel hadn’t noticed any disturbed earth in the blue field; she makes a note to ask him about it when she returns. Risoven is getting too old to dig the graves himself, and it’s her duty to help as much as she can while she’s here.
The guards at the gate acknowledge her with a slight, silent nod, and she crosses the lower borough toward the Temple District. It’s strangely empty, especially for an evening. The inns and taverns are eerie in their stillness.
She begins to worry when she reaches the first shrine of the Temple District. The candles are lit here and in their places along the path up the hill, but the great churches themselves are dark, their doors shut. Only in times of great danger would the temples refuse their sanctuary to visitors. Isabel breaks into a run.
She knocks, firmly but with the appearance of calm, on the heavy door to Ondir’s church. There is silence, and then the hinges creak as the door opens a crack.
The face of a wide-eyed novice appears in the opening. “Hello?” The eyes dart down and back up, taking in Isabel and her blacks. “Hello, Sentinel. Do you need something?”
Isabel does not find the novice’s calm demeanor reassuring. “Where is everyone?”
“They’ve all gone to the city center. There’s a big gathering because of the Resurrection Act.”
“The what?” The name sounds familiar, but it’s been a long time since she had news of anything political, and a lot has happened in the past few days.
“You don’t know?” The novice is young, and there is no small degree of pedantic smugness on his face as he explains, “It’s to let the University have the unclaimed bodies of the dead, for dissection. The Church of the Seven opposes it, as one body, on account of the dangers of the unquiet dead and the disruption of the soul’s journey to Ondir.” This last sentence has the ring of echoed memorization, an argument that had been repeated to anyone who would listen.
Now Isabel remembers. The Church of Ondir, the caretakers of the dead, had been the first to oppose the Act when it was first rumored, but the actions of Mondirra’s city council had seemed so distant while she was still in Vernay. Of course this would all come to fruition at the exact moment she needed a cleric.
“Everyone’s in the center? Even the high priest?” she asks.
The novice gives her a nod. “Yes, Sentinel. Even the high priest.”
Father Pereth is undoubtedly too busy to hear her request for support. She considers returning to the blue field, eating her dinner and going to bed early, and avoiding the Resurrection Act entirely until its passage results in more reanimated dead, like the Church believes it will. There is a murderer about, likely a necromancer, and her time is better spent dealing with that.
But what better moment would there be for said murderer to make another gruesome, public scene than this, when the whole city is gathered before the council chambers? Isabel’s mind calls up images of bodies hung from the rafters, of circles drawn in blood by an invisible hand, and of the chaos that would ensue in the crowd.
“Thank you for your help,” she tells the novice, and she heads up the hill toward the city center.
As she reaches the facing temples of Alcos and Isra, she can hear the din of the gathering, and the voices of men shouting over it, though she can’t quite make out what they are saying. It’s almost completely dark, and the street lamps haven’t been lit. Most of the houses she can see are dark as well.
The noise grows louder as she goes down the opposite side of the hill, toward the tall, narrow spires and pointed arches that characterize the center of Mondirra. She can make out the cadence of a chant now, and someone shouting for the crowd to disperse and everyone to go home.
There is light at the bottom of the hill. The lamps are lit in front of the imposing, ancient building where the council meets, and a few of the constables between its doors and the crowd are carrying lanterns, illuminating their identifying patches for the University and Temple districts. Behind them stand men in the finer uniforms of the council’s guard, carrying halberds with sharp blades that catch the firelight with an ominous gleam. A motion in a window above catches Isabel’s eye—there are men with crossbows surveying the square, and she thinks she can see the barrel of a musket emerge from a window higher up.
The mob facing them has a few torches among them, and smoke hangs in the air, from the fire and from a number of censers carried by robed priests in all seven colors. The clerics form the heart of the crowd, clustered in the center of the square, surrounded on all sides by layfolk in workers’ garb.
“They would desecrate our bodies! They would deny the gods their proper respect! They would deny us the passage through the gate to their realm!” a priest in Alcos’s red intones. “For this act of hubris, we will be overrun with the awakened dead!”
The crowd responds with a roar of fear and rage. Isabel feels it as well—she has seen what violence and improper burial can do, and her order is stretched thinly enough as it is. An angry spirit and its horde of reanimated corpses would wreak unimaginable havoc on a densely populated city before a Sentinel could even be dispatched. This is foolishness. Why doesn’t the council see it?
She remembers why she is here, and first checks the periphery. There are no bodies in plain view, nor any bloodstains she can see. It is far too much to hope that the murderer has taken the night off, but he hasn’t done anything here, at least for now. Isabel finds the cluster of black-clad clerics and begins to shoulder her way toward them, keeping her hand on the hilt of her sword.
“And the council chooses to do this now!” the priest continues. “Now, when heretics and demon-worshippers commit foul murder in our city! Why do they place us in further danger now, of all moments?”
People press in around Isabel, jostling her back and forth. When they see her uniform and the insignia on her coat, they allow her through, but there isn’t much room for them to move. She squeezes between them, feeling her skirts catch and her scabbard get knocked from side to side.
“Your superstition won’t save you!” a voice rings out from the other side of the square. “The problem of the unquiet dead has only grown worse!”
Isabel wonders, idly, if she hears Lucian Warder, but she can’t see very far ahead. There is a crack and a shower of dust as someone from the crowd hurls a clod of dirt at the constables, and the answering crack of a club on flesh. A shout goes up and then dies down again.
The priests of Ondir are dressed in their finest robes, carrying the full weight of their offices in black silk. She recognizes Father Pereth at their head. He does not shout, but he stares at the door to the council chambers with a singular intensity.
She finally makes her way to his side, and he notices her presence with a slight nod. “It’s good of you to join us, my child,” he says.
“What’s happening here?”
“The council has passed the Resurrection Act. Now, all unclaimed corpses will go to the university for dissection and research. You, of course, understand the danger that presents, as well as the heresy that we cannot let go unanswered.”
“Of course,” says Isabel.
“So, we have rallied the faithful to make a show of protest,” Father Pereth continues. “As you can see, we are quite engaged here. Is there something I can do for you?”
“I believe I have found a location where the murderer has been doing his work,” Isabel says. “There seems to be quite a bit of necromantic magic surrounding the place. I’ll need some assistance if I am to investigate.”
Pereth nods again. “I’m afraid I cannot spare anyone at the moment. If we’re not all arrested, I welcome you back to the temple tomorrow.”
“Of course. Is there anything I can do to help?”
Glass shatters somewhere nearby, and shouting goes up from the council guard. Pereth’s pale blue eyes dart down to Isabel’s sword. “I think it is best if you leave this place, child. We can speak another time.”
She is armed, and it would be easy for the constabulary to take her as a threat. They are already moving forward, forcing the crowd away from the doors. She gives a slight bow, the best she can manage in the press, and starts back through the crowd the way she had come.
Isabel emerges onto a narrow side street. She thinks she’s near the southern end of the Temple District, but it’s difficult to tell in the dark—the street lights are still unlit.
A hand closes over her mouth, and a strong arm pulls her backward by the midsection.
She cries out, but makes no sound. The heels of her boots skip over the cobblestones as she is dragged down the alleyway. The hand over her mouth makes it difficult to breathe.
Her feet find purchase, and she drives her elbow backward into her attacker’s ribs. He cries out in surprise, and his grip lessens. She drops out of his grip and scrambles to her feet, turning and drawing her sword.
She can’t make out his face. He’s dressed in a brown robe trimmed with red, the color bright enough to be seen even in the dark. He pulls a dagger from his sleeve. There is a set of angry red lines, like from the fingernails of an assailant, running down the pale flesh of his forearm.
He turns and runs. A gunshot sounds from the square.
Thanks for reading! Blog content will always be free, but if you’d like to support what I do and feed my caffeine addiction, you can buy me a coffee on Ko-fi 🙂
Space Whales Press 
2 thoughts on “The Book of the New Moon Door: Chapter Seventeen”