Book Three · The Walkthrough · 9

The High Priestess

The open world · the marsh, silent vespers, the coach and the Hush

Et ianuae clausae sunt.

NewcomerStreamerSpoiler-light; deeper secrets sealedskeleton · the house is built in graybox

The marshIn-game, clean pixels, under the book's CRT

At a glance

Where: the South Bridge, the marsh villages, the causeways, the convent of the veil, the Hush
Earns: kill: silence · spare: the crozier
Rule taught: sound is seen
Lieutenant: the Black Coachman
Boss: the Marchioness Shaxby
Order: either of the two houses left may come first

Why you are here

With the King fallen, the South Bridge’s drawspan comes down: the marsh’s day of no word is over for the year. The kalendar’s third feast is the Hush: a day of no word, two strokes and a rest, and the coach goes east.

The rule

THE RULESound is seen

In the convent every noise draws a ring on the floor: a footstep, a blow, a bell. Running makes big rings, walking small ones, wading none. The sisters hunt rings. The vespers chant has a pattern, two strokes and a rest, and you hear it three times on the way in. The rings work with the sound off, and when the rite takes the sound away, they are all you have.

The route

The South Bridge. The bridge-keeper speaks by signs only. Mardle can also pole you into the marsh.
The marsh villages. A marsh that has said nothing aloud in thirty years about what the coach takes.
The mask: silent vespers. Watch the tithe vespers from the edge: empty-handed mothers, the bell, the coach.
The procession: the causeways out to the drowned cross.
Break the grip: the Black Coachman. His coach circles the cloister with no sound; his whip has reach. Beaten, he yields without a word and holds up the reins and the manifest.
The convent. A stealth route through silent vespers: walk, or wade, and keep your rings small.
The Hush. The rite in the dark. The Marchioness.

SNUFF

Count his lamps. Two, he’s coming at you. One, he’s turning. That’s when he gets down.

Snuff’s tip, if he lives and walks with you.hn_m3_priestess

SCREEN 9-1The HushThe Marchioness in the dark nave, the lamps snuffed, the sisters listening.Press shot, live capture of the v83 build, CRT off, the play field only

SHOT W9-01phase B: to capture

Silent vespers from the edge of the marsh green: the sisters, the empty-handed mothers, the bell, the coach waiting. Map: the marsh, the mask.

SHOT W9-02phase B: to capture

The convent’s cloister with rings on the floor round Wick’s feet as he walks, a sister turning toward them. Play field only.

CLIP W9-03phase B: to capture

The Hush: darkness, the true bell on the vespers beat and a false bell off it, Wick moving only on the true stroke and striking. About 12 s, sound on.

The boss: the Marchioness

Panel. Go to the bell that keeps the vespers beat, and move and strike only on its stroke. Her sisters ring false bells off the beat. Then the light goes; then the sound; the rings remain. She never varies the chant she taught.

The Coachman ended or freed: no coach circling the cloister to mask her rings.
Second ways in: foresight shows the next true stroke early; the tide floods the dry floors so everyone, her sisters and her, goes silent and slow; the armed dead draw the sisters with their clatter.

THE ONE BELOW

She may not ask. She has arranged for you to ask for her.

god_priestess_ask

WICK

Keep your silence, then.

head_priestess_blow

Backtrack

Silence (doors forget him) opens the maze’s shut gatehouse, behind the far gate the watch closed after the crows. Back up to the Height: its roost, for fast travel, and the Penitent, if he was freed TBD. On the merciful path, the sisters’ keys open the same door.

Secrets

Sealed · Mid-gameIn the marshBreak the seal to read

The quiet room. In the convent the god tells Wick that the marsh’s tithed infants were schooled here not to cry before they went on to the Duchess’s wheel, and that Wick was one of them. Wick does not hear it.
The Midwife has been in the village lately. Her house has been shut twenty years; the tally on its doorpost has a fresh scrape.
The freedom. At the end of the rite, a woman’s voice at the chapel door, and the god says nothing over it: the only silence he keeps.

Sealed · The endingWhat the kill costs the marshBreak the seal to read

The kill Wick is proud of buys the marsh a second silence, holier and permanent: the saint of silence. On that path his mother is among those it silences. Spare the Marchioness, and the marsh speaks: the council hears it.