The Descent

Behind the orphanage altar, down, of his own will. The lamp above goes out. Six rooms, each named for one of the rite-book’s written marks. In each, the priest’s voice from ahead names the mark, the game shows a still of the clue you passed long ago (the receipt), and Wick answers.

The staging of rooms V and VI is still being designed TBD.

The council chamber. Seven chairs: six for the heads, and the seventh at the table’s foot, which nobody has sat in. The surviving heads kneel and invite him, formally, gratefully. A held blow here still pays a head. Nothing stops him.

Up, by the stair under the Ring, to the Kneelers on the hill’s shoulder. Father Fulcran waits on foot with a pike. “Wick.” “Father.” The fight is a knight’s test, not a head’s rite: no asking, no held blow. He tries to put you on your knees; you get up every time, and cut him when his pike is spent. Hooded porters, the men who carried every offering to the Stone, come to hold you. Panel.

Then the reading. The priest reads the rite-book’s page aloud, the six written marks, and stops at the seventh line, which is blank. He shows Wick the church’s image of the Blessed Hand, carried up from the chapel, and turns it to the light: Andrevel’s scratches, legible at last. He says nothing more.

Then the god, plainly, once: the first offering, the Stone, the one who would not kneel. His three lines and Wick’s answer are in The One Below.

Every ending is available from the World; the count of saints, ruined heads and tricked Anchorites tints each one.

Refuse. He turns his back on the triangle. The god tells him why this refusal is not Andrevel’s, and lets him go for good: from here to the top of the stair, a death is final. The heads attack him on the stair, begging; he reaches the top without giving the blow. The rooks go with him. Above: saints and shrines, or the pillory full and the council’s lamps. At six spared, the Assize: the city comes down behind him and tries the priest in his own schoolroom, on his own seal, and dismisses him; his mother sits on the jury and says his name; Sister Ide sits on the bench; and if the hunter lived, his lantern lights the last steps.

Take. He steps into the triangle, knowing. He kills the surviving heads knowing what it pays, walks them down as shades, and takes the seat above his own throne. The rooks leave him at the triangle’s edge.

Feed. He opens the gate with his own blood. The court comes up wearing the saints’ faces, out of the windows and the shrines, and the white tabards go down the hill to meet them. It is the church’s own promise, from the homily, come true.