Chapter 171: The Temple Beneath

Far from the Wall, beneath the roots of the Great Green, there was a room that no map of the Empire showed.

It had been a shrine once.

Long ago, before the Empire, before the Wall, people had come here to pray to something. Their carvings still covered the walls, worn smooth by centuries of damp. Faces with too many eyes. Hands reaching out of the ground. A great circle of figures kneeling around something that had been chiseled away.

Now the carvings were lit by black candles.

Seventeen of them, set in a ring on the stone floor.

And inside the ring, men and women knelt in grey robes with their heads bowed.

Brother Keth knelt at the edge of the ring and tried very hard not to let his hands shake.

He had come from the edge of the forest less than an hour ago, running through the dark with everything he had seen that night burned into his memory. He had run past things that should have killed him. They had not even looked at him.

He had not been afraid of them.

He was afraid now.

At the far end of the room, in front of the chiseled-away space in the carvings, stood the High Seer.

He was a tall, thin man in a plain grey robe, with a bald head covered in spiraling scars. The scars were old and pale. Keth had heard that the High Seer had carved them himself, one for every year he had waited.

In his right hand, he held a staff of dark wood topped with iron rings.

The rings chimed softly every time he moved.

"Five days," the High Seer said.

His voice was not loud. It did not need to be. In the silence of the old shrine, every word reached every corner.

"We were told three would suffice."

No one in the ring spoke.

"Three days, and the Wall would open," the High Seer continued. "Three days, and the North would burn. That is what was promised. That is what we prepared for."

He turned slowly, and the rings on his staff chimed.

"Brother Keth."

Keth’s heart stopped.

He made himself stand up. He made himself walk into the ring of candles, and kneel again, closer.

"Speak."

"Holy One." Keth’s voice cracked. He swallowed and tried again. "The Wall is holding."

"I know it is holding. I asked you why."

"They were ready, Holy One." The words spilled out faster now. "They knew we were coming. Ten days before the horde reached them, they began digging. Trenches. Stakes. Machines. They burned the Gorehorns in a single morning. They killed the Rookwings in the air. Tonight, they killed the Ironbacks."

He hesitated.

"And the Old One," he whispered.

The rings on the staff went silent.

"Say it."

"Four went out from the Wall. At night. While the Old One slept." Keth’s forehead was almost touching the floor now. "They wounded it, Holy One. They took one of its tusks."

For a long time, the High Seer did not move.

Then he laughed.

It was a soft laugh. Almost gentle. It was the most frightening sound Keth had ever heard.

"They took a tusk," the High Seer said. "From an Elder. Four men?"

He turned away and looked up at the chiseled-away space in the carvings above him.

"The Wall has never done this before," he said. "In two hundred years, the Wall has only ever done one thing. It waits, and it bleeds, and it believes that stone is enough. That is why we chose it. It was slow, and it was proud, and it was blind to everything else."

The rings chimed.

"Something has changed."

"Holy One." It was one of the older brothers in the ring, a grey-haired woman with a burned hand. "The Lords are growing restless. Every day the Wall stands, they grow more-"

"I know what they grow."

The woman fell silent immediately.

The High Seer remained silent for a moment before speaking again.

"The Lords were meant to see the Wall fall," he said. "They were meant to watch the ruin and understand that the Empire is nothing. That was to be our first message to the world."

His gaze moved across the ring.

"It must not be delayed any longer."

He turned back to face the ring.

"The Thirty-Two are watching," he said. "They have waited far longer than any of us. They will not wait for a Wall that should already be dust."

Several of the robed figures shivered at the words.

Keth did not know who the Thirty-Two were. He only knew that the older brothers never said the words aloud unless the High Seer said them first.

"Brother Keth."

"Yes, Holy One."

"You will go back."

Keth looked up.

"To the Wall?"

"Yes," the High Seer said. "You know the road. The beasts will not touch you. You will go to the place we agreed, and you will leave the sign before the sun rises."

"The sign," Keth repeated. His mouth was dry. "For our man on the Wall."

The High Seer came closer. He stopped in front of Keth and looked down at him. His eyes were very pale, almost colorless.

"He has waited a long time," the High Seer said. "Longer than you have been alive. He has smiled and bowed and eaten their bread and let them trust him. He has done it well. He has done it so well that I sometimes wonder whether he remembers what he is."

"He will remember, Holy One."

"Yes." The High Seer smiled. "He will. When he sees the sign, he will open the door. And then the Wall will learn what we have always known."

He raised his staff.

The rings chimed.

"The Empire is built upon lies," he said. "And lies do not stand forever."

All around the ring, the robed figures answered him in one low voice.

"For the return of the true Lords, the false world shall burn. "

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