Chapter 157: Spirit-Lodging Vessels

When Richard stepped outside, he glanced up at the sky.

The stars were exceptionally bright, as if confirming last night's divination.

At 7:30, everyone descended into the cellar.

Seven white candles had already been lit inside.

In the center of the circle, the stone sarcophagus looked exceptionally solemn in the light of the seven candles.

"Take your positions," Mrs. MacNeil said.

The eight of them took their prearranged spots.

The sarcophagus sat in the center, the True Name Stone resting on top of it.

The seven Saint Michael Candles formed a circle, borrowed from the nearest parish and freshly carved.

Mrs. MacNeil stood in the first position—due north.

Mr. Hutton stood in the second position—due south.

This was one of the oldest methods of counterpoint: north was the statement, south was the response; north spoke, south received.

Richard, Maggie, Theodore, and Edmund stood at the four diagonal corners, acting as auxiliary anchor points.

The two Hunters stayed in the outer ring.

Captain Field stood at the cellar entrance, facing the sarcophagus.

Sarah stood in the deepest corner of the cellar, her double-barreled shotgun already assembled and cradled diagonally across her chest.

Behind the veil, they would be the ones actually taking action.

At 7:47 came the transitional moment when day and night intersected.

According to the rules of sealing, this was the critical window for maximum sealing efficiency, and the moment when the veil was at its thinnest.

In that exact second, the flames of all seven candles in the cellar simultaneously leaned half an inch to the north.

The flames pointed straight toward Mrs. MacNeil.

This meant the sealing field had acknowledged tonight's caster.

Mrs. MacNeil took a leather box from her coat.

She opened the box. Inside lay all Seven Spirit Lodging Vessels, neatly arranged:

A Silver Ring, an Emerald Brooch, an ebony comb, a Moonstone Pendant, a pair of Coral Earrings, a silver-chained Pocket Watch engraved with tiny text, and a Bone Bracelet worn yellow with age.

Unhurried, she put each one on in sequence.

As she put on the Silver Ring, a faint wisp of gray mist drifted from the tip of her index finger, and a distant wolf's howl could be heard from within the fog.

"The first, Oba."

She pinned the Emerald Brooch to her collarbone, and the air visibly warped over her shoulder.

"The second, Varda."

She slid the ebony comb into her hair bun, and everyone in the room briefly remembered a minor incident.

Richard vaguely felt that five minutes ago, Mr. Hutton had nodded in his direction, and he had nodded back.

But that had never actually happened.

A second later, everyone forgot it all over again.

"The third, Milke."

The Moonstone Pendant began to glow on its own, emitting an incredibly soft, milky-white light from her chest.

"The fourth, Isla."

The pair of Coral Earrings each let out a high-pitched sound that no one could hear.

"The fifth, Sion."

The second hand on the silver Pocket Watch visibly ticked half a circle further than usual before ticking back.

"The sixth, Selle."

Finally, the Bone Bracelet.

The moment she slipped the Bone Bracelet on, Richard could feel a very, very old woman poking her head out of it to take a look.

It was like a long-deceased grandmother looking up from a picture frame above the fireplace to inspect her grandchildren coming home.

"The seventh..." Mrs. MacNeil didn't read out the last name.

"You are here."

All seven items were shining. The seven spirits residing within them were all present.

Counting Mrs. MacNeil herself, there were eight of them in total.

Richard took a deep breath from his spot.

The high-precision observation granted by [Perception] allowed him to faintly see her current sheer weight on the aether level.

She had transformed from the steady light he was familiar with into a small, blazing lighthouse.

This was the true manifestation of a Minor Adept medium—turning one's entire self into a ritual vessel.

Across from her, Mr. Hutton was also ready.

Two stacks of rubbings were spread open on the table in front of him: charcoal copies of Celtic murals and preliminary cross-references of pre-Roman inscriptions.

The old man kept his left hand pressed against the rubbings, his right hand hovering in the air.

Richard could see a small cluster of dark gray mist gathering at the tips of the old man's right fingers, enveloping fragments of deciphered incantations.

A Scholar's work was calculated like this: every line of an incantation had to bite into the target.

The prerequisite was that the caster knew exactly what the incantation meant.

Every extra line deciphered was an extra "blade" that could be thrown.

"Are you ready?" Mrs. MacNeil asked him.

"Ready," Mr. Hutton replied.

The old man's face was paler than it had been during the day, but his lips were pressed tightly together.

In tonight's ritual, Mr. Hutton acted as the spellcaster for the southern position.

The density of incantations he had to bear was a workload that would demand the absolute maximum effort of a Senior Practitioner.

He was staking the entire reserve of aether he had slowly accumulated over the past weeks and months all on this single night.

Richard glanced at Mr. Hutton.

Mr. Hutton didn't look back.

The old man had completely detached his attention from his identity as a "teacher." Everything was now wholly concentrated on the two stacks of rubbings in front of him.

"The one who takes people beneath the bridge," Mr. Hutton read the first line.

His voice wasn't loud, but every word echoed clearly against the cellar's stone walls.

"The one who walks in shadows."

"The one whom salt cannot approach."

"The one who does not emerge before dusk."

Substitute names were read out, one by one.

With every line spoken, the flames of the seven candles in the cellar sank an inch.

Soon, the seven candles were reduced to pea-sized flames, yet they didn't go out.

Mr. Hutton paused for a second.

"The one who steals the shadows of the young..." he read the final line.

Richard's Inspiration went numb from the shock of that name.

In that single second, the entire aether field of the cellar was "locked" by that one name.

Above the sarcophagus in the center of the cellar, the True Name Stone began to glow.

Everyone in the cellar heard the beating of the "heart" at the center of the True Name Stone.

Thump!

Thump!

Thump!

"Connect the manifest layer."

Mrs. MacNeil stood at the due north position. She raised her right hand and pointed the Silver Ring on her index finger at the True Name Stone.

The gray mist from the Silver Ring surged from her fingertip, followed the lingering resonance of that name through the air, and plunged into the pulsing point of light at the center of the True Name Stone.

The point of light caught the gray mist.

Thump!

The beating of the light slowed by half a beat.

"Manifest layer connection stable," Mr. Hutton confirmed.

Standing in the southeast corner, Richard could feel the True Name Stone, the thirty-four silver bands on the outer walls, and the four diagonal corners where the four Newcomers stood, all linking together into a complete web.

The manifest layer was complete.

"Prepare to cross the bridge," Mrs. MacNeil said.

She turned her head and glanced at the four Newcomers.

"Edmund, Maggie, Theodore, Richard..."

"Follow Mr. Hutton and me."

She turned around to face the sarcophagus.

She took a step forward, and her entire silhouette vanished from the due north position in the cellar.

The candlelight violently flared. The flames of the seven Saint Michael Candles shot up to human height at once, before being snuffed out in the exact same moment by invisible palms.

A layer of color was drained from the underground stone chamber.

The stone walls, the sarcophagus, and the physical outlines of everyone present faded into an over-washed old photograph.

Richard looked down at his right hand. His fingertips were becoming translucent, and he could see Maggie's face on the opposite side through his tendons.

"Everyone, we are crossing the threshold."

Mr. Hutton's voice came from all directions at once. The sound itself had been shattered in the aether level and then pieced back together.

All of Richard's previous experiences entering the Near Shore felt like nothing more than wading in the shallows compared to this.

Active diving was a relatively safe posture.

You bent down, you reached out a foot, you tested the angle of the door, and you squeezed yourself inside.

This time, crossing the threshold was the exact opposite.

The great door beneath the veil opened on its own, scooped up all eight people in the stone chamber simultaneously, hauled them over the threshold, and set them down.

He thought of his two previous dives in the peat bog and the Highland Summer Lodge.

Back then, he had thought he'd already stepped through the veil.

Now he knew that, at best, he had only stepped onto the front porch of the veil's entryway without even taking off his shoes.

"The physical body is just a sheet of paper."

Mr. Hutton's voice continued to surge from all directions, the old man maintaining his explanation with the minimum amount of force.

"In the material world, the floor is a conclusion jointly maintained by wood, iron nails, foundations, and gravity."

"Here, that layer of conclusion does not exist."

"Eight people, eight sheets of paper. Mrs. MacNeil and I are pinching them tightly for you."

"Do not move."

They would blow away with the slightest breeze, but the wind did not blow.

The entire underground stone chamber, along with the eight positions, was pinched into the exact same aether level by the two veterans, much like someone pinching a stack of sketches.

Only then did Richard dare to look up.

For the first time, he truly saw Whitcom Mill behind the veil.

Looking up, there was an infinitely extending "above."

"Halls" were nested one within another, stacking upward into a seemingly bottomless well.

The closest hall hovered directly above their own hall.

Richard's Inspiration was triggered, and the mill on the day of the 1881 incident began to manifest.

The shadows of twenty-three workers were nailed dead in the exact second they were consumed. They faced the same direction, caught in various postures.

One person had their mouth half-open, tongue still caught behind their teeth;

Another had their hand raised halfway, a half-eaten chunk of hard bread still clutched in their palm;

Another had their face turned toward the window, having just heard a noise, before they had time to even ask, "Who is it?"

The colors of the entire factory building were flattened, looking like an overexposed piece of film.

A layer higher was the chapel holding the sealing ritual in 1340.

Seven monks formed a circle, pulling on a rope of light, while the bishop held up a cross taller than his own head.

The golden rope of light was truly shining as it hung from the top of the cross.

The monks' mouths opened and closed, but Richard couldn't hear a single sound.

With the simplest piety, they chanted word by word for two entire days and nights.

Two days later, four of them collapsed on the spot, never to rise again.

Richard instantly understood everything about the "brute-force" sealing Mrs. MacNeil had spoken of.

The layer above that was even more blurred.

On a mountainous terrain shrouded in morning mist, people draped in animal skins sang around a newly erected stone pillar.

He could see the song rise from their mouths, materialize into a shape, and climb up along the contours of the stone.

Looking even higher, there were things much older.

"Retract your expanding Spirit Vision!" Mr. Hutton helped "pull" his spreading lines of Inspiration back.

"Sorry for the trouble," Richard whispered in thanks.

"Your Inspiration is higher than the other Newcomers. You have to learn how to reel it in yourself."

The old man didn't look back from his side either.

"Remember, if you recklessly look 'above' in here, a piece of your cognition might be torn away by it.

The only reason you could pull it back was because you have human tradition behind you."

Richard adjusted his breathing, feeling the weight of tradition on his body for the first time.

Every book he had read, every rubbing Mr. Hutton had handed him;

Every piece of steganographic text brought back from the Imperial Capital University Library;

Every scholar who had lived decades, centuries, or millennia before him...

The weight of their words and knowledge was supporting him. That was the only reason he could stand firm in this hall.

Next to him, Maggie stumbled backward. Richard could see her shoulders trembling.

"...My great-grandmother is over there."

Hanging just a bit off to the side from the nearest hall was a smaller, more compact hall.

It was a stone cottage in the Gaelic Highlands. An old woman sat inside, a piece of unfinished woolen cloth spread across her knees.

"I didn't look directly at her." Maggie yanked her gaze back down to her feet. "I just... I felt her."

"Feeling is fine. Looking is the problem."

"I know."

On the other side, Theodore stared blankly at his Copper Compass.

The needle of the compass spun endlessly beneath the veil, pointing left one moment and right the next, without any stable direction.

"My compass is broken."

"It's not broken," Mr. Hutton reminded him. "It can't find north in here, because there is no north here."

"...Then what do I anchor to?"

"Anchor to the direction of my voice."

"Okay." Theodore gripped the compass even tighter.

The most stable of them all was Edmund.

The young cleric stood in his space, pressing his left hand against the Silver Cross on his chest, softly reciting a passage of scripture.

His face was paler than when he had first descended into the cellar, but his feet didn't move, and his shoulders didn't tremble.

Richard stole a glance with his Spirit Vision.

Edmund's feet were held up by a faint halo of light.

The very passage of scripture that generations of clerics had repeatedly chanted in that small church on Cornwall Road was surfacing at this moment, passing straight through Edmund's physical body.

The people supporting Edmund from behind were far, far more numerous than he could have ever imagined.