Chapter 379: Esophageal Cave

York Station was massive, but mostly empty.

When Richard looked out the train window, he spotted Montagu first.

The blond young man wore a sharply tailored dark blue overcoat. Beside him stood a man in military uniform.

The man's features bore some resemblance to Montagu's, but his jawline was rigid, and he was clearly well past his youth.

The three Hunters leading this expedition are all veterans...

"That's Colonel Javier Montague," Gerard said in a low voice beside him. "Alexander's uncle, a Hunter of the Solar Tradition. He's just one step away from becoming a Major Adept, and he carries heavy influence in the northern Hunter circles."

Richard swept his Spirit Vision over the man. The ether concentration was extraordinarily high.

The two boarded the train, and Montagu spotted Richard the moment he stepped through the door.

"Richard, you're also—"

He cut himself off. His gaze slipped past Richard's shoulder, landing on the person beside him who was reading a book with his legs crossed.

"Phillips?" Montagu's expression shifted.

Phillips poked half his face out from behind his copy of History of Lighthouse Architecture.

"Montagu." He lazily raised a hand. "Long time no see."

"Why are you here?"

"My dad dragged me aboard." Phillips jutted his chin toward the Chief Inspector. "Don't ask why. Just call it family discipline."

Montagu froze for a second, then chuckled.

He took the empty seat across from Richard.

"Interesting."

The blond young man pulled off his gloves and tossed them onto the table.

"You, me, Phillips," he pointed to them one by one. "If we just called Catherine over, the top four from that year's Cicero Cup would all be here."

Montagu's uncle, Javier, also exchanged greetings with the two older men, his tone notably polite.

Shortly after the train began to pull out of York Station, it picked up another person at the far end of the platform.

This newcomer wore a loosely wrapped scarf that draped down to his chest.

He had a narrow face, and behind his glasses, his eyes were bright and quick, darting around the cabin with every other step.

"Associate Professor Corbin," the Chief Inspector said, standing up first to greet him at the door.

Beside Richard, his grandfather muttered an introduction:

"Associate Professor Corbin of Trinity College. This operation aligns perfectly with his expertise. He's in charge of the main rituals."

The moment the associate professor sat down, he hunched over his desk and started working.

Phillips leaned in beside Corbin, staring at the writing in his notebook for a couple of seconds.

"Professor, are you writing in runes?"

Corbin's pen didn't stop.

"Yes."

"This symbol looks nice. It looks like a tree."

Corbin's pen stopped.

He tilted his head and shot Phillips a look, as if wondering whether the kid had brain damage.

"This symbol is Fehu. It means livestock and wealth, the associated rune of Freyr in Norse mythology."

"It is not a tree, and it has absolutely nothing to do with 'looking nice.'"

"If you wish to discuss its aesthetic value, I suggest you go find an art history mentor."

Phillips opened his mouth, then shut it again.

He silently retreated to his seat and reopened his copy of History of Lighthouse Architecture.

Watching the exchange, Richard had to bite his lip to keep from laughing.

The Chief Inspector lifted his eyes from a pile of documents, his gaze carrying the deadpan calm of a man who had long since given up hope.

The train reached Scarborough Station. It stopped for barely three minutes before picking up the final passenger—the local Minor Adept hidden one, Hathaway.

With everyone present, the Chief Inspector took an envelope from his adjutant.

"Exorcism operation codename—'North Cape.'"

He slapped the paper face-down onto the table.

"Time of operation: January 10th, 4:00 AM. Location: Whitby Abbey Ruins, cave entrance."

Outside the window, the scenery had shifted from rolling hills to desolate moors.

A faint line of grayish-blue lingered on the distant horizon—the North Sea.

Hathaway glanced out the window.

"The wind direction has changed."

"Starting the day before yesterday, the wind blowing in from the sea has carried a foul stench."

A few seagulls swooped out from under the railway bridge, scattering toward the ocean as they were startled by the train's roar.

...

The train arrived at Whitby by dusk. The moment they stepped off the platform, a fierce wind funneled up along the Esk Estuary.

The town sprawled along both sides of the river mouth—half on the West Cliff, half on the East Cliff—connected by a suspension bridge in the middle.

The smoke from the kipper smokehouses mingled with the stench of the sea, clinging thickly to their faces.

Old Phillips split the group into two batches in front of the station.

"Support staff, follow the Branch Office team to the coast guard station. The rest of you, come with me."

Slinging his canvas bag over his shoulder, Richard followed his grandfather toward the bottom of the East Cliff.

As they passed a narrow alley, he paused for a half-step.

There was light in the alley, and sound.

The buzz of spinning lathes drifted out from three or four windows simultaneously.

"Whitby jet workshops." Hathaway followed his gaze. "Whitby jet is carved into mourning jewelry."

"This trade almost died out twenty years ago. All the young folks ran off to be sailors."

She tucked her hands into her sleeves.

"Starting last month, every workshop fired back up. The orders from the Imperial Capital are booked straight through to Easter."

The Imperial Capital wanted jet, so Whitby carved jet.

For every person who died across the sea, a lathe spun one more time over here.

By the time the group reached the top, the wind suddenly intensified.

A graveyard stretched across the cliff top. Crooked tombstones stood in rows, their inscriptions completely worn away by centuries of sea wind.

Further inward sat the Whitby Abbey Ruins. A section on the western side of the ruins had recently collapsed, the rubble piled high.

"That artillery shell on December 16th," Colonel Javier said.

"Hit right on that west gate."

Gerard walked up beside Richard and lowered his voice.

"Once we enter, you stick close to me. Don't fall behind."

"The situation inside the cave is more complicated than the briefing let on. Last time, Hathaway only explored the first two hundred meters."

"What's past two hundred meters?"

"Nobody knows." Gerard pulled his gloves tight. "Since the Whitby cave was refurbished in 1763, every expedition that has entered has only walked the front section."

"The Seal Manifestation Department can reach what they need within the first two hundred meters. No one has ever gone down into the back section."

"Because that back section is the actual body of the Serpent Mother."

Hathaway chimed in from the side.

"The first two hundred meters are the throat. Everything past that is the esophagus."

At 3:40 AM, the team assembled in the deepest part of the cellar.

There was a well in the corner of the cellar. A draft surged up from its mouth, carrying an indescribable sickly-sweet stench.

Phillips dug a tobacco tin out of his pocket, but when he popped it open, it was filled with dry tea leaves.

He pinched two leaves, tossed them into his mouth, and chewed, then tilted his head toward Richard. "Want a couple?"

"Raw tea leaves?"

"Chewing a couple will wake you up. Works better than prayer."

Richard took two leaves and tossed them into his mouth. They were bitter, astringent, and made the base of his tongue tingle.

"It really does work."

"What did I tell you?"

Corbin raised his lamp at the front.

"Down we go."

The stone spiral staircase twisted down for about sixty steps. Beyond that, all man-made chisel marks vanished.

Where the yellow beam of the Acetylene Lamp swept past, Richard saw the scratches.

Scale-like patterns, overlapping one after another, paved the cave from the ceiling down to the floor—exactly as the survey notes had described.

In his Spirit Vision, those scales pushed downward layer by layer, paused at a certain point, and slowly retracted.

Richard's stomach churned.

He had studied this phenomenon on biology diagrams. This was esophageal peristalsis.

The team trekked downward for about twenty minutes.

Richard was the first to hear a very faint noise—a sound like an oven door being pulled open.

Then came footsteps, shuffling around in slippers across a tiled kitchen floor.

"Brother?"

Richard stopped in his tracks.

"Brother, are you back?"

Every syllable was exact. It had that slight nasal tone, the way the pitch tipped upward at the end.

Whenever his sister called out to him, she usually had flour on her hands and rosy cheeks.

Richard didn't turn around. The rules of survival were already running automatically in his head.

If you hear your name called, don't look back, and don't answer.

He clamped his lips shut and prepared to reach into his coat with his right hand to touch the Silver Ring.

Just as he raised his hand, Corbin turned around from the front.

"This isn't soul-calling," the associate professor said, licking his dry, cracked lips.

"A soul-caller needs you to open your mouth. You have to respond before it can swallow you, which is why the rule is to keep your mouth shut."

He raised a hand and vaguely pointed at the cave wall.

"This one is a stomach. For twelve hundred years, what she swallows is the very last breath dead men gulp down."

"She doesn't need your cooperation. While you're alive, she can't reach you. When you die, that breath naturally belongs to her."

"So she isn't calling you, and she isn't persuading you. She couldn't care less whether you answer or not."

Richard relaxed his grip, pulling his hand away from the Silver Ring.

"Then what I just heard..."

Corbin explained:

"The ether in this place is so thick that it dredges up whatever is in your head and plays it back."

"Like a phonograph," Phillips muttered.

Corbin looked back at him.

"Not a terrible analogy."

Richard pressed his back against the cave wall and slowly straightened up.

It was 4:00 AM in Briston right now. His sister was probably asleep, having most likely kicked her blanket onto the floor again.

The team continued their descent. Suddenly, Montagu clamped a hand over his ear.

After walking a bit further, he spoke up himself.

"It's my older brother. He's calling my baptismal name. He's the only one in the family who calls me that."

Richard's footsteps slowed.

"He was just writing letters last month."

Richard wanted to say something, but in the end, he said nothing at all.

Corbin heard him from the front. "That's coming from your own head."

He repeated his earlier explanation, sounding much like he was giving a lecture.

Montagu lowered his head. "That makes it worse."

Corbin couldn't fathom how it was worse. He had spent his entire life dealing with texts.

The team trekked downward for another ten minutes, and the voices grew denser.

A man was counting, keeping the beat for rowing oars.

There was a prayer in Old English, its roots yet untouched by the Normans.

A woman was cursing at someone named Hall; she shouted three sentences before the fourth abruptly cut off.

Accents from every era layered and crashed into one another, none yielding to the rest.

Richard's temples began to throb. The problem lay with his own mirror-condensation method.

He had switched to it less than a month ago, and already the water's surface was reflecting. A mirror did not pick and choose what it reflected.

Richard quickly drew back his Still Water, pulling it in as tight as he could. Heat flared in his nasal cavity.

He reached up and wiped his nose.

"What's wrong?" Gerard, who had been keeping an eye on him, noticed.

"It's just a bit dry. It's nothing." Richard wiped the back of his hand clean on the corner of his coat.