“Guards!” cried Cathbad. “Apprehend these heretics!”

The Churchguards, Humans and Simian among them, immediately responded, stepping forward and lowering their spears. But these, they pointed at the Arch-Canon.

“Traitors!” cried Cathbad. “I’ll have you all killed for this! You’ll burn in the Holy Hell!”

Ruairí strode forward, pointing his weapon squarely at Cathbad’s forehead.

“Beg me for your life,” said Ruairí. “Get on your knees and beg this heretic to spare you.”

For a moment, Cathbad gazed at Ruairí with defiance. Then his eyes lost their fire, and they acquired a glassy look. Slowly, Cathbad went to his knees. And at the mercy of the Sons of Seletoth, the Churchguard of the Basilica, and Argyll the Silverback, the rest of the druids and the cardinals and the high-cardinals of the Church did the same.

With the firearm still pointed at Cathbad’s head, Ruairí reached for his headpiece, and removed it. Trembling, Cathbad now seemed more of a weakened old man, with a pale, bald head bearing whisps of grey hair and blackened liver spots.

“Please,” muttered Cathbad. “Spare me.”

“I’ve waited so long for this,” said Ruairí. “Let me relish your fear. Your pathetic grovelling. Your—”

“Stop,” commanded Argyll. Abruptly, Ruairí turned around.

“Do you not want to see him dead?” he asked. “All of our preparations, was it not for this end? The end where his blood is spilled on his gilded halls?”

“I did,” said Argyll. “And it was. But his life may serve a better purpose.” Argyll beckoned Ruairí over, who wheeled him towards Cathbad. Argyll leaned inwards, so his face was level with the kneeling pontiff.

“Listen carefully,” said Argyll. “Your Humans wish not to leave this land, due to some sort of misplaced belief that the soil here is more special than that of anywhere else. I want you to you convince them otherwise.”

Argyll reached down and picked up the Arch-Canon’s headpiece. “I need you to wear this, and all of your regalia and your pomp. I want you and your holy men to walk to Sin, and in front of the crowds there, ask for passage to cross the sea. There will be no gods and no kings in our new world, and you will be treated as an equal among the rest of your fellow men. You will board a ship, as an equal, and those reluctant to join before shall see that leaving Alabach is indeed their best option.”

Cathbad paused for a moment, then nodded. Argyll gentle placed the headpiece back on his head, and ushered Ruairí to wheel him away.

“Now,” Argyll called out to the rest of the room. “Plunder the vaults of this place but take only the focus-crystals we need for the ships. The material wealth the Church has accumulated here shall remain in this doomed land.”

With this, the Sons quickly ran past them, towards a doorway to the right of the altar. The Churchguard escorted the holy men from the hall. Cathbad stood to his feet, but Argyll raised a hand.

“Oh, and one more thing,” he said. “I’ll need your ring.”

Reluctantly, Cathbad handed it over, and Argyll clutched it in his fist. As Cathbad left, Argyll looked over his shoulder, up to Ruairí who looked back through narrowed eyes.

“I thought you’d be happier,” said Argyll. “Come, let’s see about this book.”

***

As Ruairí wheeled Argyll through the marbled halls of the Basilica, the shouts and cries of the looters elsewhere in the building echoed overhead.

“Do you think they’ll heed your words?” said Ruairí. “They’ve had so much taken from them; it’ll be tempting to claim it all back.”

“Perhaps,” said Argyll. “But they’ll have to leave most of it here if they wish to board our ships. If they want to stay, they are welcome to it all.”

Ruairí slowed Argyll to a stop as they reached the end of the hallway. There, a steel grate in a doorway marked the entrance to a large cargo lift.

“I trust this is it?” asked Argyll. “Let’s make this quick, please? There’s still much to be done.”

“Of course,” said Ruairí. “We’ll take the tome, and we’ll be gone.”

They entered the lift, and Ruairí examined the pulley mechanism on the far end. After some fiddling, the lift lurched into motion, with ropes pulling and pushing either side. A counterweight quickly passed by as they descended deeper into the darkness.

In silence they waited, until the lift slowed to a stop. There, Ruairí opened the portcullis and wheeled Argyll outside.

A thick door stood before them across a small stretch of marbled floor. The door bore no obvious locking mechanism, nor did it seem to have a keyhole. But adjacent to it, some three feet tall, was marbled column, one face of which was white and smooth. It bore an imprint of the three circles of the Trinity.

As they approached, wordlessly, Argyll handed the arch-canon’s ring to Ruairí. The Human handled it carefully and pressed it against the imprint on the column. A moment passed where this seemed to have no effect, then slowly, with a creak and a grind, the door opened.

“Is this some sort of magic?” asked Argyll.

“A lost kind, yes,” replied Ruairí, pocketing the ring, and removed a lit torch from beside the column. “And inside, we shall find a great many more lost things.”

The door revealed to them what seemed like a cross between a storage room and a museum. Two silver suits of armour stood in attention at the entrance, with piles of neatly packed boxes filling shelves either side. Immediately in front of them, a parchment depicting a map hung behind a glass case.

“I don’t recognise those lands,” said Argyll, as they passed it.

“The Church would prefer to keep it that way,” said Ruairí. “Those are the lands to the east, where Móráin was born. This vault contains a great many treasures from the time of our first king, but there is one treasure in particular I seek.”

With a torch in one hand, and the handles of Argyll’s chair in the other, Ruairí forged onwards, raising the torch to examine old portraits and busts on display, but he never stopped moving.

Everything he has done was for this moment, Argyll reminded himself. Not for loyalty to myself. Not for belief in our cause. But for these treasures.

They took a corner, passing many more shelves of many more books, when Ruairí came to an abrupt stop. Trembling now, he raised his torch up, and pointed ahead.

There, at the end of the room, was a display case containing a red velvet cushion. And on that cushion, sat a book, bound in black leather with golden pages within.

“The Truth,” whispered Ruairí. He let go of Argyll’s chair. “Written by the hand of Móráin the First Himself.”

“That’s often how autobiographies are written, yes,” said Argyll. Sure, he was intrigued by this Truth he had heard so much about, but it was not his greatest concern right now.

Ruairí did not respond to Argyll’s comment. He left Argyll in the middle of the chamber and dashed towards the display case. He hung his torch on a nearby sconce, and with the butt of his firearm, broke open the glass. Its shatter echoed through the room.

“Finally,” he said, taking the tome into his hands. “The Truth shall be known to all, and the Church shall no longer have power over us.”

Argyll sighed, slightly amused by how Ruairí’s body seemed to be convulsing with excitement.

The Human opened the first page.

“‘It is against the advice of the Church that I recount the things I have seen,’” he read, “‘but I do not believe truths as important as these should be forgotten. It is my wish that this account is recorded and locked away, so none may ever look upon these pages. But I do not wish for them to be lost. The truths of our existence, no matter how terrible, should never be lost.’”

“Terrible?” asked Argyll, leaning forward. “That’s not what I was expecting.”

“Yes,” muttered Ruairí. He flicked through the pages. “He describes how he came to power among the disparate Human clans of the eastern lands, and the visions Seletoth showed him. Then he describes the voyage…” He flicked forward a few pages. “… the settlements they established and their struggles with the natives.”

Argyll scoffed. “Not dissimilar from your other history books then. Now please, can we go?”