The Archurch of Karkarus loomed above the lower districts, its spires clawing into the vault above like petrified prayer candles. I had studied its schematics in secret, traced its ventilation routes and sanctified redundancies in stolen margins. Knowledge was allowed there, but only the kind that bowed its head. Everything else was buried beneath ritual and the threat of violence.
Lyra watched the towers in silence, her jaw set, grief condensed into something sharp enough to cut through fear. The Carcerium had taught us the cost of waiting. Iron cages rose while the people looked away, appalled, yet submissive.
That lesson lingered.
“If people found out the existence of the surface is proven,” she said, “then the political narrative collapses very quickly. Things will change. That is why they are cracking down. People are already whispering. We need to act fast before the Sebastokrator loses his mind and shuts down the capital.”
She was right. Karkarus had already begun to close its fist. Quadral patrols thickened near the scholarly wards. Names were being cross-checked against the Patronus database. Conversations flagged. Association alone was enough to be called dissonant.
To be called a heretic.
“We break in,” I said. “Get into the Great Archive; grab whatever we can get our hands on.”
Lyra turned to me. “Stick with Helvane Dakarum.”
I nodded. The words sounded forbidden.
“The only known surviving volume,” she claimed. “Contains every reference to the surface that wasn’t redacted. And guarded like a relic.”
“Like a contagion,” I corrected. The Sebastokrator's fear is not rooted in our thirst for knowledge, but in the implications of context—what it would mean for his claims to be exposed as lies. For years, I pieced together the evidence: partially corrupted tablets, books secretly brought by Mekanike pirates, and sacred songs intentionally modified at key points. All of it pointed to a reality that refused to remain a myth. Yet, the Geotheocratic government dismissed this proof, labeling it apocrypha and branding us as insane.
The Helvane Dakarum journal was different. It was whole. And because it was whole, it was canonical.
“We’ll be marked the moment we enter the perimeter,” Lyra said. “If we fail, there won’t be cages. They won’t bother with spectacle.”
“I know.”
The risk felt immense, but so did the alternative. To do nothing was to accept that Kajis’s cage would not be the last. That the Geotheocracy’s narrative would harden, unchallenged, until even a small amount of doubt became illegal.
“We get in from above,” I said finally. “The Tunste levels. Exhaust vents. Old industrial arteries the Archurch never bothered to sanctify because they predate its construction.”
Lyra smiled then, a thin, dangerous thing. “Of course you already have a way in.”
I didn’t answer. Planning always was my refuge. A way to believe I was still choosing my fate. My scheming had commenced the tide of the Sebastokrator’s edict shutting down all Archurches across the Geotheocracy.
The bells tolled again, a slow pulse echoing through the strata. Each ring felt like a countdown.
“This isn’t about academic curiosity anymore,” Lyra said softly. “This is about the survival… of our freedoms. Only truth can bring down the Sebastokrator’s lust for absolute power.”
I looked up at the spires, at the stone faces carved to watch and judge. Somewhere inside, beneath layers of incense and doctrine, the truth waited… along with our fate.
The ascent to the Tunste levels had been brutal, a crawl through choked, suffocating industrial vents, but the descent proved even more precarious. I found the promised access point — a root network of a giant juraroot tree, its thick, ossified tendrils snaking down through a fissure in the old stone, seeking water far below. The air here was damp and smelled intensely of ozone and wet earth.
“It’s the only way,” I told her.
She looked at me, a sober smile betrayed her fearlessness. “How do we get back?”
“Same way.”
Lyra went first, her cyan-blue cuffs reflecting the minimal light as she tested the rough bark for purchase. The root offered a treacherous but natural ladder across the void. I followed, my lantern staff uselessly scraping the narrow shaft, forcing me to rely solely on the tautness of the juraroot and the memory of the Archurch layout swimming in my mind. One slip, one misplaced grip on the moss-slicked root, and our entire desperate plan would end in a broken fall onto the unforgiving basalt floor far below.
The descent ended with a desperate climb through a splintered window of the Archurch’s northernmost spire, a narrow aperture meant for ventilation, not trespass. Lyra dropped lightly to the stone floor first. I followed, tripping over, and landing with a heavy thud.
“Damnations to all,” I cursed as I struggled back onto my feet.
Together we stood in the darkness of a forgotten watch-room. A chill, primordial draft immediately met us, carrying the scent of salt and some form of noxious vapour. We found the spiral stairwell, a helix of worn basalt wrapping endlessly down into the structure's core. Our boots scraped the stone, the sound echoing hollowly as we began our descent.
"Do you wonder if our journals will be suppressed like this in the future?” I asked, realising that a lifetime of dreaming of such an expedition ended that moment.
“Is fame truly what you believe we are aiming for?” Lyra murmured, her voice tight, the words barely audible above our breathing.
“It’s unavoidable, I would say,” I replied, feeling defensive. “Proving the surface is real, being the first to do so, we will become legends.”
"We need to get to the Great Archive,” Lyra said, ignoring my remark, “retrieve Dakarum's journal, and get out of Karkarus before the Chief Patronus puts out a contract on us. My contact will meet us at the Upper Transport Hub beyond the outer nest—he'll have a private train ready."
The spiral stairwell finally opened onto a landing overlooking the Grand Narthex, the main hall of the Archurch. Below, the massive open courtyard stretched into the gloom, supported by colossal, fluted columns that vanished into the high vaulted ceiling. The air here was colder, laced with the sharp, sterile scent of ozone from the nearby power conduits.
Lyra paused, her gaze shifting from the Saturnium to the larger radiating halls that branched off from the central area. "Four wings," she murmured, a trace of professional urgency replacing her earlier grief. "If we split up, we could cover them all in a fraction of the time. You take the Saturnium, I'll check the four chambers. Meet me there when you’re done."
The idea was logical, a scholar’s instinct for efficiency, but I shook my head, already descending the last few steps.
"No,” I said. “If we split and they catch one of us…?”
“The Archurch has been shut down for a while now. We don’t have much time.” I looked at me and revealed she planned to insist. “We risk one execution, not two."
“I know,” I said as I turned and headed for the lesser building.
13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxHprgI3xmR
and then Add to home screen.