Sanctus

Chapter 129

The Sanctus guard let the girl’s body slip to the ground next to the forge then reached up and took a thin metal rod from a hook on the wall. He laid it in the heart of the fire and started pumping the bellows, filling the room with the fire’s rhythmic roar. The forge glowed brighter, throwing yellow light across the whetstones in front of it. The Abbot moved to the nearest one, shrugging his shoulders out of his cassock and letting it fall to the floor. Cornelius looked at the network of scars on his body.

‘Are you ready to receive the knowledge of the Sacrament?’ the Abbot asked. Cornelius nodded. ‘Then do as I do.’

He unsheathed the ceremonial dagger from his wooden Crux and began working the foot-pedal to set the sharpening stone spinning. He laid the edge of his dagger on the stone and started to work the blade backwards and forwards, his eyes fixed on the sharpening blade. Cornelius shrugged out of his own robes and felt the heat of the fire on his skin. He removed the dagger from his Crux and started his own wheel spinning.

‘Before you enter the chapel,’ the Abbot said, his voice rumbling under the hiss of the bellows and the grinding stones, ‘you must receive the sacred marks of our order. These marks, cut into our own flesh, remind us of our failure to carry out the pledge our ancestors made to God.’ He lifted his blade from the stone and held the edge up to the light. ‘Tonight, thanks to your great service, that pledge will finally be honoured.’

He turned to Cornelius and raised the point of his dagger until it rested at the top of the thick raised scar running down the centre of his body. ‘The first,’ he said, pushing the blade into his flesh and dragging it down towards his stomach. ‘This blood binds us in pain with the Sacrament. As it suffers, so must we, until all suffering ends.’

Cornelius watched the blade slice through the scar until blood dripped down the Abbot’s body and on to the stone floor. He held his own dagger up. Pressed it into his own flesh. Pierced his skin with its point. He dragged it downwards, shutting his mind to the pain, willing his hand to obey him until the first incision was done and blood ran hot from his own mortified flesh. The Abbot raised his dagger again and made the second cut at the point where his left arm met his body. Cornelius did the same, dutifully mirroring this and every cut the Abbot made, until his body bore all the marks of the brotherhood he was now part of.

The Abbot finished the final cut and raised the bloodied tip of his blade to his forehead, wiped it once upward, turned it, then wiped it once across, leaving a smeared red Tau in the centre. Cornelius did the same, remembering Johann as he did so and tears ran down the pale, puckered skin on his cheek. Johann had died a righteous death so that their mission could succeed. Because of that sacrifice, he was about to be blessed with the sacred knowledge of the Sacrament. He watched the Abbot slide his dagger back into the wooden scabbard of his Crux and step over to the forge. He lifted the metal rod from the heart of the flames and carried it across to Cornelius.

‘Do not worry, Brother,’ the Abbot said, misreading his tears. ‘All your wounds will soon heal.’

He raised the glowing tip of the iron and Cornelius felt the dry heat approaching the skin of his upper arm. He looked away and remembered the bloom of the explosion that had burned him once before. Felt the searing agony again as the branding iron pressed against him. He gritted his teeth, clamping down on a scream, willing himself to endure it as the smell of his burning flesh corrupted the air.

The iron was removed, but the pain remained, and Cornelius forced a look at it to convince himself it was over. He sipped shallow breaths, looking down at the charred and blistered patch of flesh that marked him now as one of the chosen. Then he saw the flesh start to harden, knit together and heal.

A grinding sound scraped through the flickering darkness, dragging his eyes away. The guard was heaving against the wooden stakes in the huge circular stone, rolling it along channels worn smooth by millennia to reveal a chamber beyond. At first glance it appeared to be empty. Then, as Cornelius’s eyes sank into the blackness, he saw candlelight flickering inside.

‘Come,’ said the Abbot, taking his arm and leading him towards it. ‘See for yourself. You are one of us now.’