He followed the stone floor for several more dozen paces until he reached the far end of the hall — and found six large, heavy black stone doors set into the wall: two on the right, four on the left.
The asymmetric style. Very much a Fourth Epoch Solomon Empire aesthetic.
"Is this one the Storm Church's aureole?" Vincent indicated the leftmost door.
He walked over, applied Distortion, and the door ground open. Inside: a statue of a stern, powerful middle-aged man in black armour, standing atop rolling waves, wrapped in a storm, bolts of lightning arcing behind him, a trident in one hand.
"..."
Bernadette seemed to fall very still. After a long moment she said, voice lower than usual and carrying something close to shock: "This is — a statue of the Storm Lord?"
In all the centuries since, the seven Churches had only ever used their respective aureoles to represent the gods. To see an actual divine statue — especially one this well-preserved in a place this ancient — was unlike anything she'd encountered before.
And if this was the Storm Lord — the others doors almost certainly held…
"Open the rest."
Vincent proceeded along the left wall. One by one, the remaining three doors opened: the Eternal Blazing Sun, the God of Steam and Machinery, and a war deity.
Then the two on the right. The first held a statue four to five metres tall in pure white stone: a full-figured, graceful woman, feet buried in sprouting grain, a spring of water encircling her, her robes flowing outward, decorated everywhere with medicinal herbs, flowers, and the forms of various animals. She cradled a swaddled infant to her chest with both arms. The overall impression was sacred. Serene.
The Earth Mother.
And the last door — belonging to the most inscrutable, most backstage-operating, most lethally indirect of all the LOTM deities. The Evernight Goddess.
As the stone door swung slowly open, a woman appeared — face soft and hazy, indistinctly beautiful. She was reclining on a platform, one hand propping her head, dressed in layered black classical robes that managed to feel elaborate without being busy. Beneath her head, a circle of radiating lines. On the fabric of her robes, scattered glints of light — chips of gem, like stars worn on the body.
And in her arms — she was also holding an infant.
"???"
"!!!"
Vincent stood there for a moment, then rubbed his eyes. He stepped back a few paces, compared the two statues, checked again.
The grain, the herbs, the flowers, the animals — those were the Earth Mother's, unmistakably. The woman with the starlight dress, the reclining pose, the circle of rays beneath her head — that was the Evernight Goddess.
Both holding infants.
Why?
Why would the Evernight Goddess's statue be holding a baby? Birth, gestation, raising children — every one of those was under the Earth Mother's domain. There wasn't a tradition, a teaching, or a piece of Church doctrine that connected the Evernight Goddess to anything of the kind.
And I'm pretty sure the original novel never described anything like this.
"Bernadette…"
After a long pause, Vincent said quietly: "Do you know what this means?"
"I don't."
Her voice carried a genuine edge of surprise. "I've never seen anything that connected the Evernight Goddess to infants or newborns — the domain of birth and nurture has always belonged to the Earth Mother. Perhaps in the Fourth Epoch, this kind of representation still carried some different meaning we no longer have access to."
Vincent scratched his head, and a strange thought surfaced: "Is there any chance that baby is the Evernight Goddess herself—"
Before he could finish, Bernadette said, very quietly: "If you'd like to die, please don't take me with you."
"Right, right — just a reasonable speculation."
He coughed a couple of times, shook his head with a sigh. "If the people outside ever saw this statue, I honestly don't know what would happen."
This went beyond blasphemy. This was on a different level entirely.
He looked at the Evernight Goddess statue again, turning it over with unease: What was this about? Tudor wouldn't have carved a demonstrably wrong statue. Either he had a reason, or he was deliberately trying to provoke her. And why doesn't this exist in the original novel?
Was it my presence — the Time-Turner, the butterfly effect somehow reaching into the past?
That felt like a stretch. But stranger things had happened.
"Let's leave," Bernadette said. "And forget everything we just saw."
"Understood."
Vincent gave a nod. "With the Evil Spirit gone, what do we do about Stephen?"
She thought for a moment. "Go see the pub owner — the one from before. We suspected the reason he suddenly opened that bar was connected to the Evil Spirit's influence. He might know something."
...
A few minutes later, outside the Sour Plum Wine Tavern.
Compared to the quiet, tentative early days of its operation, the place was now genuinely busy. It wasn't even noon yet and more than half the seats were filled — drinkers, talkers, people just resting.
Vincent went to the bar. The same bartender from before greeted him with the same professional smile. "What can I get you, sir?"
"A juice."
He settled onto a stool, accepted the glass, and said: "I've heard the owner of this establishment is Sub-Baron Raffert Pound?"
The bartender nodded pleasantly. "That's right, sir."
"Is he here now?"
"He is — just over there."
The bartender gestured to a corner table by the window. A well-dressed middle-aged man in a neat tailcoat, hair immaculately groomed, was chatting and laughing with a noblewoman.
He looked entirely different from the last time Vincent had seen him.
As if sensing someone looking his way, Raffert turned — and their eyes met. He made a graceful bow to the noblewoman, excused himself, and walked over.
"Can I help you, sir?"
Vincent took a sip of juice and smiled pleasantly. "Sub-Baron, I'm a little puzzled — you've clearly got the means to run a place like this. So why is it that you couldn't manage to pay back the money you borrowed from me?"
Raffert's smile flickered. "Are you sure I owe you money, sir?"
"Absolutely. Two months ago, you'd hit a losing streak at the card tables — borrowed three hundred pounds off me. Said you'd pay six hundred if it came in. Two months on, and clearly you're doing well. Time to settle up."
Raffert studied Vincent carefully for a long moment, then turned without a word. "Come with me. I don't carry that much on me."
"Very direct. I appreciate that."
Vincent knocked the glass down on the bar and followed Raffert through a door behind the counter, up a staircase to the second floor, and into a private room.
Raffert crossed to a desk, picked up an empty glass and poured a measure of red wine, handed it to Vincent. "The money's in the safe — one moment."
He bent down, worked at something with a series of clicks and creaks — then straightened abruptly, his expression twisting into something cold and violent. A revolver appeared in his hand, pointed directly at Vincent.
"Who the hell are you, trying to run a con on me? You think you can just waltz in and—"
He blinked.
The man was simply in front of him now — no movement visible — two fingers catching the revolver's barrel and bending it upward with a sound like a complaint from the metal.
Creak.
The steel barrel bent. The dark muzzle pointed at Raffert's own face.
"..."
A brief, stunned silence. Then Raffert dropped the gun, raised both hands, and squeezed out a very uncomfortable smile.
"I think six hundred pounds may have been too modest. What do you say to twelve hundred?"
To be continued…
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