The crypt beneath St. Jude’s Cathedral was older than the city of Lathmere itself. Its low, vaulted ceilings were supported by massive pillars of unhewn granite, black with the soot of a thousand years of animal fat candles. The air was cold, damp, and reeking of ancient dust, rot-resistant cedar oil, and lead sheeting.
Varo Nenn led the way with an iron lantern, his keys clanking against his thigh, guiding Pella and Korr Var down narrow halls lined with iron-banded lead cylinders. Each metal tube contained the foundational rolls of a forgotten guild. The wool-weavers of the First Age, the master-quarrymen who cut the Third Gate cliffs, and the early water-engineers who laid the first cedar pipes beneath the marshes.
They reached the Seventh Nook. They were marked with the worn stone carving of an open archway and two clasped hands. Nenn pushed in a four-flanged key into the lock of Metal tube Seven. That turned it with a heavy, metal groan that echoed through the vaults. Inside, wrapped in decayed purple velvet, lay a huge roll of heavy calfskin thick parchment, stiff and brittle with hundreds of years of lime damp.
They unrolled the thick parchment across the flat lid of a stone sarcophagus. They held the curling edges down with four lead tally metal bars. The text was written in ancient High Lathmerian, lit up in dark vermilion ink that had faded to the color of dried blood.
