Ashes of the Ancestors

By Andrew Knighton

In a haunted monastery at the heart of a crumbling empire, a lone priest tends the fires for the dead. A servant bound by the bones of her family, Magdalisa is her people's last link to the wisdom of the past.

But as the land around them dies, new arrivals throw the monastery into turmoil.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Luna Press Publishing
• Release date: Feb 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9781915556073

Andrew Knighton

Andrew Knighton is a freelance writer and an author of science fiction, fantasy, and steampunk stories. He lives in Yorkshire with his cat, his computer, and a big pile of books.

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ASHES OF THE

ANCESTORS

Andrew Knighton

LUNA NOVELLA #14

Text Copyright © 2023 Andrew Knighton

Cover © 2023 Jay Johnstone

First published by Luna Press Publishing, Edinburgh, 2023

The right of Andrew Knighton to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Ashes of the Ancestors ©2023. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright owners. Nor can it be circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.

www.lunapresspublishing.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-915556-07-3

To Milena, with love.

Chapter One

A fragment of soap slipped between my fingers as I whispered the words of the dawn prayer. Flecks of ash broke away into the water, not the ashes of a funeral pyre, or the fine ash that drifted through the monastery’s air, but ash from a wood fire, which I had not ground finely enough when making the soap. At least none of the monastery’s other inhabitants had to suffer from my inadequate work. The Holies were already pure in spirit, and they had long ago passed the need to make their bodies clean.

I had barely finished cleansing myself when my bracelet tapped against the bare wood of the washstand. I shook droplets of precious grey water into the basin, dried my hands on a cloth cut from an old robe, picked the bracelet up, and slipped it on. The bones of my family had been worn smooth from resting against my wrist, but in other ways they were unchanged after fifteen years, weighed down with all I had lost. Grief anchored me in who I had been and who I was now. Without those bones, I would not have been in the Eternal Abbey. Without my loss, I would have been just one more stonemason’s daughter, set to follow in her father’s path.

The pulsing of the bones was confident and steady, the call of the Empress Chryssania, may her memory light our path forever. Not like the abrupt rattle from Saint Serafios, blessed be his blade, or the weak trembling of the lesser Holies. In death, as in life, Chryssania demanded attention, and I, her last remaining servant, leapt to obey.

I pulled on a clean robe, concealed a battered pair of goggles in the folds of my headscarf, knotted my cloth belt and straightened my tool pouches. I set the weighty keys of the Abbey’s many rooms against the side of my hip, where they would not jangle as I walked. The Empress did not demand perfection, but I could always see her disappointment at the declining standards of the world. I worked hard to make her proud.

I opened the door to my cell and headed out into the Abbey, along silent, empty corridors of ancient stone heated by smoke pipes from within and the blazing sun from without. Those close-fitted stones surrounded me, radiating heat and holiness, a channel for energies both mortal and divine. For a moment I envisioned the Abbey as it looked from a distance, a dark edifice that shimmered like a prophet’s vision, towering on its precipitous pillar above the dusty plains. After all these years, I could still be struck by such trembling moments of awe, by my own disbelief that I was considered worthy to serve amid the eternal stones, to maintain the traditions that held a nation together.

I had stoked the fires before I went to sleep the previous night, but it had been long enough for the ash in the air to grow thin. That happened when the wind blew strong across the plains or on those increasingly rare occasions when rain fell. I should stoke the fires again as soon as I had attended to the Empress. Then I should clear the vents, oil the mechanisms, fetch wood, clean the altar, check for any tiles that had blown loose. The stones of the Abbey and all the work of its maintenance lay across my back. It was a lonely duty, to bear all that weight on my own, but an honourable one; a life lived well in tribute to those who had died.

My footsteps echoed down corridors and stairwells, past lancet-arched windows that revealed a dizzying view of the parched land a hundred feet below. Sometimes my footsteps would bounce back unexpectedly around twists of the corridor or turns of the ash vents, and for a moment I would think that I heard someone else. I would smile, even as the knot in my chest tightened, but then I would remember that it was an illusion. There were many other people in the Abbey, but none whose footsteps made a sound.

I pulled my headscarf forward before entering the great chapel. I only wore goggles for the messiest of tasks, like cleaning vents, and only pulled the scarf across my mouth and nose when the ashes flew at their thickest. But it was always worth keeping the scarf well forward, and not just out of respect for the holies. I had many duties, and couldn’t afford to waste time washing clumps of ash from my hair.

The great chapel was the spiritual heart of the Abbey and with it the whole Talaian Empire. From the entrance to the stairwell, the nave stretched away from me toward the vast oak doors, smoke swirling around pillars six feet across, each carved with its own spiralling pattern. To my other side, the central spire stretched toward the heavens, its darkness broken by the beams of light that shone through traceried windows, illuminating walls whose centuries-old paint was only now starting to fade. To look up into that spire was to be overcome by grandeur, by the artistry of its arches and perfect symmetry of its form.

The Empress Chryssania, may her memory light our path forever, was waiting at the head of the chapel in her throne behind the high altar. The seat was polished black marble shot through with red veins, stone that would have made my father weak with envy at the men and women who worked it. The delicacy with which its images of weapons and war had been carved accentuated rather than undermined the monumental solidity of the seat. No power in the world would move Chryssania’s throne, just as no power had been able to stop Chryssania. Building an earthly empire had not been enough for her; she had found the means to conquer death.

The late Empress would have stood out in any setting, but against that throne, the pale ashes of her ghostly form were all the more striking. The toga draped across her left arm and shoulder fell away on the right, revealing a wide pauldron and the plate armour that descended from it, down to the delicate joints of her fingers. A crown rested on her shaved head, its gems such intense points of ash that they almost seemed to gleam. She frowned as I hurried in, and tapped a finger against the arm of the throne.

I sank to my knees and pressed my forehead against the flagstones.

Your Majesty, I whispered, and my voice whispered back to me from the high ceiling. How can I serve you?

They are arriving today, Sister Magdalisa, Chryssania said. Our newest saint and her funeral entourage.

I tensed. The Duchess Eras wasn’t due to arrive for another week, time I needed to ensure that the traditions were properly followed. I hadn’t prepared for the ceremonies or readied chambers for her mourners. Townsfolk from Karatoulla weren’t due to start delivering the feast for three more days. If the news had come from anyone else, I would have asked if they were certain, bargained with reality for more time, but Chryssania had not founded an empire by being uncertain, or by ever being wrong.

Do you know when? I asked, looking up from the floor.

Three hours, perhaps four. The ghost of Saint Serafios, blessed be his blade, emerged from the swirling ashes beside the throne. One of his hands rested on the pommel of his longsword, while the other pointed past me, down the nave and out through the towering doors to the valley beyond. Their outriders are already harassing shopkeepers in town.

Serafios. Chryssania’s voice hardened, and I flinched at this warning of her displeasure.

The woman is unworthy. She embodies our brutality, not our better nature.

Serafios’s crusades had been fought in a later age than the Empress, and the armour that encased him was in a different style, lamellar plates marked with the open hand on his shoulder. His hands were bare, and as he spoke the tips of his fingers darkened. White ashes turned red and for a moment blood dripped to the floor. Saint Serafios’s Wound, the pilgrims called it, and if any of them had been there then they would have shuffled forward, rough spun robes rasping on the floor, jostling to be first to dip their fingers in the blood once he was gone.

Few of us are perfect, Chryssania said. But the Duchess Eras reunited our lands to the east, returning the stability of the empire to a troubled region. Her life was a bulwark against collapse.

Against collapse or against peace?

You think that the empire can be saved without violence? Don’t make a hypocrite of yourself.

I just feel that we should—

The decision has been made, Chryssania snapped.

Serafios bowed his head before the Empress’s glare.

Of course, your majesty, he said, and for a moment I thought I heard bitterness, but as he turned to look at me, I saw that he was smiling, and my heart skipped a beat. But I worry at the burden this will place on Sister Magdalisa. We should do what we can to lessen her labours.

It is no burden, I said, bowing again, though not so deeply this time. It was hard to tear my gaze away from him. It is an honour to prepare for an interment. This will be the first since Father Vetreas passed away.

Which made it the first I would oversee as the Abbey’s last remaining novice. Only the most gifted and righteous souls came to rest in the Eternal Abbey, and that was only right, but the infrequency of these ceremonies meant that I had little practice. Though I had spent long hours reading the scrolls of ceremony and scripture, it was over a decade since I had taken part in the funeral traditions. I had been counting on the next week for preparation. Now I would have to muddle my way through on what I remembered and try not to shame the spirits with my clumsy efforts. I would not have given up this honour for all the Empire, but I went cold at the thought.

The pilgrims’ ceremonies are simpler, and Magdalisa is familiar with them. Serafios looked at me with sympathy, then turned to meet Chryssania’s gaze. That movement of his head left a trail of ash through the air, a few specks that drifted toward the floor. That should do for Eras.

Magdalisa is no simpleton, are you, child?

I shook my head. "No, your