Release That Witch

Archbishop Mayne stepped across the annular stairs and walked down towards the underground.     

The staircase, with a depth of at least of four times that of the cathedral's highest tower and a diameter of about 20 feet, was built in a natural doline and led directly into a strategically-positioned and spacious castle. The beginning of the staircase was well lit by skylight pathing through the windows of the high dome above, giving the twisting and turning stone walls an icy color.     

As the archbishop descended, the speckles darkened and merged with the stone surface. Yet the center of the sinkhole reflected a faint blue light. The deeper it went, the brighter the light grew. Even if one was without a torch, there would be no difficulty in seeing things.     

The stairs were like a little snake that wound around the sinkhole and snuggled up to the stone surface.     

The stair pavements were granite and were cut rectangular in shape and were around four centimeters thick. The width was enough for three people to walk on side by side. One side of a stair was deeply embedded into the stone surface, while the other side stretched into the thin air. For safety, there were wooden handrails that were connected with cords on the other side.     

He had not counted how many stairs there were, but he knew for certain that every slate was laid with tremendous effort. The masons in the church were suspended on ropes so that they could chisel deep enough grooves and embed the slates in them one by one. Every movement had to be made with care. More than 300 people had died from merely their ropes breaking or slipping.     

If the Hermes Cathedral above symbolized the unyielding spirit of the church, then the underground castle deeply hidden in the sinkhole served as the real core of the church.     

On the stone surface directly above the stairs, God's Stone of Retaliation glistened. Every hundred stairs there was a guard from the Judgement Army. Within the castle, a platoon of God's Punishment Army was ready to meet the invaders head-on. In the mezzanine between the dome of the castle and the floor of the cathedral, there were numberless sandbags and crushed stones. In the case that Holy City was lost and everyone had to leave, the pope would start the trap and bury this place in gravel and crushed stones.     

It was not the first time for Mayne to go to the Hermes' underground castle, but walking in the thin air still made him dizzy, especially when he looked out from the handrail. He felt as if he were falling.     

He only calmed down a little when his feet were on the solid ground again.     

At the bottom of the sinkhole there lay a gigantic round white whet slate whose surface was as smooth as a glass. One could easily see their own reflections in it. With the genius design of the craftsmen, this whet slate could reflect the light from the dome that converged on it from the surface. The bottom of the sinkhole was not pitch dark even if there was no torch.     

At the bottom of the sinkhole one could find that the sunlight was not colorless. The whet slate reflected faint blue light which illuminated the whole sinkhole in a cool shade. With a closer look one could notice that there was an infinite number of dust particles swirling in the brighter spots, as if they were the tiny beings recorded in ancient books.     

The church used the natural openings at the bottom of the sinkhole along with the rock surfaces and connected them further to create Hermes' underground castle. And thanks to the openings that led in all directions, the air was never stale.     

As soon as Mayne stepped into the gate of the castle, the guardian force became intense. A group of five Judgement Army soldiers guarded every barrier. They were all the most loyal warriors of the church. As long as they accepted this duty, each one of them would spend the rest of their life in the castle, not being able to return to above ground anymore.     

In fact, only he and the pope could enter and leave the castle freely. Archbishop Heather and Archbishop Tayfun were not even able to step into this place.     

But Mayne did not know how many forks of a road there were in the castle himself. Except for this main road on the south, there were many narrower roads on the sides. If one walked along one, there would be more forks in the road afterwards. Some of the roads were used by the church, while the others were sealed up. He had heard that when the castle was built, a few craftsmen lost their way in the unmarked forks and never found their way back.     

The straight main road led to the depths of the mountain. There was a barrier every 100 meters. Mayne knew that every district between two barriers served a different function. The outermost district was a living quarter for the warriors who guarded the underground. The second district was the home of the archive for documents, manuscripts, and where the surviving volumes of ancient books were located. The third district was the prison, which kept prisoners who could not be seen and... the innocent.     

When he walked past the third barrier, Mayne stopped. If he walked further, he would reach the Pivotal Secret Area of the castle, from which all the discoveries and inventions of the church originated. He had only been there once since he became the archbishop three years ago and he could not take the liberty to go there without the permission of the pope.     

Mayne turned left from the main road into a narrow lane.     

The lane was short. Before soon he reached its end. The guard at the door soon saluted him saying, "My lord."     

Mayne nodded. "Open the door."     

There was a corridor inside the door. On the walls, burning rosin torches were hung like infinite leaping light spots in the dark that stretched to the end of the corridor. At the sides there were numerous thick wooden doors with a number plate hung on each door.     

The Judgement Warrior held up the torch and led the way, while Mayne paid his attention to the change of numbers. When he saw the number plate with 35 on it, he stopped and opened the door with a key. The door emitted a piercing sound in the silent hole bottom and the sound continued to echo in the empty corridor. Behind many doors came the cries for help, from both men and women. If one listened more closely, the content was mostly bitter entreaties like, "Let me out!" "Save me" or "Please kill me!"     

Mayne was not moved at all. He ordered the warrior to guard the door, walked into the room and closed the door himself, shutting out the noise.     

Behind the bars, the archbishop saw an old man sitting on his bed. Maybe he was not so advanced in age, but his hair was grizzled and his forehead was covered with wrinkles. He might not have shaven for a long time for his beard was long enough to reach his neck. His skin was astoundingly white and his limbs were thin and shriveled like dried branches.     

Mayne took a look at the food box beside the bars, in which the food remained untouched. He sighed and said, "You should have been kinder to yourself. The church isn't short of food. Your meals are prepared according to the standard of a king, except that there's no wine. Even the fish is the best cod from the Port of Clearwater. You should be familiar with its taste, shouldn't you, Your Majesty Wimbledon?"