FanStory.com - Sepulchreby Patrick Bernardy

The chamber that spread out before me was enormous. It was at least two stories tall, the stone ceiling supported by two rows of thick columns down the center.

The first things I noticed were the lights. The tomb was lit with twin rows of glowing orbs resting in three-foot-tall tripods. The yellow cast of the light was rich—not too bright and not too dim. There were a total of fourteen of the lights, seven on each side, running the entire length of the main path between the columns. The orbs themselves were about the size of an apple, and their interiors seemed to swirl faintly with an incandescent liquid; it was odd that they gave off no heat, considering they resembled miniature suns.

The tomb was as silent as a tomb should be, and there was not a smell to speak of. The difference in temperature between the tomb and the rest of the catacombs was distinctive, however. It was pervaded by an uncomfortable chill. Was there some way that the outside air was penetrating the tomb, maybe some hidden flue that punched through the surface of the city above like an underwater breathing tube? And if so, to what purpose? It seemed at first that there had to be some mundane explanation for the much colder atmosphere in the tomb, but then again, mundane explanations for mysterious events were the exceptions, lately, not the rule.

What I was feeling could just be the chill of very old death. Maybe it was always so around the remains of monumental figures of history.

The path between the lines of columns and yellow orbs led to a wide, three-step dais. Here and there were bits of rotten and ragged cloth—most of it protruding from under the metal feet of the tripods—revealing that at some point, the path was carpeted, but the fabric had long since disintegrated with age.

In front of me, I fixed my gaze upon the two marble biers atop the dais, softly illuminated by a fifteenth and sixteenth orb-tripod beside each.

As I mounted the dais, my breath caught; I had expected some sort of metal or stone body-shaped coffin but was instead greeted by two richly adorned skeletons, laid out in regal repose.

The one on my right was obviously male. He was dressed in a suit of bronze plate armor without helm and held the hilt of a massive sword in his stiff, gauntleted fists. The blade extended down his front at a slight angle, the point resting on the marble surface of the bier between the corpse’s boots. His skull stared up at the ceiling and was nestled like an egg in a nest of blonde curls.

The second corpse was obviously that of a woman, if hair and clothing were any indication. Much smaller than the male, the skeleton was dressed in a red silk dress, the hem lying flat and without crease across her ankle-bones. The cloth of the garment was ragged—threadbare in some spots, rotten in others. Her arms were brought together over her midsection, and her skeletal hands clutched a crystal object that looked like a stemless rose. The crystal seemed to be pink, but maybe it was just a trick of the light, because when I shifted my gaze and then looked back at it, it had become colorless and transparent like a diamond. The female corpse's skull was framed by two sheets of straight blonde hair—fine and long, perfectly combed, each side appearing as sheer curtains decorating a window of staring death.

Beyond the dais, the marvels continued. The entire back wall was a semi-circular apse. Four more of the orb-tripods cast yellow light within it. Another skeleton lounged in a massive stone chair, its skull leaning down and to the left, eye-sockets staring at the floor. Its finger-bones were clutching the chair’s armrests, and its cloth-covered legs were split open wide with a certain lack of dignity.

Lying open and upside-down on the floor in front of the chair was a small book, its cover made of dark brown leather and unlabeled.