My second-in-command was a fiftyish woman that the previous sergeant had labeled calm, steady, and reliable. I left her in charge while Scarpa took me for a tour of the Knights’ installations in the area.
Our barracks were about a kilometer from Stonehenge, and the chevalier turned down a path that would lead directly there.
“Driving over there would be foolish,” Scarpa told me. “You have to park at the visitor center, and that’s farther away than we are now.”
“You said the installations are underground?” I asked.
“Yes. There is a ley line that runs through this area, which is why the ancients built their focus points here.” She pointed to the ruby on the pommel of my sword. “We don’t feel the ley lines, but those rubies are essential for the mages to use their power, and we manufacture them here. But the pagans who resist the Mother Church would do anything to disrupt our crusade, so we hide our activities underground and ward them from detection or interruption.”
“And that is what my circle is here for?”
“Yes. The wards are cast, but they require constant reinforcement. We may not feel it, but our enemies are constantly attacking us, seeking any weak spot. Currently, we have four circles working here. Your circle casts their spells every three days.”
We had to pass through two security checkpoints before we reached the iconic ring of stones, and another checkpoint once we got to Stonehenge. The checks were both physical and magical. The guard at the last station frowned and asked me, “If you’re a witch, why do you have a ruby?”
I shrugged. “They issued me a new sword, and the ruby came with it. Should I pry it off and give it back?”
“Well, no, of course, not.”
“I don’t think we have a shortage,” Scarpa said to the guard, “but if we do, I’m sure Sergeant O’Grady will be glad to donate hers to the cause.”
The guard sheepishly handed our documents back to us and cleared us to enter.
Roisin had implanted one of the rubies under my skin to prevent questions as to why I was carrying one. We had debated putting the ruby on a witch’s sword when Oriel and I created it, but Roisin had suggested doing it for the reason I had just encountered.
We approached an earthen mound with a large door in it just outside the ring of giant stones. Two Knights stood on guard and buzzed the door open when we reached it. Inside, a ramp led down with steps on one side. Magelights overhead provided illumination.
“Into the belly of the beast,” Scarpa said with a smirk. The stairs were wide enough for us to walk side by side, so I matched my pace to hers. I kept track of how many steps we descended, and estimated we were about one hundred fifty feet beneath the surface. Before us was a mage-drilled tunnel thirty feet in diameter, the walls and flat floor like polished glass. The ubiquitous magelights were larger there and close enough to each other that we didn’t cast shadows. Openings to the left and right were about the same size.
“To the right is the ruby factory,” Scarpa said, “and the operation where they polish the raw cabochons is on the left. At the far end, under Durrington Walls, is where they are imbued with magic.”
As we watched, a cart—possibly electric, possibly magic-driven—trundled out of the tunnel she identified as leading to the stone-cutting factory, and headed down the long tunnel away from us.
In the ruby factory, there were rows upon rows of machines that created synthetic rubies from raw materials. A few technicians in white lab coats wandered around checking on the machines and writing something on their clipboards.
The stone-cutting operation had different equipment. The workers there loaded hoppers full of what I was told were the raw stones from the factory next door. The raw stones went in one side, and identical unpolished star rubies came out the other. The unpolished stones were dumped in tumblers, then carried on conveyer belts under blasts of hot air to one of the carts. When a cart was full, it was taken away and replaced with another.
The whole operation was very mechanical, and as far as I could tell, there wasn’t any magic involved.
But as we walked down the long hall toward Durrington Walls, the ley line magic intensified. I knew that Scarpa couldn’t feel it, so I tried to act as though nothing unusual was going on.
We entered a large circular room with a high-domed ceiling. Around a dozen men were present, wearing either Knights’ uniforms or priestly robes. At the center in the rear of the room was an altar, and a faceted ruby larger than my fist lay in a shallow bowl on a pedestal on top of the altar. Deep, almost neon red, it shimmered, and the rainbow cast on the wall behind it by the magelights lacked the colors yellow and green. I wasn’t an expert on gemstones, but it matched what the Fae had told me to look for. I was staring at the Heart of the World.
Other than my trips through the ley lines with Oriel when we traveled to and from the realm of the Fae, I had never felt so much magic in my life. I itched to touch that gemstone, to draw power from it.
Of course, the chances of me making it to the altar, let alone the stone, were between zilch and none. All of the men present were mages, and those in Knights’ uniforms were chaplains. We had walked through several wards on our way into the center of their operation, and I was willing to bet that none of those wards would let the gem pass through them.
Steal the Heart of Magic? Right. I was going to need a bigger distraction. I wondered if a nuclear bomb would have any effect on the stone. Then I recoiled from the thought. What would that do to the ley lines?
As we watched, a cart of star rubies was pulled up in front of the altar. A circle was formed by the priests. The man leading the circle said a prayer, then they pulled power through the stone and focused it on the star rubies in the cart. When they finished, the men who had brought the cart took it away.
“Among your tasks is to recast the wards on the altar and on this room,” Scarpa told me, leaning close and speaking in a low voice. “That is to be done precisely at sunrise. When you’ve finished, then you retreat outside the burrow and recast the ward protecting the ring of stones called Stonehenge. That is done every three days. Once a week, you’ll also join with the other circles to cast a specialized set of wards around the entire area, encompassing Stonehenge, Durrington Walls, the visitor center, and our compound. I will work with you and your circle the first few times until I’m confident that you have learned the spells.”
“There are four circles in our company,” I said. “If there is a three-day rotation, what does the fourth circle do?”
“They fill in your slot when your group goes on leave, or if any member of your circle were sick or injured, they would fill in for them. They also join in casting the Sunday wards.”
I thought about the Fae’s timeline. Not only were they overly optimistic, they were jumping the gun by weeks if they thought I was going to be able to get in there and steal the jewel after being here a few days. I needed to talk with someone, but I wasn’t going to get a chance to do that any time soon.
I needed to get word out about the security around the Heart. It was going to be some time before I could get leave to go into Salisbury. I had been told there would be Fae inside who could carry messages for me, but I hadn’t met any as yet. Perhaps one or more of the people working in the underground factories were Fae, but I wasn’t sure where they lived when they were off duty.
Scarpa hadn’t said if the factories shut down for the night or ran around the clock. So much of that operation was automated that I couldn’t see it shutting down. I knew I hadn’t seen everything, but there couldn’t have been more than a couple dozen people in the area where the gems were created, and maybe a hundred where they were cut and polished. Most of those were employed with moving the stones from one place to another.
As for the room with the Heart, the place where all the magic took place, did they run shifts? Thirteen mages. Three shifts were only thirty-nine mage-chaplains. That didn’t seem to be too many for an organization as large as the Universal Church to devote to an activity so important.
And when the Knights disrupted the ley lines, that had to happen in the same room if they used the Heart to do it. How did they do it? That was something I needed to see. If I could prevent that when the resistance attacked, it could increase their forces exponentially.
Scarpa had shown me around the compound where my team was quartered. I had yet to see the headquarters at Old Sarum or the guard station at the old visitor center. Hopefully, my contact wasn’t that far away. I had met the people working in the dining hall, and none of them were Fae. Neither was the couple who ran the canteen, where one could buy toiletries, snacks, and other odds and ends. The women who did the laundry weren’t even magical.
I thought about the problem all through dinner. As I left the dining hall, I stood in the middle of the compound, looking at the old farm buildings and the new buildings erected by the Knights. Then my eyes fell on the chapel.
It wasn’t much as far as churches go—a plain rectangular wooden box with a metal roof and a white Knights’ cross nailed above the door. It didn’t even have any windows. As I watched, no one was going there for evening prayers. Dal Corso had called Scarpa pious, but Scarpa hadn’t said a word to me about prayers, and I hadn’t seen her going to the chapel, either.
My lesson with Scarpa wasn’t due to start for another forty-five minutes, so I walked over to the chapel and pulled on the door. The interior was a complete shock. Carved ribs of thick wood supported the walls and curved up to pointed arches at the ceiling’s peak. The pews were crafted of carved and polished hardwood. A brightly patterned rug ran down the aisle to the altar, which was carved with flowers and vines with a large golden cross. All the decoration and glitter that was lacking on the outside was displayed on the inside. Magelights hung from the walls.
At first, I didn’t see the priest sitting next to the confessional on one side near the front. He sat like a statue, but his face was turned to me. I walked down the aisle, genuflected in front of the altar, and crossed myself. Then I rose, went over to one of the pews, and sat down.