Gray clouds swarm up from the horizon in towering droves, threatening rain and worse across the vast plains of open land which belonged once to a long-dead kingdom. Great towering cliffs rise above the gentle hills, chasms as deep as they are tall creating a better moat than any body of water could for these natural walls.

Myra tries to stretch her back without reaching or leaning into the personal space of the other three people in the carriage. They’re still sleeping, supposedly, which is the only reason the driver is walking them along the road instead of rushing them as he has for the past ten days.

After untying the cord holding her hair up and out of the way, she shakes it out and runs her fingers through the mild tangles before making a braid of it. Her elbow barely waves through the air near the girl to her right, but that’s enough to earn her a scoff and scornful look.

At least she can’t start a fight while their “escort” is within arm’s reach of slapping them both.

“Good Gods, is this really the place?” The girl sitting across from Myra is leaning her head almost out of the window, a mix of horror and disgust wrinkling her nose and furrowing her brow. Myra turns in her seat to look through the same window, getting a peek of jagged stone and a stomach-turning drop far too close to the carriage’s wheels.

She promptly returns to her original position, eyes fixed on the back wall of the carriage. Heights have never been her bread and butter, but the nearly-flat lands they’ve been crossing didn’t suggest such a thing.

Oh, there’s always been rumors about the Cathedral, but now that she’s being sent to it there will be far more truth to experience. That said, level ground falling away to shadowy depths while the land on the far side of the chasm reaches absurdly high into the air feels less like truth and more like a legend.

“Matron, did the Gods really have to make such an uncomfortable passage? Mycira here looks ready to faint!” 

Myra doesn’t spare so much as a twitch. She doesn’t have to look to know the girl to her right is sneering again. Highborn from an ancient family line, the usual sort to get a prestigious position far from desolate places like their destination. Stuck in the same carriage as Myra, likely for a far less permissible crime. Maybe she spat in a real noble’s face or spilled wine on a Matron’s gown.

Far less permissible than being too poor to afford food. At least the Church was willing to pay in a stipend rather than a lump sum.

“Kassi, keep your hands inside the carriage,” the Matron says suddenly, and the girl across from Myra whips her arm back into her lap. The view outside has been replaced with a smooth wall of stone, hewn all the way up to the top of the cliffs they are passing between.

“Hold on, was the road made of stone the whole time? I thought we would cross a bridge!”

“We did in fact cross a bridge, Lorhn. The entrance to the Cathedral’s grounds is made of land, untouched by the deific hand that shaped these cliffs and what we call the Cut. The sides of it reach as far down as that chasm, from what we know. This narrow path is believed to have been used quite effectively to repel invading forces, such as protestors against the Church’s reclamation of the Cathedral and other ill-meaning actors.”

“There were protests?” Myra wishes a moment later she hadn’t asked, as all three pairs of eyes immediately lock onto the source of her too-deep voice. She curls inward, but at least Matron Ys’s gaze isn’t an accusation.

“Indeed. Many believed it improper for the Church to maintain such an important place, but those voices did not outlast our dedication. After all, this place is far too dangerous to leave in the hands of those who might abuse a natural fortress. The warlords of the fifth millennium proved that over and over, yet for all their pitiable attempts never overcame the Hand of the Church. It is rather defensible, as you might imagine.”

Myra nods, eyeing the walls of stone pressing in on either side of the carriage. They are very nearly close enough to touch from her seat, and an army advancing through it would be squeezed down to three or four soldiers abreast. All the worse in far too many places, where the rock seems to have run and dried like candle wax.

Kassi fiddles with her own hair, sparing furtive glances at Myra and Lorhn with all the little twitches and suppressed smirks of someone building a mountain of gossip to share behind closed doors. Or perhaps from just in range of hearing, whispered loudly enough to unsettle the subject of discussion. It wouldn’t be the first or the worst.

After what feels both like an age and less time than it took to cross the chasm, the stone walls slope down to the ground once more, and the view through the window opens up to a vast bowl of land curving around their destination in both directions. Rather than grass or shrubs or trees, however, there is only a single sort of plant that coats the ground in deep blue-green leaves all the way up to the false horizon. The Matron leans toward the window, a small look of relief passing through her features as if she were more concerned the location would disappear during her absence.

“You’ll want to peek out the windows again as we come around this turn, girls. It might be the last time you can see the Cathedral from such a distance without very special permissions.”

Sure enough, the carriage begins to turn, the view on Myra’s side immured by that unending field of spade-shaped leaves. On Matron Ys’s side, however, the four of them are given an expansive view of the Cathedral’s grounds, replete with the swelling earth in the background.

In the center of the bowl, imposing all the more for the hill it is mounted upon and the scattered fields of weather-worn ruins surrounding it like fallen foes, walls of an impossible height reach up into the sky. A towering cylinder of blackened stone, above which only the hint of a central building’s towers and roof can be seen, encircles what must be the Cathedral.

“Is that where we’re meant to stay?” Lorhn might be facing out the window, but there is no less derision in her voice than Myra guesses is in her expression. The Matron shakes her head.

“No, you will be staying in the dormitory outside of the Cathedral. It’s on the far side from where we are, and we will arrive presently. The Head Matron likes to meet all our newcomers, and you’ll want to put your belongings in your rooms before touring the grounds and learning of your duties.”

Three acknowledging nods answer the Matron, and she smiles blandly in return. Myra, for her part, can’t tear her eyes away from the frankly absurd walls. No rumors ever described the place, only its supposed importance and purpose, but now she can believe it would weather the siege of a hundred armies. It’s likely repelled far more than that.

It doesn’t take long for the top of the walls to be blocked by the top of the carriage window for Myra, and she returns to staring at the back wall of the cabin as it rolls up a relatively smooth stone path. In her periphery she can see the decayed bones of a town, stone foundations and half-walls hinting at ghosts she does her best not to dwell on. Less for the risk of a haunting, and more for the dizzying age of the lost lives around her. The last time the town was occupied, the Church was more than two centuries from reclaiming the Cathedral in their own history books.

Fortunately, the ride through the town is shorter than the passage over the great nauseating air moat and claustrophobic gorge. One last insidiously wide set of foundations replete with toppled towers and mounds of loose stones piled off the road indicates a long-destroyed outer wall before a field of actually normal grass overtakes their surroundings. There’s even a grove of trees in the distance, though there are several more buildings in terrible states of ruin as well. 

“Matron, what’s with all the ruins? It’s a mess out here!” Lorhn somehow manages to sound offended that someone hasn’t come along to move the unsightly evidence of history from her line of sight. To Myra’s amusement, the Matron scoffs at her disdain.

“Were this the Age of Peace when magic was still prevalent, you might be expected to take care of exactly that chore yourself now that you’re to be an acolyte of the Cathedral. However, absent that blessing, we simply lack the ability to dispose of so many stones with so few strong people. Thus, you will simply have to grow accustomed to the bones of history which envelop your new home.”

To Myra, both of the other girls share a particular kind of sneer, but the carriage pulls to a stop before any more conversation can be held.

“Here we are, ladies,” the driver calls, knocking on the outside of the carriage just behind Myra’s head. The Matron opens the door to the carriage on her side and exits swiftly, stretching her back and shoulders as Lorhn and Kassi race to follow her. Myra feels the odd one out, reluctant to leave the only way out of this place that won’t involve sneaking across an open field and then walking for at least a month in the direction they came from.

Not that staying in the carriage will get her anything but more forceful encouragement to disembark. Taking a deep breath, she steps out of the box on wheels and into the sunlight, feeling her back crackle as it gets used to holding her up properly once again.

Almost as soon as she shuts the door, the carriage starts to pull away, four trunks of clothing and personal belongings piled neatly next to its tracks in the dust. The Matron grabs hers, a fairly small case even compared to Myra’s, and starts walking toward the Cathedral.

Or rather, to the right of it, which prompts Lorhn to start complaining again.

“Why couldn’t he drop us off closer to the actual place we’re leaving these things? Where are we even going, if not to the Cathedral itself?”

“There are dorms, as I mentioned before. The carriage drivers are not permitted beyond this turn-around as there are no other places for them to turn around without risking the horses or the wheels. You’re the one who decided to bring such a large number of heavy possessions, are you not? Consider this your first lesson: you will have to carry everything you cannot rid yourself of. That goes for the physical as well as the spiritual.

“Now, if you’re quite finished bemoaning your past choices, we have a schedule to keep.”