“Or wings?” The neufra snorted. “Wasn’t there a mandorla? Or an aureole? A halo above his head? Wasn’t eternal light, lux perpetua, accompanying the phenomenon? For then it might have been an archangel, for example Gabriel. No, Gabriel, as I recall, was slim, quite small and comely, and the one at Trosky had, so you claim, the face of a moron and the constitution of a giant. Ha, so perhaps it was Saint Lawrence? That one resembled an ox, both in build and intelligence. They roasted him on an iron grid, over coals, super carbones vivos. I recall that no matter how much they roasted him he remained underdone. They had to use a mass of carbones before he was cooked.”

“Kundrie,” snarled the Wallcreeper, “I know you’re lonely and have no one to talk to, but let the anecdotes go. I don’t want anecdotes. I want something specific.”

Kundrie bristled her dorsal spines.

“Is advice specific enough?” she hissed. “For I do have some for you. Beware of the halfwit giant. I doubt he is really an astral being, a sidereal being, there haven’t been any cases of visits from the sidereal plane for decades. But other beings circulate in this world with auras similar to what you’ve described and are able to use the astral element. They are also eternal, like us, the Longaevi. And as dangerous as the Nefandi. Your Book calls them the Watchers, but they don’t have a name. Few of them remain. But they still exist. And it is dangerous to cross them.”

The Wallcreeper made no comment. He just narrowed his eyes, but not quickly enough for the neufra not to notice a flash in them.

“Stop by the day after tomorrow,” she said, sighing. “Bring me some aurum. We’ll try some fresh spells. Obtain a fresh head, for that one’s stinking a little.”

“I’ll send a servant with the aurum,” he replied dryly. “You can keep his head. I have no need for it.”

The Easter Mass was over. The prelates and nuns walked down the centre of the nave, dressed in white robes. Their song echoed off the cathedral vault.

Christus resurgens ex mortuis,

iam non moritur:

mors illi ultra non dominabitur,

Quod enim mortuus est peccato,

Mortuus est semel:

Quod autem vivit, vivit Deo.

Alleluia!

The whole of Wrocław appeared to have thronged on Ostrów Tumski. The crush was unbelievable in the squares in front of the cathedral and the two collegiate churches; the crowd was pressing against the halberdiers who were creating a passage for the bishop, the prelates, monks and clergy walking in the procession. The procession continued from the cathedral for further Masses, first to the Church of Saint Giles and from there on to the Church of the Holy Cross.

Surrexit Dominus de sepulcro

qui pro nobis pependit in ligno

Alleluia!