The Knight and the Moth
by Rachel Gillig
Contents
Chapter Thirty: The End of the Story
Overview
Sybil, Rory, Benji, Maude, and Bartholomew return to Aisling Cathedral to end the abbess’s rule. Aisling reveals her fully stone body and uses the loom stone to separate Sybil from the others, attempting to drown and execute her. A battle erupts: the group destroys Aisling’s gargoyles, and after Maude severs Aisling’s hand, Sybil and her allies overpower Aisling. Sybil kills Aisling with hammer and chisel, ending the final Omen.
Summary
At nightfall, Sybil and her companions reach the tor intent on collecting the last stone object and killing the final Omen. They force open the cathedral gates using Rory’s coin and Sybil smashes the five courtyard statues. Aisling emerges with six gargoyles, her shrouded form concealing a fully stone body and a loom stone on a cord. On her order for the gargoyles to kill the party, Aisling grabs Sybil and transports them with the loom stone into the cathedral, dropping Sybil into the spring.
Holding Sybil under and then dragging her up, Aisling recounts Sybil’s death and rebirth and admits she murdered the Diviners one by one after Sybil’s disobedience. Sybil taunts Aisling with her ignorance of the hamlets, revealing the Faithful Forester had long been dead, and Aisling replies with her doctrine of control, claiming divinity born of the spring and justifying feeding Omens blood-diluted spring water. She tries to execute Sybil with Sybil’s own chisel as gargoyles pin Sybil in the spring.
A roar interrupts the killing: Bartholomew has bitten a chunk from Aisling’s neck, forcing her to retreat and teleport within the cathedral. A melee spreads through the nave as Maude and Benji fight together, Benji using the inkwell to blink around danger, while Rory aids Sybil. Aisling boasts that she is the cathedral’s immortal keystone and threatens to flee and rebuild, but her gargoyles close in on the group.
Sybil pleads with the gargoyles to leave, but they advance. Sybil, Rory, and Bartholomew destroy them, breaking the stone creatures to rubble. From above, Aisling ridicules their victory and teleports to strike Benji, but Maude severs Aisling’s stone hand, sending it crashing to the floor. Sybil collides with Aisling and the two fight brutally on the chancel; Aisling’s knife dents Sybil’s armor but cannot break her.
Sybil overpowers Aisling, dragging her into the spring and drowning her before throwing her onto the chancel. Joined by Bartholomew, Rory, Maude, and Benji, Sybil chooses her target without hesitation. Using hammer and chisel—the abbess’s own tools—Sybil smashes Aisling at the heart.
Sybil’s blows become an unrestrained demolition. She reduces Aisling to dust despite the abbess’s frail final breaths. With Aisling destroyed, the final Omen is dead and Traum is freed from its false gods.
Who Appears
- Sybilprotagonist and former Diviner; confronts Aisling, survives drowning attempt, destroys Aisling’s gargoyles, and kills Aisling with hammer and chisel.
- RorySybil’s ally; uses the Artful Brigand’s coin to breach the gates, rescues Sybil from the spring, fights the gargoyles.
- Benedict “Benji” Castor IIIking; wields the Harried Scribe’s inkwell to teleport in combat, demands Aisling’s surrender, fights alongside Maude.
- Maudeally, wounded; fights with an axe and severs Aisling’s stone hand, helping turn the tide.
- Bartholomewthe gargoyle; defies Aisling, bites a chunk from her neck, protects Sybil, and fights the other gargoyles.
- Aisling (the abbess)antagonist, entirely stone; teleports with the loom stone, attempts to drown and execute Sybil, admits to murdering the Diviners, and is ultimately smashed to dust; revealed as the final Omen.
- GargoylesAisling’s stone servitors; attack the group in the cathedral and are destroyed.