Overview

Rory and the gargoyle find Sybil with the bodies of One and the Heartsore Weaver. The gargoyle recounts, in Aisling’s words and then his own, the true origin of the Diviners and Omens: Aisling resurrected a dead foundling boy, Bartholomew, and later five dead craftsmen, crafting the religion and its relics from the tor’s spring and stone. The tale reveals Bartholomew became the first Diviner and, after abuse and transformation, the first gargoyle, forced to procure foundlings and perpetuate Aisling’s lies.

Full Summary

Sybil sat between the corpses of One and the Heartsore Weaver when Rory and the gargoyle arrived. Addressing the gargoyle, Sybil asked for the story he had long tried to tell. The gargoyle agreed and began to relay it in Aisling’s voice, admitting his own memory was incomplete.

He recited how Aisling found Bartholomew, a dead foundling boy, on Traum’s highest tor and revived him with water from a magic spring. Aisling cared for the boy as her own, and they lived from the spring for years until five craftsmen arrived. The craftsmen, each aligned with coin, knowledge, strength, intuition, and love, killed one another in arrogance. Aisling revived them with the spring; awakening obedient and amnesiac, they were fashioned divine by her, each given a sacred stone object: coin, inkwell, oar, chime, and loom stone.

Aisling and Bartholomew thus created gods and shaped Traum’s faith. Using the spring, Aisling controlled dreams: Bartholomew, as the first Diviner, was submerged to see and speak signs, forging the Omens’ story for a growing kingdom. The cathedral rose on the tor, and Bartholomew’s obedience and suffering were enforced through repeated drownings and directives.

When Bartholomew began to doubt and resist, Aisling punished and remade him. The gargoyle mimicked Aisling’s litany of commands and cruelties, showing how she erased his will and threatened to replace him. Eventually, Aisling locked him in a windowless cottage and denied spring water; his body fractured and turned to stone over time, transforming him into a gargoyle, which made him useful again as a living weapon.

Aisling then tasked the gargoyle to bring her more dead or dying foundlings—girls this time—to revive and indoctrinate as Diviners. Every decade the dreamers vanished and were replaced, while the most obedient were kept to be made into gargoyles. The gargoyle recognized Aisling’s hoarding of power over the tor, Omens, spring, and foundlings, and how her professed love masked harm.

Bartholomew’s name and the names of subsequent Diviners were erased from the official story, but he tried for centuries to communicate the truth in indirect ways. Sybil realized her moth dream and drowning were Bartholomew’s attempt to reach her. He apologized for finding Sybil in the Seacht, bringing her to the cathedral, and for her death and remaking on the chancel under Aisling’s influence.

In the end, the gargoyle embraced Sybil, reflecting on the strange magic of life after death and accepting that, for better or worse, the rest of the story depended on what Aisling had done to both of them.

Who Appears

• Sybil — protagonist; listens to the gargoyle’s full origin story and realizes her moth dream and drowning were Bartholomew’s attempts to tell the truth.
• Rory — Sybil’s companion; arrives to find the bodies and witnesses the gargoyle’s account.
• Bartholomew — the first Diviner and first gargoyle; origin retold in detail, including death, resurrection by Aisling, service as Diviner, abuse, transformation into stone, and later role fetching foundlings.
• Aisling — abbess and sixth Omen; her manipulations are narrated: revives Bartholomew and five craftsmen, crafts their relics, controls dreams, abuses and remakes Bartholomew, and perpetuates the cycle of Diviners.
• The Heartsore Weaver — Omen; already dead in this scene but central to prior revelations and the context of the story retold.
• One — Diviner; found dead on the bench at the start of the chapter.
• The five craftsmen — the origins of the Omens aligned with coin, knowledge, strength, intuition, and love; revived by Aisling and given their relics.