St Eridmus’s Church

The Church of Saint Eridmus is located on the outskirts of Corvin village in Dal-Rhiatah, the Northwestern continent.

In the days before the old gods were forgotten — before the curse of the Grim began — the villagefolk would attend the church regularly, at least four times a year coinciding with the equinoxes. However, in the second book of The Nighthunter series, (which is still in the pipeline), people rarely attend the building. When the curse began, their ancestors felt that the gods had forsaken them and didn’t pass on knowledge about the gods to their children, and so the gods eventually became unknown with the deaths of the older adults in society.

The church consists of a pentagonal building with one end sectioned off by an intricately-carved blackwood screen. No one remembers the name of the carver but it depicts odd faces and nonsensical creatures peering out of winding foliage similar to ivy. At the bottom of the screen, worshippers from aeons past have cut graffiti into the wood — symbols for luck, or perhaps wordless prayers to the unknown gods for a good harvest or recovery from ill health.

In one of the columns near the screen is a tiny door with a steep staircase behind it. The stone steps lead upwards to a disused loft which has been taken over by large, leatherwings, the Dal-Rhiatan species of bat. Their saliva carries a pernicious form of sleeping-sickness. Nobody ventures into the loft for fear of being bitten.

Below the church floor is a crypt lined with bones and skulls, or an “ossuary,” which contains some barrels of very aged wines left over from a time when the building was part of a rich merchant’s private home. This below-ground area has been undisturbed for hundreds of years, forgotten about. The slab above the steps leading underground was mortared shut long ago, dark green and purple moss proliferating around it.

Towards the back of the church is a stone bowl on a plinth. The water remaining inside it is green and thick with algae, small flies dancing on its still surface, thin white worms flailing to and fro on the dirt collected at the bottom. There is always a heavy wooden lid placed over the bowl, which is padlocked shut. Old stories tell that the water inside the bowl used to have magical properties that protected newborn infants from Ghosts and Witches, but at some point in the past the water began to cause sickness instead, even when it was replaced with fresh water, so now the stone bowl is no longer used. It is too heavy to dispose of, as if it’s growing into the floor and the crypt below…

The church grounds hold no extant headstones or obvious grave-markers, but the ground has a lot of unexplained mounds in it which are definitely not molehills. There is also an old sundial next to the entrance, its markings weathered away.

The roof of the church is a vast dome with a hefty telescope pointing out of it, its lens constantly trained upon the skies. The eyepiece is obviously suspended in the dark and dismal loft, with no one there to look upon whatever it’s pointing at.

The priest / caretaker of the church is Father Olrahan, who only features once or twice in the story. His job is to oversee ceremonies for births and death rites and to keep the church clean and tidy, although the melancholy weighing on his spirit means that the building is unkempt and on the verge of letting nature reclaim it.

So, who exactly was Saint Eridmus, and why did he have a church dedicated to him? Find out next week…

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