Sacred Chamber
A Sacred Chamber is the room in which one of the Sacred Books is kept. There are only four in all of Eslura, one for each Book, and each is closed by a shield that admits nobody but the holders of Sacred titles.[1] A Chamber is the most private and most protected room in its kingdom, and the Sacred Guard stands outside its door day and night.[2]
The four Chambers
Each Chamber lies under a different kingdom, with the Book whose element that kingdom holds.
- Blighburrow, the Book of Land. The Chamber is the Hollow of Gewa, a circular cavern inside the trunk of the great tree Gewa, reached through a glass tunnel and a door cut into the bark.[1]
- Ovallia, the Book of Water. The Book sits guarded within its chambers in the Ovallia Lighthouse. Bellbour Polindrad, the first Sacred Ruler of the Book of Water, raised Ovallia as an island apart from the mainland so that the Book would be safe inside the lighthouse walls.[3][4]
- Zybersia, the Book of Fire. The Chamber stands at the top of a marble staircase leading up out of the grand hall of Elmryn's Castle, behind doors wide enough for six people abreast.[2]
- Galecrest, the Book of Air. The fourth Chamber is in Galecrest, where the Sacred Guard is likewise stationed, but the books do not say where in the floating city it lies.[1]
Inside a Chamber
The two Chambers the books enter are built to the same plan. A narrow walkway without rails crosses a cavern so deep that its floor cannot be seen, and ends at a platform in the middle of the empty space. The Book waits there. In the Hollow of Gewa the Book of Land floats above the platform with its pages facing down, coursing with green light out of its Heart, the emerald crystal rooted in its spine, green lightning rolling across its surface and shooting up through the darkness into the tree.[1] Under Elmryn's Castle the same walkway crosses the same void, but the Book of Fire lies flat on the ground at the end of it, because the Heart that would hold it up is gone.[2]
The shield
A Chamber's protection is a barrier that only those of Sacred titles can pass, and it holds for exactly as long as its Sacred Ruler lives. When Elmryn was killed, the Chamber of Zybersia lost its shield and was left to the strength of the Sacred Guard alone. Alistair Archibald said plainly that the Hollow of Gewa keeps its power while he is still breathing.[5][1][6]
The shields depend on the Books as well as on the Rulers. With the Heart torn out of the Book of Fire, the other three Books strain to cover the loss, and Alistair warned that once their energy runs out the shields will fall weak and Eslura with them.[1]
Custom narrows entry further than the shield does. According to Aero Ellisvat, no Eslurian other than Elmryn and his predecessors was ever allowed past the stairs and through the doors of the Zybersia Chamber.[2]
Notable events
- Demise broke into the Chamber of Zybersia and took the Heart of the Book of Fire for Obellius Kalaar, the theft that left Zybersia without the power of its Book.[2]
- Beatrice Tidal walked into the Hollow of Gewa after a Shadow Reaper clawed her, leaning on a branch Nordwelg cut her and steadied by Alistair Archibald, drew the Book of Land down with the light of his claws, and had her lay her hand on its Heart. She was thrown into a vision of her mother and of the white-haired man from her dreams before she came back to herself on the platform.[1]
- Reagan Hideaway entered her father's Chamber under Elmryn's Castle alone. The marble doors sealed behind her, the ruined Book caught her hand, and she came out of the room the Sacred Ruler of the Book of Fire.[2]