The cathedral of Luna

Also known as Luna's cathedral, the holy cathedral of Luna, the cathedral

Hidden: contains spoilers for Book 1. Tick Book 1 in the spoiler bar to read it.

The great church of the Luminarite Creed in Luna, in the cathedral district. In Book 1 it shelters the orphan Eamon, sees the deaths of Lira and Haelun Lightwind, and keeps the forbidden tome Perdition in its crypt. Balorin Dawnbringer, a high priest, serves there.

The building

[Book 1 spoiler]Incense; dim rooms; "luminarite-infused ambience"; "hallowed halls"; a "designated chamber" with a modest bed; prayers and "pages turning in ancient texts" at night.
[Book 1 spoiler]A "cold, stone floor" of "sacred stone"; "marble" (1133); the nave (1134); the altar (1173); great doors that "boomed shut" (1142).
[Book 1 spoiler]The cloister. "The warded halls", a corridor, luminarite sconces and a stairwell.
[Book 1 spoiler]The crypt, "below Luna's cathedral": "cold stillness", "the faint scent of extinguished incense", and a locked, warded alcove of forbidden tomes on orderly shelves, where Perdition is missing.
[Book 1 spoiler]"Stone saints and martyrs"; "a hanging shard of luminarite"; "the great nave, usually full of incense and song".
[Book 1 spoiler]"The great stained-glass window", shattered outward "in a rain of fractured saints" when the demon left.
[Book 1 spoiler]"Stained-glass saints"; the altar steps; "cold flagstones", "high arches"; dawn through the glass in "reds, blues, golds"; luminarite sconces along the walls.
[Book 1 spoiler]"The cathedral's vast library", its shelves climbing "into the gloom", with "saints carved into the pillars".
[Book 1 spoiler]The cathedral has a font in which blessed chains could be forged.
[Book 1 spoiler]It has its own guards and speaks as an institution ("the Cathedral denies it").

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The exterior

[Book 1 spoiler]Book 1 does not describe the outside: no stone colour, facade, towers or spire. The only view is Eamon looking "down at the cathedral and the city". Around it the upper city is "clean white stone", the Citadel "pale stone", the Noble District "polished marble".
[Book 1 spoiler]Luminarite gold accents, which suit both white and dark stone.
[Book 1 spoiler]Honed white stone with heavy city weathering, which reads grey-white by day and dark at night.
[Book 1 spoiler]Its main spire is taller than the rest of the building and stays below the Lightspire, the tallest structure in Luna.

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Colours, light, garden and saints

[Book 1 spoiler]White and silver with a gold sunburst, the Eye of Luna (heraldry). Purple for the high priest: Balorin's "opulent dark purple robe" with "luminarite gold trim".
[Book 1 spoiler]Luminarite light is preferred to candles in the nave. The library and Balorin's rooms use candles.
[Book 1 spoiler]White lilies in the cloister garden.
[Book 1 spoiler]Named saints. "the intricate stained glass" of a grand window over the castle's inner courtyard, and "the saints carved into the castle ceiling", painted.
[Book 1 spoiler]Saints are elven Luminars and martyrs of the Light: robed, with a ray-crown behind the head, no wings, no halo disc and no cross.
[Book 1 spoiler]The black-growth corrupted state is kept as an escalated state of the building.

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Eamon's holding cell

[Book 1 spoiler]After Lira's death Eamon is held in a "dim, confined" cell with "the small window", a "ringbolt", and a door with a small barred opening. He calls the place "hallowed grounds", and leaves as smoke through "a gap in the prison's roof", looking "down at the cathedral".
[Book 1 spoiler]Balorin and Haelun walk the cloister to "the prison gate", where guards stand: the cell is reached on foot from the cloister.
[Book 4 spoiler]Book 4 calls it "the cathedral cell" and "cathedral custody".
[Book 1 spoiler]It is the cathedral's own small prison, above ground in the compound: a penitents' lock-up on consecrated ground, in the cells range beside the infirmary, through a guarded gate off the cloister. It has an iron-bound oak door with a barred grille, a wall ringbolt for chains, one small high window, no lamp and a timber roof. It is not the city gaol and not the crypt.

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Later

[Book 1 spoiler]Balorin lays out his ritual's chalk lines in the cathedral district.
[Book 4 spoiler]Book 4 reports "something moved through the cathedral during Festival preparation", "unusual activity beneath the cathedral", and a "cathedral lower office".

The cathedral of Luna

The building

The exterior

Colours, light, garden and saints

Eamon's holding cell

Later

See also