The Chapel of Redemption is a minor chapel in Caldero where, in the primordial era, Ishen and Nalía sealed their pact with the Moon-Serpent. Its “redemption” is payment of tribute to the Serpent, not rescue from sin, and it remains an active ritual node in the present cycle.
| Type | Place (chapel) |
| Location | Upper city layout of Caldero |
| Era | Primordial era (consecration); present cycle, 1824 AE |
| Houses of the Cycle | ☯ House of the Twin Cosmos |
| Spanish entry | Capilla de la Redención |
Description
Small in scale, it stands not far from the Temple of St. Cuthbert. The Temple is public and Decadian; the Chapel is a semi-clandestine ritual node that the church recognizes but does not operate directly.
It has a single narrow nave, a small lower crypt and an altar of tarnished silver. On the altar, instead of a cross or image of a saint, hangs the mirror of the rite: matte silver, with no visible frame, suspended on fine chains that the chapel’s almoner polishes every new moon. The walls bear mythological diagrams of Ishen and Nalía in union, with the lunar Serpent coiled around the intermediate mirror.
The mirror returns only blurred silhouettes and a shadow of the face. The chapel’s doctrine holds that it reflects not the visitor but the Moon: whoever looks into it sees himself as the Moon sees him.
History
In the primordial era of the gem-world, Ishen and Nalía consummated their union on the silver altar; Nalía sang the fragment over the mirror, and the Moon-Serpent withdrew the tongue of the pact. That act named the building. A Treatise on the Sealed Places, attributed to the Decadian chronicler of Narsileon, calls it “a chapel of payment”, where the Serpent still collects each night someone looks into the mirror unknowingly. The chapel celebrates fulfillment, not repentance: it does not work with a visitor’s sins, but responds to tribute.
Present use (1824 AE)
- Arcane mages who invoke the Moon-Serpent sing the fragment of Nalía’s canticle over the mirror before working, a practice called “lesser cession”.
- Couples who want a union without the solemnity of the metropolitan Temple choose the Chapel; the church permits it discreetly.
- Pilgrims of Caldero seeking to pay tribute, for an old pact not honored or a guilt with no fitting confessional, leave minor offerings on the mirror.
- The popular custom is to leave a coin on the mirror at new moon. According to a gloss by Arkos, those who know leave instead a worthless object that has been used (a button, a cord, a literal tear), since the Serpent prefers what the body has used.
- Some members of La Jabalina have passed through without intending to. Sila once stood a long time before the mirror without speaking.
Role
The Chapel keeps the offering to the Moon-Serpent active; the Serpent operates beneath the city’s volcanic ground. Serpentine doctrine holds that if the Chapel is wholly forgotten, the Serpent will collect its tribute another way, always worse. Discreet Decadian clerics know this, which is why they allow the practice that metropolitan Decadian doctrine does not recognize.
It stands in inverse symmetry with the Dark Chapel: the Dark Queen sealed against the devils (active negative pole); the Redemption sealed with the Serpent (exacting serpentine pole). Together they hold Caldero’s cosmological balance from above and below. Here Ishen and Nalía made the union that gave order to the gem-world Vala Cristalis. The myth is compiled by Mascor Blancarba.