by Carol Berg
The upward path was far too steep for this late of an evening. After so many days of idleness in the abbey, my body protested at the climb. My route had taken me up a treeless jumble of granite that scarred the eastern wall of the valley, a desolate crotch in the otherwise verdant ridge. No direct path. No easy ascent. I scrambled between boulders and across tilted slabs, cursing gowns and cowls and sandals. My sore feet kept skidding out from under me. Every slip meant whacked knees or elbows, abrading the skin through the woolen layers of hose and gown.
A glance over my shoulder for the tenth time in an hour and I yet spied no one following. I climbed.
At least another hour had passed, which meant perhaps one more remained until the brothers filed back into the church for Matins. I could just imagine Prior Nemesio’s glee at discovering a novice so ill-behaved as to abandon a penance. Poor Brother Sebastian; my mentor would be beside himself. And even if I broke my word and told them of the evening’s events, I would never be able to explain why I had taken on such a fool’s errand when the simple truth could have stopped it. The puzzle was just such an intriguing exercise, and Lord Stearc had been so sure I couldn’t solve it.
At the top of yet another slab, the rocks formed a wide shelf, backed up to a higher cliff. Behind me the valley of Gillarine, shaped by the sinuous hints of silver that were the looping river, stretched southward toward the mountains of Evanore and northward toward the heart of Ardra, Morian, and the distant sea. The abbey church spires rose out of the gently folded land to the southwest.
I was nearing the end of this journey. Instinct said to go south along the shelf rock and then straight east…which would mean directly into the cliff. I moved slowly, examining the rugged wall as I went, searching for cracks or splits or caves.
A short distance away an oddly shaped shadow detached itself from the wall. “Iero’s grace, Brother Valen, how was your evening’s walk? Not too troubling, I hope, despite its unsettling beginning?”
Fear burgeoned and stilled quickly. No matter that the only light was the dome of stars. I could mistake neither the pale gleam of hairless scalp nor the dark brow line nor the cool presence, spiced and warmed by good humor.
“Brother Gildas, the spider who sits in the web of all Gillarine’s mysteries. Of course, you would be here.” Would I ever learn to think? Of course, they’d have someone waiting at the end. They were testing me.
“I knew you would enjoy this puzzle,” he said cheerfully, “being a man of puzzles as you are.”
“You’re all right…healing?” Only days had passed since his encounter with Sila Diaglou’s whip.
“Thanks to you, I live. My scabs and bruises do but remind me—deservedly so—of my shame at falling victim so easily. So, can you finish this?”
I stepped toward him deliberately, continuing my examination of the wall. “Here.” A darker line creased the shadowed cliff halfway between us, a seam in the rock wider than first glance showed, a high-walled passage that sliced directly into the cliff.
I led, forcing myself to keep breathing until both the slotlike passage and my search ended. The cliff walls opened into a small grotto—a well of starlight, the circle of sky above it reflected perfectly in a glass-still pool, incised in stone.
As I paused in the doorway where the walls of the notch flared into the encircling stone, a movement atop the cliffs snared my gaze. Something bright. Something blue. But staring until my eyes felt raw revealed naught but stars. Perhaps one had slipped from its place and streaked toward the earth. A warning of evil times, diviners said.
Brother Gildas had joined me and stood at my shoulder. “Powers of night, you’ve done it,” he said softly. Wondering. “Ah, Valen, there is more to you than people think.”
He stepped past me and spun in place, scanning walls and cliff tops before walking to the rim of the pool. Even as he knelt and reached out to touch the water, I wanted him to stop. No sensible argument came to my lips, only that this was no common pool to be used in common ways. Something slept here. Power? Spirit? The generous earth itself? “Brother, wait—”
Too late. The rippling rings moved outward, marring its perfection. Gildas downed the water from his cupped hands and looked up at me, smiling. “Come, have a drink. You’ve earned it.”
Foolish. Nothing had happened. Clearly he sensed nothing out of the ordinary.
“I don’t drink water,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. He’d think me mad if I told what I felt here. “Don’t trust it. And unless you can dispense me from my penance, I must get back to the church.”
In fact, I could not have stepped within that grot were he fallen in the pool and drowning. Smell, taste, hearing, sight…my senses, of a sudden, quivered on the brink of explosion. My heart swelled with songs just beyond hearing, with words beyond knowing, with the desolation of a homely street where every door is locked to you or of winter sunset in the wild, when no hearth, no word, no welcome awaits. One step past the doorway and surely I would be flat on the granite, my skull cracked, my heart riven, as if I’d walked into the cloister garth fifty times over. Yet the sorrow that permeated these stones surpassed what a murdered youth of sixteen years could possibly know. This sleeper was not Brother Horach.
Gildas sighed and wiped his hand on his cowl. “I suppose you’re right. We’ve a distance to go yet before we can each put our secrets to rest. But you ought to come see the water. It’s so deep. So lovely. So pure.”
I dragged my gaze from the pool, shivering as if I’d plunged my whole body into its frigid depths. Oh, yes, I knew that water was cold. I did not have to see the frost crystals that rimed the pool’s edge to know. So little sunlight here. The encircling walls so like a prison cell.
“Are you well, Valen?”
Pressing my back and the back of my head against the wall of the passage, I closed my eyes. As if all at once, the activity of the night took its toll: scrapes and bruises, blistered feet, overstretched shoulders. The few quellae back to Gillarine might have been the road to heaven that practors and hierarchs told us was nigh impossible. And something else…deep inside my gut…a knot of fire. Blessed Deunor, no! With all that had happened…this new life…I’d scarce given it a thought. A night bird’s screech near ripped my ears. “Must get back,” I said. “The time…”
I fled, scrabbling back down the ridge, bumping, sliding, scraping on the rocks. More was wrong than mystic pools and overzealous bodyguards and wild chases through the night. The scalding in my gut did not cool. How long had it been? Five days since my investiture. Twelve…thirteen before that to Black Night, and one more…holy gods, nineteen days…and the last interval had been twenty-one.
The trek back to the abbey devolved into nightmare, my need quickly overshadowing the mysteries of the night. The garden maze, the green pouch tucked away under the rocks, the fragrant contents…Great Iero, let no one have found it. Let the Matins bell not ring until I am whole again. I had no idea how I was to manage it, but my growing frenzy to have the blood-spelled nivat in my hand…on my tongue…in my veins…permitted no logic or forethought.
Though as fit as any of the younger monks, Gildas could scarce keep up with me. “What’s wrong, Brother? One would think the Adversary dogged your back. Would we all had such long legs as yours to devour a quellé so swiftly.”
“I’ve been too long distracted from my prayers,” I said. “And I’d rather not have occasion to visit the prior’s prison cell. Though Father Abbot sent me on this mad venture, I’ve seen enough to know he’ll not shield me from punishment.”
I could not speak after that. My cramping legs and back threatened to seize if I slowed. By the time we reached the footbridge and the abbey wall, the threads of fire encompassed every part and portion of my body. The starlight scalded my eyes. I drew my cloak across my face, for the wind felt like a flayer’s knife.
Brother Gildas unlatched the iron herdsman’s gate, but laid a hand on my arm before I could rush through. It was all I could do not to cry
out, for his touch felt like a gatzé’s fiery kiss even through the woolen layers. “He’ll not punish you, Valen. Tonight’s exercise was of great importance—Iero’s work. You performed better than any of us could hope. You will reap answers to the questions that tease you.”
Sadly, his concerned kindness could not soothe me. “I must…clean myself…before going to the church. Excuse me, Brother.” The mere effort of speaking caused spasms in my face and neck. I pulled away and ran across the field, past the church, and into the garden.
Where…where…? Beside the statue of Karus as the Shepherd…Divine Karus…good Iero…Kemen, Lord of Sky and Storm, help me. I dropped to my knees and scrabbled in the pile of rocks beside the statue’s base, frantic when I found only dirt. I had used my bent to create a void hole to hide my contraband packet here on the night I’d come from Elanus. Had I forgotten so much of magic that I had displaced or vanished them by mistake? I dug deeper until my fingers felt the cloth roll. Using my shoulder to wipe the sweat from my eyes, I rummaged inside the packet and grasped the little bag. I almost wept in thanksgiving.
I shoved dirt and rocks into some semblance of their usual aspect, tucked the green bag into my trews, and raced through the gardens past the lay brothers’ reach. Though desperate, I dared not cross the cloister garth, but rather sped down the west cloister and around the south in front of the kitchen and refectory, cursing the waning hour. At every moment I expected to hear the bells.
The trough ran around three sides of the lavatorium, angled slightly so the water would flow left to right. Each of the six shallow bays on each wall formed a semicircular shelf behind the trough, and from the center of each bay protruded a lead conduit that spilled water into the trough. I chose the bay nearest the cloister to take advantage of what little light the night provided. I removed my cowl and laid it on the shelf, as if preparing to clean it. Then I fumbled the green pouch out from under my gown and spilled half my remaining nivat onto the wide outer lip of the trough.
Everything took too long. The seeds were old and tough; I chipped another shard from my precious mirror fragment, using it to crush them on the stone. My fingers were cold and clumsy. I dropped the needle and had to scrabble on the stone floor to find it. It was near impossible to grasp the linen thread, and when at last the mixture of blood and nivat sizzled, I had to fumble with the glass to find an angle where I could see the vapors.
As soon as I released magic into the brew, I knew I hadn’t enough. Holy gods, what a fool I’d been. To spend my magic so recklessly on Luviar’s game. To lose count of the days. Bent over the trough to hold the mirror and the thread steady, my back, leg, and shoulders cramping until I was near weeping, I squeezed the last magic from my body and let it flow down the linen thread. And still the vapors would not cease their rising and signal the doulon ready.
As if taking voice from my fears, the bell pealed. I held my breath with the first tone, yet my weariness told the lateness of the hour. The next strike came and the next, until the ten measured strikes that signaled the call to services had been completed. The noise threatened to burst my ears, as if I stood in the bell chamber itself. Then rang the triple change, double, and triple that announced the beginning of a new day. The yawning monks would be donning gowns and cowls and sandals and starting their procession through the passage to the nightstair. And still the pungent vapors rose from the boiling nivat. The finished paste should hold no scent.
In the dorter passage above my head, the monks began to sing, tugging at my spirit with their music. Their music. Not mine.
I could wait no longer. I scooped the red-black droplets onto my tongue. As I braced my hands on the trough, my head dropped to hang between my shoulders. The first shuddering pain rolled through me…
Not enough. Not enough. Sobbing, I slammed my elbow into the stone trough, hoping more pain might jolt the spell into completion. Nothing. Again. Again…
As in famine times, when the crust of bread or sip of ale blunts the most acute hunger, but leaves the want and sickness, such was the incomplete doulon. The fire cooled; the cramps eased; the storm of my senses quieted. But I gained no release. No rapture. Every muscle and sinew ached. My veins felt clogged with clay. Only a few days—a fortnight at most—and I would have to do this all again, spend my reserve of nivat because I’d been shamed at my ignorance and determined to prove that I, the most useless of men, could accomplish what some proud lord could not. Now I would pay.
Exhausted and sick, I splashed the cold water onto my face and head, scrubbed at my hands and arms. Hurry! I packed away the needle, the mirror, and linen thread and tied the bag’s drawstring to the waist string of my trews. Then I threw on my cowl and ran for the church, brushing at the caked mud and dirt as I ran. As the procession descended the nightstair and entered the church, filling the vaults with songs of the Creator’s glory, I flew down the aisle and through the choir screen, and threw myself prostrate on the cold marble. Brother Victor had not moved.
Chapter 16
A storm rolled through the valley sometime between Lauds and Prime, bringing sleet and bitter cold—a miserable morning, highly appropriate for a day that had begun so wretchedly and got only worse. A few hours’ sleep had healed my bruises and blisters and soothed my torn and battered elbow, but done nothing for the doulon sickness. Plagued by both the indolence the spell always caused and the blood fever it had only dulled, I fell asleep in choir during both morning Hours.
Brother Sebastian pulled me aside after Prime to scold me for inattention, expressing shock at my bedraggled clothes. He dragged me to the lavatorium to clean them as best I could, and then sentenced me to kneel in the center aisle of the dorter clad only in shirt and trews. I was to pray and contemplate Iero’s gift of clothing while the rest of the brothers ate their bread and cheese and attended morning services. By the time he permitted me to don my damp gown and cowl for chapter, my blood felt like slush.
Matters worsened. Once my mentor had chastised me in front of the entire brotherhood, Prior Nemesio offered his own scathing reprimand and decided that my punishment should continue until the day’s end bell. No church services. No meals. No work or study. No gown or cowl. That this also meant no testing on the great virtues and no Compline reading was scarcely a comfort.
A somber Abbot Luviar approved the sentence. Brother Gildas raised his brows and shrugged ever so slightly. Jullian, sitting on his low stool by the door, would not look at me. I longed to strangle them all, though, in truth, anger was as difficult to muster as anything else.
The hours in the dorter passed in frigid misery. I tried to think, to make some sense of my experiences of the previous day, to sing under my breath, to plan where I would go when spring released me from this tomb. Sleep was impossible, but neither would my blood run anywhere useful like my head or my knees. So much for trust. Perhaps Luviar wanted me dead of frostbite so I could not betray his friends.
How stupid could a man get when his balls ruled his head? Why hadn’t I just grabbed the book when it was in my hands and set out for Elanus? But instead I’d had to strut my manhood like a gamecock.
I shifted my knees, wincing with the ache. Damnable baldpates. Boreas had been right about them. Boreas…by the dark spirits…
Once the gruesome image of his end took hold of my head, I could not shake it. What kind of woman could do such work? What kind of perverse soul could name it holy? As the memory churned inside my head alongside the night’s mad adventure and the bizarre sensations I had experienced at the pool, I could not but recall Brother Horach’s equally savage murder. Could a Harrower have decided that innocents should die as well as sinners and sneaked into the abbey to work their deviltry? With orange-heads roaming the neighborhood, it could happen again.
Brother Sebastian visited me at least once an hour to counsel and preach. On the next occasion, I interrupted a sermon on rooting out the vice of carelessness and tried to explain about Boreas and Harrower rites and Brother Horach. I had scarce b
egun when he stopped me, insisting I must refrain from worldly thoughts for the duration of my penance. As he left me alone again, I damned him and the rest of his fraternity to their fate.
By the time the bells rang Vespers, wind raked and rattled the dorter shutters and raced through the long room. Three more hours. I feared I would be unable to move when day’s end came, either from hunger or freezing. On his last visit Brother Sebastian had left a rushlight to hold off the dark. With aching knees and back, and incipient chilblains, I had no gratitude in me.
A quiet rustling at my back did not even prompt me to turn around. Probably Brother Sebastian again to tell me how sorry he was that I needed this kind of lesson. But to my surprise a mug appeared in front of my face, wreathed in steam and cupped in the small dry hand of Brother Victor. “Quickly, Brother Valen, you are wanted elsewhere for a little while.”
I would like to have said that, although hell would be a pleasant change, I would prefer to freeze than dance to his abbot’s command, but my lips were so numb I was saved from such an indiscretion. My trembling hands wrapped around the deliciously warm cup, and I drained the thing without taking a breath. “I don’t think I can do anything quickly, Brother Chancellor.”
He offered me the pile of black wool he carried over one arm. “I would suggest you try. We’ve only until the end of Vespers.”
The still-damp wool felt marvelous. And blessed hose to cover my legs. My numb fingers fumbled with ties and laces. Soon I was following Brother Victor down the passage, shaking out my legs to get the blood flowing.
Our sandals echoed in the deserted library. I could not imagine why we’d come. “Wait here,” said Brother Victor, and he disappeared into the corner beyond the last book press. The wind drove sleet against the window mullions. Ardran autumn usually waxed dry and golden. Landlords and villeins alike would be frantic to gather in what crops had ripened in this perverse season. Perhaps the bowl of the sky had slipped farther out of place.
