He wasn't even afflicted with the plague.
How ironic, it seemed to Merry, to see the healthiest one of the bunch of them lying dead on the flowers. She bent down and turned the man over, then spun away, dodging the flying blood, for the crossbow quarrel had broken through his front teeth, tearing a garish wound through the bottom of his mouth and into his throat.
Then Merry heard the cries, the pitiful screams of a child barely strong enough to hold herself upright. She came at the body then, barely five years old, half walking, half crawling, begging for her da. Merry intercepted the child, scooped her in her arms, and carried her away, motioning, as they went, for some others to go and collect the body.
"There ye go, child," Merry cooed softly into the frantic girl's ear. "There ye go. Merry's got ye now and all'll be put aright."
But Merry knew the lie, as well as anyone alive. Nothing would be put aright; nothing could be put aright. Even if the remaining monks-that new one who ran through the field, perhaps-came running out and offered a cure for them all, nothing would be put aright.
How well Merry Cowsenfed knew the awful truth! She looked down at her bare arm, at the scars left over from her fight with the rosy plague. She had been the one in twenty who had been saved by the monks and their work with the soul stone. Abbess Delenia herself had tended to Merry.
"One in twenty," the woman said, shaking her head. The monks had come out to tend dozens, dozens, yet only Merry had survived thus far. And so many of those brave and generous monks were now dead, the woman mused. Delenia and the sovereign sisters who had used their magic to help those from Falidean town. All dead, every one.
Delenia had pronounced Merry cured, and there had been great cries of rejoicing from the abbey walls, and Merry had been invited to go inside and pray. But the battered and weary woman understood the ridiculousness of the abbess' claims that she was healed, knew that nothing could be farther from the truth. Her body had survived the plague, perhaps, but her heart had not. She refused the invitation, preferring to stay out on the field with the rest of the group that had come in from Falidean town.
They were all dead now, Dinhy and Thedo and all the rest, dead like her Brennilee, and not even in the ground with a proper coffin. No, just burned on the pyre-the first ones who had died, at least, for the pitiful folk had later run out of wood. The more recent deceased had merely been rolled into a hole in their dirty clothes, food for the worms.
Merry looked about the field now, at the empty eyes, the pleading expressions, at all of those who wanted so desperately that which Merry had found. They wanted the monks to come out and tend them, to take the disease away, because they thought that then everything would be put aright.
It would not, Merry knew, not for her and not for them. The rosy plague had come and destroyed her world, had destroyed their world, and nothing would ever be the same.
An older woman, bent and nearly choking on her own phlegm, came up and offered to take the child from Merry, but Merry refused, explaining that she'd tend this one.
The child died that same night, and Merry gently put her on the cart that came by to collect the bodies.
"She was the one ye should've tried to save, ye fools!" a frustrated and furious Merry yelled at the abbey walls a short while after that. She stood behind the tussie-mussie bed, shaking her fist at the silhouettes of the monks up on the parapets. "Ye fix the children, and they'll heal, body and soul. Ye don't be wastin' yer time with the likes o' me, ye fools! Don't ye know that I've got hurts yer stones canno' find? Oh, but where are ye, then? Ye've not been out o' yer walls in days, in weeks! Are ye just to sit in there and let us all die, then? Are ye just to stand on yer walls and shoot us dead if we come too close? And ye're calling yerself the folk o' God-bah, but ye're just a pack of scared dogs, ye are!"
"Who is the hag?" De'Unnero asked one of the other brothers, the trio standing atop the abbey gate tower, looking out over the field.
"Merry Cowsenfed of Falidean town," the young monk answered, "the only one saved by Abbess Delenia and the others."
"And no doubt at the cost of Delenia's own life," De'Unnero quipped. "Fool."
Raised voices from the courtyard behind and below turned the pair about.
"The sick brothers are not so pleased," the young monk remarked.
"They are without options," De'Unnero replied, for at the meeting of those still healthy within St. Gwendolyn, the master from St.-Mere-Abelle had forced some difficult but necessary decisions. All of the sick monks were to leave the abbey ground, to go out on the field beyond the tussiemussie bed with the other diseased folk. De'Unnero had offered to bring the tidings to the sick monks personally, but several of the remaining sisters had asked to do it. Now they were down in the courtyard, carrying their warding posies before them, telling their sick brethren that they must be gone.
The argument continued to swell, with more and more of the diseased monks crowding by the sisters, shaking their fists, their voices rising.
"Surely you see the reason for this," De'Unnero called down to them, turning all eyes his way.
"This has been our home for years," one brother called back at him.
"And the others of St. Gwendolyn have been your family," De'Unnero reasoned. "Why would you so endanger your brethren? Have you lost all courage, brother? Have you forgotten the generous spirit that is supposed to guide an Abellican monk? "
"The generous spirit that throws sick folk out into the night?" the monk answered hotly.
"It is not a duty that we enjoy," De'Unnero replied, his voice calm, "nor one that we demand lightly. The salvation of the abbey is more important than your own life, and to that end, you will leave, and now. Those who can walk will carry those who cannot."
"Out there, without hope? " the brother asked.
"Out there, with others similarly afflicted," De'Unnero corrected.
There was some jostling in the crowd, a few shouts of protest; and the sisters who had delivered the tidings fell back, fearing a riot.
"I will offer you this one thing," De'Unnero called down, and he pulled a gemstone from the small pouch in his robe, a gray stone he had just taken from St. Gwendolyn's minor stores.
"Take this soul stone out with you and tend one another," De'Unnero went on. He tossed it down to the closest ailing monk. "You will show it to me each night, and inform me of its every possessor, for I will have it back."
"When we are all dead," the young brother reasoned.
"Who can speak God's will?" De'Unnero replied with a shrug, but it was obvious to him, and to all the others, that this group was surely doomed. They might find some comfort with the soul stone, but never would any of them find the strength to drive back the rosy plague. "Take it and go," De'Unnero finished, and his voice dropped low. "I offer you no other choice."
"And if we refuse?"
It was not an unexpected question, but the master's response certainly caught more than a few of the onlookers by surprise. He reached over to one of the nearby young brothers and pulled the crossbow from the man, then leveled it at the impertinent diseased monk. "Begone," he said calmly, too calmly, "for the good of your abbey and your still-healthy brethren. Begone."
The monk puffed out his chest and assumed a defiant pose, but others near him-correctly reading the grim expression on Master De'Unnero's face, understanding beyond any doubt that the fierce master from St.-MereAbelle would indeed shoot him dead-pulled the man back.
Slowly, without enthusiasm and without hope, the ailing brothers and sisters of St. Gwendolyn collected those who could no longer stand, gathered all the warm blankets and clothing that they could carry, and began their solemn procession out the front gates of the abbey.
"The walk of the dead," the young monk standing on the parapet beside De'Unnero remarked.
All the monks expelled from St. Gwendolyn were dead within the week, their demise hastened, De'Unnero regularly pointed out, by their feeble attempts to alleviate the suffering of one another.
"It is akin to diving into the mud to help clean a fallen brother," De'Unnero explained to all of the healthy brethren at one of their many meetings, "Better would they be if they found healthy hosts that they might use the soul stone to leech the strength."
"But how many peasants might then become ill?" one of the sisters asked.
"If a hundred peasants gave their lives to save a single brother, then the reward would be worth the cost," De'Unnero insisted.
"And how many brethren sacrifices would suffice to save one peasant? " the same sister asked.
"None," came the harsh answer. "If one Abellican monk saved a dozen peasants but forfeited his own life in the process, then the cost would be too high. Do you place no value on your training? On your years of dedication to the highest principles? We are warriors, do you hear? Warriors of God, the holders of the truth, the keepers of the sacred stones."
"Beware the sin of pride, brother," the sister remarked, but before she had even finished the sentence, the fierce master was there, scowling at her.
"Do you believe that you can save them all, sister? " he asked. "Do you so fear death that you must try? "
That set her back a bit, as she tried to sort through the seeming illogic.
"We will all die," De'Unnero explained, spinning away from her to address the entire gathering, the remaining monks of St. Gwendolyn. "You," he said to one young monk, "and I, and he and he and she and she. We will all die, and they will all die. But we bear the burden of carrying the word of God. We must not be silenced! And now, when the world has gone astray, when our Church has wandered from the holy path, weyou brethren and I-who have witnessed the folly, must speak all the louder!"
He stormed out of the room, full of fire, full of ire, stalking through the courtyard and calling for the portcullis to be lifted and the gate to be thrown wide.
Outside, he found Merry Cowsenfed wandering about the flower bed, like some sentinel awaiting the arrival of death.
"With all them other monks dead, have ye and yer fellows decided to come out and help us again?" she asked hopefully when she spotted De'Unnero. "Ye got to help Prissy first, poor little one-"
"I came for the soul stone and nothing more," De'Unnero replied sharply.
Merry looked at him as if she had been slapped. "Ye can't be forgettin' us," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "The abbess and her friends-"
"Are all dead," De'Unnero reminded her. "Dead because they refused to accept the truth."
"The truth, ye're sayin'?" Merry questioned. "Is it yer own truth, then, that I should be dead and buried? The plague had me thick," she said, raising one bare arm to show the master her ring-shaped scars.
"The soul stone," De'Unnero insisted, holding out his hand.
"Ye got more o' them things inside, more than ye could need," Merry argued. "We're wantin' only the one."
"You could not begin to use it."
"We'll find one that can, then," said Merry. "If yerself and yer fellow monks aren't to help us, then ye got to at least let us keep the stone. Ye got to at least let us try."
De'Unnero narrowed his gaze. "Try, then," he said, and he looked to another nearby fellow, one obviously quite sick with the plague. "Go and fetch… what was the name? "
"Prissy," Merry answered. "Prissy Collier."
"Be quick!" De'Unnero snapped, and the man ran off.
He returned a few moments later, bearing a small girl, two or three years old. Gently he laid her on the ground near Merry, and then, on De'Unnero's wave, he backed off.
"She's near to passin'," Merry remarked.
"Then save her," De'Unnero said to her. "You have the soul stone, so invoke the name and power of God and rid her of the plague."
Merry looked at him incredulously.
"Now!" the monk roared at her.
Merry looked all around, very conscious of the growing audience, the many sick folk looking on from a distance and the many monks now lining the abbey's parapet and front gate tower.
"Now," De'Unnero said again. "You desire a miracle, so pray for one."
"I'm just a washerwoman, a poor-"
"Then give me the stone," De'Unnero said, holding forth his hand once more.
Merry reached into her pocket and did indeed bring forth the stone, but she didn't give it to De'Unnero. She clutched it close to her bosom and fell to her knees beside poor, sick Prissy. And then she began to pray, with all her heart and soul. She invoked every prayer she had learned as a child, and made up many more, words torn from her heart. She kissed the soul stone repeatedly, then pressed it to Prissy's forehead and begged for God to let her and the girl join, as she had done with Abbess Delenia.
Merry prayed all through the rest of the day and long into the night. Tirelessly she knelt and she prayed, and tirelessly did De'Unnero stand over her, watching her, judging her.
The dawn broke and Merry, her voice all but gone now, begging more than praying, still cried out for a miracle that seemed as if it would not come.
Prissy Collier died that morning, with Merry sobbing over her. After a long while, De'Unnero calmly reached down and helped the woman up.
"The soul stone," he said, holding forth his hand.
Merry Cowsenfed seemed a broken woman, her face puffy and blotchy, streaked with tears. Her whole body trembled; her knees seemed as if they would buckle at any moment.
But then she straightened and squared her sagging shoulders. "No, ye canno' take it from us," she said.
De'Unnero tilted his head in disbelief and a wry smile came over him.
"It did no' work with Prissy, but it will," Merry insisted. "It has to work, for it's all we got." As she finished, she felt the sudden, burning explosion as De'Unnero's tiger paw swiped across her face, tearing the flesh. She felt the sharp tug on her arm next, saw her hand fly out and fly open.
Then she was falling, falling, and so slowly, it seemed!
The last thing Merry Cowsenfed saw on the field outside St. Gwendolyn was Marcalo De'Unnero's back as the monk callously walked away.
Chapter 20
The Bringer of Dreams
Down south, it was still autumn, but up here, in Alpinador and on the slopes of a steep mountain, winter had set in.
The stinging winds and snow hardly seemed to bother Andacanavar as he led Bruinhelde and Midalis. The ranger walked lightly, despite his years, despite the storm, as if he were more spirit than corporeal, as if he had somehow found a complete unity and harmony with naturesomething made even more painfully obvious to poor Prince Midalis, trudging on, plowing through the snow up to his knees.
Bruinhelde's steps were even more strained, for the barbarian leader had not fully healed, and never would, the embedded arrowhead grinding painfully against his hipbone. Still, he had no trouble pacing Midalis, who was not used to such climbs nor such heights, for they were nearly two miles higher than Pireth Vanguard now, approaching the cave of the snowcrawler, the spirit shaggoth.
Finally, Andacanavar stopped and shielded his eyes with his hand, pointing to a windblown, rocky spur up ahead. "The opening," he announced.
Midalis came up beside the ranger, staring hard, but he could not make out any opening in the snow and rocks.
"It is there," Andacanavar assured him, seeing his doubtful expression.
"The home of the spirit shaggoth?"
The ranger nodded.
"How do you know? " the Prince asked.
"Andacanavar has walked this range for many years," Bruinhelde put in, catching up to them.
"But how do you know that the beast is still alive? " Prince Midalis asked. "How many years have passed since you have seen the creature? "
"As long as men are alive, the spirit shaggoth is alive," the ranger answered confidently. "With haste, now," he said, starting away, "before the night catches us on the open face."
There was indeed a cave entrance up ahead, though Midalis was practically on top of it before he even discerned it. Andacanavar led the way in, and they had to crawl b
eneath the low-hanging rock ceiling for some distance, along a dark, winding corridor-something that didn't bring much comfort to the Prince, with a legendary monster supposedly residing just within!
They came into a chamber, dimly lit by daylight creeping in through a small opening where the overhanging rock of the western wall overlapped a bit but did not join with the western edge of the floor. It was a small room, barely large enough for the three to get apart without bumping elbows, with only two exits: the one they had crawled through and another tight tunnel across the way, this one ascending at a steep angle.
Andacanavar methodically went about his preparations, building a small fire near that tunnel. He produced a hunk of venison, a thick and juicy steak, and set it on a spit above the fire, then sat back, fanning the smoke, letting the aroma of cooking meat drift up the natural chimney.
"Whetting his appetite," the ranger explained with a wink.
From his large pack, the ranger then brought forth the items the pair would need: two pairs of iron spurs, which angled downward rather than backward; a palm-sized ornate item of flint and steel; a metal pole tipped on both sides by lengths of chain; a pair of javelins, specially crafted to hook to the free end of each chain; and finally, reverently, a disc-shaped object wrapped in deerskin. The ranger put this on the ground before the three of them and spoke several prayers in his own tongue as he gently unfolded each layer of leather.
Prince Midalis stared at the revealed item curiously, at the beauty of the thing in light of the knowledge that it had been crafted by the fierce Alpinadorans. It was a burnished wooden hoop, holding within it what seemed like a spiderweb set with dozens and dozens of crystals, or diamonds, perhaps. In the very center, and suspended back from the web, was a single candle.
"What is it? " he dared to ask.
"Your only hope of getting out of there alive," the ranger answered with a wry grin. He lifted the hoop and the flint and steel, and with a flick of his fingers, created a spark that ignited the candle. Then he turned to face the other two, with the candle flame pointing toward him.
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