"Brother Avelyn was not-" Quintall began to protest.
"To your room and prayers!" the voice of Siherton commanded.
"Yes, my master," said a cowed Quintall, and he moved off out of the room.
"Be gone!" Avelyn commanded the other guard, and the man ran out of the room, swiftly passing Quintall in the hall.
Then Avelyn and the remaining guard began selecting and collecting stones: the giant crystal amethyst, a rod of graphite, a small but potent ruby, and several others, including turquoise and amber, celestine and a tiger's paw, a chrysoberyl, or cat's eye, some gypsum and malachite, a sheet of chrysotile, and a piece of heavy magnetite. Avelyn placed them in a bag, and in it he placed, as well, a small pouch of tiny carnallites, the one stone whose magic could be brought forth only a single time. Avelyn then went to the other end of the room and pocketed a valuable emerald, not an enchanted one, but one used as an example of a particular cut, and then he bade the guard to follow him - and quickly, since the use of the hematite was draining the monk and Siherton's spirit was nearby, trying, Avelyn knew, to find some route back to its body.
They made their way to the secluded cell that held Avelyn's body, the master's voice quickly and forcefully dismissing the two men who stood guard in the hall.
The one remaining guard, the man from the stone room, opened the door on Siherton's order. There stood Avelyn's corporeal form, as he had left it, clutching the hematite. Avelyn in Siherton's body stepped past the guard and deftly took the hematite, then instructed the guard to shoulder the inanimate body and follow him.
"Brother Avelyn is to be punished for treason against the Order" was all the explanation he offered, and the guard, who had heard rumors to that effect for weeks now, did not question the news.
It was vespers, so few were about to observe the master and the guard, bearing his extraordinary burden, as they made their way to the abbey roof overlooking All Saints Bay. The guard, as instructed, placed the body at the base of the low wall and stepped back.
Avelyn waited for many moments, gathering his strength. He bent over the body, slipping the hematite and one other stone, into its hand, tying the gemstone sack to the body's rope belt.
"The stones will allow us to find the body," he explained to the guard, noting that the man was growing increasingly suspicious. "They will take from Brother Avelyn the last of his physical strength as he dies."
The guard's face screwed up with curiosity, but he did not dare to question the dangerous master.
Avelyn knew that he had to be quick - that he had to be perfect.
With great effort, Avelyn tore his spirit free of Siherton's corporeal form and reentered his own, coming to his physical senses even as Siherton's body shivered with the return of his own spirit.
Avelyn was up, quick as a cat, clutching the stones in one hand and grabbing Siherton by the front of his robe with the other. Before the guard could come to the master's aid, Avelyn hauled the stunned Siherton and himself over the rail.
They plummeted past the abbey walls, down the cliff face, into the gloom, Siherton screaming his protests.
Avelyn kicked and pushed the man away, then called upon the second stone he held, the malachite.
Then he was floating, Siherton continuing to plummet.
Avelyn continued to push out as he descended gently past the angled cliff. Near the bottom, he pulled the amber from his pouch. He touched down lightly on the water, as he had done in an exercise that seemed to him a million years ago. He was glad that Siherton's body was not in sight; he could not have borne that spectacle.
Using the amber, he walked across the cold water to a point where he could get ashore, then he moved off down the road.
He knew that he would never look upon St.-Mere-Abelle again.
He used the stones. With the malachite, he floated gently over cliffs that any pursuing monks would spend hours climbing down. With the amber, he crossed wide lakes that his pursuers would have to circumvent. Using a chrysoberyl, a cat's-eye, he could see clearly in the dark and move along at daylight pace without the telltale glow of a light. At the first town he entered, he happened upon a caravan of several merchant wagons, and there he sold the common emerald, giving him all the funds he would need for a long, long time.
He put miles and miles behind him, between him and that terrible place called St.-Mere-Abelle. But the young monk could not pull his mind far from the horrors he had witnessed, the encroaching evil that nibbled at the very heart of all that young Avelyn Desbris had held dear.
He learned the truth of it one cold night as he lay curled beneath a tree, under the stars, under the heavens. As if his thoughts were magically transported, or his prayers for guidance divinely answered, his eyes looked across the scores of miles to a land of great jagged mountains, to a smoking cone in its midst, and the black devastation behind a slowly creeping line of red lava.
Avelyn understood then - all of it - for it was not without precedent. This gloom that had come to Honce-the-Bear had come before in a definite shape and manner that was oft-told in the historical volumes at St.-Mere-Abelle. All of it: the cancer that had grown in his world, the unpreparedness, the ungodliness of St.-Mere-Abelle. The monks were the sentinels of God and yet even they had given in to complacency, to the cancer. And because of that lapse, the darkness had returned.
Half-crazed, his entire world shattered, Avelyn understood. The dactyl was awake. The brooding demon that forever haunted the race of man had come back to the world. He knew it to be true. In all his heart, young Avelyn Desbris recognized the darkness that had murdered Taddy Sway and Bunkus Smealy, the evil that had destroyed the Windrunner and left his dear Dansally cold in cold water, the wickedness that had forced Brother Pellimar to "succumb" to his wounds.
He awoke from his fitful sleep before the dawn.
The dactyl was awake!
The world did not understand the coming darkness.
The dactyl was awake!
The Order had failed; their weakness had facilitated this tragedy!
The dactyl was awake!
Avelyn ran off - one direction seemed as good as any other. He had to tell the world of the evil. He had to prepare the men and women of Honce-the-Bear, and all of Corona. He had to warn them of the demon, warn them of the Order! He had to somehow show them their own unpreparedness, their own weakness. The dactyl was awake!
CHAPTER 20
The Oracle
"How many lights do you see?" The words were spoken in the elvish tongue, one that Juraviel was using more and more with Elbryan. The young man knew all the word's, all the common phrases, now, after five years in Andur'Blough Inninness, and only his inflections still needed perfecting.
Juraviel held a candle, as did Elbryan; and a couple of stars had appeared in the sky, the sun just gone behind the mountainous western horizon.
The young man spent a long moment studying Juraviel. Elbryan's lessons had turned more toward philosophy during the fall and winter of God's Year 821 to 822, and he had learned that even the simplest questions carried, many layers of subtle meanings. Finally, convinced that this was but a prelude to his lesson, and nothing dramatic, the young man looked up and did a quick count of the stars, noting four.
"Six," he announced cautiously, adding the two candles.
"They are separate, then," Juraviel stated. "Your light and mine, and those of the stars."
Elbryan's brow furrowed. Slowly, hesitantly, as if he expected to be rebuked, he nodded his head.
"So if you pinched the light from your candle, you would stand in darkness," Juraviel reasoned.
"More than now," Elbryan was quick to reply. "But still I would have some of your light."
"Then my light is not contained within the flame," Juraviel went on, "but rather, it spreads far and wide. And what of the light of the stars?"
"If the light in the stars was contained within the stars, then we would not see the stars!" Elbryan growled in mounting frustration. There were time
s, such as this, when he hated simple elven logic. "And if the light in your candle was contained within the candle, them I would not see it."
"Exactly," replied the elf. "You may go now."
Elbryan stamped his foot as Juraviel turned away. The elf was always doing this to him, leaving him with questions that he could not answer. "What are you talking about?" the young man demanded.
Juraviel looked at him calmly, but made no move to respond.
Elbryan took the cue - it was his lesson, after all. "You are saying that the light, since it is not contained, is a shared thing?"
Juraviel didn't blink.
Elbryan paused for a long while, backtracking the conversation; considering the options. "One light," he said finally.
Juraviel smiled.
"That was the answer," said Elbryan, gaining confidence. "One light."
"I count a dozen stars, at least, now," replied the elf. Elbryan looked up. It was true enough; the night was fast deepening, the stars coming out in force.
"A dozen sources of the same light," Elbryan reasoned, "or of different lights that all join together. Because I see them, they blend. The lights become one."
"One and the same," agreed Juraviel.
"But must I see them for this to be true?" Elbryan asked eagerly, but his anticipation dissipated as he saw the frown immediately come over the elf.
Elbryan paused and closed his eyes, remembering his earliest lessons, the axioms the elves had put to him so that he might view the world in a completely different manner. In elven philosophy, the first truth, the basis of reality was that the entire material, physical world was no more than the collection of perceptions by the observer. Nothing existed except in the consciousness of the individual. It was a difficult concept for Elbryan, because he had been brought up with the idea of community, and within that concept, such elevation of self was considered the worst of sins: pride. The elves didn't see things that way; Juraviel had once asserted to Elbryan that everything in the world was no more than a play put on for Juraviel's benefit. "My consciousness creates the world around me," the elf had proclaimed.
"Then I could never defeat you in battle unless you willed it so," Elbryan had then reasoned.
"Except that your consciousness creates the world around you," the elf had replied, and then, typically, he had walked away.
That seeming contradiction had left Elbryan in a quandary. What he came to understand from that viewpoint was a sense of self he had never before felt free to explore.
"The stars and my candle are one because I can see both," the young man said conclusively. "I make the world around me."
Juraviel nodded. "You interpret the world around you," he corrected. "And as you heighten your senses to become aware of the slightest details, your interpretations will grow, your awareness will grow."
Juraviel then left him, sitting in a field, holding his candle and watching the birth of so many stars, heavenly fires to join with his own. That simple shift in perception, that all the lights were truly one, gave Elbryan a sense of oneness with the universe that he had never truly experienced before. Suddenly the heavens seemed closer to him, seemed within reach. Suddenly he felt a part of that vast velvet canopy.
All through the rest of that year, and through the months of God's Year 822, Elbryan learned to view the world as an elf, to find a paradox of individuality and community, an elevation of the self, yet a oneness with all about him. The tiny shifts in perception brought on so many new experiences, allowed him to see flowers where he never before would have looked, allowed him to feel the presence of an animal - even identify its approximate size - by subtle scents and vibrations in the living world about him. He felt like a great empty sponge being dunked into the waters of knowledge, and he absorbed so much, taking incredible pleasure in each lesson, in each word. His entire concepts of space and time altered. Sequence became segment, memory became time travel.
Even Elbryan's sleeping habits changed, shifting to a more controlled, meditative process than a lumped time of uncontrollable unconsciousness. "Fanciful musing," the elves called it, or "reverie." In this semidream state, Elbryan could tune out his sense of sight, yet keep his ears and nose keen for external stimuli. And he replaced much of his dreaming with time travel, moved his mind back to another place in his life that he could replay the events about him and view them from a different perspective, and thus, learn from them.
Olwan was alive to him on those nights, as was Jilseponie, dear Pony, and all the others of Dundalis. Somehow the perfect recollections gave Elbryan a sense of immortality, as if all those people really were alive, just locked away in a different place to which his memory was the key.
He took comfort in that. He found that much of elven philosophy gave him solace, except that he could not really change what had happened, could not alter the past.
The pain remained, the horrible screams, the desperate fights, the mounds of bodies. On Juraviel's instruction, Elbryan did not avoid the anguish, but went to that terrible place often, using the harsh reality of the death of Dundalis to strengthen his nerve, to harden him emotionally.
"Trials past prepare us for trials future," the elf often said.
Elbryan didn't argue, but he wondered, and almost feared, what future trials could possibly match the pain of that awful day.
He stood atop the treeless hillock and he waited, his eyes glued to the eastern horizon, to the tiny sliver of light heralding the approach of dawn.
He was naked, every hair, every nerve feeling the tickle of the chill breeze. He was naked and he was free, and as the horizon brightened a bit more, he lifted his sword, a large but well-balanced weapon, into the air before him, both hands clasping its long hilt, the muscles of his arms bulging.
Elbryan brought the sword across in a gentle sweep, his weight lifting gradually with the movement of the outstretched blade to keep his balance perfect. Up went the blade over his left shoulder. He stepped right foot forward, then brought the sword back, again slowly, perfectly balanced. His left foot came forward, then went out to the side, blade and right foot following, turning the young man as if he were now facing a second opponent. Strike, parry, strike, all in harmonic and slow motion, and then he dropped his right foot back, coming around in a fluid movement to stalk back to the left. Strike, parry, strike - the same routine.
Then he dropped his right foot back again and half pivoted, so that he was facing exactly opposite from where he had started. He came ahead in three strong strides - strike, strike, strike with the blade as he moved, then repeated the same motions he had used, left and right, from this new position.
"Bi'nelle dasada," it was called, the sword-dance. The young man continued for nearly an hour, his arms and weapon weaving ever more intricate patterns in the empty air. This was the bulk of his physical training now, not sparring but gaining a memory of the movements within his muscles. Every attack and parry angle became ingrained in him; what had been conscious battle strategy melded into a reactive response or an anticipatory strike.
From the trees at the base of the hillock, Juraviel and some others watched the sword-dance in sincere admiration. Truly the muscled young human was a thing of beauty and grace, a combination of pure strength and uncanny agility. His sword swished with ease, as did his long and wavy, wheat-colored hair. Never losing the slightest edge of balance, Elbryan's muscles worked in perfect harmony, perfect fluidity, none battling, flexing and complementing each move.
And his eyes! Even from this distance, the elves could see the olive-green orbs sparkling with intensity, truly seeing the imagined foes.
The young Elbryan's movements improved with every day, and so Juraviel gave him more of the sword-dance, the most intricate battle movements known to the elves, who collectively were the finest swordsmen in all the world. Elbryan mastered the intricate movements, every one, soaked them into the sponge he had become and held them fast in his heart, mind, and muscles. No longer did any, even Tuntun, question his prowess
or his bloodline. Never again in Andur'Blough Inninness were the words "blood of Mather" spoken derisively where young Elbryan was concerned. For he had passed through the "wall of nonperception," as Juraviel called it, had shrugged off the human societal inhibitions of consciousness, had become one with the greater powers, the natural powers, about him.
On those occasions when he did spar, he not only understood how to defeat any attack, deflect, dodge, or block, but also knew which tactic would offer appropriate counterattacks or would keep his defensive posture strong against subsequent attacks from that foe, or even from others. Elbryan now won far more often than he lost, even held his own when battling two against one.
His routines became more varied, more deadly, resembling in many instances the motions of an animal predator. He could put a dagger in his hand and curl his arm in such a way that he might strike as the viper. Or he didn't even need the dagger but could stiffen his fingers that he might drive them right through any obstacle.
And every morning, before the mist veil blanketed Andur'Blough Inninness, Elbryan came to this spot and watched the dawn, weaving his sword-dance, building the memory.
The blood of Mather.
The gifts - a heavy blanket, a small chair shaped of bent sticks, and a wood - framed mirror - surprised and confused Elbryan. The mirror alone was very expensive, he knew, and the craftsmanship and incredibly light wood of the chair allowed it to be folded and easily carried, but the only one of the three presents that made any sense to him was the blanket, a most practical item.
Tuntun and Juraviel let the young man look the gifts over for a long while, let him test the chair and even study his own image in the silvery mirror.
"My deepest gratitude," Elbryan said sincerely, though his measure of confusion was clear in his voice.
"You do not even understand the significance," Tuntun replied distastefully. "You believe that you have been given three gifts, yet it is the fourth that is most precious by far!"
Elbryan looked at the elf maiden, studied her blue eyes for some hint.
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