by Sean Russell
She felt herself nod, though she still stared at the wand which led to the wolf—actually touched it. “There is a second wand leading off, into the future. Your path?”
He shook his head, still regarding her with those dark, unsettling eyes. “It is yours.”
“Mine,” she repeated dully. “But it is not so distant from these recent events.”
“No, it is not. You will complete the task I have been given.”
She heard herself gasp. “But I—I am merely a . . .” She could not find a word. She was an aristocrat. A person of leisure and no particular abilities.
“You are the woman who was created to tempt me.” His musical voice tinged with sadness. “But I will turn you against those who believed I could be so ensnared. You were born with a talent for the arts. Do not look so surprised—you have an intuition far beyond those around you. I’m sure you have long known this. And fortune smiles upon you. Small signs, but they have always been there. There are other things as well. But I have tested you further.” He looked down at the table again. “The task I leave you to complete—nothing might be required of you at all. Everything depends on this.” He gestured again at the tabletop. “On the decisions made. Things learned. Encounters between individuals. And on the choices made by Erasmus. You see, I created him in a certain mold so that the . . . so that those who came after Teller would be drawn to him. Now this might work against me.” He shook his head again. “So many possibilities.” He fell silent, his shoulders actually sagging. Then he sat back in his chair and looked into the fire. The storm shook the house again, and she heard a wolf howl in the forest. Already she had learned that this would always be Eldrich’s familiar. No natural wolf could bear to be in its hunting grounds.
“There is a strategy at the chess board. . . . Do you play? It has been used by several great masters of the game, but it requires a depth of understanding—an ability to look into the future that is almost beyond human. It depends on you understanding the opponent’s design better than he understands it himself. Then you allow him to pursue it, apparently unhindered, your own moves appearing defensive or harmlessly offensive. The game proceeds thus until, with a single move, you take the initiative—at that point your opponent can but react to your attack; there is no opportunity for him to pursue his own offense—and for good reason. . . . If you allow him a single move, the initiative will be his. You must pursue your own attack relentlessly.” He closed his eyes for a second, as though exhaustion had suddenly gripped him. “I have allowed my opponent a move.”
* * *
* * *
The countess paced across her room, glancing up now and then as a barb of lightning shattered the sky. Thunder seemed to tumble and roll up the valley. She always felt thus after a meeting with the mage—disturbed, confused. The heat of desire building. And tonight, something else. He had touched her in some new way. He had seemed so sad, so disheartened. Before this meeting she had never imagined that he could be anything but arrogant—maddeningly so. But tonight that arrogance was gone.
The countess slumped down on a footstool. What went on in her poor confused heart? What of Skye? And Erasmus? What were her feelings for them? Suddenly she did not know. She worried about Erasmus, but partly that was sympathy for someone caught up in something he did not even begin to understand—caught up in it since childhood. And Skye? He had not been banished from her heart altogether. It was just that Eldrich’s presence was so overwhelming that it left little room for others in either heart or mind.
And then there was Kent. Poor, noble, foolish Kent. The man had put himself in danger where no one else had, and entirely out of concern for her well-being. She had even begun to suspect that some of his affection for her was genuine, not just infatuation. Not just reaction to her unnatural appeal. And this touched her. Of the men in her life only Kent seemed to care enough what became of her.
Eldrich. Well, she did not know what Eldrich felt. He was a mage, after all. But certainly he was using her to his own end. Skye did not appear to return even a hundredth part of the affection she felt for him. Erasmus was too entangled in the web of the mage to ever have a life of his own—if he survived at all.
And that left Kent. Kent who was willing to do battle with a mage for her. It was utterly foolish of him, especially considering that she had never indicated any depth of feeling for the painter, but still he had done it. And now he, too, had become useful to the mage—had become ensnared. If she managed nothing else, she would have him set free unharmed. As soon as he finished his portraits.
She draw a long breath and thought of the strange scene with Eldrich and his array of oddities. Had she only known what path she would find herself on—perhaps she would have run off with Kent when she had the chance. At least she would have a companion who genuinely cared for her. But what did she feel for him?
Twenty-Two
Her eyes sprang open at the sound of a man clearing his throat. Anna lay still for a heartbeat, then turned to meet her captor. A few feet away crouched a priest, looking at her solemnly. He bowed his head in what seemed a deferential greeting.
“I hope you will pardon me for waking you,” he said, his voice rumbling like lazy thunder.
Who in the world? Some minion of Deacon Rose, certainly.
“Have you long been lost?” he asked, his voice seeming to echo in a massive chest, though in truth he was a slight man.
Anna propped herself up on one elbow, quickly inventorying her possessions. “Am I not on the path to Wicken Vale?”
He nodded. “Not quite on it.” He raised a hand and pointed roughly south. “You are one valley to the north.”
A pain in her breast reminded her of the dream vision—and the thorn that was no dream. She wanted to touch the wound, which was still painful, but with the priest there—
Was he really as innocent as he sounded? Not a minion of Rose at all?
“You’re traveling alone?” he said.
She nodded. “My guide was thrown from his horse and broke his neck.” She stopped, as though struggling with her loss. “I have been wandering since.”
She sat up, wrapping her blanket around her. “Can you put me on the right path?”
He nodded. “But would you not care for food and a roof over your head?”
“People will be worried,” she said. “I must press on. There is the family of my guide to think of, as well.”
He considered this for a moment, surprised, perhaps, that someone lost would refuse hospitality.
“I have been told that curiosity will be my undoing, but I can’t help wondering . . .”
“What I am doing here, traveling by such out-of-the-way paths when there is a perfectly serviceable road?”
He nodded.
“Roads lead many places, Brother, but seldom to adventure.” She smiled at him. “I’m writing a book—a traveler’s tale of the Caledon Hills. But what would be interesting about a journey so many have made? So here I am searching for sights others have not seen or even heard tell of, though it seems I shall have to title it ‘Lost in the Caledon Hills’ rather than ‘A Journey Through the Hidden Hills’ as I intended.”
“Your guide . . . from where did he hale?”
“Somewhere near Castlebough. Garrick was his name. Garrick Lake.”
“There are Lakes enough in Castlebough, and in Wicken Vale, as well. Poor man. What did you do with him?”
“I performed the rites as best I could and set him on a pyre. May Farrelle preserve him.” Again she paused, then glanced up. “But I am no priest and fear what will become of his immortal soul.”
“I think if your intent was good, as it surely was, then you need have no worry.” He tried to smile, to reassure her. “But then I am a hermit and have come to believe many strange things, I’m afraid. I have only a poor man’s hospitality to offer, but come at least and break your fast, and perha
ps there will be some foodstuffs I can provide to see you down to Wicken Vale.”
He stood, pointing off into the trees. “There is a path, and perhaps something for your book. Come along when you’re ready.”
When she was alone, Anna rolled out of her blanket and dressed quickly. Certainly she should be sleeping in her clothing now, in case her hunters surprised her. She broke camp and loaded her horses, having no intention of visiting. He had not told her his name—surely an indication of how long he had been outside society.
Anna stopped as she tightened her saddle girth, realizing that she must visit with the priest at least long enough to have him put her on the right path. There was nothing to fear from him, she was certain of that. She would have sensed it, especially now, with her king’s blood-heightened senses.
Trailing her horses behind her, Anna made her way up the path the priest had followed, and in a few moments, to her great surprise, found herself before a sizable monastery. Abruptly, she pulled her train up. Had he not referred to himself as a hermit? This was not a hermit’s hut.
But then she realized the buildings were in various states of ruin: roof tiles dislodged, their careful columns in disarray; climbing plants swarming over the walls. It was an ancient monastery, and had not seen use for many years.
Anna tethered her horses in the meadow and left them to the new spring grass. The gate to the monastery was left ajar in invitation. She found herself in a good-sized courtyard, shaded by trees, with water burbling in a fount. Half the area was given over to a garden, which here, in the protection of the walls, was farther along than she would have expected. It was also artfully laid out, and immaculately tended.
The buildings which surrounded the courtyard were of a locally quarried stone, weathered to the color of dark leather, but mixed with stones of natural, deep reds and occasional intrusions of quartz.
The tile roofs sprouted small meadows of grass and even shrubs, and the birds made free with window ledges and niches for the building of nests. Nature had begun to make this place of man its home.
Anna walked beneath the trees to an open door, and as she entered, heard the sound of singing, basso profundo, as she would have expected.
It was cooler within the massive walls, and smelled of stone and emptiness. As though the monks, in their austerity, had passed through leaving not even the scents common to the living places of humankind.
A swallow fluttered past Anna and perched on a rail of the stair high overhead, chirping at her insolently.
Let not my familiar find you speaking to me thus, she thought, and wondered where Chuff had disappeared to. He came and went on his own mysterious errands. “Familiar” seemed an odd choice of name to her, for the bird was anything but.
The singing drew her on.
To be wrecked upon the shoals? she wondered. In a great hall, once the gathering place for meals, she found the priest bent over a table which appeared to be covered in clumps of vegetation.
But this was not what drew her attention. Some climbing vine had gained entry by high windows and spread itself across the ceiling and down the walls. White flowers, like morning glories, bobbed in the small breeze that found its way in the glassless windows. It was as though she were in a vast chamber made entirely of these heart-shaped leaves and gently fluttering white blossoms.
The priest looked up and smiled, the song retreating into its own echo, and disappearing in some small corner of the room.
“Do you like my great hall?” he asked. “The Hall of the Morning Bells, I call it. Though not everyone can hear matines being rung with such delicacy.” He smiled again, a surprisingly pleasant smile given the yellow of his teeth.
Anna realized that the clumps of sticks and grass and reeds spread over the table were the nests of birds. Some were hardly larger than thimbles, and made of soft grasses and down, while others were hat-sized.
“My collection,” the priest said. “I am Brother Norbert, by the way. Do excuse my manners—I get so few visitors.” He did not wait to hear her name, so Anna did not offer it.
“It is my ambition to collect a specimen of nest from every bird that breeds in this corner of the Caledon Hills,” he said. “Though I have some distance yet to go.”
“But they have eggs in them as well,” Anna said, wondering how these had been preserved.
“So it would appear,” he said, lifting an egg from its nest and dropping it in her hand. It was far heavier than she expected.
He smiled at her surprise. “I seek out stones of the correct size and form, or near enough that I can polish them into shape, and then I paint them as realistically as I can. I can’t bring myself to steal the eggs the poor mothers go to such trouble to lay, although it is a common practice among naturalists, I’m told.” He gestured toward a door. “I have a kettle on and can offer soup and bread as well as tea. . . .”
Anna nodded, the thought of fresh bread actually causing her to salivate. Clearly she had been too long in caves and wood.
The song of birds caught her attention, and she looked up to see more swallows in the air overhead, picking their meals off the branches of the air.
“It is really the swallows’ monastery now,” Brother Norbert said. “I am merely tolerated by them.”
She followed him from the hall into a smaller room where a fire burned in a hearth, and the smell of bread was on the air—the scents of man reclaiming this one small room, at least briefly.
They took their meal beneath a grape arbor, Anna too hungry, she found, to speak, so Brother Norbert, contrary to the practice of monks, made conversation while he ate.
“You might wonder what I am doing here alone,” he said. “As I was curious about your own journey. You might also find the history of this monastery interesting—perhaps it could even find a place in your book. There is an artesian spring here, which is the origin of the fount in the courtyard. Thus the name of the monastery; Blessed Springs, though I think originally this place was merely called the Pure Springs.
“The monastery was built, in stages, during the sixth century. A Farrellite Order, the Order of the Sacred Fire, dwelt here originally. And, no, they were not burners of heretics, but burners of books and other art they felt too ‘worldly.’ They even went so far as to burn some of the art commissioned and possessed by the mother church, for which they were banished to the Caledon Hills and ordered to do penance. They faded into obscurity in a few short years, and all that can be said of them after they were sent away from the larger world, is that they became master builders, for this place would hardly still be standing if not for their diligence.
“The monastery was generally inhabited after the eclipse of the Brothers of the Sacred Fire, but by different Orders with different purposes. It is so far out of the way that many of the more unconventional sects within the church found their home here. Mystics inhabited the buildings for centuries—until the Tautistian Heresy. You know to what I refer?”
“I don’t remember the details but know of it generally.”
“The details, as you call them; the matters of belief of doctrine are so esoteric as to make one wonder how a veritable war resulted, but suffice it to say that a struggle for power within the church itself played its part, whether Farrellites like to admit it or not. It is a blot upon the church to this day, many of us think.”
The priest looked off toward the wall of the courtyard, his face drawn and a little pale. “There was a battle fought here, between the Farrellite forces and the Knights of Glamore, but the Farrellites were greater in number, and the monastery fell.” He stopped to swallow. “In the meadow before the gates . . . all of the monks, and the knights who did not escape, were burned as heretics. To this day no tree will grow on that ground.”
Anna noticed Brother Norbert’s hand shook as he lifted his tea. “The monastery was abandoned then, and for all the intervening years—until I came.
My thinking had begun to wander down paths that made my superiors decidedly uncomfortable, so it seemed the life of a hermit monk might suit me best. With the ‘blessing’ of my bishop, I came here.” He looked over at her and raised his eyebrows, trying to smile. “The monastery has an evil reputation in the Caledon Hills, and people don’t like to talk of it—likely explaining why you’d never heard tell of it. It’s believed the place is haunted, and no one who visits will ever stay beyond dark.” He did not smile when he said this. “So I have a strange ministry here, one which my church would never approve of, if I were fool enough to tell them. I am putting to rest the spirits of the dead monks and knights.”
He watched Anna’s face carefully as he said this, and for a second she thought he jested, or perhaps said this only to shock her. “It is a noble cause,” she said evenly. “How goes it?”
“You . . . you do not seemed surprised?” he said.
“Spirits wander the world. I hope the spirit of my guide will stay in the glen where I made his pyre and watch over it and bear no one ill. But these monks—How terrible their end must have been!”
He nodded. “Yes. You see, I am learning their tales.” His voice dropped to a rasping whisper. “The winds blowing through the windows at night carry voices, whisperings. And as I learn each tale, I speak with the tortured spirit, and I seek forgiveness for what the church has done. I try to bring them peace and let them pass through.”
Anna thought it was no wonder his superiors were happy to see him off to an uninhabited corner of Farrland. She wondered if he were a bit barmy, as some spirit knockers tended to be, or if he was a man sensitive to worlds beyond their own.
“And what has this meant to you, all alone here with the spirits of tormented men?”
He raised a hand and then let it sink gently back to the table. “It has been my nightly hell, and my salvation. . . . It has given me purpose, but I wonder how my spirit will rest after I have heard of all the horror.”
