“Probably a house there already,” Belster mumbled, reaching for his foaming drink and draining half the mug.
“Tomas assured me that the place would be mine, should I ever return,” Pony said. “I mean to hold him to that promise, even if it means tearing down his own house in the process!”
“Bringing some of them gemstones with you, are you?” Belster snipped, and he wanted to take back the words as soon as he spoke them, seeing the cloud suddenly cross Pony’s fair face.
“I will raise the tavern,” the woman said quietly, “the Howling Sheila, or perhaps I shall call it Fellowship Way in honor of the Chilichunks. More enjoyable will the task be if Belster O’Comely walks the road with me, but even if you do not, I leave in two days.”
“You mean to run a tavern?” Belster asked skeptically. “After all that you have seen and done? You’re not thinking that to be a bit of a boring task, girl?”
“I mean to run a tavern,” Pony replied sincerely. “I mean to sit with Roger on a hillock at sunset and hear the piping of Bradwarden as it drifts through the forest. I mean to tend the grove.…” Her voice trailed off, and Belster turned a sympathetic gaze on her.
“Are you sure that you’re not just running away?” he asked her bluntly. “Haven’t you tasks left unfinished right here?” Even as he spoke the question—a question that he knew Pony would not answer—Belster considered her last statement more carefully and found the insight that convinced him of her convictions. Pony had chosen not to go north with Elbryan’s caisson, had chosen not to be present when the ranger was lowered into the cold ground. How could he refuse her request now? Pony and Elbryan had saved his life, and the lives of all his friends, during the days of the dactyl and in the troubled times immediately following the demon’s fall. Pony and Elbryan had stood beside Belster and all the others, at great personal peril; and the innkeeper had no doubt at all that if the demon had captured him and put him in the very pits of blackness, Pony and Elbryan would have come for him, would have given their very lives to save him.
“Two days?” he asked. “Have you talked to Dainsey?”
“Dainsey is staying,” Pony replied, referring to the woman who had served the Chilichunks at Fellowship Way before Markwart had taken them hostage, and then had served as Belster’s companion in the tavern when he had reopened it at Pony’s request. “She has become sweet on a particular young man, and never would I take her from that.”
“The poor girl’s deserving some happiness,” Belster agreed, for Dainsey Aucomb had indeed lived a trying life. The innkeeper gave a belly laugh and emptied his mug, then wiped the foam from his lips and glanced at Pony—to find her staring at him hard.
“Two days?” he asked again.
Pony’s stern look melted into a smile. “Meet me at the front doors of St. Precious,” she instructed. “And don’t you be late! I want an early start and a long day’s ride.”
“Well, bring a horse for me, then,” Belster said with a resigned sigh. “If I’m to go back to that wilderness, I’m planning to spend all my funds beforehand.” He finished and turned to the barkeep, motioning for the man to refill his mug.
Pony kissed him on the cheek and rushed out of Tomnoddy’s, heading straight for St. Precious and a meeting with Abbot Braumin that she knew would pain her friend profoundly.
She found him in his office, the same office that had served for Abbot Dobrinion Calislas, and for Bishop Francis. Brother Anders Castinagis, arguably the most fiery of the followers of Jojonah, was there with Braumin, and Pony heard his agitated voice long before she entered through the room’s open door.
“Come in, come in!” Braumin said to her, motioning to a chair at the left-hand side of his desk. Castinagis was standing, Pony noted, his big hands planted on the front of the desk, his eyes locked on the new abbot of St. Precious. “We were just discussing Master Francis’ departure,” Braumin explained. “He set out this day for St.-Mere-Abelle, to bring the word to our brethren and to confirm the appointment of Brother Viscenti to the rank of master.”
That last statement caught Pony by surprise, and her blue eyes widened. “So soon?” she asked. When her words brought a somewhat crestfallen look to Braumin, she quickly added, “Well, never was there a man more deserving.”
“So I believe,” said Braumin. “And Brother Viscenti will soon enough pass the minimum time required by our Order, so there should be no serious complaints.”
“Unless the messenger presents the nomination in an unfavorable manner,” Brother Castinagis remarked, and then Pony understood the reason for their apparent argument.
“You do not trust Master Francis?” she asked the towering man.
“Should I?” Castinagis replied.
“Yes,” she answered simply, and the brevity of her pointed response put Castinagis on his heels.
“As I was just saying,” Abbot Braumin added. “Brother Castinagis wished to accompany Master Francis, but I have been trying to explain to him that we who follow Avelyn’s beliefs are more vulnerable here in Palmaris than perhaps anywhere else in the world. With Brother Dellman leaving for Vanguard and with Master Francis gone, we of expressed conviction number only five, including us three and Brothers Talumus and Viscenti. We must rally the flock of St. Precious behind us,” he went on, aiming his words now at Castinagis and not Pony, “first and foremost, if we are to hold ground with Duke Kalas.”
“You are soon to be four,” Pony interrupted, drawing the attention of both men. “Belster O’Comely has agreed to accompany me,” she explained. “I leave for Caer Tinella in two days.”
Abbot Braumin seemed to sink back into his chair, and Brother Castinagis just stood there, shaking his head. The news was not completely unexpected, but Braumin had hoped to keep Pony in Palmaris at least through the first half of summer.
“And how long will you remain in Caer Tinella?” the abbot asked.
“A few days, no more,” Pony replied. “I hope to be in Dundalis before summer proper, that I might establish my home fully before the onset of next winter.”
My home. The words echoed as a bell of finality in the head of Abbot Braumin. “Be not so quick to tie yourself to the place,” he advised.
“You may find your road turning back to Palmaris,” Brother Castinagis added. “This is the center of the world at this time, for the future of the Church, at least.” He continued, gaining volume and momentum with each passing word. “How might the memory of Master Jojonah, and that of Brother Avelyn—” Abbot Braumin stopped him by clearing his throat loudly. When Castinagis turned to regard the man, the abbot nodded toward the door, and Castinagis took that as his cue to leave.
“He is an excitable fellow,” Braumin said to Pony as soon as the brother had departed.
“And he overestimates our importance, I fear,” she replied.
“Does he?”
Pony just smiled.
“Or is it, perhaps, that you, in your grief, have come to underestimate everything else in all the world?” Abbot Braumin asked.
“Perhaps I have come to see the truth of the material world,” Pony was quick to answer, “the truth of the folly and of false hopes. Are you then to promise me eternal life?”
Braumin stared at her hard, his expression a cross between anger and pity.
“If I accept your Church’s definition of eternal life, then I say again that Brother Castinagis overestimates our importance,” Pony declared, “because no matter what we do here, we will all die. True?”
The abbot continued to stare, to chuckle helplessly, and, in the end, to merely shake his head. Yes, Pony had lost her way, had given up, he knew; and he understood, as well, that there was nothing he could do to persuade her differently, to show her the error of her despair.
Pony came around the desk, then, and hugged the abbot. “You are my friend, Braumin Herde,” she declared, “a true friend to me and to Elbryan, a kin in heart and soul. You stood with us in the darkest hour, and better is all the world for y
our efforts.”
Braumin pushed her back to arm’s length. “If you truly believed that—” he started to argue, but Pony put her finger over his lips.
“The road to Caer Tinella and the Timberlands will be well traveled over the next seasons,” she said. “I promised you that I would attend the opening of the chapel of Avelyn in Caer Tinella, should that come to pass. Send word and I will be there.”
“But that will be years hence,” the abbot protested.
“And we are both young, my friend,” Pony said. She bent low and hugged Braumin again, then kissed him on the cheek and walked out of his office.
When he heard the door close behind her, Abbot Braumin felt as if his heart would break. Suddenly he felt very alone and very afraid. He had allowed his hopes to soar, despite his pain, after the battle at Chasewind Manor. Francis had declared that he would nominate Pony as mother abbess, and Braumin had dared to hope that this woman, his hero, would stand tall at the front of his straying Church and, through sheer determination and willpower, put them back on the proper course. Even after it became obvious that Pony would not so ascend within the Church, Braumin had thought his position solid, and the ascension of the followers of Jojonah and Avelyn certain.
But then Francis had withdrawn his support for Pony, and—despite the man’s continuing opposition to Abbot Je’howith—Braumin wondered now how much trust he could put in Francis.
And now Pony was leaving, and though he still had Castinagis and Viscenti supporting him, and though he understood that Brother Talumus and several other minor-ranking monks of St. Precious had given themselves to his cause, Braumin remained afraid. Because now he was in charge of it all. His would be the primary voice battling stubborn Duke Kalas; he would be the one answering any questions that came to St. Precious from St.-Mere-Abelle; he would be the one fronting the cause of Master Jojonah at the College of Abbots. And that cause, he knew, would not be an easy one to sell to many of the Abellican leaders, including many of the masters whom Braumin had served at St.-Mere-Abelle less than a year ago.
Only then, with the sound of that closing door, did Abbot Braumin come to realize the truth of it all: he had depended upon Pony to protect him and bolster him, to fight the battle for Avelyn and Jojonah from the lead position.
He was very afraid.
On a drizzly spring morning two days later, the small wagon bearing Pony and Belster O’Comely rolled through Palmaris’ northern gate, bouncing along the road that would take them to Caer Tinella. Many heads turned to regard them as they crossed the city and then the rolling farmlands just north of Palmaris, and the departure of this most notable woman sparked many whispered conversations.
In a copse of trees on a hill just beyond those farmlands, Marcalo De’Unnero, too, noted their passing. From the farmers, he had heard that Pony meant to leave Palmaris, and now he was very glad to see that the rumors were true. De’Unnero didn’t want to face Jilseponie now, for he believed that any such encounter would end in violence, a battle that would prove disastrous for him, whether he won or lost.
He waited for more than an hour after the wagon had rolled out of sight, considering his course. Many times during that hour, the former bishop reminded himself that he had controlled his inner beast, despite the ultimate temptation. He had defeated the demon within, and thus was ready to take his rightful place back in the Abellican Order.
Though what that place might now be, the man could not be sure.
Marcalo De’Unnero had never marked the days of his life with fear or lack of confidence, and would not do so now. He jumped up from his mossy seat and trotted down the face of the hill onto the road, turning south for Palmaris. The same heads that had regarded Jilseponie’s departure turned to mark his approach, but they seemed not to care.
And why should they? De’Unnero asked himself. He hardly resembled the man they remembered as their bishop, the man who had fled Palmaris months before. He was leaner now, a thick beard upon his face, his black curly hair hanging several inches longer, bouncing at the base of his neck. Indeed, the guards at the open north gate hardly seemed to pay him any notice at all and didn’t even ask his name.
He felt even more invisible as he moved unrecognized along the busy streets of the city, and he found that he did not enjoy that anonymity. Rationally, he knew it to be a good thing—he had not left the folk of Palmaris on good terms, after all!—but still he did not like it, did not like blending into a crowd of people he recognized as his inferiors.
Soon enough, he came to the front door of St. Precious Abbey, and he paused there, staring at the structure with his emotions churning. The farmers had told him the name of the new abbot, and that alone made him want to spit at the place. Braumin Herde? When De’Unnero had fled the city, the man wasn’t even formally a master! And though De’Unnero knew that Markwart had once meant to promote Herde, it was only for political reasons, to quiet the other side, and certainly not the result of anything Braumin Herde had ever accomplished in his mediocre existence.
De’Unnero stood there, outside the door, for a long time, playing through his emotions and his anger, throwing the negativity aside with conscious reminders that he would have to find a way to fit into the new order of his Abellican brotherhood.
“May I help you, brother?” came a question from a monk approaching De’Unnero from the side, a monk whom the former bishop did recognize.
De’Unnero pulled back his hood and turned a hard stare on the man.
“Brother?” the oblivious monk asked again.
“Do you not recognize me, Brother Dissin?” De’Unnero asked rather sharply.
The younger man glanced up, scrutinizing the speaker, and then his eyes widened.
“B-bishop De’Unnero,” he stammered. “But I—I—had thought—”
De’Unnero waved at him to stop his blabbering. “Lead me in,” he instructed. “Announce me to the new abbot of St. Precious.”
Chapter 7
Brynn Dharielle
SHE EDGED CLOSER, CLOSER, AND THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE TO HER, IT SEEMED, was trying hard not to giggle. For though this was considered one of the prime tests of her training, to Brynn Dharielle it was just a game, and an easy one! She blew a strand of her long black hair—hair so dark that it seemed to show all the colors of the rainbow within its depths—from in front of her equally dark eyes and chewed her lip, again to prevent the giggle.
She saw the white-tailed deer, and it saw her, and it believed her no enemy. As long as she made no sudden movements, no sudden sounds …
As long as she continued the quiet humming, the song of grazing that she had learned as a very little child, before she had ever come to the land of the Touel’alfar …
The young girl crouched lower, slowly and deliberately placing one foot ahead and twisting it gently into the moist grass, shifting her weight forward, slowly, slowly.
Another step. The deer seemed frozen in place now, staring at her intently, and so the girl likewise stopped all movement, even keeping her jaw set, though she continued to hum that coaxing, calming song. The moment of tension passed, and Brynn began to lift her hand, opening it palm up to reveal the sweet, crushed pulossa cane.
The deer caught the scent, its ears popping straight up, its nose twitching.
Brynn Dharielle took a slow deep breath, holding her patience, though she wanted to run right up to the beautiful animal. She continued to move delicately and unthreateningly, her hand out. And then, almost anticlimactically, she was there, beside the deer, letting it lap the pulossa cane from her hand while she lovingly stroked its sleek, strong neck and rubbed it behind the ears.
She knew that she was being watched, monitored, and measured, but she didn’t care at that moment. All that mattered was the deer, this beautiful creature, this new friend she had just made.
What a wonderful spring day in the most wonderful place in all the world.
Over in the thicket not so far to the side, Belli’mar Juraviel put his head in his
hands and groaned. Did this spirited young lady do anything by the rules? Ever?
But Juraviel was chuckling, too—and not out of helpless anger, not even out of frustration—but out of sheer surrender. Brynn Dharielle had charmed him, he had to admit. Never had the elf encountered a human female quite like her. She seemed possessed of two spirits: the warrior intensity of the To-gai-ru—the fierce nomadic riders of the steppe region of western Behren—combined with a level of playfulness and impertinence beyond anything Juraviel had ever seen, even in an elf! Her given name was Dharielle Tsochuk, but Lady Dasslerond had quickly added the name Brynn, in honor of the ancient elven heroine credited with aiding in the creation of Andur’Blough Inninness by relinquishing her life and soul to the spirit of a tree that became the heart of the enchanted valley. In the tongue of the Touel’alfar, brynn meant “butterfly,” and ironically, there was an elven word very similar to dharielle which meant a bee stinger. So Brynn Dharielle could be translated into “butterfly with a bee stinger,” and how appropriate a description Juraviel thought that to be for this little one!
“You were supposed to be hunting the deer, not befriending it,” Juraviel scolded, walking up to Brynn and her newfound pet—and the creature seemed quite relaxed, licking the last remnants of the pulossa cane from the girl’s hand.
“You instructed me to touch the deer,” the kneeling Brynn Dharielle replied, looking up at Juraviel, her smile gleaming brightly against her brown skin.
She was indeed a paradox, Juraviel recognized, both physically and emotionally. Her eyes were so bright, yet her irises so black. Her skin, typical of the To-gai-ru, was much darker than that of the people of Honce-the-Bear, and certainly darker than the smooth and delicate golden-hued skin of the Touel’alfar; and yet on Brynn Dharielle it seemed as if possessed of an inner glow. Inside she was the gentle huntress, the friend of deer and rabbit, and yet she was also a savage warrior, able to turn on primal instincts for survival when the elves brought her out for training in bi’nelle dasada.
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 13
