The Exiled Monk

by James T Wood

  Back on the deck the water turned to ice. Raiders tried to move toward them, but couldn’t get sure footing. Svag though, sacrificed his own rigging to the cause. He chopped a rope free from the stern of the ship and swung from the mast around toward the escapees. Peek didn’t think, he just dropped Locambius over the side in the general vicinity of the canoe. As Svag got closer, Peek stepped in front of Dray and the music he had tried so hard to unlearn came to the fore. The sound of the creaking rope, the water lapping at the ship, and even his own ragged breath all combined to make a new song that flowed with The Melody, but was not of The Melody. The Markay prince swung wide, missing Peek and Dray, and continued around to the other side of the ship. Another movement of the music flowed through Peek and the mast snapped in the middle. Svag dropped into the water on the opposite side of the ship in a splash of cursing.

  The raiders froze, unsure if they should rescue their leader or capture the invaders. That was enough. Peek and Dray jumped into the water and climbed into the canoe where Locambius was already propped next to Plafius. He played the song of wind as soon as Peek and Dray were half inside the canoe. They lurched away from the ship and the raiders at an accelerating speed.

  Peek collapsed into his little boat with relief. They had escaped. He smiled weakly and looked at Dray, who was facing backward toward the stern where the two old monks were seated. She looked past him, her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped. Peek turned in time to see the arrow pierce Locambius.

  Twenty-Nine

  It took five years for the first monastery to become too full. Darrah decided to go out herself with a few other monks to start the second monastery. She traveled farther west and found a listening place by a river. There they built the next monastery. Within just three years it too was full as was the first monastery. Darrah continued to go west and other monks followed and spread out across the land beyond Eytskaim’s kingdom.

  “Failure is but another method of learning.” Talib of Foghlama

  B

  lood soaked through Locambius’ robes and down his front to pool in the bottom of the canoe. At the moment the arrow took him, his eyes opened wide as if surprised. Yet he did not cry out.

  Plafius poured himself into the wind-song and the canoe sped away. Dray sang off any other arrows that dared to come close. Peek stared at the arrowhead protruding from the chest of Locambius. He coughed once and again. Blood flecked his lips and stained his teeth. Peek reached out to pluck the arrow from Locambius’ chest but a shout of anguish stilled his hand. Locambius looked at Peek with tear filled eyes.

  “Why?” He gurgled as much as spoke the word.

  Peek grabbed Locambius’ hand and groped for the song that could undo this. Nothing in The Melody offered hope to mend a man, so Peek listened for the other song. The song that he found in the air and the waves, in his own movement and the call of the gull. There was something… almost. Peek pulled at the music, forced it, tried to make it do something when always in the past he had instinctively moved with the song. He plodded rather than galloped. He felt as if he were learning the music all over again. But it started to come. It sounded strange, not wrong, but unlike anything The Melody had ever sung within Peek’s hearing. The music that filled Peek before had always been as much a part of the world as it was a part of himself. The trip to the island monastery drew in all of the sounds of the world and Peek added his part to them. But now it was almost all within Peek, he felt the rhythm of his heartbeat, the rush of wind past his ears, the creaking of his joints held in an awkward pose, it all flowed through his touch into Locambius.

  The leader of the monks stared, his mouth agape, working to make words but unable to speak. He chewed on air and blood but said nothing. Dray stopped singing to deflect the arrows and put a hand on Peek’s shoulder.

  “What are you doing?” She asked.

  Peek ignored her and kept feeding the music into Locambius. Dray squeezed his shoulder, but it felt far off, like an echo of a dream. Peek lived within the wounded man. He willed the arrow to leave and his body to be made whole. Dray yelled something. Peek heard only blood and breath. Plafius stopped playing and the canoe coasted on its speed. The raider ships were gone in the distance and the night.

  “Peek, you must stop!” Plafius shouted as if into a well.

  Peek thought about the words but they seemed to lack meaning or at least importance. He pushed and the arrow moved. It slid forward through Locambius’ chest. The old man shrieked in pain. The house groaned as its foundation shifted. Peek pushed again to set things aright. Another groan. Soon the house would be sound and whole. Soon Locambius would be healed.

  When strong hands closed around his wrists, Peek stared at them without understanding. Still he pushed the rightness of the music within him through his hands and into the wrongness that was Locambius’ broken form. Slowly the grip tightened around him. Peek resisted, then fought, but Plafius pulled his hands away. When they stopped touching the prone man Peek looked up and saw Plafius holding him. The song that could heal Locambius was broken. Blood again seeped up from the wound in his chest. He was dying.

  Peek mouthed words that wouldn’t come. He struggled against Plafius and tried to reach out for Locambius again. When Peek finally started groping through the echoes of The Melody that sang within him for a means to shove Plafius back, the old man spoke.

  “He would never forgive you,” Plafius said through clenched teeth as he continued to wrestle with Peek.

  “Peek, stop!” Dray said, “I can heal him. You don’t have to.”

  Peek looked back at Dray and then to Plafius. He didn’t stop struggling to reach Locambius with life even as his canoe coasted to a stop, rolling on the autumn waves.

  “He wants you to lead,” Plafius whispered, “He wants you to follow him. You can’t do that if you heal him now.”

  Peek looked down at Locambius. The man who had saved Peek the first moment they met and continued to offer Peek life, was dying in the bottom of his canoe. He was dying because Peek had broken the spell on the water around the monastery, because Peek had refused to let him go with the Markay, because of Peek. He was dying because of Peek. But if he lived because of Peek, that would be the end. His vitriol on the Markay ship told that plainly. Locambius loved Peek as he had loved Plafius, but that love had limits. Once those limits were transgressed…

  Peek looked up at Plafius and stopped struggling, “Just don’t let him die.” Even to his own ears Peek’s voice sounded small and alone.

  Plafius nodded as Peek collapsed back into Dray’s arms. She held him from behind and kept him from falling over completely. Together they watched Plafius pull out his reeds and play. The low, droning sound of the left reed created a foundation for the soaring song of the reed in his right hand. Together they wove songs that never occurred in the world. Peek looked from Plafius to Locambius. The blood slowed, but the arrow still protruded from his chest. It vibrated in a rhythm counter to the song Plafius played. The arrow moved to the faltering song of Locambius’ heart. Then the arrow stopped moving altogether.

  Peek struggled to lean forward, but Dray held him tightly. Plafius’ song continued. Locambius stopped breathing. Peek joined him and watched with his breath held tight. The song altered and flowed, the arrow shimmered for a moment before softening. The wood seemed to grow at first, then a tiny branch sprouted just below the bloodied head of the arrow. Soon another branch appeared on the opposite side. The place where the arrow protruded from Locambius’ chest widened, but the skin around it did not tear and Locambius did not cry out in pain. Plafius played on until the arrowhead fell off the top and a tiny, perfect oak sat on Locambius’ chest. Then the apostate stopped and lifted the tree. Only a few roots were left inside of Locambius, the rest of the arrow had pulled up through his body into the miniature tree. Plafius dropped it to the side and raised his reeds again. Peek found his breath again if only for a moment.

  The song continued, but with a different feel. It started with a
n erratic rhythm, like the throbbing of the arrow had been, and slowly, painfully moved toward regularity. Locambius groaned and writhed. Peek watched as the pallor of his face bloomed into health. The wound on his chest knit together with cords of skin and muscle. The cords pulled and sealed the hole before forming a dark scab. Plafius paused and looked at his oldest friend for a moment before raising his reeds again. He had just inhaled to play more when Locambius inhaled suddenly and deeply before sitting bolt upright and then vomiting over the side of the canoe. The retching of the old man went on for quite some time. Peek simply watched, not knowing what to do.

  When Locambius finally pulled himself back from the edge of the canoe his eyes were wide and haunted. He looked at Peek and Dray before him and then turned to see Plafius behind him holding his reeds still. Locambius looked down at the instruments and up into Plafius’ eyes. He searched for something there, his gaze darting from eye to eye and then back to the reeds. Whatever he sought, whatever he found, did not bring him peace. He turned back to Peek and tried to speak, but his voice came out as a dry croaking sound. Peek thought he mouthed the word ‘why,’ but in a moment the attempt at words was gone and Locambius threw his head back and wailed to the stars. He cried out with no heed for the raiders, no thought of communication, no trace of humanity. He cried as a wolf pup separated from its mother. He screamed wordless emotions at the sky and they echoed back from the rocky shore.

  Locambius screamed until Dray sang him to sleep.

  No one wanted to speak. The fading echoes of Locambius’ wail seemed to go on without end. Peek stared at the man sleeping before him. His wound was healed, but even in sleep his face contorted with pain. Peek took what comfort he could in the warmth of Dray against his back and her soft breath on his neck. Plafius sat alone opposite them and stared at the man who had joined him in first becoming a monk and who had finally put an end to his time as a monk. Words seemed to lack the meaning necessary for this moment, so they all kept silence.

  The eastern sky had faded from black to blue when they first heard it. The shushing sound of waves against something. Peek looked up toward the shore in the distance. They were too far away for the sound to reach them so clearly. He scanned from the east to the west and saw nothing, but when he turned to look to the south from whence they’d come, he saw. The raiders were not done.

  One ship outpaced the rest. Its low hull seemed to barely touch the water. Oars bristled from the sides and moved like the legs of a great water bug as it prowled forward. The rest of the fleet showed behind it, visible by their bow lanterns and white sails flapping in the breeze. The fleet was far off, but the lead ship was nearly within arrow shot.

  Peek didn’t think, he simply played. The wind pushed back at the Markay ship with a force he’d never wielded before. Their sails flapped and then shifted so that the canvas pushed them backward instead of carrying them forward. The ship slowed as the oars fought the sail until the captain ordered the sail furled. Peek still pushed against it with the song of the wind. The ropes on the ship went taut and the crew struggled with the rigging. The Markay fell farther and farther back as the sail overwhelmed the oarsmen. With a harsh shout that carried even over the gale, the captain ran around the deck with an ax and cut the rigging until the sail flew free of the ship and flapped off into the fading night. Peek played on, but without such a purchase on the ship as its sail, it advanced.

  Plafius raised his reeds and brought forth a monster. From the deep around the ship, tentacles rose up. No squid had ever been so large as this, it’s writhing arms reached and gripped and pulled and wrenched at the Markay ship. As the sun stole the night, Peek could see more clearly. The tentacles were the ocean come to life. Foamy brine wrapped the ship. The sea itself held back the raiders.

  They played fire. Where their song struck, the sea steamed and boiled away, but Plafius pulled more tentacles from the water to harry the Markay. Then his song shifted. It sounded less like the mellifluous water song and more like the tune he’d used to transform the arrow or grow the trees into the wall of the monastery. Peek watched as the tentacles darkened despite the sun shooting up over the horizon. Where they boiled away he saw thick ropes of seaweed that sizzled under the fire song of the raiders. But the wet plants did not easily burn and the raiders could not keep up with the pace Plafius set. Soon the entire ship was festooned with long braids of seaweed from bow to stern. The oars tangled and halted. The guttural swearing of the Markay carried over the still morning sea as their ship seized and pulled against its bonds. With a jerk it pulled up as if an anchor had dropped while the ship traveled at full speed. The sailors standing on the deck all fell over in heaps as the ship skittered sideways.

  Plafius stopped playing and dropped his reeds. He was breathing heavily. Behind the lead ship the rest of the fleet approached. Soon, they would be surrounded by raiders. Peek looked to the north, toward the village and monastery that were somewhere over the horizon, then he looked back at the massing ships streaming toward them under the power of both wind and oar. He saw clearly in his mind what would happen if they fled. The raiders would continue to come. They would harry the village and monastery until either every person was dead or they had the monk they wanted to teach them the meaning of the scriptures. Fleeing inland would slow them, but not stop the raiders and the rapidly approaching winter would make survival nearly impossible.

  “We have to stop them,” Peek whispered the words, barely aware that he’d spoken them aloud.

  Dray nodded and Plafius squared his shoulders to the task. Locambius slumbered. Peek hoped that the old man would remember little of this night, for his sake and for Peek’s.

  Plafius loosened his arms and sat up straighter, “Don’t focus on the same ship.”

  Dray gently pushed Peek away and sat up as straight as she could in the stern of the canoe. Peek settled on the seat in the middle, and arranged his feet so he wasn’t stepping on Locambius. A quick dip of his paddle turned the canoe’s bow to the shore so they could all look off the starboard side to see the Markay fleet bearing down on them. Peek shipped the paddle, pulled out his novice’s pipes and readied himself.

  “Peek,” Plafius looked over at him, “Don’t forget to breath.”

  Thirty

  Darrah kept pushing west until she reached the sea. Beyond the water she saw a distant streak of land, low and dark against the sky. Darrah played the water-song as none other has before or since and strode across the sea on the foundation of The Melody.

  On the far side she established still more monasteries until they littered the land and filled the people with awe at the wisdom and power of these monks that followed The Melody. Still today one can see the stone walls and beehive huts of the Darrian Monks all across the lands of Iklay, Bounos, and parts of Markairah, though most of them are in ruins.

  “Forgiveness of self must precede forgiveness of others.” Eytskaim of Go Maith

  P

  eek played the wind. He played fury. Raging. Storm. Hurricane. He played all his hurt. All his mourning. All his fear. He played for the lost whistle monks that he’d never know, he played for Duhlga, he played for Vlek. The trailing ships had been watching. All of them had either already furled their sails or were in the process of doing so. The wind clawed at them, pushed them, forced them together and snapped some oars between the ships that came too close together, but they did not stop their advance. The first arrows were arcing from the ships to fall into the water before the canoe.

  Plafius chose one of the ships and wrapped the foamy arms of the sea around it. But again the Markay had learned. Instead of playing fire at one tentacle at a time, they played the fire at the base of the monster made of the waves. At first little happened. The ship shuddered to a halt in the grip of Plafius’ song. But after a moment the whole thing broke apart as the center of it boiled away under the flames of the raider’s horns.

  Dray sang the chilling song that brought fog. Her breath steamed in the morning air and a ship on
the far right of the fleet gained a coat of frost on its sides. At first it seemed little more than coloring, but with each dip of the oars they gained more weight, more ice, and they slowed. First one and then several snapped under the weight of the ice. The hoary white on the hull shifted and thickened into sheets. The oars that were yet unbroken snapped as the ice closed around them. Dray sent still more ice to attack the mast of the ship. In moments it exploded like a tree in the mountains on the coldest day of the winter.

  Plafius adjusted his song and began freezing the ship that had destroyed his water monster. Peek wanted to reach out with the magic and find the monster that had beat Vlek into the ground. He wanted to unleash vengeance on the raiders who had taken so much from him. He wanted to leave them beaten and broken on the ground so that every time they thought of him they would quiver with fear. He wanted to avenge Duhlga.

  The thought of her was like water splashed in his face. It would be no fitting tribute, to her most of all. No. Peek sought the magic he’d been taught. He found the song of the waves and played it with power.

  The first wave barely rocked the low-slung Markay ships that were designed to travel the open seas. He needed more. Peek aimed his song out farther. He played to the horizon. He played to the waves that had yet to be born. For a long time nothing happened. Dray and Plafius continued to freeze the ships as quickly as they could. The fleet had been reduced by a mere six ships. Three times that many still remained and closed on them. Arrows splashed in the water just a few feet in front of them. Peek still called on the waves.