by Damien Black
‘You fool!’ exploded Yalba. ‘What are you doing?!’
Arik turned and gaped as Hargus leapt forwards to recover the gourd before it could roll away out of sight.
‘I... I thought Hargus had it,’ he stammered stupidly.
‘You weren’t even looking at him!’ hissed Yalba. ‘You were too busy trying to catch Adelko out at scripture, as usual! Now look what you’ve done!’
‘I wasn’t! I – I’m just a bit drunk, that’s all... Hargus, I’m sorry, is it all right?’
Hargus was staring in distress at the near-empty gourd and his sopping pallet. ‘No, Arik, it is most definitely not all right. Apart from losing us the last of the cider you’ve soaked my pallet through.’
‘Arik, you bloody idiot!’ snarled Yalba. ‘You’re as clumsy as a Wadwo! The Redeemer knows how someone so clever can be so stupid!’
‘I’m sorry – look, you can have my pallet, I’ll turn yours over and sleep on it, it’ll be fine.’ Arik looked as though he’d just been scolded by Udo.
Hargus shook his head grimly. ‘No, don’t you see? That stuff stinks – when the journeymen on prefect duty inspect us tomorrow they’ll be able to smell it from a mile off. We’re going to get into trouble – and it’s all your fault!’
Arik was looking more and more downcast. ‘I’ll take the blame,’ he said sullenly.
‘No one’s taking any blame.’
Adelko spoke in an unusually firm tone of voice. His three friends looked at him in surprise – but after everything he’d been through in the past six months he wasn’t going to let something like this fluster him.
‘Look, it’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘You three stay here and keep a look-out – I’ll go to the well and fetch some water. I can bring it back in the pail and we can get this cleaned up before anyone notices. Then I’ll take the pail back and we’re done. The others will be studying for at least another hour – we’ve plenty of time, so don’t panic.’
Getting woozily to his feet Adelko found himself savouring for a second time that night his superior experience. Arik could try and catch him out on his theory all he liked, but right now empirical knowledge of how to deal with adversity was his alone.
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?’ asked Yalba, looking unusually hesitant. Adelko smiled breezily at him. The cider had inflated his confidence magnificently.
‘No, I’ll be fine. Besides, there still may be journeymen out and about – the fewer of us running around at this time of night the better. Just keep your eyes peeled and give the signal if you see one!’
Adelko lurched off, his heart pounding and his head swimming. The well was on the south-east side of the circuit of buildings, next to the scullery and storehouse. To reach it he would have to tiptoe past the journeymen’s quarters and East House. Thanks to Udo’s constant endeavours he was by now fairly nimble, so he was confident of sneaking past without attracting any attention. He would have to hope none of the other monks were taking in the night air, but given the chilly weather that was unlikely.
Still, he felt painfully exposed beneath the glaring light of moon and stars, and found himself wishing for a cloud or two. He couldn’t risk moving into the shadows as this would mean passing right next to the journeymen’s quarters.
Doing his best to make as little noise as possible he made his way past, keeping them to his right. He could see flickering candlelight from the windows of some of the buildings. The journeymen were generally quartered a dozen to a building; there were some two hundred and fifty of them altogether, housed in twenty buildings dotted around the compound. A few were situated along the monastery’s outer wall along with the stables, smithy and outhouses, which meant keeping an eye to his left as well.
He reached the well without incident. Peering over its stone lip he felt a shiver go down his spine. The silvery moonlight contrasted starkly with its lightless depths. Glancing furtively about him he reached for the rusty iron chain and began slowly pulling up the pail from the depths below. A couple of times it grated noisily against the side. Adelko winced but kept his cool, and soon he was clutching a full bucket of water.
Setting it down gingerly he spent an agonising minute detaching the rusted chain from the pail before setting off back to his dorm.
It was harder to walk quietly clutching the bucket and Adelko could not help the water slopping about, but he had just skirted East House without incident when he heard it: the sound of a raven.
Hargus’s adroit imitation was unmistakeable – the signal.
Hurriedly he retreated into the shadows, crouching low by one of the journeymen’s quarters that had no lights on. Clutching the pail tightly Adelko hardly dared breathe as he saw two monks round the next building from the direction of North House.
Closing his eyes he prayed silently to Ushira, archangel of good fortune. The two monks drew nearer. They were talking quietly to one another. Adelko heard them pass by, their footfalls crunching in the gravel. Their voices receded.
Opening his eyes and glancing back to make sure they were gone, he got to his feet and continued on his way, still clutching the pail tightly.
The rest of the way back to North House felt like an age, and it was with some relief that he made his way back into the dorm and over to where his friends were waiting for him.
‘Adelko!’ exclaimed Yalba in a loud hiss. ‘You made it! There were two journeymen! We saw them go by and Hargus gave the signal! Did you manage to avoid them?’
‘I wouldn’t be here alone if I hadn’t,’ replied Adelko dryly. ‘Let’s hurry and clean this up so I can get the bucket back!’
The four of them got to it. Hargus had produced some old rags from his chest, the others had done the same. Soaking these in the water they set about mopping up the spilt cider. Several of the other novices lying nearby complained, and one even threatened to call a journeyman until Yalba grabbed him by the habit and told him he’d give him bloody teeth if he dared.
Adelko often found himself hoping his friend would grow out of his bully-boy ways, which were ill befitting a monk of the Order – but he had to admit that right now they were proving useful.
They soon had the mess cleaned up. Hargus’s pallet might well stain, but if he turned it over no one would notice. Yalba had already succeeded in cowing the nearby novices into swearing silence.
‘All right,’ whispered Adelko when they were finished. ‘We’re done. Now all I have to do is take back the pail and we’re in the clear.’
Yalba looked at him, biting his lip and looking a little uncertain in the half light of the moon. ‘Adelko, are you sure? You’ve already taken a risk – and the older boys will be coming back from their studies soon...’
Adelko smiled at his friends – they looked so funny, all nervous and unsure of themselves.
‘There’s still time if I go now,’ he replied. ‘Besides, if we don’t take it back they’ll soon know something’s up. Don’t worry – compared to hunting witches and banishing evil spirits, this is nothing!’
Snatching up the pail he bounded out of the dorm before the others could say anything. He was still riding the crest of an exuberant mood – the thrill of a minor adventure had amplified his intoxication.
He made his way back to the well without being spotted. Fixing the bucket back onto the chain he lowered it gently down into the water.
He had no sooner done this when he heard the sound of voices. Looking up he saw the silhouettes of cowled figures emerging from the arched entrance to the cloisters between the scullery and South House. He cursed inwardly. The older novices, returning from their studies.
He nipped around the well so they would not see him, and crouching down he peered over it furtively. After wishing each other a perfunctory good night, the novices split into two groups. Some were heading clockwise towards South House and West House, the rest were heading the way he had come back to the other two dorms.
He waited for them to file away before considering his next move. The
cold had intensified. Adelko shivered as he drew his own hood over his head.
It was then that it caught his eye.
The circular edifice housing the cloisters was low: above it he could see the central tower of the inner sanctum, and on its first floor he could see the steady yellow light of a lantern burning at a window. Silhouetted against this was an imposing figure. He guessed its identity immediately.
His mentor. No sooner had he realised than the words of the Abbot came flooding back into his mind: I have things to tell you that are not fit for a novice’s ears. For one tense moment Adelko thought Horskram had spotted him, but then he turned away from the window and walked out of sight.
Adelko glanced about him once more. The older novices would take some time to bed down for the night – he would have to stay here a while and endure the cold before sneaking back to his dorm. Returning his gaze to the window he felt something stir in him. It was the same feeling that had prompted him to approach Horskram at the celebration feast in Narvik five years ago.
Taking a deep breath, Adelko slipped out from behind the well and, for a second time, made a decision that would radically alter the course of his life.
CHAPTER V
An Unwelcome Revelation
It was not far from the well to the entrance to the cloisters, and Adelko reached it without drawing attention to himself. On either side of the arched gateway statues of the avatars Argo and Weirhilde, patron saint of Ulfang, stared down at him blankly. Their pitted stone likenesses looked eerie in the moonlight, and Adelko shivered all the more in the highland cold.
There was no gate: adepts and journeymen could come and go freely to this part of the monastery, although novices were discouraged from doing so when their elders were using them.
Designed for study and quiet contemplation, the cloisters were also where the adepts would meet to conduct divinations. Stepping through the entrance Adelko looked about him. To either side the cloisters curved off, forming a circle around the inner sanctum. Set off it at regular intervals were small alcoves with stone pews and lecterns where monks could take their books and scrolls. Others would tread the flagstoned path in a circle, reciting prayers they had memorised from the Holy Book of Psalms and Scriptures.
The study alcoves were carved from the outer wall of the cloister, which was as thick as it was high; the inner side of the ring facing the sanctum was open and colonnaded at regular intervals. From where he was Adelko could clearly see the Abbot’s private quarters, the tower housing them surrounded by a small circular garden.
The Abbot’s forbidden inner sanctum. Where no novice was permitted to set foot, on pain of expulsion from the Order. Adelko took a deep breath. Then he took another step forwards.
Following the cloister in a clockwise direction according to custom, he stopped at the short path crossing the Abbot’s private gardens from the edge of the cloisters. At its far end the single door guarding the inner sanctum stood, silently beckoning him onwards. The path was flagstoned like the cloister floor, but the bushes and plants to either side threw it into a shadowy gloom.
Glancing up at the night sky Adelko saw the moon staring down at him accusingly. In ancient times before the coming of the True Prophet the peoples of Urovia had worshipped her as a goddess: Kaia, mistress of tides and sister of the sun, avatar of nature and still venerated in some lands as one of the archangels.
Was she looking at him now? Casting aside such thoughts and steeling himself, Adelko set one foot on the path before him.
He knew that in doing so he had broken one of the core rules that bound the monastery. Although no one had yet discovered him, he felt there could be no going back now.
A few swift footfalls brought him to the threshold of the door. He had half expected something to happen, but nothing did. Faith and obedience guarded the forbidden parts of Ulfang; he would encounter no sorcerous traps here.
The ancient oak door was bound in bronze and presented a sturdy obstacle. A great knocker made of the same metal stared Adelko in the face: its tarnished hoop was clutched in the maw of a lion’s head. Something in the way it had been wrought gave it an unearthly, devilish look. This came as little surprise to the novice, for the imperial grandees of Ancient Thalamy had fed the early followers of the Prophet to the lions in their blood-soaked amphitheatres for sport, and those fabled creatures were often portrayed as ghastly beasts in the tomes and parchments he had looked at in the library. Adelko felt his sense of foreboding increase. Ignoring his sixth sense was not easy, but he blocked it out nonetheless.
The door would ordinarily be bolted from the inside at all times: even adepts such as Horskram could not enter the sanctum without the Abbot’s invitation.
Was it merely instinct that guided his hand that moonlit night, or some higher power that told him he would not find it barred on this occasion? It was a question he would ask himself many times thereafter. Whatever the truth of it, pushing at the door he was strangely unsurprised to feel it yield to his touch, grinding softly across the sanctum’s precinct.
The vestibule was windowless; wan candlelight greeted Adelko as he gingerly pushed back the door. As if in a dream, he stepped inside and gently closed the door behind him.
The chamber was cold and dank. Aside from two rusted iron candelabra affixed to the curving walls on either side of him there was nothing in it apart from a wooden circifix on the far side and a carpet of horsehair that covered most of the floor. A spiral staircase began to his left, curling upwards and terminating directly above the rood at an aperture in the ceiling, from which stronger light spilled. His quick hearing also picked out the faint sound of voices somewhere upstairs.
Taking another deep breath, he tiptoed over to the staircase and began slowly to ascend it. His body cast a long shadow on the circular wall. He found himself thinking of the banshee they had fought at Urebro, how her form had flickered and undulated beneath the light of the stars, at times seeming horribly distended and contorted. Not for the first time that night, he shivered.
Making his way up the stairs he emerged onto the first floor. The room he was in was semi-circular and half the size of the vestibule below. It was much better appointed: torches were ensconced in bronze brackets at regular intervals, the walls adorned with embroidered hangings that depicted scenes from the life of the Prophet, and the stone floor was carpeted with a fur trimming that came from some animal too exotic for Adelko to recognise. Arched windows not unlike the one he had seen his master at were dotted at several intervals about the room, covered with translucent panes of bone.
The stairs emerged next to the wall that curved. Set into the straight wall opposite was another bronze-bound oak door, smaller than the main entrance and less sturdy. To either side of it stood two tall burning braziers of iron in each corner. The smoke from the burning embers wafted into small apertures above each brazier: Adelko guessed that these led to flue shafts designed to filter out unwanted fumes, for the engineers that built Ulfang had been canny craftsmen, well versed in the ancient lore of the Golden Age.
The voices were louder now, coming from behind the door. Next to it was a small mahogany table, on which were an unlit candelabrum and a tinderbox, presumably to light the Abbot’s way downstairs should he need to receive visitors after dark. Thinking this, Adelko felt his heart contract guiltily at the enormity of what he was doing.
Creeping across the antechamber he pressed his ear to the door. He heard his mentor’s strong voice, low but distinct. He sounded deeply perturbed and displeased.
‘... but what in St Argo’s name were you doing keeping it here? It should have been kept in the sacristy, with all the relics, for Reus’ sake!’
‘In the sacristy?! Where we keep our holiest treasures? Horskram, think of what you are saying! To – to keep a thing of such evil there, of all places, where we pray to the Almighty, where we ask Him to reward our unworthy spirits with His beneficence! Not for all the blessings of the angels would I have done such a thing!�
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It was the Abbot’s voice, higher pitched than Horskram’s, and a good deal louder and more agitated too. Horskram replied – he must have turned away from the door or lowered his voice, because Adelko had difficulty making out what he was saying.
‘... too exposed. Only the essence of the Redeemer or the saints can ward... You say it was taken two nights ago? Who else in the monastery knows about this?’
‘No one. In truth, I had not yet decided what to do about it, until the Redeemer brought you back to us. Oh Horskram, if the Temple authorities learn of this there shall be hell to pay! You know how those godless curs have despised our Order ever since the Purge! There are many among the high perfecthood at Rima who would do anything to bring us down! This will provide them with the perfect excuse!’
‘For Reus’ sake, calm down!’ His master had raised his voice now, and Adelko could hear the anger and tension in it. ‘And stop wailing like a banshee – there may still be novices up revising for their exams. Not all the Temple priests mean us harm – and if anyone should know whether they do, I do ... years ago ... but I haven’t forgotten... First I need to inspect... the fragment was taken from...’
‘... in the summit.’
‘... show me...’
Adelko heard the sound of a chair scraping heavily against the floor. It took him just a couple of seconds to remember that the stairs did not continue on his side of the door, and that therefore the top of the tower could not be reached via the room he was in.
But by then it was too late. In his startled haste he had involuntarily started back, his elbow catching the candelabrum on the table next to him. Adelko felt his heart shoot into the roof of his mouth as it landed, as ill luck would have it, just beyond the edge of the carpet. It hit the stone floor with a resounding clang.
Adelko turned to run back across the ante-chamber and was just at the top of the stairs when the door was flung open. His master stood imperiously in the doorway, eyes fixed on his unruly charge.
