by BJ Hanlon
Edin snatched his arm. “Sir, are you certain—”
A pounding, ringing bell sounded in his head. It was almost as if he was in the bowl of the bell as it was being beaten by a pair of burly and very enthusiastic bell ringers.
Edin’s mind went blank as he collapsed and then everything went blank.
“Don’t touch the abbot.” A voice said tickling his brain and nearly waking him from the cold dreamless sleep he’d been enjoying. Or at least his body had. “The man is brilliant but odd. He hates human contact. A quirk from his younger days.”
Edin opened his eyes and looked around. He was in a small room with a single candle. There was a man standing two yards from him with his arms crossed and his mouth clamped shut, but when he spoke a moment ago it felt like they were right next to each other.
“I’m sorry,” Edin said. “I didn’t know.”
“It’ll be fine, just keep away from him for a while, like a hundred years or so.” The man’s mouth did not move but he heard him perfectly.
“A hundred years? I don’t think he’ll be alive in five.”
“He will most certainly.” Still no words came from his mouth but then the man’s face made an inscrutable expression as if he weren’t truly certain.
Edin spoke. “Right. Is this the wave? I had a vision once where a man, he looked like he could’ve been an elf, found me and fought me in a basement. He said the wave as well.” There was no reply. “So,” he continued, “are you elves? Or elf related?”
“No, it is an old skill. One forgotten through the ages of man.” He sighed. The first sound that actually came from the man’s mouth. “Now please we have prepared a small feast for you and your friend who is quite upset that we are waiting for you.” The man paused, his mouth pursed and Edin heard in his head, “yes, very angry and he really does not like you right now.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Edin said as he stood. A dizziness came over him and he nearly fell over. The monk grabbed him with a strong hand and kept him upright. Whatever the abbot had shouted into his head hadn’t left yet.
Edin followed him out of the room and down a corridor with shut doors. As they walked, he remembered why he grabbed the abbot. “I’m looking for my friend, is she here? I had a vision, I think. I saw that lake.”
They had reached a stairwell and were starting to go up. At the top, they went further down a straight hall lit by sconces.
“There are no women here,” the voice said in his head. “None for a long time.”
After a dizzying array of turns, they came to a single door in a wide wall. “But,” Edin started as the monk pushed the door open and he was met by a brightly lit room, just as silent as the scribe room. A scribery maybe?
The room was filled with long wooden benches, three of them that seemed to have enough seating for at least twenty per side.
But the place was less than an eighth full and everyone was down the center table.
At the front, seated at a perpendicular table was the abbot with the head scribe next to him and another man to the opposite side. The third was thin and young and had a grand mustache that wouldn’t have been out of place in any noble’s court.
All three watched Edin as they entered. The abbot glared and Edin saw him reach for his bicep as if to remember where Edin had dared touch him.
The monk motioned Edin to a spot across from Berka at the head of the central table. To Berka’s left sat a monk with screaming bright red hair pulled back into a ponytail. The man didn’t make any eye contact with Edin. Few did. Would he scream in Edin’s mind if Edin forced the man to look at him?
After a quick glance at the faces, Edin didn’t see the barefoot man who’d brought them there in the first place.
“About time you wake up. I’ve been waiting for forty-five minutes,” Berka hissed.
Then words entered his brain. “It has been long since our hall has greeted visitors. So long in fact, I’m surprised I still know how to talk.” It was the abbot. He remembered the voice from before. “This place, our refuge, our home opens little, but as we are to ourselves and each other, should we be to our visitors. We may not know their names or customs and they may interrupt with their shortness of patience, but remember brothers, we treat them as Vestor would treat them.”
There were nodding heads all around. At the back, Edin noticed a man standing at the edge of the shadows in a partially opened doorway. He wasn’t quite sure but he thought it was the man, not a hermit, who’d saved them. Then the door closed and he was gone.
The abbot must’ve been continuing on while Edin was thinking because he picked up in the middle of a sentence, “know the paradise we enjoy will one day end for that is the way of things.”
Edin looked back at the abbot who looked both solemn and stately.
“So, let us eat, drink, and be merry for none of us know how much time we have in this world.” He looked around the room with a smile that poorly hid sorrow behind it, as if he knew the end were coming soon.
Then the abbot cleared his throat and spoke. “And remember, the gods gave us voice boxes so we can speak with the outsiders and each other. Though Twelve, your voice is one I do not wish to hear again.”
There was a murmuring chuckle in the room and in his head and then it grew more and more around. The group of monks at the far end of the table stood and started toward a door near the back, the one partially open. They disappeared inside and then a few moments later, appeared in a line carrying tray upon tray of food.
After two trips, their table was filled with shining silver trays that ran the length of the table like a spinal column. Food, a lot of it; far too much for this group. He heard lips smacking and saw Berka across ready to dive in like a desert traveler finding an oasis for the first time in days. Maybe not enough for one of the folk.
Then he heard voices, real ones. They cracked and were weak and some sounded surprised.
“So that is what I sound like, couldn’t remember.” The ginger boy said next to Berka. He did have a high-pitched voice that was a bit shrieky.
“You remind me of the rat you keep, even your voice is squeaky,” another said.
Edin looked at Berka who was staring crazily at the platters. There was drool, actual drool coming down his lips.
“Clean yourself, Berka.”
Soon the tops of the trays were removed and they were met with what looked to be an amazing array of foods: pork, chicken, beef, and stews that were tomato based and potato based. He saw bowls overflowing with salads with fruits and nuts and others with tomatoes and cucumbers. Pastas and breads appeared, soft baked and oily and they smelled better than any he’d ever smelled. And there was butter. Large slabs of butter, each the size of his fist, sat in dishes. Edin watched as a monk simply tore into the bread, ripped it apart and slammed it into the butter, rather violently Edin thought.
Edin did the same though with a bit less vigor. He started with the bread, then added the meats, all of them. They served wine then, a deep red wine that was apparently made from grapes on the eastern hills of the valley as opposed to the grapes in the compound.
The meal didn’t take long. He ate while barely breathing and there was no talking, not even via their wave. Edin ate until he could no longer eat. He drank some of the wine and had to adjust his belt. Twice.
He looked at Berka who was still just as ravenous as he’d been before the food was served.
The other monks as well. Their appetites, even the very old guy across the way and down a few, was tearing into a ham hock like he was a dire wolf in a pig pen. It was fascinating.
Then slowly, after the monks somehow put away all of the food and Berka was licking a platter like a dog, they relaxed.
Edin was almost as awestruck by that as he was by the entrance to their monastery. He held back a chuckle.
A part of him wanted to question how, but he guessed that’d be rude. The men sat silently. Edin wondered if they were communicating on the wave or letting th
e food coma take over?
Edin glanced at the one who’d brought him down. He hadn’t gotten a name from the man so he waited until he looked up so as to not call out, ‘Hey there, you who woke me.’ The monk finally looked up.
“I’m Edin, this is Berka. What are your names?” he said and slowly looked down the table at the rest of the people who were now looking at him. Edin glanced over toward the abbot who didn’t seem to notice.
The one who brought him down said in a voice much like the one he’d used in Edin’s head, “We leave our names when we join the order.” It was just as calm, just as placid like the motionless waters in the fjords before he and the wyrm fell in.
“Even if we did,” a younger of the men said a few feet down, “I cannot for the life of me remember what mine was.” He looked to be about twenty-five, maybe twenty-six.
Maybe he was brought in as a boy before he even knew it.
“Well then, what do you call each other?”
“Call each other?” The first monk said.
“How do you get someone’s attention?”
“We wave at them of course. What do you outlanders do, bark names until they turn like a dog?”
Apparently Edin wasn’t the only one thinking in canine metaphors. Maybe that was a part of the wave as well.
“Sometimes,” Berka said, “though I’ve been partial to this.” He leaned over and slapped Edin on the top of the head.
A few people chuckled, some got very stiff as if it would start a brawl.
“That’s for touching the abbot and making me wait for food.”
Despite the smack, Edin laughed.
Maybe it was the food, that simple joy of a good meal that brought out the happiness in a person, but he felt good and it was a hearty laugh. One that rang in his previously swollen belly and sunken cheeks. He grinned at the ginger next to Berka and then grabbed the wine to stifle it as he saw nearly the entire room was staring at him. He waived a hand at the men. “It’s alright.”
Many of them were now smiling, more started laughing. Edin glanced again around the room and wondered again where the one that rescued them was?
After it died down a bit Edin drank from his mug. “Where is the one who brought us?” Edin asked.
“Oh, someone is no good with wine,” the man who brought him down from the room said while laughing.
“Not you,” Edin said. “The other, the mage.”
The monks all seemed to grow quiet and then confused. Edin turned to the abbot who was staring down at them. There was concern on his face.
“There are no magi here,” the abbot said. “As for who brought you, I’m certain it was the gods who led you on the pilgrimage. Vestor is the most likely.”
Edin opened his mouth for a moment and then shut it. He pondered the words and remembered the man who’d lifted them like they were pups, damned dog metaphors, he remembered the hermit’s eyes and that he’d thought he looked familiar.
“There was someone,” Berka said. “An old man, wore your same robes, he—”
Edin laid a hand on his friend’s forearm to cut him off and Edin tapped his foot as he tried to draw the connection. It couldn’t be, right?
Edin was a bit woozy. “I believe the wine has gotten to us. I’ll need to lie down.”
“I’ll take you back,” the monk said.
Edin bowed his head. “Thank you.” Then he looked toward the abbot and bowed his head as well. “I apologize that I touched you and if I offended you in any way. It was not my intent. I thank you for your hospitality and graciousness to two weary and wandering strangers.”
The abbot took a breath, stared hard at Edin, and bowed his head in return.
They left, the monk leading him and Berka to their chambers. Edin guessed it was as far from the abbot’s chambers as possible.
Despite him seeing windows from the outside, no room they’d entered or passed had any sort of natural light. Edin questioned it.
“The sun and its brother moon are two opposites of the same cycle. The good and the bad, the light and dark,” the monk said actually speaking. “We, like all of humanity live in between.”
“So, you don’t get any sun? It’s supposed to be good for you,” Berka said.
“We spend much of the day outside. We go to the lake or to the fields. We have cabins below and we rotate in and out of the monastery.”
They were at the end of a corridor with only two doors and nothing else. Edin’s room was directly across from Berka’s and exact copies.
“Your cells,” he said. “When you are rested, feel free to walk the castle and the courtyard, if you wish to partake in the light or dark. You are welcome anywhere on our ground per the abbot. Even down to the water, a place only for those blessed by our patron.” The last he said quietly and Berka raised an eyebrow and looked at Edin. It took him a moment, then he got it. ‘Vestor.’ He mouthed.
Berka mouthed back, ‘you’re kidding?’
“And I would suggest staying out of the caves under the mountain. The water is treacherous and the river connects to a rather terrible web of caverns. And there are things.”
“What do you mean? What type of things?”
The monk looked at him, tilted his head slightly, and in Edin’s mind he said, ‘bad things. It is a place you mustn’t go.’
Edin took a moment, the switch from the two forms of communication was striking. Then he entered his room. He closed the door and sat on the pallet. The room was bare but for the stone walls and the bed. There wasn’t even a washbasin or a place to put his pack which was sitting in the corner like a pile of dirty clothes. He laid and shut his eyes.
He simply focused on his breath, the meditation Dephina had him do so long ago. Edin was supposed to come here, that vision told him this was the right place. But why? Was there something special about this place?
Then he thought of the other vision. The tunnel one. If that vision were true… Edin didn’t want to even think of it. He hoped Grent and Dephina had gotten past the giant and made it to the elves. That was doubtful this quick—
In Edin’s mind’s eye, he saw the beast still climbing. It was like an endless and unceasing river of death bubbling to the surface. Where it reached it would bubble and boil like a pustule. Then it, he, would burst through like a volcano and destroy all that was ever good.
The land will rot and the dematians, wyrms, and demons will rule. If any man survives the initial burst, his life expectancy would be very short. Days rather than months.
Edin got up after about an hour, maybe two. It was a food nap and his stomach settled but he wasn’t tired. He left the room.
Without knowledge of the sun’s schedule or more accurately to the monks’ schedule, Edin didn’t know if he should creep around or stroll casually. The narrow hall in which their rooms sat ended in a solid wall that looked like the actual mountainside. Turning back the way they’d come he went to the stairs and a dim sconce that lit it.
He reached it and looked up and down. Both were spiral and hewn directly from the rock. There were wide stairs and formed for man not dwarf. At least this was always a human citadel, Edin thought. More advanced than the one they’d stayed in a night before. What if this was the evolution of humans? From the caves to the stone castles in valleys before they reached out and expanded?
He went up, circling a few times, more than a few times, and passing few landings. Three at the most. Then the stairs grew narrower and steeper. As the change came slowly, first steeper and barely noticeable until he fell, and then he noticed it was also narrower.
His mind had been blank and on the task of climbing, putting one foot in front of the other.
But now, with the change he wondered why? Edin looked up and still saw nothing. He didn’t even know how high he’d climbed. Did he go on or head back down?
After this climb, his pallet sounded nice, very nice.
He remembered the view from the window of Erastio’s Rise. It was such a beautiful view. The
curiosity drove him up.
Finally, the stairs stopped in a flat, squared off room with only one door. He opened it to a dark room with the only light coming from the open-air balcony about twenty feet ahead of him.
Silvery moonlight cast long shadows into the room. The floor was a painted red stone and the walls were black. Edin moved forward toward the balcony until something caught his eye. A dark but shining thing to the right. About twenty yards away, stood a small black altar between two black stone pillars. They were nearly invisible with the walls.
Edin summoned an ethereal light and started that way. As he moved, something tickled his mind in the corner of his brain. Some part of him said he’d overlooked something.
Edin hushed that part away and continued forward. His feet clapped on the floor but he barely heard it. He was fascinated by the altar. He knew the altar.
He felt a tear come to his eyes. It was a replica from the one in the Great Cliffs. Edin remembered his mother’s form, Kes’ form.
“It was a copy,” a voice said from somewhere in the darkness beyond his sight. Edin turned and the ethereal light expanded to show the entire room. It was empty.
The voice moved to his head. “I find you rather interesting, young Edin. A man of contradictions.”
Edin shook his head as if he were trying to get water out of his ear—that annoying bit that seems to somehow stick in there no matter what way you flip your head nor how hard you smack the skull.
“Where are you?” Edin said using his real voice. “Who are you?”
“Where I am does not matter. The wave lets me communicate with you.”
“Are you the elf in the cellar,” Edin said. “That was you.”
“I am not an elf, nor a man really.”
“Then what are you?” Edin said. “You’re not a dematian.”
The voice laughed in his head. “No son, I am not a dematian.”
Edin waited for an explanation. Something more, but there was nothing else. “What do you want from me? Do you know where Arianne is? How I can find her?”
