ARC 8: CHAPTER 13: THE MONASTERY AT FIFE

The Village of Fife

Early Spring 794 A.C.

“Well,” Emma drawled. “It certainly doesn’t look like much. You’re sure our elusive reaper came here?”

The landscape before us was dreary and flat. The creeping spring just beginning to touch the north seemed to have no sway here. Overgrown fields merged at random with crops showing signs of poor care. There were a few scattered copses of trees, but they looked sickly and small.

The land matched the village well. It might have been a fine place once, but even from a distance I could make out signs of decay. The buildings stood in a loose scatter at the base of a tall hill that stood alone at the edge of the grasslands. At its top rose a larger structure marked by a bell tower.

“That will be the monastery,” I said and nodded to the building on the hilltop. “We’ll talk to the monks and see if Rysanthe visited them.”

I turned my attention to the group. We were all mounted on our mismatched chimera, all armed and looking like a proper group of adventurers.

In other words, we stuck out. Especially Emma and Hendry, in their elaborate armor.

“…Probably best not to scare anyone,” I noted dryly. “They’re already going to be spooked from their recent visitors. Lisette, you’re with me. We’ll talk to the cloister. The rest of you, search the village and talk to the locals, see if anyone has anything interesting to say.”

“Not much for chatting with holy types anyway,” Emma said with a shrug. “Except for you, choir girl. Our conversations are always riveting.”

Lisette rolled her eyes and dismounted from Hendry’s kynedeer, moving over to climb aboard Morgause. Penric shifted his own mount closer to my own, as though to follow us.

“I’ll need you with my squire and Ser Hendry, sergeant.” I gave the archer a pointed look. “Keep them out of trouble.”

Penric couldn’t blink, but I got the impression he would have then. His false eyes stared at me a moment before he gave a short nod. “Of course. Right captain, I’ll keep the kids on best behavior.”

“Best behavior?” Hendry let out a short laugh. “Like back in Mirres? Remember I had to pull you out of that tavern before—”

“Water under the bridge!” Penric waved a hand as though to bat Hendry’s words away. “As I told you then, lad, there’s a certain finesse one needs when casing a town. Locals don’t trust a man who won’t indulge in a tussle, makes them think you’ve got something to hide.”

“I thought we were hiding,” Hendry grumbled. “I wasn’t even wearing my armor.”

A lazy smile touched Emma’s mouth. “Not like you needed it, Breakblade.”

Hendry’s cheeks reddened. Penric cackled and turned toward the village. I helped Lisette up onto Morgause’s saddle, causing the scadumare to shuffle in annoyance at the extra weight.

“Do you have a plan?” The cleric asked me.

“Walk up to the front door,” I replied. “We’ll ask for a warm meal and see what we see.”

A rural church wouldn’t usually refuse a pair of pilgrims seeking rest and shelter on a hard rode, especially not an adept of the Abbey and an Accord knight. I saw no reason for subterfuge. 𝐑ΑŊ𝙤ᛒƐS̩

The group split up, with Emma leading Hendry and Penric down to the village while I took Lisette up the hill. I didn’t rush us, and that gave us some minutes alone while we navigated the narrow path up to the fort.

“What was that back there?” I asked after we’d made some distance. “That Breakblade business.”

“Oh, nothing much.” Lisette shifted in the saddle behind me, which wasn’t made for two. “Just a nickname the locals in Mirrebel gave him. He hates it, but Emma thinks it’s hilarious.”

We went a ways further. The road was dry, dusty, and my chimera’s claws kicked up small clouds beneath us. Parts of the Banner could be arid, though I felt we were far enough east and early enough in spring that the earth shouldn’t be so parched.

“We’re glad to see you well,” Lisette said. “She won’t admit it, but Emma worried about you.”

“I could have used your help down south,” I admitted. “But it was chaos down there. Probably for the best things turned out this way. How’s Hendry doing, new monikers aside?”

“He works hard and gets along well with everyone,” Lisette said. “Even Emma. If he was more confident I think he’d be a natural leader. He just doesn’t seem to have the ambition.”

He should have had his own lance, perhaps even a cohort of bannermen. Hendry was a fully belted knight and the son of a great lord, my equal in many social respects.

His father had been an ambitious man, and it got him killed. Perhaps Hendry just shied from emulating Brenner Hunting, and I couldn’t blame him for that.

“I can tell he’s hurting in a way my sutures can’t mend,” Lisette continued in a quieter tone. “There’s a rawness to his focus, like he’ll crack the moment he lets himself think about what happened.”

About how the girl he’s in love with murdered his father to save his life. That would be difficult to cope with. “Do you know if they’ve talked about it? Emma and Hendry, I mean.”

“I doubt it,” Lisette said with a sigh. “How would you even talk about that?”

I waited until Morgause had cleared another twenty years before speaking again. “And Penric?”

Lisette remained quiet just long enough for the pause to be noticeable. “What about him?”

“What about him!?” I let out a quick laugh. “He’s undead, and far as I understand your Art is the only thing keeping him from falling to pieces. So how is he?”

“…Fine as he can be, in his condition.” Lisette shifted against my back. She seemed oddly anxious. “He keeps a good cheer, and I tend to him regularly. He’s become stronger in some ways. His marksmanship was good when he was alive, but now it’s uncanny. I don’t know how he sees, or… senses his surroundings, but he’s usually aware of danger before any of us.”

“Useful,” I said with a nod. “But you know what I meant.”

Again, that pause. “No, I don’t think I do. I’m not an expert on dyghouls, Alken.”

Is he dangerous. I didn’t voice the question aloud, because it seemed to be making her uncomfortable. I decided to let it go for now.

We approached the monastery’s front doors. There was no guard tower or guard that I could see, just a low stone wall partitioning off hallowed ground. The monastery itself was three connected buildings, with the chapel straight ahead and then the cloister and dormitories forming wings to either side. A cemetery covered one face of the hill to my left.

“They had to have seen us,” Lisette muttered.

A crisp wind brushed the hill and cut off my reply. She was right. Someone would have spotted us already, but the church doors remained closed. I saw no light in the windows, no signs of peeking faces.

A bad feeling crept in, and I almost sent Lisette back down the hill to check on the others. But they could take care of themselves, had been for months, and the inhabitants of the cloister would trust me more with a cleric in my company.

We dismounted at the outer fence and approached on foot. We made an odd pair, me in my black armor and red cloak, the wolf pelt draped over my shoulders, and Lisette resplendent in her white-and-yellow adept’s habit. The air was cold. Not freezing, but I felt it would get close come nightfall. Somewhere, something was rhythmically banging over and over, probably an unlatched door or window.

“My God,” Lisette said as we approached the front steps of the chapel.

I paused, taking in the same sight that’d elicited her reaction. The front doors were intact, but someone or something had marked them. A single long scar marred the dark wood at a steep angle, sheering even through the God-Queen’s symbol, normally hammered in metal onto church entrances.

“It looks burnt,” Lisette noted.

I nodded. There were signs of scorching around the edges of the scar, though the mark itself looked like it’d been made with a very large blade, wielded by something inhumanely strong.

“Looks like phantasm,” I said. “Aureflame could have done this.”

“Could you do this?” Lisette asked.

“…I’d probably be more likely to just break the door down, and it would take me more than one blow. This looks deliberate, intentional. I couldn’t do something with that much finesse. But if they were skilled enough to do this, then why not just break the door?”

Lisette had no answer. I stepped forward, lifting a hand to feel at the surface of the door.

“Can’t feel anything,” I muttered.

“That’s good, right?” Lisette asked. “Perhaps it’s old.”

I didn’t say what I thought, that I should have felt something. Instead, closing my fingers into a fist, I pounded several times on the door before taking a step back. Behind me, Lisette was fidgeting in that way of hers, her fingers forming seemingly random signs as they met and parted.

“What if no one’s inside?” She asked.

“You’re ordained,” I said. “Is it a sin for you to break into a church?”

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

She threw me a withering look. I shrugged.

Just as I was about to try the door again, the sound of shuffling steps caught our attention. It was muffled by the barrier, but noticeable, as was the shadow at the bottom of the door. I caught a rattling sound, what I guessed was a chain being loosened, and barely had the time to think who uses a chain on a church door? before it opened.

A man stood in the doorway. One of the monks, I guessed, or perhaps the abbot. He was dressed in dark brown robes with a mantle and hood, the latter drawn back to reveal a balding scalp and gaunt features. His eyes were sunken, dark, and shadowed from lack of sleep.

He stared at us wordlessly, and I soon realized he wasn’t going to break the silence first.

“Greetings, good monk.” Lisette gave the man a nervous smile.

“What do you want?” He rasped.

“We’re travelers,” I said to him. “I’m Alken, and this is Sister Lisette. We were hoping for some shelter from those rain clouds coming in from the north. They’ve been chasing us all day.”

The man just stared at me blankly. “You came from the southeast. I saw you.”

I rubbed at my chin, putting on a perplexed expression. “Did I? Well, I’ve never been good with directions. In any case, is your hall open to pilgrims?”

When he only continued to stare, Lisette spoke up from behind me. “We only wish the shelter of your nave, good monk. We’ve traveled for many days and I would like to give proper confession to one of God’s servants.”

He may as well have not even heard her, for all the reaction he gave. Still staring at me he said, “Did he send you?”

His voice was intense, pitched low and forced out of a dry throat like a man gasping for water. He hadn’t blinked once since opening the door.

“He?” I asked.

“Don’t play dumb,” the monk snapped. He bared dirty teeth. “I see you, see the stain on you. Do you know how long you’ve kept her waiting?”

Lisette started to say something, but I held up a hand to stop her. For the first time, the monk’s fevered gaze flicked to the cleric, only for a moment before returning to me.

Vicar was laid over my shoulders, pretending to be little more than the dead animal pelt he resembled. Was this man sensing the devil? Or did he just see me

?

“Let us in,” I said, “and we can discuss it.”

“What about the others?” The man asked. “I saw you approach the village with three others.”

“They don’t concern you.” I wasn’t sure who this man assumed me to be, but it seemed wise to play along.

The monk’s jaw worked a moment before he spoke again. “Well, if they’re outside when night falls, then… Well.”

He turned suddenly and started walking deeper into the church. “I will prepare dinner.”

I glanced back at Lisette. It was apparent by her expression that she didn’t want to go inside, but she made a visible effort to steel her nerves and gave me a nod.

We followed the monk into the chapel, which was in a state of disarray. Pews were smashed and littered the floor like the aftermath of a village caught by a hurricane.

“Your shrine…” Lisette started to say.

The man stopped in his tracks and spun. “What about it?”

His voice was sharp, accusatory. Lisette all but recoiled from him. “It’s ruined,” she said in a strained voice.

Ruined put it mildly. There had been a statue of the Heir, painted wood by the looks of it, but it lay in pieces across the floor. The ritual basin was split, and what might have been wine — or blood — stained the floor beneath it.

“It is as it is,” the monk said in a low voice. His eyes seemed to go distant a moment, then he turned and started walking again. “Follow!”

“Alken…” Lisette spoke to me in a voice pitched low enough for the monk not to hear.

“Just play along,” I told her. “We’ll get more answers that way.”

“What about the others?” She insisted.

“They’ll have to fend for themselves. I don’t want to set this man off just yet.”

She followed me without further question, though I could tell she was spooked. For my part, I’d known there was something wrong the moment we stepped past the fence.

After all, I was walking on hallowed ground and felt nothing.

The monk took us into another wing of the monastery. We saw no other members of his order, and while the rest of the cloister didn’t seem to be in the same wrecked state as the chapel, it also showed stark signs of neglect. The floor was unswept, the windows covered in a veil of what looked like grease, like someone had taken melted fat or candle wax and spread it across every glass surface.

The monk seemed either oblivious to the state of things or uninterested in commentary. He brought us into the refectory, a larger room laid with rows of long tables for the monks to eat. It was dark, the windows covered in the same way as the others I’d seen, and the tables were all set for supper.

They’d been set for supper for a while. The food was all rotting. Lisette held a sleeve up to her face to cover her gag. I pressed my lips together and furrowed my brow in an effort to hide my own reaction to the stink. The room was warmer than the rest of the building. I could hear flies buzzing. They crawled over the tables and the putrefying meals.

“Sit,” the monk ordered. “Not there!”

Lisette had moved to the end of one of the tables, perhaps just an aimless motion, but the man reacted severely. She flinched. I took a single step to put myself between them.

“That is the abbot’s seat,” the man said darkly. “We must not be rude. Proper procedure is important. He wouldn’t be please, no no…”

Adopting a conversational voice I asked, “Where is the abbot?”

The mad monk turned his staring face from Lisette to me. As though there’d been no change in topic he said, “Sit. I will get you fresh bowls.”

We found the cleanest spots we could at a table with a view of all the doors, which wasn’t easy. The smell was making my stomach church, and Lisette looked green, but we’d both been around unpleasant things often enough in our lives to keep our gorge down.

The monk vanished for some time. We sat in silence while we waited. Lisette started to say something, but I held a finger to my lips and then to my ears. She fell quiet.

A centipede crawled out of one of the bowls of rotting food and skittered past my hand. The droning ambience of flies hung in the air.

Somewhere deeper in the monastery, someone let out a howl of anguish.

“I’m scared,” Lisette said aloud. She was staring forward, the blood drained from her face.

“You’ve seen worse than this,” I reminded her.

“That never makes it easier.”

I was frightened too, and like my companion that wasn’t a new feeling. It’s human to be afraid in the face of the unknown and the macabre. I reveled in the feeling, in the affirmation that — despite all the supernatural noise, the dark deeds, the mud I’d allowed to cling to my soul — I was still a man. Still human.

Fear honed my instincts. It kept me alive.

The monk returned some time later. He carried two bowls, and placed them in front of us before walking around to the other side of the table and taking his own seat where one of the older meals waited.

He stared at us expectantly. Glancing down, I saw the contents of my dinner. It looked like some kind of porridge. Not very appetizing, but otherwise innocuous.

The bowl came with a wooden spoon. I picked it up and dipped it into the meal. “Your chapel…”

The monk immediately bristled, but I spoke before he could get himself worked up. “It looks like you had some trouble. Perhaps we can be of help?”

The man’s haunted eyes turned appraising. “You are a knight? I saw your mark. That tree, and your armor. Or are you some kind of brigand? Bandits will dress as knights and priests to trick the gullible.”

He glanced at Lisette, who returned his stare levelly. “I am an adept of the Abbey of St. Layne,” she told him bluntly. “I can give you the name of the cardinal who canonized me in the Annals, and the temple where I underwent my final rites.”

“Pride is a sin for one of the Heir’s scribes,” the monk muttered. “It is for warriors to strut, while we keep their rancor directed to the Adversary. Perhaps your cardinal was a fool. Or you deceived him.”

Something skittered beneath one of the tables behind the monk. It might have been a large rat, only it seemed to have too many legs. A fly landed on the man’s nose. He didn’t seem to realize.

I splayed out my fingers, drawing the monk’s attention. “We’re no bandits, brother. Just tell us what happened here.”

“What happened…” His eyes went distant again. “It started that night. When he came here.”

“He?” Lisette asked, prompting the man to continue before his attention shifted again.

“We thought he was like you at first,” the monk said. “Just a traveler. He wore fine armor beneath a poor cloak, and spoke eloquently.”

His gaze went down to the bowl of rotting food as he paused a moment. I felt a thrill of apprehension at the idea he might start eating from it. But he only paused a brief time before continuing his tale.

“He said that he wanted to partake in communion in our chapel. The abbot believed him to be a knight, and agreed. Always a kind man, the abbot. Too kind. Too trusting.”

Without moving his head, the monk’s irises tilted up to look at me. “You remind me of him. Your eyes… They have the same color, that same light in them. When I look at you, it is like looking into a deep pool of darkness, and yet at the end of the tunnel...”

I’d covered myself in a light glamour before coming here to dim the hue of my eyes and make myself look more mundane. He shouldn’t have been able to perceive what he did.

“What did he do?” Lisette asked, thankfully drawing the man’s attention from me.

“He asked to give confession,” the monk said. “The abbot sent the rest of us away and performed the rite himself. They were alone in the chapel for a long time. Then, the screaming started…”

The man laced his fingers together over the table’s surface as he spoke. “We all rushed back into the room to see what was the matter. The abbot was on the floor, wounded, crying. And the stranger was raving at him, or so we thought at first, but it became obvious that he wasn’t talking to the abbot. No, he was raging at the shrine. We couldn’t make sense of it at first, but I believe he was talking to Her.”

“Her?” Lisette asked.

The man made the sign of the auremark over his chest. “Her. He was mad, ranting at ghosts, and he kept asking what do I do? What do you want of me? Where are you, you golden whore?”

“He was mad,” Lisette said.

“Yes!” The man cackled. “He was like a devil. He was one. Two of the stronger monks, they tried to subdue him, but he slapped Lucan away with his bare hand. Broke his neck.”

The monk lifted a hand to his own throat and swallowed. “Then… Then he drew his sword, and it was such a sword! Rusted as though from countless years without a whetstone or cloth, a brittle thing, yet I knew just from a glance that it was strong as an anvil. He lifted it and struck down the image of our God with a single blow, destroyed it! And he laughed. He laughed like a maniac, and then he killed the abbot. Drove that plagued sword right through his heart. Then he left.”

The man said all of this in a calm, distant voice, his eyes unfocused and turned backward in time. But then he seemed to return to himself and focused on us again.

“Funny,” he said in a thoughtful tone. “You two are not the only ones to ask about the stranger. Not the first, no.”

I leaned forward, eager despite my unease. “There was another before us? A woman perhaps, one who didn’t seem…”

“Human?” He flashed his dirty teeth. It was not a smile.

I nodded. “How long ago was she here? Do you know where she might have gone? Did that knight who killed your abbot say anything else, something you might have told her?”

“How long ago, how long…” The man started twiddling his thumbs. “Strange. It seems like a long time, yet it hasn’t been, has it? Some weeks maybe.”

Weeks. Sooner than I might have expected, but still long enough for a dead trail. I tried not to lose hope. “Tell me about her.”

The monk stopped fidgeting and pressed his hands flat to the table, leaning over the bowl of fly-eaten porridge. “I can tell you so much! She has shown me so much, opened my eyes! The others, my brothers, they didn’t understand, did not want what I was given. But they were fools, and now they are food for flies.”

Something is very wrong. Yet, I needed answers. “And the one who came here before us? What did she say, where did she go?”

“Where did she go?” The monk blinked at me, perhaps the first time he’d done so. “She seeks him, the stranger, just as you do. She will find him and take what is rightfully hers.”

“Alken…” Lisette whispered to me.

“I know.” I kept my attention on the monk, who didn’t seem to even realize we were still there. He was sweating, breathing hard, having some kind of fit.

“She is death!” He wailed. “And she is close. Can you not feel her?”

His eyes rolled back into his skull. Yet, from the veined whites, something else stared out at me.

“She knows you are here, Headsman. She sees you through me.”

“We need to get to the others,” I said to Lisette without taking my eyes off the monk. “This was a trap.”

“Why would Rysanthe set a trap for us?” Lisette asked.

“Not her.”

The monk wasn’t talking about Rysanthe, hadn’t been this entire conversation. Someone else had beaten us here, someone also looking for the Briar King. Why, I didn’t know, but I recognized the feeling coursing through my aura, that stink of evil.

The man sitting across the table from us was dead. The other monks were also in the room with us, also dead. They were inside the bowls. Food for flies.

But he wasn’t the danger. The creature staring out from the whites of his eyes was.

I took a deep breath, and spoke directly to that presence hiding inside the dead monk. “Hello, Evangeline.”

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