Mortalis dw-4 Read online

  "This refers to structures built by 'common men,' " Braumin noted, pointing out the phrasing,

  Kalas shrugged, not disagreeing.

  "This text was written to prevent the influx of Behrenese," Braumin reasoned, "to prevent every open space within the city walls from becoming even more crowded. Common men, which includes neither the Church nor the nobility."

  "That is one way to interpret it," Kalas replied. "But not the way I choose."

  Abbot Braumin tossed the parchment to the desk. "You obscure meanings and pervert intentions, then," he said. "This parchment is irrelevant to any construction upon St. Precious Abbey, upon lands owned by the Abellican Church."

  "No, my good Abbot," Kalas said, rising up ominously and matching the monk's unblinking stare with one of equal determination. "It is perfectly relevant. It is the written law, endorsed by your own beloved former abbot, which I can use to arrest any who work upon your abbey, the written law I can use to confiscate tools and materials."

  "You risk angering the populace."

  "As do you, good Abbot," Kalas snapped back. "You offer work to craftsmen who already have much work to do in the aftermath of the war. They do not need your work at this time, Abbot Braumin, but they do need their tools. Who will they come to hate? I wonder. The lawful baron, acting according to law, or the presumptuous new abbot of St. Precious?"

  Braumin started to answer, but stuttered repeatedly, having no appropriate reply. He understood the bluff-Kalas would be starting a battle for the hearts of the Palmaris citizenry that could go either way. But was Braumin ready to join such a battle? He knew the fights he would soon face within his own Church; would he be able to withstand those inevitable challenges if the people of Palmaris turned against him?

  A smile found its way onto Braumin's face, an admission that, for the time being at least, Kalas had outmaneuvered him. He chuckled and nodded, then turned and walked briskly from the room and out of the manson, this time leaving his hood back despite the rain. The Allheart knights remained in position along the walk to the gates, and the nearest soldier moved over and pulled them wide for the abbot's exit.

  "Your workers did an excellent job in repairing them," he remarked loudly, noting the gates, "after Jilseponie so easily threw them aside, I mean, as she threw aside your brethren who tried to stand before her."

  He heard the bristling behind him as he walked out and took some comfort, at least, in that minor victory.

  He smelled it, so thick in the air that he could almost taste the sweet liquid on his feline tongue. The young girl had hurt her arm, scratching it CO a branch, and now she was coming his way, calling for her mother, holding the arm up, the line of red, sweet red, visible to the weretiger. De'Unnero turned away and closed his eyes, telling himself that he could do this thing, that he could not leap out and tear her throat. He had t IdUed only once throughout the harsh winter, an old lecherous drunk who | had not been missed by the folk of the town of Penthistle. I i Tie scent caught up to him, and the tiger's head shifted back toward the approaching girl.

  She would be missed, De'Unnero reminded himself, trying to make a 'logical argument to go along with his moral judgment. These people, who |bd taken him in during the early days of winter, after he had devoured the linwrie and run away from the fields west of Palmaris, had accepted him; Wth open arms, glad to pass an Abellican brother from house to house. He i offered to work for his food, but never had the folk of Penthistle given Q any truly difficult jobs, and always had they given him all that he could, and more. Hus, De'Unnero had run off into the forest whenever the tiger urges id called to him, too great to be withstood. He had feasted many times in deer, even on squirrel and rabbit, but he had killed a person only that WR time. I'But now the winter had passed. Now it was spring and with the turn of the season, the folk were again active outside their homes. De'Unnero had come out in search of conventional prey, hopefully a deer, but he had found this child instead, far from her home. As soon as he had spotted her, he had managed to turn away, thinking to run far, far into the forest, but then she had cut her arm, then that too-sweet scent had drifted to his nostrils.

  Hardly even aware of it, he gave a low growl. The girl tensed.

  De'Unnero tried to turn away, but now he could smell her fear, mingling with that sweet, sweet blood. He started forward; the girl heard the rustle and broke into a run.

  One leap and he would have her. One great spring would put him over her, would flatten her to the ground at his feet, would lay bare that beautiful little neck.

  One leap…

  The weretiger held his place, conscience battling instinct.

  The girl screamed for her mother and continued to run.

  De'Unnero turned away, padding into the darker thicket. The hunger was gone now, for the girl, even for a deer, and so the creature settled down and willed himself through the change, bones popping, torso and limbs crackling and twisting.

  It hurt-how it hurt! — but the monk pressed on, forcing out the tiger, fighting the pain and the killing instinct resolutely until a profound blackness overtook him.

  He awoke sometime later, shivering and naked on the damp ground, the cold night wind blowing chill against his flesh. He got his bearings quickly and found his brown robes, then donned them and headed for Penthistle.

  As chance would have it, the first person he encountered within the small cluster of farmhouses was the same little girl he had seen out in the forest, her arm now wrapped in a bandage.

  "Ah, but there ye are," said her mother, a handsome woman of about forty winters. "We were needin' ye, Brother Simple. Me girl here lost her fight with a tree!"

  De'Unnero took the girl's hand and gently lifted her arm up for inspection. "You cleaned the wound well? " he asked.

  The woman nodded.

  The monk lowered the girl's arm, let go, and patted her on the head. "You did well," he told the mother.

  The monk headed for the house now serving as his home. He stopped just a few steps away, though, and glanced back at the little girl. He could have killed her, and, oh, so easily. And how he had wanted to! How he had wanted to feast upon her tender flesh.

  And yet, he had not. The significance of that hit De'Unnero at that moment, as he came to understand the triumph he had found that day. Fear had forced him out of Palmaris after the fight in Chasewind Manor, after he had been thrown out the window by Nightbird. It was not fear of Nightbird or of the King or of the reprisals from the victorious enemies of Markwart, the monk realized. No, it was fear of himself, of this demanding inner urge. Once he had been among the most celebrated masters of St.-Mere-Abelle, the close adviser of the Father Abbot, the abbot of St. Precious, and then the Bishop of Palmaris. Once he had been the instructor of the brothers justice and had been touted as the greatest warrior ever to walk through the gates of St.-Mere-Abelle, the epitome of the fighting tradition of the Abellican Order. In those days, Marcalo De'Unnero had relied heavily on the use of a single gemstone, the tiger's paw; for with it, he could transform a limb, or perhaps two, into those of a great cat, a weapon as great as any sword. During Markwart's rise to unspeakable power, the Father Abbot had shown De'Unnero an even stronger level of the stone's transformational magic, and with that increase of intensity, the young master had been able to transform himself totally into the great cat, an unprecedented accomplishment.

  But then something unexpected had happened. De'Unnero had lost the gemstone, or rather it seemed to him as if he had merged with the gemstone, so that now he could transform himself into a tiger without it-and often against his will.

  That was really why he had run away from Palmaris. He was afraid of himself, of the murderous creature he had become.

  It had been a wretched existence for the man who had once achieved such a level of power, despite the hospitality of the folk of Penthistle. Marcalo De'Unnero had feared that he would be forever doomed to travel through the borderlands of civilization, running from town to town whenever the killing urge ov
erpowered him. He pictured himself in the not too distant future, fleeing across a field, a host of hunters from half the kingdom in close pursuit.

  But now…

  The ultimate temptation had been right before him-the smell of fear and blood, the easy, tender kill-and he had battled that temptation, had overcome it. Was it possible that De'Unnero had gained control over this disease?

  If he could control it, then he could return to Palmaris, to his Church.

  De'Unnero pushed the absurd notion away. He had murdered Baron Bildeborough, after all, and his escorts. He had wounded Elbryan, which had sent the man, weakened, into battle with Markwart, the wound that, as much as the Father Abbot's efforts, had truly killed the man. If he went back to Palmaris, what trial might await him?

  "What trial indeed?" De'Unnero asked aloud, and when he considered it, his lips curled up into the first real smile he had known in more than half a year. There was no evidence implicating him in Bildeborough's murder, nothing more than the speculation of his enemies. And how could he be held accountable for anything that had happened at Chasewind Manor? Was he not merely performing his duty of protecting his Father Abbot? Were not Elbryan andJilseponie, at that time, considered criminals by both Church and Crown?

  "What's that, Father? " the girl's mother asked, not really catching his words.

  De'Unnero shook himself out of his thoughts. "Nothing," he replied. "I was only thinking that perhaps it was time for me to return to my abbey."

  "Ah, but we'd miss ye," the woman remarked.

  De'Unnero merely nodded, hardly hearing her, too lost in the intriguing possibilities his victory over the weretiger urge had presented to him this day.

  "The Saudi Jacintha will take me," Brother Dellman reported to Abbot Braumin, the younger monk entering the abbot's office at St. Precious to find Braumin talking excitedly with Brother Viscenti. "Captain Al'u'met plans to sail within the week, and he was excited to be of service, so he said."

  "And you discussed the price? " the new abbot asked.

  "Captain Al'u'met assured me that the price has been paid in full by the new brothers of St. Precious, that our actions against the evil that was Markwart and our defense of the Behrenese of the docks more than suffice."

  "A wonderful man," Brother Viscenti remarked.

  "You understand your duties? " Braumin asked.

  Dellman nodded. "I am to observe first, to try to get a feeling for the intentions of Abbot Agronguerre," he replied, "and then, on my instinct and judgment, I may inform the man that you and others plan to nominate him at the College of Abbots that will be convened in Calember."

  "You are a messenger first, bringing word of the College and of the events in Palmaris," said Braumin.

  "Likely, he has already heard," Viscenti put in, shaking his head. "Who in all the world could not have heard? "

  Abbot Braumin smiled and let the point go to his excitable friend, though in truth he doubted that anyone in Vanguard had heard of the events in Palmaris in any more detail other than the unexpected death of Father Abbot Markwart. The Abellican Church would have been the only real messenger to that distant place; and even if St.-Mere-Abelle had sent a courier, no one there truly fathomed the implications of the events, and certainly no one there would have been so bold as to take sides in the budding philosophical war. But that was just what Braumin had instructed the wise and trustworthy Brother Holan Dellman to do: to take the side of the victors, to show that the good had won out over the cancerous evil.

  "Treat Markwart's memory gently," Braumin urged Dellman yet again, "but foster no doubts concerning the fall of the Father Abbot-the fall from grace before the fall from life."

  Dellman nodded, then turned as Brother Talumus entered the room.

  "Go and accept the passage from Al'u'met," Braumin instructed Dellman. "Extend to him our profound thanks, and then prepare your thoughts and your belongings. Go with the blessings of Avelyn."

  That last line, spoken so casually, raised Talumus' eyebrow.

  As soon as Dellman had exited, Braumin motioned to Viscenti, and the man quickly closed the door.

  Talumus glanced around, seeming suspicious.

  "St. Precious is not nearly as strong as it will have to be, if we are to withstand the continuing assault by Duke Kalas," Braumin remarked to Talumus. Indeed, many times over the course of the winter, Kalas and Braumin had argued over policy, over minor issues, mostly, but ones that perceptive Braumin understood might well grow in importance now that winter had relinquished its grasp and the folk were out and about the city.

  "Jilseponie is leaving," the younger monk reasoned.

  "Very good, Talumus," Braumin congratulated, and he raised a finger into the air. "Keep vigilant, and pay attention to every clue."

  "She said she would leave when the roads were clear," Talumus explained. "Many times has she met with Belster O'Comely these last days, and I have heard that it is his intent, with prodding from Jilseponie, to return to the northland."

  "She will indeed take her leave of us, though truly it pains my heart to let her go," Braumin confirmed. "What an ally she has been to the Church, a force to counter any potential intrusions on our sovereignty by the aggressive Kalas. But she has her own path to follow, a road darkened by grief and anger, and I cannot turn her from that path, whatever our needs.

  "To that end," he continued, "we must bolster the strength of St. Precious." As he spoke, the abbot turned his gaze over Brother Viscenti.

  "A promotion," Brother Talumus reasoned.

  "From this day forth, Marlboro Viscenti will be known as a master of St. Precious," said Braumin, and the nervous little Viscenti puffed out his chest. "Master Francis, who departs this very day for St.-Mere-Abelle, will see that the promotion is approved at every level; and even if some wish to argue the point, which I cannot fathom, I am certainly within my rights as abbot of St. Precious to make the promotion unilaterally."

  Talumus nodded and offered a smile, somewhat strained but more genuine than not, to Viscenti. Then he looked to Braumin, his expression turning curious. "Why tell me now, and why behind a closed door?" he asked.

  Braumin chuckled and walked around his desk, sitting on its edge right before the other monk, removing the physical barrier between them as he hoped to remove any possibility of insincere posturing. "The risks you took and your actions in the last days of Markwart speak highly of you," he began. "Had you more experience, there is no doubt that Talumus, and not Braumin, would have become the abbot of St. Precious, a nomination that I would have strongly supported. In the absence of that possibility, it has occurred to me that Talumus, too, should soon find his way to the rank of master. Yet, in that, too, you've not enough years in the Order for such a promotion to be approved without strong opposition-and, in all honesty, it is not a battle I choose to fight now."

  "I have never asked-" Talumus began to protest, but Abbot Braumin stopped him with an upraised hand.

  "Indeed, I will support your nomination to the rank of master as soon as it is feasible," he explained. "As soon as you have enough time-and I do not mean the typical ten years as the minimum. But that is a matter for another day: a day, I fear, that will be long in coming if St. Precious is to withstand the intrusions of Baron Kalas. We need more power and more security, supporters of my-of our-cause, in line to take the helm in the event of unforeseen tragedy."

  His words obviously hit a strong chord within Brother Talumus, who had recently witnessed the murder of his beloved Abbot Dobrinion Calislas. The man stiffened and straightened, his eyes unblinking.

  "Thus, there must be others, like Master Viscenti, who will ascend above you within the Order at St. Precious," Braumin explained. "I will need voices to support me at the College of Abbots, as well as against Duke Kalas. I wanted to tell you this personally, and privately, out of respect for your service and loyalty."

  He stopped, tilting his head and waiting for a reply, and Brother Talumus spent a long while digesting the information.
"You honor me," he said at length, and he seemed genuinely content. "More so than I deserve, I fear. I was not enamored ofJilseponie and Elbryan. I feared …"

  "As we all feared, and yet you certainly took the right course of action," Braumin interjected, and Viscenti seconded the remark.

  "Very well," Talumus replied. "I understand now the implications of the battle within Chasewind Manor. My path is obvious to me, a shining road paved with all the glories of the true Abellican Church. My voice will not ring out with the commands of a master at this time, but it will be no less loud in support of Abbot Braumin Herde of St. Precious and of Master Viscenti."

  The three men exchanged sincere smiles of mutual appreciation, all of them relieved that their team was forging strong bonds now for the fights-against Kalas and against those within the Abellican Church who feared any change despite the momentous events-they believed they would soon find. Francis had thought that the road ahead would be an easy one. He started with his stride long and full of conviction. But as he considered the reality he now faced, Francis began to recognize that this journey might prove as troublesome and dangerous, to the Church at least, as the one that had brought him to Palmaris in the first place. For he was walking a delicate line, he came to understand, stepping between the future Church he envisioned and the past one he had served. He believed in Braumin's cause, in the cause of Master Jojonah, burned at the stake for his convictions, and in the cause of Avelyn Desbris, who had flown in the face of Markwart's Abellican Church and had, subsequently, destroyed the physical form of the awakened demon.

  Yes, Master Francis had come to accept the truth of many of the explanations that Braumin and the others were according the actions of Jojonah and of Avelyn, and he had come to recognize that Jilseponie and Elbryan were indeed heroes to both Church and Crown. But Markwart's last words haunted the man: Beware that in your quest for humanism you do not steal the mystery of spiritualism.

  There was a threat to all mankind in sharing the mysteries of the gemstone magic with the common folk-not of war or of uncontrolled power, but a threat of secularizing the spiritual, of stealing the mysteries of life and the glory of God. What good would the Church do the world, Francis wondered, if, in its quest to become more compassionate, it took from the populace the one true inspiration of faith, the promise of eternal life? Soul stones or not, everybody would one day die, and how much darker that moment would be, to the one whose life had come to its end and to those loved ones left behind, if there was no faith in life eternal. Men who entered the Abellican Order trained for years before entering St.-Mere-Abelle or any of the other abbeys, and then they trained for many more years before learning the secrets of the gemstones. The Abellican monks understood the reality of the gemstones, the orbiting rings and the stone showers, but they could place that reality within the cocoon of their greater faith as inspired by the years of study. But what of the common man, the man not privy to the days, weeks, months, years of meditation? Might that man come to see the soul stones, the very fabric of the Abellican religion, as a natural occurrence, no more mysterious than the fires he kindled for warmth or the catapults the King's army used to batter the castles of enemies?