“Our walls are thick, our brothers well-trained in the fighting arts, and our catapult crews second to none in all Corona,” Jojonah went on, gaining momentum with every word. “And St.-Mere-Abelle is better suited to withstand a siege than any structure in Honce-the-Bear,” he added, preempting Markwart’s next glum statement.
“Better suited with not so many mouths to feed,” Markwart snapped at him, and Jojonah winced as if slapped. “I wish that the powries had been quicker!”
Master Jojonah sighed and moved a few steps to the side then, unable to tolerate his superior’s grating pessimism and that last remark; obviously aimed at the multitude of pitiful refugees who had recently come swarming into St.-Mere-Abelle, it had, in Jojonah’s estimation, been on the very edge of blasphemy. They were the Church, after all, supposedly the salvation of the common man, and yet here was their Father Abbot, their spiritual leader, complaining about giving shelter to people who had lost almost everything. The Father Abbot’s first response to the influx of refugees had been to order everything valuable, books, gold leaf, even inkwells, locked away.
“Avelyn started all of this,” Markwart rambled. “The thief weakened us, in heart and soul, and gave hope to our enemies!”
Jojonah tuned out the Father Abbot’s ranting. He had heard it all beforeindeed, it had by now been disseminated to all the abbeys of Corona that Avelyn Desbris was responsible for awakening the demon dactyl, and thus setting into motion all the subsequent tragedies that had befallen the land.
Master Jojonah, who had been Avelyn’s mentor and chief supporter through the man’s years at St.-Mere-Abelle, couldn’t, in his heart, believe a word of it. Jojonah had studied at the abbey for four decades, and had never in all that time met a man as singularly holy as Avelyn Desbris. While he had not yet come to terms with Avelyn’s last actions at the abbeythe theft of the stones and the murder, if it was a murder, of Master SihertonJojonah suspected there was more to the story than the Father Abbot’s version would indicate. More than anything, Master Jojonah wanted to speak at length with his former student, to discover the man’s motivations, to find out why he had run and why he had taken the gemstones.
More lights appeared in the dark harbor, a reminder to Jojonah to stay focused on the grim situation at hand. Avelyn was an issue for another day; the morning light would bring the full fury of war to St.-Mere-Abelle.
The two monks retired then, seeking to gather all of their strength.
“Sleep well in God’s bosom,” Master Jojonah said to Markwart, the proper and traditional nighttime parting.
Markwart waved a hand absently over his shoulder and walked away, grumbling something about the wretch Avelyn under his breath.
Master Jojonah recognized a growing problem here, an obsession that could only bring ill to St.-Mere-Abelle and all the Order. But there was little he could do about it, he reminded himself, and he went to his private room. He added many lines about Avelyn Desbris, words of hope for the man’s soul, and of forgiveness, to his evening prayers, then rolled onto his bed, knowing he would not sleep well.
Father Abbot Markwart, too, was speaking words about Avelyn when he entered his lavish quarters, four rooms sectioned off near the middle of the massive abbey’s ground-level floor. The old man, consumed with anger, muttered curse after curse, spat Avelyn’s name in succession with the names of the greatest traitors and heretics in the history of the Church, and vowed again to see the man tortured to death before he, himself, went to view the face of God.
His reign at St.-Mere-Abelle had been unblemished, and having been fortunate enough to preside over the Order in the generation of the stone showers, the tremendous haul of stonesthe greatest ever taken from Pimaninicuitseemed to solidify his place among the most revered Father Abbots of history. But then the wretch Avelyn changed that, brought a black mark to his reputation: as the first father abbot to ever suffer the absolute indignity of losing some of the sacred stones.
It was with these dark thoughts, and none for the invasion fleet that had entered All Saints Bay, that Father Abbot Markwart at last drifted off to sleep.
His dreams were as razor-edged as his anger, showing stark, clear images of a faraway land that he did not know. He saw Avelyn, thick and fat and haggard, snarling orders to goblins and powries. He saw the man fell a giant with a streak of searing lightning, not out of any hatred for the evil race, but because this one had not obeyed him without question.
In the background an angelic figure appeared, a winged man, large and terrible. The personification of the wrath of God.
Then Markwart understood.
A demon dactyl had been the source of the war? No, this disaster had been caused by something greater even than that dark power. The true guiding force of evil was Avelyn, the heretic!
The Father Abbot sat bolt upright in bed, sweating and trembling. It was only a dream, he reminded himself.
But had there not been some shred of truth buried within those visions? It came as a great epiphany to the tired old man, an awakening call as clear as the loudest bell ever chimed. For years he had been proclaiming Avelyn as the root source of all the problems, but much of that had been merely a self-defense technique aimed at deflecting his own errors. He had always known that hidden truth… until now.
Now Markwart realized that it had indeed been Avelyn, beyond any doubt. He knew that the man had unraveled all that was holy, perverted the stones to his own wicked use, worked against the Church and all of Mankind.
Markwart knew, without doubt, and in that profound knowledge he was at last able to dismiss all of his own guilt.
The old man pulled himself from his bed and ambled over to his desk, lighting a lamp. He fell into his chair, exhausted, overcome, and absently took a key from a secret compartment in one drawer and used it to open the lock on a secret compartment in yet another, revealing his private cache of stones: ruby, graphite, malachite, serpentine, a tiger’s paw, a lodestone, and his most precious of all, the strongest hematite, the soul stone, at St.-Mere-Abelle. With this heavy gray stone Markwart could send his spirit across the miles, could even contact associates though they were separated by half a continent. He had used this stone to make contact with Brother Justiceno easy task since Quintall was not proficient in use of the stones, and since his single-minded training had given him a level of mental discipline that was hard to penetrate.
Markwart had used this stone to contact a friend in Amvoy, across the Masur Delaval from Palmaris, and that friend had discovered the truth of Brother Justice’s failed quest.
How precious these sacred stones wereto the monks of St.-Mere-Abelle, there was no greater treasureand it was more than Markwart could stand to know that he had let some get away.
He looked at the handful of stones now as if they were his children, then sat up straighter, blinking quizzically. For he saw them now more clearly than ever before, as if a great truth had been revealed to him. He saw the powers buried within each stone, and knew he could reach them with a mere thought, hardly an effort at all. And some of them seemed almost to blend together, as the old man recognized new and more powerful combinations for various stones.
The Father Abbot fell back and even cried out, tears of joy dripping from his eyes. He was free of Avelyn’s dark grip, he suddenly believed, for now he understood, beyond doubt. And with his revelations had come a greater knowledge, a deeper understanding. It was always a sharp thorn in Markwart’s side that Avelyn, this supposed heretic, had been the most powerful stone user in the history of the Church. If the stones came from God, it followed that their power was a blessing, yet how could that be so if Avelyn Desbris, the thief, was so proficient with them?
The demon dactyl had given Avelyn the power! The demon dactyl had perverted the stones in Avelyn’s hands, allowing him the insight to use them.
Markwart clutched his stones tightly and moved back to his bed, thinking that God had answered the dactyl by showing him equalno, greaterinsights. This time he would find no sleep, too consumed with anticipation for the morning’s fight.
Dalebert Markwart, the Father Abbot, the highest-ranking member of the Abellican Church, had it all exactly backward, a thought that pleased the spirit of the demon dactyl immensely. How easily Bestesbulzibar had linked with this craven old man, how easily it had perverted Markwart’s assumed truths!
Nearly all of St.-Mere-Abelle’s more than seven hundred monks turned out on the seawall before the dawn, preparing for the approach of the powrie fleet. With two notable exceptions, Master Jojonah realized, for Brothers Youseff and Dandelion were nowhere to be found. Markwart had put them safely away for what he considered their more important task.
Most of the monks manned the abbey’s long parapets, but others moved to their strategic positions in rooms below the level of the wall top. Two dozen catapults were readied as the vast powrie fleet made its way in toward the rocky cliff. Even more deadly, the older and more powerful monks, the masters and immaculates, monks who had studied for ten years and more, prepared their respective stones, and among them was the Father Abbot, with his new insights and heightened power.
Markwart kept most of the monks in position on the seaward side of the structure, though he had to place more than a score of brothers on the opposite wall, watching the many approaches for the expected land attack. Then all of St.-Mere-Abelle hushed and waited as score after score of powrie vessels rounded the rocky spur and moved in line with the great abbey, most resembling a nearly submerged barrel, but others with flat, open decks set with catapults.
A catapult let fly from one of the rooms just below the Father Abbot’s position, its pitch ball sailing high and far, but well short of the nearest vessel.
“Hold!” Markwart yelled down angrily. “Would you show them our range, then?”
Master Jojonah put a hand on the Father Abbot’s shoulder. “They are nervous,” he offered as an excuse for the premature firing.
“They are foolish!” the Father Abbot snapped back at him, pulling from his gentle grasp. “Find the one who fired that catapult and replace him on the lineand bring him up to me.”
Jojonah started to protest, but quickly realized that to be a fool’s course. If he angered the Father Abbot any moreand he saw no way he could even speak with the man without doing thatthen Markwart’s punishment of the young monk would only be more severe. With one of his customary sighs, a helpless expression that he thought he seemed to be making far too often these days, the portly master moved off to find the errant artillerist, taking with him a second-year student to replace the man.
More and more powrie ships came into view, but those closest did not move into catapult range, or stone magic range.
“They await the ground assault,” remarked Brother Francis Dellacourt, a ninth-year monk known for his sharp tongue and severe discipline of the younger students, attributes that had made him a favorite with Markwart.
“What news from the western walls?” Markwart asked.
Francis immediately motioned for two younger monks to run off for information. “They will hit us harder from the ground at first,” Francis then offered to Markwart.
“The reasoning that led you to such a conclusion?”
“The sea cliff is a hundred feet, at least, and that at its shortest juncture,” Francis reasoned. “Those powries in the boats will have little chance of gaining our walls unless we are sorely taxed in the west. They will hit us hard by ground, and then, with our numbers thinned on this wall, their fleet will strike.”
“What do you know of powrie tactics?” Markwart said loudly, drawing all of those nearby, including the returning Master Jojonah and the errant artillerist, into the conversation. Markwart knew what Francis would say, for he, like all of the older monks, had studied the records of previous powrie assaults, but he thought that a dissertation by the efficient Francis would be a prudent reminder.
“We have few examples of a powrie dual strike,” Francis admitted. “They usually attack primarily from the sea, with incredible speed and ferocity. But I suspect that St.-Mere-Abelle is too formidable for that, and they know it. They will thin our line by attacking from the west, by ground, and then their catapults will put their strong lines up over our wall.”
“How high will any climb with us standing defense at the top of those ropes?” one monk asked impertinently. “We’ll cut them down, or shoot arrows or magics at the climbing powries.”
Master Jojonah started to respond, but Markwart, preferring to hear from Francis on this matter, stopped him with an upraised hand, then motioned for the ninth-year monk to proceed.
“Do not underestimate them!” Francis fumed, and Jojonah noted that Markwart cracked his first smile in many weeks. “Only months ago the powries struck at Pireth Tulme, a fortress on a cliff no less high than our own. In this manner they gained the courtyard before the majority of the garrison had even arrived at the walls to offer defense. And as for those who were in place along Pireth Tulme’s seemingly defensible walls…”
Francis let the thought hang. It was common knowledge that no survivors had been found among Pireth Tulme’s elite Coastpoint Guards, and also that those remains found had been horribly mutilated.
“Do not underestimate them!” Francis yelled again, turning as he spoke to ensure that every monk in the area was paying attention.
Master Jojonah watched Francis closely. He didn’t like the man, not at all. Brother Francis’ ambition was obviously large, as was his ability to take every word muttered by Father Abbot Markwart as though it had come straight from God. Jojonah did not believe that piety was the guiding force behind Brother Francis’ devotion to Markwart, though, but rather, pragmatic ambition. Watching the man reveling in the attention now only reinforced that belief.