DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (49 page)

Given that, the Father Abbot got right to the point. “I know how valuable a companion Brother Dellman has been to you,” he said, “and I do appreciate your work in Palmaris at this troubled and delicate time, but I have answered the call of my Church at great risk to St. Belfour. Brother Haney, who will soon become abbot of St. Belfour, is an excellent man indeed, and I could not have asked for a more suitable replacement.”

“But …” Abbot Braumin prompted, looking at Dellman.

“He is all alone,” Agronguerre answered. “Almost all the other brothers at St. Belfour are young and inexperienced, and though Prince Midalis is certainly a friend of the Church, the new alliance with the barbarians of Alpinador will place great demands on the abbot of St. Belfour. I think it prudent to give our young abbot a strong ally and a voice of experience and wisdom.”

“Surely there are others m-more qualified than I,” Brother Dellman stammered, obviously overwhelmed. His tone showed that he was not upset about the request, just stunned. “Masters from St.-Mere-Abelle.”

“Abbot Braumin,” Father Abbot Agronguerre said with a great sigh, “I know not in which of the masters here I can place my trust. Nor do I know any of them well enough to guess if they could tolerate the hardships of Vanguard. Master Francis comes to mind, of course, for he seems the most worldly of the group, but I believe from all that I have heard—from your own Brother Dellman—that I should keep Master Francis close at hand for a time.”

“An assessment with which I heartily agree,” said Braumin.

“Then?” Father Abbot Agronguerre asked. “Will you lend your friend Brother Dellman to Brother Haney and St. Belfour?”

Braumin turned to Dellman. “What say you, brother? This is your life we are discussing, after all, and I would say that you have earned your choice of abbeys. Will you return with me to St. Precious or sail north for Vanguard?”

Dellman seemed completely at a loss. He started to answer several times, but stopped and merely shook his head. “Which would be of greater service to my Church?” he asked.

“St. Belfour,” Abbot Braumin said before the new Father Abbot could answer. He looked directly at Dellman as he spoke, staring into the younger man’s eyes, showing his sincerity.

Dellman turned to the new Father Abbot and nodded. “I go where my Church most needs me, Father Abbot,” he said. “And, truly, I would be glad in my heart to spend more time in Vanguard, to learn more of the folk and of the good brothers of St. Belfour.”

“I will sorely miss him in Palmaris,” Abbot Braumin remarked. “Brother Dellman was among the wisest of advisers and the most steadfast of supporters during
the ordeal of Father Abbot Markwart’s last days.”

“You make my heart glad, then,” the Father Abbot said, “and this will not merely be to the benefit of St. Belfour and our friend Brother Haney. Up there in wild Vanguard, you will attain the rank of master very quickly, perhaps within a few months.”

“I am not nearly prepared,” Brother Dellman replied.

“You are more prepared than most who attain the rank,” Abbot Braumin was quick to put in, “and more prepared than I, certainly, in the role God has now chosen me to play.”

“Vanguard is not thick with brethren,” the Father Abbot said. “And St. Belfour at this time, as in so many times, is without masters. I will send word to Brother Haney to rectify that situation as soon as he is established as abbot.”

Abbot Braumin nodded his agreement, his smile wide; and Brother Dellman, too, was beaming.

“Now for a less pleasing matter,” Father Abbot Agronguerre announced. He rose from his chair, motioning for Abbot Braumin alone to follow him into an adjoining room, where several masters and abbots were waiting, including Francis, Bou-raiy, Glendenhook, and Machuso.

“I had asked Abbot Je’howith to join us, as well,” Agronguerre remarked to them all, taking his seat at the head of the table and motioning for Braumin to sit right beside him—again a subtle but distinct hint about his attitude concerning the last days of Markwart’s reign. “But he has already departed, well on his way back to Ursal and St. Honce.”

Abbot Braumin nodded, recognizing that he understood that departure better than did the new Father Abbot. Braumin knew, and Je’howith knew, that they now had gathered to discuss the disposition of Marcalo De’Unnero. Abbot Je’howith, so tied to Markwart, certainly wanted no part of this potential battle.

And it did become a battle, immediately.

“He has declared himself abbot of St. Gwendolyn,” Master Fio Bou-raiy spouted angrily, “an unprecedented act of arrogance.”

“Or of necessity,” Master Machuso, ever the peacemaker, put in.

“St. Gwendolyn is traditionally led by an abbess, not an abbot,” one of the lesser abbots argued.

“That may be true enough,” Father Abbot Agronguerre conceded, “but by Master De’Unnero’s words, there are no suitable women to take the position at this time. All but one of the sovereign sisters are dead, and the remaining one has become ill.”

“Or had her heart removed by a tiger’s paw,” Master Bou-raiy remarked under his breath but loud enough for several seated near him, including Agronguerre and Braumin Herde, to hear.

“Interim abbot, then?” Machuso innocently asked.

“No!” Bou-raiy flatly declared, pounding his fist on the table. He turned to Agronguerre. “Deny him this, I beg of you. His record is one of destruction, and
if the plague is thick in the southland, St. Gwendolyn will be key to holding the common folk loyal to the Church.”

Surprised by the forcefulness of the master’s argument, Agronguerre looked to Abbot Braumin, who, in turn, motioned to Master Francis. “You served beside him,” Braumin said. “You know him better than any other in this room.”

Francis narrowed his eyes as he stared hard at Braumin, obviously not pleased to be so put on the spot. “We were never friends,” Francis said evenly.

“But you followed him to Palmaris and served in positions vacated by Master De’Unnero,” Father Abbot Agronguerre reasoned.

“True enough,” Francis conceded. “Yet I want it made clear here before I speak my opinion that you all understand that I harbor little friendship for Master Marcalo De’Unnero and that I would have preferred to remain silent on this matter.

“But I have been asked, and so I will answer,” Francis went on quietly. “Master De’Unnero’s record in Palmaris was less than exemplary. The people there would not have him back, I am sure.”

“They would have him on a gallows,” Abbot Braumin remarked. “Indeed, I requested that he leave the city because his mere presence within St. Precious was bringing us disdain that bolstered Duke Kalas.”

“But Master De’Unnero is not known in the region of St. Gwendolyn,” Master Machuso pressed. “Can we presume that his actions in Palmaris were at the explicit instructions of Father Abbot Markwart and, thus, are mistakes that will not be repeated?”

“A dangerous assumption,” Master Glendenhook replied.

“Am I to replace him?” Agronguerre asked distastefully. It was obvious to all in attendance that the gentle man did not want his first official act in office to be one of division. And yet, given the mood of all around him, of masters as diverse as Bou-raiy and Francis—obviously not in any alliance—what choice did Father Abbot Agronguerre have?

“Recall him,” Master Bou-raiy said determinedly. “We will not find it a difficult task to find a more suitable abbot or abbess for St. Gwendolyn, I assure you.”

That call was seconded by many about the table, including Abbot Braumin, who made a note to speak with the new Father Abbot at length about his true feelings concerning Marcalo De’Unnero—the man, in Braumin’s honest opinion, who posed the greatest threat of all to the Abellican Church.

Father Abbot Agronguerre took in all the nods and calls with a resigned nod of his head. Yes, the year would end on a grave note, Agronguerre realized, and given the confirmation of the rosy plague, he doubted that the next year would be any better.

Where is the balance, I wonder, between community and self? When does the assertion of one’s personal needs become mere selfishness?

These are questions that followed me to Dundalis, to haunt me every day. So many hopes and dreams were placed upon me, so many people believing that I somehow magically possessed the power to change their world for the better. If I had fought that battle, I believe that not only would I have accomplished little, and perhaps nothing lasting, but also I would have completed the destruction of myself that the wretch Markwart began in the dungeons of St.-Mere-Abelle when he murdered my parents; that he continued on the field outside Palmaris, when he stole from me my child; and then, in Chasewind Manor, when he wounded me deeply and when he took from me my husband, my love. This was my fear, and it chased me out of Palmaris, chased me home to a quieter place
.

But what if I was wrong? What if my efforts might have had some impact upon the lives of so many deserving innocents? What obligation, what responsibility, is then incumbent upon me?

Ever since I first witnessed Elbryan at his morning routine of
bi’nelle dasada,
I longed to learn it and to understand all the lessons that he had been taught by the Touel’alfar. I wanted to be a ranger, as was he. But now, in retrospect, I wonder if I am possessed of that same generous spirit. I learned the sword dance, and attained a level of mastery in it strong enough to complement Elbryan’s own, but those other qualities of the ranger, I fear, cannot be taught. They must be a part of the heart and soul, and there, perhaps, is my failing. Elbryan—no, not Elbryan, but Nightbird—so willingly threw himself into my battle with Markwart, though he was already grievously wounded and knew that doing so would surely cost him his very life. Yet he did it, without question, without fear, and without remorse because he was a ranger, because he knew that ridding the world of the demon that possessed the Father Abbot of the Abellican Church was paramount, a greater responsibility than that of protecting his own flesh and blood
.

I, too, went at Markwart with every ounce of my strength and willpower, but my motive at that time was not generosity of spirit but simple rage and the belief that the demon had already taken everything from me. Would I have been so willing to begin that battle if I understood that it would cost me the only thing I had remaining? If I knew that Elbryan, my dearest husband, would be lost to me forever?

I doubt that I would
.

And now, with all those questions burning my every thought, I came north to the quiet Timberlands to find peace within myself. But this, I fear, is yet another of life’s twisted and cruel paradoxes. I am moving toward inner peace now—I feel it keenly—but what awaits me when at last I attain that level of calm? When I find the end of turmoil, will I find, as well, the end of meaning? Will inner peace be accompanied by nothing more than emptiness?

And yet, what is the other option? The person who strives for peace of community instead of inner peace must find just the opposite, I fear, an unattainable goal. For there will always be trouble of one sort or another. A tyrant, a war, a despotic landowner, a thief in the alley, a misguided father abbot. There is no paradise in this existence for creatures as complex as human beings. There is no perfect human world, bereft of strife and battle of one sort or another
.

I know that now, or at least I fear it profoundly. And with that knowledge came the sense of futility, of running up a mud-slick steep slope, only to slide back over and over again
.

Will the new Father Abbot be any better than the previous one? Likely, since those electing him will be cautious to seek certain generous qualities. But what about the next after that, and after that? It will, it must, come back to Markwart, I fear; and, given that, how can I see anything more than the futility of sacrifice?

And, given that, how can I agree with Elbryan’s gift of his own life?

And so here I am, in Dundalis, the place quiet and buried in deep snow as the world drifts into God’s Year 828. How I long for seasons far past, for those early years when Elbryan and I ran about Dundalis, oblivious of goblins and demons and men like Father Abbot Dalebert Markwart!

Perhaps the greatest thing of all that has been stolen from me over these years was my innocence. I see the world too clearly, with all of its soiled corners
.

With all of its cairns over buried heroes
.

—J
ILSEPONIE
W
YNDON

Chapter 22