by Guy Antibes
The innkeeper squinted his eyes as he looked at Jack. “How did I miss you coming up the stairs?”
“Why didn’t you stop the man arriving a few minutes ago?” Jack said. “Someone let him in the dormitory.”
“No one else would stop you, either, not dressed like that.”
“Jack and I have our little secrets,” Penny said. “And we can keep them secret, can’t we?”
Jack nodded. “Can Sammo continue to recuperate here?”
The innkeeper looked at the bodies and then at the healer.
“I’ll take him to my cottage,” the healer said. “He probably needs another treatment after all this.”
“Do you charge a fee?” Jack asked.
The healer nodded. “I would like my fee in advance. I’ll get some villagers to move Sammo. He shouldn’t be walking around unassisted.”
“I’ve still got my purse,” Sammo said. “I’ll pay.”
Penny stepped away from the bed after the innkeeper and the healer left to get someone to move the bodies.
“You really are a wizard, appearing like that. The door never opened. That is teleportation, isn’t it?” Sammo said.
Jack nodded. “And invisibility, but you figured that out, too, didn’t you?”
“I may look dumb, but that’s because I am,” Sammo said with a grin. “I appreciate your helping me keep my head on.”
“Just get better,” Jack said. He walked over and patted Sammo on his uninjured shoulder. “Be a good patient, that’s all I ask. Do you think there are other bandits like him in the village?”
Sammo shook his head. “The one that wasn’t watching couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He kept saying if you harmed a hair on the head of any of his brothers, I would die. He blurted out that they called themselves ‘Nine Angry Men,’ and I hope you took care of six before you rode back here.”
“We did,” Jack said, breathing a sigh of relief. “One more is still alive. Even if he was caught, he could always escape. I suggest you keep a weapon by your side.”
“I already do, but in my condition, I wouldn’t last long fighting two healthy men.”
“Then get in the condition to do that,” Jack said. “My father sent me to extended school when all I thought about was rebelling. The thing that finally kept me going was realizing I had to defend myself against smart people in life, so I had to pick up a little smartness to do that. I imagine it is the same thing. Get strong, so you can survive when we return.”
“Protect my brother and sister,” Sammo said, looking at Penny and then at Jack.
“We will,” Penny said.
Jack smiled. “We can only try.”
Chapter Nineteen
~
T the others hadn’t moved very far up the road to the monastery when Jack and Penny caught up to them on the other side of a small bridge spanning a creek.
“We might as well camp here,” Helen walked up to them and said. “Carlo said we are a half day away from the monastery. I assume Sammo is intact?”
“He is, but it was close,” Jack said. “Penny can tell you all about it.”
And Penny did. Barria and Carlo asked the most questions. Ferrio kept shaking his head when Penny talked about all the magic they used.
“Why didn’t you finish the last man in the dormitory?” Barria asked.
Penny looked at Jack. He pursed his lips for a bit while he collected his thoughts. “I can’t just end someone’s life. The others attacked, but one didn’t.”
“You are a coward?” Ferrio asked, looking at Jack.
“No, he is not!” Penny said.
Her comment surprised Jack. When had she ever been on his side before?
“He knew what to do and did it.” She looked at Helen. “He didn’t need to kill the bandit, so he didn’t.”
“He just let him go?” Ferrio said.
“I let him walk out of the room, but he was snagged by the villagers. What they do with him is their choice,” Jack said. “If you want to think of me as a coward, go ahead. I’ve been called all kinds of things, but despite the names, I am who I am.”
Helen gave Jack half a smile as he dug into his saddlebag for something to eat. He was hungry and angry with Ferrio. At that point, he wished they had left him behind in Maltina. He ate looking away from the priest and spotted the edge of a building farther up the slope.
“That is the monastery?” Jack asked, pointing to the building.
Barria shielded her eyes from the light and followed Jack’s gaze. “It is. The approach isn’t as easy as it might look to you. Ullori is as much a fortress as it is a monastery.”
“Prison,” Helen said. “Jack has some recent experience with prisons.”
“Nothing good,” Jack said. “My injury likes to remind me I was there, from time to time. I’m not going to think of it that way. I still like monastery better. What is the approach like?”
“It is a winding track starting at the bottom of the hill followed by a long narrow bridge. It is very defensible,” Carlo said. “You can get wagons up and down, but it isn’t a pleasant approach. You will see.”
Jack nodded. “We will start tomorrow.”
“And end tomorrow. We will arrive at the monastery gate before midday. That is preferable to arriving at night. It gives the monks more time to notice you on the road,” Barria said. “I’ve been up twice. There are plenty of teenagers that want to prove their mettle by reaching the monastery.”
“I thought it was in a secret location,” Ferrio said.
Barria shrugged. “It is remote, but not secret. I’ve never been inside, just to the far end of the bridge. Sammo is the one who has gotten inside more than anyone, but then Carlo and I have actual jobs in Maltina. Sammo is a bit more flexible with his time than we are.”
“Lazy, you mean,” Carlo said. “I shouldn’t speak ill of the injured, but he’s a lazy lout. He sure is fun to be around, though. Fun enough to have talked us into coming with you. Other than his getting cut, this trip hasn’t disappointed. Has it, Barria?”
“We will see how much fun it was when we get back home,” the female Torito sibling said, but then she smiled. “Already we have some good stories, don’t we Carlo?”
“We do.” He looked toward the monastery. “Our story will be better if we get inside without getting beaten half to death.”’
Ferrio moaned, but Jack might have been the only one to hear it.
“You don’t have to come with us. It is a risk for us to try to get inside, but it is a worse risk for you,” Jack said despite his negative feelings for the man. “We will be back to pick you up and tell you what we saw. That is nearly as good as getting inside.”
After a pause, Ferrio shook his head. “I appreciate your gesture, even if it was well meant,” he paused as if Jack had a motive for keeping him out of the monastery, “but I will continue on if you will keep my Grishel allegiance a secret.”
“A secret?” Carlo said. He tossed a few more broken twigs on the unlit fire and brushed the bark bits from his hand. “What secret? You’re a priest. Why would they beat you?”
Ferrio sighed. “I’m not the kind of priest you think I am.”
“A hawk priest!” Barria said. “I thought you had left the eagle church. You want us to keep that kind of secret from the prioress?”
“I do,” Ferrio said.
Jack could see the pleading in his eyes. He suspected Ferrio was set on the promotion he had talked about. The man hadn’t helped them one bit on their journey. He wondered, not for the first time, who was helping whom.
Carlo growled. “I’m not going to sponsor a heretic to the prioress.”
Barria laughed. “You sponsor? I’d be surprised if they don’t keep you from going inside.”
“And you think they will let you in?” Carlo said. “I seem to recall your last trip wasn’t much more successful than mine with the merchant. You didn’t even make it across the bridge.”
Barria blushed. “It wasn’t my f
ault,” she said.
“It never is, sister.”
Helen looked at the two siblings and then nodded to Jack. “Our journey can’t be cut short due to those who have joined us along the way. I am certain that Jack, Penny, and I will have a better chance of success if you three stayed on the other side of the bridge. What do you think, Penny?”
Penny blinked a few times. “Me? I’m not one to decide.”
“But you have to have an opinion,” Helen said. “You are an equal partner, after all.”
Penny didn’t take offense at Helen’s remark, but Jack could catch a whiff of sarcasm in the mercenary’s question.
“I guess I do,” she said. “There are people that need us to succeed. We shouldn’t do anything that will make our task harder.”
Jack smiled. She said exactly how Jack felt. “We appreciate you three accompanying us up here, but Penny is right. Let us go across the bridge without any of you. We are on this errand for others, where if you wish to enter the monastery, you can go ahead, once we have emerged, hopefully with the feather.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Carlo said. “We can keep Ferrio occupied with our stories.”
Jack didn’t like Ferrio’s disgruntled expression. The priest kept silent.
“Do you agree?” Jack asked Ferrio. He wouldn’t settle for silence as an answer.
“I will do as Penny says.”
“You might need backup anyway,” Carlo said. “Barria and I can rescue you if you don’t return.”
“We would appreciate it,” Jack said. “In the meantime, why don’t we concentrate on dinner?”
~
Jack woke in the middle of the night. He didn’t hear anyone about, but something was wrong. He tossed off his blankets and shivered in the cool night air before counting noses. A horse snorted in the darkness.
He counted noses, and as he expected, Ferrio was missing. He looked back at the horses and approached the rope line that kept them in their place. He squinted in the blackness of the night and lit a tiny light to find that the rope had been cut, but the horses hadn’t drifted off.
Jack re-secured the line on another tree, disturbing the horses and the rest of the camp.
Helen walked up. “Ferrio is gone,” she said.
“I know. Our horses might have been by morning, but I woke up feeling something was wrong.”
“Good intuition,” she said. “We might as well wake up. I’d rather we arrive at the monastery not long after Ferrio.”
They both roused the other sleepers. Carlo complained, but he was the first ready to go. Before they left, Jack checked his saddlebag to find his pass had gone missing. Ferrio was a thief as well as a sneak. He took a deep breath and hoped that Grishel would send another sign to the prioress when Ferrio showed up, but he suspected it was a false hope.
In a few minutes, they headed up toward the monastery. When they reached the bottom of the slope, they saw that Ferrio used light to illuminate the twisting road.
“We will do the same,” Jack said. He created a larger light than Ferrio and lifted it up above them to show anyone looking that they had more power than the priest. Jack didn’t know if that would be an advantage or a disadvantage, but at least the light would make their journey safer.
They seemed to make better time than Ferrio, but once the priest got to the bridge, he left them behind.
“What can we do without the pass?” Penny asked.
“I’m not sure,” Jack said. He turned back to the Torito siblings. “I’d still like you to stay on this side of the bridge. You can even go back to sleep if you want.”
“You don’t mind?” Barria asked.
Jack shook his head. “We won’t look so much like a band of brigands. If the prioress permits you to join us, we can always fetch you.”
Carlo looked at Barria and nodded. “I think you’ve got it right. I think that the priest is going to muck everything up.”
They finally reached the bridge. Helen led Penny, and Jack trailed the two women after one final caution to Carlo and Barria not to interfere until something obvious happened. Jack didn’t know if the pair would follow what a teenager asked them, but he did save their brother, and he hoped that was enough to do the trick.
Jack caught up to the two women just as they reached the other side. Ferrio’s flame lit the gate, showing that the monks hadn’t yet let him in.
“Stop!” Jack yelled as he charged past Helen and Penny. “He is an imposter,” he said as he hurriedly dismounted at Ferrio’s side. “He stole my pass.”
A monk, dressed in a brown and white robe stared at Jack. “And you are?”
“Jack Winder from Raker Falls. I’ve come to speak with the prioress.”
“About?” the monk asked.
“It is a matter between my group and the prioress,” Jack said.
“You haven’t come to steal Grishel’s Feather?”
“What did Ferrio tell you?” Helen said as she joined Jack.
“Is that his name?” The monk looked at Ferrio first, then Jack.
“Ferrio Lorina. He currently lives in Virora,” Penny said. “He stole Jack’s pass.”
The monk stared at Ferrio. “Is that true? You stole the boy’s document?”
“They are lying,” the hawk priest said.
“You accuse me of lying, then I suppose my pledge to keep your secret is worth nothing.”
“No. Don’t say a word,” Ferrio said.
Jack could hear the panic in the priest’s voice. It didn’t matter now. Jack didn’t care what happened to Ferrio. “He is a priest of the hawk sect and was supposed to help us arrive here. All he did was point out the main church of the eagle sect in Fassira. Anyone would have found it.”
“That is true,” the monk said.
“Why was I awakened in the middle of the night?” a woman said from behind the door. Jack looked to the east to see that dawn hadn’t begun to lighten the sky.
“This boy is an impostor!” Ferrio said. “Don’t believe a word he says.”
Jack shook his head. The priest was panicking, and it wasn’t a pretty sight, but Ferrio deserved to be caught.
“Open the door wider,” the woman said. “You may all enter the courtyard, but no farther. If you don’t follow my orders, you will all be beaten and cast out of my monastery.
The door opened to reveal a tall skinny woman. Her long gray hair fell around her face. She put her hands on her hips, uttered some words Jack couldn’t hear and snapped her fingers. Six small pillars of flame appeared, illuminating both sides, Jack’s group, including Ferrio on one side and monks and nuns on the other.
Ferrio told Jack’s story first since he was impersonating the boy. Jack followed with more details about what happened in the Fassiran eagle church. Penny kept correcting Jack, but in this case, that was all right.
The details seemed to win the prioress over, and she asked all the right questions. Jack knew the correct answers, including the location of the Fassiran feather, a question that Ferrio couldn’t answer.
Ferrio began shuffling backward until he turned and ran through the open gate. He shook off a few monks and took off clattering across the bridge. Jack hoped that Carlo and Barria were ready to capture him.
“It would appear that you are the Jack Winder mentioned in this note?” The prioress said.
“I am,” Jack said.
“Seize them,” the prioress said before turning and walking off into the darkness.
Jack couldn’t bring himself to strike the monks. “We can talk later in the morning?” He called out.
“Don’t worry about that,” the woman’s voice responded in the darkness.
“No fighting,” Jack said to Helen. “At least not yet.”
They were bound with rope and led away. They were directed down stone steps. Jack didn’t know how many flights down until he was directed to a cell. He sat down on a lumpy, stinky bed and stood at the barred window of the door looking at the light fade away, alo
ng with Helen and Penny’s futile conversation with a jailor-monk.
Jack sat on the bed, a flat space carved into the surrounding rock, as he tried to figure out what to do next. He could teleport out of the cell at any time, but he didn’t know where Penny and Helen were. Jack still held out hope he could talk the prioress into lending them the feather.
He lit a flame to brighten up his cell, but he had been up too long to stay awake. Jack figured no one was going to be in a good mood anyway, so he pounded the straw mattress into submission and went to sleep.
Chapter Twenty
~
M orning light sneaked into Jack’s cell. He climbed on the bed to look out the tiny hole in the wall that let in a smidgen of light. The cells had been placed on the lower levels of the monastery facing out from the steep side of the slope. When Jack arrived, it was dark outside with no moon.
“Are you awake?” a monk said from outside the door, through the barred grill.
“I am. What time is breakfast served?” Jack said with a smile.
“The prioress will see you and your friends now.” The monk unlocked the door and let him out. Standing a few paces away were a disheveled Penny and Helen, who looked ready to eat nails.
The monk led them while Jack dropped back to Helen. “You didn’t lose your temper, did you?”
“Not here. Not with Tanner’s life at stake.”
“Not to speak of Fasher, Corina, and the villagers,” Penny said.
“That goes without saying,” Helen said.
“I noticed that you didn’t,” Penny said.
Jack winced. Penny was back to her normal prickly self. If she went too far, Helen would remind her who was who.
They emerged onto a portico and walked around a courtyard, now filled with monks and nuns exercising. Most of the monks and nuns wore light white robes underneath a brown robe, similar to what the priests wore in Fassira, but a third or so had removed their brown robes while they exercised.
“This way,” the monk said.
Jack figured the man was urging them to walk faster, since he stepped up his pace. The gate and wall faced the bridge, but the rest of the monastery consisted of three-story buildings on two sides. The building that faced the gate was a bit taller with a peaked archway filled by double doors. A statue of an eagle stood right in front of the steps leading up to the door.