by Carol Berg
A brief explosion of yellow light, brighter than ten lamps together, assaulted my eyes. A hiss and a snap, and the chancellor stepped into view again, little more than a shadow in my flash blindness. He beckoned me to join him. In the corner where I had ever seen blank walls—the same corner where Abbot Luviar had appeared so suddenly on my first visit—a doorway now opened onto a descending stair. From a hook on the wall, just inside it, the chancellor took a burning lamp. Or rather the implement he held appeared to be a lamp, and it appeared to be burning, though only cream-colored light, no flame, shone through its clear panes. Blessed saints and angels… Sorcery. In a house where magic working was forbidden. My feet dragged.
“Come on,” said the chancellor as I hesitated, beset by visions of dungeons and flaming depths.
“This isn’t where the hierarch sent you? To be punished?”
He puzzled for a moment. “Oh. The prison cell? Certainly not. Why would I take you there?”
“To improve my character?” I mumbled.
He didn’t smile.
We descended two long flights of steps, which by my reckoning left us deep in the earth under the scriptorium. My throat tightened. I reminded myself of Brother Victor’s only until the end of Vespers to convince myself that I could breathe in such a confined space. So deep.
Brother Victor halted when we reached a wide door at the bottom of the steps. Intelligent, inscrutable, he peered up at my face. “Father Abbot says he trusts you. That must certainly be true, as he commanded me to show you this without informing others of our party who have less confidence in your usefulness and character. I take no sides in that dispute as I’ve so little personal experience of you. I obey my abbot. But I’ll warn you that no one will find the doorway or this stair were you to tell of them.”
“I understand.” Perhaps the opening was hidden by an illusion spell, but I’d wager that an ax applied to the library wall would find the stair.
He pushed open the door and held it to let me enter.
“Blessed saints and angels!” My feet propelled me to the center of a chamber half the size of the church. There I spun like the axis of a wheel, my neck craned so I could view the dome of light above my head. Great ribbed arches of gray stone supported curved wedges of colored mosaic—brilliant, though, as if the bits were glass. Yet I had never seen glass laid in such a shape. And though I stood deep below the earth, the mosaic of light shone as bright as if the sun lay tucked between the dome and the scriptorium floor above it, casting a gentle clarity on the marvels that lay below. For the dome was but the magical capstone on more earthly wonders.
Books, first. The walls of the rectangular chamber, three or four times my height, were lined with shelves, not full, but holding more books and scrolls than I would have believed existed in all the world. Yet this library held much more than books. Ranks of tall cabinets lined the floor with only narrow aisles between. These cabinets, faced with grillwork doors very like the cupboards in the library, held tools—here the needles, spools, thimble, and scissors of a seamstress, there the common hammers, chisels, augers, and gouges of a stonemason. An entire cabinet was filled with a carpenter’s tools, another with a physician’s instruments. None of the individual items seemed extraordinary. Most appeared well used, though clean or oiled and generally well cared for.
I moved faster through the array, fascinated more by the breadth of the collection than the items themselves. Two doorways opened off the great chamber, one a mere closet, lit by the spilled light of the glass dome. A rope bed, piled with a rolled palliasse and folded blankets, and an old writing desk had been shoved up against stacked barrels and crates.
But the other, much wider doorway opened into a second domed chamber as large and beautiful as the first. By this time I was scarcely surprised to see a plow, a wheel and axle from a cart, millstones, a lathe, a loom, a potter’s wheel, and other, larger artifacts standing in neat rows on the floor. On the shelves that lined the walls from floor to ceiling, sat row after row of labeled sacks, earthenware pots, and glass jars. What would they hold? Food? Herbs? Potions?
No…the tools were for building and making and creating. The books would be for knowledge and understanding. For remembering. For beginning. The pots would hold seeds.
I turned back. From across the chamber by the outer door, Brother Victor watched with sober interest, his hands loosely folded at his waist.
Some of the pieces came together then. Luviar’s grand mosaic of war and famine and storm. The books on glassmaking, and drawings of millworks, and records of vineyards that no longer produced grapes. Were cuttings of grapevines preserved in these bags or jars? Surely those who could create domes of light and a door that opened with magic so powerful it stood my hair on end could preserve a living vine. Teneamus—we preserve. For the dark times. For the long night.
I gazed up at the shining dome, majestic in its beauty and magic. A promise of hope. “You call this the lighthouse,” I said.
The chancellor dipped his head in acknowledgment.
What was happening to the world? How did they know? What was the connection with my book of maps? I could not even choose where to begin.
“Come. Vespers will be ending soon.”
“But I’ve so much to ask.”
“In time, Brother Novice. Should you prove faithful, you’ll be told all. For now, I pray you be worthy of Father Abbot’s trust.”
“Of course. Certainly. I won’t say anything. Not to a soul.” Who would believe me?
Before I knew it, I was kneeling in the dorter again, shivering in shirt and trews. Save for the taste of leek broth in my mouth and the vision of light in my head, I might have thought the grand library a dream brought on by hunger and cold and a broken doulon. Nothing in my experience or imagination could have conjured such a place.
I dismissed my pique at the monks’ annoying discipline and spent the next two hours formulating questions to ask were I given the opportunity. I speculated on how the magic of the lighthouse was done and who in this place might have done it—the mysterious pureblood monk?—and I considered what I would have chosen to preserve were I stocking a magical lighthouse to sustain me beyond the end of the world.
I was almost sorry when the day’s end bell rang and good Brother Sebastian laid a blessing of forgiveness on my head and a blanket on my shoulders. Almost. As I hobbled off to bed, I thought my knees might gleam blue and purple in the dark—as tales described the enchanted sigils of the Danae when they walked the wild places of the world.
“All right, it was Father Abbot’s little surprise got me near dead from suffocation, not yours. But my skull will surely crack if you don’t relieve some of my curiosity.”
Jullian and I had met in the hedge garden after supper on the day following my long punishment. Though the maze still had me twitching at every noise, expecting grain sacks to be dropped on my head, it was the only place we could talk for any length of time. My Compline reading had been reset for this night, and gods bless the boy forever, he had fulfilled his promise to read it to me. Now, as we lingered in the gathering dark, I was trying to nudge the boy into some further revelation of Luviar’s conspiracy without breaking my promise. My immortal soul could not afford the burden of an abbot’s wrath. Sadly, I was having no luck at all.
“I’m sworn, Brother. Please, don’t ask me. I can say only that the abbey is neutral ground.”
So earnest in his honor. If he knew that I’d spent the time before his arrival stuffing my last supply of nivat into the parcel under Karus’s statue, he would run from me like one of these plaguey rabbits. Had these conspirators stored nivat in their lighthouse? The sudden thought cheered me past the point of sense. If I could only ensure a supply, I could stop thinking about this damnable curse altogether. I’d just have to discover how to get into the place.
“Tell me more of Palinur,” said Jullian, reverting to his favorite topic of conversation. “I can’t imagine such a grand city. Are there truly statues o
f every one of the Hundred Heroes set before the king’s palace? Though I know Grossartius is but legend, because Iero sends our souls to heaven or hell and not back to mortal bodies, he is my favorite of the Hundred. Is he quite large and well muscled? I’ve always imagined him bigger than Brother Robierre and taller even than you.”
A west wind had brushed away the previous day’s storm and left the evening astonishingly pleasant. Time yet remained before Compline, and I wasn’t ready to go indoors.
“I’d much rather talk of why, in all that’s holy, this flock of mad monks and gruff lords shares their secrets with a talkative boy of twelve-almost-thirteen.” While babbling freely of his studies and abbey life, the stubborn little donkey would speak nothing of his raising beyond what he’d told me in the library. “It speaks highly of your character. And, of course, Brother Sebastian says you are the brightest scholar ever to study here. You’ve much to be proud of—”
“You’ve heard it wrong! I’m not half the scholar Brother Gildas is. And Gerard is far more holy, for I’m so easily distracted when I think of what I’ve read and the adventure tales you’ve told us. I do talk too much, and I’m wholly untrustworthy, for I’ve told you more than I should already. The moment I’m sixteen, I’m going to take a vow of silence!”
So soon after our study of the great vices, I should have known better than to use the word proud. Truly, if he were Eodward’s child, I didn’t think he knew it.
I ceased probing and soothed his worries about excess pride and boyish sins with a lurid saga about Grossartius the Revenant’s return from the dead to serve King Caedmon. The bells began to strike. He jumped up as if a gatzé’s tail poked him from underneath. “We need to go.”
I sighed and unfolded myself from the bench. “Indeed. Brother Sebastian will have my skin if I’m late. My knees won’t survive more penance.”
The boy giggled. “I heard you made a sight, kneeling there in just shirt and trews all day. Brother Jerome said you were as blue as a jay and looked as if you might eat your sandals.”
I stuck my foot and its unchewed sandal out before us. “Thanks to holy Iero, no need for that.”
My Compline reading went very well, though I realized afterward that I had opened the page for two days previous—the page with the geese—and not the one I was reciting. Fortunately no one looked over my shoulder. Several of the brothers offered congratulations and kind words as we left the church. Brother Gildas stood last in the short line.
“You did very well for your first service reading,” he said, as we strolled companionably through the upper passage toward the dorter, anticipating the day’s end bell. “A bit stiff, perhaps, but practice should improve you. You are a man of many talents, Valen.”
Why did he keep saying that? It bothered me that he might be one of those who had less confidence in my “usefulness and character,” as Brother Victor had put it.
“So are you going to tell me what I was punished for?” I said softly enough that no one else could possibly hear. “My knees would very much like to know.”
“Soiling your clothes? Sleeping at services?” The good brother grinned cheerfully.
Such a friend could drive a saint to drink. “The grain sack was your idea, wasn’t it? To get me thoroughly muddled before your test.”
“I’m truly sorry for that,” he murmured, clasping his hands piously at his breast, looking straight ahead, and picking up the pace. “I had no idea it would distress you so.”
“Thus you owe me an apology—a favor.” I ducked my head lower and scarcely moved my lips. “And you know what I want: What does that puddle in the hills have to do with preserving knowledge and Evanori warlords and three—or is it four—royal princelings?”
“We cannot discuss such things here. Father Abbot warned you. I understand you’ve been given some enlightenment.” His mouth shaped the beginnings of a smile.
I wanted to kick him.
“Father Prior will surely assign you more readings after tonight, Brother Valen.” He spoke more boldly as we neared the library door. “As you succeed in your assigned tasks, you earn more trust…and more tasks. As it happens, Brother Chancellor has received word of a book of Aurellian poetry that might be available to borrow from a lord down near Caedmon’s Bridge. Brother Adolfus is to travel there tomorrow. Father Abbot says that, as a man so recently of the world, you might be of use in the negotiation.”
Oh, no. No more traveling with the abbot’s friends. No more of this conspiracy business. I hated being their ignorant pawn.
“As much as I appreciate our brothers’ trust, the god teaches me constantly of humility,” I said. “I’ve never been particularly successful at any single occupation, perhaps because my true calling is this quiet, retiring monastery life of simple prayer and simple service. I intend to devote my best efforts to making myself worthy of that calling, avoiding all things grand or mysterious…or dangerous…or deviant. Besides, my leg would never bear me so far.”
Surely it would be better to live out the season quietly and escape with my skin intact to enjoy what I could of the world before it ended. The doulon had me in its stranglehold, and were I ever so blessed as to survive its shedding, my diseased senses and explosive restlessness would leave me as mad as my grandfather. Not even such a wonder as the lighthouse would tempt me to use the bent for aught but my own need. Look where such had got me.
Gildas laughed in that way he had, encompassing his entire being. Then he laid an arm around my shoulder and pulled me close, heads together. “Grand and mysterious events have a way of catching up to us even when we have no such course in mind. Someday I will share my own story with you. Good night, Brother. Safe journey.”
He was still chuckling as he disappeared through the library door. I walked on toward the dorter, grumbling under my breath, yet unable to be truly angry with him. If only I had displayed my ignorance about the book. One would think I would have outgrown pride after so many years of stumbling so ineptly about the world. Seven-and-twenty years and I’d shed not a single one of the great vices.
The infirmarian had assured Father Abbot that exercise would be good for my healing thigh, thus Brother Adolfus and I were dispatched on our errand as the bells rang for Prime. The west wind’s respite had been too brief. Purple-gray clouds hung low over the mountains, threatening a miserable day.
The road cut south through the abbey grain fields, where a few lay brothers were reaping barley that stood astonishingly undamaged despite the storm. Abbot Luviar had charged Brother Adolfus to summon the local villagers along our way. Though bound in service to the abbey, they had not yet come to aid the harvest.
The toad-faced Adolfus made it clear from the beginning that he would likely not speak to me beyond our business. “Journeys are excellent occasions for contemplation of our life’s road through the vales of doubt, the fens of sin, and the occasional mountain peak of divine inspiration. Silence will be our guidepost.”
As this was the lengthiest statement I had ever heard from the man, I’d borne no great expectation of conversation. But I had hoped he might be one of the “cabal,” as Jullian referred to the abbot’s little group of conspirators, and thus be willing to enlighten me on our mission. I had no illusion that we were truly off to negotiate use of a poetry book.
Drawing up my hood and tucking my hands up my sleeves against the cold, I wondered how I might divert my “life’s road” to some nearby town where there might be a seedsman or herbary. To that end I had brought along the gold button and silver spoon. Though I’d likely not get the trinkets’ full worth, I might get enough to buy nivat for a doulon or two. Only enough seeds for one use remained in my pouch, and possessing even a small supplement might soothe this anxiety that dogged me. The disease lurked in my bone and sinews alongside the craving for its remedy, both waiting to take fire.
Shrines dotted the roadside. A patch of wildflowers drooped beside a wooden representation of Karus. Rotting travelers’ staves had been stuck in
the ground about a painted statue of Saint Gillare. An older stone figure, halfway devoured by orange and red lichen, represented Erdru bearing his uplifted platter of grapes. A statue of Arrosa, her hand about a naked mortal’s member, had toppled over, leaving her poor lover separated from his better parts.
Beyond Gillarine’s fields and pastures, the landscape changed abruptly to rolling meadows of yellowed grass and ankle-high briar tangles, dotted with stands of scrawny trees. In one of these meadows, half a quellé past the abbey’s boundary fence, stood a ring of aspen trees. Legends called such rings holy to the Danae, who were said to especially love to dance there in autumn when the leaves turned gold. This dreary, precipitous autumn had tainted the leaves black, and they’d fallen before ever they were gold. What if they never gleamed gold again?
Fool, I thought, shoving away the dismal speculation. These monks will have you believing their end-times nonsense. Yet such belief as could create the marvelous lighthouse could not be so easily dismissed. The unseasonable cold and gloom seeped into my every pore.
Five quellae past the aspen grove, the cart track rose steeply for a short way, leveled out and traversed a meadow, then rose again, the terrain like a series of giant’s steps toward the southern mountains. The river was no longer a lazy looping band of silver, but a younger stream that plunged from the mountains and raced through a gorge off to our left. To our right a gray-green forest of spruce and silver birches mantled the rising hills, occasionally dipping its folds into the sweeping meadows.
We met neither seedsmen nor herb sellers nor indeed any people at all along the way. The first village we came to was well overgrown, red plague circles fading on its crumbling houses. We did not dawdle there. A second settlement showed signs of more recent disaster—tools and carts bearing but early signs of rust, painted sigils of ward and welcome still bright on the lintels. But a heap of decaying sheep fouled the nearby pastureland, and perhaps other creatures lay unburied, as well. We covered our noses with our cowls and hurried past.