Now it was Braumin's turn to shake his head, but that only made Jilseponie press on more forcefully.
"You doubt, as many doubted your own tale of a miracle at Mount Aida," she reminded him. "I speak of ghosts and of blood on a hand long petrified. I speak of a miraculous recovery by a woman who had already begun her journey into Death's dark realm. And so it is difficult for you to dare to hope." She paused and stared at the abbot intently, even came forward onto the tussie-mussie bed. "You know me, Braumin Herde. You know who I am and what I have done. You know of my attributes and of my failings. False hope has never been among those failings."
"The bell! The bell!" came a cry, echoing along the corridors and the ramparts. "The bell!" the excited young brother cried again, scrambling down beside the abbot and the other leaders of the abbey. "My abbot, the bell!" he stammered, pointing back toward the abbey's central bell tower. The man hardly seemed able to stand, so overwhelmed was he.
"What is it, Brother Dissin?" Braumin demanded, putting his hands on the man's shoulders, trying to hold him steady.
"The bell!" he cried again, tears flowing down his cheeks. "You must see it!"
Even as he finished, more cries came from the back of the abbey, shouts of "A sign!" and "A miracle!"
Castinagis, Talumus, and Viscenti started off that way. Braumin turned to regard Jilseponie and saw that she and her two companions were boldly crossing the flower bed. He started to motion for them to stop but found that he could not-found, to his surprise, that he had come to believe that something extraordinary was indeed happening here, something that he could not and should not deny.
Together they ran into the abbey, up the stone stairs, along a corridor, down another and up another set of stairs, and into the bell tower. They had to push past many brothers-monks who were so overwhelmed that they hardly seemed to notice that Duke Tetrafel, a man infected with the rosy plague, was crowding among them.
Up the winding stairs, they climbed and climbed, coming at last to the highest landing, in plain view of the great bell of St. Precious, the bell Jilseponie had struck with a lightning bolt to herald her arrival in Palmaris. And there, scorched into the side of the old metal, was an unmistakable image: an upraised arm clenching a sword at midblade.
Braumin's jaw fell open. He turned back to the woman. "How did you
…" he started to ask, but the question fell away, for it was quite obvious that Jilseponie was every bit as stunned and confused as he.
He was tired and he was dirty, and he knew that if he wasn't already afflicted with plague, then he soon would be. But Brother Holan Dellman would not surrender his work, not with so many people dying about the grounds of St. Belfour Abbey.
Nor would Abbot Haney, nor any of the other brothers who had chosen to remain within the structure after the decision had been made to open wide the gates. Three of those brothers had died, and horribly, of plague contracted through their futile healing efforts, and not a single person had been healed, though many lives had been extended somewhat by the heroic efforts.
Even that grim reality had not deterred Haney, Dellman, and the others from the course they knew they must pursue. Nor was Prince Midalis, ever a friend of the common folk, hiding away in his small palace in the complex at Pireth Vanguard. For he, like the monks, could not suffer the cries of the dying.
Midalis had not taken ill yet, but Liam was showing the beginnings of the plague.
Holan Dellman headed for his darkened room, wanting nothing more than to fall down into unconsciousness. He had heard the news of Liam's illness that same morning, soon after he had begun his work with the sick at St. Belfour, and that news, more than his efforts with the sick, had taken the strength from him. How he wanted to go to the man and comfort him! How he wanted to focus all his healing energies on that one man, now, early on, before the plague had taken solid hold of him!
But Dellman could not do that, could not place the fate of his dear friend above that of the others. That was not the way of his faith or of his God; and as much as he had come to love Liam O'Blythe during his time in Vanguard, Holan Dellman loved his God above all else.
But that didn't stop his very human misery at the news.
He collapsed onto his small cot, buried his face into the blankets, and tried to block out all the world.
And then he sensed her, and, with a start, he jerked about and he saw her.
Jilseponie, standing in his room, looking back at him.
Holan Dellman bolted upright. "How did you get here?" he asked. "Did the ship-"
Dellman stopped, suddenly realizing that this was not Jilseponie physically before him, was something less substantial. He gasped, trying to find His breath, and retreated across the cot, eyes wide, his head shaking, his body trembling.
"We have found the answer, Brother Dellman," Jilseponie said to him, in a voice half audible and half telepathic.
Holan Dellman understood spirit-walking, of course, but he had never seen anything this extreme. His first thought was that Jilseponie had died and that her ghost had come to him. But now he realized that this was spirit-walking taken to a level that he had never before seen.
"Brother Dellman!" she said to him, more insistently, and he understood that she was trying to steady him, that her time, perhaps, was not long here in Vanguard.
"Where are you?" he asked.
"In St. Precious," she answered. Her voice seemed weaker suddenly, and her answer was more a feeling than words, an image of a place that Holan Dellman knew well. So, too, came her next communication-an image of a flat-topped mountain, of a mummified arm protruding from the stone.
"Go there, all the sick and all the well," Jilseponie said. "Go and be healed."
Jilseponie's spirit image vanished.
Brother Dellman sat there, gasping, for a long while. Then, no longer exhausted, he ran out to find Abbot Haney.
"They all must go," Jilseponie said to Tetrafel and Braumin when they met later that day in St. Precious Abbey. "The ill and the healthy, in coordinated fashion and with your soldiers to protect them."
Duke Tetrafel, only then beginning to digest the overwhelming logistics of the proposition, hesitated. "I will send some soldiers," he agreed.
"All of them!" Jilseponie argued, her tone showing no room for debate. "Every man and woman. And you must send word to Ursal, telling King Danube to open the roads to the north, to call out the entirety of his army to wage this war as completely as he would if the goblins had returned.
"And you, Abbot Braumin, must send all of your brothers, as quickly as possible, using all the magic available to you, to the Barbacan," she continued. "Once you have tasted the blood of Avelyn, then you, too, might begin to aid those making the journey to Aida without fear of becoming ill."
"But you cannot cure me," Duke Tetrafel argued, "by your own words."
"But I can help to battle the plague, to push it back long enough so that, perhaps, you will survive the journey to the mountaintop, and there be healed."
"You are so certain of all of this?" Braumin asked somberly; and Jilseponie nodded, her expression serious and grim.
"We must have soldiers and monks lining the road, all the way from Palmaris to the Barbacan," she explained, "supply camps, with food and with bolstering healing, with fresh horses, and with soldiers to guide the newest group of pilgrims to the next site."
"Do you understand the difficulties?" Duke Tetrafel asked skeptically.
"Do you understand the implications if we fail in this?" Jilseponie shot back, and that surely silenced the skeptical, plague-infected man.
" You went to Dellman? " Braumin Herde asked.
Jilseponie nodded. "Vanguard is alerted. For now, they must determine their course."
"And you will similarly go to the Father Abbot at St.-Mere-Abelle?" Braumin asked.
Jilseponie thought on that for a few moments, then shook her head. "I will go in body to St.-Mere-Abelle, along with Dainsey. I will face them directly."
Braumin, too, paused and mulled it over, then nodded his agreement. "They will not be easily convinced," he said, remembering his previous meeting with Glendenhook and understanding well the doubting, cynical nature of powerful Fio Bou-raiy.
"We need them," Jilseponie said. "All of them. All of the brothers of your Church. They must go to Aida and protect themselves, then work tirelessly to aid those who will follow them to that holy place."
"Palmaris first," Duke Tetrafel demanded.
Jilseponie nodded. "Let our work begin, now, out in the square."
And so it did, with Jilseponie working with the soul stone, bolstering those sick plague victims who would head out that very day, while the soldiers and the other healthy pilgrims began readying the many horses and wagons.
While Braumin and the others, on Jilseponie's own orders, could not offer direct aid to the plague sufferers, they did work with soul stones, leeching their own strength into Jilseponie, bolstering her efforts.
She worked all the day and all the night. Several, she found, were beyond her help, were simply too thick with plague for her to offer any real relief. They would not make the journey, could not hope to survive the road, even if she went along with them, working on them all the way. She did not turn them away, though, and tried to enact some measure of relief, at least, upon them.
That very night, magically and physically exhausted but knowing that every minute she delayed likely meant the death of another unfortunate victim, Jilseponie and Dainsey Aucomb set out from Palmaris. Instead of taking the normal, slow ferry across the Masur Delaval, the pair were whisked across the great river by Captain Al'u'met on his Saudi']acintha.
Also that very same night, Abbot Braumin and every brother of St. Precious began their swift pilgrimage to the north, using gemstones to lighten the burden on their horses, using gemstones to illuminate the trail before them and to scout the area spiritually, using gemstones to leech the strength from nearby animals, as some of them had learned on their first trip to the Barbacan.
They meant to get there as quickly as possible and return, stretching their line along the road to offer aid to the pilgrims.
Braumin Herde remained doubtful, though he trusted Jilseponie implicitly, and marked well the seemingly miraculous image burned into the bell at St. Precious. But too much was at stake here for the gentle monk. He could not allow his hopes to soar so high, only to learn that Jilseponie had erred, that there was no miracle to be found or that it had been a onetime occurrence, a blessing for Dainsey Aucomb.
What would happen in that instance? the abbot had to worry. What might the peasants or the Duke and his soldiers do if they discovered that they had traveled all the way to the Barbacan, no doubt with many dying along the road, chasing a false hope?
He shuddered at the thought but reminded himself of the character of the messenger. When he had last seen Jilseponie before her return to St. Precious, he had given her an assortment of gemstones and had prayed that she would again prove the light against the darkness. Now she had returned to him with just that claim, and his own doubts of her had laid his cynicism bare before him.
What friend was he if he did not believe her?
What holy man was he if he could not see past his earthly cynicism and dare to believe in miracles?
Chapter 41
Despite Herself
We cuts 'em, and that horsie-man leading them won'ts help 'em!" Kriskshnuck, the little goblin, said with a toothy sneer. "Cuts 'em and eats 'em!"
His companions bobbed their heads eagerly, for down on the trail, in clear sight of them, came the line of folk from Dundalis and the other Timberland towns-the first pilgrim group that had set out for the Barbacan.
For the goblins who had swarmed back into the area just south of the mountainous ring, this seemed like an easy kill. The goblins knew this rugged land, where the humans did not. They'd hit the fools on the road, and repeatedly, whittling at their numbers and their resolve, setting them up for the final, overwhelming assault.
And as more and more goblins joined in, their numbers now swelling to over three hundred, it did indeed seem as if that assault would be overwhelming.
Kriskshnuck couldn't keep all of the eager drool in his mouth as he and his companions scrambled down from the ridge, excited to give their reports to their waiting kin. Halfway down the rocky outcropping, though, one of those other goblins cried out in pain.
"Ow!" the wretched little creature yelped. "A bee stinged me." And then, "Ow! Ow!" over and over, and when Kriskshnuck looked back, he saw his companion swatting futilely at the air, waving and jerking spasmodically, before giving one final howl and falling over onto the stone.
Before Kriskshnuck could begin to ask, another of his companions began a similar dancing routine, and then the third of the group.
Kriskshnuck was smart, as goblins go, and so he asked no further questions but just turned and sprinted and scrambled to get out of the area. He got over one ridge, across the flat top of a huge boulder, then down a short cliff face. He turned and started to run, with only twenty feet of open ground separating him from the relative safety of a tree copse.
He felt the first burning sting on his thigh, and looked down to see a small shaft protruding from the muscle. He limped on and got hit again, on the hip, and again after that, in the belly.
Doubled over, clutching his belly with one hand, his thigh with the other, Kriskshnuck scrambled on.
"The trees," he said hopefully, thinking his salvation was at hand. But then he saw them-small forms sitting among the boughs of the closest trees, leveling bows his way.
A volley of small arrows blasted the goblin to the ground.
King Danube stared down at the parchment in disbelief. It had been penned by a trader whose ship had put into Ursal's port that morning, a message that had been shouted down the Masur Delaval, ship to ship, in advance of a formal ducal declaration.
Danube looked up at his advisers, Constance and Kalas, both of whom had seen the parchment before bringing it to him; and their grim expressions accurately reflected one half of the emotions battling within him.
"This could be our salvation," he reminded them.
"Tetrafel is plague ridden and willing to chase any hope," Duke Kalas argued.
"The false hope," Constance was quick to put in. She winced as she considered her own sharp tone, a reflection, perhaps, of her petty fears that Jilseponie had once more come to save the world.
"Can we be so certain?" the King asked. "And we are still days away from the official ducal declaration, dispatched under Tetrafel's own hand."
"Many advance writs prove inaccurate," Kalas reminded him, his tone making it fairly obvious that he was hoping that to be so in this case, as well.
But Danube didn't think so, and he shook his head slowly. "Too important," he remarked.
"Many of the callers are likely as desperate as poor Timian," Constance argued. "Plague ridden themselves or a member of their family, perhaps."
King Danube looked down at the writ again, reading it slowly. Duke Tetrafel was on his way to the Barbacan, it said, along with the entire garrison at his disposal, and most of the folk of Palmaris. How could even desperate callers confuse an event on a scale such as that?
"The particulars might be confused, but the general message of the writ will likely prove accurate," King Danube decided.
"You believe that Timian Tetrafel would be fool enough to turn over his garrison to Jilseponie Wyndon? " Kalas asked incredulously.
"If she has found the answer, then he would likely see that as an obvious course."
Constance snorted and turned away.
"Let us make our plans on the assumption that the particulars of this writ are correct," Danube offered. "That a cure has been found?" Duke Kalas asked, shaking his head with every word. "Are we to tell that to the desperate thousands in Ursal? What riots might we cause, and what of the cost to the Throne if we are proven wrong?"
"Not that far," King Da
nube corrected. "We will await Timian's official writ before deciding upon any such course as that. But let us assume that the lesser particulars, the desertion of Palmaris by soldier and citizen alike, are indeed accurate. What, then, must we do? "
Kalas' breathing came in hard rasps, and Constance continued to stare across the room, shaking her head. If those particulars were true, then the implications to Danube could be grave indeed. If Timian Tetrafel had turned the garrison of Palmaris over to Jilseponie, or had sent them out in accordance with Jilseponie's words, then this event could prove politically disastrous for an inactive King Danube. But if Danube fell in with his often unpredictable Duke, and turned his army and his citizenry into the hands of the woman, and her apparent "cure" proved invalid, then the disaster would be multiplied tenfold.
"We could send a small force-Duke Bretherford's sailors, perhapssailing north to investigate," Kalas offered.
"And by the time they can return to us, the season will be past, and the roads north closed," King Danube argued. "And the winter will claim many lives that otherwise might have been saved."
Constance turned on her heel. "It sounds as if you have already thrown your faith in with the woman," she said sharply, and she and Danube stared at each other long and hard.
"We are all desperate for an end to the plague," Duke Kalas quietly put in, acting in the uncustomary role of mediator.
"Ready the soldiers for the road," Danube ordered.
"But, my King…" Kalas started to argue, and Constance chimed in, as well.
But Danube, expecting such an outburst, was already patting his hand calmly in the air. "I did not command you to begin the march," he clarified, "only to ready the troops in case we so decide. And let us send for Abbot Hingas, that we might learn the disposition of the Church on this matter. The situation at St. Honce and the other abbeys will likely prove even more tentative than our own, for the majority of the folk have come to single out the Church and not the Crown as the source of the plague."
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