by Damien Black
His unhappiness was completed by Radna, who told him: ‘Adelko, I think your aunt is waiting for you at the next table. There’s lanterns that need lighting, now run along.’
Turning he saw Madrice standing at the next table, frowning at him. Bidding the monk farewell he went back to his chores reluctantly. But glancing over his shoulder he saw Horskram was still staring at him.
Before long all the tables were set and most of the villagers were present. Ludo and his brothers in full flow now, striking up a merry ditty about a goatherd who’d lost his flock and had to go through all sorts of misadventures to get it back. It was an old favourite in those parts and some of the more enthusiastic villagers had already started to dance.
Things were brought to a halt, as usual, by Albhra Widehips the busybody, who came marching over to interrupt the music and started berating Ludo for putting pleasure before devotion.
Ludo, an exceptionally short, rotund fellow with a comical look accentuated by the ridiculous straw hat he always wore, looked up from his fiddle playing and effortlessly foiled all her attempts to make him feel contrite. She completed the tirade by storming off in a huff. At that he turned and nodded to his brothers. They put aside their instruments to hear prayers – as had been the rascally trio’s intention all along. It was always more fun to wind up Albhra before you did what she wanted you to.
From where he was standing beside his aunt, Adelko heard Erith Handyman chuckle over his first flagon and mutter to his best friend Derek sat next to him: ‘Albhra and Ludo, at it again! Those two should’ve married years ago.’ Derek chuckled softly into his ale and Adelko grinned – this was a grown-up joke he felt he could appreciate. Sort of.
Then Malgar got to his feet to call silence. The headman said a few words of thanks on behalf of everyone, and most of all old Balor, who was recovering in his hut with a bowl of his favourite pottage.
At the end of his short speech there was a general ‘hear hear’ around the tables, and many raised their flagons to the friar, who humbly acknowledged their praise. After Malgar had sat down, his wife Radna rose and said: ‘And now Horskram will lead us in prayer.’
The Argolian rose, and in a melodious voice he intoned the Psalm of Thankfulness, suffixing this with an extra verse from scripture celebrating the vanquishing of evil.
The observance completed, the villagers sat down to eat and drink, Ludo and his brothers taking it in turns to supply the music so all three could satisfy their hunger and thirst before beginning the night’s revels in earnest.
Adelko was sharing a table with his family and Silma Green-eyes, whom his eldest brother Arik was courting. They were expected to wed before long – Arik was already sixteen summers and Silma was only a year younger – but Adelko’s father had been insistent that his eldest spend more time at the forge learning his trade before getting into a marriage, and all the distractions that would bring with it.
With blonde hair and a buxom figure, Silma typified the Northlending ideal of feminine attractiveness, and though her face was not classically beautiful her vivacious spirit more than made up for it.
Not that Adelko really took much notice of any of this. As far as he was concerned girls were all well and good, but there were far more interesting things to hold one’s attention.
And right now there was only one person at the feast who was doing that.
From his perch at the end of the table he strained to get a better look at the monk several tables up from him, but there was too much hustle and bustle, especially now that more villagers were getting up to dance. Once or twice his Aunt Madrice pointedly heaped another spoonful of vegetables onto his wooden platter, or poured him some of the milder ale reserved for the children.
When she did this she would give him a look, as if to say: Don’t let your imagination keep running away with you. She knew him only too well.
The evening drew on and turned into night. One by one the stars came out to join the gibbous moon. It wasn’t a full one, so there should be no need to worry about any more evil spirits – at least not for tonight.
As the older womenfolk cleared away empty platters and brought more gourds of ale to the tables, a mood of euphoria began to sweep the villagers. Ludo and his brothers were back in full swing, and not even a hundred Albhras bolstered by all the hordes of Gehenna would stop him now. Most of the younger men and women, and quite a few of the older ones too, were frolicking around the circle of green formed by the trestle tables in groups of six or eight, swapping dance partners with a skill and grace borne of seasons of practice.
A few young lovers, including Arik and Silma, had slunk off to embrace one another beneath some trees near the edge of the sward. Adelko caught his elder brother Malrok gazing at the two with a yearning look in his eyes – he was thirteen summers and seemed to be more interested in girls every day. Adelko still didn’t see what all the fuss was about.
Horskram had not left his spot at the table of honour, and seemed content to spend the night talking to Malgar, Radna and the other village notables.
As some of the menfolk began to prepare a fire and Madrice instructed him to help out, Adelko began racking his brains for an excuse to go over and talk to the monk again. As he was thinking this it also occurred to him that his idea was rather silly – after all, even if he did invent an excuse, what would he say to him?
The villagers had prepared firewood earlier in the day and they soon had a healthy pile set up in the middle of the green. Adelko’s father didn’t take long to get a blaze going: as a blacksmith, he was no stranger to fire and prayed to the avatar Nurë every night. As the flames added their light to the lanterns Ludo and his brothers took the music up another notch, and soon more than half the village was spinning madly to the energetic swirl of sound.
The fire spread a cheering warmth across the sward, and soon even those not dancing were joining in, thumping out a rhythm on the tables with their tankards and laughing merrily. Adelko had wandered back to his table with his father, who affectionately ruffled his youngest son’s hair before pouring him another mild as a reward for his labours and sidling over to talk to Yurik. Aunt Madrice had gone over to share a stoop with the womenfolk, so Adelko was left temporarily unsupervised. He looked over at the table of honour.
Again he saw the monk, but this time – and Adelko could swear it was no coincidence – the Argolian glanced over without breaking off his conversation and met his gaze again.
As the music lifted through the night air and villagers cavorted about him, Adelko felt the heady scene retreat sharply into the background: all he could focus on were those azure eyes, sparkling as they caught the flames.
Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself and did something that would change his life forever.
Putting down his small pewter pot, he walked the length of the tables until he was standing before the old monk again. The others turned to look at him with a mixture of amusement and inquisitiveness – what was Arun’s strange and unpredictable son up to now?
In a small voice that trembled Adelko began to stammer words, but found himself struggling to be heard above the night-time revel. Raising his voice, he began again: ‘P-please, Master Horskram, begging your pardon but – ’
The music rose to a crescendo, eliciting whoops and yells from the dancing villagers.
‘ – but I don’t want to be a blacksmith – ’
With a final refrain Ludo and his brothers brought the music to an abrupt halt, and Adelko’s last sentence sounded loud and clear through the silence: ‘I want to come with you and learn about the world.’
A fresh ripple of sound washed across the clearing as exhilarated villagers applauded Ludo and his brothers. Most of them had been too busy enjoying the music to register his words, but those sitting at the table with Horskram certainly had, and exchanged frowning glances. The monk stared at him inscrutably, although a faint smile now played across his lips.
Flushing again, Adelko surprised himself by repe
ating his words above the clapping: ‘I want to come with you and see the world – I’m bored of Narvik.’
The monk’s smile dropped to a frown of his own – not lightly did men scorn their homes in the highland provinces.
But his voice was level as he replied: ‘You are indeed an adventurous young lad. But those who wish to learn more of the world must first show a mind open to the discipline of learning. Perhaps we shall talk of this further in the morning, young Adelko – however, now is not the time. My advice to you is to join your friends and enjoy the rest of the celebration – I rather suspect you have done more than enough thinking for one night. We shall see each other on the morrow.’
Turning to Malgar, who was looking at Adelko with a shocked expression, the monk said in a quieter voice: ‘Malgar, if I might have a brief word with you in person, I would be most grateful.’
Looking from the boy to the friar the headman blinked, shrugged, and nodded.
Both men got up and left the clearing. Radna fixed Adelko with a pointed stare that was not entirely unkind and said: ‘Well young man, you heard the master monk – why don’t you go and play with your friends now? I think you’ve spent quite enough time bothering the grown-ups.’
For once Adelko did as he was told. Shuffling off in a daze as the music started up again he soon found his best friend Ulam, busy leading the other boys in an ingenious new game that involved throwing pebbles at the couples under the trees and running off laughing. Adelko joined in enthusiastically. He didn’t really know what the next day would bring but he felt he’d put something into play. Something big.
The rest had been history, as the loremasters said. The next day Horskram had met Adelko in Malgar and Radna’s home, and asked him if he wished to join the Most Learned Order of St Argo. When Adelko replied that he did the adept had given him a strange item called a book.
He’d heard about such things – wise men like Horskram put secrets in them.
His first book. He still remembered it. It had felt strangely welcoming to his touch; a faint musty smell that he found appealing rose from it as he slowly opened the cover. On the yellowy white surface of the first page was a strange spiky symbol he had never seen before and a drawing of an apple, which of course he had seen – and eaten – on feast days several times a year.
Horskram had told him that the book was designed to teach one how to read other books. He had spent the rest of the day showing him how to use it while the nonplussed grown-ups left them to it and went about their chores.
Upon Horskram’s return to Narvik a month later Adelko had astonished his family by showing a near mastery of the Thalamian Alphabet used throughout the Free Kingdoms. Even the stoical friar had been visibly impressed when he’d turned to the last page and begun reading the text inscribed on it. It was a simplified extract from the Thraxian troubadour Maegellin’s Lays of the Heroes of the Golden Age that described one of the many adventures undertaken by the legendary mariner Antaeus. Adelko had read it haltingly, but already he showed a grasp of literacy previously unknown in his village.
Horskram had pronounced the boy a prodigy on the spot and, with Radna and Malgar acting as witnesses, obtained Arun’s formal consent to indenture him into the Order of the Friars of St Argo as a novice.
The next morning he had left Narvik riding pillion behind the friar. It had been a clear summer’s day. The peaks and valleys around him had seemed even brighter than usual, full of possibilities.
He spent the next four years at Ulfang Monastery. The monastic life was not an easy one, and sometimes he wished he was back at home being bossed around by his Aunt Madrice.
Dawn prayers were followed by morning lessons under the stern tutelage of the adepts before the noon meal. This provided a brief respite before the novices went to help in the fields, for like all Argolian sanctuaries Ulfang was entirely self-sufficient, and the monks were as much farmers as they were scholars and witch-hunters. Mid-afternoon prayers and more lessons brought them wearily to supper at sunset, followed by another round of devotion and study. After that they would be released for sleep, having said their final prayers ahead of the Wytching Hour.
But the long hours had paid off. Adelko perfected his knowledge of the Thalamian Alphabet and learned Decorlangue, the native tongue of Ancient Thalamy. Although a dead language, it was still used as a common speech among loremasters and perfects throughout Urovia, so it was very useful to know. He also studied the Old Norric tongue spoken by the First Reavers who had journeyed across the Wyvern Sea from the Frozen Principalities and settled the fertile coastlands of Northalde more than seven centuries ago, and learned to read the runes used by their pagan priests.
Reading opened up a new world to him. Gazing at maps in the monastery’s venerable library he realised it was vast, far beyond his prior reckoning: its seas, plains and mountain ranges stretched for leagues without number; the cities of men were scattered across the earth, as numerous as the stars in the night skies.
There was Strongholm, the grey-walled cityport built by the First Reavers, royal seat of the present-day King of Northalde; splendid stuccoed Rima, capital of Pangonia, most powerful of the Free Kingdoms; crumbling, colonnaded Tyrannos, where the Redeemer had been broken on the Wheel for defying the Thalamian Empire. A shadow of its former glory, Ancient Thalamy’s foremost city had long since fallen into a semi-ruinous state, just as Palom had foretold it would.
The Redeemer had been born in Ushalayim, a vast city across the Sundering Sea in the desert lands of Sassania, said to be so beautiful it resembled a thing of jewels and cloth-of-gold more than brick and stone. Pangonian crusaders had conquered that holy place from the infidel worshippers of the False Prophet Sha’abat during the First Pilgrim War several generations ago, but Adelko could find little evidence of the Redeemer’s work in the histories of that bloody slaughter.
The world was older than he’d thought too: some five millennia had passed since the Elder Wizards of Varya had provoked the wrath of the Unseen and ushered in the First Age of Darkness. Legend had it the priest-kings of that fabled civilisation had been seduced by the Fallen One and punished for it by the Almighty, just as Abaddon himself had been after daring to challenge Reus for mastery of the universe.
‘The Redeemer tells us the servants of Abaddon were turned into demons as divine punishment for siding with him in the battle for heaven and earth at the Dawn of Time,’ Brother Rothrik, the adept who taught them Counter-Demonology, had explained in his first class. ‘Banished to the island of Gehenna, they fashioned the City of Burning Brass at its epicentre. In his visions Palom saw five levels in that accursed metropolis: the Seven Princes of Perfidy and other archdemons dwell on the First Tier, at Abaddon’s right hand. And there, the scriptures tell us, the Fallen One shall sit on his throne of obsidian till the end of time, as just punishment for his divine betrayal.’
The spirit that had possessed Balor belonged to the lowliest Fifth Tier – no match for a skilled adept like Horskram, but even a lesser demon could wreak havoc among mortals unversed in Argolian lore. More powerful manifestations could potentially be calamitous.
‘The mortal vale and the Other Side are forever divided by Reus’ will – but there are weaknesses, rents if you will, that spirits use to cross over into the mortal vale,’ Brother Rothrik continued. ‘The more powerful the spirit, the bigger the rent it needs to pass into our world. That is why sorcery is such a foul and dangerous thing. Aside from its blasphemous meddling in the natural order of things ordained by Reus, its use causes rents in the sacred barrier separating our world from the spirit-lands. The more mortals use such powers, the more opportunity there is for greater demons to cross into our world.’
Greater manifestations were rare – but they did occur. It was even noised among the echoing cloisters of Ulfang that the Pilgrim Wars had been started by two archdemons posing as influential mortals on either side. But of this theory Adelko learned little beyond the whispered rumours – it was controversial
to say the least, as the mainstream Temple wholeheartedly sanctioned the crusade against the Sassanians. The Order of St Argo had remained steadfastly neutral on the issue, refusing to endorse it but stopping short of condemning it outright.
As his stay at the monastery lengthened, Adelko noticed that the older monks would become tight-lipped on any subjects that touched on the True Temple. His developing sixth sense, which all monks honed through years of devotion and prayer, registered a tension among the adepts and journeymen whenever it was mentioned – even though technically the Order belonged within its fold and its Grand Master answered to the Supreme Perfect in Rima.
Young as he was, he began to get an inkling that relations within the wider Temple were not entirely harmonious.
Last autumn Horskram had returned to Ulfang after an absence of more than four years.
Adelko was gathering in the harvest with the other novices and journeymen when a lone rider appeared on the crest of the high hill overlooking the monastery. Soon the cry was going up around the fields and in the courtyard where the wheat and vegetables were being piled. Ulfang’s most cherished son had been brought back safely, by Reus’ will.
By then Adelko knew of his benefactor’s status within the Order. Horskram possessed an unusual gift for the psychic arts and was sought throughout Northalde and beyond for his ability to lift curses and banish spirits. He was said to have travelled throughout the Free Kingdoms and beyond, so it wasn’t uncommon for him to be gone for years at a time. A peculiar zeal to confront the servants of darkness burned within him; rumour had it the Redeemer had appeared to him in a vision many winters ago, charging him with his lifelong mission.
Harvest duties were forgotten as the monks crowded round to greet him. The abbot, Sacristen, was especially pleased to see his old friend, for Horskram had been his protégé. Adelko had once overheard a journeyman muttering that Sacristen was always pleased to see Horskram because his fame reflected well on him and enhanced his own prestige. That smacked of vanity – a sin and certainly not a trait becoming an abbot of the Order. But then even the pious Argolians were only mortal.