The Black Chalice koa-1

by Steven Savile

  But more likely it would blacken his bones.

  Twenty-One

  There was no air.

  He was prepared this time — to an extent at least. The fire was different. It formed a tunnel around him, having spread up to and across the stone ceiling. Unlike the wattle hovel it wasn't eating through the thick stone walls, but was contained by them, transforming the passageways into tunnels of fire. He moved deeper into the building. Everywhere he looked the fire had taken hold; the same corridors of fire branched out left to the refectory and right to the chapel, whilst straight ahead of him, and continuing deeper into the warren of narrow corridors and monastic cells, another tunnel of fire formed a burning cross. He stood at the centre of the cross. Fire chased up the walls around him. The scriptorium would be down one of those flaming passages. And the Devil's Bible… he could almost hear Blodyweth's voice urging him to walk into the fire. It was so seductive, so tempting. He felt himself wanting to please the woman even though she wasn't there.

  He turned and turned about, but there was no sight of the staircase. His world was reduced to fire and smoke.

  The fire burned at its purest here, but somehow didn't touch him.

  Alymere tried to recall the exterior of the chapter house and guess where he would find the stair, but with the flames pressing in it was almost impossible to think.

  The screaming came again. It didn't sound any closer than it had from outside.

  The man's screams were the purest sound of human suffering he had ever heard.

  He made his choice then. He had to find the man and save him. A single life had to be worth more than any book — no matter how holy or unholy — didn't it?

  Alymere followed the screams.

  The walls might have been thick enough to withstand the heat, but the monastic trappings of the chapter house were not so resilient. The fire claimed the oak furniture and the tapestries, the tall dressers and the chests, the high-backed chairs and the long tables of the refectory, the benches of the chapel and even the lectern beside the altar itself. All of them fed the fire. Anything that could burn was burning.

  Alymere found the screaming man at the foot of a great winding staircase.

  It was not one of the brothers, though, but a reiver. It was too late to save him, even if he had wanted to. The northerner's body was broken from the fall. His limbs sprawled out at impossible angles from him. His screams had nothing to do with his terrible injuries, but from the fire that had found him. His furs burned, fusing to his skin, and the leather of his boots and sword sheath bubbled and shrivelled, tearing the meat away from the bone as it did. It was an ugly death, but the man deserved no better.

  Alymere could not get close to the body, and at length the screaming stopped.

  At the top of the staircase Alymere saw the shadow-man watching him impassively, utterly unconcerned by the fire around him. The shadows cast by the flames danced in the sunken hollows where his eyes should have been. Had every brother in Medcaut put out his own eyes? Was the mutilation part of their benediction? How could being blind serve to bring them closer to God? Or was their blindness some form of protection? Were they blinding themselves to the sins of the flesh and the evils of their world?

  Alymere's reflection was cut short when he saw that the blind monk clutched a small book in his hands.

  He couldn't help but feel a pang of disappointment at the mundanity of the so-called Devil's Bible. It looked like no more than a prayer book. But that was the nature of evil, wasn't it; to wear the face of something normal, something banal and harmless, to mask its true intent?

  "I have been expecting you," the monk said over the sound of the flames.

  Behind the monk's shoulder, the huge window succumbed finally to the heat and shattered, showering shards of glass out across the cloister garden below.

  "Give me the book," Alymere said, climbing the first step.

  "You are making a grave mistake, knight."

  "I don't think so," Alymere said, reaching the fifth step. "In fact I've never felt so sure of anything in my life."

  The words came almost like an incantation; there was a hypnotic rhythm to them. "That is the book, not you. Leave this place. Run. Run and don't ever look back. Forget you ever heard mention of the Devil's Bible. Do not let it get inside your head. It is not too late. Run."

  "Give me the book," Alymere repeated. "I have no desire to hurt you."

  "But you will," the monk said with certainty.

  "It doesn't have to be this way. Leave here with me."

  "I cannot leave here."

  "You cannot stay. Come dawn there will be nothing left of the monastery."

  "And yet we shall abide. It is you that must leave. Believe me."

  Alymere reached the tenth step. There were only three between them now.

  Close to, the mutilation to the monk's face was even more severe than that of his brother outside. The scars had that same hard-white quality of age, but these were not restricted to his eyes. They spread all across his face, carving out his cheeks and opening his nose so his nostrils appeared to be nothing more than ragged holes in the centre of his face. The scars continued down his neck before disappearing beneath the collar of his habit. He saw them emerge again from the cuffs and continue from his wrists across the back of his hands and again from the hem of his skirts, criss-crossing his ankles and every inch of flesh not covered by his sandals.

  Alymere was in no doubt that the man bore the savage scars all over his body.

  The blind monk whose skin is impervious to blades…

  "I will only ask one more time, monk. Give me the book."

  "And so it comes to this. Kill me if you will, knight. I shall not surrender the Devil's book to you willingly."

  "I have no intention of killing you," Alymere said, the lie catching in his throat. The thought had occurred to him five steps below. If the monk would not surrender the bible willingly, how else could he uphold his promise to Blodyweth? He was horrified by the thought that the monk, even without eyes, could read his intentions so clearly.

  "Let's pretend that is true, shall we? You can use the last few steps to make peace with yourself before you strike me down," the monk said.

  "Silence," Alymere barked. His fist clenched around the hilt of his sword. It felt heavy in his hand. How heavy was human life? The weight of the blade that claimed it? The weight of the corpse it left behind? Or the weight of all of those lives it could never touch again, combined?

  "The truth is barbed, is it not? My murder weighs heavy on you already, does it not?"

  "I said silence!"

  "So that you may cut me down without my words pricking your conscience? No," the monk said, tilting his head slightly as though listening to the voices of the fire. "You are already too far gone for that, aren't you? The book already owns you."

  "No-one owns me. I am a free man!" Alymere's denial was fierce but his words sounded hollow in his own ears.

  There were forces at play here that he could not understand. He was merely a play-thing to them. He shook his head, trying to clear the fog that shrouded his thoughts.

  "Have you not wondered why the flames do not touch you?"

  Alymere's only answer was to lash out with his sword.

  Twenty-Two

  The wall of heat was impenetrable.

  Sir Lowick couldn't follow his young charge into the chapter house.

  "He is lost to you," the monk said, as Lowick threw himself once more at the flames.

  "I refuse to believe that," he spat stubbornly.

  "Why, when it is the truth?"

  "It isn't the truth. It is just words."

  "And like words, it is written. The tragedies of this day have long been known to us."

  "You expect me to swallow that? What sorcery is this? Futures written? Do you huddle over a scrying mirror, or perhaps read the entrails of sacrificial lambs? You are supposed to be pious men. Christian men!" the knight spat.

  "There is n
o sorcery here. We are merely entering the final act of an-age old ballad. We knew this day would come. We did not know when. Likewise we did not know who would deliver our damnation. We thought, perhaps, it would be the reivers when they came, but their part was merely to lead death here, not to deliver it."

  "There will be no more dying here today," the knight said.

  "It would be nice were that true, but there is yet dying to be done. Breathe in the air, smell it. It is heavy with violence to come. It reeks of it, especially around you. But then, you still have a part to play in the killing."

  "Do I now?" The knight said sceptically. "And I am to believe you knew we were coming and that this is all some ancient prophecy unfolding, or some such folly? I will kill because the stars are in alignment, perhaps? Or did some soothsayer predict the sharpness of my blade and foulness of my mood?"

  "Who is to say that you will be the one doing the killing?" The monk offered. His expression was unreadable.

  The knight shuddered.

  Above them, the streaked glass in the huge window shattered. Dagger-sharp shards of glass rained down.

  "You cannot help him," the monk said, as though reading his mind. "Your future lies down a different path," he pointed toward an archway between the granary and the kitchens. "Follow the path to the misericord, and on through the rose garden to the infirmary. Behind it you will find a door in the sea wall, and through it a narrow stair that leads down to the wharf. Death waits on you there."

  Twenty-Three

  The monk threw up his hands to protect himself as the edge of Alymere's sword bit deep, slicing clean through his cassock.

  The impact caught Alymere unprepared; part of him had truly expected the blind man to possess some sort of mystical aura that would turn aside his blow. It didn't. The sword drew blood, cutting deep into the soft meat of the monk's forearm.

  He screamed, but the sound was lost in the insanity of the encroaching flames.

  Alymere swung again. He'd lost all reason. The Devil was in him.

  Again and again, raging.

  And each blow bit, opening another deep cut.

  The blood ran freely down his forearms as the gashes widened.

  "Don't do this," the monk pleaded, the agony of each fresh cut echoed in his voice. "Please."

  But in the fury-haze, Alymere didn't hear him. Instead he heard the Crow Maiden urging him not to fail her, and with each breath of smoke he inhaled her heady musk, taking it into his lungs and letting it fill him.

  The entire chapter house was creaking now, the stones groaning and grinding as the fire worked away at the mortar binding them. It was a dead house, filled with twisted and smoking detritus.

  He launched more brutal swings, each wilder than the last. There was no grace to the attack, and any half-adequate swordsman would have taken Alymere apart. But the monk made no move to defend himself. It was as though he was content to be cut down.

  Alymere didn't see the thick white scar forming over the first cut, the second and the third. As quickly as he delivered a new wound two of the older ones began to heal, leaving more of those thick white veins across the surface of his body.

  And through it all the monk clung onto the book as though it were the only thing keeping him alive.

  The notion made a sudden, sick, sort of sense to Alymere.

  How else could he be immune to the flames?

  Alymere realised then that the only way he was walking out of this place alive was with the Devil's Bible in his hands to serve as his shield.

  "Give me the book," Alymere demanded, seething and raging like a man possessed. There was a sickness in his soul. "Or I won't be responsible… just give me the damned book."

  "This isn't you."

  "I don't want to kill you. I came in here to save you."

  "This isn't what you want."

  Instead of trading more words, he pressed the advantage, four lightning-quick blows hacking away brutally at the man in front of him, all sense of self abandoning him, but the monk stubbornly refused to fall.

  Alymere stepped in close, and rammed the blade into the monk's gut, forcing it in all the way to the hilt. "Give. Me. The. Book."

  The monk stiffened, the skin around his empty eyes stretching as he straightened. His one free hand closed around Alymere's, both of them clutching the hilt of the sword, as a gasp escaped his clenched teeth. His lips parted and he sighed. It wasn't a gentle sigh. Alymere tasted the sour bile of death at the back of his throat. They stood, locked together, on the stone staircase as the fire rose around them. The intensity of it changed, the flames quickening. The speed with which it spread now was unnatural; as though whatever force had held it at bay was dying with the monk.

  "The book!" Alymere yelled, his face twisting with fear. Suddenly he was the blind man. The fire moved quickly now, licks of it darting across the stone stairs trying to find his feet.

  "I forgive you, knight," the monk managed, blood bubbling up through his lips. He slumped toward Alymere, causing his sword arm to take the sudden weight.

  He could barely hold him. Every muscle in his body was spent. All he wanted to do was take the book and lie down and let the fire rage over him whilst he waited for it to burn itself out, safe in the arms of the Devil.

  He shuddered then, repulsed by the notion.

  Alymere staggered back a step, relinquishing his hold on the sword.

  He looked down at the hilt protruding from the monk's stomach and said, "Oh God, what have I done?"

  The monk had no answer for him. His legs gave out beneath him and he fell forward into Alymere's arms.

  The fire coiled around the wooden balustrade, and leapt onto Alymere's cloak as he brushed against it. It only took a few seconds for it to spread from the woollen cloak to his hair and across to the man he held in his arms.

  Together they burned.

  Alymere made a desperate grab for the book, trying to wrest it from the monk's hands, but even down to his last few breaths the damned man refused to give it up.

  The fire reached Alymere's face.

  Its caress, more intimate than even the most demented lover, was pure agony. The flames spread like tender fingers across his cheek, but in their wake came only intense burning pain.

  Shrieking, a terrible banshee wail of a cry, Alymere threw himself at the monk. His momentum drove the dying man back, the pair of them still inextricably locked together in their fiery embrace, toward the broken window — and then kicking and screaming through it.

  Twenty-Four

  Sir Lowick found the door and the hidden stairs. He had to stoop to walk through them, as though entering some secret garden. Immediately on the other side of the door the sea breeze turned blustery, picking at and buffeting him as he negotiated the narrow steps. Hand-carved into the volcanic rock, the steps were rough and irregular despite the constant battering of the elements and shuffle of cautious feet as the monks made the daily journey down to the water. He picked his way down the cramped steps on his heels, and the further he descended, the slicker they became with sea spray, and the more treacherous.

  A blood-curdling scream tore at the night behind him.

  Lowick froze, half-turning, prepared to run back the way he had come, and almost lost his footing on the wet stair. He reached out for the wall to brace himself. He was more than fifty feet beneath the wall, still another hundred or more down to the water. He steadied himself, and then looked back the way he had come.

  All he could see were the crenellations of the wall, the top of the bell tower and the thick black smoke rising around it.

  There was nothing he could do back there, and the blind monk's words gnawed away at him. His path took him to the wharf — where death awaited him. Try as he might he couldn't shake a sense of creeping dread, and that dread was a killer every bit as ruthless as any reiver's sword. But Sir Lowick had no intention of dying today, nor any other day. Like most men of the sword, he was arrogant enough to suppose he might just live forever, if
the Lord willed it.

  Looking down at the churning whitecaps and the four brutish men wrestling with a pair of coracles, the knight believed for the first time that there was a chance he really might die on the pebble beach below.

  Instinctively, he made the sign of the cross to ward off ill-fate and cursed the monk.

  "This is not how I die," he said to the seagulls and the wind and the world and whoever else, deity or devil, might be listening. "Do you hear me? This is not how I die!"

  The tremors in his sword arm belied his words. At this rate, if he couldn't rein the dread in, by the time he reached the bottom step his death would be a foregone conclusion.

  Sir Lowick started down, moving faster than was safe on the treacherous stairs. He clutched his sword in his right hand while the fingertips of his left brushed against the damp rock of the cliff face. He saw the black crow — he was sure it was the same bird he had seen skimming the tops of the flames — perched on an outcropping above his head, watching him intently with its beady yellow eyes. The bird gave him the creeps. Every warrior had heard talk of the deathbirds; the carrion eaters who knew when death was imminent and came to shepherd souls toward the light of heaven.

  The knight brayed a raucous caw of his own, startling the bird into flight.

  It was the worst thing he could have done.

  The bird erupted into the sky in a flurry of feathers and caws so loud the men below turned to see the knight as he came down the last few stairs.

  They were there to meet him at the bottom, and the battle was joined.

  The size of the northerners' two-handed blades kept them from fighting side-by-side. There just wasn't room for them to swing on the narrow pebbled strip of beach. The knight had no such problems, and coming off the steps his reach countered the length of their blades.

  Breathing deeply of the salt air Lowick felt good about life.

  He felt alive.