by Daniel Ford
The youngest of the three Urdarites, whose intact green eyes were large with fear, clung to the edge of their table as though he wanted to climb underneath of it. His robe hitched above his ankles as he sat, exposing his poorly shod feet, his shoes really little more than cloth wrappers held on with leather thongs.
The eldest, whose grey robe had a thin line of silk edging its hem and hood, sat closest to the fire. His face was deeply lined, and a patchy beard covered his cheeks. His face was turned directly to the fire, and he wore a contented, vacant, smile.
The third was a grown man, older than the boy who guided them but much younger than the older man. He clutched onto his walking stick like it was a totem, and curled his body around it, his face pointed at the floor. Occasionally the older priest spoke to him in quiet tones, but the younger monk ignored him, just as he ignored everything else.
After several minutes of warming himself, the elder monk turned carefully around on his stool so that his back was to the fire, cleared his throat, and addressed the room in a ponderous voice. “Good afternoon, my children. Thank you for the use of your roof and your fire,” he began, spreading his hands on the surface of the table, his gnarled fingertips digging into the recently worked wood. “Why do none of you speak? Has it been so long since our Order visited your hamlet that you fear to approach? Do not hesitate; Urdaran’s inward gaze has much to teach such as you.”
That’s got the feel of a practiced speech, Allystaire thought. Even as he was thinking over the monk’s words, Idgen Marte had darted away from the bar and snatched the back of Mol’s shirt, for the girl had hopped down off the bar and started for the table of Urdarites, a frighteningly determined look upon her face. Idgen Marte hauled her back to the bar and leveled a wide-eyed gaze at Allystaire, who then realized that everyone, down to the boy who had led the Urdaran priests into the village, was staring at him.
“Freeze it all,” he murmured, audible only to himself, and took a deep breath. He knelt down and retrieved the bottle he’d stashed beneath the bar, and with a look at Idgen Marte, sharply rapped the neck of it against the bar; it cracked with a heavy thunk, and another gentle rap was enough to knock it free. He poured a generous measure of it into a wine cup and left the bottle on the bar, pointed to it, then murmured softly to Idgen Marte, “Save me some.”
He walked with heavy steps, magnified by the silence in the room, his movements followed by every eye and by two eyeless faces. He picked up a stool as he walked, set it near the table, and sat down, placing the cup of brandy on the center of the table. The grey-robed boy stared at him with saucer eyes, trembling a little. Allystaire thought of smiling, thought That’ll be sure to send him running, and settled for saying, “Relax, lad. No one here means you any harm.”
This didn’t seem to have much of a calming effect, so Allystaire turned himself to the elder priest, who was smiling at him benevolently, if a touch theatrically, from underneath his shriveled, empty eye sockets. “What is the name of this village, and what is your name, my son?” His question was delivered in the same ponderous, quavering tone.
“This village is Thornhurst. My name is Allystaire.”
“Ah, an uncommon name. And your voice does not seem to have the local flavor to it. A bit north of here, and educated, I suspect, yes? Where are you from, my son?”
This old man is tiresome. Allystaire cleared his throat and said, “Where I am from or whether I am educated does not matter very much.”
The old priest fumblingly reached out for Allystaire’s wrist and seized it in a surprisingly strong, if thin-fingered grip. “The Inward Eye sees all in the end, my son. Do not seek to hide even trivial things.”
With his jaw suddenly tense, Allystaire reached over with his free hand and plucked the Urdarite priest’s hand from his wrist with gentle but irresistible force.
The old monk recoiled as if stung; the young boy gasped audibly, then whispered, “’It’s forbidden t’touch Urdaran’s anointed, m’lord.”
“Forbidden by whom?” Allystaire’s casual response caught the boy off guard; he simply bobbed his jaw up and down soundlessly a few times. Carefully, Allystaire set the old man’s hand down near the brandy cup and said, “Have a drink, Urdaran’s anointed. Rest yourselves. We will bring some food.” He turned to the village folk crowded around the walls and waved a hand at them; a few of them pushed off the walls or stood up from their benches and milled around, desultory looks on their faces. He cleared his throat again, and added, “We will not allow anyone to find the hospitality of Thornhurst lacking.”
Finally, he turned and snapped his fingers at some of the dawdling villagers, and two walked purposefully toward the bar and the pantry beyond it; soon enough they emerged with bread, cheese, and dried fish. They brought it near, but stopped just short of the table. With a frustrated grunt, Allystaire stepped toward them, grabbed the food in his hands, and laid it out on the table, once again making sure it was close enough to the arms of the blind monks for them to feel its presence.
The elderly priest slowly turned his wrinkled, ruined face toward Allystaire and cleared his throat. “You are not happy for us to be among you, my son. This much is plain to my ears. We should speak, perhaps, in less crowded quarters, of what has drawn us here?”
Quietly flexing one of his fists and frowning, Allystaire said, “Perhaps.”
With a frown deepening the wrinkles of his face, the old eyeless monk said, “Why so angry? Have we offended? Should we move on? ‘Twould not be the first night Urdaran’s faithful servants were cast out of a place for fear of what they might see. We sleep most nights upon rocks and tree roots, in wind and rain and heat, with the danger of animals and the night about us; we learn not to mind such things. But the fear of a village which has turned its eyes outward, against that we cannot defend ourselves. It is a shame when Urdaran’s children turn against his anointed, but so it often is.”
Allystaire heard a muffled yelp from the back of the room and then a light thud as the door shut; Idgen Marte disappeared out the front door, half dragging Mol by the hand.
The young monk quailed in fear; the other monk continued to hunch miserably over his staff, hood pulled tightly over his head. With the skin of his jaw tightened, Allystaire leant over their table with one fist planted on its surface. “No one here is going to harm you, old man, nor your guide, nor your fellow anointed. With my word upon it, you are as safe here as you would be in the fastness of your own blind god’s loveless embrace. Remember this, though, when we speak again.” Allystaire leant down a bit more, while the old monk sat in shocked stillness. “I am not your son. Urdaran has no children in this village, save the three of you. We can speak on why that is and what has drawn you here later. Now, I must confer with my comrades.” He turned and swiftly headed for the door, stopping only to point at Timmar and murmur, “Find beds for them, and more food and drink if they want it.”
With that, he stomped out the door, letting the wind bang it against the jamb as he stepped outside. Mol and Idgen Marte were standing just a few feet away from the door. The rain had lessened considerably, and the air bore a cool promise of autumn. He stopped in front of his fellow servants of the Goddess and hooked his thumbs on his belt.
“Well. What do we do?” he asked.
“Drive ‘em off. They aren’t needed here.” Mol had her arms crossed over her chest and her face set in hard determination. I know that look, he thought, and when Idgen Marte caught his eye he realized she knew it too, and she shook her head slightly.
“Mol, whatever else they might be, they are two blind men and a child. Do they bear some power from their god? Perhaps. Remember what I told you when first I spoke of such as them? They mean to ignore the world. Urdaran teaches that we should all look inward, to our own minds, to seek…” Here, Allystaire paused, groping for a word, and finally waving a hand in disgust. “I do not know what they seek. Regardless, I perceive no threat
.”
“Cold, lass, I think even old Allystaire could take them without fainting away at the end of the scuffle,” Idgen Marte suggested with a light laugh.
Mol scowled, digging her arms more tightly around her thin form. “I don’t think they can hurt the folk. It’s the Mother I’m thinkin’ of. Can’t they hurt Her, hurt what the folk think of Her?” She shivered very lightly. “Our faith is new. Theirs is old. So is their god. What d’we do if they start preachin’?” She shook her head and toed the dirt at her feet.
“If they start preaching, I suspect we do the same. Mayhap louder. Yet I will not take action, or encourage anyone to do so, against an old blind man because he serves a different god than we do. That is not the Mother’s way.”
As Allystaire said this, he realized that all three of them knew the truth of his words before he had really uttered them. “We will keep Her people by showing them all of the Mother’s ways—not merely Her wrath, Her love, Her compassion, or hope, but also Her patience. The night before we came back to Thornhurst, I set our first rule, do you remember? Come to Her freely, or come not at all.” He paused a moment. “If folk must come to the Mother on their own, then they must be allowed to leave Her if they wish. I do not think they will. Now,” Allystaire reached back and gently pushed open the door to the inn; “Are you going to come be sociable? We have guests.”
A bit reluctantly, but with her aggression melted away, Mol rushed past him into the inn; Idgen Marte paused to murmur a question.
“Is their arrival an accident? Didn’t the eldest one say something about—”
“He did. I can tell you already that this one is theatrical. He may be making it all up.”
Idgen Marte muttered as she passed him, “Plenty of folks are gonna say that about us, ya know.”
Allystaire sighed heavily and turned back into the inn, drawing the door behind him. After the cool of the outdoors, the air inside seemed oppressively hot, filled with too many bodies and too much woodsmoke. He noted, happily, that while most of the villagers had gone on with their drinking, a few, at least, had stopped to make some small talk with the Urdarites. All three of them were eating and drinking, the young guide most animatedly. Even the second priest, who had simply curled around his stick, was limply shoving food under his pulled down hood. As Allystaire watched, he lifted his head with the lightest of motions to whisper something at the eldest priest, whose every gesture seemed calculated—slow, grand, and designed to draw attention.
We lost a fine minstrel when you decided to cut out your eyes, Allystaire thought, chuckling lightly at his own thought. He approached the Urdaran’s table, once more drawing over a free chair and sitting himself down.
“Fathers,” he began, his voice deliberately calm, “we can give you beds and food. Stay as long as you wish. And we will ask nothing in return.”
The elderly monk smiled, the expression strangely incongruous on his mutilated face. “I knew wisdom and kindness would prevail, my son.”
“Let me amend myself,” Allystaire said, working hard to keep his voice calm. “I ask nothing except that you recall that I am not your son. No one here is.”
The smile quickly became a frown. “Every man is Urdaran’s child, even those who worship Fortune or Braech or—”
“Father, if you must preach, do not preach to me,” Allystaire said evenly, as the fingers of his right hand curled faintly in the suggestion of a fist.
The old priest, still smiling theatrically, opened his mouth as if to respond, but was stopped short when the other hooded, eyeless monk reached out a hand, having uncurled from his private misery, and drew the older monk toward him. Allystaire could not see much of the younger man’s face, but what he did see appeared pale and drawn, with flesh drawn taut across sharp bones. He whispered to the older priest, words which to Allystaire remained annoying susurration. The older priest shook his head as if in disbelief, then turned a blank face toward Allystaire, then back to the younger man.
Though unable to make out words, Allystaire was certain he recognized dismissal of an underling’s ideas when he saw it, and this thought was confirmed when the younger priest burst out with, “It is, damn it all! Why will you not listen?” Then the hooded man suddenly stood, fumbling with his stick and his free hand to get around the stool he’d been sitting on. He stumbled forward haphazardly, quickly tripping over the chair their sighted guide sat upon.
Allystaire was up in a flash, reaching out and grabbing the blind Urdarite monk with sure hands. The man felt feverish, heat emanating off him even through his robes, and Allystaire felt a small, almost threatening shock. He helped the man upright, holding him in place till the boy recovered from his surprise and stood to help the priest back to his seat.
“Calm yourself, Rede,” the old monk was saying. “Sit. Settle your mind and focus your inward eye…” The younger Urdarite only laughed bitterly, and without humor.
Can’t have been blind very long, Allystaire mused. He lowered his head slightly to get a look at the man’s face beneath his hood.
Indeed, the younger Urdarite must have been feverish, for his face was not only pale, but streaming with sweat, the sheen of it coating his cheeks, mouth, and jaw. A crude strip of bandage was bound around his eyes; the edges of the sockets that Allystaire could see were raw, red, and cracked. A thin trail of pus led down his cheek from the corner of his left eye.
“This man’s wounds are untended. He is ill,” Allystaire announced loudly and with his accustomed ring of authority. A half-dozen villagers, including Norbert, leapt to their feet and were standing around him in a cluster almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Allystaire leant closer to the monk and sniffed the air. His mouth curled when he smelled the sickening rot that could mean only one thing.
“Rede? That is your name, yes?” The monk nodded, and Allystaire went on. “Your wounds are putrescent. I can help you if—”
Allystaire’s words were cut off by the stentorian rumble of the older Urdarite. “Absolutely not! Urdaran forbids any intervention in the choosing of his priests. Childe Rede will pass this test, or he will move on to Urdaran’s endless embrace.”
Allystaire found himself leveling a hard, angry stare at the old monk for a moment before suddenly laughing bitterly at the futility of such a gesture. He said to Rede, who had gone still in his grasp.
“Rede, how long since they maimed you?”
“Three days,” Rede mumbled, the words coming out in a hoarse whisper.
“If you do not wish to die, come with me. I can help, if you will trust me.” The monk nodded eagerly, his hood slipping further over his sweat-slicked face. Allystaire took one feverish wrist in his own hand and led the monk toward the door, waving his free hand at Idgen Marte and Mol as he neared the bar. “The temple. Go.” Both of them filed out ahead of him, Mol holding the door open before scampering off after the leg-swinging gait of the tall swordswoman.
“No! I forbid this! All of you stay put! It isn’t done!” The older priest was not giving in.
“You do not give orders here, father,” Allystaire replied curtly, as he stalked purposefully from the inn, leading Rede behind him.
Allystaire heard shouting and commotion in the inn behind him but ignored it; he also heard a crowd stomping after him. Without bothering to look back, he called out, “If that other monk wishes to follow us, show him the way.” The storm had blown away completely, and the relatively cool breeze was a welcome change from the stuffy interior of the inn.
Rede’s steps were halting and slow; finally in frustration, Allystaire stopped, bent slightly, and lifted the monk, slinging him carefully over his shoulder. Rede cried out wordlessly, and in spite of struggling in protest, he seemed weightless upon Allystaire’s broad shoulder.
“Apologies, Rede. I assume your wish to live will allow you to bear the next few minutes in discomfort.”
“Wha
t temple are you bringing me to?” Rede moaned, as he bounced upon Allystaire’s shoulder.
Catching himself just before saying you will see, Allystaire replied, “A new temple.” And as he spoke, the field and the low stone walls surrounding the altar came into view. Rede’s limp and fevered form couldn’t have weighed more than eight stone, Allystaire guessed. He was able to vault the low wall with little difficulty, and when he reached the center of the still-rising temple, he laid the feverish man against the altar. Idgen Marte and Mol already waited, both of them looking to him expectantly.
Allystaire turned quickly to them. “Hands on the altar. Pray.” He bent and started carefully peeling away the bandage; it took layers of skin with it, and Rede futilely raised his hands up as if to push Allystaire’s away. With a grimace, he ripped the bandage free, tearing pieces of the skin hanging loosely around the Urdarite’s eye sockets. Trickles of blood and a fresh torrent of pus leaked from the wounds.
Whether Rede had been blinded with a blade, hot iron, fingers, or some horrible tool meant to scoop out eyes and damage the flesh around them, Allystaire couldn’t quite say. Perhaps it was some combination of all four. But the man’s eyes were a ruin, the flesh swollen and torn, one socket gleaming wetly.
Idgen Marte looked on uncertainly, one hand on the altar; Mol had placed both hands upon it and closed her eyes, her face blank and somehow beatific. Allystaire glanced at them and told Idgen Marte again, “Pray! Please!”