Reckoning of Fallen Gods

by R. A. Salvatore

“The community is greater than the individual, and you are called upon to be an important member of our community, Brother Thaddius. I know not why Pagonel selected you as the Disciple of Avelyn for his adventuring legionem in primo. But it is a great honor.”

  “One I share with three women,” Thaddius replied rather sharply. “With one who cannot use the Ring Stones at all, and another too young to even enter the Order, even if she were a man!”

  “You are among the most important Brothers of Blessed Abelle,” Braumin insisted. “More than most of the remaining Masters, yet you are only a few years into your training. If you are successful, if your mission is successful, it will help me to chart a strong course…”

  “One apart from tradition!” the distressed young man dared to interrupt.

  “No!” Father Abbot Braumin yelled in his face. He grabbed Thaddius by his skinny shoulders and forced him to square up and look him in the eye. “No,” he repeated, more softly. “Much of what we have come to believe as tradition does not date to the earliest days of the Church. I do not blaspheme the message of St. Abelle. Never that! You must trust me, young brother. Everything I do, I do with purpose to save the Church from what it had become under the perversion of Dalebert Markwart and the Heresy of Marcalo De’Unnero.”

  That elicited a wince.

  “He killed people,” Father Abbot Braumin said quietly. “He murdered innocent people, thinking it for the greater good. You said you were prepared to enter our Order, but have you not studied the last two decades of our history? Do you not know the story of Brother Francis, who gave his life administering to the sick? Or of Brother Mullahy, who killed himself rather than renounce his faith? Or of Master Jojonah!”

  Brother Thaddius wore a curious expression as tears began to flow down the Father Abbot’s face. “Oh, Jojonah, my teacher,” the Father Abbot went on. “He showed me the truth of our traditions, and that many of our practices were not traditions at all!”

  “I do not know of any time when women were allowed into the Order in great numbers,” Thaddius dared to say.

  “True,” the Father Abbot admitted. “But have you ever known of any person more deserving than Jilseponie Wyndon? She would be your Mother Abbess now if she had accepted our offer. Not a brother in the Church would have questioned it, and none, not one, would have voted for anyone other than Jilseponie if her name had been on the ballot.”

  Thaddius wore a horrified look.

  “Do you doubt me? Do you doubt that Jilseponie brought down Marcalo De’Unnero and Father Abbot Markwart? Do you doubt that Jilseponie served as the shining light to our Order in the time of the plague?”

  Thaddius shrugged, but it seemed as if he had no more arguments to offer.

  “And so we honor her by allowing women into the Order. Perhaps it will work out for the betterment of us all. Perhaps not—in that case, it will be a temporary thing, out of necessity. Pagonel’s order is not unlike our own, and he insists that half of it is comprised of women, equally so, and at all ranks of achievement and honor.

  “I need you, young brother,” Father Abbot Braumin said earnestly, and he gave the thin man a slight shake. “And I trust in you.”

  He turned about and went to his desk, and returned a moment later bearing a small pouch. He moved to a table off to the side and carefully upended the contents.

  The sparkling gems took Brother Thaddius’s breath away. They were all there, it seemed, garnet and malachite, bloodstone, moonstone, serpentine, and a large ruby, and a larger soul stone!

  “These I entrust to you, young brother,” Father Abbot Braumin explained. “You will take them to St. Gwendolyn-by-the-Sea, and use them at your discretion. You, young brother, are the leader of this legionem in primo, and this band, your band, is critical to the rebuilding of the Abellican Order.”

  He wasn’t sure if Thaddius was even listening, for the man’s eyes were surely glowing as he looked upon the precious cache.

  “Go ahead,” Braumin bade him, and he slid the ruby Thaddius’s way. The young man lifted the gemstone in trembling fingers and clutched it tight to his chest, closing his eyes.

  Sometime later, Thaddius looked at the Father Abbot, and now he was crying, overwhelmed.

  “Never have I felt such … purity,” he admitted. “The depths of this ruby…”

  “Be sure that your serpentine shield is full and strong, and encompassing your allies, if ever you choose to use it,” Braumin warned. “Your power is considerable, and that stone will hold all that you can impart to it. Take care or you will curl the skin from your own bones!”

  “Yes, Father Abbot,” Thaddius said, though it seemed as if he could hardly speak.

  “Have you anything more to say to me, young brother?”

  “The community is greater than the individual,” Thaddius replied, and the Father Abbot nodded, contented.

  Braumin looked up as the door opened and Viscenti entered. “To the roof with Master Viscenti,” the Father Abbot explained to Brother Thaddius. “There you may properly measure these sacred stones and your own power.”

  The Father Abbot nodded when the pair were gone, then went to his desk, collected a large backpack, and set off for Pagonel’s training room. He found the mystic with the three young sisters, preparing packs for the road. They stood as one when he entered, dipping a bow of respect.

  “Are they Abellican sisters or Jhesta Tu?” Father Abbot Braumin said with a lighthearted laugh.

  “The bow is a sign of respect,” said Pagonel.

  “Then I should return it,” Braumin said, and he did, to Pagonel and then to each of the startled young women in turn.

  “Your exhibition has bought me time and great political capital,” he explained to them. “Had you failed in your fight, then all of this, your admission into the Order, the acceptance of those who show no affinity to the stones, the alteration of training traditions—all of it—would have been erased. We would limp along, vulnerable, for decades, as those who would weaken the Order of Abelle eagerly watched.

  “I believe in these changes,” Braumin went on. “I believe in you, and your worthiness as sisters of my Order. If I did not, I would never allow this journey to St. Gwendolyn to commence.”

  He looked to the tall Diamanda, the Disciple of St. Bruce. “Why did you join in the convent of St.-Mere-Abelle?”

  “I was an orphan, Father Abbot. The nuns took me in and raised me as if I had been born to them.”

  “Is it habit, then, or belief?”

  “It is both,” Diamanda admitted. “I was raised an Abellican, and have come to see the truth of the word. I am no child—nearer to thirty than twenty—and even had I not been raised in the convent of St.-Mere-Abelle, I would have sought entry.”

  “As a nun?”

  “I always wished for more. To serve at St. Gwendolyn as a full sister. Pagonel’s offer rang as sweet music to me.”

  “And you have danced well in that song,” Braumin replied. He held forth a small pouch for Diamanda, then emptied it into her hand, revealing a small cat’s eye set in a circlet, a soul stone, and a tiger’s paw. “I expect you will find good use for the first, I hope you will not need the second, and I trust that you will use the third only when necessary,” he said with a warm smile. He glanced around at the others in reflection, then turned back and offered a fourth stone, a malachite. “Dance to make St. Gwendolyn smile,” he whispered.

  The woman seemed as if she could hardly draw breath as she stood staring at the stones.

  Braumin stepped up to her and hugged her tightly. “Be well,” he whispered, and he moved along to the next in line.

  “Your grace in that exhibition brought hushed whispers to every Abbot and Master watching,” he said to Victoria, the Disciple of St. Gwendolyn, the battlefield dancer. “‘St. Gwendolyn reborn,’ Master Arri said to me.”

  “Too kind, Father Abbot,” Victoria replied, lowering her eyes respectfully and humbly, though humility surely did not come easily to this one.
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br />   And why should it, Braumin thought? She was powerful and full of grace, and strikingly beautiful with her fiery hair and shining eyes. Her every movement spoke of confidence. By Braumin’s estimation, Victoria could dominate the Court of King Midalis—every eye would be upon her, the ladies with contempt, no doubt, and the men with lust.

  “How does one such as Victoria come into a convent?” he asked her.

  “Is there a better place to be, other than an abbey?” she replied. “And now I am here.”

  “A nobleman’s court?”

  Victoria snorted as if the thought was absurd.

  “Her beauty distracts you, my friend,” Pagonel said to Braumin, and the Father Abbot turned on him in surprise. “And indeed, it will serve her well in her role in battle. You will find few among your Church more dedicated than Sister Victoria Dellacourt.”

  Braumin conceded the point with an apologetic nod, but halfway through it, his eyes widened with recognition. “Dellacourt?” he asked.

  “Master Francis was my uncle, though I never knew him,” Victoria answered. “Through his actions in the end, he became the pride of my family. His name is spoken of reverently.”

  The Father Abbot smiled warmly. “We will speak at length of him when you return,” he promised. “I knew him well.”

  “And hated him profoundly,” Victoria said, and Braumin stepped back as if slapped. “I know the story, Father Abbot.”

  Braumin nodded, for he could not deny the truth of her words. Certainly Brother Francis Dellacourt was no friend to Braumin Herde in their days together at St.-Mere-Abelle. Francis served Markwart, dutifully, and was allied with Marcalo De’Unnero. Francis had played no small role in damning Master Jojonah to the flames.

  “Do you believe in redemption?” the Father Abbot asked Sister Victoria.

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation. “If I did not, I would not wear my surname openly.”

  “So do I,” Braumin agreed. “When you return, we will speak at length. I will tell you some things about your uncle you do not know, I am sure. He was led astray by Markwart, but he was not an evil man, and I can prove it.”

  Braumin smiled again as he remembered one particular encounter with Francis, when the meddlesome young monk had barged in on one of the secret sessions Master Jojonah held for Braumin and the others. Francis had not turned them in to the hateful Markwart!

  Braumin brought forth another small pouch from his pack, and from it pulled a small lodestone and another cat’s eye circlet. “Brother Thaddius will instruct you in the use of the lodestone,” he explained. “It is more than a bullet, and will aid you in bringing your sword to bear, and in turning aside the sword of your enemy.”

  “Thank you, Father Abbot,” she said reverently, taking the stones and setting the circlet about her head.

  “And this,” Braumin added. He drew a slender sword from his sack and pulled it free of its sheepskin sheath. It was not a broadsword, surely, but long and thin, with an open groove running half its length up the center of the blade. The pommel and crosspiece were thin and graceful, dull steel used sparingly, the hilt wrapped in blue leather, and seemingly nothing remarkable. But how the blade gleamed, even in the meager candlelight of the room!

  Victoria’s eyes lit up when she took the weapon, no doubt in surprise at the lightness of the blade. Even with the open blood channel, it weighed no more than a long dagger.

  “Silverel,” the Father Abbot explained. “A gift from the Touel’alfar many centuries past, so say our records, and after meeting Belli’mar Juraviel, I know those old records to be true.”

  “It seems so … light,” Victoria remarked.

  “It is stronger than our finest steel,” Braumin assured her. “You’ll not break that blade.”

  Victoria looked to Pagonel, who seemed as surprised as she.

  Braumin gave her a great hug, one she returned tenfold, and then moved to stand before the last of the sisters.

  “Saint Belfour laughed from the grave to see the look on Brother Markus’s face when he slammed into you and was repelled as surely as if he had run into a stone wall,” he said with a grin. “I know that I laughed, and with delight. It defies logic and reason!”

  “She is connected to her line of life energy,” Pagonel interjected. “Greatly so. And she has trained hard and well.”

  “Indeed,” Braumin agreed. “And so for you…”

  “I am not skilled with the stones, Father Abbot,” she said. “Less so than Sister Victoria, even!”

  “So Brother Thaddius has complained to me,” the Father Abbot admitted.

  Victoria and Elysant rolled their eyes and looked at each other, and Braumin could only imagine the grief Thaddius had given to these two!

  Braumin pulled a cloak from his sack, which then seemed empty as he set it down on the floor at his feet. He shook the cloak out and turned it to show Elysant a pair of small diamonds set about the collar.

  “Put it on,” he instructed.

  She swung it about her shoulders.

  “This was fashioned for the bodyguard of a long-dead King of Honce-the-Bear,” he explained, “and only returned to the Church when Marcalo De’Unnero, then Bishop of Palmaris, began confiscating those magical items circulating among the nobles and merchants. Feel its power, young sister, and bring it forth.”

  Elysant closed her eyes and concentrated, and a moment later, her image seemed to blur a bit, as if shadows had gathered about her.

  Braumin looked to Pagonel. “A more difficult target,” he explained, and the mystic nodded.

  “But I cannot call forth the power of the sacred stones,” a confused Elysant remarked.

  “You need not with such an item,” the Father Abbot explained. “Which is why the Church frowned upon creating them for those not of the Order. And this,” he said, bending low and retrieving one last item from the sack, which was not empty after all, “is among the most precious ever made in this abbey.”

  He brought forth a small coffer, and opened it reverently before the woman, who gasped, as did the others. For within the coffer, on black silk, sat a leather bracer, set with a large and beautiful dolomite, and surrounded by five others.

  “It was made for a queen in the fifth century, because she was beloved and ever sickly. But alas, she died before it was finished, and so it has remained locked away in the lower chambers of St.-Mere-Abelle these four hundred years.”

  He glanced again at the mystic. “Pagonel feared that for all of your hard work, he simply did not have enough time to properly toughen you against the blows you will surely face.”

  He picked up the bracer and dropped the coffer, then took Elysant’s right arm and tied the item about her wrist.

  The small woman’s jaw dropped open. She felt the magic, apparently, and to the others, she seemed sturdier somehow.

  “Saint Belfour had such sacred dolomite sewn into his robes,” he explained.

  “It is a precious gift,” Sister Elysant said, her voice barely a whisper, so overwhelmed was she. “I cannot…”

  “Keep it well,” said Braumin. He hugged her tightly, then stepped back. “All of you,” he said. “These gifts I entrust to you. Let them remind you of the importance of this journey you are soon to take. I do not give them lightly!”

  The three women nodded solemnly, and Braumin knew that they understood the weight of the responsibility he had put upon them, and the trust he had shown in them.

  He was taking a great chance here, he knew. If this group, this legionem in primo, was waylaid and defeated on the road, then his doubters and enemies in the Church would be bolstered greatly, and so his hopes for Reformation could fast dissipate.

  But he believed in Pagonel.

  And, he knew in looking at these disciples of the saints, he believed in these extraordinary young sisters.

  * * *

  The meetings the next day among the members of the Church leadership had begun quietly, but as those who opposed Father Abbot Braumin came
to believe that they were under no threat of retribution, the discussions became more and more contentious.

  Braumin listened more than he spoke, and realized as the arguments raged that his proposed changes would only hold if they brought very positive results in short order.

  He nodded through every point raised by those supporting him, and opposing him. He was no dictator here, and given the disruption to every abbey and chapel, now was the time for the brothers to air their every concern and let their opinions be known.

  In the back of his mind, through every shout and growling response, Father Abbot Braumin reminded himself that the pile of red chips, for a man who had not even attained the rank of Abbot, was substantial, and that he was the Father Abbot of all the Abellican Church, not just those who had supported his ascension.

  He grew concerned, however, when he looked over at Master Arri and Sister Mary Ann. He had thought to take care of that messy business initially, before the two sides had dug in their respective heels, but then had reconsidered. He glanced over at Arri then, and offered a reassuring nod, for he understood that now the animosity was palpable, and that many of his allies would support him regarding the two monks from St. Gwendolyn-by-the-Sea even if they disagreed.

  “My brethren,” Braumin called, and he banged the heavy gavel down upon the wood, demanding the attention of all. When the room quieted, he continued, “Particularly since we are considering the matter of so many sisters entering the Order, perhaps we should now discuss the disposition of the one abbey where such was not uncommon. To begin the matter, and since St. Gwendolyn is emptied of her brothers and sisters, I nominate Master Arri to the rank of Abbot.”

  “Perhaps we should adjudicate the matter of Sister Mary Ann first,” Dusibol remarked—Abbot Dusibol, who had been promoted that very morning.

  “Arri is the obvious choice,” Braumin countered. “He has never held any mark against him, is well known among the supporters of Avelyn, and would seem to be the only remaining Master, if not the only remaining monk, other than Sister Mary Ann, of the abbey! Do you intend to oppose the nomination, Abbot?”