Book 5, Chapter 44: Morning At The Abbey
No one returned to my cell and the sunlight slowly moved across the room. Meditation, if that’s what I was going to do, had to wait. I mostly slept, recovering from the week’s ordeals. And worried for the big man. They certainly wouldn’t treat him as well as me, though they likely wouldn’t force him to drink poison. I wondered if I could escape.
After all, soldiers were no longer guarding me. Just elderly women. If they were honest about the food, I could recover, maybe overpower whoever brought the next meal, get out and search the building. There still were ten more soldiers, though. But given the division between the abbess and grand magister, probably some of those would be guarding the wizard. He’d be without magic here. And some would be guarding Morry.
If I could escape, all I had to do was free Morry. Ten soldiers were probably too much for one man, but maybe we could even the odds using this building. A stairway. Force them to fight one by one. Perhaps I could somehow take a few out myself. Divide and conquer.
Or whatever. I didn’t have a map of the building, nor any idea of what to do, so I’d be doing everything blind. And escape relied on me besting one of these old ladies and not getting caught until I found Morry. Seemed a stretch. But better than waiting in this cell for whatever they had planned, to be their sacrifice.
A caw outside caught my attention. I quickly jumped up, looking through the barred window. A flock of dark birds circled outside the walls, moving higher and higher. One of them broke off from the group, headed directly toward me. As it flew over the stone walls, it changed directions and landed on a rooftop. The bird walked around a bit, awkwardly as ravens do, then took to the air, a meandering path, then back over the wall. It headed off in its own direction, not rejoining the flock.
I watched for a while longer, hoping and hoping, but for what I couldn’t imagine. Even if the birds could get to me, what then? They certainly couldn’t break these bars. Perhaps they could harass the nuns, cause confusion.
The ravens made a few more attempts, but each time, they seemed to lose sight of their goal, me, and ended up leaving, and going off on their own. One did return to the flock, and I watched it, and if I still had eyes on the right bird, it left them after a time, too.
I sat back down and pondered. Magic was cut off here. Perhaps whatever companionship the birds felt for me also dissipated upon their entrance to this temple.
Well, the abbess said magic would not work here. It’s true that I didn’t flare up, but I hadn’t tried, either. Time to test that out. Time for the meditation everyone was so keen on me doing.
Sat on the bed, back against the wall, cross-legged, hands resting on my legs. Sand crunching under my feet, waves gently washing against the shore, wind through the leaves of nearby trees. I could feel my heartbeat slow, muscles relaxing, but no energy. Nothing to control.
After a few minutes, I opened my eyes. I usually, but not always, released my magic through anger and rage. Only using meditation to control it after.
Perhaps meditation was the opposite of what I needed to do. Rage. I could stub my toe on the bed, but didn’t think it’d work. Think about my friends and Otholos’ threats to them, the kingdom. Morry, imprisoned somewhere in this monastery. I thought about these for a while, perhaps a little longer, a touch more time.
None of that got me anywhere.
They key had to lie within Etienne’s explanations of the rune on my back. It was a 2D rendering of a fifth dimensional polygon. And the mages make complicated geometric patterns with their hands and bodies in their strange dance. Closed my eyes again, visualizing the polygon. Rotated it in my mind, tried to imagine it extending in more than one direction.
There! A spark. Like staring through binoculars near their range limits and trying to keep track of something moving quickly. It was gone, back again, moving up, backwards, down. Concentrating and concentrating, I tried to pull it toward me – and it grew!
I pulled it nearer, could feel the energy then, coming. A droplet of sweat trickled down the side of my face, the room felt hotter. The energy, my magic, veered off in another direction and was lost to me.
Damnit! Opened my eyes. I was breathing hard at the effort. Thirsty. Pushing off the bed and standing up, the world suddenly went white and it was all I could do to not fall. Hand on the bed, I froze in place and eventually the fainting spell passed and I fell forward, but caught myself, sat down again.
After a time, I made it over to the table and drank more wine.
***
The sunlight grew old and red coming through the window before the lock to my door clicked and a woman walked in. The youngest nun I’d seen here, her hair was still black and she was probably in her sixties.
“Very good,” she said, “you managed to finish the tray. I’ve brought you supper.” She carried another tray of food, setting it on the table, then moving the dishes onto the previous one, gathering them all up before lifting it off the desk.
I contemplated running at her and trying to choke her out. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” She headed for the door.
“Wait. I have a few questions.”
“Oh? I don’t know that I can answer them.”
“You seem to be the youngest woman here.”
“Ah. I just might be, now.”
“No new apprentices then?”
“Not in the temple complex here. Down in the village below, where the river leaves the mountains, we train new recruits.”
“And they can only come here when they’re, what, fifty? Sixty?”
She smiled warmly at me. “Is that all?”
“Where is my companion? My general. A duke, actually. He was captured by the wizards. Where are they keeping him?”
She looked troubled. “On the other side of the complex, in a separate grange, I believe. I haven’t been over there since they moved in.”
“Why not?”
“There’s no need for me to. Others of our order bring them food.”
“Trying to poison them?”
“Eat. Rest. Build your strength up, my lady.” She turned to the doorway.
“What’s a grange?”
Turned back, cocked her head, looking amused. “A separate building within the complex. We are in the balneary. The bathhouse.”
“This is an enormous bathhouse, then.”
“I’ll return in several hours.” She walked through the door.
“Wait!” I said, louder, before she closed it. “One last question, please.”
“Yes?”
“Would it be possible for me to join your order? I don’t . . . I don’t want to use my magic again.”
“Thank you,” she said and shut the door.
I shook my head. What a strange way to answer that! If I could stay, become a nun or whatever, I wouldn’t go about destroying the world. Good outcome for everyone. Except maybe me, though it didn’t seem like such a bad life, living in a cliff-hanging monastery and gardening and bathing every day. They even had wine. I could introduce them to whiskey if they had beer. Or cognac if they didn’t. Well, brandy, I guess. We could rename the area to Cognac, though, trademark it, and then feel prestigious.
But unless that ‘thank you’ was for my request, and she’d be bringing an invitation next time, I doubted conversion to their way of life was what they had in store for me.
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