Mortalis

Chapter 40

They stood in the square, watching the soldiers galloping in pursuit of the fleeing monster. Jilseponie didn't follow. She just stood there, beside Symphony, open and exposed and vulnerable, out of magic and exhausted. She looked across the way to the remaining Brothers Repentant and the hordes they held back, to the line of soldiers still sitting ominously on their chargers, to Duke Tetrafel, staring at her from the window of his coach, his expression indecipherable.

Slowly, she dared to glance back at St. Precious, to see the monks holding stoic vigil, some with gemstones, some with crossbows, some flanking a great black kettle steaming with hot oil. There stood her friend Braumin Herde staring back at her with a mixture of respect and love, gratitude and fear.

For she was out there, in the calm valley between two great waves; and those waves, despite what she had just done, despite that she had shown the folk of Palmaris the truth of Marcalo De'Unnero, seemed destined to crash together one more time.

By the time Jilseponie looked back across the way, Duke Tetrafel had stepped out of his carriage. She could see the slump of his shoulders, the dark blue under his eyes. Yes, he had the plague; she could smell it thick about him even this far away.

"The brothers of St. Precious did not cause this," Jilseponie said loudly, sweeping her gaze quickly about all the crowd, but then quickly refocusing it on Tetrafel. "The plague is not the work of men, nor is it the scourge of an angry God."

"So you claim!" shouted one of the Brothers Repentant from the side. "So you must, for you have led the way against God!" He came forward as he spoke, prodding his finger at Jilseponie. Her responding look was one of perfect calm and confidence, and perfectly cold; and the man, who had just seen his adored leader beaten away by this dangerous woman, gradually calmed and slowed.

"They are innocent," Jilseponie said to Tetrafel when the threat of the irate brother had passed.

"They hide while the people suffer and die!" the Duke came back.

"As did you, until you learned that the plague was within your own body," she replied. "I do not judge you, Duke," she quickly added, seeing the soldiers all about him bristle at the accusation. "Nor can I, can any of us, judge all the folk who so hide from the plague-monk or soldier, brother or even father-who out of fear for the rest of his family must put a victim out of his house."

"But you never hid from it!" came one cry from the crowd; and Jilseponie recognized the speaker as one of the attendants at the house where Colleen had died.

"But that was my choice to make," Jilseponie quickly answered, before any negative comparisons could be drawn concerning the brothers of St. Precious. "As it was yours, Duke Tetrafel."

The clump of hooves to the side alerted Pony that Dainsey Aucomb and Greystone had at last arrived at the square.

"But take heart!" Jilseponie cried. "For our salvation is upon us, and there is the proof!" She pointed at Dainsey as she finished, then looked back to the crowd to see a great mixture of expressions, and many of them verging on uncontrollable excitement.

"Duke Tetrafel, will you come with me inside the abbey, to meet with Abbot Braumin, that I might explain my revelations to you? "

The sick man stared at her hard.

"A trick!" cried another of the troublesome Brothers Repentant. "A deception to take the heart from our fight!"

Jilseponie didn't even glance the man's way. "You have the plague and will die," she said bluntly to the Duke. "I cannot help you, nor can the brothers within the abbey. But there is an answer, a cure for your sickness, and I know how to reach it."

" Then tell us!" came a cry from the crowd, a plea echoed many times over.

Jilseponie held up her hand. "It will take all of us to do this thing," she shouted back, "It will only work if Duke Tetrafel agrees." And she settled her gaze upon him again as she finished, putting the weight of a thousand desperate prayers squarely on his sickly shoulders. "Will you come in with me?" she asked again. "On my word, you'll not be harmed nor detained."

"Your word? " Duke Tetrafel echoed skeptically, glancing past her to the brothers of the abbey.

"Mine as well," said Abbot Braumin.

The monks about him shifted nervously, staring at him with disbelief. Jilseponie could not enter the abbey, by his own words, unless she submitted to thorough inspection to ensure that she was not afflicted, and Duke Tetrafel, of course, could not be admitted at all, for he was obviously ill with plague.

"We will meet at the gate," the abbot clarified, "on opposite sides of a tussie-mussie bed we will lay out within the tower antechamber."

"A hero to the end," Duke Tetrafel muttered, loudly enough for Jilseponie to hear, but in truth, that arrangement seemed perfectly suited to her needs.

"All of you stay back," Tetrafel said to his soldiers and to the common people. He sucked in his breath and strode forward, then walked with Jilseponie and Dainsey to St. Precious' front gates. It was some time before the monks had the flowers in place within the gatehouse, but soon after, the doors swung open.

Abbot Braumin and his advisers, Viscenti, Talumus, and Castinagis, stood across the flower bed from the trio.

Now it was Jilseponie's turn to take a deep breath. This was her moment, a critical one for the fate of all the world.

She told them the story, all of it, of Dainsey and Roger, of her trip to the Barbacan with Bradwarden and Dainsey, of the ghost of Romeo Mullahywhich made Master Viscenti gasp fearfully-and of the second miracle of Aida.

"I, too, have kissed the hand of Avelyn," Jilseponie finished. "Thus, the rosy plague cannot touch me."

The expressions coming back at her from across the tussie-mussie bed ranged from joyful Master Viscenti, hopeful Brother Talumus, skeptical Brother Castinagis, and, even worse than that, something beyond skeptical, sympathetic Abbot Braumin. Beside Jilseponie, Tetrafel was more animated, was grabbing at the hope she had just offered to him.

"Then you are my angel," he said, taking Jilseponie's hand in his own. "You will take this wretched disease from my body!"

Jilseponie turned to him, trying to find the words to explain to him that, while there was indeed an answer, a true hope, she was not the source of his, or anyone else's, cure.

"The plague is not always fatal," Abbot Braumin interrupted. Jilseponie and Tetrafel both turned to regard him, for the manner in which he had spoken those words showed that he believed Jilseponie's "revelation" to be nothing so spectacular. "People have been cured, though it is rare," the abbot went on.

"Then why do you hide behind your walls? " Duke Tetrafel demanded.

"One in twenty, so say the old songs," the abbot calmly replied. "One in twenty might be helped, but one in seven will afflict the helping brother. We hide because those numbers, learned through bitter experience, demand that we hide."

Tetrafel trembled and seemed on the verge of an explosion. "This is different," Jilseponie put in. "Dainsey was not helped by meindeed, I tried and was repulsed, again and again."

"Perhaps you had more success than you believed," suggested Braumin.

Jilseponie was shaking her head before he ever finished the words. "I had no effect, and was, in fact, afflicted by my efforts. Yet the plague is not within me any longer and cannot enter this, my body purified by the blood of Avelyn. It is real, Ab-Braumin. It is real and it is up there, at the Barbacan, the cure for the plague for those who can make the journey, the armor that can turn it aside without fail."

Now it was Braumin's turn to shake his head, but that only made Jilseponie press on more forcefully.

"You doubt, as many doubted your own tale of a miracle at Mount Aida," she reminded him. "I speak of ghosts and of blood on a hand long petrified. I speak of a miraculous recovery by a woman who had already begun her journey into Death's dark realm. And so it is difficult for you to dare to hope." She paused and stared at the abbot intently, even came forward onto the tussie-mussie bed. "You know me, Braumin Herde. You know who I am and what I have done. You know of my attributes and of my failings. False hope has never been among those failings."

"The bell! The bell!" came a cry, echoing along the corridors and the ramparts. "The bell!" the excited young brother cried again, scrambling down beside the abbot and the other leaders of the abbey. "My abbot, the bell!" he stammered, pointing back toward the abbey's central bell tower. The man hardly seemed able to stand, so overwhelmed was he.

"What is it, Brother Dissin?" Braumin demanded, putting his hands on the man's shoulders, trying to hold him steady.

"The bell!" he cried again, tears flowing down his cheeks. "You must see it!"

Even as he finished, more cries came from the back of the abbey, shouts of "A sign!" and "A miracle!"

Castinagis, Talumus, and Viscenti started off that way. Braumin turned to regard Jilseponie and saw that she and her two companions were boldly crossing the flower bed. He started to motion for them to stop but found that he could not-found, to his surprise, that he had come to believe that something extraordinary was indeed happening here, something that he could not and should not deny.

Together they ran into the abbey, up the stone stairs, along a corridor, down another and up another set of stairs, and into the bell tower. They had to push past many brothers-monks who were so overwhelmed that they hardly seemed to notice that Duke Tetrafel, a man infected with the rosy plague, was crowding among them.

Up the winding stairs, they climbed and climbed, coming at last to the highest landing, in plain view of the great bell of St. Precious, the bell Jilseponie had struck with a lightning bolt to herald her arrival in Palmaris. And there, scorched into the side of the old metal, was an unmistakable image: an upraised arm clenching a sword at midblade.

Braumin's jaw fell open. He turned back to the woman. "How did you

…" he started to ask, but the question fell away, for it was quite obvious that Jilseponie was every bit as stunned and confused as he.

He was tired and he was dirty, and he knew that if he wasn't already afflicted with plague, then he soon would be. But Brother Holan Dellman would not surrender his work, not with so many people dying about the grounds of St. Belfour Abbey.

Nor would Abbot Haney, nor any of the other brothers who had chosen to remain within the structure after the decision had been made to open wide the gates. Three of those brothers had died, and horribly, of plague contracted through their futile healing efforts, and not a single person had been healed, though many lives had been extended somewhat by the heroic efforts.

Even that grim reality had not deterred Haney, Dellman, and the others from the course they knew they must pursue. Nor was Prince Midalis, ever a friend of the common folk, hiding away in his small palace in the complex at Pireth Vanguard. For he, like the monks, could not suffer the cries of the dying.

Midalis had not taken ill yet, but Liam was showing the beginnings of the plague.

Holan Dellman headed for his darkened room, wanting nothing more than to fall down into unconsciousness. He had heard the news of Liam's illness that same morning, soon after he had begun his work with the sick at St. Belfour, and that news, more than his efforts with the sick, had taken the strength from him. How he wanted to go to the man and comfort him! How he wanted to focus all his healing energies on that one man, now, early on, before the plague had taken solid hold of him!

But Dellman could not do that, could not place the fate of his dear friend above that of the others. That was not the way of his faith or of his God; and as much as he had come to love Liam O'Blythe during his time in Vanguard, Holan Dellman loved his God above all else.

But that didn't stop his very human misery at the news.

He collapsed onto his small cot, buried his face into the blankets, and tried to block out all the world.

And then he sensed her, and, with a start, he jerked about and he saw her.

Jilseponie, standing in his room, looking back at him.

Holan Dellman bolted upright. "How did you get here?" he asked. "Did the ship-"

Dellman stopped, suddenly realizing that this was not Jilseponie physically before him, was something less substantial. He gasped, trying to find His breath, and retreated across the cot, eyes wide, his head shaking, his body trembling.

"We have found the answer, Brother Dellman," Jilseponie said to him, in a voice half audible and half telepathic.

Holan Dellman understood spirit-walking, of course, but he had never seen anything this extreme. His first thought was that Jilseponie had died and that her ghost had come to him. But now he realized that this was spirit-walking taken to a level that he had never before seen.

"Brother Dellman!" she said to him, more insistently, and he understood that she was trying to steady him, that her time, perhaps, was not long here in Vanguard.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"In St. Precious," she answered. Her voice seemed weaker suddenly, and her answer was more a feeling than words, an image of a place that Holan Dellman knew well. So, too, came her next communication-an image of a flat-topped mountain, of a mummified arm protruding from the stone.

"Go there, all the sick and all the well," Jilseponie said. "Go and be healed."

Jilseponie's spirit image vanished.

Brother Dellman sat there, gasping, for a long while. Then, no longer exhausted, he ran out to find Abbot Haney.

"They all must go," Jilseponie said to Tetrafel and Braumin when they met later that day in St. Precious Abbey. "The ill and the healthy, in coordinated fashion and with your soldiers to protect them."

Duke Tetrafel, only then beginning to digest the overwhelming logistics of the proposition, hesitated. "I will send some soldiers," he agreed.

"All of them!" Jilseponie argued, her tone showing no room for debate. "Every man and woman. And you must send word to Ursal, telling King Danube to open the roads to the north, to call out the entirety of his army to wage this war as completely as he would if the goblins had returned.

"And you, Abbot Braumin, must send all of your brothers, as quickly as possible, using all the magic available to you, to the Barbacan," she continued. "Once you have tasted the blood of Avelyn, then you, too, might begin to aid those making the journey to Aida without fear of becoming ill."

"But you cannot cure me," Duke Tetrafel argued, "by your own words."

"But I can help to battle the plague, to push it back long enough so that, perhaps, you will survive the journey to the mountaintop, and there be healed."

"You are so certain of all of this?" Braumin asked somberly; and Jilseponie nodded, her expression serious and grim.

"We must have soldiers and monks lining the road, all the way from Palmaris to the Barbacan," she explained, "supply camps, with food and with bolstering healing, with fresh horses, and with soldiers to guide the newest group of pilgrims to the next site."

"Do you understand the difficulties?" Duke Tetrafel asked skeptically.

"Do you understand the implications if we fail in this?" Jilseponie shot back, and that surely silenced the skeptical, plague-infected man.

" You went to Dellman? " Braumin Herde asked.

Jilseponie nodded. "Vanguard is alerted. For now, they must determine their course."

"And you will similarly go to the Father Abbot at St.-Mere-Abelle?" Braumin asked.

Jilseponie thought on that for a few moments, then shook her head. "I will go in body to St.-Mere-Abelle, along with Dainsey. I will face them directly."

Braumin, too, paused and mulled it over, then nodded his agreement. "They will not be easily convinced," he said, remembering his previous meeting with Glendenhook and understanding well the doubting, cynical nature of powerful Fio Bou-raiy.

"We need them," Jilseponie said. "All of them. All of the brothers of your Church. They must go to Aida and protect themselves, then work tirelessly to aid those who will follow them to that holy place."

"Palmaris first," Duke Tetrafel demanded.

Jilseponie nodded. "Let our work begin, now, out in the square."

And so it did, with Jilseponie working with the soul stone, bolstering those sick plague victims who would head out that very day, while the soldiers and the other healthy pilgrims began readying the many horses and wagons.

While Braumin and the others, on Jilseponie's own orders, could not offer direct aid to the plague sufferers, they did work with soul stones, leeching their own strength into Jilseponie, bolstering her efforts.

She worked all the day and all the night. Several, she found, were beyond her help, were simply too thick with plague for her to offer any real relief. They would not make the journey, could not hope to survive the road, even if she went along with them, working on them all the way. She did not turn them away, though, and tried to enact some measure of relief, at least, upon them.

That very night, magically and physically exhausted but knowing that every minute she delayed likely meant the death of another unfortunate victim, Jilseponie and Dainsey Aucomb set out from Palmaris. Instead of taking the normal, slow ferry across the Masur Delaval, the pair were whisked across the great river by Captain Al'u'met on his Saudi']acintha.

Also that very same night, Abbot Braumin and every brother of St. Precious began their swift pilgrimage to the north, using gemstones to lighten the burden on their horses, using gemstones to illuminate the trail before them and to scout the area spiritually, using gemstones to leech the strength from nearby animals, as some of them had learned on their first trip to the Barbacan.

They meant to get there as quickly as possible and return, stretching their line along the road to offer aid to the pilgrims.

Braumin Herde remained doubtful, though he trusted Jilseponie implicitly, and marked well the seemingly miraculous image burned into the bell at St. Precious. But too much was at stake here for the gentle monk. He could not allow his hopes to soar so high, only to learn that Jilseponie had erred, that there was no miracle to be found or that it had been a onetime occurrence, a blessing for Dainsey Aucomb.

What would happen in that instance? the abbot had to worry. What might the peasants or the Duke and his soldiers do if they discovered that they had traveled all the way to the Barbacan, no doubt with many dying along the road, chasing a false hope?

He shuddered at the thought but reminded himself of the character of the messenger. When he had last seen Jilseponie before her return to St. Precious, he had given her an assortment of gemstones and had prayed that she would again prove the light against the darkness. Now she had returned to him with just that claim, and his own doubts of her had laid his cynicism bare before him.

What friend was he if he did not believe her?

What holy man was he if he could not see past his earthly cynicism and dare to believe in miracles?