The Ancient

NINE

Work Brings Freedom

Dawson McKeege stood at the prow of his two-masted coast-runner, Lady Dreamer, taking in the grand oceanic and coastline view that never grew old for him. For before the craft loomed a three-hundred-foot cliff facing, mighty stone all brown and gray, and atop it, as if growing right out of the rock, stood Chapel Abelle, the heart of the growing, influential Church.

This was the spot where Blessed Abelle had first demonstrated the power of the god-given gemstones. This was the spot where-on guidance from God, it was said-he had learned to make permanent the magical properties of those rocks he had found after being shipwrecked on a distant island in the deep southern Miri-anic Ocean. Alone and as removed from civilization as any man had ever been, Abelle had had little expectation of surviving, and seemingly no chance of ever returning to Honce.

But the magical stones had showered down from the heavens, the gifts of God to him, and as he had sorted through their magical properties, this young philosopher had come to understand them fully.

With those stones, Abelle had walked hundreds of miles across the ocean, so it was said, and through the power and potential of the gemstone magic, he had changed the world.

Dawson wasn’t yet formally confirmed as an Abellican. He had been raised in Vanguard among a thriving farming and hunting community dominated by the Samhaists, and the old ways died hard. Still, he couldn’t deny the spirituality he felt whenever this sight, Chapel Abelle, so impressive and growing grander by the day, came into view.

Hidden among the cliffs was a dock facility, with tunnels that climbed through the stone all the way to the chapel above-tunnels reputedly cut by Abelle himself utilizing a variety of potent gemstones.

“Hail to the flag of Dame Gwydre!” came a shout from the docks as Lady Dreamer edged in around the jagged rocks. A pair of monks stood in open view, waving at the approaching ship. Dawson recognized one as Brother Pinower and returned the wave with a familiarity and heartiness reminding him that the relationship between Gwydre and this Church had grown so very strong.

Of course, that very fact had led to the current war in Vanguard, and Dawson couldn’t help but grimace as he considered his former spiritual leaders, the Samhaists, now striking so violently and with such vile foot soldiers as goblins and glacial trolls. Never had the man imagined that the supposedly wise priests who had guided his people, as brutal as their customs often were, could so betray their people as to enlist the aid of such wretched creatures.

“Weapons, metals, or foodstuffs?” Brother Pinower asked as McKeege’s ship pulled up alongside the longest of the three wharves and tenders hopped to the dock to begin securing her. “You will be hard pressed to get any, of course, in this dastardly time.”

“Lairds Ethelbert and Delaval continue their war, then?” Dawson asked, hopping down easily to the planks beside the Abellicans.

” ‘Escalate’ would be a better word,” Pinower replied. “Laird Delaval believed he’d gained an advantage, and so he strengthened his line across the breadth of it, thinking to push Ethelbert right into the sea.”

“But it wasn’t to be,” said the second monk. “Ethelbert’s got a few tricks left.”

“Aye, and a few allies from Behr,” Brother Pinower agreed.

“A laird of Honce is using the desert savages?” Dawson McKeege asked, shaking his head, feeling at that moment pretty much the same about Ethelbert as he felt about the Vanguard Samhaists.

“Desperate folk take desperate measures,” Brother Pinower added, and all three nodded.

“I’ve a hold full of caribou moss,” Dawson explained, referring to the white moss that climbed knee-deep in regions of Vanguard and was favored for packing open wounds, among its many other uses. In a time of war that particular purpose of the fungus would take precedence, obviously, but extract of dried caribou moss could also be brewed into a medicinal tea, and sheets of the moss often sold at exorbitant prices as roofing or siding material, both practical and decorative, for the fancy homes of wealthy merchants. Vanguard had many profitable trading goods to offer Honce proper, but in this time of war, none was more sought after than the caribou moss.

“The lairds will pay well for it,” Brother Pinower admitted.

“They will pay Chapel Abelle well, then,” Dawson explained. “For I’ve no time to cart my wares southeast or southwest, and my boat’s back to Vanguard when she puts out from your dock, presently, unless I am forced to make a detour to Palmaristown.”

“We have some goods, of course,” said Brother Pinower. “And some coin.”

“Some? The whispers say that your Church grows wealthy on the tributes of warring lords.”

“Whispers,” Brother Pinower replied with an exaggerated sigh. He ended with a smile as wide as the one Dawson offered in response.

“Come,” Brother Pinower bade him, leading him off the wharf and to the gated entrance and the winding tunnels that would carry them up to the cliff top and the mother chapel of the Abellican Church.

As soon as he exited that dock tunnel into the courtyard of the abbey, McKeege understood those whispers of growing wealth to be understated. For Chapel Abelle was more than twice the size it had been on his last visit only a year before. Scores of laborers worked the grounds, extending and thickening the already impressive outer wall and constructing new stone structures-barracks and rectories and all manner of buildings. Chapel Abelle had become a town unto itself, McKeege realized, and when he thought about it, it made sense. Once Chapel Abelle had been a small church set on a hill above the medium-sized town of Weatherguard, but in this time of pressing danger, it had become a fortress, a welcomed one for the beleaguered folk of the region.

Dawson looked to the main church, which was now surrounded by scaffolding, monks swarming every region of it with tools and materials. No laymen worked this alls important building, he noted. Its construction remained for the brothers alone.

“Father Artolivan will be pleased to greet you this day,” Brother Pinower assured him, hustling him toward the church entrance. “It would help if I could introduce you with your intent.”

Dawson looked from the church to the eager brother, who was at least fifteen years his junior, with skin too soft and white and eyes tired already from endless hours spent huddled over parchments. Dawson figured that Pinower rarely ventured outside of Chapel Abelle, other than when he was stationed at the docks, or at work on the abbey, perhaps. The Vanguardsman wished that he had more time, then, so that he could sneak the young man away from his stuffy brethren and put on a good drunk and a better woman.

“Tell the good father that I come with value and leave with purpose, for Vanguard’s in need of…” He paused there and let the thought hang in the air between them. Indeed, it seemed as if poor Brother Pinower would fall right over from leaning so obviously toward McKeege.

Dawson merely grinned, intensifying the tease.

Soon after, Dawson stood before Father Artolivan, an old friend of Dame Gwydre, who had secretly offered his blessing to her union with Brother Alandrais.

“I’ve come under full sail,” the Vanguardsman said, “and will leave the same way.”

“Always in a hurry,” the old father of the Abellican Church replied, his voice a bit slurred as if he had partaken too liberally of the bottle.

It was just age, though, and indeed, Artolivan looked every day of his eighty years. Skin sagged about his face, and his eyes had sunk deeply, circled by darkness. He could still sit straight, but not without great effort, Dawson noted, and there remained little sparkle and sharpness in his gaze. The Abellicans wouldn’t easily replace him, though. Artolivan, it was whispered, had once glimpsed Blessed Abelle (though he would have been but a young boy), and had been trained by men who had learned directly from the great man. He was the last of his generation in the Church, the last man alive known to hold direct ties to Blessed Abelle and the momentous events of that magical and inspiring time.

“That is the way of the world, I fear,” the old priest went on. “None have time to give pause. Patient consideration is a thing of the lost past.”

“War breeds urgency, Father,” said Dawson.

“And what is your urgency?”

“I’ve a hold of caribou moss and no time to barter.”

“So I’ve been told-of both situations. You seek coin, then, so name your initial offer.”

“I seek coin only to use it for another good,” Dawson explained, and that piqued Artolivan’s curiosity, it seemed, as the old man cocked his head to the side. “I will use the coin-and have brought much of my own, as well-to bribe.”

“You have come for able bodies?”

Dawson nodded.

“To harvest? To log? As wives or as laborers?”

“Yes,” Dawson replied. “All of that. Vanguard is sorely pressed by the Samhaists. Dame Gwydre has victory at hand,” he quickly added and lied when he saw old Artolivan’s face crinkle with doubt.

“We are all sorely pressed, friend Dawson. War rages the breadth of Honce.”

“Yet I see Chapel Abelle swarmed by laborers, many young men who have apparently escaped the fighting.”

“Many who were captured and thus put out of the fight on honor,” Father Artolivan explained.

“From both camps, no doubt,” said Dawson, and Artolivan nodded and smiled. It made sense, of course, for neither Laird Ethelbert nor Laird Delaval had the time or resources to expend on prisoners of the conflict. Neither wanted to enrage the populace by summarily executing captives (many of whom were likely related to constituents and soldiers on both sides of the conflict). So the respective lairds would demand a vow of honorable capitulation, effectively ensuring that the captured soldiers would not return to their former ranks, and then send them here to the Abellicans, to gain the favor of the priests who held the sacred stones. Of course, both leaders, for fear of making honorable capitulation attractive, required the Abellicans to work their laborers brutally, and reward them not at all.

Perhaps there was a winner to be found in the war, after all, Dawson thought as he looked upon the grinning father.

Dawson’s own smile didn’t hold, though, as he considered the differences in the struggle that faced Dame Gwydre in the North, as he considered the scene of Tethmawle.

Ethelbert and Delaval, both posturing to rule the holdings of Honce, offered quarter to the unfortunate soldiers of the other side.

That was not the case in Vanguard’s war.

“I had not heard that the Samhaists were near defeat in Vanguard,” the wily old Abellican father remarked. “Quite the opposite.”

“They have called upon goblins and trolls to strengthen their lines,” Dawson replied. “We are sorely pressed. Yet victory is at hand.”

“That seems a rather strange interpretation. Three sentences, spoken one following the other as if the logic of them flowed as such.”

“Their line cannot hold,” Dawson explained. “If Dame Gwydre can counter their latest excursions with a forcible strike, the mishmash of warriors our enemies the Samhaists have assembled will turn upon each other. We have seen it in several regions already. Dame Gwydre is certain that a sudden and-”

Father Artolivan held up his hand to stop the man. “The details of war bore me,” he said. “From this church, you will be paid in coin alone-at fair value, given the need for caribou moss at this time.”

“Both armies will value it greatly,” said Dawson.

Artolivan didn’t even try to argue. “What you do with that coin is for you to decide,” the priest went on. “The workers here are not free men, but they are many-indeed, perhaps too many. If some choose to sail with you back to Vanguard, you and I, nay, you and Brother Pinower, will reach a proper sale price.”

Dawson grinned and nodded and dared to hope that he could fill his hold with able bodies in short order.

Aw, but he come through with a parade and all,” exclaimed the excited middle-aged woman who looked much older than that. “Was as grand a spectacle as Oi’ve e’er seen, do you not think?”

Cadayle nodded politely and let her continue, and she did, for more than an hour, recounting the celebration on the day that Brother Bran Dynard passed through this unremarkable hamlet of Winterstorm.

Bransen and Callen leaned against the front wall of the single-room cottage. Despite his reservations, Bransen continued to listen, but Callen had long ago obviously dismissed the woman’s rambling as a desperate attempt to garner some reward-even if it was just the satisfaction of having an audience for her chatter and gossip.

“Was the last we seen o’ him, that brother, do you not think?” the old woman said, offering a dramatic upturn in her inflection that startled even the daydreaming Callen. “And so he went, and so goes the world.”

“To Chapel Abelle?” Cadayle asked.

The woman shrugged, and when that resulted in a disappointed responding expression, the woman brightened suddenly and nodded too eagerly.

“You’ll be staying to break the bread?” she asked. “I’ve a bit o’ porridge, too, and stew from a lamb killed only a week ago and not yet holed by the worms.”

Cadayle turned to her companions, who offered postures and expressions perfectly indifferent.

“Yes, a meal would do us well as we continue on our way,” she said to the woman, who beamed a toothless smile back at her, then hustled out of the house to gather ingredients and utensils.

“She had no idea that such a man as Bran Dynard ever existed,” Callen said when she had gone.

“Do not underestimate the memories of villagers,” Bransen cautioned.

“The imagination, you mean,” Callen replied. “Their life is tedium, year to year to year. We’ve brought them something they sorely need: excitement.”

“A war rages within a few days’ march,” Bransen reminded.

“Diversion, then,” said Callen.

Bransen looked to Cadayle for some support here, but all she could offer was a shrug. He accepted that as he had to accept the simple truth of it all. They had covered many miles from Palmaristown, walking a road strewn with hamlets very much the same as Winterstorm, a cluster of farmhouses and perhaps a tradesman’s shop or two encircling a common hall. Now with more than half the distance between Palmaristown and Chapel Abelle behind them, Bransen had hoped that the answers to questions about lost Bran Dynard would become more relevant and with answers beginning to flow more openly, but alas, the song remained the same. While some, like this woman, would weave elaborate tales, the quantity of words did little to enhance the quality. Hope had turned to dust in the first few minutes of an hour-long, creative recollection that was at least ten parts poetic license to one part memory. In truth, for all of their inquiries, the trio had garnered nothing at all about Bran Dynard’s journey to Chapel Abelle those twenty years ago.

But Bransen wouldn’t let his hopes die, for when he considered the truth of his quest he recognized that he should have expected nothing more than that which he had found. Indeed, the hospitality the trio had been granted along this road had made the journey not so unpleasant. His answers, if they were to be found, would almost certainly come from Chapel Abelle itself.

“Chapel Abelle,” he said to Callen. She smiled and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Soon.”

Three,” a disgruntled Dawson told Pinower. “They are slaves here, and yet they view what I have to offer as less than even that!”

“I might have expected a few more,” the brother replied. “But truly, they have seen the battlefield-many have felt the bite of cold iron. We work them hard, but here they know they will outlive the war. You offer them more war.”

“I offer them freedom!”

Brother Pinower chuckled at that. “Vanguard is at war. Everyone here knows that truth.”

“The path I offer leads to freedom with land and standing.”

“Or to the belly of a goblin. They have been known to eat their captives and enemy dead.”

Dawson gave a sigh of surrender.

“Three?” Brother Pinower asked, his tone becoming suddenly hopeful. “Three more than when you arrived. And you can rest easy that Father Artolivan will not allow you to return with only that.”

“He will send monks?”

“No, no, of course not, for we have none to spare,” Brother Pinower answered. “Not in these times. But there are gemstones that might serve the brothers of Chapel Pellinor…”

“Chapel Pellinor has fallen,” said Dawson.

“A temporary situation, we are confident. Already the newest rumors from the northland speak of cleanup and rebuilding, with renewed vigor and determination. And many of the brothers of Pellinor remain alive. We will bolster their ranks-your ranks-with gemstones and other supplies. I have already spoken to Father Artolivan about this, and he has given me all assurances.”

Dawson nodded. “Dame Gwydre will appreciate such support. But I’ve a hold to fill with able men, and only three have thus far agreed-and agreed for more coin than I intended to offer. I need fifty, Brother, to make my journey here worth the time and expense of Dame Gwydre, even with your generous offer of gemstones and other supplies. We are in short supply of bodies only.”

“Patience, then,” said Brother Pinower. “The battles across Honce rage, and more workers come in every week. Perhaps I can speak to Brother Shinnigord, who directs the workers, to more freely use the whip, that your offer sounds a bit more enticing.”

“That would be appreciated,” Dawson said, and gave a bow.

Brother Pinower shrugged as if it was nothing. “We have too many workers at present,” he said. “And more arriving, an endless stream. Perhaps Father Artolivan can be persuaded to address your concerns to Lairds Ethelbert and Delaval, to enact an agreement that would allow us to sail any excess direct to Dame Gwydre.”

“Now that, Brother, would serve Vanguard well, indeed,” Dawson replied, and nearly choked, so fast did he try to get the words out of his mouth.

It was an offer he dearly wanted to pursue, but some commotion to the side turned the both of them toward the door to the chapel proper, where a young brother came forth along with a pair of the more senior monks of Chapel Abelle.

“Brother Fatuus of Palmaristown,” Brother Pinower explained to Dawson. “He rode in hard this day with urgent news for Father Artolivan.”

“News that would interest me and my cause?”

Brother Pinower shrugged and promised to return presently, and Dawson went back to the work groups to continue his offers. “Three,” he muttered as he walked across the open courtyard, and he shuddered to think of the tongue-lashing Dame Gwydre would give him if he returned with such meager reinforcements as that!