The Ancient

TEN

Gaoler’s Price

Row harder!” Giavno prompted the two monks in the small boat-one of only a handful remaining in Chapel Isle’s “fleet.”

“Are we chasing ghosts?” one of the men dared ask.

“I saw it, I tell you!” Giavno insisted. “In the mist, drifting.”

“Drifting? Or laying in wait?” asked the oarsman.

“Her mast was down,” Giavno insisted. “Is down!” he cried, pointing ahead through the filmy gray steam. They all saw the boat, then, bobbing, mainsail torn down and with the craft apparently abandoned. “A prize for us to take back to Chapel Isle.”

He looked back at the other two, grinning from ear to ear and certain that Father De Guilbe and the rest of his brethren would be quite pleased with today’s catch, particularly since the monks had been forced to take men from their work on the chapel that they could construct more boats. When he turned forward again, though, his smile disappeared, for as they neared, the angle allowed him to see over the side of the craft, and it was anything but abandoned.

Giavno tried to tell the oarsmen to move more quickly, but all that came out of him was a gurgle. He did manage to wave his hand, at least, urging them on, and the paddling men brought the boat in swiftly.

Then they, too, gasped.

Three Alpinadoran tribesmen lay on the deck-the blood-soaked deck. Covered in blood, obviously much of it their own, the three did not react at all as the boats bumped, leading Giavno and his companions to believe that they were already dead.

“They must have ventured too near the glacial trolls,” one of the oarsmen said. “We aren’t far from the northwestern bank.” He stood up as he spoke and stretched to grab the other boat with both hands, hooking his feet as he did to serve as a living grapnel. The other oarsman helped Giavno get across.

“Alive,” the senior brother said as he bent low over the nearest Alpinadoran, a blond-haired and sturdy giant of a man. He fumbled with his pouch, producing a soul stone, and began praying over the man immediately.

A second monk came over as well, moving to the other injured Alpinadorans. “Alive, both of them,” he announced in short order. “But not for long had we not found them, and might not be for long in any case!”

Giavno shortened his healing on the youngest man and moved to the others in turn, casting a minimal amount of healing energy into each to stabilize them and at least stop the more obvious bleeding. He didn’t even have to tell his companions their role here as they tied off the drifting Alpinadoran craft to their own and went back to their paddles. They pulled with all speed, towing Giavno and the captured boat straight back to Chapel Isle.

The sound of voices gradually brought Androosis back to the world of the living.

“We are not animals,” he heard Toniquay say from somewhere to the side-which side he couldn’t be sure.

“Nor do we consider you such,” came the reply in the accent of a Southerner whose first language was not Errchuk, the predominant tongue of Alpinador.

Androosis heard a rattle, maybe of bones, maybe of chains.

“There are practical considerations,” said the Southerner.

Androosis opened his eyes. It took a long while for the grayness to slip aside and let light into his aching head. He saw a monk standing before him-of course, it had to be a monk. He was in a small room, a dungeon of sorts, smelling of torch smoke and lit only in the sporadic shadows of dancing flames. He was lying down on his side on a hard and damp bed of dirt, and a blanket covered him from waist to feet. He tried to turn onto his back to better view the monk and Toniquay, but the movement shot stabbing pains into him, and he grimaced and settled back onto his side.

“I am chained like a dog!” Toniquay said with a growl.

“It is our only means of securing you for our sake and your own,” replied the monk, whom Androosis now recognized as Brother Giavno. Hope rose in the miserable barbarian when he noted another form behind Giavno and recognized it as Cormack.

Cormack would free him, he believed. Cormack was a secret friend.

“Rest and heal,” Brother Giavno said. “Be at ease. We will negotiate with your clan to get you out of here as soon as possible.”

“At once!” Toniquay retorted. “You have no right-”

“If I had not found you on the lake you would be dead,” Giavno shot right back. “As would your companions. I could have left you there for the trolls, yes?”

Androosis couldn’t see Toniquay from his angle, but he could well picture the man exhaling.

“I do not ask for your gratitude,” Giavno went on. “But I will have your obedience. You-all three-remain in need of our healing stones.”

“Do not use them on me!” Toniquay cried.

“If we had not then you would be dead.”

“Better that!”

Giavno backed away a step and produced a rather wicked smile that seemed all the more nefarious because of the flickering orange light. “Very well,” he agreed.

“Or on them,” said Toniquay.

“Without the gemstones the man you call Canrak will die,” said Giavno.

“If that is the will of our gods,” Toniquay replied, seeming not at all concerned.

How Androosis wished that he could roll over and slap the prideful shaman!

Giavno gave a little chuckle.

“If you would unshackle my hand I could tend him,” Toniquay said.

“But we will not.”

Androosis gulped at the finality of that statement, made all the more clear as Giavno turned away and stooped to get under the low arch exiting the room, sweeping Cormack up in his wake.

“Hold firm, kin and clan,” Toniquay said, reciting the mantra of Clan Snowfall. “We go with certainty.”

Androosis heard a weak reply that seemed more of a whimper from farther across the way. His own grunt might have satisfied Toniquay’s needs, but it was hardly one of assent.

There was nothing shy and retiring about Father De Guilbe. The road had been hard on him, harder still when he had to come to terms with the failure, or at least the sidetrack, of his important mission to proselytize the northland. But he had been chosen-indeed, had been promoted to father-as much because of his powerful temperament and physical attributes as any of his work on the tomes of Abelle or the philosophy of the church. Cambelian De Guilbe stood well over six feet tall, and even with the sparse diet of fish and plants the brothers realized on Mithranidoon he had retained much of his three-hundred-pound frame. It was said that he couldn’t sing like an angel but surely could roar like a dragon. It was in precisely that voice that he ordered the bickering brothers Giavno and Cormack into his quarters, which encompassed the entirety of the highest finished floor of the chapel.

De Guilbe came out around his desk as the pair entered, motioning for them to shut the door. “Your doubts incite trepidation and fear in your brethren,” he said, leaning forward as he spoke, a movement that wilted many a strong man.

“All respect, Father,” said Giavno, “but there is no doubt. Brother Cormack is wrong and out of place.”

Father De Guilbe’s heavy eyes swayed to take in the younger brother.

“I object,” Cormack said, trying hard to keep the tremor out of his voice.

“To?”

“His heart is too meek for the obvious and important task before us,” Brother Giavno insisted, but Father De Guilbe held up his hand to silence the man and never took his scrutinizing gaze off Cormack.

“They are in the damp mud,” Cormack said, and the way he blurted it showed that he was scrambling here to put his discordant emotions into substance and complaint.

“We live on a damp and dirty island, Brother,” Father De Guilbe reminded.

“The dungeon is the least hospitable room.”

“And the only secure one.”

Cormack sighed and lowered his gaze.

“He would accept their repaired boat as a proper chamber for our guests,” said Giavno. “Push them off the beach and send them on their way.”

“Morality demands-” Cormack began.

“We healed them!” Giavno sternly cut in. Both he and Cormack looked to Father De Guilbe, noting that the man wasn’t about to intervene this time, and indeed, was through that very silence inviting Giavno to continue with the scolding.

“The powers of God, through the gemstones, through the wisdom of Blessed Abelle, are the only reason the three barbarians continue to draw breath. We did that, working tirelessly from the moment I tied their broken boat to my own.”

“A charitable act worthy of the Church of Blessed Abelle,” Cormack interjected, and Brother Giavno glowered at him.

“He forgets why we were sent to Alpinador,” Giavno said to Father De Guilbe. “He has lost purpose of our mission under the fondness he has developed for our barbarian neighbors.” He paused and stared even harder at Cormack. “And our powrie neighbors,” he added.

Cormack snapped a look at the man.

“Place it on your head, Brother,” Giavno bade him. Cormack’s expression shifted from anger to outright fear as he looked back to Father De Guilbe.

“Oh, do,” said Giavno. “Everyone knows you have it with you, that you wear it whenever you believe no one is watching.”

When Cormack studied Father De Guilbe he saw no concession there, just full agreement with Giavno’s observations, and indeed, with his request. Hand trembling, the young brother reached behind and into the small pouch he kept on his back, secured to his robe’s rope belt. He brought forth the powrie beret, the bloody cap.

Father De Guilbe motioned for him to continue, to put it on.

Cormack did, shifting it so that its band was tilted just a bit across his forehead, down to the right, where the top bulge of the beret flopped over.

Father De Guilbe chuckled, but it seemed more in pity than amusement.

“Why would you wear such a thing, fairly won or not?” Giavno asked.

“There is magic about it,” said Cormack, and both of his listeners widened their eyes in surprise, and horror.

“When I wear it upon my head, I feel a greater sturdiness within my body,” Cormack tried to explain. “This cap might show us why powries can accept such a beating and continue to fight.”

“You wear it to understand our enemies,” said Father De Guilbe.

Cormack started to agree and for a moment was truly relieved to be able to. But he stopped himself short, not willing to go so far in accepting that description of the powries-not after they had treated him so fairly and honorably.

“I wear it to expand my understanding of our neighbors,” Cormack conceded, but he breathed easier when that seemed to satisfy Father De Guilbe.

“Keep wearing it, then,” the father ordered. “In fact, you will face consequences if I see you without it.”

Beside Cormack, Giavno snickered, and only then did Cormack realize that these two saw De Guilbe’s order as a form of punishment in and of itself, a way to brand and isolate Cormack in the eyes of all the men on Chapel Isle.

“Let us return to the issue at hand,” said De Guilbe. “These three barbarians owe their lives to us, would you not agree, Brother Cormack?”

Cormack searched about frantically for a way to dodge the obvious answer, but had to concede simply, “Yes.”

“And they were healed through the powers shown to us by Blessed Abelle?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Then their debt is beyond our magnanimity, of course.”

Cormack replied with a puzzled expression.

“Their debt is not to Brother Giavno-or perhaps it is to a smaller extent,” Father De Guilbe explained. “The gaoler’s price-and we are not the gaoler, but merely the guards, is owed to Blessed Abelle and to God above him.”

Cormack didn’t like the way Father De Guilbe was framing the issue, but of course there was no way for him to disagree with the simple logic. “Yes, Father.”

“Then the charity you desire is not ours to give,” reasoned De Guilbe. “It is for God to determine, and fortunately, we are shown in the teachings of Blessed Abelle how such charity is to be bestowed. These three are prisoners of a higher power, who demands of them fealty. Absent that fealty, God would never have given us the blessed power to heal their mortal wounds-wounds, I remind you, which were wrought of no actions on our part.”

“The price was not known to them,” Cormack weakly argued.

“They were in no position to negotiate,” Father De Guilbe replied. “And there was none to be had in any case. We were sent to Alpinador to show the light of God, and no man beyond Blessed Abelle himself has ever seen it more intimately than the three barbarians for whom you advocate. The truth has been shown to them, the light shines before their eyes.”

“But-”

“If they refuse to see it, then they shall remain in the dark, Brother Cormack,” Father De Guilbe said with complete finality. “Figuratively and literally.”

Cormack could feel Giavno glowing smugly beside him.

“We will not mistreat them,” De Guilbe said, turning to Giavno.

“Of course not, Father,” the senior brother assured him.

“But our security demands their location, and there they will stay.”

“For how long?” Cormack dared to ask.

“Until they dare to stare at the light, or until they are called to the afterlife, where they will see with it the folly of their stubbornness. We are agreed on that, I am sure.”

Cormack lowered his gaze again. “Yes, Father De Guilbe,” he said.

De Guilbe released them with a wave. Cormack instinctively reached up to the powrie beret.

“Wear it!” Father De Guilbe snapped at him ferociously, and Cormack nearly stumbled away in surprise.

“Wear it now and wear it always, Brother Cormack,” De Guilbe demanded. “And never forget why.”

Cormack again wore a puzzled expression.

“Why we came here,” Father De Guilbe clarified sternly.

Cormack bowed and turned to leave, feeling moisture gathering in his bright green eyes. Brother Giavno’s face was creased by a satisfied smile, but he did put a supportive hand gently and sincerely on Cormack’s shoulder as they turned together for the door.

He ran his old fingers across the ice wall as he walked in the darkness. The moisture he felt there pleased him greatly, for it represented the fruition of his vision, the beauteous simplicity of his grand plan that would have seemed so complicated to any looking from afar.

The trolls’ blood was performing as he had foreseen, coating the chasm carved by Ancient D’no (who was burrowing along the route proscribed by the giants and their mallets). The white worm’s godly heat melted the ice; the trolls’ blood prevented it from refreezing.

Soon Mithranidoon would be washed free of its infection.

Ancient Badden paused when he happened upon a torn head, its lower half bitten away and most of the skin pulled from the skull bone. Enough skin and hair remained for the old Samhaist to recognize it, though, and he bent and retrieved it, lifting it so that he could again look Dantanna in the eye.

“Ah, my old friend, do you understand now?” the Ancient asked with a chuckle. “Did the Abellican promises grant you immortality? Are the Ancient Ones impressed with your tolerance of the upstart heretics?”

Ancient Badden’s features darkened into a fierce scowl. “Were you prepared for your death, fool Dantanna?” He let his fingers curl under the rim of the skull as he spoke, and squeezed tightly against the remaining brain and the ice-fly maggots.

“For centuries we have stood as the guardians of folly,” he said, as if lecturing the man. “We have warned the folk and prepared the folk. We taught them to survive, to reap and sow, to treat their maladies, and mostly, you fool-and mostly!-we prepared them for the darkness of eternity. They must know the Ancient Ones to understand the paths they will walk when the specter of Death visits them. They must recognize their insignificance beside the gods that they will accept their dark fate as servants.

“But the followers of the fool Abelle come along and promise the mercy and benevolence of a forgiving god!” Ancient Badden roared, squeezing so hard that a bit of brain seeped out and slipped to the icy floor. “They tease with baubles and extrapolate from them what they consider infinite wisdom and wisdom of the infinite. But they did not know, did they, Dantanna? Empty promises and joy-filled fancies to tempt and cajole. Did the wretch Abelle greet you when Ancient D’no’s teeth tore you from your mortal body?”

As if in answer he heard a rumble as he finished the question. Badden slowly lowered the skull and turned about to glance over his shoulder.

The white worm, a gigantic centipede-like monster, its back glowing fiercely with heat that could melt the flesh of a man to a puddle on simple contact, reared and clicked its formidable mandibles together. Small winglike appendages appeared just a few feet below its head, flapping and turning to hold it steady and upright.

Ancient Badden realized that this must have been the last sight Dantanna had known.

He laughed, then bowed. “God of the ice who denies the cold,” he praised, and bowed again very low.

D’no gave a clicking sound, half hiss and half growl, and began to sway back and forth hypnotically.

Ancient Badden began to chant the oldest of Samhaist songs. No other man in the world would have survived that moment, but Badden knew the secrets, all the secrets, and his tone and cadence and inflection reflected centuries of knowledge and understanding of the wide world, of the great beast, the gods, and of this god, D’no, in particular.

The white worm gradually receded, backing for many feet before rolling over itself and scuttling away down a side tunnel.

Ancient Badden nodded at the confirmation of his powers and the truth of his beliefs. He held Dantanna’s skull up before him one last time. “Blessed Abelle would have been devoured,” he laughed, tossing Dantanna aside.

Cormack instinctively stiffened when he heard the soft paddling not far away. He stood on a sandbar some distance out to the northeast of Chapel Isle, a quiet and remote location that he had found soon after the brothers had arrived on Mithranidoon.

He listened carefully for further paddling, trying to determine the angle of approach. Was it his brothers following him? If so, he mused, he hoped they would see the powrie beret first, think him a dwarf, and kill him from afar.

That would be easier than explaining to Father De Guilbe why he had come out here.

He heard the paddling again, faint but close, and he knew it could not be the brothers handling a boat that deftly and quietly. No, only the barbarians born and raised on Mithranidoon could so gently navigate the waves, so Cormack was not surprised when the longboat slid in against the sandbar a few heartbeats later and Milkeila climbed out.

She moved right to him, not saying a word, and wrapped him in a tight hug. “Too long,” she whispered.

He detected sadness and anxiety in her voice and felt in her hug that she needed comfort. Cormack kissed her and crushed her tight.

“A powrie cap?” she asked, obviously taken aback. She moved back to arm’s length and looked up at the man, for though Milkeila was a tall woman, Cormack stood a full head above her.

“A long and complicated tale.”

“Then we haven’t the time,” said Milkeila, and she flashed a coy smile. “I was surprised by your signal but happy to see the light through the mist.”

“There is magic in this cap, I will say,” said Cormack. “When I don it, I feel… thickened. Strengthened. Not armored, perhaps, but as if I could withstand a heavier blow.”

“Perhaps that is why the powries can withstand such a beating before relenting in battle.”

“That and their temperament, which is akin to that of a cornered animal.”

Milkeila smiled and nodded at that apt description. Having spent the entirety of her life on Mithranidoon, she had enjoyed many fights with the ferocious dwarfs.

“You lost three men,” Cormack said, startling her and stealing her mirth.

Milkeila stepped back, sliding her arms so that she ended up holding Cormack by the forearms. “Five,” she corrected. “How did you know?”

“We have three,” said Cormack. Milkeila leaned forward eagerly, and Cormack added, “Androosis among them.”

“You did battle?”

“We found them floating in a ruined boat. Trolls hit them and hard. Brother Giavno believes they were fishing in the northwestern waters too near the caves.”

“Who are the others?”

Cormack shook his head. “They say little. One is a shaman, and by his dress high-ranking-”

“Toniquay,” Milkeila interrupted.

“Stubborn,” said Cormack.

“More than you would ever understand. They are alive, then, all three?”

“Healed in the dungeon of Chapel Isle.”

A strange expression came over Milkeila’s face, one that Cormack could not decipher other than to know it did not bode well.

“Dungeon?” she said, clarifying it all for him.

Cormack stepped back and shrugged helplessly. “Brother Giavno found them adrift. Had he not towed them to Chapel Isle they would have all died.”

“Or my people would have found them,” Milkeila interjected, her tone sharpening just a bit.

“They would have died even then,” said Cormack, and how he wished he could have taken back those words the moment they passed his lips!

Milkeila furrowed her brow.

“They were very near to death,” Cormack stammered, trying to climb out of the deepening ditch. “It took the efforts of several brothers working tirelessly with the gemstones… their wounds were grave.”

“Too grave for the pretend gods of Yan Ossum barbarians, no doubt,” the woman said dryly.

“I did not mean…”

“You did not have to,” Milkeila said.

Cormack paused to draw a steadying breath. “The gemstones-the soul stones-are the most focused healing magic in the world. The lairds of Honce recognize this, truly. I do not diminish your gods.” He grabbed her by the hands and pulled her close-or tried to, but she resisted. “You know I never would! But there are practical truths about the sacred stones and their related magic.”

“My people are not without resources,” Milkeila replied. “Our shamans are not useless fools sputtering meaningless chants to false gods.”

“I did not mean…” he repeated helplessly.

“You did not have to,” Milkeila said again, with a frown. “It is said among the islands that the monks see two ways to the world: their way and the wrong way.”

“You do not believe that about me.”

“Do not or did not?”

The two stared at each other for a few uncomfortable heartbeats until Cormack added, “Is that statement not true of every clan on Mithranidoon’s steaming waters? Could anything less be said of the powries? Of Yossunfier? Of Clan Pierjyk or Tunundar or any of the other tribes of your barbarian kin? The Alpinadoran clans cannot even agree amongst themselves-on anything, it seems!”

If Milkeila was impressed, she didn’t show it.

“When will Androosis and the others be set free?” the woman asked.

Cormack swallowed hard-all the answer she needed.

“Then I am bound to tell my leaders that they are on Chapel Isle.”

Cormack felt panic welling up inside. “You cannot,” he begged. “I told you only because…”

“You cannot ask of me that I hold this secret. My kin are out upon the lake, every day, in search of the lost five. They travel to dangerous corners of Mithranidoon. Am I to hold quiet while some are lost to the trolls?”

“I would not have told you.”

“Then you should not have told me! Not on that condition! You cannot ask that I pretend ignorance while my people sail into danger. And you cannot ask that I do nothing while my friend-your friend!-sits in your Abellican prison.”

“You have to believe me,” said Cormack. “I am trying to get them released. As soon as the healing is complete.”

“Healing that sickens the heart of Toniquay, no doubt.”

“He will allow no more now that his thoughts are back in the world of the living,” Cormack admitted. “But he mends. They all do, and they are well fed. And I will press for their release, of course.”

Milkeila’s posture and the fact that she allowed Cormack to take her hands again revealed that she did not doubt him. But in the end she shook her head, unsatisfied with the promised resolution. “I cannot lie to my leaders. Not about this. I will not explain to them how I know, but they will be told that our lost brethren are on Chapel Isle. You cannot ask anything else of me.”

“Their boat is beached on our shore,” said Cormack, his tone noticeably short of enthusiasm. “Tell them you spied it from afar.”

“My people will come for them,” the woman promised ominously.

“I pray that a bargain will be struck,” said Cormack. “Perhaps this is an opportunity for a better understanding between Chapel Isle and Yossunfier.”

But Milkeila was shaking her head with every word. “There is no bargain to be found,” she explained, her tone even and full of certainty. “My people will go to Chapel Isle in full force to demand the release. Anything less will incite war.”

Cormack stuttered around a couple of insufficient responses before settling upon “What will Milkeila do?”

She stepped back and stood staring at him in the moonlight for a long while, obviously waging an inner struggle. “I am Yan Ossum,” she said, and reached up to her neck to separate her second, secret necklace from her more traditional shamanistic attire. She pulled the gemstone necklace over her head and held it out to Cormack, who widened his eyes, too stunned to respond.

“I am Yan Ossum,” Milkeila said again. “If there is to be war, I battle on the side of Yossunfier.” She tossed the necklace to him, and he caught it. “It would be wrong of me to use your gemstones against you in that event. I would not so betray your trust.”

“As you perceive I am betraying yours?”

Milkeila shook her head and managed a thin smile. “I am Yan Ossum, and you are Abellican. We both battle the limitations of our heritage-I am no more in Toniquay’s favor than you are in the eyes of Father De Guilbe. But we cannot escape the truth of who we are, not in the event we both fear. My people will come for our lost brethren, and your brothers will not likely release them. And so we are left in the most awful place where our hopes collide with our realities.”

Cormack stood there on the sand, staring at this extraordinary barbarian lass, a woman he had come to love, and he had no answers to her simple and straightforward logic. His shoulders slumped, his arms fell limp by his sides, and he smiled meekly, almost apologetically, back at her. He didn’t know whether he should go to her and hug her again or kiss her to assure her that everything would be all right. It was a moot point anyway, for there was no strength in his legs at that moment, powrie beret notwithstanding, to propel him.

Her waning smile carried Milkeila back to her small boat, and she pushed it away from the sandbar and hopped aboard it with the grace only one of her heritage might know.

In moments, the mist enveloped her, and Cormack stood alone.

And never in his life had he been more aware of exactly that.