The Black Chalice

Twenty

Alymere found control of his limbs returning slowly, but his senses still reeled.

He had killed a man.

He moved away from his sword. Just a couple of paces, but enough for a shadow of something, doubt, hesitation, to creep in. It wasn't grief or remorse. It wasn't any feeling he understood.

He caught himself staring at the weapon, though at that precise moment it looked less like a sword and more like some bizarre two-headed monster — one head murderous and vile, covered in blood, and the other bright beautiful and innocent, trapped by the nature of its twin — lying there in the melt.

His breathing came fast and shallow.

He had just killed a man.

It wasn't the sword that had committed murder. He was the monster. He was the one who had driven it into the man's back, ending his life.

There was no dichotomy. He was the murderous head, his hands were covered in blood, and the sword was trapped by his nature.

And even as he came to that realisation, he knew that he would kill with it again. It was inevitable.

Perhaps he really was a monster?

No. He had a purpose. Guilt would come, and grief and remorse and all of those human weaknesses, but whilst there were deaths that still demanded an accounting he would remain cold.

He stooped to retrieve the blade.

It felt lifeless in his hands, though why should he have expected anything else? It was not as if the weapon were sentient and blood-thirsty. It was cold steel, nothing more. It did not crave blood, nor demand that he feed it.

There was one thing that he yearned to do, he realised, and that was return to that glade in the Summervale and lie side by side with Blodyweth once more.

He looked up at the blood-red sky, then back at the high windows across the cloister garden and the flames reflected there. The shadowy figure was gone, moved away from the window — and there was no way of knowing if the monk were still alive. Given the fires raging inside the old building it was almost certain that he was not, but that did not change the nature of Alymere's first rational thought since killing the unarmed man: atonement.

He had consigned one soul to the flames, it was only right that he drag one from them. A life for a life.

He started to walk toward the chapter house, his gaze locked on the empty window. The fire had reached the gables and seemed to have found its way through cracks in the masonry. The flames reached higher. There was no end to them.

His walk became a run.

The heat was furious. Thirty feet from the chapter house door it was intense enough to burn his face. Twenty feet away it was so fierce it could have cooked the meat on his bones, given time. Ten feet away the pain was beyond feeling. And still he found the will to go closer and climb the four low stone stairs to the huge oak doors.

The sacristy, the chancel, the infirmary, and the night stair, all of them burned. His entire world writhed beneath the agony of fire. Everywhere he looked, as far and as high as the eye could see, there was fire.

Without knowing the layout of the chapter house, there was no realistic chance of him finding the man from the window. Not with all of the smoke and the flames raging. He'd be effectively blind and deaf in there, and unlike the burning hovel, he wouldn't be able to smash his way through a wattle wall if he got into trouble. He needed to think. Were their roles reversed, where would he take refuge from the fire? He dismissed a dozen possibilities in as many seconds. Of all the answers that presented themselves, only one seemed reasonable; he would make for the roof in the hope of escaping the flames. He could only hope that the monk's mind would work the same way.

He knew he had to find the staircase.

Anything beyond that was in the hands of God.

His uncle did not see him mount the chapter house stairs. Lowick was locked in an argument with the blind monk — the words came back to him unbidden, find the blind monk whose skin is impervious to blades and steal the Devil's book from his hands.

Alymere turned on the threshold, half in and half out of Hell, to look back at the monk.

The man stood between Alymere and Lowick, with his back to him. His tonsure reflected the flames, but contrary to the Crow Maiden's prediction the only thing he had in his hands was that wicked-looking quarterstaff.

He turned, as though sensing Alymere's scrutiny.

If the monk didn't have the book on his person — and why would he? — it had to be inside the chapter house; but whether it was hidden away in the scriptorium or in the privacy of his cell, depended entirely upon whether it was something the brotherhood were charged with protecting as a whole, or if the task fell to one man.

The scriptorium was the logical place to start looking for a book. Where better to hide one than amidst a multitude of others?

He forced himself to walk up those last three steps to the huge oaken double doors.

They were closed.

Alymere reached for the metal handle, but stopped himself barely inches short, realising the black iron bands would sear the meat from his hands if he grasped them. Instead, he used the tip of the bloody sword to work the latch, and kicked the door in with the flat of his boot.

An incredible wave of heat threw Alymere back down the stone steps onto the wet mud at the bottom. The coastal winds battered the island, fanning the flames.

He sank to his knees and dropped his head, letting the heat wash over him in waves.

Deep inside the building something crackled and roared.

Instinctively, Alymere threw himself to the side, scrambling in the mud in his haste to get away from the door.

He slipped, sprawling flat on his face, which saved his life.

A moment later the backdraught of a huge fireball roared out through the open doorway. The tongue of flame writhed and roiled, rolling in on itself even as it lashed out across the cloister garden. And then, as it was sucked back inside the vast old building, the fireball set about consuming itself.

The monk didn't flinch as the flames coiled around him in what ought to have been a lethal embrace. They retreated, leaving him untouched.

Sir Lowick, on the other hand, scuttled back gracelessly to avoid them, and landed flat on his backside for his troubles. As the fire receded he scrambled back to his feet.

Alymere crawled toward the doorway. He moved cautiously, fearful that at any second another huge fireball could burst from the stone arch. There were no sounds beyond the fire now; no ominous crackles or pops deep in the belly of the old building. Whatever had caused the fireball had burned itself out in that one powerful explosion.

Licking his lips, he pushed himself to his feet and walked cautiously toward the open door.

The heat was every bit as fierce as it had been, but as he climbed the steps again his body became inured to it. He refused to be cowed by it, no matter how painful each successive step was to take.

This was his atonement. This moment. Here. Now. He had committed murder, now he would perform a single act of salvation.

That the Devil's book lay inside the burning building — the relic the Crow Maiden had claimed so dangerous to the entire kingdom, to Arthur, to Camelot, and to everything he loved along with them — was about to be lost to the fire ought to have offered some sort of blessed relief, but he couldn't help but think if there was one element any possession of the Devil ought to be immune to, surely it was fire?

Meaning it would survive the inferno.

The threat would not simply burn away.

He was not thinking rationally, he knew that. He knew that it was impossible for parchment and leather binding to survive contact with fire, no matter what otherworldly properties were ascribed to it. A book was a book.

But that wouldn't stop the doubt from gnawing at his gut.

What if the book could somehow survive and they left it alone in the ashes of the monastery for anyone to find? What if it were being taken by the reivers at this very moment?

Could he live with the risk?

Unless the monk clutched the book in his hands he was going to have to.

Save the man or save the book?

There was only one answer: retrieving the book had become a compunction he could not resist.

Do not fail me, or the Devil take your soul…

Hell's fire waited for him to take a single step forward into its infernal belly.

Just one step.

He turned, caught in a moment of indecision.

Do this one thing for me… Promise me…

Nothing good could come of setting foot within the burning building. It was not so much a fool's errand as it was a suicide pact he had unwittingly made with Blodyweth. And yet… and yet… he was helpless to do anything but walk through the doorway and into the flames.

Steeling himself, Alymere cast one last lingering look back toward his uncle.

The knight was on his feet again, but too far away to stop him from doing what he was about to do. He saw the horror register in his uncle's eyes as he realised his intentions, and that, this once, he couldn't save him from himself. Sir Lowick took a step forward and began to call out, one word, "No!" demanding he stop, demanding he drop the sword, demanding he climb down from the steps, but Alymere was deaf to him. From somewhere deep within the building, he heard an entirely different cry: a man was screaming.

He couldn't ignore it. He turned his back on the knight.

Clutching the sword and thinking only of atonement, Alymere focused on the voice and plunged into the burning building.

Perhaps, if he ever emerged from it again he would be able to live with himself. Perhaps the fire would cleanse his soul?

But more likely it would blacken his bones.