The Black Chalice

Twenty-Three

The monk threw up his hands to protect himself as the edge of Alymere's sword bit deep, slicing clean through his cassock.

The impact caught Alymere unprepared; part of him had truly expected the blind man to possess some sort of mystical aura that would turn aside his blow. It didn't. The sword drew blood, cutting deep into the soft meat of the monk's forearm.

He screamed, but the sound was lost in the insanity of the encroaching flames.

Alymere swung again. He'd lost all reason. The Devil was in him.

Again and again, raging.

And each blow bit, opening another deep cut.

The blood ran freely down his forearms as the gashes widened.

"Don't do this," the monk pleaded, the agony of each fresh cut echoed in his voice. "Please."

But in the fury-haze, Alymere didn't hear him. Instead he heard the Crow Maiden urging him not to fail her, and with each breath of smoke he inhaled her heady musk, taking it into his lungs and letting it fill him.

The entire chapter house was creaking now, the stones groaning and grinding as the fire worked away at the mortar binding them. It was a dead house, filled with twisted and smoking detritus.

He launched more brutal swings, each wilder than the last. There was no grace to the attack, and any half-adequate swordsman would have taken Alymere apart. But the monk made no move to defend himself. It was as though he was content to be cut down.

Alymere didn't see the thick white scar forming over the first cut, the second and the third. As quickly as he delivered a new wound two of the older ones began to heal, leaving more of those thick white veins across the surface of his body.

And through it all the monk clung onto the book as though it were the only thing keeping him alive.

The notion made a sudden, sick, sort of sense to Alymere.

How else could he be immune to the flames?

Alymere realised then that the only way he was walking out of this place alive was with the Devil's Bible in his hands to serve as his shield.

"Give me the book," Alymere demanded, seething and raging like a man possessed. There was a sickness in his soul. "Or I won't be responsible… just give me the damned book."

"This isn't you."

"I don't want to kill you. I came in here to save you."

"This isn't what you want."

Instead of trading more words, he pressed the advantage, four lightning-quick blows hacking away brutally at the man in front of him, all sense of self abandoning him, but the monk stubbornly refused to fall.

Alymere stepped in close, and rammed the blade into the monk's gut, forcing it in all the way to the hilt. "Give. Me. The. Book."

The monk stiffened, the skin around his empty eyes stretching as he straightened. His one free hand closed around Alymere's, both of them clutching the hilt of the sword, as a gasp escaped his clenched teeth. His lips parted and he sighed. It wasn't a gentle sigh. Alymere tasted the sour bile of death at the back of his throat. They stood, locked together, on the stone staircase as the fire rose around them. The intensity of it changed, the flames quickening. The speed with which it spread now was unnatural; as though whatever force had held it at bay was dying with the monk.

"The book!" Alymere yelled, his face twisting with fear. Suddenly he was the blind man. The fire moved quickly now, licks of it darting across the stone stairs trying to find his feet.

"I forgive you, knight," the monk managed, blood bubbling up through his lips. He slumped toward Alymere, causing his sword arm to take the sudden weight.

He could barely hold him. Every muscle in his body was spent. All he wanted to do was take the book and lie down and let the fire rage over him whilst he waited for it to burn itself out, safe in the arms of the Devil.

He shuddered then, repulsed by the notion.

Alymere staggered back a step, relinquishing his hold on the sword.

He looked down at the hilt protruding from the monk's stomach and said, "Oh God, what have I done?"

The monk had no answer for him. His legs gave out beneath him and he fell forward into Alymere's arms.

The fire coiled around the wooden balustrade, and leapt onto Alymere's cloak as he brushed against it. It only took a few seconds for it to spread from the woollen cloak to his hair and across to the man he held in his arms.

Together they burned.

Alymere made a desperate grab for the book, trying to wrest it from the monk's hands, but even down to his last few breaths the damned man refused to give it up.

The fire reached Alymere's face.

Its caress, more intimate than even the most demented lover, was pure agony. The flames spread like tender fingers across his cheek, but in their wake came only intense burning pain.

Shrieking, a terrible banshee wail of a cry, Alymere threw himself at the monk. His momentum drove the dying man back, the pair of them still inextricably locked together in their fiery embrace, toward the broken window — and then kicking and screaming through it.