The Education of Brother Thaddius and other tales of DemonWars (The DemonWars Saga) (7 page)

And would the lessons of the travesty of Aydrian Boudabras be forgotten, only to be painfully realized once more in the land of Honce?

With that dark thought in mind, Bishop Braumin moved a bit closer to eavesdrop on the two most important people in Honce, Prince Midalis who would soon be King, and Pony, perhaps the most powerful person in the world (and if not her, then surely her son Aydrian, who was under her control once more, it seemed).

“I have so much to do, so much to repair,” he heard Midalis admit to Pony, and it was hard to dispute the remark, for not far from where they stood, many of Midalis’s soldiers piled the dead beside a hole that would become a common grave.

So many dead.

“You have pardoned Duke Kalas?” Pony asked him.

“It will be done,” the soon-to-be King replied. “In time. I want him to consider long and hard all that he has done. But yes, I will pardon him. I will invite him into my Court, to serve me as he served my brother. He was deceived by Aydrian…”

Braumin held his breath as Pony’s eyes flashed, but Midalis calmed her with a warm smile

“He was deceived by the same demon that stole from you your son,” he corrected, and Pony nodded.

“A wise choice,” Pony replied. “Vengeance breeds resentment.”

How true, Bishop Braumin silently noted, for that lesson would be something that he would need to keep in mind in the coming days, he knew, and he feared. He would have to rise above his very human emotions.

“Jilseponie would serve me well,” he heard Midalis say, drawing him from his contemplation.

Pony smiled and managed a little laugh. Braumin held his breath, knowing what was coming. “Jilseponie is dead,” she said, and though it was a joke, Braumin couldn’t miss the fact that her expression became more serious suddenly, as if she noted some definite truth in her own words, an epiphany she would not escape.

And how it pained the gentle monk to hear such talk from this woman!

“Twice I have personally cheated death,” Pony went on. “In the Moorlands and on the beach of Pireth Dancard. I should have died, but Elbryan would not let me.”

“Then credit Elbryan with saving the kingdom,” Midalis was quick to say.

“But that was not his purpose,” Pony explained. “He saved me to save my son, and so I shall. And then I will join him. As I rightfully should have already joined him.”

Midalis stammered for a response, and Braumin surely understood that shock, given the woman’s startling remarks. This woman, Pony, the most powerful gemstone user in the world, trained and skilled in the elven sword dance, a woman who was younger by perhaps a decade than Braumin Herde, had just claimed that she would not live much longer!

“You will leave us now?” Braumin heard Midalis ask when he turned his focus back to the conversation, and the monk held his breath. He did not want her to go.

“My time here is ended,” Pony replied. She hugged Midalis. “Rule well — I know you shall! For me, I will spend my time in Dundalis, back home again. How long ago, it seems, when Elbryan and I would run carelessly about the caribou moss, awaiting the hunters’ return or hoping for a glimpse of the Halo.”

Pony stepped back and motioned to the side, to her son and his two companions sitting in the shade of the wall.

Braumin’s gaze went that way. The centaur stood up – Pony had healed his broken leg so completely that he barely limped now, only hours later. Yet another reminder of the power of this woman, Braumin thought.

He couldn’t help himself. “Wait!” he called and he ran over to Pony and Midalis. “Wait, I beg!”

Pony greeted him with a great hug.

“I cannot believe you are leaving us,” the monk said, and he wouldn’t let her go. He wanted to say so much more! He wanted to tell her that he and his brothers had discussed the prospect of handing her the Abellican Church, to serve as the first Mother Abbess! It would be a monumental action. It would change the world! Surely she could not refuse such an opportunity…

Before Bishop Braumin could begin to spout out the many thoughts swirling in his mind, though, Pony replied, “You have your church to restore, and I have my son to save.”

It wasn’t just what she said, but how she had expressed it, and that included a bit of magic, Braumin realized, as the woman used her soul stone to speak within his heart and mind.

You have your church to restore
.

You. Bishop Braumin. Pony wasn’t simply making an off-handed and obvious remark about the state of the world, she was charging Braumin with this most important duty. She was giving him her blessing – nay, her demand – that repairing the broken Abellican Church, the institution that had suffered so greatly under the De’Unneran Heresy, fell squarely upon the shoulders of Bishop Braumin Herde.

And indeed, this would prove a heavy burden, the monk knew. The Abellican Church lay in ruins. So many brothers had been killed or driven out by De’Unnero’s minions, and many of those minions, fanatically loyal to the vile man, remained in positions of power at various chapels and even abbeys! Other chapels were empty and in disrepair, and even one of the great abbeys, St. Gwendolyn by the Sea, was now by all reports a deserted and haunted place.

Braumin Herde gave a great sigh. A sniffle from behind turned him to regard his dearest friend, Master Marlboro Viscenti, standing there with his head bowed.

“What better place to save him than St.-Mere-Abelle?” Braumin slyly remarked, more for
Viscenti’s sensibilities than his own.

For Braumin already knew the answer, and he was already nodding as Pony replied, “Dundalis.”

True to her word, Pony left later that same day, with Bradwarden, Juraviel and her son Aydrian, bound for the Timberlands and the town of Dundalis.

From a high window in the monastery, Bishop Braumin and Master Viscenti watched them go, and knew the truth: Pony would never return to Honce-the-Bear.

“We have a lot of work to do, my friend,” Braumin remarked, trying to sound as optimistic as he could manage – and surely he thought the attempt pitiful. “I fear that our struggle has only just begun.”

“No,” Viscenti said, draping an arm about his friend’s broad shoulders. When Braumin turned to regard him, he found Viscenti staring at him intently, and nodding.

“No,” the skinny man said again. “The demon is expelled and King Midalis will help us as we help him. A lot to do, yes, but we go with honest hearts and a desire to do good things. We will prevail.”

It wasn’t often that Viscenti served as the calming and optimistic voice.

Braumin was glad that this was one of those rare occasions. He dropped his hand over Viscenti’s, and looked back out at the distant procession, hearing again the words of Pony, the charge that he must fix the Abellican Church.

He straightened his shoulders and steeled his broken jaw.

He knew what must first be done.

*****

Brother Mars hunched low and tried to remain inconspicuous as he went about his work in tending the wounded soldiers, and traveled the battlefield perimeter as far as possible from St.-Mere-Abelle’s wall. Normally, he was an imposing man, solid as a monastery wall, so it was said, and never one to shy from confrontation. But now, at this time, after the whispers of Brother Thaddius in the great hall of the monastery, after this disastrous battle, the man believed that a low profile alone could save him.

They knew.

It all made sense now. The masters of St.-Mere-Abelle had placed him in the background of the great battle, out of the way manning one of the high catapults. By all rights, Mars should have been on the front lines, for despite his young age and short training, few at the monastery, few in all the Church, could outfight him.

But no, they knew the truth of his loyalties, as Brother Thaddius had warned.

And it was the truth, the man admitted to himself out there on the bloodstained field. Mars had thrown his loyalty to Marcalo De’Unnero. He had remained under the command of Father Abbot
Fio Bou-raiy as a spy, mostly, for his heart lay with the vision of De’Unnero, even if some of the man’s tactics seemed a bit extreme.

De’Unnero did not believe that the sacred gemstones should be out of Church control, or that their blessing should be offered so liberally to the common folk of Honce-the-Bear.

De’Unnero did not believe that the peasants should be coddled. No, loyalty to God was a difficult and demanding task, one requiring vigilance and sacrifice.

To Brother Mars, Father Abbot Fio Bou-raiy and those others, Bishop Braumin and his allies, were weak and soft.

But they had won the day, and so, Brother Mars lamented, the Abellican Church might never recover.

More immediate concerns weighed on Brother Mars this day, however, concerns for his own future, or lack thereof. The masters suspected his turn from their way and toward De’Unnero. They surely would not tolerate him now with De’Unnero dead and the cause so badly disrupted.

He thought of his coming fate – and he was certain things would fall this way – with him in the dungeons of St.-Mere-Abelle, chained to the wall and fed food not fit for the rats. Even though he was outside of the monastery at that time, hoisting another wounded soldier over his shoulder to carry to the brothers with the soul stones, Mars felt as if the walls were closing in around him, suffocating him, damning him.

He knew what he must do. He kept at his work until the call for Vespers, the sunlight fast fading. Off in a far corner of the battlefield, he stripped off his bloody robes and threw on the shirt of a man killed in the battle. He crawled to the farthest point where he could remain undercover and as soon as darkness fell, he put his feet under him and ran off into the night.

He didn’t stop running until he came upon the town of St.-Mere-Abelle, some three miles inland.

The place was overfilled with soldiers, men from every corner of Honce, and more than a few from Alpinador, even. Mars understood the nature of war, and knew enough to realize that many of these people would remain in St.-Mere-Abelle, would make of it their home.

So would he.

Doors of the common rooms, taverns, and inns of the town were thrown wide by order of Prince Midalis, who was surely soon to be crowned King of Honce-the-Bear.

From one of those rooms, where songs of lament, of loss, of victory and of hope all blended together in the many toasts and laments offered by the men, Brother Mars stared up the long hill toward the silhouette of the dark monastery beneath the starry skies.

Not so long ago, his heart had leaped with joy at the whispers that Marcalo De’Unnero approached St.-Mere-Abelle and would claim the Church as his own. How thrilled was Mars to believe that he could throw off his façade, discard this lie his life had become, and proclaim openly his support for De’Unnero! How he had hoped that he would stand beside that man, the greatest warrior the Abellican Order had ever known, to reshape the Order into one of sacrifice and valor and utter devotion!

Guilt brought many pained squints to Mars’s eyes that night as he replayed the disastrous
battle. He should have been stronger. He should have gone to Marcalo De’Unnero in the great hall and fought beside the man.

He conjured the image, burned forever into his memory, of De’Unnero lying dead on the stairs beside the woman called Sadye. Brother Mars should have been there, fighting with his idol, dying beside De’Unnero if that, too was God’s will.

He should have.

But he had failed.

*****

At first glance, the brown-skinned man seemed quite out of place in this monastery, the mother abbey of the Abellican Church, but Pagonel walked with a quiet confidence and ease, and if he was out of place, no one had bothered to tell him.

He was a small man, well into middle age, thin and wiry, though not a nervous and excitable type like Brother Viscenti. He walked in sandals, or barefoot, as he was now, and in either case, a shadow made no less noise than he. He wore a tan tunic and loose-fitting pants, tied at the waist with a red sash, the Sash of Life, the highest rank of the Jhesta Tu mystics of Behren.

He stood in a grand hallway now, the Court of Saints, lined on one side by windows looking out over All Saints Bay, and on the opposite wall by grand paintings of the heroes of the Abellican Order, amazing works of arts that each stood twice the height of Pagonel. Few who were not of the Abellican Order had ever seen this place, but Bishop Braumin had offered Pagonel free rein of St.-Mere-Abelle, naming the mystic as one of the true heroes of the battle that had, in Braumin’s words, “defined the world.”

Pagonel hadn’t even really fought in that battle, not conventionally at least, although if he had, then surely many would have fallen before him. He was Jhesta Tu, and a grandmaster of that martial art. An Allheart Knight’s shining armor would not protect him from the lethal hands of Pagonel, for the mystic could strike with the speed of a viper and the strength of a tiger. A warrior’s sword would never get close to striking him, for Pagonel could move like the mongoose, faster than the sword hand, faster than the eye.

But no, he hadn’t fought in the battle, other than to fight against the battle. When Midalis and Aydrian and their closest cohorts had engaged in their duel in the great hall of the monastery, Pagonel, riding the dragon Agradelious, had flown low about the larger battlefield, calling for peace, insisting that the victor would emerge from within St.-Mere-Abelle, no matter the outcome on the field. He had saved many men and women that day outside of St.-Mere-Abelle, and in the aftermath, many indeed had come to him with their thanks and praise.

None of that had been lost on Bishop Braumin. On Braumin’s word, Pagonel could go where he pleased in St.-Mere-Abelle, and could stay as guest of the Church for as long as he desired.

Truly the mystic had been pleasantly surprised by what he had found in the quieter corners of the great monastery, whose walls ran a mile long atop the cliff wall, and where secret stairways led to quiet rooms full of wondrous treasures – of sculpture, painting, glassworks, tapestries, and jewelry design.

As in this hall, lined with huge paintings meticulously and lovingly crafted.