Chapter 7.4

#

The tunnel was a twisty path that bore like a hungry worm into the flesh of the mountain. The floor was rough, litter with stones and slabs rock, and sometimes I splashed through pools where death-white fish darted from my feet. They had no eyes. The damp walls were covered with a hard, crusty rock. Sometimes it seemed to flow like water, other times it bulged like mud, and sometimes it was hard and sharp, tearing my skin where I touched it. The ceiling soared out of range of my candle in places, and in other places it dipped so low that I was forced to bend double to pass.

Then I turned right, and walked into the largest room I had ever seen, a hall for the gods. I stood on a cliff high above the floor, gazing down. There was a hole in the high ceiling, and the moonlight lit what my candle could not. To one side of me fell a stone waterfall, cascading down a hundred feet or more, but with only a trickle of moisture on its surface. To the other side of me a dragon seemed to sit on a stone pedestal, his tail wrapped around his massive legs, his wings folded over his great body. Before me stood a tree, as tall as the tree of life, and I could even make out a rodent gnawing on its roots and the cock roosting in its branches. Further on, in the dimness that was hidden like the future to mortals, I could see more shapes.

Then the moonlight disappeared, and I had only the candle to light the path just before me.
I could see a switchback trail leading down the cliff, and I followed it. I walked past meditation holes and empty fire pits – but saw no skeletons. Whoever had come here had left again – so there had to be a way out.

At the bottom of the cliff I saw a burning fire, though I had not noticed the light before I saw it. An old man, wrapped in a monk’s robe, crouched beside it. His cloudy eyes stared into the vast emptiness of the room, but at the sound of my footsteps he turned to me. I stopped, unsure of how a dumb man could talk to a blind man.

Then he smiled, showing a single, crooked tooth, and pulled a bit of bread and a flask from his bag. I took them, and ate gratefully – the walk had been long and I was tired.
But what would I give him in return? Elise wore my jewels and my clothes – I had nothing more than a monk would have.

Then I saw that he had only a stick of firewood. There was a large pile several feet away, but it was untouched. Of course it was, because he was blind and did not know it was there.
I gathered up as much wood as I could carry, and brought it back. I did this several more time, until he had a stack by his knee that would keep him for days.

He put his hand upon the stack, and smiled his toothless thanks. Then he signed a blessing on me, pointed off to his right, and signed again, "Walk out through the teeth, and do not fear."
I returned his blessing, heretical as it was for me to do so, and walked the way he showed me. I saw the teeth – a double row of spires reaching up from the floor and down from the ceiling, and stepped carefully between them.

Beyond the teeth my candle flame bent furiously away from a tunnel. It was short, and soon I stepped out behind a large rock and into the cool, damp night. The road lay ahead, and just below me waited the town of Krast.

Chapter 7.3.4

Christians are a strange people, often inviting personal assault so that they can demonstrate their faith by not fighting back, yet killing if they think their god has been insulted. It is a strange logic to think that their god would demand violent justice when they may not, but people are rarely logical. Why should we expect more of the gods?

So it was that I, standing beside a devoted follower of the faith and wearing his trappings as a disguise, felt myself to be in grave danger. On the other hand, Silent Monks are sworn to do good by all.

And the way back led me into the hands of Sharp.

We stopped before an old, cracked screen, its brittle frame propped up by a heavy trunk. The monk handed me his candle, then stooped and shoved the trunk away. He pulled back the screen, exposing a crevice in the wall. Taking back his candle, he motioned for me to enter.
Nervously, I stepped in – and my heart slammed in my chest when I heard the screen move back. I turned as a loud scrape announced that the trunk was back in place. Through the cracks in the screen I could see his candlelight, and how it faded as he walked away.

I was trapped, quite alone, and no one knew I was there. For so many years I had prayed for such obscurity and loneliness, yet now I wanted to give it back. I had met a wonderful woman, and I did not want to die without her ever knowing what had become of me. Yet it seemed I had no choice, for I was trapped in a tunnel of rock, in silence, and when my flickering candle burned down, I would not even see death come.

Flickering candle. Candles do not flicker when there is no draft. The flame bent away from the depths of the tunnel; fresh air came from below. This wasn’t a trap, but an escape. I thanked the strange monk for his generosity, and took the path before me.

Chapter 7.3.3

Nothing happened. The door closed behind me, and I was wrapped in flickering shadows. At the front of the room, a prayer table stood before an ornate gilded screen, and above it hung a sculpture of their god, in the form of a man nailed to a wooden cross. Briars cut his head and deep slash wounded his side. I knew that the Christians worshiped the painful death of a man, claiming that all goodness and mercy flowed from this act of horror, but I was not prepared for the emotion which flowed from this statue, their god. It was not anger and judgement, which I would have expected, but grace and forgiveness.

Is this, then, why they so freely tortured others? Did they expect that all people would follow their example of their god, and forgive those who hurt them the most? It made a strange sort of sense.

A dozen people sat in the pews, waiting, but for what I did not know. Nor did I know what I would do when the monk took me before them, and I would be expected to sing. Perhaps the guardians of the Christian shine were not the stone gargoyles, but the flesh and blood within. My heart now slammed against my rib cage as I looked at the man on the cross and saw that there were worse ways to die than by Sharp’s sword.

But the monk turned and took me to one of the alcoves on the side of the chapel, where a brace of candles lit the statue of a robed man. The monk bowed to the statue, then signed to me, "Go now while the Bard thinks you are in the service."

"Go where?"

The monk pointed behind the statue. Then, plucking two candles from a basket beside the statue, he lit them from one of the candles in the brace, and led the way to a hidden entrance. Beyond it was a tightly circling staircase leading down. Songless Castle has a tower which is five stories high; I think we traveled twice that distance.

We came out in a rough cut chamber filled with books and old furniture. The room smelled musty and mildewed, and everything was covered with a layer of fine, white dust. We followed a winding path past racks of wine bottles, battered chests, and faded screens. Our feet left marks on the floor, and empty shadows danced along the walls. This was a room rarely visited, a place to leave things, a tomb for forgotten dreams.

What better place to murder a Pagan intruder?

Chapter 7.3.2

Just then a arm slid though mine, and I was guided away from the keep door and toward a smaller door in a castle tower. My savior was a Silent Monk, the taller of the two I had seen singing in the chapel days before. His hands moved as he said, "We must not be late for prayers, brother."

I nodded.

Within the shadow of his hood, I could just barely see his face. It was narrow, with a strong chin and a beak of a nose, and sharp blue eyes set close together. He was half-familiar to me – when had I seen him? During my one visit to Rockridge, years before? In Slatten? A visitor to Songless Castle? Nothing seemed right.

This was not the time to discuss our previous acquaintance, however. Sharp followed us closely as the monk led me to the chapel, his sacred shrine. What would happen when I put my Pagan foot upon that sacred floor? Would their god come out in fury and fire, and consume me where I stood? Would the stone guardians on the lintel come to life and tear me limb from limb? Would their angels and demons rip out my soul and feed my flesh to their dogs? Master Meiltung had told us all these stories, and more, and my heart hammered as I came closer to my doom.

Wary, Sharp stopped at the threshold, while I was led like a sacrifice over it.