As the next few weeks passed, I became concerned with other things. Oghma, the Lord of Knowledge and the Wise God, bids his servants to spread information and dispense learning as well as watch over the wellbeing of the worshipers as we guide them toward enlightenment. Thus, the duties of a parish priest are legion, but I suppose that this is not the time to describe them. Let it suffice to say that I was preoccupied-so much so that I paid little attention to the fact that young Pheslan was still enraptured with the rose window. One night, after Covenant, we finished our duties and sat down to our simple meal. He told me that he had seen something strange in the window. I listened only halfheartedly, for I was very tired.
“It must be within the pattern of the glass, or the facets,” he explained. We sat at a small wooden table in the room that lies between our sleeping chambers at the back of the church. It was dark, the only light coming from a lamp on the table at the center of’ our meager feast.
“What must?” I said, my mouth full of bread.
The young acolyte was too agitated to eat. “As I said, brother,” he said, “there were things that seemed to move in the window as the sun set.”
“You mean the light played upon the glass,” I said, swallowing.
“Yes, probably.” His eyes lowered.
“What do mean, ‘probably”?”
“Well, it seemed so real,” he replied, looking into my eyes. “They moved.”
“What moved?”
“The images in the window. It was as though something was on the other side.”
‘Perhaps there was something on the other side, Pheslan.” I was becoming slightly irritated now. “A bird?”
“But I went outside and looked,” he said. “There was nothing.”
I drank the last bit from my cup and stood. “Then it was indeed the light of the setting sun playing upon the glass,” I concluded. “Enough now, Pheslan. It is time for bed.”
With that we retired. Pheslan was nothing if not obedient. It makes me.
Well, let me finish the tale first.
Two more days passed, and Pheslan said nothing more about the window. He was quiet, and slow to finish his duties. I knew I needed to talk to him, but I was just too busy. Later, there would be time.
The night of the second day, after retiring, I heard a strange noise. I had been reading in bed as I often did before blowing out my lamp and going to sleep. I heard the noise again. It sounded as if it was coming from outside the church. Perhaps someone was knocking at the door. I placed my marker in the book, threw the blankets back and made my way to the front of the church in my nightclothes. The sound came again, it struck me as though something was scratching on the outside wall of the building.
The stone floor was cold on my bare feet so I hurried through the dark, only my intimate knowledge of the place keeping me from bumping into anything until I entered the sanctuary. There, the light of the full moon shone through the rose window lighting my way to the narthex and the door.
Although there are dangers in the night, even in our peaceful valley, I never bolted the door. The church should always be open, I believed, always there to we!come the poor as well as those in need of knowledge, Oghma’s sacred gift. I opened the door and looked out into the dark night. A bitter wind blew dead, brown leaves all around the yard in front of the church.
I could see nothing out of the ordinary.
Again, I heard the scraping. Something was outside scraping against the stone walls of the church. A tree? It had sounded big, so I had thought it best to check. Despite my lack of shoes, a cloak, or a light, I went outside. As I made my circuit of the building I saw nothing. No tree grew so close as to have its branches move against the walls. My eyes spotted no person or animal that could have done it, but my night vision is poor, and it was very dark.
Yet had there not been the light of the full moon coming through the rose window? I looked up. The clouds were thick. Besides, I knew very well-now that my wits were about me-that there was no full moon tonight.
I went back inside. Yes, both the sanctuary and nave were full of cool, blue-tinted light and it shone through the rose window. As I looked up at the window, I knew I had to check. So, steeling myself against the cold, I returned to the outside.
No light. I hurried around to the north side of the church, the side that held the rose window. No light. I looked up at the window but it looked perfectly normal, or at least as far as I could see in the dark.
Again, I returned to the sanctuary. Yes, it was still filled with light (was it dimmer now?). I looked up at the window, and then down at the lighted church. As I stood there, between the sets of wooden pews in the nave leading up to the altar, the light cast a shadow from the window all around me. To my horror, it was not the rose-shaped shadow it should have been, but that of some great inhuman beast! As I looked down at my feet, I saw that I stood directly in the gaping mouth of the creature’s shadow.
I ran. Yelling for Pheslan, I rushed to the back of the church. He came out of his room, his eyes filled with alarm and sleep. Without a word, I grabbed the blank scroll that served as a symbol of Oghma’s might from the night stand and led him into the nave.
All was dark.
“Get a light,” I commanded with a whisper.
“What is it?”
“Get a light!”
He lit one of the many candles surrounding the altar and brought it forward. It occurs to me now that Pheslan knew the church as well as I did, for he had found the flint in the dark to strike that light. Ah, Pheslan.
In any event, the candle’s light illuminated much of the room, albeit dimly. I looked around carefully, first at the floor where the shadow had been, and then up at the window.
“Please, Brother,” Pheslan said, “tell me what it is.”
“I thought I saw something,” I said carefully-still looking around.
He replied without hesitation. “In the window?”
“Yes, I suppose. Actually, it was a shadow from a light in the window.”
Pheslan looked at me. His eyes were full of questions. I had the same questions.
“I have no idea, my son.” I put my hand on his shoulder and, with one last look around, led him back to our chambers.
I took the candle from him. “Oghma watches over us, Pheslan,” I said. “Just because we do not understand, we can know that he does, for no secret is hidden from him. Besides, while the sights of the night are often frightening, the morning light always dispels the fear they bring. Everything will be fine. I should know better, at my age, than to be scared of shadows.” He smiled and nodded.
After the boy went into his room, I paused. Still holding the candle I went to the front door and bolted it. I did not stop to look at the rose window.
The next day, just to be on the safe side, I performed every blessing and banishment that I’ve ever been taught, hoping that divine power might cleanse the rose window and the sanctuary itself. These protective rituals and prayers would surely protect us from any evil that might have been present the night before.
The rest of the afternoon I spent caring for Makkis Hiddle, who had taken ill a few miles down the road. My position as loremaster made me also the most knowledgeable healer in the tiny community. In any event, I did not return until well after dark. Like the previous night, the wind blew from the north and made my trip cold and unpleasant. I unhitched the team and put them in their stalls in the barn behind the east end of the church. They seemed uneasy and stamped and snorted until I calmed them with an apple that I had been saving for myself. As I walked to the front door, I rounded the north side of the building and looked up.
As I watched, a shadow moved across the colored panes of the rose window. It was big-big enough to be a person. My first thought was of Pheslan. Had he climbed up there somehow? I ran into the sanctuary, but all was still. I could see nothing unusual at the window.