The room was lit by a lamp on the altar. Pheslan knew that I would arrive late, and left it for me, as he always did. I knew, too, that I would find some food and wine left waiting for me on the table. I smiled at the thought, and sighed. I was making a fool of myself with all this nonsense. I ate quickly and went to bed.
That night I awoke, startled. The scraping noise was back. It sounded a little like a dog scratching at the door of his master’s house, hoping to get in-a big dog. I lit my bedside lamp with a flame from the coals in the brazier that attempted in vain to keep the chill from my room. When I opened my door, I could see that the door to Pheslan’s room was already open. I looked in to find it empty. The boy had obviously risen-perhaps awakened by the noise as well?
Then I heard the scream.
I ran into the sanctuary, the flame of my lamp almost going out asit passed through the cold air. I looked frantically about.
“Pheslan?” I called out. My voice was swallowed by the dark emptiness of the room. How had I grown so afraid of my own sanctuary? “Pheslan, boy-where are you?” No answer came.
My eyes were drawn to the rose window. Dark shapes seemed to move across its surface. Was that light playing against the facets? (How long could I tell myself that?)
I longed for a closer look at the window, but there was no way for me to climb to that height without a ladder, and that would be difficult in the dark. I called out again for Pheslan.
I went outside and checked the barn. The horses and wagon were still there. I checked all around the outside of the building, still calling for my young friend.
“Pheslan!”
By the time I had searched the inside of the church again, the light of dawn was evident, and I blew out my lamp. I knew what I had to do. I returned to the barn and got the ladder. I maneuvered it into the church, despite its weight and size and set it below the rose window. I do not know exactly what I thought I would find up there, but I grabbed a heavy candlestick from the altar and held it tightly in my grip. Taking a deep breath, I began to climb.
When I reached the top, I held on to the top rung of the ladder with one hand, and gripped the candlestick in the other like a weapon. I peered through the window.
I had no idea what I was seeing. I gazed through the rose window and beheld some other place-this was not the churchyard. Instead I saw some infernal realm of shadows and slime-covered things that slithered over a blasted and dreadful landscape. Something flitted across the sky on batlike wings that seemed to leave a trail of greasy residue behind the creature. This window did not look outside. Or rather it did-but not the outside, the Outside. My eyes now saw beyond the veil of our world. My mind was besieged by the knowledge that there were places on the other side of the rose window, and they were terrible. The things in those places, I also knew, wanted to get to the inside-to our world.
Gods! I knew all at once that this window was a thing of evil. No longer (or was it ever?) a fine piece of some glazier’s workmanship, no longer bits of blue-green stained glass cleverly pieced together. The rose window was a sorcerous, corrupted thing. It gave me a view no man should ever see. But what else did it give? Was it some kind of portal, or doorway?
I raised the candlestick, my eyes tearing with fear and hatred. I was going to smash the window-shatter it and its evil, to erase the loathsome view that it provided. This would be no defilement or desecration, for the window did not actually belong in a holy place, yet still I stopped. One thought came to me (from where?). If I smashed the window, would I destroy it, or would I let in those things that seethed and writhed in that infernal realm? Would shattering the window prevent them from coming through, or would it grant them passage? A burglar in the night often smashes a window to get in. Smashing it for him only makes his entrance easier.
I had to think-but not at the top of that ladder. There, I could still see into that nightmare realm, and worse, I think the things beyond could see me. I climbed down and slumped on the floor next to the altar.
I was at a loss. What could I do? Was Pheslan gone? Was that his scream I had heard, or something else? Had he somehow disappeared into the window? That seemed so impossible. What would Tessen have done in this situation?
My thoughts were always drawn back to my old mentor in times of crisis. I thought of Tessen, and the old abbey, and- Oghma preserve us.
I saddled one of the horses-I cannot recall which one anymore. I am not much of a rider, but I thought that I could move faster riding just one than in the wagon. I rode through a good deal of the morning, across the valley to the old abbey.
The men had worked fast. Only some of the foundation stones were left. Everything was gone, including any clue I had hoped to find regarding the nature of the rose window. The wall where it had set for over one hundred years had been torn down. The floor where it had cast its shadows was torn apart and covered with rubble, dirt, and leaves.
I stood in the middle of all this and wept. Tessen had committed a sin against Oghma that could never be forgiven. He had kept a secret, and a terrible secret at that. Had he been a guardian over that window, or its servant? I certainly could remember no hint of the malevolence that the window now displayed.
Finally, I could weep no more and I got back on my horse. Perhaps it was just my training in Oghma’s priesthood, but I needed information to confront this challenge. When I had been here last, I had learned of one more place that I could go to find the answers I sought. 1 beckoned my steed back onto the road, and led it into the village nearby, to where I had heard that Greal lived and had set up his temporary new church.
Once I arrived, nearly exhausted now, I slid to the ground. I knocked on the door. When there was no response, I knocked again, pounding now.
“Master Greal?” I shouted. Still nothing.
“Master Greal, it is Loremaster Jaon.” I continued my pounding, stopping only to confirm that the door was locked.
“I must ask you about the rose window I purchased from you!” My pounding fist accompanied each word like a drumbeat in some southern jungle ritual.
“I need to ask you about Loremaster High Tessen!” Completely expired, I collapsed against the door. “Tell me,” I moaned. “Tell me what we were really worshiping in that abbey!”
As I rode back to my parish, I knew that someone had seen me. There had been eyes on me the whole time that I had spent pounding on that door. And as I had sat there, exhausted in the damp soil in front of Greal’s home, the autumn leaves blowing around me like dead memories that may very well have been lies, someone watched. No one in that entire town had come when I called out. No one answered their door, but I knew that I was being watched. Even now.
How many of them were there, that had taken part in the foul rites that I could only imagine must have taken place in front of that rose window? Had those rituals gone on even when I had been there? Could I have been so naпve? Could-no, I would not think of it anymore. It was too hard, and too painful, and there were still things that needed doing back in my own church.
Which brings me to right now.
Jam writing this the day after I went to the site of the old abbey. I have not yet slept nor eaten. When I came back, I had hoped against hope that Pheslan would be here, and that somehow I would have been wrong. But I was not wrong, and he was not here. I dressed myself in the vestments of my order-white shirt and pants, and the kantlara, a black vest with gold brocade. My kantlara had been made for me by my grandmother, who had also been a lore-master. I prepared my holy symbol and brought out the staff that I kept by the door for emergencies-the staff with its ends shod in iron and made for fighting. I prepared to make my move, and take my stand against the evil that I myself had brought to my parish.