Alymere crawled toward the doorway. He moved cautiously, fearful that at any second another huge fireball could burst from the stone arch. There were no sounds beyond the fire now; no ominous crackles or pops deep in the belly of the old building. Whatever had caused the fireball had burned itself out in that one powerful explosion.
Licking his lips, he pushed himself to his feet and walked cautiously toward the open door.
The heat was every bit as fierce as it had been, but as he climbed the steps again his body became inured to it. He refused to be cowed by it, no matter how painful each successive step was to take.
This was his atonement. This moment. Here. Now. He had committed murder, now he would perform a single act of salvation.
That the Devil's book lay inside the burning building — the relic the Crow Maiden had claimed so dangerous to the entire kingdom, to Arthur, to Camelot, and to everything he loved along with them — was about to be lost to the fire ought to have offered some sort of blessed relief, but he couldn't help but think if there was one element any possession of the Devil ought to be immune to, surely it was fire?
Meaning it would survive the inferno.
The threat would not simply burn away.
He was not thinking rationally, he knew that. He knew that it was impossible for parchment and leather binding to survive contact with fire, no matter what otherworldly properties were ascribed to it. A book was a book.
But that wouldn't stop the doubt from gnawing at his gut.
What if the book could somehow survive and they left it alone in the ashes of the monastery for anyone to find? What if it were being taken by the reivers at this very moment?
Could he live with the risk?
Unless the monk clutched the book in his hands he was going to have to.
Save the man or save the book?
There was only one answer: retrieving the book had become a compunction he could not resist.
Do not fail me, or the Devil take your soul…
Hell's fire waited for him to take a single step forward into its infernal belly.
Just one step.
He turned, caught in a moment of indecision.
Do this one thing for me… Promise me…
Nothing good could come of setting foot within the burning building. It was not so much a fool's errand as it was a suicide pact he had unwittingly made with Blodyweth. And yet… and yet… he was helpless to do anything but walk through the doorway and into the flames.
Steeling himself, Alymere cast one last lingering look back toward his uncle.
The knight was on his feet again, but too far away to stop him from doing what he was about to do. He saw the horror register in his uncle's eyes as he realised his intentions, and that, this once, he couldn't save him from himself. Sir Lowick took a step forward and began to call out, one word, "No!" demanding he stop, demanding he drop the sword, demanding he climb down from the steps, but Alymere was deaf to him. From somewhere deep within the building, he heard an entirely different cry: a man was screaming.
He couldn't ignore it. He turned his back on the knight.
Clutching the sword and thinking only of atonement, Alymere focused on the voice and plunged into the burning building.
Perhaps, if he ever emerged from it again he would be able to live with himself. Perhaps the fire would cleanse his soul?
But more likely it would blacken his bones.
Twenty-One
There was no air.
He was prepared this time — to an extent at least. The fire was different. It formed a tunnel around him, having spread up to and across the stone ceiling. Unlike the wattle hovel it wasn't eating through the thick stone walls, but was contained by them, transforming the passageways into tunnels of fire. He moved deeper into the building. Everywhere he looked the fire had taken hold; the same corridors of fire branched out left to the refectory and right to the chapel, whilst straight ahead of him, and continuing deeper into the warren of narrow corridors and monastic cells, another tunnel of fire formed a burning cross. He stood at the centre of the cross. Fire chased up the walls around him. The scriptorium would be down one of those flaming passages. And the Devil's Bible… he could almost hear Blodyweth's voice urging him to walk into the fire. It was so seductive, so tempting. He felt himself wanting to please the woman even though she wasn't there.
He turned and turned about, but there was no sight of the staircase. His world was reduced to fire and smoke.
The fire burned at its purest here, but somehow didn't touch him.
Alymere tried to recall the exterior of the chapter house and guess where he would find the stair, but with the flames pressing in it was almost impossible to think.
The screaming came again. It didn't sound any closer than it had from outside.
The man's screams were the purest sound of human suffering he had ever heard.
He made his choice then. He had to find the man and save him. A single life had to be worth more than any book — no matter how holy or unholy — didn't it?
Alymere followed the screams.
The walls might have been thick enough to withstand the heat, but the monastic trappings of the chapter house were not so resilient. The fire claimed the oak furniture and the tapestries, the tall dressers and the chests, the high-backed chairs and the long tables of the refectory, the benches of the chapel and even the lectern beside the altar itself. All of them fed the fire. Anything that could burn was burning.
Alymere found the screaming man at the foot of a great winding staircase.
It was not one of the brothers, though, but a reiver. It was too late to save him, even if he had wanted to. The northerner's body was broken from the fall. His limbs sprawled out at impossible angles from him. His screams had nothing to do with his terrible injuries, but from the fire that had found him. His furs burned, fusing to his skin, and the leather of his boots and sword sheath bubbled and shrivelled, tearing the meat away from the bone as it did. It was an ugly death, but the man deserved no better.
Alymere could not get close to the body, and at length the screaming stopped.
At the top of the staircase Alymere saw the shadow-man watching him impassively, utterly unconcerned by the fire around him. The shadows cast by the flames danced in the sunken hollows where his eyes should have been. Had every brother in Medcaut put out his own eyes? Was the mutilation part of their benediction? How could being blind serve to bring them closer to God? Or was their blindness some form of protection? Were they blinding themselves to the sins of the flesh and the evils of their world?
Alymere's reflection was cut short when he saw that the blind monk clutched a small book in his hands.
He couldn't help but feel a pang of disappointment at the mundanity of the so-called Devil's Bible. It looked like no more than a prayer book. But that was the nature of evil, wasn't it; to wear the face of something normal, something banal and harmless, to mask its true intent?
"I have been expecting you," the monk said over the sound of the flames.
Behind the monk's shoulder, the huge window succumbed finally to the heat and shattered, showering shards of glass out across the cloister garden below.
"Give me the book," Alymere said, climbing the first step.
"You are making a grave mistake, knight."
"I don't think so," Alymere said, reaching the fifth step. "In fact I've never felt so sure of anything in my life."
The words came almost like an incantation; there was a hypnotic rhythm to them. "That is the book, not you. Leave this place. Run. Run and don't ever look back. Forget you ever heard mention of the Devil's Bible. Do not let it get inside your head. It is not too late. Run."
"Give me the book," Alymere repeated. "I have no desire to hurt you."