“There they are,” Sister Diamanda announced. She lay atop a bluff, under drooping pines with branches pulled down by heavy, melting snow. Down the slope before her sat a collection of farmhouses, and in the lane between them stood a man in Abellican robes.
Elysant, Victoria, and Brother Thaddius crawled up beside her. They had been hunting for these monks since their encounter with the powries several days earlier — the powries had hinted pretty clearly that they were in contact with some monks, after all.
“They deal with powries,” Diamanda went on. “They must be De’Unnerans.”
“We do not know that,” Thaddius replied, rather sharply. He stared down at the houses and the brother in the square. A second brother joined the man, and Thaddius’s eyes flashed with recognition. He knew this man, Glorious, and knew, too, that Diamanda’s claims of allegiance were quite true.
“Are you ready for a fight, sister?” Diamanda asked Elysant, who smiled and nodded.
“She was ready before Thaddius used his soul stone on her wounds after the battle,” Victoria put in.
“Truly,” Diamanda agreed, tapping Elysant’s forearm. “I cannot believe how powerfully you shook off the pain and continued the fight.”
Elysant shrugged.
“The dolostones,” Diamanda said with a shrug, indicating the stone set bracer Elysant wore.
Elysant shrugged and smiled. “I will thank the Father Abbot when we return,” she said, and meant it.
“It was not the bracer,” Thaddius remarked as he moved around Elysant. “It was you.”
Surprised the apparent compliment, all three women turned back to regard Thaddius, who was moving around Victoria then, at the end of the line.
“I know these brothers,” he explained, continuing off to the side, down the side slope of the bluff, and motioning for the women to stay put. “I will determine their purpose and intent.”
“If they are De’Unnerans, they will kill you,” Diamanda warned.
Thaddius stopped, not because she had given him pause or reason for concern, but because of the simple unintentional irony in the naive woman’s remark. They were De’Unnerans — at least, Glorious was — and as far as Glorious knew, so was Thaddius.
And Thaddius still wasn’t sure that Glorious was incorrect.
“If they seek to attack me, I know you will be there,” Thaddius said to keep the three in place. “Be ready, I beg.”
Once he was away from the women, Thaddius stood up and brushed off his brown robes as thoroughly as he could. He rubbed his face, too, but out of concern and confusion. More than once, he looked back up the bluff, where lay these three women who had fought the powries beside him. He thought of the demands of Elysant and Diamanda that Victoria run off, for she could outdistance the dwarves, no doubt, and the Church needed to know.
Above all else, the Church needed to know.
But Victoria would not run away, because she would not admit defeat, no matter the price. Above all else for her, loyalty.
Brother Thaddius stared long and hard at the top of the bluff, unable to see the women, but knowing they were there. He couldn’t reconcile their admission to the Church, particularly Elysant who had no affinity with the sacred Ring Stones.
And yet, there was so much about them brother Thaddius could not deny…
The young monk bolstered himself and started toward the houses, erasing all fear from his face determinedly.
The two monks turned sharply on him when he crossed into the lane, making no attempt to hide himself, both assuming fighting stances.
From a porch to the side, a third monk leveled a crossbow his way.
“Brother Glorious!” Thaddius called excitedly. “After all that has happened, it is good to see you alive!”
“Thaddius?” the young man called back, and his face lit up. “Ah, brother, have you heard the terrible news?”
“I was there when Father Abbot De’Unnero fell,” he said, never slowing as he joined the two.
The third heretic came down from the porch, crossbow lowered. “You are alone?” the older man, whom Thaddius did not know, asked suspiciously.
*****
“Can we trust him?” Diamanda quietly asked as they three watched the gathering in the lane below. “They are De’Unnerans, certainly.”
“Yes,” Elysant replied confidently.
“There is a chapel not far from here,” Diamanda said. “If they are loyal to Father Abbot Braumin, then why are they out here? And surely this is the band the powries thought us!”
Victoria nodded, not disagreeing, but she added her own affirmation to Elysant’s claim regarding Thaddius.
“Pagonel would not have chosen him,” Elysant reasoned. “He could have escaped the powries with his gems, but he did not use his malachite and fly away.”
“They seem quite friendly,” Diamanda warned. “How do we know that Thaddius was unaware of this band when we left St.-Mere-Abelle?”
The others wanted to argue, but really couldn’t. Together, the three lifted up in a crouch and eased to the edge of the bluff, ready to leap away to Thaddius’s aid.
Or perhaps to run off if their hopes were dashed.
On and on went Brother Glorious and the other two, and then a fourth of their band came in happily.
“My prayers are answered!” the newcomer exclaimed. “More will join our cause. More will recognize the truth of Marcalo De’Unnero.”
“Avelyn was a fraud,” another insisted.
“Demon possessed,” Brother Glorious agreed.
“Bishop Braumin has been elected Father Abbot, so say the rumors filtering out of St.-Mere-Abelle,” Thaddius remarked, and that brought disgusted gasps from all about.
“Jojonah’s lapdog!” the newcomer cried. “Oh, but we have much fighting ahead, brothers.”
“They will reinstate us, brothers,” Thaddius said.
The looks that flashed his way sent chills down his spine.
“They seek healing, I am told,” Thaddius went on, a bit less assuredly. “Truce and compromise.”
“They demand fealty, you mean,” the one with the crossbow growled, and Thaddius wondered if the man was about to shoot him.
“Ohwan has been elected as Abbot of St. Honce,” Thaddius argued. “Ohwan was no enemy to Marcalo De’Unnero, and was his choice for that position.”
“Then let us go to Ursal,” Brother Glorious said to all. “Ohwan will have us. We will bolster his cause when he marches on St.-Mere-Abelle.”
“No, he will summon the Father Abbot to Ursal, to the Court of the King,” said the newcomer. “And there we will end the reign of foul Braumin.”
They all began talking excitedly about their fantasies of murder, and of keeping true the cause of De’Unnero. For a long while, they lost all interest in Thaddius, too consumed by their hopes. Brother Glorious himself spoke of a sister of St. Gwendolyn they had hunted down and killed, and what a godly deed that had been!
“We will find our sunrise, Brother Thaddius!” Glorious finished, at last turning back to the thin young monk.
Glorious’s expression changed indeed when he looked upon his old acquaintance from the shadows of the monastery where Marcalo De’Unnero’s name had been spoken with quiet reverence, to see Brother Thaddius encased in the holy blue-white glow of magical serpentine, his hand uplifted, a ruby teeming with fiery energy, begging catastrophic release.