Broken Rule | Chapter 5
This post is chapter five of my not-previously-published epic fantasy novel Broken Rule. I'm serializing the first few chapters here on Steemit to see if there's an audience for serializing the complete story. If you like it and would like to see more, pleasure upvote and/or comment to let me know.
The story so far:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapters 3 & 4
Learned Marek pushed open the door of an abandoned house. The house was little more than a shack, really. It had only a single room with a collapsed fireplace and damp, rotten rugs on the floor. Most of the furniture had been reduced to splinters, but there was a big table in the center of the room that seemed more or less intact. “This will do,” Marek announced to his followers.
They filed in and dumped their packs in the corner. There had been ten of them in the pilgrimage when they set out from the cathedral in Kubara, but one of them had taken ill and died on the long journey, and it was only Marek and eight followers now. Marek had chosen his followers carefully. Most he had found starving on the streets, and taken them to his Poor Kitchen. Others were criminals, and Marek used his position in the cathedral to intercede with the watch or the criminal bosses that ran the underworld of the city to get them out of the trouble they were in. Marek schooled them in the faith. He emphasized self-sacrifice and duty, and most were now nearly fanatical in their devotion to the Most Holy, and were indebted to Marek for the salvation of their souls.
Years of secret research had led him to this spot. The histories weren't clear, nothing from the War of Despair was, but this area was the best fit to the various accounts. Over nine hundred years ago, this was where Sefton the Terrible unleashed his Spirit Plague on the Triumvirate of Loden and their hundred acolytes. This was where he would find what he was looking for. He turned to his followers. “Brethren, this is the place that the Most Holy revealed to me. Are you ready for the task that the Most Holy has set before you?”
“Learned Marek,” said Denisa, a wisp of a woman, “I want to do my duty to the Most Holy, but I am afraid.” The rest were silent, but it was clear that they had similar concerns.
“Sister, it is normal to feel fear. We fear we may die, with our souls found unworthy. We fear we may fail the tasks that the Most Holy sets before us. We fear that our pride will be broken, or that we will be shamed in the eyes of our neighbors. Was not Saint Arlen afraid when he faced the Beast? Was not your own namesake Saint Denisa afraid when she faced the angry crowd? We all feel fear, sister. But how do we overcome our fear?”
“Faith,” answered Denisa.
“Yes, sister. Faith makes us brave, and faith makes us strong. The Most Holy will judge your soul, and he will not punish you for fear. The Most Holy hands us our burdens, and also strength as he sees fit. And compared to our duty to the Most Holy, pride is nothing, and the judgment of our neighbors is less than nothing. Do you believe that the Most Holy has given this task to you?” Denisa nodded. “And has he given you strength to do this task, despite your fears?” She nodded again. “Then you shall not be swayed from your path by fear, for next to the power of the Most Holy, fear is nothing.”
“I am ready, Learned Marek,” she said, with a glassy look in her eyes. Marek had her lie down on the table. He pulled a bottle from his pack and broke the wax seal on the stopper. He held the bottle to her lips and poured some of the liquid inside into her mouth. She swallowed, her entire body convulsed for a moment, and then she lay still. Marek waited with anticipation. Ten seconds. Twenty. One minute. Two. He decided that there was no point in waiting any longer. He grabbed her hands, and asked Pavel to help him with her legs. They moved her body off to the corner with the packs, and Marek looked at Pavel expectantly.
Pavel was a large man who worked on the docks back in Kubara, loading and unloading boats. “Learned Marek,” Pavel stumbled, “are you sure that the tea works properly? Denisa's faith was strong, but she was not able to do what you asked of her.”
“Brother Pavel,” Marek answered, this time softly, with his hand on Pavel's shoulder. “The Most Holy does not promise that we will succeed in the tasks he sets for us, but expects that we will do the best we can with the strength we have. Is that not so?”
“Yes, Learned Marek,” he answered, chastened.
“Brother, when I found you, you were in the thrall of sin. You had robbed and murdered, and were drowning your shame in wine. The watchmen would have taken you to the gallows had I not promised to help you onto the righteous path. You had offered your life to sin, do you now say you will not offer it to the Most Holy, should he ask it?”
“Learned Marek, I am ashamed. The Most Holy gave me a second chance to devote my life to him, and I nearly turned away from him again. I thought I was brave, but now I see that I am afraid, like Denisa was.”
“Brother Pavel, it's no shame to be afraid. If your faith is strong enough to overcome your fear, the Most Holy will judge you well.”
Pavel smiled and said, “I'm ready.” He climbed on the table and drank from Marek's bottle, and died like Denisa. Marek looked at his followers and saw Teodor, a small man, but with a wiry strength. He called him over. Marek and Teodor picked up Pavel's body and set it next to Denisa's. “Are you ready, Sister Kira?” Marek asked.
“Yes, Learned,” she said, and lay down on the table. Marek poured the liquid into her mouth, but she had trouble swallowing. She coughed and sputtered, and the liquid dribbled from her mouth.
“Gently now,” Marek assured her, and it went down more easily on the second attempt. Again, the body was racked by convulsions and then abruptly stopped. Marek and the others waited hopefully for a few minutes, and then acknowledged another failure. Again, Teodor helped Marek move the body.
“Learned Marek,” said Josef, “I believe that your mission is a holy one, but you ask so much. How can I be sure that this is my mission, too?”
Marek sighed inwardly, waiting to be inspired with the words Josef needed to hear to get past his doubt. Marek sometimes lamented that others couldn't figure these things out themselves, but he never let himself dwell on those thoughts. Marek had learned over the years that most people couldn't think as clearly as he could. For many people, simple logic seemed a mystery. He didn't blame them, though. Marek knew that the Most Holy gave different burdens to everyone. Even other priests had trouble understanding the most basic points of theology. The key, of course, lay in the writings of Saint Orson: "Speak no unkind words, for all words are but echoes of the first word spoken by the Most Holy, which called the world into being. Treat your own speech with the same reverence you would give that holy word." Most people took it as a simple admonishment to avoid insults and profanity, and seemed to overlook the more important point. If all words were an echo of that first holy word, as the Blessed Book said, then all words carried the ability to directly communicate the will of the Most Holy. Virtually anyone could receive direct divine inspiration, if they simply studied words the way Marek did. Marek found it puzzling that what was obvious to him seemed to elude so many others. It was simple logic, but the other priests failed to grasp it, even when Marek explained it. This was doubly puzzling since most of them, like Marek, claimed to have felt a divine call to the priesthood after reading the Blessed Book. That they had experienced the phenomenon directly but still failed to grasp it was something that Marek would never understand. Still, that frustration was his burden, so he couldn't begrudge the fact that others had burdens of their own that kept them from seeing the truth.
As always, Marek turned over the words that Josef had spoken in his mind. As always, a solution presented itself. "You ask how you can be certain, Brother Josef, but the Most Holy does not promise certainty in this life. You believe that I was acting according to the will of the Most Holy when I took you from the gutters of the city to the Poor Kitchen, do you not?"
"Of course, Learned," he said. "You saved my life."
"Then believe that I am still acting according to the will of the Most Holy when I ask you to undertake this task."
Josef stood silent for a moment, absorbing what Marek said. Eventually he slumped his shoulders, ready to do his duty. “I'm ready, Learned,” said Josef. He climbed onto the table and drank. He struggled against the spasms at first, tried to hold himself still by gripping the sides of the table, but eventually lost control. His convulsions grew so violent that he fell from the table on to the floor, twitching there for a moment before he stopped as well. Marek and Teodor lifted him back to the table and waited, but eventually had to move his body over with the others.
One after another, Marek's followers drank from Marek's flask and died on the table. There were tears in Amalia's eyes when her turn came. “Learned Marek, so many have died attempting this task. I don't have the strength that they did. How can I succeed where they failed?”
“Sister Amalia,” Marek answered in a whisper, “I have seen your strength. I saw you when you were wasted away to nothing from hunger and chilled to the bone from snow and wind, but even then you did not deny the Most Holy. You have come so far with me since then. Will you deny him now?”
“No, I will not deny him.” She climbed onto the table, and drank from the bottle like the others. Like the others, after the shock of swallowing she lay dead still, her eyes locked in an empty stare. Marek was getting ready to move her into the pile of corpses when, suddenly, she convulsed again.
“Hurry, Teodor, help me!” Marek shouted, as he rolled her onto her side. She convulsed again and milky brown liquid spewed from her mouth. She took in a labored breath, and began a fit of coughing. She vomited again, and was past the worst of it. Marek grabbed her by the shoulders. “Did you see them? Did they tell you?” he demanded.
“Yes,” she said between coughs. “They told me, and the Most Holy gave me the strength to come back.”
Amalia's face was ashen, and her body shivered despite the heavy blanket that Teodor and Marek had wrapped around her. But she was happy. She smiled, knowing that she had accomplished a great task for the Most Holy. She pointed at Marek's ancient map. “It's here, I think. I couldn't always hear the spirits clearly, but the oldest one said that the library was here, on the hill, facing the waterfall.”
Marek spread out a different map next to it, one of more recent vintage. “That must correspond to this area, here. There's no waterfall anymore, that must have changed when Xanatar the Strength of the World tumbled the mountain down. But the course of the river couldn't have changed too dramatically, and these peaks here and here haven't changed. Yes, that's where we can find Loden, and that's where we can find the library.”
He was nearly shaking with excitement. Years of research, years spent studying books of history in order to be divinely inspired by the words in them, years of planning, and it had worked out. Marek had figured that not all of the ancient libraries had burned. That hadn't started until later, when King Nicholas entered the fighting. But when the War of Despair began, it was wizards fighting wizards, and they had no desire to put books to the torch. Certainly, Xanatar had buried it under tons of rock and dirt but, underneath, the books must still be there. Of course, the true location of Loden had always been a mystery, not marked on any map. But the Triumvirate and their acolytes had escaped Xanatar's attack, and had come here. And when they did, they had their souls ripped from their bodies by Sefton's Spirit Plague. Marek suspected that the spell had bound their souls in this place, and he had been right! When Amalia had died, she'd been able to talk to them, and they told her where to find their hidden seat of power. And she had come back and told him. Marek had read many books of herb lore before the Most Holy inspired him with the perfect poison for the job. It killed most people, but a few, a very few, came back from the brink as Amalia did. Everything that he had worked for, everything he had planned for, sacrificed for, had come to pass.
Amalia spoke. “Learned Marek, when I told them of our holy mission to recover their knowledge, they were eager to help. You were right, Learned Marek, about all of the hardships I endured. They prepared me for this task. And the Most Holy gave me the strength when I needed it, the strength to come back to you, like you said.” She was smiling with a contentment that few ever felt.
Marek embraced her and said, “Yes, sister. The Most Holy asks us to walk a difficult path, but he gives us the strength we need. And remember also your faithful brothers and sisters, who gave their lives for this holy task.”
Teodor asked, “Should I dig graves for the brothers and sisters, Learned Marek?”
“Yes, brother. That would be a worthy thing.” Yes, and there would be more digging. Marek's plan had worked just as he hoped, but now he needed a new plan, a plan that would get him to the buried library. Somehow, he would need to get to the location he'd identified in the foothills of the Wolf's Teeth Mountains and dig.