The wooden walls of the abbey’s upper floors shook with the blustering weather outside. The fierce Oldshire weather had kept Josiah awake many nights his first year at the abbey, but he had long since become accustomed to its raucous song. This storm was worse than any he had heard until now; he did not know if it would keep him from sleeping, because Josiah had no intention of trying.
The other abbey residents had all turned in after the twilight devotions, and the crude water clock Josiah had made in his lesson with Brother Adrimand (it was really just a pitcher and metal pail with a tiny hole in the side near the bottom) told him it was now three hours later. The waiting had been unbearable, but now he crept from his bed and from his cell.
He had long since dressed in soft leather to go quietly, and the raging storm was perfect cover for his plan. First, he thought, my accomplice. He silently padded down the corridor, turned left at the junction, and counted a dozen less one doors on the left side of the hall. Kneeling, he pulled a strip of parchment—a seven-pointed star inked on one end—from his pocket and slid the adorned end of it underneath the door. After holding it still for a count of five, the parchment was withdrawn and Josiah moved to make room for Owen to step into the hall.
A prearranged conversation, all gestures and facial expressions, took place between the two. That idea had been Owen’s and seemed far better than scratching with quills in the middle of the hall to Josiah, although the limited vocabulary frustrated him. Still, Owen had insisted it was the best way. And he would know, Josiah admitted. Owen had been a carpenter’s apprentice in Couer du Cour, but the carpenter training him had had too little time to drink all the liquor he bought in a week and teach Owen, also, so the resourceful boy had found a man willing to protect him if he would cut a few purse strings and give the man half. Not long after that, a kind priest had taken the time to get the clever boy onto the right path and into an abbey where his wits might be put to use.
And, oh, what a use it is, thought Josiah enthusiastically. The inferred message from the gestures had been that all the components of their device were prepared and wrapped in scraps of cloth for stealth, then bundled in a spare robe of Owen’s they had tied like a sack. The duo was now moving down the abbey stairs to their destination. A grin crept over Josiah’s face as he imagined the stern reprimand from Adrimand about their misuse of the sciences and of their wits, about the poor, beset upon, Prior-Arristant Walter, and all the time Adrimand would be fighting off a smile—maybe a laugh, even, if they did their work well. Then, unexpectedly, he imagined what his father would say to their night’s work when he heard.
“You were sent away for just this sort of foolishness,” his imaginary father said. “Your uncle Brandon has kept you well and with the best sorts of tutors, opened a great possibility for advancement in the Elosian Temple to you, and you repay his generosity with ingratitude and spite. Just as well you join the priesthood, now. I will not have you
back here and performing all kinds of mischief like what you did to poor Sir Waylan.” Josiah would have tried to look guilty about that incident if his father really were scolding him; he even fooled himself enough to cast his eyes down in shame momentarily before he came to his senses and smirked at his past inventiveness.
“He should be whipped,” Sir Waylan had hollered. Sir Waylan Muld was the captain of his father’s guard, and a humorless clod. “A prince must have more manners, more… decency!”
“He is a boy of ten, Sir Waylan, and, yes, a prince. And you are quite bold to tell us what we are to do with him—especially in light of his, and our, birth.” His mother, the princess Flora, had been extremely calm with the blustery knight, as Josiah remembered it. She had smiled to put Muld at ease, then, and said, “He will be made to understand the severity of the insult he has given you, sir. We value your service to our family. Leave us, now, good sir.”
“What is to be done with me, father?” Josiah had asked. Before his parents, he was always dutiful. He had thought it the least he could do to compensate for his lack of martial character. His twin, his elder brother, even his sister, they all were showing greater promise with arms than Josiah. It had still been too early to know for sure, but the younger ones would probably be surpassing him before much longer, too. Willa had already grown taller than him, though she was two years younger—And another girl, he reflected bitterly—but mother said Willa had come from a land where they grew bigger and stronger. When he was about his daily mischief, Josiah could forget how much of a disappointment he was, but every time he faced his parents he writhed with a loathing of his own failings.
“Your uncle Brandon is here, you remember?” his father had started.
Josiah had not understood. Just yell father. Why do you pretend so much? I know I should be more like Elias. I could be a great knight, I know I can. But his father had not known these thoughts.
“Look at me, Josiah. You are not to be punished, not as such. I think you will continue to worsen if you remain here. There is not enough to occupy you, son—you are too clever for your own health. And definitely too clever for Sir Waylan’s. That vile sludge you dumped on him came from the bowels of an ill stallion? Your talent for giving insult is without measure. You must learn restraint.”
“Prince Brandon has kindly offered you a place at the Abbey of Loren of Oldshire, which adjoins with the Solarium of Oldshire,” his mother, the Princess Flora, had then intoned. “We believe it best you accept this offer, especially in light of this incident. We ask you to remember always that you are not being punished. This is a great opportunity. It may be the Temple will offer more opportunities than knighthood for one with such cleverness as you.”
And within two days, his uncle, the Prince Brandon, Baeler of Oldshire, was taking Josiah to his new home. He had found the schooling a welcome challenge, and he loved the Brother Adrimand from whom he learned the principles of mechanics. He had taught Josiah and Owen the nature of pumps, of gears, levers, pulleys, counterweights, and of springs all with such zeal the pair often forgot he was a Brother. A mistake made, apparently, too often and by too many for the liking of the Prior-Arristant Walter—chief among the brothers of the abbey. And like as Owen and Josiah had found themselves to be, they were alike in this as well: the Prior-Arristant could not be allowed to publicly disdain their beloved mentor without punishment being meted out.
And so, with care and silence, the pair of young vigilantes went to perform their most daring act of vengeance on the Prior-Arristant to date. They had slipped softly, successful thus far in their stealth, into the chamber behind the chapel antechamber, where the ranking members of the abbey kept their vestments for more formal occasions, such as the Festival of Midwinter which occurred on the morrow.
Josiah and Owen unwrapped the parts of their invention on the rush-covered chamber floor, and then began to studiously assemble the rank of linked weapons. The devices resembled nothing so much as miniature siege engines, inspired by Josiah’s own lessons in the history of warfare at his old home in the Castle of the Star.
The little engines of war were to be arranged facing out from the cabinet in which the most expensive articles of ceremony were stored. Certainly, it would be the last stage in Prior-Arristant Walter’s preparations for the celebration—a crucial point in the scheming of this nights activities. The only hurdle was the lock.
Josiah pulled out a long, thin sewing needle with a makeshift handle made of wrapped gauze at one end and began to work the lock as best he knew how. The mechanism of locks was a recent lesson to him from Adrimand, but he felt confident
this one would pose no trouble. Just when he thought he had fixed the last tumbler, though, his grip on the gauze shifted and the handle of his improvised pick began to unravel. Josiah cursed, a sound barely audible in another place, but dangerously loud in the clandestine territory he and Owen wandered.
Owen made the move to take over the work, and Josiah nodded. He stood and stretched his muscles, tight from fear and excitement. It took minutes, but the lock was soon open, and the work was almost done.
Everything was arranged as planned. The trap was armed; its ammunition was the spoil of a raid on the kitchens two nights before. Josiah lay on his back and affixed the triggering mechanism to the cabinet door. So when it opens, Walter finds a surprise waiting for him. The trap thus set, they replaced the lock, muffled their tools again, and
bundled everything into the robe to carry back to Owen’s cell. But as they turned for the door, they heard a voice that grew louder as it spoke.
“—and rouse him from his cell, at once. I must prepare to treat with royal company.” Josiah recognized the voice immediately.
That’s the Prior-Arristant! What is he doing awake at this time of night? And why is he here? We’re sure for flogging, he thought, or worse. The door flung open, and Josiah and Owen stood like cattle fit for slaughter in the blazing torchlight.
“Brother,” bellowed Walter over his shoulder, his voice gruff with sleepy tones. “You may leave off your task, for it would seem the young man is here already.” The two boys exchanged looks of sheer terror, each hoping the other was the one to whom the Prior-Arristant referred. Their faces twitched nervously back to the older man as he began to address them.
“I have no doubt you were up to complete knavery, you idiotic children.” As he spoke he lit the wall sconces. “Yet you are fortunate to be awake, my boy. There is a royal uncle of yours here to see you. Well, two, for the truth, but the Baeler is often hereabouts—though not at this hour to be sure. He has demanded immediate audience, and you are to be there, as well. Your other uncle, that is. Now, I must prepare. Brother Hugh, take the other boy back to his cell.” The last he addressed to the brother whom he had nearly sent to find Josiah. Owen was relieved enough to be dismissed that he forgot to grace Brother Hugh with the disdain he generally lavished on Hugh and all his fellow Courbons.
“Now,” the Prior-Arristant began when the other two had left, “you must wait here while I prepare myself. You are not bound by function to appear in finery, which is just as well. I would not let you from my sight, especially this night. While I dress, you must tell me what mischief you were wreaking. Well, spit it out.”
“We… we—well, sir, Prior-Arristant—we meant to merely see the raiment… Try them on, perhaps.” The lie sounded weak, as he told it. Josiah knew, however, that it would not have to hold long when he saw the older man retrieving a key from the dressing table by the chamber door.
“I doubt that. No doubt you meant larceny. That petty urchin with whom you associate will tempt the witch’s blood in you to sully your heritage. Most uncouth. He should be turned out of the abbey.” The slow grumbling diatribe hardly impeded his rapid dressing. The finery of his office was far from ostentatious, but imposing, nonetheless. He had arrived, finally, before the locked door of the cabinet which Josiah had so recently struggled to open. “And Adrimand no doubt indulges you, too much. Elven blood in him, they say. Well, a stricter—AAAAH!”
As the door opened, a trio of very large eggs struck Prior-Arristant Walter almost simultaneously—two in the chest, one in the face. A fourth sailed over his bald head, and in spite of himself, Josiah winced at the poorly calculated aim of the last catapult arm in the set. I warned Owen it would overshoot.
“You insolent— !!!!” The Prior-Arristant stood quivering with rage. His mouth, wide and gulping air, though speechless with abhorrence and shock, looked too large for his narrow, wrinkled, bony face. The whole man shook like a hut made of twigs in a turbulent storm.
“Enough, Prior-Arristant.” When the Baeler of Oldshire spoke, it was like the sound of some ancient god’s war drums. “You will have to wear a different robe and wash your face. Convey my greetings to my brother, the Crown Prince Patrick, and inform him that our nephew is missing from his cell. That will be no lie, since it would appear he is. Then excuse yourself and return to me here.”
“Yes, Your Eminence.” And the Prior-Arristant was gone.
“Your Eminence—I…”
“Josiah, your actions do not grieve me as they might have yesterday. Such light cares are for lighter times. You must leave, and now. The realm is troubled.”
“Uncle? I mean, Your Eminence?” Josiah suddenly began to feel the weariness of his restless watch since dusk.
“I cannot explain but to say that your father and the king have argued and worse. Your father is now a rebel. Duke Baldwin Pendall of Archondel will be here at the dawn, and will take you as a hostage for my royal father if you are found here. Patrick said as much, when he arrived not an hour gone to warn of Archondel’s impending arrival. I would keep you from being so crude a pawn in this, but I dare not act too openly; I do not know how the Temple will go in this case.”
“But, Uncle Brandon, what would they argue so harshly over?”
“The Avatars. My royal father would see them demolished. Quickly. Go to Adrimand with this seal. You and he will flee through the gates in disguise and he will surely find a way to convey you to your mother’s lands in Mystria. From there, your safe passage is more sure. Go now, and go softly. It would seem you have learned to do that with skill. More work is still to be done here to ensure your secrecy.”
As he and Adrimand escaped the Black Swan Mountains by a tiny boat buffeted by the icy waters of a mountain stream, the sun began to rise, sending its light directly into Josiah’s face. The air was bitterly cold, but the rowing kept Josiah warm. Brother Adrimand stirred and sat up; he had taken a shift at the oars before Josiah.
“I see it is snowing,” he remarked as he stretched and rubbed warmth into his limbs.
“It’s been doing that an hour, now. Maybe more.”
“Excellent. That should do for our footprints. If only our stomachs would be so agreeable as to be filled by a little snowfall.” He smiled. When he got no response from his pupil, he changed his theme. “Today is the solstice, you know. The Festival of Midwinter always falls on the winter solstice. It’s a little recognized fact that Midwinter used to be a celebration observed by the worshippers of Narduna.”
Josiah nodded, staring at the diminishing figures in the distance behind his teacher. The early solstice sun was gleaming from a sword held aloft by three figures of pure white stone. The Avatars, he thought. He had seen them up close only once, although they were not so far from the abbey. Their apparent diminutiveness was a trick of distance. The statues were the tallest artificial thing Josiah had ever seen, easily several hundred feet taller than the tallest tower in the Castle of the Star. The three massive figures were reported to be the gods Elos and Adonahane and the goddess Narduna.
There were many myths relating to the origin of The Avatars, and there had once been dozens of such statues up and down the Long Sea, but nobody agreed on the truth of their creation, nor of their purpose. But why go to such lengths to destroy them? Josiah was baffled. Sacrilege, the priests said, but it wasn’t so when they were made, or something on that scale could never have been achieved. But maybe they are meant to show the subservience of Elos to some other deity, as some scholars supposed, in which case, why would my parents fight to preserve them?
Josiah was becoming too exhausted from his night’s exertions and gave up the self-catechism. Grunting his intent, he switched seats with Brother Adrimand, glad to have the brightening sun out of his eyes. He looked back one more time before giving up on the waking world, imagining he could see the glowing yellow eyes of the alabaster gods which, stand or fall, seemed to be crushing his life beneath their ponderous weight.
-- by Kyle Friesen
