One of the younger monks reached up and took her from his arms. Royce felt relief followed by loss. He didn’t understand half of what Nysa’s corpse had told him, and believed less than that.
He didn’t think she lied. She wasn’t the sort, and the lack of breathing and cold skin backed up her story better than an eyewitness, but such things were hard for Royce to accept. He’d met his share of preachers, priests, and hermits, each selling their version of life and death, trying to convince new recruits. Royce never saw a reason to invest in their opinion when he had his own, especially when his worked and theirs didn’t. But Nysa—or whoever it was—wasn’t asking for his faith, his support, or his money. Still, that didn’t mean she wasn’t after something. No reason for her to spin such a yarn without a point. As he handed her down and watched them take her inside, he knew he was missing that point.
What does she want from me?
“You’re the other one?” the oldest monk asked.
Took a moment for Royce to realize what he meant. “Yes. You must have met Hadrian.”
He nodded. “I’m Abbot Augustine. Thank you for bringing her. We’ll handle things from here.”
If by that he meant for Royce to leave, he was mistaken. Risking his life for someone wasn’t normal for him, and he wanted to know why he’d done it. Royce had heard a fairy tale, but not his place in it. She had a reason behind asking him to bring her.
Because I’m elvish? Maybe. But there’s something more.
Royce was a man of few beliefs. He relied on the bedrock constant of man’s propensity for greed and hate. No one did anything except to help themselves. This axiom had proved a sure bet so often, it ranked right alongside water running downhill.
She wants something, but what?
Royce dropped down and followed the rest of them into the big ivy-covered building. The monks made no move to stop him. One even held the door.
“Have you ever seen such weather?” the young man asked.
Royce nodded. The storm was bad, but not unusual for summer.
The monk continued to linger at the door, looking up at the sky. “I’ve only ever seen a storm once before. When old Maddie Oldcorn died, we had one of these.”
“That was the last bad storm?”
The monk shook his head. “The last storm. The last time I saw it rain in daylight.”
They carried Nysa through a large open room—the nave of the church—toward the altar. Royce had poked his head into Mares Cathedral in Medford; this abbey wouldn’t be suitable as its privy. There were no seats, kneelers, statues, nor any marble or carved mahogany. And no hint of gold, just a stone floor and high wooden roof. Open-fire braziers and racks of candles gave the interior light, and the altar was nothing but a raised platform with a podium where a book might rest.
Royce saw no books. The place could have been a Medford stable, with two exceptions: the walls and ceiling. These were covered in painted frescoes. Mares Cathedral had paintings on its walls, too, pictures of a white-bearded man placing a crown on a young, handsome man’s head while streams of light shone down—Maribor anointing Novron.
The pictures here were different. They had cracks, tiny spidery lines where the paint had turned brittle, and the wall itself had also cracked in places, leaving great fissures running through the images. The colors were muted and dull; in some places the lines were completely lost. These paintings were created by artists with less talent than those at the cathedral. As a result, the images were crude—flat, with no sense of depth or perspective.
The handsome man was nowhere to be seen; neither was the old bearded guy. Instead, a raven-haired woman sat on a big chair. Behind her, lost partially to shadows, stood a crudely dressed man with a violent black beard. To her right was a beautiful woman holding a longbow and wearing a wry smile. On the other side stood a crippled man leaning on a mousy woman who had her hands stuffed into the pockets of a smock. In the foreground, two more figures were seated on pillows—both young girls. One wore a silly-looking hat, held a staff, and had a wolf curled at her feet. The other clutched a book on her lap and held a quill between her fingers. There were no shafts of light shining on their faces and no glowing radiance. On their far right was painted a flat landscape of lush fields that led to a shining city. Royce had never seen such a place. Tall, elegant towers and grand avenues faded into the distance, where a massive gold-domed building stood. At the city’s entrance, two great statues of lions loomed. Scaffolding held workers building additional structures.
Royce couldn’t make sense of the image. This was more of a family portrait, like those he saw in merchants’ homes. Moreover, in the dim light of the nave, few without his keen sight would be able to see the frescoes. He guessed they must have been painted by torchlight or before the roof was constructed.
The monks, who didn’t pause to look at the paintings, took Nysa’s body down a set of stairs. Royce was about to follow when he spotted something else in the painting—a small and seemingly insignificant village stood on the far left. Primitive beyond anything Royce had ever seen, the community was a collection of huts surrounded by an earthwork-and-wood wall. At the center was a big house; the entire place nestled in a niche of a great and seemingly endless forest. The contrast between the great shining city and the little village was what stopped Royce.
Who were these people? Why would anyone make a painting of them? They don’t look like kings or nobility. Did she want me to see this? She knew I would be able to because I’m elvish. Is this important somehow?
The ivy that covered the monastery was densest around the nave. Some had even slipped in through the windows, the door, and cracks in the walls.
He tilted his head up to see the other painting. It was farther away, harder to see than the one on the wall. Even Royce had to squint. This long image depicted three realms with doorways leading from one to the next. Before the first was a long river with a hut beside it. The river flowed to a pair of great gates. The first realm was filled with people and ruled by a man on a mountain throne. The next was a dark place of shadow and flame ruled by a sinister-looking queen. Across a narrow bridge was another door that led to a beautiful place of flowering trees and green, rolling hills. This last place had no throne or castle, just a modest cottage. One more door led out of the realm to another place, a dark, walled area impossible to see into.
Royce stared up for several minutes, trying to make sense of this image, of this place. He felt the eyes of those on the wall watching him, the woman with the dark hair most of all. There was something about her that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
The pounding of horses’ hooves entering the courtyard caught his attention.
Finally! What took you so long?
Royce waited.
Good thing I didn’t need help, he planned to say. Then Lord Fawkes opened the door.
Soaked and windblown, His Lordship ducked inside, throwing his hood back and wiping the wet from his face. “There you are!” he said, spotting Royce. “And where is she?” His eyes shifted to the stairs. “Down there?”
Fawkes made no immediate move to cross the room. He took his time, shaking the rain out of his hair and squeezing it from his shirt, stomping his feet. “I hate water in my shoes. Gurgles when you step, and your feet blister in them.”
“Where’s Hadrian?”
Fawkes looked up as if unfamiliar with the name. “Oh, your partner in crime, yes—he’s dead. Killed him on the way up. Him and his girlfriend.”
“You killed Hadrian? You killed him?”
“He’s a big man, I know, but also wounded. I was there when the slavers beat him, remember. Bruised, maybe busted ribs, I’m guessing. You, on the other hand…” Fawkes peered across at Royce. “How are they? Your hands, that is. They stomped them pretty good. That must hurt.”