"We are Abellican brothers!" Master Bou-raiy sharply reminded him.
"Who would learn more of the world if they spent more time looking into the eyes of suffering folk," Machuso was quick to reply. "Abellican brothers who are so wrapped up in their own rituals and own importance, who are so determined to elevate themselves above the flock they pretend to tend that they cannot see the truth of the opportunity presented to us this day."
"By a laywoman," Bou-raiy remarked.
"A false prophet," Glendenhook echoed.
"She who destroyed the dactyl with Brother Avelyn at Mount Aida!" Machuso shot back. "And who defeated the demon spirit within Father Abbot Markwart, by Markwart's own admission to Master Francis at the time of his death. And now she is showing us the way again, Father Abbot," the suddenly energetic Machuso went on, turning to aim his words directly at Agronguerre, "the way to Avelyn, in body and in spirit."
Agronguerre reached for the door again, and so did Bou-raiy, but then the Father Abbot fixed him with such a stare that he backed off.
"Do not do this," Fio Bou-raiy warned. "You are condemning us all."
"I am damning myself if I do not," Agronguerre answered firmly. "Send word throughout the abbey, Master Machuso," he went on. "This is a choice and not an edict. All who wish to join the pilgrimage should be ready to leave within the hour."
"The hour?" Glendenhook said, as if the mere thought that hundreds of brothers could be packed with wagons readied within that time was preposterous.
"It will be done," Machuso answered with a bow. "And I doubt that many will choose to remain." "And if the hope is false? " Bou-raiy had to ask one last time. "Then better to die trying," Father Abbot Agronguerre said, putting his face only an inch from Bou-raiy's.
He pulled open the door, the portal that led into the gemstone treasuryof St.-Mere-Abelle, where more than a thousand soul stones waited.
Chapter 43
When Jilseponie returned to the Barbacan near the end of summer, she found that her call to Vanguard had not gone unheeded. Led by Brother Dellman and Abbot Haney, the procession from the northernmost Honce-the-Bear province had nearly emptied the place.
The woman saw them up on the plateau, hundreds and hundreds milling about; and she went straightaway to find them, anxious to see Dellman again and Abbot Braumin, who had become the caretaker of the arm itself, the guide to any and all who came to enter Avelyn's covenant.
She found Dellman first and shared a great hug with him on the rim of the sacred plateau, then made her way through the crowd, toward the arm and Braumin. She was surprised, then, to find a pair of faces that she recognized.
"Andacanavar!" she cried. "Liam O'Blythe!"
The huge ranger wheeled, his face beaming with a great smile. To Jilseponie's surprise, though, another man off to the side, his hair bright red, his face covered in freckles, also turned to her, beaming.
"Do I know ye, beautiful lady? " the red-haired man remarked.
Jilseponie looked at him curiously as she made her way toward the ranger and the man she thought to be Liam. "I think you do not," Jilseponie answered politely.
"But ye're knowin' me name!" the man protested.
Jilseponie looked at him hard, then turned to see Andacanavar's companion, the man she had thought to be Liam, blushing.
"You are Liam O'Blythe? " Jilseponie asked the red-haired man.
"Anybody tellin' ye different? " he inquired back.
"Telling all the world different, and stealing your good name, I fear," Jilseponie said, staring hard at Andacanavar's companion.
"Then gettin' in trouble, not to doubt!" Liam O'Blythe roared, pointing his finger at his friend.
"I preferred to travel anonymously," the exposed liar explained. "To do otherwise might have invited trouble."
"A renowned thief, are you? " Jilseponie said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Or just a thief of people's names?"
"A prince, actually," Liam O'Blythe answered for Midalis. "Brother o' the King, he is, and Prince o' all Vanguard."
Jilseponie's jaw dropped open, her eyes going so wide that it seemed as if they might fall right out of their sockets. Now that the man's identity had been clarified, she could see the resemblance he bore to Danube, a younger and thinner version of the King.
"I would have expected you to tell her," Andacanavar said, looking past the woman, and Jilseponie took the cue and turned to see Bradwarden moving up beside her.
"Didn't think it was needed," the centaur said dryly. "Suren her head's big enough without her knowin' that she beat the Prince of Honce-the-Bear in a sword fight!"
"You knew? " Jilseponie asked.
"I felled ye once, girl, there's not a thing in me forest that I'm not knowin'. When are ye to believe me?"
Jilseponie just shook her head helplessly.
"We are all in your debt," Prince Midalis remarked, moving up to her and taking her hand. He bowed low and kissed that hand.
"I was near death," Liam added. "I thought that'd be the end o' Liam O'Blythe! But for Avelyn's hand, it suren would've!"
"You saved the world, young ranger-in-training," Andacanavar said with a smile.
"That is Avelyn's deed," Jilseponie was quick to correct, motioning toward the upraised arm. "I was but a messenger."
"A fine one indeed," said Prince Midalis, and he had her hand clasped between both of his, then, and he stared admiringly into her dark blue eyes.
The sudden tension was broken almost immediately, as Abbot Braumin came bounding over, crying out for Jilseponie, then wrapping her in such a hug that he squeezed all the air out of her.
They spent the rest of the day together, and held a great celebration that night in the valley before the mountain. Jilseponie noted, then, that not many of Andacanavar's Alpinadoran people were in attendance.
"They fear the gemstone magic, and thus, the covenant," Midalis explained.
"I do not believe that conversion to the faith is a requirement for the healing," Jilseponie replied; and when she did, she noted that Abbot Braumin's eyebrows went up in surprise.
"This is a holy place for the Abellican Church," Braumin noted.
Jilseponie nodded, not beginning to disagree. "It is the place where the Abellican Church should understand that it stands for all the goodly people of all the world, whether Abellican or not," she remarked. "If this is the covenant of the Avelyn that I knew, then healing will be given to any who come to this place, without question of their beliefs."
Her tone became a bit more sharp as she ended, and that made all gazes settle on Abbot Braumin.
"I never refused Andacanavar's people," he explained, "nor would I begin to turn them away or demand anything of them should they taste of the blood. It is their own fears that keep them away, and not words from me or any others. Perhaps they fear that this is some ruse designed to convert them to a faith they have many times rejected."
"Or perhaps they fear to see the truth, fear that their old beliefs will become irrelevant," Dellman added, and Jilseponie did not miss the scowl that came over Andacanavar's face.
"That is as foolish as it is prideful," she said. "And neither are traits I would attribute to Avelyn Desbris." She turned to the ranger then, her face full of compassion. "Has the plague found your homeland? "
He nodded. "Not as bad as in your own, as yet," he explained. "But, yes, many have been stricken ill and many have died."
"Bring them," Jilseponie said. "Convince them. Tell them that this is as much a gift of your own God as it is of ours. Tell them whatever you must to bring them here."
"There are no conditions," Braumin Herde added, and Jilseponie was glad to see that he was seeing things her way.