“Why would you wear such a thing, fairly won or not?” Giavno asked.
“There is magic about it,” said Cormack, and both of his listeners widened their eyes in surprise, and horror.
“When I wear it upon my head, I feel a greater sturdiness within my body,” Cormack tried to explain. “This cap might show us why powries can accept such a beating and continue to fight.”
“You wear it to understand our enemies,” said Father De Guilbe.
Cormack started to agree and for a moment was truly relieved to be able to. But he stopped himself short, not willing to go so far in accepting that description of the powries-not after they had treated him so fairly and honorably.
“I wear it to expand my understanding of our neighbors,” Cormack conceded, but he breathed easier when that seemed to satisfy Father De Guilbe.
“Keep wearing it, then,” the father ordered. “In fact, you will face consequences if I see you without it.”
Beside Cormack, Giavno snickered, and only then did Cormack realize that these two saw De Guilbe’s order as a form of punishment in and of itself, a way to brand and isolate Cormack in the eyes of all the men on Chapel Isle.
“Let us return to the issue at hand,” said De Guilbe. “These three barbarians owe their lives to us, would you not agree, Brother Cormack?”
Cormack searched about frantically for a way to dodge the obvious answer, but had to concede simply, “Yes.”
“And they were healed through the powers shown to us by Blessed Abelle?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Then their debt is beyond our magnanimity, of course.”
Cormack replied with a puzzled expression.
“Their debt is not to Brother Giavno-or perhaps it is to a smaller extent,” Father De Guilbe explained. “The gaoler’s price-and we are not the gaoler, but merely the guards, is owed to Blessed Abelle and to God above him.”
Cormack didn’t like the way Father De Guilbe was framing the issue, but of course there was no way for him to disagree with the simple logic. “Yes, Father.”
“Then the charity you desire is not ours to give,” reasoned De Guilbe. “It is for God to determine, and fortunately, we are shown in the teachings of Blessed Abelle how such charity is to be bestowed. These three are prisoners of a higher power, who demands of them fealty. Absent that fealty, God would never have given us the blessed power to heal their mortal wounds-wounds, I remind you, which were wrought of no actions on our part.”
“The price was not known to them,” Cormack weakly argued.
“They were in no position to negotiate,” Father De Guilbe replied. “And there was none to be had in any case. We were sent to Alpinador to show the light of God, and no man beyond Blessed Abelle himself has ever seen it more intimately than the three barbarians for whom you advocate. The truth has been shown to them, the light shines before their eyes.”
“But-”
“If they refuse to see it, then they shall remain in the dark, Brother Cormack,” Father De Guilbe said with complete finality. “Figuratively and literally.”
Cormack could feel Giavno glowing smugly beside him.
“We will not mistreat them,” De Guilbe said, turning to Giavno.
“Of course not, Father,” the senior brother assured him.
“But our security demands their location, and there they will stay.”
“For how long?” Cormack dared to ask.
“Until they dare to stare at the light, or until they are called to the afterlife, where they will see with it the folly of their stubbornness. We are agreed on that, I am sure.”
Cormack lowered his gaze again. “Yes, Father De Guilbe,” he said.
De Guilbe released them with a wave. Cormack instinctively reached up to the powrie beret.
“Wear it!” Father De Guilbe snapped at him ferociously, and Cormack nearly stumbled away in surprise.
“Wear it now and wear it always, Brother Cormack,” De Guilbe demanded. “And never forget why.”
Cormack again wore a puzzled expression.
“Why we came here,” Father De Guilbe clarified sternly.
Cormack bowed and turned to leave, feeling moisture gathering in his bright green eyes. Brother Giavno’s face was creased by a satisfied smile, but he did put a supportive hand gently and sincerely on Cormack’s shoulder as they turned together for the door.
He ran his old fingers across the ice wall as he walked in the darkness. The moisture he felt there pleased him greatly, for it represented the fruition of his vision, the beauteous simplicity of his grand plan that would have seemed so complicated to any looking from afar.
The trolls’ blood was performing as he had foreseen, coating the chasm carved by Ancient D’no (who was burrowing along the route proscribed by the giants and their mallets). The white worm’s godly heat melted the ice; the trolls’ blood prevented it from refreezing.
Soon Mithranidoon would be washed free of its infection.
Ancient Badden paused when he happened upon a torn head, its lower half bitten away and most of the skin pulled from the skull bone. Enough skin and hair remained for the old Samhaist to recognize it, though, and he bent and retrieved it, lifting it so that he could again look Dantanna in the eye.
“Ah, my old friend, do you understand now?” the Ancient asked with a chuckle. “Did the Abellican promises grant you immortality? Are the Ancient Ones impressed with your tolerance of the upstart heretics?”
Ancient Badden’s features darkened into a fierce scowl. “Were you prepared for your death, fool Dantanna?” He let his fingers curl under the rim of the skull as he spoke, and squeezed tightly against the remaining brain and the ice-fly maggots.
“For centuries we have stood as the guardians of folly,” he said, as if lecturing the man. “We have warned the folk and prepared the folk. We taught them to survive, to reap and sow, to treat their maladies, and mostly, you fool-and mostly!-we prepared them for the darkness of eternity. They must know the Ancient Ones to understand the paths they will walk when the specter of Death visits them. They must recognize their insignificance beside the gods that they will accept their dark fate as servants.
“But the followers of the fool Abelle come along and promise the mercy and benevolence of a forgiving god!” Ancient Badden roared, squeezing so hard that a bit of brain seeped out and slipped to the icy floor. “They tease with baubles and extrapolate from them what they consider infinite wisdom and wisdom of the infinite. But they did not know, did they, Dantanna? Empty promises and joy-filled fancies to tempt and cajole. Did the wretch Abelle greet you when Ancient D’no’s teeth tore you from your mortal body?”
As if in answer he heard a rumble as he finished the question. Badden slowly lowered the skull and turned about to glance over his shoulder.
The white worm, a gigantic centipede-like monster, its back glowing fiercely with heat that could melt the flesh of a man to a puddle on simple contact, reared and clicked its formidable mandibles together. Small winglike appendages appeared just a few feet below its head, flapping and turning to hold it steady and upright.
Ancient Badden realized that this must have been the last sight Dantanna had known.
He laughed, then bowed. “God of the ice who denies the cold,” he praised, and bowed again very low.
D’no gave a clicking sound, half hiss and half growl, and began to sway back and forth hypnotically.
Ancient Badden began to chant the oldest of Samhaist songs. No other man in the world would have survived that moment, but Badden knew the secrets, all the secrets, and his tone and cadence and inflection reflected centuries of knowledge and understanding of the wide world, of the great beast, the gods, and of this god, D’no, in particular.
The white worm gradually receded, backing for many feet before rolling over itself and scuttling away down a side tunnel.