I will not fail Garibond, he repeated over and over and over as the trapdoor closed, leaving him with only the dim light of a single candle. Sobs and tears accompanied the litany.
He cried for many minutes, and only gradually managed to translate his heartbreak into anger. He picked up one of the many loose stones at the base of the wall and tried to throw it, but it slipped out of his hand and fell to the ground at his feet. He picked it up again, and again failed to propel it any distance. A third time he cocked his arm back to throw.
Symbols and curving script appeared in his thoughts, as if floating in the air before him. He held his pose and read the words, the words his father had meticulously copied, the words of chi and alignment, of the movement of muscles.
For one brief moment, it all came together for Bransen. For one beautiful and miraculous instant, one flicker of clarity in a decade of fuzziness, his core energy aligned and with a movement that could only be described as graceful, he threw the rock across the room to smack hard against the opposite wall.
Bransen stood in shock, staring into the darkness of the far end of the chamber. His legs quickly became shaky again as his line of life energy dissipated. But his mind held that moment of clarity.
Bransen shifted back to the wall and fell to his knees, then into an awkward half-sitting half-kneeling position. He lifted another stone and brought it against the wall and scratched out a shaky line.
No, that would not do, he realized as he studied the scratch.
Bransen concentrated more deeply. He remembered the writing in the book, the opening sequences. He could see them clearly in his mind, and his hand followed that guidance as he scratched out another line. He sat back and inspected his work. It was better than the first but still far from perfect.
The third line was a bit better.
The fourth line was better yet.
The hundredth line was almost perfect.
But the candle was gone soon after that, and Bransen allowed exhaustion to overtake him, there at the base of the wall on the cold, hard floor.
When he finished his chores the next day and was put back in his hole with another candle, he went right back to his real work.
And so it went, day after day, week after week. Brother Reandu tried to convince himself that his inattention to Stork was merely a matter of his being too busy with his many duties. With several of the older brothers called away on missions or to Chapel Abelle, he was now the third highest ranking monk in Pryd, behind Father Jerak and Brother Bathelais.
His justifications held his conscience in check until one blustery, cold autumn night, the coldest by far since Stork had come to stay with them. Late that night, Reandu checked on the window hangings along the lower chambers of the chapel, making sure they were secured against the wind, while other brothers brought in wood to keep the hearth fires burning.
As he passed along the northeast corner of the building Reandu unconsciously glanced at the trapdoor leading to the substructure and to Stork's room.
How cold was it down there on a night such as this?
Brother Reandu took a torch from one of the nearby wall brackets and moved to the trapdoor, pulling it open gently and as quietly as he could so that he did not disturb the boy's sleep. He lay flat on the floor and poked his head through the opening, and was relieved to find that the room, though a little chilly, wasn't really uncomfortable and certainly wasn't dangerously cold. Hearing the boy's sleeping wheeze, Reandu brought the torch closer to the opening.
There lay Stork on his small cot, sleeping contentedly. The image warmed Brother Reandu's heart. Perhaps in sleep, at least, the tortured boy knew some peace.
He brought the torch back and began pulling himself up, but as he did the torch moved. Brother Reandu froze in place, his attention grabbed by the scratches, a hundred scratches, a thousand scratches, ten thousand scratches on the wall!
The monk blinked many times as the writing-it had to be writing!-became more clear, as the staggering scope of it began to be apparent. Now too curious to consider the boy's slumber, Brother Reandu climbed down into the underground chamber. He moved to the end of the wall nearest the boy's cot and found what had to be the beginning of this work: a large scratch, a squiggle, and nothing that made any sense to Reandu. Brother Reandu was no expert on linguistics; in fact, he had been among the worst of the scribes during his work at Chapel Abelle, but he instantly recognized patterns here, with words repeated.
"Amazing," Reandu said, and he was quite amused. Had Bransen, in his frustration, written his own book? Had he concocted a series of squiggles, a gibberish all his own?
Reandu's smile disappeared and he turned to consider the sleeping boy. Then he looked back at the wall, then back at the boy.
Then back at the wall again.
Even the first letter of the work was larger than all the others, a definitive beginning point. How had Stork possibly known to do that?
Shaking his head, Reandu slipped out of the room and went right to the door of Brother Bathelais.
He knew at once, as soon as Bathelais had squeezed into the cramped chamber beside him, that the older brother wasn't nearly as delighted. Bathelais stood there, staring at the markings, squinting and chewing his lip. He motioned for Reandu to follow, and they went back out of the hole.
"We will return in the morning, when we can study this without fear of disturbing the boy," Bathelais said.
"We should ask him about it."
"In time. I have little patience for listening to Stork stutter through some incomprehensible and ridiculous response."
Even though sympathetic Reandu always thought of Bransen as "Stork," hearing the name spoken by Brother Bathelais made him wince.
After more than an hour in the hole the next day, Bathelais's mood seemed to sour even more. He had brought with him some paper and charcoal and had done a rubbing of the work.
Reandu kept remarking that perhaps this was a miracle, but Bathelais just brushed him off over and over, muttering, "The boy has obviously seen a book."
"But to do such intricate work reveals an intelligence-"
"There are birds in Behr that can mimic human speech, brother. Should we kneel before them?"
Brother Reandu quickly realized that he would be better off remaining quiet as Brother Bathelais took over the investigation. He had little choice, in any event. He wasn't even invited to go along with Bathelais when he took the paper to Father Jerak later that day, and he only began to comprehend the level of Bathelais's disdain when the brother walked out of Father Jerak's room muttering, "Damnable Dynard, there were two." Garibond was feeling particularly uncomfortable this day. He sat on the rocks beside the lower cottage, absently casting his line. He thought about Bransen; he was always thinking about Bransen, and he could hardly believe how lonely and empty his days had become since the boy had gone off with the monks.
But it was for Bransen's own good, he had to continually remind himself. That, or he would simply sit and cry.
He heard the horses, but was so entangled in his thoughts of his lost boy that the sound didn't register for several moments. When he finally glanced to the side, the riders-three monks and a pair of soldiers-were almost to the stones leading to his front door.
Garibond hurried to set his pole down and meet them. He recognized two of the monks and one large soldier that he knew to be Bannagran, the close friend of Laird Prydae. His presence more than anything warned Garibond that something was amiss, and he immediately thought of the Samhaists. Had they gotten to Bransen?
"Greetings to you, Brother Bathelais," he said, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.
"Where is it?"
"It?"
"Apparently, Brother Dynard kept another secret, did he not?" Brother Bathelais said.