When Tarkus didn't immediately respond, Bathelais dropped his arm and fired another lightning blast into the ground, jolting them all.
"I said let him go, and I warn you that I will not offer any more warning blasts." Other monks scrambled behind Master Bathelais, several of them, including Brother Reandu, showing gemstones of their own.
Tarkus Breen eyed Bathelais defiantly, but he did release Bransen, giving him a shove that had him tumbling to the ground.
"You protect this wretched creature," Tarkus shouted loudly enough for all to hear, and he gave a derisive snort.
"We are measured by the welfare of the least among us, not the strongest," Master Bathelais said.
From the side, old Bernivvigar laughed.
So did many others.
Bransen saw that Master Bathelais was not amused, and when the master's gaze locked with his own for just a moment, he saw little true compassion there. In fact-and it hit Bransen hard-even Tarkus Breen had not looked at him with as much hate as Bathelais did now.
Bransen didn't dwell on it, though, as he tried to pull himself back up, especially when he heard Tarkus say to Cadayle as he walked by her, "This is not over, whore. I know where you live."
Cadayle spat at him, and she rushed to Bransen, helping him to his feet. She began brushing him off, to the catcalls of the crowd and in the face of the obvious disdain of Bernivvigar.
"Get back from him," came an unexpected assault from an unlikely source. Both Cadayle and Bransen looked at the approaching Master Bathelais. "Shoo, girl," Bathelais fumed. "You have no place here."
"B-b-but," Bransen started.
"Shut your mouth," the master commanded, and he grabbed Bransen by the shoulder and pulled him away from Cadayle, shoving him into the arms of the waiting Brother Reandu.
"Easy, Bransen," Reandu reassured him. "It's over now."
Bransen managed to turn to face Cadayle, and she smiled at him. Then she motioned to indicate that Bransen should go along with the monks.
"B-b-b…" Bransen stammered, trying to point out Tarkus and the threat to Cadayle. "B-b…" he stuttered, spittle flying everywhere.
"Oh, be silent," Master Bathelais scolded as he walked past, and then he added to Reandu, "Get him inside before I lose my compassionate humor and give him to the anger of the crowd."
Reandu kept reassuring Bransen and led him off toward the chapel. Clearly, Master Bathelais was not pleased. Bransen heard him shouting long before he neared the room to which he had been summoned by Brother Reandu; and as he approached, the master's words became clearer.
"So now we are using gemstones to threaten the populace away from this…this…this abomination?"
"Master, we are brothers of Blessed Abelle. Blessed because of our capacity for compassion," Brother Reandu countered. "When we took him in, we discussed this very matter."
"We took him in to secure the sword, that we might strengthen our position with Laird Prydae," Bathelais corrected. "Never forget that."
Bransen froze in place and found his breathing hard to come by. The sword? His mother's sword?
"He is our charge," said Reandu.
"Then keep him inside from this day forth. Have him collect the pots and put them out by the wall, where a younger brother can take them to the river."
"Do you justify the actions of the three ruffians?"
"Can you blame them?" Bathelais argued. "In these times? They go off and fight and die, while he stays here and-and what, Brother Reandu? While he stays here and eats the food for which others toil in the fields or hunt in the forest?"
"Master!"
The room went quiet for a moment, and Bransen dared to peek in. Bathelais stood there, before one of two chairs set in front of a desk. His eyes were closed, and he finally seemed to settle down with a series of deep breaths, his large chest heaving.
"Once, I vowed never to use the magic of a gemstone in anger, unless it was against a powrie or goblin," Bathelais said.
"You hurt no one."
"But I scared them. I scared them all." He gave a little snort. "That has always been the difference between us of the Church of Blessed Abelle and Bernivvigar and the Samhaists. They held power through fear, but we…" He gave another disdainful snort and shook his head. "I believe now that when it comes down to the moment of crisis, our two religions are not so different."
Brother Reandu stiffened defiantly in his chair. "I refuse to believe that."
Bathelais snorted yet again. "Keep the pitiful creature inside," he said again, and he turned and walked away, heading for the room's other door.
Bransen waited for some time before staggering into the room.
Brother Reandu smiled widely as soon as he saw the young man.
"Come along," the monk said cheerfully and he moved to a small desk and brought forth a pouch. He dumped its contents, a cache of various gemstones, onto the desktop and produced a gray hematite. "Let me tend the wound that young man gave you."
Bransen moved over and managed, with Reandu's help, to get into the chair opposite. Reandu cupped Bransen's chin in his hand and tilted his head back.
"He hit you hard, didn't he?"
Bransen wanted to say that he didn't care, but he grunted. Too many thoughts swirled in his head for him to even begin to sort them out at that time. He was angry at the bullies and deathly afraid for Cadayle. He was terrified of Bernivvigar and very confused about the words of Master Bathelais and his simmering anger, apparently directed at him.
It was all too much, and it was all that Bransen could do to hold back his tears.
Then he jumped in pain as Brother Reandu touched his nose.
"Ah yes, he hit you hard," Reandu said, and he gave a comforting laugh. "This will not hurt you," he promised as he brought the soul stone up to Bransen's face.
Bransen instinctively pulled back as Reandu began to chant, putting himself in a state of focus and meditation as he gently brought the stone against the other's broken nose. Bransen's slight discomfort from the pressure of the stone lasted only a moment and was replaced by a warm feeling spreading through his nose and face. He felt the healing powers of gemstone magic for the first time, and he closed his eyes and basked in it.
And something wholly unexpected happened. Bransen saw his line of chi react to the soul stone, just in the upper areas of his body. He pictured it clearly, a lightning line of crackling energy suddenly coalescing and aligning to the call of the gemstone!
Bransen's eyes opened wide.
"Yes, it does feel good, doesn't it?" Reandu asked.
The moment passed quickly-too quickly-and Bransen slumped back.
"There, done already," said Reandu. "That feels better now, does it not?"
Bransen gave a head-lolling nod.
He was too surprised to begin to elaborate.
26
Paralysis of Another Sort When the trapdoor slammed shut, its reverberations felt to Bransen as if someone had driven a stake right through his chest. He sat in the near darkness of his barren and cold room, the light of a single candle the only barrier between him and a blackness so profound that he could not see his own hand if he waved it an inch in front of his face.
He was in emotional tumult, his thoughts flying from Tarkus Breen to Cadayle. Cadayle! Bransen could hardly believe that she had arrived in his moment of need. He hadn't seen her in years, and there she was, right when he most needed her, just as she had so often been before Bransen had come to Chapel Pryd. And as if all that turmoil and confusion, elation and fear weren't enough, Bransen saw the scowl of Bernivvigar and the trembling rage of Master Bathelais.
And one more thing swirled through his roiling emotions: the feel of the touch of hematite.
In his deepest dreams, in his moments of the purest concentration over the Book of Jhest, Bransen had not imagined anything as crystalline as the sensation that gemstone had provided.