Elaine Cunningham - The Best of the Realms, Book I

"Pheslan!"

By the time I had searched the inside of the churchagain, the light of dawn was evident, and I blew out my lamp. I knew what I hadto do. I returned to the barn and got the ladder. I maneuvered it into thechurch, despite its weight and size and set it below the rose window. I do notknow exactly what I thought I would find up there, but I grabbed a heavycandlestick from the altar and held it tightly in my grip. Taking a deepbreath, I began to climb.

When I reached the top, I held on to the top rung ofthe ladder with one hand, and gripped the candlestick in the other like aweapon. I peered through the window.

I had no idea what I was seeing. I gazed through therose window and beheld some other place-this was not the churchyard. Instead Isaw some infernal realm of shadows and slime-covered things that slithered overa blasted and dreadful landscape. Something flitted across the sky onbatlike wings that seemed to leave a trail of greasy residue behind thecreature. This window did not look outside. Or rather it did-but not theoutside, the Outside. My eyes saw beyond the veil of our world. My mind wasbesieged by the knowledge that there were places on the other side of the rosewindow, and they were terrible. The things in those places, I also knew, wantedto get to the inside-to our world.

Gods! I knew all at once that this window was a thingof evil. No longer (or was it ever?) a fine piece of some glazier's workmanship,no longer bits of blue-green stained glass cleverly pieced together. The rosewindow was a sorcerous, corrupted thing. It gave me a view no man should eversee. But what else did it give? Was it some kind of portal, or doorway?

I raised the candlestick, my eyes tearing with fearand hatred. I was going to smash the window-shatter it and its evil, to erasethe loathsome view that it provided. This would be no defilement ordesecration, for the window did not actually belong in a holy place, yet still Istopped. One thought came to me (from where?). If I smashed the window, would Idestroy it, or would I let in those things that seethed and writhed in thatinfernal realm? Would shattering the window prevent them from coming through,or would it grant them passage? A burglar in the night often smashes a windowto get in. Smashing it for him only makes his entrance easier.

I had to think-but not at the top of that ladder.There, I could still see into that nightmare realm, and worse, I think thethings beyond could see me. I climbed down and slumped on the floor next to thealtar.

I was at a loss. What could I do? Was Pheslan gone?Was that his scream I had heard, or something else? Had he somehow disappearedinto the window? That seemed so impossible. What would Tessen have done in thissituation?

My thoughts were always drawn back to my old mentor intimes of crisis. I thought of Tessen, and the old abbey, and-

Oghma preserve us.

I saddled one of the horses-I cannot recall which oneanymore. I am not much of a rider, but I thought that I could move fasterriding just one than in the wagon. I rode through a good deal of the morning,across the valley to the old abbey.

The men had worked fast. Only some of the foundationstones were left. Everything was gone, including any clue I had hoped to findregarding the nature of the rose window. The wall where it had set for over onehundred years had been torn down. The floor where it had cast its shadows wastorn apart and covered with rubble, dirt, and leaves.

I stood in the middle of all this and wept. Tessen hadcommitted a sin against Oghma that could never be forgiven. He had kept asecret, and a terrible secret at that. Had he been a guardian over that window,or its servant? I certainly could remember no hint of the malevolence that thewindow now displayed.

Finally, I could weep no more and I got back on myhorse. Perhaps it was just my training in Oghma's priesthood, but I neededinformation to confront this challenge. When I had been here last, I hadlearned of one more place that I could go to find the answers I sought. I beckonedmy steed back onto the road, and led it into the village nearby, to where Ihad heard that Greal lived and had set up his temporary new church.

Once I arrived, nearly exhausted now, I slid to theground. I knocked on the door. When there was no response, I knocked again,pounding now.

"Master Greal?" I shouted.

Still nothing.

"Master Greal, it is Loremaster Jaon."

I continued my pounding, stopping only to confirm thatthe door was locked.

"I must ask you about the rose window I purchasedfrom you!"

My pounding fist accompanied each word like a drumbeatin some southern jungle ritual.

"I need to ask you about Loremaster HighTessen!"

Completely expired, I collapsed against the door. "Tellme," I moaned. "Tell me what we were really worshiping in thatabbey!"

As I rode back to my parish, I knew that someone hadseen me. There had been eyes on me the whole time that I had spent pounding onthat door. And as I had sat there, exhausted in the damp soil in front ofGreal's home, the autumn leaves blowing around me like dead memories that mayvery well have been lies, someone watched. No one in that entire town had comewhen I called out. No one answered their door, but I knew that I was beingwatched. Even now….

How many of them were there, that had taken part in thefoul rites that I could only imagine must have taken place in front of thatrose window? Had those rituals gone on even when I had been there? Could I havebeen so naive? Could-no, I would not think of it anymore. It was too hard, andtoo painful, and there were still things that needed doing back in my ownchurch.

Which brings me to right now.

I am writing this the day after I went to the site ofthe old abbey. I have not yet slept nor eaten. When I came back, I had hopedagainst hope that Pheslan would be here, and that somehow I would have beenwrong. But I was not wrong, and he was not here. I dressed myself in thevestments of my order-white shirt and pants, and the kantlara, a black vestwith gold brocade. My kantlara was made for me by my grandmother, who had alsobeen a loremaster. I prepared my holy symbol and brought out the staff that Ikept by the door for emergencies-the staff with its ends shod in iron and madefor fighting. I prepared to make my move, and take my stand against the evilthat I myself had brought to my parish.

But I waited. What if I was wrong, as I had thought before?What if I let those things through? I somehow told myself that it could not be.An evil thing, like the rose window, must be destroyed. Only good could comefrom destroying it. Perhaps it could even free Pheslan from whatever held him.If indeed he still lived.

I spent the rest of yesterday at the bottom of theladder, which I had never moved from its spot below the window. I looked up,but all day long, I saw only the blue-green stained glass. No movement, noshadows, nothing. Somehow, my indecision still prevented me from climbing toeven the first rung.

So after so many hours of arguing with myself, pushedfarther past exhaustion than I have ever been, I began writing this manuscripton the nightstand in my bedchamber.

On these few sheets of parchment, penned throughoutthe night, I have put my story. Now, as I finish, I prepare myself to climbthat ladder. I will smash the rose window, and destroy every last shard. If Iam right, and the evil is over, I will return here to this manuscript and throwthese pages into the fire so that none shall ever learn of these horribleevents. But if I am wrong, you are reading this now. If that is the caseperhaps you-whoever you are-will know what can be done to right my wrongs.

I am ready.

Douglas Niles

The goddess existed deep within the cocoon of bedrock,an eternal being, formed of stone and silt and fire, her body blanketed by thedepths of a vast and trackless sea. In the way of immortals, she had littleawareness of the steady progression of ages, the measured pulse of time. Onlygradually, over the course of countless eons, did she become aware that aroundand above her the ocean came to host an abundance of life. She knew thepresence of this vitality in all the forms that thrived and grew; from thebeginning she understood that life, even in its simplest and most transientforms, was good.