Robert Salvatore: Mortalis

"You think of the King as an enemy," Abbot Je'howith replied at length to Brother Viscenti. "That is a mistake, and possibly a very dangerous one."

"Nay," Brother Braumin remarked, coming over to intervene. Brother Viscenti would often lose his good sense in the throes of his agitation, and any ill-considered retorts at that time would not bode well. Abbot Je'howith, who had lived for so many years in Ursal, who had helped tutor young Danube Brock Ursal upon the man's premature ascent to the throne, held the base of his power in the secular rulers of Honce-the-Bear. " Not as an enemy," Braumin Herde continued, pointedly moving in front of Brother Viscenti, cutting him off from Je'howith. "But King Danube's agenda is not our own. His is based in the worldly, while ours must ascend to the spiritual."

"Pretty words," Je'howith said with more than a little sarcasm.

"But true enough," Master Francis was swift to respond, moving quickly to Braumin's side.

Je'howith glared at the man; there was no love between them. Francis had been Markwart's right hand. Markwart had even prematurely promoted him to master, and then to interim bishop of Palmaris, and then to the coveted position of abbot of St. Precious, though Francis had immediately resigned when Markwart died, after the revelations that the demon dactyl had been guiding the Father Abbot. But Je'howith, too, had been firmly in Markwart's court, and that court could have remained strong even after the Father Abbot's demise. Indeed, if Francis and Je'howith had stood unified then-with Elbryan the Nightbird dead in the other room and Jilseponie unconscious-both the abbots might have taken up the reins of power right where Markwart had left off, assuring Je'howith the position of Father Abbot. He would have groomed young Francis to take his place after his death, and he was not a young man. But, for some reason that Je'howith could not understand, Francis would not play the political game.

Indeed Francis, citing Markwart's last words and drawing liberal inference from them, had called upon the Church to appoint Jilseponie Wyndon as mother abbess!

"King Danube would take us in a direction that best suited him," the Abellican Church's youngest master went on.

"And in these times of despair, when so many have died in the fighting, when food is short in so many reaches, and illness is rampant across the land, when so many are unsure in both their secular and spiritual concerns, would not a joining of Church and Crown be seen as a reassurance that they, the common folk, have not been abandoned?" Abbot Je'howith recited with a dramatic flourish. "Would not the show of a bond between beloved King Danube and the new leaders of the Church bring confidence and hope to the despairing kingdom? "

"And there will be such a bond," Brother Braumin replied, "a partnership, but we will not be subjugated to the King of Honce-the-Bear. While our immediate goals of alleviating the ravages of war seem similar, our longterm aspirations remain very different."

"Not so different," Je'howith insisted.

Brother Braumin slowly shook his head, making it clear to Je'howith and all who were watching-and that included every monk in the room, by this time-that he was not going to surrender this crucial point.

Everyone in the room understood that if King Danube tried to insinuate himself into the Abellican Church now, it would be very difficult, given the lack of experienced and charismatic leadership, for the Church to hold him at bay.

"Father Abbot Markwart attempted such a joining," Master Francis reminded them, referring to the fairly recent appointment of Marcalo De'Unnero as bishop of Palmaris, a title that conveyed the power of both Church leadership and secular control over the city. The city had been without a baron since beloved Rochefort Bildeborough had been murdered on the road to Ursal-and the subsequent evidence had implicated De'Unnero and his preferred use of the tiger's paw gemstone as the killer-and Markwart had tried to take advantage of the emergency.

But that action had only prompted Danube to come north, with his army and his entourage, to protect his power base within the city.

"A complete disaster," Francis went on. "And so it will be again if the King asserts his power and influence where they do not belong."

Brother Braumin looked over at Francis and nodded solemnly. The two were not friends-far from it! — despite Francis' apparent transformation since Markwart's death, but Braumin did appreciate his support at this crucial time. AU the Church could crumble around them, Braumin understood, if they did not act and choose wisely in the coming months.

Braumin looked back at Je'howith and saw clearly that the man could become a difficult enemy. Je'howith had spent decades securing his comforts and his power, and both owed more to King Danube than to the Abellican Order.

Braumin stared at Je'howith solemnly, then slightly nodded his head, indicating a quiet corner of the room where they might negotiate this disagreement less publicly.

She had a difficult time climbing out of bed that morning, as on almost every morning. By Braumin Herde's estimation, the events of this day would be more critical than any powrie attack that ended short of the vicious dwarves conquering the whole of the kingdom. But to weary Jilseponie, it was just another in an endless, and futile, stream of meetings. Always they talked and organized, shifting the balances of power, but Pony had come to believe that in the overall scheme of things, in the history and the future of humanity and the world, all their little games would have very little impact.

So many people viewed everything as momentous and important, but was it really?

That question had haunted Pony since the death of Elbryan, had followed her every step, had stilled her tongue during those meetings when she knew the consensus was in error. In the end, what did it matter?

Even the war with the demon dactyl. They had gone to Aida and destroyed its physical manifestation, but that seemingly important and heroic deed, in which Avelyn and Tuntun the elf had given their lives, had only led to more misery. Father Abbot Markwart, who was fearful of his power base, was on the road to declaring Avelyn a heretic and had sent out brothers to murder him. In Markwart's desperate search to find the new keepers of the stolen gemstones-Elbryan and Pony-he had gone after Pony's adoptive family, killing her stepbrother, Grady, on the road, and imprisoning Graevis and Pettibwa in his dungeons, where they had died horribly.

That had only spurred more conflict that Pony had hoped would end it all. And so it had-for Markwart and Elbryan-but they were hardly cold in the ground before the bickering had begun anew, before new problems, grave problems according to Brother Braumin, had reared up to threaten the supposed fruits of all their sacrifices.

As she considered it all, Pony put her hand to her belly, to her womb, which the demon Markwart had so violated, taking her child from her, stilling the heartbeat that had found such rhythm with her own.

Now they were fighting again, and in her time of grieving, Pony could not bring herself to believe that it would ever end. Without that optimism, that flicker of hope, how could she leap out of bed with excitement to attend to another of the so-called important meetings?

She did manage to rise, wash, and dress, though, for the sake of brothers Braumin, Dellman, Castinagis, and Viscenti, who had stood strong beside her and Elbryan in their time of need, who had refused to turn against them despite their own imprisonment and the threat of torturous deaths at the hands of Markwart. She had to do it for Brother Romeo Mullahy, who had leaped from the blessed plateau at the Barbacan to his death rather than surrender to Markwart. She had to do it for Avelyn, for the Church he had envisioned-even though she was certain it would never come to fruition.