R. Salvatore - The Highwayman

She focused on the sun, climbing slowly above the eastern horizon. She imagined its rays permeating her, linking with her chi, and she used the vertical climb of that burning orb to focus her inner strength on the vertical line of her ki-chi-kree. In the sun, SenWi found balance. In the sun, she found inner warmth.

As slowly as the great ball rose, she lifted her arms before her. As so many minutes passed and her arms lifted before her face, she brought her hands together, linked six fingers, and pressed both thumbs together and index fingers together in salute.

The sun continued its climb and her arms moved as if lifting it. She meant to stand here until noon, until her arms above her head were in complete concert with the heavenly cycle. But she didn't make it. As her hands began to lift above her forehead, SenWi felt a stretch in her belly, constricting at first and then suddenly so painful that it had her doubling over and clutching her midsection.

The line of her ki-chi-kree could not hold the straightened posture; her life energy had been wounded, and badly-and not just her own, she feared.

"The snake venom," she whispered, her teeth clenched. She understood it all then. When she had healed the poor girl, her own inner-heated hands had taken the venom of the adder into herself. But how had that so wounded her? A Jhesta Tu mystic could do this, with little danger, for the Jhesta Tu mystic could overcome poison with ease.

And then SenWi understood; and her breath came in short gasps and she wanted nothing more than to scream in outrage.

A Jhesta Tu mystic was possessed of the inner discipline to defeat poisons. But the unborn child of a Jhesta Tu mystic… He knew as soon as Father Jerak entered the room with Brother Bathelais that things had not gone well between the two of them, for the old man's face was locked in such a scowl as Brother Dynard had never before seen.

"You have come to question Blessed Abelle?" Jerak asked, and it seemed to Dynard as if he were trying, quite unsuccessfully, to keep the bitter edge out of his voice.

"No, father, of course not," Brother Bran answered.

"And yet, there is this," Father Jerak said, and he turned, extending his open hand toward the Book of Jhest that Brother Bathelais still held close to his chest.

"Father," said an exasperated Dynard, "as I tried to explain to Brother Bathelais, this book, these truths of Jhest, are no threat to our order or the teachings of Blessed Abelle. If we are to believe in divine inspiration, then are we to claim sole province over it?"

"And thus you believe that this ancient order-" again he indicated the book "-received this divine inspiration many years before Blessed Abelle?"

Brother Dynard felt as if he were sinking. He could clearly see on their faces that they had made up their minds. They weren't questioning him now in hopes of understanding. No, they were allowing him to damn himself and nothing more. "It is not…There is no threat here," he tried to explain. His frustration turned to hopelessness when a pair of armed soldiers of the laird appeared in the doorway.

"Where is the woman?" Father Jerak asked.

When Dynard continued to stare incredulously at the soldiers, Jerak repeated his question in even sharper and more insistent tones. Then Dynard did look at him, and old Jerak's scowl seemed even more pronounced.

"Where is she?" he asked again.

"She left." Dynard's thoughts were swirling. He tried to concentrate, reminding himself that he had to cover for SenWi at all costs, that he had to be convincing! "She could not tolerate the prejudice and the unwillingness."

"The unwillingness?" came Father Jerak's sharp reply. "To convert to her heathen ways? Did you expect to come here with some false prophet from the land of beasts and undo the blessings of Abelle's teachings? Did you believe that your revelations of a few tricks from these…Jhesta Tu creatures would turn us aside from our path to spiritual redemption? Brother Dynard, did you truly believe that one misguided brother-"

"No!" Dynard shouted, and he sat back and went silent as the soldiers at the door bristled, one even drawing his bronze short sword halfway from its sheath. "No, father, it was never my intent."

"Your intent? Wherever did you come to the conclusion that your intent meant anything, Brother Dynard? You were given a specific mission, entrusted with a duty to spread the word of Abelle to people deserving, though ignorant. You were sponsored by and of the Church of Blessed Abelle. You were sent by our arrangements and with our money. You seem to have forgotten all these things, Brother Dynard."

Dynard couldn't give voice to any objections. For he could not argue with Jerak's reasoning. He thought the man's perceptions skewed, to be sure, but in looking at all of this from that viewpoint, it struck Dynard for the first time that these brothers of Abelle were afraid of the Book of Jhest.

Truly afraid.

"You misunderstand," he finally found the courage to reply. "The Jhesta Tu-"

"Are heathens in need of enlightenment," Father Jerak finished.

The silence hung in the air like the crouch of a hunting cat.

"Do you not agree, Brother Dynard?" Jerak said.

Dynard swallowed hard.

"Where is your concubine?"

"She is my wife," Dynard insisted.

"Where is your concubine?" Jerak asked again.

Dynard's lips went very tight. "She left. This place, this chapel, this town. This land of Honce itself. She could not tolerate."

"She would go south and east then, back toward Ethelbert Holding," Father Jerak reasoned, and he turned toward the soldiers as he spoke. Both men nodded. He turned back to Dynard. "She'll not get far."

Panic coursed through Dynard and he licked his lips and glanced all around. "Leave her alone," he said. "What reason…She has done nothing."

"Be easy, Brother Dynard," Father Jerak said. "Your concubine is in no danger as long as she has truly departed this holding. Laird Pryd has promised me this."

"What are you saying?" Brother Dynard demanded, and he leaped out of his seat and moved to tower over the stooping Jerak. But Bathelais was there, staring him down. The soldiers came forward suddenly, interposing themselves between the furious Dynard and Jerak.

"Brother Bran Dynard, it becomes apparent to me that you have lost your way," Father Jerak said, stepping back to give the soldiers access to him. "Perhaps you are in need of some time alone to consider your true path."

On a nod from Jerak, the soldiers reached for Dynard, who roughly shrugged them away.

"She is my wife," Dynard stubbornly insisted, and he started to take a bold step forward. But before he could shift his weight, the pommel of a sword slammed him hard on the back of the neck. One moment, he was moving for Father Jerak, the next, he was staring at Father Jerak's sandals. And he felt as if the stone floor beneath him was somehow less than solid, as if it was rising up, its cool darkness swallowing him.

He knew not how much time had passed when he at last awoke, cramped, in the dark. The dirt was muddy beneath him, the ceiling too low for him to even straighten up as he sat there. He heard the chatter of rats and felt some many-legged creature scramble across his foot.

But all he could think of was SenWi.

What had he done to her by bringing her to this place?

What had he done to their child?

The Power of the Written Word Father Jerak sat quietly in his private chamber, staring at the troublesome book. It pained him to see his former student so seduced. He had been overjoyed when he had first heard that Brother Dynard had returned to Pryd Holding from his mission in the wild southland, for many monks were not returning. The world was a dangerous place, after all, and Behr was considered one of the wildest regions. In his last visit to the mother chapel in the north on the rocky coast of the Gulf of Corona, Jerak had learned that of those brothers who had gone to spread word of Blessed Abelle outside Honce-to Vanguard or Alpinador across the gulf to the north or to Behr in the south, less than one in three had returned. Even if every traveling brother not already confirmed dead came back to his respective chapel, that number would not exceed one half of those who had gone forth.