Damned - White Wolf Part 3

'As of this moment I need nothing. Perhaps tomorrow. Have you visited Labberan?'

'No. I am not much of a comforter, Elder Brother.'

'Go anyway, Younger Brother.' The abbot sighed and pushed himself to his feet. 'And now I will leave you to your reading. Try to locate the Pelucidian Chronicles. I think you will find them interesting. As I recall there is a description of a mysterious temple, and an ageless G.o.ddess who is said to dwell there.'

It was late when Skilgannon entered the small room where Brother Labberan was being tended. Another priest was already beside him. The man looked up and Skilgannon saw it was Brother Naslyn. The black-bearded monk had the look of a warrior. A laconic man, his conversation was mostly monosyllabic, which suited Skilgannon. Of all the priests he had to work alongside he found Naslyn the easiest to bear. The powerful brother rose, gently stroked Labberan's brow, then moved past Skilgannon. 'He's tired,' he said.

'I will not stay long,' Skilgannon told him.

Moving to the bedside he gazed down at the broken man. 'How much do you remember?'

he asked, seating himself on a stool at the bedside.

'Only the hatred and the pain,' muttered Labberan. 'I do not wish to talk of it.' He turned his face away and Skilgannon felt a touch of annoyance. What was he doing here? He had no friendship with Labberan - nor indeed with any of the priests. And, as he had told Cethelin, he had never developed any talent as a comforter. He took a deep breath and prepared to leave. As he rose Labberan looked at him, and Skilgannon saw tears in the old man's eyes. 'I loved those children,' he said.

Skilgannon sank back to the stool. 'Betrayal is hard to take,' he said. The silence grew.

'I hear you fought one of the Arbiters.'

'It was not a fight. The man was a clumsy fool.'

'I wish I could have fought.'

Skilgannon looked into the old man's face and saw defeat and despair. He had seen that look before, back on the battlefields of Naashan four years ago. The closeness of defeat at Castran had seemed like the end of the world. Retreating soldiers had stumbled back into the forests, their faces grey, their hearts overburdened with fear and disillusionment.

Skilgannon had been just twenty-one then, full of fire and belief. Against all the odds he had regrouped several hundred fighting men and led them in a counter charge against the advancing foe, hurling them back. He gazed now into the tortured features of the elderly priest and saw again the faces of the demoralized soldiers he had rebuilt and carried to glory. 'You are a fighter, Labberan,' he said softly. 'You struggle against the evil of the world. You seek to make it a better and more loving place.'

'And I failed. Even my children turned against me.'

'Not all of them.'

'What do you mean?'

'When did you lose consciousness?'

'In the street, when they were kicking me.'

'Ah, I see,' said Skilgannon. 'Then you do not recall being dragged into the schoolroom?'

'No.'

'You were taken there by some of your pupils. They pulled you inside, and locked the door.

One of them then ran here to tell the abbot of your injuries. Because of the riot we could not reach you immediately. You were tended by some of the children. They covered you with blankets. It was very brave of them,' he added. 'Brother Naslyn and I came to you before the dawn and carried you back. Several of the children had remained with you.'

'I did not know.' Labberan smiled. 'Do you know any of their names?'

'The boy who brought us to you was called Rabalyn.'

Labberan smiled. 'An unruly boy, argumentative and naughty. Good heart, though. Who else?'

'A slender girl with black hair and green eyes. She had a three-legged dog with her.'

'That would be Kalia. She nursed the hound back to health after it fought the wolves. We all thought it would die.'

'I do not recall the others. There were three or four of them, but they left when we arrived.

But the boy, Rabalyn, had a swollen eye. Kalia told me he got it when he fought the other boys attacking you. He beat them off. Well, he and the three-legged dog.'

The old man sighed, then relaxed and closed his eyes. Skilgannon sat for a while, until he realized the old priest was sleeping. Silently he left the room and walked out into the night.

As he crossed the courtyard he saw Abbot Cethelin standing below the arch of the gate.

Skilgannon bowed to him.

'He feels better now, does he not?' said the abbot.

'I believe so.'

'You told him about the children who helped him?'

'Yes.'

'Good.'

'Why did you not tell him? Or someone else?'

'I would have, had you not. You still believe they are all sc.u.m, Lantern, these townspeople?'

Skilgannon smiled. 'A few children helped him. Good for them. They will not however stop the mob when it comes here. But, no, I do not think they are all sc.u.m. There are two thousand people living in the town. The mob numbers some six hundred. I make little distinction, however, between those who commit evil and those who stand by and do nothing.'

'You were a warrior, Lantern. Such men are not renowned for understanding the infinite shades of grey that govern the actions of men. Black and white are your colours.'

'Scholars tend to overcomplicate matters,' said Skilgannon. 'If a man runs at you with a sword it would be foolish to spend time wondering what led him to such action. Was his childhood scarred by a cruel father? Did his wife leave him for another man? Was he perhaps misinformed about your intentions, and therefore has attacked you in error?' He laughed. 'Warriors need black and white, Elder Brother. Shades of grey would kill them.'

'True,' admitted the abbot, 'and yet a greater understanding that there are shades of grey would prevent many wars beginning.'

'But not all,' said Skilgannon, his smile fading. 'We are what we are, Elder Brother. Man is a hunter, a killer. We build great cities, and yet we live just like the wolf. The strongest of us dominate the weakest. We might call our leaders kings or generals, but the effect is the same. We create the wolf pack, and the very nature of that pack is to hunt and to kill. War, therefore, becomes inevitable.'

Cethelin sighed. 'The a.n.a.logy is a sad one, Lantern - though it is true. Why then did you decide to remove yourself from the pack?'

'My reasons were selfish, Elder Brother.'

'Not entirely, my boy. I pray that time will prove that to you.'

At fifteen Rabalyn didn't care about wars and battles to the east, nor about who was right and who was wrong regarding the causes. These were enormous issues that concerned him not at all. Rabalyn's thoughts were far more focused. The town of Skepthia was all he had ever known, and he thought he had learned the rules of behaviour necessary to survive in such a place. True, he often broke those rules, stealing occasional apples from Carin's shop, or sneaking onto the estates of the absent lord to poach pheasants or hunt rabbits. If approached later and questioned he would also lie shamelessly, even though Brother Labberan taught that lies were a sin against Heaven. Broadly, however, Rabalyn had believed he understood how his small society operated. Yet in the last week he had witnessed appalling scenes that made no sense to him.

Adults had gathered in mobs, screeching and calling for blood. People who had worked and lived in the town were suddenly called traitors, dragged from their homes and beaten.

The soldiers of the Watch stood by, doing nothing. Yet these same soldiers berated him for killing pheasants. Now they ignored the killing of people.

Brother Labberan was probably right to have called him an idiot. 'Stupid boy, are you incapable of learning?' It had always seemed such fun to irritate Brother Labberan. He would never raise a hand - not even to lightly slap a child. It did not feel like fun now in his memory.

Rabalyn rubbed at his swollen eye. It was still painful, but at least now he could see again, although bright sunshine still made the eye water. Todhe had caught him with a wicked blow just as he was pulling Bron away from the unconscious priest. With fury born of pain Rabalyn had pushed Bron to the ground, then swung and hammered a punch into Todhe's face. The blow had been a good one, and had smashed the other boy's lips against his teeth. Even so the powerful Todhe would have beaten him senseless had the dog not rushed in and bitten his calf. Rabalyn smiled at the memory. Todhe had screamed in pain.

Kalia had called the dog back and Todhe had limped away with his friends. He had turned at the alleyway arch and screamed a threat back at Rabalyn: 'I'll get you for this - and I'll see the dog is killed too.'

He and Kalia and several others had pulled Brother Labberan into the small schoolroom and locked the door. The old priest was in an awful state. Kalia had begun to cry, and this perturbed the three-legged hound, which started to howl.

'What do we do when they come back?' asked Arren, a chubby boy from the northern quarter. Rabalyn saw the fear in his eyes.

'You ought to get home,' he said.

Arren fidgeted and looked uncomfortable. 'We can't leave Brother Labberan,' he said.

'I'll go to the castle,' said Rabalyn. 'The priests will come for him.'

'I can't fight Todhe,' said Arren. 'If he comes back he'll be very angry.'

'He won't come back,' said Rabalyn, trying to sound decisive. 'Keep the door locked behind me. I'll be back as soon as I can.'

'Did he mean what he said, do you think?' asked Kalia. 'About killing Jesper?'

'No,' lied Rabalyn. 'Wait for me. And find some blankets to cover old Labbers. He's shivering.'

With that Rabalyn set off through the town, heading out towards the old bridge and the long climb to the monastery. He heard the mob off to the west, and saw the flames starting. Then he ran like the wind.

He had been taken to the abbot, told him about old Labbers. The abbot ordered food brought for him and instructed him to wait. The hours wore on. A monk gave him a cold poultice to hold over his eye, and then at last a tall, frightening priest had come and sat beside him. Black-haired and hard-eyed, the man had introduced himself as Brother Lantern. He had questioned Rabalyn about the attack, then he and another monk had walked with Rabalyn back to the schoolroom, skirting the rioting mob.

That had been two days ago, and no-one had heard since whether old Labbers was alive or dead. Todhe and his friends had twice tried to ambush Rabalyn, but he had been too swift for them, darting away into alleyways and scaling walls.

Now he sat high on the northern hillside, near the old ruins of the watchtower. Kalia's crippled dog was squatting beside him. Todhe's father, the councilman Raseev, had put out an order for the hound to be killed. Kalia had brought Jesper to Rabalyn. The girl was distraught and Rabalyn had reluctantly agreed to hide the hound and brought him up to the watchtower. He didn't know what to do next. A three-legged dog was not easy to hide.

Rabalyn stroked the hound's large head, scratching behind its spiked ears. It pushed in towards him, licking his face, and laying the stump of its amputated right foreleg on Rabalyn's lap. 'You should have bitten him harder,' said Rabalyn. 'It was just a nip. Should have taken his leg off.'

From his high vantage point Rabalyn saw a group of youngsters emerging from the houses far below. One of them pointed up towards him. Rabalyn swore, then swiftly tethered a lead round Jesper's neck and led the hound off down the far slope.

If he skirted the town, and waded across the river at its narrowest point, he could reach the monastery by dusk. They'd protect Jesper, he thought.

Abbot Cethelin sat in his study, and in the lantern light pored over the ancient map. It was of thin hide, two feet square, the symbols and lines of mountains and rivers carefully etched in the leather and then filled with gold leaf. As with many pieces from the pre- Ventrian era, what it lacked in accuracy it more than made up for in beauty. As he stared at the map he found himself wishing he had been blessed with the gift of spiritual flight, like his old friend Vintar. Then he could have floated free of the monastery and up into the night sky, to stare down over lands he could now only imagine through the delicate tracing of gold upon leather.

But that was not his gift. Cethelin's talent was to dream visions, and to sometimes see within them faint threads - like the gold on the map. He could sense the malignant and the benevolent, constantly vying for supremacy. The large affairs of men, with their wars and their horror, were identical to the battles that raged in the valleys of each human soul. All men had a capacity for kindness and cruelty, love and hate, beauty and horror.

There were some mystics who maintained Man was little more than a puppet, his strings being tugged and manipulated by G.o.ds and demons. There were others who talked of fate and destiny, where every action of men was somehow pre-ordained and written. Cethelin struggled to disbelieve both these philosophies of despair. It was not easy.

In some ways he wished he could embrace the simplistic. Evil deeds could then be laid at the door of evil men. Unfortunately his intellect would not allow him to believe it. In his long life he had seen that, far too often, evil deeds were committed by men who deemed themselves good; indeed were good by the mores of their cultures. The Emperor Gorben had built Greater Ventria in order to bring peace and stability to a region cursed by incessant wars. To do this he had invaded all the surrounding lands, razing cities and destroying armies, plundering farms and treasuries. In the end he had his empire, and it was at peace. He also had an enormous standing army that needed to be paid. In order to pay it he had to expand the empire, and had invaded the lands of the Drenai. Here his dreams had been crushed by the defeat at Skein Pa.s.s. Now everything he had built was falling apart, and the region was descending once more into endless little wars.

No wonder the people of the town were frightened. Armies tended to plunder towns, and the war was getting closer. Only two months ago a battle had been fought not forty miles away.

Cethelin moved to the window and pushed it open. The night breeze was cool, the stars shining brightly in a clear sky. Flames were flickering again in the town's northern quarter.

Some other poor soul was watching his house burn, he thought sadly.

A dog barked in the courtyard below. Cethelin leaned out of the window and gazed down.

A dark-haired youth, in a pale linen shirt and black leggings, was squatting in the gateway, a black hound beside him. Cethelin threw a cloak around his thin shoulders and left his study, descending the long staircase to the lower levels.

As he walked out the hound turned towards him and growled. It lurched forward in a faintly comical manner, off balance and part hopping. Cethelin knelt and held out his hand to the beast. It c.o.c.ked its head and eyed him warily. 'What do you want?' the abbot asked the youth, recognizing him as the young man who had helped Brother Labberan.

'Need a place for the dog, Father. Councillor Raseev ordered it put down.'

'Why?'

'It bit Todhe when he was kicking old Labbers . . . begging your pardon, Brother Labberan.'

'Did it hurt him badly?'

'No. Just a nip to the calf.'

'I'm glad to hear it. Now why did you think we could find a home for a three-legged dog?'

'Figured you owed him,' said the boy.

'For saving Brother Labberan?'

'Yes.'

'Is he useful?'

'He fights wolves, Father. He's not afraid of anything.'

'But you are,' observed Cethelin, noting that the youth kept casting nervous glances back through the open gate.

Todhe's looking for me. He's big, Father. And he has friends with him.'

'Are you seeking sanctuary too?'

'No, not me. I'm too fast for them. I want to get back to my aunt's house. Looks like they've set fires again.'

'Who is your aunt?'

'Aunt Athyla. She comes to church. Big woman. Sings loud and out of tune.'

Cethelin laughed. 'I know her. Laundrywoman and occasional midwife. She has a sweet soul.'

'Aye, she does.'

'What of your parents?'