I passed two monks on the road leading a donkey with a laden cart of hay.They both nodded but did not speak, so I did the same.The next monk I met, though, at the open gate to the monastery proper, more than made up for their silence.
“Greetings, traveler,” the old man said in Mereish, eyeing me from head to foot.He had a bloody hatchet in one hand and a headless duck in the other.A trail of blood led back across the snow and behind an outbuilding, blurred by the stumbling prints of small, webbed feet and fallen feathers.
“Hello,” I said in practiced, Usti-accented Mereish.
Noticing the direction of my gaze, the man held up the limp duck and said with chagrin, “Poor soul did not realize he was already dead.How may I help you?”
As unexpected as the sight of a black-robed monk with a bloody hatchet was, I returned to my purpose.“I was hoping to visit a healer.”
The monk shifted the hatchet and fowl into one hand and gestured with the other towards the main, square building.“Come with me.”
I fell into step, noting the occasional drip of blood from the duck.The man’s willingness to help and lack of suspicion left me feeling oddly guilty, though I intended the monastery no harm.I had not even lied about my identity—the monk had not asked my name, or where I had come from, or why an Usti stranger was wandering their desolate coast.
This seemed to be a standard practice, for when the monk knocked at a tall door with a pointed top, another monk, a woman, opened it and asked nothing but, “What do you need?”as she led me into a long, quiet ward lined with clean, empty beds.The air smelled of soap and herbs—slightly thick, though not unpleasant.
This second monk, who had a youthful look to her round, dark-skinned face, gestured for me to sit across from her at a table at one end of the ward.Still mildly shocked at being admitted so freely, I took the proffered seat.
“What ails you?Or do you come on behalf of someone else?”the monk asked.Her voice was light and had a lilt, differing from the common Mereish accents I was accustomed to.
I took a moment to collect myself.A weight lingered on my shoulders—a weight of portent and promise.I had come so far to reach this moment.
“I have two questions.The first concerns an illness many people under my care have taken.”
I went on to describe the symptoms.Halfway through, the monk began to nod, and, by the end, she had begun to move about her office, gathering pouches and tinctures and asking questions.
“It is a mild imbalance,” the monk said.“Very common in the spring, and anyone on this coast grows immune before adulthood— meaning adult instances are rare, and they look much different than they do in children.I cannot heal it, but these will manage the symptoms until the imbalance rights itself.”
“Thank you,” I said sincerely, and prayed headaches would be the first symptom to go.
“What is your second question?”
“It regards magecraft,” I began, hesitated, and rephrased, remembering to keep my accent in place.“Corrupted magecraft.My brother and I were amplified as children, and I am searching for a cure.”
The monk was quiet for a long moment, well past the point of discomfort.I watched her anxiously, swallowing down the age-old instinct that berated me to be silent, to deny.
“I am a Sooth,” I continued.“My twin brother is a Magni.I am… unrooted, in the human world, and frequently slip into the Other, even becoming trapped there.My visions rarely come at will, and I have little control over them.I have learned to manage my condition to some extent, though I have no idea how long that will last.My brother continues to become more and more corrupted.But I once met a Mereish man who told me there may be a cure for us here.”
As I spoke the monk began to slowly nod, her gaze heavy and grave.“A cure in Mere?”
I nodded, trying to quell a flutter of anxiety.Had the talisman maker been wrong?
The monk frowned thoughtfully.“I cannot heal mages.The brothers and sisters at the Oruse, however, might.”
“Where is that?”I asked.
“A shrine, a little over two days southeast, four on foot.”As the monk spoke she leaned back in her chair, lacing her fingers over her stomach, her expression preoccupied.“They have a High Cleric, more powerful than I.”
“Is there something else?”I asked.I sensed there was something she was not saying, a warning withheld.
“Their Saint is kind to those outside their order,” the woman said, waving the issue aside.“It is a place of refuge for all, even foreigners.Simply be respectful, if you go.Who in Usti would have amplified you?Your queen outlawed the practice many years ago.”
“Immigrants from Aeadine did it,” I said, using the lie I had prepared.But though my lips moved, my mind was mired in the conclusion that this Oruse was too far away.After rescuing Benedict, we would need to flee quickly.
The monk blew out an angry breath.“The Aeadine.Their monarchs deny the truths of magecraft, and their common folk distort it.Such willful ignorance.”
I might have taken offense, but the woman hinted at something I had long suspected.
“Their monarchyknowsand denies the truth?”I asked, leaning forward.“I assumed they must suspect, they cannot be wholly ignorant…”
