The Bear

  In a brief moment of clarity, Brother Giavno understood the source of his malady and from that deduced the source of this too-common loss of sensibility that occurred with brothers who dared use the soul stone to such dangerous extents.

  He couldn’t cry out clearly, couldn’t form a cogent phrase, because he wasn’t alone.

  Ishat—some manner of the being that had once been Ishat of Behr—had come back with him and now reflexively, instinctively, battled Giavno for control.

  Giavno stood, turned toward the door, and pushed his way into the corridor. Other brothers were around him, he saw through fast-blinking, flittering eyes. They grabbed him and supported him and called his name.

  He tried to respond and did manage to call out the name of one brother, but when he tried to expand on his sentence, only gibberish came forth.

  He knew, and those around him knew, for they had seen this before.

  The struggle was not the same as the one that had occurred in Ishat. There was no fight for control of Giavno’s physical form and no danger that he would tear himself apart, muscle against muscle. But Giavno found his every thought stabbed by the raw emotion and unbridled terror of the utterly lost soul of Ishat Parzun.

  He had sacrificed his sanity to save Cormack and Milkeila.

  What was that?” Milkeila asked as she stared wide-eyed at the very still form on the ground below her. She glanced over at Cormack, who finally dared to unwrap his legs from the assailant’s neck. “I did not hit him that hard.”

  “Brother Giavno,” Cormack explained. He climbed to his feet and bent over the fallen Behr warrior, bringing his fingers to the man’s throat to see if his blood still pumped. “Alive,” he said to Milkeila. “Barely.” He walked over to join his beloved, then similarly bent over the burned and battered body.

  “Brother Giavno,” he announced again after a quick inspection, including pulling aside the man’s shirt. He nodded as he searched and pulled the shirt down lower, revealing the bruises on the man’s upper arm. “He waged an internal war. Brave man. We owe him our lives.” Every word came hard to Cormack, for he understood the implications here and knew that Giavno’s efforts had likely cost the monk greatly, perhaps irreparably.

  He stood up and closed his eyes and was very glad when Milkeila wrapped him in a tight hug.

  The other man stirred. Milkeila broke off the hug and moved toward him as he began to cough, and then started to sit up.

  She moved to restrain him, but Cormack cut in before her and kicked the man hard in the face, laying him low.

  “Cormack!” Milkeila cried.

  “For Giavno,” was all the disturbed man would reply. He took a deep breath then and rolled the man over, tugging his arms tightly behind his back. “We need some rope or cloth,” he started to say, meaning to finish with “or we have to kill him,” but Milkeila was already on the task. She moved to a nearby tree thick with climbing grapevines. She whispered to it and stroked the trunk gently and gave a slight tug on the vine, which dropped to the ground beside her. Still talking to it and gently coiling it, Milkeila moved beside Cormack. She placed the vine on the ground beside the man and called on the spirits of Yan Ossum.

  The vine began to crawl of its own accord. It snaked up onto the man’s back and slithered about his wrists as Cormack fell back in surprise. Winding ever more tightly, the vine wrapped intricately, weaving in and out and about. With the man’s wrists secured many times over, the vine’s remaining length climbed up his back and looped like a constrictor about the poor fellow’s neck.

  “He’ll not get free,” Milkeila assured her husband. “Let us be quick to Pryd and Laird Bannagran.”

  Cormack looked at her doubtfully. “If Bannagran learns of this attack, if he recognizes our prisoner as he surely will, then how are we to assure him that Laird Ethelbert is trustworthy and deserving of alliance?”

  “How are we to believe that?” Milkeila asked.

  “For Dame Gwydre, then,” Cormack decided. “We will speak not on behalf of Laird Ethelbert.”

  “For Dame Gwydre and Father Artolivan,” Milkeila agreed. “For the good of all the folk of Honce.”

  The man on the ground began to stir again, so the couple hooked him under the arms and hoisted him roughly to his feet. They set off at a swift pace, pushing their prisoner along.

  Two days later, they arrived in Pryd Town, less than an hour after Bannagran’s army had settled about the place.

  Clear sailing in the gulf, and Dawson will be ashore in three days!” Dame Gwydre said excitedly, rushing into the audience hall of Father Premujon. The woman quieted immediately, though, when she noted the tenor of the place. She brought her hand to her mouth to muffle her gasp when she spotted Brother Giavno laid out on a bench to the side of the dais. Brothers Pinower and Jurgyen crouched over him, with Father Premujon and several of the chapel’s masters standing nearby, shaking their heads solemnly.

  “What has happened?” Gwydre asked, rushing over.

  “The perils of spirit walking,” Jurgyen explained, looking up at her and meeting her gaze squarely. She found no contempt there, nor blame, just a resigned sadness. “He has been driven to madness, no doubt through the sin of possession.”

  “Can you help him?”

  Jurgyen shrugged, and Pinower said, “We have sent for Bransen. Perhaps his mystical skills and the power of our gemstones will penetrate the veil Brother Giavno has constructed.”

  “It is a terrible loss,” said Father Premujon. “But it will not be the last we can expect.” He stepped over and herded Pinower and Jurgyen away from Giavno’s twitching body. “The army of Vanguard approaches,” he said to them. “We must make our preparations and be out to the east to greet them. You have a great and vital march ahead of you, brothers. Go now and sleep—it has been a long night.”

  “The man is my friend,” Pinower struggled to reply. “I cannot leave. . . .”

  “You would honor him by deserting the cause to which he has so greatly sacrificed?”

  Pinower lowered his gaze and gave a great exhale, a great sigh, and seemed to simply deflate. “No, father.”

  Premujon hugged him and whispered something in his ear, then pushed him away, toward the door.

  Brother Jurgyen caught up to Pinower and supported him and also patted Gwydre comfortingly on the shoulder as he walked past her. The two brothers neared the exit as Bransen, Cadayle, and Callen came rushing in.

  Bransen moved right past them, sprinting to Giavno’s side, and Pinower and Jurgyen paused to watch, both making the sign of the evergreen.

  Beside Bransen, who was already crouching over Brother Giavno, Father Premujon waved them out of the room.

  “Can you help him?” Dame Gwydre asked, coming over to the Highwayman.

  Bransen looked at her doubtfully. Without saying a word he unwrapped his bandanna and took down the soul stone Master Reandu had given him. He clutched it tightly in his hand, feeling its magic keenly, then placed it on the forehead of Brother Giavno. Almost immediately, the man’s eyes flickered open and began to twitch.

  Bransen felt the spiritual connection to Giavno. He pictured his own line of ki-chi-kree, running like a thin line of lightning from his head to his groin. Then, in the swirl of the hematite, he saw Giavno’s line and felt the constant interruptions to it, the stabbing outbursts of protest causing it to flicker and spasm.

  Bransen broke the connection and fell back, confused. He opened his eyes to find Gwydre and Premujon hovering about him, staring at him hopefully.

  “I don’t know,” was all that Bransen said, and with a glance at Cadayle, who nodded her agreement, he fell back into the stone, seeking again Brother Giavno’s ki-chi-kree.

  It seemed like only a matter of moments, but most of the morning had passed before Bransen again opened his eyes and looked outside the spiritual experience of the soul stone. Gwydre was gone from the room, as were Callen and most of the monks, but Cadayle and Father Premujon sat together on a nearby bench. r />
  “Bransen, what do you know?” a startled Premujon asked when he noticed that the Highwayman had returned from his out-of-body journey.

  “Brother Giavno is in there,” Bransen heard himself answering, although his concentration remained almost fully upon the task of deciphering all that he had seen, the darkness and the jumble. And then it occurred to him, “But he is not alone.”

  “Possession?” Father Premujon asked, coming right out of his seat, as did Cadayle beside him. The woman rushed to support her husband.

  Bransen shook his head, unsure.

  “One of De Guilbe’s traitorous monks?” Father Premujon demanded, but again Bransen shook his head.

  He wasn’t certain. He needed to go back and try again to separate Brother Giavno from this other entity—enough at least to try to gain some information from the monk. But what he needed most of all was to rest.

  “After supper,” he said. “In the quiet night.”

  “Dame Gwydre wishes to be out before the dawn,” said Cadayle. “You must march with her.”

  Bransen nodded. He knew that, had pledged that, and, freed of his bout of self-pity and cynicism by the loving slap of Cadayle, intended to fight for Gwydre, for his family, with all his heart. He glanced back at Brother Giavno, though, and knew, too, that he had to come back here, had to go back through the gemstone and Jhesta Tu magic into the realm of the spirit to try to find the lost soul. His friendship to Giavno demanded that, of course, but so, too, did his sense that there was something more here, something important.

  I am surprised that you came to Castle Pryd instead of the chapel,” Bannagran remarked when Cormack, Milkeila, and their prisoner were marched into the laird’s hall. “But I see that you come bearing a gift, at least.”

  “Demand free me!” said the man from Behr.

  Bannagran flashed an amused grin and motioned to a guard, who promptly stepped over and smacked a mailed gauntlet into the side of the prisoner’s head. Stubbornly, the warrior began to protest again, but Bannagran warned him to silence with a wagging finger.

  “That is one of Ethelbert’s hired assassins, I expect,” the laird said.

  “I believe his name is Wahloon,” Cormack replied. “Else, that is a Behr word meaning something else.”

  “Wahloon, Hou-lei!” Wahloon said proudly, thrusting his chin forward.

  Bannagran gave him a sidelong smirk and motioned to the guard, who smacked him again.

  “You have seen the truth of the war, then,” Bannagran said. “Laird Ethelbert cannot win, and so you have betrayed him to win my graces.”

  It wasn’t a question, but stated as fact, and in a tone growing darker and more intense. Cormack glanced at Milkeila, who merely shrugged. When he turned back to Bannagran, he saw that the man was standing, towering over him, though Cormack was much taller, with a hateful look in his eyes.

  “You think to impress me with treachery?” Bannagran fumed.

  “Treachery?”

  “That you wish to change your allegiance is for your own conscience, but to so deceive a laird—”

  “No, Laird Bannagran!” Milkeila interrupted, and Cormack was glad that she did, for he could see that this ball of anger was gathering speed, rolling down the hill like an avalanche. And with Laird Bannagran facilitating that fall, surely it would prove no less deadly.

  “We come as emissaries to promote the cause of alliance,” Milkeila went on.

  “Dame Gwydre beside Bannagran of Pryd,” Cormack added, “and with the Order of Blessed Abelle supporting their cause against King Yeslnik.”

  “Emissaries with a gift,” Bannagran said.

  “Not gained through treachery,” Cormack explained. “Not our own, in any case. This man and a companion attacked us on the road. If there was treachery afoot, it was—”

  “Ethelbert’s,” Bannagran finished for him.

  “Laird Ethelbert!” cried Wahloon, and that earned him another heavy slap that staggered him into Cormack.

  On a motion from Bannagran, a pair of guards rushed up to the man and dragged him away.

  “Laird Ethelbert tried to kill you, then?” Bannagran asked. “Perhaps he is not as fond of your Dame Gwydre as you believe.”

  “If it was Ethelbert,” said Milkeila.

  “That is one of his assassins, is it not?”

  “It is,” Cormack replied. “But it is senseless for Laird Ethelbert to try to kill us, even as we support his cause—likely his only hope—to Bannagran of Pryd.”

  “Then what?”

  “I know not,” said Cormack.

  “Ethelbert’s court divided?” Bannagran asked, and Cormack could only hold up his empty hands.

  Bannagran gave a wicked little chuckle. “We will learn soon enough,” he promised, and he waved the guards to drag Wahloon to the dungeons.

  “Laird Bannagran, I protest!” said Master Reandu, coming in the door just as Wahloon was being taken out.

  Bannagran dropped his face into his hands and sighed.

  “They come to us as emissaries, under a flag of truce!” Reandu continued, rushing forward to Cormack’s side.

  “Truly, he squeezes the blood from my heart,” Bannagran whispered to Cormack and Milkeila just before the sputtering Reandu arrived on the spot.

  “You remember Cormack and his wife, Milkeila,” Bannagran said before Reandu could launch into another diatribe. Reandu glanced at the couple and still seemed ready to erupt, but his expression soon enough changed to one of curiosity as he clearly saw that the two weren’t bound.

  “We brought the assassin in as a prisoner,” Cormack explained.

  Master Reandu turned his curious expression to Bannagran.

  “It is a long tale they can tell to you at your chapel,” Bannagran said, and he waved for more attendants to escort them all out.

  “Laird, I beg you to reconsider your course,” Cormack pleaded. “Dame Gwydre is noble in heart and mind. The cause of the Order of Blessed Abelle is just.”

  His voice rose as he was pulled back from the throne.

  “My laird, please,” Cormack called.

  “My course is to kill powries, monk,” Bannagran called back at him. “There is no course more just than that!” To Reandu he added, “Keep them in your chapel. I will call for you shortly, as soon as I have spoken to the prisoner.”

  “Spoken to?” the monk asked suspiciously, for he had seen Bannagran’s dungeon.

  “With all the respect due an assassin, I promise,” said the laird, and before Reandu could answer, another guard, acting on Bannagran’s wave, shut the heavy oaken door in his face.

  As soon as his spirit entered the realm of Brother Giavno, Bransen found himself enmeshed in a spinning and confusing jumble of opposing thoughts and wants and emotions. It wasn’t an internal argument, of the kind every man experienced, and not based in simple puzzlement or torn loyalties or fear of unexpected consequences. No, this jumble was more akin to swirling thoughts and demands, unrelated to and seemingly unaware of contradictory notions moving right beside them, even merging with them.

  Chaos, Bransen thought. Pure and unblemished chaos. He tried to search further but found himself distracted, and when he tried to examine the distraction, he found himself distracted again, in an entirely new direction.

  Bransen rushed back through the soul stone portal, back into his own body, and opened his eyes. He stood and rubbed his face and shook his head.

  “What do you know?” Brother Pinower asked, startling Bransen, who was unaware that the monk had entered the dark room. “What did you see?”

  Bransen took a deep breath and tried to formulate some cogent response. What had he seen? He had sensed the identity of Brother Giavno, a man he knew fairly well from their travels in Alpinador and Vanguard, inside the tumultuous swirl of discordant thoughts.

  Images of blowing desert sands and dome-topped shining marble structures, pink and white and some covered in gold, flashed in Bransen’s mind—little specks of the southern king
dom of Behr, he knew, for he had seen the same type of architecture, on a far lesser scale, in Ethelbert dos Entel.

  “Had Brother Giavno traveled to Behr?” he asked aloud, though he was speaking to himself.

  “To Alpinador but never south of Pollcree that I have heard,” Brother Pinower replied, and again his voice somewhat startled Bransen.

  “Spiritually,” Bransen clarified. “Is it possible that he flew his soul all the way to the desert lands?”

  Brother Pinower’s face screwed up for a moment. He shook his head but then merely shrugged. “He was not assigned to any such thing. His mission this night was to find Cormack and Milkeila and learn, perhaps, of their progress. Nothing more.”

  Bransen considered the words and thought of the last time he had met with Cormack and Milkeila. They accompanied people who would know of such sights as those he had found inside the spinning memories within Brother Giavno. Was it possible that there truly was another entity trapped inside the mind of the mad monk? He stared at the troubled man across from him. Giavno was asleep, but it was far from a contented respite. He trembled and shook, occasionally cried out and waved his arms defensively.

  “Dueling spirits,” Bransen whispered.

  “How so?”

  Bransen turned to Pinower. “Or pieces of consciousness,” Bransen tried to explain. “They fight for control of the man’s mind—one other consciousness at least—and that battle manifests itself as Brother Giavno’s madness.”

  “How could this be? Is it the mind of another brother who was out spirit walking? Surely not Cormack!”

  “No,” Bransen said repeatedly. “I believe that Brother Giavno possessed someone—likely someone far in the south—and he has inadvertently taken a piece of that person back with him to St. Mere Abelle. Both of them trapped in his one mind, vying for supremacy, though they likely are not even aware of the other.” Bransen’s face lit up with cognition. “Perhaps that is always the way with the madness that sometimes results with spirit walking. In the act of possession, you are aware of your dalliance, and surely your target understands and recoils immediately from the intrusion. And so it is a furious and desperate battle of willpower, but one with singular identities. This, brother, this is true madness, an oblivious mingling of two minds, two spirits, two souls. I cannot—”