Chapter 9: The Monk's Mission

Coherent thought had ceased some time ago. Lilith had gone from bracing for the impact of the whip, to hoping she would make it 'till it was over, to wondering if they planned on whipping her 'till she died, to not caring if they did so long as it would stop, and finally hung limply from her wrists, bound to the post in the dirt field behind the manor, gasping and stirring only slightly with each time the lash bit into her back again. She was supposed to be counting the blows aloud, but had given up at around sixty. She could feel blood dribbling down her legs, but she was oddly detached from it all. Dimly, she realized that it had stopped. People were talking. She couldn't make out the words.

She could still feel, albeit barely. The constant pain drilling into her chest was barely noticeable compared to the raging fire of agony across her back. She was nearly certain she had no skin left on her back. As bits and pieces of her conscious mind trickled back to her, she wondered about the possibility of infection. Slowly the world started coming back into focus. Paulus the Monk was here, or was she hallucinating now? Was she dead?

Paulus spoke to Gartis, the taskmaster of the Roblis estate. Gartis yelled back, but Paulus did not seem concerned. Lilith dropped her head and stared at the dirt; the effort of turning to look had briefly exhausted her. The leathers wrapped around her wrists dug into her skin, and she struggled to her feet to relieve the pain. She pushed herself up with first one leg, sending herself to the side, tried to plant the other, and failed, collapsing to hang from her binds again. She thought she could feel blood trickling down her forearm.

The other slaves had been gathered to witness her punishment, as was standard. Some looked on horrorstruk, fearful that with Sir Roblis in such a foul mood and Gartis' bloodlust whetted, they would be next. Others scowled. Toby, the boy she'd yelled at for touching her the first day she'd come to the Roblis Estate, was smiling. He had mocked her after her indignant attitude got her beaten the first time, and mocked her at every beating since.

She dropped her head again, sucked in a deep breath, and managed to stagger to her feet. The harsh binds dug into her wrists still, she could see that a small trickle of blood was indeed climbing down her arm, but with her weight on her feet where it belonged the pain in her arms relented. The fire on her back raged on undaunted. Her legs shook under her weight and she turned to look at Paulus and Gartis again, only now Gartis was gone. Paulus looked in her direction. He seemed bored. Was he waiting for something? “W-what,” Lilith managed, but couldn't find the rest of the sentence.

Gartis returned with Sir Roblis. Roblis and Paulus were speaking to one another now. Lilith struggled forward and tried to lean against the post, but with her hands bound to it, it was impossible to rest much of her weight on it. Lilith sucked in deep breaths and tried to steady herself. Her mind had mostly returned now. She was certain that Paulus was not a hallucination, so what was he doing here? Did he still think she was some disgraced noble, waiting for a chance to restore her honor, prove her rightful place was in the upper classes?

Could he be right? Had she abandoned hope too soon? But Rurik himself knew exactly who she was, where she came from, why she was here, and it wasn't even that he didn't believe her. It just didn't matter. She was a slave. She always would be. If her parents, supporting Adelbern, condemned her, and Rurik himself condemned her as well, then what could some monk say otherwise?

“I'm a...Slave,” Lilith choked out, “just a...Slave.” Someone began pulling off her restraints. She rocked unsteady on her feet and nearly collapsed backwards as her dropped to her sides. A hand caught her, steadied her. “I'll be good,” Lilith muttered to no one, her voice thin, so quiet she wasn't entirely positive she was speaking aloud.

The hand was leading her away from the post now, out to the front of the estate, wrapped around her shoulder to keep her up, keep her moving. She staggered along beside, every fourth or fifth step missing the ground, and for a moment she'd be dragged along by him before she recovered. She was passing through the gates when she finally turned to look and see Paulus, his face blank as he half-led, half-dragged her down from the hills into the thriving heart of Ascalon City. “Why...Why are you here?” Lilith managed.

“Shut up,” Paulus said. Lilith did not respond, but instead focused on walking.

The walk to Ashford Abbey was rather longer than the usual hour or so with Lilith barely capable of standing. She had begun to recover by the time they reached it, and her mind had mostly emerged from the sluggish fog through which it had struggled. If Paulus did believe she had noble blood left in her yet, then what did he want from her? Certainly she didn't have any noble influence. He didn't bother saying anything, however. He took her to the infirmary, pulled out some bandages and patched up her wounds, than left her lying stomach down on the softest bed she'd slept on for the past year. The pain from the pendant grew worse from the pressure, but it was still better than the pain on her back. And she was too tired to change positions anyway.

She wasn't sure how long she slept. When she woke, it was still light out, and she could not see the position of the sun through the windows. For that matter, she wasn't certain exactly what time she'd arrived. She pulled herself up off the sheets, which clung briefly to her skin, soaked through with sweat. The infirmary appeared to be empty. A small favor, considering she had never had the chance to replace her shirt after her whipping. Granted, the filthy thing would have infected her wounds for sure.

The pain in her back had dulled, but the pendant dug away into her chest, dull and perpetual. She was already wondering how much more of that pain she could take and she had only had the damned thing for a day. Clutching at the pendant, she tried to tear it out of herself. She didn't care if it took a chunk of skin with it. She didn't care if it took the whole bone with it, she wanted it out. The pain shot through her body, she could feel it traveling up her spine, but she only ripped at it harder. Grunting with the effort, she fell off the bed and landed on her back, screaming in pain and flinching onto her stomach.

She heard the infirmary doors flying open and she backed away almost to the wall, crossing her arms over her chest. A dozen soldiers from the Guard hobbled in, some supporting their comrades. Two of them were carried in. The worst of them were laid on or helped into beds. Mhenlo was already examining the worst of them. His hands glowed white with healing power as he sealed up the worst wounds.

"Nothing to be done for this one," Mhenlo said to one of the healthier soldiers, gesturing to one of the ones carried in, "breath's gone out of him. He's dead."

"He was breathing five minutes ago, I heard him gasping," the soldier responded, "surely there must be something you can do!"

"It makes no difference if he's gone five minutes or five years, for all that I can save him," Mhenlo said, "now remove him from my infirmary so that I will have more room for the others."

"He can't be dead just like that," the soldier insisted, and the doors, still ajar, swung open again as that new guard captain dragged a moaning man to a bed.

"Devona, please tell your men to stop telling me how to heal the injured," Mhenlo said.

"Whatever you're doing, stop it," Devona said, helping herself to the supply kits and pulling out some bandages to begin patching up her men.

"And start doing what you aren't," Mhenlo said, "remove the corpse from my infirmary, if you would."

"Listen to him," Devona said.

"Y-yes, ma'am," the soldier said. He looked down at his dead friend, whose eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. The live soldier closed the dead one's eyes, then hefted the corpse onto his shoulders and started carrying him out.

"How bad is it?" Devona asked as the doors closed behind the departing soldier.

"For most of them, not very," Mhenlo said, his hands glowing as he sealed up a vicious axe wound on a soldier's leg, "there's one or two who might not make it. Lots of blood loss and little I can do about that except hope they can make more in a hurry. What happened?"

"Finally got enough men together to clear out those bandits in the hills," Devona said, and a soldier screamed with pain as she forced his leg into a splint, "most of them green, but we had numbers, weapons, better armor, and discipline even if not experience." She looked across the wounded in their beds. "They're no heroes, Mhenlo, but they held the line. They're good men. Do what you can for them."

"When do I ever do anything less?" Mhenlo asked, irate, as he pulled off a soldier's helmet to seal up a nasty gash across his head. "What went wrong?"

"Bandits turned out in force to try and send us packing, we routed them back to their camp in the hills. So far so good, but we were ambushed by grawl when we tried to pursue," Devona said.

"Grawl?" Mhenlo asked, snapping the head off an arrow that had struck a soldier's upper arm. "in Lakeside County?" Devona's response was interrupted by another soldier's shout of pain as Mhenlo tore the arrow out. His screams soon subsided as Mhenlo sealed up the wound left behind.

"I don't know why they're so far from their usual territory, but with the charr rampaging just north of the wall we don't have the-" Devona was cut off.

Mhenlo had just walked past the place where Lilith sat between the beds and Mhenlo rolled not only his eyes, but most of his body from the waist up when he saw her. "Why aren't you in your bed, girl?" he said, interrupting Devona. Lilith jumped to her feet and climbed back onto the bed, pulling her knees up to her chin, and Mhenlo turned to Devona and said "please, continue."

Devona gave Lilith a quizzical look, but returned to tending the wounded soldiers as best she could without healing magic. "We don't have the men to get rid of them," Devona continued, "it's a lot like someone told the grawl we'd be distracted."

"Using small words so they'd understand, even," Mhenlo said, his breath short, "how very gracious." He steadied himself against a counter and opened a supply kit, digging through to find bandages. "I've sealed up all the major wounds," he said, "I can handle the rest myself. Is there anything else you want to tell me while you're here?"

"You don't happen to have any monks to spare for our next outing?" Devona asked.

"I have a scribe, a smiter, and two healers, counting myself," Mhenlo said. "I am needed here, the other healer is needed at the shrine on the road to the city. We can spare the smiter if all you need is a capable combatant. You can have the scribe, too, for all I care, he might make a better meatshield than he does an actual scribe."

 Devona's smile was wry. "We'll take the smiter, thanks," she said, "you can keep the scribe. And if it's not too much trouble, please tell me as soon as you get a healer back south of the Wall."

"Of course," Mhenlo said, "good luck until we do." Devona nodded and left, the doors booming shut behind her. Mhenlo looked to Lilith, who was still clutching her legs, staring at him. She glanced away when he looked back. “It is a bed, not a chair, girl,” Mhenlo said, taking her by the shoulders, and with a firm but surprisingly gentle grip spun her around so that she was stomach down and on the pillow again, “you do not sit on it. Now rest and keep warm,” he said, yanking the blanket haphazardly on top of her. She grabbed the edges and pulled the blanket a bit tighter around herself, wincing slightly as it came into contact with the bandaged wounds on her back. Lilith wondered briefly if she should ask why they were doing this for her. Hadn't the nature of the wounds and her own pitifully ragged clothing made it obvious what she was? Did Mhenlo also think she was special somehow? Either way, Mhenlo had started ignoring her and tending the others, so Lilith decided against bothering him.

It was half an hour before Mhenlo finished patching up the nicks and minor cuts on the soldiers. “Everyone please, your attention here,” he announced, standing at one end of the room, “but gods, do not get up, yes, thank you,” one soldier had propped himself up on his elbows only to sink back down at Mhenlo's chastisement, “rest, keep warm, do not leave your beds or try to exert yourself, whatever it is you think you must do I can tell you in advance, I've heard it before and it is always nonsense. Right now you're all cripples and all you must do is get better so you'll be able to walk without puking out your lungs. I'll be back in an hour.”

Mhenlo left the room, and it was half an hour after that when Paulus the Monk returned. One of the soldiers opened his mouth to ask him something, but Paulus raised a hand to silence him. “Forgive me, sirrah, but I am not a healer. Unless there is a revenant hiding under your bed that you need smitten down, I cannot help you. Abbot Mhenlo should be back soon. Abrasive though he is, he takes good care of his patients.” Paulus reached Lilith's bed and took her by the arm, pulling her out. She crossed her free arm over her chest again as he pulled her from the room.

Paulus took her through the Abbey's dark corridors to his monk's cell, where he flung open the chest and tossed her one of his spare shirts. “Get dressed,” he said.

Lilith pulled the shirt over her head and asked “sir, what's going on?”

“You'll need both arms where we're going and giving you a shirt was faster than getting rid of your modesty,” Paulus said, “you seem steady enough on your feet. In any case I very suddenly have somewhere else to be tomorrow so there's no time to wait. I'm taking you down to the catacombs now.”

“What for?” Lilith said.

“To retrieve an artifact from an old shrine. Mhenlo said he wanted to examine it, but that catacomb is crawling with the undead,” Paulus said, pulling out something long and thin wrapped in cloth from the chest, “since smiting down the undead crawling under us is the only reason this Abbey keeps me around in the first place, obviously it is my job to go and get it for him. Since I own you, your job is whatever I tell you.” Paulus unwrapped the object; Lilith's bone staff, the one she'd taken from the devourers' nest. He tossed it to her.

“Where...How did you-?” she asked.

“I knew you had used the staff from the bodies of the devourers in the nest when I went by to clear out the survivors,” Paulus said, gesturing for Lilith to follow as he stepped into the hall. She tailed him just a pace behind and to the right. “There was no sign of any weapon at the scene and I knew it was unlikely you'd just give up something that was so useful to you and which you were very unlikely to come across again. Any hiding spot in Ascalon City would be too risky because it's so densely populated that someone or other is going to stumble across it eventually, and there's only so many hiding spots within easy retrieval distance of Ashford Village. I know enough magic to know when enchantments are near, so I played the hot/cold game with that until I found it. Satisfied?”

“Oh, of course, sir, I mean,” she paused, searching for the words. “You don't have to tell me anything, of course, I was just curious.”

“Shut up,” Paulus said, “I didn't bring you here for your sycophancy.”

“Um, yes, sir,” Lilith said, wondered if that was the right response to a demand to be less sycophantic, but Paulus did not respond one way or the other so she supposed it was good enough? She stepped out into the light of the Abbey's courtyard, fingers wrapped around the staff. “You...You own me?” she asked.

“Yes,” Paulus said, striding across the courtyard, “you were out past sunset, officially a runaway. I found you first, and I'm a clergymen. I have the right of seizure. I told you to leave, but I never told you where to go or yielded my right to you, which was lucky. Spent the morning looking up obscure laws so I could get my hands on you.”

“Why?” Lilith asked, as the two of them stepped through the massive stone doors leading down into the ruined catacombs. The stairs two-dozen feet wide, but massive jagged cracks ate away at the edges, so the two walked single-file down the center. No point in tempting fate by walking on an edge that might collapse under their weight.

“Either you are what you say you are in which case you'll die in a hurry,” Paulus said, “or else you are what everyone else said you were, in which case you're going to be extremely useful. Either way, the catacombs aren't a place for chit-chat, so shut up and follow me, and I hope you aren't stupid enough that you need to be told to start killing dangerous things without waiting for my permission down there, but just in case.”

“Yes, sir,” Lilith said. Paulus did not speak further as they descended into the gloom, lighting a lantern which he handed off to her, freeing up both his hands for his sword and shield. This close to the surface, the catacombs were not nearly so mazelike as they infamously were deeper down. The corridors were broad, supported by massive pillars that stretched from the earth below to the earth above. The great highways of the necropolis. This was almost a holy site for necromancers. Lilith had dreamed of coming her to study the secrets of the dead as a girl, and now she was here, with a staff topped with children's skulls (probably). Was this real?

They had reached a balcony of sorts. It was, at the least, a place where the floor fell away into a chasm, and at the foot of that chasm was a vast plaza containing dozens of crypts. On the other side of this plaza was a stairway that descended down even deeper, leading to a corridor flooded by stagnant water. A shrine to the dead had been erected in an alcove at the top of the stairs. Lilith recognized it as a shrine to fallen warriors. One of which had decided to disregard the “fallen," bones in armor lurching about in a way that was decidedly atypical for bones.

Paulus was already raising his shield and preparing for a fight. Lilith set the lantern down, its powerful light providing illumination out to thirty feet, and leveled her staff with the skeleton. She fired a bolt of dark energy at it, but as it connected she realized that it would do nothing: A weapon which saps the very life essence from the target would have little effect on a corpse, after all. With the speed and precision of a trained soldier, the skeleton swung its sword towards Paulus, who knocked it aside with his shield and cut off the skeleton's head. It swung again, undaunted, and Paulus sidestepped.

Lilith summoned up the swarm from within herself, and it flew towards the skeleton to devour the flesh from its bones. The plague locusts were terribly confused when they reached their target, climbing across it to try and find something edible while it and Paulus continued trading blows. Finally, Paulus' sword, glowing with holy power, struck down the center of the creature, and it erupted into flames which burned white, and then blue, and then not at all, the smoldering ashen remains of the bones collapsing to the floor. A great banshee shriek filled the air, and Lilith dropped her staff to cover her ears.

The shriek abated. Lilith opened up her eyes again to find Paulus catching his breath. “Do they always scream like that at the end?” she asked.

“Scream like what?” Paulus asked.

“You didn't hear it?” Paulus shook his head. “It was so loud I thought my ears might start bleeding,” Lilith said.

“I heard nothing,” Paulus said, “and I didn't see much assistance from you, either.”

“I'm sorry,” Lilith said, “but I tried every trick I have and it didn't even notice.”

“Every trick?” Paulus asked.

“Well, it's dead. I can't sap its life energy, can't eat the flesh off of it, can't drink its blood, can't trick it or distract it,” she thought for a moment about what other tricks she'd found in her arsenal the day before, “I can't even grovel in front of it and hope it loses interest,” she muttered.

“Here,” Paulus said, and tossed her some tiny blue thing. Lilith caught it, an iron ring bearing a small square chiseled from pale blue stone, which itself had a signet inscribed upon it. She did not recognize exactly what it was, but they had taught her enough magic calligraphy at Nolani Academy to know it was smiting magic. “Bane signet,” he said, “I don't have to teach you how to use a magic signet, do I?” Lilith shook her head. “Good, because I don't have the time. Point it at anything undead, fire it, should rip it right in half.”

“Alright,” Lilith said, picking up her staff and lantern again.

“That water is diseased,” Paulus said, “and fairly fast-acting, too. We'll be crippled in an hour, dead within three, so we have to move quick in order to get the artifact and bring it back. Mhenlo can remove the disease once we're back at the Abbey.”

Lilith swallowed, her throat suddenly very dry. “Okay,” she said.

Paulus descended the stairs towards the water, Lilith following just behind him, and then took a running leap on the last landing, clearing a solid twenty feet before landing in the water. He hit the ground running, churning the knee-deep water with long strides, clumsy in the water, but quick. Lilith leapt after him, trying to imitate his gait in order to keep up.

It was difficult to keep track of time in the darkness of the catacombs, and Lilith, halfway panicked, kept losing track of the seconds. Soon enough, however, she could feel a creeping numbness through her feet, and decided that whatever disease this was, clearly it was taking hold. Another alcove to fallen soldiers, and another of them less than fallen. The corpse charged Paulus, and Lilith aimed the ring at it and triggered the spell. For a second there was nothing, but then the skeleton burned with holy fire. Hers less powerful than Paulus', it ran on and swung its sword at Paulus, who swatted the blow aside and then rammed his shield into the skeleton's chest. Weakened, it toppled over, and Paulus ran on, not bothering to finish it. Lilith followed, smacking the skeleton's arms out from under it as it struggled to its feet while she passed.

“How much farther?” Lilith asked a moment later.

“Around the corner, and a ways longer,” Paulus said.

Lilith looked at the darkness ahead, impenetrable after thirty feet. “How far is the corner?” Lilith asked.

“Not too far,” Paulus said, and as he spoke the shadows retreated to reveal the edge of the masonry. Up ahead, a shaft of light broke through the ceiling to illuminate a massive mural of Maxilus, a skeletal horseman of Thorn, and the patron of love and courtship. A pair of entwined lovers sat beneath his boney gaze, which somehow managed to look benevolent.

As they neared the mural, a skeletal hand shot out of the water, grabbing Paulus' ankle and dragging him under the water. Paulus struggled with the corpse beneath the water, while Lilith leveled her bane signet with it and fired again, but the holy fire was still fire and would not burn underwater. Dropping her staff, she ran to the skeleton and grasped it around its boney neck, yanking it backward. Paulus cut it in half at the spine, and Lilith incinerated the top half with the signet, dropping the skeleton and screaming in pain as the fire seared her palm. The skeleton screamed as well, and Lilith could only plug her ears with the one hand, now. Her other was deafened for several seconds after shrill noise had ceased.

Paulus turned and ran on immediately while Lilith bent down to retrieve her staff, holding the lantern as high above the water as she could reach. When Lilith caught up with Paulus, he had already sheathed his sword and shield on his back and dragged the artifact, a large urn, out of the alcove that had kept it safe from the water for years. “Keep me safe,” Paulus said as he began running back, “and hurry!”

Lilith's vision grew hazy before they were even halfway back through the twisting corridors. From her feet, the numb feeling had spread upwards through her entire body. Paulus had begun to stagger slightly, but Lilith was nearly careening into walls as she desperately drove herself to keep up. If she was left behind now, her only hope was that she would mercifully drown rather than the disease slowly melting her insides for the next two hours.

The skeleton Paulus had knocked beneath the waters was waiting for them near the stairs. It lurched through the water towards them. Lilith fired her signet at it, and it hissed, damp bones sizzling, but the flame didn't take. Lilith's concentration was breaking. The skeleton swung, and Paulus staggered to the side, the blade opening up a gash in his arm. Lilith caught up to the fight a moment later and swung the lantern into the skeleton. It staggered backwards, the lantern shattering and lighting the bones on fire. Lilith ran, as much from the familiar banshee wail as from the burning bones and the blade it wielded. Paulus was behind her, now, though just barely. They had turned the corner to the stairs, but the light from the lantern extinguished when the skeleton collapsed beneath the water. Their way was lit now only by the green glow of Lilith's staff.

Lilith found the stairs and began climbing up them. Every time she reached a landing her foot want careening through the air before it found the ground unexpectedly eight inches lower than she had expected. She could hear Paulus fumbling up the stairs somewhere behind her. When she reached the top, she staggered to the right and found the wall. "Paulus," she said, not even sure why, following the wall. She was reasonably certain she could make out natural light at the end of the necropolitan highway, but she could hardly move now.

The pillars were the only reason she could keep moving, now. She collapsed from one to another, pulled herself up, then collapsed to the next. She had finally reached the natural light at the end of the corridor when she collapsed again, crawled a half-dozen feet towards the stairs leading up to the Abbey's courtyard, and then found her strength exhausted. A burning pain was spreading through her body, but that was hardly new. The pain in her back still had not abated much, and the pain in her chest would never go away.

Someone crouched down beside her. A woman. Dark hair. Leather armor, but not much of it. "What the Hell are you doing in here?" she demanded.

"Paulus," Lilith said, and gestured towards the darkness behind her, "back there. Dying."

The woman squinted into the corridor and raced off into the gloom. Lilith's stomach churned as she saw her dragging Paulus back towards the Abbey. By the time the woman came back for her, she was vomiting up black bile. By the time she reached the surface, she blacked out completely.