Page 44 of Crucible of Chaos

‘It’s all right,’ he said, leaning against the edge of the table for support. ‘You are in the abbey infirmary.’

‘I thought. . .’ Strigan sounded hesitant, confused and on the edge of tears. ‘The wood beneath me. . . I thought I’d woken inside a coffin.’

Hearing the hoarse voice, Estevar asked, ‘Would you like some water?’

‘Please.’

It took a while to find the jug of fresh water Agneta had used earlier. Cursing the impenetrable darkness, Estevar carefully balanced the vessel on the table, leaning it against his own belly for safety. ‘I must touch your face to find your lips,’ he warned Strigan. ‘I will try to pour the water slowly, but we may be in for a drenching, you and I.’

The endeavour required several attempts, and more than once Estevar feared he was drowning his patient, but some time later, the monk’s hand rested on his arm. ‘Thank you,’ Strigan murmured. ‘I think I’d like to sleep now.’

Estevar set the jug back down on a shelf beneath the table. ‘There are questions I must ask you first. Those demons will surely return, and the horrors inflicted on you could be performed on others.’ He reached out a tentative forefinger, found one of the sigils carved into Strigan’s chest. ‘Who inscribed theSacrificia Purgadisupon you?’

‘Sleep,’ Strigan repeated, plaintively.

‘The symbols– who first painted them on your skin?’

‘No one. It was me. Wanted the power. . . wanted to. . . but the demons!’ He squeezed Estevar’s arm tighter, his own nails digging through the loose fabric of the linen shirt. ‘Don’t let them have me again– don’t leave me here in the dark!’

‘I won’t, but you must answer me. How did you know about those specific symbols? You don’t strike me as a scholar, so who—?’

‘Venia,’ Strigan muttered, bitterness rising in his voice like bile. ‘Venia tricked me. Showed me his scribblings, taught me the patterns to draw on my skin, the words, the rituals. . . He said they would give me powers to protect the abbey, that I was the bravest of the brethren. I was to be “the wolf who guards the sheep”. Why did he lie to me?’

Those words fell upon Estevar like an icy cloak. Why would so devout an abbot resort to such cruel deception? And yet. . . hadn’t their long correspondence and occasional visits begun when Venia had written to Estevar seeking his opinion on the authenticity of certain mystical texts in the abbey’s library? What if these ongoing, apparently innocent enquiries had been carefully crafted to validate some of the occult underpinnings of thePurgadisritual without revealing his intentions?

‘Did Venia show the symbols to your followers as well?’ he asked.

Strigan tilted his head slowly to the left, then the right, like a dreaming child. ‘Trumpeters were taking over. Leogado. . . damn her. Knew how to recruit. . . inspire. Someone had to stand against her. . . someonehad to. . . I drew the symbols on those who’d follow my leadership, promised them. . . promised. . .’

‘Power,’ Estevar finished for him.

TheSacrificia Purgadiswas meant for purification, for the transmutation of sin– something it had clearly failed to achieve in this instance. But why would the result of that failure be the conjuration of demonic beings? And at that time? Why had they not appeared when the symbols had first been inscribed, or anytime thereafter?

The storm, Estevar thought.Leogado was right: the magic is awakened when the storms envelop the island and the lightning strikes the ores beneath its surface.

He traced the lines of one of the symbols on the self-styled ‘Sorcerer Sovereign’s’ chest.With the unity of the storm and the stone, faith is transmuted to power.

Strigan’s breathing was slowing, becoming more regular. He was starting to fall back asleep, leaving Estevar with questions still to be answered.

‘Purely for academic purposes,’ Venia had insisted years ago when Estevar had jokingly pointed out that for a religious zealot who renounced violence and heresy, he owned a goodly number of swords and supernatural texts. But had those tools of violence and sorcery, amassed over decades, been intended solely for preservation and study, as the abbot had always insisted?

What if he wasn’t the man I believed him to be? What if the quiet, modest Abbot Venia hid his darker inclinations from all of us?

Estevar prodded the slumbering patient as gently as he could. ‘Strigan, why does Brother Agneta claim that Caeda is dead? Why does she believe the abbot killed her?’

A sleepy smile came over the young monk’s face. ‘Caeda, poor Caeda. I always wanted to fu—’

‘Yes, yes–so you made clear several times when the two of us came to the Venerance Tower. But why does Agneta believe her to be dead?’

‘Alone. . .’ Strigan muttered.

‘What?’

But there was no answer. Estevar shook the monk more vigorously. ‘Answer me, damn you! Your foolishness, engineered no doubt by someone with a greater and even more malicious nature than your own, has brought hell itself to this abbey. I cannot protect any of you if I do not understand what’s going on!’

‘Alone,’ Strigan repeated as if already lost in a dream. ‘One fat, loud-mouthed magistrate walks into my tower with his donkey and tricks me with some nonsense about a “Cressi Manoeuvre” I’d never heard of. Tricked me just like Abbot Ven—’

‘Forget the damned Cressi Manoeuvre,’ Estevar shouted, shaking him again. ‘Youspoketo Caeda– you spouted your despicable lechery right in front of her!’

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