Chapter 26
Fern waited in the refectory, seated on a bench at one of three long dining tables, all rattkin-scale.
The dark wood was much-scarred, but well-polished by the elbows of generations of Tarimites.
Tall windows of cloudy glass allowed in reflected moonlight from the snow outside.
Flakes pittered against the panes like anxious moths.
Rafters ascended into shadowy peaks above, and the wind had withdrawn to whisper mournfully along the eaves.
The whole place was surprisingly devoid of tentacular decoration.
She was belted into a loaner habit while her sodden cloak dried on a peg along the hearth’s lintel, her satchel dangling beside it.
At the last moment, Fern had remembered to transfer Breadlee to her new outerwear.
The habit’s fabric was heavy, softened from a thousand washings, and enfolded her in a soporific shadow that tugged her toward sleep.
Rhubarb had ensconced her blessedly close to the hearthfire before hustling out of the room to fetch her a meal.
Of Zyll, there was no sign. Fern couldn’t be bothered to worry about it.
She sat alone in the cavernous space, although murmured prayers filtered in from the passageway at the opposite end.
They did nothing to help keep her eyelids open, despite the yawning hole in her belly.
She reminded herself that these were worshippers of a mad god of destruction and horror, but it was challenging to hold on to that fear at the moment.
Just as she was nodding off, a mumbling from the vicinity of her middle brought her back to wakefulness. She patted around the unfamiliar clothes until she withdrew the Elder Blade from a pocket and laid him on the table before her.
“Hey,” said Breadlee. Fern had the sense that he was fidgeting. “So, is she gonna be okay?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “But I’m too tired to consider that I might be the bad luck that ended her after a thousand years.”
“Yeah,” said the knife, with obvious relief. “You’re right. You’re not that important. But in, like, a good way.”
“Obviously, it’d be the cursed magical object that’s responsible.”
“Wait, when did we get one of those? What did I miss?”
There was a long pause during which Fern was pretty sure Breadlee narrowed his nonexistent eyes at her.
“Um,” he eventually continued. “Thanks for not mentioning my part in the whole bridge thing. Really great job making it sound like an accident we had nothing to do with.”
Fern sighed. “You didn’t see the look on that monk’s face. We probably cut them off from all civilization for the next six months. If I told him everything, they’d be sacrificing us to Tarim come morning.”
“Oh, is he one of those blood-and-fire gods? Gotta confess, I never paid much attention because of the whole immortality-of-the-blade thing. Didn’t seem personally relevant.”
“Just your garden variety cosmic being that might fucking swallow the world if he gets around to noticing it. Not sure the immortality of your blade would do a lot of good.”
“And they pray to that?”
She laid her nose on her crossed forearms atop the table, burying it in the warm folds of the habit. “You’ve got a whole abbeyful of credulous idiots here that I’m sure would be happy to explain it to you. I don’t know why you’re asking me,” she muttered crossly.
“Am I interrupting something?”
Fern jumped at an amused voice, slapping a hand over Breadlee and staring guiltily toward the small wooden door Rhubarb had disappeared through.
The piebald brother was nowhere to be found, though. Instead, an older rattkin stood in the open doorway with a tray in her paws and a curious tilt to her head. She was plump and silver and wore the same simple habit as the rest of the abbey’s denizens.
“Um,” said Fern.
The woman approached without waiting for an answer.
She slid the tray onto the table and unloaded it in front of Fern with crisp movements—an enormous porcelain bowl of steaming stew, a round of sourdough sharing a chipped plate with a generous knob of yellow butter, and a mug of fragrant mulled wine.
The stew was crowded with parsnips and other root vegetables, rich with the savory scent of beef and pepper, and edged with a hint of thyme. A hungry moan escaped Fern’s lips in chorus with her stomach.
The rattkin placed a spoon beside the bowl and cocked a brow at the knife under Fern’s paw. “You travel with your own tableware?”
“Uh, no, this is a, um, letter opener,” stammered Fern.
Breadlee vibrated with indignation under her fingers.
“Ah, yes. Obviously. For the letters,” replied the woman, with no detectable sarcasm.
Then she settled on the bench opposite Fern and laced her fingers together in front of herself.
“Thank you,” said Fern with real sincerity, while fervently hoping the rattkin across from her hadn’t heard the bit about an abbeyful of credulous idiots.
She wondered if the . . . sister? nun?—Did you call a lady monk a nun?
—sitting across from her was going to watch her eat the whole meal.
She didn’t appear in a hurry to leave. “Er, Rhubarb mentioned the abbess would want to speak with me?”
She shoveled in a hot chunk of parsnip and then huffed around it as it scorched the roof of her mouth. Her eyes watered, but not so much she didn’t notice the amusement of the other rattkin.
“She does,” replied the monk-or-nun. “But I’m sure I can wait until you’re done incinerating your tongue.”
Chewing carefully with her mouth open, Fern gulped down the hot ingot of vegetable before actually registering what the woman had said.
“You’re the abbess?” she wheezed.
“Abbess Bluebriar,” replied the abbess. “But I don’t stand on honorifics much. Or extra syllables. Blue is fine.”
Fern didn’t foresee ever calling her that.
“Fern. And again, I’m very grateful. We’re very grateful.”
A gracious nod. “You’re most welcome. And for what it’s worth, only Brother Trestle is particularly credulous, but he nearly drowned when he was eighteen and hasn’t really been the same since, so we don’t hold it against him.”
Fern chased the burning in her cheeks and stomach with a solid glug of the mulled wine, which was also quite hot, and nearly blew it out her nose.
“There, there,” soothed Abbess Bluebriar, who was somehow behind her and pounding on her back as she spluttered spiced wine all over the table and Breadlee both. His sounds of disgust were mostly lost amidst Fern’s hacking coughs.
While Fern mopped her whiskers, able to breathe once more, Bluebriar resettled herself across the table again. She withdrew a pair of spectacles and a small book from her habit and commenced quietly reading.
Fern eyed the volume for a moment, but there was no title on the cover, and besides, it was probably just Tarimite nonsense. Although she felt a touch uncharitable at that thought, given said Tarimites were currently feeding her beside a roaring fire.
She returned to her meal—more carefully—and in hardly any time was scouring the gravy from the bowl with the last rind of sourdough. The wine had been the first to go.
The instant Fern slumped back, replete, the abbess tucked away her book, peering over the top of her spectacles at her guest. “Better? Excellent. Now, Brother Rhubarb relayed some very upsetting information about our bridge, as well as those responsible for your friend’s bloody circumstances, but he was rather vague when it came to the particulars.
I’m hoping you can shed a little more light on events, since your other companion is currently emptying the kitchen of tableware, and pretending she doesn’t understand a word anybody says to her. ”
Fern began to speak, but Abbess Bluebriar extended one paw and rested it deliberately on Breadlee, who emitted a muffled chirp of startlement. She smiled. “There’s no need to be concise. The nights are long and dull, and I so enjoy a good story.”
Her smile appeared genuine enough, but there was something stern and unyielding beneath it. Something that might not hesitate to tie you down to a cold altar against your wishes.
Uncomfortably aware of exactly how hidden away the abbey was, and how definitively cut off from civilization or communication, Fern swallowed, organized her thoughts, and began.
“. . . and then Rhubarb found us,” finished Fern, gazing forlornly at her empty wine cup.
She dearly wished she’d had the foresight to save some of it for the long retelling Bluebriar had demanded.
She’d omitted a few details she thought she could get away with—no sense recounting her time with Quillin, or how velvety his ears looked—but the abbess had managed to extract the complete and embarrassing beginning of her adventure, brandy and all.
Anytime the narrative got a bit thin, Bluebriar keenly prodded her to thicken it back up.
Now, the abbess regarded her in the waning light of the hearthfire, which was gnawing on a few blackened nubs. She reached over and plucked Breadlee up to examine him.
“Uh, hi,” he said.
“And this wee fellow was enough to shatter our bridge?”
“Hey, it’s not the sword, it’s the wielder!” protested Breadlee. He seemed to consider for a moment. “Although that was pretty dramatic. Do you think Astryx was too wounded to notice? I am really conflicted about whether this is a credit or blame situation. I need to think about it some more.”
“You might want to think about it quietly,” observed Fern. Then, to the abbess, “How bad is this for you, exactly?”
The abbess sighed and placed the knife back on the table.
“We’re fortunate to have solid stores for the coming winter, since all our relationships of supply lie on the other side of that bridge.
We’ve pilgrims who will certainly find their return difficult.
We aren’t trapped, thank the Eight, but we’ll have to make do with harder roads.
I’ll send a few of our masons to investigate when the weather clears, although given it took a decade to build the thing, I hesitate to be optimistic. ”
Fern was about to offer another awkward apology when Rhubarb shuffled in and approached the table. After a pained smile at Fern, he whispered in the abbess’s ear for several seconds.
She nodded as she listened, and when he’d finished, hoisted herself off the bench and addressed Fern.
“It seems your friend the Oathmaiden will survive the night, and I’ve kept you from rest for long enough, I suppose.
They’ve corralled the green one in the dormitory.
I find her story vexing. A prisoner? It seems unlikely. ”
“It’s very confusing,” Fern agreed.
“Brother Rhubarb will escort you there, and you can sleep and recover.”
“Can I see Astryx first?”
“Let’s leave her to rest,” replied Bluebriar. “Never fear, Brother Burdock is an artist with a needle and a poultice. We’ll see what tomorrow brings, eh? These things always feel more hopeful in the light of day.”
Removing her spectacles and tucking them back into her habit, she moved for the door.
With one hand on the pull, she added, “I don’t expect we’ll suffer an assault from this Tullah person before dawn, unless she’s sprouted wings.
But let’s not tempt fate and wander, shall we?
Best not to get lost and fall asleep in any wagons. ”
“Asleep already,” whispered Rhubarb as he cracked the dormitory door and eased his candlestick into the windowless room, revealing orange pigtails and a riotous coat of pockets in a pile on a narrow cot, like a heap of shabby laundry.
He gave Fern a significant look. “Brother Yarrow is still counting the spoons.”
As he opened the door wider, she caught sight of another cot against the opposite wall, and at one end of it, a foot-stove freshly topped up with coals.
Rhubarb passed her the candle, bobbed a short bow, then scurried down the door-lined passage of old, dark stone, presumably to his own room for the night.
Fern hauled herself, her satchel, and cloak into the room and eased the door shut behind her. The goblin didn’t so much as rustle.
Tiptoeing to the empty cot, Fern set the candlestick on a small writing table along the wall, hung her still-damp cloak on a hook, and tossed her satchel on the floor.
As she slithered under the wool blanket, she briefly considered the latch on the door and whether she should engage it, but the effort of thought and action was too much.
“No blood sacrifice to Tarim tonight,” she mumbled into the darkness.