Wolfe lit the candles to the chapel altar and sat back in reflection. This was his task for the next week while he meditated on his failings. To Wolfe it wasn't much different from being thrown in the hole back home – alone to think about your actions, no one to talk to, nothing else to do but sit and think. He smoothed the folds of his robe and adjusted the sandals on his feet – it was going to be awhile before he would be allowed to leave, so he needed to get comfortable. Pressing his fingers together and resting them in his lap, he began his meditation. The events of his time in Hornsdale came to mind, the actions he took, the inactions he made, and their foreseeable outcome. Per The Father's instruction, he changed what he could and didn't do in his mind, and tried to foresee an alternate result.
"Stupid Zek, should have killed her when I had the chance." He sighed. Something hard stung his back, right between his shoulder blades. It was a deadly shot, and he could feel his back muscles reflexively tensing up painfully, and his arms going numb. The Father growled his disapproval from behind him. Wolfe didn't even know he was there. "My apologies Father, I didn't mean it. That was childish of me." He immediately spouted out despite the agonizing pain brought on from one whip snap. Another caught him behind the ear, and he crumpled to the ground clutching his head, his voice caught mid-scream from the searing pain. It was all he could do to lock himself up and ride it out. If he wailed, he'd be struck again. If he tried to move, he'd be struck again. It had been a long time since he had experienced The Father's fury, but he knew the rules.
"Reflect." The Father commanded in a gruff voice. Wolfe eventually gathered himself up, turned to face The Father, and bowed apologetically. He was surprised to find there was no lash in the Father's hand; the old man was using his fingertips to snap out pain and punishment. The Father was truly a terror when he was crossed. Wolfe spun around and immediately resumed his meditation.
The Father opened a book and began to read quietly to himself while standing vigil over his student.
****
The Mischievous didn't like Silas's needles. It wasn't the pain, it was the fact he always had to draw blood from a different place on her body, and delighted in finding a vein that gushed out more than the last one. The delight he took in exploring the more detailed elements of her physiology were disturbing, even for a Zecairin. It was all to find a cure for her, he would tell her. But secretly she knew better – Silas was no more a healer, than she was a pious Sister.
"That should do just fine my dear. How are the nightmares?" he asked.
"Better," she sighed and rubbed the spot just above her left breast where he had just drawn blood. Silas poured the blood he had extracted from the tubule into a glass jar. Fifteen similar pricks had to fill that small jar. Fifteen bruises, and fifteen moments where she was tempted to jab him in the eye for it. "I don't dream of myself anymore. I dream of a different place, where there are more people like me. I am a soldier in my dream and I go on long walks through caves, and through the forest. Is this what I used to be? Was I a soldier?"
Silas only smiled. She found his smiles creepy; the way only one side of his face seemed to work when he did it, and how he made a point of squinting his eyes together to make it seem more genuine. But he didn't respond immediately this time, but seemed more engrossed with the sample he had just collected, and cleaning his used tools with grain alcohol.
"Can I go now?" she asked. "I have lessons." Silas waved her away. He was unusually quiet today. Something had changed here, in all the monastery in fact. She had detected a different mood in the faces of the acolytes as well as the normally stoic Huanguard. It was as if she was no longer the oddest thing here, but she hadn't heard of anything new taking her place. Perhaps it was some news from a distant town. Wolfe had covered their tracks in Hornsdale. The guardsmen questioned them, but the few eyewitnesses that had survived claimed a wild Zecairin had gone on a murder spree. She doubted that was the source of the uneasy atmosphere, however.
The Mischievous was so lost in thought she almost bumped into a giant of a man as he walked down the corridor towards Silas's laboratory. Rasj was a ghost in the Monastery; she knew who he was by his reputation and description but this was the first time she had seen him. He towered over her by a good two feet. His enormous red-skinned chest was a brick wall that blocked her view. Unlike the other monks here, Rasj was the only one that carried himself with the arrogance of a man that actually speaks to a god. She didn't recognize the style of his garb, a golden sash crossed his chest, and his leggings were a type of skirt in two parts, a left and right that folded over the other and made of heavy material. His arms were thicker than some trees, and she found herself wishing she could swing from them naked.
"You are the Zecairin," He stated, and folded those giant meat trunks across his chest. The Mischievous bit her tongue lest she lick her lips involuntarily. "When you meet god on the battlefield, will you bow before him? Or will you slay him, knowing him to be false?" The question broke her trance and she pondered it for a moment.
"I..." she started to say, but reconsidered her answer. "Would ask him if he fancied dark women." she finally said with a smile. Rasj let loose a hearty laugh.
"If such a god existed, what would he need with your flesh? He could enslave your whole race and make concubines of all your females." Rasj retorted, and shook his head in disappointment.
"I did not say I would give him my body, I would merely ask him if he fancied dark women."
"And if he didn't?" Rasj's humor had ended, and he was now scowling. The act of which told her it was time to end this conversation and find somewhere safe in a hurry.
"Well, in that case. I would ask him if he fancied dark men instead." She replied and slipped past the giant in his moment of disbelief. Her answers were not the sort of philosophical debate she knew the grandmaster of combat, the leader of the Huanguard, the warrior-monk Rasj was looking for. But to engage him fully, she would have to reveal more about herself to this unknown entity than she felt was safe. Playing the dumb card was safe enough for now. As delicious as he was to look at, everything else about him was all wrong. She had had enough of dangerous men. As gifted as she was in magic, she was still only a trickster. She had trained her abilities in speed, stealth, and seeding discord, not in skill at arms. And she had been beaten by Rasj's students enough times in the training yard to know she wouldn't last in a real fight against any of them. Not even against Wolfe.
The Mischievous made her way outside into the courtyard and took the long way around the back of the main chapel. It gave her time to think, but it also gave her an opportunity to see if she was being watched. Again, she was disappointed to find these humans had lost interest in her. Even as strong as these Huanguard were, they were still fools by Zecairin standards. She found them dupable, entirely too trusting of their senses, and too quick to judge. She would wreak such havoc on them... but not yet. She had another agenda. She was after Silas's secrets. And she wanted these nightmares to end. Whatever the sorcerer had done to her, she would undo it, and then she would make him regret it - one red hot stick of metal up his ass at a time.
The Monastery was full of criminal recruits forced into the ranks of acolytes – the Huanguard potentials - and the stewards – the servants to be used as fodder for the acolytes. Silas's laboratory would obviously be guarded against theft and intrusion from such types. New recruits would be too tempted to steal his secrets if they knew what he was. But humans had no magical ability; they needed to strike a bargain with the spirit world to gain some measure of power. That was the difference between a sorcerer like Silas, and a magic-user such as herself. Her abilities were limited to her understanding of the natural forces and how to influence them; his were limited to how much favor he had curried with his sponsor. Considering the unforgiving atmosphere of this place, his laboratory was most likely lethally trapped with guardian spirits. Trespassers were most likely disposed of; the monks didn't seem too alarmed when she had picked off a few stewards after her escape. It seemed that it wasn't uncommon for monks to suddenly go missing without a reason.
Her wanderings had brought her to the gardens behind the main chapel, and the back of Silas's study. She walked the crop rows with purpose, but in truth had none. She looked to the crop yields, and inspected the leaves. The other stewards paid her no mind, and were likewise looking for rot, insect damage, or poor growth. Her true goal lay behind her – the window to Silas's laboratory. Unfortunately there was no high vantage point she could use to spy, or concealing structure to hide behind. So she lay down on the ground, and pressed one long, dark ear to the soft earth. There was an old trick used to eavesdrop on others in the deep caverns of Zecair, it had grown out of practice because almost nothing of importance was said without first erecting a barrier against such intrusion. However out here in the surface lands, there was too much activity, too much surface noise, too much naïveté.
She focused on the ground to the exclusion of all other sounds until she heard only the rustle of the nearby monks as their feet shuffled along. The sounds grew to encompass every footstep on the campus. Her focus moved to the foundation stones of the building, and then the glass pane. There... an echo, a muffled murmur in the cacophony of footsteps, wheelbarrows, and thumps of the training elite in the courtyard. She focused on those muffled words, and tried to drown out all the louder sounds. She could just barely make out Silas's voice...
"...he's too dense." The sorcerer commented in argument.
"Tobias?" Came Rasj's rebuke.
"That one will do as well." Silas commented with a tone of finality. "We only need three, but we might as well get rid of the fat."
