The Scourge of Muirwood (Legends of Muirwood 3)

She spoke out loud, to herself but also to him. “If only I had come sooner, I could have saved you from your fate. Or you could have died and the Apse Veil would still be open. I am sorry for that. I did not know what was happening to you. I was mostly only aware of my own pain. I am sorry.”

The wind tugged at her hair. She cried softly.

“There were so many lies told about you. People always believe the worst, even when rumors might later be proved false. I know the truth and so do a handful of others. It seemed sometimes that you never cared what others thought about you. But so many will never know who you truly were. They will never know you as I knew you.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I miss you, Aldermaston. I miss your counsel and your advice. You believed in me. I always felt that from you. I remember when you sent Jon Hunter to rescue me from the Bearden Muir. He told me that I was welcome back. That you said I could come back home. Do you know how much that meant to me? How much your trust meant to me?” She hugged herself, shivering with her emotions. “I wish I had told you how much I depended on you. How much I learned from you. How sorry I was for all the rude things I said. My disobedience and childishness. You were so patient with me. I see now that I was not just a wretched to you. Thank you, Aldermaston. I am grateful I was sent to your care. You helped to mold my faith. I could not have done what I did at Dochte Abbey without you.”

She knelt there until her knees cramped and ached and her tears finally exhausted. She breathed deeply and swallowed the hiccups that threatened her.

“I will carry a mark on my heart for the rest of my life. I will never forget your words and teachings. And I will never forget what you suffered because of me.”

In the stillness that followed the storm, she felt something light graze the back of her head. It was feather-light. She opened her eyes and turned around, but there was nothing behind her. It had felt like a…hand?

She blinked in the stillness and closed her eyes again.

“Are you with me, Aldermaston?” she whispered.

The faint pressure came on her head again. Instead of looking backwards again, she closed her eyes and opened her mind to her thoughts. The Gift of Seering opened up to her again and she saw the Aldermaston, in her mind. He was crossing the Cider Orchard painfully, each step an agony to him. The branches lashed at him, but he walked firmly ahead, his arm cradling something that glinted gold. Then he was moving through the forbidden part of the grounds, his expression writhing in pain. She watched as he made it to the floating stone beyond Maderos’ lair. He clambered down upon the rock, almost losing his balance and plunging to his death. He knelt, exhausted, on the stone, his body trembling with the exertion. He bowed his head and then the floating rock began to move, easing downwards to the base of the hill that was still submerged beneath the waters of the lake. With a mighty heave, he shoved a tome of aurichalcum off the boulder and watched it splash in the waters. It sank instantly, coming to rest amidst the stone ossuaries that she used to play in as a child.

The vision faded.

Lia opened her eyes. “Thank you, Aldermaston. Thank you for showing me where your tome lies.”

* * *

She buried the Aldermaston’s bones in an ossuary near Maderos’ lair. The tome was where she had seen and had not been difficult to see hidden within the crevices. As she knelt before the sealed box, she raised her arm in the maston sign.

Her voice was thick with emotion, but grew stronger as she spoke. “By Idumea’s hand, I do not know all the words. I am a young maston still. But I kneel and through the Medium dedicate this ground as the final resting place of Gideon Penman, the Aldermaston of Muirwood Abbey. By the Medium I invoke this, that when the time of his reviving has come, at some future dawn, he may be restored, every whit. May all who love truth always remember this final spot that others may remember what he did for us. That we may remember him through our words. Make it thus so.”

As she crossed the Cider Orchard to return to the kitchen, she heard the snort and whicker of a horse. The trees were skeletal, but there were enough to shield the source of the sound. She stopped, listening carefully and trying to discern the location of the sound. It was coming from ahead, some distance ahead. She could hear the distant mumble of a voice and her heart began to hammer in her chest with longing. Carefully, she set down the Aldermaston’s tome and began to stalk forward, weaving through the trees carefully but quickly. Her blood throbbed in her ears. It was approaching noontide, but the day was overcast, veiling the sun.

Colvin?

She emerged form the grove and approached the oaks shielding the kitchen. The sound grew louder, an impatient grunt from an animal followed by a soothing whisper. A man’s voice. Lia’s heart beat wildly.