least let us keep the stone. Ye got to at least let us try.'
De'Unnero narrowed his gaze. 'Try, then,' he said, and he looked to another nearby fellow, one obviously quite sick with the plague. 'Go and fetch… what was the name? '
'Prissy,' Merry answered. 'Prissy Collier.'
'Be quick!' De'Unnero snapped, and the man ran off.
He returned a few moments later, bearing a small girl, two or three years old. Gently he laid her on the ground near Merry, and then, on De'Unnero's wave, he backed off.
'She's near to passin',' Merry remarked.
'Then save her,' De'Unnero said to her. 'You have the soul stone, so invoke the name and power of God and rid her of the plague.'
Merry looked at him incredulously.
'Now!' the monk roared at her.
Merry looked all around, very conscious of the growing audience, the many sick folk looking on from a distance and the many monks now lining the abbey's parapet and front gate tower.
'Now,' De'Unnero said again. 'You desire a miracle, so pray for one.'
'I'm just a washerwoman, a poor-'
'Then give me the stone,' De'Unnero said, holding forth his hand once more.
Merry reached into her pocket and did indeed bring forth the stone, but she didn't give it to De'Unnero. She clutched it close to her bosom and fell to her knees beside poor, sick Prissy. And then she began to pray, with all her heart and soul. She invoked every prayer she had learned as a child, and made up many more, words torn from her heart. She kissed the soul stone repeatedly, then pressed it to Prissy's forehead and begged for God to let her and the girl join, as she had done with Abbess Delenia.
Merry prayed all through the rest of the day and long into the night. Tirelessly she knelt and she prayed, and tirelessly did De'Unnero stand over her, watching her, judging her.
The dawn broke and Merry, her voice all but gone now, begging more than praying, still cried out for a miracle that seemed as if it would not come.
Prissy Collier died that morning, with Merry sobbing over her. After a long while, De'Unnero calmly reached down and helped the woman up.
'The soul stone,' he said, holding forth his hand.
Merry Cowsenfed seemed a broken woman, her face puffy and blotchy, streaked with tears. Her whole body trembled; her knees seemed as if they would buckle at any moment.
But then she straightened and squared her sagging shoulders. 'No, ye canno' take it from us,' she said.
De'Unnero tilted his head in disbelief and a wry smile came over him.
'It did no' work with Prissy, but it will,' Merry insisted. 'It has to work, for it's all we got.' As she finished, she felt the sudden, burning explosion as De'Unnero's tiger paw swiped across her face, tearing the flesh. She felt the sharp tug on her arm next, saw her hand fly out and fly open.
Then she was falling, falling, and so slowly, it seemed!
The last thing Merry Cowsenfed saw on the field outside St. Gwendolyn was Marcalo De'Unnero's back as the monk callously walked away.
Chapter 20
Down south, it was still autumn, but up here, in Alpinador and on the slopes of a steep mountain, winter had set in.
The stinging winds and snow hardly seemed to bother Andacanavar as he led Bruinhelde and Midalis. The ranger walked lightly, despite his years, despite the storm, as if he were more spirit than corporeal, as if he had somehow found a complete unity and harmony with naturesomething made even more painfully obvious to poor Prince Midalis, trudging on, plowing through the snow up to his knees.
Bruinhelde's steps were even more strained, for the barbarian leader had not fully healed, and never would, the embedded arrowhead grinding painfully against his hipbone. Still, he had no trouble pacing Midalis, who was not used to such climbs nor such heights, for they were nearly two miles higher than Pireth Vanguard now, approaching the cave of the snowcrawler, the spirit shaggoth.
Finally, Andacanavar stopped and shielded his eyes with his hand, pointing to a windblown, rocky spur up ahead. 'The opening,' he announced.
Midalis came up beside the ranger, staring hard, but he could not make out any opening in the snow and rocks.
'It is there,' Andacanavar assured him, seeing his doubtful expression.
'The home of the spirit shaggoth?'
The ranger nodded.
'How do you know? ' the Prince asked.
'Andacanavar has walked this range for many years,' Bruinhelde put in, catching up to them.
'But how do you know that the beast is still alive? ' Prince Midalis asked. 'How many years have passed since you have seen the creature? '
'As long as men are alive, the spirit shaggoth is alive,' the ranger answered confidently. 'With haste, now,' he said, starting away, 'before the night catches us on the open face.'
There was indeed a cave entrance up ahead, though Midalis was practically on top of it before he even discerned it. Andacanavar led the way in, and they had to crawl beneath the low-hanging rock ceiling for some distance, along a dark, winding corridor-something that didn't bring much comfort to the Prince, with a legendary monster supposedly residing just within!
They came into a chamber, dimly lit by daylight creeping in through a small opening where the overhanging rock of the western wall overlapped a bit but did not join with the western edge of the floor. It was a small room, barely large enough for the three to get apart without bumping elbows, with only two exits: the one they had crawled through and another tight tunnel across the way, this one ascending at a steep angle.
Andacanavar methodically went about his preparations, building a small fire near that tunnel. He produced a hunk of venison, a thick and juicy steak, and set it on a spit above the fire, then sat back, fanning the smoke, letting the aroma of cooking meat drift up the natural chimney.
'Whetting his appetite,' the ranger explained with a wink.
From his large pack, the ranger then brought forth the items the pair would need: two pairs of iron spurs, which angled downward rather than backward; a palm-sized ornate item of flint and steel; a metal pole tipped on both sides by lengths of chain; a pair of javelins, specially crafted to hook to the free end of each chain; and finally, reverently, a disc-shaped object wrapped in deerskin. The ranger put this on the ground before the three of them and spoke several prayers in his own tongue as he gently unfolded each layer of leather.
Prince Midalis stared at the revealed item curiously, at the beauty of the thing in light of the knowledge that it had been crafted by the fierce Alpinadorans. It was a burnished wooden hoop, holding within it what seemed like a spiderweb set with dozens and dozens of crystals, or diamonds, perhaps. In the very center, and suspended back from the web, was a single candle.
'What is it? ' he dared to ask.
'Your only hope of getting out of there alive,' the ranger answered with a wry grin. He lifted the hoop and the flint and steel, and with a flick of his fingers, created a spark that ignited the candle. Then he turned to face the other two, with the candle flame pointing toward him.
Slowly, Andacanavar moved the hoop, left and right. The crystals caught the candle's flame and reflected it and brightened it and bent it into different colors so that Bruinhelde and Midalis felt as if they were sitting in the middle of a brilliant rainbow.
'Behold Towalloko,' the ranger said, and quiedy, so that his voice did not break the mounting trance, 'the bringer of dreams.'
