The Demon Awakens

CHAPTER 31 Home Again, Home Again

Over the next couple of weeks, as they marched along the trails, Avelyn showed Jill just how much he had come to trust her, for he began formally tutoring her in the ways of the stones. At first, the monk used the conventional methods, the same lessons that had been given to him in St.-Mere-Abelle. He saw at once, though, that Jill was far beyond an average beginning student, was nearly. as strong as he had been when Master Jojonah had played the out-of-body game with him that first time. Avelyn understood the source. Jill was naturally strong, but surely not as strong as he had been. But she was no beginner. That joining by means of the hematite when he had been sorely wounded had given her an understanding of accessing the powers on a level that other monks spent months, even years, trying to attain. As their friendship deepened, their trust becoming so strong, Avelyn again dared to use the hematite to instruct Jill. Not only was her gain exponential, but so was the monk's understanding of this secretive woman -- and of her dark past.
"Dundalis." The word fell from Jill's lips like the peal of a church bell, a chime that could be of celebration, of hope and the future promise of eternal life, or one that could signify death. The young woman ran a hand through her hair, which had grown thick to her shoulders again, and looked at Avelyn suspiciously. "You knew," she accused.
Avelyn shrugged, having no practical response.
"Somehow you discovered my history," the woman went on, using excitement, a sense of betrayal, to block away the more urgent feelings that were welling up inside her as she considered that long-lost name, the name of the village that had been her home and apparently the name of a new village, built on the same spot. "In Palmaris," Jill reasoned, "you spoke with Graevis!"
"Pettibwa, actually," Avelyn admitted dryly.
"You dared?"
"I had no choice," Avelyn retorted. "I am your friend."
Jill stuttered incoherently for a moment, trying to sort it all out. Avelyn had led her north of the city, along the Masur Delaval to its delta, then turning inland, heading for the wilderness. It had happened in a roundabout manner; Jill feared that she might be wandering into once-familiar territory, but really nothing had sparked recognition within her, not until the pair had ventured into a town called End-o'-the-World and had heard that name "Dundalis" spoken aloud. She wanted to lash out at Avelyn at that moment, but she could not deny his last words. Indeed the monk was her friend, among the best of friends Jill had ever known. She need only look at the gift he was giving to her with the stones to confirm that he loved her.
"You run from ghosts, my friend, my dearest Jill," Avelyn explained. "I see your pain and feel it as though it were my own. It is evident in every stride you take, in every smile you feign= yea, feign, I say, for have you really smiled, Jill? In all of your life?"
Tears welled in the young woman's shining blue eyes and she looked away.
"You have, I say!" Avelyn insisted. "Of course you have! But,. that was before the disaster, before the ghosts began to walk in your footsteps."
"Why did you bring me here?"
"Because here those ghosts have nothing to hide behind," Avelyn remarked firmly. "Here, in this new village that was once your home, you will confront those ghosts and banish them to the peace they deserve, and the peace you deserve."
It was spoken with such resolve, such strength, that Jill could no longer be angry with him. Brother Avelyn was indeed her friend, she knew, and he wanted only what was best for her, would fight and die for her sake. But still she feared that his decision was folly, based on his underestimating the pain within her. Avelyn could not truly appreciate that grief; nor could Jill, but she feared it lurked right below the surface and, if loosed, would surely consume her.
She nodded mutely, having no answers, having only fears. She walked in the back door of the tavern, then to the private room she and Avelyn had rented. She didn't know what memories the familiar name might conjure, but she wanted to be alone when she faced them.
He had been angered beyond words, had spat and kicked down the door of his room, had even broken the jaw of one woman of the night who had offered her wares. For Palmaris had deceived him as. much as his encounter with the merchant Dosey had unnerved him. Brother Justice had not gained on his intended prey -- had, in fact, lost ground, wandering aimlessly about the large city. Only chance had brought him in contact with a man named Bildeborough and a rake named Grady Chilichunk, drunkards both.
Brother Justice found their stories, sputtered for the price of a few cheap ales, quite interesting. Especially Grady's, when the man mentioned that he had seen yet another Abellican monk only a month before, talking with his mother, Pettibwa, in Fellowship Way. "How uncommon that two of you should come out together," Grady remarked, not politely. "Normally your kind are so reclusive; and what do you do to entertain yourselves within those abbey walls?"
The implications were clear, considering the man's lewd manner, and Grady and Connor shared a laugh.
Brother Justice used a fantasy of twisting the fool's head off to force a smile. The monk remained polite long enough to learn that this other Abellican monk, whom he suspected to be Brother Avelyn, had gone out to the north to the Wilderlands and the Timberlands, to a place called Weedy Meadow.
There were no merchant caravans going north from Palmaris at that time, with autumn settling thick over the land and the promise of a deep winter, but that hardly deterred the resourceful Brother Justice. He set out alone, moving swiftly, running more than walking, determined to make up the ground and be done with this business.
She remembered that long-ago morning on the tree-covered slope, looking at the sky, at the shining Halo, with its rainbow of colors, its heavenly allure. She remembered the music filling all the air. She had not been alone that morning, Jill now realized, for she had called out her discovery.
"A boy," she whispered to the empty corners of her small room. The name "Elbryan" nipped at the edges of her mind, but with it came an overwhelming sense of grief and loss: that black wall of pain that caused her to shrink away, that had made her put the glowing ember in Connor Bildeborough's face.
Jill took a deep breath and forced all the memories away. She did not sleep at all that night, but still, she was packed for the road early the next morning, leading a groggy -- and hungover -- Avelyn by the hand out of the inn, tugging him down the eastern road, toward the village known as Dundalis.
They arrived late that afternoon, the sun settling on the western horizon, the long, slanted shadows rolling out from the buildings of the new village. Jill didn't recognize the place, not at all, and she was surprised by this fact. She had held her breath along the last expanse of road before Dundalis came into sight, expecting to be overwhelmed by sudden memories. It simply didn't happen like that. This was Dundalis, built on the remains of the former Dundalis, but it resembled Weedy Meadow, End-o'-the-World, or any other frontier village as much as it resembled its namesake -- at least at first glance.
Avelyn let Jill lead him through the village, down the one main road, heading north. There was an old, broken-down fence on the northern edge of town, formerly a corral, Jill realized, and beyond it was the slope.
The slope.
"I saw the Halo from there," she remarked.
Avelyn smiled, but only briefly, remembering his most vivid encounters with the Halo, so far, far away on board a swift sailing ship on his most important and sacred mission.
"It was real," Jill whispered, more to herself than to Avelyn. She took some satisfaction in that, in knowing that the small fragment of her past life that was clear to her was indeed something real and not imagined. Looking up from the northern edge of Dundalis to the slope that separated the town from the valley of evergreens and caribou moss, to the slope that had been so important to her in her youth, Jill knew beyond any doubt that her memory of sighting the majestic Halo was indeed real. She felt it again, that tingling sensation, that removal of mortal bonds to soar into the infinite universe.
"The boy," she remarked.
"You were with someone?" Avelyn asked, trying to coax her on.
Jill nodded. "Someone dear," she replied.
The moment passed; Jill turned back toward the town. She paused before she got all the way around, though, staring hard at the old corral fence. "I used to play on that fence," she announced. "We would climb up to the top rail and bet on how long we could walk it."
We?"
"My friends," Jill said, without really thinking about her answer.
Avelyn had hoped that his latest prompt would get her to name some of those lost friends, but he wasn't too disappointed with its failure. The trip north had been a wise thing, the monk believed, for now, only a few minutes after entering Dundalis, Jill had recaptured more of her past than she had known in many years.
"Bunker Crawyer," she said suddenly, her expression turning curious.
"A friend?"
"No," Jill replied, pointing to the old fence. "It was his corral. Bunker Crawyer's corral."
Avelyn smiled widely, but hid it when Jill turned to regard him, her frustration evident. It was coming back, but painfully slowly, for now she was growing quite impatient.
"Let us go and get lodging for the night," the monk offered. "We passed an inn on our way to this place."
Avelyn knew that another memory had come over Jill, this one more powerful, as they approached the front door of the place called the Howling Sheila, a large tavern near the center of Dundalis. The woman looked not at the building, but at the ground beneath it, her expression shifting from curiosity to fear to outright horror.
She turned away, trembling, and Avelyn caught her even as she started to run. If he let her go, the monk suspected that she would run all the way back to Weedy Meadow, all the way back to End-o'-the-World, all the way back to Palmaris!
"You know this place," Avelyn said, holding her fast.
Jill's breath came in gasps; she smelled smoke, thick and black. Though she was outside, she felt as if she were suffocating, closed within a space that was too tight.
"You know!" Avelyn declared forcefully, giving her a shake.
Jill's deep breath resonated like a growl and she turned, pulling free of the monk, staring hard at the tavern, at its stone foundation. "I hid in there," she said, working hard so that her voice would not break apart. "While all the town burned down around me. While all the screams..."
Her words faded to a choking sniffle, her straightened shoulders slumped suddenly, and she would have fallen to the ground had not Avelyn held her tight.
There was no other inn in Dundalis, and besides, Avelyn had not come all this way simply to allow Jill to run again from her terrible past. He paid for a single room, for there was but one vacancy, pointedly explaining to the jolly Belster O'Comely that there was nothing romantic or lewd between him and the girl, that they were merely good friends and traveling companions. That was the first time he had ever bothered to offer such an explanation, Avelyn mused as he led Jill up the stairs from the common room to their sleeping quarters. The monk believed that they might remain in this town for some time, and since the community was so small and so closed, he felt the need to protect Jill's reputation. She would face enough trials in Dundalis, Avelyn knew, without hearing the nasty whispers of gossiping townsfolk.
Jill went right to sleep, overcome by the sheer power of the memory. Avelyn remained with her for a long while, fearing that disturbing dreams would visit her.
She slept soundly, perhaps too drained for dreams. Finally Avelyn could not ignore the commotion from the common room below any longer. Most of the village was gathered there, the monk knew, and for all of his love for Jill -- and he did indeed love the girl, as a father might love a daughter -- the battered monk had needs of his own.
He was downstairs soon enough, drinking and talking amid a huge crowd, for many of the area trappers had come in to lay in provisions in preparation of the coming winter. They were a tough bunch indeed, reclusive and opinionated, men and a few women who lived by their weapons and their cunning, and Avelyn was soon enough arguing with one rake that a town whose history was as dark as that of Dundalis should be better prepared to face the danger.
When the trapper scoffed that the most dangerous thing in the area was the occasional hungry raccoon, Brother Avelyn promptly put his fist in the man's face.
The monk was alone with Belster O'Comely in the common room when he woke up, a slab of steak positioned over one eye.
"Ho, ho, what?" he asked the innkeeper. "Best training the folk around here have seen in years!"
Belster gave a laugh. The folk of Dundalis were, a hardy bunch, not shying from the occasional fight. In a weird way, Avelyn -- who had fought well, though he hardly remembered it had earned a bit of respect that night, though most of the men and women who had been in the common room thought him mad.
Belster presented him with a piece of paper, a bill. "They decided that you would pay for the last round of drinks," the innkeeper remarked.
"Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn howled, and he was smiling wide as he turned over the pieces of silver.
That jolly smile turned to one of warmth as the monk entered his rented room to find Jill curled up about her pillow, seeming like such a little lost girl. Avelyn knelt by her bed and stroked her thick golden hair, then kissed her on the cheek.