Abhorrent Practices - Book 2

Chapter 11 - The Lord High Abbot

The Venerable Father Emryn, Lord High Abbot of the Order of Charon, clenched his teeth as the pain shot up his right arm, twisted into his shoulder and stabbed outwards across his upper back. It was his own fault, he reflected ruefully. In trying to put his book down on the couch beside him, he'd reached far too quickly. He cursed at the author, Crowlor, a little-read Turlish historian who'd died almost two hundred years before.

Rising slowly, he rotated his arm, wincing as the pain gave way to a dull, familiar ache. It was getting worse. Every day, it seemed, it took less to trigger an attack; and every time he did, the pain was more severe. It wouldn't be long before he lost the use of the arm completely. The progressive paralysis was less advanced in his other limbs, but already it was making it increasingly difficult to do the simplest of things.

He hobbled the four steps to the small hessian bag which he'd placed on the stone balustrade surrounding the balcony of his private chambers. The balcony jutted out from high in one of the Grand Abbey's seven towers, affording panoramic views across the sea far below. For the hundredth time, he counted the thin, red pillars of rock jutting above the surface. There were more every day, a sure sign that the sea level was falling rapidly now, and that the Wet Season was almost over.

Attracted by the sound of his master's hand dipping into the hessian bag and scratching among the seeds inside, his pet driblet Denbory hopped around his feet, pausing only to press himself up against the pontiff's legs. The size of a small cat, the driblet shook its leathery wings and cawed, a jagged sound like the creaking of an old door. With his left hand, the Venerable Father drew a fistful of millet and thistle seed from the bag.

"Patience, Denbory," he said. "I haven't forgotten you."

He scattered the seed on the floor of the balcony and the driblet was on it in a second. Hopping away from his benefactor's legs, the six finger-like probes at the end of its tongue scrabbled greedily among the grains, sucking them up and pulling them into the creature's mouth.

"Cupboard love," said a voice behind them.

Father Spruh, the Grand Abbey's Lord Infirmerer, stood in the doorway, waiting for the Lord High Abbot's permission to enter his chambers. In his arms, he clutched his medical bag against his chest. The Venerable Father frowned. He hadn't heard Spruh approach and that concerned him. Usually he could hear the old man panting on the stairs long before he reached his quarters. He wondered if his hearing was going to fail him too.

"I fear you may be right," sighed Emryn, beckoning to his old friend to join him. Spruh had been an Infirmerer at the Abbey on Mura, when Emryn been made Senior Abbot there. That had been more than ten years ago.

The old man shuffled out onto the balcony, taking care not to step on the driblet as it hopped bird-like among the seed.

"It's time for your treatment, Venerable Father." Despite being some twenty-five years his senior, Spruh was far too much of a traditionalist ever to address his friend by anything other than his official title.

Father Emryn eased himself back onto the couch. A deep purple velvet, embroidered with the crests of the Order of Charon's first seven pontiffs, he'd had it moved out of the bed-chamber and onto the balcony when his illness had first been diagnosed, just six months earlier. Fresh air would be good for him, the physicians had said. He wasn't sure how "good" was supposed to be measured. He would still lose the use of his limbs, and he was still going to die.

"I swear you're no better than Denbory," he grumbled. "What are you doing with all this blood you keep taking, anyway?"

"I sell it," replied Spruh dryly. "The blood of a Lord High Abbot fetches a good price in the markets of Durhoun. Two more pints, and we'll have made enough money to repair the South Cloisters."