“I know little of the Quiet, Master,” said Dominic.
“That may be just as well under the circumstances.”
“I was too young in my novice days to have anything to do with the Cyst and the Blessing.”
“Just as well.”
“But wasn’t Quiet Testiyont a holy man of great wisdom?”
“Whatever Testiyont was at his beginnings, he was not a man at his ends. He became one of those enigmas that the church can never resolve.”
“Forgive me, but I thought anchorites held a profound and respected position in th—”
“Testiyont was not an anchorite,” interrupted the old monk. “The Quiet was an Oracle.”
In the far distance, layers of clouds parted, allowing beams of moving light to paint the sea and giving the whole landscape a framed sense of well-being, which was in stark opposition to the darkening tone of the conversation. The monks were walking more slowly now, caught between the momentum of departure and the velocity of arrival. The inertia rode where bones become heavier and distance seems interminable.
“Foreseeing future events is but a small part of an Oracle’s talents,” Benedict continued. “Those that the mother church finds for us, and installs within our walls, have a much greater duty. And I believe we are in peril all this time without one.”
Dominic was frowning deeply and looking hard at the stony ground as he tried to digest what he was being told.
“But you were there when we were told of his instant demise.”
“A great sadness,” said Benedict before continuing. “But there was also something very wrong about the Testiyont’s end. It was all far too sudden. I have found many testimonies in my research that tell how long it takes for such a blessed being to die, and there is a pattern in their departure, a layering in their passage from this world into the next—and that was not so here. The abbot suddenly announced the Blessing’s death, rather than its disincorporation, and then quickly took the remains away to be buried elsewhere.”
The old monk looked out from his words, deep into the perspective of the land. Dominic followed his gaze.
“Then was it his ghost I heard in the courtyard? Did his ghost want to steal my voice?”
“Others have heard things near that spot. Something is trying to communicate with us. That is the reason I insisted on having the writing material installed near the Cyst, even after he had apparently gone. And that is why my inquiries into the meaning and purpose of his kind were defiled by the abbot.”
Dominic’s face reflected a blank amazement that might easily swallow either incongruity or laughter as possible poles of respite. His master saw his struggle, and Benedict continued before any such churlish choice could be made.
“I believe the abbot wants knowledge for himself alone, even at the price of subverting an Oracle’s purpose with us.”
“With us?”
“Under our care and protection. There has been an Oracle in our abbey for hundreds of years. The Quiet was one of a long chain, and the absence of one is beginning to affect the world outside. My studies have shown that there has never been so long a gap in the presence of a Blessed One. I think this void has weakened our resolve and the holy continuity of the world.”
“Is that why the Woebegots have arrived?” asked Dominic, with a quiver of excitement at his own wisdom.
“Yes, I believe so. They are a symptom of the collapse of balance and of what will occur beyond the Eastern Gate if the matter is not rectified.”
“But isn’t the Oracle’s purpose to foresee the future and warn us of any change in the Gland of Mercy?”
“That is the stated function, but I believe it goes much deeper. My studies leaned toward a suggestion of control. The books were trying to tell me that the Oracles in the abbey’s eastern wall had direct communication with the Gland. And that they controlled, steered, or adjusted its function in a way I do not yet understand.”
“Then it is a serious matter to find a replacement?”
“Yes, indeed! You are beginning to understand! There should have never been a gap between the demise of one and the arrival of its replacement. At the very first symptom of the Oracle’s wearing out, a message should have been sent to find and prepare its successor. But I don’t think that happened until it was too late. And this disaster is happening because the last days and powers of the Testiyont were being used and abused for another purpose, after it was supposedly dead.”
“And you think the abbot did that?”
“It does not matter what I think. No one will listen to me.”
Dominic looked into the eyes of the accuser in despair. And then he asked feebly, “But there will be another Oracle coming to take up its sacred post?”
“When they find it, and if they have been told of the demise of the last.”
The old monk saw the horror growing in his companion’s eyes and changed his tack. “No doubt the church beyond the Inquisition has been scouring the land.”
“But what will happen if they can’t find one?” There was a noticeable tremor in Dominic’s question.
“There have been Oracles since the beginning of civilized time, and the church has always found them. Every known language tells of them, and some still exist today. But do not imagine a sacred man in a cave or a grove of trees, who recites the whispering of the angels in order to guide man in his capricious future. Rather, see a caged travesty of humanity warped into mania by drugs and potions, or twisted by the fumes of the earth into rages of meaningless screaming.
“The ancient and revered scholars tell us of such creatures, and the priests who maintained and translated their ravings generally did it for their own advancement. But they also indicate that some Oracles may not have been of human origin at all.”
“Monsters, demons!” exclaimed Dominic, no longer seeming confused.
“Possibly yes, or something else we do not recognize or have a name for.”
“Like that thing that grabbed your hand?”
“No, not like that,” snarled the old man, which for once did not deter the young monk’s enthusiasm.
“Then the church must cast them out, not encourage their voices.”
“The church is clear in this matter: such things will not be tolerated. But it must understand them first, draw intelligence about their meaning before destroying them. The Testiyont was not the only such manifestation to be taken into the Holy See; it’s been happening elsewhere since Byzantium.”
Dominic was silent again and allowed his focus outside their exchange. More clouds had been shredded by the winds, and vivid sunlight flooded the plains, illuminating Das Kagel in a purity it had never possessed. The light gave them momentum. Dominic tapped the stones of the path ahead with his staff as if sounding for snakes, but really he was killing time while the old man straightened his bones and groaned encouragement into his aching joints. A mile passed before they spoke again.
“Have you heard of the Sortes Astrampsychi?”
Dominic looked hard into Benedict’s face.
“I thought not,” the old man said wearily. “It’s an ancient document that gives a key to the understanding and practice of Oracles. It even developed the sacrilegious idea that any man may possess the powers of divination. It is one of the long-suppressed truths I discovered in my studies. What do you think the church would do about such inflammatory doctrines?”
After a moment during which all the heavens waited, Dominic said, “Burn it!”
The clouds shriveled from the old man’s vehemence and allowed the sun to wince at his scorn.
“Idiot boy! You should join the Inquisition. No, they did not burn it. They made it their own—their recognition of it became the Sortes Sangallenses, and then the Sortes Sanctorum. Thus a dubious pagan superstition became sacred texts.”
Dominic could see the fierceness in the old man’s discovery, but he could not grasp the contours of its meaning. He also noticed that Benedict’s deformed lip had caught, snagged on his long teeth and strange-shaped gums. This sometimes happened when he shouted or became enraged. The poor old monk had to pull his lip back into place with his fingers before he could continue speaking. This he now did, maiming some of the anxious words in the process.
“Thef churf absorbed oracular beings and the mongers who translated their dribble as a means of control. By making their power its own, the church is able to digest the bones of its dogma until there is nothing left of the original menace. But not all princes of the church think this way. Some would prefer the sanctity of the church to be influenced by such ideas. I found this in the pages of books in our own library while seeking a very different enlightenment. It came out of the pages without my will guiding it. That is why Abbot Clementine now wants to keep me away from further reading and concealed knowledge. He despises me for an erudition that he will never have.”
At the thought of this, the old man looked around as if to make sure that they were still alone.
“Then the abbot must have his own purpose with those books,” offered Dominic.
“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings! More than you know or could guess, child. If we take the lesson learned from seeing those paintings and your own witnessing him naked in the Glandula Misericordia, then we have two lenses to examine his purpose with those specific books and my belief that he interrogated the Quiet before its death. It makes me fear for the safe sanctity and installation of the new Oracle.”
“What did the painting tell you about the abbot’s presence in the Gland?”
“The painting of Saint Anthony showed me that the inner core of its meaning was not its subject. The saint is in a calm meditation, and all the elements of the world around him are at peace or are becoming peaceful. Even the minor demons seem casual and indifferent. If you see only that, then you see only the surface depiction. Once you see that sable flame, you understand that its purpose, its driving force, is about annihilation held in abeyance.”
Benedict was becoming excited. His hand was to his mouth, holding his lip aside, so he could speak more clearly.
“What do you think a mortal could learn or would see in the Glandula Misericordia?”
“Death, the triumph over death.”
“Yes, of course, but that is only its subject. What is its force, its authority?”
Before Dominic could even gather up Benedict’s casting of his revelation, the old man answered his own question.
“Its continuum, the perpetual that is its core—that is what Clementine has been seeking. Satan’s greatest lure: immortality. Abbot Clementine wants to be immortal—and I fear that he will use the new Oracle for his own wicked longing.”
“Are you saying Abbot Clementine is committing a grievous sin?” asked Dominic, a sad incongruity in his voice.
“It’s not for me to make such an accusation. These are dark, deep, fast-flowing waters. Think what the Inquisition would make of such indictments. Their wrath would not only focus on Clementine, but also on me. The entire monastery would fall under their pitiless investigation and judgment.”
Dominic cringed from the old man’s revelation. All this deep thinking and worldly threat scared him more than phantoms in the woods, or in those paintings, because he had seen the actual spilling of blood in its name. He also realized that he had unwittingly become part of a darkening turmoil from which there might be no escape. He turned to confront Benedict, but he was gone, scrabbling in his rucksack. He came out with a notebook, and with great excitement he ruffled through the pages and stared at the one he was seeking. He clapped his hand hard against his forehead, exclaiming, “You fool! You fool!”
He waved the book before the boy’s eyes. “Cano, cano! It’s not a dog—not canis. Do you remember what you wrote on that wall? What the voice said to you at the Cyst?”
Again the old man did not wait for a slow-witted answer.
“It’s not a dog. It’s a song and a command!”
Dominic had no idea what he was talking about. His master was becoming intoxicated, his previous mood of despair transformed into elation.
“See here, it’s ‘Advenio, cano, obsecro te, salva me’—not what I thought I read before. It’s a command from the new Oracle, not the old one. It is asking you to help, to save it!”
“But, Master, I never wrote that. I do not have the language. I don’t know what it means.”
“It is asking you…No!
“It is asking me to save it. The message was for me!
“We must get back now, before it is too late.”