Abbot Clementine was at the gate with Friar Cecil, whom he had demanded go fetch a blanket. The abbot had been horrified by what was occurring on their doorstep and by the dreadful jeopardy the Blessing had been put in, but he was even more horrified by the apparition now walking toward him. The new Oracle, the one alleged to have the greatest powers, was being carried in the arms of the last person in the world he ever wanted it to meet.
Brother Benedict had snatched the Blessing from under the hooves of the maddened horses and the pumping blood of the madmen. He approached the monastery with the Oracle clasped tight to his bosom, like a child, and both were singing in a quiet unified hum that had no words. Clementine stood speechless in the gateway, with no idea of what had just occurred. All his arrangements had worked perfectly until this last moment, when, for no apparent reason, the mercenaries who had brought the Oracle so far turned and butchered one another within a few feet of the journey’s conclusion and the abbey’s doors. The sack holding their money hung limp in Clementine’s hand. Dominic followed his master and the prize, striding into the Monastery of the Eastern Gate. Neither of them looked at, or acknowledged, the man who had been its abbot.
Some of the brothers even applauded, and Benedict held back a smile, conscious of the sin of pride and the sin of triumphant wrath, which followed in his wake and nearly drowned the Father Superior. But mainly he didn’t smile because his mouth couldn’t do it.
Benedict took the Blessing to the warm kitchen, the place farthest from the abbot’s dwellings. There he, Dominic, and Friar Ludo washed the filth of the horse and the cobbles and the blood of the savage horsemen off its peculiar body. Then they wrapped it in soft linen and placed it in a basket in a quiet cell; Benedict alone held the cell’s key. Then both travelers bathed and slept, leaving strict instructions to be awakened immediately if there were any “difficulties.”
The next morning they prepared the hole in the wall and lined it with straw. A quantity of stone, plaster, and lime stood nearby. Dominic, sleeves rolled up, was ready to help the mason. Benedict pulled him away and told him to inform the abbot, who had been conspicuously absent, that in an hour’s time they would be ready for the ceremony of internment.
Dominic returned looking puzzled.
“The abbot said to do nothing until he arrives.”
Benedict shook his head and snarled. It was raining outside, so they placed the Oracle into a comfortably lined and lidded wicker basket. Dominic was given the honor of carrying it out to the hole in the cloister wall, which he did with great solemnity. Five monks were already there, chanting softly.
The basket shuddered in Dominic’s firm grip as the Oracle started to speak, repeating the same two words over and over again: “Sing cano sing cano sing cano sing…”
Dominic looked at his master.
“It’s what you said: cano, sing. It is asking us to sing,” he said.
And so they did, joining the incantation. The rain was falling gently through the bright sunlight, and far off to the south, a rainbow was forming over the sea. Everything had a clear and optimistic atmosphere until Abbot Clementine arrived with Friar Cecil. The abbot went straight to Dominic, seizing the basket from him with all his might. Benedict stepped forward and was quickly blocked by Friar Cecil.
The abbot turned away from the congregation and the Cyst and walked swiftly back the way he had come.
Benedict hobbled after him, shouting, “Where are you taking the Blessing? All is prepared for its entombment in the wall.”
The abbot faltered and shouted back, “I must examine it and perform certain rituals before it enters the Cyst.”
“What rituals?” demanded Benedict.
“None of your business; you would not understand,” snarled the Abbot.
“The Orphic Separation?”
The old monk’s quietly spoken words made the abbot falter and seethe. “You know nothing of such things. I command you to stay away and to keep your tongue.”
Abbot Clementine gripped the basket tighter and spun around to go through the door. Instantly a shrill, warbling cry corkscrewed out and was answered by another somewhere inside the monastery; the pitch made Clementine shudder. The Oracle then nudged hard at the wickerwork lid, pushing it up into the abbot’s face, where it scratched the underside of his nose and drew blood.
The basket started to fall away and the creature squirmed as if in anticipation of escape, but Clementine’s strong hands grabbed it ferociously, without any sign of care or compassion. He held the Oracle at arm’s length and refused to look into its squawking, spitting eyes. He kicked the fallen basket aside and walked stiffly into the building. The Oracle tried to squirm out of the abbot’s large, powerful hands, but it did not have the strength. It suddenly went limp in the painful vicelike hold, shrinking into inertia as its captor charged through the cloister and entered the corridor leading to his spiral stair, with Benedict calling out and Dominic and Ludo in pursuit.
“You must stop this. It is a sacrilege and a mortal sin.”
Abbot Clementine said nothing, his voice locked behind clenched teeth. He was breathing harshly, and his muscles had knotted like those of a man in battle. He was implacable, ruthless, and strong. He spun into the tower and took the first three steps of the spiral stair, almost running.
A screaming, hissing growl occupied the tower, its unearthly resonance amplified by the sympathetic acoustics. Clementine stopped with a lurch, his eyes wide, staring at where the steps above him disappeared into the spiral’s curve. There on the uppermost step was the mongoose Filthling, but it was not the impudent and mischievous creature he had met before. It had grown to twice its previous size, its back was arched, and its eyes were crimson. Its wide-open mouth—the maw that spat the hissing scream—was jeweled with long, fanglike incisors and rows of dagger teeth. The fingers of the yellow humanlike hands had peeled back to reveal curved black talons, razor claws.
This was neither the jovial nor the eerie prankster that had shouted here before. This creature was ferocious and fearless, a killer of cobras. Its hatred for the man shone through every inch of its bristling body. Clementine knew all this instantly: it was a sixth of his size, but without weapons or protective armor, he was no match for the speed and absolute determination of its impending attack. Its vicious, unblinking eyes were focused on his face and throat. There was only one thing to do.
Slowly and with great care, he held the Oracle up between himself and the predator and retreated, walking backward down the tight curve.
The three outraged monks were waiting at the base of the tower, blocking his retreat into the rest of the abbey. On the last step, he turned to face them, not wanting to look up and see if that creature had followed him.
“Give the Blessing to me,” demanded Benedict, and the moment the words were in the air, the Oracle started to come out of its torpor.
With tears in his eyes, the abbot shook the Oracle in the old monk’s face. “I need to have time alone with this—a few days, a week at the most.”
The anger of defeat possessed the man, and all who saw it knew it would lead to a dangerous and violent conclusion.
“That’s all I will take,” he said, and it no longer sounded like an explanation or a plea.
Then the Oracle sang a weak tune: “But you already have it. What you have been seeking awaits you.”
Sudden knocking came from the door behind the abbot, the door he had made that led to the fields of the Gland. Everybody trembled. The knocking came again. They could hear Dominic’s teeth chattering.
Ludo said, “Something is trying to get in.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Benedict.
“It is the Quiet Testiyont. He has been guarding it for you. Your achievement awaits for eternity,” pronounced the Oracle as the knocking increased.
“The Quiet told me that you would bring the gift and that my fortitude would be so rewarded,” said the abbot, his voice elated.
He then gave the Oracle up to Benedict’s gnarled hands and, looking him straight in the eyes, asked, “It is achieved?”
The old man crossed himself and gently replied, “Yes, my son.”
The next knock broke the spell, and Abbot Clementine fumbled about his neck, pulling out a key on a long cord. He rushed to the door, undid its lock, and, opening the door, fell laughing into the dismal field beyond.
The monks tried to look out, but the door slammed in their faces, its lock turning like breaking teeth.
“You know your next task?” questioned the Oracle, and Benedict nodded and gave the bruised fragile body to Friar Ludo.
“Soothe the Blessing so that it may be taken to its new home.”
Friar Ludo took his precious cargo and hurried back the way he had come. Benedict made his way to the nearest stone bench in the cloister. The sun was casting even shadows between the low arches.
“I am getting too old for so much work. Will you help me?” He reached out and patted his acolyte’s hand.
“Yes, of course, Master.”
The old monk had never spoken to him like this before, and Dominic felt the change deep in his heart.
“Please give my respects to Friar Cecil, the abbey’s mason, and the blacksmith, and ask them to come to me. We must seal this door and the iron gate. I will be in the library; I have so much work to do.”
With caution, Dominic asked, “What work, Master?”
“I…I have to find the correct words to ask Rome and Toledo for a new edict about the Glandula Misericordia. I have to find the perfect reason and the perfect words to ask that entrance to the Gland be forbidden and that it remains sealed forever—without arousing inquiry, doubt, or suspicion.”
They sat in the warm silence for a long time.
Then the old man said, “I know you have many questions, but I must ask you to forget all that happened today and never to speak of it again. Abbot Clementine achieved his wicked ambition, and if that were known outside these walls, the consequences would be catastrophic.”
“Are we sealing the gates so that he does not come back?”
“No, my son, we are closing that horrifying place so that no one will ever see or find him in there.”
“But I saw him in there many years ago.”
“You have seen many things, Dominic. I believe you are blessed with extra sight. But you did not see the abbot as he is now, and I hope in God’s name that no one ever will.”
He looked at the puzzled boy and put a hand on his shoulder.
“I can’t even imagine what such a tortured soul would look like: A living man set amid that active vision and the enactment of carnage and terror for eternity. In there alone now, without the wraith of the sacred Testiyont that he so sinfully buried secretly in those grounds. He cannot join in with the slaughter and the perpetual rage. He cannot transform into some other being. Nothing in there can see him, but he has to watch, taste, and hear it all forever. He will not even be allowed boredom, because each new day it will begin again as if he had never been there before. He received exactly what he asked for. I can’t imagine what he looks like now, let alone in a million years’ time, and neither should you.”
Unexpectedly, the old man half chortled, “Even Jerome of Bosch could not picture that.”