Andric a'Geldin - Entry 1

The night had been cold, and in this Spirit Moon season the early morning sun did little to warm the deep forest. Andric shivered, and stopped for a moment to close up his heavy cloak before continuing down the road.

The little girl had cried out when he'd pulled the curved knife from his belt. He hadn't expected her even to see him; she was deep in the hold of the fever, and she hadn't even opened her eyes when he'd examined her to be certain it was a natural sickness that had taken her. But, when he had drawn his dagger, she had shrieked and pushed herself away from him, cowering in the corner of the small hut.

"Hush, little one," he had said, "this blade is not for you." He held out his hand toward her, and then brought the knife up, slowly and carefully cutting his index finger. "I am here to heal your illness," he said.

The girl's eyes had still held much fear, but her body had relaxed slightly, and she had not backed away when he'd stepped toward her. Wordlessly, he had touched her forehead with his bloody fingertip, scribing Geldenier's holy symbol in his blood upon her skin. His other hand touched the girl's arm, and the scars on her skin had flared and then faded away.

Andric breathed deeply, the chill air filling his lungs. It had felt good to heal the girl, the power of the goddess flowing through his body and into hers. When Mother Alayda had sent him out into the world, he had begun to question his role as a priest, to wonder if maybe there wasn't something else he should be doing in the world, but out here on the road he had felt the good that he could do, and so now, he returned to the monastery to continue his training.

He smelled the smoke before he saw it, an acrid tang on the breeze. For a moment, he puzzled over the odor, but then through the trees he caught a glance of the black column reaching skyward, and his confusion turned to dread. He sprinted forward, coming around the bend in the road to the edge of the monastery's lands. The large wooden gates, the ones he had never seen closed nor barred, had been badly damaged; one hung askew from a single hinge, and the other lay flat in the mud a few paces beyond the gateway. Andric slowed his approach, carefully stepping through the ruined portal.

While the gates still stood, little enough did. It seemed that whoever had done this had taken the time to come back in when the flames had died down to demolish with force what walls had not been destroyed by the fire. There were only a few places in the monastery where one stone even stood atop another.

Andric walked forward, onto the rubble that lay where the main chapel had been. Blackened, charred corpses lay amidst the wreckage; apparently, they had burned with the chapel. Rage rose up within Andric as he walked among the bodies of those he had served with.

He approached the raised dias where the altar had once stood. There, among the shards of colored glass, lay the body of Mother Alayda, the scimitar that was the symbol of her holy office lying on the ground beside her hand. Andric knelt, pulling the blade from his belt and pressing it first to his palm, and then to the wrist of her corpse. Little blood still remained in the body of the Mother, but he pressed his hand to the wound he had made, and then turned the arm so that his blood and hers flowed onto the ground. Tears welling in his eyes, he recited the last rites, as what blood still remained in Mother Alayda's corpse returned to the earth.

When the rite was done, Andric bandaged the wound he had made on his palm, and then reached down to grasp the hilt of the holy scimitar. It was still hot from the fire; the sword burned in his hand, but he did not loosen his grip even as smoke curled up from his closed fist. He concentrated on his hand, channeled the love of Geldenier into it, so that his flesh healed even as it burned.

The little girl's uncle had cried out, too, calling to the dark god he'd secretly worshiped as Geldenier's anger rent his flesh and spilled his blood onto the ground. That, too, had felt good.