Fiat Lux: Part I

"When fear cometh as a storm."
Proverbs 1:27

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"Three times, Ian Blackthorn"
"Three times... "

"Having traveled most of the day, I came to a place of refuge by God's good mercies just at nightfall. Although there was a fire lit and the windows and door open to the air, I found no one about, and decided my benefactor must have left in a rush to hunt or on some urgent errand, and so settled myself in to wait for his return. To my shame, Father Master, I failed in my vigil and fell asleep, and woke this morn to find myself still alone (if one does not count the mule). After saying Matins and eating a meal of porridge and journey cake from mine host's supplies, I have done as you asked me and made the first of what I hope are many entries to this journal of my time outside St. Cmry's Monastery, and will see if I may find the owner of this cabin and offer him recompense for my room and meal."

With that, Brother Llwyd blew softly over the parchment until the ink had dried and then placed it reverently away in the small wooden desk stand the other monks had presented to him just two days before. Just two days! It seemed a lifetime ago! Llwyd had been a foundling, left at the monastery gate, living his whole life within its cloistered walls. Nothing had prepared him to be the eyes of the Order in his mission to investigate the state of the kingdom after the Orc Wars. And nothing had prepared him for this freedom.

Looking back over his shoulder at the cabin, he frowned. An innocent he might be, but even a monk had enough common sense to realize there was something wrong here. Where had the people gone who had lit the fire? Why were the windows open, the door flung wide? An overwhelming sense of dread filled him and he turned his head quickly away to let the view before him calm his soul. The mountains of Northern Wales stretched out before him, and Llwyd silently gave praise for the beauty God had created. He sat on a boulder near the edge of a deep cliff, sunlight and wind wrapping about him in the morning, and smiled as a bird suddenly floated up from the crevasse to hover a few yards from the edge. Then another joined it... and another... and another... :corbies! His heart caught in his throat as he looked at the carrion eaters.

As if in a dream his legs propelled him slowly to look over and down to where the birds had come from. Perhaps 50 yards down the face of the cliff was a jagged outcrop, and the birds were swarming all over something Llwyd could not make out. He kicked some pebbles over the side, the flock scattered, and then the monk gasped in shock. There on the ledge, dressed in leather and mail and with limbs broken and entangled, lay two women.

Two dead women.

There was a sudden gust of wind behind him, Llwyd felt himself pitch forwards, and then all went black.