The Lost Abbey: A Banished of Muirwood Prequel Read online

  Maia pulled her hand back. Perhaps that was how they all had failed. Perhaps fear at seeing the failure of others had poisoned their resolve to summon the voices of the dead. There were other bodies, some decayed to the point of being smudges on the slick stone floor. As she stood, she felt the weight of the sopping cloak and the heaviness of her wet dress. Without looking back at the doors, she walked through the mist and felt it caress her cheeks. She wiped wet hair from her face. The mist thinned just enough for her to see the edge of a stone outcropping, barely wide enough for her boots. Peering off the edge, she saw a swirling whirlpool fed by three or four waterfalls. The ledge wrapped its way across the outer edge of the cavern, descending slowly. The sight of the whirlpool scudded through her senses. She bit her lip. The whorl of the kystrel—a similitude.

  Inching along, she crossed the platform, hugging the wall with her body. The lip of rock was treacherous, but she calmed herself with the thought that it had been no easier to climb down the rope ladder into the dinghy several days before. Shuffle, step, shuffle, step. It felt like hours, though it did not take that long before the path widened suddenly and opened to a small landing. Strange purple lichen covered the rocks in a mesh, but as she stepped on it, the stones below the lichen glowed with green light. The landing opened at the base of the waterfalls and along the shore of the seething underground lake. A single Leering rose from the edge of the water, its features startlingly clear and burning with magic. Two entwining serpents.

  Her boots crunched in the sand as she approached it. A thrill of hope clashed with a sense of doom. The whispers of the Medium confirmed her assumption as she wiped her mouth and reached for the stone.

  This was the oracle she sought. This was the place she could commune with the dead. The dark pool.

  Maia sighed and then stepped back from the stone. She knelt in the sand and pulled the pack off her shoulders. For a moment, she listened to the roar of the waves and then quickly went to work. From the pack, she withdrew a small bundle wrapped in cloth and secured with a leather thong. Inside were twelve flat stones, each one chipped and marked with the proper runes she had learned from the tome of the Dochte Mandar. She knew the order readily, having memorized it. But the difficult part lay ahead. Would she be able to communicate with the spirit? Maia was good with languages. She had studied them all her life. First as a princess, knowing that she would marry a foreign prince and be expected to know his tongue. But after her father had disinherited her, she had continued with her studies as a way of escaping the pain of his betrayal. The irony of it still sent pangs through her. Her father had exiled the Dochte Mandar during his attempt to disannul his marriage. Now he needed their language to save his kingdom. And only his firstborn, his daughter, was skilled enough in languages to attempt the effort. Bitterness welled inside her. She thrust it down.

  Setting the stones in the proper order around her, she looked at the circle they formed. They would protect her from the dead. With one hand, she pulled the cowl from her head. Water dripped from the tip of her nose. Fear seeped into her bones. She tried to speak, but could not.

  She tried again.

  “Och monde elles brir. Och cor shan arbir. Och aether undes pune. Dekem millia orior sidune.”

  A prickle went down her spine. Closing her eyes, she summoned the kystrel’s magic and felt the glow of the small stones on her face. She repeated the dirge of the Dochte Mandar again.

  “Och monde elles brir. Och cor shan arbir. Och aether undes pune. Dekem millia orior sidune.”

  Something moved in the waters.

  Maia felt a tug of terror in her bones, the desire to flee back to the doors. She wanted to open her eyes, but she knew that would destroy her. It would lead straight to madness. Whispers swirled around her. Snuffling sounds. The thunder of the waterfalls grew louder, overcoming the lapping sound of the waves against the sand. Maia felt coldness wrap around her, a coldness that went deeper than bones. The kystrel burned against her chest, protecting her, keeping her warm.

  Something brushed against her hair. A finger? A breeze?

  The whispers stopped.

  Instead, images began to coalesce in her thoughts.

  —A world of noise . . . the woods sharing a single heart . . . the anvil of heaven below . . . a million stars yet to be born—

  It was the dirge spoken in images, each one wrapping around the last like a cocoon.

  Welcome, Daughter. What do you seek? What do you desire? What is your Gift?

  Astonishment rippled through Maia. The voice in her mind, the images she saw, were silvered by the presence of a woman. She felt something brush against her cheek. A caress?

  “Do you know . . . my tongue?” Maia asked.

  It is your thoughts that speak loudest to us. What do you seek? What do you desire? What is your Gift?

  Maia thought back to the tome. Three questions she was allowed to ask. To expect more than this from the dead was perilous.

  “What is the plague that afflicts my father’s kingdom? The tomes of the Dochte Mandar, they hint at it. They seem to know of a way to tame it. But what is it?”

  Maia’s mind filled with images. The troubles had begun years ago and slowly increased. Husbands abandoning their farms to cross the sea. Mothers drowning their babes in buckets or troughs. Children stoning children. It happened among the wealthy and the base, in winter and summer. And it was getting worse. Each year was getting gravely worse.

  You are plagued by the Myriad Ones, the Unborn. They infest the wild things first. They encroach upon the living as spiders and rodents until they learn your secret fears. They come as wolves and bats until those fears are at their deepest. Then they come as man. What do you desire?

  The images made Maia shiver with cold and loathing. She understood more now. The spiders and ticks and serpents that had plagued the land below the Spike. The beast from the woods. The cursed lands teemed with them—the Myriad Ones. The Unborn.

  Maia tried to speak, but her jaw chattered so much she could hardly get the words out. “How does one . . . how can we fight them? Do the Dochte Mandar truly keep them at bay?”

  Daughter, they cannot be destroyed. They can only be subdued. We lost our fight against them, Daughter. They prevailed against us.

  “But surely there must be . . .”

  She felt the anger in the images—anger caused by her interruption. Maia quieted, struggling with the thoughts that spun through her mind.

  There is a record of our struggles against the Myriad Ones. Seek the High Seer of the mastons in Naess. She carries the record. What is your Gift?

  Again Maia was flustered. The image was as clear as a sky free of clouds. A woman among the Dochte Mandar? The kingdom of Naess was far to the north, the hub of all the kingdoms. It was the land of the Naestors. They would kill any woman caught attempting to make or use a kystrel, let alone any who tried to learn to read. It was hundreds of leagues away, past three other kingdoms sworn to obey the Dochte Mandar’s order. They were the enemies of her father’s realm. Despair struck her heart.

  What is your Gift?

  Maia barely heard the question. She had known it was coming, though. She had been prepared since the first moment she read the book and then was given her kystrel by her mentor. It was required to become a Dochte Mandar.

  “I give my life.”

  A sense of certainty settled into her bones.

  Your Gift is accepted. Go now, Daughter. Seek the High Seer with the Dochte Mandar. Hasten on your journey, lest the Unborn claim them all.

  A single image struck her mind before the woman’s thoughts abandoned Maia. The Myriad Ones were attacking the kishion outside.

  * * *

  Maia heard the sounds of the fight before she saw it. A ruckus of yelps and shrieks and barks flooded the length of the tunnel. The noises grated down her spine and filled her with loathing and despair. As she jumped the last of the stairs and left the lair of the lost abbey, her stomach seized with fear. The kishion stood
against a dozen black wolves. Others padded in a circle through the ruins, raising their muzzles to the sky and howling like trumps. The kishion’s legs were slashed and bleeding, his pants a wreckage of blood-soaked tatters. Dead wolves lay twitching and snorting by the steps near him as he danced from one rock to another, one pillar to another, his blades spilling death with every stroke. As Maia tried to call for him, the black wolves barked and charged toward her.

  Maia was preparing to use the kystrel when she was crushed to the floor. The smell of sweat and vomit, the feeling of hands and knees as they kicked and punched her was smothering. Soon she was pinned under a heavy weight.

  “Around her neck! Pull it off! Hurry now!”

  Maia felt strong hands tug at her cloak, choking her with their frenzy to get at the kystrel. It was Rawlt’s voice, and she was aware of another man nearby. She struggled to breathe and kicked out, but his weight made her bones groan.

  “The chain! Yank it off her!”

  Several lacings on her bodice snapped, and she felt a dirty hand grab the coin-sized medallion and tighten into a fist.

  “I got it! I got it!”

  “Yank it loose! Hurry man, yank it loose!”

  Fire exploded from the kystrel in a white-hot blaze. Someone screamed and howled with pain. Maia nearly blacked out when Rawlt slammed her head against the stones, but the kystrel flared again, blasting a wave of resentment and fury throughout the ruins. Maia felt it build up inside her, a wave of power that joined with her anger, her self-pity, her rejection. The cup overflowed, and the kystrel’s power subsumed her. Thunder boomed overhead and a storm razed the ruins of the lost abbey. Tongues of lightning flashed, blinding her even behind her eyelids. The man’s weight left her body and she fought to her feet, gripping the stone pillar to stand. Pressure in her ears swelled, the pain becoming unbearable. Still, the force writhed and roiled, summoning more thunder and causing the sky to darken like dusk.

  Maia felt the ancient magic of the Medium shoot through her, wakening within her a source of strength and a sense of freedom. It was power. Pure power. Bellowing thunder threatened to rip the sky apart. The earth spasmed, sending jolting shockwaves through the ruins, toppling boulders as if they were pebbles.

  Then she was spent, empty, dead inside.

  Maia sagged to her knees as the letdown from using the magic took everything from her. Thunder continued to boil in the sky for several moments, but the wind calmed and the trembling earth quieted, leaving nothing, not even the chirping of a cricket. She collapsed, her mind numb.

  There were no dreams. Only blackness.

  * * *

  She heard the kishion’s staggering steps near her head and then his weight settled next to her. Pain throbbed in her skull. It hurt to breathe. She had no sense of how long she had been unconscious.

  “You jolted. Are you awake, Lady Maia?”

  She tried to open her eyes and failed. Every morsel of strength had fled from her body. She felt weaker than a blind pup nosing for her mother’s milk.

  “I think so,” she whispered. His hands assisted her as she struggled to rise. Her body felt like the bell towers in the keep after a victory had been rung, the stones still thrumming with the echoes.

  The kishion pressed a flask to her lips and she drank. She coughed a little and finally opened her eyes.

  New scars would be added to his countenance. He looked as if he’d been caught in a farmer’s field during a sickle harvest. The gloves were gone, and little rags tied the cuts on his hands and arms. His legs were similarly treated.

  “How long after I left did they attack you?”

  A little quirk turned his lips. “That does not matter, Lady Maia. What matters is you saved my life.”

  She reached up to scratch her brow, which stung terribly.

  “Do not touch that! I have hardly started treating you. I was unconscious myself for a while. Foolish girl.”

  Maia sighed and let her hand drop to her lap. “It was Rawlt and the other one.”

  A small nod. “We never bothered hiding our trail. I thought they would flee for the ship. They probably thought your head was worth a great deal more than returning alone.”

  “I should have let you kill them.”

  He snorted in agreement. “Maybe you will start listening to me.”

  “Yes, I must.”

  He looked at her with confusion. “What do you mean?”

  Maia’s head still throbbed, but she reached out and took his scabbed hand in her own. “I have the answers I came here for. But they are not what I had hoped to find. Our journey is not over.” She sighed as images of her father and her home flashed through her mind. She would not be able to return. Hers would be a long, tedious death. “It is only just beginning,” she breathed.

  He looked down at her hand, his look stern. “Where must I take you?” His voice was raw, a sigh.

  “I think you already know. I think we have both known all along where I must go.”

  Looking up into her eyes, he nodded again. “We go to the seat of the Dochte Mandar.”

  * * *

  A maston who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. They are beyond the reach of all political powers. While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have truly been learning how to die.

  —Lia Demont, Aldermaston of Muirwood Abbey

  * * *

  Author’s Note

  As I wrote in my author’s note for Banished of Muirwood, the tale of Maia came to me long before I ever wrote the first chapters of Wretched of Muirwood. Her story was turned into a graphic novel by Jet City Comics in 2015 and published as Muirwood: The Lost Abbey. I was highly involved in the production and inspiration for the artwork. I knew that some readers wouldn’t prefer the medium of pen and ink but would still want to read the original story, which I dubbed “Maia” and mentioned in the author’s note of Scourge of Muirwood. I hope you enjoyed this little backstory for Banished.

  About the Author

  Jeff Wheeler took an early retirement from his career at Intel in 2014 to become a full-time author. He is, most importantly, a husband and father, and a devout member of his church. He is occasionally spotted roaming hills with oak trees and granite boulders in California or in any number of the state’s majestic redwood groves.

  Visit the author’s website: www.jeff-wheeler.com