Part Four: Pariah Abbey, 2E 593
Abbot Durak usually slept in the main hall, to watch over the statue and the Dreamshard at its base, but on the night he said farewell to Rielle and Hernanual he decided to give them privacy to petition Azura by taking his rest on a cot in the Abbey's basement. The kitchen was down there, and it was warm. But sleep would not come. Finally, he gave up, and went to sit by the kitchen fire, where he finally fell asleep in an old armchair.
He was woken at dawn by a flustered acolyte, one of several who had been sent to search for him.
"Abbot, you must come at once. Something terrible has happened. Before the statue of our Lady... a body..."
So he failed, was the Abbot's first thought. Perished either of my Lady's wrath or his own folly in attempting to travel to her realm. I should have warned him more strongly. And what has become of Rielle?
"Were there any signs of violence?" he asked the acolyte.
"No. The dead man looks as if he were asleep. But he's dead all right, cold and still. But..."
"But what?" the Abbot inquired as they climbed the stairs to the main hall.
The acolyte did not answer, so Abbot Durak hurried forward to see for himself, fearing the worst.
Most of the Abbey were present in the hall. They had come for the dawn service, and had found a dead body and the Abbot missing. A low murmur of conversation dropped to silence as the Abbot passed through them to the still form at the base of the image. Thank goodness dawn services were so early, the Abbot thought. At least they wouldn't have to explain this to the imperial messenger, whose party would no doubt visit him one last time to express their thanks before leaving.
It was Hernanual. The clothes and the face were the same, though the skin had taken on an even more ghostly pallor. The body lay on its back, the hands crossed on the chest, the feet together, the clothing in perfect order. The Abbot was startled by the expression on Hernanual's face. It was one of absolute peace, the look of someone who had attained his most important goal and was leaving life behind with no regrets, shedding it as one sheds a wet cloak when coming in from the rain. Strange. Had he failed and died? Had he been separated from Rielle? His face showed no sign of any such frustration. The Abbot frowned. There was something here that he did not understand.
He turned to one of the acolytes.
"He was found like this? Exactly? Has anyone touched the body?"
The acolyte shook his head.
"No, he lies exactly as he was discovered about half an hour ago. The body was already cold then. Such an unusual expression on his face..."
So he wasn't imagining the serenity of the body's countenance, Abbot Durak thought. But how could Hernanual be both absolutely contented and completely dead? Unless, of course, Rielle had been at his side when he entered the realm of the Dread Lord...
"Have you searched the area? Are there any other bodies?
The acolyte shook his head.
"Nothing else within the walls of the Abbey, or in its grounds, everyone says. Nothing to be seen at all."
The Abbot knelt to examine the body more carefully. Noticing a slight, square bulge on the left side of the chest area, he guessed that something must be under the cloak there. It turned out to be a small notebook, with an inscription on the first page asking anyone who found it to see that it reached Abbot Durak of Pariah Abbey.
There were about ten pages of handwriting in the notebook. Abbot Durak read them standing beside the body, with the Abbey staff silent and expectant around them. Finally, he closed the notebook and spoke to them.
"This is the body of Hernanual Lelaut, a friend who came here last night to make a request of the Queen of Dusk and Dawn. I attempted to dissuade him, fearing that the request took him onto dangerous ground, or at least dealt with topics that might be difficult to discuss with Our Lady. For honorable, personal reasons, he disagreed with me, and at his urging, I left him to whatever fate Our Lady had in store for him.
"The Queen of Dusk and Dawn saw fit to extend her mercy and grace to him, and he was granted his wish. The mortal form here is no longer of any use to him. It falls to us to dispose of it with respect for the one who once dwelt there, and reverence for She who lent him Her strength when he needed it most."
One of the older nuns prepared the body for burial, sewing it carefully into a cotton shroud. Fortunately, several graves had been dug in the autumn and left open, as was done every year, to avoid the labor of hacking into the frozen ground if a cleric or parishioner passed away in the dead of winter. Two assistant priests carried Hernanual to his rest on a stretcher, and he was buried simply, wrapped in cloth rather than encoffined. The Abbot said a few words at the head of the grave, and one of the acolytes built a fire on the rock-hard pile of earth by its side, so that it could later be used to fill the grave. In the midst of all this, the imperial party dropped in to say farewell, but they accepted the story that a cleric had passed away during the night, and apart from expressing their condolences, showed no further curiosity.
After the imperials were seen off, Abbot Durak returned to the graveside and lingered there, Hernanual's notebook in his hand. He wondered whether to throw it into the grave, to be buried with its author. That at least would ensure that no one in the future tried to follow his path. But it would also mean losing forever the most eloquent and personal statement of the love between him and Rielle. It would almost be like betraying that love, the Abbot thought. There was a locked chest in the library which was the repository for books and papers deemed too dangerous to circulate but too valuable to be discarded. The notebook would be safe enough there.