Chapter Forty
The howling had stopped at least… not that it helped Cynn's nerves any. Being poked and prodded for the last five minutes by the Academy Medical Krewe had kept her quite nicely on edge… their cold metal implements probing and examining very sensitive places, trying to reach a conclusion Cynn was fairly certain she already knew.
She had felt something… different… the moment she had come out of her coma, and she quickly garnered a fairly good guess what. But Mhenlo had asked her not to be quite so hasty and not to jump to conclusions, hence why she was here right now… being examined like a piece of fresh meat.
"Just hurry up already!" The elementalist hissed. "How many times do you have to do the same thing?"
"Which goes to show your lack of sophistication in all things medical." The 'doctor' said with equal disdain. "We are not repeating the same tests, no matter what you might think. I apologize for being thorough and exact."
Mhenlo came to his wife's aid. "While we appreciate your willingness to exhaust any and all possibilities, surely you have a fairly exact conclusion."
The doctor took a deep breath, and that told Cynn all she needed to know. She started crying… surprising even herself, especially considering how put out she had acted when she had learned in the first place, calling it a 'Grenth forsaken curse' that would only 'slow her down'.
"Lady Cynn, judging from the symptoms you told me about, and the tests we have so far received, there is a 99.98% chance that you have indeed suffered a miscarriage, and that the fetus has been lost."
At that point, the elementalist erupted into a full, body shaking bawl. Even Mhenlo had never seen such a violent burst of grief from his wife. Between her heaving sobs, she managed to ask, "I lost the baby while I was in that horrible cavern, didn't I?"
The doctor shrugged, "That… is hard to say. I won't have a concrete timetable as to the miscarriage until the remainder of the tests are analyzed. But I would be wary to attribute any stress from any outside stimuli as the factor for the miscarriage at this point. Even among the Asura, nearly one in every four pregnancies suffer such loss from perfectly normal natural causes. Among humans, where your pediatric care isn't nearly as advanced, I'd suspect the number is even higher. We'll know more once the final tests are finished."
But Cynn knew… even if the doctor was reluctant. Her grieving erupted once again, her mind no longer fit to communicate. "I'll give you both some time alone…" The Asura said in parting, backing out of the examination room towards the laboratory, the thick metal door sliding shut behind him.
Cynn reached out only to find nothing but air. Leaning around the chair, she noted that Mhenlo was reaching for the door, leading out to the academy halls. "Where… are you going?" She asked meekly, not even possessing the pride to chide herself for sounding so weak.
"I… will be right back. I thought it would be courteous to inform our friends of this tragedy. They may wish to extend their condolences." The monk replied distractedly, slipping out into the hall without further word.
Mhenlo suspected that was rather transparent the moment he left the examination room. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to anyone. The only beings he wanted to converse with were not willing to talk to him.
Since waking, the monk had felt different. A suspicion quickly answered when neither Dwayna nor Balthazar responded to his prayers shortly after coming to. Their presence, something he had become so used to for as long as he could remember, was gone. For the first time ever, Mhenlo felt alone in the world.
He supposed Kormir would answer him… but that didn't seem right in his mind. The Goddess of Truth shouldn't have to answer for her kin. Whatever he had done (even though Kormir claimed he had done nothing wrong) should have been made known to him by the deities who apparently felt slighted. He had not been perfect in his service, he had fallen short of their will on several occasions before; often actions that pleased one of his patron deities had upset the other. But he always knew; either when it happened or some point after.
The woman who was his wife was a perfect example of this; Dwayna had disapproved of the fiery elementalist… her inclination had turned him towards Jamei, an old friend from Cantha. Balthazar, on the other hand, was in full approval… until Mhenlo and Cynn decided to have a monastic wedding before Dwayna's Avatar at the Temple of Ages, which the Goddess of Life and Air was flattered by. It seemed at times that it was impossible to please them both at the same time.
But on that same token, he had thought it to be equally possible to anger them both at the same time; but that seemed to be the case at the present, so angered they withdrew themselves completely from him… and watched passively as his unborn child lost even the chance at life.
How did others live like this; without that presence… without that sense that there was some greater plan beyond what their limited minds could grasp… without answers? How could anyone wake up like this, blind to their next step in life?
"What have I done?" The monk howled out of the window in front of him across the expanse of the Atal Ra cavern. "Why have you forsaken me?"
"Goodness, Mhenlo… could you keep it down?" Coran asked, approaching from the stairwell leading up.
Devona was directly behind the headmaster, and asked in concern, "What has happened? Are the gods still not responding to you?"
The monk shook his head. "Yes. They have completely abandoned me. My prayers achieve nothing more than my bellows to the air." He nervously inhaled, before deciding he might as well break the news now than delay it. "Cynn… lost our baby. The doctors here confirm it. They won't acknowledge it, but we both suspect the child expired sometime during the ordeal in the cavern of the beast."
Devona's hand flew to her mouth. "No…" She slung an arm around Mhenlo's shoulder, and said, "I am so sorry…"
With a rare display of anger, Mhenlo shrugged it away. "You should be. If you and your man here hadn't been so insistent on exploring that den of evil and insanity, none of this would have happened!"
The warrior never had a chance to respond to the monk's uncharacteristic display of venom, and Mhenlo probably had little chance to process the aghast shock on his guild leader's face. Coran's right fist checked observation at the door and threw it right out. Mhenlo's head snapped back violently from the impact of the punch, crumpling and dazing him. By the time the monk had pushed himself up to his elbows, he found Coran staring down upon him… Devona holding him back from behind quite effectively.
"Is this the limit of the greatest of Ascalon's monks?" Coran accused with an overpowering strength of voice that reminded both in the hall of who his sire was. "Is this the limit of your faith and inner strength? The moment you have to live one day as any other man, and you come unraveled? Is this your true face and dishonor now that the thin curtain of the gods has been lifted from you?"
"How dare you mope and commiserate about abandonment, while your wife suffers the indignity and loss of a child alone?" He shouted, nearly managing to yank his right arm from Devona's grasp to point towards the medical ward. "For a man so wronged, one would think he would have the presence of mind not to commit such wrongs himself to the one person he should think first above all others!"
The volume dropped away, but the incendiary monologue did not. "You may question my decisions. You may think I made a mistake. I have. I've made hundreds, if not thousands; in the past, in the present, and most certainly in the future. It was my decision to form the expedition. Mine, and mine alone. You would be well served to leave your guild leader out of your slander."
"Even then, we all made the decision to follow Coran." Devona added, feeling Coran was taking undue weight upon his own shoulders. "I chose to follow, you chose to follow, even Cynn chose to follow. That we did not understand the peril was not Coran's fault. It wasn't yours. It wasn't anybody's. Sometimes… no one is at fault."
Decompression finally began to sink into the mind of the wayward monk. He wiped away a trial of blood from the corner of his mouth that was starting to drift toward his chin. Shame became foremost in his mind. He started to speak, but found that no words could either come to his defense or even acknowledge the truth of the accusations.
"I know you want answers." Coran finished. "So do I. I plan to get them by whatever means necessary. Tend to your wife, she needs you most of all right now. If you are able, meet me in the paragon halls in one hour's time. We'll demand our answers together."