Kai Prlg: Abigail's Faith

Prologue:
Abigail’s Faith


Each note, tugged and released across the face of the guitar, seemed to drive into Abigail’s heart with the poignance of an iron nail. It was a simple melody, filling the quiet of the night air, and it quite effectively complimented the moonlight which fell around them like a soft rain.

“It’s time to start going again,” she said to her companion, who rounded a few notes out before letting the music die. “It’s almost midnight.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked, his voice as serious and sad as the song he’d been playing. “This is not some random villager who has taken leave of his senses, this is your sister we’re talking about.” Abigail stared at him. His face had the blue-gray tone that everything took under this kind of lighting, and he didn’t need to further explain the risk that they were taking..

Abigail was doing her best to keep her emotions in check, to keep her face as blank as she could. “No, of course I don’t think it’s a good idea. I think it’s a horrible idea.”

“Then, why-”

“We don’t really have a choice in this Ben; she probably doesn’t have much time left before she’s completely gone. If we don’t get to her tonight, then-” despite her inward resolve, she didn’t have the heart to finish the sentence. Thinking about the consequences was too difficult for her.

“And if she’s already lost herself?” Benjaman said sharply. He stood and walked back to the wagon that they were using, and put his guitar inside its low walls. The words hung in the air as Abigail followed him.

Abigail took his hand and allowed him to help her into the passenger seat of the wagon. She didn’t really need to respond, Benjamen would know the answer to that question already. “Let’s get moving. It’s too dangerous to be out like this at night.”

He walked to the mule that would pull this wagon and tightened the harness, readying him for travel. The mule’s name was George, and it was one of the strongest willed animals that she’d ever met. Nothing seemed to frighten or startle the animal, which was why they’d kept him around. A solid nerve was necessary for the work that they would do tonight.

Both of them wore simple clothing. Benjaman had on a commoner’s tunic and loose pants, covered by a heavy brown cloak identical to the one that Abigail wore. Abigail was in a gray wool dress that had green patterns woven into the fabric.

Benjaman climbed into the driver’s seat of the wagon and clicked his tongue, signaling George to go forward. The mule turned to look at him, rolling its eyes almost like an adolescent would do to their parent. “That’s right, you lazy animal,” Benjaman said. “It’s late, and we both know it, so let’s get this over with, all right? We want to rest as much as you do.” He flicked the reigns, and they started forward down the road.

“I know that you don’t like working at night like this, so I’m sorry for the late hour, but I don’t want anyone to know that we’re coming until we’ve found her. The lady Celebrant might not appreciate our arrival,” Abigail said.

“That woman’s hanging by a thread as it is,” Benjaman replied shrewdly. “Any other noble lady would have let go of their post by now. They’d have lost their land either by sword or by contract. Even if she knew we were here, I doubt that she would be able to do anything about it.”

“She’s a strong woman,” Abigail said, “especially after the disease that struck her family. I do hope she keeps her position at least a little while longer, but I don’t want to offend her.” A night breeze picked up, brushing her cheek. She drew breath sharply and lifted her hood over her black hair. “We weren’t invited to come here.”

“Nobody’s paying us for this job either,” Benjaman muttered to himself, but then his eyes went wide and he glanced at her quickly. “My apologies, I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s all right,” she replied. “I understand. Your equipment is expensive, and I appreciate you being here.”

They were quiet for a few moments until he found something else to talk about. “You’ve met her, haven’t you? The lady Celebrant, I mean.”

Abigail nodded. “She used to come in to the monastery when she was younger. I was praying when I heard her burst in the doors, full of tears. She tried to hide it, but she’d just heard about the arrangements for her marriage, and she wasn’t happy. She didn’t know the man, and I think that the concept of marriage scared her. She was so young. That would have been almost thirteen years ago. It wasn’t long after that that I left the monastery for the first time.”

“Ironic though, isn’t it?” Benjaman said. “You leave home with a head full of fighting demons, and eventually it brings you right back to your own doorstep.”

“They grow more aggressive and more common as time goes by,” Abigail nodded. It only makes sense that they would attack the monastery. It’s too far from the walls, and too far from the soldiers.”

“Dangerous. Most of the settlements that aren’t guarded directly have been abandoned.”

“The Lady Celebrant, when her husband died, called for the closing of the monastery, she even offered to set up all of its residence in the castle itself. The abbot refused. Even when they recalled the guards he wouldn’t leave. He always claimed that God would protect them, even if men abandoned them.”

“I know you get tired of hearing me say this, but that’s what you get for trusting in God, when you’ve never met him. You should trust yourself, and your own work.”

“God protects the cautious, Benjaman. The abbot was pushing his luck and feeding his pride. God will do what’s right, and will not always stay the hand of the wicked and unholy.”

“Okay preacher, tell that to your sister,” Benjaman said, and again, the wince he gave showed that he regretted his words. “I’m really sorry, I know that this is personal. I shouldn’t,” he stopped speaking without finishing his sentence, trailing off as the right words wouldn’t come to him.

Abigail sighed. Benjaman was unintentionally testing her patience; he had done this before. They’d had many similar arguments, some of which had been much more heated. Benjaman was an athiest, and she was religious. It never really got in the way of their friendship, of course, but it was something that was brought up from time to time, usually when they were working on a task like this one.

“Check. Up ahead,” Benjaman said calmly. He drew his sword, a thin rapier, and held the reigns in his left hand.

Abigail reached behind into the bed of their wagon and gripped her oversized hand-axe. She preferred something heavier than a rapier, although she didn’t have the muscle to use it as quickly as she’d like. Pulling it and setting it across her lap, she also withdrew a canvas bag loosely filled with bottles. She found a thick bottle of ethanol, capped with wax, and then a smaller one of holy water, a crystal vial with a white seal painted on the front. She set them both in the seat between Benjaman and herself. Once ready, she looked ahead to see exactly what confronted them.

In the poor light she could see two figures, little more than silhouettes that stood staring in their direction. There was only thirty feet or so that separated them.

“I’ve got a pair of pistols in a box behind the wagon’s seat. You said that it was the gorgon plague that struck this place, did you not?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Abigail answered him, and she reached back to find the box, removing the lid and taking out one of the two short firearms.

“We can expect an attack at any moment then. The gorgon will not rob them of their intelligence entirely, but it will make them aggressive and brutish. Be careful with those, because they’ve only got the one shot to them. I loaded them earlier, so they’re both ready.”

“We don’t want to fight here,” Abigail said. “If we get to the monastery, then they’ll come to find us. We can fight on our own terms there, I know the monastery very well.”

“So we plow through them?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Hold on to the bottles, will you? Hyah!” Benjaman whipped at the mule with the reigns, and the mule began to pull harder, whipping the cart forward in the closest thing to a charge that the ornery beast could provide. The distance closed rapidly.

As they got forward, Abigail was confronted with a deep and personal horror as she recognized one of the people standing in their way. It was a friend of her sister’s, a girl by the name of Elizabeth, whose tall and thin figure was unmistakable for this part of the country.

As they rushed forward, Abigail could see more of them enter the road at their sides. Benjaman was right; it was intended to be some sort of an ambush. Luckily, the rushing wagon moved quickly enough to get past the would-be attackers. Abigail decided to center her attack on the one se didn’t know. She lifted her arm and threw one of the thicker bottles of ethanol, and it broke into the chest of the gorgon there, a short woman who screamed and fell onto the road, into the path of the charging mule.

George made no effort to avoid trampling her, but the one who had once been called Elizabeth ignored her fallen company. She was standing a bit more to the side, and was able to jump forward in attempt to grab at the side of the wagon. The edge of the running board struck her hard in the gut, and she exhaled and grasped forward to grip the seat. Abigail got a closer look at her face then; her thin features were dramatically muted and hardened by the gorgon’s disease until her face looked nearly flattened. The skin had plated around the woman’s eyes, and it had stretched, pushing back her dark hairline by several inches. The look in the woman’s green eyes was feral, deadly. It was the look of an assassin about to make a kill. Her lips were still full, although chapped and dried to the point of peeling and bleeding skin.

Abigail lifted her axe and let it fall, biting deeply into the thing’s shoulder. The gorgon hissed, more out of disappointment than out of pain, as its grip fell from the board and she fell to the ground. Abigail could hear it tumble.

“Take care that they don’t scratch you,” Benjaman said. “I’ve got a theory about this plague, I think that it’s carried through the blood.”

“I know, you told me that already.” Abigail pulled the stopper off of another bottle of ethanol and poured it over the axe, cleaning off her blade. She tried hard not to think about her sister. “The disease is already in its advanced stages with these ones. If Danielle is this far gone, then we’re going to have to kill her.” It was still hard for her to say, but seeing that group of poor people had set her straight.

“I was afraid of that.” Benjaman sheathed his sword again with some effort due to the movement of the wagon, but he did not slow the wagon down. “Listen, Abigail. I can do it if you need me to. You don’t have to see her like this.” He turned his head toward her, seeking a response.

“We’ll see.” Abigail’s reply was too quiet to be heard, but Ben knew what she meant.

They reached the gate to the monastery a few long minutes later. It had been forced open. Ben drove the wagon inside the gate, and then turned it around, resting it on the grassy area behind the gate. “One of us will need to stay here, in case we need to leave quickly, or in case the ones from outside come back in. We can’t afford for them to eat George.” The mule perked his ears, hearing his name, and again turned to look at Ben. “Well, I’m at least thinking about you, aren’t I?” he asked the mule pointedly.

“You stay,” Abigail said. “I’ll go start looking for Danielle. I need to do this.” Abigail put the bag full of chemicals over her shoulder, and climbed down from the cart. She had kept her grip on the pistol, which she tucked into the back of her belt. She really hoped that she wouldn’t need it.

“All right, but I’ll be here if you need me.”

“You’ll be busy. The ones outside, if there are any more, will attack you here at the gate. If you see Danielle-”

“We’ll save her if we can,” Benjaman interrupted her. “We’ll save any of them, if we can.”

Abigail shook her head. “If the Gorgon was hungry when it found her then she’ll be dead. If it wasn’t, then at the very least she’ll be injured, and probably infected. If it looks like she’s only been infected a few days, then I think that we can take a chance, but if it’s been longer than that,” she didn’t look at him when she finished her sentence. “Don’t hesitate to kill her.” Abigail did her best to make her voice steady and strong, but she knew that she hadn’t entirely succeeded. She turned away from him and began walking through the wet grass.

The monastery complex was composed of several different buildings: dormitories, studies, classrooms, all set at various heights along a slowly angled hill. Abigail missed the days when she had called it home as she walked between the buildings. At the top of the hill stood the crown jewel of the monastery, a chapel that stood just under three stories tall. It wasn’t a very large church, at least not compared to some of the large cathedrals that Abigail had visited in larger cities, but it had been enough to provide a place of worship for those who lived here.

Or so it had been. Stepping closer to the first dormitory, Abigail noticed the broken windows. There was a red stain on them as whoever had broken it, either to get in or to get out, had left the signs of their presence. There were no one in sight yet, but she knew that it was only a matter of time before she found them. Nearly fifty people had lived here in the monastery at its height, and although there probably weren’t that many that were still here, she could expect to find at least twenty of them still alive, buried in the gorgon’s disease at some level or another.

A motion to her left drew her attention as she came around the last corner of the dormitory buildings. Leaning out and swinging its’ weight around the corner of the building was what had once been a man. His shirt was shredded, and his face made him look much like a reptile with bleeding lips, something that was not recognizably human.

Abigail didn’t hesitate. She buried the axe between his shoulder and neck as it lunged at her, pulling it down and away from her. The creature fell, scrambling to pull the axe from itself as it died, frothing.

Some of its blood sprayed onto her leather gloves, but Abigail stayed calm. She drew out her bottle of ethanol and poured a heavy dose onto a cloth rag, wiping away the red spots.

“Three weeks into the infection,” she said to herself as she watched the poor man die. “Please Danielle, don’t be this far gone.” She waited for the man to stop moving before she retrieved her axe, cleaning it as she’d done the glove. She looked to the cathedral. “She would have stayed close to the chapel; it would have been the most secure place to hide.”

The grassy walk was soft under her boots, as soft as it had ever been when she had made the short trek between the dormitories and the chapel. The familiar feeling she got when walking this path path played a counterpoint to the gloominess of the evening. Abigail pressed forward, and reached the wide doors of the cathedral. They were slightly ajar, seemingly opened without a struggle, and Abigail slid through the dark gap and into the building.

It was cooler inside, which was backwards to her. Normally the monks kept small heaters going in the main chapel, especially in the evening so that they could hold their later services with a degree of comfort. The chill of the night seemed to have sunk deeply into the stones of the building. Abigail could hear the low sound of dribbling water, which she also recognized. Each of the church’s chapels was equipped with a font, which was fed by a natural spring that had to be tapped nearby. The chapels were only built where they could find these springs, as a requirement that the prophets had placed on their construction. If they had time, Abigail knew that Ben would want to fill some bottles with the mineral water, which was very useful to his chemistry.

The high windows of the chapel allowed for only a marginal amount of light to filter through, which meant that the room inside was very dark. Abigail set her bag on the floor and drew out a lantern, and then used a small wheel-lock device, a spark-maker. The oiled wick inside the lantern lit quickly, and she lifted the lamp to survey the interior of the chapel.

The pews were relatively undisturbed, save for two or three of them that had been turned over or shifted in their positions. The light danced across them carefully, and she looked to the front of the chapel. In the far end of the one-roomed building stood a great table and a podium, which was designed for the abbot or the other monks that worked here to give religious lectures. Up and down the sides of the room were statues, figures of angels and prophets which represented stories from their history and religious texts. Each of the figures, rather than facing the audience, was designed to look as though it were watching the speaking podium, as if listening to whatever message was to be given. Abigail had stood there occasionally, when she was living here, and it was always awkward, seeing the prophets from the ages staring at her expectantly, waiting to hear what she would preach to them.

Tonight, however, was not a night for speeches, and Abigail could only see the backs of these statues. There was movement when she lit the lamp, and Abigail used the hand that had held her axe to hold the door. She was ready to flee, if needs be, or to shut the door if a confrontation was in order.

“Danielle?” Abigail called, lifting the lantern to shed more light into the room.

A young woman stood quickly, who had been seated on the front row of pews. She was wearing a dark colored dress, which made her seem like little more than a shadow. Her hair was short and black, and Abigail could see her eyes flash as the light reflected back to her. “Abby?” The girl’s voice was weak, but it sent waves of relief through Abigail’s body.

She lowered her axe and began walking forward quickly, resolutely. “Thank the heavens that you’re all right,” Abigail said quietly. I’ve come to take you away from here, to help you get some treatment. Have you been hurt at all?” A warning flashed in the back of her mind, when Abigail remembered that the door had been left open.

“I noticed that the door was open,” Abigail said, and she stopped when she was halfway across the room. Danielle had not made an effort to walk closer, and this also alarmed her. Abigail pulled the strap of her bag from off of her shoulder and set it on the pew next to her. She reached in, rummaging for the bottle of chloroform.

“Abby?” Danielle said again quietly, but didn’t move.

“I’m right here, Danielle. I’m going to help you.” She wet another rag and then left the bag and the lantern there on the pew. She kept her axe in her right hand and the rag in her left as she approached her sister.

Danielle’s hair was a mess. It was shorter than Abigail’s, but it looked like it hadn’t been worked with in at least a few days; it was greasy and it hung around her face limply. It broke her heart to see it, but Abigail recognized the slightly scaled dryness that her skin had taken around her eyes and her jawline and she could tell, even through the tangle, that Danielle’s hairline was a little higher than it had been.

Luckily her lips had not yet begun to chap and bleed, which was a good sign. Abigail estimated that she had been under the thrall of the disease for at least a few days, but not longer than a week. There was hope for her to recover, if Abigail could get her to the right environment quickly enough.

Danielle raised a trembling hand, which held a candlestick that she had taken from one of the dormitory rooms. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but Abigail did recognize it as one.

“Abby?” Danielle repeated herself one more time, and she had a confused expression on her face. Abigail could read the struggle on her face, the sweat beading on her forehead denoting the fever that clouded her judgment. The disease eventually made people rabidly violent, which according to Ben was the chief reason for its epidemic spreading. Danielle, however, still seemed to recognize her sister, which presented her with a unique difficulty.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Danielle,” Abigail said, holding the axe as inconspicuously as she could. “Just stay calm and I’ll help you.”

“No!” Danielle shouted, her face contorting into an angry pout. Abigail had gotten about halfway there again, standing only six paces away from the girl when she reacted. Danielle lifted her candlestick and shook it at her sister while she started running toward her.

Abigail set all of her emotions to one side, as she’d trained herself to do, and was ready to accept the charge. She turned over her axe in her grip so that the blunted side would hit, and used it to block the clumsy overhand swing that Danielle was making. The dull ring of the long metal shaft against the heavier steel axe-head was loud, and the impact was enough for Abigail’s sister to drop her improvised weapon and lunge forward, trying to physically bite and claw at her would-be opponent.

Abigail dropped the axe and used the same hand to grab at a handful of her sister’s hair, holding her head back as they tumbled forward. Danielle spun her head around, ignoring the tugging at her scalp and biting as hard as she could into Abigail’s wrist.

The crushing pain was immense, but Abigail set her teeth against it and rolled her sister onto her back. She thrust the wet cloth between the woman’s teeth and her own arm, hoping that she herself wasn’t infected as her sister used long nails to claw into her arms. The chemical only took a few moments to sink in, and Danielle was subdued, drifting into a fitful sleep there on the cathedral floor.

Abigail pried her sister’s mouth off of her wrist and surveyed the damage. Her wrist felt like it had been bruised, but she didn’t think that her sister had broken anything, despite the pain. Her sister’s teeth, luckily, didn’t break through her glove. Abigail set her sister aside and rushed over to her bag, again pulling out the bottle of ethanol and immediately used it to clean off her gloves, and more importantly, to clean out the scratches that her sister had given her. The highly concentrated alcohol stung deeply, but it was the only thing that was keeping her from contracting the disease.

The door creaked slowly open behind her, and Abigail lifted the lantern to see who was that had pushed it open. She watched the quiet shambling of people infected with the gorgon’s disease, and they saw her as well. There were five of them that entered the door, investigating the source of the light, and they began walking steadily toward her. There was a hungry look in their eyes.

“You can’t have her, and you can’t have me,” Abigail shouted at them. She lobbed the thick bottle of ethanol at their feet, and it shattered with a splash. “Burn in hell, demons.” She only felt sorry for them for a moment when she bent down and rolled her wheel lock above the edge of the puddle.

Abigail ignored the sounds of the fleeing gorgon. She collected her bag and her lantern, and headed back to her sister. Danielle’s limp form was heavy as she lifted it, especially when Abigail was already weighed down by her bag. She put the axe in a loop on her belt, and headed for the back door of the cathedral.

“The demons won’t take us tonight, Danielle,” Abigail said to her unconscious sister.

She hoped that the gorgon’s disease hadn’t already won against the poor girl.


Copyright, Rob Hicks, 2006