The morning was new enough that the air had not swelled up to its full heat or humidity. The sun played coyly with the tops of the trees, peeking at birds, cattle, and people alike as though it were a child playing tag.
The abbot, a salt-and-pepper haired Human man of sixty odd years, spent a few contemplative moments gazing at the eastern skyline, then walked over to his heavy wooden desk and sat down. He rustled through the copies of laws, legal suits, notes, and personal letters that waited there, and upon not finding any written correspondence from the object of his thoughts, reached for the small hand bell at the far corner of his desk. A few moments later, a young man wearing a freshly pressed set of purple and white layman's robes stood awaiting his command. The abbot handed over a short note with a wax seal so fresh that the other side of the paper was warm to the touch.
"Please go to the Dragon barracks, hand this to the officer of highest rank available, and don't return without an answer," the older man said in a quiet, but firm voice.
"Right away, Abbot Rigel," the young man replied, hustling out of the office.
Just as skittish as when he was but a lad, the abbot chuckled with a small smile. Squirrel-spirited, that one. You'd think it'd wear off with age, but-
A priest turned into the office and gave a small bow of respect to the elder clergyman. "Abbot Rigel, I've received a messenger from the docks with two more letters from the priests who were brought to Urmlaspyr from the Isles." The priest briefly looked back down the hallway at the still air that the young man left behind him. "If Sylus continues moving at that pace, he may beat the messenger back to the docks, actually." The moment of contemplation passed, the priest righted himself and stepped all the way into the sparsely furnished office to hand over the correspondence that he held in his hands. "Anyway, this one is from Brother Marius and this from Brother Arel. Both mention Father Iona, but the man himself has put no word to paper."
The priest's suspicious tone, just hardly masked, brought a slight frown to the abbot's face. "Did either of them mention that his eyes had been burned out?" he asked. "Father Iona has been studious about communicating his progress up to this point; I find myself hoping that the descriptions I've read so far from the other brothers and fathers have been exaggerations."
"Brother Arel mentions that his eyes were 'changed' rather offhandedly, but because Brother Marius attempted to help the alchemist who was aboard the woman captain's ship to heal him, he delivers a much more comprehensive description of the problem than anyone else has so far," the priest replied, as he gave the abbot the two page letter in his right hand. "He starts the description in the second paragraph on the reverse of the first page."
The older clergyman obediently flipped the first page over in his slender, amber skinned hands and looked over the writing there. "Ah, this is quite detailed... and the damage is worse than the others imagined. Marius states his belief that Iona will be permanently and totally blind as clearly as possible without inking those exact words- he might as well have done, but... of course, such blindness precludes Iona writing anything to anyone, without a trustworthy scribe." Rigel took a few moments to quickly send his eyes over the words of both letters. "Still no mention of what 'ill news' separated him from the brethren, however. Hobson has, in my place, done an admirable job of 'preventing loose talk' about whatever personal scandal may have arisen; no one else seems to have any idea what Iona's intentions were or are since leaving Marsember."
"Father Hobson's own ideas perhaps err on the side of hope," the priest mentioned slowly. "There is now, I understand, a persistent rumour of the judgement of Tyr falling on the temple of Lathander in Marsember. Whether or not Tyr's judgement was indeed there pronounced, Marsember was Father Iona's home, and his family is a prosperous, well-connected one. He could be courting the attentions of a few high class patrons looking for a man of letters and legal proficiency to serve their estate. The rough business of bringing law to the lawless here seemed... insufficient for him; isn't that why you sent him on pilgramage in the first place? The temptation to return to a life of relative ease could be great."
The abbot could only hum softly. " 'Relative ease'," he echoed as he looked over Brother Marius's letter again. His mind, far from actually being invested in the words written there, flitted briefly over the hours of confessions from Iona about the life that he'd left behind. "Let me be plain with you, Nataniye. I sent Iona on his current journey with the idea that he may prove himself worthy of becoming a knight of holy judgement, even at his early stage of development within the order and faith. He is not on a vacation; once his trials and tasks are completed, I expect his return."
The priest moved to one of the two simple chairs in the office and seated himself. "In that case, I feel that I ought to speak plainly about Father Iona's having taken brethren to the Pirate Isles in the first place. You did not send him there, did you?"
"No, but I-" Rigel looked up from the letter and, noticing the priest's tense posture in the chair, quieted himself. Setting Marius's letter to the side of his desk, he sat down in the chair there. With a sigh, he said, "Before you wind yourself up, know that I had many concerns myself, and so much as recalled the entire group here because of them. I thought myself in the right of the matter, until I received a very grateful letter from the new adherents to the teachings of Tyr on Paldir. There was a small town there- who knew it was possible, in that place?- but it had been looted, burned, and sewn with salt by several groups of treasure hunters all working together. As it was written to me by more than one of his companions, and even the man himself, Father Iona daily preached to the people, and nightly prayed for their deliverance. The hearts of a ship full of mercenaries were so turned by his words and orisons, that they relocated the people of the town to a place that they built, complete with a small temple and mission to Tyr. They trained up some men in simple arms, so that they would not be completely defenseless against invaders, and then left. Iona left from them soon after the mercenaries did, possibly in response to my demand, and this- people's missive, if I can find it here- includes a request for him to be resent to them, to serve as the priest, chief lawmaker, and judge of the town."
The abbot tumbled a few papers on his desk and handed over a page that was full of writing on both sides. Nataniye accepted the letter, looked at it for a long time, then frowned as he laid it back on the desk.
"Any vaguely moral person would stand out like a lighthouse in a fog of sin that dense," he argued.
"That is true, and that argument crossed my mind as well," Rigel admitted with a slow tilt of his head. "But I wonder, brother, when was the last time you ever heard fog ask a lighthouse to pierce it. Further, I have two other such letters, from places to which I did send Iona, if you'd like to see them. So I cannot in good conscience call such requests 'uncommon'."
Nataniye sat in motionless silence for a few moments, then reclaimed the letter that he'd placed on Rigel's desk and looked at it again. As he studied its content, Sylus did in fact poke his head into the office with a quiet knock on the opened heavy wooden door.
"Enter, son," Rigel said welcomingly, turning his attentions to the young man.
"It seems like there's a lot of goings back and forth, Abbot," Sylus smirked. "I caught up with one messenger who said he'd just come from the docks, and as we were talking and going, a second asked us the way here. She was new, it looked like. I told her, and came here with her, after the other messenger promised to take your missive to the highest ranked officer as you asked, but as soon as she could see the place, she handed me this and turned back. If I'd known her name, I'd have called her more earnestly, but I worried about what others might think of my going on calling, 'Oi, girl!', or 'Hullo, miss!'."
"She probably thought herself just in leaving whatever it is in your capable hands, although she's accidentally cheated herself," Rigel noted with a gentle laugh. "It's not common for monasteries, temples, or any other centers of healing or worship to give messengers any coin for their footwork. So, likely she hustled off to get a better paying run before the others snap them all up. Try, 'Excuse me, young lady!' next time, or- better yet- simply learn the child's name. Now, the friend that you put my missive in care of, you're certain he'll do as I asked?"
"Yes," Sylus said with a touch of sheepishness. "I wasn't quite sure that I should let it go, but he promised me he'd go straight to the commander without delay. I told him I hadn't any coin, and he told me that because I was doing the girl a solid, he would do me one. So, I gave him the missive."
The abbot laughed again, a bit more gustily. "Well! My, it's been a while since I've heard that kind of talk- 'doing someone a solid.' However, in my experience in this wilderland, 'solids' are taken quite seriously; I will content myself to believe that my will shall be done."
"I hope so," Sylus sighed. "Here- this is the message the new girl had. It seems to have been unsealed and resealed, though."
"Curious, but I hear there have been some strange goings on in Suzail of late," Rigel answered. He took the letter that the young man handed him, turned it over a few times in his hands, and noted the same stress marks on the edges of the wax seal, the same extra creases in the paper, and the same scratch marks on the paper from whoever-it-was trying to carefully pop the wax up without breaking it or taking it all the way off. After quite a while of noting these and other small clues of tampering, he opened the letter and began to read it.
"Oh, interesting," he mused after nearly an entire minute of silence had gone by. "This is the long awaited correspondance from Father Iona, but it's penned by his sister-in-law, one Missus Suzanna Chelois Raibeart. According to this, he went home primarily in hopes that a proper healer in the capitol would be better able to attend to him than some woe-be-gone alchemist serving a woman captain, but even after visiting with some of the best healers in the country, he still can perceive the world and those around him only as 'shadowed figures on a moonless night'."
"He's prettying up a grim matter with that description," Nataniye frowned simply. "The fact is that Brother Marius is right; Father Iona is blind."
"His sister wrote this, remember," Abbott Rigel reminded gently. "The gossip between orders and temples about the Chauntea acolyte who ran away from the order because it was discovered that she'd gotten pregnant was quite true, and this is that same wayward acolyte, trained to write as gently and beautifully as any other lady of letters who would have been expected to write psalms to the goddess. Iona likely stated the matter as plainly as you did, and his caring sister-in-law guilded it up so that the terrible misfortune sounds like an unlooked-for blessing. It seems, anyhow, that Iona is aware that the rest of the brothers have left Marsember already, and since he neither wants to travel alone nor does he have anyone near him who can easily travel, he has asked for someone to come and guide him wherever I wish him to go from there. Well, Sylus, get running; the missive that I sent was intended for Marsember, but it should go to Suzail instead. Hurry, and you'll know for yourself whether your friend did as you asked him or not. Be sure to tell him, swear to him by Tyr's left hand, that I sent you to change the course of the missive, so that he does not feel that you followed him only to check whether or not he acted honestly. And Father Nataniye, prepare yourself; I will send you to guide Father Iona to Halfhap."
"Halfhap!" the priest sitting before the abbot exclaimed at once. "If anything were there but a garrison!"
"A garrison, and the energies and influences of Tempus the Foehammer," Rigel argued, "and what better weapon could Tyr have against the Foehammer than the Firehammer? You will ensure that Iona has all the guidance and counsel he needs, since that is what Tyr has planted in your heart to do for him. If it were not so, surely you would be at your own prayers, instead of complaining of his possible intentions to me."
