The Right Tools
The monastery has been purged, the library ransacked, and the only survivor has been artificially kept alive.
Despite it being the weekend I feel unmotivated and uninspired. The sentence flow in this story is awful, but I suppose bad writing is still practice.
The monastery is silent, the monks long dead. A mass grave lies exposed in the courtyard, though the night's snow has covered most of the bones. The monastery itself is intact - its winding towers still stretch into the sky, the prayer bell still sways gently in the wind. When I walk through the dormitories, it looks like the monks rose to greet a normal day: their beds are made and little trinkets stand on the tables. If I ignored the animal droppings and abandoned nests, I could imagine they were merely in town that day.
Only the library has been ransacked. The floor is stained with ink from smashed bottles. I do not know how full the bookcases were before, but now there are rows and rows of empty shelves over two floors. Not a single book remains. There are a few stray bits of vellum, but when I rifle through them they are either blank or only have a few scribbled words.
I remember when the monks travelled to town every month, handing out sheets of one-use spells they had written. A monk once told me the gods sent them the ritual words in their dreams, and in their waking hours they handed them out based on holy intuition. My mother would receive spells that made our chickens lay more eggs, or stopped mud clinging to our boots. Once the spells were recited and their effects had manifested, the words lost their power. My mother would craft bow strings from the otherwise useless vellum and sell them to the bowyer.
I feel desperate. I wander through the storage rooms in case any scrolls have been misplaced there. As I rifle through sacks of supplies, I hear a voice:
“You shouldn’t be here.”
I leap back and spin around, but no one is there. I march to the doorway and look out across the courtyard. Nothing stirs. The snow-covered ground holds only my footsteps.
Behind me, I hear a thump. I dart back into the storeroom and see a man’s severed head lolling on the floor, his blood-shot eyes staring straight at me.
“You shouldn’t be here.” He repeats. His lips are grey and cracked, and once my heart stops racing I feel smothered by sadness. If he has been artificially kept alive then he must live in misery. Steeling my nerves, I sit cross-legged in front of him. I grab a fistful of his hair and he winces. He still feels everything, I realise. I prop him up on a low shelf so we can talk eye to eye.
“Why not?” I ask, then blow on my cold hands for warmth. I have no gloves as I am not used to snow; my town a few miles away is usually blessed with warm weather. I have wondered if the recent chill is supernatural, but there has been no one left to ask.
“He comes back here every few nights. Sometimes to brag, sometimes to seek advice.”
We both know who he is speaking of. There is no need for names.
“And you give it to him?”
The man rolls his eyes in a manner that suggests he would shrug if he could. Then his expression goes blank and I think he forgets I’m there.
My mother invited Hanan to live with us after his parents died. He had been a quiet, studious boy, and told me of his plans to become a monk himself. It is hard for me to trace how he went from that child to the man he is now: destructive, power-hungry, and cruel. Sometimes I feel I might drown in my guilt for not spotting something earlier and sending him away to the forests. Sometimes I feel guilty for not doing the opposite: not listening to him enough, not loving him enough.
One lazy afternoon a monk handed Hanan a scroll. It was meant for him, the monk said. I have long struggled with the implications of this. Did the gods truly intend all this? Did the monk understand what would happen next?
“Tell me where he took all the spells.”
The head twists slightly.
“Don’t. You will not be the one to rein him in.”
My numb hands curl into fists. If the monk was as wise as he liked to pretend, he would be more than just a magically preserved head. Being the only survivor meant he had been a coward, I decided. He must have begged to be kept alive in any form, unable to face his fear of death.
“Tell me.”
“If I do so, will you… Will you take me away from here? I do not ask for much. I do not need food or clothing, I just need warmth and freedom from his… punishments.”
I notice for the first time the slice marks on his tongue and the festering gums where two of his teeth would have been. I nod, though in truth I have not yet considered what to do with the coward.
“He took all the books to his abode in Mount Jirati after I told him about the power of high places. It is only the replicating scroll that matters, though. Destroy that, and his power would wane considerably. The other spells would no longer be able to be used more than once.”
“Destroy it?” I laugh. “Why would I want to destroy it?”
His eyes widen in shock.
“You wish to take his place? Have you learnt nothing from all this?”
I chuckle. I have learnt how much influence one person can have over the world, as long as they have the right tools. Hanan has been petty and careless, destroying whole towns whenever someone slights him. I do not intend to follow in his footsteps. My vision of the world is one where the worthy prosper, and justice is meted out to any scum that preys on others.
I grab the monk by his hair and throw him into my knapsack. The journey to Mount Jirati will be long and arduous, but I trust the monk can supply me with enough information on my enemy to let me gain the upper hand.
Yep, that's what I would have done.
Ultimate Power!!