by Todd Honeycutt
in Issue 150, July 2024
As I plodded higher into the forest, the tales whispered about these heathen lands felt more true. Many pointed to these hills, with their magnificent trees that could have been planted by the first gods, yews with their large, windy trunks and broad canopies and cedars towering into the sky. Their wood should be crafted into siege towers, defensive walls, sleek ships, battering rams. Riches and power unclaimed.
The fabled monastery was close.
It had to be.
I’d tracked the legends for three months into lands so far north I could hardly understand the people’s accents. So far north, I wasn’t sure I could retrace my steps home. If the Hundredth Monastery wasn’t here, with its monks and the furniture they make for the gods, my only choice would be to return to the Overseer of the Eastern Plain in shame and very much in her debt.
I’d been foolish, standing in her grand hall. Too quick to pledge, too quick to gain her favor, too quick to prove my courage and my wits to satisfy her whims. But a poor boy makes poor choices for prosperity and fame. To my credit, I still had, hidden away, two of her rubies, a loan to aid our quest.
My feet had blisters where the soles of my boots had worn through, my shoulders raw from the burden of my pack. I’d not had a meal with meat in days. All six of my companions either turned back or died. Not one had been worth their weight, always complaining, always shirking, always with a quip at someone’s expense. One was dead by my own hand, and if it hadn’t been me, someone else would have stabbed him soon enough.
I stopped to drink from my flask. Amid the hauntings of this ancient forest—the wind blowing through needles high overhead, the quick, low-pitched calls of birds I couldn’t name, the scurrying of a tree rat climbing across bark—I heard the steady beating of someone chopping wood. But from where? It reverberated around me.
I grunted and picked a direction and continued climbing, getting closer to the chopping until a woman called out. “Hold!”
I stopped.
“Go to your left. Quickly.”
I looked for the voice. Couldn’t find it.
“Now! Now!”
With her insistence, I stopped wondering who it was and jumped.
There was a thwack and a crack, and the entire hillside rumbled with the falling of a cedar, so close its wind pushed against me.
I scrambled away, my heart pounding.
A woman emerged from behind the fallen tree, her gray hair pulled back and braided, a short ax in her hand and coils of rope looped across her body, a smile on her face. “Not too close, I hope.”
“You almost killed me!”
“If I’d wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have yelled. Repeatedly. You’re lucky Stele saw you when he did.”
“Been traveling so long, I can’t have any luck left.”
“If you’ve still traveling, your luck hasn’t run out yet. I’m Laurel,” the woman said.
“Brant.”
“What brings a young lad like you up here?”
I’d long passed telling the truth. “Tracking a griffin.”
A man appeared behind Laurel. He wore the same garb—a simple, worn robe in shades of brown, bound tightly across his body—and held a well-used long-handled ax. “Griffins are wary!” he said in a boisterous voice and an accent I couldn’t place.
“That they are.”
“If you’re interested in an honest day’s work,” Laurel said, “there’s space in a barn, along with a meal.”
She’d been right; my luck hadn’t run out. “If you can spare it. Seems like a fair trade.”
I rested and watched as the two returned to trimming the giant. They were quick, efficient, skillful, their labors more like dancing than work. Two more joined them, and they lashed several long branches, each near the width of a person’s leg, with rope.
“Don’t you have mules?” I asked when I realized they intended to drag their bundle uphill.
“Why burden a beast with what’s ours to carry?” Laurel replied.
Instead of arguing about what a beast should be burdened with, I took my place among them and grabbed onto the rope. It bit into the palms of my hands, a dull pain that didn’t fade. They sang songs as we tugged the heavy load, the words light-hearted and the rhythms quick-paced. As we moved higher, the hill flattened out and we came to a clearing with several large, long structures made of yew, all circling a short tower of stone that rose above them.
Gods, it didn’t look much like a monastery, but it was close enough for me to hope.
We left our burden near one of the buildings, and they all clapped my back and thanked me for my effort.
“I did nothing but slow you down.”
“It took half the time it would have,” Laurel said. Her words were an exaggeration, but they lifted my mood.
When she said it was mealtime, I followed her to a building across the way. She opened a door, and out tumbled comforting smells of a warm fire and food, and we entered a room filled with noisy people sitting around tables, a hearth in one corner. Could have been a good-hearted, beer-filled tavern anywhere. Laurel introduced me, and I was greeted with hellos and smiles as she poured a bowl of soup and handed me a hunk of bread and sat me at a table.
There were fourteen in all, most older, all wiry and strong. These were people who spent their days in joyful laboring. Any could have bested the members of the troop I’d set out with.
Anticipating what I sought these long months, I was giddy thinking about how I wouldn’t have to share the Overseer’s prize.
The soup, hearty and pleasant, could have used meat; the bread had an earthy, sour scent. None of the others took seconds, and I held back from asking for more.
The bright-eyed men and women peppered me with questions about my home, the lands I’d crossed, details about my griffin. I relayed a tale of taking on a task from the Overseer of the Eastern Plain and her magicians to capture a griffin’s tail. They asked for news of other rulers, other lands, hungry for knowledge I didn’t have.
So many questions, I didn’t have time to ask my own.
“Enough,” Laurel said. “Our new friend needs rest.”
We pushed out to the crisp fall air, a reminder I needed to hurry home before being stranded by the northern snows. We walked to a building on the other side of the monastery, where she opened a door and motioned me ahead. I hesitated. Was it a trap?
After all the kindness she’d shared, embarrassment fell on me. I feared my face gave me away.
I hurried in.
If it was a trap, it was a poor one, and easily escaped.
All around the barn hung tools of their trade, saws and drills and awls and spindles of every imaginable size. The smells of earnest woodwork, sawdust and stain and fresh-cut wood, brought back childhood memories of my grandfather and his woodshop. My family’s stories portrayed him as a tyrant, but that hadn’t been my experience. I’d spent hours in his woodshop under his care, sanding and cutting, working the lathe, poking myself with his drills. He doted on me, and I loved him for it.
Whether our family’s misfortunes after grandfather’s death were because of his life or his passing, people disagreed. I’d been too young to know anything other than how much I cried.
Laurel pointed to a corner filled with straw, empty of tools and wood. “If you can stand the smell, you can sleep there tonight.”
“Stand it? It’s comforting, tell the truth. This and a full belly, I’ll sleep more soundly than I have since I left home.”
“Appreciate your help today. Could use you again tomorrow, if you’re willing.”
“Not sure. That griffin’s getting away.”
“They are quick,” she said, and wishing me a goodnight, left.
All the months of toiling and searching and scheming, and here I was. I planned to rest until everyone fell asleep, then investigate, find something to satisfy the Overseer’s whims, and carry it away.
The sounds of chanting, the group’s nightly prayers, filtered into the barn. If I heard right, they called to the god of desire, an old god and an odd choice given the sparseness of the monks’ lives.
My final thoughts were about my grandfather and his workshop, and what he might have felt had he found such a place, such a group.
I woke to the sound of chimes and more chants, the coolness of the early morning and the weakness of its light.
I’d slept too quickly and then too soundly.
I’d lost my chance.
Nothing to do about it except wipe the sleep from my eyes.
I followed their voices, a song honoring the god of renunciation in her many forms. I hesitated before the grand door of the stone tower, then eased it open. That it was a chapel was clear the moment I entered, despite its odd styling. The monks sat on a single row of benches positioned around the wall, their focus on a platform in the middle of the room on which stood a large stool, almost twice the size of what a person would use, glowing with a strange, luminous purplish-brown hue. Its legs flayed out, widening as they reached the platform.
The piece was strong and simple.
Worthy of the gods.
I studied it for any mark of a jewel or gold inlay, finding no adornment, and any such addition might have ruined it. The quality far surpassed what my grandfather made. It exceeded even the craft and care of the Overseer’s palace. I could see my fortune.
I moved to the side, head in reverent repose, as the monks continued. The room evoked a plainness that hid its complexity—the character of the stones, thick beams supporting the roof, elaborate engravings in the doors and doorways. The more I looked, the more impressed I became, and I uttered, forgetting myself, “How beautiful.”
The monks finished and filed out, greeting me again with smiles.
Laurel approached. “Off to track your griffin?”
I pointed to the stool. “Tell me about that. My grandfather was a woodworker, but he made nothing so beautiful.”
“A soul’s joy. Three years of Rostaq’s dedication. We offered it this morning as a sacrament. By the next full moon, a god will come and take it, as gods have done for a thousand years.”
“Surely not. That’s a myth.”
“So each of us thought before we came here. This is our work, our calling.” She looked around; the other monks had left. “Could use another strong back today.”
I couldn’t leave without that stool. “Aye, I’ll work another day. For the soup.”
She laughed, “Our cook will be pleased to hear it,” and I smiled along with her.
We met the same three monks as the day before, them with their ropes and their axes and their saws and me carrying nothing, and they sang as we walked down the hill to the cedar they’d chopped yesterday.
Laurel showed how the tree had begun to rot, the telltale signs of orange mushrooms climbing up and around it, then mentioned the promise of a beautiful grain.
I worked beside them as they finished the work they started. I took one side of a saw and Laurel the other. She didn’t rush me, didn’t hurry me, as I might have her, and I learned the weight and bite of the tool, felt the tree, fell into the rhythm of the saw, my sour sweat tangling with the gentleness of the cedar’s scent, and we cleaved the trunk in two, and there were smiles all around.
“A born lumberer,” Laurel said.
We spent the rest of the morning cutting the tree apart, birds calling from high above in between the sounds of saw and ax. By afternoon, we pulled the logs back to the monastery with ropes and grunts and songs. Our three trips were harder on me than the one the day before, more exhausting. I’d wished we’d cut the logs shorter, but we got them back all the same.
That day, I did think I was at least somewhat helpful and their work would have taken a little longer without me.
The kitchen was a welcome sight, and my heart lifted with the warmth of the soup and bread.
I sat across from Laurel as we ate. “Your songs and chants mention many gods. Which do you worship here?”
“All of them, and none.”
“What do you mean?”
“We were one of Talikat’s hundred monasteries built to celebrate his conquest of the twelve lands. He dedicated each monastery to this god or that, careful not to exclude or favor any. But here, this last one, he dedicated to all gods. And so we worship all. But some think we end up serving none.”
“And you think the gods, truly, take what you build?”
“We don’t think. We know.”
That day, I was too hungry to be modest. When I asked for more, they chided me and told me I’d earned it and filled my bowl. As I listened to them describe their work and tasks for the next day, fatigue overcame me.
I excused myself, went to the barn where I’d slept the night before, and laid down. I planned to rise before the sun, early enough to grab the stool and make my way down and return home to claim my prize.
I woke late again, anguished to hear the monks chanting. I should have risen before the sun and stolen out. Instead, all I could do was listen to their devotion to the god of detachment.
The chants ended and they went about their days. I’d wait them out, and so pretended to sleep in case anyone peeked in, focusing first on the smells of woodworking and the wind whistling through the trees and against the barn. Then memories slipped in of my grandfather and the morning he guided me in building a toy ship. I still carry the scar where I cut my left palm with a knife, blood staining my boat, and my grandfather laughed as he wrapped a cloth around my hand to staunch the blood. I’ll never forget his words: “Mistakes are the best learning.” How proud of that ship I’d been when I finished, and we placed it into the canal running beside the East Gates and chased it as it wound through the city until it sped out the sluices, beyond the city and into the sea.
I wasn’t sad to lose it. I was thrilled to have it go so far, overjoyed with the satisfaction on my grandfather’s face.
When I was satisfied that I heard nothing outside but the birds and the wind, I stood and stretched, hoisted my pack onto my back, and crept out the door. Straight into Laurel.
“Time to track that griffin?”
Those two days, I’d only seen her happy, only seen any of them happy, tucked up here and laboring in this faraway place, no earthly realm laying claim to them, whether they were working or eating or chanting. She looked happy now.
I felt embarrassed. “I’m afraid there never was a griffin.”
“I know. At least, I know there’s none in these parts.”
“My Overseer desires an example of your craft. Conquering lands and commanding thousands of people are not enough. She wants something worthy of the gods.”
She nodded as if she’d heard it before.
“I can pay,” I said.
“We give of our doings freely.” She touched my arm. “We won’t stop you from taking the stool, if it pleases you and your Overseer. But if you could work with us another day, we’d love to have you.”
In my mind’s eye, I began the long trek back with the stool, my task almost completed.
Before me, Laurel looked so eager.
Was it guilt I felt? Shame at being so callous?
Or did I covet her company, the companionship she and the others had shown?
I could labor another day and go tomorrow. Leave one of the rubies with them. Not quite a fair exchange for the stool, but at least an offering.
I returned to the barn to set my pack down and dropped it in surprise.
Standing before me was the man I’d killed. Or thought I had.
“Garq?”
“Expecting me?”
I turned over the possibilities. A trick? A ghost? A god?
His beard had grown full but patchy, his body drawn and malnourished. The outraised dagger left no doubt of his intent.
I glanced around. No weapon at hand save odd pieces of wood too small to counter a blade. I took one slow step back, then another.
“It’s here,” I said, seeking to distract him, “What the Overseer wants.”
“If it’s here,” he scoffed, “why haven’t you taken it?”
That I hadn’t left confused me, too. “I’ve been paying off debts, I suppose.”
“Debt’s a funny thing.” The dagger twisted in his hand. “I owe you a thing or two.”
The door opened behind me. “Brant?” Laurel called.
Garq looked behind me; I kept my attention on him.
“I mentioned traveling with others,” I said. “One of my companions has found me.”
“The one he stabbed and left in a ditch,” Garq said. “He may have mentioned that part of our adventure.”
“I won’t err in leaving you alive again.”
Laurel whistled in two short, high-pitched tones. “No need to threaten. You can have what you came for.”
“Don’t—” I said. The slimy, backstabbing cur didn’t deserve it.
“Brant can give you our jewels for trade. If he still has them.”
“It’s not for sale,” Laurel said. “We give as the trees do.”
“All the better,” Garq said. Keeping his dagger toward me, he stepped forward and picked up my pack. “If you don’t mind.”
“I might.”
“Then stop me.”
My hands were balled into fists, ready to rush him, when others came in. Garq’s eyes took them in, making the same calculations I would have: he could fight one or two of them, but not so many. I weighed whether I had an opening, whether in surprise I could use my pack to an advantage.
I was blessed not to have found out.
“Come,” Laurel said. “What you seek is this way.”
I could see Garq considering options and odds.
Laurel must have taken his measure, too. “We’ll neither hurt nor trick you.”
“You first,” Garq said to me.
I turned and passed Laurel and the others. Were they disappointed I’d led someone like Garq here? I saw no judgment in their faces.
Garq walked close behind me.
“You’ll never make it back alone.”
“I made it here alone.”
“We carried you.”
“I carried myself.”
“You were a burden.”
“No more than you with your obstinance and your ego.”
I scowled. Those were words I’d use to describe him. He and I were not so alike, were we?
Laurel led us to the chapel, and more so than the previous day, I marveled at the grandeur of the stool.
Garq’s eyes gave away his greed.
How different would my experience have been had I come here with him? We would have blustered in, offered the two rubies, grabbed some piece of their craft, and learned nothing about them. Or worse, we would have killed someone in our haste and our ignorance.
And I’d have had that same greed in my eyes as Garq.
“So I can just take it?” Garq said.
Laurel nodded.
He lifted it from the platform, grunted with its weight, and immediately dropped it on the floor. “Got a mule or a horse?”
“Why burden a beast with what’s yours to carry?” I said.
Garq tried again. After two steps, he set it down. “Not going to work. But I suppose you knew that.”
I hadn’t, but I didn’t say so.
He caressed the stool, then looked at me. “What’s passed is past, Brant. You help me with this, we’re even. We split the Overseer’s payment, half for you, half for me. We’ll be rich enough, and neither of us has to see the other again.”
He was right. We could, together, carry it down. Once there, we could buy a mule and a cart and make haste back home, our goal achieved.
“Aye, we can go together.”
“Alright then,” Garq said.
“I’ll have my pack first.”
He threw it at me, and I shouldered it, the soreness of carrying it so many days returning.
He took the top as I stooped to grab the legs, and together we carried the stool between us, the monks watching and Laurel holding the door.
“I’m sorry,” I said to her. “I enjoyed the work.”
“And we enjoyed your help,” Laurel said. Then a chorus came from the monks offering good lucks and best wishes and safe travels, as if I’d been with them for years and was setting off on a brief trip to see family and not stealing from them.
We walked from the monastery into the clearing and began our descent. It didn’t take long for Garq to start in on me. “Some impression you made on them.”
“They’re truly good people.”
“Truly dumb, letting us leave like this. If they are letting us.”
He’d been the densest of my companions. “Why come after us when they didn’t have to let us go?”
Then he spoiled the forest with his words, droning on about what happened since I’d left him in that ditch, all piss and vengeance and irritation at the world, and I remembered why I’d stabbed him. Sure, he’d cheated me at dice, but I’d been looking for any half-decent reason. He’d soured our journey with unpleasantness.
And I was just like him.
Which was why, at the end of my journey, I was alone.
Same as before I started.
We struggled that day, laboring under the stool’s weight as we plodded down to the valley, threading our way through that grand forest, him blabbering, my ignoring him. We stopped to sleep when it was too dark to see the trees. Despite my exhaustion, I tossed throughout the night, my rest uneasy in anticipation of Garq slipping a knife across my throat, relief when dawn broke with the boisterousness of the morning birds. Would this be my experience every night until we returned to the Overseer?
I nudged my companion awake, and we continued much the same as the day before, my arms and shoulders and back aching from carrying the stool.
Near dark, we stumbled across the road I’d left many days prior. We stopped, set the stool down, and rested on the long, cool grass.
“Think someone will come by with a horse and cart to sell?” Garq asked.
“Eventually.”
We lay there, quiet, recovering, for some time, neither of us ready for the next stage of our journey. I opened my pack, cut the threads from a piece of leather tucked inside, and pulled out the two rubies. They shone in what little light from the sun remained as I handed them to Garq. “Should be able to get what you need with one of these. The other will get you home.”
I stood and stretched and pulled on my pack.
“Where you going?”
“I helped you here. Owed you that, having tried to kill you.”
Garq glared at me like I was about to stab him again. “You’re as foolish as those monks if you’re heading back up.”
“That’s what I hope.”
I journeyed into the hills, not once looking behind.
©July 2024, Todd Honeycutt
Todd Honeycutt’s work has been seen in Nature, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. This is his first appearance in Swords & Sorcery Magazine.
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