I. The Monastery
Sermillion opened the doors of the conference room and walked in. The conference room was a large room at the back of the abbey. The walls were covered with black or crimson cloths, embroidered with the silver pentagram that was the sign of the order of Luxior.
Sermillion stopped at the end of the table. The seat was larger and more comfortable than the others. The head of the abbey, old magister Aridwen resided there. Sermillion resented the old man that had taken the lead over the order after his father Serxes had died. Sermillion was only 8 at the time and far from old enough to take over his father's place. At times Sermillion suspected Aridwen to have staged the accident. At that time, 40 years past Aridwen had still been in his prime. By now the magister was more than a little demented. In fact, his assistant Plevinon ruled the order.
Sermillion took out a small black cube and fastened it at the base of the table. For a moment the cube lingered, then it seemed to shiver and vanish. Sermillion nodded and left the room. What did that Plevinon know anyway? He was barely full grown at 30 and no match for the power of Sermillion. But Sermillion had always been patient, waiting for something to happen to the old magister and then take his place. But now there was no more time for waiting. Plevinon had brought a wench to the order. An old crone with the looks of a young woman. The younger men born into the order dwelled around her like flock of sheep. There was no need to live in celibacy, but this woman, this Agnaliz was a threat to everything the order stood for. She was treacherous…
Agnaliz walked around in circles in her room. Like every other room in the abbey it was decorated in black and crimson, with a blazing fire to drive the cold from the damp walls. There was one small window that looked out on the valley. The abbey itself was built on a mountain ridge. The only way to get to it was by a small path that started in the valley below.
Agnaliz hated the cold, like she hated everything about the place.
Agnaliz wanted to be back in her home town more than anything else. It would be warm there at the present time. Summer. Trees and flowers would be blooming in the streets and her own garden would be a rainbow of colours.
For years she had lived a solitary life. No-one had known who she was and where she had come from, nor how old she was. Agnaliz had been happy there, for the first time in her long life. She was 88, but didn't look a day over 30.
Agnaliz felt her face twitch when she thought of the first ten years of her life. She had been born to a simple girl. Her mother may have been mentally challenged but she had been pretty. Men had frequented her
corner on the rocky satellite that served as a stopover on the universal
supply routes. Agnaliz had spent her first years crawling around the spaceport, learning all small roads and alleys in the city. On one of those days she had been noticed. For as long as Agnaliz could remember she had had a rather accurate intuition. She knew which alleys to avoid and where to walk to stay out of trouble. Maybe the gift had come from her father, like her slow ageing. Agnaliz had no idea who he was…who she was.
A knock on the door pulled her back to the present.
"Enter." She said.
Plevinon entered. The man was tall and dark with long black hair and a small beard. He wore fashionable black trousers and a silk shirt in the same colour with crimson stitches. Fashionable as ever he wore a bright red cape over his other clothes, probably because the folds in the fabric accentuated his eyes, Agnaliz thought sarcastically.
"Angnaliz, have you seen anything?"
"Nothing." She said.
In fact she had seen things, more than one. But she wasn't one to yield so soon. Time had hardened her and all he could do was threaten her. The order wouldn't allow him to harm her. Luxior, the god of dark knowledge wasn't an unnecessary cruel one. Even
those that looked for dark knowledge knew better than to risk losing it,
and Agnaliz knew things this order craved. She knew more than she showed to the world and one day she would use that knowledge to get out of this retched place. But not before she fulfilled her destiny here. How Agnaliz loathed Destiny, it just wasn't fun when you saw it all coming.
"I know you are lying." Said Plevinon.
"And what are you going to do about it?" asked Agnaliz.
"You know I cannot harm you, for you have knowledge…. But I can harm something else. Something you hold dear. Like that little home of yours on the other side of the planet. Your little garden… even the town you live in. Do you want that?"
"You'll never get Aridwen to approve it."
"Oh, but I don't need too. Did I tell you I practically run this order? If I speak they follow."
"Not all of them." Agnaliz sensed.
"No, but it is just a matter of time before I get rid of Sermillion… And I don't even have to lend him a hand."
The look on Plevinon's face was brutal and cunning. The look in his eyes frightened her more than his earlier threats. He was prepared to kill and wouldn't
look back.
"What do you want of me?" she asked.
"The truth." Plevinon said looking calm and serene again.
"There is not one truth." Agnaliz whispered when she turned to Plevinon.
"I have seen the future of this order." Agnaliz then said out loud, making sure he heard it.
"What?"
"It will cease to exist before the end of the year."
"But.. That's impossible." Plevinon said
"And yet it is truth." Said Agnaliz, followed by the thought: "one of them at least."
Agnaliz knew very well that she was going to interfere with time. The order was supposed to stand for another era, while the power of it grew ever stronger until it collapsed under it's weight in a faraway future. But Plevinon didn't know that, and with her telling she would surely change something.
"How?" Plevinon asked as he grabbed her by the shoulders, crushing her
flesh.
"A stranger…." Agnaliz whispered before she could restrain herself. For she had seen this stranger and knew his power. He would set in motion a change.
"When?"
"Now."
A knock on the door alerted them. Plevinon looked at the door, not wanting to open it. Finally he regained his
composure and let go of Agnaliz's shoulders. His hands suddenly felt tainted. Brushing them on the side of his shirt, Plevinon went to the door and carefully stuck his head out.
"Yes?"
In the hallway stood a lower monk, someone who wouldn't be noticed if he'd
do cartwheels down the hall. He wore the traditional black cloak with the
brownish waist-cord. His name was Tressen and he was of no importance. So he had been told all his life in the order. Unlike Sermillion his father hadn't been a valued member.
Unlike Plevinon he hadn't been favoured by the leader of the order. No his father had been shunned from the order and Tressen now paid the price.
He'd only been admitted because there was nobody else to take him. He was
tolerated and just barely so.
"A visitor, sir." Tressen said and bowed, "you pompous ninny." He thought.