There was no air.
He was prepared this time — to an extent at least. The fire was different. It formed a tunnel around him, having spread up to and across the stone ceiling. Unlike the wattle hovel it wasn't eating through the thick stone walls, but was contained by them, transforming the passageways into tunnels of fire. He moved deeper into the building. Everywhere he looked the fire had taken hold; the same corridors of fire branched out left to the refectory and right to the chapel, whilst straight ahead of him, and continuing deeper into the warren of narrow corridors and monastic cells, another tunnel of fire formed a burning cross. He stood at the centre of the cross. Fire chased up the walls around him. The scriptorium would be down one of those flaming passages. And the Devil's Bible… he could almost hear Blodyweth's voice urging him to walk into the fire. It was so seductive, so tempting. He felt himself wanting to please the woman even though she wasn't there.
He turned and turned about, but there was no sight of the staircase. His world was reduced to fire and smoke.
The fire burned at its purest here, but somehow didn't touch him.
Alymere tried to recall the exterior of the chapter house and guess where he would find the stair, but with the flames pressing in it was almost impossible to think.
The screaming came again. It didn't sound any closer than it had from outside.
The man's screams were the purest sound of human suffering he had ever heard.
He made his choice then. He had to find the man and save him. A single life had to be worth more than any book — no matter how holy or unholy — didn't it?
Alymere followed the screams.
The walls might have been thick enough to withstand the heat, but the monastic trappings of the chapter house were not so resilient. The fire claimed the oak furniture and the tapestries, the tall dressers and the chests, the high-backed chairs and the long tables of the refectory, the benches of the chapel and even the lectern beside the altar itself. All of them fed the fire. Anything that could burn was burning.
Alymere found the screaming man at the foot of a great winding staircase.
It was not one of the brothers, though, but a reiver. It was too late to save him, even if he had wanted to. The northerner's body was broken from the fall. His limbs sprawled out at impossible angles from him. His screams had nothing to do with his terrible injuries, but from the fire that had found him. His furs burned, fusing to his skin, and the leather of his boots and sword sheath bubbled and shrivelled, tearing the meat away from the bone as it did. It was an ugly death, but the man deserved no better.
Alymere could not get close to the body, and at length the screaming stopped.
At the top of the staircase Alymere saw the shadow-man watching him impassively, utterly unconcerned by the fire around him. The shadows cast by the flames danced in the sunken hollows where his eyes should have been. Had every brother in Medcaut put out his own eyes? Was the mutilation part of their benediction? How could being blind serve to bring them closer to God? Or was their blindness some form of protection? Were they blinding themselves to the sins of the flesh and the evils of their world?
Alymere's reflection was cut short when he saw that the blind monk clutched a small book in his hands.
He couldn't help but feel a pang of disappointment at the mundanity of the so-called Devil's Bible. It looked like no more than a prayer book. But that was the nature of evil, wasn't it; to wear the face of something normal, something banal and harmless, to mask its true intent?
"I have been expecting you," the monk said over the sound of the flames.
Behind the monk's shoulder, the huge window succumbed finally to the heat and shattered, showering shards of glass out across the cloister garden below.
"Give me the book," Alymere said, climbing the first step.
"You are making a grave mistake, knight."
"I don't think so," Alymere said, reaching the fifth step. "In fact I've never felt so sure of anything in my life."
The words came almost like an incantation; there was a hypnotic rhythm to them. "That is the book, not you. Leave this place. Run. Run and don't ever look back. Forget you ever heard mention of the Devil's Bible. Do not let it get inside your head. It is not too late. Run."
"Give me the book," Alymere repeated. "I have no desire to hurt you."
"But you will," the monk said with certainty.
"It doesn't have to be this way. Leave here with me."
"I cannot leave here."
"You cannot stay. Come dawn there will be nothing left of the monastery."
"And yet we shall abide. It is you that must leave. Believe me."
Alymere reached the tenth step. There were only three between them now.
Close to, the mutilation to the monk's face was even more severe than that of his brother outside. The scars had that same hard-white quality of age, but these were not restricted to his eyes. They spread all across his face, carving out his cheeks and opening his nose so his nostrils appeared to be nothing more than ragged holes in the centre of his face. The scars continued down his neck before disappearing beneath the collar of his habit. He saw them emerge again from the cuffs and continue from his wrists across the back of his hands and again from the hem of his skirts, criss-crossing his ankles and every inch of flesh not covered by his sandals.
Alymere was in no doubt that the man bore the savage scars all over his body.
The blind monk whose skin is impervious to blades…
"I will only ask one more time, monk. Give me the book."
"And so it comes to this. Kill me if you will, knight. I shall not surrender the Devil's book to you willingly."
"I have no intention of killing you," Alymere said, the lie catching in his throat. The thought had occurred to him five steps below. If the monk would not surrender the bible willingly, how else could he uphold his promise to Blodyweth? He was horrified by the thought that the monk, even without eyes, could read his intentions so clearly.
"Let's pretend that is true, shall we? You can use the last few steps to make peace with yourself before you strike me down," the monk said.
"Silence," Alymere barked. His fist clenched around the hilt of his sword. It felt heavy in his hand. How heavy was human life? The weight of the blade that claimed it? The weight of the corpse it left behind? Or the weight of all of those lives it could never touch again, combined?
"The truth is barbed, is it not? My murder weighs heavy on you already, does it not?"
"I said silence!"
"So that you may cut me down without my words pricking your conscience? No," the monk said, tilting his head slightly as though listening to the voices of the fire. "You are already too far gone for that, aren't you? The book already owns you."
"No-one owns me. I am a free man!" Alymere's denial was fierce but his words sounded hollow in his own ears.
There were forces at play here that he could not understand. He was merely a play-thing to them. He shook his head, trying to clear the fog that shrouded his thoughts.
"Have you not wondered why the flames do not touch you?"
Alymere's only answer was to lash out with his sword.