The Monk's Habit (The Disinherited Prince Series Book 2) Read online

They ate in silence. After Pol cleared the dishes, Searl stood and began to walk out the door.

  “No. Today you will stay inside.”

  “Nature calls,” Searl said.

  “Then I will accompany you,” Pol said.

  Searl grunted and stomped through the door. He walked back to the outhouse and slammed the door shut. When he was finished, he exited and slammed the door shut again.

  Pol dutifully followed him back into the cabin. He got out a paper and pen. “Let’s write out a list of lessons. It might be better to have short goals, and I will document our activities.”

  “In case I leave and never return?” Searl said.

  Pol nodded. “To show Vactor what I’ve learned.”

  “Vactor is teaching Level Fours? What a waste.”

  “He was teaching me when I was a Level Three.”

  Searl grunted and brushed the back of his hand on the bearded underside of his chin. “Write this down…” Pol stopped Searl at ten lessons. “If I pass these ten, we will leave. Okay?”

  Searl nodded and let Pol see the hint of a grin. Did Searl not think Pol could learn the spells?

  He didn’t want to stay at the cabin forever. Pol itched to return to Deftnis, and if Searl truly did learn to control his habit, then he was still weeks away from returning. It would most certainly be summer before they arrived at the monastery.

  After the first session, Searl walked to the vegetable patch and gathered a bowlful of minweed, without saying anything, and returned to the cabin.

  Pol watched the monk settle down on his bed. He waited to hear Searl’s snores before the grabbed the shovel and began to eliminate more of Searl’s local supply of minweed. There were little patches all around Searl’s cabin, but Pol committed to eradicating it about the time he intended to head north to find Searl’s daughter.

  He worked until the sun brushed the tops of the trees as it prepared to set in the west. Searl hadn’t awakened, so Pol wrote notes on what he had learned earlier in the day and compared it to Searl’s list. The monk hadn’t taught him anything related to the items on the list.

  Pol wished he could trust Searl, but he couldn’t. The man was under the nasty influence of minweed, and that probably affected all he did.

  Searl’s list didn’t seem that far off from some of the things he had seen around the monastery, so Pol decided he might try to puzzle out some of the techniques, using what he knew as a base. Vactor had always told him that the difference between levels was more of the ability to control tweaking.

  Pol could see it was more involved than that, but he would do his best. He memorized the ten spells and decided to ask Searl related questions that would help him learn the techniques listed.

  The lessons became a battle between Searl teaching Pol non-related techniques and Pol getting the answers that he needed to learn the ten techniques on his own. As the days wore on, Pol was learning much more than he expected. He had progressed to mastering eight of the ten items on Searl’s list, plus whatever Searl taught him.

  ~

  The first day of summer had come, and Pol had finished tearing out all of Searl’s surrounding minweed patches. All that remained grew among the vegetable patch, now sporting summer vegetables.

  Pol had puzzled out the ten techniques as Searl had begun another round of teaching him healing. Pol had to complain, but Searl just ignored him. The time had come to show Searl his progress and get out of the cabin and out on the road.

  Demeron and Searl’s horse were well-groomed, fed, and exercised. Pol had practiced pattern-mastering and could even throw his sword and guide it with his power for a short distance, while he had extended his knife throwing out to twenty-five feet or more with good penetrating power.

  Pol was prepared to leave, so he sat Searl down before he started his next lesson, this one on how hands were constructed. Anatomy had nothing to do with the ten objectives.

  “I am ready to be tested on the ten techniques you wrote down twenty days ago.”

  Searl narrowed his eyes. “We haven’t even gotten to those yet.”

  “Yes, we have,” Pol said. “I have learned them on my own with your guidance.”

  The monk put his hand to his chest. “My guidance? No, no, no, no.”

  “Test me.”

  “Very well.” Searl took Pol outside where the monk ran Pol through each of the ten techniques.

  “I passed.”

  Searl sat back against the post of the porch. “You have. How did I guide you? I am still mystified.” He looked confused.

  “The common thread through all magic is manipulating patterns. The trick is to discover what the true pattern is and how to tweak it to get the desired result. I was stumped on each of these until I asked you the questions that I needed.”

  “Oh,” Searl shook his head. “I thought you were just off track.”

  “I was on my track,” Pol said. “It’s time to go.”

  Searl’s eyes grew a bit with a tinge of panic. “It can’t be. I can’t leave here.”

  “Let’s start with a trip to Hill Creek. You haven’t been there for a long time.”

  “I have to, don’t I?”

  Pol nodded.

  “Tomorrow. I need a dose.”

  The monk looked shocked enough that Pol would let him get one more in before Searl re-entered the world. Searl grabbed a bowl and filled it with the plant.

  While Searl slept, Pol ripped out all of the minweed in the monk’s garden except for a fringe that covered up the destruction that Pol had made of the minweed. He roamed the woods removing any traces of the weed, he returned to fix Searl dinner.

  Pol noticed the bowl only half-consumed and would make sure that Searl didn’t leave the cabin.

  Searl rose and left the cabin for the outhouse. He didn’t look in the direction of the garden before he returned. Pol breathed a sigh of relief.

  “What do you want to do in Hill Creek?” Pol asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s your trip.”

  Pol smiled. “Okay, we’ll find something to do,” he said.

  ~

  They left early. “We’ll get a cooked breakfast in Hill Creek,” Pol said. “You’re probably sick of my cooking.”

  “No, luckily, your cooking didn’t make me sick,” Searl said, with the ghost of a grin on his face.

  Humor, thought Pol. Perhaps there was hope for his host.

  They mounted and headed down to Hill Creek, an hour and a half ride to the north. The day had blossomed hot and the heat increased when they reached the valley. Pol hadn’t been to the village for two weeks, and the fields had turned much greener.

  People scurried about on their own business. The village’s one restaurant was attached to the best inn. Pol and Searl walked in.

  A man approached them. “Searl, it’s been a year or more since you visited us.”

  “It might have been. This is my protégé, Pol Cissert.”

  The man tried to hide a smile. “Protégé in what?”

  Pol felt the obvious undercurrents of the man’s jest.

  “I’m a magician. Master Searl has been tutoring me.”

  “Magician? Show me,” the man said.

  Pol looked at a small table surrounded by a chair on each side. He lifted them all up at once to the ceiling and back down again into the same place.

  Searl gave Pol a sideways glance. Multiple object movement was one of the ten tests. Pol had used an assortment of tools at the cabin.

  “Well, I suppose you are,” their host said, his attitude changed.

  “Serve us some breakfast, Harloy. What have you got that’s fresh?”

  ~

  Pol and Searl walked into Jadekin’s General Store.

  “I heard you were in town,” the clerk said to Searl.

  “My student dragged me here, Jadekin.”

  The clerk beamed. “I’m so glad to see you. Do you have time for a bit of healing? There are some in the village who could use your help.”

&nb
sp; Searl was about to say no, but Pol interrupted. “He will. I’m learning a bit of healing from him, so I can observe and help in my own small way.”

  The monk grunted and nodded his head. “Not for too long,” Searl said.

  Jadekin sent another clerk out, and by the time their order was filled, a space in the store had been cleared out, a padded table and chairs had been placed in a back corner of the store.

  Since it was noon, someone brought in lunch for Searl and Pol while people began to line up.

  “I can’t cure everything,” Searl announced to the crowd, “but I will do my best for two hours.”

  Patients were brought in. Searl talked to Pol while he worked, telling him what he did and what patterns he looked for.

  Most of them had colds or flu, and Searl gave them common remedies and referred them to Jadekin for various potions and tonics.

  A boy sat down with broken finger. “You can fix this,” Searl said to Pol.

  “Me?”

  Searl nodded. “We’ve already gone over this. To knit a bone, you look into the finger and knit the ends together. For a simple break, you are tweaking the fracture back to its original shape. The proper pattern exists on both good sides of the bone, and you tweak the bone to knit. It will take some power, but now you have enough.”

  Pol couldn’t imagine joining a bone, but he figured that Searl could repair a mistake. He looked with his magic into the wound. It was like locating in the dark, except there were no dots. He actually could see the insides of the finger, like he could see the insides of a lock. Pol wouldn’t have thought to do such a thing until Searl worked with him. He had looked into his own body, but Searl had told him that a magician couldn’t heal himself. The power couldn’t transfer since it already ran through his body.

  He saw the break. Pol had imagined a clean break, but the bone was mostly intact with shards of bone floating inside the finger. He located the pattern at both sides and applied his power to restore the bone and attach the chips.

  “Ow, that’s hot,” the boy said.

  “It takes heat to heal.” Pol proceeded a bit more slowly in hopes that would help. He examined his work and brought his focus outside.

  “Very good, Pol,” Searl said. The monk hadn’t done much complimenting, but his words sounded sincere.

  “It is still tender, so don’t get it bumped for a few days,” Searl told the boy’s mother.

  “I didn’t think I’d ever be able to do that.”

  “Malden Gastoria learned,” Searl said. “He’d be pleased to know you did, too.”

  Pol nodded.

  A woman came in clutching her stomach. Searl put his hands on her. “I will help you a bit,” he said. “Get a digestive from Jadekin. You’ll be fine in a few days.”

  Pol restrained a smile. “Constipation?”

  Searl nodded with a straight face. “Most remedies are simple. You just need to know how to diagnose. Someone with the same stomachache might have something more serious. That is what takes a healer a long time to learn. Bones are easy, softer tissue issues are harder.”

  “What about infections?”

  “You’ve seen me do that before, but we’ll talk more about that whenever we leave.”

  Whenever? Pol thought. Searl still hadn’t really committed to leave.

  The patients were still lined up, so Searl talked to each one, and most of them left to buy some more medicine from Jadekin. They ended up spending over three hours in the store.

  “I need my beard trimmed,” Searl said. He nodded to Jadekin, who thanked them profusely. Not only had Searl treated a large number of villagers, but also Jadekin had sold an awful lot of product during their session.

  After a trip to the barber, Searl looked quite different. He had his hair trimmed, and his beard removed. His skin looked sensitive, but he looked years younger. They returned to Jadekin’s store and loaded up their provisions.

  The day was about over, and when they reached Searl’s cabin they stopped in disbelief. Fifteen men were in the process of throwing Searl’s belongings out of his home.

  “What’s going on here?” Searl said.

  An angry man stood next to Morfess, shorter, but somewhat better dressed. “You had an agreement with Morfess,” he said. “The minweed patches around your property were ours.”

  Pol’s stomach dropped. He had destroyed all of the minweed for hundreds of feet around Searl’s cabin.

  “What?” Searl said.

  “Death is the payment for such a violation.”

  “Noobel is right,” Morfess said. The local supervisor didn’t look as confident as his boss did.

  “The minweed will grow back, soon enough,” Pol said.

  Searl’s eyes grew. “You destroyed the patches?”

  Pol nodded. “It’s the only way to get you to leave this place.”

  “You did this?” Noobel said. His eyes were dead. Pol didn’t expect any pity from such a criminal.

  “You can leave right now,” Pol said.

  Noobel laughed. “An old man and a boy against fifteen?”

  Pol used his locating spell. There weren’t any men in the woods.

  “We are magicians. Searl is a Level Eight and I’m a Level—”

  “Blue.” Searl nodded to Pol. “He’s a Blue and a pattern-master.”

  “You are all charlatans.”

  Morfess plucked at Noobel’s sleeve. “Searl is no charlatan, and neither is the boy.”

  Noobel glared at Searl. “Kill them.”

  Pol whipped out three knives from his boot. He pointed to Noobel. “Neither Searl or I will heal you from your wounds. Attack us, and you will die where you stand.”

  The men advanced drawing weapons. “You won’t stop?” Pol said.

  “Didn’t I say ‘kill them’?” Noobel said.

  Pol threw his first knife and it went to the hilt on the left side of Noobel’s chest. The man keeled over immediately.

  “Who else would like to die?” Pol said, putting as much menace into his words as he could.

  Another two men advanced, and Pol used his magic to blow them against the back wall of the lean-to. They crumpled to the ground.

  A few men began to back up, and more ran into the woods.

  Morfess stood over Noobel’s body. “Go, both of you. Never come back.” He shook his head with a sorrowful look on his face. “I’m sorry, Searl. I can’t cover you on this.” He turned and walked into the woods, followed by the rest of the men. Some of them dragged away the two weeders in the lean-to, but no one bothered to touch Noobel’s body.

  ~~~

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ~

  “THAT IS A HECK OF A WAY TO GET ME TO LEAVE MY HOME!” Searl said with more than a bit of anger in his voice. “We have no choice but to get our of here as soon as we can.”

  Pol stood looking at Noobel’s body, and then looked around at Searl’s place. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Mean what? To rip me from my home so you can feel good about yourself? Save me from your being sorry.” Searl turned around, head drooping. He turned around, his eyes wet. “My minweed. You’ve won.” He trudged into the house.

  Pol followed.

  “You help me figure out what I need to take. You’ve seen my sledge. I can’t take any more that what we can put on that.”

  “I have plenty of money to replace what you’ve lost.”

  “You’ll keep me dosed up the rest of my life?” Searl shook his head. “Not likely.” He sat down heavily on a chair. “We have to leave as soon as we can. I don’t trust Morfess to keep his superiors at bay. Not now.”

  “Noobel was going to kill us.”

  Searl stood. “Because of you! Who told you to destroy all those patches of minweed? I didn’t cultivate them, the weeders did. They didn’t bother me, and I didn’t bother them until you came around.”

  Pol escaped from Searl’s harangue by climbing up the ladder to the loft and looking around. He didn’t see anything worth keep
ing of Searl’s possession. There were broken chairs and empty sacks, just junk. He gathered his things, such as they were, and began to stuff his saddlebags.

  Searl still rummaged around, looking through the furniture, clothes, and the rest of the contents of his cottage. Pol could tell that most everything was replaceable.

  “How can I help?”

  Searl turned around and snarled. “You’ve already done enough.”

  Pol could see papers and things strewn over his bed. He slipped over to the table and folded up the ten-point test and put it in his bags.

  “I’ll gather some cooking gear and stay outside until I can help load everything up.”

  Pol found the sledge and checked the bindings. He hitched it up to Searl’s horse and began to unload Demeron and pack their supplies for travel.

  “We’ll be leaving,” Pol said.

  I can see that. I am looking forward to being on the road again, and so is my friend.

  “Are horses friends?”

  Demeron snorted. Not the same as human friends. The bonding is different. You and I are friends in the human sense, but Searl’s horse will follow us without fail.

  Pol was done packing and wondered where Searl was. He stepped back inside the cabin and found him asleep. A cup of sludge was on the table. Pol sniffed it. Minweed. He shook his head.

  Pol couldn’t wait for Searl to wake up, so he gathered everything that looked like it had value and took it outside. Then he searched the cabin again. Tucked away in the corner of a shelf was Searl’s black cord belt and the large Deftnis amulet, shaped just like the one Malden gave him. He reluctantly took a sack of dried minweed along, in case of an emergency. Pol dreaded packing it, but he stuffed in the bottom of his bags.

  Pol looked under the bed, and gathered what remained, and he threw the bags over Searl’s saddle. He picked up Searl underneath his arms and dragged him onto the sledge, after he had put plenty of blankets to pad the carrier.

  After a third look, Pol closed the door and tied Searl to the sledge and left the clearing as the sun began to set. Noobel’s body still lay in the middle of the yard. He didn’t need light to travel, but he’d only go as far as Hill Creek.

  “Make sure your friend follows, Demeron,” Pol said as they entered the path downhill.