Chương 106: The First Accomplice

Kichan opened the ledger he had found behind the chapel across his knees. The opening pages held the petitions the relief priest had sent before he robbed the warehouses. He wrote to the royal court, asking it to release wartime grain reserves to the refugees. He wrote to the Papal State, asking that even enemy civilians be allowed to receive fever medicine. He asked a demihuman tribe not to punish a molly tea merchant because a human child had drunk it. The replies were preserved with the petitions.

Military rations must be preserved for the next battle. Giving medicine to enemy civilians is treason. The property of the Papal State is used for believers. Riphiel touched the different seals on the three replies with her fingertips. Kichan's finger stopped on the dense list of names beneath them. The priest had written children's names and dates of death under the replies. Beside the first name, there was nothing. Beside the second name, he had written that he would petition again.

Below the tenth name, the handwriting changed. I go to the warehouse tonight.

"He decided quickly." Kichan said.

"He waited through ten children." Riphiel answered. The first theft record listed three sacks of grain and fifteen sets of winter clothes. The priest did not keep the stolen goods in his own chapel. He distributed them among merchants who knew the night roads, deserters, and people from starving villages. They became the Forty Outlaws. Gold coins were left to buy food for the next winter.

Holy objects whose owners could not be found were sealed, and magical tools that would be dangerous if used in war were placed in the deepest storage rooms. The priest treated patients every day. At night, he wore the black mask. One being saw both faces before any person did. Batu put his nose to the corner of the ledger, then lifted his head. The dry smell of straw embedded in the paper led all the way to the ceiling. Batu scratched the pillar under the old nest with his forepaw.

A small feather slipped from between the ledgers. It had yellowed, but it had originally been white. Beside it was a drawing of an owl with a broken wing, along with a treatment record. The old nest was still in the chapel ceiling. When Argaon lifted Kichan to the nest, Kichan pulled out four small wooden tubes. A roof, a branch, a bridge, and a military ration cart were carved on them. Riphiel unfolded the short notes inside the tubes. Roofs, two. Patrols, three. Cart, one.

They were notes made so even comrades who could not read could know the route with only pictures and numbers. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Dust tried to swallow a white feather left in the nest and sneezed. The feather stuck to its face, making it look for a moment like a white owl.

"Rather small for the first accomplice." Riphiel said.

"Dust is not an accomplice. It is a culprit caught in the act." Kichan took the feather off and returned it between the ledgers. Valkyrie spread thinly over the treatment record beside him. When dried medicine stains showed beneath the water-light, Valkyrie curled its body into a circle over the molly splint drawing. While the priest still lived only as a priest by day, he found a white owl on a battlefield. Its left wing bone was broken, and an arrowhead remained in the flesh.

The priest splinted it with molly stems and washed the wound with mandragora powder.

"Just like us." Kichan said.

"What is?"

"Fixing Seru a few days ago." Riphiel looked at the splint drawing in the ledger.

"This one is much older."

"It is not like I copied him."

"No one said you did." Even after its wing healed, the owl did not return to the forest. By day, it dozed on the chapel beam. When the priest treated patients, it looked down from the window; when he went to other villages, it followed overhead. People believed the sacred bird had chosen the priest. When night came, the owl followed the priest who wore the black mask too. The priest noticed that the bird moved silently between roofs and the forest.

He tied short notes to its ankle and taught it which roofs and branches to land on. Riphiel arranged the four wooden tubes to match the four directions in the nest drawing. The roofs and branches carved on them matched the training route in the ledger, one after another. One cry meant the road was clear. Two meant a patrol had come. Three meant a military ration cart was moving. The Forty Outlaws used owl eyes as their symbol in place of human eyes.

"The first accomplice is a bird." Kichan said. Argaon examined the feather up close.

"It knew the priest's robe and the mask too."

"It could not even talk, but it kept a secret well."

"Better than people." The record before the last relief operation contained instructions in case he failed to return. He put the Fragment of God's Word and one note inside a small leather pouch. He tied it to the white owl's ankle and sent it back to the Church. The owl returned to the chapel alone. Kichan rubbed the smudged ink at the end of the sentence with his thumb. From the next line, the handwriting changed. The owl did not come down from the beam above the place where the priest had always stood.

Church records called it a miracle: a sacred bird had delivered the Saint's will and the fragment. Another line remained in the ledger of the Forty Outlaws. If the white bird returns alone, close the cave and scatter. The Church inherited that owl's nest and training method. As time passed, they tamed white owls that were larger and flew farther. This became a messenger system that carried documents and medicine, and even people.

Riphiel, thinking of Seru's document tube, measured the width of the old ankle ring from the nest with her fingers. Measurements in the ledger's margins traced the birds' growth over generations. The fact that the route had first been made to steal military rations and send medicine to refugees disappeared from the records. The priest's comrades and successors opened the mountain with a sequence of sounds memorized over several generations. The sounds changed little by little. One winter, the door stopped opening.

The last supplies, dangerous holy objects, and ownerless treasure remained inside the mountain. The priest's last record was tucked into the very back of the ledger. Below the sentence telling them not to call him a Saint was a short passage. When the world again feeds law before people, send this fragment forth in a hungry person's hand.

"Why does he say not to call him a Saint?" Kichan asked. Riphiel looked at the priest's robe and the black mask.

"Perhaps he knew only the face by day would remain."

"Then they should have written down the stealing too." Argaon pointed at the ledger with his chin.

"To him, both were probably his own face." Kichan placed his finger beside the line telling them not to call him a Saint, then lifted it away. He did not add any writing. Kichan read the sentence twice. Then he opened the military ration list on the next page. Royal flour. Demihuman dried meat. Salt from a noble warehouse. They were almost the same as what Kichan had brought to the shelter.

"This person stole military rations too." Argaon said.

"Looks like you were not the first." Riphiel looked at the priest's robe and the thief mask.

"Do the priests here have a tradition of preaching by day and breaking into warehouses by night?"

"Probably not all of them." Kichan closed the ledger.

"Let's find the storage room with the medicine ingredients first."