Jackoff’s reappearance had left with no choice but to follow through with Artemus’s plan. Cursing the squire, I trotted up to the gate and rang the bell that hung there.

Some minutes followed – some minutes, and several, increasingly agitated attempts at the bell – before the gate at last shifted. Even so, it only moved a hair’s width, allowing me a glimpse of a sliver of pale eye.

Not human. It was too pale and gray for that. I figured it must be an elf. Which was fine. Anything was fine, as long as it wasn’t one of those damned undead.

“We need to speak to the abbot,” I said. “Abbot Tiberius.”

At which, the gate closed without so much as a word. I assumed it had closed in preparation for bolts to be drawn back or locks unfastened. But no scraping metal or dragging chains followed.

Just absolute stillness, broken only by the melody of rushing water and faraway birdsong.

Finally, it dawned on me that whoever had peered out at us had no intention of returning. I rang the bell again, with more vigor than before, and kept ringing it. I didn’t mean to stop until someone let us in.

After some time of this, Jackoff offered a timid, “Surely they have heard, those good men of the abbey?”

I didn’t bother to respond but went on ringing. I was just getting ready to scale the wall when the gate opened again, and this time an orc marched out, sucking noisily at his protuberant tusks in a gesture probably meant to convey aggravation.

I was too annoyed myself to take much notice, though. “It’s about time. Is that how you normally greet travelers here, by slamming the gate in their faces?”

“Of course not. But Brother Aethelthorn did not shut the gate in your face.”

“He most certainly did.”

“He went to fetch me. You must have asked some sort of question?”

“No,” I said. “Well, I told him we needed to see the abbot, but it wasn’t a question. And if he was going to get you, he could have let us come too. Or at least told us what he was doing.

“Ah. You must forgive Brother Aethelthorn. He cannot speak.”

“Oh,” I said, my aggravation melting away, and in its place something uncomfortably like shame filling in. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“It is quite alright. He took a vow of silence these thirty years ago, and has not spoken a word since. But only we who live here know that.”

“Wait, you mean, he can’t speak because of a vow of silence? Not because, I don’t know, someone cut out his tongue or something?”

The orc sucked his tusks again. Yup, it was definitely disapprobation. “Certainly not. Why would anyone do anything so barbaric?”

I could have countered that it made about as much sense as sending someone who’d sworn a vow of silence to answer the damned door. But we’d already wasted enough time, so I decided to let the matter drop.

“We must see the abbot,” I said.

“I’m afraid the abbot does not see strangers these days. Not without an appointment.”

“Oh.” My first inclination was to argue, but I cut short. Why argue? This was good news. “Well, I guess that’s that, then.”

Jackoff, however, wasn’t about to take no for an answer. He darted forward and dropped to one knee. “Forgive me, Father, but we must speak to the abbot. We are come from the city, where we fought beside the king – may gods grant him serene rest, under silver moons – and witnessed his last, courageous moments.”

The orc’s green skin paled, until it was the shade of new spring leaves. “The king – is dead?”

“The king is dead,” Jackoff confirmed. “And we must speak with the abbot, on pressing and secret business. I beg of you, good sir, allow us but two minutes of his time, and he will not turn us away.”

“No,” the orc said, “of course not. The king – dead? Oh dear. That – that changes everything. Oh dear.”

I glanced at Jackoff, not quite sure if that ‘no’ meant yes, or if it was still a no. He shrugged.

“We can see him, then?” I prompted.

“What?” The orc started. “Oh. Oh yes. Of course. I didn’t realize that – oh dear.” He turned abruptly, urging us to follow. “Leave your horses by the gate. Brother Aethelthorn will see to them and – oh dear.”

In a flurry of half-finished thoughts, peppered abundantly with oh dears and the odd dear me, we made our way into the abbey.

Beyond the gate lay a vast tract of land, full of orchards and fields and buildings. I spotted a granary, storerooms, barns and poultry houses, as well as a mill and dormitories. Then, of course, there was the great central structure I’d seen before, a church that rose well above its surroundings.

Despite its isolation, the place hummed with activity. People of every sort – orcish, elven, human, and even occasionally dwarven – scuttled by. No one bothered to talk to us. Very few even glanced our way.

I wondered if this lack of curiosity stemmed from a general disinterest in worldly matters. I didn’t think it could be the product of receiving so many visitors that the occasion lost its novelty. Not after Brother Aethelthorn’s inauspicious welcome.

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Our orc guide led us to an austere stone building, fronted with two windows and a plain brown door. He knocked thrice, waited for a summons, and stepped inside.

What he said, I don’t know, for he shut the door after himself. Still, I had a pretty good idea of the gist of it some minute later when he reemerged. “Abbot Tiberius will see you.”

We stepped into a stark chamber, completely unadorned and boasting very little furniture: a wooden desk, a pair each of roughhewn wooden benches and chairs, and a bookcase in the corner.

Colorful bindings drew my eyes, but I forced my attention away from the books – by far, the richest items in the room – and to the figure behind the desk.

He looked very much as I’d pictured him in my mind’s eye: a wizened old man, thin and tonsured, a bit stooped with age and pinched from malnutrition.

A pang of guilt shot through me. Was I really going to invite the wrath of the Sorcerer on this poor fool? Even if he demanded the trinket, begged for it on bended knee, could I do that to a feeble old man?

Speaking of knees, Jackoff pulled his stunt of earlier – the whole dropping to one knee, blurting out the sorry truth and commiserating over the dead king schtick. Naturally, he rattled off more than his share of ‘forsooth’ and ‘prithee’ and ‘blessed Father’ and so on.

I let him run with it. He seemed to have the niceties down better than I did. Certainly, he didn’t crack jokes or make light like I would have. Which was a good thing. I had a feeling the good preacher wouldn’t find much humor in the situation.

Speaking of Preach, he said very little as Jackoff spoke. But he did turn progressively grayer as the story ran on. Finally, when the winded squire exhausted his tale – to say nothing of his stock of platitudes – he spoke.

“These are grievous tidings indeed.”

No shit, I thought. Aloud, I said, “Indeed, Reverend. Very grievous. But, do you need to the stick or no?”

His eye twitched as I spoke, in a way I was pretty sure it hadn’t done for Jackoff. “Abbot.”

“What?”

“I am an abbot, not a reverend.”

“Oh.” I stared blankly. Was there a difference? “Right. Okay. But, the stick – you going to take it, or no?” Not that I wanted to part with it, now that it had come to me. Still, if that was the way it was going to be, I might as well get on my merry way.

“You have it with you?” Preach asked.

“I do.”

“And the sword?”

Jackoff nodded. “I do, Blessed Father.”

“May I see them?”

The squire made a whole ceremony of presenting the blade to the abbot. More bowing and kneeling and whatnot. I just yanked the thing out of my bag of holding and plunked it on the desk.

Not quite as hard as I’d hit Rufus’s countertop, though. Didn’t figure Preach would care for a hole in his workspace.

He eyed the two artifacts with watery eyes. A tear rolled down his cheek, and he bowed his head. At first, I thought he must be praying. But he stayed like that so long I started to think he’d fallen asleep.

I was about to shake him, when his head raised again. When he spoke, his words were measured and his tone thick with emotion.

“These are dark days indeed. But two things are clear to me. First, these divine symbols of rule cannot fall into the hands of the cursed necromancer, that blight on the face of the Realm. The Sorcerer.” He practically spit this last word out.

“Second, these artifacts are far more than mere metal and stone. They have a mind of their own, a will. They have chosen you, each of you.”

I brightened at that. “You mean, I get to keep it?” Who was I to argue with destiny, after all? If everything that happened to the scepter was all part of its master plan, then I could pawn it with a clear conscience. Because that too must be a part of the plan, else it would surely stop me.

His eye twitched again, and he murmured, more to himself it seemed than me, “It is not for us to question the will of the gods.”

“No,” I agreed. “Certainly not.”

“The relics have chosen you to be their protectors.”

“Surely, Blessed Father,” Jackoff interrupted, “I am not worthy of such an honor. I, who failed the king? I, who ran like a coward when the forces of evil overran the cathedral?” He sounded truly in awe, and full of self-loathing.

Poor silly schmuck, I thought, not unkindly. They’d done a number on him, the priests and knights and lords of this realm.

The abbot smiled gently on the boy, and placed a hand on his shoulder. No twitchy eyes here. “My son, you comported yourself with wisdom and courage. You honored the gods, and the king, by saving this sacred blade from the hands of the enemy. Nothing was more important in that moment.”

“Well,” I said, feeling perhaps a teensy bit left out, “except the scepter, anyway.”

“Not even the scepter, though, of course, it would have been devastating if it had fallen to the enemy too. But the Blade of Divinity rests with the king at all times, it goes with him everywhere in life. It protects him day in and out. The Sacred Scepter of Divine Authority is only ever called upon during ceremony, and the anointing of a new ruler.”

“Didn’t protect him too well,” I sniffed.

Preach’s eye did that thing again, but he turned back to Jackoff. “You, Jack Alf, I charge with keeping this blade until our king returns.”

“Returns? He’s dead,” I broke in.

Preach did look at me this time, and with a face like thunder proclaimed, “Young man, you do not study your scriptures.”

Guilty as charged, I thought, though I failed to see how that solved death.

“If you did, you would know that like everything else, death is impermanent. Even now, King Charles takes his place in the hallowed heavenly halls of his ancestors, as alive as you or I, if another realm.”

“Oh, that,” I said. I knew the people of the Realm had some kind of afterlife concept, similar to the heaven and hell my own people had taught me. Here, they were realms of something or other, naturally. Everything was a realm. But the concept was the same. “That’s all well and good, but if he’s in his hallowed halls or what have you, how’s he going to come get his relics?”

“The line of kings has been unbroken for ten thousand years,” Preach said gravely.

“Until today.”

“You may choose to believe that if you wish.”

“Bruh. I was there. I saw it happen.”

“I choose to have faith, that the gods who have not forsaken us so far will not do it today.”

“Okay.” I didn’t really know what to say to that. Faith was all well and good, but dead was dead. “So what? We just hold onto the stuff until some new king pops up? Some lost heir or something?” I wanted to ask if he expected King Charles’s zombie to rise from the dead and demand his scepter, but decided that might be a bit much. I didn’t want to give the old man an apoplexy.

“Not at all. The blade and scepter have chosen you two, and you two have come to me. It is, then, our sacred duty to restore the relics to the rightful ruler.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. It sounded like getting involved in succession politics, which was tricky enough in times of peace. I’d never been a scholar of history, but one period really stuck in my mind. Tudor England.

Probably mainly because of Henry VII, and his procession of corpse brides. Whatever the reason, my overwhelming impression of the period was that a lot more people would have lived a lot longer if they’d stayed away from the throne and its politics.

I had no intention of finding myself tossed into whatever the Realm’s equivalent of the Tower of London might be.

But things were far more dire now, with a magic-wielding nutjob trying to eradicate the throne and its defenders. The whole point of coming here was to get away from the Sorcerer, not to go toe-to-toe with him.

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m not sure that’s going to work out. Not that I wouldn’t love to help, of course, but the Sorcerer’s people already IDed me. So, the longer I’m involved, the more likely I am to bring the bad guys down on us.”

Preach scowled wordlessly at me.

I fidgeted under his glare. “I mean, I’d love to help. I’m all in. But, I’m just thinking of, you know, the scepter. What’s best for it.”

“And it’s best for the scepter if you run like a coward, with your tail tucked firmly between your legs?” Preach demanded.

“I wouldn’t, uh, put it quite like that. But yeah. I should probably peace out, before I make the situation worse. You know, for the good of everyone.”