POTN 4

POETRY  |  FICTION EXCERPT

The Demon

by Taerie Bryant, art by Tristan Alexander

The entrance to the abbey was designed to humble; polished beams towered upward, weaving together in the style of old European craftsmanship. The hall was like a cathedral, long and narrow, built of stone and imposing timbers. The light of multicolored stained glass windows shattered on the floor, bits of gem colored light.

The windows themselves depicted the martyred saints, including a disturbing giant work of glass art depicting Joan of Arc being burned as a heretic. Her face contorted, staring upward like a wounded bird.

Built more like a fortress than a house of God, it was all but inaccessible even to the simple village below. Sheer cliffs of jagged stone raised it above the surrounding forests. The place seemed hewn of living rock, growing up out of the mountainside as if by an act of nature. Ancient pines twisted on the slopes around it. Water from the springs that fed the abbey trickled down the rock face carving deep lines in the gray and mossy stone.

Imposing but not invulnerable, the abbey bore scars on its sides like some sort of penance done. The scars of war. The all too recent violence of the World War. Europe was full of such bitter reminders that the ‘War To End All Wars’ had not been without cost.

Still, the massive building seemed whole and little damaged. Save for one crumbling tower whose timbers were exposed like the bones of some primeval creature. The rocks that once hid them had tumbled down the slope, blocking the narrow roadway.

It was very much like the haunted castles of Victorian fiction. There was no warmth of even piety about it. Cold, remote, if any place was dedicated to the fear of God this Hungarian abbey was it.

The young man struggled with several bags as he studied the hall in grim dismay. He had not asked to be here. His idea of Europe and a continued study of medicine had not included such a forbidding and mysterious errand.

He considered himself curious and open minded, mindful of duty and responsibility. Yet this place weighed upon his spirit. Perhaps he was only tired for he had come in haste — a very long train ride which lacked all modern comfort and a coach trip that ceased to interest some hours after its start, save that it consumed his attention by virtue of its roughness.

He had not yet eaten and felt parched, especially after the climb up the rough-hewn steps from the road.

His name was Dr. Daniel Renault, a specialist in rare diseases of the cardiovascular system. He had been traveling in Europe when a message from the bishop of his mother’s church in Boston caught up to him in a hospice in Sweden.

"Proceed to Hungary. My urgent request."

He owed his schooling to the Church though that same education had shaken his faith and uprooted his naiveté.

Still, he went. Found himself in this secluded monastery. The Order of The Brothers of Sacred Guards. Or some such thing after translation. A singularly somber group in a very austere, even grim fortress. Villagers called it the Demon’s Prison, but refused to elaborate on the name.

Renault was young, only twenty-nine and the fact seemed to dismay the villagers. They shook their heads and acted sorry for him, citing his youth and good looks as part of some terrible waste. He thought that perhaps they had mistaken his purpose and thought him a postulant. But when he assured them of his intentions it did nothing to alleviate their concern.

The friars who greeted him at the doors were also dismayed by his youth. But it was more in line with the usual fears expressed by patients who fear a young doctor will not be as competent as an older one. A concern typical of parents who want a young doctor to date their daughters but not to treat their illnesses.

The Abbot Father Mathias was hardly the typical monk. His hair was silver and he looked more a soldier than a man of God. His eyes were those of a zealot and his Italian inflections gave him the air of military nobility.

Renault ran a hand through close-cropped sandy hair and then adjusted his wire rims. He felt uncomfortable under the man’s scrutiny, but he was not the nervous sort.

"I am young but well qualified, sir," he stated plainly after enduring the older man’s silent criticism.

The abbot arched a brow and inclined his head in a perfunctory acknowledgment. "No doubt, but when the American bishop told up he would be sending one whom he could entrust with… certain confidences, I expected someone of more considerable history."

"With all due respect, sir, there are none such with my specialty. It is a new science."

"Ah, but ours is an ancient malady."