Egderus at Mountain House

Here beginneth the Testament of Egderus, 9th Superius Frater of Mountain House, in the 50th season of his tenure. May he be shielded from illness and disaster, until it be completed.

... At that time Robenc was Phylax at Mountain House. Officially he commanded the stratioti of the garrison, but also he reported to the old Golias upon the doings of the Superius Frater. But the Superius was shrewd, where Robenc was young and rather naive...

... At first I found it hard to be away from my mother, whom I would never see again, and whose stories I told myself over and over at night in order to fall asleep. But the Superius took me under his wing, asking me to do things for him, treating me with kindness and asking my advice on many subjects, even though there could hardly be anything that I could teach him.

Only once did I see him become perturbed about anything, and that was when Robenc came to Mountain House. The House had always been guarded by stratioti — soldiers — who lived in the outbuildings and patrolled the paths and roads. There were five stratioti and the Phylax, their commanding officer, and they kept watch in pairs in quarter-day shifts.

The man who was Phylax when I first arrived was named Gig, and he terrified us all because of his fierce appearance and awful temper. Off duty he was often drunk, and sometimes chased the younger brothers with his axe. Gig never entered the House, so if we could prevent Gig from ever getting between us and the House, we could usually escape without much trouble. But Gig was sly as well as mean, and would sometimes surprise one of us out on a trail, and then a fearsome chase would ensue. To my knowledge he never caught anyone, though occasionally a slight injury was incurred in trying to get away from him.

He never came after me, perhaps because I could not run, and so chasing me would give him no pleasure. But one day he did catch me out in the open. I was on my way to meet the Superius Frater, who had gone down the mountain to meet with the Golias. The Prior, who liked to be called The Good Doctor, sent me to make the hour's walk to the Gatehouse because, he said, he could spare no one else, and he was not going to spoil me like the Superius did.

About halfway between the House and the Gate, the road drops off steeply on the left hand side while a rocky bank rises just as steeply on the right. Gig jumped out from behind an outcropping, roaring like a bear. In my terror I turned too quickly, my leg collapsed, and I tumbled onto my back. Gig loomed over me and raised his axe. Even if I had not been paralyzed with fright, I could never have escaped this giant man.

But when he saw my face, he jumped back as if he himself were terrified. His axe clattered on the paving stones, and he looked as if he was going to run. I must have let out a cry or made some sound, for he came to himself, and grabbed up his axe, raising it again over me. I covered my face with my arms, certain that I was about to die. He grunted once, and I heard the axe whizz through the air. My ears began to ring like the inside of the bell tower, and sparkling golden light washed over me.

I awoke on a cot in the infirmary. The Superius Frater himself was dozing on a chair beside me. He told me he had found me lying in the middle of the road on his way back from the town. When he asked me what had happened, for some reason I didn't want to tell him, at least not until I'd had a chance to ponder it for a while. So I pretended I could not remember anything since before he left for town that morning.

After a day or so I was able to resume my duties, and it was then I learned that Gig had disappeared. The stratioti were more irritable than usual — each had to pull double-shifts to cover Gig's absence — but they also were frightening the younger brothers with stories of demons lurking in the woods. And of course the off-duty stratioti would want to hunt for Gig, and would press anyone they could into service.

A week later poor Brother Anders found a limbless torso beside the Spring. He ran back to the House, his hair still on end, and told us what had happened: as he was filling the buckets, what he thought was a large rock hit the roof of the spring house, then bounced into the weeds beside the path. Curious, he had gone to look at it.

I could not walk so far, so I did not see the scene which awaited the party of brothers and stratioti who returned to the Spring, but Brother Anders told me about it: a brief search of the woods turned up two arms without hands and two legs without feet; Anders was unfortunate enough to find Gig's head balanced on top of a boulder just off the path. He had never seen such an expression on a human face, he said, and never wanted to again. But more than that, he prayed that he would never have to see what that face was looking at.

I never saw the head or the rest of the body, but I believe I had seen the look that Brother Anders described. And Gig was looking at me.