__The Bird Bone Flute__part 1
By Blackmare



"In my experience, there are two types of monster. The first can be redeemed, or more importantly, wants to be redeemed... the second is void of humanity, cannot respond to reason, or love."
~Rupert Giles


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As Rupert Giles turned into the long, rutted drive up to the abbey he noted the stillness of the place. Not the stillness of sanctuary he remembered from his first visit here nearly twenty-four years ago, when the vast herb gardens glowed with diligent grooming and the stone buildings looked lovingly maintained by the dozen men whose home this was. What he saw now was the stillness of abandonment and senescence, of dwindling and surrender. As he let the van glide to a stop in the gravel yard beside the long barn that had once housed the abbey's milk goats, a flock of doves exploded noisily from the open door of the loft, their wings whistling in the late afternoon air.

The flowers in the long garden that paralleled the walk up to the front door flopped over the slates with the lax splendor of early August. The bed was weeded but untrimmed and the plants had the frayed, slightly naughty look of a gang of unsupervised children playing long past the time they should have been home at their chores. He admired the way the drooping mounds of coreopsis and hillocks of thyme softened the hard lines of the pavement, yet the state of the garden haunted him because it betrayed the creeping subsidence of the abbey's order and the loss of its once joyful and tightly woven discipline.

The abbot's letter to the Watchers Council had said that there were only three brothers left, and the county's long desire to build a hydroelectric plant on the river finally overpowered the Church's willingness to fund the desperately needed renovations for this small compound, so the property was condemned. Through his mother's family Giles had a connection to this abbey, and that was the excuse the Council used to delegate this errand to him.

He suspected, though, that his teachers had had about as much of his sullen studiousness as they could take for a while, and his recent surge of aggression on the training floor had probably led his fellow students to complain to the fighting masters again. Most of the time, Giles was able to smother his fermenting anger under layers of work or to tap it off in an acceptable manner in the gym. But lately it had surged closer to the surface with greater intensity that he'd felt in years, barely controllable and darker than ever. It stole his sleep, sabatoged his focus, and undermined the brooding reserve he'd developed to keep it in check.

Lying awake at night, he tried to address the roots of his rage but he could not, and his willingness to keep trying eroded every time he had to sit through any routine Council function surrounded by conformity, tradition, and the ridiculous trappings of hierarchy. The few peers who had been at least collegial now risked ambush by his exquisitely honed, soft-spoken contempt in any conversation more complex than an inquiry about the weather. He knew they deserved greater courtesy, and some of them ought to have his genuine respect, but he could give them no more than silence. The final twist in this harsh labyrinth was that the anger always, ultimately, turned inward and he hated himself most of all. It was definitely time to get away before he imploded, or worse, exploded.

He knew that his mother, the only person whose opinion would have mattered to him now, would have been ashamed that her eager, gentle son had become such a rank and dangerous creature. The fact that the assignment brought him up here to the landscape her people had farmed for centuries had a certain symbollic quality that he hoped would offer him a sense of direction. Since he had to do some serious soul-searching, then he might as well start into the wilderness from an anchor in ancestral ground. To that end, he'd thrown the duffle with his riding and hiking gear into the back of the van alongside his guitar, a few favorite weapons, and more mundane necessities.

The monks had written about several boxes of books, records, and miscellany that they felt certain the Watchers should have, although they did not include any kind of descriptive list. The secretary had just handed him the keys to the van and wished him a safe journey. He really didn't know exactly what he would be bringing back, and he didn't feel especially inclined to hurry. By this time next year, a young lake would be swelling across the road, and by winter it would be over the threshold of the old chapel. So much for pilgrim's progress, Giles thought, the scent of the lavender and stock doing little to offset the pang of melancholy. He reached up by the iron bound door and gently pulled the bell rope that hung there, careful not to disturb a strand of honeysuckle that had recently discovered this easy road to the roofline. The door bell rang once, low and courteous, down the foyer of the building.

Just as he was about to reach up and ring once more, he heard slow steps approaching with the shuffle-shuffle-pause rhythm of a person using a walker. While he waited, a wren zipped past him and up onto the gutter, pertly inspected him from several angles, and then flicked away, probably to spread the astonishing news that there was a visitor. The door eased open while Giles was still watching the little brown bird swoop under the eaves of the barn. He turned to greet the monk only to find the elderly man watching the bird, too, smiling widely.

"Raised that'un from a wee chick, we did," he said, "nest came down in a nasty rain and all perished but him. Too cheeky by half, and such a busybody as you've never seen." When the wren disappeared, the monk turned his attention to Giles, giving him a gentler and more informed inspection than the bird had done. "You'd be Rupert Giles, then," he said, "enter our house and be welcome here. I'm Amos." He stepped cautiously sideways, moving as though his hips pained him considerably, but his eyes were kind and unburdened as he waved Giles in.

"Thank you, brother. I came as soon as I could. I am so sorry to hear the news."

"Well, aye, but it's no surprise, really. In the end we just couldn't keep up with it anymore, and no young men are hearing this particular calling anymore." Amos shrugged inside his grey robe. His shoulders were quite rounded now, but would have once been wide to match his solid frame. His hands on the walker were an odd assemblage of outsized knuckles and delicate long bones wrapped loosely in skin slack and wrinkled as worn linen. Giles knew they had tended these gardens for decades, milked goats, made the best cheese in the region, hauled fuel, drawn water, cooked, cleaned, and prayed. Astonishing power in such fragile packaging.

"Where will you three go, then?" Giles asked gently.

"There's a Franciscan house down in Cornwall that's said they'll have us. Don't know how we'll do, though, down in the balmy south after so long up here. Prob'ly go all soft and useless with no current to swim against. I, for one, am listening a bit more closely these days for our Father to call me home. Now those're some gardens I would surely love to serve in." Giles looked closely at Amos but there was no trace of self pity in the man's bearing or voice. He was simply waiting for something scheduled long ago to come to pass as he'd always wanted it to do.

"Is Father Joseph well enough to travel, then?" They had made their way down the entry hall and turned a corner into a common room where a warm coal stove took the stone-scented dampness out of the air. Amos gestured to Giles to select a chair.

"As well as we can get 'im, anyhow. I b'lieve they're going to take him down in a special car with a nurse and that oxygen thing he needs now. I think a mild winter will be a real blessing for his breathing. With some proper rest, he might have an easier time. Be easier for James, too, who has so much of the care giving to do. Imagine being the youngest of the family at seventy-eight. The load falls too hard on him and he deserves better." The monk settled himself quite close to the heat and turned his pale blue gaze back to Giles.

"I think the last time I saw you, you were maybe nine. Bright boy. Your uncle brought you up her to tease the trout a bit, though as I recall you preferred to play with the goats." He studied his guest, noting the broad shoulders and lithe fitness; the simple, utilitarian clothing and worn, sturdy boots. Even seated, the younger man seemed poised, as though stillness was an interruption, a temporary concession to courtesy made by his native restlessness. Amos captured Giles' eyes, and Giles surprised himself by honestly submitting to that examination. Normally Giles kept himself carefully cloaked, but the stillness in the old eyes that held his own was so profound, so sure and knowing, that no barrier he had fashioned to withstand mere strangers could resist such patience and kindness. Giles could tell by Amos' quirked brow that the monk could see layered all the pain and work, fear and longing, frustration and discipline of the intervening years laid down like drifts of green and brown leaves. Amos exhaled softly and turned away, shaking his head slightly.

"You've traveled a very dark road since then," he paused and reached across to adjust the flue on the stovepipe, "Turned away from that toward the light, though."

"Yes," Giles acknowledged a bit stiffly, "on both counts."

"I'm glad that it's you who came. What we have to entrust cannot go to an untried heart. And there's a kind of rightness to it, really, you being divided the way you are."

Giles' forehead furrowed as this unexpected but accurate evaluation. He steered the conversation back to known and formal channels.

"The abbot said that are several books here that need to be in the Council's archives."

"Oh, aye, that's one part of it, but the least of it, too."

"Why not forward them on to the library at Cornwall?" Giles asked.

"These aren't the sorts of things that fall exactly under the aegis of the Church. The books would surely be destroyed, and they are far too useful to be lost. And as for the other, well, you'll see the way of it soon enough." Giles' eyebrows went up at that last, but Amos' tone didn't invite further inquiry in that direction.

"Why would the Church destroy these books? What are they? Canterbury is hidebound and stuffy, but they're still rather more tolerant than Rome."

"Some of 'em are the personal diaries of the abbots here. Others are, well, they are kinda like those field guides folks take with 'em out to look at birds and such. They identify and describe things so's you'll know 'em when you see 'em."

"Natural history, then? Perhaps they should go to the Linnean Society, or the museum in South Kennsington?"

Amos made an abrupt snorting noise that became a series of soft coughs before finally resolving into mild, hoarse laughter.

"Uh, no. Not natural history. Supernatural history. What's been laid into this holy house right with the stones of its foundation, which, you should know, dates from the Neolithic."

"What? I thought the original buildings were Norman. And why supernatural?"

"Nah, those Normans claimed a fair bit that was already here when they came. This house, in one form or another, has stood for a very, very long time here. Needed to, to watch this gate." He said this without great emphasis, as if it was a simple fact of the local weather.

"Gate?"

"James knows a lot more about it than it do, as he's made some study of it. But right around here, these hills and the far side of the river, well, there's a sort of seepage, like a slow leak, from some other place into this one. The kind of thing that bears watching."

"What sort of seepage are we talking about?"

"It's set down in those books, the demonaries. Descriptions, drawings, numbers, records of events. I've only read the most recent ones, myself."

"Really?" Giles was incredulous. "Why haven't I ever heard of this before?"

"Because it's been a quiet, respectable neighborhood since about 1870," a new, deep voice answered from behind Giles. He stood, spinning to face the newcomer, who had his hand extended.

"Hello, I'm James. Sorry I was delayed but I needed to help Joseph with his afternoon medication." For all that he was nearly eighty, this man had stayed straight and tall. He moved with an elegant intent that reminded Giles of a heron.

"Rupert Giles. Pleased to meet you. I am extremely anxious to learn more about this gate, and the books, and the demons. I had no idea that this is what you had waiting for me when I read that letter."

James had a quick smile and dark eyes that hosted the same kindness and depth that Amos had. Giles was slightly startled by the strength of the hand that gripped his own. He welcomed this sudden influx of sturdiness and health as a warding against the undercurrent of fragility and dilapidation that had been haunting him since he arrived.

"Well, as far as we can tell, the gate itself has drifted shut or it's gotten much smaller. There hasn't been anything like the traffic there once was." He moved a chair closer to the stove and arranged his long frame in it. "In fact, nothing in our lifetimes, although when Amos came as a student in 1916, he met a very elderly brother who remembered the last time something came through. Since we have to leave it unattended, we're hoping any new activity will be stopped once there is living water over that hillside."

"You think a lake will block it? Not exactly running water," Giles said.

"The water in that lake will turn over pretty quickly when they start using it to generate power," James answered, "and we're hoping that the presence of the generators themselves will change the etheric nature of the area for the better." He sighed, not sounding entirely convinced. He caught Giles' eyes and the younger man saw a deep sadness there, an unwilling resignation.

"You feel like you're abandoning your post, don't you?" Giles asked gently. James's answering smile had a touch of bitterness to it.

"Yes, I do. Joseph and Amos recruited me to this house thirty years ago from a perfectly respectable and utterly boring Franciscan community in Kent. Somehow, as these things do, word of my unusual curiosities reached them and they came and swooped me away before my abbot there tired of my, shall we say, eccentric researches. So I have been the keeper of the archives here, have read and translated and ordered everything I could. And watched. Always watched." He was slowly rubbing his palms together in the manner of someone working to contain grief.

"But there hasn't been any activity?" Giles probed.

"Not that we know of," Amos said softly. "And she says it's quiet enough that we can leave now or we wouldn't be going at all." James looked up at his brother and Giles saw a flash of real pain in the dark eyes and answering understanding in Amos' kind face. Abruptly James stood and turned back the way he'd entered.

"I'll go put on some tea," he said hoarsely, his voice fading as he moved down the corridor.

Giles looked after him, very aware of the tall man's anguish. He turned back to Amos.

"'She says it's quiet enough'?" he asked. But Amos had busied himself with the stove, then pulled his walker closer and braced himself to stand.

"Soon enough, Rupert. You learn it all soon enough." He rose then, and gestured after James with his chin, "Let's go on into the kitchen so he doesn't have to carry the tray."

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