The Deepcombers

Chapter Thirty One

A hefty gong tolled behind them. It frightened Lon before he realized it was prayer bell. Its sonorous tones called the Po of Kluth into the chapel. Forty feet away, the church doors creaked open. The cavernous interior was empty but a preacher could be seen at the altar and the sanctuary glowed with candles. Nervous, the lad peered to the left and saw how close they were to the concourse.  Lon could see parishioners approach from all directions. They were right on the path of the incoming flock. Both youths ducked and crawled to hide behind empty washtubs. Footsteps echoed all around them. For two minutes they sat in silence and watched four dozen pairs of sandals shuffled past their hiding place.

"Are you religious Lon?" Melcart asked.

"I keep Amon's Code."

"Huh. I don't know much about Amon," Melcart replied.

"You're?" Lon asked. "A devout Kluthian?"

"Sure, sure," he waved dismissively. "Lots of clues in the book. The real book you understand."

"I'd like to read it someday."

The door to the chapel closed with a thud and Lon heard the choral music inside change to more guttural chanting. He looked up and saw the gardens were empty again.

"Come on." Melcart said, "the infirmary is that mass of marble over there."

The hospital was only one story tall, but really long.  It glowed in the moonlight and looked as though it was made in the First Age. The stonework all over the building was impressive but the lintel above the front door was impossibly large and Lon couldn't imagine how it could ever be set into place except by Kluth's own children.

The horseshoe-shaped building faced the waterfall and so the young lad expected the rooms in the back would feature an exquisite view of the falls which could occupy the eyes and minds of convalescents. He aimed for the front entrance and the huge door behind the marble columns. Melcart stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"If we go in that way it'll be written in the log," the rogue said, and he steered them around to the back. "Templekin wait on duty in there."

"On duty?"

"It is the infirmary."

They hopped a short fence and found themselves in another laundry beside the gurgling stream and very close to the north bridge wall. Here were huge washtubs and wooden paddles and buckets for drawing water direct from Atar's Creek. This might also be where the nurses bathed patients for one oaken tub was big enough to lay down inside.

The backdoor was wide open on this hot summer night, and a single wall sconce glowed just beyond the threshold and invited them to enter. The interior had white stone floors and bare walls and seemed to amplify every sound they made against steady chuffing of the waterfall. Lon tiptoed but even his breathing sounded loud in his ears. The central hallway was just what you'd expect in a clean hospital and he saw that he was right about how the biggest rooms in the back were set to face the majestic attraction. The facility was empty; there were no patients in any of the beds, nor any medicos. But just as Melcart had predicted there was someone at the front entrance and they could see the bottom half of his body; his hairy legs and feet in wooden sandals were at rest under the Admissions desk at the far end of the main corridor.

They heard the unhappy moans of someone in pain. The audible anguish came from the exact center of the building and Lon recognized the voice. It sounded like Clyde.  The noble's whimpered convulsions repulsed him and yet he crept closer.

The lad cracked a door and cringed when it creaked loud on dry hinges. He waited a moment and then risked a look and saw a large hospital room twenty feet wide and forty feet long. The walls were alabaster and long white curtains glowed silver in the moonlight. A stone fountain on the far wall had a water nymph pour an unending stream from a stone pitcher into a gurgling pool. There were only three 'beds' in the whole room and they were rectangular white stone blocks, long enough for anyone to lay flat on top. All of these platforms were six inches taller than his mattress back in Winterhouse. This was an operating room where surgery was performed. The closest two slabs were empty but the third stone bed was occupied by a patient dressed in a brown smock, now red with blood. He was surrounded by five senior templekin who also wore brown robes. A sixth figure lead them and this was Hamlin Adewoulsin the templemaster. His mossy grey beard and ridiculous beanie cap looked sinister in the moonlight. The patient was Clyde.