The Phoenix Girls, Book 3

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1

Erasmus

The monk’s home appeared modest from the outside, partly because it sat alone in a blasted desert landscape, a place where even the cacti were stunted and scrawny and the only activity was nocturnal, but mostly because it was modest.

From the outside.

It was a small, square adobe made of eroded mud bricks and a tinder-dry thatch roof. Its door was rough and ill-fitting, a solid slab of thick wood with a worn leather strap nailed to it for a handle. The hinges were bulky and rusted, and there were no windows. Narrow slits were centered on each of the four walls to spy out approaching visitors, and an iron bar stood ready inside to brace the door and keep them out.

One would think that the monk disliked visitors, and one would be right.

Erasmus Pi wanted nothing to do with visitors, be they human, manimal, spirit, or otherwise. As far as he was concerned, the assorted races of Gallia could go jump in a hole; the deeper, the better.

Not that the monk ever had visitors. He had only spent a short time at his new home, and only one person knew he was here, his old friend Ronan, and Ronan wasn’t talking. They were both hunted now, both desperate, and Ronan could gain nothing by betraying Erasmus.

The illusion of modesty continued on the inside. A short run of steps dropped to a recessed brick floor, and the room’s most striking features were the small table, a smaller cot, and a strange device—a box with a lever sticking out of the top and a hand-crank on one side.

Erasmus Pi, exiled South Island Monk, exiled former tutor to the children of the House of Fuilrix, fugitive from the massing avian tribes, was at a personal low point in his long and admittedly too interesting life. But at least he was safe, hidden in the Dead Lands and out of reach of his enemies, which included, at last count, everyone.

Well, everyone except Ronan, but Erasmus had his own issues with Ronan.

He lay stretched out on his cot, a short man with a round, chubby face, a stout torso, and limbs that seemed slightly too long, out of proportion to the rest of him. He wore a black top hat pulled down to a pair of black welding goggles and a long black coat with a split tail that hung down to either side of his gently swinging cot, brushing the floor. He’d been in that cot napping for the past several weeks without interruption. Not his personal best, but still a respectable nap. He was prepared to spend the next several weeks in the same fashion if fate allowed. Out of trouble’s way and recharging.

Then the alarm sounded, and his pleasant nap came to an end.