Monk's Maze

Chapter 2-4

They shrugged in unison which made them both laugh a little.

“And yours?”

He shivered as the cold wind plastered his damp clothing to his body. He hadn’t suffered the indignity of wetting himself, but the grass had certainly put forth its best effort to fix that situation. He was soaked.

“Colin Clark.” He decided not to mention that he had been named for St. Columba and offered her the Gaelic meaning instead. “Young cub, and Clark is clergyman.” He had received endless teasing from the other novices in the Power of Names class.

She actually smiled. Her gray eyes returned from storm to merely wintry and finally to the color of the sea on an overcast day.

“Well, young whelp. It will be dark soon. Let’s get ye in out of the cold before ye shiver yourself to pieces.”

He looked about. There was only one structure on the rolling heath. The small gray stone hut cowered among the grasses. A neat stack of firewood lay up against the leeward side. A trail of smoke reached upward into the sky, though the wind gave it a strong tendency toward the mainland beyond the ridge.

Her voice was light as she led him back to the house.

“Aye, tisn’t much to look at, but tis only another four days and I’ll be done with this place. And yes, our little planet does na all look like this forsaken spot.”

“That’s good.” He hoped it looked a lot better or the Plan that had taken the Order hundreds of man-years of effort to build would be a complete shambles.