Chapter 3: Et Pax

The Abbey sat before us, in the sheltered expanse of a wide, shallow, valley nestled within the foothills. According to the texts Sister Veritas and I had found when we first explored the dilapidated compound, it was once known as Garden City Community College, in what was once called Kansas. The names of the states, and cities of the Old World were now useless, since the men that had built them rained down The Fires. Now it was simply, The Abbey In The Hills. We had been astounded by the treasures within those slowly crumbling walls. Texts on every subject imaginable, were stored in those buildings, many of them were simply beyond our ability to understand. Those we could not use ourselves, we sent back to The Cathedral, the home of The Justice Bringers, hidden away in the vast expanse of the mountains to the west. Those we could use, we kept, putting the knowledge within to use in building the small community now thriving within our walls.

Part of our duty as Justice Bringers, is to help those incapable of helping themselves. The settlements, and towns, close enough for us to serve, are not always safe, or in cases like Erikat, are simply so distasteful, that we won’t leave those we save there. In the course of the four years since founding this Abbey, we have brought many of them here. The small outpost we created in the hills, has since turned into a thriving community of almost one hundred fifty. We have farmers, and craftsmen, everything from tailors, to a blacksmith, all were once either slaves, or free men who survived raiders, or worse. They all now called The Abbey home.

Our community sits around the two buildings that could be saved, the smaller of the two became our hospital, the rest were plundered for building material. We now sport a wall of stone, ten feet high, and almost twenty feet thick, thanks in large part to the texts found regarding Roman architecture. We have homes, and buildings built from timber, taken from the surrounding wooded hills. We have horses, and livestock, as well as abundant game close enough to support the community as a whole. Not to mention a sizable section of tilled fields, that allows us to grow our own crops. Sister Veritas, and I had created a home, and safety for so many. And yet, we both knew, our work may well never be done. Pandemonium still reigned in The World After, and men were still far too willing to destroy what others had built, simply to satisfy an immediate desire, for us to ever be finished.

All of these thoughts filtered through my mind, as we sat atop that hill, overlooking The Abbey. The girl simply stared in awe, at what I had assured her was to be her new home. I smiled at her, knowing exactly what she felt. I had felt exactly the same, the first time I had seen my home Abbey, all those years ago, when Elder Monk had rescued me from a slaver camp. It was a sense of wonder, and barely contained joy. And it was a thing I never tired of seeing on the faces of those seeing it for the first time. Of the nearly one hundred fifty residents more than sixty of them had been rescues, just like the girl, and they had all shown the same emotions. “Welcome home,” I said warmly, as I watched her beautiful violet eyes widen at the idea, “This is The Abbey In The Hills.” I swept my arm across the horizon, letting her take in all of the land that is The Abbey.

The two buildings that we had left standing stood at the back of our walled community. The smaller of the two buildings, our hospital, stood off toward the southwest corner. The windows, where the glass had not been shattered, had all been removed, and replaced, instead, with tightly stretched oil cloth. It let in plenty of light, could be easily moved, to allow fresh air in. They could also be seated into the windowsills, during the winter, to keep in the heat. It was not perfect, but life in The World After rarely was, and besides, the glass that could be salvaged, was used for a much greater purpose.

The larger of the two buildings, a massive, sprawling three floor structure, had been much more difficult to save. Many the windows in the structure, had been smashed, in the years following The Fires, the few that remained, were likewise, plundered and put to a better use. These windows were also covered by oil cloth. The building had been made out of brick, and shaped concrete, much of the structure had been damaged, either by vandalism, or weather. So we had used what knowledge we could find in those texts to rebuild. It had taken the better part of a year, and all the while Sister Veritas, and I, had continued our mission. As people came to us, they had become much needed help, and eventually, after a year of agonizing, back breaking, labor, our new Abbey was complete.

This was the building, that housed The Justice Bringers. It was our training ground, and our repository for any, and all, of the Old World knowledge we could find. It was where we taught our Novices, in the ways of The Peace of All, and most importantly, when we were to use it. The ability to kill, comes with the knowledge, that every life, no matter how vile it had been, still might have some value. And that could be a terrible lesson to learn, and some, never did. We taught them, that to find someone wanting, meant that, none of the good they might have done, could possibly outweigh the pain they had inflicted upon others. We strove for them to understand, that it was just as simple for a Justice Bringer, to become that which we fought against, and worst of all become an Apostate. We also taught them that, while a few people they encountered in The World After, would be unfit to receive The Final Peace, Apostates would NEVER be worthy of it.

It was this second, larger, building, that we stopped our horses in front of. Apparently, our arrival had preceded us, as three of our younger Novices rushed out to help us with the horses. As I slid out of my saddle, and handed one of them, a young girl, my reigns, I said softly, “Have someone find Sister Veritas,” she nodded respectfully, and raced off, handing the reigns to a boy, with dark skin, just slightly older than she was. The Novices led the horses away to the stables, while I waited with the girl. I let my gaze wander around the lands of The Abbey, there was a serenity surrounding us all here, it wasn’t a fragile, or expectant, kind of feeling. The Abbey seemed to defy The World After, showing that man was still capable of living without resorting to the savagery surrounding us. This of course, is not to say, that we would not, and have not, taken up arms, as a community, as a whole, and defended those we loved, and what we had built. But the feeling of peace here, was unlike any other I had ever felt, and I loved it all the more, for that.

“Bishop!” The sound of a voice so familiar to me, I could have picked it out of a crowded room, snapped me out of my peaceful revelry. The woman who was speaking, made her way down the steps at the front of The Abbey, with so much grace, it seemed like she was floating. Sister Veritas was still as beautiful to me as the day I had first laid eyes on her as a Novice about to take my first voyage into The World After. Her flawless skin, was a dark brown, that defied the fact that she was already into the middle years of her fourth decade. The well worn leather she wore, still hugged her body, displaying the amazing curves, of a body, that, even after ten years, could still captivate me. She’s shorter than I am, by nearly a head’s height, but to me she may as well have been ten feet tall. “You’re home early!” she exclaimed, as her wide smile spread up into her beautiful hazel green eyes, “We didn’t expect you back until mid summer!” and so saying, she wrapped me into a hug, I was all too happy to return, right up until I saw the look of pain on the girl’s face.

“I found someone who needed me more than the settlements,” I explained, smiling at the girl, who’s amazing eyes lit up seeing me smile at her, “She was with a group or road bandits, it wasn’t a pretty thing,” I explained quietly, then louder, “She was never given a name, so I brought her to you. And Veritas...” her eyes took me in as I pulled Abbot’s coat from my pack, “Send word to The Cathedral, Abbot turned, he’s dead now, but his name needs to be stricken.” the pain in her eyes nearly brought me to tears. Knowing one of our order had turned is always difficult, but knowing that one like Abbot, who had stood as a paragon among us could turn, was crushing.

“Bishop...” her voice was soft, and I could see the deep wounding in her eyes. Veritas always took this sort of news deeply personally, and for the first time, I knew her pain completely. When I had trained at my Home Abbey, Abbot had, always, been used as the prime example, the epitome of what a Justice Bringer was supposed to be. And now, he was to be stricken as an Apostate.

I didn’t allow Veritas time to break down, in The World After grief was something you dealt with quickly, because it could kill you. “The girl needs you Veritas,” I whispered to her softly, “Take her to The Retreat, give her a bed, and a meal. In the morning, you need to talk to her, I tired, but...” I shrugged, she understood me well enough to understand what I was trying to say. She smiled back to me, and took the girl’s hand to lead her to The Retreat. I had to explain things to the girl, before she would allow herself to be lead away, and the look she cast over her shoulder broke my heart. It clearly spoke the volumes how she felt about being taken away from me, or should I have thought of it as me being taken away from her?

I pushed those thoughts aside, and headed to the only room in The Abbey that held any meaning to me after I came off the road. I walked down, into the basement of the building, and found what I had been longing for for more than two months. The steam rose up from the water that had been heated as soon as we had been spotted approaching, and my long awaited hot bath, had been prepared.

I slipped into the wooden tub, with a luxuriant sigh, letting the hot water begin to relax the tense muscles. I’m not sure how long I simply laid there, eyes closed, relaxing in the single piece of luxury I allowed myself. But it had to have been quite some time, because I never heard Veritas come into the room. “You need a haircut, and a shave, Bishop,” she said softly, as her long fingers ran through my hair. My hair was a light brown, and though I try to keep it short enough to be manageable, my time on the road had allowed it to grow long, and scraggly, flowing down past my collar. My beard, was even worse, the last time I had been able to get a shave, being almost a week before I met the girl.

I reached my left hand behind me, and flicked the edges of the long dreadlocks Veritas kept in her hair. It was a touch of intimacy, from our past, where, for a time we had been lovers as well as traveling companions. It was a bittersweet remembrance, given that it had been Veritas who had pushed me away. She had said our ages were too great a boundary to overcome, and, after a long period of feeling sorry for myself, I came to understand that she had been right. “You should talk Veritas. Every time I see you, your hair seems to have grown a hand’s length,” I said as I picked up the razor, and brown soap from the right side of the tub, and handed them to her.

I leaned back against the tub, and allowed Veritas unrestricted access to my hair and face. It had been a task, that even after we were no longer lovers, she took to, with great pleasure. I relaxed, as I felt her grabbing handfuls of my hair, and gently, yet firmly dragged the razor through it. It was such a comforting feeling that I got lost in it, and before I realized it, she had finished. Veritas ran her fingers through my, now much shorter, and neater hair, and hummed contentedly. “This is much better, you really need to find a way to keep your hair manageable while you’re out,” she said softly, as she built a healthy lather with the brown soap, “Who knows, if you do, maybe you’ll find someone who can do this instead of me,” she had a smile on her face, as she slowly began raking the razor against my stubborn beard.

The Penitent Cell was a room in the cellar of The Abbey, where we spend the first night of our return. It is meant to give us a quiet place to reflect, and meditate, allowing us to find peace in our actions while out in The World After. Most of the time, I am all too happy for the peace and quiet. It allows me a chance to find that balance between the man I am, and the man I am forced to be in the course of my duties. That first night back however, I couldn’t even find sleep, until total exhaustion pulled me down into the blackness, it just felt like there was something missing. It really didn’t help either, that every time I tried to drift off to sleep, a pair of beautiful violet eyes were all I could see.

I rolled off of the cot inside the Penitent Cell, when the small window, near the ceiling, showed the first lightening of dawn. My night of meditation hadn’t been as peaceful as it could have been, and I needed coffee. I had never, in my life been happier, than when one of the first people we brought to The Abbey, had been the grandson of what he called a macrobiotic farmer, and took the windows we had salvaged, and created his own greenhouse. We grew our own exotic plants, that would never survive the winters without it. We had coffee, and tea plants, a banana tree, a cocoa plant we even kept a small colony of honey bees. We never had a lot of any of them, but in The World After, you learned to make your resources stretch.

She found me, while I was enjoying my breakfast of coffee, and sweet rolls. I was sitting near a window, looking out over our lands, and reading from a text called ‘The Odyssey’. There was a lot of it that I couldn’t understand, but the imagery, and the characters contained within, were inspiring. I was just starting to read about Scylla and Charybdis when a small hand tapped me on the shoulder. “Excuse me, can you tell me where I can find...” she trailed off slowly as I turned to look her in those amazing, violet, eyes again. They widened in shock, I’m guessing, at my changed appearance, as I smiled at her gently, “Bishop!” she gasped, and flung her arms around my neck.

I hugged her back, tightly. It was difficult for me not to react to her body being pressed against me like it was, so it was no surprise to me, when my cock firmed, and began rubbing against her stomach. I pressed my cheek against the side of her head, and realized, for the first time, that her hair was a deep, rich, auburn. And now that she had finally had a real bath, and the clumps of matted hair had been either brushed, or cut out, it cascaded down past her shoulders in shimmering waves. “It’s good to see you too,” I said softly.