Bray

Yes, got it written early. May even do another chapter this week, but I'm not promising anything.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6



Hinge heard the arrival first, sitting by Stone's open windows. What he said was, "Huh."

"What?" asked the recumbent and tipsy Stone on the futon pallet.

"Probably, not sure. Go on, my Candle saw through that Traveler stoicism the moment she watched you walking, and instructed you most firmly about Abbey health and safety standards." Hinge pronounced, condensing Stone's rambling explanation for her immobility. "Then sicced the medic apprentices on you."

"Yup. Soaked me, pummeled me, cracked my back and needled me, then drugged me, gave me ale,and there's still one here to make sure I stay down. Yours, Bouillon, doing his medic orientation too. But you would know that." She pointed just her hand, without moving any other body part at the lightly snoring body in the alcove cot. "Got thirty six hours to, um, get the im, im, inflammation down so's thee "can see what she has got to work with here," so says your beloved tyrant." Stone reached carefully to the bamboo arch, pulled herself through pain to a more comfortable position, and laid back. "You are hearing something, Hinge, I know you from way back."

"Mmm? Oh, yeah. Rope the Weather's mule showed up a few days ago, still laden, no sign of Rope, no word from thee, no weather reports even. I thought the creature didn't have a voice, until just now. The stables are down here, below your window, and with the rain, the sound carries. None of my animals bray like that. And I just heard it again." Hinge's eyebrow bunched in consternation.

"Rope? Rope the Surfer? Tall, blue black skin, chaos magnet?" Stone asked, growing drowsy and distracted. "Rope saved my life, you know. Wouldn't have made it without thee."

"Where do you know her from? Nevermind, never met a Traveler who didn't know everyone. Thee is our Weather, now. There, hear that?" A hoarse animal cough from below the open window.

"Uh huh, sounds worried." Slurred the recumbent figure. "You better go... . Oh, and you still gotta tell me the Copper the Abbot deal."

As he stopped in the doorway he tossed back to her, "Easy, he ran a black market ring, the usual vices of favoritism, long time ago, but the challenges never stop after that." He slid the screen closed without adding, 'for your sin, too'. Stone heard it though, in his sure, quiet footsteps, all the way down the stairs. She again heard the weird braying of the mule she'd seen earlier, and the snoring of Bouillon beneath a black wool blanket. She watched the guy thoughtfully, through the blur of carefully dosed beer and accumulated pain, and remembered her oldest friend. Who made her laugh when all she wanted was to die.

Hinge the Dogman also saw the arrival first, through the dark rain of the autumnal night, the dim light of the cycle gliding up the coast rail road, because he walked outside the stables, in the direction Sal the Mule stared and wobbled her lips, and pricked her huge white ears. Bill the Dog already sat leaning against his leg, a warm presence that helped Hinge think. Candle the Medic followed a few minutes behind him, stood beside him in the slackening rain, laying a hand over his callused hand.

"Hinge, our apprentice sent me, your friend Stone sent him." This was a question, but Candle rarely asked questions as such.

"My bet is, that is Rope. Sal seems to think it's our Weather." Hinge stared, bulldog stare. He points to the wobbling pinprick of dim light. "Thee is not the type to go missing and not send a report. Get your medics out there, right, meet me." He dropped a quick, dry kiss on her cheek, and the solid body stomped out into the dark, followed by his furry shadow.

Candle the Medic grinned at the order, and the deep concern that it hid, for a person she knew he didn't much like, but respected deeply. As she strode off, she thought, a good one to love, her Hinge, their marriage would be a solemn and amusing ceremony to confirm a decade of rude affection. And warm feet at night, since Bill always slept across the foot of their bed. In the warm clinical air of the Spa she roused her journeyman medic out to the road. Another arrived shortly to lay out the supplies for injuries, IV fluid, wake up a cook apprentice for food from the Cafe, and bring blankets warmed near the ovens. Without really thinking about it, she already planned for two patients, an inspiration that would mean more paperwork later, such being life. She knew enough to trust these intuitions, and say a quick prayer to St. Murphy. The sole saintly watcher of the species, these days.

Hinge, it must be added, also smelled the change in the air before anyone else in the Abbey. (Or, perhaps Bill did, but if so, he never indicated as much.) The same odd, though not unpleasant odor of the red rain, registered. He didn't think about it much at the time, only later, when it mattered, did he remember when he first caught a whiff. But at that moment, he worried only for the small cold body that Rope foisted onto him with effusive gratitude, in the bleak night, as the rain turned to ice.

"Hinge, would you get one of the apprentices to take this back out to the shed of Bob, um, Mountain the Hermit, in the morning?" Rope asked.

He began to like Rope, at that moment, because he saw her exhaustion, knew she was cold nearly past shivering, and the toughness and practicality warmed him. When she then paced him all the way back to the Abbey, without complaint, without whining, he deemed her a good egg. The few grunts of pain as she trudged along only confirmed her worth to Hinge. She did lean a little on Bill, but the dog took it in good part, and kept her secret. Hinge loved the helpless and the sturdy, the middling folk struck him with discomfort.

The Abbey folk met them half way, and gathered them all in.