ASTROLABE OF FATE

CHAPTER 11: THE QUARANTINE BELL

The gear didn’t jump. It shuddered.

Blue light ripped Caelen and Liora out of 1126 like parchment torn from a book. Air became copper. Stone became ash. Sound became Tomas screaming.

They hit ground hard. Not abbey earth this time. Abbey stone. Hot. 1348. The smell hit first: vinegar, smoke, and the sweet rot of bodies burning in pyres.

Liora coughed. Ash in her throat. “We’re back,” she gasped. No glasses. World a blur of orange through smoke. “The gear misfired.”

Caelen stood. 6'4" unfolded slow, joints popping from two jumps in one night. The astrolabe in Liora’s palm was worse now. c***k ran from blue stone to brass edge. Light bled out in thin threads, like veins.

Bells tolled. Not for prayer. Three strikes. Pause. Three strikes. The quarantine bell.

Caelen’s jaw locked. “Someone’s infected.”

Abbot Edmund appeared in the corridor. But this was the Edmund from 1348( the year of the great dying). Older. Face worn smooth by grief. Crozier in one hand. The other pressed to his mouth, cloth tied over nose and mouth. The smell of rosemary and vinegar clung to him.

“You returned,” he said. Not question. Accusation. “And you brought death back with you.”

From down the corridor: a wet, tearing cough. Then silence. Then another cough, weaker.

“Brother Anselm,” Edmund said. “Coughing blood since Lauds. Tongue black with ash. He measured your quarantine lines last night.” His pale eyes fixed on Caelen. “The Rule says a monk who returns from death brings death. You are proof.”

Liora stepped forward. Astrolabe wrapped in her t-shirt. “We have medicine. Merek’s vial. Willow bark. It stops the blood.”

“Heretical hands,” Edmund snapped. “God decides who lives, not Saracen poison.”

“God uses hands,” Caelen said quietly. He reached into his sleeve. Pulled out the half-vial. Still half full. Clear liquid catching the torchlight. “I drank it first. If it’s sin, let me burn for it.”

The bell rang again. Three strikes. Pause. Three strikes. Calling monks to witness death. Calling the abbey to remember.

Caelen moved. Down the corridor past cells where monks pressed cloth to their faces. Past the scriptorium where the chronicle lay open, page 44 blackened where Tomas’s name had been. Past the gate where Tomas still pounded.

From outside the wall, muffled but clear: “CAELEN! I HEAR THE BELL! LET ME IN BEFORE IT TAKES YOU!” Tomas screamed .Not rage now. Desperation. He’d heard the quarantine bell before.

The infirmary door stood open. Inside: one pallet. One monk. Brother Anselm, 58, tonsure gone gray. He lay on his back, chest heaving. His tongue was black at the edges. Ash. The first stage.

Merek stood over him, plague mask off. Face haggard. Bloodshot. He saw Caelen and didn’t step aside. “Too late, monk. I’ve seen it three times in Kent. Ash on tongue, blood in cough, then silence. Three stages. Always three.”

Caelen knelt. 6'4" folded to stone beside the pallet. He took Anselm’s hand. Ink-stained. Scribe’s hand like his own. “Brother,” he said. Voice rough from smoke and jumps. “Can you hear me?”

Anselm’s eyes opened. Filled with pain. And recognition. “Caelen… Thorne. The demi-god walks… even in the Dying.” He coughed. Blood flecked his lips. Red on white beard. “Don’t… let him… open the gate. Tomas… wants the gear.”

“Tomas is outside,” Liora whispered. She knelt on Anselm’s other side. “He can’t cross the threshold. Gate logic holds.”

Anselm nodded once. Then his breathing hitched. Wet. Wrong. The second stage starting.

Caelen uncorked the vial with his teeth. Bitter smell filled the room. Medicine. Heresy. Hope. “Drink,” he told Anselm. “God’s will or Merek’s hands. Choose.”

Edmund filled the doorway. Saw the vial at Anselm’s lips. “Stop!” His voice cracked. “The Rule forbids interference with God’s judgment!”

“The Rule forbids pride,” Caelen said. Didn’t look up. Poured the liquid down Anselm’s throat. “And pride is watching a man die to prove the Rule right.”

Anselm choked. Swallowed. Coughed again. But this time no blood. Just air. Ragged, painful air.

Silence. Five heartbeats. Ten.

Anselm’s eyes rolled back. Then focused. On Caelen. On Liora. On the astrolabe glowing between them.

“It burns,” he whispered. Voice like sandpaper. “But the blood… stopped. Tongue… less black.”

Edmund didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just watched. The Rule had no words for a monk who chose a life over doctrine.

From outside the wall, Tomas’s voice cracked: “OPEN IT! I HEAR HIM BREATHING! YOU CURED ONE, CURE ME!” He was pounding again. Iron on iron. Each blow sent dust from the ceiling.

Caelen stood. 6'4" blocking the doorway. Back to Edmund. Face to the gate. “He wants the astrolabe,” he said low. Only for Liora. “Not mercy. The gear. He thinks if he controls time, he stops death.”

Liora stood too. Astrolabe pulsed in her palm. Blue light crawled up her fingers toward her wrist. Toward her veins. The gear ground forward half a notch on its own.

“The gear reacts to death,” she whispered. “To dying timelines. Anselm was dying. Tomas is dying by inches outside. The astrolabe chooses which time to bleed.”

Anselm’s breathing evened out. Still ragged. Still dangerous. But alive. The ash on his tongue receded half an inch.

Edmund finally spoke. Voice like stone dragged over stone. “The bell rings three times for death. It rang for Anselm. Now it rings for choice.” He looked at Caelen. At the empty vial in his hand. At Liora. “You saved him with heresy. You broke your vow to keep a life. What will you break next, Brother Thorne?”

Caelen didn’t answer. He was watching the astrolabe. Watching blue light fill the c***k deeper. Watching the gear hesitate between clicks.

From outside: “CAELEN! I’M DYING OUT HERE! OPEN THE GATE!” Tomas screamed with desperation in his voice.

The quarantine bell rang a third time. Three strikes. Pause. Three strikes.

Not for Anselm. For whoever was next.

Caelen looked at Liora. Dark eyes. Steady. Terrified. “The gear moves when death is near,” he said. “Tomas outside. Anselm inside. The astrolabe weighs which soul costs less to save.”

Liora gripped his wrist. Same vow. Same grip. “Then we don’t let it choose. We choose. Both.”

The gear clicked. Not a full notch. Just a shiver. A warning.

From the corridor behind them, another cough. Wet. Young. Brother Wulstan, 19, Anselm’s novice. He pressed a cloth to his mouth. When he pulled it away, red stained the linen.

Edmund saw it. His face went blank. The c***k in him sealed shut. Abbot again. Not brother. “The Dying is in the walls now,” he said. “God help us all.”

Caelen turned. Looked at Wulstan. Looked at the half-empty vial. Looked at the astrolabe bleeding blue onto Liora’s skin.

“I am a monk,” he said. Voice low. Stone on stone. “I do not break vows. But I make new ones. I vow that no more blood is spilled while I have hands to stop it.”

He reached for Wulstan. The boy flinched, expecting rejection. Caelen caught his wrist instead. Turned it over. No scar yet. No quill knife. Just young skin and fear.

“Tomas had hands like yours,” Caelen whispered. Only Wulstan heard. “Before time took him. I will not let time take you.”

He poured the last of the vial down Wulstan’s throat. Bitter. Final.

Edmund closed his eyes. “Then God judge us both.”

From outside, Tomas screamed. Not words. Just his name. Over and over. Caelen’s name. The name he’d called for 22 years while dying.

The astrolabe flared. Blue light exploded up and hit the ceiling beams. For one breath the infirmary wasn’t 1348. It was 1126. Tomas at 14, laughing in the cloister. Alive. Not yet dead.

Then stone again.

The gear stopped clicking. Held on the edge of a notch. Waiting.

Caelen set the empty vial down. Looked at Edmund. Looked at Liora. Looked at the gate where Tomas pounded.

“Time belongs to God alone,” he said. Abbot Edmund’s words. Then softer, only for Liora: “But these lives belong to no time I understand. And I will not lose them to it.”

The bell stopped ringing. Silence fell. Heavy as a shroud.

Somewhere, Tomas kept screaming. And for the first time, Caelen had an answer that wasn’t prayer.

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