Aldric froze. The other monks froze. The candles guttered.
It was twilight. The Order’s chapel smelled of dust and burnt beeswax. Brother Matthias, a novice with hair like straw and a face full of doubt, sneezed. It was a wet, violent, unapologetic sneeze. And it happened exactly as the sun’s last sliver bled below the horizon.
Father Aldric had memorized the list forty years ago, back when his spine still allowed him to bow properly. He could recite every rule without a stumble: Rule 47: The left sleeve must be rolled three times, no more, no less. Rule 48: Nuts are to be eaten with the right hand only, lest the soul be unbalanced. Rule 112: A sneeze after sunset requires a counter-sneeze before sunrise, or a penance of seven laps around the reliquary. Aldric froze
And Father Aldric, for the first time in forty years, sneezed—loudly, freely, at no particular time at all. And the world, stubborn and beautiful and utterly indifferent, continued to spin.
“You will perform the laps,” Aldric said, his voice a dry leaf. “At once.” It was twilight
The sun rose anyway.
He took the Compendium from his pocket. The laminate had yellowed. The corners were soft. He looked at the list—all 247 rules, plus the 83 addenda and the 12 secret clauses known only to the high clergy—and for the first time, he didn’t see a leash holding back chaos. It was a wet, violent, unapologetic sneeze
Matthias shrugged. “Then we go to bed. And in the morning, we decide which rules still matter.”
He believed. He truly did. The world, he’d been taught, was a fractious beast held together by the thinnest of leashes: ritual. One forgotten genuflection, one poorly timed nod, and the whole tapestry of reality might unravel into chaos. The old god, Unwitnessed and Exact, demanded precision the way a starving man demanded bread.
Aldric opened his mouth to cite the Appendix on Unseen Mercies —which argued that disasters averted by rule-following are, by their nature, invisible—but the words turned to ash. Because Matthias was right. He’d skipped Rule 19. Dozens of times. And the only thing that had ever collapsed was his own certainty.
Matthias blinked. “Father, it’s dark. The reliquary is unlit. I’ll break my neck on the marble.”