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Little is known of the early life of Saint Lucerne, save that she came
from the distant kingdom of Doma. Many of her chroniclers
commented on the saint's exotic and otherworldly beauty, and
theorized that such a noble countenance could only come from noble
birth. Of her own origins, the blessed saint spoke little and smiled
much, confounding her would-be chroniclers.
What is known is that, while in her teens, the blessed saint heard a
woman's voice calling her into a forest. She went alone and
unguarded, despite the fact that the forest was a known hiding place
for robbers and other unsavory folk. While on her pilgrimage through
the wood, Lucerne heeded well the words of the invisible voice. She
found nuts, berries, and sweet tubers to sustain her, and a sturdy
wolf companion who was useful in keeping the robbers at bay.
The blessed saint has spared few words of her time in the wood, but
it is known that she came to a grove sacred to Maevessarone, the
Lady of the Wood, and that the goddess gave Lucerne a great gift,
and bid her share it with the rest of the world. Lucerne left the forest
a short time later, still accompanied by her wolf friend. She renouced
her former life and began a journey of pilgrimage and prayer,
wandering the wild roads and sharing her healing gift with any that
needed it.
She came at last to the Abbey in Vaurendale and settled there,
increasing the reknown of that Abbey thereby. The sick, the blind,
the halt, all those who had heard of her gifts came to receive her
healing touch, that they might be restored. All that came left gifts
according to her station, thereby increasing the coffers of the Abbey
and allowing it to do much good work for the people of Marsace.
It came to pass that word of Lucerne's gifts reached the ears of a
band of wretched lepers, who had huddled for many years on the
fringes of civilization. They dared the roadways, rattling their rattles
whenever healthy folk came upon them, until at last they reached the
Abbey. Yet, alas, even the kindly Lucerne could not heal the dread
disease leprosy, though at her touch it did abate for a time.
The blessed saint saw this disease as a test of faith from her
goddess. She took some of the treasures of the Abbey and used
them to build a safe haven, where all those afflicted by leprosy could
live and be tended to in comfort. More and more lepers arrived each
year and were given comfort by blessed Lucerne and by the monks
and the commonfolk of Marsace. Yet their disease did not abate.
Lucerne did not give up hope. Nightly she prayed to her goddess,
hoping that, by her works and by her prayer, she might find a way to
cure the disease. One night, on the eve of the harvest moon,
Maevessarone gifted her with a terrible vision that seemed to be the
key to breaking the curse. She saw an innocent woman hung by her
feet from a tree. Stalking around beneath the woman, worrying at
her form, was a great and terrible beast. In the vision, the beast bit
and tore at the woman until she lived no more, and the ground
beneath her ran thick with her blood.
Lucerne spoke of her vision with the Abbess and with the writing
priests of Xaer and Leukos, hoping that they might shed light on her
vision. What they said in their meeting is not known, but it is said
that shortly afterwards Lucerne and her wolf companion set out to the
deepest, darkest portion of the Fersheth. She took with her only a
small pouch of provisions and a great thick rope.
That night, the monks awoke to terrible sounds. They could hear, in
the distance, the familiar howling of Lucerne's companion, the
snarling, snuffling, of a great and terrible beast, and above it all, the
shrieks and screams of the blessed Lucerne.
The Abbess arranged a search party immediately, and bravely the
brothers and sisters of the Abbey set forth into the Fersheth, torches
and sticks in their hands. But before they could find the blessed
saint, her cries, and the howls of her wolf, had long since dwindled
and ceased.
At dawn they found her, her body riven and torn, hanging upside
down from a tree. The fingers of her hand still gripped tightly a
sturdy fighting knife, which was sticky with black and clotted blood.
Lying beneath her was the remnants of her wolf companion, that
noble beast sent to her by mighty Maevessarone.
As the monks watched, something wonderful happened. For the
blood of blessed Lucerne dripped from her body and pooled upon the
ground beneath her. And from that pool a flower sprung up, fresh
and clean as Springtime itself. The monks, seeing the flower for
what it was, took it with them when they bore the bodies back to the
Abbey. And though the bloom rested in a water glass for three days
while prayers were said over the body of Saint Lucerne, it did not
fade away.
Long after the mortal form of Lucerne and her wolf companion were
consigned to the ground, the bloom remained, ever fresh, ever
young.