CHAPTER 4 #3
“More of a metaphorical one, although it’s quite real nonetheless.
It’s hard to explain. It’s definitely not alive, it’s…
ah… decaying, after a fashion, I think. But magic shakes it up, makes the flies come buzzing out, and then I start…
err…muttering a bit.” He took another swallow of wine. “It doesn’t happen that oft en.”
“Hmmm.” She pursed her lips for a moment. “You’re sure it’s dead?”
“Very sure, madam.”
She lifted an eyebrow.
“I haven’t killed you. Ergo—” He drained the rest of his wineglass.
“Ah. Good enough.”
She got up from the table, taking her wine with her. Caliban poured the rest of the bottle into his glass and followed her to the chairs.
They had not been able to find a third room for him at the inn, and neither he nor Brenner had been particularly keen on sharing a room, so the temple knight was sleeping on the floor in the common room.
Slate avoided the pile of blankets by the simple expedient of climbing over the back of the chair.
Less agile and with a fuller glass, Caliban shoved his bedding aside with his foot and took the other chair.
“It doesn’t sound very glamorous, demon hunting,” she said.
“It’s not. I’ve killed a lot of possessed cows.”
“Then why was Lord Caliban so lionized?”
No-longer-Lord Caliban shrugged. “Temple paladins, you know. We dress well, when we’re not off killing things.
We’re polite. We do heroic things that sound interesting—nobody realizes that most demon possessions end with butchering farm animals.
Most of us aren’t total bastards, since the Dreaming God has certain requirements in his servants.
We’re uncomplicated and look good in white.
You know how it is.” He considered for a moment. “We’re not sworn to celibacy.”
The sexual tension in the room kicked up several notches, rather abruptly. Caliban twitched.
I shouldn’t have said that. That was stupid. I should have stopped drinking several glasses ago.
Slate wasn’t helping, sprawled bonelessly over the chair like that. He wondered if she even knew how to sit in a chair.
Maybe she spends so much time hunched over account books that she can’t sit normally the rest of the time.
He was surprised to see that she did actually have a shape underneath her usual layers of clothes. It was more generous than he would have guessed.
Well. One hardly dresses their best to visit a prison.
Stretched over the chair, however…
He took another swallow, vaguely hoping that sobriety would lie at the bottom of the glass.
“Mmm.” She eyed him warily. “Uncomplicated and look good in white. Right. So how did a demonslayer get possessed?”
His libido went back to wherever it had briefly emerged from, which was a relief, even if the question wasn’t.
“Oh.” Caliban set the wineglass down, and stared into the fire, the black logs crazed with fine red cracks. “I’d…as soon not talk about it, if it’s all the same to you. It doesn’t matter any more anyway.”
“It’s okay. We’re all going to die anyway in a few days. At most in a couple of weeks,” she said, with a sort of grim cheer.
He blinked at her. “Is that meant to make me feel better?”
“Sure. You don’t have to worry about getting rid of all your problems before they mess up your life anymore.
” She waved a hand in his direction. “I’m back to biting my fingernails, and Brenner’s…
well, I don’t know what all of Brenner’s vices are, and I don’t want to.
So you don’t have to worry about whatever sins temple knights commit that let the demons in, because it’s not going to matter. ”
He weighed this bit of wisdom and came to a conclusion. “You’re drunk.”
“Well, a little. I generally don’t drink very much. Still, since I’m going to die anyway…” She wriggled around until her knees were over the back of the chair and her head was hanging over the seat and she was gazing solemnly at him, upside down. Bits of Caliban’s spine cried out in sympathy.
“Fine, I grant you that my life’s not worth much at the moment.
But what if I’m worried about the afterlife?
” He could feel a smile tugging at him, despite the subject—an inverted drunk guerrilla accountant was giving a disgraced temple knight spiritual advice.
Possibly the gods had more of a sense of humor than he’d thought.
At the moment, she’s probably in better grace with the gods than I am, anyway.
“Are you worried about the afterlife?”
“Not really.”
“There, you see?” She folded her arms. Her hair brushed the floor under her head.
“Are you worried about dying?” he asked.
He didn’t mean to ask it, hadn’t expected to hear himself saying it, and yet there it was—years in a temple got into your head.
You provided spiritual comfort, like a reflex.
It was even the paladin’s voice he was using, the one that was always so effective, soothing and comforting, a little quieter than usual.
A brother’s voice, a priest’s voice, a voice that spoke to the nerves and said: Trust me.
People opened up to that voice. If you did it well enough, you hardly ever needed the sword.
He wasn’t sure if the fact that he could still do it involuntarily, despite months in a prison cell, demonic possession, murder, and half a bottle of wine was comforting or horrifying.
One of the two, anyway. Possibly both.
“Oh, I’m quite petrified.” Slate wrinkled her nose, but there was a timbre in her voice that told him she wasn’t entirely joking.
If she’d been right side up, at this point he would have reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.
God, he’d held variations of this same conversation at least a dozen times with the newest squires.
That there was no difference between an accountant thief and a novice demonslayer was also either comforting or horrifying.
Next it’s the long, friendly look, and then they say something—generally doesn’t matter what—and the proud ones straighten up, and the healthy ones cry, and the funny ones try to make a joke and choke up halfway through, and you put an arm around them and say something—still doesn’t matter what, it’s the tone that does it—and wait until they’re done and then offer a handkerchief, and then they say something embarrassed, and you tell them that you cried for three nights the first time you actually went out after a demon.
Hmm, with the way she gets sneezing, I should probably offer her the handkerchief a little early—
Ngha, ha, nghaa, the demon said, which might have been an agreement, or a commentary on handkerchiefs.
He’d never seen a possessed person use one, if it came to that. Perhaps they didn’t have handkerchiefs in hell.
“On the other hand,” Slate said, making a sweeping gesture—Caliban rescued his wineglass—”whenever it starts to bother me, I think the same thing.”
Here it comes. He dug in a pocket for his handkerchief.
“Really stupid people die all the time. And if they can manage it, I oughta have no problem.”
He blinked.
That wasn’t in the script…
“Err. You’re not going to cry, are you?” Slate asked worriedly, eyeing his handkerchief.
“Ah…no.” And that’s what I get for thinking I know what I’m doing.
Kalikalikaliha, n’ha’mah, added the demon, which was arguably also something he’d gotten for thinking he knew what he was doing. And that was the other side of the paladin’s voice, and the Dreaming God only knew if he could still manage that any longer.
He shoved the square of cloth back in his pocket. “I’m fine. But I think I’m about ready for bed.” Before my delusions run away with me, or I start gibbering in tongues again.
“Mmm, probably a good idea.” She kicked off with her feet and rolled off the chair, landing on her feet. He would have broken his neck if he’d tried that.
She staggered and sat down, hard.
It was not chivalric to snicker. He did it anyway, because if you were going to be thrown out of a religious order on your ear, you took what small comforts you could get.
Slate grumbled at him and slouched off toward her door.
“Madam—” he said, feeling oddly stilted, and then, “Slate—”
She turned and looked at him, one hand on the doorknob.
“Thank you. For—” he searched briefly for the words, “—giving me my death back.”
She inclined her head as graciously as the Dowager accepting tribute, and slipped through the door and away.
He watched her go, then spread the bedroll out across the floorboards in front of the fire.
Probably they were all going to die. Still, it was better than life in a cell six paces across.
Caliban wrapped himself up in his blankets and stared at the fire. Unsure whether he was comforted or horrified, he drifted off to sleep, with the demon mumbling curses like a lullaby.