Chapter 6 #2
In our calling as Poisoned Saints, the motives of man are important. They shade everything. And on this particular quest, the motivations of man could mean life or death. I would prefer that we all walk away alive. There’s no need to shed blood here.
I say that part out loud and he laughs.
“Indeed. Glad to have you at my back, Poisoned Saint.”
“Mmm.” If I must ride into danger with Hefertus, then I’d rather be at his back, too. Far better than being in front of his blade.
We turn a last corner and there they are — the rest of the valor of the nine kingdoms, banners flapping, tents set, fire smoking damply. The wood must still be wet.
I count them. Eight others. I have not met any of them before.
There are no servants, squires, pages, clerks, or retainers. Only the paladins themselves. That alone is shocking in a world where most paladins have retinues of dozens.
I look the others over. I don’t have a sixth sense — though some attribute that to us. What I do have is a lifetime of dealing with people’s hurts. I catalog everyone through that prism.
I see the Seer first and I immediately shutter my expression.
Her senses are nearly entirely gone. She cannot see any longer — her eyes are a dreadful grub-white.
She holds her head in a way that tells me she is struggling to hear.
Her fingers fumble senselessly over her wooden cup.
Hers are infirmities I cannot take. A gift to the God that her aspect requires.
I neither understand it nor like it, but it isn’t my place to speak on what obeisances another aspect performs, or how the God calls them.
I don’t look at her for long. I do not enjoy watching the misery of others. Usually, I have the right to draw it out from them. It feels like spittle on my cheek that I cannot take hers.
She’s the only female paladin sent so far. The others are men. And we are missing one. Ten aspects. Ten paladins required. There are ten here, but two are Holy Engineers. I can see the aches in their elderly joints by how they hold their bodies brittlely.
Don’t misunderstand. They can still fight. Even against a trained soldier in his youth, they’ll likely win, just as the Seer would, even though she can hardly hold her sword. We are paladins. We may age. We may molder. We never fail.
The others are more what one would expect as representatives of their aspects.
The High Saint of the Aspect of the Sovereign God hurries to greet us with a blessing.
He’s healthy and bright-eyed, his hair perfectly trimmed, face perfectly shaven.
He’s so homely he could be a priest, but I know plenty of simple-looking men who are masters of blade and war.
His perfectly oiled and polished kit doesn’t impress me, but it does speak to a mind ordered and disciplined.
He bears no signs of pain or illness. A blank slate ready to be drawn upon.
“The Aspect of the Sorrowful God and the Aspect of the Benevolent God,” he says, pleased. The High Saints rarely use our slang names for one another. They find it beneath them. Crass.
Personally, I don’t like High Saints. I find their rigidity frustrating and their careful observance a bit convicting.
After all, were I a better paladin, my observance would be more like theirs, wouldn’t it?
But it is not, nor will it be. And I am guilty of so much more than a few missed prayers or broken creeds.
“We welcome you here,” he says, spine straight, looking down his long nose at us. He has no chin, but the collar over his chestpiece digs into the flesh in a way that constructs one for him. It must be terribly uncomfortable.
“There doesn’t seem to be much of this Aching Monastery left,” Hefertus says, looking around while I make the holy sign of greeting to the High Saint and then peer past him at the others.
There’s a Holy Inquisitor who has resumed training exercises.
His long hair is stark white and the front is tied back in a silver clasp.
He works his sword forms with speed and accuracy, careful to keep his blade facing the west, as is fitting.
He’s narrow as a whip and his muscles are long and lean.
This exercise is designed to make him fast and accurate — but not bulky, never bulky, for physical strength is forbidden to the Aspect of the All-Seeing God.
I watch him for a moment. He has an injury somewhere in his ribs — a strain, I think.
Old and recurring. I could help him with it if he wants that. He may not. Not everyone wants help.
I know Kodelai Lei Shan Tora by reputation.
He’s the Hand of Justice here. I recognize him at once by the red horsetail in his helm.
Not many Hands of Justice wear ornamentation, and everyone has heard of Kodelai.
He’s a legend. Called out of a kingship, called from majesty to service, strong as an ox and twice as charming as he ought to be, there are stories of him in every town and city.
Hands of Justice are not called before they are at least forty and he’s closer to the end of his fifties, I would think.
I heard he was challenged on a judgment just last year — challenged and won, obviously, since he’s still alive.
If I get the chance to ask him about it, I will.
He has something wrong in his guts. Age, perhaps.
It plays nasty tricks on everyone from peasant to king to … ahem … paladin.
“The monastery was always mostly underground,” Sir Kodelai says easily. His voice is like gravel. “It’s why everyone is so excited. Down there, most of it should be intact, though the outer facade fell into the sea.”
He gestures around at the tumbled masonry and chunks of riven stone that had once been buttresses and beautifully worked doorways. They look now as if a giant child lost his temper and flung the last bits of it about.
There’s a single statue left whole, a woman with an innocent expression still obvious on her white, marble face. I almost find it unsettling that she remains while the rest is devastated.
“And you haven’t gone to look?” Hefertus asks. “Not even a single step?”
“Not one step until all are assembled,” another voice orders. It’s deep and thick. A voice for commanding others. That’s a Majester General or I’m a stuffed owl. My lip curls before I can prevent it.
This one is arrayed like a general, sitting in a camp chair, and eating a roasted pheasant. He must have made it himself, as there are no servants here. Impressive. The best I can do over a fire is fresh fish.
He sees me looking. “Pheasant? Might make you less pale.”
“I thank you,” I say coldly. Nothing will make me less pale except time or the expulsion of the magic the pain is generating within me. “But none for me. Hefertus?”
My friend waves it away. “Who are we waiting for? Let’s see.
” He points at us as he speaks — or rather, he points at the medallion each one wears.
“Engineers, General, High Saint” — the Saint in question flinches — “Inquisitor.” He gets a salute for that.
“Seer, Hand, Penitent.” He waves at the last fellow, a man cloaked head to foot in a cassock that disguises all but his beardless chin.
He’s kneeling on the rock in prayer. I can feel the ache in his knees from here but if you’re going to pray like that, there’s little I can do for you.
The hunch in his shoulders is worse. He’s disguising old pains and new.
So many that I can almost feel the constant buzz of them.
“Poisoned,” Hefertus says, flicking a finger at me, “and Prince.” He lays a hand across his chest. “Missing the Beggars, then?”
The High Saint clears his throat. “The Aspect of the Rejected God,” he corrects, “has yet to send a representative.”
“Well, beggars can’t be choosers,” Hefertus says lightly.
“Generals can,” the Majester General says calmly. “And I say we wait.”
At his words, I feel it again. That terrible draw to dive deeper into the ruins here. It pulls me almost like the call of the God. It pulls me so hard, in fact, that I lift my head and ask.
“Has Terce been said yet?”
“It has not,” the High Saint says with grim enthusiasm. “We heard your hooves on the rocks and determined we would wait.”
“Hooves,” the Majester agrees through another mouthful. I’m certain he would gladly postpone prayers well past Vespers. Most of us are not so observant as the Aspect of the Sovereign God.
“Let us gather,” the High Saint says, making chivvying motions with his hands.
Hefertus shoots an accusatory look at me, annoyed that I’ve stirred this up. He may be good-natured, but he’s not as easily entertained as I am by the quirks of others.
“At least let us tend our horses first, brother,” he says.
The others give us brief directions and I follow him to where the horses are tethered a little ways from the camp.
Which is where we find the golems.
There are two of them. I am well acquainted with the shambling creatures that the Holy Engineers pour the gift of the God’s own life into.
In cities across the earth, they are commonplace enough, but somehow out here on the very edge of man, these seem more than unnatural. They seem as though they loom.
“Oh, don’t mind Cleft and Suture,” the less ugly Engineer says, hopping up from behind us as quickly as a man can when one of his knees is no longer functioning well.
His longish white curls tumble in the breeze as he hops and skips to join us.
The top of his head is bald, but he’s making up for it with the bottom. He bears a friendly grin.
I am not feeling quite as friendly.
I disapprove of golems on principle. I do not think the God ought to let men breathe life into stone. Especially not when they are then allowed to command that stone to fetch and carry and do it all mutely. It feels too close to slavery to me.
The church allows the kings of the east to keep slaves. I find the practice appalling.