Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Vagabond Paladin
Today, we’ll enter the monastery.
I slept poorly last night wrapped in my musky bearskin cloak, huddled against the door that was not a door as the demon and paladin fought within my mind. I did not pitch a tent. I wanted a wall at my back and I didn’t trust any of the others out of my sight. Except maybe the healer. Maybe.
She’s tempted by the dark horse. Did you feel her pulse quicken near him? I shall watch the sweet morsel fall from grace yet. It will be like the crackling on the edge of the pan. I savor the drama. It shall be my cup and sup.
As you will be mine.
Do they allow you to speak so, paladin? I’m appalled. I thought you had to at least pretend to goodness. Don’t you all bathe in hyssop and launderer’s soaps until your skin flakes from your muscles and the fun flakes from your bones?
At least we bathe, hound of hell. Your sulfur stench has filled my nostrils since the moment you arrived and I cannot discern if it comes from the brimstone of the hells, or if it is simply that your spectral intestines are ruled by wind.
If you are trying to insult me, your words need more teeth. But maybe you’re too distraught as you watch your successor fall into a trap.
I huddled in my blankets, scowling, and clung to Brindle — the dog, not the spirits within him. He was my one true friend, though I wished I could rid him of parasites. He put a paw up on my arm and whuffed quietly. I scratched him behind his ears and frowned into the darkness.
I might have been young and I might have been “driven by passions as the water is driven by the course of the river,” as the demon so aptly put it, but even I was not foolish enough to fall for a man sworn to celibacy. Even if he had eyes like sad pools of darkness.
Even if I could still feel his touch on my face.
You’d think the sparring afterward would have cleansed my palate.
After all, there had been other fit, fine men fighting.
My blood had been up and coursing through my veins with the joy of competing.
My eyes had sparkled with the joy of it.
That ought to have put him from my mind. It did not seem to have been enough.
Eventually, I blocked out my thoughts and the spirits’ bickering well enough to fall asleep.
I woke to Brindle whining in my ear. He’d kept me warm through the night, the good doggy, and now he rolled over and presented his belly to be scratched.
I obliged, but I gave him a long look. I still refused to kill him, but I recognized how terribly impractical this relationship was.
A cunning woman would have killed the dog in the first moment.
A smart one in the first hour. A practical one before the next day had passed.
I suppose I’d lost claim to being any of those by keeping him alive.
With a rueful smile, I leaned in close enough to smell his doggy breath and whispered, “So who’s an almost good boy, then?”
I scratched him behind the ears and nearly leapt when a voice broke into my mind.
You’re awake. Quick, little snack. Look at the door frame. Look! I swear a dog’s eyes are not what they ought to be.
I tried not to sigh. These two were already wearing on me without ordering me like a slave.
Don’t waste time sighing. You sigh like the bellows of a blacksmith’s shop and look just as beguiling. Use your eyes.
I looked up. After the past week I’d had, it felt good to be able to lift my head without searing pain in my ribs. A stab of guilt shot through me. What I’d felt before was now taken by the Poisoned Saint.
He deserves none of your pity. Your pain feeds his power. Just as his beauty feeds your desire. That’s selfishness, whatever pretty facade you try to paint over it.
No.
Trust me. As a denizen of hell, selfishness is my specialty. I am a master of it. An artist. An unparalleled practitioner.
The door was lit with soft pink light from the rising sun. Something had been carved into the frame. Letters — and if I had to guess, the same kinds of letters we’d seen at the other pillar. Ancient Indul.
Call it what you like. We always called it the Tongue.
As in the only tongue? Did they not have multiple languages when this monastery was in the world?
We had many languages, but this one was the common language. The one everyone knew on top of whatever language they were born to. The crass language. The Devil’s speech.
He started to laugh as my finger traced them again. They were so worn that they were hard to feel, even standing out starkly in the dawn light and thick black shadows.
It says, “Confession Door. Speak your sins and gain entry.” Oh, now this will be a lovely treat. What sins are housed in you, little delicacy? I can guess a few, I think. But it will be tastier to catch them as they slip between your lips.
Why would it want that? Sir Branson sounded worried. That’s not a very … godly thing to want. Victoriana, I mislike this place. Perhaps you should ride off. Leave this to someone else.
And risk censure by the aspect? When I’d only just become a paladin? They’d not just strip me of my title; they might strip me of my hands and send me begging in earnest without even the means to labor at something else.
Is confession not godly? It bares the soul. And it keeps the confessor under your power. What could be more religious than that, paladin? After all, isn’t that how you have been whittling me down? By finding each vein and rooting it out?
To me, it sounded like a trick. Who would willingly speak aloud their sins in front of their rivals?
And would saying them change them? Some things died in sunlight …
but others thrived when the sun shone full on them.
Would whatever was in my heart and hands perish, or surge with renewed energy?
And would I be able to tell which before I opened the door?
No, and that’s the magic of it. It can take you where you want to go — into the Aching Monastery — but it has a price. Just like all of us do. And you must pay it.
I didn’t have a price.
The laughter in my head told me that my watchers didn’t believe me.
I ignored them and made ready, going to the creek to tend my horse, wash, and refill my water skins.
If we were going into unfamiliar territory, I meant to be prepared.
I didn’t care if it was a monastery rather than a battlefield, nor did I care that I would be among fellow paladins who worshiped the God the same as I did.
I had learned the cold lesson of the road — don’t have it with you and it’s lost forever.
Which is why you must be sure to keep me with you.
And who was that?
Does it matter? Just be sure the dog goes in along with you. And don’t be first through the door.
Don’t be first? Why not?
You’ll want to brace yourself, sweetmeat. It’s easier to do once you’ve seen one of these doors in action.
Wise council. Even if it came from the mouth of hell.
When I returned to the camp, I found the others assembled outside the door as the sun crept high enough to bathe the land in marigold rather than rose.
“You are late,” the Majester General pronounced, each syllable distinct.
“No time was given.” I frowned. No one else had their packs with them. The Poisoned Saint had a water skin slung across a shoulder and all the paladins I saw were armored and armed, but no one else was carrying a pack as I was. Were they so certain the way would be safe?
“We said first light,” the older paladin said, judgment in his eyes. “And yet here you are at second light.”
There’s a second light?
Yes, the others can be quite fussy about it. Have I not mentioned it?
I wonder what they call the last light you see before your eyes shut forever. Is there a name for that, my foolish treats? I’ve given people that light before. It’s my most common gift. Wait. There’s also madness. I correct myself. It is my second most common gift.
Maybe they call it last light, Sir Branson suggested.
A bit too obvious, I would think. I’d prefer a name with more panache.
I ignored their byplay and made the sign of the God.
“My apologies, Majester General.”
He grunted and turned to the others, his voice ringing like he was making an official announcement in the name of the church.
“We know this is the only door into the monastery. The High Saint confirms that he has explored every inch of the ground above, as does the Penitent Paladin. I, myself, confirmed their claims.”
He drew a parchment from his tunic and unfurled it with a flourish.
“I’ve mapped the ground above. There are crumbled arches, ruins, and pillars, but no doors except this door that seemingly leads nowhere, and yet it is our only path forward.
All we who gather now bear the amulets of our aspects agreed upon.
These declare that we are granted the right to travel within these premises.
None other may follow or live under the aspects’ curse.
We claim the right of passage now, each in equal part, each a child of the God.
Please confirm this, brothers and sisters. ”
Everyone made a show of drawing their amulet out and I held mine up, too. What fussy mummery. As if there were anyone else here to challenge our right to enter.
The Majester General inspected the amulets one at a time, and though I saw tics of annoyance in some faces, no one made to stop him.
He was keeping notes, I saw. Making tiny ticks with a charcoal next to each name as if to confirm we each wore the symbol he’d already seen us wearing.
Ridiculous. We all knew who we were and that we were the designates of our aspects. Did it really need to be confirmed?
When he was finished, he continued with his pageantry.
“I call upon you now, in the spirit of honesty and before the God, to swear that you are here in the name of your aspect and with appointed authority.”
He paused, waiting for us all to chant, “We so confirm.”