Chapter 10 #3
I gritted my teeth but just in time, a throat cleared from behind me.
“Whatever are they teaching you boys in the monasteries these days?” It was the younger Engineer — Sir Coriand. “I suppose you can be forgiven, Kodelai. You came to the church late in life, so your tongue is rigidly stuck in the common language, but Roivolard, I thought better of you.”
The Holy Engineer clucked his tongue and the Majester General — Roivolard, I supposed — went beet red.
“Don’t be so harsh, Coriand,” the other Engineer said, hitching his sword belt in a way that only accentuated his barrel belly. “You can’t expect blustering generals to pick up the finer points of language.”
“Are you saying she’s telling … you can’t mean she’s telling the truth?
” the Majester General asked warily, looking from the Engineers, to me, to the High Saint — Joran Rue — stuck in the doorway.
Sir Joran seemed … faded … somehow. As if whatever was on the other side of the door had sipped out his coloring.
“Well, I differ slightly on the translation. I’d read it as, ‘The door of the confessor by which sins are spoken and entry made.’ What do you think, old boy?
” Sir Sorken said, sidling up to the door and peering into where the High Saint was stuck.
“Care to confess a sin and see if it loosens up? I’d think any sin would do, but you’d better pick the biggest and best or it might think you’re trying to cheat. ”
There was a muffled sound from the door.
“What’s that?” Sir Sorken was almost boisterously loud. “Bellow it out, my lad. Let the whole place hear you.”
“Pride.” The High Saint’s beautiful tenor was leeched of beauty now. It rasped like a stringed instrument in the hands of a novice.
And as if by magic — for, of course, that was what it was — he was released.
He stumbled forward and then spun to look at us, eyes wide in his plain face and hands trembling.
“You should have warned me,” he said between heavy breaths, his head swiveling to me. “You should have told me what was coming. I should have … I should have…”
He sat heavily down on the floor, head in his hands, and this time it was I who took a wobbling step forward. Was he ill? He didn’t look right.
Well, he confessed pride. I’d say it’s safe to bet that the toll taken was his confidence.
Toll?
But was it taken temporarily or forever? That’s the question. And oh, I cannot wait to hear the answer. Little confection, I hope you’re thinking about what you’ll say. Whatever it is, I shall use it to consume you. As will the door. As will any who hears it cross your rosy lips.
I licked those rosy lips, uncertain what to say or what to do.
I didn’t have to decide immediately. The Seer pushed past me and through the door, whispering something that sounded like crackling leaves. Whatever she said was born away by the wind, and whatever price she paid was invisible.
The Penitent Paladin went next. He carried no bag, but he drew his sword, ready despite seeing what had happened to his two peers on the other side of the door.
“Does it make you pay both ways?” he muttered, but no one could answer.
His confession took me by surprise.
“I am a great swordsman,” he said as he entered. “And I take comfort in the thought.”
I don’t know what I expected, but when his sword clattered to the ground, I yelped like everyone else. Beside me, Brindle barked once, sharply.
The Penitent Paladin’s right hand was gone. Vanished. Where once it had been, there was now only a grotesque stump.
He paled, staring at the hand that was no longer there.
“I swear I can feel it yet. As if it is not gone at all.”
His voice was a ghost. Or perhaps it was the blood rushing through my head making me feel as though I could hear nothing else.
Why would he lose a hand when the High Saint had only had to sit down?
To each man the penalty equal to the crime.
Then what would happen to Brindle when he went through with me?
What indeed?
Mayhap he should stay outside.
The double snort in my mind told me that neither spirit was willing to be left out.
The Seer picked up Sir Owalan’s sword and offered it to him. They tottered side by side, watching us, their backs to the adventure ahead, like two souls marooned together on a vast land.
“Will you go next then, Engineer?” The Majester General asked Sir Coriand. He seemed to be trying to get control back over what was rapidly deteriorating.
The Engineers laughed together as if they could read each other’s thoughts.
“Oh, I don’t think so, my lad,” Sir Coriand said, a good-natured smile on his lips. “I think we’ll let you all tromp around in there first. We’ll keep the tea on out here and you can tell us all about it.”
“You don’t think you should represent your order within the monastery?”
“We’re representing them perfectly out here,” Sir Sorken said with an ironic quirk to his mouth. “There’s not an Engineer alive who would pay that price lightly.”
“Our hands are important,” Sir Coriand agreed, and — Saints help me — I do not know how he managed to find another cup of tea, but he was sipping it, using his sword to poke around in the dirt at the base of the door as he drank.
“What do you think they constructed this door out of, Sorken? Seems a waste of blessing-imbued copper.”
“And yet there it is looking terribly copper-like,” his fellow paladin said, taking the tea from his fellow so that he could sip it himself.
I watched them, fascinated, as ghost ribbons of steam swirled up around them and the marigold light flashed hard and unforgiving off the blades of the swords they were so sorely abusing.
“We could lend you one of the golems, if you like,” Sir Coriand said, looking up suddenly. “Yes, I think that might be best.”
“Apologies, brother.”
It was the first time I’d heard the Poisoned Saint speak all morning. He was poised beside the Prince Paladin. They were friends, I thought. They’d certainly shared a tent, which the demon had found funny and told ribald jokes about no matter how much I tried to shut him up.
Still jealous? he purred to me. So am I. He’s a pretty one, your sickly paladin. As pretty as that golden giant, in his own dark way.
“Apologies, but I will not be going down into the depths with your construct.”
“Stay up here with us then,” Sir Sorken said, uncaring. His baritone seemed deeper than normal and when he sipped, his thick, gnarled lips looked like moving tree roots. “We’ve plenty of tea to go around.”
There was iron in the Poisoned Saint’s tone. “With respect, I think the golems stay with you.”
Sir Sorken paused, blade dug half into the earth, his brows lifting like he’d just found something almost as curious as what he was studying. He peered at Sir Adalbrand for a long moment.
“Interesting. You certainly nurse a healthy bias, don’t you? Will you be going down then, Sir Adalbrand?”
The Poisoned Paladin coughed, and I almost thought — for only a sliver of a second — that he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye before he swaggered forward and through the door.
Whatever he muttered was lost as he passed through to the other side and clasped the High Saint on the shoulder.
And if his eyes glittered a bit more when he looked at me through the frame, who was I to judge?
I did not know what had been taken from him.
“Blessed Saints,” his friend cursed before laughing, and then abruptly diving through the door as if he were diving into the sea. He landed on his shoulder, tucked, rolled, and popped up to his feet. When he straightened he laughed again, the picture of health and boyish pleasure.
But only for a moment.
The Seer screamed, and then the Prince Paladin was on the floor, writhing and shuddering, and the demon in my head laughed and laughed until he was hushed by Sir Branson.
“Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy,” the Majester General gasped his prayer, clinging to the parchment as his hands trembled. He was twisted around, blocking most of the view of the other side as he watched those who had already crossed the barrier.
Over everything else, we all heard Adalbrand praying, his words panicked as battle shouts, his eyes on his patient, then on us, then back again.
He had laid hands on Hefertus, and though I thought he was healing him, he was also jerking and spasming with his patient as the healing took.
Beside him, the Seer’s breath sawed so loud and uneven that I feared she might fall, too.
Sir Kodelai sucked in air through his teeth beside me as the Majester General’s prayers all ran together.
I heard a pop and glanced over to where a white-faced Sir Coriand had broken the handle off his cup. His hands shook a little until the golem beside him leaned down and took the pottery, like a mother might take shards of glass from a toddler.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, patting the golem on the arm.
For its part, the golem ducked his head in acknowledgment, and by the time my eyes were back on the tableau, both Sir Hefertus and Sir Adalbrand were sitting on the stony floor, arms wrapped around one another for support.
Think carefully of what you will confess. It must be great enough that you can accept a punishment for it, but small enough that it doesn’t kill us.
Us?
I’m coming with you. I doubt the door can tell the difference between dog and demon. Or paladin. It will likely see me as an extension of you.
How charming. Also, did that mean that the Prince Paladin had confessed to too small a thing?
Likely. What else would make the door so angry?
It’s a door. It doesn’t get angry.
That’s what you think.
I was so lost in thought that I did not see the Inquisitor or the Hand of Justice cross through the door.
When I looked up again, it was just the Majester General and me left to go through. On the other side, the Inquisitor had already begun to descend the stairs and only the crown of his white head was still visible.
“Well?” the Majester General barked as though he thought I was one of his recruits.
“Well, yourself,” I said, rearranging my stance from ready to casual. I didn’t take orders well. It was basically a precept for Vagabonds.
They don’t understand that we’re blown by the wind and the will of the God. We aren’t subject to their schedules or rules.
The Majester scowled. “It’s just the two of us out here. You can cease with your displaying. It makes you look like a barnyard rooster, so pleased with the arrangement of his feathers that he does not see the chop.”
I looked insolently at him and then flicked my gaze to the Engineers.
“Just the two of us?” I pressed. “Do Engineers suddenly cease to count?”
Stop antagonizing him, sweetmeat.
The snickering of the Holy Engineers was echoed by the snickering of the demon in my mind.
“The Majester only sees people who listen to his orders,” Sir Sorken whisper-yelled to me.
“Then I suppose there’s no one left for him to see here at all.” I combed fingers through my hair, feigning ease.
The Majester huffed, spun, and with parchment still in hand, strode straight into the door with the word, “Gluttony” spoken so loudly that it seemed to echo off every rock and wall.
Ugh.
He twisted as he stepped through — shifting before my eyes from a strong, straight-backed man to a crooked-spined shadow of himself.
I took a hesitant step forward.
“You don’t have to go through the door,” Sir Sorken said, leaning back on his golem — was this one Cleft or Suture? I couldn’t quite remember.
You do. You must.
Whoever was speaking in my mind now sounded panicked.
For duty.
For honor.
For Sainthood.
Wow. That was a lot of ambition pouring out of one dog. I gave him a long look. I should leave him here. But what if the demon leapt from the dog to Sir Sorken or Sir Coriand? I’d killed one paladin when I couldn’t oust the infestation. Did I have the heart to murder a second time?
You must. If the hellion leaps again, you must be quick. You must be sure. I wish I could banish him myself.
I sighed.
“Come on, Brindle,” I said unhappily. Unlike the others, I shouldered the bag containing my worldly possessions, grabbed the dog by his scruff, and strode to the door, stopped right before it, shook myself, and then entered.
“Doubt,” I whispered as I stepped through.
Because wasn’t that the worst of it? Worse than the murder of my mentor, worse than the envy I felt when I saw the riches of others, worse than everything, so much worse was the worry that gnawed at me day and night that all of this was for nothing.
That the God was merely invented by men to explain natural phenomena.
That those claiming to be his servants were deluded. And that I was likely mad.
My worst sin. Confessed now.
I heard a curse in my mind.
I told you not to pick the worst one. What does it take to beat sense into this girl?
If I knew, it’s not something I’d let slip, fiend. I’m on her side. Always.
The price was too high.
The price was too high.
I felt terror sweep into my heart like a winged creature, knurled and inky, streaking from the shadows straight into my heart. It clawed up my throat and beat against my vocal cords, begging me to scream.
Doubt? It asked me. I shall take thy doubt and multiply it. I shall shatter thy mind with uncertainty and use the shards to pin thee to the floor, flay thy flesh from thy bones, and open thee wide until there is nothing left that thou’st know but pain.
The punishment was too great. It was too great. I couldn’t do it. I whirled, looking back to the door, every shred of me wanting to dart back to the ruins on the other side. The glowing eyes of Sir Sorken’s golem glittered as if it knew. They taunted me, called to me, mocked me.
Enough. Pull yourself together. My squire was bold as a lion and brash as a bear. My squire was insouciant as a squirrel stealing your last bread.
The breath sawed in my lungs and I forced myself to spin back and release Brindle from my grip.
So you doubt. Who doesn’t?
Well, paladins don’t.
We’ve both crossed the path of death. Doubt is letting go of what you know. Faith is seizing hold of what you will know. You’re halfway there. Hold on.
I appreciated Sir Branson’s confidence as much as I loathed the demon’s laughter, but his laughter rang once more in my mind as I finally saw clearly into the hall and the place we’d paid so steep a price to enter. This was no monastery. Or at least, it wasn’t like any I’d ever seen.