Chapter 14 #2
The room I’d checked on my own had a cage in it large enough to hold the bed. I counted five avian skulls and assorted bones inside. No cup.
All these rooms seemed to have been abandoned with haste.
Clothing was flung everywhere, blankets tangled, cushions disarranged.
I searched systematically, looking for anything that might be the cup or a clue for finding it.
I found three more books just like the first, though in different handwriting, as if four people were working toward the same goal — the same invention.
I kept them with me, interested to try to see what manner of project had inspired all four of these people at once.
Perhaps it was a clock like the one in the main room. Or some other wonder of art and craft.
I did not find another cup in the rooms, and by the time we went back to the halls, someone had removed all the cups from their alcoves in the wall.
Brindle kept his eye on Adalbrand, snuffling his way from room to room with doggy enthusiasm.
I kept a close watch on him. I was worried that in the low light of this place, his eyes might glow their hell-and-heaven brightness and betray us.
These rooms were lit with clever windows, narrow but effective, cut into the rock on one side and out to the sea, and then cut from room to room.
The depth of rock and narrowness of the slivers would make spying difficult, but they let in enough light to search the rooms without lantern or torch.
It was not until the third room that we found a clue.
There was a tapestry on the wall. At the very top of the tapestry, the cup from Adalbrand’s sketch was carefully embroidered, complete with the blue cabochon gems on the walls and something that looked like eyes all around them.
Beneath it was a dark building ringed with reaching branches.
It was picked out in an outline beside the sea, and that wouldn’t have been enough to tip us off, but the building extended down beneath the earth to where a long staircase ended with a clock on one side and a fountain on the other, and beneath it all were gears.
“I think the cup must be here somewhere,” Adalbrand said from beside the desk.
He held up a single sheet of parchment. Someone had scrawled across the bottom, but at the top was a very accurate depiction of the Cup of Tears.
It looked much like Adalbrand’s sketch, but the eyes sketched around the gemstones were clearer.
He passed the parchment to me. “Can you read it?”
Beside us, Brindle yawned, apparently bored beyond belief even as the demon inside him sprang to attention.
“It says Aching Cup,” I replied after Brindle translated.
“That’s close enough to Cup of Tears. It could be that your translation is not precise. And the rest?”
These little poems are so delicious. I can almost taste the fear worming through them. Let me read it for you.
It worried me that he liked this so much.
This most holy of cups,
This most painful of drinks,
It cuts down to the quick,
It does more than one thinks.
Do you reach for the heavens?
Do you clutch at the air?
One deep drink of this pain brew,
And your heart will be there.
For what’s gone can’t be brought back,
What’s once lost can’t be found,
But one dash of this brew,
And you’ll find yourself crowned.
I spoke the words for Adalbrand and then asked, “What does the symbol under the poem mean?”
“It’s an old one.” He sounded wistful. “It’s a symbol for a Saint. The crown with the blade stabbed through it.”
“I haven’t seen it before. Do you want to be a Saint, Sir Adalbrand?”
“You heard the poem. What’s gone can’t be brought back. I can no more be a Saint than I can be a tiger.” I liked how his smile always had an edge of sorrow to it.
“Do you want to be a tiger?” I teased.
He looked up from the parchment and considered me for a long breath. He wasn’t playing anymore. He wasn’t twinkling.
“Do you want to be a Saint, Lady Paladin?”
Before I could reply, the door crashed open and the Majester General strode in, startling us both.
He was carrying his pen and parchment, and over one shoulder he held a crimson sack that clanked with every step.
I realized by the second step that the sack had been his tabard and by the third I was stifling a smile.
Now I knew who had been collecting all the cups.
His comportment screamed “command” in a way that would make anyone with a hint of duty in their heart straighten and salute. Obviously, I slouched more at the mere sight of him.
Beside me, Adalbrand’s spine went stiff and his chin rose.
I barely kept in a snicker. Someone had a tendency toward people pleasing and conformity, it would seem. You’d never catch me doing that.
“Anything interesting to report here?” the Majester barked.
He glared at his parchment like he was annoyed not to have an aide to jot these things down for him, and the look he gave me suggested he was considering changing that.
I set my hand on Brindle’s head. The Majester’s gaze followed the motion and I saw the moment he registered that any assistance from me would be accompanied by dog drool. He shook his head minutely.
“If you’re asking whether the residents had some odd items, then I’d say yes, and we did find a poem, a tapestry with a depiction that I’m pretty sure is the cup, and this pewter vessel,” Adalbrand said with a stiff formality that seemed wrong in his mouth after all the confessions he’d poured out from the very same lips, “but if you’re asking if we found the cup, then the answer is no. And yes, we’ve been thorough.”
“How many rooms have you searched and did you mark them?” The Majester gently extracted the pewter cup from Adalbrand’s hand, turning it this way and that with narrowed eyes before adding it to his sack. He took the parchment, skimming over the drawing and poem. He did not ask for a translation.
“Mark them?” Adalbrand sounded surprised.
“Can I borrow your back, Beggar?” the Majester asked me.
“Excuse me?”
Beside me, the dog snickered. Out loud. I would swear on it before a confessional priest.
He looks just like a rooster I possessed once, sweetmeat. It strutted around like it owned the place before I took it over, and you wouldn’t guess what it did after.
Did it claw someone’s eyes out and eat their soul?
Good guess. Have you played this game before, my sweet dumpling?
No one but me noticed the laughter or the distracting byplay.
The Majester General waved parchment and pen. “I need a surface to write on.”
I blinked. “Well, you could use my back but there’s a des —”
I didn’t get a chance to even say “desk” before he spun around me, settled the parchment against my backplate, and began to scribble.
I glared at the perfectly serviceable desk.
Its owner had been a great lover of the arts and had fitted it with a pen holder sculpted from golden marble in the shape of a reclining woman wrapped in a boa constrictor.
The constrictor had five heads and the woman had five hands, and she had a place for a pen in the center of each of her five palms. She looked profane, indeed, but her desk was still a better place to write than my back.
“Is that a map?” Adalbrand asked from somewhere behind me. It sounded like he was suppressing a laugh.
Great. I was the butt of everyone’s humor here. Could no one take a grave in the ground full of dead people’s possessions and a great rotting demon seriously? No? It was just me?
I huffed a sigh. I liked maps. I would like to see this one. And I didn’t like being a desk.
“It won’t be a thorough search without one,” the Majester said, pride in every word. “Can you point out which rooms you searched so I might mark them?”
“We searched here and here together and split off to search here and here. We saw no one else. But it looks as if you have a tick on almost every room so far. What’s this?”
“A fountain. It’s on the other side of the stairs from the clock.
Handy if we’re here for long. The Penitent declared it fit for drinking and the High Saint blessed it.
There was no cup in it, though. We’ll have to start looking for hidden chambers, perhaps,” the Majester said. “Or a key to unlock the other door.”
“Other door?” I repeated, but my words were eclipsed by Adalbrand’s.
“Wait, is this the shape of a pentagon with one triangular section off to one side?”
“It is.” The Majester General’s voice warmed. I imagined he was probably well-liked among his aspect. There were almost no Beggar Paladins as genial and gracious as he was, and he was generous with information and comradery.
Rude. I’ve always been very generous. I spent an entire day once cataloging all the cheeses I’ve ever tried for your educational use. In the order in which I ranked them, no less.
So generous.
“And look, all these cells that are clearly people’s personal chambers are located in this triangular section outside the thick main wall of the pentagon. I measured it at the windows and it’s nearly a pace thick of pure stone. Imagine the work it took to carve this wonder. And those statues!”
“Did you think they looked a lot like us?” I asked, staring at the fireplace opposite us, annoyed.
Brindle trotted over to it, spun three times, and then collapsed into a doggy heap, his tongue hanging out of his mouth as if he were laughing at me. Sure, dog. Live it up. Laugh at my expense. It’s not like I’m the one who feeds you or anything.
I like it when you’re annoyed. You think better then. Put your mind to the task of that map, sweet morsel. What did that glass bead mark?
“The statues?” The Majester seemed surprised. “Well, I expected the monks here to be human, didn’t you?”
“No, I mean specifically like us. There’s one, I swear, that is the Prince Paladin’s exact doppelganger. Right down to that firm jawline and straight nose.”
“Well, he does rather have the kind of face that ought to be immortalized,” the Majester General said absentmindedly. “Likely he’s not the first man to look so godly that an artist was inspired by it.”
The dog started snickering in my head again. I gave it a black look.
“So, this corridor you went down opposite to the clock,” he said, tapping something on the map in a way that sent vibrations through my backplate, “goes through a door at the exact center of that side of the pentagon and then proceeds into this triangle-shaped section full of smaller rooms. There’s one more area in this section of the pentagon that has a locked door.
” He tapped my backplate hard as he noted it.
“And then these two sections appear to have no door at all. But perhaps one is hidden. This one is carved all over in bas-relief and a keyhole could easily be hidden in the design. And this one appears to have a large glass section with only darkness behind it, so possibly there’s a hidden entrance there, too.
The last section is windows, of course, cut into the rock face and looking out to the sea.
I wouldn’t expect more than meets the eye there. ”
“You think there are triangular sections behind each of the other walls?” Adalbrand asked.
I could hear the Majester’s smug smile in his voice. “It’s what I’d do if I were building this place, and I’ve learned that in battle it’s best to assume your opponent is at least as clever as you are.”
“Are we in a battle I don’t know about?” I asked the air in front of me.
“A battle to find the cup,” the Majester said testily. “And our opponent is those who hid it — long dead now. I’ll take the cup you found, if you don’t mind. I’m collecting them all so we can test them together tonight. It will be a completely fair and aboveboard investigation, I assure you.”
“Of course,” Adalbrand murmured.
“Would you have noticed a key when you were searching?” the Majester asked.
“If it looked like a key, then yes,” Adalbrand said. “We saw a map. Of the world. On a sphere.”
The Majester barely skipped a beat. “The Holy Inquisitor claims he read about that once. That there was a time that man believed the earth was a ball.” He sounded testy.
“Before you tell me all the reasons that’s nonsense, please know I’ve already heard a rant from the High Saint and am not in the mood for another.
Unless this round ball unlocks one of the doors in this place, I’m simply not interested in it. ”
“Well there was an interesting — ” Adalbrand began, but the door to the room crashed open.
I spun, drawing my sword in a single motion. I vaguely heard the curses of the Majester General, whose parchment had fluttered to the floor when I moved, vaguely noticed that Adalbrand — the fool — had automatically moved between me and the door without even drawing his blade.
Brindle barked.
Once.
Sharply.
But it was only Sir Owalan. Out of breath. White-lipped. Blood streaked down his dove-grey tabard. He opened his mouth to speak, turned, vomited, and then tried again.
“The Seer is dead.”