Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Vagabond Paladin
Oooh, this is where things get exciting, little sweetmeat. Tell me, tell me, little morsel, tell me, little bite, who do you think ate the Seer in front of a locked door in a house she should never have visited?
I glanced upward at the demon still locked above us. It wasn’t him, was it?
If it was, then you’ve no defense. Look at him crouched there, ready to devour, ready to eat. But no, he could not reach down to possess her. He’s truly trapped. Don’t you see the mechanism?
I could not see the mechanism, but I trusted him that it was there. I could tell the demon was stuck. I couldn’t explain why, only that I’d known from the moment I’d recognized it existed, just as I’d known I could not remove it on my own.
I’d always thought demons could not be physically trapped. That they had to dwell within the body of something else to manifest themselves. The ones we saw always did. Except for that one time we found a demon possessing a creek.
Well, a creek is a living thing in its own way, dear girl. Imagine what it would be like to be a creek. The places you’d go! The people and animals you’d meet!
The demon seemed annoyed by that line of thought. Forget demons and creeks. Think about your Seer friend. Who do you think killed her, high and mighty one?
If her head hadn’t been placed on her chest, I would have thought she’d died of madness. She certainly seemed close to it.
You should have had her read your fates while you had the chance, morsel. One of your band of upright little knights is a murderer. But which? Which? The pretty one whose eyes melt for you? His statue of a friend? The pinched ascetic? The querulous son of order?
I still didn’t think it was a person who had killed her.
We were all paladins. Above reproach. And besides, that monastery was haunted — by a demon at the very least, but I was sure the rest of them must have felt how it called to us, how it made demands.
Plus, there was that blasphemy of a door.
Perhaps some spirit manifested itself and killed the Seer.
Perhaps the demon above was no longer dreaming.
Perhaps whatever it was flew out the keyhole and into her heart.
And cut off her head?
Perhaps.
And her hand? And made a pretty picture in her blood? You’re grasping. You’re hoping. It makes you deliciously vulnerable. Will you be next?
No.
What a pity.
Perhaps I should leave.
Perhaps, my girl. Perhaps.
Sir Branson seemed troubled. But why?
We were not an aspect that usually meddled in politics.
We didn’t stay in one place. We were the wind that blew as it chose or as the God directed.
We were no more likely to remain than the castle a child builds out of dust on the edge of the road.
Of course I would melt away and it would be as if I never was.
If not today, then tomorrow or the next day.
It was both the beauty and horror of our aspect.
To be fed every day on adventure and new hope, and every day to discard all that went before for a taste of the novel.
Blessing and curse in equal measure, but mine, all mine.
And it is beautiful and worthy. But it is the demon that concerns me. Were it to become free, it would become our responsibility. Our dread task. It hovers there over the heads of all who enter that house.
Then we should cast it out right now. Recruit the others. Use our abilities together to dislodge it. I glanced upward and shivered. Brindle peered up with me.
Try.
I focused my mind and lifted my heart to the God and felt … nothing. Not even the slight tug I had felt in the past when I had prayed beside Sir Branson.
Mayhap it was because Sir Adalbrand was right and I was no true paladin.
I think not.
Mayhap I needed to sit and pray for a full seven-day under this roof.
That I doubt, also. I felt along your prayer as you lifted it to the God and it confirmed as I suspected. You cannot remove this demon. Not on your own and not while it is behind the mechanism. If the mechanism were opened and it were set free, then yes, you could try, but …
But I’d be on my own, without any other members of my aspect. With the demon possessing no physical body, I could only turn to hours or even days of prayer, during which I would be completely vulnerable.
Or…
Or it would possess either me or some other who strayed too close.
The demon in my head began to laugh.
Elegant, if I do say so myself.
I was caught, wasn’t I? Free the creature and I could fling it from this earth, but if I failed, it would escape, bringing death and destruction with it. Don’t free it, and it would remain here forever, ready to break free and entrap someone else.
I don’t even see how to free it. But we must be ready if it slips out.
Ready for what?
Ready to die with honor, trying to do the impossible.
That sounded like my destiny, certainly. I was forever being served up the impossible.
The laughter in my head — nasty and cruel — built to a crescendo and echoed on and on, making the inside of my mind loud even while the outside was silent as we ascended the stairs together.
I think everyone else was thinking the same thing — not about the demon, but about how this murder made no sense.
I didn’t think any of the others were close to the Seer, but I felt ill at her death, and I was certain the rest did, too.
I glanced over my shoulder every so often to see them trailing behind me in a line, and when I finally reached the top of the staircase, the muscles in my legs aching and my breath coming just a touch faster than I’d like, I paused.
Oh yes. The door.
The laughter in my head spooled out like a coil of rope about to be woven into a noose.
Would it take something more from me if I stepped through it again?
Will it take your restraint? Please let it take that! Please. I’d love to see you unraveled, little knightling.
Facing it left me with cold, slimy dread. I did not want a second dose of terror.
Courage now. Take courage. We dare not abandon that — or hope — or we perish. Step forward now, I’m here with you. I’ll walk through with you. You will not be alone.
Never alone, the demon cackled.
I didn’t dare wait to think it through a second time. I held Sir Branson’s words close and stepped. I confessed nothing, hoping it would not be necessary on the way back.
My gamble paid off.
I found myself on the other side of the dread door, panting, discomfited, but whole. The terror that had sloshed around inside me all day was gone now. Vanishing as easily as it had come.
I drew in a breath, perhaps my first full breath of the day, and it was only then that respite hit me and I had to lean down and brace myself with my hands on my thighs, taking in great gulps of joy so powerful it felt like agony.
I was alive.
I was alive.
God have mercy. Lord have mercy. I was alive.
I’d been under a demon’s hanging body all day. I’d sifted through a place so cursed it was practically a tomb, with no promise I’d ever get out again. I’d been attacked, sworn to, and attacked again.
But I’d held my own. I’d survived.
I drew in a second huge breath, bracing myself, and straightened.
I was not going back.
In the morning, I would pack up and leave.
The Vagabond Paladins would simply have to live without their cup. The relief tore through me just as the cool of evening air hit my lungs and I was — for a moment — euphoric. I didn’t have to go back. They couldn’t make me. I could just stay up here in the sweet air of the world.
Around me, dusk was settling in grey velvet like a warm coverlet. Above, the moon and stars swelled with light. Out past the crumbling ruin, the sea muttered. And I was free.
No! No, no, no, that’s no fun at all, little treat.
Brindle bumped his skull against my leg. I leaned down to rub the skin behind his ears and press my forehead to the silky fur there.
Do as you must, my girl. It never hurts to buck the aspect now and then. Remind them that we’re beggars, not kings. Harder to steer. Harder to push. Harder to grind down because we’re already on the bottom.
I opened my eyes.
The tableau of two Engineers sprawled before a fire sipping tea was no surprise. They watched me owlishly as if I were a bard performing. Perhaps they’d been at it all day. Perhaps they’d drunk the stream dry with all their tea brewing. The thought made me feel so light I nearly laughed.
Brindle padded away toward the woods to take care of doggy business and I took a step forward, my feet light underneath me.
Something grabbed me around my neck so suddenly that I couldn’t scream, couldn’t so much as speak. I reached up, scrabbling against a tight grip on my throat and an iron forearm, fighting down the sudden surge of energy that filled me with strength but clouded my mind.
“What are you doing?” someone ground out from behind me. The Prince Paladin, I thought. He sounded horrified.
I couldn’t breathe. I thrashed against my restraint.
The Engineers stood up, their faces appalled in the flickering flames.
My eyesight was charring around the edges.
My attacker spun me to face him. He put a second hand to my throat and shook, and I had to grab his forearms with my hands so I could move with the shaking rather than be moved by it. It took some of the whip and snap out of what he was doing but did nothing for how his thumbs dug into my windpipe.
I struck out with a foot and connected with a greave. Struck a second time, higher, and felt him flinch at the strength of the blow.
“That was a demon down there,” the High Saint said, sounding almost hysterical as he shifted to keep his feet. “A demon, and you didn’t stop it, didn’t cast it out. That’s your job. It’s your only job.”
Little black flecks danced in front of my eyes. I kicked a third time, this time aiming higher, but he twisted and my blow landed to the side.