Chapter 24 #2
“We do not know what happens, Majester, but it cannot be beneficial,” Sir Coriand says.
“Look at the trial we already faced. Perhaps we have only one chance to solve this box or we will perish here. And if that is true, we ought to hurry. As to the puzzle, Sir Hefertus, we refer to the etching showing the sun moving through its courses.”
Hefertus grunts. “Oh, well we all know what that meant. Not much of a puzzle.”
He is greeted by stillness and silence except for the whistling of the breeze through the cutouts in the stone.
He looks around slowly, his brow furrowed. I barely suppress a grin.
“Is something wrong?” Hefertus asks.
Sir Coriand sets down his bowl of tea, a slightly bemused smile on his face. “Are you saying you know what the etching means, Sir Hefertus?”
In answer, Hefertus whistles an odd tune, a little breathy and lilting. It does not suit the mood at all, though it reminds me a little of what he was playing on the organ. A dirge if ever there was one.
“Is there any of that tea to go around?” he asks when he is done.
Sir Sorken snaps his fingers and one of the golems lurches into action, attending to a kettle.
It is only then that I realize they are burning rags to heat the kettle.
Some of them look a little too familiar and my stomach twists.
Have … the golems haven’t pilfered from the dead to light their fire …
have they? That cloth looks very much like the Inquisitor’s cloak.
Hefertus accepts the mug and drinks like a man badly in need of a brew, and I stand unhappily, striding away to stretch my legs and clear my head for a moment.
I still don’t feel quite right. My heartbeat is too fast, my lungs sore, every bone in my body aching — though especially the arm.
I think perhaps I am feverish. The whole world feels hot.
Far too hot. As if the sun has taken against me, though I cannot see even see his face.
“Is he going to tell us or what?” I hear the Majester’s anxiety creeping into his whispered question, but I don’t look at him.
I don’t look at anyone. I just need a little air. Just a little. I make my way to the cutout bas-relief and put my nose and mouth to a hole too small to even shove a hand through. I feel like a prisoner looking longingly at a floor drain.
“The sun marks are times of day, obviously,” Sir Coriand says. “But how did you get musical notes from that?”
Hefertus whistles a single note. It’s not his usual clear, melodic whistle but a breathing one that sounds more like the wind than a song.
I close my eyes and let the cold air blowing in from the sea wash over my face, and I treasure that scent of salt and pine trees.
It feels so far away and yet the same wind washes over them and washes through this rock prison and over me.
Hefertus’s whistled note fills my ears, seems to grow.
But that’s not it at all.
His note simply matches the wind as it washes into the room.
“Something about the shape of the rocks outside and the bas-relief and the tide must change the sound of the wind whistling in,” Hefertus is saying. “Or maybe it’s none of that. Maybe it’s magic.”
“The tune you whistled?”
“It’s just the notes the wind makes as it runs through the carving. In the order of the times on that little chart.”
In the silence, I hear quiet feet approaching me. I grit my jaw, but even though I was ready, I flinch when a hand drops lightly on my shoulder.
“Are you well, Poisoned Saint?”
The Vagabond’s voice is like honey on my tongue and sun on my face.
“I beg you. Remove your hand,” I gasp out as quickly as the words can form.
Forsworn, forsworn, forsworn.
My mind chants the word but though I know what it is meant to be, it still sounds like “lost” to me and I want to reach out and take it back. I want to take back her touch that flies away and leaves my shoulder cold. I want to snatch her hand in mine.
“I am well enough,” I manage, not wanting to reject her kindness entirely, but I dare not look at her.
“But he already whistled it and it did nothing,” Sir Owalan is protesting in the background. “So it can’t be the answer.”
“I think it’s meant to be played,” Sir Coriand says. “Would you try to play it for us, Sir Hefertus? On the pipe organ?”
I know my friend will say yes. To him, playing a song is as natural as breathing.
“You could take one of the golems if you like. Suture, perhaps,” Sir Sorken says. “You might need to tear out of there very quickly and a golem is a help for that.”
“I can trust my own two feet,” Hefertus growls. If he hadn’t decided before, he has decided now.
“Then do it and do it quickly,” Sir Sorken is saying. “And as for the rest of us, brothers, I suggest we say our morning prayers, have a quick tidy, and be ready. Last time a door was opened there wasn’t much time to waste, hmm?”
I should wish Hefertus well. I should do exactly what Sir Sorken suggests and tidy up a bit. I do neither of those things. I keep my face pressed to the cold stone. I breathe the scent of freedom from the salt of the sea and the scent of courage from the lady paladin hovering beside me and I pray.
God have mercy on me. God have mercy.
“I will try to heal your dog before we go into the challenge,” I tell her when I feel I can speak again. “I should have about enough strength for that.”
“No.” Her refusal comes too quickly.
I’ve had no reason to doubt her in all of this.
I have reason now.
My eyes flick open and I see the look in her eyes and the way she shutters them to try to hide it. She is afraid to let me heal the dog. She is hiding something.
Queasiness settles in my belly and I feel my face twist.
“Why do you doubt me?” I ask her in an undertone. “Why will you not allow me this?”
In the background, the others have decided on communal prayer. Their chant is like bone broth on a cold morning. It comforts me even from afar. The familiar words wash over my mind; the familiar chanting lines echo in my heart.
“I do not doubt you,” she says, but her gaze is held by mine and it is dancing with lies.
“You do. Your dog needs healing but you will not let me touch him. Are you afraid I’ll kill him because he bit me? Have you not seen I do not lash out in vengeance?”
“I do not doubt your mercy.” Her voice is small. She breaks the hold of my gaze and cinches her breastplate straps a little tighter. She checks the fit and buckling of her boots.
“But you reject it,” I say quietly, and still she does not meet my eyes.
Her silence feels like a knife.
“Why have you taken against me?” I press.
I think I might know. She judges me for last night. She knows I have taken pleasure in touching her, denying my calling and staining us both with guilt.
I bite my lip.
She shakes her head in denial, but there is shame all over her face and I know I put it there. It was I who touched her, I who whispered endearments to her in the darkness. My belly feels like I’ve swallowed a rock. My head is swimming.
“I apologize,” I whisper. “Most humbly.”
She opens her mouth and her face twists with vulnerability, but just when I think she will confess something to me, she shakes her head again and thrusts a water skin at me.
I take it, angry enough at myself that I grip it too tightly. I do not know what to say. I am awash with disgrace.
She stalks away and begins to tidy her things, wrapping up the cloak, stretching her muscles, checking over her sword. I watch her every movement, my eyes catching on the wear of her straps and clothing. She’s ragged and poorly repaired. Impoverished.
I have faith in the God, but why does he require so much from his servants?
Holiness, they say, is why he demands it.
Sacrifice purifies the heart. For if you have given up riches or physical kindness or freedom from pain, then it is not hard to give up the temptations to evil thrown in your path.
Why grasp for power when you’ve denied yourself riches all your life?
You can see how hollow it is, just as you’ve seen how hollow are the riches that others have.
Why steal wealth when you’ve given up kind touches and gentle closeness as I have?
To turn your back on cold silver is easy in comparison, trivial even.
That’s the theory of it, and in practice, it has worked.
Set your feet on the path and start to walk down it and the other path grows more and more distant, more and more inconceivable.
I know all this. And yet I want all the world for her.
Even if she is as tarnished with guilt and wanting as I am.
Maybe she is right. Maybe there is more evil walking among us than just what is in this place.
Maybe we’ve brought some here with us. The golems, for instance.
Murder in the heart of one of our ranks.
I suck on my bottom lip and try to think.
I’m surprised when a movement catches my eye. It’s the Majester, approaching me with a twisted expression. He’s guilt and shame and misery, and he should be. He should be. Plenum Hexilan — the Inquisitor — was a bright, vibrant man. He should not be dead.
I find I’m trembling when he reaches me. It’s not for me to judge. But I am judging. It’s not for me to say how the God directs vengeance. And yet, I want him to direct it here.
God have mercy on me.
“I can’t think,” he confesses to me in an undertone, laced with the melodic prayers of the others. “It’s twisted my mind, wrung me into a killer. Ruined me. I can no longer be a paladin. I took off the raiment today and I’ve given the Engineers my sword.”
My eyes widen as I see he wears no scabbard.
“I want you to have the map.”
He shoves it into my hand and his haunted eyes come so close to mine that I can smell the fear on him rolling off in waves.
“Map?” I ask.