Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Vagabond Paladin
Yes! We’re back!
I felt the demon’s rejoicing twisting through me in the same moment that the breath whooshed from my lungs.
Brindle barreled into me, round skull smacking into my belly so hard that if I hadn’t already lost my breath, I’d lose it now.
His enthusiastic tongue washed my hands and arms as I reached to bury my hands in his fur, trying not to crumple.
Adalbrand knew now.
Saints and Angel’s blood, he knew.
I couldn’t catch my breath. It was stuck in my throat like a barbed hook.
And now we find out. Is Adalbrand the honor and chivalry he pretends? Is he the holy paladin he thinks himself? Is he your love-sworn man as he suspects? Now is his reckoning and we shall discover the answer with him.
Or he’ll go mad and murder you, and that should be entertaining at the very least. Do you think he’ll cleave you in two with the sword, or will it be the dagger slid subtly between your rattling ribs?
I love watching lovers torn asunder. It’s almost always their own faults. You two are lovers now, aren’t you?
I had said Adalbrand was too forgiving. I had accused him of it. But he said he would not forgive this.
Forgive? Why not ask him for the moon and the stars and all that lies beyond the Rim. This is marvelous. You really think he could still care about you — a tarnished vessel, a ruined blossom. How adorably flawed of you. I like delusion for you. Do continue.
Forgiveness is a real thing.
Is it, paladin? Will your God forgive you when he hears you’ve been sharing a vessel with a vile one? Will he welcome you to his embrace?
One can hardly help who one must room with, whether it be bed bugs, fleas, or the damned.
I shuddered as I gently pushed Brindle aside to check Sir Adalbrand’s prone form. He had passed out but he was still breathing. Grimly, I moved him into a more comfortable position.
Brindle circled him with gently padding paws, sniffing all around him.
You really have a way with the menfolk, sweetling. Do you always make them sick, or is it just this green stick of a man?
I was reasonably sure it was realizing he’d aided a devil that had done him in.
You could try to pretend to be an innocent victim of my malevolence. That might be cute.
I was an innocent victim.
The demon’s laughter rang through my mind.
You are all complicit in deeds that mock you and ruin you, like puppets danced into a fire making flowery bows and curtseys all the way into the inferno.
Saints bless it. I’d lost him, then. Barely had him for a moment and then lost him. Somehow it felt worse than anything else so far. It twisted and wrenched inside me as if I had swallowed a brick and it was making its way through my insides, the corners of it catching as it went.
I stood abruptly just as Hefertus came running at full speed straight through the cluster of paladins praying. He took in Adalbrand’s prone form and my stricken face and then uttered a foul curse.
I nodded my agreement as our mouths twisted into matching frowns.
“What did he do?”
“He healed my dog. And learned something he didn’t like,” I said grimly. The one nice thing about Sir Hefertus was that he didn’t bother with niceties or feelings. I didn’t need to spare him.
He grunted. “Fool. That could have waited.”
I nodded but I hovered over Adalbrand, not sure how to help him.
“Marvelous work, Prince Paladin!” Sir Sorken boomed out, striding toward us.
Prayers had ended — probably thanks to Hefertus scattering the other paladins like a dog running through a flock of pigeons. There was a note of tension in the room.
“Do we look at the new puzzle to twist the room next, or do we go straight to the next challenge for the cup?” Sir Owalan asked, bouncing from foot to foot.
Either he did not notice Adalbrand had passed out or he did not care.
“Maybe we can just keep turning it and forget the challenge entirely. We’d get out that way, right? And we could try again later.”
“I rather think not,” Sir Coriand said, with a cheerful smile.
“The challenges are there for a reason and they must be completed. Our cups are only partially filled. Do you want to find the Cup of Tears? Then we must fill them entirely. You’ve read the words written here.
‘Our hearts spoke out our hopes and our souls bore the cost, the man and the spirit and all that was lost. Bold together we race where no others have trod, for we are more than men, we have become Saints. Choose now holy vessel. Be careful, be clear, for the bones of others will root out your fear, wash your cup with sorrow, bathe your vessel with blood, but choose your gift wisely, be it fire or mud.’ Likely, we will find the next stanza of this verse at our next station, and if you want the Cup of Tears, then we must follow it, or fail. ”
“No,” I said quietly, and very deliberately, I stood over Adalbrand’s body, facing the others. They drew together in the stained light, a flock of shrieking crows, a gaggle of squabbling gulls. I hated them in that moment for their self-serving heartlessness.
Oooh. Look who likes to defy authority.
Sir Coriand shed his cheerful, dreamy-eyed exterior like a snake sheds its skin. It made him seem to grow before me; certainly his shadow swelled.
“I’m afraid no is not an option, Beggar. We have come for the cup. We will receive it. And you have no choice but to go with us on this quest.”
“There’s always a choice,” I said quietly, and I drew my sword.
Oh, the sweet drama! Trouble in the ranks, holy against holy, it makes my shriveled heart sing! Fight, rip, tear, little snack!
Sir Coriand stepped forward quietly but his eyes were fixed on mine and I felt a thrill of fear settle down my spine. Who was this Engineer really? Behind him, his bone-and-rag golem shifted, reminding me that in any fight, it was not the elderly knight I’d battle but his massive creation.
He lifted two fingers in a mockery of blessing and said, “Those of you unwilling to give up the quest before we’ve even begun should go now.”
Did his fellow Engineer have nothing to say to that? I shot him a glance.
“Yes, yes,” Sir Sorken said, still wearing the skin of cheerful acquiescence. His eyes held a glimmer I did not like. “Right you are, come along, brothers. This way.”
He strode down the well-worn path toward the clock and the open room, not even glancing back, and without a word, the High Saint and the Penitent followed.
The Majester sent one shivery glance backward and then he followed, too.
They stalked off like four cats — not quite wanting to walk together but headed in the same direction all the same.
“Sir Hefertus?” Sir Coriand asked quietly as the others disappeared from view.
“The fountain is still working. That’s a good thing, right?” I heard Sir Owalan saying. Already his voice was distant.
“If the Vagabond has doubts, then I have them too,” Hefertus said, shooting a glance at me that practically screamed, “What are we doing?”
What are you doing, Victoriana? Simply throwing yourself into the gears to jam them is no plan.
This monastery was wrong from top to bottom and I was finished complying with any of it. I’d already lost a friend. I did not want to lose my soul in the bargain.
But must you lose your head, also? Think!
Hefertus cleared his throat, looking between us, one hand twisting through his topknot of golden hair. “The Poisoned Saint has worn himself out and we can hardly leave him here alone.”
“If the other trial was any indication, then we cannot leave him here at all,” Sir Coriand said reasonably. “It will take all of us or none of us in the next task and the clock is ticking.”
“And the dog?” Hefertus asked, eyeing Brindle warily.
As well he should.
I laughed — a grim, gallows laugh.
Both the male paladins glanced at me, Hefertus nervously, Coriand grimly, as if I were a mistake he must set right.
“The dog must come along,” the older paladin said. “It was there last time. I think you understand, Hefertus, that we must go through this trial. I think you see that.”
Hefertus looked back and forth between us.
“This place is evil.” I felt so tired. The kind of tired you only feel when it is you against all others.
“A wild assumption,” Sir Coriand said, with his big trust-me grin spread wide.
“I see no evil here, except the poor lost thing stuck in a trap on the ceiling — and if these monks were evil, why would they have trapped one like a mouse?” His eyes narrowed, and while his easy smile never flickered, I felt the moment that he shifted his emotions.
“And of course, Lady Paladin, the one you brought with you.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
One of the voices in my mind — maybe both — spat one curse after another, some foreign to me, others familiar. I tried to block them out.
“What?” Hefertus asked carefully.
I shifted my feet. But I knew myself. And I knew he was seeing the truth of it all over my face.
Be on guard!
Sir Coriand delivered the killing blow. “A dangerous game to play, Beggar. Are you even a paladin? No paladin I’ve ever known has been so cozy with a denizen of hell.”
Hefertus turned his body to me, blocking Coriand out. “Deny his charge.”
I swallowed. “I cannot.”
He paled. “Treachery,” Sir Hefertus breathed out. “Vile treachery.”
He made a stumbling lunge toward me and I pivoted out of the way. He was wrong about me. At least, in the way that mattered.
Watch out!
“Hefertu —” I began and then something grabbed my foot and yanked hard.
The room spun upside down. My braid swept back and forth over the mosaic while Hefertus turned abruptly upside down and looked down at me in disgust. I kicked against what was holding me with my free leg but it was solid as bone and after a second, it was manacled in place, too.