Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Vagabond Paladin
I lay on my back for a long moment, heaving in gasps of breath, watching the lights above me twinkle from white to purple to white while the smell of old leather and vellum filled my nose and with it the sweet, sweet knowledge that I was alive.
Yes! Sir Branson cheered in my mind, and for once I didn’t mind the dreadful laugh of the demon because I was there to hear it.
With shaking limbs, I turned on my side and saw Sir Adalbrand slumped where they’d laid him. My heart twinged with guilt. It was healing my dog that stole his strength and finding my secret that ruined him.
Well. Good things never did last. And at least I could keep him from becoming a casualty of carelessness or of malice, the way the Inquisitor had been. At least I could guard him while he came back to his senses.
Gently, I eased him into a more comfortable position, untangling his limbs and settling his armor into places where it wouldn’t dig into his flesh — or wouldn’t dig as badly. Should I remove it? He likely wouldn’t thank me for that.
I pulled myself to my feet and tried to assess our situation.
Books were scattered on the floor. I rifled through them but they were written in languages I didn’t know.
I had knowledge of Deus Grandi, Aurelian, and a few words of Uxanthal.
I could read Formal and Ancient Deus Grandi.
These books were written in none of those, and some had such an inordinately different script — a flowing kind that looked more like a series of mountain ranges than actual words, and another that looked like pictures of squat little men who wanted to tunnel through my spleen and make a temple there — that I was sure they were all in different languages from each other.
Were I to take any from the shelves, I think it would be safe to say it would be nearly impossible to find a book I could even read, much less one that would be of value to me.
They’re all of value, you foolish child, you delectable innocent.
They’re grimoires. I told you. They’re primers in the arcane — or more detailed tomes.
They’re manuals for the creation, care, nurturing, and calling of dark souls.
Would you like to peer into the depths? Here is your chance.
Care to build a jhinn of smoke and despair? Your wish is that creature’s command.
Unless there were some on banishing, I wasn’t interested.
The demon sounded disgusted. Just flip through a few. There might be pictures for fools who have only your limited education and brain power.
How flattering. I started flipping through the one with the flowing script and as soon as I saw the first picture, I flung it over the side of the moving platform. Hefertus yelled out a muffled curse.
“There are people down here!” he roared up to me.
So there were. And there were madmen who had taken time to painstakingly detail that. If I ever met the author, judgment would be swift and brutal. His feet would not take a step before I claimed his head.
The demon muttered a string of curses. Listen, you poxy milk-faced droll, if you throw them all away, you won’t be able to use one, and you need one for this rite.
I froze. So he knew what this was.
There was silence in my mind.
Had he known all along? Had he been lying? Blood roared hot and powerful in my ears until I could hear nothing else.
I will find out, my girl. Have a little patience.
And then the voices in my mind were suddenly opaque to me. I could only feel the edges of murmurs that sounded like distant arguing.
I took that moment to look out from my platform.
It was slowing a little, though it still moved in a strange up and down spiral.
Around me, the others moved on their platforms, too.
I caught a glance of Sir Coriand snatching a book from a shelf as he swept by, his hair flowing behind him in strands of gnarled snow.
With another glance, I caught Sir Owalan sitting on his altar, feverishly flipping through another book.
He was hunched over it like a carrion bird guarding his prize.
“What do you think it means that we must offer up what doesn’t serve us?” the High Saint called into the room. “I serve the God. I am served by nothing.”
I could almost hear Sir Sorken’s sigh when he boomed back. “It means something no longer useful to you, High Saint.”
“Like an ear?” the High Saint called back, clearly confused.
“I’d say that would be a safe bet for you, High Saint, as you are indeed a poor listener.”
I almost snorted at that.
“Did he mean that?” the High Saint whispered to Sir Owalan, but as with everything else, even his whispering was obvious and overly obnoxious.
“You tell me,” the Penitent said, annoyed. “Do you think it will help things to hack your own ear off?”
“It might.”
“Then please, be my invited guest. I’ll lend you my belt knife if your own is not sharp enough for the task.”
“The one in your arm?”
“God have mercy, Saint, you try my patience.”
They cycled farther away from me, and then I heard Hefertus sigh and his platform stilled, glowed a soft barely there purple, and began to drift back toward the platform.
“Oh, excellent work, Prin —” Sir Coriand began to say, but his words were cut off by a groan, as a platform — the empty one that I was meant to be in — suddenly ground to a halt, stilled, and then lurched from its track, plummeting downward.
It glanced against Sir Sorken’s platform, leaving an eruption of curses behind it, and kept falling like the stone it was.
It seemed a very long time before we heard it hit the floor. If there even was a floor down there.
My heart was caught in my chest and I was frozen in place as I watched it fall.
This time, it was the Majester who cursed. And he went on cursing. And on and on, and then his cursing ended abruptly in a sigh.
“What was … should we assume that for every one of us who succeeds, another will fall?” the High Saint asked, his querulous voice rising sharply at the end.
“Or it simply fell because it was empty,” Hefertus called down.
While we were watching the original platform fall, his had returned back to the ledge where it had started.
He’d already exited the platform — smart man — and was standing there beside Suture.
The golem’s eyes glowed dully, as if he were a bored child forced to watch a proceeding of his elders.
Hefertus leaned easily against him like he was leaning against a tree.
Little bits of rag stirred against his shoulder and I shuddered.
“Hurry up, you lot. All you need is to pick a book, make a sacrifice, and light your candle. There’s a tinder box in the little drawer at the bottom of the altar.” He yawned as he said it, as if he, too, were terribly bored.
I checked my — our — altar. There was, indeed, a small drawer hidden by carved vines and flowers. When I slid it open, there was a tinderbox within, just as he said.
“You light the candle last,” Sir Coriand scolded the High Saint, looking down over his rail to the other man’s platform, “and you should choose your tome carefully. These things have consequences.”
I caught a glimpse of him as his platform crossed on the other side.
He was running a finger along the spines of the books as they passed, clearly noting the titles for those that were marked.
I didn’t think I could read that fast even if it was all in my own language.
Sometimes I forgot how formidable the Engineers were.
I put my head in my hands for a moment to think. What was I to do now?
I felt oddly light with most of my armor gone.
Gone forever, it would seem. The cost to replace that alone …
it would be years before I could beg or borrow enough for a whole set.
I might be able to appeal to the aspect.
Some paladins kept extra odds and ends. A pauldron only in need of a small repair here.
Most of a breastplate if someone could get those dents out and didn’t mind that jagged edge over there.
They might be willing to part with them.
After all, the whole point of our Aspect was that we met the world with open hands.
Those who wanted what we had could take it.
Those who could, would give to us what they could spare.
And the God watched over all of it, his guidance supreme.
I sighed. There would be no more armor anytime soon.
Right now, I needed wisdom more than armor anyway. I had only inklings about this place. I had no understanding of it at all. Should I try to play this game with the others or should I keep refusing? What would be the consequences of refusal? Of complicity?
I bowed my head and put my hands, open, on my knees. Perhaps the God would bring me insight.
I heard a doggy squeal and my head whipped up.
“Brindle?” I called, and there was a snarl and the snap of jaws.
I was on my feet, sword in hand, in the next breath, but I couldn’t even see Sir Sorken’s platform from where I was. I’d lost track of whether it was above or below me, and the vault echoed so much that I couldn’t find it by sound alone. I frantically searched in every direction.
My mind was bombarded with curses. A few were familiar, but most were far more foul and horrific than anything I’d ever heard.
“Brindle?” I called again, more tense. “Sir Sorken? What’s going on?”
I still couldn’t locate them. There was a snapping sound and a man’s grunt and then I heard Sir Sorken’s booming voice.
“Back! Sit!”
I felt my eyebrows lift.
The dog lives. Though it was a near thing. I think the demon may have lent him inordinate strength. They can do that when they’re very upset.
Sir Branson’s words were drowned out by more curses.
“Sir Sorken?” I called out. “What are you doing to my dog?”
More curses.
And then I saw his face appear over the edge of a platform well above mine. “That animal is accursed!”