Chapter 29 #2
We join the others outside the door to the last trial.
I am a strange combination of reluctance and determination.
The last time I felt this was when I was lined up for the Battle of the Radiant Hills.
There’d been little fighting for my aspect.
Our healing arts had been more useful on the whole, but before men were wounded and dying and calling for us, we’d made a solid charge, wheeled, and made a second.
And it was before that first charge that I felt exactly as I do now.
I can almost hear the scream of the horses again and smell how the mud scent changed from fecund to copper laced.
This is surely the last trial, for there are no more hidden walls, no more doors waiting to be unlocked, or rooms waiting to be delved into.
Across from us, the clock ticks ominously and the cups there seem to glow brighter, but here where the remaining paladins have assembled, shadows have piled high and unnatural, ballooning up from those who once claimed to be holy — a ragged claim now, too thin to hold up under even the most cursory of scrutiny.
The Vagabond’s clothing looks to be in better repair than the righteousness of my brothers.
I study them with a new sharpness. Time is running out and therefore the time to act is running out with it. How then shall I judge?
Sir Coriand stands across the entrance with an amiable look on his face. He is sipping tea, using both hands, as if to highlight his harmlessness. This, from a man who likely pushed a brother to his death. My throat twists at the thought, but again, I have no evidence.
“Friends,” he says with a gentle, twinkling smile. “Brothers … and sister.”
There’s an ironic twist to that last word. I suppose he has decided he will be the required speech-giver.
My eyes find Hefertus’s across the group and he squints a question at me.
Likely, he’s heard rumors from Owalan about the Vagabond.
I meet his eyes steadily. I wouldn’t expect him to jeopardize himself for my sake.
That’s why I bear him no ill will for leaving me unconscious and on my own in the last trial.
Hefertus is innocent of murder. He’s not the one I must seek and destroy.
“Our last trial is upon us,” Sir Coriand says. “When it is complete, all riddles will be answered, all doors unlocked, all truths laid bare.”
He is far too eager, as if he is savoring this moment. We are silent. What is there to say? None of us has a choice in what comes next.
I am not surprised at all when Victoriana breaks the silence. Her eyes lock onto Sir Coriand. She looks for all the world like her violent dog.
“As a paladin of the Creator God, you are forsworn against lies. I bid you speak now the truth.” Her words are soft, but they are soft like a blade sliding through the ribs. Interesting. She will try to draw out a confession. I do not think it will work.
Sir Coriand turns his predatory eyes to her. He no longer looks as if he is simply enjoying a tea. He looks like my schoolmaster once did just before he beat me with his rule stick until I could not see out of my left eye. I was not particularly gifted with numbers.
My hand drifts to the hilt of my sword.
“You’ll have your answers, Beggar,” Sir Coriand says, to my surprise.
“You are right that we are forsworn to lies. We must answer a direct question with the truth. And I will indulge your asking. But not now. Not here. The clock ticks. And ticks. Relentlessly. And she ticks out the seconds of our lives if we do not hurry. Let us not delay. We will enter this last trial. All of us. Your dog, too. The golems with him.” I glanced over my shoulder and see the golems are both there, sacks slung over their shoulders.
Nothing looks grimmer than a golem. “And when we are all within the trial, then I will answer your questions while the others pursue the highest of callings.”
“Highest?” There’s a bitter twist to her tone.
“What would you call Sainthood?” he snaps back. But I notice he didn’t speak a lie. His question cloaks the falsehood. For I think we all know by now that no one is walking out from this place holy or justified. If we emerge again, it will be as victims or villains. There will be no heroes here.
And without another word, Sir Coriand takes a last sip of tea, hands his wooden bowl over to Suture, turns his back on us, and strides through the open door. Silently, we follow, though I might hear a murmured prayer being chanted under the Vagabond’s breath.
Around us, the shadows loom and Sir Coriand’s voice echoes back to me as he passes through the door. He moves very slowly, but he and his golems fill the passage so that we all must move slowly with him.
He’s chanting that foreboding rhyme that builds on itself with each passing.
And his words are highlighted by the rhythm of the golem’s feet clomping on the ground as they pound out the beat.
The voices of Sir Sorken and Sir Owalan chant out the words with him and they echo and reverberate and send chills through my marrow.
“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 gods.
I flinch at that word. Idolatry. I can practically smell the brimstone.
“That’s what we gave at the door,” Sir Sorken calls back. “The sins confessed. They were the first thing we offered up.”
Saints and Angels. He knew. He let us do that when he knew. That’s a tick against him. How much else does he know?
They are still chanting.
“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.”
“You took fire indeed when you took the Vagabond’s blood, hmmm, High Saint?” Sir Sorken calls back. “Whose blood did you take, Hefertus? I don’t remember seeing you do it.”
“The Seer’s,” Hefertus says, surprising me. “I spoke it into the cup as a blessing from the God. Why hurt the living when the dead will do?”
“How very clever. We gave to each other, of course,” Sir Sorken says. “We are, after all, each other’s only real rivals, isn’t that right, Coriand?”
But Sir Coriand is still chanting.
“No power is priceless, No honor unearned,
From store house bring wisely, add gift to the churn,
A sacrifice given, a sacrifice made,
What no longer serves you is the price you’ve paid.”
Sir Sorken is still explaining. “I’m sure you’ve realized by now that what you gave on that altar is now in the mix, too, hmm?
The blood and tears of a rival, the sin your heart holds close, the attribute you were willing to give up.
I hope your creation has an excellent voice, Sir Joran.
You gave yours to it forever, like it or no. ”
I hadn’t realized it before, but now that he has pointed it out, the High Saint’s scowl is a silent one.
His prayers have stilled and muted forever.
I don’t like that. They were the only thing about Joran Rue that I ever liked — certainly his most holy attribute.
He must think so, too, with the devastation that paints his face when he looks at me.
Perhaps he hopes I will heal him. But I clasped hands with the Vagabond only minutes ago and I kissed her minutes before that.
I can no more heal him than the golems can.
I should feel guilty. Instead, I am weighing whether he is truly as innocent as he appears.
A holy front is a good guise for murder and a black heart.
“What did you give up, Poisoned Saint?” Sir Sorken asks.
“My guilt,” I say plainly, and am surprised by his startled laugh.
“I never thought of that. Would have been easier than the dog. Did you think of that, Coriand?”
Unsurprisingly, Sir Coriand is too focused to answer.
“I hope you read the books you chose — or at least skimmed them,” Sir Sorken says with a nasty smile flung over his shoulder.
His iron-grey curls bob as he moves as if we are on an outing and not marching into evil.
“I’m sure you’ve realized by now that whichever one you chose will be the guiding principle for what you are creating. ”
“Creating?” Sir Owalan pauses in the chant long enough to share his confusion. “I thought we were being made Saints.”
“You’re being made gods,” Sir Sorken says, and his voice sounds satisfied. “If you live through the process. Let’s listen to the end of the instructions, shall we?”
Sir Coriand chants them out, and he does not pause, moving from what had been memorized to what is now inscribed upon the ground we pass.
“Now write out your orders. Be patient. Be clear.
For this calling borders the depths that you fear.
Join shadow to vessel, build sinew and bone,
Without conscience wrestle, to carve out a home.”
Sir Coriand turns and faces us in the open entrance to the next trial, and his face is twisted in the light of the golem’s palm candle. He’s backlit by a bright light. The combination makes him look like he is made of wax and melting.
“Alone be triumphant, in solitude shout,” he quotes. “You’ve made what the heavens themselves cannot doubt.”
And as the word “solitude” is still ringing forebodingly in my head, he spins around and enters the challenge before us. If he is not guilty of murder, then he is certainly guilty of blasphemy.
Sir Sorken looks back long enough to waggle his eyebrows at us, and then he disappears with his friend.
I brush my hand against Victoriana’s and hook my smallest finger with hers — a goodbye, perhaps.
From here in, those who will suffer will suffer. And those who will die will die. And we will likely be both. But if I can find for certain who is responsible for the deaths of the others, I will see they die first.
The dog’s tongue licks our joined fingers and I grimace. Great. We have someone’s blessing. And I don’t know if it’s a dog, or a demon, or a moldering old knight.