Chapter 30 #2
I took a moment to mentally measure the space between the rigs.
They could not reach each other at the height of their ascension, but I thought they could if they were lowered all the way.
Certainly, their shadows could — and would — intersect down below.
I had just enough time to wonder what might happen if they did, when Sir Sorken’s shadow reached out a clunky arm and swiped at the unformed shadow of the High Saint, scattering it and dispersing it for a moment before it began to coalesce again.
Ah.
So they would be building and battling all at the same time.
How better to test the theories they pour into them?
Brindle nuzzled my hand and I sank it into his friendly fur, drawing in strength for a moment before he wiggled away, left my side at a brisk pace, and trotted around the edge of the room, sniffing everything in turn.
“And now you owe us the truth, Sir Coriand,” I said, not rushing to the books as Sir Owalan had, or poking at the sand with my sword as Hefertus was.
I was focused on one thing: discovering who among us had murdered the others.
After all, that was the person to stop, wasn’t it?
The rest could be reasoned with. The rest could be convinced not to make demons.
But the murderer had to have known from the beginning what all of this was and had to have planned to use it for his own ends.
“And what truth is that, Beggar?” Sir Coriand asked, rolling his shoulders backward as if bracing for a fight.
It was a strange thing to see in a man well past his prime, his hair long and hoary white.
But his golem flanked him — Suture, a construct of rag and bone, and somehow the horrible machine looked protective, more bodyguard than beast.
“Did you push the Majester?”
“Of course.”
Sir Owalan’s head snapped up at that, but the High Saint didn’t even look over at him. I heard a low growl from the direction of Hefertus. Adalbrand eased himself against the base of one of the platforms, watching with a keen eye.
“Did you use his death as the sacrifice for the trial?”
“He no longer served me.”
“Did you —”
Sir Sorken interrupted me. “If you’re going to interrogate my friend, Beggar, I think it’s only fair that your friend comes up here with us in the sky. After all, we can’t have you fighting two against one.”
I glanced over at Adalbrand and shrugged. We didn’t both need to be down here. Would he go up in a rig if it meant discovering the truth?
He hesitated, frowned, but after a moment he shrugged, too.
“Very well. But I’ll examine a book before I ascend. I won’t write gibberish for no reason. And I do not scribe in Ancient Indul.”
“Doesn’t seem to make a difference what language you write in. I’ve written in three languages so far and they all work,” Sir Sorken said, as if the murder I was trying to discuss was hardly even interesting compared to the task set before him.
The golems shuffled gently around the ring, picking up fallen books and placing them neatly back in stacks.
Two against one, indeed. It would be three against one if I tried anything.
I would battle them all if I must. I would root out both demons and murderers.
I had no doubt that the two were linked.
Ha! As if it is ever so easy. Ask your questions. Find your killer out. At least you’ll get one last taste of victory before I rip out your tongue.
It was strange how threats dulled when they were breathed at a constant stream. What would have given me chills only days ago felt insignificant now.
And so the city is taken. With a whisper here, a nudge there, and when no one is looking anymore, when all are drowsing, then we push and we bring down the walls, flood over them with axes and brands ready, and we pillage the city, put it to the flame, and slay every resident.
So it will be with your very heart, sweetmeat.
Not if I can help it. And help it, I will, Sir Branson warned.
I did not have the space in my mind to spare for their argument. My mind was focused on Sir Coriand.
“The Inquisitor,” I demanded as Adalbrand wandered over to one of the desks and started flipping through the pages. I could tell that he was listening as he worked, his attention divided between me and the books. “Did you tell the Majester to kill him? Was yours the voice he thought he heard?”
“Did he claim to hear a voice?” Sir Coriand asked. “Here, let me help you, Sir Adalbrand. Any of these blank books will do, but you’ll need a friendly hand to hold the ropes of the harness for you.”
Adalbrand quirked an eyebrow at him. “Forgive me, Sir Engineer, but I fear your hand is not friendly. Did you not just confess to pushing the Majester from your platform? You are a murderer.”
Sir Coriand took a step back, wariness in his eyes.
“I did confess that,” he said carefully, and my eyes narrowed.
He was not flustered or concerned that we had found him out.
He was laying out his actions as if they were completely understandable.
“And we are all murderers. We confessed it to Sir Kodelai before we entered this place. I suspect we would not have been allowed the trials had we not confessed to at least that. And now think, Poisoned Saint. Have you never killed a man in mercy? You take on ills so great that it almost seems you thwart the will of the God. Did you not save the Majester’s life, plucking him from the very gates of death and setting him back into this world? ”
“I did,” Sir Adalbrand agreed, looking up only briefly before he returned to studying a book.
He drew a parchment from a pocket, smoothed it out, and folded it into the blank book before flipping through a stack of others.
What he was looking for was not obvious to me, but he seemed to have a purpose to his brisk movements and rapid study.
Hadn’t Sir Branson said that the Poisoned Saints were very well studied?
Maybe he was used to combing through a great deal of text very quickly — even in another language.
He opened one of the books wide enough that I could see it from where I stood on the edge of the ring, sword at the ready. The book was filled on every page with diagrams that looked more like engineering theory than like written treatise.
I smell something strange …
Later. We would deal with strange smells later. Sir Coriand was still confessing.
“And yet you could not restore his mind,” Sir Coriand said gently. “Am I wrong in thinking that ills of the mind are not something that Poisoned Saints can take into themselves? Am I wrong in thinking that you did all that you could by the grace of the God?”
Adalbrand glanced up at him with a scowl.
“I think I am not wrong,” Sir Coriand said gently. “Let Suture help you with that. The book is heavy.”
Adalbrand shrugged off the golem, stalking over to the third contraption with an annoyed set to his shoulders. He arranged his book and ink on the abbreviated table and climbed up the platform.
He was being goaded into that harness. But why?
I glanced upward to where the High Saint and Engineer floated in the air like flies trapped in a web. They had paused in their workings, watching the drama between the Poisoned Saint and Sir Coriand.
It was as if all of them were waiting for Adalbrand, unwilling to keep testing their shadows until he took his place.
Adalbrand paused. “And if you are right, what does it matter, Sir Coriand?”
Sir Coriand’s smile might have meant to be a gentle compassion, but I saw it as mockery when he said, “I know how you Poisoned Saints work. What do you call it? Milk of the Reaper? That drink you slip to those whose pain you cannot drink?”
Adalbrand paled.
“That gift you give those whose minds are beyond saving. I’ve seen it myself, tasted a drop.
Not enough to send me to the gates of death, obviously, but you know how curious we are in the Aspect of the Creator God.
It smelled strongly of mint and cloves. Do you add them to disguise the bite of death, or are they essential to the making of the toxin? ”
The look on Adalbrand’s face was pure hatred. He slung himself into the harness violently, as if he could get the job over with and rid himself of Sir Coriand’s subtle accusations.
“I think you should make your point, Engineer,” I said calmly. I was not sure why he was goading Adalbrand and it worried me. I was concerned that the Engineer was more intelligent than I was and likely to spin me to his plans if I was not careful.
Sir Coriand spread his hands wide in a gesture of peace and took a measured step back, almost bumping into Suture, who loomed over him.
“My only point,” he said slowly as Adalbrand arranged the straps and placed his hands on the pulley ropes. “My only point is that the Poisoned Saint — of any of us — must understand what dealing mercy to a man is like. I dealt the Majester mercy. He was a broken man. He could not live like that.”
Adalbrand’s lip twisted and he hauled up on the rope so hard I worried he’d break it. Clearly, he was angry, and clearly, he was trying not to let his anger out.
And clearly, he’d forgotten one thing.
“Which brings us back to the point,” I said, letting my voice be as dry as the sand under our feet. “Were you the voice he thought was the God? The one that spoke from above and bid him kill the Inquisitor? The one that drove him mad — if he was mad, indeed?”
Sir Coriand’s eyes were fixed on Adalbrand, and only when his harness reached full height did the Engineer finally turn from him and look at me, and his face transformed from innocence to a look so full of knowing that it twisted my stomach.
“Yes,” he said, mildly.
And as he said it, there was a sound like slithering. Adalbrand made a startled sound, and when I looked up, I realized why the Engineer had been stalling. The straps had tightened suddenly around all three of the people suspended above us. They were locked in place. Trapped.