Chapter 30 #3
Whatever came next, I would have no help from the Poisoned Saint. His eyes met mine across the distance and I saw him realizing with me what had just happened. We’d been maneuvered.
He grimaced, but he was a practical man. After a tightening of his jaw, he turned to his book, and started to write, a determined line forming on his forehead.
Carefully, I backed up and to the side, placing my back to Hefertus. I was relatively certain he would not stab me in the back.
“And so you orchestrated the murder of the Inquisitor and the Majester,” I said calmly. “Did you know what this place was when you arrived here?”
“You ask me that?” Sir Coriand’s voice was mocking. “You, who deliberately mistranslated what was written more than once.”
“Not deliberately,” I said through gritted teeth, glancing at Brindle.
The game is up then, snackling. Of course I deceived you.
Of course I lied. How else would I dance you into a trap?
How else would I soften you for the blow?
But the sin lies with you, because you chose to believe me, knowing I was a demon.
You stand accused by your own tongue, for was it not you who said that knowing and doing nothing makes one culpable?
You are as bathed in wickedness as I ever was.
His voice faded into menacing laughter.
“Not deliberately?” And now, for the first time, Sir Coriand seemed uncertain. “You didn’t do this deliberately? You didn’t know ahead of time what this place was? You were not trying to keep it for yourself?”
“What is it?” The words burst from Sir Owalan like he was running out of patience.
He’d been watching us, head turning back and forth and back and forth like a bird watching the action.
“What is this place? Why is she … why is she blaming you for the things that have occurred here? Surely you don’t mean the confessions you’ve given just now.
They were to trap her, weren’t they? To keep her from using the demon against us? ”
We both turned and looked at him.
“And where is the cup?” Sir Owalan asked, a little uncertainly. “Isn’t it here?”
In the silence, all I heard was the ticking of the clock and the scratching of pens.
“It was never here,” I said sadly at the same time that Sir Coriand said, “It was always here.”
“I don’t understand.” The Penitent looked stricken, eyes darting back and forth between us. “Where is it?”
“At the base of the clock,” Sir Coriand said with a sigh. “Waiting to become the Cup of Tears with what we do here, with what we pour into it and then drink down into ourselves.”
“Just like all the cups, I assume,” Adalbrand said from above, his pen still scratching even as he spoke. “The Cup of Tears, Artar’s Grail, the Holy Chalice — all the fabled cups are this cup, aren’t they?”
I nodded along, certain he was right. They were all holy cups. And none of them were.
“See?” Sir Coriand said, lifting an eyebrow at Sir Owalan. “It has been here all along, waiting to exist. And one of us will complete it.”
His golems seemed to loom higher behind him, as if they had grown, the pair of them, as we spoke.
“Do you want to be a Saint, Sir Owalan, Penitent Paladin? Do you want to bring the Cup of Tears back to your aspect that you all might flagellate yourselves before it and honor your God?”
“I did … I do,” Sir Owalan said, but his voice was uncertain.
Coriand nodded, a small smile on his lips, like that of a cherub.
“Then you will finish this task with us. And you will drink from your cup. And you will bring it back to your aspect exactly as they asked. And you will be a god — not the God, obviously. But a god — or, as we say in the church, a Saint.”
I thought for sure he’d reject that. Spit in Coriand’s face. Rip the dagger from his sleeve.
He did none of those things.
“Yes,” Sir Owalan breathed, and then he lifted his chin and for some reason met my eye as if he expected defiance. And when he spoke it was with power and passion behind it. “Yes.”
“No.”
The word was spoken so quietly that it almost couldn’t be heard over the ticking of the clock, but the scritching stopped as we all turned to look at Hefertus.
I felt a weight ease off my chest. I was not alone.
Even with Adalbrand stuck suspended from the ceiling. Hefertus would stand against this, too.
He ran a hand over his hair grabbed the tie, swept it loose, and shook his long, cascading golden mane out in a wave. It glinted with his pearls and his thick beard and he stood just a little taller, a little straighter, spine tall and firm, and with his shoulders back, he said it again.
“No.”
I lifted my own chin, challenging them to come against us, we two who would defend righteousness and goodness together. And how could I possibly lose with Hefertus by my side? The man was a giant. A monster among men.
“I will have no part in this,” he said grimly.
I put my hand on the hilt of my sword, ready to draw.
And then he startled me.
He stepped forward, but he did not draw his sword, and he did not take up a defensive stance.
Instead, he raised two fingers in a blessing, and intoned softly, “Bless me, O God, and I will depart from all evil.”
A glow like the dawning of the sun erupted from his chest. He smiled a Saintly, pure smile, and then I blinked, and he was gone.
My gasp sounded loud in my ears, almost as loud as the nearly hysterical laughter of the demon.
Your ally! The one person you could count on here on the ground and he — what? He disappears so he doesn’t have to get his hands dirty? That’s amazing. I’ll drink whatever he’s drinking.
I could feel the blood draining from my face, sinking so quickly that my head felt light and nausea washed over me.
I glanced at Sir Owalan and saw the murder in his eyes, and then to Sir Coriand to see the black humor in his.
“Well, that’s one problem solved,” he said easily.
There was a strangled sound from the harness where the High Saint was, but I didn’t bother looking up. He was as trapped in that rig as Adalbrand was. If he was horrified, then he’d have to wait to act, just like the Poisoned Saint. For now, there was only me and my enemies.
“What will you do, Penitent?” Sir Coriand asked grimly. “Now that you know you are building a Cup of Tears? Now that you know that the ultimate serving of the God will require ultimate sacrifice?”
“That’s not how it is at all,” I protested, but Sir Coriand moved to the side, starting to stalk around me, and I had to keep turning to stay facing him.
From behind me, I heard Sir Owalan’s answer. His voice was torn and ragged, but laced through with sincerity.
“My duty is to serve the God. No sacrifice is too great. No pain too overwhelming. If all is demanded of me, then all will be given, even the lives of those around me.”
Sir Coriand nodded to Sir Owalan, somewhere behind my shoulder. It was the nod of one soldier to another. Acknowledgment. Kinship. Blessing.
Saints and Angels.
“Watch out!” Adalbrand shouted.
Brindle barked sharply behind me and I twisted, just in time to see a blade plunge by where my head had been a moment ago. And then a brindled body blurred past and bore Sir Owalan down to the sand, a growl rumbling up from a doggy throat.