And now I come to the heart of the matter, having danced around the edges for far too long. It is easy indeed to become enraptured by what is before you, caught up in the warp and weft of the weaving of your life and to — as a result of that — lose sight of the pattern as a whole.
I am a paladin, the God’s own warrior. And whether he uses me as such or merely tolerates my riding across the hills and plains healing in his name, I am — at the heart of things — his possession.
And so is this place — this arcanery — whether it wills it or not, for all that exists belongs to the God. All that is made is crafted of his flesh and bones.
We are taught from the start that evil is not generated by the God — that it is a rot in the goodness of life. If the Vagabond is right, then it is generated by us — by our grasping and by our guile.
Therefore, if I wish to bring this place down — and I do — if I wish to wash it from the mind of the earth and with it the demons it makes now and the demons it made before, then a simple refusal to make them myself is not enough. I must think of this place as a whole, I must think of how the God looks down upon it, and I must ponder if there is a key — not a key for opening locks, but a key for closing them.
When I think about it, this Aching Monastery is like a lock, isn’t it? And our actions are the key, turning the gargantuan stone tumblers one by one. If I do not want the lock opened, then I must seize the key.
I recite my rote prayers — a morning plea that the eye of the God be on me, an evening plea that the hand of the God restore, a noonday plea that the God strengthen my bones for the work ahead. They are out of order and jumbled, just like my exhausted thoughts. But I cannot sleep and they calm me. Even as I hear the Vagabond’s sleeping breaths and feel her warmth radiate against my back, I cannot drift with her.
I am also, at the heart, a healer. And if any place needs healing, it is this place. It may not look it, lovely as it is. Looks deceive the eye. I remember being called once — too late — to the house of a lord of the Saracarna. His grown daughter was ill and she was the apple of his eye. I ran my horse to exhaustion after the messenger found me, but still, I was too late. The girl was dead an hour before I arrived. Dead, and lovely beyond any woman I’d ever seen. Perfectly whole on the outside. Infected within.
That is this Aching Monastery. The infection within it is disguised, hidden but strong. Who better to heal it than one possessed by the God for the purpose of drawing out the poison so life might flourish?
That one can only be me.
When I tore up my words and rejected the evil in my shadow, the God blessed me — not just with whatever miracle kept me whole as I leapt from above, but also by filling me again with a reserve of his power. I remained silent about it as I bound Victoriana’s arm. Perhaps I should have indicated to her that I had the power to heal it, but chose not to. Her injury is not grave, and I sense somehow that this power will be needed.
Someone must draw the poison from this place. Someone must take it into himself so that it might be dispelled. And that someone is me.
The Vagabond shifts in her sleep, her drowsy head leaning into my shoulder. I tilt into the weight of it, in the same way that my horse adjusts to take my weight when I ride. It feels correct.
The others considered her a strange choice for the God to call as paladin. I heard their whispers on the matter and I doubted her myself.
But I have learned something down in this grave of a monastery.
I have learned that the God chooses as he chooses and for good reason. Who else would have stood and confronted Sir Coriand as she had? Who stands now, refusing to bend an inch in the face of what has to end in our deaths between the tumblers of this lock?
I had thought her corrupted because she suffered a demon to live, because her heart housed doubt, because her paladincy was not certain. I see her entirely differently now. I see her as a living miracle — a grafting of glory into dust.
It is the rest of us who are not fit by comparison. Who would have thought, in a group that contained the most famous of those who bring justice and a man so devout that he could ask for the blood of another and she would give it to him — in those high circles — that it would be neither of those who passed the test but rather the wild card, the crow, the one swept in with the wind of poverty and subversiveness?
Perhaps the God chose to delight himself with her wildness and bold heart when he made her. Perhaps even now he rejoices in her stalwart spirit and determination. Whether he does or not, I do.
We are such broken vessels — all of us. And what does the God think of that? I am more broken than all the rest. I let my eyes drift over the immobile golems, as close to dead as such things can be. Over the ruined man strewn across the floor — a truly disrespectful sight. Over the three fools who were once holy, now suspended in the air, working hard to undo all the good they’ve done in their lifetimes.
The broken and those who break. All are accounted for here. I am king among them. King of the Ruined.
And yet the God blessed me.
He could still bless them, too.
I hardly know what to make of such blessing. Surely the Vagabond cannot be right that it is a sign of divine forgiveness. And yet, I cannot help the hope that springs in my heart and tells me it is, that I am tasting the God’s own favor on my tongue even now.
If it is, then what I do now means more than it ever has. I have always been willing to die for the God. I am willing now to do it joyfully.
Victoriana shifts again in her sleep. A lock of her hair falls against my neck. I close my eyes that I may better breathe in the scent of her, take this last gift for what it is — the mercy of the God, a taste of what it is like to be washed clean of the past.
If these are my last hours, then I am spending them, moment by moment, forgiven. Forgiveness is honey on my tongue. Moves me nearly to tears. I had not grasped so high, had not dared hope.
Bless me, Merciful God, I pray. I reach for your mercy. This one time, let me find it.
I do not ask him to let me succeed in my quest to spare the world of this evil. I do not ask for wisdom. I ask only for the one thing I feared I would never have, and it feels like it will crush me under the strength of its embrace.
And it is in this soaring state that the first trickles of a plan start to make paths through my mind. All achievement requires sacrifice. I have now tasted what is good, and I will be the one who will sacrifice. But I will need her help.
Beside me, the dog drops his bone and pads over to me. For a moment we are staring into each other’s eyes. Dog to man. Or is it demon to man? Or is it Saint to man? I do not know. One eye burns red suddenly. And the other blue.
A spike of fear shoots through me, but I do not look away. I do not see a big puppy with soft fur and a responsive mind. I see the grapple for dominance behind the facade.
I shiver as the dog walks past me, whines, and puts his head on Victoriana’s lap.
I don’t quite have a plan yet for him. But I think what I have will work for the rest of what lies here.
And that means these are my last hours on the earth. I will not waste them in sleep.
Above me, Sir Owalan and Sir Sorken toss ideas back and forth as their demons scrap against each other in a friendly manner. They rise higher and higher. Their shadow forms are filled now with flickers of horrors that make my stomach twist if I let myself look at them. Random limbs of man and beast flicker out from them and then are drawn back in. Silent, screaming faces, man and woman, child and beast, reveal themselves and then are torn apart and merge back into shadow. There are other things I cannot describe mixed in with them. Things that scar my mind so badly that I cannot acknowledge what I have seen even to myself.
It is no easy thing to pluck my gaze away or to clear my mind of what I’ve seen, but I do it. I block them out and let myself drift in the sweet embrace of prayers, the warmth of the Vagabond at my back, and the warmth of the God’s fire in my heart. I let it go for about an hour before I know I must wake her.
Time is running out.
I gently run the back of my hand down the Vagabond’s arm.
“Victoriana?” I whisper, the sound of my voice cloaked by the murmurs above. And a hissing, snapping, muffled wail that began within the constructed demons a short time ago.
The dog whines as she shifts. I feel her coming awake.
“Adalbrand?”
She’s awake suddenly, hand clutching her sword pommel. I smile at my name on her lips.
“I have a plan,” I say carefully. I must convince her to help me with this. I know that she will be reluctant. It’s understandable. But I must be convincing.
“I crave the hearing of it.” Her voice is sleepy. I shift so that now her head is on my shoulder and we are side to side. Her dog looks up at me, his glowing eyes both seeming to wink at me at once.
“In a moment I will plead with our brothers to listen and to stop this madness,” I say.
“Oh, so we’re going to try futile then, are we?” she says wryly. She looks up and then startles when she sees what they have built as she slept. Her face drains of color and she swallows grimly.
“If they do not heed me then we will move on to the next part, and for that, I need your help.”
Her throat sounds dry when she answers. “My help is yours.”
She should not have given her word so readily, but I will take it nonetheless. “I will hurry out to the clock and you will watch my back as I bless the water in the fountain.”
She’s nodding. “You think holy water will help something? That it will purge this arcanery?”
“I think,” I say very deliberately, “that all things take power to sustain them — the power of the God in nature, the power of man in maintaining, or the power of evil. And I think this Aching Monastery is powered entirely by the demon in the ceiling. That he is trapped for this purpose, yes, but also tapped for his power, and has been for millennia.”
She looks up then and I feel the slide of her hair across my neck. It is a sensation I will treasure and hold on to. Her gaze darts for a moment to the tumbled pain trapped within the shadow demons our colleagues build. She blanches, and then rips her gaze away and back to mine and I see the understanding dawn in her eyes just as it woke in mine.
“You watched them build these demons and realized that whatever pain and misery they are trapping in those things had been fermenting in the one in the ceiling.”
I nod, but there is more. “I think the water in the fountain is connected to the water below this place, and it is that water that moves the gears and turns this room. All of it is intertangled with that black creature in the ceiling. Did you see the window when first we arrived?”
“The one where the man and the devil fought and neither seemed to win?” she asks wryly.
“Did they fight? Or were they entangled, one with the other?”
She pauses.
“I think that if I draw on the poison of this place, draw it out of the water, it will also draw the demon from its place above. That I’ll be able to draw it into myself. Is that possible, in your experience?”
She looks at me, then, aghast. Her pretty brown eyes are suddenly hard. “It’s possible. Maybe.”
“Then I must try.”
The head in her lap lifts, and the pair of glowing eyes look at me, too. How long have his eyes been glowing like that, and why has no one else noticed?
“What are you saying?” she whispers, and her lips thin in condemnation.
I swallow and force myself to go on. It’s a good plan. The only one that will work.
“I will draw the demon in the ceiling into me. And then I will drink the cups these others are filling. And I think that will draw their demons into me, too.”
She steals one glance at the tumbled limbs and screaming, helpless faces caught in the swirling shadow beside us and she blanches. She scrambles away from me and backward into a defensive crouch. Her dog growls deep in his throat.
“Adalbrand?” Her eyes are filled with betrayal.
“And then, you will drown me in the fountain — in the holy water I’ve blessed.” Her eyes widen, but I’m not finished. “Drown me and cast out the demons I’ve drawn in. The God has given you the ability not just to draw them out, but to send them all from this plane.” I feel my voice faltering as I try to calmly explain how she will kill me. “There’s always the risk they’ll hop to someone else, but we both know that can’t happen if I hold on to them until I die. I think I can. That’s how it works, right? You can cast them out the long way, with many prayers to the God, as you do with humans you encounter, or you can do it the short way and dispatch the host like you do with animals.”
The dog’s growl grows louder. That’s fine. He is not my friend.
“Your proposal is that you’ll fill yourself with every demon in this place and then I’ll kill you,” she says calmly, but she’s looking at me like I’ve gone mad.
“Yes,” I say. “It’s a solution. Possibly the only solution. And it’s the path of honor.”
“It’s the path of insanity,” she hisses.
But the problem is that she’s slightly adorable when she’s annoyed, and she is very annoyed right now. I smirk a little, enjoying this while I can.
“Don’t you dare smile at me,” she says, and I’m taken aback to realize there are tears in her eyes.
My smile drops. “Victoriana?”
“How did you expect me to react to your request that I murder you?” she asks frostily.
I am careful when I reply, “With relief. It solves the problem neatly and requires only one death — and that given willingly. You will not be stained by it. Nor will these other paladins. They may yet be saved.”
She’s shaking her head, looking rather furious for someone presented with an answer to all their problems. I open my mouth to try to persuade her, but I’m cut off by a voice.
“If you’re making plans down there, fellow paladins,” Sir Sorken’s voice booms out, “don’t.”
He snaps his fingers and, to my surprise, both Cleft and Suture break their frozen postures, pulling themselves up to their monstrous heights with creaks and groans. Suture flexes his unbroken arm.
“You can command them even with Sir Coriand dead,” Victoriana accuses him, scrambling to her feet. “You made me believe they were as good as dead.”
“It seems I can command them. How wonderful,” Sir Sorken says lightly.
She looks up at him for a long beat, her eyes narrowing. Her off-hand drifts down to Brindle’s round skull and settles there.
“You lied about not being his conspirator.”
She has the mystery between her teeth again and is ready to fight. I hope she remembers this is about more than this now.
Sir Sorken’s sigh is so loud that I hear it over everything else. “Do you know, I think I’ve never met a person so stubbornly pigheaded as you, Beggar. You are entirely like that demon-possessed dog you cart around everywhere with you. Holier than thou one moment, a miserable snapping wretch the next, and never, ever, ever willing to just leave a thing alone.”
I shoot a glance to Brindle, who stoops to pick up the golem’s hand in his mouth. It’s the worse for being chewed for an hour.
Sir Sorken is still speaking. “Pretense is too much trouble with you. You don’t deserve it, and frankly, you never have. Saints and Angels, girl. You killed Sir Coriand. Do you have any idea how great a mind he had? And you knocked it from his shoulders like chopping fruit, and left me stuck here pretending it made no matter instead of showing you my ire.”
He is writing furiously as he speaks, and his demon is building again. I watch as it slides a toe over the line that used to contain it. If we let this go too far, it will be able to reach us.
“So. I’m done with pretense. All of you are such fools. Who rides for a place having never researched it, with no plan and no goal? Pitiful. Coriand Parterio and I have been waiting for this opportunity for more than a decade. And we came with a plan.”
“The opportunity to kill?” Victoriana presses.
He scoffs.
“How did you get chosen by the head of your aspect?” Sir Owalan asks, distracted as he is swept up in the story. “How did you ensure you were the ones sent?”
“We didn’t.” Sir Sorken grins unpleasantly. “What a waste of time. We found the man they’d sent, killed him on the road, and duplicated his medallion to give us two. It’s amazing what you can make when you’re an Engineer. Even on the road with little in the way of supplies.”
“But why?” Sir Owalan asks, looking confused. “I understand wanting to be a Saint, I do.” His tone turns reverent. “And I want the ancient relic — the new relic — the Cup of Tears. I want to bring it home to the Penitent Paladins. I do not blame you for what you did to ascend to this honor. In this place, I have come to realize that sacrifices must be made. Nothing comes for free. And if the God does not guide, then we must guide ourselves. But you aren’t me and you’ve never seemed to care much about Sainthood or the Cup of Tears. So why are you here?”
Sir Sorken pauses just long enough to look up from his work before continuing to scribble. I edge backward carefully. His demon is still testing its limits.
“Why am I here? Surely you’ve figured it out by now. I would guess the Beggar has. Go on, ragged warrior. Tell the boy why I’m here.”
“You knew this place manufactures demons.”
Sir Sorken makes a dismissive gesture and she colors, her expression growing grim.
“You came to put yours in your golem and to find a way to keep on doing it, so you can make as many of those things as you like, but this time there will be no debate as to whether they have souls because you’ll be filling them with souls you wrote yourself.”
That’s … I feel my eyes widen as I steal a look at her. She must have just fit those pieces together, because she did not mention this before now. While I have been distracted with the puzzle of the demons, she has put together the answer for the murders, the deaths, everything else.
“This is how you’re going to become a God, isn’t it?” she says quietly. “You’re going to make your own living, breathing, soul-filled beings.”
“The Aching Monastery is a trap for the unwary,” Sir Sorken says grimly. “But I did not come here unwary and neither did Coriand. We came with a purpose greater than you fools ever planned for.”
“And that makes the murders acceptable?” Victoriana presses.
“Is murder justified when it’s done for a higher cause?” Sir Sorken asks with a bite to his words. “You tell me, Beggar. You’re the one who killed my friend.”
“You’ll have an army of slaves, made by you, filled with demons,” she says, her voice hollow.
Sir Sorken looks up. “It’s a grand vision. I don’t expect an impoverished wanderer to understand it. But then I never had much use for you even when I thought you were on to the plan. You practically wear a sign around your neck that says ‘expendable’ and yet here you are, delaying, prolonging, and making a mess of everything. If you can’t find your own path here like Owalan has, then you might as well just die. You’re of no use to the world. You can’t even perform your main function and cast a demon out of a dog.”
“Then you can’t be persuaded to stop?” She throws it out like a challenge.
“Stop?” He laughs. “I will succeed. And when I do, you will see what glory is.”
It’s finally my turn to speak, and I choose my words with care.
“Brothers,” I say, addressing the three of them and letting my gaze meet each of theirs. “I beg you stop this madness. It is not too late to turn back from this course and escape. You were holy once; be holy again.”
“This is holiness now,” Sir Owalan whispers, his eyes haunted.
Sir Sorken merely snorts.
But the High Saint meets my eyes mutely, and in his eyes ripple one emotion after another. He is a fly in a trap. I see it.
Something brushes my arm and I rip my gaze away from Joran Rue to Victoriana. Her eyes meet mine and they roar with sadness, like a storm breaking across a mountainside.
Her words are barely audible, they’re so brittle. “We’ll do this your way, Poisoned Saint. And the God have mercy on us both.”
I nod shakily.
Well then. That’s it, I suppose. It is time to go and die honorably. I’ve always known I would. I just haven’t quite come to terms with it enough to keep my hands from shaking.
She starts to stride toward the doors.
“Stop the Beggar, boys,” Sir Sorken booms, and both golems shamble forward.
“You can’t leave!” Sir Owalan calls down desperately. “There are hours yet before the clock runs out! Who knows what will happen if you go!”
“We aren’t playing your silly games, Penitent,” I call over my shoulder irritably. I am tense. Not just because I am marching to my own death.
The golems stride past us easily and set themselves between us and the outer room.
“What if it ends the trial if you leave?” Sir Owalan pleads.
“Do you love building demons that much, Sir Owalan?” the Vagabond asks, spinning around.
“I will be a Saint,” Sir Owalan says gravely.
“And then what? Will you unleash it upon the world?” she asks him, anguish in her voice when her eyes snag on me. I don’t like being the cause of her pain, but I see no other way forward. She may mourn me — as I have mourned Marigold. But I have learned such sorrows can be set aside. Perhaps, in time, she will set this aside, too.
Sir Owalan appears affronted, but before he can speak, there’s a commotion and he is forced to scramble to control his demon. He lets out a cry as his pen flies to his page.
The High Saint is writing madly. He looks up just long enough to meet my eye again, and in it, I see determination and understanding and something that sings of repentance. His shadow demon rages wildly as his pen dances, bits of horrors flicking out from it in every direction. Its massive hand reaches out — actually, it’s a tangle of multiple hands, some ghastly and pale as slugs — catches Cleft, who had strayed into the demon’s circle, grabs him by the foot, and flings him against the wall. The huge golem crashes with a boom like a stone falling in a quarry.
Sir Sorken lets fly a foul curse.
I grab the Vagabond’s arm and shove her clear of his range while Brindle barks and dances wildly. He wants in on this fight and the lady paladin is barely holding him back.
Sir Sorken’s demon is reaching its own tangled arms. Some of them have tentacles lacing between them and everything — arms, hands, tentacles — are wriggling as they stretch. It tries to grab the High Saint’s demon but it can’t quite reach, and the sound it makes when it strains for the other of its kind sounds like the gnashing of teeth from dozens of different-shaped mouths.
Sir Owalan’s demon joins the fray with a screaming roar that sounds fearful and trembling. Rather than helping, it swipes at Sir Sorken’s demon, who stumbles into Suture, and for a moment there is pure chaos. Arms, faces, shadows, and screaming voices tangle one over the other.
I look up to see Joran Rue — the High Saint — scramble in his straps. He’s trying to get out. The look on his face is sheer panic.
His pen falls to the sand and his ink is right behind it. His face has the look of a man who has just watched his own knife turn on him. He opens his mouth but no scream escapes.
The shadow beneath him rises up, snatches the book in its insubstantial hand, and — against all reason — tears into it with the teeth of multiple mouths at once. Everyone is shouting and then the Vagabond grabs me by the collar and drags me after her. I am running, following her lead, but my eyes are behind me, watching the High Saint.
Suture goes flying past me and hits the wall in front of us. I stumble at the near miss, my breath rasping in my lungs. We’re nearly to the door out — nearly, but not quite.
Sir Owalan starts keening in sharp little high-pitched bursts and I risk another glance over my shoulder.
The demon the high saint was creating is climbing upward using straps from the High Saint’s harness. It’s a tangle of mouths and fingers and something almost swollen that looks like bodies curling in on one another. It’s still chewing — chewing around its own eldritch tangled screams and laughter — when it reaches for the High Saint, snatches his struggling form from the half-broken straps, and opens its mouth wide.
One last lunge and the High Saint disappears down the demon’s throat like a baitfish dropped into the mouth of a trout.
I feel like my heart has frozen to ice.
The straps break. A dark light bursts in all directions, blinding me for just a moment, and then it is gone, and so are the High Saint and his demon.
The other two demons are flung backward, away from the disintegration of their fellow, and the harnesses holding Sir Owalan and Sir Sorken in place swing with wild abandon.
The High Saint’s harness drifts down to the platform like a fallen leaf on the wind.
I choke on my own breath for a moment and am seized by a fit of coughing, but there is no appropriate response for this and I do not try to find one.
I think that in the end, Joran Rue turned his heart from evil. I think that he was a good man caught in a trap he did not know was there.
But now there are only four of us. And two of us are monsters.
“What … what in the fires of hell just happened?” Sir Owalan asks plaintively.
Sir Sorken snorts. “He was eaten by his demon, wasn’t he? Didn’t craft it like he should. What did you think would happen? We aren’t playing games here, no matter what the Poisoned One thinks. We are crafting great souls to enact our dreams.”
I don’t think he’s right. Not about anything.
I think the High Saint sabotaged his devil on purpose. I think he did — to a small degree — what I’m about to do. And I honor him for it. Some things are worth dying to prevent.
Owalan pales. “But Sorken,” he starts to say. I want to see what he says but I’m tugged, and when I drag my eyes back to what is happening, I see it isn’t even the Vagabond dragging me anymore. It’s her brindled dog, tugging my jerkin in his teeth, his claws scrabbling on the marble floor, two eyes blazing at me in two different colors.
I take one last look over my shoulder at the golems gathering themselves, at the dark demon shadows coalescing, at the broken body of Sir Coriand, and then I turn and run with the Vagabond and her dog.
