I was pretty sure he was the one who was doomed. I wasn’t trapped in a dog.
I froze.
Trapped. In a dog. I looked from Brindle to the men and back again. The demon had not jumped to one of them.
Yet.
God forfend. God grant to me that this demon remains trapped, unable to savage another soul, I prayed.
It was in the hands of the God now. Though, in my experience, he never acted as I expected.
“I’m chief man of Loxburn,” the first man said, misunderstanding my silent prayer as hesitance. I smeared my hands on the only bare patch of cloak I could find to clean them. “When the messenger came from Saint Rauche’s Citadel”—he nodded at the trembling messenger—“and announced his purpose, we set out at once.”
“Sir Branson stayed in my inn night before last,” the second man said, frowning. “I don’t recall another paladin with him.”
I cracked the seal, barely listening. The letter was addressed to “Rejected Paladin,” which could be any of us, and I was far too worried about what contents were so urgent as to send a messenger riding off to find any random paladin to feel the thrill I should have that I now qualified.
“I was attending to the horses,” I said simply.
The letter was written with great care and sealed with the holy seal of the Paladins Rejected. A smaller letter — also sealed — fell out of the first into my hand. It was not addressed. My breath caught in my throat as I read the words on the opened letter.
“With my own hand, I write this, I Verdictian the Third of the name, Paladin Rejected, from our seat in Saint Rauche’s Citadel. I send out five letters on all the roads that go north and pray to the God that the first to find hands belonging to us will have found the right destination. May those hands take up this burden. And may all the other missives be as dust.”
Perhaps I should pause here and tell you that each aspect of the God granted his paladins certain dispensations that were for them and them alone. As much as he demanded, so he also gave. For our aspect, we were forsworn to wealth and required to live in poverty. But the God was merciful. If we asked a boon of him with a pure heart, he would grant it to us — though sometimes he chose to hear that request in his own way. That’s why it was not all that odd that the leader of our aspect had simply jammed five of these letters into the hands of messengers and then prayed they were delivered to the right person for the job.
He had — in the way of our aspect — given the whole matter into the hands of the God. And the God had — apparently — decided to delegate it further into the very muddy hands of the paladin who had just trapped both a Saint and a demon within a dog.
I am no Saint, though the sentiment is appreciated. You’ll recall that you often washed my socks. They were not Saintly socks.
Truly, the God worked in mysterious ways.
Back to the letter.
“I cannot impress upon you enough the urgency of this moment.” As if to press the point home, he wrote the next sentence on its own line of the map. “The rim has moved. It is confirmed by moon map. Have you any doubt, you have only to look up into the night sky to verify my words.”
I had been slightly preoccupied last night, to tell the truth, and had barely noticed the moon.
“The movement has exposed a key remnant of the past — the Aching Monastery. A place of legend and much speculation. It is to this monastery that you must journey immediately. I charge you, do not pause to eat or drink or wash. Do not pause to sleep.”
For the love of …
I could hear the demon cackling in my mind. Or maybe that was Sir Branson. Could this Verdictian really make these demands of me?
Well … sort of.
I didn’t like the sound of that.
Well, he can’t take the God’s blessing from you, or your role as a paladin, but he did send you a divine assignment. We know it’s divine because it reached you and he blessed the letters to only reach the right person.
Solid reasoning.
Don't think I don’t hear that sarcasm, my girl. But no, he can’t take the blessing. But he can put you in stocks for a year and a day, which … well, I’ve yet to hear of someone who survived that, and I don’t want it for you.
That was a severe understatement. I read on.
“Take from those who delivered this missive whatever supplies they will give, and ride as if this is a quest from the God himself. I have included a map, though a prayer will serve you better. There is also an amulet. Wear it. If the monastery contains — as we believe — the most holy cup that once held the tears of our God, then it is essential that our aspect claim this artifact, for who knows tears as the Rejected do?”
This was highly suspicious. If there was one thing we were not prone to as an aspect, it was the hoarding of treasure. Our God would never allow it.
