Unless there were some on banishing, I wasn’t interested.
The demon sounded disgusted. Just flip through a few. There might be pictures for fools who have only your limited education and brain power.
How flattering. I started flipping through the one with the flowing script and as soon as I saw the first picture, I flung it over the side of the moving platform. Hefertus yelled out a muffled curse.
“There are people down here!” he roared up to me.
So there were. And there were madmen who had taken time to painstakingly detail that. If I ever met the author, judgment would be swift and brutal. His feet would not take a step before I claimed his head.
The demon muttered a string of curses. Listen, you poxy milk-faced droll, if you throw them all away, you won’t be able to use one, and you need one for this rite.
I froze. So he knew what this was.
There was silence in my mind.
Had he known all along? Had he been lying? Blood roared hot and powerful in my ears until I could hear nothing else.
I will find out, my girl. Have a little patience.
And then the voices in my mind were suddenly opaque to me. I could only feel the edges of murmurs that sounded like distant arguing.
I took that moment to look out from my platform. It was slowing a little, though it still moved in a strange up and down spiral. Around me, the others moved on their platforms, too. I caught a glance of Sir Coriand snatching a book from a shelf as he swept by, his hair flowing behind him in strands of gnarled snow. With another glance, I caught Sir Owalan sitting on his altar, feverishly flipping through another book. He was hunched over it like a carrion bird guarding his prize.
“What do you think it means that we must offer up what doesn’t serve us?” the High Saint called into the room. “I serve the God. I am served by nothing.”
I could almost hear Sir Sorken’s sigh when he boomed back. “It means something no longer useful to you, High Saint.”
“Like an ear?” the High Saint called back, clearly confused.
“I’d say that would be a safe bet for you, High Saint, as you are indeed a poor listener.”
I almost snorted at that.
“Did he mean that?” the High Saint whispered to Sir Owalan, but as with everything else, even his whispering was obvious and overly obnoxious.
“You tell me,” the Penitent said, annoyed. “Do you think it will help things to hack your own ear off?”
“It might.”
“Then please, be my invited guest. I’ll lend you my belt knife if your own is not sharp enough for the task.”
“The one in your arm?”
“God have mercy, Saint, you try my patience.”
They cycled farther away from me, and then I heard Hefertus sigh and his platform stilled, glowed a soft barely there purple, and began to drift back toward the platform.
“Oh, excellent work, Prin —” Sir Coriand began to say, but his words were cut off by a groan, as a platform — the empty one that I was meant to be in — suddenly ground to a halt, stilled, and then lurched from its track, plummeting downward. It glanced against Sir Sorken’s platform, leaving an eruption of curses behind it, and kept falling like the stone it was. It seemed a very long time before we heard it hit the floor. If there even was a floor down there.
My heart was caught in my chest and I was frozen in place as I watched it fall.
This time, it was the Majester who cursed. And he went on cursing. And on and on, and then his cursing ended abruptly in a sigh.
“What was … should we assume that for every one of us who succeeds, another will fall?” the High Saint asked, his querulous voice rising sharply at the end.
“Or it simply fell because it was empty,” Hefertus called down.
While we were watching the original platform fall, his had returned back to the ledge where it had started. He’d already exited the platform — smart man — and was standing there beside Suture. The golem’s eyes glowed dully, as if he were a bored child forced to watch a proceeding of his elders. Hefertus leaned easily against him like he was leaning against a tree. Little bits of rag stirred against his shoulder and I shuddered.
