Could I trust that I was suspended on a stone platform over a great vault?
Could I trust that I was seeing the Majester fall by, eyes wide, fingers grasping at nothing?
Wait.
I gasped and lunged forward.
I was a second too late to grab at him. A second too stunned.
I caught his eye as he streaked past silently, felt the jagged terror in the black gleam of his pupil, and then he was gone, plummeting past into the darkness below, narrowly missing the central pillar in his descent.
Like with the platform, it was a very long time before I heard him hit the ground. I almost missed the sound behind the hammering of my heart.
My breath was caught in my throat, one of my hands pressed to my chest, the other to my mouth.
God have mercy.
I looked up and saw Sir Coriand looking down, horror painting his expression.
“He leapt,” the Engineer said, his voice soft, bereft. “I didn’t realize he would leap until it was too late.”
My common sense was telling me that was usually the way with suicide. I’d buried so many villagers who’d died the same way that I’d lost count. Usually, it was done with their ragged friends and family clustered around me, wet-eyed and snuffling in the cold and wind while Sir Branson said a prayer and tried to tell them that it wasn’t a demon, just despair. As if that were any better. Some people were just never made for this world, he’d say sadly. And then he’d brew tea like Sir Coriand and Sir Sorken did. And he’d offer it around and pray with those who could use a moment’s comfort. Offer whatever coins were had to the bereaved and move on.
My common sense was also reminding me that Majester Generals were made to lead armies. Their power from the God had influences over groups, like when he made us acutely aware of our enemies while we were fighting for our lives in the last trial. Did it also go the other direction? Could our suspicions of him and our judgment have cracked his mind? He hadn’t been wearing his tabard today. Had he lost the will to go on? Could this place with its fiendish intentions have slid deep under his thoughts and pulled on levers buried deep?
All that sounded logical. Possible.
But as I murmured the prayer for the dead, and heard it echoed around the chamber to me, I thought that perhaps there was more to this story.
Because Sir Coriand’s platform was drifting back to the ledge, his candle bright, his tome chosen. And whatever gift he’d made at the altar wasn’t one I could see.
Was it possible that it was the Majester who was no longer serving Sir Coriand? And if it was, who else would he decide no longer had a right to live?
I shuddered, backed up a step, and then another, and then I sat down hard on the floor across from Adalbrand and I put my naked sword across my knees. Every muscle of my body was tensed. And it all felt dreadful and cold as the decay that comes after death.
“Almost done, brothers?” I heard Sir Coriand call out gently.
“The High Saint can’t reply,” Sir Owalan called back a little unsteadily. “Otherwise I think he might have screamed when the Majester went flying by, poor broken man. I confess to shaky hands myself. I’m not certain I can light my candle with them, but yes, the High Saint has his book chosen.” He laughed shakily. “It’s massive and it’s bound with metal latches. Serious business. I think he gave his voice. I suppose it no longer served him.” He bit down on a hysterical laugh. “Oh, Saints. Oh, Saints.” I heard a knife striking flint. “There she is! She’s lit. Oh Saints, I don’t feel well.”
“Did you give your health, my boy?”
“Had to … had … had to give someth —”
His words cut off but I heard Sir Coriand call down urgently. “Hold on to him, Sir Joran. You’ll be here in a moment and I’ll be right here to help.”
There was some silence and then the sound of the platform reaching the ledge again and a few grunts. My platform had moved to where the central pillar hid them from me.
“You’d best be working out your offering, Beggar,” Sir Coriand called out. His voice was falsely cheerful. “We’ll be back for you.”
Sir Owalan must have said something, because I heard Sir Coriand’s distant voice give a reply. “Oh, she’s sulky as a spoiled child for all she’s a Beggar. Too young, if you ask me, but I don’t suppose anyone did.”
I looked at the books scattered in heaps on the platform. And I looked at the books on the wall where our platform had come to rest. And I looked at the altar and made up my mind.
I would not participate. And no, I was not a sulky child unwilling to join in because no one else wanted to play her game. I was taking a principled stand.
Whatever this worship was making, I refused to agree to make it, too. And if that meant I died here on this platform and it fell down into the pit below and my bones were left for all eternity beside the Majester’s, well, then that was what was going to happen, wasn’t it?
I just hoped Sir Branson found a way out of the dog. Or maybe that Brindle tore out Sir Coriand’s throat just for fun. Or something.
