Chapter Twenty-Nine
Poisoned Saint
Saints and Angels take it, but I am in trouble. I can feel it breathing down my neck and laughing at me. Things are drawing to a head. There are hours, perhaps, left in this life. Hours in which I must acquit myself well. It is easy enough to waste an hour when you have an unlimited number slipping through your fingers, but when your sum is but a handful? What about then? Each becomes precious and short, and the need to make them gleaming and flawless suddenly feels weighty.
I will die well if I must die. And I will keep Victoriana alive if I can. There are no guarantees.
Either way, I am grateful.
I have been soaked in guilt and shame since my boyhood. Who would think that it would take descending into the depths of hell to finally purge me of it? Who would think that tasting the edges of this poisoned place would be what finally offered me redemption, life … forgiveness?
I am all tangled through with relief and determination and a kind of raw treasuring of this holy warrior the God brought flaming and all too bright into my life to finally seal my wound with her burning brand. Had I thought he would dip down from above to wash clean one foul paladin, I would have expected a delicate lady swathed in silks with soft white limbs and innocent eyes to be his avatar — one like these statues carved into the ruins everywhere. I would not have expected a doubt-seamed warrior with a hard edge running through her tender heart. I find I prefer the gift offered to the one imagined.
My stream of thought is broken when the floor finishes its rotation, light spills bright and white across the floor, and the dog — Brindle — comes speeding across the ground, claws clicking on the tiles, a sharp aggressive bark slicing the air as he races toward us. I can’t help the flinch of the way my body moves to shield hers. I know we have a plan for this dog, but I see him only as a threat. My leg still aches where he tore the flesh.
Victoriana does not feel the same. She crouches down to receive him as he barrels into her, and my eyes widen as his round skull butts into her belly and she leans down to put her cheek to the top of his head and rub behind his ears. I clench my jaw hard as she coos to him.
“There’s a good doggy then. Who’s a good doggy? You’re all wet. You must have been playing in the fountain.”
She’s scrubbing his fur with her knuckles — as one does with a demon-infested dog, I’m sure.
I very carefully do not say anything. When I look up, it is into the eyes of the golem Cleft and he looks back with those burning hellfire eyes he’s been given and says nothing. If he wrote our story, what would it say? The oil in his palm has diminished and his light flickers as the wick grows smaller — though we won’t need it here anymore. If Cleft is alive and aware in a real sense, then how does he stomach the insult of being used as a candle? It’s inhuman. And if he is not alive, then how does he look at me with such knowing eyes?
I look away sharply and turn my attention to the lattice window. I ache with the scent of the sea and for the first time, a window is close enough and thin enough that if I press my face to the lattice, I can see downward. There are no rough rocks. The sea laps against smooth stone. The window, however, is no wider than my head. None of us could fit through it, even were we to hammer the lattice out. I think even Brindle would be too thick around the ribcage to squeeze his way through. Perhaps the bone golem — Suture — could be disassembled and tossed piece by piece out the window and perhaps there is a way he could reform himself, but I think that unlikely. There will be no escape through this window. And there is no clue as to how to turn the room again, though I realize with unwarranted hope that if we succeed in doing just that, then we could walk right through the challenge door and leap into the sea and swim away from the madness.
My heart pangs painfully with a hunger for that which out-desires any desire I’ve ever had. Longing, sharp and painful, winds around my bones.
I force my attention back from it with grim determination. If we succeed, then we will breathe free air again. And if we do not, then longing for it will not grant it. I am reminded that wanting a thing is a kind of honoring. I honor free air. I honor it with all my heart.
I am also reminded that I am not a leaf blown by the wind, I am the God’s holy knight. I am here with a purpose and that purpose right now is to destroy evil as it reveals itself to me, whether that be in the hearts of fellow paladins, the presence of demons or the constructed golem standing beside me.
What is stopping me, then, from charging my fellow paladins and ripping them limb from limb? I shall tell you what. I do not know which of them is guilty and which is deceived. And until I do, I cannot act in either justice or salvation.
I shake myself back to the immediate moment. I will know soon enough, and then I will act.
The Vagabond Paladin is back on her feet, braiding her hair hastily. Like me, her face is set and firm as she prepares for whatever is to come. Like me, she knows our fight is still ahead of us.
“I think you can probably snuff out that candle, Cleft,” I murmur to the golem, feeling a little ashamed that I don’t know whether to treat him like a man or a lamp. Soon enough, I will know that, too.
He snuffs out his wick as the clock bongs, a loud, reverberating bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong. And then the ticking seems to speed up. I don’t know if I noticed it before, but I notice it now the way you notice a cloud of biting gnats buzzing around your head. The sound of it slips immediately under my skin, stinging my flesh, biting into my spirit.
I look past the clock to see a frantic Sir Owalan racing toward us, nearly tripping on his own feet. The rest are gathered around the clock face, heads bent together.
“You have to come quickly.” He addresses me breathlessly when he arrives, not even glancing at Victoriana. “The clock has sped up and there are only ten hours left. Ten!”
He says the last word in a strangled hush, like the clock’s hands have wrapped around his throat and are choking it out of him.
“Hmm.” Is he part of this? He seems too caught up in the drama of it to also be plotting murders.
“That may not be enough time,” he gasps. “And what if it speeds up again?”
“Has anyone learned yet what that clock even does?” I ask, lifting an eyebrow at Owalan.
He’s very excitable for a Penitent. I’d always thought them to be a somber, steady bunch. Owalan is young, but at least five years older than Victoriana. One would think he would have calmed after so long in the service. Perhaps that is a reason to suspect there is more here than meets the eye.
“Look up,” Victoriana says grimly, and I follow her gaze upward.
It’s hard to see more than the gleam of the gilt so high up there. It is dark above and the light from the small window barely penetrates the shadow, but I just manage to see the glint of light off of gilding and … is it moving?
