“Don’t know how you do it,” Hefertus says at one point as he peers up at a circling bird. “Doesn’t seem worth the trouble.”
“I take their pain and ills,” I say lightly. I’m no crusader. I don’t need to be understood or to see others conform to my path. “Is that not enough?”
Hefertus laughs. “No, Saints and Angels, it is not. I think you’ve made a raw deal.”
There’s no rancor in my response. “I was called by the God, just like you were called. He calls the poisoned as well as he calls princes.”
“Doesn’t he just? And I thank him every day for calling me to Princehood.” Hefertus picks his teeth irreverently as he studies the ruins above us. “A dread place, is it, this Aching Monastery?”
The Prince Paladins — as his aspect is affectionately monikered — disregard learning. He has never poured over old tomes in study or been made to memorize events from thousands of years before. When I was reciting the kings of the nations and their antecedents going back ten generations, he was being taught to tell good from bad wine and rubies from colored glass. I find this charming in the way that you can’t help but smile at a spoiled but adorable child.
“Not at all,” I reply, intrigued by the structure ahead of us. It’s a shame that it is so crumbled by time. I read that in the past, the soaring architecture drew people from other realms to simply marvel at the lines and curves that seemed beyond the ability of man to have created. I would have liked to see that. “The Aching Monastery is mentioned often and with reverence. The priest who lectured on it when I was a squire was certain that a path to Sainthood lay here.”
“I thought you lot were the ones called Saints,” Hefertus says, taking a moment to braid the nearest part of his horse’s mane.
He looks exactly like a prince when he does this, but there’s something haunted in his eyes. It makes me feel a little ill, and I wonder if that’s simply emotion or if I’m accidentally taking his pain from him. I do that sometimes and entirely by accident.
Prince Paladins do not age. There is no magic to it, nor does the power of the God preserve them more than other men. It’s simple enough. They trade sense for miracles. And eventually, they lose their minds and become children trapped in the bodies of men, or they die by their own foolishness. I do not relish the thought of my lighthearted friend losing himself before his golden hair turns silver. I have grown fond of Hefertus and his innocent view of the world.
“They also call you a prince, and yet here you are riding with me,” I reply and I think he might answer, but he sees a coney in a tuft of grass, and quick as gasping he has a sling out, places a deadly shot, and is all joy when — a moment later — he can present to me the fresh meat that can be our lunch.
I’m not sure I want to eat meat taken here. I can feel this place in my bones. The graveyard we passed through to get here will need a dozen of my brethren to walk the fields and soak the land in prayers and tears to clear it of the haunting feeling it gives off. It makes my skin itch on the inside.
“This place is a trap, then,” Hefertus says firmly. “A trap for the godly who want to be more.”
I grunt. I doubt this is a trap. But everything is an epic tale of deeds most valiant to Hefertus. Sometimes I see a look of longing mixed with ethereal joy on his face as he tells a tale of his doings and I know that in his mind he is a great hero sweeping across the landscape of this life. I am not quite so enamored by myself as to see the same.
Besides, if they call us Saints affectionately when we eat and drink suffering, what kind of tasks would a true Saint face? I am not sure I would want to know. My work seems enough of a calling for one man as it is.
We pick our way up through mist pale and whimsical as a bridal veil around jagged rocks like the ridges of a dead dragon’s spine. Something in the stones stings me inside, like biting into an arrowhead chip while eating your evening meat. But it is sweet to the taste despite the pain. Sweet and beguiling.
“Kind of pulls you in,” Hefertus admits as he leads me forward, tossing his wave of blond hair back over his shoulder. He is wearing two strings of pearls around his throat today — one pale as milky blind eyes and the other pink as the blush of a maiden. He fiddles with them constantly. Perhaps they are a charm he’s made against an unknown foe. If so, I wish he’d give one to me.
I grunt again, but I am watching everything. I don’t know what it is I’m feeling, only that it’s familiar and yet foreign, far, far too powerful, and it’s everywhere.
“Think the others will be there yet?” Hefertus asks when we finally get close enough that the road begins to swoop upward. “Pretty important task, looking for the Cup of Tears. We all need to be there before the search begins.”
“Do we?” I ask.
I’m not certain of that. The Poisoned Saints don’t jockey for position the way some of the other aspects do. No one wants to take our place. I could see other aspects wanting to make use of this kind of advantage, though. Some of them play politics in the same way that they eat bread.
“Of course. Can’t have that kind of power going to just one aspect. It needs to be shared,” Hefertus says. “Have you seen what the High Saints are doing in Estavia?”
I have not, but to my surprise, Hefertus has noticed and is able to give me a brief primer on the shifting politics of the region. I watch him as I chew a mint leaf.
My friend always surprises me. Who would have thought he knew which kings the church had pulled into power and which they’d subtly chopped at the roots and why? But as he speaks, it becomes clear that he knows better than I do what is happening.
“I’m surprised you don’t know this,” Hefertus says as we finally crest the peak of the hill, passing between the stones of a crumbled, broken arch. I make the sign of the Aspect of the Sorrowful God as if to ward off the curse of it. An arch is made with wholeness in mind and a crumbled arch is a terrible omen. “Your lot was there to clean up afterward, I thought.”
“We don’t clean up political messes,” I say absently. “Unless there was a battle.”
“Oh, there was. Killed a dozen men there myself. Nasty business. The king there had a predilection that shouldn’t be named. We smoked him and his men out like skunks under a foundation. Didn’t realize they had innocents with them. I’ve said a hundred prayers for the poor souls, and it still feels like not enough.”
I shiver at his confession. Subtly. No need to offend. But the sidelong glance I send my friend is instinctual and I can’t quite help that.
He’s surprised me again. He has a tendency to do that. Never think a book is finished being written while the pages are still turning.
Even if the story appears a simple one.
