The Engineers laughed together as if they could read each other’s thoughts.
“Oh, I don’t think so, my lad,” Sir Coriand said, a good-natured smile on his lips. “I think we’ll let you all tromp around in there first. We’ll keep the tea on out here and you can tell us all about it.”
“You don’t think you should represent your order within the monastery?”
“We’re representing them perfectly out here,” Sir Sorken said with an ironic quirk to his mouth. “There’s not an Engineer alive who would pay that price lightly.”
“Our hands are important,” Sir Coriand agreed, and — Saints help me — I do not know how he managed to find another cup of tea, but he was sipping it, using his sword to poke around in the dirt at the base of the door as he drank. “What do you think they constructed this door out of, Sorken? Seems a waste of blessing-imbued copper.”
“And yet there it is looking terribly copper-like,” his fellow paladin said, taking the tea from his fellow so that he could sip it himself.
I watched them, fascinated, as ghost ribbons of steam swirled up around them and the marigold light flashed hard and unforgiving off the blades of the swords they were so sorely abusing.
“We could lend you one of the golems, if you like,” Sir Coriand said, looking up suddenly. “Yes, I think that might be best.”
“Apologies, brother.”
It was the first time I’d heard the Poisoned Saint speak all morning. He was poised beside the Prince Paladin. They were friends, I thought. They’d certainly shared a tent, which the demon had found funny and told ribald jokes about no matter how much I tried to shut him up.
Still jealous? he purred to me. So am I. He’s a pretty one, your sickly paladin. As pretty as that golden giant, in his own dark way.
“Apologies, but I will not be going down into the depths with your construct.”
“Stay up here with us then,” Sir Sorken said, uncaring. His baritone seemed deeper than normal and when he sipped, his thick, gnarled lips looked like moving tree roots. “We’ve plenty of tea to go around.”
There was iron in the Poisoned Saint’s tone. “With respect, I think the golems stay with you.”
Sir Sorken paused, blade dug half into the earth, his brows lifting like he’d just found something almost as curious as what he was studying. He peered at Sir Adalbrand for a long moment.
“Interesting. You certainly nurse a healthy bias, don’t you? Will you be going down then, Sir Adalbrand?”
The Poisoned Paladin coughed, and I almost thought — for only a sliver of a second — that he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye before he swaggered forward and through the door. Whatever he muttered was lost as he passed through to the other side and clasped the High Saint on the shoulder. And if his eyes glittered a bit more when he looked at me through the frame, who was I to judge? I did not know what had been taken from him.
“Blessed Saints,” his friend cursed before laughing, and then abruptly diving through the door as if he were diving into the sea. He landed on his shoulder, tucked, rolled, and popped up to his feet. When he straightened he laughed again, the picture of health and boyish pleasure.
But only for a moment.
The Seer screamed, and then the Prince Paladin was on the floor, writhing and shuddering, and the demon in my head laughed and laughed until he was hushed by Sir Branson.
“Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy,” the Majester General gasped his prayer, clinging to the parchment as his hands trembled. He was twisted around, blocking most of the view of the other side as he watched those who had already crossed the barrier.
Over everything else, we all heard Adalbrand praying, his words panicked as battle shouts, his eyes on his patient, then on us, then back again. He had laid hands on Hefertus, and though I thought he was healing him, he was also jerking and spasming with his patient as the healing took. Beside him, the Seer’s breath sawed so loud and uneven that I feared she might fall, too.
Sir Kodelai sucked in air through his teeth beside me as the Majester General’s prayers all ran together.
I heard a pop and glanced over to where a white-faced Sir Coriand had broken the handle off his cup. His hands shook a little until the golem beside him leaned down and took the pottery, like a mother might take shards of glass from a toddler.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, patting the golem on the arm.
For its part, the golem ducked his head in acknowledgment, and by the time my eyes were back on the tableau, both Sir Hefertus and Sir Adalbrand were sitting on the stony floor, arms wrapped around one another for support.
Think carefully of what you will confess. It must be great enough that you can accept a punishment for it, but small enough that it doesn’t kill us.
Us?
I’m coming with you. I doubt the door can tell the difference between dog and demon. Or paladin. It will likely see me as an extension of you.
How charming. Also, did that mean that the Prince Paladin had confessed to too small a thing?
