The power made me itch worse than pepperleaf.
What if it can make you a Saint? What if it made the other Saints you know and adore?
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Was it possible that some of the statues in the churches I had visited were of mortals who came to this very place and sat underneath that glossy black demon, and somehow were refined into something brighter and more holy? And if they were, who was I to say that this was wrong or threatening? A good paladin would want it, wouldn’t she? No matter the discomfort. No matter the price.
Say your catechism, my dear. I always find that helps.
I didn’t think it was going to help this time.
The demon started to laugh.
It’s a good suggestion, even if it was made by a fiend, Sir Branson said wryly. Is that how you begin, demon? Do you take the unsuspecting slowly, first with good advice and then gradually with a souring of it?
I shivered. I would not be taken by a demon. Not now. Not ever. I glanced up at the ceiling again, horribly conscious that now there were two demons in the room, and I — a hunter of demons — seemed unequal to the task of destroying either of them.
I want to be very clear, Sir Branson told me. The demon in your head is not a toy. He is not tame. You must not grow used to him.
Oooh, what’s this now? Treachery?
We were nearly to the bottom of the stairs and the other paladins were all staring at words etched below the triptych window. Someone had thought they were important enough to carve them as tall as my hand into the stone and then inlay them with bronze. As one, the others turned to look up at me.
Good thing I’d brought the dog. Apparently, I’d be working translation duty for the duration of this foray. I reached down and laid a hand on Brindle’s head. He looked up at me with those liquid puppy eyes.
“Who’s a good doggy, then?” I whispered to him.
Isn’t he warming to the heart? You know as well as I do that you could never kill him, snackling.
The demon laughed in my mind.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Sir Adalbrand looking up at the broken window with a wen between his brows. Did he see something there that I did not?
Read the words, demon. And let’s see what it takes to be made a Saint.
The laughter grew louder but the demon complied.
“Our hearts spoke out our hopes
And our souls bore the cost
The man and the spirit
and all that was lost.
Bold together we race
where no others have trod.
For we are more than men,
We have become … Saints.”
So, these people really did think they could become Saints. Those privileged few chosen by the God to do great works upon the earth or sit in his council after death. What devoted worshipper wouldn’t crave that? Surely, no paladin would back down from such a challenge.
I glanced around at the eight paladins with me — each representing a different way of viewing the same god. Were these people Saint material?
“What does it say, Beggar?” The Majester General asked me. Charming. He should double as a jailkeeper with a face like that.
I kept my own face blank and even as I repeated the demon’s translation, trying to judge the reactions of those listening. And if it was strange that a demon was rattling off the recipe to be made a Saint, no one noticed. And if it was odd that every eye seemed to light and every back grow straighter, well, no one mentioned that either. But I was keeping mental notes.
