Then we should cast it out right now. Recruit the others. Use our abilities together to dislodge it. I glanced upward and shivered. Brindle peered up with me.
Try.
I focused my mind and lifted my heart to the God and felt … nothing. Not even the slight tug I had felt in the past when I had prayed beside Sir Branson.
Mayhap it was because Sir Adalbrand was right and I was no true paladin.
I think not.
Mayhap I needed to sit and pray for a full seven-day under this roof.
That I doubt, also. I felt along your prayer as you lifted it to the God and it confirmed as I suspected. You cannot remove this demon. Not on your own and not while it is behind the mechanism. If the mechanism were opened and it were set free, then yes, you could try, but …
But I’d be on my own, without any other members of my aspect. With the demon possessing no physical body, I could only turn to hours or even days of prayer, during which I would be completely vulnerable.
Or…
Or it would possess either me or some other who strayed too close.
The demon in my head began to laugh.
Elegant, if I do say so myself.
I was caught, wasn’t I? Free the creature and I could fling it from this earth, but if I failed, it would escape, bringing death and destruction with it. Don’t free it, and it would remain here forever, ready to break free and entrap someone else.
I don’t even see how to free it. But we must be ready if it slips out.
Ready for what?
Ready to die with honor, trying to do the impossible.
That sounded like my destiny, certainly. I was forever being served up the impossible.
The laughter in my head — nasty and cruel — built to a crescendo and echoed on and on, making the inside of my mind loud even while the outside was silent as we ascended the stairs together.
I think everyone else was thinking the same thing — not about the demon, but about how this murder made no sense. I didn’t think any of the others were close to the Seer, but I felt ill at her death, and I was certain the rest did, too. I glanced over my shoulder every so often to see them trailing behind me in a line, and when I finally reached the top of the staircase, the muscles in my legs aching and my breath coming just a touch faster than I’d like, I paused.
Oh yes. The door.
The laughter in my head spooled out like a coil of rope about to be woven into a noose.
Would it take something more from me if I stepped through it again?
Will it take your restraint? Please let it take that! Please. I’d love to see you unraveled, little knightling.
Facing it left me with cold, slimy dread. I did not want a second dose of terror.
Courage now. Take courage. We dare not abandon that — or hope — or we perish. Step forward now, I’m here with you. I’ll walk through with you. You will not be alone.
Never alone, the demon cackled.
I didn’t dare wait to think it through a second time. I held Sir Branson’s words close and stepped. I confessed nothing, hoping it would not be necessary on the way back.
My gamble paid off.
I found myself on the other side of the dread door, panting, discomfited, but whole. The terror that had sloshed around inside me all day was gone now. Vanishing as easily as it had come.
I drew in a breath, perhaps my first full breath of the day, and it was only then that respite hit me and I had to lean down and brace myself with my hands on my thighs, taking in great gulps of joy so powerful it felt like agony.
