Of Deeds Most Valiant: A Poisoned Saints Novel

The door into this terrible place had scrambled us like eggs before they were cooked. Fear and doubt laced through every inkling I had, twisting up my good judgment, and making me suspicious and fretful in a way I usually wasn’t. That quick attack from Adalbrand had left me so rattled that it took me a complete turn around the room “searching for the cup” before I was calm enough to deal with him head-on. I hoped he hadn’t noticed. I hoped I’d looked as if I was in possession of myself and not quivering with nerves like an un-blooded girl who’d never faced a demon.

He’d sworn to me at the end of it — or with me, I suppose. What a mad, warrantless thing to decide to do. Had Brindle been on this side of the door, I think he might have bit me.

You really did ruin her, didn’t you, you moldering old armor suit. Here she could have been the one wheeling through this world pinning pretty knights to walls and cutting throats but no, you filled her with catechisms and prayers and empty hands.

He had. Thank the Merciful God.

I think this Adalbrand is sincere. He means to keep his word to you. This kind usually does. They don’t thrash out at others. They eat themselves from within.

Except for when they were thrashing out at me, apparently.

I rather think that’s unusual for him. It’s completely unlike you to be anything but bold, for instance, and I feel your bowels trembling like jelly.

Rude.

Though, if I were frank with myself, I could admit that a second set of eyes would be useful in helping me navigate back toward a more objective view of things — even if those eyes were equally off-kilter.

You already have two more sets of eyes, little morsel. What need have you of a third? I see past the veil of skin to where each heart festers.

Somehow, the perspective of a demented spirit wasn’t quite the same as another living, breathing human. Call me any name you like, but I’d stand by that.

You just like that he’s living and breathing. Are you sure you’re not the one twisted by the sin of craving another? Doubt is so passé. Give me something thick and meaty like lust to work with.

Was Sir Branson hearing this?

Well, the knight did admit to lust, my girl. And that’s a real concern. The problem with lust is that it is treating people like objects. When he admits he has that problem, he’s admitting that he’s willing to treat you like you aren’t even a person.

Just treat him the same way — like a snack. Good for one sweet taste and then gone.

I swallowed hard.

“What have you found?” Adalbrand asked, slipping to my side so smoothly that he could be the haunting spirit and startling me out of my internal conversation.

“Look at the sphere,” I said aloud, tracing the edge of one of the etchings. “See this ragged edge? Doesn’t that look like the coastline of the Grayling Sea? There’s the distinctive rabbit-foot shape.”

Adalbrand grunted, leaning in closer. I tried very hard not to be overly aware of how he filled the space, how his masculine scent was stronger since our brief encounter.

If he hadn’t taken me by surprise, he’d never have gotten the better of me. He was quick but I could be quicker.

Taking you by surprise is getting the better of you. I’m going to enjoy watching you wreck your ship on this rock. He’s going to leave you hollow and gasping and broken.

“It does look like the Grayling Sea but surely it’s a coincidence.”

“Follow the edge of it. Here’s where it would disappear under the receding ice wall, if this were a map.”

“But who would put a map on a sphere?” He traced the edge with his finger, still bare from when we shook hands and made that oath.

If you don’t find the Cup of Tears, the pair of you will now be bound together, charging this way and that like knights errant. Best to find it. And fast.

Have I mentioned that it’s hard to have a conversation when the people in your head won’t be silent?

I forced myself to do it anyway. “Did you note the strange map mosaic on the floor as we descended the stairs?”

“Mmm,” he agreed. “It was difficult to see details, though, unless you stood high enough and looked down. Up close, it looked only like the rock shards that comprised it. I don’t see the connection.”

“Don’t you?” I asked, enjoying myself enough to raise an eyebrow. I liked teasing him. I hadn’t teased anyone in a long time. I remember my father loved to tease — to pull my little braids and pretend to steal my treats. “A paladin of a scholarly aspect like you?”

The poisoned look he shot me fit his title perfectly. It brought my smirk to the surface.

“Capture it in your mind’s eye, Sir Paladin. Wasn’t it a strange shape?”

He nodded, eyes distant and staring at a tapestry on the wall as he agreed. “Like the peel of a fruit flattened on a table.”

“Yes,” I said, “as if someone was trying to make a sphere flat.”

His frown when his gaze found mine was thoughtful. He spun the sphere on its axis, finger tracing what would be a coastline if it were a map.

“But it’s not a map of our world, is it?”

“Part of it could be.”

I rummaged around on the desk, looking. Bound books were piled with parchment and quills. A bottle of ink had been left open and dried up. I still couldn’t believe all this had been preserved for so long and could still be handled without collapsing into dust.

I opened one of the bound books. It was full of sketches and diagrams and scrawled handwriting in the Indul language. I could recognize it, even if I couldn’t read it without the dog.

“Someone stuck a bit of glass in the sphere just here,” Adalbrand said, and I looked up to note where it was on the sphere. “I wonder if that’s significant.”

“Maybe it was the location of a capital city. Or a cathedral of note.” I bit the end of my finger and glared at the diagrams. They didn’t show a cup, that was for certain. They seemed like engineering schematics. Maybe if I brought this book to the Engineers they’d have an idea of what it was for.

If it’s not for your precious cup then why bother? Keep the book to yourself.

Poor advice. Knowledge was always worth pursuing.

Is it, though? Remember that boy in Minsca? The one who tried his grandmother’s recipe for summoning demons? The one who made it work the way she never did?

I shuddered, remembering the carnage in that little town.

He had knowledge. Worth it, do you think?

Fine. Branson had a point. I was still going to ask, though. I shut the book hard enough that dust puffed up from the pages.

“Do you think, Sir Adalbrand,” I asked carefully, “that they thought the earth was a ball?”

He scoffed and then paused. “But how would they account for the ice walls?”

I pointed to the top and bottom of the sphere. “These islands are raised and flat. Could that be their representation of ice walls?”

He frowned and leaned in closer. “But they had to know it wasn’t true. When the walls shifted and revealed more of the earth, where would they put it on the ball?”

I shrugged. It was only a guess.

“And how would they account for the moon reflecting the surface of our land perfectly?”

I shook my head again. I didn’t know, but the more I looked at the sphere, the more I was sure that was exactly what they were trying to depict. That it was a map so strange and foreign as to seem almost primitive.

“Do they think, then, that they are not under the heavenly rule of the God?” He was so horrified that he flinched back, hand drifting to his scabbard, only to realize it was still empty. He huffed and went to retrieve his sword as I pushed the drawers closed.

When he returned, he leaned in, and then with the air of someone a little embarrassed of himself, he pushed his fingernail precisely on the small glass bead.

The sphere opened with a snick.

Inside was a pewter cup that would have fit in my palm perfectly.

“There are a lot of cups in this place,” I said carefully.

He swallowed, turning it over in his hands. “How will we know which is the right one?”

You’ll know.

I shook my head, huffing a laugh. “Maybe one of the others knows. Or maybe we’ll simply have to take them all back with us.”

Trust me. You will know.

Adalbrand smiled as he tossed the cup up and caught it again. “I don’t think that this is it.”

“Why not?”

He pointed to the body of the cup. “Because it doesn’t look like the pictures.”

He felt in a pocket and produced a piece of parchment and showed it to me. The Poisoned Saints, it would seem, were more helpful with exact instructions than the Aspect of the Rejected God had been. His parchment showed a cup with a wide base and embedded with cabochon gems. The walls of the cup were etched with something — but the sketch was unclear on the details. The cup he was holding had no gems.

“This is someone’s dirty secret,” he said grimly. “A family heirloom, perhaps? Hidden in that sphere?”

I nodded. That made sense.

“Any other secret compartments that you care to open?” I asked him, but he shook his head. I was still wary of him despite his vow. A man who took you violently by surprise once might do it again. A little teasing and friendliness might lead to a partnership eventually, but we were not there yet.

“On to the next room then, shall we?”

He kept hold of the cup even though he knew it wasn’t the right one. Interesting.

We tried three more rooms, this time with Brindle dogging our steps. Two we checked separately, the last we checked together.

Each room we searched was more elaborate than the last, decadent in a way I wouldn’t have credited to a monastery. There were none of the plain, stark outfittings of our houses of prayer. These were laden with treasures more suitable to the apartments of a king. Had I the desire, I could fill my pockets to the brim with curiosities and live a life of luxury. I would do exactly that, were I not sworn to abstain from riches.

The room I’d checked on my own had a cage in it large enough to hold the bed. I counted five avian skulls and assorted bones inside. No cup.

All these rooms seemed to have been abandoned with haste. Clothing was flung everywhere, blankets tangled, cushions disarranged. I searched systematically, looking for anything that might be the cup or a clue for finding it. I found three more books just like the first, though in different handwriting, as if four people were working toward the same goal — the same invention. I kept them with me, interested to try to see what manner of project had inspired all four of these people at once. Perhaps it was a clock like the one in the main room. Or some other wonder of art and craft.

I did not find another cup in the rooms, and by the time we went back to the halls, someone had removed all the cups from their alcoves in the wall.

Brindle kept his eye on Adalbrand, snuffling his way from room to room with doggy enthusiasm. I kept a close watch on him. I was worried that in the low light of this place, his eyes might glow their hell-and-heaven brightness and betray us. These rooms were lit with clever windows, narrow but effective, cut into the rock on one side and out to the sea, and then cut from room to room. The depth of rock and narrowness of the slivers would make spying difficult, but they let in enough light to search the rooms without lantern or torch.

It was not until the third room that we found a clue.

There was a tapestry on the wall. At the very top of the tapestry, the cup from Adalbrand’s sketch was carefully embroidered, complete with the blue cabochon gems on the walls and something that looked like eyes all around them. Beneath it was a dark building ringed with reaching branches. It was picked out in an outline beside the sea, and that wouldn’t have been enough to tip us off, but the building extended down beneath the earth to where a long staircase ended with a clock on one side and a fountain on the other, and beneath it all were gears.

“I think the cup must be here somewhere,” Adalbrand said from beside the desk. He held up a single sheet of parchment. Someone had scrawled across the bottom, but at the top was a very accurate depiction of the Cup of Tears. It looked much like Adalbrand’s sketch, but the eyes sketched around the gemstones were clearer.

He passed the parchment to me. “Can you read it?”

Beside us, Brindle yawned, apparently bored beyond belief even as the demon inside him sprang to attention.

“It says Aching Cup,” I replied after Brindle translated.

“That’s close enough to Cup of Tears. It could be that your translation is not precise. And the rest?”

These little poems are so delicious. I can almost taste the fear worming through them. Let me read it for you.

It worried me that he liked this so much.

This most holy of cups,

This most painful of drinks,

It cuts down to the quick,

It does more than one thinks.

Do you reach for the heavens?

Do you clutch at the air?

One deep drink of this pain brew,

And your heart will be there.

For what’s gone can’t be brought back,

What’s once lost can’t be found,

But one dash of this brew,

And you’ll find yourself crowned.

I spoke the words for Adalbrand and then asked, “What does the symbol under the poem mean?”

“It’s an old one.” He sounded wistful. “It’s a symbol for a Saint. The crown with the blade stabbed through it.”

“I haven’t seen it before. Do you want to be a Saint, Sir Adalbrand?”

“You heard the poem. What’s gone can’t be brought back. I can no more be a Saint than I can be a tiger.” I liked how his smile always had an edge of sorrow to it.

“Do you want to be a tiger?” I teased.

He looked up from the parchment and considered me for a long breath. He wasn’t playing anymore. He wasn’t twinkling.

“Do you want to be a Saint, Lady Paladin?”

Before I could reply, the door crashed open and the Majester General strode in, startling us both. He was carrying his pen and parchment, and over one shoulder he held a crimson sack that clanked with every step. I realized by the second step that the sack had been his tabard and by the third I was stifling a smile. Now I knew who had been collecting all the cups.

His comportment screamed “command” in a way that would make anyone with a hint of duty in their heart straighten and salute. Obviously, I slouched more at the mere sight of him.

Beside me, Adalbrand’s spine went stiff and his chin rose.

I barely kept in a snicker. Someone had a tendency toward people pleasing and conformity, it would seem. You’d never catch me doing that.

“Anything interesting to report here?” the Majester barked.

He glared at his parchment like he was annoyed not to have an aide to jot these things down for him, and the look he gave me suggested he was considering changing that. I set my hand on Brindle’s head. The Majester’s gaze followed the motion and I saw the moment he registered that any assistance from me would be accompanied by dog drool. He shook his head minutely.

“If you’re asking whether the residents had some odd items, then I’d say yes, and we did find a poem, a tapestry with a depiction that I’m pretty sure is the cup, and this pewter vessel,” Adalbrand said with a stiff formality that seemed wrong in his mouth after all the confessions he’d poured out from the very same lips, “but if you’re asking if we found the cup, then the answer is no. And yes, we’ve been thorough.”

“How many rooms have you searched and did you mark them?” The Majester gently extracted the pewter cup from Adalbrand’s hand, turning it this way and that with narrowed eyes before adding it to his sack. He took the parchment, skimming over the drawing and poem. He did not ask for a translation.

“Mark them?” Adalbrand sounded surprised.

“Can I borrow your back, Beggar?” the Majester asked me.

“Excuse me?”

Beside me, the dog snickered. Out loud. I would swear on it before a confessional priest.

He looks just like a rooster I possessed once, sweetmeat. It strutted around like it owned the place before I took it over, and you wouldn’t guess what it did after.

Did it claw someone’s eyes out and eat their soul?

Good guess. Have you played this game before, my sweet dumpling?

No one but me noticed the laughter or the distracting byplay.

The Majester General waved parchment and pen. “I need a surface to write on.”

I blinked. “Well, you could use my back but there’s a des —”

I didn’t get a chance to even say “desk” before he spun around me, settled the parchment against my backplate, and began to scribble.

I glared at the perfectly serviceable desk. Its owner had been a great lover of the arts and had fitted it with a pen holder sculpted from golden marble in the shape of a reclining woman wrapped in a boa constrictor. The constrictor had five heads and the woman had five hands, and she had a place for a pen in the center of each of her five palms. She looked profane, indeed, but her desk was still a better place to write than my back.

“Is that a map?” Adalbrand asked from somewhere behind me. It sounded like he was suppressing a laugh.

Great. I was the butt of everyone’s humor here. Could no one take a grave in the ground full of dead people’s possessions and a great rotting demon seriously? No? It was just me?

I huffed a sigh. I liked maps. I would like to see this one. And I didn’t like being a desk.

“It won’t be a thorough search without one,” the Majester said, pride in every word. “Can you point out which rooms you searched so I might mark them?”

“We searched here and here together and split off to search here and here. We saw no one else. But it looks as if you have a tick on almost every room so far. What’s this?”

“A fountain. It’s on the other side of the stairs from the clock. Handy if we’re here for long. The Penitent declared it fit for drinking and the High Saint blessed it. There was no cup in it, though. We’ll have to start looking for hidden chambers, perhaps,” the Majester said. “Or a key to unlock the other door.”

“Other door?” I repeated, but my words were eclipsed by Adalbrand’s.

“Wait, is this the shape of a pentagon with one triangular section off to one side?”

“It is.” The Majester General’s voice warmed. I imagined he was probably well-liked among his aspect. There were almost no Beggar Paladins as genial and gracious as he was, and he was generous with information and comradery.

Rude. I’ve always been very generous. I spent an entire day once cataloging all the cheeses I’ve ever tried for your educational use. In the order in which I ranked them, no less.

So generous.

“And look, all these cells that are clearly people’s personal chambers are located in this triangular section outside the thick main wall of the pentagon. I measured it at the windows and it’s nearly a pace thick of pure stone. Imagine the work it took to carve this wonder. And those statues!”

“Did you think they looked a lot like us?” I asked, staring at the fireplace opposite us, annoyed.

Brindle trotted over to it, spun three times, and then collapsed into a doggy heap, his tongue hanging out of his mouth as if he were laughing at me. Sure, dog. Live it up. Laugh at my expense. It’s not like I’m the one who feeds you or anything.

I like it when you’re annoyed. You think better then. Put your mind to the task of that map, sweet morsel. What did that glass bead mark?

“The statues?” The Majester seemed surprised. “Well, I expected the monks here to be human, didn’t you?”

“No, I mean specifically like us. There’s one, I swear, that is the Prince Paladin’s exact doppelganger. Right down to that firm jawline and straight nose.”

“Well, he does rather have the kind of face that ought to be immortalized,” the Majester General said absentmindedly. “Likely he’s not the first man to look so godly that an artist was inspired by it.”

The dog started snickering in my head again. I gave it a black look.

“So, this corridor you went down opposite to the clock,” he said, tapping something on the map in a way that sent vibrations through my backplate, “goes through a door at the exact center of that side of the pentagon and then proceeds into this triangle-shaped section full of smaller rooms. There’s one more area in this section of the pentagon that has a locked door.” He tapped my backplate hard as he noted it. “And then these two sections appear to have no door at all. But perhaps one is hidden. This one is carved all over in bas-relief and a keyhole could easily be hidden in the design. And this one appears to have a large glass section with only darkness behind it, so possibly there’s a hidden entrance there, too. The last section is windows, of course, cut into the rock face and looking out to the sea. I wouldn’t expect more than meets the eye there.”

“You think there are triangular sections behind each of the other walls?” Adalbrand asked.

I could hear the Majester’s smug smile in his voice. “It’s what I’d do if I were building this place, and I’ve learned that in battle it’s best to assume your opponent is at least as clever as you are.”

“Are we in a battle I don’t know about?” I asked the air in front of me.

“A battle to find the cup,” the Majester said testily. “And our opponent is those who hid it — long dead now. I’ll take the cup you found, if you don’t mind. I’m collecting them all so we can test them together tonight. It will be a completely fair and aboveboard investigation, I assure you.”

“Of course,” Adalbrand murmured.

“Would you have noticed a key when you were searching?” the Majester asked.

“If it looked like a key, then yes,” Adalbrand said. “We saw a map. Of the world. On a sphere.”

The Majester barely skipped a beat. “The Holy Inquisitor claims he read about that once. That there was a time that man believed the earth was a ball.” He sounded testy. “Before you tell me all the reasons that’s nonsense, please know I’ve already heard a rant from the High Saint and am not in the mood for another. Unless this round ball unlocks one of the doors in this place, I’m simply not interested in it.”

“Well there was an interesting — ” Adalbrand began, but the door to the room crashed open.

I spun, drawing my sword in a single motion. I vaguely heard the curses of the Majester General, whose parchment had fluttered to the floor when I moved, vaguely noticed that Adalbrand — the fool — had automatically moved between me and the door without even drawing his blade.

Brindle barked.

Once.

Sharply.

But it was only Sir Owalan. Out of breath. White-lipped. Blood streaked down his dove-grey tabard. He opened his mouth to speak, turned, vomited, and then tried again.

“The Seer is dead.”