Of Deeds Most Valiant: A Poisoned Saints Novel

I think we are close to the end now, my girl, and there are so many things I have not told you.

I was starting to realize how much he’d protected me from that I’d never understood. It hadn’t seemed like it when we were shivering in blasts of cold, drifting from village to village eating scraps, huddled in barns, dealing with the kinds of perversion the villagers shied away from. It had not felt it when we wrestled demons in the dark and prayed our way through the twisting turns of evil men. But the world had been simpler then than it was right now, under the ground. What Sir Branson had protected me from had not been evil, but it had been the understanding that even those who represent good can be evil, or foster evil, or fight on the side of evil. I had harbored doubts before, even in that protected state. He had stood like a shield in front of me and protected me from the worst of it.

I had not realized.

When he taught me to give thanks over scraps, he had not told me it was because greed, when rooted deep, drove the hearts of men to regard murder as a mild inconvenience.

When he taught me to welcome beggars and those who were abandoned by others, he had not told me that they were kings compared to those who wore white and rode in the name of the God.

I also failed to tell you that you were a great comfort to me. A daughter not of my body, but mine to protect, mine to train, mine to love. I loved you, my girl, as a father loves a child. I want you to know that.

I had loved him, too.

The God says you must bury me with honor. Let the honor be that you remember and let the remembrance shine light into the doubts that still endarken your heart.

I swallowed down a desire to dismiss what he was saying just so I could protect myself from what was coming next. I didn’t want him to go. And yet I needed him to go and to go soon. Time was ticking down and every demon in this arcanery must be dealt with somehow — including the one in my dog.

Sir Coriand turned and led us into the light of the trial ahead, seeming almost swallowed by it, and then his golems were swallowed next, and then those in front of me one by one.

There is a story from the ancient past of Corinna the Martyr. Corinna — by faith alone — left her family and her home, and dressed in flowing white robes — which, frankly, is a very impractical choice for travel and made me doubt the sanity of her other choices — and walked to the center of a cult of the Heart of the Bull, and there, in their underground lair, she had knelt in prayer and asked the God to vanquish her enemies, and he had shown her the one weak spot in the structure. Filled with his power, she had struck it a mighty blow, and the temple had collapsed, killing her and hundreds of worshipers. It had always struck me as odd that we told this tale, because if everyone died, then who could tell what Corinna had done?

The God knew and he told his faithful. Abernicus saw Corinna in her Saintly form and made for her a great statue that graces the narthex of the Cathedral of the Three Peaks in Shannamara.

Or, the demon added wickedly. Or, your pretty girl dressed in pristine white and she ventured out willingly and partook eagerly in the cult’s worship, and when the place came down — due, no doubt, to poor human construction methods — the collapse took her with it. And then her credulous friends and family painted her as a martyr rather than a cultist and you fools pray now to a Saint as twisted as the ones that garnish this place.

He spun out into raucous laughter in my mind.

And I couldn’t have said if his story was true. It had the unfortunate ring of truth about it.

I felt Adalbrand’s finger slip free of mine and then he was lost to brightness, and I stepped through behind him, blinking in such light as I had not seen in days. My eyes were no longer accustomed to it.

What if Corinna had gone to worship false gods? What if at the last moment, she had changed her mind and called on the God and he had both vanquished her enemies and swept her away in the tumult with them, and she was neither Saint nor sinner but merely one more soul in a sea of the broken, the foolish, the uncertain?

Just like me.

Not like you. You, my girl, are destined for better things. Now, shed this doubt once and for all. Walk with me into trouble and let our deeds wash away the tarnish of distrust.

When my eyes finally cleared and I could see, I stood and stared with everyone else.

I should have known by now to expect the rooms of this place to be built to an unimaginable scale. The ceiling towered high above us and was so crisscrossed with light coming down that the room seemed brightly lit. Perhaps it would have felt dull if I had come directly down from above, but I had not. I had been walking in darkness for so long that this light felt blinding. How had we not seen so many holes drilled from above? We must have walked over these places again and again.

Down one wall, water trickled against the flat white marble, growing mold and moss on the wall there in virulent greens and chartreuses. This must be where that stream above had disappeared. And perhaps it explained why the gears squealed when the room twisted. Had the stream of melting Rim water rusted them? Or did it, perhaps, power them somehow? I was not familiar with water workings, though I was sure the Engineers were. I would not ask them for clarification. I no longer trusted them with anything.

The room was less stark than the others had been. It took me a moment to realize why. There were white statues lining the walls, of course, but these statues were partially crumbled and foliage threaded through them. Vines and shrubs and small trees grew here, stilted and stunted, yes, but alive.

Just the scent of them made my heart feel wistful, longing for the plants above I may never see again. I ran fingers over the leaves closest to me as we slowly made our way into the room, turning to look at everything.

All around the edge of the vault were stone benches set to watch the center, and between the benches were lecterns and small writing desks, piled with books and scattered with parchment and ink. Two hundred scholars could easily fit in this room, moving from desk to bench to lectern, and still the room would feel too large. The wall behind us, besides one pillar leading from floor to ceiling — which undoubtedly contained the glass slider puzzle and faced the mesh window — was open to the moveable wall. It was a bit of a relief to see that was so, what with the clock slowly ticking and turning the central room. We would have a chance to escape this room for as long as the door ticked along that open stone wall. Far more time than the mere hour that it would have taken to tick past a single door space.

That established, I turned back to the main room and to the white sand floor in the center. It was clearly placed there intentionally and it was surrounded by a rim of marble carved to look like a swirling line of snakes tangled in on one another.

And above the sand, on pulleys and ropes, were three of the strangest contraptions I thought I’d ever seen. Already, Sir Sorken was lowering one from a short platform where it was anchored.

“And now, we test!” his voice boomed out.

He could test all he wanted. I felt none of his enthusiasm.

Sir Coriand hurried over. He passed a book, a pot of ink, and a quill to Sir Sorken, who fitted them on a small wooden board just large enough for all three. The two of them fussed over it, arranging the red leather-bound book just so and then smoothing their brown tabards and hoary locks as if they were about to present themselves to a bishop.

“You chose the Exclusia Prima, I think?” Sir Coriand said formally, scrawling a note in a second book. I didn’t bother questioning how there was still ink in these pots. It was no stranger than that the pages of the books had not disintegrated to dust.

“I did. A fine sample of a great work.”

“Blessings on your work,” Sir Coriand said, raising two fingers formally.

Having settled his book in place, Sir Sorken eased himself into the leather harnesses — belly down, to my surprise, legs spread out and arms in front to where they could easily reach both the straps of the pulley system and the writing board. With a tightening of his aged muscles, he gave a quick tug, and the contraption released from the platform, swung into the center of the room over the sand, and began to ascend as he tugged the ropes.

The light from above caught him and that was when I finally saw the point of this strange rig that left him helpless and vulnerable, spread-eagle under the ominous ceiling, for beneath him, his shadow built and swirled, seeming blacker and fuller than it had been before he pinned it beneath him to the sand.

We all watched as he ascended to the height he wanted, and then opened his book and began to write. I thought my mouth might drop open when the shadow beneath him altered, billowing here and slimming there, and began to take shape to look almost just like Cleft — his golem creation — but formed entirely of shadow.

“Written,” Sir Owalan gasped with wide eyes. “They do say the world was created by a single word, don’t they?”

Without uttering a syllable — and no wonder, with his voice gone forever — the High Saint snatched up a book and ink pot of his own and hustled to the second of the three rigs. He must have been watching with care, for he was rigged and flying out over the sand in moments, ascending quickly into the air.

I took a moment to mentally measure the space between the rigs. They could not reach each other at the height of their ascension, but I thought they could if they were lowered all the way. Certainly, their shadows could — and would — intersect down below. I had just enough time to wonder what might happen if they did, when Sir Sorken’s shadow reached out a clunky arm and swiped at the unformed shadow of the High Saint, scattering it and dispersing it for a moment before it began to coalesce again.

Ah.

So they would be building and battling all at the same time.

How better to test the theories they pour into them?

Brindle nuzzled my hand and I sank it into his friendly fur, drawing in strength for a moment before he wiggled away, left my side at a brisk pace, and trotted around the edge of the room, sniffing everything in turn.

“And now you owe us the truth, Sir Coriand,” I said, not rushing to the books as Sir Owalan had, or poking at the sand with my sword as Hefertus was.

I was focused on one thing: discovering who among us had murdered the others. After all, that was the person to stop, wasn’t it? The rest could be reasoned with. The rest could be convinced not to make demons. But the murderer had to have known from the beginning what all of this was and had to have planned to use it for his own ends.

“And what truth is that, Beggar?” Sir Coriand asked, rolling his shoulders backward as if bracing for a fight. It was a strange thing to see in a man well past his prime, his hair long and hoary white. But his golem flanked him — Suture, a construct of rag and bone, and somehow the horrible machine looked protective, more bodyguard than beast.

“Did you push the Majester?”

“Of course.”

Sir Owalan’s head snapped up at that, but the High Saint didn’t even look over at him. I heard a low growl from the direction of Hefertus. Adalbrand eased himself against the base of one of the platforms, watching with a keen eye.

“Did you use his death as the sacrifice for the trial?”

“He no longer served me.”

“Did you —”

Sir Sorken interrupted me. “If you’re going to interrogate my friend, Beggar, I think it’s only fair that your friend comes up here with us in the sky. After all, we can’t have you fighting two against one.”

I glanced over at Adalbrand and shrugged. We didn’t both need to be down here. Would he go up in a rig if it meant discovering the truth?

He hesitated, frowned, but after a moment he shrugged, too.

“Very well. But I’ll examine a book before I ascend. I won’t write gibberish for no reason. And I do not scribe in Ancient Indul.”

“Doesn’t seem to make a difference what language you write in. I’ve written in three languages so far and they all work,” Sir Sorken said, as if the murder I was trying to discuss was hardly even interesting compared to the task set before him.

The golems shuffled gently around the ring, picking up fallen books and placing them neatly back in stacks. Two against one, indeed. It would be three against one if I tried anything. I would battle them all if I must. I would root out both demons and murderers. I had no doubt that the two were linked.

Ha! As if it is ever so easy. Ask your questions. Find your killer out. At least you’ll get one last taste of victory before I rip out your tongue.

It was strange how threats dulled when they were breathed at a constant stream. What would have given me chills only days ago felt insignificant now.

And so the city is taken. With a whisper here, a nudge there, and when no one is looking anymore, when all are drowsing, then we push and we bring down the walls, flood over them with axes and brands ready, and we pillage the city, put it to the flame, and slay every resident. So it will be with your very heart, sweetmeat.

Not if I can help it. And help it, I will, Sir Branson warned.

I did not have the space in my mind to spare for their argument. My mind was focused on Sir Coriand.

“The Inquisitor,” I demanded as Adalbrand wandered over to one of the desks and started flipping through the pages. I could tell that he was listening as he worked, his attention divided between me and the books. “Did you tell the Majester to kill him? Was yours the voice he thought he heard?”

“Did he claim to hear a voice?” Sir Coriand asked. “Here, let me help you, Sir Adalbrand. Any of these blank books will do, but you’ll need a friendly hand to hold the ropes of the harness for you.”

Adalbrand quirked an eyebrow at him. “Forgive me, Sir Engineer, but I fear your hand is not friendly. Did you not just confess to pushing the Majester from your platform? You are a murderer.”

Sir Coriand took a step back, wariness in his eyes.

“I did confess that,” he said carefully, and my eyes narrowed. He was not flustered or concerned that we had found him out. He was laying out his actions as if they were completely understandable. “And we are all murderers. We confessed it to Sir Kodelai before we entered this place. I suspect we would not have been allowed the trials had we not confessed to at least that. And now think, Poisoned Saint. Have you never killed a man in mercy? You take on ills so great that it almost seems you thwart the will of the God. Did you not save the Majester’s life, plucking him from the very gates of death and setting him back into this world?”

“I did,” Sir Adalbrand agreed, looking up only briefly before he returned to studying a book.

He drew a parchment from a pocket, smoothed it out, and folded it into the blank book before flipping through a stack of others. What he was looking for was not obvious to me, but he seemed to have a purpose to his brisk movements and rapid study. Hadn’t Sir Branson said that the Poisoned Saints were very well studied? Maybe he was used to combing through a great deal of text very quickly — even in another language.

He opened one of the books wide enough that I could see it from where I stood on the edge of the ring, sword at the ready. The book was filled on every page with diagrams that looked more like engineering theory than like written treatise.

I smell something strange …

Later. We would deal with strange smells later. Sir Coriand was still confessing.

“And yet you could not restore his mind,” Sir Coriand said gently. “Am I wrong in thinking that ills of the mind are not something that Poisoned Saints can take into themselves? Am I wrong in thinking that you did all that you could by the grace of the God?”

Adalbrand glanced up at him with a scowl.

“I think I am not wrong,” Sir Coriand said gently. “Let Suture help you with that. The book is heavy.”

Adalbrand shrugged off the golem, stalking over to the third contraption with an annoyed set to his shoulders. He arranged his book and ink on the abbreviated table and climbed up the platform.

He was being goaded into that harness. But why?

I glanced upward to where the High Saint and Engineer floated in the air like flies trapped in a web. They had paused in their workings, watching the drama between the Poisoned Saint and Sir Coriand.

It was as if all of them were waiting for Adalbrand, unwilling to keep testing their shadows until he took his place.

Adalbrand paused. “And if you are right, what does it matter, Sir Coriand?”

Sir Coriand’s smile might have meant to be a gentle compassion, but I saw it as mockery when he said, “I know how you Poisoned Saints work. What do you call it? Milk of the Reaper? That drink you slip to those whose pain you cannot drink?”

Adalbrand paled.

“That gift you give those whose minds are beyond saving. I’ve seen it myself, tasted a drop. Not enough to send me to the gates of death, obviously, but you know how curious we are in the Aspect of the Creator God. It smelled strongly of mint and cloves. Do you add them to disguise the bite of death, or are they essential to the making of the toxin?”

The look on Adalbrand’s face was pure hatred. He slung himself into the harness violently, as if he could get the job over with and rid himself of Sir Coriand’s subtle accusations.

“I think you should make your point, Engineer,” I said calmly. I was not sure why he was goading Adalbrand and it worried me. I was concerned that the Engineer was more intelligent than I was and likely to spin me to his plans if I was not careful.

Sir Coriand spread his hands wide in a gesture of peace and took a measured step back, almost bumping into Suture, who loomed over him.

“My only point,” he said slowly as Adalbrand arranged the straps and placed his hands on the pulley ropes. “My only point is that the Poisoned Saint — of any of us — must understand what dealing mercy to a man is like. I dealt the Majester mercy. He was a broken man. He could not live like that.”

Adalbrand’s lip twisted and he hauled up on the rope so hard I worried he’d break it. Clearly, he was angry, and clearly, he was trying not to let his anger out.

And clearly, he’d forgotten one thing.

“Which brings us back to the point,” I said, letting my voice be as dry as the sand under our feet. “Were you the voice he thought was the God? The one that spoke from above and bid him kill the Inquisitor? The one that drove him mad — if he was mad, indeed?”

Sir Coriand’s eyes were fixed on Adalbrand, and only when his harness reached full height did the Engineer finally turn from him and look at me, and his face transformed from innocence to a look so full of knowing that it twisted my stomach.

“Yes,” he said, mildly.

And as he said it, there was a sound like slithering. Adalbrand made a startled sound, and when I looked up, I realized why the Engineer had been stalling. The straps had tightened suddenly around all three of the people suspended above us. They were locked in place. Trapped.

Whatever came next, I would have no help from the Poisoned Saint. His eyes met mine across the distance and I saw him realizing with me what had just happened. We’d been maneuvered.

He grimaced, but he was a practical man. After a tightening of his jaw, he turned to his book, and started to write, a determined line forming on his forehead.

Carefully, I backed up and to the side, placing my back to Hefertus. I was relatively certain he would not stab me in the back.

“And so you orchestrated the murder of the Inquisitor and the Majester,” I said calmly. “Did you know what this place was when you arrived here?”

“You ask me that?” Sir Coriand’s voice was mocking. “You, who deliberately mistranslated what was written more than once.”

“Not deliberately,” I said through gritted teeth, glancing at Brindle.

The game is up then, snackling. Of course I deceived you. Of course I lied. How else would I dance you into a trap? How else would I soften you for the blow? But the sin lies with you, because you chose to believe me, knowing I was a demon. You stand accused by your own tongue, for was it not you who said that knowing and doing nothing makes one culpable? You are as bathed in wickedness as I ever was.

His voice faded into menacing laughter.

“Not deliberately?” And now, for the first time, Sir Coriand seemed uncertain. “You didn’t do this deliberately? You didn’t know ahead of time what this place was? You were not trying to keep it for yourself?”

“What is it?” The words burst from Sir Owalan like he was running out of patience. He’d been watching us, head turning back and forth and back and forth like a bird watching the action. “What is this place? Why is she … why is she blaming you for the things that have occurred here? Surely you don’t mean the confessions you’ve given just now. They were to trap her, weren’t they? To keep her from using the demon against us?”

We both turned and looked at him.

“And where is the cup?” Sir Owalan asked, a little uncertainly. “Isn’t it here?”

In the silence, all I heard was the ticking of the clock and the scratching of pens.

“It was never here,” I said sadly at the same time that Sir Coriand said, “It was always here.”

“I don’t understand.” The Penitent looked stricken, eyes darting back and forth between us. “Where is it?”

“At the base of the clock,” Sir Coriand said with a sigh. “Waiting to become the Cup of Tears with what we do here, with what we pour into it and then drink down into ourselves.”

“Just like all the cups, I assume,” Adalbrand said from above, his pen still scratching even as he spoke. “The Cup of Tears, Artar’s Grail, the Holy Chalice — all the fabled cups are this cup, aren’t they?”

I nodded along, certain he was right. They were all holy cups. And none of them were.

“See?” Sir Coriand said, lifting an eyebrow at Sir Owalan. “It has been here all along, waiting to exist. And one of us will complete it.”

His golems seemed to loom higher behind him, as if they had grown, the pair of them, as we spoke.

“Do you want to be a Saint, Sir Owalan, Penitent Paladin? Do you want to bring the Cup of Tears back to your aspect that you all might flagellate yourselves before it and honor your God?”

“I did … I do,” Sir Owalan said, but his voice was uncertain.

Coriand nodded, a small smile on his lips, like that of a cherub. “Then you will finish this task with us. And you will drink from your cup. And you will bring it back to your aspect exactly as they asked. And you will be a god — not the God, obviously. But a god — or, as we say in the church, a Saint.”

I thought for sure he’d reject that. Spit in Coriand’s face. Rip the dagger from his sleeve.

He did none of those things.

“Yes,” Sir Owalan breathed, and then he lifted his chin and for some reason met my eye as if he expected defiance. And when he spoke it was with power and passion behind it. “Yes.”

“No.”

The word was spoken so quietly that it almost couldn’t be heard over the ticking of the clock, but the scritching stopped as we all turned to look at Hefertus. I felt a weight ease off my chest. I was not alone. Even with Adalbrand stuck suspended from the ceiling. Hefertus would stand against this, too.

He ran a hand over his hair grabbed the tie, swept it loose, and shook his long, cascading golden mane out in a wave. It glinted with his pearls and his thick beard and he stood just a little taller, a little straighter, spine tall and firm, and with his shoulders back, he said it again.

“No.”

I lifted my own chin, challenging them to come against us, we two who would defend righteousness and goodness together. And how could I possibly lose with Hefertus by my side? The man was a giant. A monster among men.

“I will have no part in this,” he said grimly.

I put my hand on the hilt of my sword, ready to draw.

And then he startled me.

He stepped forward, but he did not draw his sword, and he did not take up a defensive stance.

Instead, he raised two fingers in a blessing, and intoned softly, “Bless me, O God, and I will depart from all evil.”

A glow like the dawning of the sun erupted from his chest. He smiled a Saintly, pure smile, and then I blinked, and he was gone.

My gasp sounded loud in my ears, almost as loud as the nearly hysterical laughter of the demon.

Your ally! The one person you could count on here on the ground and he — what? He disappears so he doesn’t have to get his hands dirty? That’s amazing. I’ll drink whatever he’s drinking.

I could feel the blood draining from my face, sinking so quickly that my head felt light and nausea washed over me.

I glanced at Sir Owalan and saw the murder in his eyes, and then to Sir Coriand to see the black humor in his.

“Well, that’s one problem solved,” he said easily.

There was a strangled sound from the harness where the High Saint was, but I didn’t bother looking up. He was as trapped in that rig as Adalbrand was. If he was horrified, then he’d have to wait to act, just like the Poisoned Saint. For now, there was only me and my enemies.

“What will you do, Penitent?” Sir Coriand asked grimly. “Now that you know you are building a Cup of Tears? Now that you know that the ultimate serving of the God will require ultimate sacrifice?”

“That’s not how it is at all,” I protested, but Sir Coriand moved to the side, starting to stalk around me, and I had to keep turning to stay facing him.

From behind me, I heard Sir Owalan’s answer. His voice was torn and ragged, but laced through with sincerity.

“My duty is to serve the God. No sacrifice is too great. No pain too overwhelming. If all is demanded of me, then all will be given, even the lives of those around me.”

Sir Coriand nodded to Sir Owalan, somewhere behind my shoulder. It was the nod of one soldier to another. Acknowledgment. Kinship. Blessing.

Saints and Angels.

“Watch out!” Adalbrand shouted.

Brindle barked sharply behind me and I twisted, just in time to see a blade plunge by where my head had been a moment ago. And then a brindled body blurred past and bore Sir Owalan down to the sand, a growl rumbling up from a doggy throat.