Of Deeds Most Valiant: A Poisoned Saints Novel

I lay on my back for a long moment, heaving in gasps of breath, watching the lights above me twinkle from white to purple to white while the smell of old leather and vellum filled my nose and with it the sweet, sweet knowledge that I was alive.

Yes! Sir Branson cheered in my mind, and for once I didn’t mind the dreadful laugh of the demon because I was there to hear it.

With shaking limbs, I turned on my side and saw Sir Adalbrand slumped where they’d laid him. My heart twinged with guilt. It was healing my dog that stole his strength and finding my secret that ruined him.

Well. Good things never did last. And at least I could keep him from becoming a casualty of carelessness or of malice, the way the Inquisitor had been. At least I could guard him while he came back to his senses.

Gently, I eased him into a more comfortable position, untangling his limbs and settling his armor into places where it wouldn’t dig into his flesh — or wouldn’t dig as badly. Should I remove it? He likely wouldn’t thank me for that.

I pulled myself to my feet and tried to assess our situation. Books were scattered on the floor. I rifled through them but they were written in languages I didn’t know. I had knowledge of Deus Grandi, Aurelian, and a few words of Uxanthal. I could read Formal and Ancient Deus Grandi. These books were written in none of those, and some had such an inordinately different script — a flowing kind that looked more like a series of mountain ranges than actual words, and another that looked like pictures of squat little men who wanted to tunnel through my spleen and make a temple there — that I was sure they were all in different languages from each other.

Were I to take any from the shelves, I think it would be safe to say it would be nearly impossible to find a book I could even read, much less one that would be of value to me.

They’re all of value, you foolish child, you delectable innocent. They’re grimoires. I told you. They’re primers in the arcane — or more detailed tomes. They’re manuals for the creation, care, nurturing, and calling of dark souls. Would you like to peer into the depths? Here is your chance. Care to build a jhinn of smoke and despair? Your wish is that creature’s command.

Unless there were some on banishing, I wasn’t interested.

The demon sounded disgusted. Just flip through a few. There might be pictures for fools who have only your limited education and brain power.

How flattering. I started flipping through the one with the flowing script and as soon as I saw the first picture, I flung it over the side of the moving platform. Hefertus yelled out a muffled curse.

“There are people down here!” he roared up to me.

So there were. And there were madmen who had taken time to painstakingly detail that. If I ever met the author, judgment would be swift and brutal. His feet would not take a step before I claimed his head.

The demon muttered a string of curses. Listen, you poxy milk-faced droll, if you throw them all away, you won’t be able to use one, and you need one for this rite.

I froze. So he knew what this was.

There was silence in my mind.

Had he known all along? Had he been lying? Blood roared hot and powerful in my ears until I could hear nothing else.

I will find out, my girl. Have a little patience.

And then the voices in my mind were suddenly opaque to me. I could only feel the edges of murmurs that sounded like distant arguing.

I took that moment to look out from my platform. It was slowing a little, though it still moved in a strange up and down spiral. Around me, the others moved on their platforms, too. I caught a glance of Sir Coriand snatching a book from a shelf as he swept by, his hair flowing behind him in strands of gnarled snow. With another glance, I caught Sir Owalan sitting on his altar, feverishly flipping through another book. He was hunched over it like a carrion bird guarding his prize.

“What do you think it means that we must offer up what doesn’t serve us?” the High Saint called into the room. “I serve the God. I am served by nothing.”

I could almost hear Sir Sorken’s sigh when he boomed back. “It means something no longer useful to you, High Saint.”

“Like an ear?” the High Saint called back, clearly confused.

“I’d say that would be a safe bet for you, High Saint, as you are indeed a poor listener.”

I almost snorted at that.

“Did he mean that?” the High Saint whispered to Sir Owalan, but as with everything else, even his whispering was obvious and overly obnoxious.

“You tell me,” the Penitent said, annoyed. “Do you think it will help things to hack your own ear off?”

“It might.”

“Then please, be my invited guest. I’ll lend you my belt knife if your own is not sharp enough for the task.”

“The one in your arm?”

“God have mercy, Saint, you try my patience.”

They cycled farther away from me, and then I heard Hefertus sigh and his platform stilled, glowed a soft barely there purple, and began to drift back toward the platform.

“Oh, excellent work, Prin —” Sir Coriand began to say, but his words were cut off by a groan, as a platform — the empty one that I was meant to be in — suddenly ground to a halt, stilled, and then lurched from its track, plummeting downward. It glanced against Sir Sorken’s platform, leaving an eruption of curses behind it, and kept falling like the stone it was. It seemed a very long time before we heard it hit the floor. If there even was a floor down there.

My heart was caught in my chest and I was frozen in place as I watched it fall.

This time, it was the Majester who cursed. And he went on cursing. And on and on, and then his cursing ended abruptly in a sigh.

“What was … should we assume that for every one of us who succeeds, another will fall?” the High Saint asked, his querulous voice rising sharply at the end.

“Or it simply fell because it was empty,” Hefertus called down.

While we were watching the original platform fall, his had returned back to the ledge where it had started. He’d already exited the platform — smart man — and was standing there beside Suture. The golem’s eyes glowed dully, as if he were a bored child forced to watch a proceeding of his elders. Hefertus leaned easily against him like he was leaning against a tree. Little bits of rag stirred against his shoulder and I shuddered.

“Hurry up, you lot. All you need is to pick a book, make a sacrifice, and light your candle. There’s a tinder box in the little drawer at the bottom of the altar.” He yawned as he said it, as if he, too, were terribly bored.

I checked my — our — altar. There was, indeed, a small drawer hidden by carved vines and flowers. When I slid it open, there was a tinderbox within, just as he said.

“You light the candle last,” Sir Coriand scolded the High Saint, looking down over his rail to the other man’s platform, “and you should choose your tome carefully. These things have consequences.”

I caught a glimpse of him as his platform crossed on the other side. He was running a finger along the spines of the books as they passed, clearly noting the titles for those that were marked. I didn’t think I could read that fast even if it was all in my own language. Sometimes I forgot how formidable the Engineers were.

I put my head in my hands for a moment to think. What was I to do now?

I felt oddly light with most of my armor gone.

Gone forever, it would seem. The cost to replace that alone … it would be years before I could beg or borrow enough for a whole set. I might be able to appeal to the aspect. Some paladins kept extra odds and ends. A pauldron only in need of a small repair here. Most of a breastplate if someone could get those dents out and didn’t mind that jagged edge over there. They might be willing to part with them. After all, the whole point of our Aspect was that we met the world with open hands. Those who wanted what we had could take it. Those who could, would give to us what they could spare. And the God watched over all of it, his guidance supreme.

I sighed. There would be no more armor anytime soon.

Right now, I needed wisdom more than armor anyway. I had only inklings about this place. I had no understanding of it at all. Should I try to play this game with the others or should I keep refusing? What would be the consequences of refusal? Of complicity?

I bowed my head and put my hands, open, on my knees. Perhaps the God would bring me insight.

I heard a doggy squeal and my head whipped up.

“Brindle?” I called, and there was a snarl and the snap of jaws.

I was on my feet, sword in hand, in the next breath, but I couldn’t even see Sir Sorken’s platform from where I was. I’d lost track of whether it was above or below me, and the vault echoed so much that I couldn’t find it by sound alone. I frantically searched in every direction.

My mind was bombarded with curses. A few were familiar, but most were far more foul and horrific than anything I’d ever heard.

“Brindle?” I called again, more tense. “Sir Sorken? What’s going on?”

I still couldn’t locate them. There was a snapping sound and a man’s grunt and then I heard Sir Sorken’s booming voice.

“Back! Sit!”

I felt my eyebrows lift.

The dog lives. Though it was a near thing. I think the demon may have lent him inordinate strength. They can do that when they’re very upset.

Sir Branson’s words were drowned out by more curses.

“Sir Sorken?” I called out. “What are you doing to my dog?”

More curses.

And then I saw his face appear over the edge of a platform well above mine. “That animal is accursed!”

He tried to kill us. He tried to sacrifice the dog as the thing that does not serve him.

Above me, his platform trembled.

He chose poorly. Both because I plan to eat him alive and because the altar takes inferior sacrifices very personally.

“Sorken, my dear friend,” Sir Coriand called from somewhere right below me.

“Present!” Sorken yelled out.

“I’d not tempt fate, my lad. Only real sacrifices accepted.”

“It would seem that is true. The altar will not accept a mangy, worthless dog.”

“Sorken!” I barked. “That is my dog you’re trying to kill. I demand you stop at once.”

From the ledge, I heard Hefertus snort in disbelief, like I didn’t have the right to defend the dog when it also held a demon.

“Tried to kill,” Sorken said tightly, as if distracted by something. His head had disappeared but I heard the telltale sound of knife on flint. “I am no longer trying.”

The cursing continued as the platform rocked wildly. I tensed my jaw. I did not want Brindle to die — but even I had to admit that the demon within him could not go on living.

Excuse you, but I certainly can, snackling.

If we’re about to die, I should tell you what I learned from him, Sir Branson said grimly. This place is exactly as you suspected. Tell her how you mistranslated.

There was a long pause and a feeling like a slap inside my own head.

Tell her.

I mistranslated.

Tell her how.

If the demon spoke, it was too quiet for me to hear.

Then I shall tell. You’ll recall he read you a poem on a plaque at the bottom of the steps.

I did recall that, yes. And now, I was sweating and clenching my jaw as the platform the dog was on shivered again.

Our hearts spoke our hopes and our souls bore the cost, the man and the spirit and all that was lost. Bold together we race where no other has trod, for we are more than men, we have become gods.

I tilted my head to the side. That wasn’t how that read. He’d said, “we have become Saints.”

Yes, he did. It was a lie.

A lie that the Engineers had gone along with.

Perhaps they are not as fluent in Ancient Indul as they claim. Perhaps they were shaky on the translation.

Or perhaps they found the fiction useful. But what did it mean? To become gods?

Sir Branson seemed to grow more agitated as he explained. To blaspheme. To rise above the God himself. To play at being his equal.

The dog’s platform lurched forward suddenly and my breath caught in my throat, but it moved backward up along its former trajectory, reaching the cliff edge again in record time. Brindle sprang from the platform to the rock beyond, all signs that he had ever been held captive gone. Despite the weight of two extra souls, he was light on his feet and his tongue lolled from his mouth happily.

That’s what I learned, my girl. This place, as you suspected, was never meant to create Saints at all.

And thinking so is as foolish as when you can’t tell our voices apart, snackling. What kind of paladins are they making these days? Soft, gooey-centered ones. In my day, you were rage and wrath and the blade of the God coming down in power. Now you can’t tell the difference between the dead and the demonic, between an empty monastery and an empty arcanery.

A … a what?

I flinched at the growl that echoed through my mind, low and rumbling.

One moment.

“Sir Sorken,” Hefertus acknowledged from the platform, and my eyes drifted to see him grab Brindle by the scruff and hold him in place.

“Well, I was pushed to hurry a little, but I’m happy enough with my grimoire,” Sir Sorken said easily as he reached that space, clapping Hefertus on the shoulder. “What did you choose, Prince?”

Hefertus held up a large, blue-bound book with a hand missing a finger. Where once his pinky had been, there was now only a bloodless stump.

“Gave your finger, hmm? No longer serving you?”

“No longer serving anyone,” Hefertus grunted.

“And your book, hmm? By Light of the Divine, Moon Into Moon. What is this?”

“I think it’s a book of air elementals of the High Snow Desert,” Hefertus said easily.

Sir Sorken snorted loudly. “Very fitting, Prince. How did you choose it?”

Hefertus shrugged. He hardly seemed to notice Brindle still growling in his grip. “I asked the God to choose for me and this book fell off the shelf into my hand.” He paused. “Why did you call yours a grimoire?”

“Because that is what it is, Sir Hefertus. A grimoire. Dedicated to the calling up of strong demons.”

Hefertus flinched backward, his eyes narrowing. “Are you having fun at my expense?”

“Never. Give the dog to my golem. He’ll mind him while the Beggar pleads her case. If she doesn’t come back, then we’ll decide what to do with it. Wringing its neck might be best, given the circumstances.”

Suture grabbed Brindle in a huge bearhug and began to stride toward the corridor as the dog tried to lick his rag-and-bone face.

“Come, Sir Hefertus. Let’s go see if the door is open or shut. If it’s open, we’ll brew tea. If it’s shut, we’ll come back and tease the others for taking so long.”

I gripped the lip of my platform as tightly as I could. What would happen when I could no longer see Brindle. Would I hear him still?

He still owed me an answer about what an arcanery was.

A place dedicated to the worship of demons, of course, he said in my mind and my blood ran cold. But you knew that. Or suspected it. You knew there was no way this place could be of the God. You know that the evils playing out here weren’t accidents. Didn’t you?

I did.

But why make so grand a place for this? It seemed to be made for a single purpose and could accommodate no more than a dozen. Why the sublime carving and glorious decoration? Why the beauty everywhere?

Is it beauty, my girl? Is it even there? Or is it a trick of the mind, like seeing your faces on the faces of the statues? Mayhap the beauty you imagine is made in your dreaming. Mayhap this place is nothing but a crumbling grave of bones and horrible traps.

His voice was growing fainter as he was carried away.

But why build an arcanery at all? Why build a house of worship where so few worshippers would ever set foot?

Who ever said an arcanery was a house of worship? You silly little snack. You foolish meal. How do you worship the God?

By devoting myself to him and doing as he commands.

That’s a weak, petty worship. Worship is giving yourself entirely over to something. And sometimes it turns into creation. After all, don’t you mortals consider the act of love a kind of worship? And does it not create?

But demons couldn’t create. That was one of the tenets of the faith. They could only twist what was already created.

Unless you are the hands of the devil.

And his voice faded past hearing, leaving me trembling as I realized what he was saying.

We were completing trials and tasks, solving puzzles, making offerings, confessing sins. What were all those things added up together? He was right that there was worship being done. But more than that, it felt as though we were brewing something. Something made from many parts like the stews they made along the southern shores, full to the edges with spices, meats of such varied sources that it was best not inquire, and more types of vegetation than I’d ever dreamed could exist. I had asked one street vendor what her secret ingredient was after she offered us a half a bowl for free.

“There are eighty-six secret ingredients and the last one is love,” she’d cackled toothlessly.

What were we brewing here with our many ingredients and the fear and greed we’d brought with us to this place?

I looked down at my hands. They looked clean enough. And yet my mind insisted they were stained. Stained by deeds done unknowingly.

Did it make a difference if I kept doing them now that I knew? Did that somehow make me more guilty?

The world felt as though it was moving in slow motion. That what had come before might not be as it had seemed but rather conjured by my own mind as part of a trap to hook me and drag me into the most evil of deeds terrified me. Could I trust my own senses at all?

Could I trust that I was suspended on a stone platform over a great vault?

Could I trust that I was seeing the Majester fall by, eyes wide, fingers grasping at nothing?

Wait.

I gasped and lunged forward.

I was a second too late to grab at him. A second too stunned.

I caught his eye as he streaked past silently, felt the jagged terror in the black gleam of his pupil, and then he was gone, plummeting past into the darkness below, narrowly missing the central pillar in his descent.

Like with the platform, it was a very long time before I heard him hit the ground. I almost missed the sound behind the hammering of my heart.

My breath was caught in my throat, one of my hands pressed to my chest, the other to my mouth.

God have mercy.

I looked up and saw Sir Coriand looking down, horror painting his expression.

“He leapt,” the Engineer said, his voice soft, bereft. “I didn’t realize he would leap until it was too late.”

My common sense was telling me that was usually the way with suicide. I’d buried so many villagers who’d died the same way that I’d lost count. Usually, it was done with their ragged friends and family clustered around me, wet-eyed and snuffling in the cold and wind while Sir Branson said a prayer and tried to tell them that it wasn’t a demon, just despair. As if that were any better. Some people were just never made for this world, he’d say sadly. And then he’d brew tea like Sir Coriand and Sir Sorken did. And he’d offer it around and pray with those who could use a moment’s comfort. Offer whatever coins were had to the bereaved and move on.

My common sense was also reminding me that Majester Generals were made to lead armies. Their power from the God had influences over groups, like when he made us acutely aware of our enemies while we were fighting for our lives in the last trial. Did it also go the other direction? Could our suspicions of him and our judgment have cracked his mind? He hadn’t been wearing his tabard today. Had he lost the will to go on? Could this place with its fiendish intentions have slid deep under his thoughts and pulled on levers buried deep?

All that sounded logical. Possible.

But as I murmured the prayer for the dead, and heard it echoed around the chamber to me, I thought that perhaps there was more to this story.

Because Sir Coriand’s platform was drifting back to the ledge, his candle bright, his tome chosen. And whatever gift he’d made at the altar wasn’t one I could see.

Was it possible that it was the Majester who was no longer serving Sir Coriand? And if it was, who else would he decide no longer had a right to live?

I shuddered, backed up a step, and then another, and then I sat down hard on the floor across from Adalbrand and I put my naked sword across my knees. Every muscle of my body was tensed. And it all felt dreadful and cold as the decay that comes after death.

“Almost done, brothers?” I heard Sir Coriand call out gently.

“The High Saint can’t reply,” Sir Owalan called back a little unsteadily. “Otherwise I think he might have screamed when the Majester went flying by, poor broken man. I confess to shaky hands myself. I’m not certain I can light my candle with them, but yes, the High Saint has his book chosen.” He laughed shakily. “It’s massive and it’s bound with metal latches. Serious business. I think he gave his voice. I suppose it no longer served him.” He bit down on a hysterical laugh. “Oh, Saints. Oh, Saints.” I heard a knife striking flint. “There she is! She’s lit. Oh Saints, I don’t feel well.”

“Did you give your health, my boy?”

“Had to … had … had to give someth —”

His words cut off but I heard Sir Coriand call down urgently. “Hold on to him, Sir Joran. You’ll be here in a moment and I’ll be right here to help.”

There was some silence and then the sound of the platform reaching the ledge again and a few grunts. My platform had moved to where the central pillar hid them from me.

“You’d best be working out your offering, Beggar,” Sir Coriand called out. His voice was falsely cheerful. “We’ll be back for you.”

Sir Owalan must have said something, because I heard Sir Coriand’s distant voice give a reply. “Oh, she’s sulky as a spoiled child for all she’s a Beggar. Too young, if you ask me, but I don’t suppose anyone did.”

I looked at the books scattered in heaps on the platform. And I looked at the books on the wall where our platform had come to rest. And I looked at the altar and made up my mind.

I would not participate. And no, I was not a sulky child unwilling to join in because no one else wanted to play her game. I was taking a principled stand.

Whatever this worship was making, I refused to agree to make it, too. And if that meant I died here on this platform and it fell down into the pit below and my bones were left for all eternity beside the Majester’s, well, then that was what was going to happen, wasn’t it?

I just hoped Sir Branson found a way out of the dog. Or maybe that Brindle tore out Sir Coriand’s throat just for fun. Or something.

It was hardly my concern anymore since I was going to die right here.

I blinked back hot tears and looked far into this distance as the cold stole my strength in tiny flickers and shreds, and this damned arcanery stole my spirit the same way.