* * *
As the torment continued, a part of her mind was aware of the differences between this and the earlier captivities she’d endured. That night in the Duke’s cells, when she’d been so sunk in her own misery that she had not even imagined worse than Stammel’s anger. The pain had been real, the fear overwhelming . . . but as the pain and fear of a child stung by a wasp is real. Lost in the moment, the child cannot imagine that the pain will end, or that any pain could be worse. The adult knows better; she pitied the child she had been, so miserable in the dark, alone and afraid, convinced that her chance to be a hero was lost forever. And how Korryn’s punishment had shocked her with its cruelty! She had trembled for days at the thought that she might have been whipped and branded instead. Being stripped publicly had been bad enough.
And from that she had gone to a soldier’s endurance, learning to stave off pain and fear with anger and defiance, linking hope to vengeance. That righteous anger served well against Siniava, or seemed to, when she avenged her friends’ deaths. Yet in Kolobia, that same anger betrayed her to deep evil. She remembered too well that mood, black rage edged with madness, so much less innocent than the panic of the beaten recruit. Under it had been the same fears the child had, disguised but not controlled, a willingness to deal the pain she suffered.
Again, as so often before, her mind filled with the vision of her childhood dream, the bright figure in shining mail, mounted on a prancing horse and waving a sword. It flickered in and out of her sight, shifting in tides of pain and weakness, as it had flickered in her mind’s eye these several years. Now she could see its shadow, the dark nest of fears which had brought it to life. Helplessness, humiliation, pain, a lonely death, and nothing after—she had feared these, and made of that fear a dream of power, of freedom, of untouchable strength and courage. She would never suffer that, because she would be the hero, the one with the sword, the one who was above such suffering.
And here she was, bound helpless before enemies who enjoyed her pain, an example, as they said, of Liart’s power. An example to teach more fear, more hatred, proof that the dream of glory had been false: no power, no bright sword or prancing horse, no protection, even for herself.
But the image of her dream steadied, and did not fade. No one whole wanted to be hurt, wanted to be the victim of such cruelty as held her now. Her fears were as common as a taste for salt or honey, as healthy as the desire for comfort, for love. So much she had learned from the Kuakgan. Now, at last, she accepted her right to share those fears: she did not have to deny them, only master herself.
And this, she saw, her dream had done. She had built against that fear a vision of power not wholly selfish—power to protect not only herself, but others. And that vision—however partial it had been in those days—was worth following. For it led not away from the fear, as a dream of rule might do, but back into it. The pattern of her life—as she saw it then, clear and far away and painted in bright colors—the pattern of her life was like an intricate song, or the way the Kuakgan talked of the grove’s interlacing trees. There below were the dream’s roots, tangled in fear and despair, nourished in the death of friends, the bones of the strong, the blood of the living, and there high above were the dream’s images, bright in the sun like banners or the flowering trees of spring. And to be that banner, or that flowering branch, meant being nourished by the same fears: meant encompassing them, not rejecting them.
She did not know herself when these thoughts linked at last, forming the final pattern, bringing up into her mind the self she had become. It was then as if several selves were present, mysteriously separate and conjoined. Trapped inside her body was the same child she had been, feeling each new torment as a wave of intolerable pain, each ragged scream as a fresh humiliation. The seasoned soldier watched with pity as her body gave way to exhaustion and pain as any body would, feeling no shame at the sight or sound or smell of it, for this was something that could happen to anyone, and she had never inflicted it on others. And someone else, someone newer, refused the soldier’s tactics of defiance, anger, vengeance, and looked into her own fear to find the link to those around her, to find the way to reach those frightened tormentors, the ones not already lost to evil.
In the rare respites, when the priests stopped to harangue the crowd and revive her for more torture, she felt curiously untroubled. Not free of pain, nor free of fear, but free of the need to react to that fear in all the old ways. She had no anger left, no hatred, no desire for vengeance, nothing but pity for those who must find such vile amusements, who had no better hope, or no courage to withdraw. It would all happen to her—all the things she’d feared, every violation of body, everything she’d taken up the sword to prevent—and she consented. Not because it was right: it was never right. Not because she deserved it: no one deserved such violation. But because she could consent, being what she was, and by consenting destroy its power over her and others, proving in her own body that fear’s power came from fear, that greater power could from the same dark roots find another way to the light.
This quietness, this consent, formed a still pool in the center of that violent place. At first, only the priests noticed, and flung themselves into a frenzy of violence against it. But it was not brittle steel to break, or crystal to shatter, but a strength fluid and yet immovable, unmarred by the broken rhythm of her breath, or even by her screams. The quietness spread, from gray eyes that held no hatred for those who spat at her face or tasted her blood, from a voice that could scream in pain yet mouth no curses after, that spoke, between screams, in a steady confirmation of all good.
Those watching could not deny the wounds: they had seen them being dealt: they had helped deal them. They could not deny the sight of blood, the smell of it, the sticky feel of it, the salt taste on too many tongues. They could not deny the stink of burnt flesh, the sight of scabbed and crusted wounds, the dead servant girl, the boy’s back striped and bleeding. This was not the quietness of inviolable protection, for she suffered all that was done to her. They had seen a virgin raped, a soldier’s scars mocked and redrawn in fresh blood. They had heard a paladin scream, as the priests promised.
And yet she did not hate, and yet she did not fear, and yet she said, when she had breath to speak, that the High Lord’s justice would rule in the end. The priests shouted threats, promised more torments, blustered and postured: the silence spread, as a pool rises silently above a new-broken spring when the dry season ends.
One by one the crowd fell still, or joined the mockery with less eagerness. She was so small, after all, broken like that . . . they could think of sisters, cousins, friends they had known, who might be where she was, if she were not there. They had thought it would be satisfying to see a paladin, one of the proud and powerful, brought low. But they knew her story, from the year that cruel rumor spread the tale of her cowardice. She was only a peasant girl, born into poverty. What did it prove to shame a sheepfarmer’s daughter who had known shame already? Some among them had been soldiers, and recognized the scars of a common soldier who has seen hard service. They felt no braver for breaking a soldier’s scarred hands. And those who had first laughed to see a virgin raped—and even those who had joined in eagerly—now looked from the dead servant girl to the other, and found something pitiful in both, something shameful in themselves, that they could take pleasure in such pain. She was no threat to them—why had they ever thought she was a threat? Paladins never threatened the helpless. The threat was elsewhere, in those who wore Liart’s horned circle, who flourished the barbed whips and the heated chains.
By such small degrees the crowd’s mood changed, shifting back in sudden fear when the priests turned their weapons on individuals chosen not quite at random, but slowly, inexorably, turning away from the praise of cruelty to some vague sympathy with suffering. Glass by glass, as the torches burned down and were replaced again and again, as the day passed into night and another day, and another night and day, one and another of those watching ca
me slowly and without intent to a new vision of the world.
* * *
Of all this, Paks was hardly aware. At best, she knew what she must do, and why, but those moments seemed few. Pain followed pain in sickening procession; at times even her new insight failed, leaving her adrift in self-disgust or despair. For the most part she concentrated on refusing anger and hatred, accepting the pain as a necessary part of something chosen long before. When they broke her hands, each bone a separate torment, she struggled against her old fear of crippling. She had clung to the hope that if she lived, she would still be whole, able to fight. But she knew better, knew from having lived through it that she was more than a hand to hold a sword. She could live, being Gird’s paladin, with no more than breath, or die whole, of old age, and be nothing at all. The difference lay in her, was her, was what she had become: no one but she could change it. The rapes, that she had feared before as both violation and torment wholly unknown, were then nothing but physical pain, no worse than others. She lost nothing, for she had had nothing, had never invested herself in that, or hoped for that kind of pleasure. It seemed to her that Alyanya came in a dream, and comforted her, but dream, vision, and reality were by then too nearly mixed for clear memory.
Then they held her up once more for the crowd to see. The chamber was crowded with worshippers who had come to see the end of the spectacle. At the priests’ command the guards threw her to the floor.
“Will you admit that our Master commands your obedience?” asked one of the priests, nudging her face with the toe of his boot.
“I am Gird’s,” said Paks, forcing the words out. Her voice was clearer than she would have thought possible.
“You are meat. You are the sacrifice our Master demanded.” The priest’s voice was cold. “If you will not acknowledge our Master, the stones are heating for you.” Paks said nothing. “Do you want to be a helpless cripple?” he demanded.
“No,” she said. “But I do want to be Gird’s paladin.” Again she felt the lightest touch on her head, and a soothing haze came between her and her pain.
The priest snorted. “Gird’s paladin! A bloody rag too stupid to know the truth! Then you will suffer it all, paladin of Gird, just as you wish.”
Pain exploded in her legs as the burning stones were dropped in the hollow of both knees, and her legs bound tightly around them. She clenched her fists, forgetting the broken bones until too late. The pain was sickening, impossible; she retched, trying not to scream.
“And now, paladin? Where is your lord’s protection now?” The priests hauled her up by both arms, forcing weight on her knees.
“The High Lord has dominion,” gasped Paks. “Gird has upheld me here; I have not failed.” She felt herself falling, and willed to fall into that darkness.
* * *
The guards held a bloody wreck between them. The crowd smelled burnt flesh, and shivered, not hearing the priests’ final lecture. What had she meant, “I have not failed"? The paladin’s head hung down, slack against her chest, the brand of Liart dark on her forehead. Then the priests gestured, and the guards turned her around. The taller priest cut the cords around her legs, and her feet thumped down. With tongs, the priest yanked the stones from their place, ragged bits of skin clinging to them. The hall stank of it. The paladin did not move, or cry out; she might have been dead. For an instant, no one moved or spoke.
Then those in front saw, and did not believe, but recoiled even in disbelief against those behind. For the burnt bloody holes where the rocks had been disappeared, as a wave swept across lines on sand erases them, gone without mark or scar. At the movement, the priests turned, saw, and gaped in equal disbelief. One by one, other wounds healed, changing in the sight of those watching to unmarked skin. Finger by finger, her misshapen hands regained their natural shape. With a cry, the two guards dropped her, flinging themselves back. One of the priests cursed, and raised his whip, but when he swung, it recoiled from her and snagged his own armor. The other drew a notched dagger, and stabbed, but his blade twisted aside. She lay untouched, unmoving.
Now turmoil filled the hall: those behind wanting to see what had happened, those in front frantic to escape the wrath of Gird they were sure would come. The priests called other guards, who yanked her upright, head still lolling—now all could see that Liart’s black brand no longer centered her forehead. Instead, a silver circle gleamed there, as if inset in the bone itself. At that, the priests of Liart shrank away, their masked faces averted from the High Lord’s holy symbol. The terrified guards would have dropped her, but the priests screamed obscenities louder even than the crowds’ noise, and sent them away with her, out the same entrance through which they’d brought her earlier. And then they drove the crowd away, in a rage that could not disguise their own fear.
Chaos scurried through the warrens of the Thieves Guild, panic and disruption, as those who had seen tried to convince those who had not, and those who would not listen tried to find someone to believe. Some fled to the streets: black night, icy cold with a sweeping wind, and patrols of cold-eyed Royal Guards sent them back into the familiar warrens, even more afraid. Factions clashed; old quarrels erupted in steel and strangling cord. Those who had arranged to take the paladin’s body outside the city walls wrapped her in a heavy cloak and carried her gingerly, carefully not looking to see if that healing miracle continued, eager to get this terror out of their domain.
And at every grange of Gird, the vigil continued until dawn.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Kieri Phelan rode away from Vérella that dark night in an internal storm of impotent rage and frustration. He had been captured by a ruse he should have seen through—taken in by the plea of one of his veterans. That was stupidity, and he didn’t excuse himself that he was distracted by the day’s events. So he was Lyonya’s king—that didn’t mean he could let his mind wander. And then he’d been rescued—beyond his hopes—by another veteran—by Paksenarrion, now a paladin of Gird. She had freed him, and his squires, but she herself was now a prisoner—for five days, she had agreed to suffer whatever torments the priests of Liart inflicted. And he had agreed to that, because he could do nothing else. She made the bargain with the Liartians, and her oath bound him. He shifted in the saddle, glad of the darkness that covered his expression. What must they all think, of a king that would sacrifice a paladin to save his own life?
And yet—he had to admit she was right. He knew who he was, now: the rightful heir to Lyonya’s throne, a half-elf, torn from his birthright by slavers. No one else could do what he must do—restore the frayed taig of Lyonya, and the alliance of elf and human, clean the forests of evil influence. Lyonya needed its king—needed him—and he could not deny a paladin’s right to follow a quest to its end. But Paksenarrion—dear to him as his own daughter—his heart burned to think of her in their hands. All he had seen in thirty-odd years of war came to him that night, and showed him what she must endure.
He forced his mind to his own plans. If she had bought his life, he must make use of it. Selfer would be far north of Vérella by now, riding hard to meet Dorrin’s cohort and bring them down. Dorrin herself, in Vérella, would have fresh mounts ready for them, and a royal pass to follow him. Kostvan had agreed to let Arcolin pass through, if it came to that, and would be alert in case the Pargunese tried to take advantage of his absence. He thought ahead. Surely the enemy would strike before he reached Chaya—but where? Not in the Mahieran lands close to Vérella, nor in the little baronies of Abriss or Dai. East of that, in Verrakai domain? At the border itself? In Lyonya? He thought over what Paks had said about Achrya’s influence there—some thought of him as a blood-thirsty mercenary. He had no clear idea of the river road in his mind; he’d always gone south to visit the Halverics, cutting eastward from below Fiveway to go through Brewersbridge and avoid Verrakai altogether.
At Westbells, the High Marshal and Phelan both stopped to wake Marshal Torin and hand over Paks’s gear. Seklis did not explain much, and Marsha
l Torin, sleepy-eyed and bewildered, did not ask. Kieri touched that bright armor for the last time, as he thought, and prayed to all the gods that Paks might be spared the worst. The first glimmer of light seeped into the eastern sky as they rode away. Around him the ponderous hooves of the heavy warhorses—twenty of them—shook the earth. Behind were the lighter mounts of the infantry and bowmen, and then the pack train. Kieri’s mouth twitched, remembering Dorrin’s sulfurous comments on the pack train. He would have minded more, except that their slowness gave Dorrin a better chance to catch up. He thought where Selfer would be, on the road he knew best—changing horses, gulping a hot mug of sib, and starting off again, faced with Crow Ridge to climb.
As the day brightened, Kieri glanced around to see what his escort looked like in the daytime. Twenty massive gray warhorses, twenty plate-armored knights with spears and swords. Already the heavy horses were streaked with sweat; they were meant for power, not distance. Twenty mounted infantry, on gray horses much smaller than the warhorses; these carried short swords, with shields slung to the saddles. Ten mounted bowmen, on the same light horses, with the short, sharply curved bow of the northern nomad, to be used mounted or afoot: an excellent bow in the forest, as well. All these were in rose and silver or gray, the royal colors of Tsaia. His own tensquad, still in Phelani maroon and white, mounted on matched bays (how had Dorrin accomplished that, he wondered?), with Vossik at their head. The King’s Squires from Lyonya, whom he hardly knew, but for Garris: they rode close around him, with the royal pennant of Lyonya displayed. And the two Marshals: High Marshal Seklis, and Marshal Sulinarrion, both in Gird’s blue and white, with the crescent of Gird on chest and cloak. Behind came the pack train—servants, supplies, more than forty beasts extra, which the Tsaian Royal Guard insisted on.
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