Paladin's Strength

by T. Kingfisher

  “I know you wouldn’t,” said Istvhan, in the soft paladin’s voice.

  “I bought a goat carcass at the market. I had to sew the bust into it, the base, and it was top-heavy, but it worked. He made it walk back and forth. It was dead, but it wasn’t dead. He made it run away, and I didn’t see him for days. I thought he was gone.”

  Clara had a sudden sense of what had to be coming next and reached for the wine to dull it.

  “He came back, though.”

  “He came back,” said Stachys. “He was excited. He said he had found a better body.” He stared into his mug. “She used to bring me goat milk,” he added dully.

  Istvhan squeezed her hand again, perhaps feeling the way that her skin had crawled with sudden gooseflesh.

  “So then he had a human body,” said Istvhan. “But it didn’t end there, did it?”

  Stachys shook his head. “He wanted more like him. He was lonely. I should have been enough for him. He was enough for me. But he said I didn’t love him after he killed her, and he needed someone of his own. Someone like him. He said I owed him, since I made him. You can’t just make one of something, like some kind of fool god.”

  “And you made more of the clay heads.”

  “I made him promise not to kill anyone else,” said Stachys. “I did. He swore. But he got a body from the graveyard, and I made the second head for it.” An old, familiar bafflement seemed to cross his face. “I didn’t love that one,” he admitted, as if admitting to a great sin. “I know I was supposed to. But he kissed it and then it was alive too. Then he wanted another one, then another…” He put his face in his hands.

  “You had to start making molds,” said Istvhan.

  “Once I’d done the first one, they figured it out. How to pour the slip and fire it. They got another body from the graveyard. Her body had worn out by then, but he came back with a new one. He said it was a criminal who’d been hanged. He said.”

  “I’m sure he did,” said Istvhan, hearing his voice roughen just a little as horror fought to get through. Don’t think about it. Just keep talking.

  “I had to make the molds. It didn’t work if they did it.”

  “Because you had the talent.”

  “No, no.” He shook his head, so wildly that his hair struck him in the face. “No, no. Because of love. You can’t bring anything alive unless you love it. That’s what the story is about, you know?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Istvhan. “That’s what the story is about.”

  “You said you didn’t love the second one,” said Clara gently. She couldn’t do the voice, but she could come close. “Did you love the molds?”

  “No.” Stachys hung his head. “No, I didn’t. But I loved him. I loved him, so I could make things that made him happy, and it was like love. I didn’t want to kill anyone, that’s all. I just wanted to make things.” He frowned. “He was angry that none of them could talk. I couldn’t make them talk. I tried, but I couldn’t. One of the molds, though, those could laugh. It wasn’t good. I stopped doing that.” He took a large swallow of wine and stared at the table. “Did you tell me your names?”

  “Yes,” said Istvhan. “And you’re Stachys.”

  “Yes…yes of course…” The man’s mild blue eyes were clouded. “He lied about the other bodies being from a graveyard, didn’t he?” he said quietly.

  “I’m afraid he did,” said Istvhan.

  “People think it would be amazing to create a living thing,” Stachys mused. “But then they do things and it’s your fault because you made them…” The potter shook his head. “I don’t know how people have children. How they don’t go mad from it.”

  “You gave him life,” said Istvhan. “Can you take it away again?”

  “Oh no,” said Stachys. “I tried once. Didn’t I?” He frowned at Istvhan. “I’m sorry…I forgot your name.”

  “It’s all right.” The paladin’s voice was achingly trustworthy, and the line across Stachys’s forehead eased. “I’ll remind you later. What happened when you tried to take the life away?”

  “Oh,” said the potter. He darted a quick, embarrassed look downward, then lifted his rag-wrapped wrists. “That’s when they took my hands.”

  Istvhan stared at the potter’s hands and for a moment, he could not speak. He had been so busy thinking of the smooth men as clay heads that he had never considered anything else.

  But there they were. Hands the same pale stoneware color as the smooth men’s faces, flexing in the same impossible fashion. Someone had carved tendons in the back, made perfect renderings of the nails. An incredible sculptor, or…

  “Those were molded from your real hands, weren’t they?” said Clara softly.

  Stachys nodded. “I made them years ago, for a set of sculptures. He found the mold. He thought maybe if he had my hands, he could sculpt. He couldn’t, though. They can’t. They can make heads from the molds, but they can’t design a new one. It never comes alive.” He gave a short, bleak laugh. “Faces are hard.”

  “So he took them and gave you the copies.” It was hard for Istvhan to say that in the paladin’s voice, in the soothing, gentle tones that they all learned. It was the voice you used when you were trying to calm someone who had just watched their village be slaughtered before their eyes, the voice you used on survivors, the voice you used to try and talk someone down before anyone else was hurt.

  You learned to do it early, until it was second nature. The Saint of Steel’s chosen were good at it. Not as good as the paladins of the Dreaming God, who could use it in imperative mode and drive demons to their knees, but good enough for most things.

  He had never had to use it to talk to a man who had unleashed a wave of murderous golems across a continent, and who was looking at him with such pained, cloudy eyes.

  “Yes,” said Stachys. He rubbed one of the alien hands across the back of the other, and the sound was a soft clink of fired pottery. “He was so angry. He wanted not to need me anymore. But now no one can make the molds. So they just keep making the same faces, over and over again.”

  “How long does a mold last?” asked Istvhan.

  “My molds? Many dozens of casts,” said Stachys proudly. “The outsides aren’t pretty, but as long as you wet them occasionally, they’ll last years. The only time they break is if somebody drops one.” His smile faded. “The last one I made…that one’s not good. The plaster’s fine, but I was angry. It was wrong to make it. After that, he started trying to make his own.” He stared down at the clay hands, the fingers moving smooth and knuckleless as he tapped on the table.

  All this time, he could have been making hands for people who lost them, thought Istvhan wearily. Probably legs or arms, too. Instead we get a murderous set of statuary, and now he can’t work the clay at all.

  Clara was looking at him, eyes intent. Waiting for him to make a decision? Waiting for him to kill this poor fool where he stood?

  Instead Istvhan rose and bowed to Stachys. “It has been good to meet you,” he said. “Thank you so much for your hospitality.”

  “Yes, of course,” said the potter, rising as well. He bobbed his head. “Come back any time. I get so few visitors. Would you like to buy a statue?”

  “Perhaps next time,” said Istvhan, who would have gnawed off his own hands before having one of Stachys’s works in his home. “I’m sure we’ll see you again.”

  Thirty-Four

  “Well,” said Clara. “Well.” She looked over at Istvhan. “Do you believe him?”

  “Oh yes,” said Istvhan. “I believe him. At best guess, he’s a powerful wonderworker. Or was. Might still be, though if he can no longer sculpt, perhaps his ability to channel it is gone.”

  “What a bizarre talent to have,” said Clara, staring into the darkness. “Though I suppose you could go your whole life without realizing you had it.”

  Istvhan smiled painfully. “Much like being a berserker. That doctor I know has a theory that we’re all wonderworkers, but circumsta
nces never conspire to reveal our talent to most of us.” Doctor Piper was an odd person, but he knew more about the smooth men than Istvhan himself.

  Clara shook her head slowly. “Well. What do we do, then? Kill him?”

  Istvhan winced. “That would probably be safest,” he admitted. “There’s a chance his constructs might fall apart if we did. Most wonderworkers can’t create things that outlast their death.”

  “But you don’t want to.”

  The paladin couldn’t meet her eyes. “It used to be so easy,” he said, half to himself. “I knew who was innocent and who was guilty at a glance. My god turned my blade aside from the innocent. Now…now I don’t know at all. I’ve killed plenty of men who were trying to kill me, but this would be murder.” He pictured the blade sliding into flesh, the confused eyes clouding over even further. You’re a paladin. You do what needs to be done so that others may live. That’s what you’re for. You’re a weapon in the hand of the gods, that’s all.

  Most weapons didn’t have a conscience. Istvhan’s sword wouldn’t wake up at night, sweating, remembering what he’d had to do. Wondering if he had, in truth, been a servant of justice at all or if the god’s vision had been as clouded as a mortal’s.

  “I can do it,” said Clara.

  “Can you?” He was surprised at how he sounded, mildly curious, as if she’d just informed him that she could wiggle her ears.

  “I won’t enjoy it,” she said. “And I don’t know that I could use the bear to do it. The bear won’t think he’s a threat. But if it comes to that, I can probably beat his head in to save hundreds of innocent people.”

  Nuns were always more practical than paladins. And would you let her do it, because you were too weak? Could you stand out here and be shamed and grateful while she kills some poor fool too damaged to remember your name?

  “What did you used to do with complicated cases?” asked Clara.

  “We turned them over to more complicated people.”

  “Paladins aren’t complicated?”

  “Paladins can’t afford to be complicated. We’re born to do a job and not think too much about it. Gods don’t choose us for our emotional complexity.” And that, suddenly, sparked the solution that he should have seen already. “We can take him to the Rat.”

  “Can they kill him?”

  “They solve problems,” said Istvhan. “However those problems must be solved.” He thought of Bishop Beartongue, imagined her calmly and regretfully murdering Stachys. It was surprisingly easy to do. If she’d thought it was the only way, she’d have wielded the knife herself. “It’s the best solution. We’ve talked to him for ten minutes, and you saw what he’s like. What if there’s some key to defeating the smooth men that we just didn’t ask about?”

  “Do you think anyone will try to stop us?” asked Clara. “I don’t know if he’ll come willingly. We might need a wagon and a sack.”

  “Honestly, I’m a bit surprised the smooth men haven’t tried to stop us,” admitted Istvhan. “You’d think they’d keep a guard on him, just in case of—”

  And the rest of what he was saying was lost, because Clara knocked him down.

  The air went out of his lungs in a woosh as he hit the ground. Clara was on top of him and then she was a great deal larger and a great deal hairier. Claws dug into the earth on either side of his head. He had a sudden shocking sense of mass balanced precariously over him, and then he was looking at the underside of the bear as it launched itself at something that had been coming up behind him.

  The tide rose. Istvhan fought it back reflexively, and then he saw movement. A man coming up from the opposite direction as the first, axe held high, about to bury it in the bear’s back.

  No! Istvhan launched himself upward and grabbed the man’s leg, trying to pull him off balance.

  There was a horrible moment where he registered that whatever was in his hand felt much too pulpy and soft, and then, with a wet gristly noise, he tore the man’s leg clear off.

  Clara saw the man coming for Istvhan only an instant before he struck. The blade was already poised and about to fall. She flung herself at Istvhan and managed to slam him down to the ground, already in mid-change as they fell. Now! she yelled to the beast. Now, come forward, help!

  The beast roared through her. Changing this fast hurt, as if whatever force usually deadened the sensation lagged too slow to help. Her skin burned as hair forced through it and if she had not already been in mid-leap, she might have staggered and crushed Istvhan and saved their enemies the trouble.

  The beast smashed into the figure in front of it and it exploded like an overripe fruit.

  Oh god, thought Clara, gagging internally as the smell hit her. Then the beast was gagging externally as well. Bears were not above eating carrion, but this was horrific, rotten like a pumpkin left in the field until December. The stench of decayed meat mixed with the thick, burnt scent of the smooth men.

  It was too much for the bear. The bear didn’t like fighting and it hated that smell. It ran over the top of the fallen corpse and just kept going, down the path that the smooth man had come from, trying to get away from the stink and the horror of a dead thing that had moved like a not-dead thing and whatever it was, the bear wanted none of it.

  Wait! yelled Clara inside the beast’s head. Wait, stop! We have to go back, Istvhan’s in trouble! There’s another one, I can hear it!

  The bear did not care. Istvhan was not a cub and the bear did not feel any need to defend him, assuming that it even registered that there was a friend there at all. If he had been another bear, then presumably he would do the sensible thing and run away as well. The bear was done.

  Stop! Dammit, stop! Oh shit oh shit! Clara was panicking and she knew she was panicking and that meant she was losing control. She hadn’t done that since she was fourteen. The abbess had turned into a gray-furred grizzly, knocked her down, and sat on her. There was no one to stop her now and the bear was running and the panic only fed into that and now the bear wanted nothing but to run, as far and as fast as its paws could carry it, and the stink was on its fur but if it ran faster, maybe it could get away from that as well—

  Stop! Stop!

  Her panic only fed the bear’s alarm. It reached the road and swung its heavy head toward the river. The river, which would have boats, and people on boats, and all it would take was one to be awake and raise the alarm about a monstrous bear in the place where the Beast of the Leeward was once seen.

  Stop! Shit!

  Her internal cries went unheard. Her panic melded with the bear’s fear, and for the first time in decades, Sister Clara lost control of the beast.

  Istvhan had been in many battles in his life, enough that many of them had blurred together, but he had never, so far as he knew, torn anyone’s limbs off before. Chopped, yes, any number of times, but ripped off bare-handed, no. Admittedly, he was a berserker and things often got very dim and confused when the black tide rose over his head, but still, you’d remember a thing like that, wouldn’t you?

  He certainly was never, ever going to forget the muffled pop as the femur came out of the socket, and the way the smooth man’s leg suddenly dropped six inches. The realization that it was now being held on only by the fabric of the man’s ragged trousers made his gorge rise.

  The smooth man toppled sideways and backwards. Istvhan shoved down his nausea and lunged forward, still on his knees, grabbing for the axe. His hand came down on the man’s wrist and he pulled and there was another set of wet popping noises, this time all the small bones of the hand and wrist coming loose—Saint’s black and bloody tongue, I’m going to be berserk and puking if this keeps up—and Istvhan got the axe and most of the fingers with it.

  The fingers went immediately dead as soon as they were separated from the body. Istvhan buried the axe in the smooth man’s head. Pottery shards flew and the rest of the body went limp.

  “Right,” said Istvhan. “Right.” His stomach roiled but did not rebel yet. The smell wa
s truly extraordinary, though, and it made him no promises of further good behavior. He flung the axe aside and drew his sword, turning back to Clara.

  Or, in this case, the large and notable absence of Clara. There was a smooth man who had been comprehensively dismembered and nothing else.

  “Clara?” he called. “Clara, where are you?” Surely he couldn’t just be overlooking a bear the size of a horse.

  He saw movement in the trees behind the studio and stepped toward it. “Clara…?”

  Three more smooth men emerged. Istvhan’s heart sank. Had they encountered the bear already? Don’t be ridiculous, of course they haven’t. They’d be deader than they already are. And they can’t possibly have killed her, because you wouldn’t miss a body that size.

  The thought flashed through his head of a clay head riding the bear’s flesh and he stomped it down immediately. She probably just got the hell out of the way. Or is chasing down another one.

  He lifted his sword, waiting for the clay men to come to him. The black tide was rising inside his skull, swirling around him, and he was no longer sure if he should fight it down. Three more that I can see, and how many after that? They must have been watching the main road, not expecting us to come from the direction of the porcelain works. How many guards would I put on a man, if I suspected that his death meant that I and all my kind would die as well?

  Pain blossomed in his ankle before he could mentally answer that question. He let out an undignified yelp and kicked sideways, feeling a weight dragging at it.

  It was the smooth man that had been torn apart by the bear. All that was left to it was the head and a chunk of shoulder and collarbone. It was somehow hitching itself along using the shoulder, and its mouth was wide open. And apparently it had bitten him in the ankle.