He collapsed onto one of the precarious platforms on stilts—stools, Penthos’s memories informed him—and let Lief press a wooden mug into his hands. The little man’s expression was—well, it was ugly and alien, just like every human face in any configuration Nth could imagine, but it seemed sympathetic, too.
“You listen,” Lief murmured, after glancing around and seeing that the rest were out of earshot, Dion especially, “you did good by me, back at the Ford. You saved my arse, and then some. I don’t exactly get much say in this little venture, but I’ll do what I can. I’ll buy the beer, anyway.”
From Shogg’s Ford Nth knew perfectly well that he didn’t like beer. After the first mug, though, he found that the second was, at least, merely objectionable. Possibly it was different, better beer, or possibly this was some sort of beer magic. It was just one of those human things that Penthos knew nothing of, and so Nth was doomed to know even less.
By that time Dion had absented herself to lie down, and Penthos had declared his intention to go trolling the sellers of arcane trinkets, on the basis that there was no reason to waste a visit here, leaving Lief and Nth at the bar. It was around that time that Harathes and Cyrene renewed their shouting. Nth recalled that something similar had happened on the road, but here, in this populated place, the two of them were apparently not even finding somewhere secluded. With the beer within him providing a buffer against the unpleasantness of the sound, and his surroundings, and indeed his own physical shape, he watched with some interest as the two of them yelled at each other across the room. At first he took it for just some aspect of usual human communication unfamiliar to him, and then perhaps as a form of discordant entertainment, but at the last he realized that it constituted a disagreement. Not that his forced traveling companions were exactly short of internal conflict, but this was their sniping and backbiting taken to quite a new level.
It was exceedingly hard for him to understand precisely what the issue between the two of them was. Nth was not even sure he should care. They were both people who plainly disliked his very existence, and yet they lacked the potency of Penthos or Dion and so were less to be feared. Hence they were arguably the least relevant or important of those he traveled with. At the same time, the spectacle was so fierce and flamboyant he found he could not ignore it.
Apparently Harathes was only concerned with Cyrene’s well-being and intended to keep her from making unwise decisions, while Cyrene was insistent that she was in no way possessed or controlled by Harathes nor under his jurisdiction. Understanding that much, and no more, Nth explained this to Lief, in case the little man had missed the subtleties.
The thief covered his face with his hands for a moment. It took Nth a moment to understand that this was, for some reason, mirth rather than despair. It was true that despair was something he himself was more familiar with.
Cyrene had very pointedly approached the ranger Lothern and, apparently after ensuring that Harathes was aware of it, had gone off with him to some sort of alcove or booth. The big warrior began drinking considerable quantities of beer, after which he stormed out himself.
Lief sighed. “You see, this is precisely why I don’t get involved with people I work with. Unprofessional, I call it. Another?”
Nth understood that this meant more beer. To his surprise, his mouth opened and words came out. “I like beer.”
Lief’s expression lit up. “Good for you.”
“I like you, too. You make beer happen.” The words came out in fits and starts, and not very clearly, and Nth was not entirely sure why he was saying them, but they were just welling up inside him without much volition. If this was a human thing, it was not something Penthos had prepared him for.
“Well, maybe we better slow down on the beer a bit. Savor it, you know?”
Nth didn’t know, but he felt that nodding was important. A moment later he felt that it had been unwise.
They sat in companionable quiet for a short time, while around them the babble of flapping human tongues built up again, filling the silence left by the exit of Harathes and Cyrene. Shortly thereafter, Lief jogged Nth’s elbow, indicating Lothern, who was returning to the taproom and not looking happy. Some encounter had left a striking bruise across half his face, and his nose was crooked and bloodied. Weaving slightly, he stumbled away and left the inn entirely.
Cyrene reentered too, a moment later, a particularly belligerent expression on her face. She approached the barkeep, and then caught sight of Lief and Nth staring at her.
“Funny, is it?” she demanded.
“Somewhat,” Lief said. “Have a drink.”
“If I won’t ‘have a drink’ with Harathes and I won’t ‘have a drink’ with Lothern, what makes you think you’re any better?” she snarled.
“Because I actually just meant—” Lief started, but she spoke over him.
“Is it too much to ask?” she snapped. “Is it too much, just to . . . have some company, a conversation, without . . .”—she slammed her fist down on the top of the bar—“being someone’s fucking . . . or having to . . . ?”
“Look, just have a drink. It’s not always about you,” Lief told her, without much sympathy.
“And you’re different, are you?” she demanded.
“Love, you’re not my type.” The thief shrugged. “Personally I like them domestic, pleasant natured, and not bugnuts crazy, none of which locks you have the key for.”
Abruptly Cyrene was sitting down, head in her hands. “I just wanted . . . I mean, is it too much to ask . . . ? That there might be people who think that just because I take up a bow and fight, and don’t just sit in a kitchen with my hair bundled up, that I might not actually be a fucking whore as a sideline? That I have to be giving it away?”
“Yeah, well, exactly, whatever,” said Lief as noncommittally as possible.
“I mean . . .” Cyrene drained a mug, and Nth guessed it was by no means her first of the evening. “It’s not as if I don’t . . . but does it have to make me someone’s exclusive possession if I . . . ?”
“Don’t ask me, I’m not the one who slept with Harathes that time.”
Abruptly she was standing again, albeit somewhat unsteadily. “Is that . . . ? You’re asking to take your teeth home in a bag, you little weasel!”
“Enough, enough.” Lief raised his hands, and then realized that Nth had stood as well, and was looming protectively at his shoulder. Nth realized the fact at about the same time.
“Oh crap,” the thief got out, and then Cyrene had a knife out, locking eyes with her own reflection in the the round, dark lenses of Nth’s spectacles.
“And you, you monster, what are you looking at?” Cyrene demanded.
“Now wait, hold it, hold it.” Lief tried to step between them, and she took him by the shoulder and threw him onto the floor without any obvious effort. Nth twitched forward, and then stopped, held by invisible bands of iron.
Cyrene stared at him. “You can’t, can you?” she murmured. The knife wove in her hand. “Look at you, monster in human shape, eater of men, and you’re completely helpless. I could kill you. I could just kill you.”
4: The Light Stuff
“I COULD JUST KILL YOU.” And Cyrene’s gaze was becoming more and more intense, almost hungry.
It was true. Nth was fighting his own alien body, but the restrictions that Penthos had set over him were unbreakable.
“Kneel down,” Cyrene told him.
His knees folded. Everyone in the taproom was staring, but the woman was too angry and too drunk to care.
“Lower, head to the floor,” she told him. “If I kill you, you won’t even see it coming, not with any of your eyes. How about that, creature?”
He stared at the stone flags of the taproom floor, seeing them in minute detail, waiting.
“This is unworthy,” came Lief’s quiet voice. “You think Dion would like this, if she saw it?”
“She wouldn’t care.”
“I seriously hope th
at’s not true. Cyrene, look at yourself.”
There was a scrape of wood as she sat down again. Nth remained bowed, feeling abruptly ill as all the beer he had consumed turned into something malevolent within him.
A moment later there was a curious noise from the woman, which Nth tentatively identified as indicating unhappiness.
“I’m sorry,” she said indistinctly. “It’s just . . . I’ve known Lothern for years, and I always thought he was . . . decent, a good man, and he was just . . . he was just waiting for his fucking chance to get me on my own. I just want . . .”
“You want to have a lie down, probably,” Lief suggested. “Nth, get up, why don’t you.”
Apparently the little man’s authority was on a par with Cyrene’s, because Nth could abruptly uncurl and clamber to his feet, feeling very unsteady and somewhat ill.
Cyrene stared at him blankly and then, after a pause had stretched out between them, said, “What? You think I’m going to apologize to it?”
Lief shrugged. “I try to think as little as possible. Why don’t you go and have a rest. We’ve raised enough eyebrows around here, eh?”
She kept staring, though, and then she had reached out and twitched the dark glasses from Nth’s face, heedless of the current of revulsion that passed through the taproom. “Look at it,” she said quietly. “I mean, look at the thing.” In her eyes, Nth could see his own face reflected. In all honesty he had to agree with her.
“Blame Penthos. Blame us,” Lief said, and then he had abstracted the spectacles from her and put them back in place, as smooth a piece of legerdemain as any magician might manage.
“It makes me sick,” Cyrene remarked, but almost sadly, and then she was up and stumbling away.
“Wonder how long it’ll take for word of this to reach Darvezian,” Lief remarked. “Well, with luck he’ll die laughing and save us a trip.”
“It’ll just be a quiet visit,” Dion explained. “No fanfare. And it’s on the way. We’d actually have to go out of our way not to visit Armesion.”
The name obviously meant something significant to all of the others, but if Penthos knew much about it, he had not cared to gift the knowledge to Nth. The transformed spider just watched them all blankly, as most of them looked from Dion to him. The only inevitability seemed to be that, whatever was going on, he would not like it.
“With that,” Cyrene clarified, nodding at him with her usual venom. “You want to go to the Holy City with that.”
“Won’t it be like that stupid ranger’s little stone, only a whole city of it?” Harathes backed her up.
“Actually,” Penthos put in, “you’d be surprised at how little people in Armesion actually think about the powers of Darkness. Being at the heart of the Light, they are remarkably lax at checking for corruption. It’s amazing what you can get away with.” In the silence that followed his words he looked up sharply, and then added, “Or so I’ve heard,” with a strained smile.
They were gathered around a campfire, on the road out of Ening’s Garth.
“Even so,” Cyrene put in, “what are you going to do? Parade the thing past the Potentate? Ask his blessing.”
“Not a word of what we are about will pass my lips, save that we are fighting against the Dark,” Dion told them all. “But I . . . I need the reassurance that will come—must come—from returning to Armesion. We will shortly pass into the worst darkness, and the greatest weapon of the dark has always been our own doubts. And I . . . since we set ourselves upon this course, I have doubted. I have doubted myself.” She glowered angrily at Nth, as though this were his fault. “Every consecrated priest may ask to stand once in the presence of the Potentate and seek his blessing. I need not sully his holy office with the details of our plan.”
Dion had always been something supernatural to Nth’s senses, a terrible blazing threat just in her mere being. Now, for just a moment, she seemed merely human, a woman worn down by the tasks forced upon her. For a few heartbeats he almost did not hate and fear her, or not as much.
“Well, then,” Harathes decided, “we’ll go there. Cyrene and I will accompany you to the halls of the Potentate. Perhaps he will bless us as well.”
Cyrene’s expression suggested that she was less than keen on this development, but she said nothing.
“As shall I,” Penthos declared. Nth found he could predict the awkward pause that followed.
“It might be best if you did not,” Dion said carefully. “Magicians of power are not much loved, among the priesthood of Armes.” Seeing his expression, she frowned. “You must know, surely . . . it is just that many of my brethren are wary of such strength when it is not given over entirely to the Light . . .”
“Is doing your bidding and being your follower not enough?” demanded Penthos, strongly enough that he drew frowning glances from the others.
“Please, Penthos. I don’t doubt your dedication, but . . . I will need you to keep your creature under tight control. And you will need to stay in the . . .” She mumbled quickly over something.
“In the what?” the magician asked suspiciously.
“The Heathen’s Quarter,” Lief supplied caustically. “Oh yes,” he added, at Dion’s stare, “I know Armesion. You’d be surprised at what goes on there. I won’t say Enth will blend in, but there’s a lot of people who make a good living there satisfying needs that the holy and the laudable aren’t supposed to have.”
For a moment Dion was about to argue with him, but then her shoulders sagged. “Probably you’re right. The Light is a lantern forever ready to gutter, if we do not keep it fed with virtue. But it is hard, sometimes.”
“Just a quiet visit, then,” Cyrene pressed.
“Just that, to settle my soul. No fanfare,” Dion promised.
Armesion was a walled city, and one Lief was not overly fond of. Living in lands shielded by the church of Armes was a grand thing, he supposed, given that it kept him generally safe—safer anyway—from the depredations of the Dark, and provided him with a ready source of prosperous merchants and townsfolk to bilk and burgle. On the downside, it did entail a great deal of being looked down on. Those with a mandate from the church—its priests, knights, servants, and any interfering freelancer who decided that they were divinely inspired—did tend to view everyone else with a sort of paternal condescension: children in want of correction. Lief—who had lived a life very much in want of correction up until the point that they caught him and corrected him by fobbing him off on Dion—looked at the walls of Armesion with a sense of general resigned gloom. Even a flying visit to allow Dion to take the weight off her moral bladder would be a constant round of patronizing and do-goodery that would set his teeth on edge.
For a city, it was a compact place, he recalled: the houses were clustered together as though in terror of an unscheduled appearance by the Dark Lord of the moment. As the strength of the church grew, the walls had become less a defense against the Dark and more an architectural corset, hemming in growth and strangling change. The streets within were all narrow and overshadowed by outward-leaning upper stories—not that this didn’t offer advantages for the light-footed larcenist—save for the grand central avenue that led to the High Temple, seat of the Potentate of Armes. That was the sight that greeted most visitors to Armesion, when the huge bronze-clad gates were finally opened to allow them in: the white-flagged boulevard of the Holy City running straight to the opalescent spires of the heart of the Light.
When Dion’s party arrived, however, and the gates were hauled open by guards whose expressions were curiously expectant, a different spectacle awaited them. The broad path to salvation was almost entirely obscured by what appeared to be the entire population of Armesion. Lief had never seen so many people in one place before. There were hundreds of priests, entire orders of templars, holy warriors, mystics, savants, authorized merchants of holy water, crafters of religious iconnery, psalmists, summoners, freelance salvationers, and several thousand pilgrims. The impressive—no, the i
nconceivable—thing was that they had been standing there, in complete and communal silence, waiting for the gates to open. Whereupon a cheer went up that probably rattled the windows of Darvezian in his Dark Tower miles away.
It was like someone’s surprise birthday party, although, given the scale and demographics of the crowd, it would have to have been God’s.
“Sod me,” said Lief. Nobody heard him. There in the center of the vast assemblage of priestly hangers-on was a white-robed figure visibly radiating a gentle golden light, holding out his arms in benediction. Even Lief, who had never left a church without fuller pockets than when he had gone in, recognized the Potentate himself.
At that point, when the triumphant roar of the crowd began to die down, there was an actual fanfare.
“Approach, my child!” the Potentate boomed, his voice coming to them unchallenged through the sounds of so many. “Come forward, that we may see the savior of the world!”
Lief would long treasure Dion’s aghast expression, ashen to the point of death. Unlike many of her profession she had never been one to seek temporal power or recognition, he knew. He reckoned that, if he were to stare into her wide, horrified eyes enough, he would be able to look right back to some introverted church-school girl forever hiding at the back and not wanting to be singled out by teacher. Aside from her still having clothes on, this was probably her nightmare made flesh.
Let me get somewhere away from the others, Lief thought, and I will laugh until I burst a lung.
With trembling steps, Dion approached the entire assembled clergy of Armesion as though she were about to be caned and had forgotten to slip the holy book down her britches to cushion the blow. When she was within grabbing range the Potentate unfurled a surprisingly long arm and hooked her closer.
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