Paladin of Souls

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ISTA HURRIED UNDER THE ARCHWAY INTO THE ENTRY COURT IN time to see the flushed and gasping Learned dy Cabon sag from his horse into the arms of one of Lord Arhys's men. The soldier helped the divine totter a few steps to collapse in the narrow shade of the wall by the almond tree. He held a worried hand to dy Cabon's face and spoke to a servant, who hurried away. Dy Cabon struggled out of his semi-concealing brown vest-cloak, letting it fall around him to the petal-strewn pavement.

Foix, looking almost equally hot and harried, jumped from his horse, threw down the reins, and strode to the divine's side.

"Curse it, Foix," dy Cabon wheezed, staring up at him, "I told you to stop playing with that thing."

"Fine," Foix snarled back. "Ride back and lie down by the side of the road for Jokonan dog meat, if you don't like it. The pack could feast for a month."

The servant arrived, and, at the soldier's gesture, upended a bucket of water slowly over dy Cabon, soaking his dirty white robes. Dy Cabon did not recoil or protest, but just sat limply, raising his chin and opening his mouth.

Foix nodded in gratitude and took a tin cup of water that another servant proffered from a second bucket, gulped it down, then scooped up a second and third and repeated the performance. With a fretful grimace, he ladled up another cupful, squatted by dy Cabon's side, and held it to the divine's lips. Dy Cabon lifted a shaking hand to it, guzzling noisily.

The soldier gave Ista a respectful salute as she approached, and murmured to her, "Very close to the heatstroke, that one. It's a bad sign when a man that big stops sweating. But don't worry, Royina, we'll get him right around."

Foix's head swiveled. "Royina!" he cried. "Five gods be thanked! I kiss your hands, I kiss your feet!" He pushed another cup of water into dy Cabon's grip and lunged over to one knee before her skirts, grasping her hands and planting a hot kiss on the back of each. "Ah!" He pressed them to his sweaty forehead in a less formal but entirely sincere addition. He did not rise immediately, but swung one leg around and sat cross-legged and wheezing, allowing his broad shoulders, for just this moment of safety, to slump.

He grinned up at Liss, flanking Ista. "So, you made it here, too. Might have known."

She grinned back. "Yes, you might."

"Been chasing after your dust since Maradi. The fastest horses were always already taken, for some reason."

Her smile stretched to a cheery smirk.

He squinted. "Pretty dress. Quite a change."

She drew back a little, self-consciously. "It's only loaned."

At a clacking of hooves, Foix looked up and scrambled to his feet. Lord Arhys, flanked by another mounted soldier, trotted through the gate on his dappled gray, swung down, and flung his reins to a groom.

"So, Royina." Arhys turned to her, his smile flickering. "I think your lost ones are returned to you."

Foix bobbed him a bow. "Only by virtue of your succor, sir. I had not time to introduce myself, out there. Foix dy Gura, at your service."

"Even if I had not met your brother, your sword and your enemies were recommendation enough. Arhys dy Lutez. Porifors is mine. I shall welcome you in better style hereafter, but I must first see to my scouts. Those Jokonans should not have been on that road—we took two prisoners alive, so I mean to find out how they came so close unseen." He cast Ista a glum glance. "Now do I doubly miss Illvin—his command of the Roknari tongue is better than any other's, here." Arhys gave a wave to Dedicat Pejar, dashing into the entry court with his tunic half fastened and his sword belt askew to greet his restored officer. "Here is one of your own men, to show you how to go on." He called to a servant, "See that these two have everything they need, till my return. Whatever Pejar or the royina ask."

The servant gave him an acknowledging half bow. Arhys's gaze was wary, sweeping past dy Cabon, still sitting bedraggled on the pavement. The divine made an exhausted hand motion, a truncated blessing, promising greater courtesies later.

Arhys turned for his horse again, but paused as Ista grasped him by the sleeve. She reached upward and touched his tunic, torn and bloody on the right shoulder, felt through the rip, and ran her fingers over his cool, unbroken skin. She turned her hand over before him to silently display the dark carmine smear. "At your earliest spare moment, March, I suggest you come inspect your brother's wound. Your brother's new wound."

His lips parted in dismay; he met her level gaze, and winced. "I see."

"Ride carefully, till then. Wear your mail."

"We were in haste—" He fingered the rip, his frown deepening. "Indeed." He gave her a grim nod and swung up again on his sidling horse. Motioning to his mounted man to follow, he cantered out.

Foix glanced around and back to Pejar, worry in his eyes. "Is Ferda here? Is he well?"

"Well, sir, but gone looking for you," Pejar replied. "He's probably reached Maradi by now. I expect he'll make the circle and turn up back here in a few days, swearing at the waste of horseshoes."

Foix grimaced. "I trust he won't take the same road we did. Wasn't what the march of Oby led me to expect at all."

Why are you not now in the temple hospital at Maradi? Ista wanted to ask, but decided to wait. Foix's soul was as vigorous and centered as Liss's, but it appeared to her inner eye that a bear-shaped shadow lurked in his gut. It seemed to sense her scrutiny, for it curled tighter, as if attempting to hibernate. She motioned the hovering servant to her side. "See that these men are speedily refreshed, especially the divine, and lodged in rooms near me."

"Yes, Royina."

She added to Foix, "We must speak of—everything, as soon as we may. Have Pejar direct you to me in the stone court as soon as you are both recovered."

"Yes," he said eagerly, "we must hear all your tale. Lord Arhys's ambush was the talk of Oby, yesterday."

Ista sighed. "So much of dire import has happened since then, I had nearly forgot it."

His brows climbed. "Oh? We'll hasten to your side, then."

He bowed and turned away to assist the servant in coaxing dy Cabon back to his feet. Foix seemed very practiced at it, as if hauling the fat man up and forcing him to move had become second nature of late; dy Cabon's grumbles were equally perfunctory. The damp divine did not so much drip as steam, but he seemed to be gaining relief from his initial distress.

Cattilara's light tread echoed in the archway. The men looked around. Despite his overheated debility, dy Cabon smiled in a Cattilara-smitten fashion. Foix blinked, and went rather still.

"Where is my lord?" Cattilara demanded in anxiety.

"He has ridden back out with his scouts," Ista said. "It seems that spear thrust we saw found another target."

Cattilara's eyes widened. Her head turned toward the stone court.

"Yes," said Ista. "He is being cared for now, however."

"Oh. Good."

Cattilara's sigh of relief was premature, in Ista's judgment. The girl had not yet thought it through. But she likely would. "Lord Arhys will return by noon—no doubt."

Cattilara's lips pinched at her, briefly.

Ista went on, "Lady Cattilara dy Lutez, Marchess of Porifors, may I introduce to you my spiritual conductor, Learned Chivar dy Cabon, and Foix dy Gura, officer-dedicat of the Daughter's Order. You have met his captain and brother Ferda."

"Oh, yes." Cattilara managed a distracted curtsey. "Welcome to Porifors." She paused, returning Foix's uncertain look. For a moment, they stood as stiffly as two strange cats just sighting each other. The two demon shadows within them were so tightly closed in Ista's presence, it was hard to guess their reaction to this proximity, but it did not seem one of joyous greeting. Liss, observing Foix's lack of the more usual male response to the lovely marchess, brightened slightly.

Ista gestured to the waiting servant, and added, with deliberate emphasis, "Lord Arhys detailed this man to see to their needs. The divine is dangerously fatigued from the heat and should have care at once."

"Oh, yes," agreed Cattilara rather vaguely. "Pray continue. I shall welcome you all more properly... later." She dipped a curtsey, Foix produced a bow, and she fluttered away up the staircase. Foix and dy Cabon followed the servant and Pejar through the archway, presumably to where the Daughter's men were quartered.

Seized with unease, Ista watched Cattilara depart. She was suddenly reminded from Lord dy Cazaril's testimony that there were slower ways for demons to slay their mounts. Tumors, for example. Might one be started already? She tried to read for it in Cattilara's soul-stuff, some black blot of disorder and decay. The girl roiled so, it was hard to be sure. Ista could imagine the consequences—the passionate Cattilara, mad with hope, insisting that the symptoms were her longed-for pregnancy, jealously guarding a belly that swelled apace not with life but with death... Ista shivered.

Illvin speaks truth. We must find a better way. And soon.

LESS THAN AN HOUR PASSED BEFORE THE TWO STRAYS RETURNED TO Ista in the stone court. They both looked much revived, having evidently undergone some rough-and-ready bath involving sloshing buckets and drains. Wet hair combed, in dry clothes that, if not exactly clean, were less sweat-stained, they managed some ragged semblance of a courtly style in her honor.

Ista gestured the divine to a stone bench in the arcade's shade, and sat by his side. Foix and Liss settled themselves at her feet. Liss spent a moment plucking her unaccustomed skirts into a more graceful arrangement.

"Royina, tell us of the battle," Foix began eagerly.

"Your brother had a better view. Get his account, when he returns. I would hear your tale first. What happened after we abandoned you on the road?"

"I would not say, abandoned," objected dy Cabon. "Say saved, rather. Your hiding place worked, or else the god heard the prayers from my heart. And bowels. I didn't dare even whisper aloud."

Foix snorted agreement. "Aye. That was an ugly hour, crouching in that cold water—seems more attractive in retrospect—listening to the Jokonans thump by overhead. We finally crawled out of the culvert and took to the brush, trying to stay out of sight of the road but follow after you. That was a scramble. It was past dark by the time we reached the village at the crossroads, and the poor villagers were just starting to creep back to their homes. A good bit poorer, after the Jokonan locusts had passed through, but it could have been much worse. They'd evidently thought Liss a madwoman at first, but by that time they were praising her as a saint sent from the Daughter Herself."

Liss grinned. "I no doubt sounded a madwoman when I first rode in shrieking. Thanks be for my chancellery tabard. I'm glad they listened. I didn't wait to see."

"So we learned. The divine was done in by then—"

"You weren't much better," muttered dy Cabon.

"—so we took their charity for the night. Never ceases to amaze me, when people with so little share their bit with strangers. Five gods rain blessings upon 'em, for they'd just had their allotment of bad luck for a year at least.

"I talked them into loaning a mule to the divine, though they sent a boy along to be sure it got back again, and we started for Maradi in the morning, following Liss. I'd have preferred to chase you, Royina, but not unequipped as we were. I wanted an army. The goddess must have heard me, for we found one a few hours later, coming up the road. The provincar of Tolnoxo loaned us mounts, and you can believe I jumped to join his troop. Would have saved steps to let them come to us back at the village, for we passed through there again in the afternoon—returned their mule, at least, which made its owner happy." He glanced at dy Cabon. "I probably should have sent dy Cabon on to the temple at Maradi—he might have caught up with Liss—but he refused to be parted from me."

Dy Cabon growled reluctant agreement under his breath. "I wasted two miserable days in dy Tolnoxo's baggage train. The parts of me that meet a saddle were pounded to bruises by then, but even I could see we were following too slowly."

"Yes, despite all my howling." Foix grimaced. "The Tolnoxans gave up at the border, claiming the Jokonan column would break up into a dozen parts and scatter, and that only the men of Caribastos, who knew their own country, had a chance of netting them. I said we only needed to follow one part. Dy Tolnoxo gave me leave to take my horse and try it, and I almost did just to defy him. Should have; I might have caught up in time for Lord Arhys's welcoming fete. But the divine was mad to get me back to Maradi, for all the good that proved to be in the end, and I was worried about Liss, so I let myself be persuaded."

"Not mad," dy Cabon denied. "Justly worried. I saw those flies."

Foix huffed in exasperation. "Will you leave off about those accursed flies! They were no one's beloved pets. There were a million more in the manure pile they came from. There is no shortage of flies in Tolnoxo. No need to ration 'em!"

"That's not the point, and you know it."

"Flies... ?" said Liss, bewildered.

Dy Cabon turned to her in eager, and irate, explication. "It was after we left dy Tolnoxo's troop and came at last to the temple house in Maradi. The next morning. I came into Foix's chamber and found him drilling a dozen flies."

Liss's nose wrinkled. "Ick. Wouldn't they squash?"

"No—not—they were marching around. In a parade array, back and forth across the tabletop, in little ranks."

"File flies," murmured Foix, irrepressibly.

"He was experimenting with his demon, that's what," said dy Cabon. "After I told him to leave the thing strictly alone!"

"They were only flies." Foix's embarrassed grin twisted. "Granted, they did better than some recruits I've tried to train."

"You were starting to dabble in sorcery." The divine scowled. "And you haven't stopped. What did you do to make that Jokonan's horse stumble?"

"Nothing counter to nature. I understood your lecture perfectly well—your god knows you've repeated it often enough! You can't claim that turmoil and disorder didn't freely flow from the demon—what a splendid pileup! No, nor that it didn't result in good! If your order's sorcerers can do it, why can't I?"

"They are properly supervised and instructed!"

"Five gods know, you are certainly supervising and instructing me. Or at least, spying and badgering. Comes to much the same thing, I suspect." Foix hunched. "Anyway," he returned to his narrative, "they told us in Maradi that Liss had ridden to the fortress of Oby in Caribastos, thinking it the likeliest place to find the royina. Or if not the royina, someone fit to pursue her. So we followed, as fast as I could make dy Cabon ride. We arrived two days after Liss had left, but we heard the royina was rescued and safe at Porifors, so took a day to rest the divine's bruised saddle parts—"

"And yours," muttered dy Cabon.

"And followed on to Porifors," Foix raised his voice over this, "on a road that the march of Oby told us was perfectly safe and impossible to miss. The second part of his assurance proved true. Daughter's tears, I thought the Jokonans had come back for a rematch, and we were going to lose the race this time, within sight of our refuge."

Dy Cabon rubbed his forehead in a weary, worried gesture. Ista wondered if his morning's dangerous parching had left him with a lingering headache.

"I am very concerned about Foix's demon," said Ista.

"I, as well," said dy Cabon. "I thought the Temple could treat him, but it is not to be. The Bastard's Order has lost the saint of Rauma."

"Who?" said Ista.

"The divine of the god in Rauma—it is a town in Ibra, not far from the border mountains—she was the living agent of the god for the miracle of—do you remember that ferret, Royina? And what I told you about it?"

"Yes."

"For weak elementals that have taken up residence in animals, to force the demon into the dying divine who will return it to the god, it is sufficient to slay the animal in his or her presence."

"Thus the end of that ferret," said Ista.

"Poor thing," said Liss.

"It is so," dy Cabon admitted. "Hard on the innocent beast, but what will you? The occurrences are normally quite rare." He took a breath. "The Quadrenes use a related system to rid themselves of sorcerers. A cure worse than the disease. But, once in a great while, a saint may come along who is gifted by the god with the trick of it."

"The trick of what?" said Ista, with a patience she did not feel.

"The trick of extracting the demon from a human mount and returning it to the god, and yet leaving the person alive. And with the soul and wits intact, or nearly so, if it goes well."

"And... what is the trick of it?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."

Ista's voice grew edged. "Did you sleep through all your classes in that seminary back in Casilchas, dy Cabon? You are supposed to be my spiritual conductor! I swear you could not conduct a quill from one side of a page to the other!"

"It's not a trick," he said, harried. "It's a miracle. You cannot pull miracles out of a book, by rote."

Ista clenched her teeth, both infuriated and ashamed. "Yes," she said lowly. "I know." She sat back. "So ... what happened to the saint?"

"Murdered. By that same troop of Jokonan raiders who overtook us on the road in Tolnoxo."

"Ah," breathed Ista. "That divine. I heard of her. The march of Rauma's bastard half sister, I was told by one of the women captives." Raped, tortured, and burned alive in the rubble of the Bastard's Tower. Thus do the gods reward Their servants.

"Is she?" said dy Cabon in a tone of interest. "I mean... was she."

Liss put in indignantly, "What blasphemy, to slay a saint! Lord Arhys said that of the three hundred men who left Jokona, no more than three returned alive. Now we see why!"

"What waste." The divine signed himself. "But if it is so, she was surely avenged."

"I would be considerably more impressed with your god, dy Cabon," said Ista through her teeth, "if He could have arranged one life's worth of simple protection in advance, rather than three hundred lives' worth of gaudy vengeance afterward." She drew a long, difficult breath. "My second sight has returned."

His head swiveled, and his arrested gaze flashed to her face. "How did this come about? And when?"

Ista snorted. "You were there, or nearly so. I doubt you have forgot that dream."

His overheated pink flushed redder, then paled. Whatever he was trying to say, he could not get it out. He choked and tried again. "That was real!"

Ista touched her forehead. "He kissed me on the brow, here, as once His Mother did, and laid an unwelcome burden thereupon. I told you things of dire import have been happening here. That is the least of them. Did you hear any rumor, at Oby, of the murder of Princess Umerue by a jealous courtier of hers, some two or three months ago here at Porifors? And the stabbing of Ser Illvin dy Arbanos?"

"Oh, yes," said Foix. "It was the next greatest gossip there, after your rescue. Lord dy Oby said he was most sorry to hear about Lord Illvin, and that Lord Arhys must miss him greatly. He knew the brothers of old, he said, from long before he became Lord Arhys's father-in-law, and said they always steered together, up and down this corner of Caribastos for going on twenty years, like a man's right and left hands on his reins."

"Well, that was not the true story of the crime."

Foix looked interested, if skeptical; dy Cabon looked interested and extremely worried.

"I have been three days sorting through the lies and misdirections. Umerue may have been a princess once, but by the time she came here, she was a demon-eaten sorceress. Sent, I was told, and this part I believe, to suborn Porifors and deliver it to someone in or near the court of Jokona. The effect this might have on the coming Visping campaign, especially if the treachery was not revealed until the most critical possible moment, I leave to your military imagination, Foix."

Foix nodded, slowly. The first part, he had no trouble following, obviously. What was to come...

"In a secret scrambling fight, both Umerue and Lord Arhys were slain."

Dy Cabon blinked. "Royina, don't you mean Lord Illvin? We just met Lord Arhys."

"Just so. The demon jumped to Arhys's wife—a mistake from its point of view, it appears, because she promptly seized control of it and forced it to stuff Arhys's severed soul back into his own body, stealing strength from his younger brother Illvin to keep his corpse moving all the same. Some distorted species of death magic—I will ask you, Learned, to expound the theology of it at your earliest convenience. And then the marchess feigned it was Illvin injured, and the princess killed, by the princess's Jokonan clerk, whom she terrified into fleeing."

"So that's what I felt when I saw her," whispered Foix, sounding much enlightened. "Another demon."

"I witnessed everyone's testimony," avowed Liss loyally. "It's all true. We even questioned the demon, though that wasn't much use. When Lord Arhys was struck in the fight this morning by that Jokonan lancer, the cut appeared on Lord Illvin's body. It was dreadfully uncanny." She added reflectively, "Bled like a stuck pig, too. Well, so he would—they do stick pigs with lances, I think."

Ista glanced at the sun and measured the shortening shadows in the stone courtyard. "In a while, you will speak with all concerned, and bear witness as well. But dy Cabon, listen. I do not know why your god has brought me to this house of woe. I do not know what, or who, can be saved out of this ghastly tangle. I do know that at some point, one way or another, that demon has to be driven out of Lady Cattilara. It is wild to escape, with her body by preference, but it will kill her in order to fly in another's if it gains the chance. Arhys is beginning to deteriorate, body and, I fear, mind as well. Worse—I suspect his soul may already be sundered. Lord Illvin is dying slowly, being drained by this sorcery of more life than his body can replace. When he dies, his brother ends, and Cattilara, I believe, will be swallowed by her demon."

She stopped, drew breath, looked around at the shocked faces staring back at her. Not one, she realized with a chill, was staring at her as though she had gone mad. They were all staring at her as though she was going to tell them what to do next.

Booted footsteps echoed in the archway. Ista looked up to see Lord Arhys enter, observe her and her little court, and approach. He stopped and gave her a bow, then stood taken rather aback by the staggered, searching looks he was collecting from his new guests.

"Lord Arhys." Ista's nod acknowledged the bow. "I have been apprising my escort's acting captain and my spiritual conductor of the true state of affairs here at Porifors. It is necessary that they know, that they may guard and advise me to best effect."

"I see." He forced a grimace into an unfelt smile. He paused a moment as if considering what to say for himself—apologize for being dead, perhaps?—then, apparently defeated by the quandary, passed on to more immediate affairs. "My scouts are dispatched, but not yet returned. Our prisoners were not very cooperative, but it appears their patrol was the screen of some larger force, given the task of cutting communications on the road between Porifors and Oby. And that the attack on dy Gura and the divine was premature in some fashion that we were unable to extract from them, for all the howls we squeezed out. We are taking precautions—topping our cisterns, warning the town, sending riders to alert outlying areas to be on guard. I have heard nothing of such a Jokonan force from my own men along the border, but ... I have been much distracted from my duties these past few days."

Ista pursed her lips on a worried exhalation. "An attack from Jokona? Why now?"

He shrugged. "A delayed reprisal for the death of their princess? We had expected one before this. Or ... a much-less-delayed attempt to regain a great prize, lately lost." His gaze on her was grave.

Despite the heat, Ista shivered. "I would not chose to bring down such trouble on any host, least of all you. Perhaps ... I should remove to Oby." Run away? A beguilingly sensible cowardice, that. Leave this castle, leave this tangle, leave these anguished and benighted souls to sink under the accumulating weight of their misjudgments, misery, and love... she could run away. She could.

"Perhaps." He gave her an ambiguous nod. "But only if we can be sure we have secured the road, or else we would just be delivering you into Jokonan hands, a gift already unwrapped. I must ride out this afternoon—I can't stop now. You must see that," he added with peculiar earnestness. "You must not stop me now."

"Since I know not how," she sighed, "you are safe from that chance for the moment. Other chances, I cannot speak for."

"I shall be forced to take my rest, shortly—"

"Illvin must be allowed to eat, especially now," she said, alarmed.

"I do not wish otherwise. But I would see his new wound, first."

"Ah. That would be wise, I think."

As he seemed to expect her company, she rose and followed him up the stairs, her people trailing in unconcealed curiosity. The entry of so many persons alarmed Goram, whom Ista tried to reassure with a few soft words; he seemed more consoled by Liss's kindly pat on his shoulder. At the march's direction, he unwrapped Illvin's new bandage. Arhys's inspection was brief, experienced, and grim. Foix and dy Cabon peered with diffident interest at the bloody tear in Arhys's tunic as he bent over his silent brother. When the march turned away, they crowded up to the bedside to get a whispered account from Liss.

Arhys's hand clenched and unclenched on his sword hilt. He murmured to Ista, standing with him a little apart, "I confess, I was not altogether sorry to find those Jokonan soldiers out on my road this morning. I think some part of me was starting to hope for a better death. Less ....gnominious, than the first, less shameful to my father's honor. I see there is a problem with this plan."

"Yes," said Ista.

"I feel as though I am lost in some dark and evil maze, and cannot find my way out."

"Yes," said Ista. "But... no longer alone in the labyrinth, at least."

His smile flickered; he squeezed her hand. "Indeed. My good company grows apace since the gods guided you here. That is a greater comfort than I had expected."

The meal tray arrived. Lord Arhys excused himself; Ista trusted he would find the safe harbor of his bed before his midday collapse overtook him. She ushered her own people out again, to give Goram time to do his necessary work, but she directed dy Cabon to stay, assist, and observe.

Leaning on the gallery railing, she watched Lord Arhys stride out of sight below, trailing the subtle smoke of his eroding soul. She rubbed her palm, still tingling where he had gripped it.

I could run away. No one else here can, but I could.

If I chose to.