“That it does.”
“Can we make it?”
She grinned, looking almost like Brenner for a moment. “Do you believe in miracles, paladin?”
He grunted.
They ate in silence for a while. Caliban had another glass of wine, and poured her another one too. She frowned at it.
“So how does one get to be a guerilla accountant, anyway? What’s your family like?”
Slate stopped frowning at the wine, and frowned at him instead. Caliban almost smiled. Despite a full day, and seeing several other women, the mobility of her face still intrigued him.
Slate took a swallow of wine, as if to fortify herself. “Not much to tell. My mother was a very high-class courtesan who counted her fertile days by the moon. Her beauty was impeccable, her math skills were not.” She swept a hand at herself. “And here I am.”
“And you became an accountant.”
“She could afford very good tutors. Since my beauty was not impeccable, I made sure my math skills were above reproach.” She took another slug of wine.
There was an old hurt there, Caliban could tell. It wasn’t hard to decipher. He wondered if she thought she was hiding it.
“The rest is the usual story," said Slate. "Got married when I was too young to know better. It lasted about six months, and then he went off with a blond from the Weaver's Quarter and I went off to Anuket City. And came back eventually, of course.”
"What an idiot," said Caliban, because that was what you said to this sort of thing. "You're well rid of him." Privately he wondered about the wedding-ring scar on her hand. Had she tried to burn the ring off? Slate did not strike him as the sort for impractical romantic gestures, but one never really knew.
"It made things easier," she admitted. “So. That’s me, anyway.” Slate set the wineglass down. “So what’s it like to slay demons?”
He grunted. “Messy. Someone comes into the temple with a report, and you ride out to find it. If it’s in an animal, you kill it. Usually it’s an animal. If it’s in a person, though, you try to convince them to go back to the temple. Usually they’re fighting it, and they’re happy to go along. Sometimes you have to kill them.”
“How do you know if they’re possessed, and not just…?” She trailed off and waved a hand to indicate any number of options.
It was a fair question. Caliban stared into his wine. “Most of the time, demons are pretty stupid—they start babbling in no earthly language, or levitating or something. The smart ones are a lot harder, some of them speak the language very well, have experience puppeting a body around, but they’re rare, and you get a feeling—they usually have a kind of accent, and they don’t move right. But it can be hard. You learn to do it after a few years, but the old ones, the smart ones can still catch you out. And if the human host works with them willingly, which does happen sometimes…well, they’re nearly impossible to spot until they make a mistake.”
“Not a lot of sword work, then?”
“Enough of it. If they realize what’s happening and don’t come quietly—or if they get a big animal, like a bull or a boar—well, it gets ugly.”
That was putting it mildly. The last bad demon he’d dealt with had taken a draft horse, and had killed two men before they’d sent him out after it. Running around a field with a solid ton of demon in hot pursuit, panting out the ritual of exorcism and trying to cut the thing’s legs out from under it one by one…no, “ugly” didn’t quite cover it.
“How can you tell if there’s one in an animal, if it’s a matter of accent?”
“They’re generally not good at hiding it. You ever hear a cow speak in tongues?”
She giggled. He hadn’t actually been joking, but he’d take the giggle. It was much better than having her frown all the time.
She sobered. “So that voice yesterday, in the Captain’s office—”
“Ah. Yes.” Now it was his turn to fortify himself with wine. “It talks sometimes. The demon’s dead—genuinely dead, the temple certified it—but the body’s still in there. If that makes any sense.”
Slate frowned. “An actual body?”
“More of a metaphorical one, although it’s quite real nonetheless. It’s hard to explain. It’s definitely not alive, it’s…ah…decaying, after a fashion, I think. But magic shakes it up, makes the flies come buzzing out, and then I start…err…muttering a bit.” He took another swallow of wine. “It doesn’t happen that often.”
“Hmmm.” She pursed her lips for a moment. “You’re sure it’s dead?”
“Very sure, madam.”
She lifted an eyebrow.
“I haven’t killed you. Ergo—” He drained the rest of his wineglass.
“Ah. Good enough.”
She got up from the table, taking her wine with her. Caliban poured the rest of the bottle into his glass and followed her to the chairs.
They had not been able to find a third room for him at the inn, and neither he nor Brenner had been particularly keen on sharing a room, so the temple knight was sleeping on the floor in the common room. Slate avoided the pile of blankets by the simple expedient of climbing over the back of the chair. Less agile and with a fuller glass, Caliban shoved his bedding aside with his foot and took the other chair.
“It doesn’t sound very glamorous, demon hunting,” she said.
“It’s not. I’ve killed a lot of possessed cows.”
“Then why was Lord Caliban so lionized?”
No-longer-Lord Caliban shrugged. “Temple paladins, you know. We dress well, when we’re not off killing things. We’re polite. We do heroic things that sound interesting—nobody realizes that most demon possessions end with butchering farm animals. Most of us aren’t total bastards, since the Dreaming God has certain requirements in his servants. We’re uncomplicated and look good in white. You know how it is.” He considered for a moment. “We’re not sworn to celibacy.”
The sexual tension in the room kicked up several notches, rather abruptly. Caliban twitched.
I shouldn’t have said that. That was stupid. I should have stopped drinking several glasses ago.
Slate wasn’t helping, sprawled bonelessly over the chair like that. He wondered if she even knew how to sit in a chair.
Maybe she spends so much time hunched over account books that she can’t sit normally the rest of the time.
He was surprised to see that she did actually have a shape underneath her usual layers of clothes. It was more generous than he would have guessed.
Well. One hardly dresses their best to visit a prison.
Stretched over the chair, however…
He took another swallow, vaguely hoping that sobriety would lie at the bottom of the glass.
“Mmm.” She eyed him warily. “Uncomplicated and look good in white. Right. So how did a demonslayer get possessed?”
His libido went back to wherever it had briefly emerged from, which was a relief, even if the question wasn’t.
“Oh.” Caliban set the wineglass down, and stared into the fire, the black logs crazed with fine red cracks. “I’d…as soon not talk about it, if it’s all the same to you. It doesn’t matter any more anyway.”
“It’s okay. We’re all going to die anyway in a few days. At most in a couple of weeks,” she said, with a sort of grim cheer.
He blinked at her. “Is that meant to make me feel better?”
“Sure. You don’t have to worry about getting rid of all your problems before they mess up your life anymore.” She waved a hand in his direction. “I’m back to biting my fingernails, and Brenner’s…well, I don’t know what all of Brenner’s vices are, and I don’t want to. So you don’t have to worry about whatever sins temple knights commit that let the demons in, because it’s not going to matter.”
He weighed this bit of wisdom and came to a conclusion. “You’re drunk.”
“Well, a little. I generally don’t drink very much. Still, since I’m going to die anyway…” She wriggled around until her knees
were over the back of the chair and her head was hanging over the seat and she was gazing solemnly at him, upside down. Bits of Caliban’s spine cried out in sympathy.
“Fine, I grant you that my life’s not worth much at the moment. But what if I’m worried about the afterlife?” He could feel a smile tugging at him, despite the subject—an inverted drunk guerrilla accountant was giving a disgraced temple knight spiritual advice. Possibly the gods had more of a sense of humor than he’d thought.
At the moment, she’s probably in better grace with the gods than I am, anyway.
“Are you worried about the afterlife?”
“Not really.”
“There, you see?” She folded her arms. Her hair brushed the floor under her head.
“Are you worried about dying?” he asked. He didn’t mean to ask it, hadn’t expected to hear himself saying it, and yet there it was—years in a temple got into your head. You provided spiritual comfort, like a reflex. It was even the paladin’s voice he was using, the one that was always so effective, soothing and comforting, a little quieter than usual. A brother’s voice, a priest’s voice, a voice that spoke to the nerves and said: Trust me.
People opened up to that voice. If you did it well enough, you hardly ever needed the sword.
He wasn’t sure if the fact that he could still do it involuntarily, despite months in a prison cell, demonic possession, murder, and half a bottle of wine was comforting or horrifying.
One of the two, anyway. Possibly both.
“Oh, I’m quite petrified.” Slate wrinkled her nose, but there was a timbre in her voice that told him she wasn’t entirely joking.
If she’d been right side up, at this point he would have reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. God, he’d held variations of this same conversation at least a dozen times with the newest squires. That there was no difference between an accountant thief and a novice demonslayer was also either comforting or horrifying.
Next it’s the long, friendly look, and then they say something—generally doesn’t matter what—and the proud ones straighten up, and the healthy ones cry, and the funny ones try to make a joke and choke up halfway through, and you put an arm around them and say something—still doesn’t matter what, it’s the tone that does it—and wait until they’re done and then offer a handkerchief, and then they say something embarrassed, and you tell them that you cried for three nights the first time you actually went out after a demon.
Hmm, with the way she gets sneezing, I should probably offer her the handkerchief a little early—
Ngha, ha, nghaa, the demon said, which might have been an agreement, or a commentary on handkerchiefs.
He’d never seen a possessed person use one, if it came to that. Perhaps they didn’t have handkerchiefs in hell.
“On the other hand,” Slate said, making a sweeping gesture—Caliban rescued his wineglass—”whenever it starts to bother me, I think the same thing.”
Here it comes. He dug in a pocket for his handkerchief.
“Really stupid people die all the time. And if they can manage it, I oughta have no problem.”
He blinked.
That wasn’t in the script…
“Err. You’re not going to cry, are you?” Slate asked worriedly, eyeing his handkerchief.
“Ah…no.” And that’s what I get for thinking I know what I’m doing.
Kalikalikaliha, n’ha’mah, added the demon, which was arguably also something he’d gotten for thinking he knew what he was doing. And that was the other side of the paladin’s voice, and the Dreaming God only knew if he could still manage that any longer.
He shoved the square of cloth back in his pocket. “I’m fine. But I think I’m about ready for bed.” Before my delusions run away with me, or I start gibbering in tongues again.
“Mmm, probably a good idea.” She kicked off with her feet and rolled off the chair, landing on her feet. He would have broken his neck if he’d tried that.
She staggered and sat down, hard.
It was not chivalric to snicker. He did it anyway, because if you were going to be thrown out of a religious order on your ear, you took what small comforts you could get.
Slate grumbled at him and slouched off toward her door.
“Madam—” he said, feeling oddly stilted, and then, “Slate—”
She turned and looked at him, one hand on the doorknob.
“Thank you. For—” he searched briefly for the words, “—giving me my death back.”
She inclined her head as graciously as the Dowager accepting tribute, and slipped through the door and away.
He watched her go, then spread the bedroll out across the floorboards in front of the fire.
Probably they were all going to die. Still, it was better than life in a cell six paces across.
Caliban wrapped himself up in his blankets and stared at the fire. Unsure whether he was comforted or horrified, he drifted off to sleep, with the demon mumbling curses like a lullaby.
Chapter Five
Caliban took the sword out to the yard behind the inn the next morning, to see how much he had lost. The yard was for storing carriages when their owners were staying the night, but there weren’t any in residence at the moment. Barrels of lamp oil and the less perishable supplies lined the walls, but there was a broad, empty space in the center. Grass grew up through the bricks.
He set his teeth and stepped out from the comforting closeness of the inn, directly into the emptiness.
Nothing happened. He did not fall into the sky. His stomach stayed quiet.
He exhaled.
Very well, then.
He knelt in the center of the yard, the sword in front of him, and tried to pray.
Dreaming God, who holds us all within His dreams, I thank you for this day you have set before me, for the sword I am given to serve you. I thank you—
And there he stopped, because the next line was I thank you for my life, and that seemed an odd mockery. He was a dead man, after all.
He hadn’t even meant to pray. He had done it because you started the sword practice with prayer, every time. It was automatic. You drew the sword, you went to your knees, you bowed your head. It was part of the sword practice.
It was useless. The temple had thrown him out. The god had obviously turned away, or the demon would never have gained entrance. He could still feel the hollowness in his soul where the god’s presence had once been.
Ngha, maha, kalikalikali…
No. I cannot believe that. I must believe that the gods do not send us trials that we cannot endure.
It would have been easier to believe that if he hadn’t seen so many people broken by the trials they had endured.
He’d broken a few in his time. Exorcisms were not gentle things.
He had prayed in the cell for hours. Days. He had kept vigil on his knees, praying. Not for forgiveness, not for mercy—he deserved neither—but simply for a death.
The god had not answered. The hollow place in his soul stayed empty. Weeks had stretched to months, and he had stopped believing that there would ever be an answer. His faith had turned to bitterness and bile.
And then a little brown sparrow of a woman had come to the cell door and begun to sneeze.
The temple had abandoned him. Did the Dreaming God still have a use for him after all? Or had the god, too, washed His hands of His former paladin?
If He was still there, wouldn’t I feel Him? Or does what’s left of the demon keep even gods away?
Caliban sighed, got up, and drew his sword.
It wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. He’d lost a fair bit of tone, but no worse than the time he’d been laid up with a broken leg. The memories were all still there, ground into slow, stupid muscle until it was second nature.
He ran through the sword forms, separately at first, then together in sequence. It was a crisp morning, but even so, within a very few minutes, sweat was dripping off him and his breath was coming fast.
He s
heathed the sword and went to dunk his head in the horse trough.
When he came up for air, Brenner was sitting on one of the barrels, watching him. There was a cigarette between his lips.
Caliban saluted him, somewhat ironically, with the sword. “I did not get a chance to thank you. It’s an excellent blade.”
Brenner nodded. “Are you going to ask where I got it?”
“Should I?”
The assassin grinned. “Perhaps I killed a temple paladin for it.”
“Perhaps you did,” said Caliban evenly, giving no sign of how his stomach lurched at the thought.
“Ah, you disappoint me.” Brenner chuckled. “No, I went to a weaponsmith. He does very fine work, and he occasionally supplies the temples.”
“Now you disappoint me,” said Caliban. “Did you at least steal it?”
“Tchah!” Brenner clucked his tongue. “One does not steal from weaponsmiths. They’re skilled labor. You do your part to keep them in business. Stealing from them is short-sighted.”
Caliban scratched his chin. This was an unexpected social conscience for an assassin.
“Of course, as Mistress Slate reminds me, we’re all going to die shortly, so does one have the luxury of being anything but short-sighted?”
“Aww.” Brenner slid off the barrel, grinning, grinding the cigarette end out under his heel. “Our Slate is a dear little fatalist, isn’t she?”
“I take it you don’t share her view,” said Caliban, practicing a lunge that took him away from the assassin’s grin.
“Nah. The trip’s bad enough, mind you, but she’s got her own reasons for not wanting to go to Anuket City. And it’s different for me, you understand—I expect to die any day, so one more suicide mission isn’t any different. Our Slate’s in a much lower-risk line of work.”
Caliban raised an eyebrow at that. “You’re both breaking into people’s houses at night, aren’t you?”
“Yes, yes, but it’s different. You wake up and find a teeny little girl with big eyes like our Slate going through your papers, you call the watch. You wake up and find me standing over you with a knife, and…well, now.”
Clockwork Boys: Book One of the Clocktaur War Page 6