point I’m pretty sure I had my hand inside her rib cage.
With my fingers wrapped around her beating heart.
Get what I mean about flat-out nasty?
Or maybe it was her hand and my heart. Like I said, I’m not real clear on the details. Somebody’s hand was inside somebody’s chest. Khryllians are big on sticking their hands into people. Penetration of flesh and shit. It’s that goddamn Healing of His. Once you sand the corners off consequences, people start to get really fucking weird.
Some people say that’s what happened to me. But screw them anyway. None of them could have lived through my consequences.
Anyway, I came walking down out of there with my right fist full of metaphoric Holy Foreskin, and it was not the most comfortable thing I’ve ever held.
But I was fucking right going to get my handjob’s worth.
Rounding the last curve of stair down into the Lavidherrixium, rubbing worm-threads of dried blood from my skin and hoping these sick bastards at least had a goddamn shower I could use before I had to go out in public, I didn’t notice how the murmur of breeze above became the murmur of voices below until the voices took on actual words.
“. . and that, my Lord, is a matter to offer up unto the Regard of the Lord of Valor. Which is none other than my full intention here, and which you, my Lord, have a truly astonishing lack of authority to prevent.”
I could clearly hear the nailed-shut clamp of Markham’s Lipkan jaw. “I repeat: You may not ascend. You must depart immediately. That is an order.”
“The Love of Our Lord of Valor has cleared the clamor from my ears, my Lord; I kenned you well at first breath. And every time since. What I have
“I am Lord Righteous in service to the Champion of-”
“Oh, aye, there is that, and the trifle of authority you wield is held in fief from her, true enough. But even Herself can stand between a Knight and Our Lord only if the unfortunate Knight in question is proven Recreant, Craven, or Base. Is one or more of these a charge you’d care to offer a poor halfcrippled Knight the barest glimpse of a wink to Answer? For the dispute can be settled between us right now, my Lord Righteous in Et Cetera. Assuredly it can; we need only step out where we will not defile-”
“I
I could imagine the look on Markham’s face. It made me smile as I followed the curving walkway above the long pool. Despite recognizing the other voice.
“This unlawful, sacrilegious-one might even say blasphemous, were one of a more judgmental temper than my poor self-insistence of yours could, within the bounds of reasonable possibility, lead a Knight of suspicious nature to wonder if there might be something, above in the Purificapex, that you’d mislike him to encounter. And to speculate what this mysterious something might, in fact, turn out to be.”
“Yeah, Markham, tell the man.” I ducked under the last of the hanging lanterns above the walkway. “What is it you don’t want him to see?”
In the meat-smelling damp, Markham stood blankly still, pale as a Lipkan corpse. Trickles of condensation rolled down his armor.
One of the racks now held an impressively polished set of Khryllian plate that could have been made for a short bear. From one of the wall hooks, an arm’s length from where my clothes lay in a wadded pile, hung a padded surcoat and leggings, and bleached linen underclothes. From another hook hung a long white cloak.
Standing facing the armored Lord Righteous, buck naked as the day he was born but with a shitload more hair, arms akimbo, the white-shot thatch that covered his vast chest and asscheeks and tree-trunk legs not managing to conceal an impressive array of scarring that included an angry red knot on a scarlet rope around his right thigh, stood Tyrkilld, Knight Aeddharr.
This worthy’s jaw hung slack, and his face rapidly drained bright red into killing white.
“How’s the leg, shitheel?”
Tyrkilld’s mouth closed with a snap so loud he should have cracked a couple teeth. He took a breath, then another, and by the time he finally spoke, his voice was nearly human.
#8220;It gives considerable pain. But against finding your vile self in this holy place, it bears comparison to casting a taper upon a house afire.”
“Thanks.” I turned toward the pale steel outrage that was Markham’s face. “Angvasse wants you to take me to the Pens. To take me to see Orbek.”
His expression didn’t so much as flicker. “The way lies back along our path,” he said. “As soon as you dress-”
“Through that office?” I nodded judiciously. “Go wait for me there.”
He looked blank. I flicked a couple back-of-the-hand
Markham’s face had gone beyond red. It was the color now of the robes. “I am tasked only-”
“Shut up about your tasks.” Maybe I could give the bastard an aneurysm and drop him right here. “Take a fucking hike. I’m sick of having you stare at my ass.”
“I-” Markham’s mouth snapped shut, then swung open again. “I-”
“Go on, fuck off.”
“My duty is to the Champion-”
“I got your doody right here.” I lifted my handful of metaphoric Holy Foreskin.
It got real bright in there.
I had to squint against the blaze that sprang from my upraised palm, even though I knew enough to point it away from my eyes; it lit up Markham like he’d stuck his face in an arc welder. Tyrkilld smothered what would have been, from anyone other than a Khryllian, a blasphemous obscenity, and shielded his eyes with one bull-shank arm.
It’s not for nothing that one of Khryl’s epithets is “the Brilliant.” Maybe it’s a sungod thing.
It also felt like the palm of my hand was being burned to ash and cinders while being continuously Healed, which is no coincidence, because that’s basically what was happening. Also a sungod thing.
I guess Khryl doesn’t want His Invested Agents throwing His Authority around casually. Like, for example, just to piss off Lipkan ass-cobs. But, y’know, that’s one of those Covenant of Pirichanthe things. The gods can only grant power or take it away; what you do with it is up to you.
Which is why I could stand there with a mouthful of grin, even while I was shaking steam off the new pink skin on my palm and patting out the line of smolder that was climbing the cuff of the blood-robe.
“You know what that means?” I waved the hand a little more. It still stung like a bastard. “It means you have to fuck off. Now.”
Markham’s only reply was a flickering glance of pure cold revulsion before he executed a crisp quarter-face and marched into the night-black corridor. Tyrkilld and I listened to his footsteps fade away.
We looked at each other.
“That,” Tyrkilld said slowly, “was entertainment near sufficing to counter the obscenity of your presence.”
I couldn’t help grinning at him. “Yeah, I can’t stand the sonofabitch either.”
He paced slowly toward the pool. “So Our Lady Champion’s
I went over to my clothes and peered around. “You guys have a shower or something?”
“I made no request for an apology to be made. Of any kind.”
“Shower,” I said. “Sh. Ow. Er. You have one? I itch like a whore in a haystack.”
“The sole apology I owe is the one I go to offer unto Khryl.”
“For trying to kill me?” I said to his back. “Or for failing?”
He glowered down at the bloody water. “We are at war. I did nothing wrong. Nothing.”
“Tell it to Khryl.”
