'Let's explore.' His legs were still stiff from his hours in Oreste's dungeon. He needed a rest from walking, even if it must be in these nightmare surroundings.
'As long as we're away before dark!'
'Obviously. I hate looting, but I'm going to take anything I can use.'
'They have no more use for it,' Hamish agreed.
'Let's start by seeing if we can find water and something to eat.'
Hamish choked. 'I'll eat outside the gate.'
'If you want. We do need food. And clothes. Why don't you start hunting?'
'What are you going to do?' Hamish peered at him suspiciously.
'I'm going to visit the sanctuary.'
'It won't be there!'
No matter what Toby ever suggested he could rely on Hamish to shoot back objections, usually very logical objections. Sometimes they were wonderfully sensible and he had to overrule them anyway, although he hated doing that. Hamish was an equal partner now, but he had always been senior deputy in charge of objections. Sure enough:
'The tutelary won't be there, and even if it is, what's happened to its town may have driven it completely insane, so it'll attack any stranger on sight, and even if it isn't, you know what the hob will do to you if you try this, but we can't risk having you injured here, so there's no reason to go there at all; it's pointless and dangerous, so I'm going to come with you, and why are you laughing?' He pouted, hurt and resentful.
'Just nerves,' Toby said, for it seemed inhuman to be amused by anything in this terrible place. 'Yes, it's a long shot, but worth a try. If there is still a spirit to tend the souls of the dead, then we can spend a night undercover for a change. I don't think there's any real danger. And if the hob gives me trouble, I'd rather you were out of it so you can come and pick up the pieces afterward.'
He strode off around the plaza, holding a hand over his nose and trying not to look directly at the hill of rotting corpses. Soon he had to slow down, because the piled junk made treacherous going for a man whose buskins sported more holes than a lace shawl. He stepped between timbers with nails in them, broken glass, broken crockery, scrap iron. If the hob reacted to the spirit as it had in Bordeaux and other places, he would soon find himself rolling in all that. But even before he started he had been about as close as he had ever come to a sanctuary and the hob had raised no objection. Sometimes he could tell when the hob knew a spirit was nearby, although that did not always work — he had felt no premonition of the demon in the orange grove. He certainly felt none now. Almost certainly, Hamish was right and the tutelary was gone.
Birds fluttered and shrieked. The stench made his head swim, but he came at last into the cool shadow of the archway. He almost turned to see if Hamish was still there, watching over him, and decided not to. If he was, it would embarrass him to know that his intentions were so transparent; if he wasn't, there was no point.
Toby stepped through the space where the doors had once hung, then waited until his eyes adjusted to the dim, cool light of the high-vaulted chamber. So this was a sanctuary, was it? Before the rebels came it might have been very beautiful, although in an ornate Spanish style that would have seemed alien to an ignorant Scottish Highlander. Now it was a ruin, a singularly repellent one. The invading army had smashed everything breakable and then used the place as a latrine, leaving a deep layer of excrement on the floor and splattered over the walls. Stained glass, frescoes, and carvings had all been smashed. At the far end, where there would have been an altar and probably a throne, there remained only bare stonework above a heap of ruins.
No, the tutelary had gone, for no spirit except a demon would tolerate this ugliness and filth. Furthermore, since no spirit ever left its own haunt willingly, it must have been raped away by a hexer and perverted into a demon itself. Tutelaries made the worst demons of all, Father Lachlan had said, because they were wise in the ways of men. It need not have been Nevil himself who worked this abomination — he had many hexers in his service — but it might well have been. Doubtless the former benevolent guardian of this sad little town now resided in a jewel somewhere, perhaps on the rebel king's own finger. A spirit once dedicated to the welfare of its people was now given over to hate and destruction.
Obviously Toby's harebrained plan to rid himself of the hob was even less likely to work than he had expected. Had he found the sanctuary bereft of its tutelary but intact, then he would have shown all its beauty to the hob and tried to persuade it to remain there. He did not know if it could voluntarily quit him without killing him, but it would have been worth a try. It still was.
'Hob? Fillan! I'm talking to you.' Could it even hear him or understand? Probably not. 'This is a sanctuary. People lived in this town once, many people. Others would like to come and live in the houses, but they cannot if the place lacks a spirit to care for them. If you choose to remain here, then people will come and repair it and make it beautiful again. You see on the walls and the ceiling? They will repair all the pretty pictures for you. They will bring offerings and praise you for helping them.'
He heard nothing, felt nothing. He said what had to be said:
'If you can only leave me by stopping my heart, then I will pay that price. Let me die and you will remain here. This will be your house.'
No response. The hob either did not hear or did not understand. Or else it wanted to continue traveling the world, because it was peculiarly crazy, even for a hob.
With a sigh, Toby turned away from the desolation and walked out into the brightness. Hamish had not moved from his place in shadows at the far side of the plaza, keeping watch. The birds were back at their feasting.
CHAPTER SIX
The first houses they investigated had been thoroughly looted, the furnishings broken or deliberately fouled, including the water casks, which had long since dried out anyway. Whether demons or mortals led by a demon, the invaders could have destroyed everything more easily with fire, so they must have taken pride in their work and wanted to leave evidence of their thoroughness.
Toby's canteen was long empty. A town must have a supply of water, and the rain barrels could not possibly be adequate. There would be a spring or a cistern of some sort, but would the demons have poisoned it?
Moving together in ever-grimmer silence, they turned a corner into a tiny yard and almost knocked over a girl coming out. She leaped back with a scream and then continued to retreat. She was short and slight, dressed all in black: a long skirt and a sleeved blouse. Her cloth bonnet was tied under her chin to conceal her hair and ears, leaving only her terrified face exposed. Incongruously, she had a bright-colored pottery bottle hung around her neck on a cord, and this she clasped to her with both arms as she backed away, staring at them in horror.
'Senores! Do not hurt me.' Her voice rang shrill and cracking with terror. 'I will submit! I will do anything you say, and I can cook for you, too, or wash your clothes. Anything, senores! There is a bed upstairs, senores, and I will not resist, if you promise not to hurt me and not to tell your friends. I will be just yours, yes? Just the two of you. And you will not—'
'Stop!' Toby howled, turning his back. 'Hamish, speak to her.'
Hamish went down on one knee. 'Senorita!' he said, speaking Castilian, as she had. 'We mean you no harm, no harm at all. We have no friends with us. We are foreigners, but we are loyal subjects of the Khan, not the Fiend. There are just the two of us, and we do not molest women. We will not touch you. Please do not be alarmed.'
How could she not be alarmed in this place, trapped by two strange men, and one of them a giant? What horrors had she experienced to make her react so? She had expected to be raped before she even knew they were foreigners.
'I will do anything you want, senores, but please do not hurt me.'
'We shall not touch you, senorita. We are honorable men. You have nothing to fear from us.'
'You are not soldiers?'
'No, we are merely travelers, men who honor and respect women.'
