Penric’s Mission by Lois McMaster Bujold
“Demonstrably not the case,” Pen shouted back. “Ask Velka what he did to me in the bottle dungeon!”
The man’s head went back in perplexity, quickly mastered. “For the second time, I demand your surrender! Or your life will be cast from the Temple’s shelter!”
Penric glossed to those at his back, “It’s a ritual he’s obliged to try. No point in interrupting him before he gets through it.”
Kyrato repeated his warning three more times, each more strongly worded. Arisaydia drew his sword and looked even more untrusting. Nikys’s dark brows bent in dismayed curiosity.
“I am sorry,” said Kyrato solemnly, signed himself, and opened his hand as he attempted to set Pen’s clothes and hair on fire.
Pen snapped up the arriving impulse with his cold skill. Kyrato’s body jerked slightly, then he tried again, to the same end. And a third time.
It only took that horse two bites to learn better, Des observed, amused.
The sorcerer stared nonplussed at his own hand, then made to ignite Nikys and Arisaydia. Pen whipped those efforts aside even faster, and flipped out the chaos to land where it would; a few rocks worked loose around them and began to tumble downhill. Kyrato dodged, startled. Des was humming like a bowstring released, Let me, let me, let me…
“What are you?” Kyrato cried, his eyes widening in real fear at last.
“I told Velka I wasn’t a hedge sorcerer,” Pen returned impatiently. “Didn’t he pass you the word? That was really unfair. I swear the man doesn’t listen to a thing one tells him.”
Pen wondered how inexplicable this intense contest looked to outsiders. Two eccentric men standing on a slope making faces and gesturing at each other…
Velka bellowed up the hill, “Arisaydia! Surrender or be slain!”
Arisaydia muttered, “He meant ‘and’, there.” He gripped his sword in an impatience to match Des’s.
The Patos sorcerer put in loudly, “Surrender and your sister will be spared, and be made safe under my authority.” Which he probably imagined to be true.
“Sod you,” snarled Nikys, and heaved her first rock. It was well-aimed, but burst into fragments before it stuck its target. Another followed, to tumble aside in its arc.
“Why don’t they hit him?”
Pen wasn’t sure if that was plea or complaint. Both, really.
Arisaydia dropped a hand on her arm to hold her next launch, muttering, “Useless…”
“No, keep them coming. They’re a good distraction.” Pen cast her a sunlight smile over his shoulder. “Make him work. Heat him up.”
Her eyes flared with understanding. Ha, at least someone had listened to him, and remembered. The next rock whistled through the air. Arisaydia woke up and joined her effort, his rocks hissing more viciously.
The sergeant hadn’t been an idle spectator. The archers, in two pairs, had edged their way up each side of the slope into tolerable range, and loosed their arrows at last.
Have fun, Des.
The arrows, variously, burst into blue flame as they arced, to arrive on target as harmless puffs of ash, or tumbled end-over-end to clatter on the stones. A second flight met the same fate.
Why doesn’t he move faster? Doesn’t he have the trick of it? asked Pen, his senses racing along with Des’s.
He’s controlling his demon tightly. They can only do one thing at a time. It’s almost sad, really.
Remember, he’s a fellow divine, not your plaything.
Then he shouldn’t have threatened you.
The archers had almost worked close enough for Pen to reach, but as long as they were content to waste arrows, Pen was content to let them. A little closer, and he could clip their bowstrings at will, and their hamstrings nearly as easily. Pen trusted Kyrato had more defenses than thus seen, but since Pen hadn’t really attacked him yet, he’d had nothing to demonstrate them upon. Pen was growing adroit with that brutal tweak to the sciatic nerves, if he wanted to render this enemy unable to run away, not really his preference here. But the axilla offered equally distracting possibilities…
The sorcerer shifted the dusty pebbles under Pen’s feet, trying to dump him on his backside presumably; Pen danced aside to solider stone. A formless flurry of hallucinations whirled before Pen’s eyes; an interesting natural talent, suggesting the man could create extraordinary visions someday, with practice. Though not today, alas. Even without Des’s aid, Pen had no trouble ignoring them. The sorcerer was momentarily distracted averting one of Arisaydia’s sizzling projectiles—during which Nikys’s latest lob came down square on his head with a satisfying thunk. That had been a heavy rock she’d heaved, two-handed. He fell half-stunned, sliding down the path and grabbing at his staff to stop himself. With a distraught cry, he flung out his hands.
Pain boomed in Pen’s chest as his heart tried to tear itself apart. He went over backwards as if hit by a ram. Des was abruptly nowhere else but inside him, wrapping herself around the organ, holding it back together. The next flight of arrows fell unimpeded all around them, missing by inches.
Yells from below as the soldiers, taking his fall as their signal, started forward.
Pen climbed to his knees, chest bucking for air, mouth gaping in astonishment. That had been a killing blow.
Kyrato was also on his knees, mouth open in dismay and horrified triumph. He hadn’t quite, Pen thought, intended to do that forbidden thing, but he didn’t look as though he wanted to call it back. His gaze jerked all around, as he struggled to guess where Penric’s demon would jump as he drew his last breath.
Chaos spewed from Desdemona.
Half the hillside shook itself apart and thundered downward.
Kyrato slithered several yards with it, ending half-buried in scree. Sweating and scarlet, he heaved, twisted, drained suddenly pale, and then… passed out.
Heat stroke, Pen diagnosed, from some strange detached plane of continued consciousness, as uncomfortable and unwelcome as his trip to the bottle dungeon. His chest ached. The rest of him wasn’t doing terribly well, either, although there was a nice moment when frantic hands gathered him into a soft, soft lap.
Arisaydia’s boots passed him by; a sudden scrape and clang of steel rang descant over the throbbing echo of the slide.
“Don’t kill the sorcerer!” Pen cried in warning.
A grunt, a scuffle. “I remember,” Arisaydia’s voice floated back, sounding irritated. “Didn’t he?”
“Oh Mother’s blood, Pen, are you all right?” Nikys choked above him. Wet drops splashed his face, although the early evening sky was an impossible deep blue, cloudless. Could tears be also a blessing? But gods, he loved the sky in this country.
“Will be.” I hope. “Don’t you need to keep throwing rocks right now?”
“You just threw all of them. I think Adelis has it under control… the rest are running away. I mean, the ones who can. The sergeant is yelling for them to come back, but he’s running just as hard.”
“Huh. Good.” Des…?
…Des…?
Hsh. B’sy. But then, after a moment, in muzzy indignation: Kyrato was going to sacrifice his demon, in killing you. Let the god take it with your soul. He would have lived.
Aye. War-rules magic. S’why I want nothing to do with war.
…Good.
XVI
Nikys clutched Penric, whose mumbling had drifted into well-enunciated but not particularly sensible rambling, and watched Adelis’s figure move methodically around the slope below. The sun had retreated behind the hills, leaving the sky still luminous, only a few stars pricking through, and the dry ground drenched in shadowless blue. Adelis had chased off the only two swordsmen still willing to stand up and try to fight after the landslide. Both of them cut and bleeding, their considerable courage had broken, and they’d turned to run down the trail after their fleeing comrades while they still could. Nikys was relieved.
Adelis paused at an indistinct shape at the bottom of the slide. Muffled voices, a cry of protest, a me
Penric convulsed up in her lap. “What was that? He’s not dispatching all the wounded, is he? I have to stop him—”
“No. Or only one, I think. Lie still. How badly are you hurt?”
He sank back. “Not too badly, I think.” His inner twin’s voice overrode this, puffing, oddly, more: “Nearly killed just now. Would have been, except for me.”
“Des!” objected Pen, and shut his jaw on this.
What did it say that Nikys had better luck getting a straight answer from a chaos demon than a man? Nothing new, more’s the pity. “Desdemona, what’s really going on? Tell me!”
Penric clenched his teeth, but then gave up, or gave way. “That accursed Bastard’s divine tried to rip apart his heart, by forbidden magic. I have it under control for now, but Penric should stay flat in bed for the next week.”
Nikys stared around the dusky hills at the marked absence of beds, and sighed. “Was that… normal magic?”
“No,” said Desdemona, and Penric, one hand wavering up to touch her face, added, “No one should be allowed to break my heart but you, Madame Owl.”
Her breath caught, but before they could continue this promising exchange, Adelis came clumping back. He paused below to study the unconscious sorcerer half-buried in the scree, then bent to wipe his sword clean on the loose sleeve of the man’s white robe, and sheathed it. Mounting the hill to Nikys’s side, he let down a pair of bows and a quiver of arrows. With a tired grunt, he dropped next to them and gazed out over the unexpected battlefield.
Penric levered up on his elbow. “What all has happened? Is happening…?”
“The sergeant, two archers, and two men ran off, for now. And the two wounded, after. The rest are half-buried in the rubble. A few may get out without help, and help the others. I expect their comrades will come creeping back to their aid by-and-by. The horses tore loose and ran off during what I take to be your landslide. At least one fell. Broken neck, fortunately. Broken legs would have made for a messier cleanup. For somebody, not for us. We need to move along.”
Penric’s brows pinched. “What about Velka?”
Adelis shrugged. “He’d tried for me twice. Three times, if what you say is true. I decided not to give him a fourth chance.”
“Oh.” Penric sank back, signing himself. “I regret… not doing better with him.”
“Well, he’s his god’s problem now. Don’t promote your troubles beyond your rank.”
“That is actually theologically sound advice.”
“Works in the army, too.”
“Ah.” Penric hesitated. “Did you ever find out his real name?”
“Didn’t ask. Didn’t care, by then.”
“It seems strange to kill a man without even knowing his name.”
“Seems usual to me.” Adelis rolled his shoulders. “Though in his case, we may find out later. Anyway, with the head cut off, the body will thrash. Best guess it will take this lot some days to dig themselves out and limp back for help. More confusion after that. Unless that one”—he nodded downhill to the pale lump that was the Patos sorcerer—“recovers faster than I think. Which, given his demon, your god only knows.”
Penric, who had slumped into Nikys’s willing lap, struggled up again. “I should try to treat the wounded—”
“No, you shouldn’t,” said Nikys, pushing him back.
“No, and I won’t help,” Desdemona put in. “I have other priorities right now. They’ll all live if their friends return.”
“I agree with the demon,” said Adelis, unexpectedly both for the agreement, and for spotting just who had spoken the words coming out of Penric’s mouth. “I swear the thing has more sense than you do, Learned Fool.”
Which was, all right, a small step toward acknowledging the truth of Penric’s account of himself. An Adelis-inch. Nikys bent her face and smiled.
“Any being learns a lot in two hundred years,” Penric conceded shakily.
Adelis picked up one bow and tested it. “You said you could shoot flaming arrows, sorcerer. How about regular ones?”
“Usually. Maybe not right now.”
He handed the bow to Nikys. “Check the draw for you.”
Seated on the ground, she took it a little awkwardly, twisted and pulled, and grimaced. “It’s fairly hard for me, but I could do it in a pinch.” She leaned over and set it with the other.
“We’ll keep both, then.” Adelis turned and shifted his gaze upward. “I’m not sure how much steep we have left, but if we can get through that narrow place before full dark, we should be able to stop safely till moonrise.”
Nikys bit her lip, wondering how this squared with Desdemona’s recommendation of rest for Penric’s safe recovery. It did not sound good.
The pile of pale cloth below them shifted, then moaned.
This time, Penric rose in greater determination. “Help me. I have to get some water down that one, or he won’t last till morning. It matters, trust me.”
“Jumping demon problem?” inquired Adelis, in a kind of wearied concession.
“At the very least. Not that he deserves to keep his.”
Nikys hoisted the leather bottle, and Penric. They slid down the few yards and settled by the half-buried sorcerer.
Penric took the bottle and dribbled water over the man’s head, rubbing it into his hair. “I need to cool him down the hard way, if he’s still too stunned to shed chaos,” Penric told her. “Here, Learned Kyrato.” He patted the man’s bearded cheek. “Wake up, now. You have to drink this.” He tilted the spout to the man’s lips.
Kyrato swallowed, choked, spilled, and seemed to come back to full consciousness. He heaved his trapped body, without effect.
“Stop struggling,” Penric told him, a stern hand to his shoulder. “You’ll just make yourself hotter. I haven’t much time—”
Kyrato’s voice went sharp in terror. “I won’t tell you anything!”
“Good, because I only want you to listen,” said Penric.
“Is this safe?” asked Nikys in worry. “If he just tried to kill you?”
“Now that I’m on my guard, yes. …Maybe. You’d best sit back a way.” Penric gestured.
Nikys retreated perhaps two feet, and felt around for a good big piece of scree, ready to knock Kyrato in the head with it again if he made some sudden move. Although it wasn’t the moves she could see but the ones she couldn’t that were the real danger, she supposed. She’d have to trust in Penric and Desdemona for those. This was… curiously not-hard.
Kyrato’s eyes flickered from her back to Penric.
“The fight’s over,” Penric informed him. “Your side lost. You have surrendered.”
Groggily, Kyrato said, “No, I haven’t.” He mustered resolve. “You may get away this time, but the Bastard’s Order will track you down.”
“Which will be ridiculously easy, as I work for the Bastard’s Order. And the white god.”
Kyrato managed a shaky sneer. “Who are you to speak for the white god? Have you met Him?”
“Once, about eleven years ago. Not an experience a man forgets.” He shrugged. “Nor does a demon. You can call me Learned… Anonymous for now, although if we ever meet again in less troubled circumstances I promise I’ll introduce myself properly.”
Kyrato looked as though he didn’t believe a word of this. No—as though not-believing was less frightening than believing. Most curious. Nikys watched in increasing fascination.
“I have not much time,” Penric went on, “but I need to speak to you about the way you are treating your demon. Because it’s both theologically incorrect—and rude and cruel,” someone added aside, “and very poor management, frankly.
“Your demon is a gift of the god and the Temple, you know, an elegant opportunity for mutual growth, not a beast to be dominated, imprisoned, and enslaved. To it, you are model, mentor, and the only parent such an elemental being can have. As the holder of a Temple demon, you have a
Learned Kyrato’s stare of terror was slowly transmuting to a stare of utter disbelief. Oh good, thought Nikys, it’s not just me. Even the Temple-trained found Penric confusing.
“I don’t know if or how you will be able to make things right with your demon,” Penric went on, “although I would certainly suggest repentance, prayer, and meditation for a start. Forgiveness will likely be beyond it until it is not beyond you, and as for absolution, you’ll need to petition a higher authority. But I would suggest, by way of a first apology, and also a good idea for your future association, that you start by gifting it with a nice name.” Penric sat up and smiled cheerfully at the trapped divine. Kyrato responded by heaving again against his stony prison, to no effect. No—heaving away from Penric.
“You are mad,” choked Kyrato.
“My brother says he’s as mad as three boots,” Nikys put in from the side, agreeably, starting to get into the spirit of this. “But he’s also a very learned divine, with a very wise demon. You should attend.”
In a hoarse voice, Kyrato said, “It is ascendant!” Then a rather cross-eyed look. “No… but it is monstrous dense. I thought it must be ascendant.” His voice rose sharp again. “Why isn’t it ascendant?”
“That’s just what I’m trying to explain,” said Penric patiently. “Now, names. Can you think of one you’d like?” He looked hopefully at Kyrato, who was starting to wheeze. Penric frowned and forced him to swallow another drink of water.
Abandoning the divine, Penric turned his expression inward. “Des, do you have any ideas for naming a young fellow demon?” A pause. “That’s absurd.” Another pause. “And that’s obscene.” And another, “No, we’re not naming it after me, either.” He sighed and turned to Nikys. “Madame Khatai? What’s a Cedonian name that you like?”
Nikys, in your mouth, she thought, but offered aloud, “Reseen? Kuna? Sarande?”
“Des,” said Penric, “does Learned Kyrato’s demon have a preference? No?” He frowned again at Kyrato. “Really, how long have you possessed the poor thing that it doesn’t understand the simplest of nomenclatures?”