Penric and the Shaman (Penric & Desdemona Book 2) (10 page)

Oswyl shook his head.

Penric said slowly, “I think we may no longer be hunting. We may be trapping. If that innkeeper told us true, Inglis kin Wolfcliff seeks another shaman. Find the nearest one, and he may come to us.” Come, be brought or be driven—this game would not evade such Beaters as Penric had begun to suspect were in play.

Gallin said plaintively, “But why should a shaman
seek
a shaman? What could a royal shaman, even a disgraced one, possibly want with a mere country hedge shaman?”

Another good question
. That their quarry sought such a practitioner had been enough to direct their pursuit. Maybe he should have thought a step further…? Des snorted.

Oswyl’s logical mind was starting to work on the question. He offered tentatively, “He seeks to take refuge with someone who will hide him?”

Penric threw in, “Or perhaps he plans a suicide, yet does not want to be sundered like poor Scuolla.” Yes, suicide must pose a problem for such an invested person. Some suicides sought sundering, but many another was hurrying to the hoped-for refuge of their god. The Temple spent a good deal of effort trying to discourage that particular approach to divinity.

Oswyl chewed this over, looking as though he did not like the taste. “Beyond my mandate,” he said at last.

But not beyond mine… in principle.
Another disturbing thought. Today seemed unusually full of them.

At the sound of hoofbeats, Penric looked up to see a rider cantering toward them. After a moment, he recognized one of their guardsmen, Heive.

“Sirs!” he called, reining in before them. “Daughter be thanked, I found you. Goodwife Gossa and my sergeant beg that you return at once. A stranger has come to the village, and he could be the man we seek. Dark hair and a Wealdean accent, at least, though oddly dressed, and I couldn’t swear to his age.”

“You’ve seen him?” said Oswyl, rising in his stirrups in excitement. “You haven’t tried to approach him, have you?”

“No, sir,” said Heive fervently. “He came to the acolyte’s house, seeking him, he said. Goodwife Gossa told him you were out on an errand and sent him to wait in the temple, and for me to ride for you. The sergeant and Baar are watching the building from a distance. He’d not come out by the time I left.”

“We’d best hurry,” said Gallin in a voice choked with alarm, and led the way, kicking his horse into a canter. Oswyl was right on his heels. Penric and Heive fell in behind; Blood ran after them. Pen was suddenly glad he’d brought his bow along, rather than leaving it with his saddlebags in the temple stable.

At some risk of bringing in the horses wet and winded, they made fast time back to the village street, finding it bare of villagers. They stopped a few houses away from the temple. The guard sergeant waved from where he hunkered down behind someone’s garden gate, and pointed to the temple door. “Still in there,” he mouthed.

Oswyl returned a silent salute. They all dismounted. Blood, panting and muddy, made a lunge for the temple doors. Gallin grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and hauled him, whining, to his house, where Gossa could be seen peeking through the front window, beckoning urgently at him. Pen unlaced his bow from his saddle, strung it, and shrugged on his quiver. The other two guardsmen joined them. The armed party made its way quietly to the temple portico.

Oswyl gestured Penric ahead. “All right, sorcerer,” he muttered. “Go on.”

Wait, what, all by myself?
“Wouldn’t it be better for us all to rush him at once?”

The expressions on four faces seemed to disagree with him. “If this is a false lead,” said Oswyl, “you are the one man among us who can tell at a glance.”

Gallin and Gossa came out the door of their house, and stood holding hands and watching Pen anxiously. Pen swallowed, nocked his arrow, and stepped into the dimness of the temple’s interior.

Light me
, he thought to Desdemona, and the shadows fled from his eyes, leaving his vision clear.

The man lay prone on the wooden temple floor, just this side of the cold fire plinth, arms out, in what would be the attitude of deepest supplication, except he was not aimed toward any wall shrine in particular. Penric wasn’t sure if he was seeing prayer, or exhaustion. He was unshaven and wore a grab-bag of garb, townsman’s clothing but a peasant’s woven-withy boots, and a mountaineer’s sheepskin cap. One hand gripped a long stick. By his side lay a huge dog, black and tan, head down on crossed paws in an attitude of canine boredom. Its head came up at Pen’s approach, triangular ears pricked; its tail thumped desultorily on the boards, although it also growled. Perhaps both it and Pen were equally confused?

If Blood had been more-dog, this one was even more so, dense with presence.
This is a Great Beast. Not so, Des?

Impressive
, she conceded.

“Sit up,” Pen commanded, in what he hoped was a convincing arresting-officer voice; “But don’t get up.”

The man jerked to his knees, grabbing for his stick to support his stance. His sleeve, falling back, revealed an arm crisscrossed with long, vicious-looking scabs. The knife at his belt glowed with strange power swirling like an aurora, not in Pen’s eyes but in Des’s. He stared wildly at Pen, mouth falling open as he drew sudden breath. The dog stood up and growled with what seemed a lot more authority than Pen had mustered.

“Inglis kin Wolfcliff,” said Pen, certain now of what he faced. And then had no idea of what to say next. This whole scene was so sideways to any of his preconceptions about the man, anything he might have rehearsed would have been worthless anyway. As neither man nor dog launched himself at Pen’s throat, he eased the tension on the string and let his bow droop, but still held it ready. “We’ve been looking for you.”

IX

Inglis used his stick to climb to his full height, although his right leg, much abused by the trip down the mountain this morning, threatened to buckle from the pain. The man before him seemed a blond apparition, inexplicable.
“Go away,”
Inglis tried.

The intruder just tilted his head. “Good attempt, wolf-man. A bit misdirected. Although wouldn’t ‘Give me your horse’ seem more to the point?”

How did he
know
…? And then, however badly his powers were crippled, Inglis recognized the fellow for what he was. And, five gods, or should that oath be
Bastard’s teeth!
, he
was
. His spirit-density was stunning. “Sorcerer.” Inglis was confounded by hope and fear. And by hurt, and heartache, and exhaustion, and his long, futile flight. “Temple, or hedge?” Or, five gods help them all, rider or ridden? Surely any demon so powerful must be ascendant? Could Inglis persuade it to…

“Temple through and through, I’m afraid. You are not more surprised than I was.” He glanced aside at Arrow, who had shifted to stand at Inglis’s right hand. “How did you come by one of Scuolla’s dogs?”

“It found me. Up on the mountain. When I was lost, trying to find a shortcut to the Carpagamo road. It won’t stop following me.” Wait, how did he know of Scuolla?

“Ah. Huh.” The blond man’s lips crooked up in a smile of… dismay? “Did it bring you here, do you think?”

“I… don’t know.”
Had
it? He glanced down at the big dog, his companion for days. Inglis had assumed the animal was attracted to him because he was a shaman invested, and it had somehow confused him with its prior master.
Maker
. “I came looking for…” He hardly knew what, anymore.

“You came looking for Acolyte Gallin, I understand. Why?”

“An old woman up at the summer grazing camp told me that he knew Scuolla. I thought he might know… something.”

“Did you know Scuolla has been dead under a rock fall for the past two months?”

“I was told that, too.”

“And did she tell you that he was a hedge shaman?”

“No. I… guessed it. From the dog.”

“Hm.” The sorcerer seemed to come to some decision. “I have a senior locator outside, who has ridden all the way from Easthome in pursuit of you. Do you surrender? No more shaman tricks, no running away?”

What could this man do if he refused? “I’m not running anywhere.” Inglis grimaced. “I mangled my leg on the mountain.”

The sorcerer looked him up and down. “Ah. I
see
. Yes, mountains will do that.”

Inglis hung on his staff, feeling sick. “They in Easthome seek me as a murderer?”

“Locator Oswyl is a very precise man. I’m sure he’d say he seeks you as a
suspected
murderer. No one is going to hang you on the spot, you know, without all those judicial ceremonies his Order is so fond of. Everyone has to dress up, first. Not to mention what could be some fraught theological complications.” He added, “I think you had better give me your knife, for now.”

“NO.”

He went on with unimpaired weird cheer, “That’s Tollin kin Boarford’s ghost wrapped in it, yes? So Oswyl was right. I shall like to know, later, how you managed that. Speaking from my calling. Both of them, come to think.”

“I’m not going to use it to stab anyone.” Inglis’s voice was hoarse. “Else.”

“Yes, but my colleagues won’t know that. Once things are more settled, I may even be able to give it back into your care. You’ve been faithful so far, haven’t you? You’ve brought it a long way.” His voice had gone soft, persuasive. Sensible. “Why?”

“I sought a shaman.”

“You are a shaman.”

Inglis vented a bitter laugh. “Not anymore.”

The blond man looked him over. Or
through
him? “Surely, you are.”

“I
tried
. I
can’t.
Can’t enter the trance.” His voice, rising, fell. “I think it is a punishment. Maybe from the gods.”

The sorcerer raised his eyebrows. “So why not take your problem to your shamanic superiors at court in Easthome? They were
much
closer.”

“I
killed
Tollin,” Inglis said through his teeth. “I could not go back there and face…. everyone.”

The sorcerer took a quick glance over his shoulder. Yes, there were some other men hovering outside the door. No other exits.
Trapped. How?

“Oh? I was told he’d been disemboweled by a boar. Did you stab him before, or after?”

“After. It was… it was a mercy cut.” Inglis shuddered at the memory of the knife blade going in, the pressure and the give in his hand, all mixed up with his visions as he’d descended from the plane of symbolic action, exhilarated to have completed his first investiture, to have made a fierce spirit warrior in truth. Tollin’s agonized face… “He was screaming.”
It was unbearable. I had to shut him up
.

“He could not have survived his injuries from the boar?”

“No. Gods, no.”

“Why didn’t you go for help then?”

“It was… very confusing in that moment. He must have planted his knife in the beast’s neck even as he was being ripped open. I captured its spirit and passed it into Tollin before I came back to, back to, to the sty. To the blood.” His wolf-within had been wildly excited by the blood, nearly uncontrollable. Inglis could, he supposed, have claimed that he’d lost control of his powers in that moment. He’d considered that defense, on his long ride north.
But I didn’t. Not really
.

That came later
.

“Came back… out of your shamanic trance?”

“Yes.”

“Did you mean to bind his spirit to your knife?”

“No! Yes… I don’t know. I don’t know how I did that.” Well, Inglis knew
what
he’d done. He’d been taught about the banner-carriers, hallowed Old Wealdean warriors who were charged with carrying away from the field of battle the souls of their fallen spirit-warrior comrades. And the souls of those dying but not yet dead. The fatally wounded must have included kinsmen, friends, mentors. Had those mercy cuts, to sever the soul from its body and bind it to the banner for that strange rescue, been as horrible for them as it had been for him?
I think it must
.

“Was this investiture Tollin’s idea, or yours?”

“His. He’d badgered me for weeks. But none of this would have happened if I hadn’t agreed to try the rite. I wanted to test my powers. And… and then there was Tolla.”

“His sister, yes? Oswyl mentioned her. I gather your courtship was not prospering. So why not use your weirding voice on her directly?”

Inglis glared at him, offended. Arrow growled.

“Nah, nah.” The sorcerer gave a dissimulating wave of his fingers. “You have a romantic heart, I see.” As Inglis glared harder, he went on, “I’m Learned Penric of Martensbridge, by the way. Temple sorcerer of the Bastard’s Order, presently serving the court of the princess-archdivine, who assigned me to this Grayjay…” He jerked his head toward the doorway.

That
near-youth was a Temple divine? Yes, he had to be, to be entrusted with his demonic passenger. Beyond Learned Penric Inglis saw another man entering the temple hall. Three more clustered behind him, two armed with short swords and one with a cavalry crossbow, and following them, yet another fellow—middle-aged, shabbier, anxious.

“What kept you?” Penric, still not turning, asked of the lead man behind him. Keeping Inglis in his eye. But Penric’s sturdy hunting bow was now dangling disregarded from his hand. He slid his arrow back into his quiver.