Penric and the Shaman (Penric & Desdemona Book 2) (13 page)

Pen stared too. There was scarcely a patch of skin unmarred by red scars, brown scabs, or sticky red lines, with angry pink welts of flesh puffing up between. Double that for the trip back to Easthome, and the man would be flayed. Inglis found a bare spot and lined up the edge, and Penric thought,
Des, lend me Sight
.

The trembling blade sliced, skin split red, and Pen’s teeth twinged in sympathetic echo. The view was not much different from his unaided vision, except that Inglis’s welling blood bore a strange silver sheen, like moonlight rippling off a wolf’s pelt. He stropped the knife up and down, coating every inch. The spirit-wool moved with it, trailing smoke that circled back and settled on the blood. Pen tried not to think of flies swarming on carrion. But the spirit did, indeed, seem to draw nourishment from the strange feast, its density thickening as the blood dried and the silver sheen died.

No, indeed. I don’t think our blood would serve the same
, murmured Des. As Inglis’s fingers started to clench again, Pen leaned forward and wrapped his hand around the shaman’s. “I’ll just be having that back now. For safekeeping.”

After a brief moment of tension, Inglis let his fingers grow slack, and Pen pried the hilt out of his grip. Oswyl waited sword in hand, not yet standing down.

Inglis choked out, “Don’t sheathe it till the blood is fully dry. It won’t take long. The brown rubs right off with a cloth.”

“Right,” said Pen, and waited. The trailing smoke seemed to withdraw into the main body of the bound spirit. The sticky turned to crumbly, a few passes on the thighs of Penric’s trousers brushed it away, and he slid the gleaming steel out of sight again. Des let the vision of Tollin’s ghost disappear, a debatable relief.

*
   
*
   
*

Breakfast was a quieter meal, as the house’s children had not yet returned, although the servant girl had. The six guests, or five guests and one prisoner, were fed on oat porridge with butter, cheese, barley bread, and autumn apples. The dogs loitered lazily by the doors, not enticed by the meatless repast. Conversation was desultory and practical. But Gallin and Gossa seemed very
aware
of Inglis, and not as a criminal.

Penric had to agree, Inglis had made a terrible criminal. His heart wasn’t in it at
all
. Whatever visions of heroic capture of a villain had beguiled Pen on the ride here, the event had been sadly disappointing.
Though if stupid panic is what’s wanted, there’s your man
, muttered Des.

I doubt I would have done much better, if I’d killed my best friend by mistake with my new powers
, Pen thought back.

I wouldn’t have let you. Nothing remotely like that has happened to a rider of mine…
Des seemed to hesitate.
For a very, very long time.

Your argument nibbles its own tail, I think?

Humph
. But she settled again.

The guard sergeant asked Oswyl, “Should we prepare for the road, sir? We need to see to securing an extra horse.”

Oswyl set down his spoon and sat back. “If we can do nothing more here, we should depart, yes.”

“You are most welcome to stay longer,” put in Acolyte Gallin, with studied emphasis. “A day or so more will not matter.”

“Thank you, Acolyte, but I must disagree. Every day we linger risks us being caught by the next snow.”

Pen disagreed with both. Might a day or two more here make all the difference, to some?

Gallin bit his lip. “Learned Penric, I would like to speak to you apart. About some Temple matters that concern me.”

As a Grayjay, Oswyl was just as much a servant of the Temple as Penric or Gallin, but he permitted Pen to be abstracted from the table with no more than a dry glance Pen’s way. The guards looked alarmed to be thus deprived of whatever magical protection they imagined Pen to be providing them, but even if Inglis, Pen didn’t know what…weirded them all to sleep and hobbled off, he wouldn’t even be able to get as far as the stable before Pen caught him again.

Gallin took Pen to his parlor-study and closed the door, gesturing Pen to sit. When they were knee to knee, he lowered his voice and said directly, “I prayed for help. Are you it?”

Pen sighed unease. “If so, no One has told me. I do not suffer prophetic dreams.” He would add,
Thank the gods
, but that seemed to fall under the heading of what his mother had used to call
coaxing lumps
.

“Still, the gods are parsimonious, they say.”

“I understand your drift, I suppose. A Grayjay who hates to be late has arrived at the last hour, bringing me, just in time to intersect a shaman who was running away. One need not be delusory to think
something
is expected of us.” If Inglis had been in command of his powers, the shaman’s role would be obvious, but then, if he’d been in command of his powers, he could have cleansed Tollin’s soul on the spot back at Easthome, and be doing, well, who knew what who knew where by now. Pen’s own role so far reminded him of those caravan guards mustered in a mass not to fight off bandits, but to dissuade them from attacking in the first place. Which, he had to admit, was by far the best imaginable use of a force of arms.

“Are Inglis’s powers truly broken, as he claimed?”

Penric hesitated. “His powers appear to me to be intact. Only his guilt and distraught mind seem to be blocking his full access to them.”

“Can you do something about that? With your powers?”

“The natural directions of my skills are to mar, not to mend. And they work on
things
, not minds. Mainly.” And Inglis’s worked on minds, not things. A peculiar reciprocity, now that Pen considered it.

Gallin’s fingers pulled at each other. “Then perhaps it’s not your skills as a sorcerer that are wanted, but your skills as a divine. Perhaps you are the one meant to give him spiritual counsel?”

Penric was taken aback. “That… wasn’t a subject I spent much time on at seminary. It’s a rather horrible joke, if so.”

Gallin half-laughed. “That’s no proof it wasn’t from
your
god. More the reverse.”

And so the facetious brag he’d made to Oswyl, about being a divine five-fold, curled back to bite him now. Of all the tasks he’d imagined undertaking on the Grayjay’s wolf-hunt, whether as sorcerer or bowman-hero,
sage counselor
wasn’t even on the list.

So
, murmured Des.
Now we see why you are so quick to leave your braids in your saddlebags
.

That wasn’t it!
he began to argue back, and stopped. He raised his face to Gallin’s, again. “You’ve served here for many years. You knew Scuolla, as a friend and as a shaman. Surely you must be better fitted for such a task?”

Gallin shook his head. “Friend, yes, I hope so. But I can’t say as I ever
understood
what he did with his dogs, except to observe that there seemed no malice in it, or in him. But you and Inglis kin Wolfcliff, you are both brothers in the uncanny. You see things veiled from me. Maybe you can see the way out of this tangle, too.”

Penric cleared his throat, embarrassed. “I admit, I had an idea or two. But it was just for things to try. Not any kind of
wisdom
. Oswyl thought it high foolishness, in fact.”

“Locator Oswyl wants to leave, I gather. Can you not overrule him?”

“The princess-archdivine assigned me to him, not him to me. The task was his to start with before it grew”—Pen hesitated—“so complicated.”

“Could he hold Inglis without your aid?”

“Well…” Penric reflected on the possibilities inherent in that weirding voice, were it to be deployed without restraint. Not to mention the other shamanic skills. “No.”

“It seems you are the linchpin in this wheel, then. If you elect to stay, he cannot take Inglis and go.”

“That… would seem to be the case, yes.”

“Then I beg you to stay. And apply your ideas. Or counsel. Or wisdom, or unwisdom, or whatever you may dub it.” Gallin drew breath. “You have to
try
, at least.”

Pen imagined a prayer, or a holy whine—to the white god, either would do—
If You don’t like it, give me something better
.

The silence in his head was profound. Even Des did not chaff or chatter.

Penric managed a nod. Trying not to let his doubts show, he returned to the breakfast table to shepherd Inglis—and the two dogs—back to their bedchamber.

*
   
*
   
*

They settled cross-legged facing each other on the bedroll once more. Blood flopped down across the doorway and sighed; Arrow sat up beside Inglis and appeared to watch with more than canine interest.

“All right.” Penric took a breath. “What I’m going to do here is give you a clean new chant to gate your entry into your spirit space.”

Inglis shot him a stare of surprise and offense. “What makes you think you can do the first thing about it? Sorcerer.”

“I’m the one who’s here. That seems to be the most vital point at present.” Refusing to wilt under Inglis’s frown, Penric forged on, “My call shall be, ‘Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, Other.’ And your response shall be, ‘Bless this work and let me serve another.’ ”

“Is that supposed to be the blessing?”

“No, that’s your chant. I thought I’d combine the two and save steps.”

Inglis met his bright smile with a deepening glower. “It’s a stupid rhyme.”

“I’m a sorcerer, not a poet.”

“Evidently. It’s not even a quatrain.”

“Repeat it, and it will turn into a quatrain.”

Inglis looked ready to rebel. Or at least to refuse to cooperate. And what Penric would do then, he had no idea.

Des muscled into brief control of his mouth, and said in honeyed tones, “Or you could pray, ‘Other, Mother, Father, Brother, Sister. Thwack my head and make me less a blister.’ ” Pen failed to control the upward crook of his lips as she fell back.

After a long, black silence Inglis said, “Use the first one.”

“Good,” said Pen. And a firm,
No more interruptions now
, to Des. She settled back, falsely demure. “I’ll begin. Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, Other…”

They began to repeat the call and response much as Inglis and his possibly-not-that-long-ago mentor had. The mindful if simple (
or simple-minded
, Des put in) prayer really did grow boring after enough repetitions. A while after that, the syllables began to lose any meaning or connection at all, a steady, soothing double drone. Pen did not let up until both their tongues started stumbling, when he called a break.

Nothing had happened. Well, he hadn’t expected it to, Pen lied to himself. All right, he’d been
hopeful
.

“How often did your shamanic master repeat your practice sessions?” asked Pen.

“It varied, depending on his duties and mine. Sometimes, once or twice a day. Sometimes dozens.”

“And how long did you drill at a time?”

“Much as now, till our tongues grew too tired to fruitfully go on. That, too, varied.”

“Hm.” Penric slapped his knees and stood up. “Rest your tongue, then. And your leg.”

Inglis at least did not argue with this injunction.

Pen found one of their guards seated at the top of the staircase. “Where is Oswyl?”

“He walked over to the temple, I think, sir.”

“Thank you.” Penric threaded his way through the house and turned onto the street. The temple stood as quiet and dim as yesterday when they’d surprised Inglis inside. Once again, the hall held only one supplicant. Oswyl sat upon his knees before the altar dedicated to the Father, tucked up against its one-fifth portion of the wooden walls. His head turned at the sound of Penric’s steps.

“Oh. It’s you.”

“Don’t let me interrupt,” said Pen. And then, incurably curious, asked, “What do you pray for?”

Oswyl’s lips thinned. “Guidance.”

“Oh? I thought everything we’ve encountered here shouts our course at us. Or are you just angling for a different answer?”

Oswyl turned back toward his chosen god’s altar once more, the very set of his shoulders sturdily ignoring Pen.

Pen walked to the hall’s opposite side and studied his god’s niche. The shrines here had a profusion of woodcarvings, common in country temples in this region. On the lintel, the carver had placed a well-observed flight of crows; in a lower corner, some earnest-looking rats. The Daughter’s shrine, to Penric’s right, was decorated with an explosion of wooden flowers and young animals, painted in their proper colors, a muted glow in the shadows. A supplicant prayed
before
a shrine, Penric’s teachers had made clear, not
to
it. He lowered himself to his knees. Emptying his mind was not an option, but he didn’t need to badger the gods, either. He waited.

After a while, Oswyl’s voice came from across the hall: “Did you get anywhere with your tutoring?”

Not turning, Pen answered, “Not yet.”

A wordless grunt.

After a little, Pen said, “He’s not really a murderer, you know.”

A pause: then, “My task is to bring a fugitive to justice. Not to judge him.”

“Yet you must use your judgment. You followed your own line on the Crow Road.”