Page 37 of Paladin's Hope

“Was the person who escaped all right?” asked Piper softly.

Earstripe shrugged. “Don’t know any human would be all right after. A human healed up. A human stayed in gnole burrow for a long time. Couldn’t look at other humans. A gnole took a human to another burrow, out of the city, no humans, only gnoles. Don’t know after that.”

Galen sighed. He could understand that. “I’ve seen one,” he said. “We’d been called in to clear out a…a mess, frankly. A bandit group that turned into a cult, or a cult that took to raiding, take your pick. The leader kept an actual torture chamber. It felt different than this.” He lifted his head, scanning the plain ivory walls with their faint etched lines. “It felt like it was waiting.” Even now, he could remember the iron machines, the spikes, the screws, the stained leather straps. Things that he understood the use of immediately, and other things that he had never learned and didn’t want to know. All the devices had oozed malevolence, but worse, they had a kind of terrible inanimate patience, as if they knew their time would come again.

The paladins had burned and smashed everything in the place, but even that hadn’t felt like enough. The Saints of Steel weren’t big into blessings, but there was a priest of the Forge God with them, who had prayed over the site for a day straight. Galen had never seen the woman look so haggard. Even the battle hadn’t affected her as much.

“It’s the forging,” she had said, when Istvhan had asked. Istvhan always asked. “Someone wrought those machines, brought them into being. Devices that exist only to draw pain from flesh. Once a thing is made, it exists in the mind of the world. The next one is easier to make, and the next one after that.”

“Some of those machines have existed for a long time,” said Judith, who didn’t talk about her past. Galen had served beside the other paladin for nearly a decade at that point, and still didn’t know where she came from.

The Forge God’s priest had sighed. “I know,” she had said. They were all sitting around the fire that night, and the orange light could not seem to illuminate the deep hollows of her eyes. “The first takes a twisted genius. The hundredth can be done by any blacksmith. It is why our first lesson is always to be careful of what you make.”

He shook away the memory and tried to explain what the Forge God’s priest had said, but didn’t know how much he managed to convey to Piper and Earstripe. “This doesn’t feel like that,” he said. “This place feels like it will kill you and then you’ll be dead. Just dead. It isn’t trying to carve you up in little increments. You don’t have time to panic or see what’s happening to you. It isn’t evil. It’s just here.”

“You’re right,” said Piper. “You’ve put your finger on it. This doesn’t feel cruel, exactly. It feels like a test.”

“Bad human said it was religious.”

“I can’t swear it isn’t,” said Piper. “It’d be a pretty odd one, though, wouldn’t it? Usually you just have to put on a mask and crawl through some caves on your knees.”

“A little self-flagellation, a lot of candles,” agreed Galen.

“Human religion is crazy,” said Earstripe with finality. “A gnole wants to sleep. Humans sleep too. A gnole doesn’t want humans dying because they stayed awake chattering.”

“Yes, Mother,” said Galen.

“Hmmph! Wipe paws, too.”

Piper snickered. He slid off his outer tunic and balled it up into a pillow. Galen knew there was no point in standing watch, but it was hard to close his eyes nonetheless.

Once he did, though, he fell asleep instantly, pulled down into dark and drowning dreams.

Sixteen

Piper woke because someone shrieked in his ear.

He shot upright, convinced that they were under attack or the building was on fire or possibly there were wolves or all three at once. For a moment he could not remember where he was, but the watery light on ivory walls snapped him back to reality. No wolves, not on fire—is it Thomas? Has he come back to kill us? He looked around wildly. Earstripe was on his feet, teeth bared. And Galen…

Galen lay on his side, eyes tightly closed, his face screwed up in a rictus of fear. One hand scrabbled at the smooth floor, nails struggling for purchase. “No,” he mumbled. “No. Where is…” His voice trailed off into incoherency, and then he gave another heartwrenching cry. His chest heaved and his nails chattered against the floor as his hands spasmed.

“Dear god,” said Piper. Whatever Galen was seeing, it was clearly horrific. He reached toward the paladin. “Galen, you’re having a nightmare—”

“Stop!” Earstripe scrambled toward him. “A human doesn’t touch! Stop!”

“What?”

“Where is he?” whimpered Galen. “Where did he go?”

“A human can’t touch him. Not during a human’s bad dream. Not safe.”

Piper stifled a groan. Plenty of people had some misguided notion that if you woke a sleepwalker or shook someone out of a nightmare, you’d do terrible damage to them. It was all ridiculous and not in any way based in science. As far as he could tell, the prohibition against waking sleepwalkers had arisen because of a superstition that their souls might come untethered and a wandering ghost slip inside in its place. Apparently gnoles have the same thing. Lovely. “It’s fine. It won’t hurt him.”

“Not him I’m worried about, bone-doctor.”

Galen sobbed in his sleep. “I have to do something.” said Piper decisively. “He’s suffering.”

Earstripe tried to grab for him, but he was too late. Piper caught Galen’s hand, saying in soothing tones, “Galen. Galen, it’s all right.”

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