Pen hastily backed out of the chamber and slammed the door. His shoulders found the opposite wall, and he fought for breath.
Even other Temple demons, tamed and trained, found Des’s density frightening. Who knew what this wild thing made of her? Though as the screams trailed off Pen supposed he could imagine it. He was cursed with a much-too-vivid imagination, some days.
Most days, panted Des. But now, I admit, it’s justified.
Linatas exited after him, eyes round with alarm. “Learned Penric! What is going on? You’ve turned absolutely green.” He pursed his lips. “Which I’d always thought was a figure of speech—shock is more gray, usually. Must be an effect of your coloration.”
Pen inhaled deeply. A couple of times. “You were right, Master Linatas. That’s not any normal madness.” Wait, was that a contradiction in terms? “Er, common madness. Your patient has contracted a demon. From a dolphin, or rather two dolphins. Who had it from a drowning Roknari, who stole it from a servant boy, who had it from, it seems, a couple of ordinary birds who’d scarcely altered the original formless elemental.”
“You could tell all that from a glance?”
“No, from experience. Quite a lot of experience. You know how that works. Don’t you.” Pen managed an ironic eyebrow-lift. “Or you wouldn’t have called me here, eh?” He straightened. “I don’t know about your patient, but that demon is definitely insane.”
Linatas was briefly speechless, taking this in. Had he really not expected validation of his half-formed suspicions? He found his footing in practicality. “What… should we do for him?”
“Certainly continue to keep him in isolation. That demon will be shedding disorder indiscriminately. Potentially dangerous to people and things around him. And to him.” Penric winced an apology in prospect to Des. “It will have to be extracted from him by a dedicated saint of the white god.”
This time, thought Des grimly, no argument.
Penric knew there was such a saint in Lodi, but not offhand at which of the scattered chapterhouses of his Order, or other domicile, said holy person might presently be found. It would seem easier to bring the saint here than the madman to the saint, but who knew. “I’ll have to ask the archdivine, and make arrangements.”
With a few moments to compose himself, Pen’s mind was beginning to move again. Unfortunately into proliferating questions, like a dog scattering a flock of pigeons. “Did you speak to the men who brought him in? How long ago was that?”
“Briefly, and two nights ago. Ah, perhaps we should return to my cabinet and sit down for this.” Linatas was still looking at his visitor with medical concern, though Pen was sure his color was coming back.
By the time they’d gone back downstairs, Linatas had parked Pen on a stool, pressed a beaker of tepid tea upon him, and watched to make sure he drank, the pigeons began to settle. Bird the first…
“Just where was he found, did they say?”
Linatas sat in his chair with an unhappy grunt. “About five leagues out to sea. Too far, really, to be a swimmer carried off by the currents. We guessed he must have been swept or fallen from the deck of a ship, although no returning vessel has so far reported a missing man.”
“Was he a sailor, do you think?”
“No. He’s very fit, or he wouldn’t have survived his ordeal, but he doesn’t have the hands of a laborer.” Linatas held his up and clenched and unclenched them by way of illustration. “Deckmen’s and fishermen’s hands are very recognizable.”
Working here for long, Linatas would surely have seen many such, right. “An officer? Seems too young.”
“Lodi shipmasters apprentice young in their trade, but I think more likely he was a passenger.”
Penric glanced down at his own writing callus and ink stains on his fingers. “Any sign of being a clerk or a scholar…?”
“Hm, not strongly marked, no. Perhaps a reluctant writer. When we can make out his speech, it’s neither rude nor high.” Linatas glanced at Pen with return curiosity. “Why did he scream so when he saw you?”
“Ah, not me. He saw my demon. Desdemona. Here, I’ll lend her my mouth, and she can introduce herself. Des? Please be demure, now.”
Des grinned; Pen could feel the set of his face change as she took charge. “Demure? Who do you think you’re talking to? But I shall be properly polite, as befits a tame Temple servant. How do you do, Master Linatas? Thank you for looking after Pen, who tends not to do it for himself. Ah, perhaps that’s demonstration enough, Des,” Pen ended this before she decided it would be droll to embarrass him.
Spoilsport. But she settled back, gratified with her brief outing. And acknowledgement.
Linatas’s thick eyebrows had climbed. “That… was not a jape. Was it?”
“No, though many people think it is.” Pen sighed. “You may speak to her directly any time you wish. She hears everything I hear.”
“…She? I mean, demons have no bodies.”
“Very long story. About two centuries, so best not delay for it here. But getting back to your patient. Uh, how much do you know about Temple sorcerers? Or any sorcerers?”
“None have come my way as patients. I’ve seen them about town on rare occasions, or at ceremonies for their god.”
Though if they were not in their whites and braids, Linatas could have passed such men and women unknowing in the market any number of times. For such a rare calling, the Lodi Temple was relatively well-supplied with sorcerers; Pen knew the Mother’s Order here had more than one sorcerer-physician in its service, if not at this poorer hospice. Pen’s duty directly to the archdivine was outside the usual chapterhouse hierarchy.
“At a minimum, I need to explain how ascendance works, then,” said Pen. “As a creature of pure spirit, a demon requires a body of matter to support it in the world of matter. The question then becomes who shall be in charge of that body. A person can either possess or be possessed by their demon—rider or ridden is the usual metaphor—and demons in their untutored state naturally desire control. But as creatures of chaos, most aren’t exactly fitted for it. If a wild demon ascends, it’s more like being taken over by a destructive, overexcited drunk.” With supernatural powers.
You were doing all right till that last bit, Des said dryly.
“The other thing you need to know,” Pen went on, ignoring the interpolation, “is that elementals, the bits of the Bastard’s chaos leaked into the world, all begin as identical blank slates. Their ensuing personalities are acquired from and though their succession of hosts. Imprinting is a, hm, not-wrong way to envision it, like ink pressed down from a carved plate. Adding subsequent learning and life experience like any other person, but anyway. So every demon is different from every other demon just as every person is different from every other person, d’you see?” Pen looked up hopefully. This was a key point in his basic-demon-lecture where he often lost his listener to their prior more garbled beliefs. He’d also learned not to try to fit in all the fine points and exceptions at this stage, though the simplifications pained him.
Linatas gave him a go-on wave of his hand; if not exactly convinced, seeming willing to wait for it.
“Which brings us back to this demon.” Unnamed, much as its possessor, or possessee. “It’s very damaged. First, it came into being somewhere in the Roknari archipelago, which is, um, due to the Quadrene heresy not a healthy place for sorcerers or servants of the fifth god generally. The first animals it occupied were a couple of chance-encountered birds, nothing unusual there. But a demon, when its host dies, always tries to move up to a stronger—actually, more complex—host. The now-bird-imprinted spirit next went to a servant boy of maybe ten who, because Quadrene, would have known nothing about what was happening to him nor had any access to help or counsel. But someone else around him, a grown man, I think another servant, figured it out, and coveted what he imagined would be magical powers. Which, in his oppressed state, must have seemed worth the risk. He lured the boy out and secretly murdered him to steal those powers.”