Bizond’s face twitched from annoyance at this disruption of his concentration, to vague alarm at what a full-braid sorcerer of Pen’s standing could possibly dub a bit of an emergency. His voice took a startled edge. “What?”
Swiftly, Pen gave the gist of his outing to the Gift of the Sea, minus the fine points. “The upshot is, if he hasn’t made it across the causeway already, there is an ascendant demon loose in Lodi, riding, in effect, this kidnapped young man.”
“This… is bad?”
“For the young man, yes. For whoever encounters him, I’m not clear yet. I will of course be going back out to look for him. Meanwhile, I need to know who and where is the saint of Lodi.”
“Which one?”
“There’s more than one?”
“Three petty saints that I know of in the Father’s Order, and six scattered around the Mother’s Order. I believe the Daughter’s Order has a few as well. The Son’s Order does not much run to saints.”
“Er, I meant the one of my Order.”
Bizond’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You don’t know?”
Pen declined to explain how Lodi’s demon-eating agent of the white god was someone Des would have preferred not to meet ever, settling on, “I’m new here…?”
“Ah, I suppose. Well, Blessed Chio may likely be found at the chapterhouse and orphanage on the Isle of Gulls. Do you know where that is?”
“Yes,” Des replied for both of them.
Pen explained his plan to conscript Bizond’s office for his message drop. Bizond, who had grown increasingly nonplussed through all this, didn’t protest, though whether due to Pen’s logic or his looming Pen wasn’t sure. Pen hurried back out, trailed by Iserne’s dazed stare and Bizond’s mutter of “Five gods preserve us…!”
From the bedemoned boy? Pen wondered. There is only one god for that task.
I think he meant from you, said Des, too amused as usual.
As he left the curial palace again, Pen wondered whether it would be faster to walk or hail an oarboat. Des sketched a crude map in his head, and advised, It will have to be a boat. Gulls is too far out for a bridge.
Right. Pen switched directions to the boat-hire closest to the Temple square, at the edge of the city’s central basin. Half-a-dozen narrow boats were pulled up at the dock, loading or offloading passengers: merchants and Temple folk and city officials. All the craft were painted and ornamented according to their owner-boatmen’s tastes and notions of what might attract customers. The collective effect was clashingly gaudy: reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, some fresh, some weather-faded; stripes, swirls, solids, or carved animal motifs; polished tin or copper inlays glinting.
At the sight of his pale vestments and raised hand, a couple of the boatmen pretended to be looking the other way, but one aging fellow pushed back his hat, grinned, and waved Pen on. Pen stepped down carefully and centrally onto the damp, rocking planks and sank back on the worn cushion provided, which would have been more thoughtful for his lean haunches were it less compacted. He was still grateful to be off his feet for a bit.
“Bless us to avert your god’s eye on His Eve, Learned, and where to?” the boatman inquired genially.
Pen dutifully returned a full tally of the gods, touching forehead, mouth, navel, groin, and heart, with a double tap of the back of his thumb to his lips. “The Isle of Gulls, please.”
“Visiting the orphans?” The boat wobbled as the boatman pushed them off and out into the waters of the basin.
“The chapterhouse.”
The boatman took up his stand at the square stern, and began to sweep his oar rhythmically back and forth in the squeaking oarlock. Progress was slow but steady, to the musical slapping of the choppy salt waves against the hull. Pen eyed the creaking seams beside his feet, but the tow and tar seemed to be holding, their sun-warmed odor evocative of marine livelihoods. Keep your chaos to yourself, please, Des.
Hah.
He gazed out across the basin, sparkling in this bright afternoon, sprinkled with other vessels of all sizes and sorts, moving or moored. A returning convoy of three big-bellied merchant cogs was the most impressive, as their happily shouting crews warped them in to their anchorages, canvas thumping down. Pen would have enjoyed the sight more if he’d been less distracted. Des felt uneasy within him as they bobbed across the waves, like incipient seasickness.
You’ve been involved in such demon-retrievals more than once before, haven’t you, in your career as a Temple demon? Part inquiry, part reassurance. Poor Learned Tigney, I know about. His affair wasn’t that much before my time.
Agh, yes. That idiot. He preened so when he was first gifted with his demon by the Order, certain he would soon surpass Ruchia and me. We weren’t in Martensbridge when his demon ascended and absconded, but we were saddled with the task of tracking them down when we got home. He led us a vile chase across Trigonie. We only caught up with him because he’d stopped too long in a town just over the border of Orbas to pursue an excessive course of carnal pleasures.
The way demons do, Pen put in slyly. When they had the chance, in their stolen, or shared, carnal bodies. Though after ten years together, he was over his embarrassment by Des’s enjoyment of his. Mostly.
And men do, Des shot back. When both surrender to one desire, there are no brakes. If I were not much more balanced, she continued primly, I could not have lasted this long. Howsoever, Tigney’s demon seemed more addicted to gluttony and sloth than, say, lust and wrath, which fortunately slowed them. Though the pride and envy by which he first fell was all Tigney.
Pen mused on her list. So where does greed fit in all this?
Just middling. Greed is an appetite that looks largely to some imagined or feared future. Ascendant demons are not much known for foresight.
Hm. Pen frowned as they approached the boat landing on the island shore. So did you bring the saint to Tigney, or him to the saint? It was still old Blessed Broylin of Idau back then, wasn’t it? A creaky and cranky old man when Pen had so memorably met him, until the god had shone through his eyes like a dive into infinite space.
Fifteen years ago, so not as creaky. Though just as cranky. We dragged Tigney back to him.
We need to discuss the mechanics of that.
Less mechanics than force and threat. Ruchia’s guards supplied the force; she and I supplied the threat.
Will you be able to overawe this wild demon?
…Probably.
Only probably? Pen didn’t quite like that hint of doubt. It must surely be less powerful than Tigney’s was.
Lack of foresight, remember. Fear can be the opposite of greed, that way, shortening one’s horizon.
I’d have thought Tigney’s demon would have been utterly terrified, knowing exactly what was in store for it.
When terror surpasses all bearing, it can tip over into despair. And a sort of docile lassitude.
A relief of sorts?
Not really.
“You’re a quiet one,” remarked the boatman as he steered them to their island docking.