“How much did you give him?” whispered Caliban, after the servant had closed the door behind them.”
“Enough to buy two or three rounds of drinks.”
“He sold out the temple’s security for solittle?”For a moment, Slate was afraid that Caliban might charge out the loft and after the hapless young man.
“Yes. Because if I’d given him too much, he’d know something was afoot. Too much money is as dangerous as too little; it means you want it too bad. Now sit down and commune or whatever it is you do. We have to leave before the service ends, if we want to be safe.”
The choir loft ran the width of the temple, well above the level of most seating. There were wooden seats, all empty, and the lamps were unlit. Evening services did not require a full choir, merely a few singers down at ground level, behind the altar.
The statue of the Dreaming God was almost at eye level with them, across the temple. It was smiling remotely, eyes closed. In one hand, it held a book and in the other a familiar-looking sword.
Slate peered over the railing. The seats below were mostly empty and Slate thought the priestess standing beside the altar had a distinctly harried look.
None of this seemed to matter to Caliban. He sank down on his knees at the railing, eyes fixed on the distant figure in white, and seemed to become a statue himself.
They had only a few moments to wait until the service began. A few more seats filled up, but not many. The Dreaming God’s church was wealthy because people were usually very, very grateful to have demons dealt with, but this did not always translate to attendance at their services.
Slate, never much inclined to kneel, sat on a seat and tried not to fidget.Not that it matters. I suspect I could bounce a brick offCaliban’s head and he wouldn’t notice right now.
She wished Brenner were here so that she could say something sarcastic to an appreciative audience. On the other hand, Brenner would have had so much to say about the situation that it was probably for the best. She didn’t want Caliban to try to strangle the assassin before they even got on the road.
She shifted uncomfortably on the wooden seat and thoughtI should have brought a book.
Caliban would probably have noticed a brick to the head. In fact, he might have welcomed it.
As the priestess’s voice swelled out around them—Sister Dominique, an uninspired speaker but rock solid on theology—Caliban felt the presence of his god.
The Dreaming God was there. He was in His temple. He was looking down at His faithful. Caliban knew it. Hebelievedit, not as an article of faith, but as he believed in sunrise and sunset and the turn of the seasons.
He could feel the god. Words and incense and holy fire. Strength and certainty and the sword.
He wanted that. He wanted that surety and that strength, that feeling of being in exactly the correct place. He wanted it more than he had ever wanted food or drink or a woman’s body, more than he had wanted freedom in his filthy little cell. He wanted to bewhole.
He had never minded the grim, hard, dirty work of demon-slaying. He dealt with the sorrow and the pain and the atrocities that demons worked and the atrocities that paladins wrought trying to stop them. He had been a sword in the hand of his god, and that was all that he had ever asked to be.
And here he was.
And here the god was.
And the hollow place in his soul did not fill up.
The god was all around him and Caliban stood in the center of holiness and was not touched.
His lips moved in time with Sister Dominique’s, saying the litany that he knew by heart, andnothing happened.
One moment,he begged his god.One touch. One word. Please. I will never ask again. Just let me know that You have not forgotten me. I beg of You. Please.
There was no answer. Only the demon, rotting down at the bottom of his soul.
Perhaps there would never be an answer again. The god had made His choice. And Caliban, now, would have to live with it, for as long as he was able.
He rose to his feet.
“All right,” he said to Slate. “I had to know. Thank you.”
She nodded. She asked no questions. He pulled the hood of his cloak up over his face and left the temple of the Dreaming God for the last time.
CHAPTER 6
