“A god,” said Shane.
“That’s right.” The demon chuckled. “No need to look like that. Most demons would quite like to be gods, I imagine. It’s just that most of us are terribly bad at it. I don’t blame your priests for doing away with so many of us. I probably would too. We’re dreadful nuisances when we’re young and ignorant and haven’t learned to share a body politely.”
“Politely,” Shane said, in disbelief, thinking of demon victims he had seen, their bones broken in unnatural ways, teeth splintered from trying to eat rocks as the alien intelligence controlling them tried desperately to answer the body’s need for food.
“The young of your race aren’t known for their courtesy either,” Wisdom said. It picked up a carafe of water on the table and poured out a cup, then lifted it to its lips. “But we both grow older and learn civilized behavior. I would not judge you for what sins you may have committed as a toddler.”
Shane shook his head, saying nothing.
“The difference, of course, is that your people stop growing.” Wisdom made an up-and-down gesture indicating his height. “Mine have no equivalent. Given the chance, we can continue to grow in power, and become more than we are. Give me enough worshippers, give me the power of their faith, and I will be what even a paladin would consider a god.”
“That is not how that works,” said Shane, thinking, Dreaming God, I hope that isn’t how that works.
“But it is. Several of what you consider gods began their lives as one of my kind.” Wisdom laughed at his expression. “Why is that so hard to believe? Your saints are humans who become gods, and that takes a great deal more work, believe me.”
I will not argue. No good will come of arguing with it.
…not much good will come of not arguing with it, come to that.
“If you want proof, consider this,” Wisdom said. “The channel by which the god uses you is the same one that a demon could use to possess you.”
“I don’t believe that,” said Shane, immediately breaking his resolution not to argue.
“I realize that belief matters when it comes to gods, but in this case it does not. Here.” The demon reached out and he felt its touch inside him, shockingly intimate, as if it stroked the underside of his skin. It trailed up the inside of his ribcage as if he were nothing but skin stretched over hollow bone, and settled finally just beneath his heart, in the numb place where the god used to be.
“There,” the demon crooned. “There we are. What lies inside you, paladin? Let’s find out.”
Shane jerked as ghostly fingers closed inside his chest. He could not tell if they were cold or hot, only that they burned.
“My, my…is this your soul? What’s left of it, anyway. Hell’s host, what did they do to you?”
To his horror, the demon began to stroke the burning place with its claws. It did not hurt. He wanted it to hurt, because he understood pain and did not fear it. This was something else. This felt like…sympathy?
It’s a trick. That’s all it is. He closed his eyes, not that it did much good.
The demon clucked its host’s tongue, shaking its head. “Most people have scars on their soul, but yours has nearly been torn in half. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” The burning claws sank deeper. Shane twitched violently, involuntarily, feeling like a puppet yanked by unsuspected strings.
“Ahhhh… Your god died. That must have hurt.”
Like nothing I’ve felt before or since. Worse than dying. Worse than failing. Worse than anything.
He did not say the words aloud, and yet the demon still nodded. Perhaps thought and speech were all mixed up in this place, or perhaps it could simply read his mind.
“The channel inside you is nothing but scars. It hasn’t healed cleanly, has it?”
The understatement of a lifetime. “No.”
“Scars and…is this faith?” It made a small, surprised sound. “Abandoned by two gods, and yet still you keep faith, like a dog waiting for its master to return. Astonishing.” The claws sank deeper yet. “Greed? No. What about pride, hmm?”
He would have laughed if he had any strength. It was going to be sorely disappointed if it was looking for pride. He had little enough of that anymore.
“No,” it agreed. “No, you were only ever a god’s dog on a chain, and you knew it.”
If that was meant to wound him, it failed. Shane had never thought of himself as anything else.
“I could take you,” said the demon musingly. “I could break you into a thousand shards and jump to your body. But what a waste that would be.”
Shane said nothing. He had seen what demons did to bodies they inhabited, had seen the shattered minds left behind. He had never seen what a clever demon could do, but he had heard the stories. The rampage of Lord Caliban through the temple in the Dowager’s capital was a grisly cautionary tale.
Please, gods, he begged, to any god that might be alive and listening. White Rat, Dreaming God if you still care—please, not that.
“Or you could come to me,” the demon said. “Willingly. As my champion, not as my host. The first paladin of a new god. What do you say?”
It was such an absurd offer that at first Shane couldn’t believe he was hearing it. It can’t be serious. Why does it think I would ever agree to such a thing?
The thought occurred to him that perhaps whatever it had seen inside him had made it think he was weak enough to be swayed by such a thing. If so, it would soon learn differently. He might have failed in every conceivable fashion, but not that one.
“No,” he said. “Obviously.”
“You haven’t even heard me out,” Wisdom said mildly, leaning against the table and folding its arms.
“What are you going to offer me?” asked Shane, his lip curling. “Offer to heal my soul? Give me everything I want?”
“No,” said the demon, surprising him. “I can’t heal you, paladin. All I can do is make the wounds not matter anymore. And I doubt you’d believe me if I offered you everything you wanted, would you?”
Shane grunted. The demon was right, but he didn’t wish to admit it.
Wisdom’s lips twisted up in a smile. “What can I offer you, paladin? How about the lives of your friends?”
His head jerked up. He tried to control the reaction, too late. It’s a trick. It’s a trap.
“No trick,” Wisdom said. Whether it read his thoughts or simply guessed, he didn’t know. “Your friends are of no use to me as worshippers, and I rather doubt I could hire your little paladin friend with gold. Agree to stay with me, and I will let them go. Free and clear.” It spread its hands, the picture of reason.
“And if I say no?”
“Then I’ll try again with the other member of your order, though I hold out less hope for her. And if—when—that fails, then perhaps I will consider that it may be time for a new host. This one is beginning to falter, I am afraid. She lasted a very long time, but the consumption that I have been keeping at bay is beginning to tax my strength.” Wisdom examined its nails, the very picture of humanity. “You seem a fine, healthy specimen. I doubt much of your skill with a sword will be available to me—not after I am forced to shatter your mind—but your body is strong enough to last for years, with careful handling. But of course, I’ll have no choice but to kill the others to keep my disguise intact.”
Shane swallowed hard.
“Mmm. That might be the best plan after all. With a face like yours, I imagine I could attract a great many worshippers in short order.” The demon ran its hands through its host’s hair. “Although I must say that I have always preferred to live within women’s bodies. I find them more congenial. No, no, not for any perverse reason!” It grinned at his expression. “No, honestly, it’s your bodily functions. It takes a male host so much longer to urinate, and it’s already fairly disgusting to endure.”
From the face it made, Shane suspected that the demon was telling the exact truth. This was not a comfort.
“Mmm. A handsome face, or a more congenial host…” It made a weighing gesture. “The little paladin is strong, too, and I sense that she could endure a great deal…”
“No,” rasped Shane, horrified by the prospect of Wren’s soul ripped apart by a demon. Kinder by far to put a knife to her throat.
And your hand may be the one holding the knife, if the demon takes possession of you.
Wisdom folded its arms. “Their lives—or deaths—are up to you, paladin. With a champion, I need not exhaust myself defending my flock from those who besiege us. In that case, I could keep this body together for quite a bit longer, I expect.”
He would be here. His soul, very likely, would be damned for eternity. But if the demon was true to its word, then Wren and Marguerite would escape, and they could get to a temple of the Dreaming God and warn them exactly what horror lurked in these hills.
My soul is worth little enough, but if there is a chance to stop this…
“How do I know you’ll keep your word?” he said, and saw triumph flash across Wisdom’s face.
“How do I know you’ll keep yours?” it countered.
“I’m a paladin. You’re a demon.”
“Yes, and one of those two is known for dramatic acts of self-sacrifice.” It frowned. “Perhaps I should keep one of your friends as a hostage, just in case.”
“No. You let them all go, or there is no deal.”
“And what keeps you from falling on your sword the moment they’re safely away?”
Shane folded his arms in a mirror of the demon. “If you cannot convince your paladins to stay in your service, how do you expect to succeed as a god?”
“Ha!” Wisdom barked a laugh. “Well struck, paladin. Very well! But you must give me a chance to prove myself before you fling yourself from the battlements, yes?”
Shane hesitated. “I will need proof of their safety.”
Wisdom sighed. “Very well. You, and none other, shall accompany them to the river that borders my lands. You may watch them go for as long as you like, to make certain that none of my men take potshots at them. You may even lock my fighting men in the prison cells below, if that will set your mind at ease. But you become my champion now. Tonight. I want you on my chain, paladin, before I risk letting you off the lead.”
It was a monstrous bargain. A true paladin would never have made it, but he was not a true paladin any longer.
Perhaps he never had been. Perhaps, as it said, he had only ever been a dog on someone’s chain.
“Agreed,” he said.
It was wise enough not to gloat. It reached out and pressed its hand flat against his chest, a little below his heart, where the Saint of Steel had once filled him with holy fire.
“Then let me in, champion,” the demon whispered.
Shane closed his eyes. His first god didn’t want him. His second god was dead. He was a danger to the woman he loved.
Maybe it’s better this way.
If the demon’s touch had burned before, now it felt like a needle of fire thrust through his heart. Shane opened his mouth to scream, and then something tore, something he hadn’t even known existed, and his scream turned into a ragged gasp for air.
It was as if there had been a festering wound deep inside him and Wisdom had lanced it. As if he had been in pain so long that he had forgotten there was anything else, until the demon had broken it open and set it to bleeding again.
An abscessed soul. Of course I’d get one of those. If souls could heal and souls could scar, it only made sense. He gave a short huff of laughter, startling himself. He’d heard dying men laugh like that.
Well. That made sense, too. Perhaps the wound in his soul had always been mortal. He had simply been too stubborn to fall down and die. Perhaps now he finally would.
“Not until I’m done with you,” said the demon Wisdom, and used its host’s body to smile.