Being a necromancer, he realized, had been so much easier when he had not cared, personally, about the people who died. Was it better or worse that he was stepping out of the shadows and joining the ranks of the sacred who so brightly served the Goddess? "What do these demons want?" he asked. "They should not be here. They stay close to their border and the edges of the country where they can more easily hunt. Why did they go to so much trouble to travel around the royal castle and deep into the country to feast upon poor farmers?" The words
they were scared
echoed through his head, but Koray did not voice the words.
"I don't know," Emel replied. "We need to return to the castle and let the High Paladin know all that has transpired. We're pushing on to the castle. We stop only for the horses."
Koray nodded along with the five remaining paladins as he mounted his horse, using his heels to urge it forward. They rode off through the woods and into the night, bound for the castle and woe betide the demon or man who attempted to waylay them.
He was barely awake when they finally reached home, Emel and the other paladins in not much better condition, every last one of them exhausted from expenditures of power. His attempt to dismount only landed him in the water that was still flooding the ward. Shivering from the cold that plagued him from the inside and out, Koray fumbled for leverage, balance—and cried out, startled, when strong hands grabbed him and hauled him to his feet.
Looking up, he stared into Sorin's dark, solemn eyes. After a long moment of silence, he finally said, "My Lord High Paladin."
"Welcome home," Sorin said.
The words made something in Koray's chest ache—with longing, with want, with a burning desire he hadn't really known was there until Sorin said those two damn words. Burying the useless emotions, he said only, "I don't suppose there is a chance I could actually get dry? I've about had my fill of being soaking wet for you, My Lord High Paladin."
Something flashed, hot and bright, in Sorin's eyes, and his voice was a bit rough when he said, "I think something can be done about that, My Lord High Necromancer."
Koray cast him a scathing look, completely unamused that Sorin was able to use his own display of mockery against him. He brushed past Sorin and climbed the steps into the castle, trailing water as he made his way to his room. But when he stepped inside and saw his fire stoked and a hot bath waiting, all ire fled in the face of the hot tears stinging his eyes. "How did you know we would be home tonight?" he asked.
From behind him, Sorin said, "The Goddess occasionally conveys such things to me. Mild in comparison, to be sure, but no less important. Food is on the way. Do you mind if I share your supper after I've heard the reports?"
"No," Koray said. He waited until Sorin left before moving stiffly to the bath and stripping, then settled into the hot water with a soft sigh. He did not realize he had dozed off until he heard the clatter of dishes and smelled roasted meat and fresh bread. Jerking up, he groaned and sank back down.
Sorin chuckled softly, and Koray cast him a glare through the long fall of his hair. Grabbing the soap, he began to scrub himself clean, saving his long hair for last. When at last he was done, he rung his hair out and then stood up in the cooled bath water, letting most of the water run off before he stepped out and picked up the bathing robe waiting for him, warm from being hung near the fire. Belting it, he settled at the table and filled his plate with food.
"There's a new band of dark gray in your hair. Does that mean the purification was difficult, but not as bad as it could have been?"
Koray looked up, startled. "You noticed—" He shook his head. "I had to do two purifications right in a row. The farmhouse and then your fallen men. I am sorry."
Sorin accepted the words with a nod. "Emel said that the ghosts told you something, but you wished to convey it to me before anyone else."
"The ghosts said that the demons were scared of something," Koray replied quietly. "That they were terrified even as they brutalized the farm inhabitants."
"Scared?" Sorin repeated. "What in the name of the Goddess would scare a demon? They certainly are not scared of paladins. They merely find us annoying and insulting. Nothing scares a demon. I don't like the idea that something could."
Koray nodded in agreement and took a deep swallow of wine before bending to his plate of food in earnest. When his hunger was finally eased, he wiped remaining traces of grease from his lips and finally looked up—and froze to see Sorin watching him. "What?"
"I'm glad to see you doing so much better than when you first arrived," Sorin said with a shrug. "I do appreciate you riding out with my men as you did when I know you've no reason to trust any paladin."
"You're infuriating, My Lord High Paladin, but you keep your word. Your man Emel is steady enough. At any rate, I have been taking care of myself for a long time. I do not need to be fussed over and worried about and taken care of. Nobody coddles you or the priests."
"I would never dare to coddle something covered in thorns," Sorin said, smiling in that infuriating way of his. Koray hated that smile.
Scowling, he retreated to his wine. It was a good wine, though he supposed he would not really know good wine from mediocre. He only knew it wasn't
bad
wine, watered down by cheap tavern owners—and watered further so as not to waste too much on a filthy necromancer.
But he preferred not to think about that because one day that would be his life again and the thought of it left him depressed. "I will try to work faster on figuring out how to find someone using demon magic."
"I still cannot believe there is no priest who can do it," Sorin replied with a long sigh. "Such things are their purview, but then again, I cannot remember the last time one was called on for such a thing. Previous High Paladins did such a thorough job of eradicating black magic practitioners that we ceased to hunt them. Now those skills have dulled." He made a face. "That is definitely something I will correct once I know how to correct it."
Koray drank more wine, annoyed all over again at how insufferably difficult Sorin made it to hate him. He set his empty cup aside, pointedly not pouring himself more wine. "I suppose I shall study—"
"By study, I assume you mean sleep," Sorin cut in. "You look ready to drop, and from what Emel said, you used a great deal of magic after riding hard and sleeping little. Go to sleep, Koray. The books will keep another day." Standing up, he walked the length of the table to Koray's end and briefly rested a hand on his shoulder. "I'm glad you returned safely. Good night, Koray. Sleep well."
"Good night," Koray said, biting back the urge to ask Sorin to stay and share more of the warmth that had filled Koray with his touch.
Instead, he waited until Sorin was gone, then doused the lights, threw more wood on the fire, and tried to convince himself that the blankets on his bed were all the warmth he needed. Dissatisfaction chased him into a restless sleep filled with nightmares of flying demons and Sorin dead at his feet.
Sorin gave up sleeping after two marks of tossing and turning. Throwing his covers back in disgust, he pulled on his clothes and decided he would catch up on some of the paperwork that had become yet one more thing for him to do since Angelos has been murdered.
How had Angelos done so much yet always been there whenever Sorin had strode in looking for him? Always been there whenever anyone needed him. Sorin heaved a sigh and pulled on his boots, glanced at the table piled with work … and headed for the door to go in search of what he really wanted. He had walked the path to Koray's room so many times that his feet did not require his mind to get there, leaving Sorin free to come up with an excuse that Koray, entirely too sharp for anyone's peace of mind, would believe.
When he reached Koray's room, however, he saw no excuse was necessary—Koray's door gaped open, and a quick peek in to ensure all was well proved the room empty. Shaking his head, amused by Koray's inability to sleep at night, Sorin began to prowl the castle in search of his errant, restless necromancer.
It did not take him long, as there were only a handful of places Koray tended to visit: the library, the royal mausoleum, and the northeast tower that was too drafty to be of use to anyone. Sorin tried the library first and smiled faintly when the very last row resulted in a scowling Koray slowly moving along the shelves of books. His hair fell over his shoulders and down his back in loose waves, the pale streaks in it standing out in the dim light.
As though sensing him, Koray stopped and turned. "Do not tell me that My Lord High Paladin has taken to skulking about in the dark of the night."
"Only when I am too restless of mind to sleep, My Lord High Necromancer, and I never skulk. I would never dare to mimic you so."
Koray rolled his eyes. "You are not amusing, and I am no high necromancer. There is no such thing amongst us."
"Well, the Goddess has yet to cast her disapproval upon the title, so it must fit."
"She has not cast her approval, either, so I maintain you lot can keep your useless titles to yourselves and cease to foist them upon me," Koray retorted. He rubbed at his temples, briefly looking pained, then scowled at the books he had been carefully perusing.
Sorin cocked his head, watching, wondering what was going on. He had thought Koray simply wandering aimlessly, perhaps undecided on what to read, but that was clearly not the case. "Is there something with which I can help you, necromancer?"
Koray sighed then said stiffly, "I am being guided toward something that is definitely in this room, but I cannot figure out where exactly, or what it is—certainly not the ghosts I already banished since I could not work with their gloomy presence distracting me." He sighed again and went back to carefully perusing the books.
"Not a ghost?" Sorin asked, surprised. So far as he understood it—and Koray loved to point out how little he understood before correcting him—necromancers were divinely guided to the ghosts that required their particular touch. "Have you ever been directed to something not a ghost before?"
Though his scowl was answer enough, Koray said, "No, and I've never heard of it happening, outside of a necromancer being guided to a new necromancer. So I have no idea what I am looking for, though I have searched every bit of this library."
"I'll do what I can to help," Sorin said. "It looks as though you've made pretty certain it is not a book."
Koray shrugged. "I'm not sure. It's somewhere around this section of shelves, so what could it be except a book?" He gestured to the shelves he'd been examining, which were set against the wall and contained some of the oldest books in the library.
"Then there must be something else there if it's not a book."
"Like what?" Koray asked sourly. "The wall?" He had barely said the words when he gave a pained cry and pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. "Blast that woman."
Sorin sympathized. "So the wall, then?"
Koray's only reply was one of his more hostile looks.
Grinning, Sorin started removing books and carrying them to the large table in the middle of the room. When all the books had been removed, he examined the shelves. They were heavy and solid, and an ordinary man probably would have required help—but Sorin was high paladin and that came with a few bonuses. Setting the last of the shelves against a bare wall, he commented, "The master librarian is going to murder us when he sees the mess we've … Well now, what have we here? Somebody walled up a doorway."
He stared in surprise at the stones that did not match those around them, the etchings across the top that marked where another section of the library had once been. Koray stepped up to the wall and rested his hands upon the lighter, less worn stones. "This is it. Whatever is behind this wall is what I am meant to address."
"So it could be a ghost?" Sorin asked, overtaken by a wave of sadness. It seemed unbearable enough to be a ghost, but to be sealed up in a place forgotten by the world?
"Maybe," Koray said. "But ghost still does not feel quite right. How do we get rid of this stupid wall? Why was it sealed up?"
"We'll knock it down in the morning," Sorin replied. "As to why, I could not say. But I'm sure there must be records in the royal archives about it. Goddess knows every time I so much as want to repair the stones in the yard I must submit paperwork to the seneschal and all his ancestors." Koray made a choked noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. Sorin hid a triumphant grin and said only, "Did you want to go down to the archives, necromancer?"
Koray considered the question, then shook his head. "No. All I need is whatever is behind this wall. Why must we wait until morning?"
Sorin laughed. "I'll not wake up the whole of the castle to tear down a wall. It has waited this long, it can wait a few marks more." Huffing, Koray nevertheless conceded the point with a nod. "Come, necromancer. We'll fetch some wine from the kitchen and occupy ourselves another way until the master librarian seeks us out with vengeance in his eyes." Not giving Koray a chance to argue, Sorin grasped his shoulder and guided him out of the library.
Koray twisted free almost immediately, but went along without further protest. After successfully raiding the kitchen for wine and food, Sorin led the way to his room, quietly pleased when Koray did not comment, simply followed him inside and took up what had been his usual seat until he'd been given his own quarters.
"So do you have any ideas about what might be behind the wall?" Sorin asked.
"No," Koray replied. "I'm sure it's not good, whatever it is. If I'm involved, it's never good."
The worst part about his statement was that it was said so matter-of-factly. There was no bitterness or whine to his tone, merely a pointing out of an inarguable fact. It made Sorin's chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with the Goddess. "It seems to me, necromancer, that you only bring good wherever you go, however dire things might be upon your arrival. Have you not said yourself that purifying a place makes it a better place to be?"