'Forgive me, Lady Ethalia,' Allister said at once. 'I promise, one smile from you and I will be on my best behaviour.'

She reached up with her bound hands and lifted the hood just enough to reveal her face and give him a wan smile.

'How did you know it was Ethalia?' I asked, and Allister looked at me as if I were stupid, which I suppose I was.

'Wait,' Brasti said. 'Where's Talia?'

Allister pointed back the way we'd come. 'Disguised as a pilgrim didn't you see her? She practically waved to you as you went by.'

'You're lying,' Brasti said defensively. 'I could spot her from a mile away.'

'Don't feel bad, Brasti. You're getting old. They do say the eyes go first.'

'Enough,' I said, before either of them could continue. 'We're a bit short on time, and in a somewhat precarious position here, so Allister, why don't you just tell us what you've learned about the God's Needles?'

He craned his head to look back at the road one more time, but even the dust cloud accompanying the pilgrims had disappeared now. He rose to his feet and stretched. 'If you four are heading into Domaris then I'm guessing you found out the same thing I did: there are rumours of a working sanctuary in the Condate of Verderen that's where they're making the Needles.'

I felt a huge surge of relief at hearing confirmation of the Bardatti's theory.

'How well guarded is it?' Kest asked before I could.

'I couldn't get close enough to find out: the sanctuary is right in the centre of his lands and I didn't think anything as lowly as a country cleric would gain entrance. But I've seen six more of those damnable God's Needles, and they do all appear to be coming from Verderen.' He looked up at the unconscious boy tied to the tree. 'What are you going to do about him?'

'Cut him loose and bring him to the nearest village,' I replied. 'We'll leave him with a few coins; he will have to make his way to safety from there.'

For a second I thought Allister might protest, but then he said, 'This thing with the churches? There's something off about it: the clerics aren't preaching about the Gods any more, they're preaching about "The God", singular.'

'Which "God"?' Kest asked.

Allister gave a wry grin. 'I swear, I don't think they even have a clue. All I know is that if one of the old priests starts talking to his flock about Purgeize or Duestre or any of the others, that priest ends up disappearing pretty quickly. I think there's a war going on within the churches themselves.'

'I suppose it makes sense,' Brasti said. 'If you're trying to turn the country into a theocracy it's probably easier to do if everyone worships the same God. Too bad they couldn't have picked Love, though. She always seems the least annoying of the Gods.'

Ethalia dismounted from her horse, but before I could say anything she said, 'The pilgrims are far enough away now. No one can see us and the boy's wounds need tending.' She slid her right hand out of the handcuffs and pulled one of her blue jars from her saddlebag.

'Keep an eye out,' I told Brasti.

Allister rose to his feet as well. 'So Obladias uses his money and influence to persuade as many clerics as he can to his side. Then he brings back the Inquisitors and goes out and recruits all those wayward Knights looking for something to believe in. He creates these foul "God's Needles" to start desecrating any holdout churches and forcing the remaining clerics into line.' He waved his hands in the air elaborately. 'And just like magic, Tristia has a new religion.'

'Clever,' Brasti said. He turned to me. 'How come we never come up with plans as clever as that?'

'We've been a little busy trying to keep the Dukes from destroying the country.'

'That's the problem, Falcio,' Allister said, his face tight; he looked genuinely angry with me. 'You keep winning the battle, but you never get any closer to winning the war.'

'Most of the time I'm just trying to figure out who the enemy is,' I admitted.

He spread his arms wide. 'Haven't you figured it out yet? It's everybody.' He brushed down his robes and said, 'I should rejoin my little flock before someone poaches them from me. Do you have any orders, First Cantor?'

I couldn't decide whether he used my title because he was remembering his duty or because he was just as scared and uncertain as the rest of us. Whatever the reason, I gripped his shoulder. 'Get back to Aramor and keep her alive.'

He nodded, then grinned. 'Well, good travels, fellows. Odds are we won't see each other again on this side of Death's embrace then again, maybe the One God has killed off Death, too.'

Brasti gave him a rough hug. 'Try not to trip over your stick.'

Allister set off down the road, but after a few steps he paused and turned back to us. 'The boy he's going to tell people, Falcio. Even if he swears to keep his mouth shut, he won't keep quiet. They never do. These heroics you're so fond of are going to get you killed, and then where will we be?'

I thought about that, and only then considered the fact that Allister hadn't stopped the men from whipping the boy. 'Would you have really let them do it?'

He didn't look at me, but when he answered, his voice was harsh and full of self-loathing. 'To complete the mission? To stop what's happening out here? You're damned right I would, and so would Talia. So would Quillata and Tobb and most of the others. You better get ready, Falcio, because this is a war. And right now, the other guys are winning.'

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE.

The Demesne

The Duchy of Domaris is split into three Condates and four Marches, the latter bordering the neighbouring Duchies. The Condate of Verderen is larger than most, comprised as it is of half a dozen demesnes, each around fifty square miles. It was in one of those demesnes that we found Obladias' family estates, although I had to admit the search hadn't been that difficult. Whatever subterfuge had been used to hide the would-be Prelate's activities over the past months or years was apparently no longer necessary. The average farmer or villager might not know precisely what was going on, but they couldn't miss the steady stream of clerics, Inquisitors and Knights clogging the roads, and everyone knew where the travellers were coming from.

'They glint in the sun,' one old cart driver told us when he'd stopped to see if we might exchange a few coins for some of his supplies.

'They glint?' I asked, paying him a somewhat exorbitant price for a few apples and a wheel of cheese that I strongly suspected weren't his to sell. 'You mean from the armour?'

The driver pocketed the coins and looked at Ethalia, lying tied across her horse. At first we'd told anyone who enquired that she was a heretic being brought for trial, but the closer we got to Verderen, the more the talk of Saints made it more plausible that we'd captured one who was too sick from the fever to fight back. 'Nah,' he said finally, as if only then remembering what I'd asked, 'the shine comes from 'em flecks they get 'em on their boots, 'aven't ya noticed when you been there with 'em other Inquisitors?'

I didn't respond; whatever the old man knew wasn't worth the risk of being discovered for fakes. Instead I gave him the look as Kest and Brasti took a step closer to him. The driver bowed his head and snapped the reins to get his horse to start moving.

Our disguises and the occasional threat were enough to get us into the heart of the demesne, where the question of where to go was quickly solved when anyone caught sight of Ethalia.

'Found another one, eh?' a white-tabarded Knight said, waving us forward into what could have passed for a small village constructed in the middle of an otherwise dense forest. He pointed down the path to an open-air building where smoke was rising from several chimneys and the sounds of hammering echoed out towards us. 'Take her to the blacksmith, same as the others.'

I nodded and started to go by. As Ethalia's horse passed by, he stopped it and reached up to put a hand on her leg. 'Which one did you get? I imagine she's pleasing to the eye once you get the rags off her.' Then a thought occurred to him and he added, 'Hope she's not one of the dangerous ones.'

Kest replied, 'Only to a man who puts his hands on her.'

I was grateful for his intervention and, not for the first time, that my rapiers were strapped to the side of my horse and not within easy reach.

The Knight took his hand off Ethalia and backed away, and as we rode by, I wondered at his attitude. Did the Church Knights see themselves as equal to the Inquisitors? That hadn't felt like the case on the road. Perhaps here things were more . . . collegial?

The question lost significance when we got closer to the blacksmith's shop. There were no walls, only a roof held up by supports recently cut from trees, the bark still hanging off them. Within the space I counted six separate forges, each being worked by one or two men, all with the big, brawny frames required for such work.

'Over here,' the one closest to us called, even as he picked up something I couldn't see with his heavy tongs and then dunked it in a barrel of water. Steam hissed up in the air between us. 'Who's that you got there?' he asked.

At first I just stared at him, but my expression didn't appear to put him off; evidently he wasn't particularly in awe of Inquisitors. 'Does it matter to you?' I asked at last.

He shrugged. 'Not especially, but you'll want a mask aligned to her sympathies.' I had no idea what he was talking about, but that didn't appear to matter; the blacksmith put down his tongs and walked past me. He reached up and passed a hand across Ethalia's still form, tied across the horse. 'Ah,' he said. 'Love and Regret. Two of my favourite Gods.' He stopped himself and gave a chortle. 'Well, false Gods now, I suppose.'

The blacksmith went back inside to a large wooden bin stacked with iron masks. He rummaged around for a few moments before retrieving one. 'This should do just fine.'

I had to shove the wave of disgust and rage back down my own throat, fearing it might trigger something in Ethalia. I badly needed to know more about how this worked. 'Wait,' I said, grabbing the blacksmith's arm, and when he looked down at me questioningly I asked, 'Are you sure you have the right one?'

His eyes narrowed, but more from irritation than suspicion. 'I've been at this longer than you, I reckon.' He flipped over the mask, revealing the misshapen features and strange lines across its surface. 'There, see? Love and Regret, both right there.' He caught my expression but mistook it for doubt. 'Look, it doesn't matter that much, anyway. Any mask of infamy will hold back their Awe. Like the Blacksmith says, getting the alignment right' here he grinned and gave me a wink 'just makes the desecration sting a little deeper, eh?'

My chest was tight and I couldn't stop myself from breathing in deep, the way I do before a fight. I hoped the man wouldn't notice, and fortunately, Brasti drew his attention away. 'I thought you were the blacksmith.'

The man in front of me looked over at his fellows inside the shop and laughed. 'Hear that, boys? I'm the Blacksmith now!'

The others laughed. Our man turned back to us. 'I'm a blacksmith, all right, but I'm not the Blacksmith. He's off doing something more important, I imagine.'

I was trying to make sense of all this when Kest, recognising I wasn't thinking clearly, took the mask from the man and examined it. 'Hard to believe, isn't it?' he said, smoothly, 'that all you need to do is put an iron mask on a Saint and they become as easy to kill as anyone else.'

'Well, sure,' said the blacksmith, 'but it's not as if any old iron will do, is it?' He waved an arm down the path. 'It's only our mine here that's got the right ore to make the masks you haven't been down there yet?'

Kest shook his head. 'We've been dealing with heretics in Baern for the most part.' He motioned towards Ethalia's still form. 'We only came here because we caught this one half-dead outside one of the old churches.'

'You sure she's weak?' the blacksmith asked. 'They come out of the Fever unexpectedly sometimes.'

'Not this one,' Kest replied. 'She's been out of it for six days. When she does talk it's just to moan and beg us to help her.'

The blacksmith smiled knowingly. 'Funny how Saints are just like little children that way. They'll just keep screaming and screaming till they get to play in their little sanctuary.' He glanced over at Ethalia again. 'Well, the clerics have been bitching and moaning for a fresh one for the past two days so best we get this done and you take her down to the mine.' He took the mask from Kest's hand and walked back to Ethalia.

I started for him but Kest caught my shoulder. We locked eyes and he gave the slightest shake of his head. We had talked about this, all of us. I'd known since we'd started this foolish plan what we might have to do and Ethalia hadn't just agreed to it; she'd insisted.

I'd had two weeks to prepare myself and I still wasn't ready.

The blacksmith grabbed the back of her head with one hand and put the front piece of the mask over it. Then he held it there and released the back of her head and swung the back plate over, snapping the locks in place with practised ease. The moan that escaped her destroyed some last piece of whatever love I had left for myself.

The blacksmith raised his voice and spoke into the holes in the front of the mask. 'You wanted a sanctuary, little girl? Well, you wait until you see what we've got down there for you.'

Even before I took the first step past the heavy wooden frame that opened onto the sloping path into the mine, I could sense something deeply wrong with this place. My fingers twitched, desperate for the comforting grips of my rapiers, which I'd had to leave with the horses in order to maintain my disguise; I still had no idea why they favoured maces. It hardly mattered, though, as my arms were fully occupied with carrying Ethalia. Looking down at her, I could no longer tell whether she was pretending to be unconscious or whether the Saint's Fever had finally overcome her.

Unless it's the mask that's doing this to her.

'A plan would be nice right about now,' Brasti said. It was going to take one hell of a trick to get us all out of here alive once this was done.

Kest finished pouring the rest of our water into a heavy skin inside his pack. 'I thought we'd agreed to a Snake in the Soup.'

'You two agreed to it,' Brasti lifted his own pack in the air. 'I'd rather not rely on luck and this shit to keep us alive.'

'We could try a Flock of Swallows,' Kest offered.

'Forget it,' Brasti replied. 'Maybe if I had my fast bow' he looked dismissively at the pistol in the holster at his side 'but this bloody thing takes too long to reload.'

'Inquisitors don't use bows,' Kest said, then pointed to the mace hanging from his belt. 'Besides, if I have to carry this thing . . .'

Brasti made a show of examining the mace. 'I don't see what you're complaining about. It's not that different to a sword, is it? It's still just a big stick you wave at people.' He turned to me. 'Come on, Falcio, can we at least consider a Cloak and Tickle?'

'No,' I said, barely paying attention. Ethalia was so light in my arms when had she got so thin? She was barely heavier than the pack I carried on my back. Had she been eating at all since becoming a Saint? Focus! Find out what's down there find a way to prove Obladias is behind this and put a stop to his machinations. 'We stick with the Snake in the Soup,' I said quietly.

Brasti swore and took the first step into the mine. 'Fine, but I never want to hear you bitching and moaning about how much you "hate magic" again after this.'

'Well,' Brasti said quietly, his voice lightly echoing inside the shaft as we walked along the rough stone floor, 'I always knew you'd lead us into some hell eventually.'

'Shut up,' I said.

Ethalia's body twitched just as the light of the lantern Kest held in front glinted on something embedded in the walls. 'Iron ore,' he said.

'It's an iron mine,' Brasti said. 'What did you expect?'

Kest stopped for a moment and reached out a hand, his fingers almost but not quite touching the tiny fleck of ore in the wall. 'It's . . . different. It feels not unlike when I was in the sanctuary of Saint Forza, only stronger . . . deeper.' He turned and looked down at the mask covering Ethalia's face. 'I think it's something about the ore that holds back the Saint's Awe.'

Brasti pressed his own hand against the wall of the mine. 'I'm not feeling anything. Must be a Saintly thing.'

'We need to keep going,' I said, and Kest nodded and continued down the passageway. The roof of the shaft was much higher than I'd expect in a mine, and all too soon we found ourselves in what appeared for all the worlds like a massive underground city. Rough-hewn corridors illuminated by lanterns hanging from hooks every twenty feet or so were peopled by men and women carrying tools and supplies, sometimes dragging a body along the ground.

I tried to focus on the plan, on what might lie ahead, but every step I took increased my feelings of dread.

Imagine what it's doing to Ethalia.

Every few minutes her limp body in my arms would twitch or shiver and it took all my will not to set her down and strike off the mask, to see if she was all right. But we were committed now, for good or ill, so I just kept going, counting the number of steps down each hallway, memorising every turn. I forced myself to close my eyes, to picture the space in front and behind me, to pay attention to the smells of sweat and fire, when I could feel a breeze and when it disappeared. I couldn't count on my sight to help me if things went to hell.

Things always go to hell.

'Falcio?' Kest said.

I stopped walking and looked up as he motioned ahead to where some two dozen people waited in a line. They were very different, dressed not in work clothes but in white robes, clean despite the dust and dirt all around them, the fine cloth almost shimmering in the torchlight. When they noticed us coming, several of them ran over and began to crowd around us.

'Let's have a look at her,' one man said, excitedly. The simplicity of his robes was at odds with the elegant cut of his hair, the manicured nails of his hand as he reached out to us. This wasn't a poor man.

'Let me, Papa,' begged a boy by his side, also dressed in white. 'I want a taste.'

A taste?