Penric's Demon Read Online Free PDF Page B

at the confluence with the River Linnet, not fifteen miles from their destination and under its territorial jurisdiction. Although it was probably not possible to get lost following the Linnet’s valley upstream to where it drained the big lake at Martensbridge, Trinker ruled that they dare not risk arriving after the town gates closed, and instead found them impromptu, but free, lodging at the local Lady-school.
    The Lady-school, dedicated to the Daughter of Spring, was not unlike the one in Greenwell that Pen had attended in his youth, being a couple of rooms on the ground floor of the house where the teachers lodged. It was not appointed for pilgrims like the big chapterhouse of the Daughter’s Order last night—where Pen had been able to sell his cheese to the refectory for a substantial addition to his pocket money—but a private bedchamber was cleared for him nonetheless. Pen did not think this was because he was the most honored guest.
    As a prisoner, he had been well treated, but his status was plain. He checked the tiny window, four floors up over the street. If his captors imagined it would hold him, they had reckoned without his slight build or his years spent climbing, either up trees out of reach of Drovo, or in the mountains hunting. He could skin out of their grip in a moment, but—where would he go?
    This was like waiting for the physician, that time he’d broken his arm. Uncomfortable, but there was nothing he could do to hurry events. Except, it seemed, continue on to the mysteries of Martensbridge.
    He lay down and attempted sleep, only to become aware, after a few minutes, that he was sharing the narrow cot with a family of fleas. He flicked, rubbed, turned again. Or maybe a festival of fleas . Would they celebrate all night? He muttered an imprecation as one bit his calf, beginning the banquet.
    “Would you like some help with that?” said Desdemona, amusement lacing her voice.
    Pen clapped his hand over his mouth. “Quieter!” he whispered, alarmed. “Wilrom is sleeping right outside the door. He’ll hear.” And think . . . what?
    Desdemona obligingly whispered, “We can destroy fleas, you know.”
    Pen hadn’t. “Is it permitted?”
    “Not only permitted, but encouraged. We must have done in armies of them, over the years. Vermin are not considered theologically protected, even by the Bastard whose creatures they are. And it is a magic that runs safely downhill, from order to disorder.”
    “Less disorder for my bed, surely.”
    “But great disorder for the fleas,” Desdemona whispered back. Pen’s lips grinned, not by his volition. “The sharpest fall of all, from life to death.”
    That last comment was unsettling, but so were the fleas. “Go ahead,” whispered Pen, and lay still, straining to sense whatever was going to happen.
    A pulse of heat, a slight flush through his body. Its direction was vague, though it seemed more down from his back, into the mattress, than up from his chest toward the ceiling.
    “Twenty-six fleas, two ticks, three beetles, and nine lice,” said Desdemona with a satisfied sigh, like a woman consuming a sweet custard. “And a multitude of moth eggs in the wool stuffing.”
    As the first magic he had ever worked, this lacked glamor. “I thought you didn’t do arithmetic?” said Pen.
    “Huh.” Pen wasn’t sure if her huff was peeved or pleased. “You pay attention, do you?”
    “I’m . . . presently spurred to.”
    “Are you,” she breathed.
    His bedding might be depopulated, but he was still not alone. It also occurred to him, belatedly, that he didn’t know whether demons could lie . Did they always speak truth to their riders, or could they trick them? Could they cut the cloth of fact to fit their goals, leaving out essential information to reverse its effect? Desdemona was the one . . . person, he decided for simplicity he would think of her as a person, he could not ask. Or rather, he could ask, she might answer, but it