The fiend laughed, and Kestrel felt his knees turning to water with fear. He couldn't have moved; like everyone else in the building he was paralyzed with fright. He shivered with cold, drenched in an icy sweat; he shook as if he was trembling with fever, and started to sink to the floor in abject terror_
When he suddenly felt the internal music intensify, and a new melody join it, and realized that the fear he felt was not coming from within him, but from the music!
Once he knew that, he was able to shunt the music away, and fear vanished, exactly like a soap bubble popping. With it went the paralysis that had held him helpless.
He remained on his knees, however; if he had stood, he would have been terribly conspicuous amid all the rest of the grovelers. Padrik was the only man standing now, for even the Guards had dropped to their knees, leaving their "prisoner" to lie on the floor like a dead thing. The High Bishop glowed with hazy, golden light_light that was no more divine than the demon, Kestrel suspected.
"In the name of God and His Angels, begone!" Padrik cried again, his voice rising over the demonic laughter. "Begone, lest the wrath of God be unleashed upon you!"
The demon's only answer was to leap upon the High Bishop, claw-hands reaching for his throat.
Padrik brought down his staff just in time; the demon's hands closed upon it rather than flesh. The moment that it touched the wooden staff, however, the real show began.
The two combatants lurched in a bizarre circle-dance, linked by the High Bishop's staff, never once leaving the clear space before the altar. Coruscating lightnings of eye-searing yellow and blood-red lanced from the demon, grounding everywhere except on Padrik, whose golden glow had hardened to a visible shield about him. The demons shrieks of rage echoed through the Cathedral, further terrifying the congregation. Now that Kestrel was no longer in the thrall of the artificially induced terror, he was able to admire the artistry, and wonder who among the Priests or the Gypsies was responsible. As a show, it was the best he'd ever seen; a truly professional illusion on the mage's part, and a truly fine acting performance on Padrik's. It really looked as if he was fighting something!
At first, the struggle appeared to be completely even, but gradually the tide turned in Padrik's favor. The High Bishop was back in his former position, where he'd started when the fight began. His back was to the altar, with his face to the congregation, and the demon's back to them. There he stopped and held his ground.
The demon cried out, and for the first time there was something like fear in its voice.
His face shining with well-simulated righteous wrath, Padrik forced the demon to its knees, and with a tremendous shout, wrestled the staff out of its hands and struck it across the head! A soundless explosion of light covered the lack of any sound of impact. It collapsed at his feet, and he planted the tip of his staff firmly in the middle of its back.
It groveled on the marble before him, whimpering.
A collective sigh passed through the crowd at the successful conclusion to the "struggle." Kestrel was impressed, Robin's disappearance momentarily forgotten; this was going to enhance Padrik's reputation no end! It was one thing to "banish" a "demon" no one could see_it was quite another to actually defeat such a creature in a battle anyone could see with his own eyes!
Even if it is as phony as glass diamonds.
But surely now the show was over. He expected the High Bishop to "banish" the creature as he always had before, though probably in a much more spectacular manner.
But once again the little play took an entirely different turn.
"Who sent you?" Padrik demanded, his voice booming and echoing in the silent Cathedral. "Who sent you to possess this man, and to attack me? What vile magician is it that you serve, creature of darkness? Answer! Or you will feel the might of the weapon of God once again!"
He raised his staff in threat, and the demon groveled and wept and whimpered so convincingly that Kestrel almost felt sorry for it.
"Lady Orlina Woolwright," the demon hissed, its voice harsh and hoarse. "That isss my missstresss, the lady I sssserve _"
Kestrel started with surprise, and he was not the only one to do so. Orlina Woolwright? He knew that name_and so did every native of Gradford, and every merchant who had been here more than a day or two.
She was one of the Mayor's Councilors, appointed by her Guild, for the Mayor surely would never have appointed anyone as outspoken as she was on his own. A few days ago, she had made a public speech or two of her own in the Cathedral square from the vantage of her own balcony, concerning the rights of tradesmen, with carefully veiled references to all the restrictions that Padrik had been attempting to have signed into law. She was beautiful, wealthy, a Master in the Weaver's Guild in her own right, and perhaps not so coincidentally, the only person on the Mayor's Council with a sense of humor. She'd certainly been able to make a mockery of some of Padrik's more outrageous statements in those speeches of hers. She had_unwisely now, it seemed_been flaunting the new wave of piety, by dressing as a woman of refinement and fashion, rather than a woman of the "new" Gradford.
She had been too prominent a target for Padrik to attack in the Council or in any other conventional, secular venue. That was what the other merchants had said, anyway. She held too many debts, knew too many secrets.
So has he chosen this way to bring her down?
"Orlina Woolwright? So be it!" Padrik raised his staff above his head, and gazed out over the heads of the crowd. "You have all heard it! You have heard the testament of the witch's own creature, sent to slay me! I now denounce Orlina Woolwright as a sorcerer, mage, and witch of the blackest and darkest! I declare her Anathema in the sight of all good Churchmen! Let no man aid her, let no man succor her, for the wrath of God is now against her!"
A bolt of lightning lanced down out of the ceiling of the Cathedral, and struck Padrik's staff with a crack. He pointed the staff down at the demon, and another bolt crackled down to strike it_