Judge (10 page)

The eldest council member—a slight, weathered man with reflective gray eyes—nodded. “Agreed. Istgard has been fair enough.”

Considering that Ytar’s slaughtered dead couldn’t be restored to life.

Ela almost heard the unspoken thought echo through the
chamber. “Remember,” Ela cautioned the council gently, “the Istgardians who dared to massacre your people are also dead. They paid for their crimes with their lives.”

“Speaking of crimes,” another council member intoned, her straight dark hair and long face as solemn as her voice, “do you intend to leave us with the care—the expensive care—of ten blind prisoners?”

Ruestock’s men. If they were blind for the remainder of their lives, they’d rob no more. And yet . . . An impulse of pity made Ela sigh. “Have them brought here. We’ll see if the Infinite is merciful to the undeserving.”

The prisoners soon arrived in a straggling line, bound together by ropes at their waists. Leading the miserable parade, Ruestock threw Ela a surly glance. His men stumbled after him, seeming exhausted, untidy, and drained of hope.

Ela bowed her head, praying, “Infinite, open the eyes of these men.”

The branch sent a burst of light through the blinded prisoners. They gasped and lifted their bound hands to their eyes. Several uttered choked sobs. The eldest councilman stood and looked from the prisoners to Ela. Recovering, he asked, “What must we do with them? Kill them?”

Her voice monotonously flat, the dark-haired councilwoman said, “It’s too expensive to feed and shelter so many prisoners.”

The eleven prisoners sucked in their breaths. Ruestock darted a silent plea at Ela.

Ela frowned. For all their promises of peace, were the Ytarians still consumed by thoughts of spilling blood for revenge? Even if the blood wasn’t Istgard’s?

As the council members began to argue, Ela said, “Send them home. If you’d captured these men in war with your own weapons, wouldn’t you spare them for the sake of your own honor? Don’t tempt the Infinite’s anger. Be sure these men leave the Tracelands. Safely.”

Ruestock gave Ela a smile she couldn’t quite decipher. “There’s
our charming, tenderhearted prophet. Ela, my dear, you are a jewel.”

Minding her temper, Ela said, “I am not your dear.”

“You break my heart.”

Did he have a heart to be broken? Ela wasn’t about to ask the question aloud. Duty done, she left the council chamber. Surely she would never see Ruestock again.

Parne would consume her instead.

Travel-wearied, Ela stopped Pet and dismounted before Parne’s single iron-shielded, stone-edged gate. Why was the city closed in full daylight? Were the Parnians already aware of their dire situation? She helped Tzana off, checked that Jon and Beka had also dismounted, and then waved to the watchman above. “Let us in, please!”

He shouted down, “I’ve orders to never admit you, Prophet!”

Oh? She’d been named an enemy? Very well. Ela removed the branch from Pet’s war collar and glared up at the guard. The branch blazed in fiery blue-white warning—and the Infinite’s wrath. “The Infinite’s orders surpass yours, sir! Will you open the gate?”

Silent, the guard crossed his arms over his chest and didn’t budge.

“So be it!” Ela marched up to the gate and touched it with the branch. Deep metallic squeals answered. The gate lifted into darkness.

By now, Jon was beside her. He leaned forward to peer into the gate tunnel’s blackness. “You’re not serious. We’re going in there?”

“You don’t have to go with me.”

“Of course I do. I’m under orders. But my concern is for the destroyers. Will they fit?”

“Certainly.” Ela hesitated. “As long as they can navigate the turns.”

“An unlit tunnel—with turns—for a city’s gate?” Jon shook his head. “That’s preposterous! What an ordeal for traders.”

Despite her own nerves, Ela couldn’t resist tormenting Kien’s brother-in-law just a bit more. “Yes. And those turns are why traders call this the Murder Maze. It’s agony to get through. But this gate was built over generations by a people who cared little for outsiders.” By a people once glad to be separated from others for the Infinite’s sake. No more. “Coming?”

Distinctly gloomy, Jon ordered his servants to set up camp for the night. While they obeyed, he snatched Savage’s reins and Beka took charge of Audacity. Ela picked up Tzana and settled the little girl like a toddler onto her hip. Then she coaxed the stomping, snorting Pet to follow her into the blackness. Toward her enemies.

The gate lowered behind them with an ominous thud.

 11 

C
ould this island-kingdom be any worse? Halting in the street beneath the perpetually darkened skies, Kien watched a pack of tattered children beating each other bloody near a refuse heap, fighting as if their lives depended upon the garbage. Where were their parents?

A woman staggered from an arched stone gateway, spied the children, and yelled, “G’on! Leave ’em ’fore I rip out yer hair!” She descended on the urchins and scattered them with curses and thumps until only two remained. And those bloodied two cowered beneath her fists. She cursed again, then snarled, “Set the noon meal ’fore I boil yer ’nstead!”

Her ragged, scrawny offspring snatched rubbish from the heap and scuttled beyond her reach. With their meal, no doubt. Could he at least intercede for these children? Kien bellowed, “In eighteen days the Infinite will destroy Adar-iyr. Repent and be saved!”

Cursing again, the drunken woman grabbed a dirt clod from the heap and flung it at him.

Missed.

Her children hesitated, staring at Kien from the rugged stone archway, which framed a garbage-scattered yard. But when their mother pelted Kien with more curses and dirt clods, they fled. Good. Perhaps he’d saved the little ones from a dirt clod or two.
Infinite, protect them. Praying, Kien trudged on, turning from one narrow alley to another, seeking more wretches to warn of their doom.

Wait. Watch.

Infinite? Kien hesitated, the hairs along his neck and arms prickling in unease. Seeing two cloak-obscured forms duck behind a garbage heap in the chilly overcast street ahead, he half drew his Azurnite sword. Robbers? Be with me, Infinite, though I don’t deserve—

One of the forms shifted, hiding behind the mountain of rubbish. But the second man charged Kien, lifting a sword and roaring an incoherent cry, like a man rushing to battle.

Kien waited. His attacker, muscular, with a deeply creased face, loped within striking distance and swung his sword in an undisciplined arc. Kien parried the blow with all his might.

Their blades collided, and the stranger’s sword snapped against the deep blue-gray Azurnite, its broken tip ringing as it hit the nearest wall. The would-be thug gasped and stumbled backward, lifting his almost useless blade. Kien leveled the Azurnite with his assailant’s chin. “In eighteen days, the Infinite will destroy Adar-iyr—repent and be saved!”

The man escaped behind the garbage heap, evidently meeting a fellow conspirator amid a flurry of curses and scuffling. Kien charged after them in time to hear a man’s rough voice snarl, “Run! He’s God-protected and mad!”

Mad? Kien halted. Well, if he wasn’t insane yet, he could be soon, provoked by hunger, cold, fear, and fatigue. As for God-protected . . . yes.

Quiet, furtive footsteps on gritty pavement made Kien turn, sword readied.

The wizened old beachcomber who’d awakened Kien on his first day in Adar-iyr was sneaking across the narrow street. As if trying to escape Kien’s notice. Evidently realizing he’d been caught, the aged man lifted his hands and quavered, “I’d thought t’was you, sea whelp. Don’t kill old Hal!”

Sea whelp. Oh, what a dashing name. Despite his frustration, Kien shook his head, giving Hal a rueful grin, followed by the obligatory stern warning. “In eighteen days, the Infinite will destroy Adar-iyr. Repent and be saved.”

The old man’s eyes widened in the gloom. “You’re serious as I feared. We’re gonna die!” Moving his trembling hands protectively before his face, Hal backed off, then turned and ran.

Finally! Kien almost laughed.
Someone
had listened.

The Murder Maze unwound before Ela in tortuous darkness, lit only by the branch’s silver-blue glow. Aware of Beka and Jon following with their destroyers, Ela lifted her insignia as high as the ancient tunnel allowed. Each hide-scraping turn brought low grumbles of complaint from the destroyers and provoked Ela’s sense of guilt. She shouldn’t have subjected the destroyers to this. Nor Jon and Beka. But they wouldn’t have allowed her and Tzana to proceed unaccompanied.

Tzana clung to Ela’s neck and whispered, “I can’t like this—it’s scary as ever.”

“Hold tight. We’ll be outside before too long.”

But leaving the oppressive tunnel would mean walking into the sunlit, pale-plastered warmth of Parne’s myriad houses and courtyards: another darkness more malicious than the gloom stifling their senses now.

Shivering, Ela sucked in a breath. The tunnel’s sluggish air lay so stagnant and heavy that a mineral taste lingered on her tongue. Panic pressed into her spirit, threatening to crush her courage. Everything she’d survived in the past nine or so months faded to nothingness. She was, once again, a girl facing Parne’s authorities.

Infinite?

I am here.

Solace enfolded her like a warming mantle. Strengthening her. “Thank You.”

“What?” Tzana whispered.

“I’m praying.” Ela boosted her little sister higher. “You can pray, too, if you’d like. And think of Mother and Father waiting for us.”

Behind them, Jon’s destroyer grumbled in the dark. Audacity huffed. And Pet snuffled at Ela’s hair-braid, startling her. Did the destroyers sense her hostile enemies waiting at the tunnel’s opening? “Easy,” Ela murmured.

Beka’s anxious voice echoed against the stones. “How much farther?”

“Another turn or two. But before each of you walk out, wait until your eyes adjust to the light. Otherwise, you’ll enter Parne blind.”

Wary, Jon called, “Should we fear walking out blind?”

“Jon, they’ll be after me, not you.”

Dry as Parne’s dust, Jon retorted, “We’d prefer to not be incidental casualties.”

She wished she could laugh. “You’ll leave before the siege, unharmed—you, Beka, and your household.”

Pet grunted as they maneuvered the final turn. While she waited for her eyes to adjust, he nipped at Ela’s mantle, tugging her backward a step, as if trying to prevent her from leaving the darkness. Her arms filled with Tzana and the branch, Ela looked up at the massive warhorse. “You sense them, don’t you, dear rascal? Those who hate the Infinite, and me. Well, it’s time to face Parne. Come, come.” Ela led her destroyer into the open, sunlit public square.

And confronted a wall of watchmen, traders, and citizens, some glaring.

The watchman who’d refused her entry snarled in a clear attempt to protect himself against his perceived failure. “Why have you broken through the gate against my command?”

Feeling her little sister tremble, Ela ignored him. Rude man! When Beka and Jon emerged from the tunnel with their
destroyers, she set Tzana on Parne’s worn stone pavings. “Go stand with Beka.”

Her small face pitiably wrinkled, Tzana argued, “But I want to go to Father and Mother.”

“Father is coming—you’ll see him soon.” Ela kissed her sister’s cheek, willing her to feel the Infinite’s calm. His love. “But until Father arrives, please stand with Beka.”

Chin down, her footsteps a mournful trudge, Tzana went to Beka and took her hand.

Beka hugged the little girl in welcome, then flicked her dark gaze at the furious watchman.

He repeated, “Why have you broken through the gate against my command?”

Behind Ela, Pet rumbled a deep threat, dangerously close to becoming Scythe. Ela touched her destroyer’s powerful face. “Be still.”

The destroyer snorted, then stilled.

Ela frowned at the watchman and raised her voice so the growing crowd could hear. “The Infinite opened the gate, then closed it behind us. So how have I harmed you, or Parne? And why would you refuse to allow me to visit my family—my city? Am I a criminal? If so, then arrest me!”

Shadows loomed behind the watchman now. Smoke-murky forms, their twisting movements indicating deliberate intelligent action. Sending malice toward her. Malice? Ela shook her head. Had she sensed aright? Were those dark-misted forms deceivers? Infinite?

Yes. Do not fear them, for they have no direct power over you, My servant.
The Infinite’s voice deepened with grief.
Yet their shadows reveal the Adversary’s influence among My people.

Wounded by His sorrow, Ela studied the deceivers. Lying shadow-servants of the immortal Adversary, who warred against the Infinite. . . . Yet the Adversary’s shadows, however loathsome and unnerving, were equaled in nature by the mortals they’d deluded. Didn’t the Book of Beginnings point out that every mortal
heart leaned toward evil from childhood? Herself included. Such a humbling thought.

As Ela praised her beloved Creator, the deceivers shifted within the crowd, their hazy forms seeming to darken, conveying hostility against the Infinite. And against the people they’d deceived. Such as this watchman. She stared at the burly man, comprehending his uncertainty and his agitation, which was multiplied by the unseen wraiths lurking about his shoulders.

He recovered and sputtered, “Arrest you? I should! I—”

A man’s rich, taunting voice overrode the watchman’s, beckoning Ela’s attention. “Look who’s finally returned. Our little-girl prophet. Have you found the courage to face your people?”

She recognized the young man’s arrogant, hard-featured bronzed face. Sius Chacen, the firstborn son of Zade Chacen, Parne’s deposed chief priest. Understandable if Sius hated her. On her first day as Parne’s prophet, she’d announced his father’s downfall, as well as Sius’s early death. He narrowed his eyes. “Why should we welcome you, when you’ve abandoned us to seek glory in other lands?”

Glory? Was this her enemies’ plan? To greet her with instant accusations that dishonored her good name? “I’ve followed the will of the Infinite, which gives glory to Him alone—as it should! You allow vindictiveness and envy to warp your senses, son of Zade. You’ve weakened yourself and opened your thoughts to the Adversary’s deceivers.”

“There are no deceivers but you!” Sius spat at her feet and raised his voice. “You and your family are power seekers who use the Infinite’s name to inspire fear. To coerce obedience from those who can’t see the Roehs for the criminals they are!”

Behind him, deceivers’ faces gloated and mocked Ela with twisted sneers. Pleased to be unrecognized by their prey. Pleased to set secret snares for anyone beloved to the Infinite.

Pet rumbled a low threat. Ela reached back to soothe the destroyer, grazing her knuckles against his big neck. But she stared Sius in the eyes and matched his harsh tone. Let everyone hear.
“The Infinite will defend my good name. But how can you defend yourself? Your friends sold lethal ores in other lands and accused my father of planning their crimes.”

The young man’s eyes widened. The branch’s gleam intensified in her hands, its blue-white fire revealing the Infinite’s fury. Wiser than mortals, the deceivers shrank away, then vanished. Ela accused Chacen, “Why have you betrayed your people, leading them toward eternal fire, while dealing with their enemies—mortal and immortal—as friends?”

“You have no idea what you’re saying.” And no proof, his look added in gloating silence. “It’s known that prophets are unstable.” Softly, he added, “Prone to early deaths.”

Did he think she would answer him quietly? Wrong! Let everyone hear. “I will not be driven off by your threats and bullying!”