Trial of Intentions (73 page)

He raised a mighty cry, filling the sky with anger and threat, hoping to scare or startle the assailants. His alarm did little more than draw the attention of Roth himself and his new Mal general. Their pitiless faces settled his anger deeper inside him. He thrust an open palm at them and forced their mounts violently apart, throwing their riders to the stone yard just before he passed into the plaza proper.

He'd deal with them later; right now he must try to protect those Sheason and sodalists still alive.

He caught sight of Helaina and Artixan entering the square directly across from him, and at the same moment, to his right, Braethen shot into view. His sodalist carried a bloodied sword and led a Sheason man who came a few paces behind. Grant appeared beside Braethen, assessing the scene.

More arrows were released; Vendanj sensed they targeted Artixan. He quickly raised his hands, palms skyward. Wind swept up from the ground in a thunderous burst, and arrows sailed harmlessly away from their targets. The howl of wind brought sudden silence to the square.

Nearly every Sheason and sodalist had been killed. All but a few were dead. Those fallen, but not yet silenced, uttered mortal cries in whispers.

“Take him down.” The words pierced the relative calm, and a new volley darkened the sky. Vendanj wheeled around to see Roth standing with an accusatory arm raised toward him. His war general stood at his side, a sword in hand. Losol's face shone with eagerness to take the fight to the ground, a thin smile playing on his lips.

Behind him, a forceful word was uttered in a deep, calm voice. In the air, arrows lost their form, disintegrating to sawdust, and fluttered down like a soft rain across the plaza. Artixan.

The spectacle of arrows brought to dust in the open sky caused a new silence, broken only by the rush of Vendanj's companions driving toward the center of the great square. He looked back down at the dozens of bodies, their forms pierced with so many arrows that it looked like a riverbank overgrown with reeds. Beneath it all, blood coated the plaza stones, spreading slowly in the morning light.

“Again,” the command came, Roth's voice calm, assured.

“No!” Helaina cried out with the authority of her office. “Any leagueman who strikes will be tried as a traitor.” Her words echoed up the building faces to their attackers.

She and Artixan came alongside Vendanj a moment before Braethen and the Sheason with him.

They all stood, chuffing hard from their run. In the crisp morning air, their breath steamed, very much like the warm blood that oozed from the dead around them. The slaughter brought quiet rage to his mind, an anger like he'd known only when his wife and child … His arms and hands trembled with the need for vengeance. He would save Roth for last, and watch the man's face as he crushed the life from his body.

“Don't listen to her.” Roth began to walk the perimeter of leaguemen that held the crowd at bay. “We act in good conscience and in accordance with the law. More than this, we act on the moral authority of defending the civility of the people.”

Artixan stepped past Vendanj, his elderly form quaking as he cried out. “This is murder! What law is civil that calls for the death of those who do no harm?”

“But that's where you're wrong,” the Ascendant countered conversationally. His calm demeanor lent his words authority. “Grave as it seems, we know from sad experience that there are times when the very existence of a thing is harmful.” He held up a finger as one preparing a metaphor. “When an arm or leg is filled with the poison of a serpent, do we not often remove the appendage to save the life? So it is now.” Roth paced, looking past his army to the throngs of Recityv citizens that stood silent, watching, listening.

Vendanj could see standards far back in the crowd—members of the Convocation come to see what was happening. They'd come too late to stop this. And even if they'd arrived in time to help, he knew that governments were slow to intercede in the civil affairs of other realms.

“Listen to me.” Vendanj lowered his voice, but gave it a sharpness that would carry. “Some things
are
harmful in and of themselves: prejudice, selfishness, pride. To say nothing of those who prey on our little ones for their own pleasures. We've always stood with the League to oppose these things.”

He paused, turning a slow circle, the copper smell of blood in his nose. “But I ask you, when you're in your homes, and you're quiet, and you think about the old stories … when you think about the Sheason who've lived among you”—he raised his arms, palms up, gesturing to the countless dead around him—“does this
feel
like the truth? Never mind the logical arguments made by
anyone
!” Vendanj shot a withering look at Roth. “I ask each of you to hearken to your
own
wisdom. And then decide,” he called out strongly, “do you know for
yourself
the legitimacy of these actions. Or will you be led by others who would silence the voice of opposition.” He pointed simultaneously to the murdered Sheason at the center of the plaza and at Roth. “Will you be led by those who coerce others to pass immoral laws.”

“Beware,” Roth said with cool caution to both Vendanj and the crowd. “These are careful lies from one who would prefer you remain enslaved in ignorance. I'm no deathmonger. But neither will I stand idle any longer. There's a new promise now,” Roth declared, “a final promise. The League and I will be its right arm. We'll establish a new standard of life and defend it against any who threaten to tear it down. And that begins today with the enforcement of a law that I take no pleasure in upholding. But I'm bound to it, just as I'm bound to each of you. Your children will grow up safe and have opportunities to learn. They'll no longer be dependent on anyone. They'll have no need to fear.” Roth looked at Vendanj, the man's eyes smiling, even if his mouth did not.

When Roth finished speaking, men and women muttered. It sounded to Vendanj like assent. He could feel the tide of opinion turning. The people would sanction this slaughter because they wanted to believe in the immediate answers Roth offered them. Vendanj looked away to catch the eyes of a few Convocation seat holders who looked on. Helaina's efforts would, indeed, fail here today. He could think of no rendering that could stop that now.

His anger began to rise, replacing horror and loss and appeal. He meant to give every last measure of his energy to render an attack, tear apart the flesh of Roth and Losol and all the League.

Before he could begin, a low rumble, like thunder heard far away on a rolling plain, began in their midst. He looked around. It wasn't Artixan with some act of the Will. It was Braethen, who, rather than stepping toward Roth to speak, stepped carefully into the midst of the dead Sheason and raised the Blade of Seasons. The sword shone darkly in the morning light. Its unrefined length normally appeared merely tarnished. Today it held the crimson blood of leaguemen.

Braethen raised the tip of his blade to the heavens, and with his free hand pointed to the fallen Sheason at his feet. The crowd grew silent. The sword trembled in his unsteady hand. With a quiet voice that carried far in the stillness, he spoke just one word.

“Remember.”

The air above the plaza swirled, weaving itself into a vision of the Placing—those events that followed the Whiting of Quietus. Creatures moved like waves over plains, pushing north and west into regions beyond nameless mountains.

The images were terrifying. Legions of unremembered races. They didn't howl or caper about madly in petulant protest. There was no gnashing of teeth or rending of clothes or apocalyptic battles. Most walked quietly, somberly, their eyes telling of acute minds and long memories, of malice tempered by patience.

Vendanj shivered. Those being herded were
aware
. Aware of their mistreatment. Aware of the injustice. And though the languages they spoke were foreign, the oaths on the lips of these forgotten races were clear: vows to come again into the Eastlands, and to come without mercy.

The images coalescing in the air above the plaza changed, and new scenes from the Placing drew into form. In these, Quietgiven fought their confinement. With powerful grace they stood against the hands of renderers, their faces calm with defiance. And while some raised makeshift weapons of stone and wood, most defied the Placing with nothing more than questions. Without ceremony, these defiant ones fell. Renderers simply put them down with an act of Will and moved on.

The images shifted again and again, showing more scenes of numberless creatures being marched into new geographies. Into far places deep inside the Bourne.

Among those driven into the distant lands were some whose protests struck a sympathetic chord. Inveterae races, who had no ill-purpose concerning the people of the east. There was a pleading tone in the questions they asked that was heartbreaking to hear.

The many images of the Placing reminded them all of the precarious balance between the Eastlands and the world beyond the Pall. And if races herded there had hated man then, what must their bloodlust be like today?

Vendanj shivered again, knowing that behind that bloodlust lurked an equal measure of reason. They would be fierce, but also calculating.

The smell of soil after a rain shower rose on a wind that blew out of the vision above the plaza.
We smell the very winds that blew over the Placing.
It coursed over the throng that pressed in around Solath Mahnus. “Remember,” Braethen called again, his voice clear above the sibilant rush.

It had carried them to the edge of this history, threatening to leave them stranded in that past when the promise of the world would soon be abandoned. The Blade of Seasons had bridged the ages, giving them all a firsthand account of those sealed behind the Veil.

A moment later, Braethen collapsed. His sword arm fell first, his body following as he tumbled amidst the dead Sheason. The images dissipated in an instant, leaving the air cut through with shafts of light out of an eastern sun. The throng now had clear doubt in their eyes—doubt about Roth's claims of safety. Braethen had given them the reason to doubt.

“Don't be deceived,” Roth called out, dispelling what had happened. “These are more tricks. If I wanted to deceive you, I could create visions that refute these myths. But I won't. I will just tell you that it's time to look ahead. The realities of this day represent the change I offer you, that a new High Council offers you. It's the only right way forward.”

The crowd became restless with its own struggle to make sense of it all. Vendanj could see citizens beginning to argue with each other. Some stared into the sky, confused. Others pointed at either Roth or Vendanj or Helaina.

Regardless of what came next, Sheason in Recityv had been hewn down, almost entirely destroyed. How soon before the Civilization Order, with its expanded power, reached other realms?

He forced the thought back as Losol started toward him. Other leaguemen followed. Still standing were Vendanj, Artixan, and the Sheason who had come with Braethen.

A dark smile spread on his lips. After all that had happened this terrible day, he would take pleasure in confrontation. The time for talking was over.

But before the first blow or act of Will could fall, Helaina cried out to her people. “Friends of Recityv! Decide for yourselves. If you honor what I have offered you all my life, if you believe that the murder you've seen today has no place in our city, then stand with me now and fight this menace!”

The drawing of steel from sheaths and hidden pockets surprised even Vendanj. More men and women than he could have imagined carried weapons. And when one of the leaguemen tried to seize a woman's handknife, the struggle broke out in earnest.

Van Steward's men rushed into the crowds, fighting alongside citizens who battled the League. An unbelievable number of leaguemen came, too, bolstering citizens who stood with them around the broad plaza.

“Civil war,” Helaina whispered.

Vendanj barely heard, as he strode toward the Ascendant and his man of war.

 

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

Just an Evening Stroll

So, Jon Petruc wrought two mandolas from one, giving the second to his beloved Jaane when she was asked by the Randeur to visit the Sellarians. Each night, he'd play his music. And Jaane, half a world away, would listen to her mandola ring with song.

—Drawn from the Dimnian instructional text
On the Nature of Instruments,
Chapter One, “The Mandola or the Man”

A
windless evening settled in with the onset of dusk. Tahn, Rithy, and Polaema strolled westward from Aubade Grove. In the sky ahead, the constellation Anolees, the crippled king of Masson Dimn, slowly rose into view. Tahn smiled. He could name them all. Every last glimmering light in the night sky.

They enjoyed a companionable silence, taking in the stars with the kind of awe once reserved only for childhood. The fresh scent of sage lingered on the air, coupled with the pleasant smells of green grass and cooling stone.

“Why are we headed away from the Grove at suppertime?” Tahn asked with playful challenge.

Polaema gave him a motherly look. “Because I've something I want to show you.”

“All right, Gnomon,” Rithy said, breaking in. “I've been waiting to ask…”

Polaema gave a wry smile that held its own kind of glimmer in the gathering darkness.

Tahn likewise grinned. “Why Resonance?”

“That'll do for a start,” she replied.

He focused a thoughtful look at Polaema. “You say the College of Philosophy has a new view on the entire subject of the Bourne. Easy for them to sit around and theorize. But I've seen the Quiet. Seen what they can do. What they
are
doing.”

“And what are they doing, Gnomon?” his astronomy mother asked matter-of-factly.