Muscles bunched at my jaw. "I have not agreed to execute Grath in the manner I believe you desire. I will kill him, but I will not rip his soul from him."
The Mayor skewered the Chamberlain with a look of pure venom, then leaned forward and pointed a finger at me. "You will use your power on him, Talion, you have no choice. We will not have the secrets he learned—information garnered by deception—pulled out of him by some necromancer."
I breathed out slowly to calm my rising ire. "I understand your concern, my Lord Mayor, but you can burn his body, or chop it into little bits, or boil his brain to get the same effect. I will oversee whatever method you want to use, and I will make certain your secrets are safe."
The Lord Mayor shook his head with increasing vehemence. "Your assurances will not do, Talion. We desire no chance of reconstruction possible. Who knows what spells he's already had cast upon him to enable a sorcerer to bring him back to life?"
I forced myself to laugh derisively. "So, you believe witch-wife rumors and faery tales. That cannot happen...."
"It cannot happen if you pull his soul from his body." The Lord Mayor knew he had me trapped because, whether or not his request was genuine, I had, ultimately, no choice but to-honor it. "You will go down there and execute him now!"
I turned to Selia. "Please note I have offered alternatives to this ritual execution, and the Lord Mayor has rejected them." I spun back and faced him. "Put it in writing to my Master that you have given me no choice but to pull his soul from his body and seal it." I stared at him. "You disgust me."
The Mayor glared back at me. "But you must do what we tell you to do." He dictated the message to a secretary, then signed and sealed the message himself. He handed it to me and I tucked it in my jerkin.
We left the Mayor's chamber behind two guards and passed through a throng to reach the scaffold. I waited for Selia to reach the top of the platform before I climbed up. Behind me came the Mayor and the Chamberlain. Grath already waited for us on scaffold.
I felt sorry for Grath when I saw him. A slight man, one well built for court intrigues and unnoticed poisonings, Grath had been bound with heavy chains that shortened his stride into a clanking shuffle and forced him to stoop. The instant he saw me he knew why he'd been betrayed by his employers. He snarled at them and shook his head.
He cast a sideways glance at the Chamberlain and the Lord Mayor, then spat on the ground. He looked up at me and I nodded almost imperceptibly. I wanted him to know I'd have taken him cleanly, and that I'd give him a quick death. I also wanted him to know I shared his opinion of his former clients. That's a great deal of message to put into a moment's worth of movement, but Grath returned the gesture and I knew I'd been understood.
I waited for soldiers to wrestle two chairs up onto the stage for the Mayor and the Chamberlain before I began. I walked to the edge of the planking and stared out at the sea of heads. Although clouds shrouded the sky with a promise of rain, and the chill wind puckered the flesh, people packed the courtyard and had even climbed out on the roofs of the buildings surrounding the square. I raised my right hand and waited until the murmur died before I spoke.
"I am a Justice. Many of you have heard I took a man in the foreign quarter last night. That is true. He attacked me. I slew the Daari with my blade." I half turned back toward Grath. "This man was the Daari's companion, and the Chamberlain informed me this morning of his capture. The Lord Mayor tells me Grath ra Memkar has learned some important secrets, and he has given me no choice but to execute the prisoner."
Many people nodded in agreement, but no one shouted a comment or otherwise drew attention to himself. Bile boiled up in my throat and I almost broke off the course I'd set for myself. I really didn't want to use the citizens of Pine Springs so badly, but I refused to execute Grath just to satisfy the whims of a dictator.
I lowered my voice. "Before I do what your Mayor forces me to do, I wish to apologize to you." My words shocked silence from the crowd, but an explosion of thunder burst in to fill the void. A light drizzle started to fall and I continued. "I want to apologize now to you all because I will be too busy to apologize to each of you later. Please understand what I do is not personal, it is a duty forced upon me."
The people below me watched each other nervously and sought support. They'd come to watch a Talion kill a poisoner, but now the Justice apologized to them for actions he would take. My words confused them and worried them.
I frowned and looked puzzled at them. "Do you mean you do not know why I apologize? Do you not know what I must do after I pull his soul from his body, as your Lord Mayor requests?" I stared down at them, and they up at me like drowning sailors bobbing in a storm-racked sea. Rain fell harder and mingled with the tears on some faces. Disembodied voices demanded an explanation from me.
I nodded solemnly. "When I pull his soul from his body, in just retribution for the murders he has committed, I will see everything he has seen, and I will know all he knows." I pointed to Grath. "I will see any crimes he has seen, then I will be bound to execute those criminals in the same manner. I will absorb their knowledge and have to act upon it. I will do this until I see no more evil."
I shook my head ruefully and pulled the Mayor's letter from my jerkin. "I would not have it so, but your Mayor gives me no choice in the matter."
Thunder cracked again and the crowd surged forward to slam into the scaffold's base. The platform pitched and both Selia and Grath fell to the wooden planking. The Mayor stood, then stumbled, but the Chamberlain managed to keep his feet when he rose from his chair.
The Chamberlain angrily stabbed a finger at me. "You cannot do this."
"Quiet, puppet, your master has given me my orders. I have no choice but to obey him." I stared down at the Mayor as a sheet of rain scourged him, and a lightning flash highlighted the fear on his face.
"No, Talion, you do not have to execute him." The Lord Mayor levered himself up from the stage. "I rescind my command."
That quieted the crowd for a second, but I dashed their hopes with a harsh laugh. "Oh no, my Lord Mayor, you cannot change your order. I gave you a chance before, and you ignored it. Now I suspect you or your Chamberlain of having reasons you do not want me to take Grath's mind. No, I must obey your order because"—I pointed at Grath—"his memories are the key to evil in this town!"
The crowd, goaded by a fork of lightning slamming into the tower atop the Mayor's residence, pressed forward again and tilted the platform. The Chamberlain drew a dagger from within the sleeves of his wet robe, leaped over the fallen Mayor, and dove at me. He screamed an inarticulate cry and slashed wildly as I backed from his attack and spun. I lashed out in a roundhouse kick with my right foot, caught him behind the ear, and smashed him into the crowd waiting below.
The people beneath the Chamberlain scrambled out of his way, or pulled themselves from under his body as quickly as they could. I heard one man say "His neck is broken!" and that message passed through the crowd to release their tension and give them a moment's pause. The death they'd all feared at my hands appeared among them in a tangible form and momentarily refocused their concerns internally.
"Hear me, citizens of Pine Springs!" I shouted. I pointed to the Chamberlain's dead body. "There is your evil. I have found it, and taken it, without needing to use extreme methods. The suspicions I had earlier, those that prevented me from accepting the Mayor's gracious offer, have been satisfied. You should consider yourselves lucky that a town of this size harbors evil so easily dealt with."
The crowd melted away as if the downpour eroded them. I stood and watched them like a statue until they vanished, then I turned and glared at the Mayor. "You and I both know some of what the Chamberlain wanted to keep hidden. Poisoning, and conspiring with a poisoner, is a capital crime in Ell. None of my superiors would fault me for taking you here and now, and many of them will chide me if I don't. But I think you deserve another chance."
The Mayor, still on his knees from his earlier fall, reached ou
t and grabbed my rain-slicked jerkin, then released me. "I'm sorry, I meant you no offense or disrespect. I was wrong. Yes, anything. I will do anything."
"Good." I pointed to Grath. "Behead him, then strike his chains and bury him below this spot in the courtyard. You'll build a monument here. That monument will remind you that all power is nothing if it is wielded selfishly."
"Yes, Talion, yes, I will do it...." The Mayor's sobs swallowed his words. Then wind and rain blasted all nobility from him. I turned from him and descended into the nearly empty courtyard.
One street away Selia called out to me. "Talion."
I stopped and waited for her. She fell in step with me and we walked in silence until we reached the transients' section of Pine Springs. There the rain eased and a shaft of sunlight lanced through the clouds.
"Talion, would you have done what you threatened? Would you have gone through this town and slain everyone?" Fear tinged her question, but she asked it honestly.
I reached out, with my left hand, and touched her gently on the shoulder. "Does it matter what I would have done? I am only here to administer justice. I think Pine Springs has had enough of that, with any luck, to last them for generations."
Chapter Four
Novice: Festival
Sweaty and bleeding, I stood there and looked over at the rising disk of the sun. The man who had spoken no longer stood on the hilltop. He'd vanished, and along with him went the last remnants of my fear. Relief flooded through me, a chuckle—that I smothered immediately—started in the pit of my stomach, and I suddenly felt exhausted.
The two Talions before me lifted the Warrior artd carried him out of the dust-bowl. Lord Hansur waved a hand to indicate I should follow them, so I did. We walked a narrow, twisting trail up a hill and I discovered another small dust flat where a tent and some chairs had been set out. The white-blond novice who guided me before led me to one of the chairs.
"I am Lothar ra Jania. Like you, I am a Thirteen."
I smiled and gladly took the goblet of watered wine offered by a Services Talion. I gulped it greedily and some of it poured down my chin and chest. It stung when it hit my scrapes, but the wine's coolness was worth the pain.
I nodded to the server. "Thank you." I offered Lothar my hand and he shook it firmly. "I am Nolan ra Sinjaria. But are we supposed to call each other by name? I thought all Talions were known by title?"
Lothar smiled and revealed even, white teeth. "That is for those outside. The lords are known by their names, and Talions serving in a foreign court are often known by rank, but it is not forbidden for us to give our names to others. Here, among Talions, we use our names. It would be rather confusing otherwise."
I smiled, visualizing the chaos if Talions only answered to that title in a city full of Talions. "Where in Jania are you from, Lothar?"
The novice Justice turned and barked a command to the azure-robed Wizard examining the Warrior I'd kicked. The Wizard turned enough for me to see the pentagram on the left breast of his robe and replied in the same tongue to Lothar. Lothar nodded and turned back to me. "He'll be over here in a moment to fix you up. Your question, where am I from, ah, I'm from Trisus, the capital, but I've been in Talianna since I was six months old."
"Oh." I rubbed my left arm and checked the splinter wound. The bleeding had stopped, but the injury still stung. "What did you say to him?" I asked, jerking my head toward the Wizard.
Lothar shrugged. "I told him you needed his services more than that laggard Warrior. A Justice would not have fallen for either one of your tricks."
I frowned. Lothar's voice carried contempt for the Warrior, and with it I felt some judgment of me implied in his comment. "What language did you use, and what did the man say to Lord Hansur when he was counting my flags?"
Lothar signaled the Services Talion to pour me more wine, which I gratefully accepted. "I spoke in the Tal dialect. It's said the language has not changed since the Talions were formed. You'll have to learn it." He paused and refused to meet my eyes. "I do not know what was said to Lord Hansur."
If he was lying I couldn't tell. I still felt uneasy, and if I was now the same rank as Lothar, as we were both Thirteens, I didn't want him feeling I'd not earned my place. "I take it from your remark about the Warrior you do not feel I should be a Justice, that I failed my test?"
Lothar's face brightened and he laughed. "No, no, don't take it as that. Making it to Talianna from Sinjaria by yourself is enough proof for me that you belong. And seeing you here, exhausted and torn up, I know you earned your flags. No, my anger is with him." He stabbed a finger at the Warrior seated across the campsite. "You would have beaten him in any event, but you would not have humiliated him if he had not underestimated your abilities."
I drank more wine and felt relieved that Lothar did not judge me harshly. The Wizard left off the Warrior and crossed to me. He quickly examined my arm, poking it none too gently, then smiled. "No need for me to spell you back to health. Just wash the grime off and bind it with a clean bandage. It will bother you for a few days, but you will heal."
Lothar stood and led me out of the clearing. We crossed over two more hills and I discovered we were very close to Talianna. My course had taken me in a long loop. We quickly marched down a trail back toward Talianna, but paused just long enough for me to dive into a stream and clean myself off.
The trail took us on the north side of Talianna, between the siege wall and the Mews, where we passed through the gate on the eastern side of Northpoint. Two Warriors stood guard duty there but neither one challenged us. Through the gate we headed south and east toward the Eastgate in the second pentagram.
Between the siege wall and the Citadel itself, the street looked like it might in many a large city, with one major difference. "Lothar, the streets are incredibly clean here." I looked around in total disbelief. I could see no piles of garbage, dead animals, or broken cobblestone anywhere.
The novice smiled. "This is Taltown. It is home to the families of Talions, the Tal farmers, and all the businesses needed to support them. The Master allows people to live here only if Taltown is kept as clean and orderly as the Citadel itself is maintained."
"Hmmm. And anyone can live here?"
Lothar thought for a moment. "Yes, just about anyone. There are no beggars—they get put to work on the farms. Once a criminal the Justices were hunting came here and hid out. It's said he tried to become a Talion, a Justice in fact, when the next Festival came around."
My eyes flew wide at that. "What happened?"
"Where you found a Warrior he met the Lord of Justices. He did not get the required number of flags."
We walked around and through crowds of people buying and selling various wares. I'd been to a market before, once, in Sinjaria, so not much was new to me. Still there was an overwhelming number of Talions in the crowd, and that took getting used to.
Twenty-foot-tall, massive oak-and-iron doors closed off Eastgate. A smaller, man-sized door stood open at the base of the left door. Lothar explained, "Normally these doors are open, but when Lancers pass their tests they have the annoying habit of riding through the hallway and into the mess hall to celebrate."
I smiled and followed Lothar through the door. We stood in a long, dark tunnel that formed the base of the Star. Early-morning light streamed through the door, and it cut enough of the gloom to let me see the murderholes above us. Anyone mad enough to lay siege to Talianna, and lucky enough to get this far, could be shot with arrows or flooded out with burning oil from above. I'd heard of such things in my grandmother's stories, but actually seeing them sent a chill through me. For the first time in my life I connected the horror of death with the reality behind tales I used to enjoy listening to.
Lothar led me on through the corridor and stopped at the door in the southern wall. "We'll get you some supplies in here."
I followed him through the door and stopped instantly. The room was considerably larger than the house I'd grown up in. Shelves lined the wall
s, filled the interior, and reached all the way up to the twelve-foot-high ceiling. Neatly folded clothing packed every shelf and displayed a rainbow of colors. My mouth dropped open and I drifted toward the nearest shelf, ignoring Lothar and the Services clerk he was speaking to.
"Stand still, boy!" The clerk's command froze me in place, and jerked my extended hand back from the velvet robes on the shelf before me. "How can I size you if you keep moving? Lothar, shelf thirteen, middle pile, for pants and shelf fourteen left for shirt." The clerk, an older man shorter than me, with brown eyes and white hair ringing his head, squinted at my feet and held a pair of boots out toward me. "Well, here, take these. And get some stockings and underclothes there on shelf three. Shelf three. You can read, can't you?"
I took the boots and turned a full circle before I saw the shelf I wanted. "Yes, I can read." I took a pair of stockings and some underclothes. "Should I try these on?"
The clerk's eyes widened until they were almost all white. He snapped something at me in the Tal dialect. Lothar stifled a laugh, jammed my shirt and pants into my stomach, and steered me out into the hallway quickly.
"What did he say?"
Lothar laughed. "Don't worry about it, you don't look like you've got any goat blood in you to me." He opened a door in the south wall and we stepped out into a grassy courtyard. "This is where we'll do some of our training. We live over there, and the Thirteens have rooms on the upper floor this year!"
We walked through an arched doorway in the east Citadel wall and ran up two flights of stairs to the third floor. The hallway was ten feet wide and tiled for its entire length. Every fifteen feet along each wall, staggered so they did not open onto each other, doors dotted the length of the corridor. There was a doorway at the far end of the corridor, and there was one directly behind us.
A clerk with a slate stood at the far end of the corridor. He spotted us and stalked down the hallway toward us. He said something to Lothar that I could not understand, but the scolding tone was easy to recognize.