by Ulff Lehmann
“You have no rights here,” the High Priest stated.
“Justice knows no boundaries,” she replied.
“They are heretics and blasphemers! Those of our church who work with Paladins and Sunswords will be judged by us!”
Briog rode up to Nerran’s side, hand on his sword. “Forgive me, sirs. I am a Caretaker of Eanaigh. I hail from Kalduuhn. I defend those who can't fend for themselves, and you call me a heretic? Why?”
Jesgar saw the other Riders were also resting their hands on their swords’ hilts. The mystery surrounding the Riders seemed to unravel before him even though he still didn’t fully understand what was going on. He hadn’t known Briog to be a Caretaker; the man certainly didn’t behave like any Eanaighist he knew. Nerran a follower of Lesganagh? It seemed possible, but if the High Priest of Eanaigh in Dunthiochagh knew about it why hadn’t he acted upon this before?
“I see no Upholder is with you,” Kyleigh said. “Neither is there a representative of Baron Duasonh’s. The proper form requires you to bring along either one, so that the arrests are legal.”
Jesgar waited for a reply. When none came, Nerran said, “As yon Upholder has pointed out you have come alone, I can only assume this is an illegal action. Say your purpose!”
He knew any arrest outside the church’s clergy had to be sanctioned by either the local lord or a representative of Lliania. What he didn’t understand was why all this was happening. He hadn’t observed any untoward acts performed by the Riders, and, so far, every action Nerran had undertaken was for the good of country and city. The Eanaighists’ actions were strange. This encounter, even though he had not been born when the Purging had taken place, reminded him of the persecution of Lesganagh’s clergy some thirty years ago. Nerran had even said as much.
“We are under authority of the Lady of Health and Fertility,” Girec hissed.
“Then I suggest you look to your health and be fertile,” Briog said to the amusement of the Riders.
“Blasphemer!” several of the priests cried and made a step forward, weapons raised. The riders flanking Nerran unsheathed their swords.
Nerran held up his hand and sighed rather dramatically, if Jesgar was to judge. “We will move on to the Palace. Please don't interfere.”
“You are under arrest!” Morgan Danaissan yelled. “With the authority bestowed upon me by the Church of Eanaigh and the blessing of the Hearthwarden, I name you heretics and enemies of the faith. You will submit to our authority.”
“And then?” Fynbar asked. “What then? Will we receive a fair trial? I think not. Your actions are without the Lawgiver’s consent.”
“Will you burn us like you have burned parents, relatives, brothers, and sisters?” Briog growled. “You claim the goddess is on your side, but elsewhere Lesganagh isn't banned, his followers weren’t burned or hanged or beheaded. Eanaigh is daughter and wife to the Lord of Sun and War…”
“Heretic!” the High Priest shouted.
The priestly mob advanced another pace, upon which the riders who had merely kept their hands on their weapons drew steel as well.
“You!” Girec pointed at Briog. “You wield a sword instead of the flail or staff. Why? Why have you forsaken her holy weapons? Why have you turned your back on the Lady’s edicts?”
The Rider shrugged. “Never was good with either. Besides, her will was that we shall not spill innocent blood. Any who wield arms against a Caretaker are not innocent.”
“Are you saying…?”
“Aye, you dare raise weapons against your own kind! You attacked and slaughtered priests of Lesganagh and all those that stood with them!” Briog barked. “You may be a lot of things, but innocents you are not!”
“Lawbreakers, I say,” Kyleigh added.
“Stand aside!” Nerran commanded.
Fynbar turned to Jesgar. “This isn’t your battle. Go, and seek your family. Tonight, blood will flow. Best not be near any temple or shrine.”
He swallowed. There was nothing he could say, and although none of them gave a direct order, Jesgar felt there was more going on here than he was able to discern, he turned his horse and rode into Trann Street and the Merchant Quarter.
The street and the two groups of people were barely two dozen feet behind when he heard the roar and the clash of steel. Jesgar had never bothered with religion; or rather he had never cared for the ridiculous hatred of Eanaigh’s clergy toward Lesganagh. The sun shone, wars were fought. Enough people in Danastaer worshiped the Lord of Sun and War still, although in secret, and he had yet to meet the warrior who did not pay homage to the god.
The battle on Trade wasn’t his, and he was fairly certain Nerran and his Riders would win. He was proud of his accomplishments, his discovery of the hidden ladders, but the itching reminder of his unfamiliarity with horses marred the feeling. A good night’s sleep in his own bed instead of the cot in the Palace or the chill ground, now that was something he really looked forward to. It felt as if he had been away for years; he had seen so much more than he had imagined he’d ever see, and when the Garinad smithy came into view, Jesgar knew he was home.
“Dalgor has reached Dunthiochagh,” the Priest High said to the high-ranking members of their order. He still wasn’t certain that sending the young, energetic man had been the right course of action, but there was nothing else that would have appeased the others.
“The ritual will be completed,” one swordpriest said.
“It has to be finished. There isn’t much time left,” another added.
He knew the men were right, but even if Dalgor succeeded, the inevitable was only postponed. Again, he wondered if there was something he could have done differently. When he thought back at what he had seen, what he had done, what had been done in the cavern, helpless rage all but consumed him. There were moments of doubt.
“We’ll see,” he said, feeling that the more often they failed, the more his authority was questioned. The Priest High dismissed the others with a wave of his hand.
Alone, he leaned back and stared at the ceiling. Should Dalgor fail, he’d have to order his own nephew’s death. All the killing, the weeding out of failures, and still their task was not accomplished. He withdrew the pictures and stared at them. “Cat, I wish you were here,” he whispered. He hadn’t felt so lonely in a long time.
CHAPTER 51
They had moved Drangar Ralgon into the cell opposite hers, and even though his mutterings had ceased, Ealisaid wasn’t sure what she preferred, the silence or the endless babbling. Again and again, whenever he awoke, she tried to talk to the man, but when he reacted to her words it was merely by a slight turn of the head or a flicker of his eyes.
The guards had brought a lamp, and in its light she saw Ralgon staring holes into the air when he wasn’t sleeping or eating. At least he was eating.
He still looked haggard, half starved, more like corpse than breathing man. The rise and fall of his chest and his eye movements were almost the only indicators that he was alive.
She had looked at him again in spiritform. The shadow he had cast into the spiritworld was gone. She was no closer to understanding what happened to bring forth such a phenomenon than before, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Ralgon never reacted to her questions, and the only thing he said was “I didn’t kill her, it wasn’t my fault.”
The Chosen had told her about the grisly murder this man must have committed two years back, Ralgon’s woman hacked to shreds in their house. She had an idea.
“What happened to Hesmera?” Ealisaid whispered when Ralgon had fallen silent again.
At the mention of his lover’s name, he looked up and, for the first time, focused on her. Finally, she had his attention! “She died,” he replied.
“How?” Ealisaid wasn’t certain this was the way to continue the conversation, but she was at a loss.
The laugh Ralgon gave was a mixture of sob and growl. “They made me kill her.”
She had heard of such stories before,
people claiming some other power had forced them to commit hideous crimes. It was easier to blame someone else than to take responsibility for one’s actions. Her thoughts must have shown on her face, and before she could reply, Ralgon said, “I wouldn’t believe myself either, if I were in your place.” The statement didn’t make sense. The man seemed lucid enough to see the idiocy of his words. “Believe me, I’ve heard such nonsense before as well,” he continued. “Some poor bugger claiming demons made him kill his family, trading partner, the old woman next door. Sure, demons can take over one’s body, but during the Demon War the slaughter was different, not just simple stabbings.” He hesitated and smiled sadly, “Given how I… killed Hesmera… it could have been demons guiding my hand.”
“How do you know what the demons did? You’re just a…” she paused, unsure how to continue.
“Lowly mercenary?” he finished her question.
The man was certainly not a dumb brute, she could tell that much already. “Aye,” she said. “I thought your kind were only good for killing, defiling women, and plundering.”
He chortled. “True, you rarely find a great philosopher amongst the sell-swords.” Ralgon paused, thinking. “I was born and raised in a monastery; my adopted, extended family knew a great deal of demons, because they fought them.”
A smile of disbelief crept onto her lips. “Truly?” she asked, not quite able to keep the mockery out of her voice. “Your kind usually hardly knows how to read.”
Drangar Ralgon glared at her. “And your kind usually pays a fine and goes back to work,” he replied acidly, “not put in a cell for days if not weeks.”
“I am no harlot!” How did this murderer dare insult her? She was furious.
“What then? Killer? Cheating wife? Spy? Offending courtier?”
“I’m not one of those, either!” she snapped, and felt her face flush.
“Yet you painted your nails only recently, your hair still bears the resemblance of stylish braid work, and despite the dirt you try to look respectable even in those rags you wear,” he replied smugly.
“Don't judge a book by its cover!” she snapped, and knew the same instant he had goaded her. He smirked and cocked his head. “I concede your point.”
“So why are you in the…” he looked around, “Palace’s dungeons?”
This person, decided Ealisaid, was a definite improvement over the groaning, mumbling body she had first encountered in the cells. He was perceptive, but she was unsure whether she liked this trait. “I destroyed some property and killed a dozen people,” she said. To her surprise, Drangar hooted. “What’s so amusing?”
The former mercenary shook his head. “The Baron must like you, or see further use in you,” he said with a chuckle. “If I were inclined to guess, I’d guess the latter.”
In her deepest, most desperate thoughts she had come to the same conclusion. Duasonh didn’t appear to fuss over cases like hers, even if there hadn’t been a case like hers in the last century. One thought led to the next, and she found herself awash in memories and despair.
“This place is better than many a dungeon,” Drangar interrupted. Her feelings must’ve shown on her face.
“I’ve never felt so alone,” she whispered, and looked down at her feet.
Ealisaid expected her cellmate to answer, but the man remained silent. She looked up, through the bars across into the opposite chamber. What she saw seemed the embodiment of loneliness and despair. Ralgon stood straight, hands clutching the bars. Was this the same man whom she had heard laughing just a few moments ago? His grey-blue eyes brimmed with tears, his face a twisted mask of rage and misery. For a moment she thought he had retreated back into the head-thumping idiot, but then his eyes focused on her.
“In the end we’re always alone,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Always alone…” His voice trailed off and he regarded her, his eyes wet with unshed tears. “Why am I here still when I should be dead? Why is anyone here when in the end we all die?” He snorted, snot gushed from his nose, onto his beard and shirt. “You really feel forsaken when you wake up with your bloody sword in hand and the one person you love lying before you in countless pieces.”
Try as she might, Ealisaid couldn’t imagine this miserable creature killing anyone. Seeing his grief helped her. Ralgon’s misery put things into perspective. She had lost her family, true, but she had not slaughtered them. She hadn’t been involved in the Heir War, and thus she wasn’t responsible for the destruction. A sigh escaped her lips. Maybe what this man had done for her she could repay in kind. “You said you are not responsible for her death,” she said.
He looked at her, wiped the snot from his beard with his left hand, and then brushed the hand clean with some straw. Then he shook his head. “No, I’m not responsible. I saw what happened.”
“Someone else killed her?” Talking to him tried the patience of even a priest. He could speak plainly when he wanted to, only to revert to cryptic phrases like this one.
“No, my hand wielded the sword.”
She frowned, but stopped herself from asking the obvious. Ralgon would eventually come to the meaning, she decided.
“I saw it. I saw the past…” He must have seen her frown, because he snorted again. “I’ve not lost my mind.” His upheld hand stopped her reply. “Your look gave you away…”
“Ealisaid, I’m Ealisaid.”
He shook his head. “Under different circumstances I’d say it is a pleasure to meet you, but my manners seem somewhat misplaced in Baron Duasonh’s dungeon.”
“Graveyard humor? Better than no humor at all, eh?” Under different circumstances the man would have been quite charming, but the bitter streak that permeated his every action made him less likeable.
“Sarcasm, when you hate the world and yourself it’s hard to be truly jolly,” he replied with a shrug. “How did you kill a dozen people, Ealisaid?”
The Wizardess felt the dismissal, and could hardly blame him. He alone must work through whatever he imagined he had seen. After all, he had just recently been returned to the world of the living, body and spirit. Now she was unsure whether to tell him why she was here and what she had done. Up until now she could still be a mere mass murderer, but maybe Ralgon’s reaction would be like anyone else’s, resentment and mistrust. Trust, however, she decided had to begin somewhere. “Magic,” she said.
Ralgon cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”
Was there amusement in his voice? At least he didn’t react with worry or fear, just a little… curiosity. “Really,” she said.
“Next, she’ll tell me she learned sorcery from a musty old tome she found in some abandoned wizard’s tower,” he muttered. “And to think I was mad.”
Unsure if he had meant for her to hear him, she nonetheless snapped, “I learned magic in the Shadowpeaks!”
“If I believe you, will you believe me when I say I went into the past and saw myself slaughter Hesmera, that my hands and body acted without me?”
She had to admit both claims seemed mad. She knew who and what she was, and although Drangar Ralgon was at times incoherent, he was neither mad nor stupid. If her story was true, why not his? Was it possible that he had traveled into the past? Had he truly seen himself kill his lover?
“How did you go back in time?” Of all the questions, this was the one she really wanted to ask.
Ralgon chuckled. “So, you do believe me?”
“I admit that my story is as unlikely as yours,” she said. “I doubt my disbelief, if that is any consolation.”
He shrugged. “Better than nothing, I guess.” He paused, took a deep breath, and began to speak.
The more Ealisaid heard the more convinced she became his tale was true. Certainly, it might all be a mere figment of Ralgon’s imagination—it certainly had the feel of a fiery tale—but she couldn’t think of any reason why madness would play such tricks. “This ‘ghost’, what did it look like?” she asked when he was finished.
The man shrugged. “She was
never really there,” he said. “I mean, unlike me, she was nothing more than a haze.”
“She?” Ealisaid asked, a suspicion creeping into her mind. There had been a ghostly woman with Ralgon when he was trapped in two worlds.
CHAPTER 52
Kildanor looked at the documents he had stolen from the Chanastardhian general’s office then back at the decoded messages. “Urgraith Mireynh, High General,” he said.
“At least we can put a name to our foe,” Duasonh replied. “The thing that bothers me, is this High Advisor who signed most orders.”
The Chanastardhian court and its ministers never held special interest for him, so he waited for what Cumaill would tell. He was still exhausted from his ordeal in the spiritworld, but neither he nor Gail had been able to rest. Gail had received a missive and was back at the shrine, and Duasonh had requested him at once. Now the Baron leafed through the translations again. Kildanor’s patience wore thin. His headache had lessened, but he felt his bed and sleep still beckoning. “And?” he finally asked, stifling a yawn.
“There is no such position at the court of Herascor,” Duasonh said. “The kings have advisors, but none of them is above the others.”
“So, they formalized Drammoch’s favorite pet.” He yawned again. “Who cares?”
“There’s more,” Duasonh said, and looked up from the papers. “Gods, man! Wake up!”
“Just…” he didn’t finish the sentence. The Baron complied with his unvoiced request before he could. The sharp pain registered on his cheek before Kildanor saw him move. For a man of middling age with sufficient weight on him, his friend and pupil could move quickly, if he wanted to. The slap shook his senses awake. “Thanks,” he grumbled.
“My pleasure,” Cumaill replied, grinning.
“So, what is it about this High Advisor?”
“Most of the orders to Mireynh weren’t signed by Drammoch but by this Zamar, whoever he may be.”