Hederick the Theocrat v-4

by Ellen Dodge Severson

  Hederick's voice was thick with sleep. "Who is it? Dahos? Is it you?"

  "It is…" Tarscenian mumbled something that might

  pass as a name. "I have a message."

  "Come in, then."

  Tarscenian heard the sound of soft footsteps, then the bolts clicked aside.

  Tarscenian waited for the footsteps to recede, then he slipped through the doorway. He saw Hederick silhouetted on the bed, lying down again, a fire burning in the hearth behind him despite the summer heat.

  "What is your message, priest?" the High Theocrat asked sleepily.

  "It is… it is a written message. It was left at the gate. I did not know if it was urgent, so…" Tarscenian fumbled in his pockets as though he indeed carried a scroll with a message for the High Theocrat.

  "Put it on my writing table, then. And leave me. Lock the door on your way out."

  "Yes, Your Worship." Tarscenian pretended to lay something on the table. Then he stepped to the door and quietly opened and closed it, remaining inside. He stood in the flickering half-darkness, not moving at all. Light from Solinari streamed through gaps in a shutter.

  Soon Hederick's breathing evened out. Tarscenian stepped to the bed. The religious leader's face was slack with slumber. His round arms lay straight down at his sides. And around his neck was the thong and its leather-wrapped treasure.

  Tarscenian reached for the Diamond Dragon.

  A spear nudged his back. A lamp flared. Hederick sat up, laughing, and Tarscenian saw himself surrounded by a half-dozen guards, plus Dahos. In a moment, he was disarmed and held securely.

  Hederick chortled, rubbing his hands together. "I have lived decades for this moment," he crowed. "You sought to steal Sauvay's gift, did you, Tarscenian? By the New Gods, I will use that selfsame gift to destroy you!"

  The High Theocrat unwrapped the leather.

  Then he cried out in shock. He and Tarscenian stared in dismay at the plain gray stone in Hederick's palm.

  It was Tarscenian who first remembered the figure of a kender bent over Hederick's body in the western courtyard. And here he thought the kender had given the artifact back. He began to chuckle, then laugh out of control.

  "I will kill you for this, sinner," Hederick snapped. He rapped out orders. "Dahos, we will reconsecrate the temple tomorrow morning. At the dawn service." He continued speaking over Dahos's protests that there wasn't enough time. "The highlight of the ceremony will be the execution of a false Seeker priest."

  "By the gods, Tarscenian is doomed," Olven whispered. "All right, Marya. I am with you."

  The woman scribe sprang down from the stool and rushed to his side, but the dark apprentice held up one hand. "I will do it, Marya. Not you."

  "Why take that upon yourself?" she demanded. "It was my idea."

  "You may have expressed it first, but it was in my mind from the first atrocity I recorded. The man is evil."

  '"But…" Marya's sentence trailed off unfinished. What did it matter who changed Hederick's history, she thought, as long as someone did?

  Olven took a deep breath and picked up his quill again. At that moment, however, a rested, replenished Eban entered the Great Library and stepped smartly up to their shared desk. Marya frowned, but stifled a groan.

  "1 thought you'd want a rest," the young apprentice said to Olven. "I'm anxious to get back to this history to see what happens. Has Hederick been vanquished yet?"

  Olven and Marya exchanged glances, their faces all the more tired-looking next to Eban's youthful enthusiasm. "I have a bit more to write," Olven said at last, "and then you may take my place."

  "What happened?" Eban asked, finally taking in their glum expressions.

  "Tarscenian's been captured," Marya said curtly. "Let Olven finish."

  Olven closed his eyes, as though he were going into a trance. Then he opened them, and only Marya could tell that the reverie was a fraud. Eban edged between the other two to see the words as they appeared beneath Olven's pen.

  "Suddenly, Hederick clasped his hand to his chest, cried out, and collapsed," Olven wrote. "By the time his aides reached him, the High Theocrat was dead."

  "By the gods!" Eban whispered. "Hederick has…?"

  The three stared at Olven's words. Abruptly, tears glittered in Marya's eyes, and she reached past Eban to put a hand on Olven's suddenly shaking shoulder. "Olven," she said. "I think we've made a…"

  Olven cried out at that instant. The quill was scratching again on the parchment, but, judging from the writer's agonized face, not by his own volition. Quickly, the quill's tip went backward over the sentences. As it passed over them, the words disappeared. The parchment appeared as it had before Olven's false trance. The long white feather floated to the library floor, but none of the three paid it any attention.

  Marya was the first to speak. "Are you hurt, Olven?"

  Tears were streaming down the apprentice's face, but he shook his head. Gently, Marya coaxed him to his feet and, half-supporting him, guided him out of the library. Eban stared, goggle-eyed. The red-haired apprentice hesitated before he moved into Olven's place and took up a new quill.

  In his cell in the depths of the Great Library, Astinus nodded as he read the new passage on the page of his own history.

  "And at that moment, two apprentice scribes in the Great Library at Palanthas attempted to alter the course of history. However, they soon learned-as had countless Great Library apprentices before them-that one can change history only by living it, not by wishing it."

  Chapter 23

  One moment, Mynx and her centaur were speeding along over the forest floor with the rest of Phytos's force. The next moment, they had barged pell-mell into a sea of shouting humans, goblins, and hobgoblins.

  "What is it?" the kender shouted from his own mount as the centaurs scrambled to assess what had happened.

  Mynx recognized several figures. "It's the slave train. They must have stopped for the night."

  "What are they doing north of Solace?" Kifflewit demanded, being suddenly of a decidedly practical turn of mind. "There's nothing up this way! See, I have the maps to prove it…" He rummaged in his pockets.

  "I don't know," Mynx yelled back. "Maybe they're heading for the Straits of Schallsea." Or maybe the rumors of armies to the north were true, and the relocation of the slaves was tied in with the military movements, she thought. She would not be surprised if Hederick was cooperating with vermin armies whose rampages had sent all those refugees pouring into Solace.

  She had no time to develop her thoughts, however. The centaurs had pitched into battle with the goblin and hobgoblin captors of the human slaves. And before she knew it, Mynx was fighting for her life from the centaur's back. She wielded that creature's short sword. The centaur, meanwhile, swung a club with deadly accuracy, dashing in the skulls of more than one goblin.

  The hobgoblins were well armed with maces, spears, and long swords, and although the centaurs outnumbered them, the horse-creatures were limited to using clubs in close quarter fighting. It proved too crowded for bows and arrows.

  The slaves, as before, huddled together and begged for mercy. Finally, one of them shook herself free of the crowd. Ceci Vakon was not dressed the part of a warrior. The mayor's widow still wore the frilly nightrobe she'd had on when Dahos and the temple guards had forced her and her family from their home. Her curly brown hair lay tangled on her shoulders, a yellow ribbon askew in the mass of hair. But there was no mistaking the purpose in her flashing eyes.

  "People," Ceci shouted, "we lost one opportunity for freedom because of fear. Are we going to throw away another?"

  The fifty humans only bunched closer together. No one replied until Ceci's own daughter spoke up. "Mama, what if we get hurt?" the teen-ager asked softly.

  "I'll fight!" cried Ceci's ten-year-old son, jumping up. "Give me a sword!" Soon Ceci's other two sons were clamoring for weapons as well.

  Then, as the battle raged around them, the other children in the pack called for weapo
ns. The hobgoblins were too busy evading centaur clubs to notice the insurrection growing in their midst.

  A man shamefacedly stepped forward. "I can't have it said that my children'll fight for their freedom and I won't," he said. Another man stepped up, too, and a young woman. They joined Ceci Vakon in exhorting Hed-erick's slaves. "We're with the mayor's wife!"

  "Who else is with me?" Ceci cried.

  This time all the people roared to their feet, sweeping up whatever they could find in the way of weapons. From a five-year-old lad hurling rocks to a seventy-year-old woman wielding a knitting needle, they tore into their surprised captors.

  The hobgoblins and goblins, used to passiveness from the slaves, were thrown utterly off balance. Ceci herself knocked the hobgoblin sergeant down, and Mynx finished him with her borrowed sword.

  Soon the centaurs and the slaves had slain every hobgoblin and goblin, at least two dozen of the creatures. A half-dozen humans and several centaurs also lay dead.

  Phytos spoke to the freed slaves. "We are on our way to Erolydon to challenge Hederick. Thou art free now to go where thou wilt."

  "I'm with you, centaur!" Ceci Vakon called out stoutly. "I'm a widow because of Hederick's greed. I have a score to settle with the High Theocrat!"

  Her daughter seconded her. The rest of the slaves, buoyed by victory, shouted their support as well.

  Soon most of the slaves were mounted on centaurs. Other slaves ranged on foot, vowing to follow the attacking force as quickly as they could.

  Phytos called the charge, and they pounded down the forest trails.

  Chapter 24

  Tarscenian's cell was next to the materbill's. Even if he had wanted to sleep, the noise of the pacing, growling creature would have prevented it.

  The old man's cell, at least, had a small window-about the width of his hand and the length of his forearm. Even though the window faced west, he could tell that it would soon be dawn.

  "And so, Great Paladine, it ends this way," he whispered, "with my love dying within the trunk of a vallen-wood tree, and the mages who swore to help us similarly doomed. The Seekers, and those of Gaveley's foul sort, have won. I pray that there may come valiant heroes who can vanquish those who embrace evil."

  He paused. "The coming years frighten me, my god. I don't know what they will bring, only that it will be

  fearsome indeed, and I will not live to see the outcome. My heart bleeds for the sorrowing world.

  "To you, Paladine, my allegiance remains. From you, all blessings flow."

  Tarscenian sat quietly for a time after ending his prayer.

  He was exhausted beyond imagining.

  He knew, too, that he was ready to die.

  Dawn had arrived.

  "I am very pleased, indeed, to be summoned to your presence, High Theocrat. It is an honor."

  Gaveley bowed deeply as his hoarse voice rasped out the words. His face glowed with pleasure. He glanced around Hederick's receiving room with appreciation. His quick eyes noted and evaluated the frescoes on the walls, the inlaid pattern in the floor tile, and the steel and silver statues of the Seeker gods that graced the corners of the room. "I am very, very pleased," he repeated.

  His hand stroked the arm of a marble nymph that might have been the goddess Ferae. Gaveley wasn't exactly sure who was whom among the Seeker gods; there were so many of them.

  "Certainly, certainly, my friend Gaveley," Hederick murmured, inwardly vowing to have the statue scrubbed later. By the New Gods, how the infidel dressed-indecently tight blue leggings and matching boots, orange tunic, and a white hat with a green feather. It was enough to give a godly man like the High Theocrat a headache.

  Hederick sipped from his early morning goblet of mead. "You warned me about Tarscenian, and you helped deliver him into my hands. For that I am grateful."

  "As am I," Gaveley returned. "I know the Seekers are not prone to admitting those of elven blood to their temples." Gaveley inclined his head, but he couldn't quite keep the bitterness-or the sweet triumph.-out of his voice.

  Hederick only smiled. Better that Gaveley not know the humans-only rule was Erolydon's alone. Anyway, the temple would soon be reconsecrated. The stain of Gave-ley's presence would then be wiped away.

  "We will make tremendous partners, you and I," Gaveley continued with zest. "With my spies and thieves and your wealth, Hederick…" He whistled. "You've already got the network set up. You just need someone like me to manage things. Someone with a bent for this kind of business."

  The High Theocrat murmured something indistinct, and the half-elf seemed to realize that he'd stumbled across some boundary of etiquette.

  "My pardon, please, Your Worship," the thief whispered smoothly. "The veneration I hold for you, and the excitement of being summoned to your presence, addles my wits a bit, I fear." He bestowed upon Hederick the shining smile that had never failed to disarm Mynx.

  Hederick let his lips curve in return. "It's understandable," he said.

  "You have business for me, then?" the half-elf asked. "Your messenger led me to believe…"

  "Ah, yes," the High Theocrat murmured. "Business. But first we must drink a toast to our-what did you call it, my friend? — our 'partnership.' " Hederick indicated a carafe on a table at Gaveley's elbow. "Please join me." His bulging blue eyes glistened as the half-elf thief poured himself a generous portion of the beverage. Some of the mead slopped over the edge of the glass and stained the table, but still Hederick maintained his pleasant smile.

  "A toast," the High Theocrat proclaimed, raising his own full goblet. "To a new association." Then, as Gaveley raised the goblet to his lips, Hederick cried, "Wait! No, we must raise this tribute to the beginning day. It is the Seeker way." He ushered the half-elf to the window and flung open the shutters. "In the name of Sauvay, god of power and vengeance, I bless this mingling of minds." He sipped his mead, then placed the goblet aside as Gaveley quaffed the liquid he'd poured from the carafe.

  The half-elf died quickly-quicker than he deserved, Hederick decided.

  The High Theocrat caught the thief under the arms and tipped him forward through the window. It was but a short distance to the ground. Yellow Eyes and one of his confederates scurried forward to carry the body away.

  Hederick downed his own mead-which, of course, was not poisoned-and watched until the blue and orange of Gaveley's outfit disappeared over the marble wall to the north. "You were too ambitious for my liking, Gaveley, my former friend," he whispered. "Much too ambitious. And no one treats High Theocrat Hederick with that kind of familiarity."

  He regarded Gaveley's spilled mead with satisfaction.

  "Macaba root," he purred. "It has never failed me."

  The centaurs slowed, then halted once more. Mynx's centaur was forced back among the crowd, and she couldn't see ahead. "Kifflewit!" she shouted. "What is delaying us?"

  The kender's mount was near the front of the massed pack of centaurs. "Someone is hurt!"

  "One of the centaurs? From the battle? I thought we'd treated all the wounded."

  "No," the kender supplied, "a child." He looked around. "It sure is foggy all of a sudden."

  A child, alone in the forest in the middle of the night? Mynx wondered. And what about this fog? She checked to see whether the Diamond Dragon was still safe on its new thong around her neck. It was.

  Then she flung herself off her centaur and pushed her way through the mass of bodies until she saw what had stopped everyone.

  A young boy lay before them. He was unconscious, his head flung back, his small red mouth open. A beautiful peasant woman who must have been the child's mother cradled him on her lap. She wept bitterly. Nearby, a wrinkled crone sat upon a fallen tree and moaned, wringing her hands. The old one appeared not to be in her right mind. She mumbled nonstop to herself and occasionally beseeched the night sky, the vallenwoods, and various boulders for assistance.

  Swirls of thickening mist glided between Mynx and the trio, and the thief had to squint to see th
em. Without thinking, she clasped the Diamond Dragon. The fog suddenly cleared.

  "Young woman," Phytos said gently to the mother. "What is wrong?"

  The child's mother turned huge brown eyes toward the centaur. Her face was stunning in its pale delicacy. "Oh, pray, sir, don't hurt us!" she implored. "Don't send us back there! My sweet boy is dying."

  Phytos blinked several times. "Send thee back where, woman? Thou hast escaped from somewhere? Hast thou been a slave?" He looked at Ceci Vakon and the others, but they shook their heads. No, the trio had not been part of the slave train.

  "We escaped from Hederick, sir." The woman's gaze returned to her child's bloodless face. She stroked the lad's cheek before she continued. Sudden wrenching sobs made it difficult to understand her.

  "We could not pay our taxes. The High Theocrat sought to sell my husband-this old woman's son-into slavery and take me, my child, and my mother-in-law into custody. See the poor old lady, sir. She's not been lucid since they dragged my dear husband away."

  "So I see." Phytos still appeared nonplussed, however. "Young woman, we are on our way to Solace. I suppose we can carry three more as well, but we must move swiftly…"

  The woman sobbed even harder, shaking her head. "Oh, no, kind centaur! My child is far too weak to stand a ride on the back of a horse. See how much blood he has lost!" She drew back slightly from the child, and the centaurs and slaves gasped in unison.

  Only a darkened stump remained of the boy's right arm. The centaurs burst into protests. "By the gods!" "Didst thou see that?" "What monster would do that, and to a child?"

  Phytos had to shout to make himself heard. "How did that happen, woman?"

  "The boy-such a courageous lad, my Buni-rushed forward to defend his father when the goblins came to take him to the slave yard. One of Hederick's hobgoblins cut him badly. My husband fought them, giving us time to escape with Buni here, but I fear my husband is dead." The woman burst into fresh tears, cradling the child close to her breast, which had the unfortunate effect of making the wound bleed anew. "Oh, my poor, brave, fatherless boy!"