by Garon Whited
Seldar went to one knee and put a fist on the floor.
Now you’ve committed, Boss.
I don’t need you to tell me that. The way my stomach dropped into my ankles did a fine job of it. The way Seldar went to one knee did even better!
While he’s reorganizing the troops to contain the illumi-naughty, what are we going to do?
Talk to a lot of people, then have some words with a rock.
We had four wizards—full-time, professional wizards—who specialized in magic mirrors. We had another thirty or so people who could cast the basic mirror communication spell. I put them to work. The keys to running this siege of my own city would be communications and understanding of the situation. Intelligence, in the military sense.
With communicators detailed to strong points—the barricades in the streets—and instant communications to roving patrols, it was going to be tough for the Church of Light to break out. Admittedly, we had to get some extra staff for Seldar. He couldn’t take every call and stay in touch with every station. A few knights from the Order of Shadow, though, enhanced things enormously. They sat in a circle around him, each one keeping in touch with a few garrison commanders in the same arc. They handled the routine stuff and Seldar kept an eye on the overall situation with the sand table.
We contained the area of the city dominated by the Church of Light within a matter of hours. Our own barricades went up, blocking streets. Archers posted to rooftops. Guards patrolled all along the perimeter. We stationed groups of cavalry back from our perimeter as a reaction force, in case the Church of Light tried a breakout. We surrounded the area on every side that wasn’t a city wall.
Expansion stopped.
As for me, I spent the afternoon talking with the mountain. I couldn’t tell exactly where the border was, but I could start with places I knew were in enemy hands and work outward from there. The point I picked was the city gate they had in their control. The bolts disengaged on their own and gravity swung the gate shut. It fused into the wall and stayed there. From that point outward, roof access and windows started disappearing as stone rolled over shutters, sealed around doorways, the works. Underground access narrowed or vanished. Subsurface corridors sealed off; sewage pipes changed shape and became too small to crawl through. By nightfall, buildings had one practical way in or out: the front door.
I considered shutting off the aqueducts feeding into that part of the city, but I’m a softie. I wanted to encourage people to slip away and escape, not force the Church to start an immediate confrontation.
On the other hand, I did have a pretty good sense of where the Church of Light concentrated its worship. Don’t ask me why I can feel such a thing through a rock. I have some suspicions and I don’t like any of them. But those centers didn’t only get their windows removed. I told the mountain to seal them up—doors, windows, everything but the ventilation holes. Anyone stuck in there was well and truly stuck; they could wait in their holy prison cell until we came to get them.
That was it for my afternoon. Merging with the mountain and supervising the details of those instructions took a while, especially while mortal. I couldn’t simply give the mountain a general set of parameters and turn it loose; this required all the finesse I could muster. As it was, I probably didn’t get all the buildings in the affected area. Still, if there was a band of unaffected buildings just behind the enemy lines, I was content. We would take those first, anyway.
After sunset, I hurried through a waterfall, armored up, checked my defensive spells, and went to the communications center. Dantos kept an eye on the sand table. I nodded at him and he nodded in return; Seldar was dozing in his chair while the rest of the knights continued to run the siege. Seldar snapped awake as I came in.
“Sire.”
“Seldar. What’s new?”
“We had some difficulties with the city guards,” he stated. “Many of them object to our offensive against the Church of Light. A few of their guard houses have even refused to assist.”
“Did they say why?”
“We believe many of them are worshippers of the Light,” Dantos supplied.
“Great. Have we got anyone who needs me to look them over?”
“You intend to look into their souls and determine their allegiance?” Seldar asked.
“Unless you have a better idea?”
“No, Sire,” he answered. He and Dantos traded glances. “We hoped you would do so. Since we have some difficulties with cooperation from the city guard, our current prisoners are being held in the Hall of Justice.”
“Perfectly appropriate. Do we have priests of justice and priests of mercy we can have present, too? Maybe priests of law? I remember a lawyer priest in town a few years ago. And isn’t there a god of truth, somewhere?”
“Yes, all those are available,” Dantos agreed. “The Lady Tianna has not objected, as such, to other faiths within the city. She does not have much at all to say about them, so there are many churches of various sorts.”
“May I ask why you wish such priests to attend you?” Seldar asked.
“Because I’m about to act as judge and jury, possibly executioner. Under normal circumstances, I despise the idea. Under these circumstances, I still despise it, but reluctantly accept I have a right and an obligation to do so—I’m the King. And I can, as you put it, actually look into someone’s soul. I would rather determine their… well, guilt and innocence are legal concepts. I’m hoping I can say whose side they’re on, if they’re on a side. I’ll play judge and jury because I’m forced to, but I’d rather not play god.”
“Are you not a god, Sire? I have been inside the Temple of Shadow and seen the—”
“Let’s not get into that,” I suggested. “Just tell those churches—no, ask those churches to send priests there for me, okay?”
“As you say, Sire.”
Looking into and through people is no fun. Everyone starts out scared and often finishes the same way. It’s not something I enjoy doing. It smacks of mind-reading and a nasty invasion of privacy.
Does it justify my actions to say I did it for the security of the country? That’s a slippery slope if ever there was one. Never mind that I’m infallible—or think I am—in this matter, or that I’m legally able to do it—being a vampire king has advantages like that. The top of the slope starts with “Whose side are you on?” so you can sort out the rebels. Does it turn into “State your name and present your papers,” on every streetcorner? Do people wind up wearing their identification—like yellow stars on their shirts, tattooed numbers on their forearms, and ribbon-like badges to display their occupation, employer, and rank?
I worry about things like this. I don’t have good answers, either, which tells me I don’t belong in this job. What I came up with was a lousy compromise.
Priests from the Temples of Justice, Mercy, Law, Truth, and Shadow showed up. I hadn’t intended to involve the Temple of Shadow, but I suppose it’s unreasonable and unfair to keep them away from me. But with multiple religions involved, it simplified things a little. I had no intention of establishing the Black Court, where the King passes judgment on those brought before him. I wanted to set something up where I wouldn’t need to be involved.
Laziness as a motivator for establishing a judicial system. I wonder if that’s ever happened before.
Having religions involved in the process struck me as a good idea, too, since they were agents of actual powers-that-be. If we could get the priest of Truth to detect lies, he might be in charge of questioning the subject. Then the priest of Law could cite whether or not there was a violation of the actual law. Then the priests of Justice and Mercy could debate sentencing.
Pun intentional: By the gods, it might work!
My only problem was what to do with the priests of Shadow. Putting one in charge would seem like favoritism, but excluding them entirely would be unkind to them. I decided a ceremonial position of Mouthpiece—moderator of the process, or referee—might work out. But the m
oderator won’t get a vote. Or something. It’s still an idea and not well-thought-out. We’ll see how the various feathers ruffle.
So, after I sorted through a dozen or more people, representative priests arrived at the Hall of Justice. I explained a bit and took the moderator seat. A priest of each of these religions sat on the panel and talked to the potential rebel scum. They interviewed the individual, prayed about him, discussed him, examined the entrails, and did whatever it is priests do. Then they voted. If they decided he was a radical, weapon-wielding, arms-bearing worshipper of the Light, we sent him to the dungeons. I wasn’t concerned about the typical worshipper of the Light, and even less concerned (sort of) with the Joe Citizen drafted unexpectedly. I was concerned about the radical terrorist groups who wanted to overthrow the kingdom, burn all the other temples, and establish a theocratic absolutist dictatorship for their god.
If I sound as though I was willing to trample on people’s religious freedoms in the name of stopping terrorism, so be it. They started an armed conflict in my city. Until the conflict was resolved, religious terrorists and soldiers were the enemy. Afterward? We’ll see. But, at least for now, yes, I’m going against my upbringing and persecuting a religion. Not for disagreements, of which we have many, but for the open warfare in the city streets. I hope I was only persecuting the radicals in the religion, but where do I draw the line? I probably snared a few not-all-that-radical worshippers, too.
I don’t feel too bad about it. I’m a vampire. I’m expected to do nasty things to good-aligned priests.
On the other side of the coin, we had a lot of people who were not hostile religious zealots. Yes, they might be thieves, murderers, cheats, liars, or double-parkers. So what? That’s not what we had them for. Religious zealot, yes or no? No? Fine. Go, and sin no more, or something.
Which put us on notice about what to do with the innocent. Most of the ones we already captured—and the ones we were hopefully about to capture—were displaced from their homes and families. What do we do with them?
We found a mostly-unused street and sent everyone there. They could chalk names on walls next to the doors to make it easier to find each other. It was a start.
It was a system that favored letting people go. Sure, a lot of routine Light-worshippers slid right on through. If we had any up in front of us, as I’m sure we did, I made it a point to turn them loose. So what? I wasn’t after the congregation. I wasn’t concerned with the people praying. I was concerned with the people hacking other people to death.
See? I’m not as bad as I could be. Mostly. At least some of the time. When I think about it.
When we ran out of people already captured at our perimeter, we started in on the city guards from those guard houses that refused to participate. This raised some objections from Rendal, as the Commander of the Guard. All I did was send out the order for them to report to the Hall of Justice and he showed up in my interview room to protest. I let him rant at me for a couple of minutes before I shut him down.
“Stop talking,” I told him—snapped at him—and he did. “Now you answer my questions. Is it the job of the city guard to keep order in the city? Answer yes or no and don’t say anything else. I’m in no mood to waste time.”
“Yes.”
“Would you say the current insurrection qualifies as a failure to keep order? Yes or no.”
“Yes,” he admitted, grudgingly.
“Then it’s the duty of the city guard to bring it to a halt and restore order. I don’t care what religion the guardsmen are. For all I care, they can worship the Lord of Justice or the Lady of Mercy or the Consecrated Carrot of the Holy Harvest. But when they put on the uniform to do their jobs, they put their personal feelings aside and do the damn job. Is this a problem?”
“Your Majesty, it is. Many of us have strong feelings, very strong, regarding our faiths.”
“Then go join the clergy!” I advised. “The order and well-being of the city is your duty. If you can’t do your duty, you don’t have a job!” I rubbed my temples, uselessly. The headache was a psychic one. “Look, I can put the city under martial law. I can put soldiers everywhere and go that way. I don’t want to. I firmly believe a civilian organization for peacekeeping, law enforcement, and the maintenance of civil order is the right way to go about this. But if you’re going to stand there and tell me I’m wrong—a civilian organization can’t do this because it doesn’t command the loyalty of its members—then I’ll consider your argument. Well?”
Rendal isn’t a young man by any measure. Yet, he straightened, deliberately and carefully, bracing himself to a rigid attention. I almost felt sorry for him. But he mustered his dignity with his courage and looked me in the eye.
“Your Majesty,” he said, formally. “I do not see how we can gauge the loyalty of a man, nor ask men to cast aside their gods in favor of a city.”
I steepled my fingers and thought about it. He had a point. How do you judge whether a man will be more loyal to the ideals of an organization than the commands of his religion? How many police officers get shot because they can’t bring themselves to shoot some teenager? How many religious figures are assumed innocent until an irreligious cop notices something incriminating and forces an investigation? Are these numbers greater than zero? How much greater?
I hate being a politician!
“All right,” I sighed. “Maybe you have a point. Maybe the traditional idea of having a city guard isn’t such a great one around here. I’ll have to think about it before I make any changes. But, right here, right now, we’re going to go through this mess. We’re going to squeeze the captured area, rescue citizens who have been captured or impressed into service, and find the individuals responsible for this insurrection. I want policemen walking through the streets we take back, greeting the people, encouraging them to escape what might become a war zone, directing traffic, and keeping the situation as calm as it can be.”
“Shall we arrest all the priests of the Light?”
“No. I doubt they had much to do with it, aside from following orders. High Priest Lotar, though, certainly had something to do with it. Him, we’re arresting—again. Possibly a number of confidants and subordinates, too.”
“So… no wholesale purge of the religion?” he pressed.
“Absolutely not. They can religion away all they like as long as they don’t interfere in the day-to-day operation of the city.”
“You’re lifting the ban on their worship?” He sounded flabbergasted.
“Why not?”
“They are responsible for this insurrection,” he observed.
“People should be able to worship whoever or whatever they want. But, as I said, right here and now, we’ve got an immediate problem and I want it dealt with in a careful, humane, and preferably bloodless manner.”
“Bloodless?”
“As in, without bloodshed. Not as in ‘there is no blood left.’ Got it?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I… ‘got’ it.”
“Good. Now, send in the next of the potential traitors,” I sighed. “Let’s get the dirty work over with and move on to better things.”
One of the problems with asking someone questions about their religion is the locals have multiple religions. They aren’t identified as “Christian,” “Muslim,” “Jew,” or anything like that. The local religions are more eclectic, more mix-and-match. A farmer will give offerings to the Harvest King, but will also ask favor of Father Sky when he needs more or less rain. A mother will pray to the Lord of Swords for the safety of her son while he’s in the army, but she will also light a candle before the little statue of the Lady of the Hearth she keeps in her house, praying her son will come home. And, of course, when a child is sick, parents will go to every church in town to find one that will heal him.
The only thing I like about my church is their success rate with fixing people. True, they do it mostly magically rather than religiously—thaumatugy instead of theurgy, I suppose—and their specialty is inj
ury, not disease. You won’t find a better doctor when your mule kicks you and breaks your ribs. It helps that the medics usually have a pretty good idea of how people are put together and can stick the pieces back where they belong. They also have a special rate on suggested offerings: Anyone under the age of ten is free.
I never told them to do that. They assumed I’d want it that way. At least, I didn’t tell them; my energy-state alter ego might have given it as a commandment from On High. Either way, when I learned this a lot of my personal anxiety about the religion evaporated. Not all of it, but a lot of it.
Almost as good, if they run into a problem, they don’t have the slightest qualm about calling Tianna up and asking her for help. I wonder how Sparky feels about it. I don’t care, as such, but I do wonder.
So, when I’m confronted with Rebel Scum, I can’t really ask about his religion. Asking if they worship at the Temple of Light is also kind of pointless. The Temple of Light tries to be a one-stop-shop for all mystic services, but mostly it gets called on to provide healing magic, protection from netherworldly forces, and a spiritually-uplifting experience.
After some descriptions of the experience, I think of it as the Holy Heroin. People come away feeling happy. No wonder the Glowsticks keep existing. Come to our services, leave all your cares at the door, walk out feeling happy! Forget your troubles—be happy! Sad about something? Come to us and get happy!
They’re like a religious drug. Who said “Religion is the opiate of the masses”? I forget. But this church is more literally an opiate. You walk out the door on a religious high comparable to being drugged.
This bothers me.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m all for people being happy. I just question the validity of any religion that turns off sadness and pain and replaces it with uncritical joy. People should work through their problems, fix them, and overcome them. We shouldn’t ignore our problems and get high on religion so we don’t have to care. That’s not a path to personal growth; that’s stagnation and decay. It’s an addiction, and the priests are the pushers.