by Sharon Green
"I don't believe this," Renton Frosh said unsteadily from where he walked to Kail's right, taking the words from between Kail's mental teeth. "Who would do such a terrible thing, and for what purpose?"
"I have an awful feeling that we did this terrible thing, or at least some of us did," Kail answered, staring at the devastation all around them. "They said yesterday that we were crossing over into Astinda, and we're now at a point where this countryside can't be seen from the empire side. Our marvelous conquering armies did this."
"That's not possible!" another voice protested before Renton could speak. "What point is there in conquering a land if you destroy it as you go?"
Kail turned to see that the speaker was the man named Belvis Drean, who walked a short distance behind Kail. Drean had once been a moderately high noble in the government, or so Renton said, and it hadn't been clear whether the small man would survive the march. But Drean had surprised everyone by trimming down and hardening up, and now he looked around with the same horror Kail felt.
"If you destroy the land, then you drive it's true owners off it," Kail pointed out with less of an attitude of superiority than he once would have used. "After those true owners are gone you can claim the land, and use your own supply of slaves to make the land livable again. Can you deny the fact that most of us thought of the peasants as possessions to do with as we pleased?"
"But they were peasants," Drean protested again, apparently unable to take his gaze from the horror they walked through. "It was our place to run things, and theirs to obey orders from their superiors. That was the natural order of things, a natural order that lasted for centuries. How could it have been wrong? And what does that have to do with what was done here?"
"It's really quite simple, my friend," Renton told the bewildered man gently. "When you consider yourself beyond any sort of condemnation, you do as you damned well please and never even think about possible consequences. Killing miles and miles of once living land is meaningless, because you won't be the one who has to work until you drop in order to restore it. When people aren't held responsible for what they do, they stop being responsible in every sense of the words."
"And I once read somewhere that the wise man refuses to allow slavery of any sort," Kail added, wondering if Drean actually heard what they were saying. "Just because you aren't the one being enslaved today doesn't mean that you won't be chosen for the rather dubious honor tomorrow. The only way you yourself can be safe from slavery is to make sure that no one can be enslaved."
"And I believe I can also answer your other question," Renton said to Drean, apparently ignoring the small man's distraction. "You wanted to know what that 'natural order' of yours had to do with what we see around us. I suspect that that natural order is more political than natural, and that the pendulum is now in the midst of swinging to the opposite side of the political spectrum. Those who were lords have now become slaves instead, and will personally reap what they've sown. We're being held responsible for what was done, and we'll be the ones to clean up our own mess."
"But I didn't do this," Drean whispered, still looking at nothing but what they walked through. "I didn't even know this was being done, so how can I be held responsible? It isn't fair!"
Renton said nothing to that, and Kail was too busy with his sudden thoughts to respond. That protest of "It isn't fair!" sounded very familiar, and Kail could almost hear himself saying the words. But the disturbing thought had just come to him that it was fair, possibly the fairest outcome among everything possible. He hadn't been directly responsible for that devastation any more than Drean had been, nor would he have approved causing the destruction if asked.
But the truth of the matter was that Kail hadn't wanted to know, and he hadn't lifted a single finger to find out what was being done in his name. When his father had arranged for him to have a place in the government, he'd hated the idea. If he'd been given the choice, he would have stayed with his friends and played with magic instead of doing something productive. But that should have been something really productive, not his father's definition of it. Like finding out what the fools running the empire were up to…
The torn-up countryside encouraged brooding, and Kail realized that he wasn't the only one engaged in the activity when the wagon began to slow down. Everyone seemed to be coming out of deep introspection, including Renton.
"I wonder why we're stopping?" Renton said as he looked around. "It isn't quite noon yet, and they've never varied from the schedule before."
"It can't be because this is the perfect place to stop," Kail agreed, also beginning to look around. "There isn't even any grazing for the horses - "
Kail's words broke off at Drean's exclamation of horror, and a glance back showed Drean staring ahead with a face gone pale. Kail, wondering what had so disturbed the small man, leaned a bit out of line to get a better look, and immediately wished he hadn't.
"What is it?" Renton asked, obviously bothered by the way Drean now leaned over and emptied himself of what seemed to be everything he'd eaten in the last month. "Kail, what is it? You're almost as pale as that poor fellow."
"There … was once a house a short way ahead," Kail got out, staring down at the road to keep himself under control. "There's very little left of the house, but the people who once lived in it are still here. Hanging in front of the house."
"I'm sorry I asked," Renton muttered as he, too, paled. "No wonder poor Drean there couldn't control himself."
"No, you don't understand," Drean himself said after wiping at his mouth with a filthy shirtsleeve, his eyes looking haunted. "I … have Earth magic, and I'm not too weak a Middle talent. Those people, including the children, they … weren't dead when they were left there. To treat anyone, even peasants, like that…"
Drean shakily lowered himself to the road as far as possible from the small, vile pool he'd made, and then buried his face in his hands. Kail watched the man for a moment with a sense of great distance, taking that long to realize how shocked he was. Renton seemed almost ready to empty his own insides, and sounds of protest were coming from most of the people who had heard Drean.
But Kail himself was suddenly furiously angry rather than ill. There was a difference between irresponsible and bestial, and the so-called people who had come through here had too obviously crossed the line. No wonder the Astindans had come to level Gan Garee; the true wonder was that they treated their prisoners as well as they did.
"Does anyone here still feel the least pride in having been one of the empire's leaders?" Kail demanded of those around him, his hands closed to fists at his sides. "It doesn't matter that most of us didn't know about things like this. We should have known!"
"Your juvenile reaction proves the exact opposite," a female voice stated coldly, and Kail turned to see who spoke. The woman was apparently in her early forties, and was tall and thin. Her gown had once been very expensive and stylish, and her narrow face retained a look of pure haughtiness. She stood straight with hands folded firmly before her, and her expression was full of disdain.
"So you think my reaction is juvenile," Kail said flatly, his anger growing. "You also sound as if you did know what was going on."
"Those of us mature enough to handle the information did indeed know," the woman answered, all but sneering. "We understood that these peasants meant nothing, and that there were enough of them that throwing some away as an object lesson for the others was nothing more than common sense. You and these others are weaklings, and if you'd been told what your superiors were up to you never would have had the stomach to support the actions. That's why you weren't told."
"And it means nothing to you that now you're one of those who will be made to undo those marvelous actions?" Kail's demand contained growing outrage along with anger as a number of the people around them muttered with anger of their own. "That what you did put our necks in the bind right along with yours is incidental and unimportant?"
"It's all incidental and unimportant," the
woman came back with even more of a sneer. "It's necessary that I put up with this outrage for the moment, but a moment doesn't last forever. When I'm freed from the capture of these barbarians, I'll then take very great pleasure in watching them die very slowly and in very great pain. And you people who worry so greatly over what's done to and with peasants will be allowed to become peasants yourselves. You'll certainly never again be fit to be called a peer of mine."
"A fact for which I thank the Highest Aspect most solemnly," Drean growled from where he sat, startling Kail and apparently just about everyone else as well. "I've been walking along considering myself completely blameless for whatever was done, but I can see now that I was wrong. My blame lies in considering people like you superior, and in supporting you with my silence. You can be certain you'll never have that silence again."
By then Drean was back on his feet, standing tall and proud despite his small stature. The woman sniffed and dismissed him and what he'd said by pretending he'd become invisible, but most of the people around her seemed to disagree. Those people withdrew as far as possible from where the woman stood, and nodded to show Drean that they agreed with him. A few of those around them withdrew into themselves without committing themselves one way or the other, but Kail realized that that was to be expected. Some people couldn't make up their minds which way to jump even if their lives depended on the decision.
"Well, it seems that the former Lady Froma only has one supporter in the area," Renton commented as he eyed the sole man whose expression said he agreed with the woman completely. "At this rate, we could be surrounded by all sensible people in no time."
Kail was about to add his own additional comment when one of the Astindans appeared. They all seemed to be rather serious people, but so far none of the captives had been abused in any deliberate way. The one who approached them was a plain woman in trousers and a shirt like a man, and everyone stopped speaking when they saw her. It was part of the captives' buried orders to fall silent in the presence of an Astindan, Kail knew, and this time was no different from any other.
"As you can see, a burial detail is required," the woman told all of them quietly. "For this one time, I'm asking for volunteers rather than ordering the chore done. Would any of you care to volunteer?"
"I would," Kail said immediately as he stepped forward, knowing without a doubt that the decision was his rather than forced on him by something the Astindan had said. "It's a decency that should have been done a long time ago, not to mention being something that shouldn't have been necessary in the first place."
"I would also like to volunteer," Renton said, doing his own stepping forward as the woman nodded soberly at Kail. "I've never done anything like this before, but if someone tells me what's necessary I'll make sure that it's done properly."
The woman also nodded at Renton, then seemed surprised when Drean and three other people stepped forward to volunteer as well. Drean and the last three people said not a single word, but when the woman gestured that they all follow, none of them hesitated any more than Kail or Renton did.
It became clear that the Astindans had asked for volunteers at each of the wagons. The six people from Kail's wagon were joined by captives from the other wagons, but no more than two or three from each of the others. At another time Kail would have felt ashamed to be part of a group that had so small a sense of what was proper, but at the moment the lack of willing cooperation was unsurprising.
"Give me your attention, please," a male Astindan said when the last of the volunteers had joined the group. The man was slightly older than the other Astindans, and just a touch on the heavy side. "There are six bodies that need to be cut down, so you'll form into groups of three. Two of the three will hold the body while the third cuts the rope, and then the bodies are to be lined up on the ground near what's left of that tree."
Everyone nodded their understanding, and when Kail and Renton moved together, Drean joined them to make a third. A brief moment later all the groups were formed, and then another Astindan came over with six knives. This Astindan made no effort to speak to anyone, instead simply and silently giving a knife to one member of each group of three.
Renton was the one given the knife in their group, and he stared at it in his hand as though he'd never seen anything like it in his entire life. Kail watched his friend weigh the weapon on his palm until they were called forward, and then Renton closed his fist about the knife as though he thought it might try to escape. Thinking about Renton and the knife he held was easier for Kail than thinking about what they had ahead of them. With Renton having been given the knife, Kail and Drean would be the ones handling the body.
But handling a long-dead body wasn't the worst of it. It turned out that Kail, Renton, and Drean were stopped near the body of a child, one that couldn't have been more than twelve years of age. Kail thought it likely that he would be sick once he touched the body, but there was no smell to trigger the reflex. He and Drean got a good grip on the body, and then Renton reached up high to cut the rope.
But that wasn't all Renton did. He also began to cry as he reached to the rope, and by the time the body was cut down Kail and Drean were also crying. This body they held had once been an innocent child, someone who was now dead only because his family had had something the beasts of the empire wanted. Those beasts were no longer in control of the empire, but that didn't stop the child from being dead. Nothing would stop the child from being dead, and the tragedy of that tore at Kail's heart as he and Drean looked at the body they held.
By the time the cutting-down was done, all of the volunteers were sobbing. Three of the six bodies were those of children, and the other two had been younger than the one handled by Kail and his group. Two of the three adults were women, and that was almost as bad for Kail - and many of the others, apparently - as the children. All six bodies were carefully and gently laid out near the tree that had died because of the poisoned ground, and then the volunteers stepped back.
"Thank you," the older Astindan man said to them quietly from his place in front of the dozen or so Astindans who had gathered to watch the efforts. "You grieve for our dead almost as deeply as we do, and for that tribute to their memory we thank you. You may stay where you are until graves are dug for the bodies, and then you will be permitted to place the bodies in those graves."
The spokesman and the others then turned away to go back to the wagons, and Kail exchanged a surprised glance with Renton and Drean. From their expressions they'd believed the way Kail had, that the volunteers would also dig the graves. Kail had been fully prepared to do that back-breaking job, but instead he and the others just stood there and watched those who hadn't volunteered being ordered to the chore.
It took quite a while for the six graves to be dug. No one was allowed to use talent in the effort, just the spades that were handed out. Two people dug each grave at a time, and after a few minutes, when the diggers' backs and hands gave out, two more people were put in to replace them. Almost everyone from every wagon was given a turn - including that haughty woman Lady Froma - and then the job was finally done.
When Kail and the others were gestured forward, they lifted the bodies carefully and carried them to the graves. Two lengths of rope had been placed across each of the openings in the ground, and various Astindans came to hold the ends of the ropes as the bodies were placed in the middle. The three children and the smaller of the two women were put in the inner graves, the man and larger woman in the outer ones. The Astindans lowered each body slowly into its final resting place, everyone around the graves stood in silence for a few moments, and then the diggers were called back. They replaced the dirt in the graves in the same order that they'd used when digging, and again the effort took quite some time.
When all of the graves had been closed, Kail and the other volunteers were surprised by not being sent back to their various wagons. They were kept together instead, and assigned a wagon of their own. As they sat down on the side of the road near their n
ew wagon to wait for the bread and cheese of their lunch, Kail felt relieved that they were being kept separate from the others. All the others had been forced to dig, and most of them wept as they cradled aching hands. The rest glared at Kail's group, as though it had been their decision not to dig…
But being separated out from the others was odd. Kail spent some time wondering why it had been done, but then lunch was brought and his thoughts turned elsewhere…
Chapter 25
Honrita Grohl was certain that she glowed as she walked along the street. Two days ago she'd completed the first week of her training, and even then had felt as though she'd been at it for years. The experience was marvelous, delightful, electrifying, every positive description it was possible to lay tongue to, and tonight they would be starting the second week of training.
"Dama Grohl, please wait," Honrita heard, and she stopped and turned to see that girl from her class whose name she couldn't remember hurrying up. The girl looked at her with such awe that Honrita couldn't keep from smiling.
"What is it, child?" Honrita asked, only a hint of her impatience in tone and mind. "I'd like to get a cup of tea before we start the new training."
"I just wanted to say how wonderful I think you are," the girl burbled, following as Honrita resumed walking. "You're the best in our class, and the strength you've developed is an inspiration to us all."
"I suppose that's as it should be," Honrita allowed with a smile and a small inner laugh. She was the strongest in their class, and because of that was given the kind of respect she'd never before been accorded. She'd also taken to … practicing at work, and because of that effort was given praise and had gotten an increase in her wages. Her income was now no longer minimal, and once her training was done she would improve her lot even more.
"I can't wait to meet the new instructor," the girl burbled on as they walked. "Our original instructor was nice and he was really impressed with your progress, but he seemed kind of limited. Maybe the new instructor will have more to teach, and then you can impress him or her as well."