Dissension

by Cory Herndon

  Despite the diversity of the tribunal, Teysa was still concerned about the Grand Arbiter. She did not know him as well as she might have wished, Augustin had only been in his position for a few decades, replacing the wise and respected Lucian III after the latter succumbed to a long battle with Goff’s disease. The others had a say, but ultimately the Grand Arbiter would pronounce sentence on Teysa’s client. There was to be no jury at all, unless you counted the soulsworn. The rest of the Senate chambers were filled out with a few senior ministers and lords of both houses of the legislature—sworn to maintain silence—the bailiffs, the accused, a single clerk to transcribe for the archives, and of course the accused’s advokist. There would be no prosecutorial lawmage. For this unusual proceeding, the judges both would ask the questions and make the charges. Teysa’s job would be to respond as best she could. Fortunately, the baroness had reason to believe in her own ability to improvise.

  She stood in her most conservative advokist’s robes behind a long table, standing and facing the tribunal at Feather’s side. The bailiffs had released the angel from leg irons, but Feather’s wrists hung bound before her, and the heavy suppression rings around her wings still sapped much of her strength and power. Fortunately for her advokist, this also meant she was less likely to fly off the handle, literally or figuratively, while on the stand. Angels had famously fiery tempers. At Teysa’s right were Elbeph and Phleeb, two of the Grugg brothers who had long served as her assistants in the courtroom and in her everyday business dealings.

  The Grand Arbiter sat silently, his chin slumped to his chest and his eyeless face giving nothing away as he breathed slowly and steadily. He looked like a pale blue grandfather sleeping off a heavy afternoon meal. After almost a minute, he turned his sightless face to the angel. The Grand Arbiter considered her for another full minute.

  Teysa’s leg ached, but she kept her face set in a firm number six: I have deep respect for you, honored elder.

  Finally, when even the wojek commander-general was beginning to shift in his seat and the Living Saint Kel had given in to his instincts and flapped one ear at a persistent greenbite fly, the Grand Arbiter nodded to the chief bailiff, a pudgy man in silver dress armor. The bailiff huffed his way to the third step before the dais and slammed his ceremonial spear against the stone. His two lieutenants each followed suit.

  “This special tribunal is assembled!” the pudgy man boomed. He turned on his heel, set the spear to lean against his shoulder, and marched deliberately down the Senate steps with a great deal of pomp. When he reached the bottom, he snapped to attention and stayed there.

  “Be seated,” Augustin IV said. Teysa and Feather both took seats behind the table while the thrulls crouched. The Grand Arbiter’s voice was rich and gentle, in sharp contrast to his bloody reputation for ruthless sentences. He had come to power during the last Rakdos uprising and had ordered more executions because of that one event than any previous Grand Arbiter in guild history. Teysa had had the honor of arguing two cases before him in her career. Both times she had found him fair but difficult to predict and almost impossible to deceive.

  She was counting on that. For once, her strategy involved not even the formalized deceptions of her legal trade. Even Augustin would not be able to deny the truth from the mouth of an angel.

  “This hearing,” the Grand Arbiter continued, “is met and formally called to order. The senatorial stenographer will mark for the record that this tribunal has assembled in full accordance with the Guildpact and all related statutes and articles. Mark also for the record that Pierakor Az Vinrenn D’rav, angel of the Boros Legion, also known as Constable Feather of the League of Wojek, does stand accused of the following crimes. Bailiff, you will read the charges.”

  What followed was an almost note-for-note version of the charges that Teysa had already gotten from Feather in the interview cell. The chief bailiff finished the recitation of charges, rolled up two copies, handed one to the judges—the loxodon snapped it up and began to pore over it with a nearsighted squint—and one to Feather’s advokist. Teysa unfurled her copy and set it on the table before her.

  “Pierakor Az Vinrenn D’rav, angel of the Boros Legion,” the Grand Arbiter said, “you stand so accused. You will step into the verity circle to testify to your actions at this time, unless you refuse to do so. Do you refuse? This is your right but will be taken as an automatic confession of guilt.”

  The question was asked of Feather, but as protocol dictated Teysa replied first. “We do not refuse the offer to testify, your honor,” she said.

  “And do you wish to call additional witnesses to testify in this case? Now is the time to name them,” Augustin said.

  “No, your honor,” Teysa replied. “My client is the only available witness to the events that have resulted in these charges and therefore waives the right to witnesses now but does not forfeit that right should witnesses be required at a later time. I cite the case of—”

  “Yes, agreed,” the Grand Arbiter said. “No need for that. Legionary Pierakor, take a seat in the circle, if you please.” Feather walked into the circle, which had been placed between Teysa’s seat and the chief bailiff, and sat down on a simple stool. Her wings would have made a normal chair difficult. “Legionary, the crimes of which you stand accused are numerous and grave. You have chosen to act as your own witness, which presumes you are ultimately claiming innocence by way of circumstance. Once you choose to do so, you will give up the right to refuse to answer the questions of this tribunal or your own advokist. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, your honor, we understand,” Teysa said, and Feather nodded.

  “I understand,” she said.

  “Good,” the wojek commander-general said. “Your honor, I would request the honor of the first inquiry.”

  “That is your right,” the Grand Arbiter said. “She is of your guild. As yet.”

  Nodov pushed himself up from his seat and leaned forward on the lectern. “My first question pertains to the charges, Legionary,” he said, “and what the charges do and do not spell out for us. Where, in particular, did these events take place? Give us all some context.” He pointed a finger at Feather and demanded, “Where did the angels go?”

  For a long time, the only sound in the cavernous Senate chamber came from the spirits of the Azorius soulsworn, whispering in voices just out of the range of clarity. Even they fell silent when Feather began to speak.

  “With one exception, your honor,” she said, “it is my belief that the angels are all dead.”

  Fonn heard the song right before she woke up, just as she always did. The song was always the first thing to hit her conscious mind, before she was even aware she was conscious. Usually she found it a reassuring way to enter the waking world each day, like knowing immediately that you’re safe at home, even when you’re sleeping next to a wolf and a rained-out campfire on a road on the other side of the world.

  Strangely enough, that wasn’t too far off. Fonn blinked her eyes open against the afternoon sun. She sat in the middle of the road, slumped against a roadside milepost. With a start, she jumped unsteadily to her feet.

  They were gone. The Rakdos. Her wolf. The dromads. The scouts.

  Her son. Gone.

  Fonn took an unsteady step to keep her balance as panic gripped her, the world spinning around her head, and she almost slipped on a pool of blood. She turned around slowly. Don’t let it be his, she prayed. Please.

  It was neither Myc’s blood nor any of her other scouts’. But wherever her missing charges were, they were not riding dromads. The beasts had been slaughtered out of hand and scattered malevolently across the road. After she got over the initial sickening wave of nausea, she made out pieces of indisputable lupine body parts among the carnage and finally lost the battle and doubled over, sick and shaking with deep sobs. The Rakdos had torn Tharmoq to pieces as well. The only thing that kept Fonn from a complete nervous collapse was the equally indisputable lack of any human, elf, or centaur rem
ains.

  Her son was gone and needed her help. Nothing could bring Tharmoq or the dromads back, but Myc and the others might still be saved.

  She spun around in the bloody street, looking for any sign of the scouts or the Rakdos who had taken them. It was then that Fonn noticed the small crowd that had gathered around her. Some looked at her with horror, others with fear, but none apparently had possessed the fortitude or courage to come near her. Her person was still intact, her gear still in place, and her weapons—both hidden and apparent—remained.

  Fonn charged to the nearest shocked bystander, a plump woman she recognized from a fruit stall they’d passed not long before the smoke closed in and took her recruits.

  “You!” she shouted to the merchant woman. Fonn wobbled on unsteady legs, and the woman drew back. “What did you see? Where did they take them?”

  The woman stammered for a moment before her mouth formed actual words. “You’re alive,” the merchant finally gasped. “You’re not a—You’re so—You’re not a zombie, are you?”

  “What?” Fonn said and looked down at her clothes. They were soaked in blood, and her arms were similarly encrusted. She grimaced and felt dried gore flake off of her cheek. “Oh. Yes, I’m alive. I’m an officer of—No, I mean I’m a ledev guardian. Order of Mat’selesnya. They took my—They took my recruits. They’re just kids. Tell me you saw, which way they went. There were Rakdos. Thrill-killers.”

  “I just—I only saw a cloud, ma’am,” the woman finally managed. “Sir. Fog. It rolled in thick, then it moved in on you and all—all this—was all that was left.” She swallowed hard.

  “Look, I’m not going to hurt you. The cloud. The fog. Which way?”

  “It were Rakdos,” said another bystander, a large man wearing an eye patch and a blacksmith’s apron. “Bellavna, you’re too worked up to know what the Krokt you saw. Me, I remember it, centuriad. I’ve seen that fog before, so I have. Saw it the night all the kids went missing out near Chaurn. It’s a demon fog, they say. Only the Rakdos can call it.”

  “So none of you saw anything?” Fonn almost shrieked.

  A younger woman in a shopkeeper’s apron stepped forward. “I saw—I don’t know if this is important or not, but I saw rats. Lots of them. And my cat’s been missing for days.”

  “That’s true,” another bystander said, and several others chimed in agreement. Several pets were missing, and rats were showing up everywhere, the crowd agreed. An interesting connection to the case she had left in Lieutenant Pijha’s capable hands but not particularly relevant to her current crisis.

  Or was it? Rakdos was known by many other names. The Defiler. The Enslaver. The Demon-God. And, in more obscure histories, the Rat-King. Fonn filed that away for further consideration after she’d picked up the cultists’ trail.

  She forced herself to breathe steadily and regain some semblance of calm. The last thing Myc needed was for her to become hysterical. She focused instead on the song. Ever since he had been born, Fonn found she was able to effortlessly pick out that one strand of the eternal chord, that single note, which was the sound of her son’s living soul. And she heard it even now, lower in pitch. He was already some distance away.

  Somewhere, her son was alive. Fonn’s heart leaped as she latched onto that hope like a drowning man clutching a line.

  “Sorry, lady,” the blacksmith grumbled, “Just trying to help. You reckon you’re going to want all this meat? I only ask because—”

  Fonn had her sword in her hand and the blade at the man’s throat before he finished the “because.”

  “That isn’t meat,” she snarled.

  “Er, none of it?” the merchant woman asked. “The wolf, I imagine he’s pretty gamey, you know, but that dromad will feed my family for two weeks. Just one of ’em. If you don’t want ’em—”

  “Yeah,” said another, as the crowd began to see that she was just a lone woman and not some revenant come to devour them all. “Wolf meat is good for all kinds of conditions, you know, and it’s healthy besides. And the skull alone is worth …”

  The ledev dropped the point of her sword and stepped back unsteadily. They couldn’t help themselves. Like so many that lived in regions like this, they were practical about such things. But the thought of anyone, let alone these strangers, further desecrating the remains of Tharmoq or loyal dromads made her instantly furious. Almost murderously so. This was no good.

  Fonn shut out the sounds of the babbling bystanders, who were already closing in on the corpses and poking them with sticks, looking to take what they could. Scavengers.

  Scavengers were part of life. Even sentient scavengers. These people may not have been at the bottom of the social ladder, but they couldn’t have been more than a rung or two up. Fonn could not bring the wolf back, or the dromads, but somewhere out there her son was alive. Let these deaths serve some purpose, even if there was no way these strangers could appreciate the sacrifice.

  She closed her eyes and shut out everything except the song, and latched onto Myc’s single note. Slowly, she turned herself around in a circle, and as she did the note altered its pitch. When she turned to the north or south it sounded pretty much the same. When she faced east, toward Utvara, it was lowest. Facing west, the pitch was highest.

  West, the way they had come. The Rakdos were taking the scouts—Myc, at least, and she had to assume the others were with him since their bodies weren’t scattered about with the dromads—right back to the city.

  More than two hundred miles, with no mount. There was no telling how quickly the Rakdos could really move. It was clear that their leisurely caravan had been at least in part a ruse. She scanned the babbling crowd again but saw nothing more than a gaunt pair of oxen and a swaybacked dromad surrounded by a cloud of black flies.

  She could run for it, and if she picked up the trail, she might even catch up. But if transportation could meet her on the way there. …

  Fonn had no one else left she could turn to. It would only cost her some pride. He could meet her on the way there, and together they’d get Myc and the others back. He wouldn’t be able to refuse.

  She patted her chest, just below her chin, and felt the pendant still there. Fonn pulled it from her tunic and looked at the green and blue speechstone. Jarad had one much like it. They had exchanged them on the day Myczil Savo Zunich was born. They were incredibly expensive, and neither had used them since the divorce, but she still wore hers and knew Jarad still wore his, a direct line they agreed they would use only in an emergency, due to their limited duration. This certainly qualified.

  She pulled the blood-soaked glove from her remaining original hand and tapped the blue-green stone three times. On the final tap she added, “Jarad. It’s an emergency. I need your help. I’m at the Bargond shanty tower, east of the city. The big one, with the tunnel. My wolf is dead, Myc’s been taken.”

  The stone glowed bright green, and the Devkarin’s deep voice emerged tinny and remote from within. “I told you he was not ready to—”

  “Later, for Krokt’s sake!” Fonn snapped. “Rakdos took him.”

  “Why didn’t you say—”

  “Shut up. I’m getting to it! Rakdos took him, but he’s alive. I can hear him. They’re headed back to the Center, but I’m pretty sure they’re still on the road. We need to catch up to them, but I’m on foot. How soon can you meet me?”

  “I—Soon,” Jarad replied. “Just give me enough time to grab my sword. The guild can run itself for—How long do you think this will take?”

  “No telling. And we have to move fast,” Fonn said. “I’ll need my own ride. We can’t afford to weigh down one of yours. Find me on the road. I’m going to get as far as I can on foot before you arrive.”

  “Pivlic!” the goblin shouted. “Are you in there?”

  The imp heard the voice and recognized it, but it took a moment to place a name to it. Crix. No, the Izzet had a new name now. She’d already called ahead to tell the imp the good news via leylines. That h
ad been a few hours and a lifetime and a half of pain ago.

  Crix … Crixi … Crixizix. That was it. Pivlic had scheduled a meeting with her to go over her initial blueprints for the rebuilt Cauldron at—well, some point today. And it was day, his blurred vision told him, because torchlight wasn’t that bright.

  At the moment, he felt none too bright himself. Pivlic blinked blood out of his eyes and struggled to bring the room into focus. This proved difficult, as there was no longer a room as such.

  “Pivlic!” the goblin repeated, more urgently. “It’s Crixizix!” Yes, Crixizix. Good to know the old total recall was coming back intact, that ability was the butter on his bread. “Pivlic, talk to me!” Crixizix added. “Are you alive?”

  “Yes?” the imp tried to call, but his own voice sounded faint. It battled inside his ears with the distant sounds of monstrous roars and heavy footsteps that were still close enough to shake dust from the fallen pillar directly over his head every time they made landfall. The voice also had the imp’s heartbeat to contend with, which was pounding in his ears. “Yes!” he tried again, louder this time. “Here!”

  Pivlic found it was agonizingly hard to breathe, and it took the imp another second to figure out why. The pillar over his head had toppled toward him, he remembered that much, when the nephilim—“nephilim” the Gruul called them, yes, nephilim but enormous, gigantic nephilim—had turned on the township. Or maybe the dragon, another Krokt-forsaken dragon, had sent the pillar over with his tempest-spawning wings. Pivlic had been trying to retrieve the baroness’s most important documents before heading to his private zeppelid when the architecture had given way. The base of the pillar pinned his legs to the floor and compressed his lower abdomen in what should have been an incredibly painful way. Or would have been, he guessed, if he could actually feel anything below roughly the center of his chest.