Judge (Books of the Infinite Book #2)

by R. J. Larson

  Her heart aching, Ela watched a straggling flock of Parnians and several priests approach the temple. All these faithful ones looked so broken, despairing beneath their separate burdens of hunger and fear. An icy hand clutched Ela’s wrist. Prill.

  Her expression squeamish, the matron pleaded, “Promise me there’ll be no screaming heaps of ashes today.”

  “No screaming heaps of ashes today,” Ela agreed beneath her breath.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “You’re going on a little errand, but don’t worry. You’ll be perfectly safe.”

  “You’d best be right. But what about you?”

  As Ela tried to collect words to describe what was about to happen, Prill said, “Ela Roeh, if you die and I’m forced to tell your parents, I . . . I’m sure I’ll never forgive you!”

  “Yes, you will. And you might even miss me.” She pried her chaperone’s cold fingers from her wrist. “Now. I was serious about the errand. These people are about to speak to me. You’re going to lead them to the hidden courtyard and wait quietly. Nesac will arrive soon after. Then I’ll follow.” In one piece, she hoped.

  The first of Parne’s faithful reached the gate. An older man and his wife. He recognized Ela and gasped aloud. “Prophet! We’d heard you were dead!”

  Hmm. She could imagine who’d spread that little rumor. The others, perhaps eighty Parnian men, women, and children, gathered around her, eyes huge, as if seeing an apparition.

  Evidently perceiving that she was safe and well, they nudged each other, whispering. “She’s alive! Chacen was wrong!”

  Before they created an uproar, Ela lifted her hands. “Listen. This is important. My chaperone, Matron Prill, will lead you to a safe place. Don’t stop for anything and don’t talk to anyone. Just go with her. Be quiet, and trust the Infinite. Hurry!”

  She weakened a bit, watching them rush after Prill. If only she could go with them. But she had to be sure Ishvah Nesac wouldn’t be trapped while rescuing Parne’s Sacred Books.

  Closing her eyes, she breathed a prayer. Calm. This wouldn’t be too sickening, would it? Infinite?

  Look.

  Ela opened her eyes. A man descended from a nearby stairway, his pace slow as if pained, his shoulders stooped beneath the weight of his cloak. He started through the temple’s gate, glanced at her, then halted.

  Swallowing her nervousness, trying not to consider her death, Ela said, “Chacen.”

  Zade Chacen choked as if the air in his throat had become a solid lump. But even as he fought for breath, he clawed toward her, his expression murderous.

  Alert for any signs of daggers in her foe’s hands, Ela darted away. To the wall.

  Chacen followed.

  Catching her breath, Ela stared down at the fields beyond the wall. Belaal’s army spread before her in the dawnlight like an uneasy sea of dark tents and rippling sapphire and gold banners. Here was her vision brought to life. The seething cauldron poured out against Parne. Yet it was only the first wave. She glanced up at the sky. Almost time.

  A warning, like a tap on the shoulder, alerted her to Chacen’s approach. She turned and saw him ascend to the wall walk, one hand clasping the right side of his chest as if warring with hurts from his wounds.

  The former chief priest lumbered toward her, his dark eyes wild with hatred. His body might be weakened, but his voice, now recovered from the shock of seeing her, was sonorous as ever. Surely everyone in Parne and in the army below could hear him raving. “Traitor! My sons died! They had wives and children, yet you showed no pity!”

  Before the first pang of remorse could slash Ela with guilt, the Infinite sent her threads of emotion from the Chacens’ entire Atea-worshiping clan. All raged against her. And against the Infinite, because she’d obeyed and spoken the truth. Ela suppressed a shiver, focusing instead upon the Chacen patriarch.

  Why bother to hide her frustration with this grasping, rebellious, destructive man? He was the physical representation of Parne gone astray! Ela squared her shoulders. “I warned you and your sons! Remember what I said!” Deliberately, Ela rephrased her younger self—the scared girl-prophet voicing her very first prediction from the Infinite.

  “Your sons refused to even acknowledge the Infinite, yet you favored them over Him! Therefore, you were removed from your place of power. As a sign to you, your sons died on the same day during that terrible calamity. Your descendants will never be priests again, though they will beg for the lowest priestly office, asking for nothing but bread to eat!”

  He remembered. Hatred of the truth burned heat into his face, fire into his eyes. “How easily you curse us! You are not fit to—”

  “Easily?” How could he be so deluded? Ela cried, “Do you believe I delight in your agony and your eternal destruction? No!” Shards of pain sliced through her like fragments of the Infinite’s own broken heart. “Your Creator bleeds for you, Chacen! He weeps for you, and you reject Him! If you could comprehend an instant of His sorrow for you and your family, you’d never think those words! ‘Easily’—how dare you!”

  Rage shook her. “I’m leaving before I truly curse you now! Do you wish to test the Infinite’s prophet in wrath?” Ela hoped not. She didn’t want to learn what could happen.

  Leaving the silenced, still-furious Chacen, Ela stormed along the wall walk. She needed to calm herself. She looked again at the army below. Not that there was anything calming there. But Belaal was her second reason for visiting the wall.

  Praying the Infinite’s Spirit would strengthen her words, Ela lifted her voice once more. “Belaal! I am Ela Roeh, prophet of Parne! Our Creator, the Infinite, has allowed you to lay siege to His people as punishment for their rebellion! But unless you offer Him the honor He is due, this victory will be given to another king!”

  Ela paused, allowing her words to sink in to the army below. Men were hurrying from their tents, weapons readied. Raising her voice again, she cried to Belaal’s king, “Bel-Tygeon!” She watched him emerge from his blue royal pavilion, golden-robed, elegant and impressive, a hand on his sword, a scowl on his handsome face. Ela exhaled a prayer, willing Bel-Tygeon to take her seriously. “Listen to your Creator. You are not a god! Bow or He will bring you down! This is your first warning! If you fail to heed Him, the Infinite will punish you for your arrogance!”

  As Ela spoke, Zade Chacen crept toward her from the right. To shove her from the wall, she knew. He’d learned nothing. Despair weighing her very soul, she turned. “Chacen, do you think the Infinite hasn’t seen you?”

  Before Chacen was within arm’s reach, air blasted between them, throwing him back. The invisible current circled Ela, becoming a whirlwind, whipping her robes and mantle tight around her body. Remembering her vision, she stood still, begging in silence for composure.

  The whirlwind surrounded her completely, removing all other sounds. Blurring her senses. Dizzied, she shut her eyes.

  Just as nausea twisted her stomach and threatened to overwhelm her, the air calmed.

  Brain spinning, Ela opened her eyes, managed to focus, and saw Prill’s shocked face as the matron waited in the hidden courtyard.

  Infinite, don’t let me be sick on Prill!

  A wild clatter woke Kien from his first sound rest in a week’s travel. Eleven days until they reached Parne! Frowning, he looked around his tent. What had awakened him? The clatter resumed, shaking his tent’s central pole. Attacking the whole structure. Kien rolled from his cot.

  A shadow rushed along outside the tent, and someone muttered, “Hurry! Kill it!”

  Kill what? Kien swept his sword from its scabbard and ran outside.

  Siphran soldiers were flinging weighted nets at the tent’s crest. An errant woodpecker flitted from the central pole, too late to save itself from being enmeshed.

  “Breakfast!” one netter bellowed. He bowed as others roared approval.

  One bug-ridden bird had caused all this commotion? Kien laughed and shook his head. Then realized he was barefo
ot and wearing only an undertunic. Not naked, at least. Already the soldiers were snickering. Best to ease into his tent. Had half the camp seen him? He swept a glance around—scanning Akabe’s tent in particular.

  Yes, there was Akabe, properly dressed and laughing at him. However, Akabe’s nearest servant wasn’t laughing. Indeed, the man hadn’t noticed Kien’s inappropriate attire. His attention was fixed on the king. Kien frowned. Actually, he’d never seen this particular servant before. Odd. The man’s uniform fit him poorly. . . .

  A blade flashed from beneath the servant’s long sleeve.

  “Infinite! No!” Wielding his Azurnite sword in a two-handed grip, Kien raced toward Akabe’s would-be assassin.

  26

  Kien charged Akabe’s attacker, rage deepening his bellow. “Save the king!”

  Eyes widening, Akabe turned just as his intended killer slashed toward him. The blade stuck, angled behind Akabe’s right shoulder. The young king yelled and knocked aside the assailant’s wrist with his forearm.

  Before the man could produce another weapon, Kien shifted his sword to the left and flung his right arm around the criminal’s throat, tightening the hold with all his might. The impact threw him to the ground with the assailant, who fell against the Azurnite blade. A garbled scream told Kien the man could still breathe. He cinched his right arm tighter and anchored the miscreant to the ground with his own weight.

  Just as Akabe’s laggard bodyguards fell on them.

  Crushed, smothering, and hit with punches and kicks from every direction, Kien yelled, “Ow! Grab him! Help the king!”

  From a distance, Akabe bellowed, “Don’t kill him!”

  Don’t kill who? The rescuer or the assailant? Kien gulped for air, then coughed at the taste of blood. He was trapped beneath the brawl, unable to move, and afraid to release his hold on Akabe’s attacker. The man wheezed hoarse threats and clawed shreds of pain into Kien’s bare forearm.

  Someone roared in Kien’s ear, “We’ve got him, sir! Let go!”

  Ears ringing, Kien released his captive, and the bodyguards dragged them apart. The Azurnite sword escaped Kien’s numbed left hand as he was hauled away. “Stop!”

  Three bodyguards, pummeling the failed assassin, froze. “Not you,” Kien told them. “The ones holding me.” He twisted to glare up at two fight-riled soldiers. “Unhand me now.”

  They dropped him. Every fresh bruise on his beaten body screamed. Kien gritted his teeth. He couldn’t very well snarl at them for obeying him, could he? He staggered to his feet and bent slightly to test a deep breath. Good. No broken ribs, just bruises. But blood splashed down the front of his undertunic. Crimson splotches on white. A bashed nose. And likely—from the grinding stabs in his feet—broken toes. Kien scowled and retrieved his sword. Blood oozed from the flesh-shredded scratches on his forearm. He hoped the assassin hadn’t loaded his fingernails with poison.

  But what about the knife blade he’d used on Akabe? Horrific thought. Sword in hand, Kien faced the bodyguards who’d dropped him. “The king! Is he well?”

  A call echoed from Akabe’s royal tent. “Bring His Majesty to the king!”

  Kien hesitated. “Who?”

  The bodyguards answered Kien’s question by gripping his arms. Supportive now. “Majesty, are you well? You’ve blood everywhere. The king will be alarmed.”

  Majesty. Wonderful. More than a month of politely arguing with the entire Siphran court had accomplished nothing. He had to break Akabe’s people of their insistence upon calling him Majesty as well as referring to him as the other king.

  Tsir Aun, current prime minister of Istgard, might misunderstand if he heard that Kien was being addressed as Istgard’s uncrowned sovereign. Bad for international relations.

  The bodyguards jostled Kien, evidently concerned. “Majesty?”

  Forcing himself to sound courteous, Kien said, “Do not call me that! I am Kien Lantec, special envoy from the Tracelands, and a judge-advocate. Either designation will suffice.”

  “Yes, um . . . sir.” The man hesitated. “But are you well?”

  “Yes, thank you. And thanks to the Infinite. Please unhand me. I’m capable of walking on my own.” Or limping, at least. Yet it would be rude of him to point out that the bodyguards had inflicted most of his injuries. Blood dripped steadily from his nose. Was it broken, not merely bashed? Perhaps Ela wouldn’t mind his altered profile. Actually, she’d be appalled and quite sympathetic. Liable to fuss over him. He smiled at the thought.

  The king’s fightmaster, Lorteus, stood guard at the entry to the royal tent. He surveyed Kien from head to toe, clearly hiding a grin. Lorteus bowed his ugly head to Kien, then warned, “Do not think you are excused from practice today, sir. Even now, bloodied and injured, you can fight!”

  Cheering beast of a fightmaster.

  Kien entered Akabe’s pavilion and halted. Akabe was seated on an x-framed chair in the midst of the oversized tent, his big hands on his knees, his feet braced on the floor. The splendid red tunic hung in shreds around him, evidently cut away by his surgeon, who was now dabbing at the wound with a drenched, blood-tinged cloth. The pavilion reeked of sharp-scented medications. Akabe grimaced as the surgeon splashed more liquid on the gash. At Akabe’s worktable, a clerk poured thick blood-red liquid onto a parchment. Jolted by the sight, Kien reminded himself that all official documents were sealed with Akabe’s signature dark red wax.

  Too worried to offer formal greetings, Kien asked, “Was the blade poisoned?”

  Akabe shot him a sidelong look. “Trust you to consider a worse possibility, my friend.” He glanced over his shoulder at his military surgeon. “Well, Riddig? Am I poisoned?”

  While arranging a series of delicate tools, the surgeon tilted his silvered head, birdlike, contemplating the damage. “It appears a clean wound, sire, more aligned beneath the skin than piercing the muscle. Therefore, if you are poisoned, which I doubt, it will likely be treatable. Odd angled wound, and a lucky one.”

  “A blessed one,” Akabe corrected kindly. “The Infinite and my friend protected me.” He nodded to Kien. “I say you have received more injuries than I, Majesty.”

  “Respectfully, please, don’t call me Majesty.”

  Akabe’s mouth tightened briefly as the surgeon jabbed him, suturing the wound. Between stitches, Siphra’s ruler said, “What you wish . . . does not signify with . . . my people. Now that . . . your heritage is known . . . in their thoughts . . . you are a king. Nevertheless . . .” He took a deep breath, then exhaled as the surgeon paused. “If you forbid us to address you so, then you need an official Siphran title.” Eyeing his hovering advisors, Akabe asked, “Suggestions?”

  One of the graybeards snatched a document from the heap on Akabe’s worktable. “Aeyrievale has just brought a petition requesting Your Majesty’s personal selection of their next lord.”

  Title? Lord? They were serious! Kien snapped, “No!”

  “Aeyrievale.” A second graybeard nodded. “Perfect! The income is appropriate to—”

  The king of Siphra flexed his hands, then removed one of his rings and tossed it to his clerk. “Approved, chosen, and commanded. Sign and seal the document.”

  Summoning absolute sternness, Kien said, “No. I’m a Tracelander, not a Siphran! It’s inappropriate for me to hold any sort of title!”

  “Might I also declare him Siphran?” Akabe asked his advisors, who hovered over the petition, scribbling on it. “A dual citizenship?”

  “Certainly, sire,” graybeard number one assured Akabe while pouring a blood-red pool onto the document and pressing Akabe’s signet into the liquid. “We’ll see to it immediately.”

  Were they trying to be irksome, disregarding his protests? “With all respect, sirs, I refuse the title.”

  Akabe grinned at him. “Impossible. Your name was signed with my seal added. The document cannot be unsealed.”

  “It’s done?” Kien stared. “That’s ludicrous! What sort of government conducts business so swif
tly?”

  “An efficient one,” the graybeard muttered. “With much catching up to do.”

  “Undo it!” Kien commanded. “I’ve refused the title. Doesn’t that count for something?” In desperation, he said, “Burn the document.”

  Graybeard’s eyes widened, alarmed. “Majesty, uh, my lord, tampering with the royal seal is a criminal offense, punished by death.”

  “I’ll burn it,” Kien offered. Then he would run for his life.

  While the clerks hastily locked the document in a wooden chest, Akabe spoke to Kien. “You’re injured and too distraught to think calmly. Don’t worry, my friend. Aeyrievale, from what I’ve heard, is not all gold and joy. Aeryon nests fill its most remote areas, and you’re obligated to clear at least a few of the beasts using your own resources. They tend to prey upon your subjects and their animals.”

  Aeryon hunting? Well, he’d enjoy the chance to take down one of those golden monster-bird, feline-tailed raptors. What a trophy to . . . No. What was he thinking? The Tracelands was his concern, not Aeyrievale. Kien growled, “There must be some way I can set aside this title.”

  “Short of killing me, you cannot. It’s a royal bequest. An honor.” Siphra’s king motioned to his surgeon. “You’re finished stitching me? Good. Work on my noble friend. He’s out of his mind with pain. Meanwhile, where is my misguided assailant? If he’s still alive, we must interrogate him.”

  Following the trail of a vision, Ela lifted the lamp higher, watching its flame sway amid the tunnel’s darkness. Beside her, Father smiled in the fragile, flickering light. “There is a definite current of air flowing from here. Are you sure about this, Ela?”

  “Very sure. This tunnel is what I saw in my vision. For everyone’s sake, we must find a way to escape Parne without going through the city.” Everyone’s sake but her own. Shoving aside her fears, she studied the nearest wall. Golden handlike formations of crystals glinted at her in the darkness. Beautiful crystals. “Father? Have you seen these?”