"Aha," Blays said. "On that count, might I suggest no?"
Dante shaded his eyes against the sun, examining the heights of the towers. "How will this process play out?"
"Like any process meant to get to the bottom of an issue," Ara said. "You'll tell the Seven who you are and what you're about. Then they'll question you until you're so sick of questions you'll spend the next five years ending every sentence with a period. Then we'll argue with each other until we've reached our decision."
A shadow fell over her face. "That's the process in theory. Like always, it's different in practice. As I hope you've figured out from the name, you'll be talking to seven people. But the truth is, three won't be listening. Not with an open mind. You'll have a pair of Boulders sitting in front of you."
"Boulders?" Dante said.
"Boulders are just like they sound: they're sitting in the exact same place they've always been in, and they won't budge from their spot even if you tied a team of swamp dragons to them. They're the preservers of our first ideals, and they'll never agree with what you're proposing. Their names are One and Five." Ara paced in front of them. "So if you want to win a judgment in your favor, you'll have to convince four of the remaining five lords of the towers to go your way. Sounds brutal, doesn't it?"
"Like trying to wrestle a bear. That you've just cuckolded."
"The good news is that of those five people—the five you have any hope of persuading—one of them is a River. Someone who's been pushing for change for a long time. His name's Seven and he'll support you in everything. That means you only need three of the other four. A little better for you. Unless you lose anyway, because your hopes will have been raised higher by it."
"That's a needlessly cruel way to put it. But I'm confused. You say there's two Boulders, one River, and four undecided. That's already seven people. Aren't you one of the Voices, too?"
Ara flashed her teeth again. "I am. And I haven't decided how I'll vote yet."
"Comforting. What are the state of your laws on the three matters we'll be discussing?"
"Our laws? What is a law?"
"The things people give to other people so that those people will be less inclined to be horrendous butchers toward each other."
"A law is a rule that was decided to be correct by a certain group of people at a certain point in time. Are those people here now? Is that time here now? I don't see those people. I don't see that time. I see my people, gathered at the current time, to determine what we believe."
"A truly enlightened state of affairs," Dante said. "How long do we have to prepare our arguments?"
Ara waved up at the seven towers. "Until I get the other six down here to hear you make them. Don't worry, it'll take a minute. Some of them are very old."
Before Dante could say another word, she strode toward the shrine in the inner ring of the plaza. There, she lifted a small mallet from the post it had been hanging from and used it to strike a bowl-shaped piece of brass that rang like the offspring of a bell and a gong.
Shouts carried down from the balconies. Most of the archers withdrew, replaced by people with the general bearing of trusted household staff. They leaned over the railings to look down on Ara. She swung back the mallet and struck the instrument again. At this, the staff dashed back inside. Ara replaced the mallet on the post and walked across the open-walled shrine to one of the seven seats that were arranged like a pincer beneath the structure's pitched roof.
"Well, this is unfolding rapidly," Blays said. "Suppose we should figure out what we're going to say?"
"You're not going to say much." Dante turned a stern look on Gladdic. "And you aren't going to say anything. Not unless you can refrain from calling the person you're speaking to a 'bitch,' or threatening to cut off their digits with a dull stone, or any of the other pleasantries you spit out the instant things aren't going your way."
Gladdic's mouth twitched. "Threats are often more convincing than rhetoric or facts. I will do what is necessary to secure our goals."
"You will do what is necessary to not make me punch your jaw out the top of your head. This could be our last shot, Gladdic."
"Then see that you do not fail, and require me to correct our course for us."
Dante curled his hand into something not far from a fist. "I have run my country for years. I've forged treaties. Alliances. I know when to extend an open hand and when to draw the dagger. You, on the other hand, solve your problems by murdering anyone you don't like. Before we begin, swear you'll follow my lead."
The old man smirked. "You suppose your efforts to control those around you are more moral because there are times when you don't employ violence? Yet how many have died in your wars?"
"My wars were fought to free people, not to enslave them to—"
A door boomed open from another tower. A tall man in a white, airy robe similar to Ara's plodded down the steps, surrounded by a small coterie of attendants. Like Ara, he was tall, with muscles more suited to swinging an axe than to poring over scholarship, but he was well into his middle age and bore a baker's layer of fat. He eyed the foreigners with naked suspicion, head swiveling to keep watch on them as he approached the shrine.
As he settled into his chair at one end of the pincer, another tower opened, disgorging a man with the lean build of a racing hound. He was about forty and he was nearly bald, sporting a tuft of black hair at the front of his forehead and not much else at the top. He glanced at the three foreigners with curiosity, then smiled quickly but warmly.
The next Voice to arrive was a woman whose wide shoulders and thick body were stout enough to house a small family. She gave them a look that was nearly as cold as the icy blue gaze of the lich, mounting the steps with the implacability of a draft animal.
"I don't like these people," Volo whispered once the woman was seated. "They look like they say mean things to babies knowing that the babies won't understand them."
The remainder of the council arrived shortly, consisting of four men and three women in all. Two of them were old enough to require assistance up to their seats. Two staff members appeared next to the outsiders, and through a process that was almost entirely nonverbal, indicated that they should step before the Seven Voices. As the servants guided them to their place between the two points of the pincer of chairs, they kept a twitchy distance, as if afraid the foreigners' leprotic arms were about to drop from their bodies.
"Voices of the Silent Spires," Ara said. "We have an unusual matter before us. One that I suspect we're going to have to spend an immense amount of words to untangle. First things first, let's make some introductions. We're going to know each other very well before this is over."
She introduced the outsiders, including Volo, then moved on to the Voices. Dante made special note of the Boulders, One and Five—the axe-swinger and the shelter-sized woman, respectively—and the River, Seven, the balding man who'd been the only one to smile at them.
"I'll summarize the situation to the best of my understanding," Ara continued. "With the aid of the rebels of the Righteous Monsoon, the Eiden Rane has reemerged from the deep swamps. The Drakebane tried to stop him. The Drakebane failed at this, and put into play the Exodus, abandoning Tanar Atain to the lich and his servants. We know this. There aren't any surprises there.
"What is a surprise is that these four people—including no less than three hari sorcerers—have kept fighting back. They faced the Eiden Rane at the Wound of the World. They didn't win a complete victory, but they did survive the battle against him, which would be counted as a win by most people who know what they're talking about. After this, they proceeded to do something impossible. Something we've failed to do for centuries. They found the prime body."
The other six Voices shifted in their chairs, scoffing and muttering to each other. Ara shrugged, waiting for them to simmer down. "If you can't believe it, that's probably because your ego doesn't want to accept that a team of degenerate foreigners have done what we couldn't. It doesn't help o
ur pride that these hari were trying to save Tanar Atain while our own emperor was ducking out of here like the sun was about to drop on his head. It makes you wonder why we ever agreed to such a plan."
"We didn't agree," said One, pressing his fingertips together and leaning forward. "We were told. And we obeyed, as is our duty. Now quit sermonizing and get back to the point."
"The point? The point is that these hari, in all defiance of self-preservation, want to take a third shot at the lich. But they need Odo Sein to strip him of his powers while they strike at the prime body. When they learned that none of us can leave and help them, they came up with an alternative plan: that we should train them as knights, so they can confront the Eiden Rane themselves."
If her earlier words had caused a stir, these ones unleashed a storm. Again, Ara waited for it to grow quiet enough to be heard. "Do you want to sit here all day puffing on about how outraged you are, and how important it is for all good people to be exactly the same amount of outraged or be branded a traitor? Or do you want to talk through whether we should be outraged?"
"You're putting the stern before the bow," One said. "The first thing to decide isn't whether to train them to be Odo Sein. It's to decide if we should feed their guts to our gardens!"
"Do you think I'm so dumb that I've forgotten that I live in this place that I've never left? If you want to ask them why we shouldn't kill them, they're standing right in front of you. Interrogating them is your job."
One shifted his bulk to better glare at Dante. "What's there to ask? Outsiders who trespass in the Silent Spires are to be executed. Are you an outsider?"
"Is this question rhetorical?" Dante said.
"It's a good way to find out if you're lying or delusional."
"Yes, I'm an outsider."
"And were you invited here?"
"I think that, given the circumstances of—"
One flapped his hand like a yapping mouth. "Is that hari babble for 'yes'? Or do you think that trying to wriggle away like a greased eel makes you more trustworthy?"
"No," Dante said. "We came here on our own. Because—"
"There you have it. They're outsiders. They came without permission. Hence they've forfeited their heads. Now where is my sword?"
Dante looked to Ara for support, but she'd taken a seat and was watching them with bland interest. To his right, a guard drew his sword, looking uncertain, but his confidence was bolstered when four other guards unsheathed their blades too.
Seven, the balding man, cleared his throat. "We've always held that, yes, trespassers are to be executed. It's just good policy. Can't have the wrong people sniffing around our secrets. But it occurs to me to ask: have we ever had a trespasser?"
One's face grew stony. Five pressed her lips together until they disappeared.
Ara said, "They've tried, haven't they? The gold marks where they fell are scattered over the Hills like spilled grains of rice. But has anyone ever made it here? No. Not a single one."
"Then it would follow," Seven said, gesticulating tightly, fingers splayed as if he were working a skein of threads, "that we've never had to—rather, had the chance to—test our tradition. To bring it from the clean room of the mind to the grimy grounds of the real."
One snorted. "That's the most obnoxious thing I've ever heard!"
"If it offends you, feel free to rephrase it in a way that's less upsetting to your tender ears."
"There's nothing to be tested," Five rumbled. She had a streak of gray running back from her right temple. "The Knights of the Odo Sein are the land's only defense against the Eiden Rane. The Silent Spires is the institution tasked with the grave responsibility of replacing those knights. Anyone who compromises our security, and our ability to save our citizens from annihilation, must be destroyed."
"That would be challenging to argue with indeed," Seven said. "But now that the Drakebane's gone, are we still the same institution? Now that we're not training more knights, what are we? If our responsibilities have ended, what's left for these outsiders to threaten?"
Five thrust out her jaw. "We don't know that we won't be needed again."
"This is all irrelevant, isn't it?" Dante gestured southeast, back toward the unseen swamps. "We're not here to compromise your security. We're here to fight the same thing you are. What do you have to lose by teaching us the power of the Odo Sein?"
"It's very simple," One said. "Our principles."
Blays rubbed his jaw. "I don't think he knows that word, good sir. You might want to try something along the lines of 'the ruthless pursuit of your goals.'"
Dante shot him a look. "Exactly what principle is at stake here?"
"The tradition of the Spires. Our loyalty to the emperor. Our pledge to our people to never let foreign powers influence our protection of Tanar Atain. Take your pick."
"Is any of those principles more important than not being consumed by the lich?"
Six, who looked to be the oldest man among the Voices, cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, but have we decided not to kill them? Or did I nod off during that part?"
One crossed his arms over his broad chest. "If that's a call to vote, then mine is for death."
Blays rolled his eyes. "Great thinking. Let's get those heads rolling. I'm sure that the next outsiders who march into the Spires will be another group of friendly and extremely effective allies, and not the White Lich looking to feed you to his troop of enraged zombies."
"My vote is for life," Seven put in.
One scowled. "The tradition is as clear as the air in front of your face. Foreign intruders get introduced to Tanarian steel. How in the bottomless waters can you deny that?"
"Since arriving, they haven't caused any trouble. They spoke with Three peacefully enough, and whatever they had to say impressed her enough to induce her to summon an Argument. It seems to me that the obvious interpretation of the tradition is that we're to kill foreigners who come here to harm us. What sense would it make to execute those who come to help? If a foreigner came to us to guarantee that he could kill the Eiden Rane, and all he needed was a single speck of dust from the Spires, would we still execute him, because tradition can't be violated no matter what?"
Ara glanced across the pincer of chairs. "Who wants to let them live?"
Seven raised his hand. So did Two, then Six, then Ara herself, followed by Four.
"I count five." Ara stared at One. "Unless you've got four extra arms hidden in your pockets, you lose."
One shook his head in disgust. "Get this over with before my lunch escapes my throat."
"So that you all understand." Six jabbed his bony finger at the foreigners. "Anyone else had come and wandered in here from the Hills, and I'd be cheering as the servants swabbed the blood from this shrine. But these aren't normal times. That's why I'll listen to what comes next."
"This is exactly what I was talking about before your vote," Dante said. "This is an extreme time. The White Lich has escaped his confinement. There's no one else left to stand against him. During times of peace, there's nothing more important than principles. But in times of extremes, when whole futures hang in the balance, the normal rules break down. It's what you do when your principles fail that defines who you are—and whether you survive or fall."
Five chuckled. "Do better, Sir Galand."
"Excuse me?"
"You think you're speaking reason. But you're speaking about emotions. Why we should let our fear of what's out there change what we do in here."
"Aren't you afraid?"
"Don't see how that matters."
"Answer the question and I'll tell you."
"Sure I am," she said. "Anyone who isn't afraid of the Eiden Rane is so stupid they wouldn't even notice when the Blight stole the rest of their minds away."
"You've always been able to stick to your principles because the Spires have always been protected from the outside world. But your insulation's about to be ripped away from you. You're afraid because for once, you can be hurt."
Five sank back in her chair, glaring hard. But he thought he saw doubt in her eyes.
One cursed. "We're way off course here. We've always chosen our recruits. What we should be talking about is how it's wrong to train any random person who comes to us."
Seven cocked his head. "I don't understand why that would be so."
"We can't trust them. They might have hidden motives. They might be infiltrating us to do us harm. There are reasons we seek out our own talent."
"And do you think we find all of the talent that's available?"
"More than enough!"
"I'll make this quick," Ara said. "You might not know our history, One, but I know it and I know it well. Ever hear of Fadan the Cleaver? He came uninvited to the Spires to become a knight. And it was a good thing he did, because if not for him, we would have lost the Second Battle of Dara Bode. Then there's Rika Marn. She turned out to be something-and-a-half. Less than a century after that, and we took in the Dalaw Brothers. I can keep going if you want. Or you can accept that if you have the talent, and swear to serve the Drakebane, the Spires have allowed any number of those who came to us to serve the emperor."
One tossed a glance at the foreigners. "None of those people you rattled off were hari."
"Are we talking about hari yet, One?"
He didn't look at her. "No."
"Then I call for another vote."
This time, it was four to three, with Four defecting to the other side. Dante didn't know what to make of the loss of one of their Voices, particularly when Ara's history of them doing exactly what they were voting on seemed so ironclad. He was suddenly aware of the gaping rift between the actuality of the Voices' personal opinions and his assumption that he'd be able to stroll in and talk them right to his side.
But these weren't half-drunk peasants in Narashtovik who would scramble to do anything he asked. They were an institution every bit as venerable as Narashtovik. One that was vital to the ongoing existence of Tanar Atain. They would have a deep culture of their own—and a will to match.
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