Flame's Shadow

by Anna Eluvae

  "It's all a show," said Lexari. He stood beside Dravus, watching from the window of a building. Wenaru was not yet part of the proceedings, though he would be made to sit in a chair on the stage before too long. "The verdict has already been determined."

  "Are you thinking of mounting a rescue?" asked Dravus. He hoped that the answer was no, and if it was yes, he hoped that Lexari wouldn't ask for material aid in that mad quest.

  "What I mean is that the verdict will be 'not guilty'," said Lexari. "That letter was too effective for them to ignore it entirely. They could try to shape the story in a way that better suits them, but there are easier paths to accomplish their goals. The trial is not about the truth of what happened at Amare's Theater. It's not about who killed Kendrick Eversong. This is a trial which has been designed to manufacture legitimacy for this parliamentary system."

  "How much of that is guesswork?" asked Dravus. "What are you going to do if the trial turns ugly and they decide to execute him?"

  "Words have been exchanged. I've heard those words secondhand," said Lexari. "The Council has gotten what they wanted from the queen. They have no desire to turn their back on the agreement that we helped to hammer out." Lexari let out a long breath. "No, they'll not risk trying to kill him, especially given that they know it would provoke a reaction from me. Instead, they'll simply use the platform to give speeches. Speeches about the Peddler's War, and the ways that the queen has failed the country. Speeches about how the Parliament is a good and necessary measure to ensure that proper governance takes place. Wenaru's name will be dragged through the mud, over and over again, until he's left weeping. In the end, they'll declare that he's not guilty of this crime in particular, but of others, for which he was already pardoned. It will show that they are fair." He spat the final word.

  Dravus watched the men down below. They wore different shades of black, and most gave the impression of having dressed up in their finest clothing for this occasion.

  "Have you read their pamphlets?" asked Lexari.

  Dravus shook his head.

  "They claim that their numbers will prevent the tyranny of the illustrati from happening," said Lexari. "Obvious nonsense, of course. This trial has a judge, whose name will be heard far and wide. Fame gives power, but power also gives fame, and no man with a role so large could remain without standing for long. The constitution also allows for leaders within the factions, and it's natural that they will gain a significant amount of standing from that, assuming that they have some role in governance."

  "They can hide their power," said Dravus. "There's no reason for anyone to know that they're illustrati. If people don't want the illustrati to rule, better to pretend at not being one."

  "I could kill them all right now," said Lexari. He looked down at his hand and clenched it into a fist. "I wouldn't, of course. It would be immoral, unethical, illegal, and unwise. Yet a man can't help but think such thoughts when he sees an injustice brewing like this. It's part of why they're doing this, of course. I have enough hope that I imagine some of those men to be good. They might see the power we hold, and see that it's sometimes misused. And they're foolish enough to think that this is the answer."

  Dravus looked at the crowds. He wasn't actually certain that Lexari could kill them all. He was fast and strong, and surely wouldn't have been in much danger, but a crowd of people could scatter quickly. In Genthric, his group of friends would scatter whenever there was serious trouble with the guards, and most of the time the guards were forced to choose a single target for pursuit. Lexari was fast, but it would take him some time to dispatch the ministers one by one.

  "Do you ever think of not being an illustrati?" asked Dravus.

  Lexari turned slowly and studied Dravus carefully. "I have always endeavored to keep my standing as high as possible. I know of nothing that would cause it to vanish."

  "No," said Dravus, "I meant … do you ever think that perhaps you might be happier if you weren't an illustrati?"

  "There are burdens that come with our position, certainly. Yet I have never thought to myself that I would give up any of it," said Lexari. "Wenaru has often asked the same question. Fame is less pleasant for him. If something were to happen to me, I believe he might go back into hiding, where he was when we found each other. The world would be deprived of his healing powers." He waved his hand towards the proceedings below them. "As the world sometimes seems intent on doing anyway, by his will or not."

  There was some commotion from the crowds as Wenaru was brought forward. He was in manacles that Dravus was sure could be broken with not too much effort. The manacles were secured to two poles with hinges on them, so that his captors wouldn't have to touch him as they marched him forward. There were shouts from the crowd, screams echoed around the empty air, but the ministers had put on calm faces. When Wenaru reached the crude stage they'd made for the trial, a chain was threaded through the manacles to ensure that he could not leave the trial until its conclusion.

  "Wenaru Mottram," a loud voice called out. The judge was sitting behind a podium. His name had been said, but Dravus had forgotten it quickly afterward. The man would be a minor illustrati within the next few days, and Dravus wondered what his domain would be. "You stand accused of the murder of Kendrick Eversong, the vaunted Blood Bard, loyal citizen of the realm. How do you plead?"

  "Not guilty," said Wenaru, so softly that it was difficult to hear.

  "He says not guilty!" called the judge. "Let the record show."

  The beginning of the trial was marked by medical personnel. Meriwall had two coroners, and both had inspected Kendrick's body several days after the duel, when it seemed that an agreement would be arrived at. Both men gave official statements of explanation which posited that Kendrick's injuries were more consistent with a surge of blood than any manipulation of the flesh. The crowds murmured at that, but Dravus gathered that no one cared all that much.

  Witnesses were brought forth to speak on Kendrick's behalf, including (to Dravus's mild surprise) Nemm. She came to the stand wearing her suit of glass armor, made a small bow to Wenaru, and answered every probing question put toward her.

  "Kendrick cared about his country," said Nemm. "He cared about its people. Perhaps a little too much. He would have torn himself apart if he had thought that this was what was best for Torland."

  "You spoke with him, despite the things he had said about you?" asked the judge.

  "I did," replied Nemm.

  "And you harbored no ill will towards him?" the judge asked.

  "Of course I did," said Nemm. "But I harbor ill will towards many people. I have enemies, as one might expect of someone in my position."

  "Do you believe that Wenaru Mottram harbored ill will towards Kendrick Eversong?" asked the judge.

  "No," said Nemm. "I never saw Wenaru express hatred or even dislike towards the man. He was fearful and saddened, but never hostile."

  The judge nodded along. "And what is it you suppose happened on the day of the duel?"

  "Kendrick saw an opportunity to do something for his country," said Nemm. "He had lived within the world of stories for too long, and the world of stories is a world of lies, as I well know. He thought that if he sacrificed himself his death might serve as a call to action for the people, and so, in the moment that Kendrick and Wenaru touched each other, Kendrick took his own life."

  Lexari watched this with a frown. "You won't be called forward," he said. "Don't worry about that. Even though you were a central figure. They wanted someone pliant, someone they could rely on to craft a narrative." He turned to look at Dravus. "You're not that person, not yet. I hope that you never will be."

  The judge was in a side conference with a minister, and Nemm waited patiently for him. "They're going to ask her about the letter," said Dravus. "They'll have to probe."

  "No," said Lexari. "As I told you, this was a sham. The trial is not about the act itself; it is about securing the currently tentative pillars of power. Kendrick's letter reflects
poorly on the Council, which means it reflects poorly on the Parliament. It won't be brought up again, and everyone will eventually forget about it. This is how peace happens. We store our weapons away in caches, and watch the other party do the same, never quite trusting each other."

  "They're going to say that Kendrick did it all by himself?" asked Dravus.

  Lexari nodded. "They need him to seem slightly unhinged. Acting all alone. No matter that he was their vanguard, or that he was central to their plots. That letter can be best explained as a moment of paranoia, but I would wager you won't hear it brought up at this trial at all. That's the sort of thing that gets circulated later on, unofficially. Kendrick was trying to do the best for his country, but he failed it in some crucial way with a deception that was his entirely. He's both martyr and scapegoat." He sighed. "I will be glad when our time in Torland is over."

  Dravus nodded, though the thought of going to another country to have some new adventure now seemed utterly draining to him. "Where are we going?"

  "I would have thought Nemm would have told you," said Lexari. "We're going to the Iron Kingdom."

  * * *

  The second day of the trial was the worst. Wenaru had sat in the mild sun on the first day, trying not to chafe at the manacles on his wrists, and trying not to hear the lies that were being told.

  He turned his thoughts towards biology, which was always a comfort to him, not only the tissues that he could control through his domain, but the entire majesty of the interlocking systems that made a body work. There was a tendency, even in his own writings, to see the human organism in the abstract, but it was more complex than that. If Wenaru looked at the creases on his knuckles, he had to wonder at the mechanisms by which those were formed. Skin was not like paper; it showed no crease from being folded. Skin would return to a given shape moments after it had been stretched, pinched, or pulled. The crease existed in order to give the skin of the knuckles room to stretch out. Yet how did the body know that such a thing was needed? It was a fine question to distract oneself with, because the answer nearly seemed as though it could be divined from base principles. There were experiments that could be run, of course. Wenaru couldn't recall whether babies had that same crease, but it wouldn't be too difficult to find out. He began constructing an experimental method in his head, and that kept him from listening too closely to the witnesses that were brought against him. (Lies spilled from the mouths of the coroners; Wenaru had studied the decomposition of corpses enough to know that little useful information could obtained from them so many days after the fact, especially relating to matters of the soft tissues.)

  But on the second day of the trial, biology offered no escape for him. It was precisely the study of biology that was at issue; they were making a haphazard review of his life's work.

  "I was fed the flesh of my friends," said a witness. He was supposed to be addressing the crowd, but he had eyes for only Wenaru. "Meat from their forearms. I refused, in the beginning. They tried to force the food down my mouth, but I clamped my jaw closed tight. The Red Angel came in and discussed the issue with one of his nurses, right in front of me. He needed a way to control me. He wanted to know what would happen, when one man ate another. Some of us were fed meat without knowing where it came from. Some of us were fed our own bodies, piece by piece. Every variation had to go into the ledgers. In the end, the Red Angel simply touched my face and willed my mouth to open, and I was made to choke down the meat of a man I'd fought beside." He spat to the side. "Fought beside on the orders of the queen."

  Wenaru didn't remember the man's face. The hospital he'd conducted his experiments in had been large. Perhaps that one consultation had been the only time that the two of them had met. Most of the men who had been part of those trials had been vivisected; it was possible that this man was only telling a story that he'd heard secondhand.

  "And for this crime," said the judge. "Wenaru Mottram received a pardon. Thank you for sharing." The witness nodded, and stepped down. "At question in this trial is not whether Wenaru Mottram committed crimes against the people of Torland. We are well aware of these crimes, and they are uncontested. We have no power to remove the pardon which the queen has granted, only the power to give a veto towards future pardons which are contrary to the dignity of the people of Torland."

  There were more witnesses to come. A man who walked on crutches spoke about the amputation that had been performed on him, and nothing was said about how that experiment had led to better surgical practices in the Iron Kingdom and beyond. A woman talked about how her twin sister had been made insensate by surgery done upon her brain. An old man gave a long speech about how his son had vanished into the hospital entirely; no record had ever been found. The Iron Kingdom had not seemed to care too much, and the Flower Queen had never responded to a petition on the matter. The old man looked at Wenaru with rheumy eyes and asked after his son, but the name was foreign to Wenaru. Many people had gone through the hospital, some only briefly.

  Wenaru wouldn't have done those experiments again. Yet how could everyone be so blind as to the good that he had accomplished? It would be one thing for them to say that the cost in humans lives was too high to justify what had been learned, a point which could be debated, but they seemed to treat the experiments as base torture with no purpose at all. This was simply not the case. Lexari had coached him not to say such things out loud.

  "In the matter of the death of Kendrick Eversong," said the judge. "How do we find Wenaru Mottram?"

  The ministers replied, "Not guilty," with a grumble of discontent in the matter, and Wenaru let out a slow breath. It had been as Lexari said, and he was thankful for that. He was certain that without Lexari he would have hanged.

  "Yet it is clear that even if he is not guilty of this crime, and has been pardoned for others which he surely committed, it is also clear that it is detrimental for this country to ever see Wenaru Mottram set foot upon its shore. In the matter of exiling Wenaru Mottram from Torland, its colonies, and its vassals, how do we find?"

  A round of enthusiastic "aye"s went up from the assembled ministers.

  "Wenaru Mottram," said the judge. "You are hereby exiled from this great country. Should you set foot upon its shores, the penalty will be death."

  * * *

  "They're exiling us," said Lexari. "We have a contract with the crown."

  "Wenaru isn't part of that contract," said Nemm. "And it's only him that they're exiling. When we come back to Meriwall, we can simply … I don't know. We can leave him aboard the Zenith, I suppose. Or if that's not sufficient, we can leave him in a different port and come back for him."

  "He would die without me," said Lexari. "It is only through my protection that his safety is ensured."

  "We'll figure something out," said Nemm. "It's an insult, nothing more. And if Meriwall is attacked, they'll need us. That would be a better time for negotiations."

  "It's a compromise," said Dravus. "Better this than a guilty verdict, right?"

  "It's not important," said Nemm. "We won't be coming back to Meriwall for years, and by then the Parliament may have collapsed. In the meantime, the trial raises Wenaru's standing, and he'll be more powerful for it."

  "I don't need more power," said Wenaru. None of them had seen him come into the room. It was impossible to know how long he'd been standing there. "I can already heal with a touch. I don't need to be faster or stronger. It does me no good."

  "We'll protect you," said Lexari. "I will protect you."

  "Yes," said Wenaru. "I wonder sometimes if it wouldn't be better if I were exiled from the civilized world altogether."

  "We leave tomorrow," said Lexari. "You'll feel better when we're to sea. I think we all will." He glowed faintly with light. "Let us leave this mess behind us."

  * * *

  Dravus was awoken in the middle of the night by a whisper in his ear.

  "Nemm?" he asked. There was a woman's shape clouded by the darkness, standing at the foot of his bed.
He shook the sleep from his head and remembered for the tenth time that he could see in the dark. The darkness washed away, and Dravus was staring at a woman who looked only marginally familiar. She was dressed as a serving girl. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

  "You leave tomorrow," said the woman. She had a flat voice, as though she were completely uninterested in him. "We've had our eyes on you since Genthric. We think it's time to speak."

  Dravus pulled his covers to the side and formed a blade of shadow in the same moment. He leapt up from the bed and fell into a fighting stance, with the sword in front of him. The woman made no reaction. "Help!" he screamed. "Intruder!" If it was just a serving girl snuck into his room, he would feel foolish, but it was their last night in Torland anyway. A man couldn't always be thinking about stories.

  "Do you like the illustrati?" asked the woman. "Do you think that they are fit to rule?"