by Jean Johnson
Foren stepped up his efforts to make sure he had his eldest brother’s undivided attention, and the other younger members of the Order of the Traveling Brotherhood also did their best to distract him from noticing the swap. They certainly tried their best when he donned the fake necklace to make sure he wasn’t given enough time to actually look at it before dropping it safely down inside his vest top. The chain was a little short, the shape a little off . . . but Krais knew it was the fake, so those detail differences did not actually alarm him.
The group even offered to walk the two brothers to their family’s home in the heart of the Disciplinarian part of the Temple grounds. They weren’t bad company, though as more and more time passed in listening to them, the more Krais realized these young men had very little respect for women. Not that they said a lot of crude things about women—a few—but it was more that they just didn’t seem to think anyone female was worth mentioning with any real respect.
They certainly did not refer to Pelai’thia with any respect; they just said, “ . . . that girl assigned to punish you.” Girl. That word burned in his ears. The idiots made it sound as if Pelai were younger than the youngest of them, the still baby-cheeked Brother Dor, almost still a child at just sixteen years of age, rather than a stable, experienced, lively, but clearly fully mature thirty-one, almost thirty-two.
The implications of that endemic level of distain when paired with Brother Steer’s insistence on researching sex magics were disquietening. Krais hoped privately he had not just sentenced some poor woman—or group of women—to be used as a power source. Perhaps even abused, solely for the sake of greedy sexual energy raising. To do so with no consideration for her actual wants and needs, or for her reality as a human being? That would be horrible. Women deserved to be treated as people, not just as some sort of magic-generating thing.
Just as their group of twelve outlanders and the two Puhon brothers reached the front entrance to the Elder Disciplinarian’s stately home, a dozen black-clad figures stepped into view. Some emerged from behind bushes in the garden areas lining the paths and courtyards. Others stepped out from behind the various buildings, or emerged from various shadowed doorways into the bright noon light.
Two dozen tattooed figures in brown leathers carved with the government pei-slii emerged with them. Half of them carried strung and knocked bows. For the moment, those arrows stayed aimed at the ground, but he had no doubt they would be snapped up and loosed at the group in a heartbeat if anyone provoked the soldiers of the Mendhite Army. Krais also knew that it would not likely be himself or his brother peppered with the ranged weapons. Not as the soldiers’ first choice of targets. Not at the very threshold of his father’s home.
Brother Alger turned around slowly, his pale outlander face turning a bit paler—a difficult trick, considering he had a little bit of a sunburn from playing around in one of the garden ponds. “Uh . . . what is this all about? Is . . . is something wrong? Uh . . . Crays? Forn? Do you know what . . . ?”
A voice cleared. It belonged to a fellow in a brown army war-kilt with three pei-slii filled in on his breastplate in gilded paint. “Well. Here we are. The remainder of the Order of the Traveling Brotherhood—the others are being rounded up as we speak,” he added. “I am Akim Jodo Belak—my rank is third up in the Hierarchy of the Army of Mendhi. Not a very high rank, I’ll admit, but I am here in cooperation with the Hierarchy of the Disciplinarians . . . and the Hierarchy of Mages . . . and the Hierarchy of the Great Library. Whose trust members of your Order have violated this day.”
That was what had happened to delay Gayn, Krais realized. The original plan had been to let Gayn return, have Frankei deliver slightly altered copies of all the information found, and then catch the elders of the Brotherhood ink-handed with restricted writings in their possession, after the Brothers had been given enough time to study the prophesies that would help guide them to be in the right place at the right time for their defeat. Perhaps even time for the ex-priests to gather up their things and disperse.
Since his part in all of this was to pretend to be the unwitting fool, Krais had no idea how much of that had taken place. So when the sergeant commanded them to kneel, he lowered himself to the sun-hot cobblestones, tucking the edge of his red kilt under his knees to protect them somewhat from the rough surface and its heat. Since he wore sandals, his toes felt a little scorched, but he breathed deep, reassured himself this was not a sexy sort of pain, and settled down to wait.
The front entrance to his family’s home opened. A fellow who looked remarkably like Akim Jodo emerged, that librarian kinsman of his. After him came Anya’thia, her calf-length gown swirling around her legs, the powder blue taga long enough to shield most of her from the heat of the sun, thin enough to let a breeze pass through. After her came . . . his mother. Librarian Karei looked very angry, her mouth set in a tight line, one hand clenching the cord of the belt cinching her knee-length taga as if it were the handle of a flogger she longed to use on the males kneeling before her.
Oh. Right. Mother is going to dive even deeper into being a gendered knowledgist because of this. Only because the situation was serious did Krais refrain from rolling his eyes. How dare males abuse the sacred covenant of restricted access to restricted information, and on and on and on . . .
Behind her emerged Pelai’thia in a mix of white and black, boots, belt, and bracers dyed dark, kilt and vest bleached bright, all of it gilded all over with her rank. After her emerged the Second Mage, Koret, clad in a pristine white taga that fell to his knees, pleated both at the shoulders and the waist, almost heavily enough to be a kilt. And finally, Domo Galen, Doma Belaria . . . and Dagan’thio at the rear. All clad in various levels of gold-touched black.
“My own sons,” Dagan’thio growled. He opened his mouth to say more, but his wife beat him to it.
“How dare you?!” she yelled, marching up between the outlanders to spit her words in Krais and Foren’s faces. “Shaming your father, shaming your mother, shaming your ancestry! I cannot believe I gave birth to you!”
Krais flinched. So did his middle brother.
“Thank you, Librarian Karei,” Anya’thia stated, cutting across her tirade before it could go further than that. “Resume your place. This is my purview.”
Choking on her rage, face so flushed with it that the red almost overpowered the tan, Aldis Karei stiffly turned and marched back to her husband’s side. He glared with her at their offspring, though from the occasional look he gave the Elder Librarian, he resented her for asserting her authority over his wayward sons.
“—Krais didn’t know!” Foren blurted out, before falling silent again.
Chapter Nineteen
Krais blinked and eyed his brother. He had not expected Foren’s fervent defense of him. The original plan had included careful questioning under truthstone to get him free of being accused of knowledge-theft, if and when they were caught.
The middle-aged Elder Librarian lifted her chin a little, eyeing him. She held out her hand imperiously. Pelai’thia dug into the white pouch strung on her belt and handed over a white disk. A truthstone. Accepting it, Anya’thia moved up between the kneeling outlanders much as his mother had done, and held it out to Puhon Foren.
“State a lie and state the truth. You will be judged on the hue of your words.”
Accepting it with a hand that visibly trembled, Foren cleared his throat and spoke. “My name is Dagan’thio.” He paused, unfurled the fingers clenched around the stone, and displayed the blackened imprints left in their wake. After a few moments, those marks faded. Clutching the marble disk again, he hesitated, licked his lips, and spoke. “My brother Krais did not know what Gayn and I planned.”
“Go on,” Pelai’thia ordered coldly.
“Which . . . which was to temporarily replace his . . . his viewing-lens with a hastily made copy, so that . . . so that my youngest brother could find a spell to ease t
he restrictions throttling his magics.”
All three black-clad Disciplinarians hissed and grabbed for the hilts of their not-so-ceremonial floggers. Karei, however, broke into a wordless scream and grabbed at her husband’s flogger as well. Not just to grip it; she actually yanked it free. Forced to grab and restrain her instead of yelling like he no doubt wanted to, Dagan’thio had all he could do for a couple of moments just to contain his wife without hurting her, forcing the other two to move in and help. Krais could not remember seeing his mother this angry in his life. A peek at Foren showed his brother’s face pale, maybe even a little green under his tan.
Belaria got the flogger away from Karei, allowing Dagan’thio to muffle her mouth against any spells she might cast, silencing her under the press of one hand while the other gripped her wrists together.
“Anything else?” Anya’thia asked after peering at the all-white stone.
Foren looked from her to his parents, tightened his jaw, and stated a flat, “Yes. By all the definitions I learned during my attempted apprenticeship . . . the punishments inflicted upon us this week by Domo Galen were torture, not true penances! I accuse Domo Galen of breaking the laws of the Goddess! Do you even have the marks still on your wrists?”
He held up the truthstone, white and unblemished. Galen flushed with anger, taking a step forward. He did not, however, draw out his flogger. Instead, he pointed at Foren across the distance separating them. “Are your magics still suppressed?”
“Domo Anso never removed them,” Foren shot back, angry certainty sharpening his tone. “He never laid his hands on me to remove his control of my magics—just like Doma Dulette’s never had a chance to do that to Gayn! I may have felt energies moving through me when you said you assessed me . . . but I found a reference in my research in the Library to spells that mimic the effect of Menda’s touch!”
Krais’ brows rose at that. He hadn’t even considered that possibility. Dagan’thio, however took it as a personal affront. Expression twisting in rage, teeth bared and brows furrowed, he snapped back, “Domo Galen’s judgment of you will not be questioned!”
“That would be a breach of the law!” Pelai’thia snapped back. “Any such accusation must be checked by a quorum of ten Disciplina . . . rians . . .”
She trailed off, blinking, her eyes snapping this way and that, focusing on the air in different places at about an arm’s length from her face. Krais realized the Guardians were talking to her, unseen and unheard since he did not have the correct pei-slii-shaped monocle at hand to wear. From the looks of things, several of them were talking to her. Within just a few seconds, she winced and flung up her hand, inadvertently silencing Dagan’thio in a gesture meant to silence people no one else—save for perhaps Anya’thia—knew were magically watching these events unfold.
“—But that does not matter right now!” she snapped. “Whether or not you were genuinely provoked is not the matter at hand. You broke the covenants of the Great Library, Puhon Foren! You stole a restricted Artifact from your own brother, you colluded with your other brother to steal your mother’s access badge so that Puhon Krais would assume he still had the one given to him by the Elder Libr—“
Karei squealed rather loudly behind her husband’s palm and struggled remarkably hard to escape for a few moments, her fingers clawing at Foren’s sweating, kneeling figure, wriggling in Dagan’thio’s muscular grip.
“—by the Elder Librarian,” Pelai’thia reasserted. “And you colluded to help unauthorized personnel gain access to some highly restricted spellbooks!”
Dagan’thio’s growl joined his wife’s muffled mutterings.
“With all of that said,” Anya’thiastated coldly, drawing the miniature double-bladed axe from her belt, “I call upon my right as the Guardian of the Great Library to cast judgment upon all of you!”
“By that law, I can flay the skin from their backs!” the Elder Disciplinarian snapped, still glaring at his middle son. “And I’ll gladly do it, too!”
That seemed to pacify his wife into merely glaring, not yelling, but even Domo Galen blinked and swiveled to look at him. “Dagan’thio—by the law you cannot Discipline your younger sons!”
“I have no younger sons!” the eldest Puhon yelled, barely holding on to his still struggling wife.
Krais and Foren both jerked back on their heels at that shout. The elder Puhon blinked twice, shocked breathless by that snarled proclamations, the words echoing off the buildings scattered around them. Foren blinked several times, his dark lashes glistening from the sting of his emotions. Even Karei seemed shocked by her husband’s repudiation. At least, she stopped all attempts at resisting, and craned her neck to peer wide-eyed at her mate.
“ . . . Be that as it may, this is my jurisdiction,” Anya’thia countered.
She shook the forearm-length axe—and braced the butt of it with a thunk on the cobblestones when it abruptly shifted shape to a full-sized labrys. The kind intended to be used against girthy padauk trees perfect for chopping down and turning into great beams of lumber for wagons, houses, and furniture. The change in the previously small felling axe reminded everyone here that this was an Artifact of Goddess-blessed power that the middle-aged woman wielded. Tilting the axe toward the kneeling group, she pronounced her judgment.
“I hereby decree that Puhon Foren, Puhon Gayn, and all the members of the group calling themselves the Order of the Traveling Brotherhood are banished from Mendhi lands. As you are all mages, you will have your powers suppressed by temporary spells, you will be divided up into manageable groups . . . and you will be dumped onto ships about to leave the Mendham harbor for far-distant lands. Your voyages will be paid for with every last one of the coins seized out of your funds. We will even confiscate your personal belongings in recompense, just in case the Mendhite Hierarchy has to make up any of the difference . . . but if the money is in excess of the amount actually needed . . . those captains will get to keep it all anyway.
“I want you gone from my homeland!” Anya’thia snapped, and cracked the butt of the heavy axe against the paving stones underfoot in emphasis. “In the Name of Menda, you and your cohorts are banished from Mendhi!”
Light slashed out from the gleaming golden blades. It smacked into the brows of all the kneeling prisoners, excluding Krais, who had not separated himself from their kneeling numbers since he had not been given leave to move. But the Goddess clearly knew what She was doing through Her agent, and left him alone. Oddly, many more beams of light shot out across the Temple Grounds. They pierced through buildings, briefly connected to the double-edged blade of the labrys held steady by Anya’thia’s hand.
Their targets could not be seen elsewhere, but the ones here, in front of the Elder Disciplinarian’s home, were quite visible. For just a few heartbeats, thirteen foreheads blazed with the golden outline of a miniature labrys, then the mark of her weapon slowly faded from their brows.
In the quiet that followed, Brother Alger blinked, touched his forehead gingerly, and peered at the others, all of whom looked equally bewildered. Finally, he eyed the woman in the pale blue dress, who still had her axe enlarged to almost the height of her shoulder, and asked “Is . . . is that it? What exactly did that do?”
Anya’thia relaxed, shrugged, and shrunk her axe back down to forearm length instead of body length. Tucking it back into her belt, she said, “After just one hour of having that brand applied . . . that brand will burn on your forehead with the pain of a searing-hot poker should you ever come within one mile of Mendhite land. This, of course, means that one hour from now, after you are tossed onto those ships, you will suffer in agony. At least, until your ships actually set sail and get more than one mile from our coastlines. That is to say, one mile from our fishing grounds, which are a part of our lands. So you will be in pain for many, many hours to come.”
Beside Krais, Foren shuddered and dropped his tear-streaked face into h
is hands. His eldest brother had to kneel there, biting his tongue, forcing himself to stay silent in the face of his sibling’s remorse and regret.
“Oh, and the brands will glow, to visibly show all you meet on or near Mendhite property that you have violated the judgment of the Hierarchy of the Library, should you entire the pain to return anyway to Mendhite lands.” Anya’thia smiled at all of the kneeling young men, a warm and cheerful smile that showed several more of her lovely white teeth in her deeply tanned face than perhaps were strictly necessary. “In a land where books are the ultimate icons of our faith, and the labrys the holy symbol protecting it . . . you will most likely be beaten to a pulp by any Painted Warrior who sees it.”
Pelai’thia shaded her eyes with a hand and looked into the distance as best she could. “Some of those beams went out across the city, didn’t they?”
“The Goddess can be quite thorough, when She pleases. Anyone within the city of Mendham who knows and supports the depth of their schemes will have been marked. Posssibly for miles beyond the city, too,” Anya’thia dismissed. “They’ll discover within one hour that their discomfort will start to grow, and their brows will start to glow. Of course, if you feel you have been punished unjustly, you are free to petition the Gods at the next Convocation . . . which will take place in three and a half years on the Isle of Nightfall, just off the western shores of Katan—I’d let you look at the Library’s maps of the world so you’d know where to go . . . but I’d really rather have you gone from our land.”
“Soldiers, Disciplinarians . . . take them away. Confiscate any writings or expensive items in the homes they have rented,” Pelai’thia ordered. “All except for Puhon Foren. I will escort him into his family home so that he may gather some basic belongings to take with him on his exile.”
“He is not my son,” Dagan’thio growled. “He is a criminal, and his belongings are forfeit!”
