Like one tuning fork causing another to hum, then another, then another … Wendra’s song caught them all in the embrace of what they wanted … what they felt most deeply. Most resonantly.
And she stroked that desire with her song.
She saw their eyes glaze as they became rapt in the visions she evoked in them. The man holding her let go. The glass in their leader’s hand slipped and shattered on the floor—no one jumped. The women’s brows pinched in the expression of pleasure felt in moments of great climax.
Wendra sang on, finding a further center to the song. A deeper resonance. She didn’t rush, or sing louder. She sang deeper. She reached inside her own feelings for the pits of dark pleasure she enjoyed when she imagined rending the Quiet, who’d caused this trade. She found again the resonance of her own heart when her vision turned stark and her song ripped flesh from the bones of those who bought stock.
And she imagined it doing the same to the traders surrounding her in this dockside barge.
But this time, her song was not a series of rough shouts. This time, it was a slow, private melody. A strain that struck the chords of dark desire so forcefully that these traders began to slump where they sat or stood.
Wendra sang on. She reached deeper still, finding a depth of resonance she hadn’t thought she could reach. It suggested dark desires to her own mind. Enticing things that wanted to be tried, experienced. She turned them on the traders, and found in them abominations of intent that even she couldn’t imagine. But she didn’t shy away. She embraced them. Sang them. Gave them life for these five. For herself. Making of them such an exultant, unbearable rush of fulfillment that she was only vaguely aware when they had all drawn their last breath with the intensity of their pleasure.
She’d killed them. She’d wrought a quiet rapture of body and spirit with her song. One that traded on the thrill of control and domination. On the thrill of pleasure.
She stopped singing as she smelled the unmistakable odor of a man’s sex. And a woman’s, too.
Then she sank to her hands and knees, shivering. Her face and body were coated with sweat. She panted from exertion, and the sensations still rippling inside her.
She had an afterthought that one of the women, in her final moments, had been glad to be relieved of the compulsions that bound her to the trade.
It might have been a full half hour before she could see clearly again. When she raised her head, she saw a small tube inside the dead leader’s boot. She pulled it free, opened it, and found a map of stock trading posts.
As she knelt in the midst of these slavers, she shuddered with the truth of Belamae’s caution.
Anytime you sing the resonance of a thing … you both are changed.
She could feel a dangerous, sensuous sound laughing around inside her. An irrational thought floated through her mind: Go sex the strongman.
You both are changed.
It made her wonder about singing Suffering. Had what she’d just sang been a kind of suffering, too? She didn’t know. What had happened here seemed strangely unreal. And intoxicating. What else can I sing … and who might it hurt? But she wasn’t sorry for killing the traders. There was none of that.
It was a long while more before she stood. Quietly, she searched the dead and found a set of keys on the man who’d briefly left their company. She slipped through the rear door and found a deck hatch. She keyed open the lock that fastened it shut, and pulled back the portal to find a stair that descended into a dark hold.
She climbed slowly down into the pitch black. She had the impression that she was being watched, evaluated. A moment later a small oil lamp was lit deeper in the hold. What she saw made her heart pulse hard with sympathy and anger. Seven women chained to wooden cots. Three of them were with child. These babies would come in a matter of a cycle or two, if she had any guess.
Without a word, she found the key to unlock their chains. They watched her with reticence. What surprised her most was that none of them rushed from their cots, from this hold, from this boat.
The youngest among them must have seen the question in Wendra’s eyes. She shivered in the chill, her belly showing a child nearly ready to come. “They’ll find us again.” It was the fear that kept them bound. Probably a threat they’d heard repeatedly since being captured.
“No,” Wendra said. “They’re done taking women.”
She wanted to sing something for them. Something soft and reassuring. But all hells, was she tired, and still cold inside. So instead she lay down by the young girl, hoping she had enough body warmth to calm the girl’s shivers. She smiled a small smile in the dim light, thinking that she might need more warmth than the girl.
“What do we do?” another of the women asked.
“Let me rest a little while. Then, we’ll leave the docks, and you’ll go home.”
Two of the women shared a skeptical look. “What about the dock hound?”
Wendra gave one more small smile. “I have a song for him.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Trial of Intention
Intention may be man’s most defining quality. It gives him the forethought to ignore his animal instinct for survival, and thus the resolve to strive for an ideal.
—Excerpt from the defense made of the first Trial of Intentions, archived in the Vaults of Estem Salo
Thaelon entered the trial theater to find every seat filled and a buzz of quiet conversation. The broad hall had several hundred seats in rows ascending a gentle slope, and two balconies with hundreds more. Its ornate ceiling was brightly lit thirty strides above. And beyond the stage where debate would take place, an open vista of Estem Salo. The theater had been constructed without that wall to give a poignant backdrop to the discussions this hall was meant to serve.
Whispers fell quiet as he passed, some sounding deferential, some accusational. The rift in his fraternity was never more clear.
He took note of the grand murals painted on the immense walls on each side of the theater. Unlike in the gallery where he’d prepared for this moment, these depictions were of civil disagreement, animated at times, but not resulting in death. The idea of this hall was dispute and deliberation.
On the raised stage at the front of the theater, and to the right, sat four Sheason exemplars—those who oversaw argument, effability, discernment, and rhetoric—his panel of judges. To the left, standing at a lectern facing the judges, was the first Sheason who would be tried. A man of middle age, himself a teacher of ethics. Toyl Delane was his name. A father, and a man whose hair always looked windblown.
Thaelon mounted the stage and came to stand in front of his judges. “Are we ready to begin?”
He hadn’t seen her all morning, but suddenly Raalena was at his side. She said nothing, but put him a tad more at ease for her presence.
“Toyl.” Warrin, his exemplar best trained in history and belief, spoke the name softly. “He volunteered to be first. I think he intends to make a speech.”
Thaelon gave Warrin a smile meant mostly to reassure himself, and strode to the center of the stage. He looked first out the rear of the hall at the wide vista of his city. A magnificent view. A thousand rooftops. More. And beyond them the great mountains and forested hills of the Divide. It settled him to his task.
He turned and faced the theater. Voices hushed. He waited several long moments, then spoke as a man does to a friend.
“I don’t call for Trials of Intention frivolously. We’re here because there’s real danger.” Thaelon remained standing where he was. He would not pace. He would add no theater to his words. “I’ve spent many long days preparing. While I’ve not doubted that this was necessary, I’ve wished it was not. And I take no pride in what’s about to take place.”
A few mutters could be heard from the second balcony. Thaelon ignored them.
“Trials of Intention are rare,” he admitted. “In fact, only twice, to my knowledge, have there been formal proceedings among us. Once, when the Second Promise nearly
failed. And before that, in the time after the Whiting of Quietus, when what we’re about to do had no name.”
He stopped, remembering from the gallery wall images of Sheason lying dead after makeshift trials of intent.
“There are consequences for the wrong intent,” he said, scanning the assembly. “Consequences that in previous seasons meant death. But that won’t be the way this time.”
“Then what?” Toyl asked from his lectern to Thaelon’s right. “Banishment? Ostracism?”
Thaelon didn’t look at the man. He remained fixed on those before him. “Divestiture,” he answered.
The crowd erupted in murmurs. A few loud cries pierced the humlike din. Among them he heard: “It’s a tactic meant to frighten us.”
He raised a hand for silence. “Divestiture has long been a myth. One we happily had no need to try and prove.” He paused. “Until now. I’ve been to the depths of the Tabernacle. I found the old glyphs. And I’ve discovered the way to remove a Sheason’s authority to render the Will.”
The outbreak was louder this time, with a few calling for death as preferable to divestiture.
Thaelon simply waited until they could see he wouldn’t continue before it was quiet again. Eventually the hall settled down.
“It’s the right consequence,” he stated firmly. “The purpose of the trials is to determine if a Sheason’s use of the Will is in harmony with our first Charter. Because if it is not, then he is not Sheason. And if he is not Sheason, then he has no claim to a Sheason’s authority.”
Again Toyl interrupted. “And you’ll school us on this Charter, will you, Thaelon? Because as far as I know, there’s no document to which we may refer to know what it says.”
Thaelon said simply, still addressing the theater, “I will.”
“That’ll be a good trick,” Toyl quipped, drawing a few soft laughs from the hall.
Thaelon finally turned to face the man. “You will remember I am your Randeur. Or is disrespect also a quality of those who follow Vendanj?” Staring coldly at Toyl, he announced in a loud voice, “Every Sheason will have a Trial of Intention, to declare themselves. And I’m glad our first trial has a sharp wit to defend the dissent against us.”
“I’m not sure who you mean when you say ‘us,’ my Randeur,” Toyl said with heavy sarcasm. “But I’ll be glad to help you examine the ethics of this entire proceeding.”
A long hush fell over the hall, broken only by a stirring of wind beyond the rear of the stage, where aspen leaves rustled against one another.
Thaelon decided to use a simple question to demonstrate the crux of these proceedings. “Toyl, is there nothing that guides a Sheason’s use of the Will?”
“Don’t you mean to ask whether or not I agree with or follow Vendanj?” Toyl shifted his weight behind his defense lectern.
Slowly, Thaelon approached him, leaned in, and said, “I thought that’s what I asked.”
There came many muffled laughs to that.
Toyl smiled and nodded. “Clever, yes. The thing that guides—or should guide—the use of the Will is a renderer’s own ethical center.”
“I see.” Thaelon turned to watch the assembly’s reaction to his next question. “And the Velle—who also render—their use of the Will is right, then, since they follow their own ethical center?”
Toyl frowned, then raised a finger as one does to challenge or clarify. “They are not Sheason.”
“You realize,” Thaelon pressed, “that they began as Sheason. We were all once one order. In fact, the first Trials of Intention are what removed them from our company.”
Perhaps we could be one again.
“These are an arguer’s tricks,” Toyl said, visibly relaxing. “The Velle are fundamentally different because they adhere to no ethic. You know this.”
Thaelon turned and pointed at the man. “And how do you know?”
Toyl opened his mouth to answer, but found no words. A few moments later, he seemed to latch on to some prepared remarks. “Let’s talk about some references we can all agree on, shall we? For instance, the aftermath of the Second Promise.”
Thaelon saw where Toyl would take this, and knew it would be hard to defend.
“Sheason, angered when the Second Convocation of Seats betrayed the Sedagin and let them die fighting alone, went into the courts of men and killed. Murder, Thaelon. To coerce action.” Toyl pointed back dramatically. “Was this in line with the Charter you claim as guide?”
Thaelon’s mind raced, seeking a rebuttal.
Toyl gave him no time. “And what of our own season? What of the Civilization Order? How are you dealing with that? To my knowledge, you’re letting our own die. So, if you’re asking me if I follow Vendanj, who stands against the Quiet, against the League, and doesn’t worry if he can reconcile defending people with some vague notion of a Charter … then yes, I follow him.”
Thaelon found his voice. “An envoy, led by my own daughter, has gone to Recityv to negotiate an end to the Civilization Order. And the murder you speak of—at the end of the Second Promise—did result in a Trial of Intentions.”
Toyl showed a look of satisfaction. “Which resulted in almost no Sheason being found to have violated the Charter. Is my history accurate?”
From behind his judge’s table, Warrin nodded.
It was a smart argument, Thaelon had to admit. He walked to the edge of the stage and stared long into the faces of many. He held up a finger, leaving it there for several moments before beginning in a clear, soft tone. He needed them all to hear him. Really hear him.
“The Charter is felt, as much as it is understood. Any one of you would rush to protect a child in danger. You don’t need a document to tell you what to do. And you know your actions are right, even if they cause you harm.” He stopped and looked into the brightly lit ceiling high above. More murals there: stars and cloudy bands that crossed the firmament. He took some strength from them.
He looked back at his fellows. “We’ve been given a gift in the authority to render. It’s a shade of the authority the First Ones used to frame this world. But we are not gods. And when we use this authority in a manner that suits our whim, or without regard to who it may hurt, it smacks of our own arrogance. As though we are gods among men. Giving and taking life simply by right of our power to do so … it forfeits our right to hold that authority. Or should.”
He turned on Toyl. “That is what the Trial of Intentions is meant to determine. We will always stand against invasion or expansionists. But in the right way.”
Toyl, teacher of ethics, shook his head slowly. Like Thaelon, he used an effectively soft voice when he said, “The thing that matters is preserving our lands, our people. It doesn’t matter how principled we are if we lose these. War is not a social experiment, Thaelon. It is not everyday life. It’s everything, anything, you can do to keep the life you have.” He looked out at the assembly. “I’m with Vendanj.”
Your ethics sound situational, my ethics friend.
There were cheers from the crowd for Toyl’s words. Not unanimous. But many. It saddened Thaelon to hear them. As the theater quieted again, he recalled his parchment war with Ketrine. It helped him focus on what he should say.
“We teach realignment here. But we teach it mostly to instruct you in what you should not do. It’s a rendering technique aimed at getting what you want by manipulating the choice of another.” Thaelon’s passion on this point bubbled up hot. His voice rose. “It is not for us to create or control life to fight for us. If there’s a war worth fighting, then we should bear the cost of it ourselves.” He thought of the boy Tahn that Vendanj was using. He thought of the very existence of that boy, a revived stillborn child. “To do anything else is the Quiet way. You don’t need me to tell you this for you to know its truth.”
Heads were nodding.
He stepped forward, declaring in a loud, firm voice, “We are not gods, but we can be godlike. And to do it we must ask ourselves: To what lengths will we go and at wh
at cost do we render before we are no different than the Quiet we fight against? We are better than that! We must be better than that!”
What followed was not the roar of crowds. It was a booming silence in which Sheason remembered their oath. Thaelon could feel their hearts. Most of them, anyway. And from those hearts, good intentions. Or so he believed.
It stirred him. Made him proud. It would be a difficult path, these trials. But all understood now why they would travel it.
Slowly, he returned to Toyl. He looked the man in the eye for several moments. “There’s just one question,” Thaelon said, his tone inviting Toyl to closely consider his reply. “Don’t answer for those seated before you. Not for those you counseled with before taking this stage.” He paused, took a deep breath. “Toyl Delane, would you render at any cost, do anything, to make good on your intent … would you follow Vendanj, were he to ask it?”
With no defiance, Toyl said simply, “I would.”
These two words broke Thaelon’s heart. For all Toyl’s fine rhetoric, his dissent was genuine. He believed in a different way. A way that ran counter to the Sheason oath he’d taken. Close as he was now, Thaelon could see in Toyl’s eyes how it all weighed on him. A good man; even when he’s convinced he’s right, hates to disappoint a friend.
Toyl leaned forward, and repeated with a whisper, “I would … and, my Randeur, so should you.” The sound of it was like a plea.
Thaelon stood staring at him, his gut in a knot. How many? Half? Would he divest half of his people before these trials were through? Good people. All of them. But with an intent that went a shade too far. A dangerous shade. His order might not survive this. But what else could he do?
Thaelon stepped close, so that he might ask a question only Toyl could hear. He studied the man’s eyes, his own words now a plea. “Toyl … what about your oath?”
They shared a long look before Toyl softly said, “Perhaps, my Randeur, it’s time for the oath to change.” The words were genuine, even hopeful.
The words chilled Thaelon. In his studies he’d found that these very words had been spoken by those Sheason who’d gone into the Bourne … and become Velle.
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