Quest SMASH

by Joseph Lallo

  “You can’t be serious,” he said. His eyes flicked to Gideon, hoping for enlightenment.

  Father Gideon looked distraught. He had seated himself a short distance from Jymis, who had claimed the best armchair for himself. The poor man seemed near to tears with his need to explain, but with his superior in the room, he didn’t dare speak up.

  Marcus stood a short distance away, his eyes boring into the back of the bishop’s head. Keverin looked to him next for an explanation, but received only a glittering stare for his trouble. The bishop didn’t know it, but he had another enemy standing right behind him. Marcus didn’t like the turn this conversation had taken. Not one bit.

  “I’m deadly serious, Lord Keverin,” Jymis said. “This person must be handed over to me for the good of all.”

  Lord Keverin, and not my lord Keverin? That telling omission put him on his guard. Jymis, as bishop of Athione, was technically beholden to its lord. In reality, he wouldn’t dare order Jymis to do anything; he couldn’t afford to offend the Church, but courtesy should be paid lip service at the very least. Jymis seemed to want a confrontation for his own reasons. He wondered what they were.

  “Over to you,” he repeated flatly. “Why, pray?”

  “I’m the highest Church authority within your borders.”

  That was true, but for the good of all? He doubted it. The bishop knew only what was good for the bishop, but in this case, he’d gone far astray. Julia was essential—absolutely essential—to Athione’s welfare, and to the welfare of all those living here.

  “And what would you do with her?”

  “Put her on trial of course.”

  He gaped at the absurdity of it. No one would dare put a mage on trial. The idea was ludicrous. Jymis wasn’t usually a stupid man, but he did have lapses. With this new insanity, he’d now managed to get on the wrong side of two lords of Athione in succession, which was an achievement few could boast.

  His father had needed to take action against Jymis when he started to preach sedition against the crown. Kevlarin had risked a breach with the Church by removing him from his position, but Farran—the Holy Father—had been a friend of Jessica’s for years. In his youth, he’d been a priest living in one of her father’s villages, and instead of censuring Kevlarin for interfering in Church business, he chose to send Jymis to a new post at Malcor Town. Gideon took over his duties, and had performed them well for many a year since. He was a good and godly man. He cared for the people’s spiritual well-being, while leaving their bodily welfare firmly in their lord’s hands.

  Jymis had prospered in the years since, reaching his current rank. As bishop overseeing all the priests caring for Athione’s people, he was entitled to be quartered within the citadel, but he’d chosen to live at Manis Crossing. There was a fine old church there. Although it was a little unusual for a bishop to replace a small town priest, Jymis had the people’s respect if not their lord’s.

  “With all due respect to the Church and your holy self, my lord bishop,” Keverin said. Calling this little man a lord was hardly accurate, but a little flattery couldn’t hurt, he decided. “Lady Julia isn’t a member of the Church. Therefore you cannot put her on trial. If trial there be, I should conduct it as Lord of Athione and Lord Protector of the West.”

  There, let him chew on titles.

  Jymis didn’t oblige. Instead, he smiled and stood to confront him. “Heresy is a Church matter.”

  “Heresy!” Keverin gasped. “What heresy? If you think that I’ll let you put that girl on trial, you’re seriously mistaken!”

  Jymis formed a circle in the air, using thumbs and forefingers. It was the God’s sign. “Do you set your power against that of the God?”

  “Dare you say so!” Keverin spat.

  Jymis paled and stumbled back a few paces.

  Marcus intervened to save the situation. “My lord bishop, perhaps I’m mistaken, but are you suggesting Lady Julia is guilty of practising heretical doctrine?”

  “I am,” Jymis confirmed.

  “Then you’re mistaken. I know for a fact that Lady Julia has Father Gideon for her priest. Is that not so, Father?”

  Gideon looked trapped. “I would gladly teach the lady, but she does not embrace the true faith.”

  “Ha!” Jymis crowed. “You see? The woman is a foul heretic—”

  “Silence!” Keverin snapped, cutting Jymis off in the middle of his tirade. “Father Gideon isn’t finished. Pray go on, Father.”

  Gideon cringed under the eyes of his superiors, especially the bishop, but he braced himself with a deep breath, and explained.

  “Julia hasn’t embraced the faith, so much is true, but she does believe in the God. I’m very sure,” he said, appealing to Jymis directly. “I’m certain she’ll come to us in time. Allow me to teach her, and she’ll come to the true faith. I swear it.”

  Jymis scowled. “There’s no certainty. Regardless of what may happen in the future, she is a heretic now.”

  “Let us sit my and discuss this calmly,” Keverin said, indicating the chairs. “Hasty words avail us nothing.”

  Marcus remained standing behind Jymis’ chair, making him uncomfortable. That was all to the good as far as he was concerned.

  “Lady Julia is—”

  “A heretic!” Jymis cried cutting in.

  “A Child,” he said firmly. “Can we at least agree upon that?”

  Jymis pressed his lips together and nodded reluctantly.

  “At least we agree on something. Darius brought her here unwillingly. It was a mistake, but a fortunate one for us.”

  “Fortunate! If you think bringing a harlot into your home is fortunate—”

  He clamped his mouth shut to prevent harsh words escaping. It was becoming increasingly difficult to stomach this man’s vile accusations. Julia had given him no reason to think she was anything but chaste.

  “She’s a harlot and a heretic! If you believe her arrival was fortunate, I can’t begin to imagine what you would consider unfortunate.”

  He could think of quite a few things that would be unfortunate. How about a man without the gift? Yes, that would have been far worse than unfortunate. It would have been catastrophic! One thing above all he knew, Julia’s actions had prevented Athione’s fall.

  “Julia is chaste,” he ground out. “News of anything improper would reach me as soon as it occurred. I assure you, the girl is a noble lady in every sense of the word. As for her being a heretic, she’s no more a heretic than say... you are.”

  Jymis’ eyes bugged. “You accuse me?”

  “That’s not what I said. I know you to be a godly man, Jymis.” He didn’t know anything of the sort, but it was best to proceed as if he did. “I also know Julia is no heretic. She is willing to learn our ways from Gideon. To me that makes her a—” he hesitated racking his brain for the concept he had in mind. Then he had it. “A convert.”

  Gideon saw an opening and threw himself into it. “The Hasians blaspheme daily, but it has long been the Holy Father’s most cherished wish to bring them to the true faith. If blasphemy can be forgiven, surely a child’s ignorance can be as well. Julia isn’t evil, she fights evil.”

  Keverin wanted to applaud, but one look at the bishop’s face told him it would be premature. “It enrages me that another had to take my place to protect my people. That Julia did so, when any woman should be protected, shames me deeply, but none of that matters. I can’t let you take her. She’s a weapon, my lord bishop, a weapon that I’ll use to save the kingdom.”

  Marcus and Gideon looked horrified, and well they should. The thought of using the girl in such a way made him feel ill, but dishonour aside, he didn’t see that he had any choice. Julia was the only defence Athione had. Mathius certainly wasn’t capable of standing against the sorcerers.

  “The God wouldn’t want us to use witchcraft to defeat the sorcerers,” Jymis said. “Evil to destroy evil? No I say! Evil begets more evil. Beware l
est this child bewitch you.”

  He shook his head at the man’s obtuseness. Jymis had heard nothing he’d said. As for witches, they were fables—simply old women who healed cuts or aches, using potions made of disgusting things like tree moss mixed with mould or fungus. Darius said there was nothing magical about such brews, but that sometimes they were beneficial. He shuddered at the thought of putting mould on a wound, and the thought of drinking anything such women concocted made him want to gag, but he trusted Darius’ estimation of them. They were harmless old women eking a living by selling minor cures.

  “Witches do not exist,” he said.

  “They do now!” Jymis crowed in victory. “Only men are chosen to wield the God’s power in the world. She is against nature and the God.”

  “Saying it doesn’t make it true. She has magic, therefore she must be a witch? That’s foolish.”

  “What other definition would you have me use? A witch uses potions and curses—both are magical in nature. Witches are women with unnatural talents. They’re usually old, living long beyond their natural spans. No doubt they use their talents to prolong their lives—”

  Keverin listened in amusement to Jymis’ definition of a witch. Many of his utterances were contradictory. Julia wasn’t old, but perhaps he assumed that even witches had been young once.

  “She stands against the God’s plan for the world,” Jymis proclaimed.

  “I don’t know what the God’s plan is. I doubt even the Holy Father does,” Keverin said, and looked to Gideon for help.

  “The God’s plan is unknowable by his children,” Gideon agreed. “We are reborn many times, to learn new things until He deems us worthy. When that time comes, we join him and live by his side,” Gideon said reverently, and circled his heart. “Life without end.”

  He mimicked the priest’s gesture. “Such we know. Julia is no witch, but she is a mage. I believe the God guided Darius when he summoned her.”

  “I fear your foolish acceptance of this woman,” Jymis said with a sneer. “As for Darius, I never had much use for that man. I doubt the God would guide his hand to do anything.”

  “Why do you say that? The God gave him magic to wield. It makes perfect sense to choose him again.”

  A vain throbbed at Jymis’ temple. “The point, let us stick to the point. The barrier was placed between the worlds to prevent this sort of thing. The God sends us to learn what he wants us to know. If he’d wanted that woman here, she would have been born here.”

  “The God’s plan is unknowable, yet you now propose to know his will regarding Julia’s presence? You can’t have it both ways.”

  “I can and I do,” Jymis said. “We have free will. The God doesn’t prevent us from making choices and mistakes. We often learn from them, but the barrier was put there to stop us interfering with other worlds.”

  He couldn’t dispute that, and he didn’t like the doubt Jymis had put in his head. Had there been another way to save Athione? He couldn’t think of one, only... No, there wasn’t one.

  His current path had been set when Queen Alyssa died in childbirth, and her grief-stricken king retreated from the world. Pergann had been a good king before that tragedy. He would have seen the looming threat the Protectorate represented. Who knows, he might have funded a proper mage school in the capital. The sorcerers might have met their match when they tried to invade, but it hadn’t happened that way. Instead, Pergann had wasted his life, and Deva’s peril was a direct result of his neglect.

  He sighed. Athione’s library had come too late. Instead of hundreds of mages studying within its halls, a lone boy struggled to learn the impossible. Mathius had admitted to him privately, that without the others to teach him, he had little hope. He persevered, hoping for the God’s blessing upon his endeavours. So far it hadn’t come.

  “What would you have of me?” Keverin said, when Jymis paused for breath.

  “I have already said it. This woman must be brought to trial for heresy. None but the Church may judge this matter. Not you, not the king, only the Church.”

  “And I’ve said that I deny you this. Where does that leave us?”

  “You imperil your soul.”

  “And you imperil your life!” he snapped, losing his temper.

  “My lord!” Gideon gasped.

  He raised a hand to silence the priest. “I’ll not be the source of your doom, Jymis. The sorcerers will. You not only imperil your life, you imperil all my people’s lives. I told you why the girl is needed. Without her magic it’s certain Athione will fall to the sorcerers, who—you will remember—truly are heretics. I cannot allow that and I won’t. The girl is under my protection as Lord Protector of the West. The only authority higher is the king and the God above him. Until I’m ordered by either one, she’ll remain safely here.”

  “You forget one more has the power to overthrow you. I’ll ask the Holy Father for a ruling. He’ll pronounce anathema on you, and you’ll fall.”

  Marcus reached for his sword.

  “Hold!” Keverin snapped, barking the order in his haste to prevent another calamity.

  Jymis looked behind him, startled to find Marcus looming so close.

  Marcus knew as well as he did, that there were more types of harm than the merely physical. If the Holy Father did rule in Jymis’ favour, Athione’s people would have little choice but to heed him. Anything else would imperil their souls.

  “You would do well to look to your own soul, Marcus. This man,” Jymis said pointing at Keverin. “This man will lead you to ruin.”

  “M’lord Keverin is the best lord we could have in these times,” Marcus said stiffly. “Anyone who says different is a fool. Only a traitor would attempt to weaken Athione in time of war. Be warned, lord bishop. If you attempt to pull my lord down, I will kill you.”

  “That’s enough,” Keverin grated. “You’ll not harm him, Marcus. That’s an order. The bishop will need—” he turned to Jymis. “Do you need lodgings here?”

  “I’m staying with Father Delbarry,” Jymis said and headed for the door without a by your leave.

  Keverin watched him go. After Marcus’ threat, who could blame him for turning down Athione’s hospitality? Delbarry was a priest in East Town. He was an uncommonly intelligent man. He had no second thoughts where Delbarry was concerned. With luck he would see the obvious and dissuade Jymis from his foolishness.

  * * *

  25 ~ Heretic!

  Keverin turned to Gideon. “You had better escort him. Tell two of the men to accompany you.”

  “Thank you my lord, but the bishop arrived with a squad of the Red Guard.”

  That was a surprise. The Red Guard rarely left Holy Isle. He wondered what Church soldiers were doing so far from the capital, but he dismissed the thought a moment later as unimportant. There weren’t enough of them to make a difference to any attack he might face, and besides, they were mostly ceremonial in nature.

  “Fine then, but you’d better attend him.”

  Gideon bowed and hurried away to catch Jymis.

  “That was ill done, Marcus. I thank you for the thought, but I fear you’ve made matters worse.”

  Marcus snorted. “That man is not a fool. He knows what removing The Lady would mean.”

  The Lady? Marcus was beginning to sound like the men. They already looked upon Julia with awe, and he had an inkling why that was. She was literally one of a kind. In their minds, and his he supposed, she’d been sent by the God to save them. It was a miracle they said, and who was he to deny the truth of that? It was a miracle. What could be more unlikely than a woman with the gift?

  “If not a fool, then a traitor,” he said, troubled by the thought. “I don’t believe that. He’s an objectionable man, I’ll grant you, but he’s still a man of the God. Why would he want Athione to fall?”

  “Who can say? One thing I do know, he’s trouble of the worst kind. I’ll challenge him for you and—”

  “
You will not! You have your orders, and besides, you know full well a priest cannot be challenged.” He saw rebellion turn to decision in Marcus’ eyes. “And I’ll not have murder on my conscience,” he said cutting that avenue off before Marcus did more than think about it. “Give oath.”

  “My lord!” Marcus gasped.

  “Give oath I say.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Marcus said, and sighed unhappily. He circled his heart and spoke the words. “I swear not to harm the lord bishop Jymis—”

  “Nor order it,” Keverin added quickly.

  Marcus hesitated for a long moment. “And I further swear not to order his death,” he said stiffly.

  “Good,” he said, clapping his captain on the shoulder to soften the indignity. “Now then, we have some decisions to make. Jymis will do what he said he would do, of that I have no doubt. Traitor or not, we need to stop that somehow.”

  “I liked my idea better.”

  He grinned. “It had the promise of being permanent at least. Killing a priest is a bad business, Marcus. Besides, if I go around killing those I don’t like, how am I different from Mortain and his ilk?”

  “You’re the exact opposite! There’s no similarity at all.”

  “I thank you, but I would see it stay that way. No killing.”

  “You have my oath, but if I may give council?”

  “I would appreciate it.”

  “Write letters to the king and the Holy Father. Don’t let Jymis poison them against you.”

  “Good idea. Has Julia healed Ged yet?”

  Marcus shook his head. “He died early this morning.”

  He sighed sadly. “His brother?”

  “Healed but grieving, my lord.”

  “Have him up here. I think a change of surroundings might help Kinnon with that.”

  Marcus nodded and left.

  Keverin sat behind his desk to pen the letters, but as the words flowed onto the page, he had to wonder if the king would even read his. As far as he knew, the Chancellor held no ill will toward him, but that didn’t mean he would go out of his way to help. The Holy Father was his best chance to avoid disaster. He made that letter the stronger of his two thrusts. He looked upon this as an attack no less important than the Hasians in the pass. What point winning the war, only to lose everything to internal division?