The Hero's Lot

by Patrick W. Carr

  “Where did they all come from?”

  “I believe this is one question I can answer,” Shal said, “since you would come to the answer yourself, eventually. How long has the church been excommunicating its people?”

  Martin shrugged. “Centuries.”

  Shal nodded. “And does anyone ever return?”

  When Martin shook his head, still held in dumb fascination, he continued. “Few born in Haven leave.”

  Martin stammered. His brain refused to accept the reality of the sprawl before him. “But no one knows you’re here. We could trade. We could treat and set up mutually defensible borders.”

  “With a country of excommunicates? What would Mother Church say to that?” Shal smiled as he stepped out of the boat. “Come. If your friends are here and they are as important as you claim, they’ll be in the citadel.”

  Martin’s head swiveled as he tried to catch every sight, smell, and nuance of the city as if he were the rawest peasant in from the country. Everywhere he looked he saw signs of a prosperous, thriving culture. And it was hidden from the kingdom as if it didn’t exist.

  “How have you managed to keep this a secret?”

  “I think that’s a question for the council, but I can tell you that we are still ten leagues from the coast. The city is not visible from the Forbidden Strait.” He pointed ahead to a building whose size rivaled that of the great cathedral in Erinon, but where Erinon’s cathedral was laid out with perpendicular wings, this building appeared to be circular. A great dome sheathed in white stone capped the center of the building, rising a hundred feet or more into the air.

  Martin could see five entrances to the grand building, each an enormous arch that led to the interior. He surmised at least seven additional entrances filled the outer wall as it curved out of sight. The enormous construction embodied a symmetry of surprising elegance.

  At the nearest entrance a pair of men, unarmed and clothed in simple gray robes, stood duty—answering questions and directing the foot traffic to the proper destination.

  Shal pointed toward them. “Those are the dirigio. The citadel houses most of the government of Haven, and the dirigio help sort out who goes where.”

  “Why are they not armed?” Martin asked.

  Shal’s gaze, somber, caught his. “Haven is committed to nonviolence. Despite the animosity you’ve seen from some of our people, most of the populace was exiled here justly. Men who have paid such a high price for their violence come to accept the necessity of living in peace with others.”

  “Surely there are still some among you who would use violence to accomplish their ends,” Martin said. “And you guard your borders with weapons.” The idea of even a remotely peaceful society arising from the kingdom’s penal colony sent tremors of disquiet through his midsection. “No society can be totally peaceful.”

  Shal nodded. “You’re right, but if the question is important to you, it should be posed to the members of the council, who can answer it better.” He stepped forward and spoke to the dirigio in murmuring tones. Martin tried to hear the conversation without giving the appearance of doing just that, but the words were lost amidst the noise of the crowd.

  The men at the gate bowed toward him. The one on the left, who had the pale hair and ruddy complexion of a Soede, turned and called into the citadel’s shadowed interior. A page, a boy of ten or perhaps eleven, appeared, barefoot and panting. “Imprimus, take these men to the council.”

  “Follow me please, sirs,” the boy chirped. He set off at a pace on his spindly legs just shy of a jog. Imprimus led them along a corridor that followed along the outermost wall until they reached a hallway to the left and turned, heading for the center of the citadel without deviation. The citadel’s interior appeared to be laid out in a series of concentric rings joined by hallways like the spokes of a wagon wheel. At any juncture where closed doors and attendant men in gray blocked their path, Imprimus’s name gained them access. The boy, his bare feet dirty and his hair matted with sweat, seemed unaffected by this treatment. Within minutes they reached a large circular chamber with thick wooden doors.

  “The council deliberates here,” Shal said.

  Imprimus swung the knocker on the door. A gray-clad servant poked his head out. At seeing the boy, he swung the door open to admit Shal and Martin.

  “Your page seems to carry some authority,” Martin observed.

  The boy and Shal shared laughter. “I’m only one of the pages assigned to the council today. I drew the first lot, which makes me Imprimus. The most important visitors are given to me. The rest stand in line at the other entrances, waiting for an opening once more urgent matters are taken care of. When the sentry saw my face, he knew you were important, not me.”

  Martin nodded, impressed by the efficiency of the arrangement.

  The interior of the council chamber mimicked the citadel’s exterior—a large circular room with a series of doors evenly placed around the perimeter. Martin, Shal, and Imprimus stood at the door directly in front of the men and women in the council. The council members raised their heads from their examination of three figures in front of the dais, and Martin endured their silent scrutiny.

  Besides their obvious positions of authority, there was nothing remarkable about the council, other than their variety. It seemed every province of the kingdom had found representation here. A thin Soede man sat next to a plump Gascon woman. A Basqu, her telltale dark hair and eyes shining in the bright lamplight sat next to a couple of Talians, a man with a waxed mustache and a woman, her face intense and angry. They in turn sat beside a Dann and then a Bellian and an Avenian. In all, nine people examined him from their council chairs.

  Then the three figures turned.

  Martin surged forward, his feet carrying him almost without his knowledge to embrace Luis and Cruk as they rushed to meet him.

  “You made it,” Luis said. His voice choked over what he would have said next.

  Cruk gave a sober nod, and for once his smile actually raised both sides of his mouth. “We feared for you. Karele said you lived, said Aurae told him you’d make it into the shadow lands by another route. I didn’t believe him.”

  Luis smiled. “Our captain is somewhat miserly with his description. He refused to move one step east until I cast to see if you were alive. Three times a day, I cast to see if you’d made it across the mountains.”

  Karele, the third person in front of the dais, turned from them to face the council. “Did I not tell you he would live?” He drew himself up. “The priest has done what no one has ever done—he has come to Haven through the cursed city. Now will you accept my authority? Now do you accept that upon their deaths Aurae chose me to head the circle of nine?”

  Tension Martin just then discerned crackled between the council and the figure of Karele standing below them on the dais. The rigid postures of the men and women spoke of a battle of wills, their bodies thrust forward in their seats as if to ward against threats.

  “Authority?” the Talian woman said. “You bring no written word from the mothers verifying this authority, and you bring outsiders to the city. Everything we have striven to build and keep safe from Illustra is in jeopardy because of you.” She rose from her seat to speak to her fellow members of the council. “Why should we accept the authority of a man we do not know—based solely on his say-so?”

  Luis left Martin’s side to stand by Karele. “Perhaps I can help. You know that I am a reader. Before leaving Erinon I was secondus, the second-highest reader in the conclave. I am willing to cast any question you choose to ask.”

  Far from being mollified, Luis’s offer enraged Karele’s accuser. “You dare? Here in the highest chamber of Haven, you dare to espouse casting lots?” She stood, pointed a finger at him. “Do we need to hear any more? Throw them in prison.”

  The other council members kept their seats, waiting, it seemed, for Karele to speak, to offer some refutation of the charge. The man who’d proclaimed himself head of the solis eye
d the members of the nine, his face calm.

  A council member with the bushy brown eyebrows and swarthy skin of a Lugarian turned to face the Talian woman. “Sit down, Marya. You’ve fulfilled your duty.” Turning to face Karele, he cleared his throat. “Marya takes her duty as accuser seriously. You have brought trouble to Haven, solis.”

  Karele nodded at this. “It was necessary. In fact, it was commanded. Adele and Radere told the solis decades ago that our exile would come to an end.”

  “Not exactly the end we wanted,” Marya said. “What will the kingdom do once they discover our true nature? We cannot hope that they will leave us alone.”

  Martin stepped forward to stand by Karele. “The kingdom is the least of your worries, madam councilor. Once Rodran dies, war will sweep over the earth. You cannot hope to be spared.”

  “You are wrong, priest,” Marya said. “The Merakhi and the Morgols know as little of us as the kingdom does. The routes to war are far to the north and west of our little corner here.”

  Martin swallowed. “And if the accursed ones awake at Rodran’s death . . . ? Their city lies on your border. Do you think they will fail to notice you?”

  The Lugarian held up a hand. “Enough. Such questions will have to wait. It is the immediate purpose of this council to determine the head of the solis.”

  “You mean to entertain this man’s assertion, Garet?” Marya asked. The Lugarian, along with several council members, including the Soede, nodded at this.

  “I do,” Garet answered. “Karele, do you mean to call Aurae to witness your claim?”

  Karele bowed to the council. “You know I can only call, not summon. Whether Aurae comes is up to Deas.”

  The Basqu woman smiled. “If Aurae does not come, we can always have the reader cast.”

  Marya bristled. “You would trust him? A churchman?”

  “Your opinions are colored by your personal experiences. Most churchmen are good men who follow as best they know,” the Basqu said. She pointed a finger toward Luis. “See him, Marya. He is nearly solis himself.”

  She scoffed but turned to peer at Luis as if she were reading a text whose words were too small to make out. After a moment, she sat back, her eyes wide. “Strange tidings.”

  The Basqu nodded. “Indeed.”

  Garet rose to address the attendants. “Seal the chamber. Let no one enter until we are done.” Two dozen gray-clad men with serious faces departed, sealing the doors behind them as they went.

  Garet faced Karele. “Call and let us see if Deas’s favor names you head of the solis.”

  Karele stepped a little apart and bowed his head. For long moments that Martin tracked by the anxious beating of his heart, nothing happened. The nine members of the council sat with the patience of stones, as if prepared to wait as long as necessary. Even the air, disturbed before by the movements of the chamber’s occupants, grew still, settling like a blanket over Martin as he held his breath. His heart hammered against his ribs, shaking him where he stood.

  Aurae’s appearance would destroy the last vestige of doubt left to him. If the spirit of Deas appeared within the chamber, all of Martin’s teaching, the sum total of doctrine and theology he’d learned and espoused his entire life, would be torn to tatters.

  And he would be required to present the truth to the Judica.

  The college of benefices would already have censured him by now for leaving in the midst of deliberations. They would hardly welcome news that challenged their most cherished beliefs and traditions. Aurae’s appearance would cost Martin dearly.

  Yet Martin watched Karele with an anticipatory hunger that frightened him, even while it washed him from head to toe. With everything that was in him he wanted Aurae to appear, thirsted for it like a man in a desert. Tears of longing welled in his eyes.

  But nothing happened.

  Karele knelt now, both knees on the ochre stone floor of the chamber, his head bowed, hands raised in an attitude of beseeching. The council members leaned forward, their faces moving from anticipation to vague embarrassment as time slipped by and Aurae did not appear. Martin’s chest heaved, acquiescing to his body’s demand for air. His breath stirred the air, and his heart thrummed in expectation before the chamber stilled again.

  Garet shifted his weight in preparation to rise from his seat.

  No. They had to wait. Everything Karele had done and said had borne witness. A plea that captured all the longing of his call to be a priest, of his deepest desire to know Deas, came as a wordless cry from his lips, and he sank to his knees to mimic Karele’s supplicant posture.

  34

  Breath of Wind

  A WHISPER OF AIR brushed his cheek, flowed past him and grew, ruffling Cruk’s hair. It circled the chamber, growing in intensity to ripple Luis’s clothes and flow from one council member to the next. It wheeled around the wall, lifting motes of dust to wink and sparkle in the lamplight before spinning and concentrating on Karele. It coalesced upon the healer. Tendrils emerged from the vortex and he rose to his feet. Then it encompassed him, enveloped him in swirling currents.

  Beginning with Garet and the Basqu, the council rose to their feet and bowed. “Karele is head of the solis.”

  Martin sank back on his haunches, smiled through tears that blurred his vision and turned the room into a waterfall of color. He blinked in an effort to see. The wind increased, lifting the hair from his forehead. With the coarse weave of his cloak he scrubbed his eyes. He needed to see.

  Breath left him. The vortex of wind surrounded him now. Tendrils of substance appeared in the wind like tentative suggestions of fog or mist, yet they moved of their own volition, first following the circular wind, now up and down and against it. He reached out, tentative, to touch a tendril that somehow faced him, stationary within the tiny maelstrom.

  Warmth and chills ran over his skin, lifting the hair on his arms. Then, without warning, the wind ceased and the chamber returned to stillness, as if it had never been.

  Martin wiped his eyes, found Karele and the rest of the council staring at him in shock, as if he’d become strange in their sight.

  The Basqu man cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Marya. I think you were saying something about not trusting churchmen.”

  She sniffed at his jibe, but the look she turned on Martin held surprise and a fading hint of reverence. “My objections are unimportant. For whatever reason, Aurae has chosen the priest as well.” She shook her head, the motion of her black hair echoing the departed wind. “I dislike such tidings.”

  Garet nodded. “As do I. However, it may be that we stand on the edge of our gloaming. Representatives from the church and the kingdom know we are here, and if the kingdom’s theology proves true, the barrier will fall with Rodran’s death.” He looked down the curved table at the rest of the council members. “We must choose our path.”

  The Soede snorted. “Choose? What is there to choose? We must align with the kingdom—else the light of the world will be buried beneath a tide of ghostwalkers and theurgists.”

  “I think the issue is deeper than that,” the Talian woman said. “No one questions whether we will fight on the side of light or of dark.” She leaned back and tapped a long, tapered fingernail on the table. The click against the stone sounded loud in the silence. “The real question is, will we submit to kingdom authority or marshal and command our own troops?”

  The Soede’s brows rose. Garet gave a thoughtful nod. Martin stepped forward, trying to smooth his features to hide unexpected nervousness. If the shadow lands fought how and where they chose, the kingdom would never be able to coordinate a successful defense. “If I may speak?”

  Garet nodded. “Speak, solis.”

  It took Martin a moment to realize that the leader of the council addressed him. He cleared his throat. “The kingdom possesses fine generals. There are currently five captains within the watch who have mastered the art of war. If we were to offer them a coordinated army under one command, we would have a much better
chance of winning.”

  The Soede sniffed. “I fought in the Steppes War, priest. I saw how the conscripts drew duty in the vanguard. Tell me what assurances you can provide that the army of Haven will be treated better than draftees.”

  Every member of the council leaned forward, awaiting his answer. This, then, was their biggest concern: how to protect their people. His throat clenched. He squared his shoulders and cleared his throat. All of his years in the priesthood and the Judica had prepared him for this. “You have the best assurance of all, my lords and ladies. If you do not receive fair and equitable treatment, your forces can quit the field. You are a sovereign country.”

  “I doubt the church will see us that way,” Marya said. “To them we are nothing more than a seldom-remembered penal colony. Once they learn of our numbers, they will see us as a cheap source of manpower and goods.” She pointed. “Mark my words, solis, news of our prosperity will awaken a hue and cry among the nobles and the church to assert control over Haven.”

  Garet and the rest of the council nodded, waiting in expectation for Martin’s reply. He licked lips gone suddenly dry. This was not some debate over obscure theology. The freedom and autonomy of the shadow lands—or Haven—was at stake. His stentorian cadences were of little use here. Only the truth would suffice. He caught himself. The truth?

  A whisper in his mind, like the sighing of trees, urged him to speak to the point. “Friends,” he said, “what you say is true. The kingdom is as it ever has been—a collection of men, good and bad, compassionate and ambitious. There will be men who will see the unexpected bounty of Haven as nothing more than ripe fruit for the plucking. There are powerful men who crave yet more power. The Weir family continues as the strongest hand in the nobility after the king, and they have influence in the venerated halls of the cathedral as well.

  “But there are also good men, men who will see what you have accomplished here as a miracle and a treasure, men like Archbenefice Canon and Primus Enoch Sten.” His voice caught. “I know these men. They would treasure and strive to protect your people as their own.”