Exile's Challenge

by Angus Wells

  But Tomas Var could not properly understand that, and so he only went about his duties, and readied for the great expedition against the hostile demons.

  9

  Ungentle Persuasion

  “Dammit, you can’t force us!”

  The speaker was a tall man, broad of shoulder and chest, his beard dense and red as a fox’s brush, matching the angry color in his cheeks. His name was Niklaus Corwyn, and it seemed he was elected spokesman for the refugees. He stood a pace or two ahead of the crowd filling the square, glowering up at the dais where Inquisitor Talle stood, Governor Wyme was seated beside, Var and Spelt standing behind.

  Talle said “No?” in a soft, almost mocking voice.

  Corwyn shook his head vigorously. “Inquisitor you may be, and do you drive the demons out, then I’ll be the first to bend my knee in thanks. But that first! Rid us of the demons, and then we’ll go home.” Dramatically, he flourished Talle’s proclamation, crumpling the paper between large hands and flinging it to the ground. “Eh, neighbors?”

  The crowd behind him—all the dispossessed, the refugees—shouted their agreement. Corwyn waited for the hubbub to die away, then: “You see? We’re of one mind. Drive out the demons and then we’ll go back. Not before!”

  Var watched the Inquisitor take a step forward and then looked past him, out over the throng to the Militiamen ringing the square. They stood to attention, bayonets affixed to their upright muskets. Most of the refugees were armed—with pistols and swords, if not heavier weapons—and Var prayed earnestly that Talle not provoke a riot: that must inevitably end in bloodshed. God, he thought, when I was given this duty I believed we came to help these people, and they’d be grateful, but they look at us as if we are the enemy. And Talle does nothing but exacerbate their feelings.

  He glanced sidelong at Spelt, wondering if the major’s impassive features hid a triumphant smile, as if he relished these objections to Talle’s diktat. He’s no better than Talle, he thought. Him and Wyme, they all look for petty advantages, personal gains, when the fate of Salvation stands balanced and Evander might lose all this new world.

  The long days of waiting for Spelt’s men to gather his horses had allowed Var to form a clearer picture of the situation. From the maps he had studied, he had learned that most of the northwestern quadrant stood deserted, and from Wyme’s tally books he knew Grostheim could not survive the year without the farms being tenanted again. From careful conversations with the refugees he had realized that a paralyzing fear gripped them, blinding them to the truth that they should starve did they remain, deafening them to persuasion. And Lieutenant Minns had been right: Wyme and Spelt looked only to hang on, to survive until Evander—in the form of Inquisitor Talle and Var’s small army—salvaged them.

  Grostheim, he had seen, was secure as any city; more, now that Talle had painted his hex signs on the walls and gates. But even so, for all they looked to be rescued, still both governor and garrison commander resented the authority imposed on them. What had they expected? Var wondered, and felt contempt at their petty jealousy.

  He longed to be gone from this miserable city. He was a soldier, not a diplomat, and he had no time for these games. He was ready to leave. The horses were gathered and his men prepared to march; they were—grudgingly—supplied. He had secured the services of a hunter, one Abram Jaymes, who claimed to know the wilderness edge better than most. Young Minns—Var had come to trust his opinion—vouched for the man. Talle’s proclamation had been posted, asking (Var’s touch, that: the Inquisitor would have ordered) that the refugees present themselves in the square, preparatory to departure.

  Spelt had suggested that they be gathered by Var’s marines—they’d have the greater authority, he claimed—and Var had smelled a trap in that. He’d seen the proclamations torn down and tossed into the dirt, and knew the mood of the refugees, so he’d smiled and countered with the suggestion that surely Major Spelt’s Militiamen represented authority in Grostheim, and therefore it were better they insure the refugees attend.

  Perhaps, he had thought as he smiled and spoke softly, I do learn to be a diplomat. But God knows, I don’t like it.

  He brought his eyes back to Jared Talle. The Inquisitor stood on the edge of the platform now, head thrust forward to stare into Corwyn’s eyes. Var could only see his back, but he could imagine how those eyes looked, and did not envy Corwyn.

  He heard, very clearly, what Talle said. It was as if the Inquisitor’s voice were a cold wind icing its way through the heat of the summer day. He did not speak loud, but nonetheless it carried out to all the refugees and the soldiers beyond them. Var thought that perhaps even the guards along the catwalks heard it, for it was like steel in flesh: undeniable and remorseless.

  “This land is ours. Ours! It belongs to the Autarchy and Evander. It belongs to you, and to me—because we are Evanderan! Can you not understand that? Have you no pride, no care? Would you give it up to savages? Leave it to them?”

  “Demons!” Corwyn gasped, staring at the Inquisitor, into his darkly sparkling eyes. “Demons who kill us.”

  “No!” Talle’s voice rose to a shout, like a clap of sudden thunder. Even Var staggered back. “Not demons, but only savages. Vicious: yes; cunning: yes. But not demons!”

  “How,” Corwyn asked, swaying on his feet as if Talle’s stentorian voice had loosened his limbs, his hold on gravity, “do you know?”

  “Because I am an Inquisitor.” Var could not see Talle’s face, but he could imagine those thin lips curling in physical expression of the contempt larding the man’s voice. “I do not need to see them because I am an Inquisitor!”

  Corwyn hesitated, shuffling nervously, like a bull brought to bay. Var saw him tear his eyes from Talle’s gaze, and marveled at the man’s willpower. Yet when he spoke, his tone was less confident. “But I have seen them; and what they do.” He turned slowly around so that he faced the crowd. Var saw his shoulders hunch, his back straighten, as if he drew on a reservoir of strength. “Eh, neighbors? We know what’s out there, don’t we?”

  The crowd, silent until now, murmured a massed affirmative. It shifted, milling nervously as a herd of frightened cattle. Corwyn raised his arms. “And we know where we’re safe, eh? Here, that’s where! Here behind high walls, with the Militia to protect us. So I say we stay here. Are you with me?”

  The answer was a sullen bellow of agreement, a waving of fists, in some cases of weapons. The Militiamen stationed around the square grasped their muskets firmer; the lieutenant in command looked toward Spelt. Oh God, Var thought, don’t let this go wrong. He saw Spelt frown and wondered what thoughts went through the man’s head. Wyme sat mopping his florid brow, eyes darting from the crowd to the Inquisitor. Then Talle, as if possessed of hindward-facing eyes, said, “Hold your men steady, Major. Leave this to me.”

  Corwyn, emboldened, turned to face the Inquisitor once more. “There, you see? Every soul here’s a freeman, and we’ve decided to stay.”

  “Look at me!”

  The command seemed unnecessary—Corwyn was already glaring defiantly at the black-clad man—but as the words lashed out, he stiffened somewhat and his gaze fixed unwavering on Talle’s eyes. Var guessed what was coming—he had seen Inquisitors at work—and choked down the sour lump that threatened to clog his throat.

  “Come here.”

  Talle beckoned and Corwyn took a stiff-legged pace forward, and then a second, his head tilting as he continued to stare at the smaller man. His eyes were unblinking despite the bright sun, the sweat that trickled down his forehead as if he were engaged in some tremendous internal labor. He halted when his belly touched the edge of the dais, standing rigid as any soldier on parade. Talle delved in one deep pocket of his frock coat, still holding Corwyn with his eyes, his hand emerging with a small silver-topped pot of some dark ceramic. He unscrewed the lid and dipped an index finger.

  “Closer.”

  Corwyn bent from the waist, bringing his head nearer the Inquisitor, who
in turn leant forward, reaching out with an odd delicacy to trace a pattern on the bearded man’s forehead. He murmured as he painted his design, but too low that any save Corwyn himself might hear. Then he stood back, stoppering the jar. Absently, he wiped his smeared finger on the lapel of his coat. All the while, his eyes remained firm on Corwyn’s.

  The square was unnaturally quiet. Var heard gulls mewing, but that was the only sound until Talle spoke again, aloud.

  “Now tell me what you intend to do.”

  “Go home,” Corwyn said.

  His voice rang loud in the silence—which ended with his announcement, a babble of protest and disbelief starting up amongst the refugees. Talle raised his arms and shouted “Quiet!” in the same thunderclap tone he had earlier used. The crowd fell obediently silent.

  “Tell your friends,” the Inquisitor ordered.

  Corwyn turned to face the crowd. Var thought of automatons, and those frightened soldiers he’d seen hexed so that they raged into battle, careless of injury, like the berserkers of legend. From the corner of his eye, he saw Alyx Spelt cross stained fingers and spit.

  “We must go home.” Corwyn’s voice was a rich baritone, full of conviction. “Our farms need tending, the mills repairing. We must think of the harvest, and the vineyards. We’ve let them go too long.”

  From within the crowd a man asked, “And what of the demons?”

  “We’ve the Inquisitor to protect us,” Corwyn replied confidently, “and all the strength Evander’s sent us.”

  “The demons have slain Militiamen before,” called a second protester. “Why not these? And us, after?”

  Corwyn said, “The demons are only savages—as the Inquisitor says. Nor have they faced an Inquisitor before—they are chaff before his God-given power! And you’ve seen the soldiery Evander sends us—engineers to build forts, and cannon to ward them. All the might of marines and infantry and artillery! How shall the savages prevail against the chosen of God?”

  “They did before,” cried the hidden voice.

  Talle smiled and said to Corwyn, “Name him.”

  Corwyn said, “Jerymius Thorne.”

  “Excellent. Lead me to him.”

  Talle sprang from the platform with an agility Var found somehow incongruous, all flapping black coattails and lankly swirling hair. Conscious of his duty for all he disliked the man, he cried, “Inquisitor! Is this wise?”

  Talle spun around, as if performing some weird dance, and pantomimed a bow. “Fear not, Major Var. I am quite safe. Or do you doubt me?”

  Var shook his head and Talle grinned; Var thought again of predatory animals. He watched as the Inquisitor touched Corwyn’s elbow, for all the world like they were old friends, motioning that the much larger man lead the way.

  Var looked to Spelt, finding the major staring wide-eyed at the incongruous couple who walked into the hostile crowd as casually as if they were making their way through the guests at some garden party. He could not be sure whether Spelt was genuinely amazed, or prayed that Talle be torn apart by the angry throng. Wyme, he saw, was gasping as if unable to breathe adequately, his pudgy hands knotting his handkerchief so tight the bundle loosed a steady dripping of moisture onto the white cloth of his breeches. It should look ill on the governor’s record, Var thought with cynical amusement, if an Inquisitor were slain within his jurisdiction.

  But it was, he knew, hard to slay an Inquisitor. They were the Autarchy’s ultimate authority, and fear of reprisal was a powerful weapon, even without the strengths the Inquisitors themselves owned. And God knew, they were plentiful and terrible.

  Even so, he must—albeit reluctantly—admire Talle’s courage.

  And so, it appeared, did the refugees; or they were confused by this strange turn of events. Whichever, they parted to let Corwyn and Talle through, forming a wide avenue to a brown-haired man dressed in a soiled shirt and grubby waistcoat. He wore a dusty tricorne, a belt supporting a holstered pistol, and in his hands he held a trade musket. The crowd moved back from him as it might from a felon, condemned, a circle shaping where the avenue ended so that Var had a perfect view.

  Corwyn said, “This is Jerymius Thorne,” and Talle beamed and aped his gangly bow again, and said, “Sieur Thorne, well met. I am, have you not already learned, the Inquisitor Jared Talle. I am come here on Evander’s business, on orders of the Autarchy, to make this new land safe again.”

  Thorne swallowed, fingering the hammer of his musket, looking from side to side, finding no support there so that he must face the capering black figure before him. He looked at Corwyn.

  “For God’s sake, Niklaus! I’ve only followed you.”

  Corwyn said nothing. Talle bowed again, arms spread wide in parody of courtly greeting. “But now Sieur Corwyn is persuaded to go home—to do his duty. Are you not willing to do yours? Are we not all servants of Evander, of the Autarchy? Are we not all committed to holding this new land secure for Evander? Sieur Corwyn understands that now. Why not you?”

  Thorne said, “You hexed him; I’m not bewitched.”

  Talle’s laughter rang high-pitched. “You don’t like hexes?”

  Thorne shook his head nervously. His right index finger stroked the trigger of his musket.

  “You don’t like the hexes I’ve set on Grostheim’s walls?” Talle spread his arms and bowed his head in parody of disappointment, spinning around in a swirl of black tails, weird as a dancing crow. “The hexes you’d hide behind? Shall those same hexes not protect you out there?” His prancing ceased, an arm flung out to the north and west. “Where forts shall be built, and soldiers be there to protect such cowards as you?”

  Thorne said, “I’m not a coward.”

  Talle said, “You are.”

  Thorne said, “I’ve seen the demons.…”

  “Savages!” Again, the thunderclap: denying argument, leaching antithetical will. Niklaus Corwyn stood nodding solemn confirmation. The crowd stood quiet, waiting; afraid. “No more than savages!”

  Thorne sniffed and hung his head a moment.

  As he did, Var saw that he set the hammer of his musket on half cock and dropped the strikerplate against the pan. He wondered what the man knew of Inquisitors, and what Talle saw and would do.

  “Are you wed?” Talle asked at last, smiling his horrid smile.

  Tomas Var saw it through the crowd and wondered where this discussion led. Likely, he thought, to Thorne’s downfall. But still he must, in a way, admire Talle: as he might admire the approach of a soft-stepping spider to its prey: all slow and subtle until the fangs sank in to deliver the poison.

  He saw Thorne nod, confused, and heard him say, “I’ve a wife and two children.”

  “Are they here?”

  “Yes.” Thorne shrugged. “Where else would they be? There’s nowhere else safe in Salvation.”

  “Nor anything of Salvation left,” Talle said, “save you and your kind go back. Would you see them safe, then, your wife and children?”

  Thorne nodded.

  “Then that,” Talle concluded, “can be easily arranged. I shall have them branded, and indentured to folk in Grostheim. You think the city safe, no?”

  Thorne gasped. “You can’t! We are free folk.”

  “I can,” Talle said. “I am an Inquisitor.”

  “No!” Thorne looked around for support: found none, and thumbed his musket to full cock. “You can’t do that.”

  Talle said, “I can. I can do everything I promise. I can hex you safe from the savages, or kill you. I can send your wife and children into indenture, branded.”

  Thorne screamed “No!” and swung his musket down and round at the Inquisitor’s chest, squeezing the trigger.

  Var saw it all clear, as if time slowed and ran glutinous, so that it seemed all done in mime, unreal. He saw the hammer fall, driving the flint against the strikerplate, the resultant spark igniting the powder loaded into the barrel. He saw the musket buck in Thorne’s grip and the gray-white cloud of smoke that erupted fro
m the muzzle, lit by the flash of the explosion that propelled the lead ball into Talle’s chest. He saw the Inquisitor stagger back and thought, God, no! He can’t be slain! What shall happen now? He saw Niklaus Corwyn catch Talle in his arms and steady the stricken man. Then he saw Talle find his balance and stand upright out of Corwyn’s supportive embrace, smiling unpleasantly as Thorne gaped in naked disbelief.

  “I am an Inquisitor, and we are hard to kill.” The dark-haired man brushed at the frontage of his coat, where material smoldered, slapping out sparks. “And to attempt our murder is a crime.”

  Thorne stared at him; every eye in the square was on him. Talle adjusted his coat, tugging a moment at the waistcoat beneath. Then held up the ball that had struck him full in the chest. He examined the bullet and turned slowly around, holding the lead missile high—an exhibit in this impromptu prosecution.

  “Would any here deny that this man attempted to murder me?”

  Silence answered his question and he flicked the bullet away. It fell, dull, on the packed dirt of the square.

  “Then by the authority vested in me by the Autarchy of Evander, I declare Jerymius Thorne guilty of attempted murder. The sentence is death.”

  From the rank of onlookers closest to Thorne a woman wailed. Thorne stared at his musket, at Talle, as if he could not believe the evidence his own eyes gave him. He shook his head, flung the musket away, and looked to Corwyn.

  “Niklaus, for God’s sake, do something! Help me!”

  “I can do nothing.” Corwyn faced his friend with an impassive visage. “The Inquisitor is right—you tried to kill him. You are guilty, Jerymius.”

  “No!” Thorne shook his head desperately. “No … I …”

  Corwyn said, “Yes,” in the same confident tone.

  Thorne wiped a hand across the sweat beading his face, his eyes darting about, seeking support from the crowd: none came. Only frightened faces answered his unspoken plea, and the weeping of his wife.

  Talle said “Look at me!” and involuntarily Thorne faced the Inquisitor.