“You can say that again,” said Shilly with a crooked smile.
There was no more time for conversation. The square was quiet when they arrived. Standing on the podium, its cloth roof newly repaired after the storm, Mayor Iphigenia was making a speech about the town’s pride at having such distinguished guests and how overjoyed she was at their generosity. Most people looked cheerfully uninterested.
Lodo, Sal and Shilly slipped into the crowd’s outer fringes and waited patiently. Moments later, Thess appeared at their side.
“You’ve missed the Selection. Tom and Kemp made it through.”
Sal peered to see the faces on the podium. Tom was standing behind Amele Centofanti, looking so exhausted and strained he might collapse at any moment. Kemp’s face glowed with triumph.
“Have they passed judgment?” Lodo asked her.
“Not yet. After this speech, I think.”
“Good. We’re not too late, then.” He turned to Sal and Shilly. “Wait here for me to come back. If things go wrong and we’re separated, make for the weathervane building. I’ll meet you there.”
Lodo vanished into the crowd. Sal couldn’t see where he was headed. Without the old man around, he felt exposed and nervous but tried not to show it. Concentrating on the podium didn’t help much.
The people around him muttered among themselves as the Mayor’s speech meandered on. Sal suspected the speech was more for the guests’ benefit than for the people who lived there. When it was over, a rowdy cheer went up. Sal craned his neck to see what was happening. Amele Centofanti’s younger companion approached the front and stood patiently, waiting for the noise to settle. Centofanti was still seated, looking annoyed. Why she wasn’t doing the talking, Sal didn’t know.
“Thank you, Mayor Iphigenia,” said the Sky Warden Lodo had called Shom Behenna. His voice was warm and smooth; he didn’t need to strain to be heard. “As your new Selector, I thank your Mayor for her kind words.”
Sal understood, then. Centofanti had failed to detect Sal’s call, and her substandard talent had not gone unnoticed by the Syndic.
“I am glad to say that my visit here has some time yet to go,” Centofanti’s once-assistant went on with a smile. “I leave tomorrow, at the customary time. Our other guests, however, must leave much earlier. I’m sure they envy me my continued enjoyment of your hospitality.”
He bowed, and the crowd clapped. Sal found his performance irritatingly insincere.
“But before they depart, I will ask them to conduct one last duty. Your Alders have been resourceful enough to apprehend a thief who has been plaguing the area for some time. The case has been brought before my ultimate superiors, and they are pleased to make judgment. If you would please welcome, this time, the Alcaide Dragan Braham.”
The crowd clapped uproariously, and Sal forced himself to join in rather than stand out. Shilly, at his side, just mimed the action. The Alcaide, wearing another white outfit, waved the crowd silent.
“This isn’t a cause for excitement,” he said in a chiding tone. To Sal, he sounded mildly intoxicated. “This is a very serious moment, and one which I, the person in whom the judicial system of our great nation ultimately places its trust, have the sad duty to oversee. While it is all very well to enjoy our clean streets and safe lives, the punishment of those who break our laws must be strictly observed. Any faltering of our desire for justice will act as a widening crack that threatens to bring down our entire social structure.” The Alcaide waved to the side of the podium. “Bring out the accused.”
Sal’s father was led onto the podium to a round of catcalls and boos. He didn’t struggle or shout, but he didn’t look beaten, either. He faced the Alcaide squarely, and refused to turn toward the crowd.
“I won’t bore you with the details,” the Alcaide went on, as though he had been through this routine many times before. “The case against this man has been put to us by your Alders, and we have heard him speak in his own defense. We have weighed the facts as carefully as we can and come to a judgment concerning his innocence or guilt.” The Alcaide paused for effect, then said: “We find this man guilty of the crimes with which he has been charged. His sentence will be transportation, enacted immediately. He will return with us to the Haunted City and there pay recompense for his crimes.”
Sal bit his tongue on a cry of dismay. But the cheer the announcement received wasn’t loud enough to drown out a dissenting voice.
“Stop!” Lodo’s cry came from close to the podium, loud enough to be heard by everyone. Sal peered but couldn’t see him. “Your judgment is wrong, and you know it!”
The Alcaide, too, seemed to have trouble locating the heckler. “Who said that?”
“Does it matter? The truth remains. This man is innocent and you are about to do him a great injustice.”
“How dare you question our judgment?”
“I dare because I know the truth!” The voice seemed to move among the people at the front of the stage. Sal saw heads turning, looking for the source. A growing mutter rose from the crowd. “This man has done no wrong. He is the victim of prejudice. Visitors to our town should not be treated so poorly, according to the color of their skin.”
The Alcaide guffawed at this. “Are you calling me a bigot, whoever you are? I, who am lighter by birth than most of you before me? I, who has chosen a child of pure white skin to attend us in the Haunted City?” Behind him, Kemp shuffled his feet, clearly disliking being the center of attention at that moment.
“Not you,” responded Lodo. “One of the Alders of this town, and the people who support him because they fear or desire his authority.”
“That is a serious allegation, friend. I trust all of Fundelry’s Alders absolutely, and I trust the people who elected them.”
“Of course you do. In the same way you trusted your Selector and her representative. Everyone is fallible.”
The Alcaide scowled, no doubt thinking of Centofanti and Holkenhill’s inability to find Sal. He seemed to be sobering rapidly. “What are you suggesting?”
“That you shouldn’t place your trust in officials who take ten days to catch a so-called criminal, and then act only on the word of a boy.”
The spectators either hissed or cheered at this, depending on their relationship with Alder Sproule.
“Quiet, please!” The Alcaide took a deep breath to compose himself. He looked like he was about to explode. “Again I ask what you’re suggesting. Stop making insinuations and speak plainly.”
“You know what I’m saying, Alcaide Braham. I ask you to rescind the transportation order and set this man free.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not? Can you possibly believe that this man is guilty beyond reasonable doubt? Would you ask all your people to be treated with the same casual justice? What sort of precedent are you setting?”
The Alcaide fumed for a moment. A heckler shouted: “Let him go so I can get another drink!” The Alcaide silenced him with a look.
“My justice is not casual,” he said.
“Prove it to be so, then. Set this man free, or at least give him a public trial.”
Sal held his breath. The time it took the Alcaide to decide stretched forever.
In the end, it was the Syndic who spoke.
“Impossible,” she said, her voice ringing out across the gathering.
“It is not your place to decide,” Lodo shot back.
“Yet I have decided!”
“And I stand by her decision.” The Alcaide looked relieved that someone had backed him up. “My authority is not absolute, and I respect the words of my advisers.”
“Too much, I think.” Lodo’s voice sounded resigned. “Syndic Zanshin perpetuates a feud that has stretched too long and resulted in one death already. She is not acting in the best interests of the Strand, and her advice should be disregarded.”
>
“Ridiculous!” The Syndic took two steps to the front of the podium and glared down at the crowd, seeking the source of the voice, again without success. The crowd stared back at her, hypnotized by what was unfolding before them. “Where are you, old man? Show your face!”
“No. I have no faith in your ability to listen to reason. I do not wish to suffer the same fate as the man you have wrongly convicted tonight.”
“I assure you that you will come to no harm.”
“Is that what you told Seirian Mierlo?”
The Syndic went as pale as Kemp behind her. “Who?”
Lodo didn’t bother to answer. “Why do you lie? Lies can never cover the truth. You yourselves have denied the Selected passage on your ship, yet you deign to take a criminal in their place. Does this not say something of your motives? This man is not the one you want. He can’t help you find the boy. Let him go and your conscience will rest easy. The people listening to this conversation will never need to know the rest. Let time heal what you cannot undo. That is the best course of action open to you now.”
The Syndic’s hands clutched each other in front of her stomach. She seemed to be warring within herself. The Alcaide, too, no longer looked quite so self-righteous.
“He may have a point, Nu.”
“He speaks nothing but lies!”
“This man is not guilty,” Lodo reiterated. “He’s just caught in the middle. If you leave him here, he’ll never trouble you again.”
The crowd was becoming increasingly confused, judging by the whispers Sal overheard.
“Perhaps we should reconsider,” said the Alcaide, wiping his palms on the front of his white robe. “There may be a case for appeal. We don’t want to act too hastily.”
“No,” the Syndic hissed. “It’s a trick.”
“To what end, Nu?” The Alcaide was growing impatient with the way things were turning out. Sal could tell he wanted to end it, either way. “Dafis is no one special. He didn’t seek us out; we tracked him down. Why wouldn’t he just fade into the background once we’re gone? It’s not as if he could do anything to harm us.”
“I think we’re underestimating him,” she shot back. “Look at the harm he’s already done.”
“And what is that?”
“He lied about the boy--”
“To him, he’s just raising a child away from interfering elements. He’s being over-protective, but that’s all. I can almost sympathize with him, at times, as should you. Everyone wants the best for their family.” The Syndic shot him a dark look, but he went on: “We have better things to do than stand here arguing. The boy has slipped through our fingers, if he was ever here at all. Our time is better served going after him than condemning one man to a marginally greater hell.”
“What happened to justice being served, Dragan?”
“Who decides what is justice and what isn’t? That’s my job, if I recall correctly.”
The Syndic opened her mouth to respond, but Sal never found out what she was going to say.
There was a disturbance in the crowd as someone pushed forward to the front. “The boy you’re talking about,” called a voice. “Is that the one he came here with?” A finger stabbed up, pointing at Sal’s father.
The Alcaide sought the speaker, and found him. “Yes. He’s gone. Do you know where?”
“He’s gone nowhere. He’s been here the whole time. He’s probably still here, somewhere.”
A buzz went up in the crowd and a dagger of ice stabbed deep into Sal’s gut.
“Where?” asked the Syndic, her voice as sharp as that dagger. “We last sensed him a hundred kilometers from here.”
The owner of the new voice clambered onto the podium. The dagger twisted when Sal recognized the blue uniform and handsome face of Tait, Tom’s older brother.
“I don’t know where exactly,” he said, looking nervous but resolute. “But he couldn’t be that far away. He made friends with my brother. Tom saw him in the dunes just this morning, charmed to look different.”
Sal shook his head in horror. Behind Tait, Tom mirrored the gesture.
“Interesting,” said the Syndic. “Our thanks, journeyman Tait. You have done well. Perhaps we should reconsider our decision regarding your placement here.”
Tait’s face lit up.
“And what do you say to that, old man?” she asked the voice from the crowd. “Don’t think I don’t know who you are. You’ve meddled in the Strand’s affairs one too many times, I think, Payat Misseri!”
Her face was a mask of rage. The crowd echoed it instinctively, calling for justice, or at least a show of it. The Alcaide moved toward her.
“Nu--”
“Enough, Dragan! The boy is here, and I want him found! We’re not leaving here until he’s on the ship and heading back to where he belongs!”
Sal tried to shrink into himself, torn between running and trying to rescue his father. Around him, the crowd was becoming agitated, roused by the emotions on display before them. Shilly’s hand on his arm held him still, but it was only with the greatest act of will that he forced himself not to pull from her and run.
Then he felt the eye boring down upon him again with renewed pressure and weight. He collapsed to the ground with a cry, clutching his head. He felt as though the charms Lodo had given him had caught fire. His wrists burned as though they had been bound in shackles of molten glass. The ward on its string around his neck burned red-hot.
“No!”
He dimly recognized his father’s voice, but could do nothing to answer.
Then there was a flash of light so bright he could see it through the arm across his face. A rush of energy passed over him like a wave, sweeping the eye aside. He heard screams all around him, and a sound like glass shattering. Shilly dropped to the ground beside him and clutched his back, trembling. Feet kicked them as people ran in a panic around them. They were both moaning with fear, but couldn’t hear their own voices over the terrified crowd.
Then hands reached out of the chaos and shook their shoulders. “Quickly! You must run!”
Sal opened his eyes. The voice belonged to Josip. His nose was bloody, and half his face was red, as though it had been burned. He helped them to their feet and pointed over the heads of the people running around them, toward the silver weathervane. “He’ll meet you there! Go!”
Shilly collected herself first and did as she was told. Sal, dragged along by her hand grasping his, looked over his shoulder. The podium was emptying rapidly, along with the square. The Alcaide stood at the front, his hands raised as though calling for calm, but his expression was thunderous. Sal’s father was nowhere to be seen.
Sal heard another muffled glass-smashing sound from his right, on the far side of the square. A flash of bright light made him flinch automatically as a cloud of what looked like dust rose above the crowd. People ran away from it as fast as they could. Some were bleeding from small cuts and grazes.
Then Sal realized: the town’s light globes were exploding one by one, releasing all their stored energy in powerful bursts. One near him must have exploded first, hence the blast of light and energy that had deflected the searching eye. He had been protected by being down on the ground already.
The crowd was running in the same direction as them, so it was easy to move. No one seemed to be actively looking for him yet. The people of Fundelry were more interested in getting away: things had become much more chaotic than they could, or wanted to, deal with. The Alcaide and the Syndic would resolve the problem, whatever it was--and Sal could sympathies with that. He wanted more than anything to hide under a table and wait for it all to blow over.
But he couldn’t. The Syndic’s probing eye was gathering for another stab at him. He could feel it looming, threatening, building. He concentrated all his strength on maintaining the Cellaton Mandala, the only defense he had agai
nst it, and was seeing the spinning circles so clearly that he didn’t notice when they arrived at the School building.
Standing still was much harder than going with the flow. They were buffeted by passers-by until Shilly dragged him into a laneway, out of sight. Outside, Josip looked frantically around for Lodo. Thess joined him a second later, shaking her head.
This way, said a voice in Sal’s mind. It seemed to come from further down the lane.
“Lodo?” Shilly asked, her fingers digging into Sal’s arm.
Don’t let Thess and Josip see you go, said the voice. Their determination to follow will betray us.
Sal and Shilly slid slowly along the crumbling stone of the laneway wall until the others were out of sight. They dared to pick up speed, heading deeper into shadow. As they passed an open doorway, hands reached out and grabbed Shilly.
She gasped--but let them be dragged through the door when she saw who it was.
“Dad!” Sal clutched at his father and was hugged back just as hard.
“We must be very quiet,” Lodo said from deeper in the shadows. “Sproule and his officers will be looking for us soon, if they aren’t already. And the others.”
Sal’s relief was short-lived. “I feel them. It’s getting stronger.”
“We must move quickly. If I can get you into the workshop, you’ll be safe. I’ll open another entrance at a safe distance to let you out.”
“Can you do that from the inside?” asked Sal.
“No. Only from the outside. If we all went in, we would be trapped. They would find the entrance and starve us out.”
“Would they find it?” asked Shilly.
Lodo nodded. “I have little hope that we’ll get there unnoticed. Instead I’ll concentrate on getting you there safely, close the entrance forever, then open another entrance when I’m a good distance away. With luck, they won’t realize what we’re doing until it’s too late.”
The Stone Mage & the Sea (Books of the Change Book 1) Page 29
