Hederick the Theocrat v-4

by Ellen Dodge Severson

  "Blessed Seekers of Solace," Hederick shouted, "I present one of the greatest sinners I have yet encountered. Greater than any witch, than any mage, than any spell-caster, indeed. For his sin involves…" Hederick waited for the crowd's murmurings to die away. "For this man threw away opportunity that prayerful people would gladly die for. Tarscenian, whom you see before you, had the entire kingdom of the Seeker pantheons before him. He was blessed by the Seeker gods and goddesses. He was himself a Seeker priest."

  "Ah," several people whispered. "That's the man. I'd heard Hederick was searching for someone." "The goblins have been busy these last few days. I did not allow my children outside at all, for fear of them."

  "This man, this Tarscenian, threw off the Seeker faith," Hederick said. "He gave up-tossed aside! — the holy brown robes of the Seeker priest. And, not content with that sin, he went on to find a new altar to worship at-the profane altar of the Old Gods."

  The people cried out. Hederick held up his hands, palms outward, until they quieted. "And still not satisfied, this evil soul entered into a filthy liaison… with a witch. Together they devoted their lives to halting the Seekers. They have sought to impede me for years- unsuccessfully, of course. The woman died as a result of my holy inquisition"-Tarscenian started in surprise at Hederick's explanation of Ancilla's demise-"but the man, Tarscenian, escaped."

  Hederick swept his arm toward the figure strapped to the tree trunk. "This man, people of Solace, would have denied you your only hope of salvation! He would wipe the Seekers, and the comforts of their holy order, from the world!"

  Again the noise from the crowd rose and ebbed. "But I…" Hederick smiled grimly, waiting for the chatter to abate. "I, guided by the hand of my god Sauvay and the rest of the blessed pantheons, I was too clever for one who follows the betrayer gods. Sauvay himself warned me of Tarscenian's plot, and I laid a crafty trap-a trap that, only last night, the unrepentant sinner Tarscenian fell into!"

  Hederick held out a hand to Dahos, who had waited silently at the base of the reviewing stand. The high priest climbed the steps and joined the High Theocrat. The Plainsman's face was colorless and set.

  "This priest," Hederick said, "has also sinned. He admitted to the holy temple Erolydon those creatures who sullied it by their very presence. He sinned in a great way, but he has sought forgiveness for that sin. Thus, in my generosity, I have acquitted him." The High Theocrat nodded formally at the high priest, who returned the gesture but did not meet his superior's eyes.

  "Nonetheless, forgiven or not, it is necessary to reconsecrate the temple," Hederick continued. "We are here today to ask the Seeker gods to cleanse it with their holy blessings. To that purpose you are witness this morning. And to that purpose the blood of a sinner will stain the cobblestones of Erolydon's courtyard."

  Hederick turned to Dahos. "Release the materbill," he commanded.

  The tall priest hurried to the pulley that controlled the door to the monster's prison. Dahos worked the ropes, and soon the fiery-maned creature appeared, howling, in the doorway between the dungeon and the courtyard.

  All of a sudden another sound vied with the mater-bill's roars. The spectators turned from side to side as the sound of a hundred hooves, thundering toward the northern wall of the courtyard, inundated them.

  "What is it?" a woman cried out. "More hobgoblins?"

  Then the people screamed in terror, ducking as the first dozen centaurs, led by Phytos, hurtled to the top of

  the outer wall, then leaped from there to the inner wall. They plunged into the arena with Tarscenian. Another dozen centaurs mounted by freed slaves followed, and a dozen more.

  "Halt!" called Phytos.

  The mounted slaves jumped off the centaurs then, and swarmed over the inner wall and into the spectators. As the slaves threw themselves at temple guards and goblins alike, the centaurs formed a mass and approached Tarscenian.

  There was another roar as the last of the freed slaves, who had traveled more slowly because they'd had no centaurs to ride, came dashing out of the trees and helped each other clamber up the wall. Two of the slaves raced along the wall and tackled a stubborn hobgoblin guard. Two more slaves used the creature's own sword to overcome it. Other slaves sprinted along the inner and outer walls.

  Many of the freed slaves, both men and women, fell lifeless to the cobblestones, pierced through by swords and spears. Again as many were able to arm themselves from the bodies of the slain victims and race back into battle against the goblins and guards. "For Solace!" some of them bellowed.

  Mynx stood as straight and proud as she could in her armor, riding on the back of her centaur. "Tarscenian!" she cried. "I have the Diamond Dragon!" She broke the thong around her neck and held the glittering artifact up to the morning sun. People gasped at the sheer radiance of the object.

  The centaurs formed a living shield around her as Mynx edged her centaur toward the captive.

  "Hold it against the vallenwood!" Tarscenian cried. "Ancilla is inside!"

  Although she wasn't sure what he meant, Mynx leaned over and placed the warm artifact against the vallenwood's roughness.

  "Ancilla, here it is, the thing we sought for so many decades," Tarscenian shouted. "We have the Diamond Dragon now!"

  The trunk of the vallenwood began to glow, and Mynx heard the same humming sound that had torn at her when she was trapped inside the Diamond Dragon. Surprised, she fell back. As soon as the artifact broke contact with the tree, the glow died away.

  "Hold it there, Mynx!" Tarscenian ordered. "Let nothing pull you away, no matter what happens!"

  Mynx did as he instructed. The incandescence and the drone resumed. She closed her eyes and waited.

  But nothing more happened. She looked at the old man. One of the centaurs had cut his bonds, and he had mounted the largest of the men-horses.

  "Something is wrong," he shouted. "It should have worked by now." A grimace of defeat crossed his exhausted features. "Perhaps Ancilla is dead after all."

  Mynx examined the Diamond Dragon. "There's a stone missing," she said suddenly, pointing to the arti-fact's back. "Could that be it?"

  Tarscenian nodded. "Where is it?" he asked eagerly.

  She shrugged helplessly. "It was all right before we were attacked by the hags. Maybe during the battle, we lost it somehow…"

  Tarscenian's face fell.

  At that moment, the materbill, who had been all but forgotten in the commotion, leaped forward with a roar, directly attacking the centaurs. People cried out, and the centaurs broke ranks.

  "Kill the infidel! Kill Tarscenian!" Hederick shouted to one of the guards flanking him on the reviewing stand. In a moment, the guard's bow was up, an arrow nocked. In another instant, the arrow flew toward the vallenwood tree.

  Mynx's centaur sensed its approach and lunged against Tarscenian's mount. And then Mynx, not Tarscen-ian, was down, lost among the legs of the centaurs, clutching her bloodsoaked right arm, the one that still held the Diamond Dragon.

  Tarscenian found the sword of a dead guard pressed into his hand by a centaur. "Murderer!" the old man cried at the High Theocrat. "It is you who are the infidel, Hederick!" Then he was plowing through the crowd, fighting through dozens of guards toward Hederick.

  The centaurs let loose a volley of arrows, and the materbill howled in agony. The air was filled with smoke and flames, the screams of dying guards and centaurs, and the terrified cries of hundreds of spectators. The freed slaves were fighting hand to hand with goblins. Some spectators cheered them on, howling whenever a goblin went down and rushing forward to tear the unfortunate creature limb from limb.

  Kifflewit Burrthistle darted through the riot to Mynx's side. It was the kender who was able to rouse the wounded thief enough to half-drag, half-push her away from the tumult to the relative safety of the vallenwood tree.

  "There's something wrong with it," she lamented, her eyes glassy. "With the Diamond Dragon, kender. We lost one of the diamonds, Kifflewit. By the gods, how could
we have been so stupid?"

  The kender's head shot up, startled brown eyes searching hers. "Lost it? But I have it, Mynx," he finally said. Kifflewit was uncharacteristically somber for a moment. "The diamond was loose. I… I found it. I was afraid we'd lose it." He cheered up. "Lucky I did, Mynx. It's safe in my pouch. Everything will be all right! I have it."

  Not for the first time, Mynx had to control an urge to strangle the kender. "So where is it?"

  The kender peered through the sea of humans and centaurs, goblins and guards, battling around them. Gouts of flame from the dying materbill lit up the courtyard at odd intervals. "I dropped my pouches when I came to rescue you… There they are! And there's the one with the gemstone! I remember, it was the red pouch with the blue string." He pointed triumphantly but seemed disinclined to budge from Mynx's side.

  "Get the diamond, kender!"

  Kifflewit scuttled off through the bedlam without a backward glance. Phytos battled nearby, protecting Tarscenian's flank. Mynx shouted until the violet-eyed centaur turned her way. "Help me up, Phytos," she commanded. She put the Diamond Dragon into the centaur's hand and clambered awkwardly onto his back, her right arm dangling at her side. She strained for a glimpse of Kifflewit Burrthistle.

  At first nothing but dust and tangled bodies greeted her eyes.

  Then there he was, scooting across the courtyard and through the chaos like a rabbit. The materbill writhed not more than an arm's length from the kender's red and blue pouch, but Kifflewit dashed right up and grabbed it. He held up his hand and waved to Mynx.

  She raised her left arm. "Throw it, Kifflewit!" she shouted.

  The kender may not have heard the words, but he understood the gesture. He flung the missing diamond across the courtyard.

  Mynx caught it deftly in her left hand and quickly replaced it in the figurine of the Diamond Dragon.

  With Phytos shouting encouragement, she pressed the glittering artifact against the vallenwood. This time the droning and glowing far overwhelmed what they had experienced before. Mynx cast a triumphant look back at Kifflewit-just as the materbill roared one last time and died.

  The last Mynx saw of him, Kifflewit Burrthistle was looking bewildered as his clothes went up in flames. "Kender!" she cried.

  And then the vallenwood exploded.

  Chapter 27

  The explosion knocked Tarscenian off the centaur and onto his back. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Diamond Dragon arc through the noon sunlight, shedding sparks in gold, yellow, and white.

  The dragon figurine hovered in midair. Tarscenian realized that its paper-thin wings were moving, beating, and the artifact's head was twisting this way and that. Heder-ick cried out, and Tarscenian saw that the High Theocrat's gaze was on the Diamond Dragon, too.

  Then the tiny ruby eyes of the diminutive steel dragon spied Tarscenian. It dived to his shoulder, its diamonds sparkling in the sun. Hederick called out in fury. Tarscenian drew his sword and once more plunged toward the High Theocrat.

  Hederick was looking elsewhere now-nearly straight up, above Tarscenian. The High Theocrat's face was distorted with anger and horror. Tarscenian spun around.

  The stump was gone. In its place rose Ancilla as the Presence-the vision of a woman and a dragon combined. She had the eyes of a snake and an aura of undreamed-of magical power.

  The being was twice as tall as Erolydon, and the lance that flowed from her midsection was thirty feet long.

  The miniature dragon on Tarscenian's shoulder gave an unmistakable cry of joy and flew toward Ancilla. Soon it was perching on her shoulder, too small to be seen from the ground, except for an occasional flash of yellow, blue, or red from one of its gemstones.

  Tarscenian had nearly reached Hederick.

  Several dozen guards had joined the High Theocrat on the stand. Under their combined weight, the wooden structure swayed and suddenly collapsed. Hederick dived off one end and rushed into the temple. Tarscenian could see him peering up at Ancilla from behind one of Erolydon's main doors. The Seeker priest hysterically shouted orders to his guard captains, to his goblins, to anyone who would listen.

  His bowmen showered arrows on Ancilla, but the Presence shed the projectiles like so much sand.

  The Presence raised its mighty spear, described a circle with the tip, and shouted "On respayhee vallenntrayna!" Its tail lashed the air, knocking over part of the inner wall.

  "On respayhee vallenntrayna. Come forth, my brethren!"

  The voice of the,Presence came from everywhere. People sensed it rather than heard it with their ears.

  The tops of the surrounding vallenwoods trembled and jerked. "On respayhee vallenntrayna." Leaves showered the stampeding occupants of the temple. A sudden wind sent the leaves whirling around the courtyard. "On respayhee vallenntrayna."

  "Valiant mages of the White Robes, I return your powers.

  Let them course for the good!"

  Upon Ancilla's call, more than three dozen vallen-woods glowed at their bases. People fighting atop Eroly-don's marble walls froze, then pointed at the trees.

  "I call you from your vallenwood protectors. I thank you, venerable trees, for sheltering those who would fight for the New Gods. But now these wizards are needed here!

  "Carosanden tyhenimus califon!"

  Then the courtyard was filled with mages. White robes swirled as thirty-nine freed spellcasters chanted and spread their magical powders and herbs. White robes flashed like sails as the mages unleashed spell after spell.

  A goblin exploded near the dead materbill. Another fell, screaming, beneath a suddenly toppling wall. Freed slaves killed a hobgoblin, and the crowd another.

  Her right arm dangling uselessly, Mynx pushed through the crowd to where she'd last seen Kifflewit Burrthistle. She found only a few charred pouches and the kender's tiny cloak.

  There was no time to mourn the kender, however. A goblin bore down on Mynx with the promise of death in its eyes. She raised her sword in her left hand. She'd never fought left-handed, but she'd die trying.

  "Cantihgnasf'ir wertnen pi!"

  A bolt of blue lightning, spitting fire, shot over Mynx's head and severed the mace-swinging goblin at its midsection.

  "Antin mrok mon midled alt'n."

  Another bolt, green this time, arced toward Mynx; her right arm was encased in green fire. When the glow receded, the wounded arm was bandaged, the pain gone. Ancilla as Presence was just lowering her claws from casting the spell as Mynx looked back. With her left hand, Mynx raised her swordtip to her helm and nodded. The Presence gravely nodded back. The Diamond Dragon sparkled on her shoulder.

  And then suddenly the centaurs and mages had goblins and hobgoblins alike on the run. The few temple guards who survived fled with them.

  Erolydon's perimeter fell into rubble.

  The Presence's image flickered, so that one moment Tarscenian saw a woman, then a lizard, a snake, then a dragon, and once again a woman.

  "Hederick. Face me. I am Ancilla. Face me."

  A dragon stood where Ancilla had been.

  Hederick remained behind the temple doors. Ancilla sighed, and leaves swirled once more around the courtyard. Her image flickered to that of a snake.

  "Hederick, I summon you. I have the power. You no longer have the Diamond Dragon. It is back with me. I summon you!

  "Cariwon velpacka om tui rentahten-Hederick."

  The temple door opened. The rotund priest stood there, his robe streaked with dust. As he stepped unsteadily through the portal, Ancilla-now a woman garbed in white, but double the height of the crumbling temple- pointed a finger at the entryway. It collapsed behind him.

  "Admit your pain, Hederick. Face it, welcome it. And then throw it aside. Your gods are but a figment of this pain. Embrace the Old Gods, the true gods, and you may still be saved. They may forgive, although you have done much to anger them.

  She was a dragon again.

  Hederick merely stretched a hand toward his sister and shrieked, "Witch!"

/>   "The Diamond Dragon is gone from you now, little brother. It has returned to me, its rightful mistress. You cannot use its charisma to charm and snare the people any longer."

  Ancilla's image took on the form of a snake, then a woman, and again a lizard. The image gestured toward

  Solace with the lance.

  "See how they have left you, Hederick. Even your high priest has fled to the village. Solace has no use for you anymore. Even your guards and aides desert you. Where are your goblins, your other foul creatures? My brother and sister mages slaughtered them as they stood.

  Hederick moved toward the huge lizard that called itself his sister. "I am the High Theocrat of Solace," he shouted. "I will be the greatest Seeker on Krynn. There is no one who can stop me! I will be a god! And you cannot stop me, Ancilla."

  Ancilla's dragon eyes glittered at the man.

  "You will stop yourself, Hederick. I will not have to."

  "Impossible."

  "Sauveha deitista, wrapaho yt vontuela."

  Out of the rubble of the temple rotunda rose a curl of mist, and then another. Hederick turned and cried out. The mist coalesced into the figure of a massive man, who grew until he was equally as large as Ancilla. His shoulders were corded, his face broad and heartless. Hederick fell to his knees. "Sauvay!" he cried. "Punish this witch."

  Ancilla continued chanting.

  The apparition raised its arms above its head and opened its mouth. A new voice throbbed through the courtyard-a deep one, whose words matched the movements of the godlike apparition.

  Hederick, Erolydon is foul. You have spread filth upon my name.

  "My lord Sauvay?" Hederick stammered. "The temple is a tribute to you. I built it only for your glory."

  No, Hederick. You built it for your own glory. And now you must destroy it.

  "Destroy Erolydon?" Hederick whispered.

  Ancilla's Presence began to flicker faster than ever. Mynx looked at Tarscenian.