by Ian Irvine
“I am Tensor,” he said. “I have returned from the east and convened the Syndics. You are Llian, master chronicler of Chanthed?”
Tensor’s presence was quite overpowering. Llian indicated that he was.
“I call upon you to speak at the trial of Karan of Bannador. The charge is treason. Will you speak?”
Llian choked. “I will,” he said, suddenly needing the support of the door handle.
“Good. Depending on the result of her trial you may also be charged. Karan is within?”
Llian nodded. He felt completely numb.
“May we enter?”
Llian knew that the request was just a meaningless politeness. He was seized by an irrational urge to spit on Tensor’s polished boots, but he stood aside.
Tensor strode across the antechamber, followed by Emmant and five other Aachim. Rael, whose face was as pale as paper, rapped at Karan’s door. There was no answer. He rapped again and tried the door. It did not budge.
“May we break it?” Tensor asked Llian.
“Yes,” he replied in barely more than a whisper.
The door was broken and pushed aside. Karan lay on the floor where she had fallen. Llian ran to her. As he did so she lifted her head and looked around. A shadow crossed her face as she caught sight of Tensor, then she sank down again wretchedly.
Tensor bent down beside her and stroked her forehead gently, brushing aside the red locks. “Karan, Karan, why have you so shamed yourself?” he said in a voice thick with sorrow. “You who were our joy and our life. This is a grievous day.”
“Why Emmant?” she cried in an angry croak. “How could you so betray me?”
Tensor’s face went rigid, but for a moment his eyes skidded away from hers. “I am shamed,” he said, “but I will have it.”
He stooped there for a moment longer, in silence, then stood erect, saying in formal tones:
“Karan Elienor Melluselde Fyrn of Gothryme, I call upon you to defend yourself before the Syndics against the charge that you betrayed the sacred trust and great purpose of the Aachim by stealing that great heirloom—long lost, long sought—the Mirror of Aachan, from Yggur of Fiz Gorgo and taking it for Mendark, Magister of the Great Council. Will you defend yourself and the honor of your family?”
Karan was bemused. “Mendark?” she said in a whisper. “Mendark has nothing to do with it.”
“So you say! Then how come you are accompanied by his protégé?”
She did not answer.
“Will you defend your family’s honor?”
“I will,” Karan said weakly.
“Then come,” said Tensor brusquely. “The world turns. We must begin at once.”
He signed to two of the Aachim and they came forward and gave Karan their arms. She moved slowly off; her feet still bare and her right arm, in its cast, hanging limply. Behind her went Rael, like a corpse reanimated; then Llian, so afraid for her that his stomach heaved and he almost disgraced himself. The others followed slowly, all save Emmant.
He remained for a moment after they departed. His sharp eyes caught something shining on the floor beside the window, and he bent down and picked up the chain and amulet. Emmant thrust it in his pouch and hurried after.
In spite of Tensor’s haste it was not until the mid-afternoon that the trial got underway. It was held in a cavernous hall, the roof an oval dome supported by curving walls on either side. Great iron doors stood open at each end. The walls were painted to represent the landscape of Aachan: iron towers on crags sculpted as though from ice; mountains crusted with sulphur, yellow and red; vine forests, black-leaved, tangled and tortured. The dome showed an alien sky of greenish hue, the swollen orange moon brooding from the further end. Yellow globes suspended below the dome gave out a dim light.
Llian had entered the room from the rear. The floor sloped downwards in a series of benches but without seats except at the lower levels. At the far end of the room was a platform, slightly raised, on which stood a semicircle of high-backed iron chairs, intricately wrought in the fashion of the Aachim. Just off the center of the semicircle was a pedestal of stone, around which spiraled a black iron stairway of twenty steps. The pedestal was topped by a dock of iron lace, surmounted by a railing of veined red marble. Karan stood limply in the dock, supporting herself on the rail. Somehow the height of the dock diminished her: she looked small, afraid and guilty.
Llian sat down among the Aachim, while Rael, in robes, went onto the platform and took a seat among the Syndics. The room became still. Then Tensor strode in from a side door and stood at one end of the semicircle of seats.
The trial began with an exchange of courtesies which, even though they were made in his tongue, Llian found difficult to understand. He watched Karan, who was required to respond at intervals. Her responses became progressively more absent—she felt in her pockets, searching her wallet again and again for the lost amulet, but without success, and eventually gave up and sank her head on her arms.
The courtesies ended and there was a long silence. Karan raised her head and looked around the hall. Llian knew she was looking for him, that for some reason she needed him. He stood up. Their eyes locked. For a moment he felt his mind begin to drift, as when Emmant had charmed him, then someone nudged him and he sat down again. Karan bowed her head.
Tensor spoke. His normally rich deep voice, stripped of all color, was utterly neutral, as all save the defendant must be before the Syndics.
“Karan Elienor Melluselde Fyrn of Gothryme in Bannador, scion of Elienor, most ancient house of Aachan. Elienor, greatest of heroines! The only one to stand against Rulke when the Charon came, when the scourging of Aachan began! Your house has always been ally to the Elders of Shazmak. Karan Elienor, granddaughter of beloved Mantille, Mantille remade; esteemed cousin. You are arraigned on the charge of treason. I, Tensor, your accuser, contend that you, the recipient of the gifts and secrets of the Aachim, betrayed our sacred trust and great purpose. I con tend that you stole the Mirror of Aachan from Yggur the Mancer. I contend that you took the Mirror to give to Mendark, Magister of the Great Council of Iagador, to use for projects inimical to our great purpose. I will call the witnesses against you. Then you will plead your argument to the Syndics, that you may be judged.”
Melluselde! thought Llian. What a curious, ancient name. Who was it had that name in ancient times, and how did it come down to her? The name that came before it was much more ancient, and greater yet, but Llian knew nothing of the early history of the Aachim. Then the trial was underway and he had no time to think about it.
The witnesses came forth, and each of them spoke as blandly, as simply and as neutrally as Tensor had. Each presentation was fair, measured, unhurried. There was no drama, and the tension in the room was all the greater for its lack.
First spoke Tensor of a messenger coming to him when he was across the Sea of Thurkad, bearing news that the Mirror had been found. He had returned at once, and in Thurkad had learned from Mendark that the Mirror had been stolen from Yggur, that Karan knew about it and that Mendark had sent Llian to escort her from Tullin to Thurkad. Mendark, he told, was evasive and would not admit all he knew in spite of their long friendship. Tensor guessed that Karan was trying to cross the mountains via Shazmak and had sent messages to keep her there.
The Syndics considered his testimony, conferring among themselves in voices that did not carry. They questioned him about the message that he had sent to Emmant, and it was evident from the form of their interrogation that what he had done was, at the least, distasteful. There was another brief consultation and Selial, the leader of the Syndics, rose. Cool and dignified, she had thick silvery hair that stood out from her head in waves. Llian was comforted by the air she gave out, of impartial justice.
“None can lie to the Syndics,” she said. “We have weighed the evidence of this witness, and it is truth, as he knows it.” Tensor bowed to the Syndics and to the audience, and even to Karan, and resumed his seat.
Rael wa
s called down from his seat among the Syndics. He told of the coming of Karan and Llian, of the debate about Llian and his eventual confirmation as Aachimning, of Karan’s strange behavior after she heard that Tensor was returning. He retold what Llian had said to Emmant in the library, and his subsequent conversations with Karan about that. Rael stood rigid, and his voice was wooden with the effort of suppressing his feelings.
Again the Syndics spoke among themselves, then Selial stood. “There are no questions. We have weighed the evidence of this witness, and it is truth, as he knows it.”
After that other witnesses spoke: the two Aachim who, with Rael, had met Karan and Llian at the gates of Shazmak, the man with whom she had had that late-night argument, other Aachim that Llian had never met. Also called were the ones who had searched her, and her apartment, and every place that she had gone to and might have hidden the Mirror, though they had no evidence to report on that. Each spoke briefly, simply. Some were questioned by the Syndics, most were not, and after each testimony was completed it was accepted.
Last of all, Emmant was called. Emmant spoke, unemotionally, of the message he had received from Tensor. Karan of Bannador returns to Shazmak. Watch her, secretly. Find out what she knows of the Mirror of Aachan and you will be well rewarded. He told that he had shadowed Karan, but had learned nothing. He recreated the scene in the library where Llian had mentioned the Mirror, and told how later he had questioned Llian again and Llian had seemed to be on the verge of telling more when Karan intervened.
The Syndics conferred for a long time. Then the leader stood. “This witness has told truth, but it is not all the truth. You will tell how Llian came to make this admission.”
“I used a charm against him,” Emmant said, showing for the first time a trace of pride. “I put it on the book so that whenever he touched it, it would sap his will and I would be able to force the truth from him.”
The Syndics stirred. “And the second time?”
“The same charm, though it worked less well. I had to use other methods.”
“You almost choked him to death.”
“Pah!” Emmant sneered at Llian. “Look at the pathetic creature: he is so paltry. That charm would not have worked on the smallest of our children. Even so, he is not harmed.”
The Syndics conferred for a long time. Eventually Selial stood again. “We have weighed the evidence of this witness, and it is truth, as he knows it. But the evidence is tainted; it would dishonor us to admit it. We do not.”
Emmant’s face showed his shock and disbelief, but he said nothing, merely returning to his seat.
It was Llian’s turn. He told his tale, beginning with his interview with Wistan, and all his adventures on the way to Shazmak. The Syndics questioned him closely about everything Karan had said relating to the Mirror, but when it came down to it she had told him virtually nothing. Selial stood, and Llian’s evidence too was accepted as truth.
* * *
“Karan of Bannador,” said Tensor, “you have heard the evidence against you. Plead now your case, that the Syndics may judge.”
Karan, standing in the dock, made a pale figure against the huge orange moon. How alone she looked, and how afraid. The silence grew so long that the Syndics began to glance at one another.
She has nothing to tell them, Llian thought. They will condemn her unheard. The same conclusion showed on Rael’s anguished face.
At last she broke the silence, speaking randomly, incoherently at first, knowing not what to say or how to say it, knowing only that she must speak and that she could tell no lie to that synod. She started with Maigraith demanding her aid in Gothryme, and forcing her to swear that sacred oath by her father’s memory. That caused a stir, the oath that would betray his memory whether she kept it or broke it.
After that Karan lost the thread of the story, jumping back and forth between Gothryme and Fiz Gorgo and the swamps of Orist, stumbling over her words, stammering and even shouting snatches of remembered conversations from that time.
Karan was trying to raise that sense of Llian that she had secreted away so carefully, but in her confusion and terror she could not find it. She had lost the amulet and did not know how to retrieve the link without it.
Her voice grew wilder, her speech more incoherent. The Syndics began to whisper to one another. Tensor bent to the woman opposite, speaking urgently in a low voice. Karan knew what they were thinking—that she was mad. No more time, else they would read her. She must risk the direct way.
She stopped short, lifted up her head and stared directly at Llian. Their eyes meshed. A spark leapt between them. An itch began in the back of Llian’s head. An anxiety grew in him, a compound of all his sorrows. It swelled, becoming a blind, unreasoning terror, a terror of the Aachim and of his fate. Abruptly it was dashed away, calm descended, then in a blink he was with Karan and Maigraith as they stole into Fiz Gorgo, the fortress of Yggur the Mancer.
He was wide awake and dreaming.
Karan stood motionless and spoke at last.
The dream that she had planted welled up in Llian’s mind as truth, and as truth she read it back from him and spoke it aloud to the Syndics. It was so real that they trembled with her at the power of Yggur, the strength of Maigraith, the malice of the Whelm; they squatted with her in the stinking mud beneath the wharf at Lake Neid as she gave the Mirror to her accomplice; they struggled with her to lift one-handed a block of stone and fling it down the cliff at Idlis in the dead of night; they tasted the bitter, oily gruel in the ruins. The Syndics paced each pace of that cold, hungry, fearful journey, until at last she stood in the courtyard at Shazmak. When her story was finished they wept with her at her shame and dishonor, for they saw that she knew not what it was that she had done. Llian wept also.
The Syndics wept but Tensor did not. He stared at her, greatly puzzled, for he had expected lies, denials, the rejection of her evidence by the Syndics, ultimately her condemnation and a truth reading. Anything but such a tale.
The Syndics went into conclave, but it was interrupted by Tensor. “There is a wrongness in this story,” Tensor cried. “The prisoner must be read. I will do it, if you will allow.”
“Be silent!” thundered Selial. “It is for the Syndics to judge, as you know better than any.” Tensor bowed his head and sat down again. The conclave resumed. Eventually they had agreement, and Selial stood.
“Karan Elienor Melluselde Fyrn.”
Karan, who had been supporting herself on the railing, looking utterly exhausted, pushed herself away and stood up straight. She looked directly at Selial. Llian’s heart went out to her.
“You have been charged with treason. You know the penalty, and it is death. Are you prepared for our verdict?”
“I am.” Her voice barely carried to where Llian sat.
“We have weighed your evidence, as we have the evidence of all the witnesses.” Selial looked down at her hands. Llian found it difficult to breathe. “We judge that your evidence is truth, as you know it. The charge is dismissed. You are free.”
Karan gave a great sigh and slumped forward on the rail with her head in her hands. It seemed that she was weeping.
“Nor cried Tensor. “She lies. She must be read.”
“I sense no wrong,” said one of the Syndics, looking at her with compassion; then another. “Karan cannot be read. That would shame us, and her. Can you not recall how she came to us, what joy she brought us, and the debt we owe her because of Emmant’s behavior when she lived with us before? There is no crime. She has behaved with honor and must be freed.”
“I do not wish it,” said Tensor grimly. “She lies. She knows where the Mirror is. Perhaps her contempt for us is so great that she even brought it here. She stands between us and our great destiny. Will you not allow me to reach out and bring it to you?”
The Syndics were united against him. “The price is too high,” one said.
“You let this need cloud your judgment,” said another.
“We
no longer have a destiny,” said a third. “We are con tent just to be.”
‘To be is to wither,” said Tensor. “I am not content. The search may not have been sufficient.”
“It was, Tensor,” said another. “All she brought has been checked and checked again.”
“Her arm?”
“The cast was made here; I made it,” said Rael, and the one who had helped him verified it.
“Can she have hidden it in the city?”
“We do not believe so. They were both watched when they left their chamber.”
“The search must be made anew. I will not consent to freeing her. I say we hold her another day, for there is a wrongness here, whether you see it or nay. We must swallow our shame. What say the Syndics?”
The Syndics consulted among themselves. “Very well,” said Selial. “We sense no lie, but we will allow you one more day. Then if you find no firm evidence she must be allowed to go. Karan, you are released into Rael’s protection.”
Tensor bowed his head. “It will be as you wish. We will talk further this night.” He turned to lead the way out, then Selial called to him again.
“There is another matter to be dealt with—the matter of Emmant. To spy on them was wrong, but to use the Secret Art against the helpless Zain was unforgivable. We are Aachim, nobler than any, but only while we so act. We have no need of base devices.”
“The error was mine,” said Tensor with bowed head. “I cared too much for the glory of the Aachim.”
“Our honor is too great a price to pay for future glory,” Selial said. “Never again. But the greater error was Emmant’s. Too great for one who seeks to be Aachim; for one who has already been warned.” She turned to him.
But Emmant was on his feet, shouting, “She has it! I know she has it!” He held out his hands to the Syndics. “Give her to me; give me leave. I will find it for you, never doubt me. My ways are sure. I will flay her, layer by layer, and peel back the layers of deceit as well. And when her weeping flesh is laid bare I will reach into her still-beating heart and pluck out the truth for you. Then you will know my worth…”
