by Dan Willis
Sapphire laughed, loudly and with genuine mirth, as if she’d just been told an amusing story. “Yes, the world is monstrous, Bradok,” she said, touching his cheek with a strange mixture of sympathy and contempt in her expression. “And we must make our place in it any way we can. I hope you see that now. This day’s lesson has been a good one.”
Bradok wanted to answer her, but he couldn’t find the right words. Quite apart from the outrage of his offended morals, he couldn’t help wondering if Sapphire was right: The strong rule.
“You’d better head back,” she announced brusquely. “I imagine the council will be meeting deep into the day. I’ve nearly had my fill and will slip away soon. Try not to wake me with your usual ruckus if you come home late; you know how light a sleeper I am.” She started to turn but stopped to regard him with an appraising glance.
“You did tolerably well this morning,” she said. “If you continue like this, you might just make something of yourself.” She sighed, her appraising eye turning hard. “Too much to hope for, I suppose,” she said.
Bradok escorted his mother back to her booth then returned to his seat. He poured himself a glass of water from the provided pitcher, downed it, then poured another. He’d always been an honest man, a businessman who dealt fairly and gave value for value. He’d believed that the rest of the world could be that way too.
After today he didn’t know what he believed.
Sapphire could do that to him. His mother had a way of twisting his insides in a way that the meanest bouncer in the lowest tavern couldn’t match. He felt as if he’d gone a few rounds with that tavern bouncer and lost. He needed to sit and think if he wanted any chance to untangle Sapphire’s mental knots.
Half an hour later, growing commotion in the chamber hall brought Bradok back to himself.
He hadn’t noticed Argus Deephammer, still standing in the center of the chamber, stoically awaiting his turn to speak. Bradok wondered what possible business the dowser could have with the council and why his usually affable face seemed so grim and determined. Before he could give it much thought, Mayor Arbuckle banged the gavel for quiet.
“Welcome back,” he said once the noise level had dropped. “We appreciate your waiting, Argus. Now what business brings you here?”
“I come before the council today on a most serious matter,” Deephammer said, his voice booming off the stone walls and echoing throughout the chamber. “Two days ago I was in the deep tunnels when I heard a voice calling to me,” he continued gravely. “I followed the sound of this voice, and it led me down into the bowels of the world, into caves where I had never before been. Then, in the lowest cave, I found a moonwell.”
An audible gasp ran around the chamber. To the faithful, moonwells were sacred places, blessed by Reorx himself. Bradok knew them to be pools or springs where the water was so rich with dissolved minerals that it glowed a pale silvery light. In any case, moonwells were rare and their water highly prized as a curative.
“When I found the well,” Argus went on, his eyes flashing around the room to make sure everyone was listening, “I could still hear the whispered voice, but I could not make out the words it spoke. I sat and drank from the fountain and, as soon as that blessed water touched my lips, the voice was made clear to me.
“I heard the voice of Reorx himself,” Argus declared, raising his voice even louder, with no hesitation or sign that his statement was in any way out of the ordinary. “He showed me the sins of Ironroot, the wickedness that breeds here like rats in a sewer. He bade me come here, to you, and deliver this message: Repent of your evils and turn again unto your God, or this great city of Ironroot will be utterly destroyed.”
At that last statement, a roar erupted around the room. Some were shouting that Argus was right, while others expressed outrage at such a threat. The councilmen around the ring were shouting, demanding that Argus explain himself. Mayor Arbuckle hammered on the podium for silence, which he did not receive for a full five minutes.
“What is the meaning of this?” Arbuckle demanded. “How dare you come before this august body with your childish fantasies and presume to pass judgment on us?”
As Bradok watched, Arbuckle seemed to be swelling like a toad, his face a mask of puffy red blotches.
“We are not weak-minded fools,” the mayor shouted at the dowser. “We are men of the world, and we have seen the magics of the humans and the elves. What are your precious priests but a bunch of charlatans, using their magic to manufacture gods who never did exist—all so they might have power over us?
“And now you come here,” Arbuckle continued. “Now you demand that we turn from our learning and our wisdom and go back to the foolish traditions of our ancestors. Repent! Repent for what?”
“Then you will be destroyed,” Argus said, his voice softening but somehow carrying to the farthest corners of the room. “Next month, both the moons will be new in the sky together,” he said. “I have done my part. I have warned you. You have till then.”
“Says you,” a councilman called from the far side of the room.
“So declares Reorx, your god,” Argus Deephammer replied. Bradok was amazed at how strong, how unbowed he seemed in the face of such hostility and anger.
Furious voices rose again only to be cut off by the sound of someone clapping slowly. All eyes in the room turned to a tall, slender dwarf with a forked beard sitting a few tables to Bradok’s right.
“An excellent performance, Argus,” the dwarf said, rising. He walked around in front of his desk and jumped down to the floor of the audience chamber. “It’s only a pity that there is no witness to your tale, no god that anyone has ever met or shook hands with named Reorx to make good on your threats.”
Bradok had never met the dwarf, but his reputation had preceded him. Jon Bladehook was the closest thing the local secularists had to a leader. Bladehook had traveled extensively in his business as a merchant and had grown both cynical and rich. Bradok sat up straight, like many others in the council, suddenly focused on the showdown between the believer and the secularist.
“You say that we will be destroyed in a little over a month if we don’t do as you say?” Bladehook asked.
“I have no commands to give,” Argus said simply. “If you wish to know what Reorx requires of you, go to his priests.”
“But if we don’t, we’ll be destroyed,” Bladehook pressed.
“So says Reorx,” Argus reiterated. “Not I.”
Bladehook nodded sagely then turned to his fellow councilmen. “I wonder, brothers,” he said. “What will happen if Ironroot does not heed the warnings of this mad dwarf?” He indicated Argus. “Surely a being as wrathful and powerful as Reorx would give the dwarves of Ironroot signs of his power before the deadline passes: a small disaster or poison air or a sickness perhaps? Have we detected any sign yet … other than this ugly warning?”
Murmurs of assent rippled around the chamber.
“Then I say we arrest this dwarf,” Bladehook shouted suddenly, fiercely pointing his finger at the surprised Argus.
“On what charge?” someone called from the gallery.
“He has threatened this council and the people of Ironroot,” Bladehook said. “And surely he has confederates, dwarves who are poised to provide these ‘signs’ of Reorx’s power should we refuse to believe their messenger. They, too, threaten the city and her people.”
“By thunder, he’s right,” Arbuckle yelled, pounding the lectern with his gavel. “Guards, arrest him.”
Two soldiers rushed forward and took hold of Argus Deephammer’s arms. For his part, Argus made no attempt to resist them.
Shouts of approval and a few scattered cheers erupted in the chamber. Bradok didn’t hear any of it. He felt sick. The actions of the council were wrong. They had been wrong all day. He knew Argus, knew the man was good and honest. Perhaps he had fallen asleep and merely dreamed the voice of Reorx in the deep tunnels, where he found the moonwell. But Argus himself posed no real dang
er to the town.
He wanted to object, to stand and speak on Argus’s behalf, but one look at the sputtering, angry faces around the hall told him what kind of response that would receive. And glancing up, he remembered his mother’s warning: don’t speak against the consensus and never unless called upon. He could well see that all his fellow councilmen were in agreement with Arbuckle.
“And what of his confederates?” Bladehook asked, climbing back up to his seat. “Who are they? Let us ferret them out.”
“Good idea, Jon,” Mayor Arbuckle said before turning to the guardsmen who had arrested Argus.
“Take him to prison,” the mayor declared, “then go to his house and arrest his family, his close friends too. We’ll cut out this zealotry before it has a chance to cause chaos and rebellion in our city.”
Suddenly, without thinking, Bradok found himself rising to his feet. He stood so quickly and so forcefully, he knocked his chair over backward. The chair rolled down the steps of the platform and into the outer walkway, clattering loudly as it went. All eyes in the hall turned to stare in surprise at the new councilman. Truth be told, he was as shocked as they to find himself on his feet, and didn’t have the slightest idea of what he was about to say.
A deafening silence followed, broken only by the nervous cough from someone on the far side of the hall. Bradok opened his mouth to speak, but at first nothing came out. He knew he mustn’t say the words his conscience screamed out in the dark recesses of his mind. He ought to be diplomatic. Yet he could think of nothing diplomatic or anything else to say. His mind was a blank.
“Ahem. Yes. All right, the chair recognizes Councilman Axeblade,” Arbuckle said, his genial, affable voice back.
“Brothers, councilmen,” Bradok began haltingly, his mind frantically scrambling. “Before we allow ourselves to, uh, get carried away, perhaps we should slow down and think. Arresting Argus might seem prudent as a temporary measure, but what will people think if we arrest his family?”
He paused to let that question sink in before stumbling on. “They’ll wonder if their council are a bunch of weaklings, fearing women and children.”
Several people in the gallery laughed nervously and the councilmen exchanged looks.
“And what will those people do if they see us as weak?” Bradok said, remembering his mother’s own words from that morning. “You and I both know that if they see us as weak, they might decide they don’t need us making their decisions for them.”
The silence that followed his words stretched out for a long time.
“Thank you, Bradok,” Mayor Arbuckle finally replied in a small voice. “Your words speak prudence and a wisdom beyond your years.” He cast his eyes around the chamber at the other councilmen. “Surely there must be some other way to find this dwarf’s confederates, ways that won’t rile the populace.”
“You can silence me,” Argus interjected, his voice still loud and confident, “but others will come in my stead until it is too late.”
“Enough of this,” Mayor Arbuckle said, waving at the guards. “Take him away.”
Argus Deephammer went without a struggle. Bradok watched him go, keeping his emotions under tight control. He couldn’t save Argus, but at least Bradok had spared his family from rotting in prison with him.
Two pages had picked up Bradok’s chair and returned it to the platform. As Bradok returned to his seat, he cast a sideways glance at Jon Bladehook. To his surprise, the secularist leader was glaring back at him with undisguised animosity. Blade-hook had clearly intended Argus’s arrest to be the first, but not the last among the believers. That plan had been thwarted by some upstart newcomer.
Bradok felt certain he’d made a powerful and dangerous enemy.
CHAPTER 3
Deals in the Dark
No more petitioners today,” Mayor Arbuckle said once Argus had been escorted out. “Clear the gallery and seal the chamber.”
As the audience above filed out, the mayor flopped back in his high chair, throwing the gavel down on the lectern in disgust.
“We have to do something,” someone said from the far side of the chamber.
“Clearly,” Jon Bladehook said, standing again. “Is it just me, or do these street preachers and religious zealots seem more common and aggressive than they used to be?”
An angry murmur ran around the chamber.
“Why, one can hardly walk from city hall to the Artisans’ Cavern without some lunatic shouting at you that you must repent, that the end is nigh, or some such nonsense.”
All around the chamber, councilmen were frowning and nodding and muttering. Bradok remembered the man with the painted sign and glanced involuntarily up at the gallery that had been so recently emptied.
“It’s a public nuisance,” Bladehook went on. “Not to mention the fact that any of these zealots might be in on whatever plot Argus Deephammer is hatching to stir up the people.”
“Arrest them all,” someone yelled. Others joined in until pandemonium filled the chamber.
Only Bradok noticed the oily, self-satisfied smile flirting around the corners of Jon Bladehook’s mouth. That was the solution he hadn’t wanted to propose himself.
Bradok felt the cold knot return to his stomach.
“Enough of this,” Mayor Arbuckle shouted, pounding on the lectern.
The room fell silent, and Bladehook’s face returned to an emotionless mask.
“As our new brother, Bradok, has shrewdly pointed out, any move by this council that is considered extreme will weaken our position.”
“Well, what do we do then?” old Tal Boreshank asked irritably. “If we don’t act, sooner or later it’ll look like we endorse all this religious rhetoric. I, for one, have had my fill.”
Angry arguments broke out all over the hall. Some of the council favored sweeping measures, while others urged caution. Bradok just sat there, thinking. He was no believer, that much was certain. Still, something about how the council had treated Argus Deephammer and his solemn warning seemed, well—undwarflike.
He looked down the row to where Jon Bladehook stood, leaning against the front of his desk. He seemed to be basking in the glow of the controversy. As a secularist, he clearly disapproved of the believers, but Bradok thought the intensity of Bladehook’s emotion suggested something more beneath the surface. It seemed as though the notion that others believed in something he considered foolish was a personal affront to him.
In that moment, Bradok felt certain that Bladehook would not stop until he’d put all the Ironroot believers in jail—or worse.
“Ban them,” Bradok said abruptly, his voice cutting through the arguing. He stood as all the eyes in the room returned to him. “We can pass an ordinance banning proselytizing outside the temple grounds and private homes,” he explained. “That way we get them off the street but they can still speak their piece.”
A long pause followed during which no one spoke. Bradok started to worry that he’d gone too far. Then Much cleared his throat.
“I like that plan,” Much said, standing formally. “It solves the immediate problem, and the citizenry will see it as a reasonable measure to prevent interference with daily lives.”
Around the chamber, bearded heads were nodding in agreement.
Mayor Arbuckle stroked his beard, a shrewd look on his face. Finally he smiled and nodded at the scribe who sat at a low table across the hall.
“Write it up,” he declared. “Make sure it’s posted in the square, at the temple, and in every tavern in Ironroot.”
As the scribe began scribbling diligently, Mayor Arbuckle rose from his chair and heaved a deep sigh. He tossed his gavel down on the lectern with a bang. “Well, that’s quite enough business for one day,” he said, donning his topcoat. “Unless anyone else has something to add, I’m going home.”
It was as if a magic spell had been broken. The tension dissipated. Everyone rose, talking among themselves and gathering their things. Within seconds the chamber began to empty.
“You did good, lad,” Much said, clapping him on the shoulder as Bradok descended to the outer walkway. “That was excellent thinking.”
“Seemed like the right thing to do,” Bradok said.
Much’s grip steered him in the direction of the door. “About that,” Much continued in a more conspiratorial voice. “You might want to be careful not to try to do right too much of the time,” he said. “Since you’re new, a lot of the older councilmen will expect you to mind your place for a while. They might feel threatened if Mayor Arbuckle takes too big a shine to you.”
Mayor Arbuckle taking a shine to him? Bradok didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. What he really wanted to do was tell Much that he’d fully intended to keep his mouth shut during his first day on the council. After Sapphire’s lecture that morning and the warning Much had just given him, however, he reasoned that it might be better to keep his private thoughts just that—private.
“One more thing,” Much said, his voice dropping even lower. “Be careful about Jon Bladehook; he’s not entirely a bad one. Make him your friend, if that’s still possible. He’s not one to cross.”
“I gathered that,” Bradok said. “Don’t worry. I have no intention of getting in Bladehook’s way.”
Much smiled and thumped Bradok on the chest. “Good lad,” he said. “I knew you had your wits about you.”
As they passed out of city hall and into the cool air of Ironroot, Bradok caught a flash of red out of the corner of his eye. There, at the foot of the stairs, stood the ragged dwarf with his painted sign.
Repent lest the Gods forsake us.
“Now, my boy,” Much went on, oblivious to the dwarf with the sign. “We have to do something to mark your first successful day as a councilman of Ironroot.”
“Much,” Bradok protested, “I really don’t—”
“None of that, now,” Much said, taking a firmer hold on Bradok’s shoulder as if he half expected the younger dwarf to make a break for it. “I told the people at the Bunch o’ Grapes to cook up a goose for us with all the trimmings and set aside a freshly tapped keg.”
