Halls of Law

by V. M. Escalada

  “I do follow. A little unorthodox, perhaps, but understandable. I do not see any great punishment coming to you.”

  “No, Faro, and that’s not why I’m here.” The man looked at Luca again. “I thought—I don’t know how these things work, exactly, but I thought, seeing that Ker—Talent Nast, I mean—seeing that she has my plaque, Talent Pa’narion here, being an Inquisitor, might be able to find her through me. Through the plaque, like.”

  There was silence in the room. Luca tilted his head to one side.

  “Can this be done, Inquisitor?”

  The older man lifted his eyebrows. “Soldiers’ plaques are so much a part of them . . . well, there’s a simple way to find out.” Luca got to his feet and approached the soldier who now turned toward him, opening the collar of his tunic.

  “Nate Primo, is it? Well, relax, Nate. You won’t feel a thing.”

  The man nodded and lifted his chin. Luca placed his hand at the base of the man’s throat, thumb to one side, fingers to the other.

  “The plaque is in Gaena,” he said immediately. “And Kerida is with it. She is frightened, but her spirits are good. So,” he said, fixing his eyes on Juria. “Closer to us than she was, but likely still a prisoner.”

  “Precisely,” Juria agreed. “Thank you, Pearl Second, and you also, Duty Officer. I would say take an extra ration of beer, but we’re a bit short at the moment, so I’m afraid I’ll have to owe it to you.”

  The man smiled. “I know you’re good for it, Faro.” Touching his crest again, he followed the duty officer out.

  “Is the prince with her? Is he safe?” Juria asked once the door was closed.

  Luca shook his head. “That I can’t be sure of. If she were touching him, perhaps I could tell, but frankly, I was surprised to get as much as I did.”

  “I’d say that if the prince weren’t with her, and in that sense safe, her spirits would be less good,” Surm suggested.

  Luca leaned forward, hands gripping the edge of the table, a new light in his eyes. “We must rescue them. If I took Nate Primo with me, a small expedition—”

  “And how do you propose we do that, Talent Inquisitor? We cannot even rescue ourselves.” Juria wished she could erase the bitterness from her voice.

  A storm gathered on the older man’s face, but before he could speak, the Feeler cleared her throat.

  “Your pardon,” she said. Her voice was rough, as though she had been crying. “We don’t need to go ourselves. I will tell my people where the Griffin Girl is being held, and they can send a party to rescue her.”

  The skin crawled on Juria’s back, even as she recognized the military usefulness of the Feeler’s ability. “Of course,” she managed to say. “Please do so.”

  A flurry of noise and the duty officer was back in the room without knocking. “My Faro, a strength of soldiers has been sighted to the northeast. Looks like a full Cohort.”

  Juria kept the hope rising in her heart from showing on her face. “Ours?”

  “My Faro,” the man said nervously. “How could we be sure?”

  “Faro Sweetwater.” Luca Pa’narion, smiling now, tapped the tabletop with his fingers. “I Flash a sleek beast dropping from the branches of trees onto its enemies below.”

  “Panthers.” Juria got to her feet, sore wrist and headache forgotten. “Officer, call to quarters. They may need our help to reach us.”

  “My Faro, it shall be done.”

  Tel Cursar whistled as he rubbed another dollop of grease into the stiff edge of his weapons harness. The polish on his sword and dagger had come up nicely—what a relief to get back his own weapons. Sure, his dagger was a little more worn than regulations would normally allow, but a sword the right length for him wasn’t easy to come by. He flexed the harness. A little more work on that last strap and it would be ready when he went on duty at the ninth watch.

  “It doesn’t bother you that the Shekayrin has your girl?”

  “Hmmm?” Tel looked up. A full Barrack normally shared this dormitory room, though at the moment only he and Pella Dursto were in it. Pella was a fair, thickset man, with an upper lip that fairly cried out for a mustache to hide its thinness. Tel had found the first day or so of this new posting difficult. There weren’t so very many Bears in the Peninsula, and none had come here with the Shekayrin, so doing his watches with the friendly Pella Dursto had been a real help.

  The older man looked up from the cards laid out on the bench in front of him. “Your girl, what was her name? The dark-haired one who was with the prince’s stepson. You know what everyone is saying, don’t you?”

  Light began to dawn. He knew about the rumors that the Shekayrin was bedding the witch—knew about them and didn’t contradict them. “Better they should think he’s making her his concubine than that she’s a . . .” Tel’s voice dried up. He wasn’t to speak of that. Better not even to think about it.

  “I’ve seen that look before. Never you mind, boy. If there’s something you can’t talk about, so be it. I was only wondering if there was something between the young woman and yourself.”

  Tel made a face. “’Course not.” And if there was, Tel thought, if they had been friends, that was likely her doing, to make him more useful to her. That was all. “We were just traveling together.”

  Pella slapped Tel on the shoulder. “If you say so.”

  Frowning, Tel watched as Pella turned back to his game. Tel was beginning to understand not everyone even here in this building had received the benefit of the jewel. The older man hadn’t, that he knew for certain. “Pella, tell me the truth. Do you think the witches should still be in charge?”

  “No, of course not.” Pella answered quickly, but his voice was firm with conviction. “I mean, no one in the military ever thought they should have the power they did. The Luqs favored them, so what could be done? Taking down the Halls was good. Gives us a clean starting point.” He pursed up his lips. “There is one thing, though, that makes me wonder.”

  Tel nodded, turning the pot of grease over in his hands. Why am I staring at this? What’s so important about a pot of grease? Shrugging, he fastened the lid and set the almost empty pot back into his pouch. “What one thing?”

  “Well, break up the Halls, sure. I’ve always been of the opinion that the Talents should be under the control of the Wings. Anyone can see the logic there. But killing them all, when they could have been useful?” Pella shook his head.

  Tel stood and picked up his harness. “Winter Inquisitor on Summer Luqs,” he pointed out. “There are useful drugs, too,” he added. “But in the wrong hands, they’re poison. If the witches can’t be controlled, they have to be killed. Look what was happening here in the Polity with the witches running free.”

  “I don’t mean anything by it.” Pella shifted a column of cards and looked up. “The Talents—I mean the witches—fine, they had to be stopped. But how does some of the rest of it follow? It seems that women aren’t citizens anymore. Can’t serve in the military, can’t be in city government.”

  Tel paused in buckling on his harness, and turned to look at the other man. Pella Dursto was frowning, his eyes narrowed in thought. “There’s bound to be some rough spots while everyone gets used to the new order,” Tel pointed out. “Things will soon settle down again, especially now that the prince has been found.”

  Pella rubbed at his chin, frowning down at his cards. “I wish I had your optimism, boy. It’s difficult for a man to keep his footing at times like these—even a man like me. And the fact is, Shel Darwin was a good commander.”

  “I’m sure she was.”

  The voice came from the open doorway of the barrack room, and both Tel and Pella stood as Jak Gulder came in.

  “No offense meant, Kalter,” the older man said.

  “And none taken, at least not by me. Please, resume what you were doing.” He sat down on the ne
xt bench, just like he was one of them. Though Tel had been about to leave, he sat down again as Jak Gulder began to speak.

  “Most of the Halian officers won’t understand that there were many women serving—and many are still serving, I suppose—who were worthy of command. It’s just that they don’t think about women that way. Personally, I think we’ll see women in the military again, maybe even as commanders, once things settle down, and we can be sure we have all the witches.” The Kalter drew up his knee and hooked an arm around it. Tel relaxed. He felt a degree of comfort in Jak Gulder’s presence that he couldn’t exactly explain, except that he knew the Kalter had expressed a personal interest in his, Tel’s, advancement. As a Kalter, an administrative assistant to a Faro, that might not have meant very much, but now that Gulder was the aide to the Sunflower Shekayrin, things could very well be different.

  “From what I understand, it’s very rare for women to be in positions of command among the Halians—why, they don’t even inherit or own property in their own names—but you see that property ownership here remains unchanged. No one is challenging any woman’s right. With the military it’s a different thing, as we’ve all noticed. Armed women are something so unheard of for them that, along with the threat of witches, they feel they just can’t take any chances. A man might withstand the power of a witch, but a woman apparently can’t, and that’s not something we could ever have known. Any soldier who surrenders her arms is free to go, and only those who refuse are punished.”

  Jak Gulder fell silent, and Tel’s mouth dried. He’d heard some rumors of just what that punishment could entail.

  “Still, witches don’t go armed—never have, not even the men,” Pella said.

  “Well, we know that, but why should the Halians believe it? And why wouldn’t the witches start to arm themselves now, things being as they are?” Tel pointed out. He started to say that Kerida could fight, that she’d been trained. But it appeared he couldn’t even say her name aloud.

  Jak was examining the other man with his head tilted to one side. “I’m right in thinking that you don’t know the stone, Pella Dursto?”

  “I don’t, sir, no. There was no need for it, if you see my meaning.”

  “I do, but perhaps you can explain to Tel Cursar.”

  Tel shifted his feet. It was one thing for the two of them to talk in private, quite another for Pella to explain himself in front of an officer.

  “No need to waste the jewel on me,” the old soldier admitted. “What does it matter to me who gives the order, so long as our food and our pay turn up on time?”

  Tel relaxed. This was familiar territory to anyone who’d served in the military for any length of time. There were plenty like Pella, who simply followed orders, and left it to others to work out what those orders should be. Those who “did their work and returned to camp” as the saying was. Tel looked up to find Jak Gulder watching him, a look of understanding on his face. Tel gave the other man a minute nod. Like Jak, he preferred to be on the giving end of orders.

  Pella scrubbed at the graying stubble on his chin. “What I said before was true. I’m not fond of the Talents and the way they gave themselves airs.” He looked around at them. “Though I’d be lying if I pretended I won’t play the safe cards, whenever I can. And I can be trusted to know where the safe cards are.”

  “And do you think we’re holding them?”

  “Well, now, that depends on who you think of as ‘we,’ doesn’t it?” Pella grinned. “We here, we in the military, we’re all right. And there’s probably plenty among the civilians that think the same way as me. So long as the price of wine and eggs don’t change much, and taxes don’t go up, they won’t much care who sits on the throne.”

  Pella fell silent, and Tel realized both men were looking at him. He straightened up and cleared his throat. “I heard two of the others talking, and they were saying that Gendia had been sacked and burned. That there’d been some sort of resistance there.” He looked at Jak Gulder.

  “That’s right, there was. The people there refused to accept the authority of the Daisy Shekayrin. I think you’ll find, though, that we’ll see less of that happening now that we have the prince.”

  “But if there’s more resistance than we know of—” Tel stopped when Jak smiled.

  “It won’t matter,” Jak said. “Do you know what the Halians call their armies? ‘Blades of Grass.’ Not because of their weapons, but because of their numbers. If we need them, the Sky Emperor will send more. As long as we have a foothold anywhere in Farama, whether here in the Peninsula or elsewhere, we’ll win.”

  Blades of Grass. That had a nice, comforting sound to it, Tel thought.

  GANNI rested his chin on his clasped hands. He wished that people’s spirits could be lifted as easily as the people themselves. But he’d wished that before. Sala’s death was a hard weight for the community of Feelers to carry. Soldier and guide, she had brought a sense of the wider world with her when she came to the Mines and Tunnels. People listened to her—and no one was listening just now.

  Ganni raised his hand. “Who will go with me to Gaena?” It wasn’t the first time he’d asked.

  “Are you insane?” Midon thrust his hands through his hair, his gesture drawing everyone’s eyes to that end of the table. “After what happened to Sala, do you expect anyone to volunteer?”

  Everyone was nodding, even Hitterol who never agreed with her brother. It seemed his pessimism was spreading. “It’s hard to know what to do.” Hitterol’s normally rounded tones were pitched unpleasantly high.

  “The Prophecy asks us—”

  “What good is the Prophecy if no one is left to see it fulfilled?” Midon leaned forward to continue his point, only to be interrupted in turn.

  “Idiots.” Ara’s old woman’s voice came from the empty chair Larin stood next to. The child grinned. “Grandmother Ara means, did you think there was no danger? She means, you’re all acting like cowards because Sala’s been killed.” When Larin interpreted for the old woman, she took on some of Ara’s voice and manner. “Did you think this would be like a walk to the well?”

  Norwil slapped his hand down on his knee. “Ara’s right. We knew the Prophecy brought danger with it, if not here and now, then later, when we reveal ourselves. I say we ask for volunteers, before the Springs and Pools Clan get involved and push us to one side.”

  “We haven’t heard from Dersay. Surely her opinion has the most weight.” Again, Midon sounded more reasonable than Ganni liked. Probably thought Dersay would take his part. This was her first council meeting. Until now, it had been Sala in the Far-thinker’s seat.

  “You can’t know.” She glanced at the empty chair next to Larin. “Not even Ara. None of you can know what it’s like to be touched by the jewel. Sala showed me.” She picked up the cup in front of her, took a sip, and carefully set it down again. Only Ganni knew the cup didn’t contain water.

  “Cuarel and I have talked this over, and the griffin, too. Oh, yes.” She looked around at the startled faces. “Oh, yes, he’s in this as well. It should be Cuarel sitting in this chair, I know that.” She took another deliberate swallow, setting the wooden cup down as though it was the most delicate crystal.

  Midon opened his mouth, and Dersay shot him a look that would have curdled milk. “I’m telling you, I felt the jewel, I know what it can do. I know what it is.” She looked around the table, her voice gathering strength. “The Griffin Girl was right. The Halians won’t stop at Talents, they’ll come after us. They’ll come here for the stone, but they’ll deal with all of us exactly as they did with Sala.” Dersay tapped herself on the chest. “They don’t see any difference between us and the Talents. The Prophecy is our only hope, and the Prophecy tells us to make common cause with them.

  “You want to make sure Sala’s death means something? Kill the people who did this to her. And if that means saving the prince, and get
ting the mothering armies to stand behind him and push these people and their griffin’s blood jewels into the sea where they came from—then let’s do that.”

  Dersay’s voice had not risen, her tone hadn’t changed at all, but Ganni felt his own heart beat faster, and from the look of the others around the table—even Midon—they felt the same.

  “I’ll go,” he said. “I’ve the most experience of the outside. Let me choose a few to go with me, and I’ll bring the prince back.”

  “You’ll have to take me, Ganni.” Dersay held up her hand when he began to speak. “This time I have to. How else are you going to know what the griffin wants to tell us? He can’t be always landing to speak with you.”

  Ganni nodded, not even bothering to listen to the raised voices around him. Some were undoubtedly volunteering, either themselves or others from their Gift guilds, but let them talk. He already knew who he’d want with him. Just now he found something else more interesting. Something Dersay had said about the stone, and about griffins’ blood, that he was sure echoed the Prophecy.

  Kerida pressed her clasped hands tightly between her knees. Her tongue felt swollen, and her eyelids made of sandpaper. She left them closed. What was the old rule of three her training instructor used to yell at them? Three minutes without air; three days without water; three weeks without food.

  Which one was it this time? In her first session with Svann, the Shekayrin had conducted tests very like those the Hall did to establish a baseline for a Candidate’s Talent. They’d be given an object and asked to Flash its primary nature—what it was made of, for example—and then its secondary nature, its age, or ownership. From the results of these tests a Candidate’s development could be measured. With Svann, she’d been careful to be as accurate as possible, matching what she said to what the man knew about each object. He’d been satisfied with her cooperation, even accepting it when she told him she couldn’t yet Flash humans very well—which was true, she thought, in the traditional sense. What the auras told her had nothing to do with that. Ker was very careful not to mention the auras, and she was sure the Shekayrin didn’t know she was holding anything back.