03 - The Eternal Rose (33 page)

The rest of the villagers lined the arena decks on either side, crowding in with the younger students. The dedicats and champions still lay sleeping on the arena floor, though they had been rearranged to face the elders’ bench.

Kallista sat near the elders, off to one side, about to drop with weariness. Once, this would not have tired her. Age had its price—she was fairly sure it was age. She leaned against Fox standing behind her, her eyes closed for the few moments of rest she could get while waiting for everything to be ready. Her godmarked were with her, around her. The rest of her people either tended the wounded or protected the children. She wanted this to be a Daryathi event, not one imposed by Adarans. Mostly.

The buzz of conversation grew until Obed bent and spoke into her ear. They were ready. Kallista opened her eyes with a sigh, and took a deep breath. Time to begin.

Obed pounded a staff he'd appropriated from somewhere on the raised wooden floor. The echoing boom was muffled by all the people standing on it, but it made enough noise to stop the talking, turn everyone's eyes his way.

“I am Obed im-Shakiri a-Varyl, once dedicat of this skola, a nine-marked who fulfilled his dedicat vows and lived to depart into the world.” He pulled his overrobe back to make sure everyone saw all nine of his tattoos. While he went on to give his credentials as someone with the right to be involved in skola matters, Kallista began to bring the sleepers awake.

She wrestled with the magic, shaping it carefully to keep the captives from speaking out of turn, from attacking anyone. As long as their intentions were peaceful, they could move, but they could not hurt anyone. In afterthought, Kallista barred them from leaving the arena floor.

Sweating with the effort, trying hard not to pant, she gulped the water Leyja handed her and tried to find where Obed was in his speech. He'd reached the part about the godmarks already. Kallista took another sip of water and let Torchay and Joh help her to her feet. She gathered magic and held it in her “hands,” waiting for Obed to pass her the staff.

It took effort to keep from leaning on it when he did, she was so tired. She released the magic, sent it to finish waking the sleepers. “These masters, dedicats and champions are only sleeping,” she said. “The magic bestowed on us by the One, as Obed Reinas explained, allowed me to stop the ... disturbance here in the skola so that together we can discover the truth of what happened and so that you can decide what to do about it."

A murmur rolled around the edges of the arena.

“I know this is not in your usual practice of justice, but is it not possible that the One has a better way than death? Would it not be better to determine the truth of a matter and together use your own judgment to decide matters? Why else would the One have given us truthsaying magic?"

Kallista had to pause for a louder sweep of shocked conversation. Most of the sleepers were awake, and those who weren't were almost so. She drew more magic, slowly, to keep from straining herself worse. “Yes, there is even now one of your own truthsaying naitani at work in the city of Mestada, not cloistered away in the temple. Will you listen to what these men have to say? Will you judge for yourselves what happened here and how this kind of justice can work?"

“How will we know they speak truth,” one of the elders asked, “if this nathain is in Mestada?"

“I will act as truthsayer.” Kallista shaped her magic into the truth mist she'd used at Habadra House and sent it to hover above the arena. “The mist will show you if someone speaks truth. Do not expect other truthsayers to create this mist. I know of none who can. I believe it was given to me so that you can see the truth and believe it, even though I am Adaran."

“How does it work?” one of the fuzzheads piped up in a high, clear voice. “The mist?"

Those around him tried to hush him up, but Kallista smiled at the boy's youthful bravado. “Try it. Tell us a lie."

“I love beetroot.” He grinned, then laughed out loud as the mist went instantly black, his laughter echoed by others.

“Now, a truth.” Kallista caught herself leaning on the staff and straightened.

“Kassid Penthili-tha is my best friend."

The mist turned white again, and a babble of talk broke out across the chamber. Kallista remembered to hand the staff back to Obed. Her part was done, except for managing the magic.

“With your agreement—” Obed bowed to the elders on their bench. “The nathain Kallista will act as truthsayer. I, as nine-marked dedicat of this skola, will conduct the investigation into the truth. And you—” He swept his arm around the arena, taking in all of the observers. “You will sit in judgment."

“Do you bring—” The elder who spoke, the oldest of the three women, with scant wisps of white hair above bright black eyes set in a crinkled face, was interrupted by a commotion at the far end of the arena.

The doors had opened and a contingent of injured champions hobbled in, led by Athen im-Noredi and Ruel Dobruk-sa who was supported by Genista Fynli. Hands reached out, boys ran to support them, to lead them to the steps and help them sit.

Ruel remained standing. “We have the right to be here,” he said, his voice shaky. “To tell what we know."

“You do,” Obed said. “Welcome. Please sit."

Kallista reached for the staff, but Obed apparently knew what she wanted to say, for he said it. “Do not speak unless you have been called upon. Don't interrupt anyone while they are speaking, even if you believe they speak lies. The mist will show us what is truth."

The oldest of the elders stood. “Do you bring your weak foreign ways to impose on our Daryathi strength? Our way is—"

“Is it strength—” Ruel clutched at Genista's shoulder, trying to rise from his half-way down position. “Permission to respond, Lord Dedicat,” he said belatedly.

Obed nodded, holding the staff at an angle, pointed toward the injured man.

“Did you see the dead?” Ruel asked. “Did you walk by that place and see? All those boys, those strong men? How can it be strength to kill so many of our best? All respect to you, Elder Sothi, but that is weakness, not strength. Strength is in
life
, not death. It is in truth. Hear the truth, and then decide."

“I will not—” Old Sothi was interrupted again by the boom of Obed's staff. Reluctantly, pouting, she asked permission to speak and was granted it.

“I will not take part in this travesty. You violate Daryathi tradition as it has come to us through the years. I demand that you end this now, Cori, Lutha. This is wrong."

The middle elder, the apparent leader, signaled Obed with an upraised finger, got his nod and a shift of the staff toward her. She stood. “I agree with Ruel. Death is not strength. I see no foreigners here, save for the nathain and her people offering her magic, and the medics aiding our injured champions. Before the Troubles, our ways were different, and that was not so very many years ago. I say we find the truth and decide. Sothi says no. What do you say, Lutha?"

The third woman, the youngest but still older than Kallista, stood. “I say aye. We listen. We decide."

“I will not abide this!” The old woman shook her fist at the other two and stamped her feet.

"Then leave."
Elder Cori's voice boomed over the arena.

Old Sothi shot her a poisonous glare and stomped away, out the side door near that end.

Obed handed Elder Cori the staff and she raised her voice. “We will not decide today who will take Sothi's place as elder, merely who will sit with us for this deciding. Do I have names?"

In a quick, rough-and-tumble session, someone was selected to share the bench with the two town elders, a male metalsmith from the village. Finally, Obed received the staff back and the investigation into the slaughter at the skola began. Ruel and the injured with him spoke first.

They had been awakened in the night by the grand master screaming with rage, demanding everyone get up and assemble with weapons, as they were. Those who took time to dress became the particular focus of his anger. He ordered them to pair off, begin fighting in the flickering torchlight at the practice arena, spurring them on despite the danger.

The other masters began to join in, and some of the dedicats and champions, shouting at the younglings, beating them with the flats of their swords if they did not show sufficient enthusiasm for the combat.

Anyone who protested was immediately set upon by those encouraging the mêlée.

Then Grand Master Murat came upon Ruel. Until this point, no one had been seriously injured. A few scratches, some sprains, bruises and such from stumbling in the dark, but no real injuries. But when Murat saw Ruel, it was as if a spark caught in gunpowder.

Murat attacked, screaming that Ruel should have died, that he had disgraced himself losing to a woman, allowing himself to be mauled in public—on and on. Ruel fought hard, but Murat's frenzy seemed to give him strength. Ruel fell, mortally wounded.

His blood spilling black in the torchlight seemed to set loose the bloodlust, according to others who took up the tale. Murat ran for the infirmary, screaming Athen's name, while those who had joined his madness began to lay about them with sharp edges, rather than the flats of their swords.

Yanith, the dedicat who had lost in the arena to Torchay in the last combat yesterday, best against best, managed to send the brand new skints out of the skola. With some of the others, he had organized a group to defend the fuzzheads at the dining hall, though it was too late for many of the boys.

As the wounded champions spoke, they pointed out those they had seen among the men gathered on the arena floor, the ones who had participated in the slaughter and those who had fought to stop it. The mist stayed white.

After a time, Elder Cori raised a hand, asking a turn to speak. “May we not speak judgment for some of these now?"

Obed glanced at Kallista, who shrugged. This was no Adaran trial. The three justiciars were in charge. “That is your choice,” he said. “I act only as investigator. Kallista Naitan—Nathain Kallista is only truthsayer.” He handed over the staff.

Cori conferred with the other two for a moment before speaking again. “Dedicat Yanith, did you defend those who could not defend themselves, sending the younglings to safety?"

Yanith stepped forward a few paces from the group on his side of the arena. The dedicats and champions in the arena had sorted themselves, some joining Yanith, some Murat, a few others loitering in the center. “Yes, Elder Cori, I did."

“Did you kill or injure anyone who was not attacking you or those you defended?"

“No, I did not.” The mist remained the same pearly white.

“What say you?” Cori addressed the crowd. “Shall we bring him out among us?"

“Aye,” thundered back from half a thousand throats.

Kallista freed Yanith from the magic that bound him, save that which prevented attack. She wasn't sure of his actions toward Murat and his cronies.

As Yanith trudged across the arena to join Ruel and the other champions at the back of the chamber, Elder Cori asked the same questions of the others who had been named as defenders, and one by one they were released from the arena.

Cori handed the staff to Obed and seated herself again. “Proceed."

Obed seated the heel of the staff on the deck, braced it against his foot and looked out over the arena. Heartsick and weary, he considered the next step in the hearing of the night's events. Best to leave Murat and his associates to the end.

“You.” Obed spun the staff and pointed it at one of the lingerers in the middle, a man whose name he could not remember, if he had ever known it. “Tell us your name and your tale."

“My name is Farrin Chosida-sa, and I have no tale.” But he did. Farrin told of how he had run away, had pretended to be on first this side and then that, protecting only himself.

Obed concentrated on maintaining his dedicat's mask. He was out of practice, his discipline weak, and he liked it that way. Obed had never wanted to be a man who could look at death and feel nothing. The killing had always felt like a stain on his soul. Obed had perfected his self-discipline in the years he had spent here under the old man's authority. Murat had always somehow sensed the disgust Obed had for him and his teaching, but once Obed had learned not to show it openly, Murat could do nothing. The punishment had stopped. Obed's only true defiance had been his success. And his continuing life.

Kallista had taught Obed to feel again, and he never wanted to go back to what he had once been. The memories existed, but they could no longer hurt him. Still, playing the role of investigator as he did, he had to hide his reactions. He remembered Farrin now and the others with him. They should never have been sent to the skola, were unsuited to a champion's life. But they had survived. Perhaps they did know something of value. Or perhaps not. It was not his place to judge.

When all those with Farrin had spoken, Elder Cori asked that they be held in the arena, apart from those still remaining. She reserved the village's judgment on them.

Now, at last, it was time for those accused of the killing.

The sun was rising high, and Elder Cori called a break for refreshments. Villagers worked with the skola's servants—the few left alive—and the skints and fuzzheads to brew cha, bring out cakes and biscuits, and water for the injured. They refused to return to the infirmary, so pallets were brought and places made for them to lie down. Water was left on the arena sands for those held there. After half a chime or so, when most of the people had returned to their places, the elders signaled Obed and he pounded his staff on the deck to call everyone to order.

Obed twirled the staff as he considered whom to question next, scarcely aware of the hum it made as it spun faster and faster. Better to start with the leader, he decided, but how? He had clashed with Murat a thousand times, almost from the moment he had walked through those gates, a scared and scrawny twelve-year-old. Perhaps it would be better for someone else to question him. But no one else had the nine marks, and certainly no one had his ten.