Lord Soth

Chapter 6

"Step forward," said the Kingpriest.

The young woman stepped forward, carrying her bundled infant in her arms.

To the woman's left was a somewhat older female mage dressed in the familiar yellow and white robes of the followers of the Kingpriest.

"Mage Hailerin," said the Kingpriest, indicating the mage standing beside the woman, "reports to me that you have had wickedly evil thoughts about this child."

"I'm not aware of having any evil thoughts your holiness," the woman said, her head bowed, her voice full of humility.

"Mage Hailerin," said the Kingpriest.

The female mage stepped forward. "I was walking along this woman's street late last night when I heard a baby's cry. It was loud and constant and seemed to convey great pain."

The Kingpriest nodded. "Go on."

"I went looking for the source of the cry, a search that led me straight to this woman's house."

"And what did you see?"

"When I arrived I looked in through the window and saw this woman tending to her child."

"But the child was crying?" asked the Kingpriest.

"He's been colicky of late…" the woman said.

"Silence!" said the Kingpriest. "You may speak when the mage is done."

The woman fell silent, but looked to be on the verge of tears.

"She was trying to comfort the child at first, but it continued to cry and would not stop. And that's when she began to shake the child, only a little at first, but then more rigorously."

The Kingpriest's eyebrows arched and he nodded. He leaned forward. "And her thoughts?"

The mage looked at the woman. "Her thoughts ranged from abandoning the child on a doorstep, to bashing its head with a large rock."

The Kingpriest looked surprised.

The woman began shaking her head. "He's been colicky for the longest time," she said. "I haven't had a decent night's sleep in six months. It seems like he's been crying constantly. Nothing I've done has helped."

"Do you deny having these thoughts?" asked the Kingpriest.

"I love my baby," she said.

"Answer the question."

"What mother hasn't had such thoughts at some point in her life?"

"So you admit to having thoughts about abandoning, even killing your infant child?"

"I was frustrated and might have considered it for a second," said the woman, her voice trembling with fear. "But I'd never do such a ghastly thing. I love my son and would never do anything to hurt him."

"But yet you were seen shaking the child."

"I was at my wit's end, I didn't know what else to do."

"Shaking an innocent child is an evil act. If you are capable of doing that, what is to prevent you from enacting your heinous thoughts of killing the child?"

"I love my baby."

The Kingpriest looked away, no longer listening to the woman's desperate pleas. "You are hereby sentenced to death so that your evil thoughts can never become evil deeds. But you need not worry for your child. He will be taken into the temple and raised by members of the clergy.

When he is of age, he will be trained as a dene's apprentice."

The child was unceremoniously torn from the woman's arms.

"No!" she screamed. "My baby…"

The child began to scream.

The woman was grabbed by two guards and escorted out of the temple, her cries echoing off the stone walls and down the stone corridors.

The child was taken in the other direction, its cries as chillingly piercing as its mother's.

The Kingpriest looked at the mage, smiled and said, "Well done. Mage Hailerin. Well done."