Soul of the Fire

Chapter 62

Dalton smiled as he stood at an octagonal table of rare black walnut in the reliquary in the Office of Cultural Amity, where displayed on the walls around the room were objects belonging to past Directors: robes; small tools; implements of their profession, such as pens and beautifully carved blotters; and writings. Dalton was looking over more modern writings: reports he had requested from the Directors.

Any ambivalence the Directors might feel, they kept to themselves. Publicly, they now threw themselves into the task of supporting the new Sovereign. It had been made plain to them that their very existence now depended not only upon their fealty, but upon their enthusiasm in that devotion.

As he read the script of addresses they were to deliver, Dalton was annoyed by shouts coming in through an open window overlooking the city square. It sounded like an angry mob of people. Judging by the boisterous encouragement from the crowd, he assumed it was someone delivering a diatribe against Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor.

Following the lead of noted people such as the Directors, ordinary people had now taken to loudly voicing the tailored notions they had been fed. Even though Dalton had expected it, he never failed to find it remarkable the way he had but to say a thing enough times, through enough people, and it became the popular truth, its provenance lost as it was mimicked by ordinary people who came to believe that it was their own idea—as if original thought routinely came forth from their witless minds of clay.

Dalton let out a bitter snort of contempt. They were asses and deserved the fate they embraced. They belonged to the Imperial Order, now. Or, at least, they soon would.

He glanced out the window to see a throng making its way into the city square. The heavy rain of the night before had turned to a light drizzle, so people were coming back out. The steady downpour overnight failed to wash away the blackened places on the cobble paving in the square where the two people had burned to death.

The crowd, of course, blamed the tragedy on the magic of Lord Rahl, venting his wrath against them. Dalton had instructed his people to bitterly make the accusation, knowing the seriousness of the charge would outweigh the lack of evidence, much less the truth.

What had really happened, Dalton didn’t know. He did know this was far from the first such incident. Whatever it was, it was an appalling misfortune, but, if misfortune was to happen, it could have hardly picked a better time. It had punctuated Director Prevot’s speech perfectly.

Dalton wondered if the fires had anything to do with what Franca had told him about magic failing. He didn’t see how, but he didn’t think she had told him everything, either. The woman had been behaving quite oddly of late.

At the knock, Dalton turned to the door. Rowley bowed.

“What is it?”

“Minister,” Rowley said, “the . . . woman is here, the one Emperor Jagang sent.”

“Where is she?”

“Down the hall. She is having tea.”

Dalton shifted his scabbard at his hip. This was not a woman to trifle with; she was said to have more power than any ordinary such woman. More power even than Franca. Jagang had assured him, though, that unlike Franca, this woman still had firm control of her power.

“Take her to the estate. Give her one of our finest rooms. If she gives you any—” Dalton recalled Franca’s talent for overhearing things. “If she gives you any complaints, see to resolving them to her satisfaction. She is a most important guest, and is to be treated as such.”

Rowley bowed. “Yes, Minister.”

Dalton saw Rowley smile with one side of his mouth. He, too, knew why the woman was there. Rowley was looking forward to it.

Dalton just wanted it done with. It would require care. They had to wait and pick their own time. They couldn’t force it, or the whole thing could come undone. If they handled it right, though, it would be a great accomplishment. Jagang would be more than grateful.

“I appreciate your generosity.”

Dalton turned at the sound of a woman’s voice. She had stepped into the doorway. Rowley backed out of her way.

She looked middle-aged, with gray hair mixing in with the black. Her simple, dowdy, dark blue dress ran from her neck, over her rather thick-boned shape, and all the way to the floor.

Her presence was dominated by a smile that only vaguely touched her lips, but was ever so evident in her brown eyes. It was as nasty a simper as Dalton had ever seen. It unashamedly proclaimed a mien of superiority. Because of the lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes, the self-satisfied smirk seemed enduringly etched on her face.

A gold ring pierced her lower lip.

“And you would be?” he asked.

“Sister Penthea. Here to wield my talent in service to His Excellency, Emperor Jagang.”

Her smooth flow of words was laced with crystalline frost.

Dalton bowed his head. “Minister of Culture, Dalton Campbell. Thank you for coming, Sister Penthea. We are most appreciative of your courtesy in lending your unique assistance.”

She had been sent to wield her talent in service to Dalton Campbell, but he thought better of putting too fine a point on it. Dalton didn’t need to remind her she was the one with a ring through her lip; it was obvious to them both.

At the sound of screams, Dalton again glanced across the room, out the window, thinking it was the parents or family returned to see the sight of the grisly deaths the night before. People had been coming by all morning, leaving flowers or other offerings at the site of the deaths until they looked like a grotesque garden midden. Frequent wails of anguish rose up into the gray day.

Sister Penthea turned his attention to business. “I need to see the ones chosen for the deed.”

Dalton motioned with a hand. “Rowley, there, he will be one of them.”

Without word or warning, she slapped the palm of her hand to Rowley’s forehead, her fingers splayed into his red hair, grasping his head as if she might pluck it like a ripe pear. Rowley’s eyes rolled back in his head. His entire body began to tremble.

The Sister murmured thick words that had no meaning to Dalton. Each, as it oozed forth, seemed to take root in Rowley. The young man’s arms flinched when she stressed particular words.

With a last phrase, raising in intonation, she gave Rowley’s head a sharp shove. Letting out a small cry, Rowley crumpled as if his bones had dissolved.

In a moment, he sat up and shook his head. A smile told Dalton he was fine. He brushed clean his dark brown trousers as he stood, looking no different, despite his added lethality.

“The others?” she asked.

Dalton gestured dismissively. “Rowley can take you to them.”

She bowed slightly. “Good day, then, Minister. I will see to it immediately. The emperor also wished me to express his pleasure at being able to be of assistance. Either way, muscle or magic, the Mother Confessor’s fate is now sealed.”

She wheeled around and stormed away, Rowley following in her wake. Dalton couldn’t say he was sorry to see her go.

Before he could return to reading his reports in earnest, he again heard the cheering. The sight when he lifted his head to look out the window was unexpected. Someone was being dragged into the square, a mob of people following behind as the people already in the square parted to make way, cheering on those entering, some of whom carried scraps of crates, tree branches, and sheafs of straw.

Dalton went to the window and leaned on the sill with both hands as he peered down at the sight. It was Serin Rajak, at the head of a few hundred of his followers all dressed in white robes.

When he saw who they had, who they were dragging into the square, who was screaming, Dalton gasped aloud.

His heart pounding with dread, he stared out the window, wondering what he could do. He had guards with him, real guards, not Anderith army soldiers, but two dozen men. He realized it was a futile thought even as he had it; armed though they were, they stood no chance against the thousands in the square. Dalton knew better than to stand before a crowd intent on violence—that was only a good way to have the violence turned your way.

Despite his feelings, Dalton dared not side against the people in this.

Among the men with Serin Rajak, in among the man’s followers, Dalton saw one in a dark uniform: Stein.

With icy dread, Dalton realized the reason Stein was there, and what he wanted.

Dalton backed away from the window. He was no stranger to violence, but this was an atrocity.

At last, he ran back into the corridor that echoed his footfalls, descended the steps, and raced down the hall. He didn’t know what to do, but if there was anything . . .

He reached the entry set behind fluted stone columns outside the building, at the top of the cascade of steps. He halted well back in the shadows of the interior, assessing the situation.

Outside, on the landing partway down the steps, guards patrolled to keep people from thoughts of coming up into the Office of Cultural Amity. It was a symbolic gesture. This many people would easily sweep aside the guards. Dalton dared not give people in such a foul mood a reason to turn their anger to him.

A woman, holding the hand of a young boy, pulled him along as she pushed her way to the front of the crowd. “I am Nora,” she proclaimed to the people. “This is my son, Bruce. He’s all I got left, because of witches! My husband, Julian, was drowned because of a dark curse from a witch! My beautiful daughter Bethany was burned up alive by a witch’s spell!”

The boy, Bruce, wept, mumbling it was true, wept for his father and sister. Serin Rajak held up the woman’s arm.

“Here is a victim of the Keeper’s witchcraft!” He pointed to a wailing woman near the front. “There is another! Many of you here have been harmed by curses and hexes from witches! Witches using evil from the Keeper of the Dead!”

With a crowd in this ugly a mood, Dalton knew this could come to no good end, but he could think of nothing to do to stop it.

It was, after all, the reason he had released Serin Rajak: to rouse anger against magic. He needed people to be stirred up against those with magic, to see them as evil. Who better than a zealot to foment such hatred?

“And here is the witch!” Serin Rajak thrust his arm out to point at the woman whose hands were bound behind her, the woman Stein held by the hair. “She is the Keeper’s vile tool! She casts evil spells to harm you all!”

The mob was yelling and screaming for vengeance.

“What should we do with this witch?” Rajak shrieked.

“Burn her! Burn her! Burn her!” came the chant.

Serin Rajak flung his arms toward the sky. “Dear Creator, we commend this woman to your care in the flames! If she be innocent, spare her harm! If she be guilty of the crime of witchcraft, burn her!”

As men threw up a pole, Stein bore his captive facedown to the ground. He pulled her head up by her hair. With his other hand, he brought up his knife.

Dalton, his eyes wide, was unable to blink, to breathe, as he watched Stein slice from one ear to the other, across the top of Franca’s forehead. Her scream ripped Dalton’s insides, as Stein ripped back her scalp.

Tears ran down Dalton’s cheeks as blood ran down Franca’s face. Shrieking in pain and immeasurable terror, she was lifted and bound to the pole. The whites of her eyes stood out from a mask of blood.

Franca didn’t argue for her innocence or beg for her life. She just screamed in paralyzed horror.

Straw and wood were thrown up around her. The mob pressed in, wanting to be close, to see it all. Some reached out and stole a swipe at the blood coursing down her face, eager for a memento of witch’s blood on their fingertips, to prove their power, before they sent her to the Keeper.

Horror dragging him by his throat, Dalton staggered partway down the steps.

Men with torches pushed through to the front of the roaring mob. Serin Rajak, wild with rage, climbed the clutter of wood and straw at her feet to shout in Franca’s face, to call her every sort of vile name, and accuse her of every sort of evil crime.

Dalton, standing helpless on the steps, knew all the words to be false. Franca was not one of those things.

Just then, a most extraordinary thing happened. A raven swooped down from the gray sky, fixing its angry claws in Serin Rajak’s hair.

Serin screamed that it was the witch’s familiar, come to protect its mistress. The crowd responded by throwing things at the bird while at the same time Serin tried to fight it off. The bird flapped and squawked, but held on to the man’s hair.

With such frightening determination that Dalton began to think that the charges it was the witch’s familiar seemed true, the huge inky black bird used its beak to stab out Serin’s good eye.

The man screamed in pain and rage as he fell from the tinder around Franca. As he did, the mob heaved on the torches.

A wail such as Dalton had never heard rose from poor Franca as the flames exploded through the dry straw and up the length of her. Even from where he stood, Dalton could smell the burning flesh.

And then, in her terror, in her pain, in her burning death, Franca turned her head, and saw Dalton standing there on the steps.

She screamed his name. Over the roar of the crowd, he couldn’t hear it, but he could read it on her lips.

She screamed it again, and screamed she loved him.

When Dalton read those words on her lips, they crushed his heart.

The flames blistered her flesh, till the scream pushed from her lungs sounded like the shriek of the lost souls in the world of the dead.

Dalton stood numb, watching it, realizing only then that his hands were holding his head, and he was screaming too.

The crowd surged forward, eager to smell the roasting flesh, to see the witch’s skin burn. They were wild with excitement, their eyes mad with it. As the mob pressed in, the ones in front were pushed so close it singed off their eyebrows, and this, too, they relished, as the witch screamed and burned.

On the ground, the raven was pecking wildly at the blinded, almost forgotten, Serin Rajak. He swung his arms, unseeing, trying to get the vengeful bird away. Darting in between his flailing arms, the raven’s big beak snatched, twisted, and tore chunks of flesh from his face.

The crowd began pelting the bird anew with anything handy. The bird, finally looking as if it was losing strength, flapped helplessly as everything from shoes to flaming branches arced through the air toward it.

For reasons he didn’t understand, Dalton, weeping, found himself cheering the bird against all odds, knowing it, too, was about to die.

Just as it looked as if the end was near for the valiant, avenging raven, a riderless horse charged into the square. Blocked by the mob, it reared wildly, knocking people aside. It spun and kicked, injuring people, snapping bones, breaking heads. People fell back as the golden chestnut-colored horse, ears pinned back, snorting with an angry scream, charged into the center of the crowd. Frightened people, trying to fall back, were unable to make way for the press of other people behind them.

The horse, seeming to have gone insane with anger, trampled anyone in its way to get to the center of the square. Dalton had never heard of a horse running toward a fire.

As it reached the middle of the melee, the raven, with a last desperate effort, flapped its great black wings and made it up onto the horse’s back. When the horse wheeled, Dalton thought for a moment that it had another bird on it, as if there were two black ravens, but then he realized the second was just a splotch of black color on the horse’s rump.

With the raven’s claws clutching the horse’s mane just above the withers, the horse reared up one last time before coming down and charging off in a dead run. The people who could, leaped out of the way. Those unable to do so were trampled by the enraged beast.

Alone on the steps, Franca’s screams thankfully ended, Dalton saluted the golden chestnut mare and avenging raven as they fled at a full gallop from the city center.