Hederick The Theocrat (8 page)

“Then bring me to trial,” Vakon spat out, terrified. What stalked him? He heard a rustling
sound and felt cautiously around the straw that littered the floor, seeking
somethinganythinghe could use as a weapon. “I have friends in Solace, Hederick,” he spat
out. “If I disappear, people will wonder.” “Friends? No longer, ex-Mayor,” the High
Theocrat rejoined. “Some of your friends are the very ones who were with you when you made
those sacrilegious statements in the Inn.”

“I tell you, I wasn't there!” Vakon insisted. “You can't prove that I was. I demand a
trial!” “As a matter of fact, I am judge and jury in Solace.” The growling came closer.
Hederick continued speaking as though he and Vakon were carrying on a normal conversation.
“I found you guilty of heresy a few hours ago,” he said, “just before I had your dear
family carted off to a slave camp.” There was a pause, then soft laughter from the High
Theocrat. “I can tell that the sentence pleases my god Sauvay and the Motherlord Omalthea.
Just listen to the happy rumblings of Sauvay's pet.”

“No!” Vakon shouted. Nearby, something roared, and fire belched through the dungeon.
Sparks ignited clods of damp hay near the door. Vakon's cloak began to burn, and he thrust
it away from him. Then Mendis saw what awaited hima lion of sorts, but two or three times
the size of that beast. It had enormous eyes and a thick tongue that curved out as though
in anticipation toward the terrified mayor. The lion's huge front claws emerged and
retracted as it watched its prey.

“A materbill?” Vakon said in disbelief. “But they don't exist!” “They do now,” Hederick
whispered through the door. “Sauvay sent me one. A birthday present of sorts. Did you know
my birthday was in midsummer, Vakon?” The flames smoldered and failed in the dampness.
Darkness returned, leaving only a fearful afterimage of the materbill burning in Vakon's
brain. Then claws clattered on the stones. Another roar split the silence. The creature
belched more fire as it leaped upon Mendis Vakon. The former mayor of Solace didn't even
have time to scream. Once Hederick was sure his former co-conspirator was dead, the High
Theocrat made his way to a nearby stone column. He held his torch higher and examined a
row of marks. Drawing the dagger he'd filched from Vakon, Hederick used the rapierlike
point to scratch one more line at the top of a row of similar scrapes. Then he counted the
lines. “Fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight,” Hederick murmured with a self-satisfied air.
“What a ferocious appetite the materbill has.” He smirked as he remembered the terror on
Mendis Vakon's unrepentant face. “How fortunate that there are heretics aplenty in Solace
to feed him.”

At first glance, Crealora Senternal didn't look like a woman who had slain an entire
family with evil magic at fifty paces. But these days you couldn't tell about someone by
merely looking. In Solace, only High Theocrat Hederick seemed to know for a certainty. As
men and women filed into Erolydon's gleaming val-lenwood-paneled Great Chamber, they stole
glances at the tiny woman who stood awaiting sentencing. Her head was bowed, and her hands
were clasped so tightly that her fingertips were white.

At least a dozen guards, swords sheathed but unbuckled, stood at the edges of the room.
Six novitiates tended incense burners in a ring around the woman accused of being a witch.
A veil of flower-scented smoke hung in the air around Crealora. Few people in the room
gazed long at her, but all stole cautious glimpses.

“Be careful, Gilles,” a pregnant matron whispered to her husband as they edged through the
crowd to a vacant spot. She plucked at his sleeve. "Don't meet her gaze, Gilles. They say
the witch of

Zaygoth can ensorcel a man with but a look!“ Gilles tut-tutted her but kept his voice low
nonetheless. ”That dried-up old stick? She's nothing but huge eyes and brittle bones,
Susta. I've faced far worse monsters than Crealora Senternal, though it's a wonder her
poor husband stood her oddities for so long. I've nothing to fear from such as her. You
merely grow fanciful because of your expectant condition. I wanted to leave you home, but
you'd have had my head if I suggested it.“ ”Gilles Domroy!“ his wife exclaimed, forgetting
to whisper. ”If you think I'll miss the biggest spectacle in Solace since the Cataclysm,
you're ...“ Susta Domroy's shrill voice drew the attention of the prisoner. Crealora
lanced the mother-to-be with a penetrating stare. The prisoner's sapphire-blue eyes
glittered, and her colorless lips began to move silently. Her hands shook despite the
heavy chains at her wrists. ”A spell!“ Susta gasped and snatched forward the kerchief she
wore over her hair, hiding her face. Her right hand shielded her belly, and she raised her
left in the gesture that peasants believed averted witchcraft. She dragged the now
stone-faced Gilles down onto the bench with her. People on each side quickly slid aside to
give them more than enough room. Crealora Senternal smiled grimly at the pair, then
returned her gaze to the front of the room and the doors beneath the towering pulpit. ”If
I had magic for spells, would I be standing here now?“ she muttered to herself. ”Pah! I'd
be winging my way across the forests of Ansa-lon.“ She looked around the room. ”All these
'converts.' Converted Seekers, indeed! Converted by Hederick's threats and goblins.“ Let
the Domroys believe that the long-despised witch of Zaygoth had laid a curse on their
precious unborn heir. Crealora no longer cared what the people of Solace thought of her.
She knew she had no more witchcraft in her than did the hammered iron links that bound
her, supposedly to prevent her from completing the gestures necessary for spells. ”If one
wet hair is out of place on the head of the Domroys' newborn babe, they'll place the blame
at my door,“ she whispered. ”Fools! I'll be at the side of my lord Pala-dine before long,
and well beyond this farce." Still, she shivered. The witch of Zaygoth waited on the
subterranean floor of the semicircular room. Behind and above her stretched the packed
benches of Erolydon's Great Chamber. Eroly-don's builders had constructed the Chamber in a
pit dug deep into the sandy soil at the eastern edge of Crystalmir Lake. The top tier of
seats, like Hederick's pulpit, was actually at ground level. The burnished vallenwood
glowed with a beauty richer than oak. Vallenwoods were sacred trees, and at one time the
residents of Solace would never have dared to lay an axe blade to the great trees. No one
knew how ancient the towering vallenwoods were, only that some people thought they'd
existed on Krynn before any living beings. Hederick had overridden that reverence in short
shrift. He'd wanted vallenwood for his temple, and that was that. Crealora coughed in the
incense-choked air. Today was the last day of her inquisition. Today Hederick would pass
sentence. There was no doubt about the verdict: Hederick had never acquitted anyone. The
form of the sentence was the only mystery. Despite her fear, Crealora felt a kind of
relief. Hundreds of voices rose and fell. They throbbed and ebbed behind her like the roar
of the ocean waves that pounded the shore east of her native land of Zaygoth, which had
been her home for her first twenty years. Then a handsome but godless trader, Kleven
Senternal, traveling through Southern Ergoth selling his wares, had glimpsed her and
fallen instantly in love. As smitten as he and bolstered by his oath that he'd not
interfere with her worship of the Old GodsCrealora had left her tiny village of fishers
and netcrafters for the trader's home in Solace. With her abrupt manner of speaking and
her foreign ways, Crealora was always an outsider in Solace, but she'd lived there happily
enough with her Kleven for fifteen years. In the early years, before the Seekers had
spread their new religion over the land like a poison, she'd been tolerated well enough.
Then only a few weeks ago, her mate had met the slashing claws and fiery breath of a
mysterious

beast after a trading run to the east. The creature, by some reports a materbill, had
seared Kleven's horse with flames from its gullet and then ate the mount. It scattered
Kleven's belongings and left Crealora's husband to bleed to death on the forest path. One
of the novitiates, a man of about thirty years, approached the witch and waved a curl of
incense in her direction, his gaze carefully averted.

“Idiot!” Crealora snapped. “What can smoke do against sorcery? Were I a witch, could I not
snuff a tiny ember, a mere arm's length away? Were I a witch, could I not snuff you just
as easily?” The man took a quick step backward, but made no response. None but Hederick
dared speak to the witch.

Another yellow-robed novitiate cleared his throat. “All rise to honor Hederick, most
reverend High Theocrat of Solace and judge of this holy court,” he called. Hearing the
shuffling of many feet as the spectators rose behind her, Crealora forced herself to
breathe evenly. The High Theocrat would not see her quail.

“Hederick the Heretic, you do not frighten me,” she whispered. She forced an insolent
smile to her face as she studied the Chamber's portal. No sound came from the oiled hinges
as two more novitiates pulled the double doors apart. The door beneath the pulpit was
reserved for Seeker priests and novitiates; lay persons entered the Chamber for worship
services through doors at each end of the topmost tier of seats.

The High Theocrat of Solace entered, regally dipped his head to the assembled crowd, and
solemnly mounted the steps to the pulpit that doubled as judgment seat. The flickering
light from ceremonial candles glinted off the gold threads interwoven with the mink-brown
silk of the High Theocrat's robe. Dahos, Hederick's high priest, remained standing by the
entrance.

Crealora marked the despised Theocrat's progress with bitter eyes and despairing heart.
That Solace had fallen into the hands of such a wretch! Hederick moved into the pulpit and
began a prayer. Crealora craned her neck to look up at him. The angle gave her a splendid
view of his pouchy chin and the bottom of his fleshy nose.

“Who'd think such arrogance and evil could fit in so small and lumpy a package?” she
murmured. Hederick was decidedly round in girth and not very tall. Thin, lank hair framed
protruding blue eyes. At times during the witch's trial he had donned a ridiculous dark
brown wig and a midnight- blue robe of velvet, but he'd eschewed those trappings today in
favor of the traditional Seeker colors of brown and gold.

“Pious hypocrite,” Crealora said softly, then added, more loudly, “Hederick, you are a
heretic to the religion of the True Gods, and a hypocrite to boot!” When Hederick ended
his prayer, he gazed down at her without a word. Silence hung as heavily as the incense.

She burst out, “Everyone knows you destroy your opponents by any means. These people
merely fear to say it!” She gestured as best she could under the weight of the heavy
chains. “They know they'll be the next to face this court if they speak out against you,
heretic! I ask you, Hederick what threat am I, a poor widow, to one so great and powerful
as you?”

Hederick pointed dramatically down at Crealora. Despite the murmuring of the crowd, his
words filled the huge room. “You accuse me of impure motives? Of violating Seeker laws?
Youan unholy witch, spawn of the dark gods?” Crealora kept her face impassive. That voice,
she thought. It had held countless audiences in thrall. Hederick's fame for oratory
stretched from Solamnia to the shores of New Sea. He spun sentences like a spider threw a
web, lingering over words as though he savored each syllable. If oratory were sorcery,
Hederick would head the magical orders, Crealora thought.

“I'm no witch,” she said flatly. “The charges against me are false.” Hederick stepped back
and threw up his hands in exaggerated surprise. “Witch of Zaygoth!” he exclaimed. A few
spectators chuckled. “Do you not recall the testimony of our own trial? The sworn
testimony of dozens of your long-time neighbors who attest that they have personal
knowledge of your witchery?” Crealora turned to fling a withering glance at the assembly.
As one, hundreds of people also twisted

to look anywhere but at the prisoner. Crealora grimaced and turned back. “They lie to win
your favor, Hederick,” she said gently. “They lie to protect themselves. They are afraid,
as all wise and thoughtful people in Solace are afraid in these troubled times.” Hederick,
not normally one to allow prisoners to address him directly, seemed in uncommonly good
humor today. He feigned great incredulity at Crealora's words. “Surely the righteous don't
fear me!” he retorted. “I am the protector of all who follow the true gods the Seeker
gods. Your neighborsdo they lie? Does Dugan Detmarr deceive us when he says he dreamed
that he saw you hurl bolts of magical lightning at the Bayard family, killing them as they
lay sleeping innocently in their beds?” “The Bayards were slain by arrows, not lightning,
Hederick.” Crealora's voice filled the space between them. “How could I, a solitary woman,
slaughter them all with no help, without any of the Bayards awaking to leave their beds
and cry a warning? How could they be killed by lightning and not have a trace of a burn on
their bodies?” “The evil power of witches is great indeed,” Hederick replied unctuously,
“as must be the power of good that hopes to uproot it.” Crealora held up her chin
defiantly. “Again I say, heretic, that it was not me. I was at home asleep.” “The location
of your body is immaterial, witch. If it was not your actual physical being, then it was
your spiritual likeness. Both are incriminating.” “My spiritual likeness? What Seeker
pap!” Crealora laughed bitterly. “My likeness, taken flight to do mischief at the behest
of evil gods? If I have such a likeness, Hederick, it surely was asleep at home beside me
that night.” Dozens of onlookers gasped. Several men snickered. Hederick looked over the
crowd, noted the overly merry ones, and used a quill to scrawl on a parchment. He dropped
the paper from the pulpit. Dahos hurried forward, retrieved the fragment, bowed to
Hederick, and conveyed the note to two guards near the double doors. The snickerers sank
back into the press of bodies, cowering; no hands reached to comfort them. “And why would
I slay my neighbors?” Crealora demanded. “Marka Uth Kondas and others witnessed your ire
when the Bayard pigs trampled your garden early this summer.” 'Tor a parcel of ruined
flax, you think I would kill?“ ”The logic of witches is not the logic of the pure and
holy.“ Hederick gazed piously upward. ”And why else would little Elia Bayard, a child of
only five years, cry out your name as she lay dying, if you were not the guilty party?“
”I'd often taken herbs to the child when she had minor ailments. If anyone could help her
that night, it would have been me. Elia knew that. It was only natural“ ”What? You claim
to be a healer now?“ Hederick exclaimed as though outraged. ”Many have said that except
for the miracles wrought by the Seekers, there has been no true 'healing' since the Old
Gods abandoned Krynn at the time of the Cataclysm. Clearly you are no follower of the
Seekers, yet you claim now to be able to heal. What new sin is this?“ Crealora knew she
was doomed, but perhaps there was a reasonable person here who would recall her words
later. ”That's no sorcery, heretic Hederick,“ she said loudly. ”Nor is it a miracle.
Certain plants are able to effect certain curesof minor complaints. And the only gods who
can claim responsibility for that are the old, ancient gods, who created the plants and
their wonderful proper- ties in the first place.“ Hederick snorted, inspiring another
flicker of titters from the crowd. ”Those gods are long gone, Dame Senter-nal. There are
only the Seeker gods now. And if you claim to heal and are no Seeker, the only possibility
left is that you are a witch.“ ”You killed the Bayards, Hederick!“ Onlookers cried out as
Crealora let the accusation burst forth. ”Sethin Bayard had complained loudly because you
cut down the vallenwoods he treasured. You had plenty of reasons to want him dead. I say
you sent the bowmen who slew the Bayards in the night. You are responsible for the arrows
that pierced the hearts of five-year-old Elia Bayard and her parents. And because I, too,
have

criticized you, you use this farce of a trial to rid yourself of me as well! Who's to say
that you didn't have a hand in the slaying of my husband, as well? Kleven's low opinion of
you was well-known in Solace.“ Hederick went white, then red. He clutched the railing so
tightly his nails bit into his palms. ”You dare to speak thus to one of the Seeker high
ministry? Surely this is proof of your heresy!“ Crealora turned to face the crowd. She
tried vainly to raise her chained hands as she addressed the mass of people. ”Why would I
want the Bayards dead?“ she cried. ”They were my neighbors. As most of you are!“ Her voice
rang out over the rising noise of the assembly. ”Can you truly believe that I would hurt
you?"