Judge
© 2012 by R. J. Larson
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-6048-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Wes Youssi/M.80 Design
Cover photography by Steve Gardner, PixelWorks Studio, Inc.
To all adventurers
who wish an epic destroyer would
follow them home.
Kien Lantec \
Kee
-en
Lan
-tek\ Military judge-advocate for the Tracelands
Ela Roeh \
El
-ah
Roe
-eh\ Prophet of Parne
Ara Lantec \
Are
-ah
Lan
-tek\ Rade Lantec’s wife, Kien’s mother
General Rol \Rawl\ The Tracelands’ General of the Army
Tamri Het \
Tam
-ree Het\ Citizen of Munra, Siphra
Tzana Roeh \
Tsaw
-nah
Roe
-eh\ Ela’s sister
Beka Thel \
Bek
-ah Thell\ Jon Thel’s wife, Kien’s sister
Jon Thel \Jon Thell\ A Tracelands military commander, Beka’s husband
Rade Lantec \Raid
Lan
-tek\ Kien’s father, the Tracelands’ preeminent statesman
Ruestock \
Roo
-stock\ Exiled former Siphran ambassador to the Tracelands
Tsir Aun \Sir
Awn
\ Istgard’s prime minister, Tek Lara’s husband
Bel-Tygeon \Bell-
Ty
-jee-on\ King of Belaal
Akabe Garric \Ah-
cabe
Gair
-rick\ Former Siphran rebel, the Infinite’s chosen king of Siphra
Zade Chacen \
Zaid
Chase
-en\ Parne’s deposed chief priest
Sius Chacen \
See
-es
Chase
-en\ Elder son of Zade Chacen
Za’af Chacen \
Zay
-aff
Chase
-en\ Second son of Zade Chacen
Dan Roeh \Dan
Roe
-eh\ Ela’s father
Kalme Roeh \
Call
-may
Roe
-eh\ Ela’s mother
Ninus \
Nine
-es\ King of the island-city Adar-iyr
Matron Prill \prill\ Ela’s chaperone
Ishvah Nesac \Ish-
vaw
Ness
-ak\ The Infinite’s chosen chief priest of Parne
Siyrsun \
Seer
-sun\ Belaal’s General of the Army
1 K
ien Lantec lifted his chin, pressed his fingers against his wet skin, and then swept the razor up his throat—just as the Infinite’s voice resonated within his thoughts.
You will go to ToronSea.
“Ow!” Jolted by the voice, Kien gasped as the blade pierced his skin. He dropped the razor and leaped backward as it clattered on the tiled floor, threatening his bare toes. Hearing from one’s Creator evidently involved undreamed-of risks. Not to mention worrisome symptoms that included sweating, tremors, and an unnervingly rapid heart rate. Kien exhaled and thumped a clammy fist against his heart. Steady.
ToronSea? Why? He’d just returned home on military leave. His first leave! And ToronSea was at the edge of nowhere, governed by a pack of argumentative antisocials who were supposed to be civilized Tracelanders. Controlling himself, Kien smudged some powdered balm against the bloodied nick beneath his jaw. “Go to ToronSea?”
You will warn My faithful in ToronSea of My displeasure because they are beguiled by certain Siphran worshipers of Atea. Tell the one who speaks for them that he must be faithful to Me and seek My will. You must also speak to certain deceived ones who love Atea. Tell them only that I see their failings and seek their hearts. The wise will hear Me.
Worshipers of Atea. Weren’t they given over to disturbing little quirks like divination through watching the death throes of victims in ritual strangulations? Kien hoped the oft-repeated stories were unfounded. He didn’t relish being the target of a divination ritual. “But, Infinite, I’m not a prophet. I’m a—”
Are you My servant?
Defeated before he’d begun. “Yes. I am your servant.” Kien meant every word of his pledge, but he didn’t have to feel comfortable about it, did he? He moistened his lips. “Am I no longer training to be a military judge?”
Waiting silence answered. Kien exhaled, retrieved his razor, and tried to ask an answerable question. “Should I depart today?”
Yes.
“Will I survive?”
More Omnipotent silence. Survival, evidently, shouldn’t be his first consideration. “Fine. I’ll finish shaving, then organize a few details and gather my gear. Will one knapsack suffice?”
He paused. Nothing. It seemed he must answer most of his own questions. And he had plenty to ask. For example, why wasn’t the Infinite sending His true prophet, Ela of Parne, to confront ToronSea? No, sending Ela into any situation where her life might be endangered was completely unacceptable. For Ela’s sake, Kien would go to ToronSea himself.
Ela . . . Kien grinned into his polished metal mirror and finished shaving. He now had an ideal excuse to visit the most captivating person in East Guard. No doubt Ela would—
“Kien?” His mother’s voice echoed up the stairwell steps to his tower room. “
Keee
-en!”
He hurriedly wiped his face and smoothed his tunic before opening the door. Ara Lantec marched up the last few spiraling stone steps and stopped on the landing. Cool gray eyes narrowed, she folded her elegant arms and glared, her usually serene face a study of restrained maternal fury. “Your destroyer is eating my garden! My
whole
garden! Unless you can control that monster, your father will have him shot by archers, then butchered and stewed!”
Kien saw six months of military wages vanish, consumed by a gargantuan warhorse’s gluttony. “Sorry. I’ll pay for the damages.”
Ara seethed. “Paying for my garden won’t help me this evening. My reception is ruined!”
He wasn’t about to offer advice for saving his mother’s reception—a gathering of the Tracelands’ most elite women. Wives of members of the Grand Assembly. And their daughters, whom Kien devoutly hoped to escape. No doubt his parents would be planning his wedding the instant he smiled at one of those spoiled girls. Kien kissed his mother’s perfectly arranged dark hair, hoping to soothe her. She scowled.
Barefoot, he started down the stairs. “Don’t worry. You’ll be rid of me and the destroyer by midday. I’m leaving on an assignment.”
“What? You’ve just returned after six months of duty.”
“It’s an emergency.” And that emergency looked positively inviting compared to his mother’s wrath—not to mention her reception. Several steps down, he hesitated and looked up. “Anyway, I thought you wanted me gone.”
“No, I simply want you to
kill
that destroyer!”
“Oh, sure.” Kien hoped she hadn’t caught his sarcasm. Chaining the beast, not killing it, would have to suffice. Kien rushed down the spiraling stone steps and charged through the stairwell’s open doorway, into the adjoining hall. “Scythe!”
He found the black monster-horse in Mother’s formal garden, dwarfing a crimson stand of miniature spice trees, crunching down leaf after expensive leaf. The massive creature turned his rump toward Kien and flicked his long black tail.
Kien growled. “I know you heard me. Don’t you dare turn away!”
Scythe swung his big head around, irritable, still chewing. Kien glared and grabbed his halter. “Not another bite! Your morning meal is finished. Move. Now.
Obey.
”
At least destroyers heeded
obey
—though the command never improved their attitudes. The oversized brute grumbled as Kien led him toward the stable. To gain his cooperation, Kien said,
“Let me make myself presentable, then we’ll visit General Rol. And Ela.”
Scythe’s big ears perked. “Ela,” Kien repeated, knowing she was this beast’s greatest weakness. Kien’s as well. “I’m sure she has six months’ worth of shrubs for you to devour.”
He continued to talk of Ela as he reluctantly chained Scythe to an iron ring embedded in stone within the stable yard. “Wait. I’ll return.” He’d won this round. With the destroyer at least.
His mother and the Infinite were different matters entirely.
Visions of ToronSea’s Ateans and their brutal divination rituals overtook his thoughts.
Kien hoped he would survive.
Seated on a woven mat near the ancient stone ruins of the Infinite’s temple, Ela Roeh, prophet of Parne, shifted in place and studied her scholars.
Five young ladies sat before her, decorously clad in pastel tunics and soft mantles. Wielding reed pens over their wax writing tablets, they bowed their fashionable curl-crowned heads in the early-autumn sunlight and wrote this morning’s lesson.
How troublesome to realize her students were all near her own age. In spirit, Ela felt older than eighteen. But surely not older than her dear eightyish chaperone. Ela slid a glance toward Tamri Het, a Siphran who’d followed Ela to the Tracelands after Siphra’s revolution seven months past. Seated nearby on a cushion, Tamri looked utterly harmless with her veiled silver hair-braids and embroidery. Who would ever believe this great-grandmother was a mob-inciting revolutionary who’d helped to topple Siphra’s previous king from his throne? Particularly now, as she hummed like a girl, her veils fluttering in the light breeze . . .
Hmm. Perhaps, in spirit, Ela
was
older than Tamri. Not that it mattered.
Old-spirited or not, all prophets of Parne died young. Ela
chewed her lower lip. Surely her death would serve the Infinite’s purpose. But when?
Tzana, Ela’s fragile little sister, crept onto the mat, her small, prematurely aged face wrinkled both with concern and with her incurable condition. “You look sad,” Tzana whispered.
Bending, Ela returned the whisper. “I’m not.” However, she was restless. Ela tucked back one of Tzana’s sparse curls and willed herself to relax. Tzana huddled beneath Ela’s arm and shivered until Ela snuggled her close. The little girl disliked the cooler autumn air. Ela couldn’t blame her. Tzana was accustomed to Parne’s warmer climate, which was more soothing to her arthritis than these damp ocean-borne breezes. Tonight, Ela decided, she must prepare more ointment to ease Tzana’s aching joints.
Another whisper lifted—this time from among her students.
“Finished!” Beka Thel, Kien’s sister, set down her pen and tablet with a delicate click. Beka was as clever as her brother. And equally charming. Warm brown eyes sparkling, Beka threw Ela a mischievous smile so like Kien’s that Ela sighed. Kien . . .
She returned Beka’s smile. But as they waited for the other four girls to finish their work, Ela scolded herself inwardly. She mustn’t think of Kien. Why torment herself? Yet she thought of him constantly.
Not
proper musings for a prophet. It was better to consider the Infinite.
Ela closed her eyes and offered silent worship to her beloved Creator. Until agitation permeated her thoughts. Dark, unsteadying fear. Why?
Infinite?
Silence. Yet she perceived His Spirit hovering near. Determined, Ela closed her eyes, focused on her prayer, and on the Infinite. He might not answer whenever it pleased her, but He did answer. She simply needed to persist, then accept His decisions.
Infinite, what is Your will?
Before Ela could gasp, a vision swept over her like a cloak and sucked her spirit into a whirlwind. Ela trembled as she recognized
her surroundings. She was home in the city-state of Parne, standing atop the guard’s stone lookout shelter on Parne’s soaring city wall. Too high! Dizzied, she fixed her thoughts on breathing and enduring the vision’s torment. Infinite!
Child of dust,
the Infinite murmured,
what do you see?
Scared to look down, Ela fixed her gaze on the western horizon. On a terrifyingly huge mirage-like image, spreading from north to south. Barely able to squeak out the words, Ela whispered, “I see a giant cauldron in the sky . . . pouring boiling liquid toward Parne.”
Home. About to be destroyed.
As Ela tried to gather her wits, her Creator said,
My people, whom I love, have forsaken me! They burn incense to other gods, and they worship idols made by their own hands.
“No. . . .”
They seek other souls to lead into eternal torment! Therefore disaster is about to overtake Parne and all who live there.
“No!” All who live there? Father. Mother. Ela’s baby brother. Where was Tzana? Ela’s arms and legs felt weighted now, as if turned to stone. Impossible to reach Tzana. Though she heard her sister calling her from a distance. Nightmarish images came to life behind her eyelids and within her thoughts. The vision expanded with such force, such an inundation of faces, whisperings, and terrors, that Ela screamed. Falling from the lookout—
Darkness, thicker than she’d ever known, drew her soul beneath the ground, entombing her alive. As she clawed at dank walls within her vision and inhaled the stomach-churning stench of death, the Infinite said,
Prepare yourself.
The vision’s agony closed in tight, crushing her. Desperate to save her family, and Parne, Ela fought for consciousness and failed.
