The Sin War Box Set: Birthright, Scales of the Serpent, and The Veiled Prophet (4 page)

Uldyssian fought to keep his distaste for the acolyte from overcoming his reason. If he understood the man correctly, then the farmer had just been accused of the very murder he had been trying to warn them about.

“Me? You think
I
did it? By the stars, I should take you and—”

“Uldyssian…” murmured Achilios anxiously.

The son of Diomedes regained control. To the archer, he said, “Achilios! I told you where to find the body! You saw my expression and—” He halted, not wishing to draw in Lylia. “—and you know me! Dorius! You were friends with my father! I swear by his grave that I’m not the fiend who so foully slew this jabbering fool’s comrade!”

He would have gone on, but the headman waved him silent. His expression stern, Dorius replied, “’Tis not
him
we speak about at the moment, Uldyssian. Nay, we speak of the other…though it might very well be that we’ll need to be returning to that before long, as I don’t believe in no coincidence.”

“‘Other’? What other?”

Captain Tiberius snapped his fingers. Instantly, half a dozen men—half a dozen men whom Uldyssian had known from childhood on—moved to surround the farmer.

Achilios tried to intercede. “Dorius, is this necessary? This is
Uldyssian.”

“Your word’s respected, young Achilios, but this is duty.” The headman nodded to the man in the circle. “I’m certain that it’ll all be working out, Uldyssian. Just let us do what the situation demands!”

“But for
what?”

“For possibly murdering a man,” grunted Captain Tiberius, one hand on the sword at his side. Uldyssian had seen the Guard commander carry the weapon only a few times in all the years he had known him, with all but one of those being for the aforementioned festivals and other special events.

The lone exception had involved the murder of Gemmel.

Shaking his head, the farmer roared, “But I told you that I
didn’t
slay his companion!”

“’Tis not him we’re talking about,” Dorius declared. “But it’s one of a similar calling, which makes this worse, young Uldyssian. It’s the one hailing from the Cathedral of Light who’s been found slain…”

“The one…” Uldyssian trailed off, his thoughts in turmoil.
But I just spoke to the man a short time ago! Less than an hour, if even half that!

Spoke to the man…and
threatened
him in the process before several witnesses…

“Aye, you recall him, I see. Yes, young Uldyssian, the honored emissary of the Cathedral was found with his throat cut open…and ’tis your
knife
jutting out of the gap made!”

Uldyssian had never paid much mind to the interior of the Guard building. It was one of those places the farmer passed constantly, but, as he had never been arrested for drunkenness or fighting, there had been no reason for him to ever enter it.

But now he sat in one of the two barred rooms in the back quarter. To reach them, visitors—and prisoners—had to enter an inner wooden door and walk down a short corridor. Uldyssian, sitting in the first cell, felt entirely cut off from the world. A worn wooden bench acted as chair, table, and bed. Uldyssian had lived here for four days now, two days in which his farm had been left all but unattended. The crops needed weeding and irrigating and the animals had to be cared for. Mendeln had promised to see to everything, but Uldyssian feared that his brother was not up to such a task on his own, especially while also worrying about his elder sibling. Moreover, while the earlier storm had, ironically, blown itself out fairly quickly and with little violence, the clouds had remained over Seram since then and Uldyssian feared that another tempest—and perhaps a greater one—might follow. The farm had been fortunate the first time, but a second assault might throw it into a turmoil from which it could not survive.

He knew that the farm should have been the least of his worries. The situation involving the murders had grown even worse than Uldyssian had imagined it could. With both victims members of the leading sects, Dorius had felt compelled to send word to Tulisam, where the Cathedral and the Temple had a permanent presence. He had requested that representatives from one or both come to help oversee the matter. The two surviving missionaries had ridden along with those messages, supposedly in order to give testimony to their particular masters. In addition, while the headman continued to promise Uldyssian that all would turn out well in the end, he had insisted that Captain Tiberius keep the son of Diomedes locked up for that time, lest there be some question as to Seram’s notions of justice for the victims.

Uldyssian remained dumbstruck by what had happened to the second missionary. According to a more detailed story told him later by the erstwhile Guard commander, the Cathedral’s emissary had been found on his back, his face contorted in what Tiberius freely called “absolute” fear and the farmer’s knife—upon whose wooden handle Uldyssian had made his mark—thrust deep into the rib cage.

Compared with the corpse that
he
had discovered, the second body had barely been touched. That, however, made the crime no less terrible. In fact, no one could recall such a multiple tragedy since the plague had swept through…the same plague that had taken Uldyssian’s family.

Serenthia came to visit him each day, giving him hopeful word from many others unable to do the same. The consensus by those who knew him was that Uldyssian was utterly innocent. Achilios had already blackened the eye of one man who had suggested otherwise.

As Uldyssian sat with his head in his hands, he thought not of himself, but of Lylia. She had not come to him once since his incarceration, not that he had expected her. Indeed, the farmer hoped that she would continue to stay away, lest she somehow be drawn into the madness. Soon, he kept promising himself, soon he would be released and then the two of them could meet again.

If she even remained in Seram…

Thought of never seeing the noblewoman again fueled Uldyssian’s already tremendous anxiety. His entire life seemed to have turned into some nightmare. He had not even felt this way when his family had died, but now those memories, too, added their terrible weight to his already overburdened shoulders.

Not for the first time, the walls of his tiny chamber seemed to close in on him. Uldyssian had been born and raised on the farm. He had never known anything else but freedom. When his mother had perished, Uldyssian had run out into the fields and shouted out his agony, aware that only his brother was there to hear him.

I’ve got to get out…I’ve got to get out…
The words ran through his mind over and over, swelling in significance with each repetition. Uldyssian stared bleary-eyed at the door to his cell, unable to accept the bars and the lock. Animals were kept locked up in pens, not
him
. Not—

There was a slight groan and a click.

The cell door swung back with a metallic squeal.

Uldyssian threw himself against the back wall as it happened. He watched in utter amazement as the door swung completely around, clanging against another part of the barred front.

The entrance to the cell stood wide open before Uldyssian, but the farmer made no move whatsoever toward it. He had no idea what had just happened, and despite his deep desire to be out of this place, the doorway enticed him not in the least.

At that moment, the wooden door down the hall also opened. Tiberius and two of his men marched down the halls toward the cells.

When he saw Uldyssian’s cell, the captain came to a jarring halt. “What the—”

Recovering, he snapped his fingers and the two guards leapt into the cell to cover the prisoner. As they kept Uldyssian at bay, Tiberius inspected the door.

“No scratches, no damage at all.” He glared at the farmer. “Search him for anything that could be used for a key.”

The guards did so. However, they came up empty-handed, just as Uldyssian knew that they would.

Tiberius stepped up to his prisoner. Waving the guards back, he leaned close and whispered, “I don’t like having you here any more than you like being here, Uldyssian. You may not believe this, old friend, but I don’t think you any more guilty than I am for what happened to those two.”

“Then, why—”

“This may only be Seram, but I’ll run the Guard here like it’s Kehjan itself! My father served in the Guard there for three years and then ran things here! I’ll not dishonor his memory by failing in my duty. We do this as decreed, however disdainful it may seem.”

While Uldyssian could respect Tiberius’s position, it did nothing to assuage him. “I just want this over with! I’ve done nothing!”

“And that’ll be proven. You’ll see.” The captain gestured at the door. “But that’ll only make matters worse…”

“I didn’t do that! It just opened on its own.”

Tiberius looked disappointed. “I expected better of you, Uldyssian. There’s nothing wrong with that door. I checked.”

“I swear by my father!”

With a deepening frown, the captain grunted, then turned away. He stepped out of the cell, the guards following. One of the men shut the door, then tested it to make certain it would stay shut.

“It’s locked tight,” the man declared to his commander. Nevertheless, Tiberius checked it himself by seizing the door with both hands and throwing his full weight back. The entire cell wall rattled, but held firmly in place.

Captain Tiberius let go. Despite the display, he leaned against the bars and said to the farmer, “Don’t do it again. I might have to give an order I wouldn’t like to see fulfilled. Just be patient, Uldyssian.”

The anxious—and thoroughly baffled—prisoner could only nod. Satisfied, the captain led his men off.

One of the guards came back a short time later with a bowl of stew. He tested the door yet again, then, with a nod, slid the farmer’s meal through.

As he ate, Uldyssian tried to ponder once more what was taking the matter so long. He was clearly innocent. He also wondered how the true murderer could have moved so swiftly. It had only been a short time between the moment of the first grisly discovery and when the Cathedral’s missionary had been slain. The fiend would have had to almost fly from one to the other the moment that he had the farmer’s knife. Uldyssian ruled out Achilios as the possible madman; the hunter was not only too good of a man, he was a true friend…and he had also been with Mendeln during the entire incident.

Then…who?

Footsteps echoed down the corridor, but footsteps much lighter, more delicate, than the tramping boots of Tiberius and his men. Uldyssian looked up…and beheld Lylia nearing.

“I had to see you,” she murmured, her smile hesitant. Clearly she feared that he would be angry about her disobedience.

But at this point, Uldyssian could not reprimand her. She had waited a long time. He was even grateful that the noblewoman had not simply fled Seram, abandoning him to his fate.

Still, he started his greeting by saying, “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I couldn’t stay in my room any longer. This is wrong! It’s happening all over again!”

“What do you mean?”

She pressed herself against the bar. Uldyssian put down the bowl and went to her. He had a great urge to crush her in his arms in order to comfort her. He felt as if
she
were the one in danger, not him.

“You were kind to a stranger,” she whispered, her hand reaching through the bars to touch his. “A stranger with nowhere to go. Do you know why?” Lylia looked down. “Because of the game between the Cathedral and the Temple!”

“The
what?”

Her eyes shifted up to his, their beauty seizing his gaze. He wanted to drown himself in those eyes. “The
game
. This is all a game to them, with the winner being the one who survives. They will let nothing and no one stand in their way and one thing that both despise is a heretic.”

Uldyssian did not like where the conversation seemed to be heading. “What…what do you mean, Lylia?”

She glanced back toward the door leading to the cells, then, maintaining her whisper, replied, “This has happened before. With my family. We had influence and wealth, both of which the two sought for their own. But we rejected them publicly…and then our world turned upside down! There was violence, the burning of a minor temple, with many of the faithful injured terribly. The fire spread to other buildings nearby. Afterward, it was somehow found that the tragedy had been of human making and that
my
family had some tie to it.”

He gaped.

“All lies!” she quickly added, clearly taking his shock for belief in her family’s guilt. However, Uldyssian by no stretch of the imagination suspected Lylia of such horror…and, by extension, her loved ones, either.

“I believe you,” he quickly told her. “I believe you. Go on.”

“While we had rejected them, there were others, far more powerful, who had embraced one or the other sect. Accused without true proof, my family was nevertheless stripped of
everything
. My father and mother were dragged off, never to be seen again! My brother was sent to the dungeons and my sister forced to wed one of the Cathedral’s most prominent supporters! A similar fate was intended for me, but I took what money I could get and fled from the city…”

“And that’s how you ended up in Seram?”

“Not at first…and certainly not in the company of those serving the very evil I sought to escape!” She bit her lip. “I’ve told you so much…now I suddenly fear that you might think that
I
might be responsible for what happened to the two!”

Uldyssian immediately shook his head. “That’s hardly possible! This was done by someone much stronger and certainly more monstrous than you could
ever
be! It makes more sense that they would suspect
me!”
But something dark occurred to him. “Tell no one else this, though! They might think that I did it on your behest!”

She put a hand to her mouth at this realization. “I did not think—”

“Never mind. It’d be best if you leave and don’t come back. Things will be all right—”

“But they won’t be! I heard at the inn! There are Inquisitors from the Cathedral of Light arriving tomorrow and someone hinted of Peace Warders from the Temple soon after! It’s happening just the same as with me!”

Her announcement jolted him. He had been told nothing of Inquisitors or Peace Warders coming to Seram. The arms of justice for each of the two sects, the two groups acted as judges and guards. True, this involved the slaughter of their own, but where Uldyssian was concerned, there was hardly a need for either element.

The farmer stood there for a moment, trying to think. It was the noblewoman, however, who spoke first.

“We made the mistake of letting them act before we did, Uldyssian! You cannot let that happen! They will twist everything around, so that even if you are innocent, your guilt will be obvious to all! You have to stand up to them! Speak out defiantly, as you have always done! Your friends will rally to you, I know it! Neither the Cathedral nor the Temple will be able to use your hatred of them against you, then!”

“I—” There were points he would have argued, but they faded to nothing under the arresting beauty of those eyes. He finally decided that Lylia was right; Uldyssian would make use of the lesson of her family to save himself…and her, too.

“You must do it…” she breathed. “Please…for our sake…”

Without warning, the noblewoman pulled his face close to the bars, then kissed him. As the farmer stood there, completely at a loss, Lylia, her face scarlet, fled the area.

Uldyssian watched her vanish. Blinking, he suddenly recalled the door. As the guard had done, the farmer tested it. The door held, as it should have.

To Uldyssian, that settled everything. Lylia was absolutely right. He needed to stand up for himself. The Inquisitors—and the Peace Warders, assuming that they, too, were on their way—would be looking for guilt, not innocence.