The Spirit Rebellion (11 page)

Banage silenced the court with a wave of his hand. “Spiritualist Lyonette is correct,” he announced. “Since the complaint is that she gained the spirit Mellinor under false pretenses, the resolution seems simple enough. We will question the spirit to see if it has been mistreated.” He looked down. “Miranda, if you would.”

Miranda nodded and closed her eyes, reaching down into the deep well of her spirit where Mellinor slept. He woke as soon as she brushed him, and a strange sensation rushed through her body, as though she were pouring out of her skin. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but neither was it pleasant, and it went on for what felt like a very long time.

When the sensation finally faded, the sound of water filled her ears. She opened her eyes and saw Mellinor hovering beside her. The Great Spirit of the inland sea had changed since she’d offered her soul as his shore. He still appeared as a great orb of water, crystal clear and glowing with his own shifting blue light, but he was
smaller now, barely as tall as she was. She’d known he had to shed some of his size to live inside her, but actually seeing the once enormous globe cut down to something more manageable was a shock. Still, Mellinor did not seem troubled at all by his new stature. He hovered, turning to watch the wizards in the stands as they gawked openly. The more they gawked, the brighter the light in the water became, and Miranda got the distinct feeling that, diminished as he was, Mellinor was still the largest spirit most of them had ever encountered firsthand, and the ball of water knew it.

Banage leaned forward on the bench. “You are Mellinor,” he said, almost hesitantly, “Great Spirit of the inland sea?”

“I was.” Mellinor’s voice was like a crashing wave. “But my sea is long gone to grass and trees, so now I am Mellinor, beholden to Miranda.”

Hern leaped at this. “Beholden? You mean oath bound?”

Mellinor gave him what passed for a dirty look among water spirits. “Formalities are pointless. I accepted her offer of sanctuary and sustenance in exchange for service on the understanding that I am free to leave whenever I wish, which I currently do not.”

“So,” Hern said, ignoring Mellinor’s distaste, “you were given the choice of servitude or… what?”

He left the question hanging, and Mellinor’s water swirled. “I see where this is going, human,” the water spirit rumbled. “I am not bound to answer to you.”

“But your mistress is,” Hern said. “Answer the question, service or what?”

Miranda felt Mellinor give her a questioning prod.
She nodded and, with a watery sigh, the Great Spirit answered. “Return to the sea. When I was free from the Enslaver, I attempted to reclaim my land. Miranda Lyonette and Eli Monpress stopped me, for it would mean the death of millions of spirits, as well as thousands of your kind. Monpress meant to return me to the sea, and defeated, I would have gone. It was Miranda who stopped him. Had she not offered the Spiritualist’s pledge to me, I would be lost right now, my soul pounded to nothingness beneath the waves. Servitude to a good master is a small price to pay for escaping that end.”

Miranda beamed at the glowing water, but Hern’s smug smile only grew wider.

“So,” he said, “just to make sure I have this right. You were given the choice between death at Monpress’s hands or service to Spiritualist Lyonette?”

“I don’t like how you say it,” Mellinor rumbled. “But if you insist on reducing a complex situation to its most base components, then yes, that is technically correct.”

Hern turned to look out over the rows of Spiritualists, spreading his arms to encompass them all. “Though it scarcely needs to be spoken,” he said in a ringing voice, “I would like to remind everyone present of the first rule of servant spirits, as it is written in the founding codex of our order: ‘Servitude of a spirit is by the spirit’s choice alone.’
Choice
, my friends, a spirit’s informed, free choice is the cornerstone of all the magics of the Spirit Court. What happened that night in Mellinor was not choice. We already have a name for when the only options are death or service.” His face clenched in a disgusted sneer. “
Slavery
. That night Spiritualist Lyonette and the thief Monpress put Mellinor in a situation where there was only
one outcome. Though he took the oath, Mellinor did not enter her service by his free will, but rather because there was no other choice.” He paused gravely for a moment, letting that sink in. “Though it doesn’t fit the technical definition,” he continued at last, “I think we can all agree there’s little else to call it but Enslavement.”

“Are you stupid?” Miranda shouted, all her calm crumbling around her. “You heard it straight from Mellinor! He’s here because he wants to be!
I saved his life!
”

Everyone was shouting now. Spiritualists shot up from their seats, arguing over each other in increasingly loud voices while Banage shouted for order. Gin was growling furiously, with his ears flat and his claws out, digging into the stone. Only Hern was quiet, watching the chaos as a victorious commander watches the routing of his enemy. Miranda was so angry she could barely see straight, but Mellinor’s anger dwarfed her own. It throbbed through their connection like a tide as his surface shifted from calm blue to an angry, choppy, steel gray.

After several minutes Banage finally regained order. When the room was quiet, he nodded at the water spirit. “Do you have anything else to add?”

“Only this.” Mellinor’s voice was like a breaking glacier. He turned to Hern, and his water grew very dark. “I have been Enslaved, Spiritualist. I know the madness, the agony, and the humiliation better than any spirit who still has their mind intact. If you presume to call my contract with Miranda Enslavement again, then I will exercise that free choice you claim to value so highly to drown you where you stand. And none of those weak flickers you wear so gaudily on your fingers would be able to stop me.”

Hern blanched, and Banage let him squirm for a moment before turning to Miranda. “Spiritualist Lyonette, please control your spirit.”

Miranda had a choice answer for that, but a look at Banage stopped her tongue. As much as she would love to let Mellinor do what the spirit was aching to do, any hope of beating the charges against her would vanish if she didn’t stay to the right side of Court law, which meant no drowning. With great effort, she tugged at Mellinor’s connection, and the spirit reluctantly pulled back, but his cold light never lost its focus on Hern until the last wisp of water vanished.

“You have all heard the charges,” Banage said. “The accused will now exit the chamber while the Court deliberates.”

Dismissed, Miranda climbed off the stand and marched across the open floor, doing her best to ignore the whispers that followed her. Behind her, she could hear Hern chatting with the Spiritualists around him, his voice ringing confident and cheerful over the hum of the crowd. Her heart sank in her chest as she walked through the double doors the apprentices held open for her, returning to the dark waiting chamber.

“That pompous idiot,” Gin growled, pacing in cramped, little circles through the long waiting room while the apprentices secured the door behind them. “You should have let Mellinor drown him.”

Miranda didn’t answer. She plopped down on the bench against the far wall and put her head in her hands. On her fingers, her rings were awake and asking questions, buzzing through their connection. With great difficulty, she sent them firm, reassuring waves of confidence.
Everything would be fine. Slowly, her rings quieted, the smaller spirits first, and finally the larger ones. Even Mellinor settled down under the pressure. Tired from his earlier anger, he burrowed deep into the corners of Miranda’s mind where she rarely went, his mood dark and brooding and well suited to her own.

When they were all still, Miranda lifted the pressure and sat back, staring up at the high windows. She rarely lied to her spirits, but she wasn’t above withholding a truth, especially one that had not come to pass yet, and things
could
still turn out in the end.

She closed her eyes. Even thinking it felt foolish. Everything would be all right? She didn’t see how they could have gone worse. She’d needed to make a glorious defense. Instead, she’d lost her calm and let Hern lead her in circles away from her carefully prepared arguments. Miranda gritted her teeth. She’d let him play her for a fool from the very beginning, from that first night in Banage’s office when she’d read his name on the petition.

Miranda leaned back, letting her head thunk against the cold stone wall. She’d been such an idiot. All this time, she’d truly believed that if she could only tell her story, show them Mellinor, prove that Hern’s case was completely unfounded, then the Tower Keepers would be on her side. Yet she could see them now in her mind’s eye, the robed figures, their faced turned toward each other, whispering, their ringed hands drumming impatiently on the stands. They hadn’t come to Court today to be convinced, to test innocence. There’d been no questions, no demanding of proof, no calls for witnesses, nothing. The Tower Keepers who came today had come to see an unpleasant bit of necessary business through,
just as Banage had warned her. She clunked her head against the stone wall again, a little harder this time. Stupid, that’s what she’d been. Stupid and naive, thinking things would be the way she wanted just because that’s how she believed they should be.

She could hear Gin’s claws on the stone as he paced. He’d been right that night in the garden. Coming here today, naked like this, with only her spirits and her word behind her, it had been a prideful thing to do. She had gone in with her head held too high to see the shaky ground beneath her feet, and now…

Miranda raised her hands quickly, pressing her fingers hard against her eyes to block the wetness that threatened to roll down her cheeks. She could not be weak, not now. But Hern’s voice, smooth and triumphant as he announced the punishment, was circling through her mind.

Banishment from the Spirit Court by stripping of rings, rank, and privileges
.

Her hands began to tremble. She had known from the beginning that this was the risk she was taking, but, at the same time, she had not truly understood what was at stake. Banishment she could handle. Rank could go as well, and everything else. But her rings? She turned her hands over, pressing the stones of her rings against her cheeks. She could feel her spirits moving inside them, turning as they slept. Each one was tied to her by a promise, a sacred pledge she’d thought would last until her death. Could she lose that?

The crack of the doors interrupted her thoughts, and Miranda had just enough time to scrub her eyes before two red-robed Spiritualists entered the waiting room. They didn’t look at her, only opened the doors and
stood at either side, waiting for her with downcast faces. Miranda got up from the bench with a terrible feeling of dread. Had the Tower Keepers reached their decision so soon? Surely not. It had been barely ten minutes. Could they even take the vote that quickly? Yet the young Spiritualists stood waiting to escort her, and Miranda had no choice but to take her place between them. Without a word, they led her up the stairs into the bright light of the Court, and with every step she took, Miranda felt her hope grow fainter.

This time, her walk through the Court was very different. She was the same, marching in with her head high and her face a calm mask over her fear. She was still a Spiritualist after all, at least for the next few minutes. The circular room, however, had changed in the short time she’d been waiting. Before, the first two rings of seats had been nearly full. A slim showing, but still, people had been there. Now, the great Court was almost empty. Only a few Spiritualists sat sprinkled across the benches, mostly faces she knew, Banage’s supporters. Everyone else seemed to have left after the vote. Probably too cowardly to stay and watch the aftermath, she thought darkly.

Hern was there, of course, lounging in his chair like a patron at a boring play, though he did look up to give Miranda a smile, which she did her best to ignore, focusing instead on Master Banage. For once, however, the sight of her mentor brought her no comfort. Even beside the snowy whiteness of his collar, his face looked pale and worn. For the first time his hair looked more gray than black, and his blue eyes were sad and tired when they met hers. If she’d had any hope about the verdict, it
died then, but she walked to the stand the same as ever, straight and proud, with Gin stalking behind her like a silent, silver mist.

“Spiritualist Lyonette,” Banage said when she had climbed the steps and taken her place on the stand. “You have heard the accusations brought against you and given your answer. Your case has been debated by the leading members of the Spirit Court, and we have come to our decision by majority vote. Are you prepared to hear our verdict?”

Miranda gripped the brass railing that surrounded the stand. “I am.”

Banage looked down at the desk in front of him. “Spiritualist Lyonette, this assembly finds you guilty of conspiring with the criminal Eli Monpress for the purpose of obtaining the Great Spirit Mellinor under false pretense and in violation of your oaths. As punishment, you are hereby banished from our assembly. Your titles and privileges within the Court, including all pacts, promises, or agreements made in its name, are now considered void. You will surrender your bound spirits and leave this city at once.”

Master Banage’s voice was soft and calm, yet every word struck Miranda like a hammer, rattling her mind until all she could do was stare at him dumbly. She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see two young Spiritualists she didn’t recognize walking toward her, one with a large pile of sand stalking behind her like a tiger, the other walking beside what looked like a centipede made of stone.