Vincalis the Agitator (55 page)

You are near a revelation. Very soon, you will have the chance to find it, and with it, your godhood. A door will open for
you, and you will either pass through it or not. Fail to go through that door, and you will delay your ascension for a lifetime,
or a hundred lifetimes…or forever.

“There’s only one door I want to go through right now,” Solander muttered.

And so you shall.

And the god who called himself Vodor Imrish was gone.

In the next instant, rough hands grabbed Solander and bound his wrists before him with a spell so heavy it must have cost
the souls of a hundred men to cast it. He opened his eyes to find the executioners before him.

“Time,” one of them said.

A
s best he could guess, Wraith spent three days alone in the cell following Faregan’s visit. On what he thought was the morning
of the fourth day, though he could not be sure, four large men came for him. They put white-metal manacles around his wrists—the
same cold bonds that had held him in place while the Masters of the Inquest tried to pry his secrets from him in that first
meeting. They stood two to either side of him. And they marched him forward. Silent. Cold. As uncaring as the cold night sky,
all of them, and seemingly as far away.

He didn’t try to escape. He was almost beyond caring. He would be witness to hell, to the destruction of his life’s work and
the people who shared it, and if he was fortunate and the gods were kind, he would fall dead with the people he loved.

And if not, he would spend the rest of his life in torment from within and without.

They marched him through a maze of corridors. Out into bright daylight—the first he had seen since the Inquest brought him
into the Gold Building. He squinted, blinded by the brilliance of the sun, and for a long moment could see nothing. In that
moment, his guards shoved him into a seat, and one of them said, “You’ll open your eyes and watch, or you’ll suffer worse
than any of them, starting now.”

Wraith said, “I’ll open my eyes and watch, but only because I will not do my friends the dishonor of hiding from the hell
they face because of me. I will see, and I will remember. And if I ever can avenge them, I will.”

The guards laughed. “Sure. You just hang on to that thought,” one of them said.

His vision cleared. He sat in an outdoor amphitheater at the very heart of the Gold Building. The stage below him was covered
in sand, and in the sand stood row upon row of thick metal posts. All of those posts were empty, but he could make out the
rings into which the wrists of his friends would soon be clamped.

Wraith remembered the gods of his childhood—the gods in which he had once believed, and that he had once reviled. In a child’s
act of unknowing hubris, he’d named himself after one of his favorites from among that pantheon, and named the first and pure
love of his life after the other. Wraith and Shina, the Unseen One and the Mother Goddess.

At her death, he’d turned away from all gods. But now he prayed that they would intervene. He would find forgiveness in his
heart for Shina’s loss, if he could just save the many who were about to die—the many who had trusted him, worked with him,
and believed in the importance of what he and they did together. He did not want to live if they died.

He clenched his hands together tightly and stared at the killing field, and prayed with everything that was in him, offering
himself in exchange for the lives of the many.

And a sudden peace descended over him, and inside him a voice spoke softly.

What is to be is as it should be. What is to come is as each soul has chosen. Grieve for your friends, but not for their choices;
their road is not yours, but they walk that road by their own design. And be at peace. You, too, have a place in the changing
of the world. Your time has not yet passed—Wraith and Vincalis still have much to do. Be strong. I am with you, as I have
always been.

Please just save them, Wraith prayed silently, not believing that he heard anything but the desperation of his own heart,
but willing the words in his head to be the words of the god he wanted to believe in.

Watch. And remember. Your voice will speak yet to this generation, and to generations yet to come. Watch.

Wraith shivered. Down on the killing field, commentators from the nightlies stood speaking into glowing blue communication
spheres of wizard-fire that would transmit their words and images into each home in the Empire. Because of the nature of the
magic, their voices also filled the amphitheater. Wraith tried to shut out the sound of their smug condemnation, but he could
not.

“… and in just moments, the first group of traitors will be led onto Gold Field to hear their sentences read; we expect that
among this first group will be a number of well-known stolti—”

“That’s ex-stolti, Farvan. Remember, part of their sentencing included being stripped of their stolti class.”

“You’re right, of course, Cherrill. We expect that among this first group will be a number of well-known
ex
-stolti, including Solander Artis, once a member of one of the highest-ranking families in the Empire as well as being a member
of the Dragon Low Council of Magic, and socialite Velyn Artis-Tanquin, vowmate of ex-Dragon Councilor Luercas tal Jernas,
who is watching from the stands today, and who may find public support for a bid for reinstatement on the Dragon Council after
this is all over.”

“That’s right, Farvan. We’ve been told that members of the Dragon Judiciary Association, who sentenced these criminals and
who are in no small part responsible for the events today, have received threats against their lives because they were unwilling
to overturn the convictions of the stolti-class criminals based simply on their rank.”

Both commentators—themselves highly placed members of the stolti class—nodded to each other and exchanged smiles. “Cherrill,
this is simply proof that justice in the Empire of the Hars Ticlarim is for everyone. Our government is just—but it will uncover
the evil in its midst and root that evil out, no matter how … er, no matter how high into the air those roots may … ah … rise
…”

Farvan, tangled in bad metaphor, fell silent, and Cherrill doggedly moved to fill the lull in the play-by-play. “We’re expecting
to see nearly a thousand executions today. This pernicious plot spread from the lowest quarters in the Empire to the highest—a
vast, insidious group of malcontents working toward the annihilation of all that we hold dear.”

Farvan got his second wind. “It’s going to be a long afternoon, I think. We don’t know exactly what to expect, but for this
level of treason … well, all I can say is, I expect we’re all in for an education.”

All
was exactly right, too, Wraith thought. According to the commentators, the entire Empire had shut down for the day in order
that everyone could be at home to watch the executions. Watching was mandatory for anyone of the age of citizenship, and suggested
for all children older than ten. Wraith wondered what effect watching more than a thousand men and women die in what would
undoubtedly be the most creative manner the Masters of the Dragon Council could devise would have on the Empire’s inhabitants.
No one could know. No one could even speculate; nothing like this had happened before within the long annals of the Empire’s
recorded history.

Wraith would give his life for it not to happen right then, either— but the commentators had turned toward the huge arch that
led out onto Gold Field, and the woman said, “And there it is, Farvan—the music that signals the approach of the traitors.
We have to move into the spectator stands now. We’ve been told that no one who remains on Gold Field once this starts will
be safe.”

The spheres of blue light floated toward the entrance; behind them, the commentators scrambled for the opposite end of the
field and a rope ladder that colleagues hastily let down for them. No one would see their awkward ascent into the stands.
Everyone, instead, would see the first of Wraith’s friends, colleagues, employees, and associates marched out onto the field,
and would see them bound to the posts, and then would see them … what? Burned by fire from the heavens? Exploded limb from
limb? Flayed alive by magical hands?

Soldiers of the Silent Inquest, no longer arrayed in the green and black, but in the standard uniforms of the Empire—for this
hellish mass execution would never be called an action of the Silent Inquest, but instead would be credited to the legitimate
government of the Hars Ticlarim—clamped people one at a time to the posts. Wraith could make out the faces of his friends:
Rionvyeers the dancer; Meachaan the actress; Korr the Arts Master of the Order of Resonance. Too, he saw faces he had never
seen before, and wondered if those were friends of Solander’s, or if they were innocents brought in to pad out the numbers
and make the conspiracy look bigger than it truly was. But he did not see Solander. He did not see Jess. He did not see Velyn.

And then the last of the first group came out onto the field, and she was Velyn. His Velyn, who had turned against him, and
whom he had in turn pushed away. His eyes filled with tears, and he leaped to his feet, thinking to throw himself into the
killing field and die with her and the rest. But the men guarding him shoved him roughly back into his seat.

“Move again and find out how much living can hurt,” one of them snarled.

Wraith felt a stab of pain at the back of his neck that blinded him and sent his body into spasms. He screamed, unable to
stop himself, and sagged forward.

“That was just a taste,” the guard said.

They pulled his head upright and faced him toward the crowd.

“You are found guilty of treason against the Empire of the Hars Ticlarim,” a deep voice boomed from everywhere and nowhere.
“You have plotted against the government of this great realm, but more, you have plotted for the destruction of the lives
of the citizens of the realm, and their children. With callous disregard for life, for property, for humanity, you have planned
to disrupt the magical underpinnings of this realm, and though your plans have come to nothing, your intent is enough to condemn
you to death.

“You will, therefore, die as all plotters against the Hars shall die; you will die by the magic that you would have undone.”

“
Rewhah,
” Wraith heard someone behind him mutter. “They’re going to channel the
rewhah
from the Empire’s magic use through those posts and into their bodies. I can feel it building.”

“Quiet,” someone else behind him muttered. “Don’t spoil the surprise for anyone else.”

Those two voices sounded weirdly familiar, Wraith thought. Out of place, as if they belonged not in this amphitheater, but
in …

Jess! Jess was the one who felt the
rewhah.
And Patr was the one who told her to be quiet!

They were behind him—a few seats behind, but still, if they were there, then they would not be dying on the killing fields.
But had that really been Jess’s voice, or was he hearing what he wanted to hear? If next he heard Solander, he would know
his heart and his mind were playing tricks on him.

He heard nothing else, though, but the cries of those on the field, begging for mercy.

“You will die by the sword you would have wielded against others,” the voice of the judge said with finality. “Prepare your
souls; you shall this day meet perdition.”

Above the screaming, above the pleas for mercy, Wraith heard Velyn shout, “There’s the one you want, sitting in the stands.
There’s the real traitor, Gellas Tomersin! Gellas! Wraith the Warrener! In truth he’s Vincalis the Agitator. Burn him, not
us!”

He felt his heart break.

From her position several seats behind him, he heard Jess say, “Brace yourself. Here it comes.”

The guards, having finished binding all the first group of sacrifices— martyrs—to the posts, fled the killing field. The instant
they were outside the ring, a sheet of green-gold light descended and formed a wall between the spectators and the victims.
And in the eyeblink after that, the hideous fires of
rewhah
erupted from the ground, swirled up each of the posts, and enveloped each of the Empire’s sacrifices.

Wraith wanted to close his eyes, to hide his face in his hands, to block his ears … but he forced himself to watch. To bear
witness to this thing that he had done, to this guilt that was his burden. Tears ran from the corners of his eyes and blurred
his vision, but not enough to keep him from seeing the bound men and women shifted into ever more hideous parodies of the
human form before the
rewhah
finally reduced them to ash. He thought that he would never escape the sounds of their screams, the sight of their destruction.
And the vision of Velyn dying a death no human should experience, while on the safe side of the magical shield, Luercas tal
Jernas sat applauding and cheering.

After the screaming died, after the dust that had moments before been human beings settled, the green-gold shield that kept
the
rewhah
in the killing field disappeared. And the music began again, and into the breathless hush that ensued, the next group of
victims marched. Wraith closed his eyes then, and prayed to the voice that had offered him comfort, “Save them. Take me, and
save them.” If he could have changed the outcome by will alone, the men and women being fastened to the posts would have vanished,
and he alone would have stood on the killing field.

But he opened his eyes and saw Solander being clamped front and center, with one of the blue communication spheres floating
in front of him. The commentators were discussing him from the sidelines, speaking into a second communication sphere.

“… Solander Artis—who was expected to be in the first group, and who ends a promising career in magical research. Artis, whose
father held the highest position in the Oel Artis Dragon Council before giving his life to save the city of Oel Maritias during
a disaster some years ago, was expected to win a seat on the Dragon Council, and highly placed sources suggest that he might
have been a favorite for early promotion to the chair occupied by his father. A conviction of treason doesn’t just shame him;
it also casts shame on his entire family. They’ll lose a lot of stature among the stolti because of this.”