“Oh, that woman you thought was so pretty?” she interrupted with a raised eyebrow. “Did you think I hadn’t noticed? I didn’t think you liked your women so … earthy.”
Bradok’s temper flashed.
“It’s not about her, damn it,” he said. “It’s about what she’s here representing: honor and fellowship and the brotherhood of the dwarves.”
Sapphire stifled a laugh and ran her eyes over Bradok with a calculating look.
“My son, you are still a boy who must learn the ways of men. A boy who is a fool,” she continued after a brief silence. “In this world you either eat or are eaten. It is the strong that rule and the weak that submit, that is the way it has always been.” She stepped close and raised her lips to his ear.
“You may think it is the people who rule Ironroot,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “That is a boy’s wishful idea. It is the men who sit in this room who rule. It is they who make the laws, decide the taxes and tariffs. They can let a murderer free from prison or condemn an innocent man to death.”
“The people wouldn’t stand for that,” Bradok said simply.
“The people wouldn’t lift a finger,” Sapphire said smugly. “They fear lawlessness. They crave the safety of a strong government and are willing to sacrifice the occasional principle to have it.”
“That’s monstrous,” Bradok said, teeth clenched to keep from screaming. “I don’t believe things are that simple.”
Sapphire laughed, loudly and with genuine mirth, as if she’d just been told an amusing story. “Yes, the world is monstrous, Bradok,” she said, touching his cheek with a strange mixture of sympathy and contempt in her expression. “And we must make our place in it any way we can. I hope you see that now. This day’s lesson has been a good one.”
Bradok wanted to answer her, but he couldn’t find the right words. Quite apart from the outrage of his offended morals, he couldn’t help wondering if Sapphire was right: The strong rule.
“You’d better head back,” she announced brusquely. “I imagine the council will be meeting deep into the day. I’ve nearly had my fill and will slip away soon. Try not to wake me with your usual ruckus if you come home late; you know how light a sleeper I am.” She started to turn but stopped to regard him with an appraising glance.
“You did tolerably well this morning,” she said. “If you continue like this, you might just make something of yourself.” She sighed, her appraising eye turning hard. “Too much to hope for, I suppose,” she said.
Bradok escorted his mother back to her booth then returned to his seat. He poured himself a glass of water from the provided pitcher, downed it, then poured another. He’d always been an honest man, a businessman who dealt fairly and gave value for value. He’d believed that the rest of the world could be that way too.
After today he didn’t know what he believed.
Sapphire could do that to him. His mother had a way of twisting his insides in a way that the meanest bouncer in the lowest tavern couldn’t match. He felt as if he’d gone a few rounds with that tavern bouncer and lost. He needed to sit and think if he wanted any chance to untangle Sapphire’s mental knots.
Half an hour later, growing commotion in the chamber hall brought Bradok back to himself.
He hadn’t noticed Argus Deephammer, still standing in the center of the chamber, stoically awaiting his turn to speak. Bradok wondered what possible business the dowser could have with the council and why his usually affable face seemed so grim and determined. Before he could give it much thought, Mayor Arbuckle banged the gavel for quiet.
“Welcome back,” he said once the noise level had dropped. “We appreciate your waiting, Argus. Now what business brings you here?”
“I come before the council today on a most serious matter,” Deephammer said, his voice booming off the stone walls and echoing throughout the chamber. “Two days ago I was in the deep tunnels when I heard a voice calling to me,” he continued gravely. “I followed the sound of this voice, and it led me down into the bowels of the world, into caves where I had never before been. Then, in the lowest cave, I found a moonwell.”
An audible gasp ran around the chamber. To the faithful, moonwells were sacred places, blessed by Reorx himself. Bradok knew them to be pools or springs where the water was so rich with dissolved minerals that it glowed a pale silvery light. In any case, moonwells were rare and their water highly prized as a curative.
“When I found the well,” Argus went on, his eyes flashing around the room to make sure everyone was listening, “I could still hear the whispered voice, but I could not make out the words it spoke. I sat and drank from the fountain and, as soon as that blessed water touched my lips, the voice was made clear to me.
“I heard the voice of Reorx himself,” Argus declared, raising his voice even louder, with no hesitation or sign that his statement was in any way out of the ordinary. “He showed me the sins of Ironroot, the wickedness that breeds here like rats in a sewer. He bade me come here, to you, and deliver this message: Repent of your evils and turn again unto your God, or this great city of Ironroot will be utterly destroyed.”
At that last statement, a roar erupted around the room. Some were shouting that Argus was right, while others expressed outrage at such a threat. The councilmen around the ring were shouting, demanding that Argus explain himself. Mayor Arbuckle hammered on the podium for silence, which he did not receive for a full five minutes.
“What is the meaning of this?” Arbuckle demanded. “How dare you come before this august body with your childish fantasies and presume to pass judgment on us?”
As Bradok watched, Arbuckle seemed to be swelling like a toad, his face a mask of puffy red blotches.
“We are not weak-minded fools,” the mayor shouted at the dowser. “We are men of the world, and we have seen the magics of the humans and the elves. What are your precious priests but a bunch of charlatans, using their magic to manufacture gods who never did exist-all so they might have power over us?
“And now you come here,” Arbuckle continued. “Now you demand that we turn from our learning and our wisdom and go back to the foolish traditions of our ancestors. Repent! Repent for what?”
“Then you will be destroyed,” Argus said, his voice softening but somehow carrying to the farthest corners of the room. “Next month, both the moons will be new in the sky together,” he said. “I have done my part. I have warned you. You have till then.”
“Says you,” a councilman called from the far side of the room.
“So declares Reorx, your god,” Argus Deephammer replied. Bradok was amazed at how strong, how unbowed he seemed in the face of such hostility and anger.
Furious voices rose again only to be cut off by the sound of someone clapping slowly. All eyes in the room turned to a tall, slender dwarf with a forked beard sitting a few tables to Bradok’s right.
“An excellent performance, Argus,” the dwarf said, rising. He walked around in front of his desk and jumped down to the floor of the audience chamber. “It’s only a pity that there is no witness to your tale, no god that anyone has ever met or shook hands with named Reorx to make good on your threats.”
Bradok had never met the dwarf, but his reputation had preceded him. Jon Bladehook was the closest thing the local secularists had to a leader. Bladehook had traveled extensively in his business as a merchant and had grown both cynical and rich. Bradok sat up straight, like many others in the council, suddenly focused on the showdown between the believer and the secularist.
“You say that we will be destroyed in a little over a month if we don’t do as you say?” Bladehook asked.
“I have no commands to give,” Argus said simply. “If you wish to know what Reorx requires of you, go to his priests.”
“But if we don’t, we’ll be destroyed,” Bladehook pressed.
“So says Reorx,” Argus reiterated. “Not I.”
Bladehook nodded sagely then turned to his fellow councilmen. “I wonder, brothers,” he said. “What will happen if Ironroot does not heed the warnings of this mad dwarf?” He indicated Argus. “Surely a being as wrathful and powerful as Reorx would give the dwarves of Ironroot signs of his power before the deadline passes: a small disaster or poison air or a sickness perhaps? Have we detected any sign yet … other than this ugly warning?”
Murmurs of assent rippled around the chamber.
“Then I say we arrest this dwarf,” Bladehook shouted suddenly, fiercely pointing his finger at the surprised Argus.
“On what charge?” someone called from the gallery.
“He has threatened this council and the people of Ironroot,” Bladehook said. “And surely he has confederates, dwarves who are poised to provide these ‘signs’ of Reorx’s power should we refuse to believe their
