light shy;ning. The penalty is death.' Hederick smirked as he leaned over the railing and motioned to the guards.
At his signal, one of the men tied a gag over her mouth. Hederick triumphantly went on declaiming, but Crealora barely heard him. 'Bind her to the vallenwood stump … the courtyard.. until dead.' She was hustled roughly from the room to the sun-splashed courtyard, the eager crowd pushing and shoving behind her.
Four guards clambered up onto a small platform in front of the vallenwood stump. They bound the woman's feet to two pegs jutting out four feet above the ground and her hands to iron rings placed in the stump almost seven feet above that. She was so short that her feet barely reached the pegs. Crealora looked for tinder, for dry sticks, at her feet, but there was none. How did Hederick propose to burn her without tinder?
Only a handful of spectators remained in the central courtyard. The rest had been shoved back behind a stone wall nearly as tall as the stump, with risers behind it so people could watch the show.
When the temple guards finished guiding the onlook shy;ers to their places, five men remained in the courtyard with Crealora. They were the five who had tittered when she'd ridiculed the High Theocrat.
Metal creaked. Crealora and the men turned their eyes toward the temple. Hederick, on a viewing stand behind the barricade, gave directions to some novitiates. The priests-in-training pulled the chains that opened a portal near the side of the temple doors. Something large slid into the courtyard, and the gate banged shut behind it.
'By the Greater Pantheon! What is it?' cried one of the trapped men.
Crealora could have told them. She'd heard Kleven describe materbills; he'd thought he spied one only a week before his death. Two or three times the size of a lion, he'd said. Retractable claws the length of her arm. A leonine mane in the colors of flame-orange and gold and red and black. And when the materbill roared, real flames burst from its mouth.
Reason denied that there could be two such rare crea shy;tures suddenly near Solace. This beast, Crealora knew suddenly, was the one that had slain Kleven; it would now likewise slay her. She tried to scream, but the gag almost choked her. The five men who shouted and ran to the wall, imploring friends on the other side to rescue them.
The monster paused just inside the courtyard gate. It stopped and, catlike, gazed around in a bored manner. It licked one huge front paw, then the other. Then it licked its chops.
The trapped men doubled their entreaties.
Hederick, brown-and-gold robe fluttering in the afternoon breeze, stood confidently on the viewing stand high above the crowd. The rest of the viewers shrank back from the inner wall. Several people tried to force their way through the main gates to the outside path, but armed guards and goblins prevented them from leaving.
'People of Solace!' Hederick cried, his voice rebound shy;ing off the stone walls. He slowed the tempo of his words, adjusting to the echoes. 'A lesson.' The High Theocrat pointed at the monster. 'This is a materbill.' Several people cried out in surprise. 'Yes, a creature of legend, delivered out of myth by the New Gods, the Seeker gods, to help us find the way to truth.'
He waited for the commotion to subside and continued. 'Sauvay, god of power and vengeance, has presented me with this gift, this proof of his approval of my mission in Solace. I will weed out all who waver in their allegiance to the Seekers. I will keep the community safe for those who are pure of heart and true to the New Gods!'
His hand went to his chest, and he patted something under the front of his robe. Not a whisper rose from the crowd. Even the five men at the opposite end of the courtyard seemed mesmerized. Crealora felt her willpower drain from her as though the beast-or more likely Hed-erick himself-had deftly absorbed it.
The materbill broke the spell. It bounded across the courtyard in three leaps, pouncing on the men. Two escaped, screaming. The other three lay pinned under the beast's massive front paws. One of the three appeared to have died instantly, but the remaining two writhed in pain and fear. Then the materbill slowly extended its front claws. They were as long as a man's arm and came to wicked points, as Kleven had said. The creature pierced the men's bodies, and their blood flowed freely onto the ground. Crealora heard a wail from between the inner and outer walls-a new widow, no doubt.
The materbill picked up one man's body and shook it in its teeth. Another carcass the creature nuzzled almost lov shy;ingly, licking it from breastbone to head. The third corpse it ignored.
Then the materbill looked around again, focusing on Crealora this time. Her mouth went dry; sweat drenched her skin and clothes. She almost fainted from the pound shy;ing in her heart and the fear in her mind. But she met the materbill's unblinking gaze steadily as she intoned a silent prayer:
Dear Paladine, I am willing to die for you and the Old Gods, but I beg that if you have any power left on Krynn, any mercy remaining for your few devout followers, you will make my passing as swift and painless as possible. Don't let me show my fear to the heretic and humiliate myself and the others who still pray to you.
Abandoning the three dead bodies and ignoring the pair of survivors cowering behind the stump, the mater shy;bill padded purposefully across the bricks and cobble shy;stones toward Crealora. Its eyes were sea green, the huge vertical pupils obsidian black. The creature halted, long tail twitching, bloodied tips of its foreclaws etching lines in the stones of the courtyard. It stank of blood and death.
Crealora closed her eyes, then reopened them. This would be her last glimpse of life in this world. Frightened people were crammed between inner and outer walls, but only a few curious heads could be seen, their expressions alternately horrified and fascinated.
All except one man and a woman.
The couple stood in plain sight near the main gate. The woman was nearly as tall as the man and, like him, wore the plain cloak of a traveler. Refugees, perhaps. Both were apparently of great age. The woman, whose curly gray hair extended unbound past her waist, held a fringed sil shy;ver scarf, which concealed her hands and part of her body. Her eyes were closed, her lips moving. Under the plain cloak flowed a long white garment.
The man's gaze caught Crealora's eyes.
He was ordinary-looking, with a salt-and-pepper beard and nearly bald head. He carried an unexcep shy;tional wooden staff. The man wore a plain traveling shift of rough green cotton over patched leggings, and his boots were scuffed. He and his elderly companion must have arrived just as the gates were barricaded; Crealora had not seen them in the Great Chamber. The man's arms were folded across his chest, his stance sturdy, although Crealora could tell even from this dis shy;tance that he was not young-and perhaps was even older than Hederick.
Do not fear, the old man's eyes seemed to say. You are not alone.
'Crealora Senternal, you stand condemned of witch shy;craft and heresy,' intoned Hederick. Crealora started at the sound, so riveting had been the other man's stare. Even now she felt herself unwilling to look away from the two people at the gate.
Hederick droned on. 'Let the death of this evil woman, O goddess Omalthea, show you that our hearts and our
souls are only with you. Let the death of this sorry soul, Omalthea, steel the resolve of those wavering against sin. Let the death of this unrepentant heathen, O Motherlord, serve as a warning to all who risk the ire of the New Gods by disregarding the Praxis.
'The Old Gods are gone, and you, Omalthea, have come with your blessings in their stead,' Hederick fin shy;ished. 'So be it.'
Crealora glanced back toward the couple by the gate. The old woman had doffed the worn cloak and dropped the scarf. Her white robe drew all eyes. 'A mage!' one of the novitiates shouted.
The woman stretched her arms above her. Wind swirled around her slender figure. She displayed the strength of a much younger person-a woman a third her age. 'Hederick!' the old woman shouted. 'Cease this cha shy;rade!'
The High Theocraf s head shot around. Hederick gazed at the woman. His lips moved, but no sound issued forth. The Seeker priest caught the edge of the lectern, his blue eyes staring from his face like the orbs of a heathen stone idol. 'Ancilla,' he said softly. 'Ancilla. In the flesh, at last.'
'Cease this sin, Hederick.'
'I should have known you'd not give up, Ancilla,' Hederick whispered. 'All these years you've hounded me, ever since I defeated you at Garlund. You've sent countless magical creatures to harry me, but never have you appeared yourself.' The High Theocrat actually bowed, a mocking smile on his lips. 'I always knew it was you behind the harassment, Ancilla. I suppose I should be honored that you come in person to pay court to me at last, witch.' His tone was thick with derision.
