“You must do everything you can to bring those who have wronged you to justice. And it must be in as… appropriate a manner as you are able. ‘Blood for blood-that is Hoar’s creed.”
Arvin nodded. It was easy to come up with a suitable punishment for the cultists. Slipping into their water a potion that would polymorph them into sewer rats, for example. But if Nicco’s prayer succeeded in purging the mind seed, would Arvin be expected to also enact vengeance upon Zelia? What could Arvin-an untrained psion-possibly do to someone so powerful? For that matter, did he even want to take revenge on her? She’d saved his life by neutralizing the poison that had nearly killed him, after all. And she had offered to train him in psionics and ensure that the militia would never claim him, in return for information on who was backing the Pox-information Arvin now had.
“I’ll do what I can,” he told Nicco.
That seemed to satisfy the cleric. “Sit,” Nicco instructed. “Hold in your mind the thoughts of vengeance you just imagined.”
Arvin did as instructed, seating himself on one of the pallets and picturing the cultists turning into rats. Nicco knelt in front of him and rested three fingertips on Arvin’s chest. Then he began to pray. “Lord of the Three Thunders, hear my plea. A great wrong has been done to this man. Set it right. Dispel the magic that is transforming him. Drive it from his body by the might of your thundering hand!”
The cleric closed his eyes then, dropping into silent prayer. Arvin heard a crackling sound-and a tiny spark erupted from each of Nicco’s fingertips and shot through the fabric of Arvin’s shirt. Arvin jerked back as they stung his chest.
Nicco smiled and dropped his hand. “The Doombringer has answered.”
Arvin pulled his shirt away from his chest and saw, with relief, that his skin was still intact. He let out a long, slow hiss-then realized what he’d just done. His headache wasn’t gone either. “I don’t think your prayer worked,” he told Nicco. “I feel… the same.”
Nicco scowled. “Impossible. You felt Hoar’s power at work. Whatever remained of the potion will be neutralized, now.”
Arvin nodded. The potion indeed might be neutralized, but the mind seed was still in place. Zelia’s psionics must be more powerful than either Hazzan’s spells or Nicco’s prayers.
He eyed the door, wondering when the rebels were going to return. He wanted to be well on his way before Chorl came back. Could Arvin convince Nicco that he posed no threat to the Secession, that he should be allowed to leave? Perhaps… if Nicco could be persuaded that he was an ally, a friend. But that would be difficult, without charming Nicco. Instead, Arvin would be forced to rely upon more conventional means. Conversation.
Fortunately, there was always one sure way to get a cleric talking.
“Tell me more about your faith,” he told Nicco. “How did you come to worship Hoar?”
Nicco gave Arvin a searching look. Then he shrugged and sat down on a pallet next to the one on which Arvin was sitting. “In Chessenta, slaves are not branded,” he began. “The only mark of their servitude is a thread around the wrist.”
Arvin had no idea what this had to do with Nicco’s religion, but his interest was piqued at once. “A magical thread?” he asked.
Nicco smiled. “No. An ordinary thread.”
“But what’s to stop the slave from breaking it?”
“Nothing,” Nicco said.
Arvin frowned, puzzled.
“Slavery isn’t a cruelty, as it is here, but a retribution,” Nicco continued. “Here, innocent men and women are forced into servitude against their will and work until the day they die. In Chessenta, the term of slavery is fixed. It is imposed, following a public trial and a finding of guilt, as punishment for breaking the law. The criminal is a slave until his sentence is up then becomes a free man once more. The work slaves are set to can be hard and dangerous, but sometimes, if a slave performs well, his master may negate his sentence by breaking the thread.” He paused, and the glower returned. “Of course, that is how it is supposed to work.”
“Ah, I understand now,” Arvin said. “You worship Hoar because you were once a judge.”
“Not a judge,” Nicco said, “a criminal.”
Arvin tactfully avoided asking what crime Nicco had committed. Years of dealing with the Guild had taught him the value of silence at such moments-and a sympathetic nod, which he gave Nicco now. “You were unjustly accused,” he ventured. “That’s why you turned to Hoar.”
Nicco shook his head, causing the lightning bolts in his earring to tinkle. “I was unfairly
Nicco paused to toss his head angrily, setting his long braid to dancing against his back. Arvin, meanwhile, stared at the cleric’s arms, understanding now where the patchwork of scars had come from. They were old and faded. This had happened long ago.
“I, too, was a slave… of a sort,” Arvin said. “When I was a boy, I wound up in what was supposedly an orphanage, but was in reality a workhouse. They worked us from dawn until dusk, weaving nets and braiding ropes. Every night when I went to sleep, my hands ached. It felt as though each of my knuckles were a knot, yanked too tight.” He paused and rubbed his joints, remembering. He’d never discussed his years at the orphanage before, but telling Nicco was proving surprisingly easy.
“My term of servitude was supposed to end when I reached ‘manhood,’ ” Arvin continued. “But no age was ever specified. My voice broke and began to deepen, and still I wasn’t a man. My chest broadened and hair grew at my groin, but I was still a ‘child.’ ” He held up his fingers, flexing them. “They weren’t going to let me go. I was too good at what I did. I knew I had to escape, instead.”
Nicco’s eyes, which had dulled to a smolder, were blazing again. “I, too, was eventually forced to take that road,” he said. “When it was clear that my overseer would never treat me fairly, I began to pray to Assuran-to Hoar. I prayed for justice, for divine retribution. And one day, my prayers were answered.”
“What happened?” Arvin asked, curious.
“The overseer tripped. At least, that’s what the other slaves saw. I was the only one to see Hoar’s hand in it. Or rather, to hear it-to realize what it meant. The overseer fell headfirst into the furnace next to mine-just as thunder rumbled above. Varga, the slave working at that furnace, pulled the overseer out, but by the time he did the man’s face was burned away. Despite the intervention of a cleric, he died later that day.”
Nicco bowed his head. “It was Hoar’s will.”
“Did things get better after the overseer’s death?” Arvin asked.
The scowl returned. “They became worse. Varga was accused of having pushed the overseer into the furnace. The evidence given was that Varga did not immediately help the man-that he waited until the overseer was burned beyond help. In fact, it was surprise and shock that caused Varga to stand gaping, not malice. I testified to this at his trial. And I told them the truth-that it was I who had killed the overseer.”
“What happened then?”
Nicco sighed. “The judge didn’t believe me. He misunderstood. He thought I meant that I had pushed the overseer-and noted that my chain was too short for me to have reached the man, even using my glass-blowing pipe. I tried to explain that I had killed him with prayer, but the judge wouldn’t listen. I had taken no clerical vows-I had never once set foot in the temple. The judge decided that I was lying to spare the life of the accused.
“When I saw that the judge remained unconvinced, I tried to explain to my master what had happened. He believed me-but he said I was too valuable a worker, whereas Varga was ‘dispensable.’ And
Arvin shifted uncomfortably, guessing what was coming next. “The other slave was found guilty?”
“He was-and of the murder of an overseer, a capital offense. Varga was put to death the next day. According to law, our master chose the form of execution. He chose drowning. He might have left it at that, but he was as cruel a man as the overseer. He ordered it done in the factory, in front of all of the other slaves, in a quenching bucket-mine.”
