He couldn't risk it.
'I protest Lord Caladen, Istvan has already spoken-'
'And you have said that you would accept what the healer said as being the final word on this matter. Now remain quiet and let the healer speak.' He nodded in the direction of the mage.
The mage pulled back his right sleeve to reveal a glassy blue stone in his hand. It was connected to a leather thong that was wrapped tightly about his fingers. He moved the stone closer to Istvan and it suddenly began to glow with a strange incandescent light. The mage began mumbling a series of words and guttural tones. After several minutes the mage nodded to Lord Caladen, then stepped back, leaving Istvan standing absolutely rigid, his eyes staring blankly at the far end of the hall.
'Istvan is now under the power of a truth spell and is unable to tell a lie, even if he so wishes,' Lord Caladen said to the people within the hall. It was obvious he wanted to show that no trickery was being used and that the spell hadn't been cast simply in order to make Istvan say what the high justice wanted to hear. 'Istvan, I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to answer by saying the word green.'
Istvan nodded.
'What color is the sky?'
'Blue.'
'Very good.'
'Now, Istvan, when Lord Soth brought Isolde Denissa to Dargaard Keep, were her injuries life- threatening?'
'No.'
'How so?'
'Her injuries would have healed simply with the passage of time.'
The hall was silent.
'When you assisted Lady Korinne in the birth of her child, did she survive that birth?'
'Yes. She was in fine health. In fact, the child's birth eased her pain considerably.'
Dead silence.
'And what of the child? Did it survive the birth?'
'Yes. It survived. Only it was hideously deformed.'
'If mother and child survived the birth, then how did they both come to die a short time later?'
'Soth entered my chambers and sent me from the room.
When I saw him again he reported to me that they had both died during the birth.' The silence continued.
'Did anyone else enter the room after you allowed Lord Soth into the chamber?'
'No.'
'What did the bodies look like when you saw them next?'
'Hacked to bits. It was hard to recognize any of the; pieces as being human.'
Lord Caladen took a breath and nodded to the mage.
The wizard stepped forward and released Istvan from the spell.
Istvan looked about the room as if he were unsure of what had happened.
Soth had watched the proceedings with his mouth agape, unable to say a word. Now he simply stood defiantly, shoulders straight, lips tight, chin thrust forward- a classic portrait of the noble and gallant Knight of Solamnia.
However, the image of the great knight, of strength and gallantry, did little to mask the truth.
Soth was a murderer.
'Knights of Solamnia,' said Lord Caladen, addressing the seven knights in the jury. 'You've heard the words of Istvan the healer, words spoken under the power of a spell of truth. How do you judge the accused?'
The seven knights spoke quietly between themselves for several moments before Lord Walter Dukane, a Knight of the Rose, stood up and addressed the high justice.
'Guilty on all counts,' said Lord Dukane. 'By a unanimous vote.'
Lord Caladen nodded solemnly, then turned slowly to face Soth. 'Loren
Soth,' he said, stripping Soth of the title of Lord Soth. 'I hereby find you to be in gross defiance of the Oath and the Measure and guilty of the murders of your wife and child, crimes punishable by death. You are to be immediately held in custody and will be duly executed at a public beheading in the center of Palanthas at precisely noon tomorrow.'
Soth, his face a rigid mask devoid of any emotion, was led from the hall by way of a side door.
At the rear of the hall, people shook their heads in disbelief.
Several others wept.
Chapter 23
A kender father stood on the front steps of his cottage on the outskirts of the village of Mid-O-Hylo, watching the fog-like clouds descend from the high mountains in the west and the low mountains in the east.
The light gray mist was covering the land in a shroud that, unlike other fogs he had seen, seemed very dark and gloomy.
'What's happening father?' asked the kender's young son as he ran up the path toward the cottage, his ponytail bobbing and swishing behind him.
'Something.' 'What something?' asked the boy.
'Something,' repeated the kender. 'But what something, I do not know.'
'Something strange, I bet,' said the boy, watching the mist continue to invade the lands surrounding the village, further blotting out the light from the sun.
'Yes,' said the kender.
'Something weird, I'd say.'
'Yes.'
'It reminds me a lot of the snowy crystal glass I found in the hand of that sleeping knight on our last trip to Thelgaard.' The elder kender said nothing, his eyes fixed on the mist. The swirling tendrils of smoke-like fog seemed to have taken hold of him, quashing his usually carefree attitude.
It was an attitude that had served him well for all of his years, even when things had looked most grim.
For the first time in his life, the kender knew fear.
'Get inside the cottage,' the kender told his son.
'But this is creepy, father,' said the young one. 'Can't we stay out and watch the fog some more?'
The kender began to step backward in the direction of his home. His son, however, remained where he stood, waving his hand through the mist as if trying to catch it between his fingers.
'All right,' said the father. 'You can stay outside and watch it if you like, but I'm going inside to watch it through the windows. It looks even spookier that way.'
'Spookier?' said the youngster. 'I want to see. Let me in.'
The young kender gleefully ran into the house, followed closely by his somber father.
When they were both inside, the father shut the door and locked it tight for the first time since he'd installed the shiny brass lock that he'd found improperly appreciated in the door of a tavern in Caergoth.
He knew he was insulting the door's purpose by locking it, but he was much too afraid of the overspreading doom-filled pall to care.
Chapter 24
'Obviously, there has been some grace error in justice,' said Caradoc, standing before the knights in The Drookit Duck, one foot on his chair and another atop the table.
