Sacred Fire

red moon-glow shot through the dusty dark of the tunnel. Gabbro nodded his ugly, hairy head toward them.

Swallowing, Cathan looked.

At first, he couldn’t make anything out for the light. Solinari and Lunitari were both full tonight, and he had to squint, slowly making out details. He was looking through a white stone wall, which curved around to his left and right to frame a wide, oval courtyard. There were relief carvings engraved into the stone, depicting the revolt of humankind against the mighty ogre empire, long ago. He wondered, briefly, if it was a man’s eyes he was looking through, or an ogre’s.

Then he saw what lay within the courtyard, and such thoughts left his mind in a heartbeat.

The yard was filled with cages, with bars of iron and bamboo. Most were bolted to the cobblestone ground, while others rested on great wheeled carts with yokes for horses or oxen. Wooden posts stood here and there, with manacles dangling from them. A large, wooden platform rose at the far end, like a stage; there was a wide, empty area before it, room enough for a hundred people or more. Here and there, Scatas-the blue-cloaked soldiers who comprised the bulk of Istar’s armies-stood watch or walked patrol, spears and bows at ready.

Some of the cages had occupants. Men and women stood or sat or leaned against the bars, clad in plain gray tunics or loincloths. They came from all over the empire, as much a mix as Tithian’s knights were, but with some nonhumans too: a huge man with yellow skin and black eyes who looked to be a half-ogre; three or four minotaurs, their wicked horns cut short; even one of the tiny tricksy folk, a kender with a truly sorrowful look on her expressive face. The others shared her gloom: There was no hope in this place of cages.

Cathan stared, not believing what he was seeing. He had heard tales of such places, in evil and primitive realms. The minotaurs and ogres had had them, and some of the old city-states and kingdoms, in the empire’s early days. But such things had been unknown in Istar for a long time.

With a sinking heart he knew what he was looking at.

A slave market.

There had been much uproar when the Lightbringer brought back slavery. Nearly a century and a half had passed since one man had owned another within the empire, and though the Great Temple and most of Istar’s other glories had been built on the backs of others, folk had come to regard it as a dark trade, one practiced only by evil folk.

Though the first Kingpriests had frowned upon slavery, it remained legal until Giusecchio, called by historians Biso Povi-the Doomed Fool-banned it with an imperial bull in the year 823. It had not been a popular decision, particularly among the wealthy. Angry slave-lords, robbed of their trade by Giusecchio’s writ, had conspired to have him assassinated. After several attempts, they finally succeeded, poisoning the water with which Giusecchio mixed his wine. Following his murder, Istar had nearly fallen into civil war; it was only the intercession of Quenndorus the Conciliator, who had the most powerful of the rebellious slavers burned at the stake, that kept the empire from collapse. A pious man and a disciple of Giusecchio’s teachings, Quenndorus let his predecessor’s bull stand, and when he died six years later, the wickedness of the old days, when lives could be traded for a bag of gold falcons, was over.

So it had remained … until fifteen summers ago, when Beldinas appeared within the Hall of Audience one Godsday to announce that by the end of the year, slavery would again be legal.

The stir the declaration caused, both within the court and about the empire, had been loud and vocal. Many opposed the idea, calling it repugnant. Goblins kept slaves. It was a fell thing, and not fit for those who worshipped the gods of light.

“That is so,” the Kingpriest had replied, smiling within his aura. “But goblins eat olives, as well. Does that mean we should not, simply because we share the habit with those who walk in darkness?”

The analogy was lost on many, and more than a few clerics gave up eating olives in the days to follow, but as Beldinas explained his aims, sympathy began to grow within the hierarchy. The war against the god’s enemies, he reasoned, had changed in recent years. Those whose souls were truly lost had been all but vanquished, their bodies given to purging flame; those the Divine Hammer and the church’s inquisitors captured these days were not true creatures of darkness but could be redeemed, brought back to Paladine’s glory through labor and toil.

“Should we burn them, then, for their heresies?” he’d argued. “Is that not a waste? Let us be merciful in our punishment, and let them live, in the hope that they may find true penitence in the empire’s service.”

Some, including Emissary Quarath, debated this notion long and loud. The very idea of slavery was alien, something to be feared. Faced with Beldinas’s logic, however, even Quarath began to doubt his own beliefs. Finally, the majority of the hierarchs accepted the new bull, placing their signets upon the waxen tablet affixed to the document. Thus, Giusecchio’s age of universal freedom came to an end, and a new era of clemency toward heathens began.

The Istarans had embraced the change with startling speed. After only a decade and a half, the realm’s mines and quarries now ran from the toil of bought men, and most noble households boasted a small army of unpaid laborers. The city of Aldhaven became a trading center for those who sold flesh, and when the fights returned to the empire’s Arenas-though only as shows, not the bloody melees of old-the gladiators were all slaves. The last few nay-sayers fell silent when Beldinas outlined the laws the slavers must observe: gone were the days of lash and yoke; those who mistreated slaves would be punished with enslavement themselves. And slaves could gain their freedom by joining the church, vowing eternal servitude to the gods. Only a handful chose that end, but it was enough make those who opposed slavery relent.

These days, it was almost as if Istar had never known any other way. Every city had its market, every merchant caravan contained at least a short line of chained heretics. And the Istarans who were free grew fat and rich off the toil of those who were not.

Cathan leaned back against the wall of the tunnel, putting a hand over his eyes. His head hurt. The world felt like it had been knocked loose around him. The others watched him, curious, expectant.

“So the imperial decree is that slavery is … good?” he asked.

“In this case,” said Wentha.

“For the redeemable,” noted Rath.

“Until they repent,” Tancred added.

He had no words, could only stand there, shaking his head in disbelief. It was all he could do to keep from crying out in fury. The worst part of it, by far, was that the whole thing made a sickening kind of sense. Wasn’t it better to spare the lives of those not beyond deliverance, and to give them another chance? Wasn’t this way more humane, as long as the slaves weren’t maltreated?

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Idar. His face was grim, dark, his voice soft and low. “I can see it in your eyes. And yes, being a slave is better than death … but not by much. I know-I was one, for a while. I surrendered, after the rest of my family resisted and died on the Hammer’s blades. They took me prisoner, sold me … I worked three years mining salt at Attrika. Three years without seeing the sun, toiling every day before I escaped. They didn’t whip me, they kept me fed, but the humiliation …” He stopped, his face twitching. “There were times I prayed for death. Some did the deed themselves, or for others. A good swing of a pick, or a sharp stone to the temple, and it was all over. But I didn’t have the courage. I’m glad to be alive, but if I had the choice again, I’d pick sword over shackles.”

“It gets worse,” Wentha added. “With a punishment people see as merciful, the church has fewer problems with expanding its definitions of heresy.”

“Even those who worship the gods of light, but not in the prescribed ways, are suspect,” Tancred noted. “When we get back to the Temple, go to the Solio Febalas, the Hall of Sacrilege, and ask the Kingpriest to show you Fan-ka-tso.”

“All it takes these days,” said Rath, his words dripping with venom, “is one dark thought in the wrong place, and the Araifas have you arrested and sold before the day is out.”

“Wait,” Cathan said. “The who?”

“Six years ago,” Wentha said. “There was a scandal at court. One of the hierarchs, it turned out, was the thrall of a coven of Sargonnites. They were using him to get close to the Kingpriest. There was even an assassination attempt in the offing, but the hierarch was caught before he could do anything. The Hammer hunted down the Sargonnites, but Beldinas wasn’t satisfied.”

“Evil thoughts are as evil deeds,” said Rath, his voice a singsong mockery of the Lightbringer’s. “Only the