wisdom with others, and this has been our creed for more lifetimes than even we can number. Many a sister has perished in torment for refusing to advise a tyrant, knowing her death will be a sign to the people that their ruler is unworthy.'
He met this defiance with a winsome, almost boyish smile. 'And have not those same tyrants frequently discovered their enemies coming against them armed with perfect knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses?'
'Such has been recorded.'
' 'Such has been recorded'! Is that the closest you can come to lying? You regularly testify for the Speakers.'
'They are the only exception. Wisdom cannot flourish without peace and order. In criminal matters we provide evidence for those who judge in the name and by the laws of holy Demern.'
'From now on, you and your seers will serve me instead.'
'No.' Fear swelled in her heart, for his mind was clotted blood and he planned worse than just her death.
Stralg smiled and departed.
Shortly thereafter he sent in some of his brutes and they took away five.
¦
The mangled bodies were returned the following morning, but of course every seer had seen what was being done in his camp during the night. He took away ten more. The Eldest knew by then that Stralg Hragson would wipe out the cult before he would yield.
Her only hope sprang from the blessing of her goddess, for she could feel the revulsion seething in the Werists who came each morning to return the corpses and drag away more victims. Twenty, then forty ... None of the bloodlord's men was as ruthless as he was, but the mutiny she prayed for failed to appear. Their rage was directed against her, for forcing them to perform such atrocities, and their loyalty to Stralg grew stronger, not weaker. On the fifth day they drove away eighty victims, but they also broke into the storerooms and took bales of priceless weavings, which they burned. Next morning, when most of the Witnesses remaining had collapsed in shock, the Eldest went out to him.
They met in a rainstorm in a field of mud stinking with blood and death, while his sullen host watched from the distance. The corpses of the eighty were being loaded into carts.
'So you value cloth more than life?' he mocked. 'I must try burning buildings, too.'
'We shall yield,' she said, 'partway.'
His laughter was not pretense. 'You will yield utterly, or die. Do you think I cannot double eighty, or burn your abbey around your ears?'
'Then you destroy us, for we shall lack the numbers to gather the knowledge you require.'
He showed her his wolfish teeth. 'If I cannot have it, no one shall. I will torch your storerooms today. Yield or die, old woman.'
'Hear my terms. We shall answer your questions, but yours only. You do not want every warrior to be omnipotent.'
His eyes narrowed as the evil mind behind them calculated. 'That is true wisdom. But it takes many sixdays to send a message across the Face. So you will answer my hostleaders also. I promote only whom I trust. Them and myself.'
'You and no more than four hostleaders.' She felt his surge of triumph.
'And no one else!'
'No one else,' she agreed. 'And we keep our anonymity, our habits and veils. Our persons will not be harmed.'
He shrugged his indifference, well pleased with what he had won. 'Where is Hostleader Snirson and how many Werists does he have with him?'
'Snirson died of wounds a sixday ago. His host has scattered.'
Stralg laughed again; he had known that.
'One other thing,' the Eldest said. 'We shall never volunteer information. We give true answers and nothing more.'
He liked that less, for he was a clever man. The balance of his mind swung back toward death and horror. 'Then you can aid my foes.'
'I have said we shall not.'
'By remaining silent you can aid them.'
'To tell everything that may be relevant would take forever. Do you want sixty-sixty sisters babbling in your ears all day long? Ask if a man is a traitor and we shall tell you, but we shall not warn. Only holy Mayn knows all. Those are my terms. Accept them or slay us.'
Stralg had hesitated, angrily weighing compromise against massacre. Then, impatient and flushed with victory, he had accepted her terms. He had never gotten around to imposing others, and while the concessions she had won were almost meaningless, she was probably the only person who had ever made that monster back up even a hairsbreadth.
So the vile bargain had been made. So an organization made up mostly of nosy old women had become the despot's sharpest weapon. Until Stralg, the Fist of Weru had been a figurehead with no practical authority over Werists outside his own city or district, and any previous bloodlord who had tried to widen his rule had died young. The seers had helped Stralg win supreme power over the whole Face, and they had helped him keep it, betraying countless rebels to his awful vengeance. Always the rationalization had been that they were biding their time until he could be overthrown, but that time had never come and never would until Stralg's black heart stopped
