Chapter 38 #2
“We think we can help.” One of those accomplices is hobbling along the base of the platform to come up beside us, supported by a man from Pima.
Poltus’s voice comes out thick and the long cloak and loose pants he’s wearing only hide some of the deformities inflicted on him, but we weren’t going to put them back in their shrouds.
The eyeless, noseless man turns his mutilated face toward us.
“The scourge sorcerers drew on our power before with the wrong intentions. You’re trying to set things right.
And the more of your own power you use, the harder it’ll be on your minds.
Isn’t that right? If we lend you what we can of our gifts, you can make a small amount of your riven magic stretch farther. ”
A sharp ache pierces through my heart. Because it doesn’t matter that I’m concealed when Poltus can’t see anyway, I don’t hold myself back from speaking. “We’d never ask to use you the way they did.”
The man makes a dismissive sound. “You’re not asking. We’re offering. There isn’t much we’re capable of contributing in our current state… Please, let us do what we can to see Silana restored to peace.”
I don’t know how to argue with that request.
Sulla bobs her head respectfully with a rustle of her dress. “We appreciate your support more than you can imagine. Thank you.”
Poltus sinks down on the grass next to the platform, tucked out of the way and I hope decently comfortable. His two companions limp to join him.
“I wish we could see the trials for ourselves,” the one woman murmurs to the others, and the ache in my chest expands through my ribs.
The scourge sorcerers have inflicted so much destruction and pain on the people they claimed to be raising up. I have to do everything in my power to ensure their reign ends today.
Tinom is calling forth the clerics he summoned from nine nearby temples.
“A cleric of each godlen will set their own task to fit with the equipment we’ve assembled and to score by their own judgment with divine guidance,” he announces to the crowd.
“The leader of Silana should have strengths in every area our deities consider important. The Order of the Wild has been granted the opportunity to provide their own clerics to assess the candidates if they disagree with the outcome.”
I grimace. No doubt we can expect plenty of disagreement.
The magic advisor spreads his hands as if in welcome. “The sequence of trials has been determined through random selection. We’re beginning with Prospira, our godlen of prosperity and growth.”
He taps the gesture of the divinities down his front, and it’s echoed throughout our audience.
A man in the yellow robes of Prospira climbs onto the platform, motioning a few devouts in plainer clothes with him. “We’ve brought our own trial with us to ensure none of the candidates could have prepared in advance. My devouts and I were inspired by the call.”
The devouts each unveil an identical miniature tree carved completely of wood. Fruits the size of my thumbpad poke from between joined leaves.
The cleric sets a statue before each of the candidates.
“Please examine your tree. You will find that any part you wish may detach. Give it careful thought, considering the principles Prospira holds dear, and select what you feel is the most important aspect of the plant while preparing your explanation.”
He turns to Tinom. “Can you use your gift with illusions to amplify the image for the crowd as you have our voices?”
Tinom rubs his hands together. “An excellent suggestion.”
As the candidates bend down to examine their trees, each about waist height, the air shimmers in front of them. Tinom projects a single image of a tree, this one twice as tall as any person, with overlapping movements of ghostly hands as it accounts for all four of the people studying their own.
Well, it doesn’t seem as though Petra is likely to face any danger with this trial, although I don’t know how her answer will compare to the others. How much time has she spent thinking about trees?
I focus on the people beyond the platform, stretching my senses, staying on guard for the slightest hint of an attack. Next to me, Stavros scans the crowd as well, with a quiver in the air that tells me he’s concentrating on his gift.
All at once, an impression of a sharper tingling hits me from above. Some sort of spell is plummeting toward the platform—hurled up there to disguise its source?
My pulse lurches, and I snatch Rheave’s arm. “Magic above them!”
He doesn’t need me to say more than that. The daimon-man whips his arm upward, and a thin crackle of his supernatural energy ripples through the air.
His defensive effort splits into a dozen tiny bolts—and one sizzles as it catches the advancing spell before it can crash down on Petra.
I whirl around to peer at the crowd. My gaze flicks left and right before catching on a woman a few bodies back from the front of the crowd just lifting her hand with a determined expression.
Rheave can’t blast her from here. My heart skips another beat, but the words Sulla told me echo up from my memory.
Even very small acts can have a large impact.
My mind leaps to an appropriate counterbalance. I release a spurt of my magic to push down a patch of dirt beneath the platform—and thrust up an equivalent patch beneath the scourge sorcerer’s feet.
She stumbles, knocking shoulders with the man next to her, and whatever attack she was going to send out next falters.
Another stream of magic courses past me, but this one moves from the huddled sacrificial accomplices toward Sulla. With a swell of heightened power, she aims her own attention at the woman I targeted.
The scourge sorcerer’s body lights up with a glow stark enough to cut through the strengthening sunlight. The people around her glance over and stare.
With a harried expression, she pushes off through the crowd away from us, maybe afraid some worse punishment is coming.
While we’ve been fending off magic attacks, it seems the candidates have made their choices. They’ve all straightened up with their piece hidden in their clasped hands.
The Prospira cleric starts at the far end of the row from Petra. He beckons to the bearded count. “What did you pick?”
The count holds up a chunk of wood that’s basically just a rectangular slab. Tinom amplifies that image too, so there’s a second giant man looming like an immense ghost above his actual self.
“The wood of the tree is most important,” he says. “It allows people to build their houses and warm them with fire. To make carts to carry goods to market and bring new purchases back again. And it provides a home to animals as well.”
The cleric hums, and a murmur spreads through the crowd. It sounds like a reasonable answer to me.
Without giving any judgment, the cleric strolls on to the bulky man with soldier airs. “And you?”
As Tinom’s illusion shifts to him, the soldier holds up one of the wooden fruits. “The fruit of the tree feeds both people and animals. You can’t build much if you’re starving.”
“True enough,” the cleric says agreeably, and continues on to the sinewy noblewoman. “What do you think?”
She holds up a piece identical to the count’s. “I also chose wood, for the same reasons—and it can also be used to build bridges, barns, fences, temples—everything a society needs to grow.”
“Many excellent thoughts.” The cleric’s tone stays even. He reaches Petra and bobs his head to her. “Do you have anything new to say?”
“I do, actually.”
Petra opens her hands. It takes me a second to realize she’s holding one of the fruits—but only half of it, the inner side showing several seeds carved within.
She traces the tiny ovals. “The seeds are more important than anything else, because they allow more trees to sprout. One tree can’t build much of a house or a fence, or offer enough food to feed a family for more than a few days. The more you can grow, the more you can provide.”
A smile touches my lips. Yes, that’s exactly it.
A ruler needs to think not just of the present moment but how the whole country can thrive together.
A sudden round of applause, punctuated by a few cheers, sweeps through the crowd. Petra keeps her composure but brightens a little.
The cleric smiles too. “Spoken like one who truly understands Prospira’s hopes for us all. That is the answer I was seeking.”
A man in the red tunic of the Order stomps his foot near the front of the crowd. “Hold on! How do we know you didn’t give the false princess her answer beforehand?”
The cleric knits his brow. “I wouldn’t dishonor my godlen by cheating her of a proper trial. But if you don’t trust my answer, I suppose we could ask the daimon whether Princess Petra’s answer felt genuine.”
The captured daimon must give an invisible nudge, or maybe the spirits could understand. A streak of sparks lights up, flowing around Petra’s body, as if giving their approval.
“But—” the man starts.
Lothar holds up his hand to stop him. “Let it stand.”
I study him through the gaps in the wall. Why isn’t he fighting every verdict tooth and nail? Is he worried about how he’ll come across and waiting for a better chance?
Or does he know he’ll get the opportunity he needs later?
The green-robed cleric for Estera comes forward next, holding a crate with several glossy balls about the size of the candidates’ heads.
She hands a ball to each of the candidates.
“I’ll light the globes with each correct answer.
A ruler Estera can support will understand the history that brought us to this place and the countries that surround us as well as our own.
You have ten chances to prove your knowledge. ”
She runs through the questions at a steady pace, touching on the effects of Darium rule, the overthrowing of the empire, past relations with our neighboring countries, and ending with three questions asked respectively in Veldunian, Bryfesh, and Icarian.