"If one wet hair is out of place on the head of the Dom shy;roys' newborn babe, they'll place the blame at my door," she whispered. "Fools! I'll be at the side of my lord Pala-dine before long, and well beyond this farce." Still, she shivered.
The witch of Zaygoth waited on the subterranean floor of the semicircular room. Behind and above her stretched the packed benches of Erolydon's Great Chamber. Eroly-don's builders had constructed the Chamber in a pit dug deep into the sandy soil at the eastern edge of Crystalmir Lake. The top tier of seats, like Hederick's pulpit, was actually at ground level.
The burnished vallenwood glowed with a beauty richer than oak. Vallenwoods were sacred trees, and at one time the residents of Solace would never have dared to lay an axe blade to the great trees. No one knew how ancient the towering vallenwoods were, only that some people thought they'd existed on Krynn before any living beings.
Hederick had overridden that reverence in short shrift. He'd wanted vallenwood for his temple, and that was that.
Crealora coughed in the incense-choked air. Today was the last day of her inquisition. Today Hederick would pass sentence. There was no doubt about the verdict: Hed shy;erick had never acquitted anyone. The form of the sen shy;tence was the only mystery. Despite her fear, Crealora felt a kind of relief.
Hundreds of voices rose and fell. They throbbed and ebbed behind her like the roar of the ocean waves that pounded the shore east of her native land of Zaygoth, which had been her home for her first twenty years. Then a handsome but godless trader, Kleven Senternal, travel shy;ing through Southern Ergoth selling his wares, had glimpsed her and fallen instantly in love. As smitten as he-and bolstered by his oath that he'd not interfere with her worship of the Old Gods-Crealora had left her tiny village of fishers and netcrafters for the trader's home in Solace.
With her abrupt manner of speaking and her foreign ways, Crealora was always an outsider in Solace, but she'd lived there happily enough with her Kleven for fif shy;teen years. In the early years, before the Seekers had spread their new religion over the land like a poison, she'd been tolerated well enough.
Then only a few weeks ago, her mate had met the slash shy;ing claws and fiery breath of a mysterious beast after a trading run to the east. The creature, by some reports a materbill, had seared Kleven's horse with flames from its gullet and then ate the mount. It scattered Kleven's belongings and left Crealora's husband to bleed to death on the forest path.
One of the novitiates, a man of about thirty years, approached the witch and waved a curl of incense in her direction, his gaze carefully averted.
"Idiot!" Crealora snapped. "What can smoke do against sorcery? Were I a witch, could I not snuff a tiny ember, a mere arm's length away? Were I a witch, could I not snuff you just as easily?"
The man took a quick step backward, but made no response. None but Hederick dared speak to the witch.
Another yellow-robed novitiate cleared his throat. "All rise to honor Hederick, most reverend High Theocrat of Solace and judge of this holy court," he called. Hearing the shuffling of many feet as the spectators rose behind her, Crealora forced herself to breathe evenly. The High Theocrat would not see her quail.
"Hederick the Heretic, you do not frighten me," she whispered. She forced an insolent smile to her face as she studied the Chamber's portal. No sound came from the oiled hinges as two more novitiates pulled the double doors apart. The door beneath the pulpit was reserved for Seeker priests and novitiates; lay persons entered the Chamber for worship services through doors at each end of the topmost tier of seats.
The High Theocrat of Solace entered, regally dipped his head to the assembled crowd, and solemnly mounted the steps to the pulpit that doubled as judgment seat. The flickering light from ceremonial candles glinted off the gold threads interwoven with the mink-brown silk of the High Theocrat's robe. Dahos, Hederick's high priest, remained standing by the entrance.
Crealora marked the despised Theocrat's progress with bitter eyes and despairing heart. That Solace had fallen into the hands of such a wretch!
Hederick moved into the pulpit and began a prayer. Crealora craned her neck to look up at him. The angle gave her a splendid view of his pouchy chin and the bot shy;tom of his fleshy nose.
"Who'd think such arrogance and evil could fit in so small and lumpy a package?" she murmured.
Hederick was decidedly round in girth and not very tall. Thin, lank hair framed protruding blue eyes. At times during the witch's trial he had donned a ridiculous dark brown wig and a midnight-blue robe of velvet, but he'd eschewed those trappings today in favor of the traditional Seeker colors of brown and gold.
"Pious hypocrite," Crealora said softly, then added, more loudly, "Hederick, you are a heretic to the religion of the True Gods, and a hypocrite to boot!"
When Hederick ended his prayer, he gazed down at her without a word. Silence hung as heavily as the incense.
She burst out, "Everyone knows you destroy your opponents by any means. These people merely fear to say it!" She gestured as best she could under the weight of the heavy chains. "They know they'll be the next to face this court if they speak out against you, heretic! I ask you, Hederick-what threat am I, a poor widow, to one so great and powerful as you?"
Hederick pointed dramatically down at Crealora. Despite the murmuring of the crowd, his words filled the huge room. "You accuse me of impure motives? Of violat shy;ing Seeker laws? You-an unholy witch, spawn of the dark gods?"
Crealora kept her face impassive. That voice, she thought. It had held countless audiences in thrall. Heder shy;ick's fame for oratory stretched from Solamnia to the shores of New Sea. He spun sentences like a spider threw a web, lingering over words as though he savored each syllable. If oratory were sorcery, Hederick would head the magical orders, Crealora thought.
"I'm no witch," she said flatly. "The charges against me are false."
Hederick stepped back and threw up his hands in exag shy;gerated surprise. "Witch of Zaygoth!" he exclaimed. A few spectators chuckled. "Do you not recall the testimony of our own trial? The sworn testimony of dozens of your long-time neighbors who attest that they have personal knowledge of your witchery?"
Crealora turned to fling a withering glance at the assembly. As one, hundreds of people also twisted-to look anywhere but at the prisoner. Crealora grimaced and turned back.
"They lie to win your favor, Hederick," she said gently. "They lie to protect themselves. They are afraid, as all wise and thoughtful people in Solace are afraid in these troubled times."
Hederick, not normally one to allow prisoners to address him directly, seemed in uncommonly good humor today. He feigned great incredulity at Crealora's words.
"Surely the righteous don't fear me!" he retorted. "I am the protector of all who follow the true gods-the Seeker gods. Your neighbors-do they lie? Does Dugan Detmarr deceive us when he says he dreamed that he saw you hurl bolts of magical lightning at the Bayard family, killing them as they lay sleeping innocently in their beds?"
"The Bayards were slain by arrows, not lightning, Hed shy;erick." Crealora's voice filled the space between them. "How could I, a solitary woman, slaughter them all with no help, without any of the Bayards awaking to leave their beds and cry a warning? How could they be killed by lightning and not have a trace of a burn on their bod shy;ies?"
"The evil power of witches is great indeed," Hederick replied unctuously, "as must be the power of good that hopes to uproot it."
Crealora held up her chin defiantly. "Again I say, heretic, that it was not me. I was at home asleep."
"The location of your body is immaterial, witch. If it was not your actual physical being, then it was your spiri shy;tual likeness. Both are incriminating."