“That could be thousands of gnomes,” Mendrath said, still uncertain he understood the order correctly.
“I do not care if it numbers in the tens of thousands,” Jukung said, irritation rising in his voice. “Towns, cities, females, children. . if they have had contact with this human pestilence, they are to die!”
“But, Master Inquisitor!”
“Do you question the Imperial Will?” Jukung screamed. “This is the order of the Keeper of our Order and the direct expression of the thoughts of the Emperor! Will you shirk your duty and forfeit your honor to his glorious ideal?”
“No, Master Inquisitor!” the Codexia stiffened.
“They will die!” Jukung said, his breathing labored as he spoke. He reached up with his right hand and ran his fingers lightly along the melted skin of his face. “They must pay for what they have done. The Emperor has declared them poisoned to his Will by this Drakis. Any creature that has any contact with him must die. . they must all die!”
CHAPTER 38
“Elders of the Sondau,” Urulani said, dropping to one knee and placing her right hand against the floor as she bowed her head before the three older men. She knelt in the center of the lodge, the long building that served as the heart of the Sondau Clan’s society. The walls were framed from wood hewn from the surrounding forests and carved intricately with the tales and legends that formed the foundation of their laws and beliefs. The vaulted ceiling was supported by thick beams, each carved with different and portentous figures overhead. The floor was planked from the same wood as the walls though this was scrubbed and sanded to a smooth and carefully maintained finish. Flaming torches mounted to the walls and angled out above the floor filled the space with guttering light. “I am Urulani, daughter of the Sondau Clan. I have done as the Elders have asked.”
“The Elders praise the gods for your return-and are astounded that you should return, it seems, on the very heels of your departure,” stated the balding Elder with the short cropped hair who sat in the middle of the three. “Thus said, we welcome you before the Elders’ Council.”
Urulani stood at once. “The Elders honor me.”
“As apparently do the gods to an extent we had not hoped possible,” said the man with the long, iron-gray hair pulled into a ponytail at the nap of his neck.
“As you say, Elder Harku,” Urulani replied, glancing toward the ceiling.
“You have returned with him so quickly?” asked the bearded man on the left who was sitting back in his chair.
“I have done as the Council has asked,” Urulani responded. “I have the man and, I must also report, several of his companions with him. I thought it prudent to bring them as well-and not risk their tongues waggling once we had left.”
“Wise, as always, is our Urulani,” nodded the man with the iron-gray hair.
Urulani bowed slightly. “Elder Kintaro honors me once more.”
The central, balding Elder leaned forward. “What is your report, Urulani?”
The tall black woman opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, and then began. “As instructed by you, Elder Shasa, I journeyed southward through the Cragsway Pass and onto the Vestasian Plain. I made my way southward to the first of the Hak’kaarin mud domes to begin my search.”
“That was but three days ago,” Elder Kintaro said, his eyebrows raised. “We had expected your journey to take many months to complete.”
“I had not been in the mud dome a day when this man Drakis and his companions came to me.”
Kintaro raised his eyebrows. “Indeed? You did not look for them then?”
“I had intended to search for them as instructed,” Urulani corrected gently. “We had heard stories of their passing through the mud domes in the deep parts of the Vestasian Plain-indeed, it was impossible not to hear of it from the Hak’kaarin. But as it happened, they arrived at the same mud dome where I first began my search at nearly the same time I did.”
“A miracle of the ancients!” Harku intoned, closing his eyes.
“Perhaps,” Urulani said, again looking away toward the ceiling. “Or it may have been an accident. I cannot say.”
“And so your journey is over before it has begun,” Elder Shasa intoned. “You have done well, Urulani. You are among our most trusted sisters of our clan. Will you then assist us? We wish to begin our investigations at once.”
“Direct me, Elders,” Urulani replied.
“We will find the heart of the tree by starting with the leaves,” Shasa said, pressing the fingers of his hands together and lightly touching his own lips. “Let us begin with his companions.”
“Elders of the Sondau,” Urulani said, bowing low. “I present to you Mala, an escaped slave from the House of Timuran in far Rhonas.”
The man with the iron-colored gray hair leaned forward. “Mala. . is that not a Merindau Clan name? Are you of the Merindau Clan?”
Mala stood shivering in the torchlight.
The gray-haired man glanced at Urulani. “Does she not understand our speech?”
“She understands, Elder Kintaro. . I cannot explain her silence as she would hardly keep her words to herself during our return journey today. Indeed, I had soon begun to dread our rest periods as she was always so full of words after we stopped.”
Mala shot an angry glance at the woman.
Urulani smiled in response. “Perhaps you might ask her again now, Elder Kintaro.
“I am not of any clan,” Mala said at once then her eyes fell to gaze unfocused at the floor. “I was. . I was born a slave and know of no clan but the Houses in which I served.”
“But you are no longer a slave,” said the balding man seated between the other two, his voice calm and quiet. “You no longer serve any ‘House’ as you call it. How it is that you have come to be free?”
“Free, Master?”
Shasa smiled. “I am not your master, Mala. No man is your master any longer. . do you understand?”
Mala nodded her head but kept her eyes fixed on the floor. “Yes, Master.”
Shasa shook his head.
“What we want to know is how you came to no longer be a slave,” said the older man with a beard.
“I do not remember it very well, sire,” Mala replied.
“It is difficult,” Harku pressed on, “but you must tell us.”
Mala’s lower lip began to quiver.
“Tell us!” Harku commanded in a firm voice.
Shasa’s face was full of warning for his brother, but Mala suddenly began to speak.
“We were at House Devotions,” she said, her words coming out in a rush. “Everything was happening just as it always had before. Lord Timuran and his wife and daughter were near the House altar. I had already had my Devotions from the altar and was standing to one side of the subatria. Then Drakis-I don’t know what happened, but Drakis was yelling and fighting the House Guardians on the far side of the Aether Well. He didn’t want to take his Devotions. I couldn’t understand why. . we had just spoken earlier in the day, and we had such great hopes. . but there he was, fighting the Guardians, and. .”
Mala stopped talking, her eyes still fixed far away.
“And what, child?” Shasa urged.
“And then the Aether Well came apart. . like shattering crockery only so much quicker and with a terrible noise. That’s when I knew.”
“Knew what?” Kintaro asked.
“That’s when my memories returned to me. . and I knew that my life was over.”
“He is the fulfillment of a prophecy laid down in the most ancient of times.” Belag stood tall in the center of the lodge, the crest of his growing mane nearly touching the rafters of the ceiling overhead. He spoke with conviction, his eyes bright in the torchlight. “He freed me from the enslavement of the Rhonas sorceries and showed me the way to life and peace. He is the embodiment of the promises made of old. He will journey to the north countries, commune with the gods, and return in power to wreak vengeance and doom upon the Rhonas Imperium. He is the one that my brother sought beside me. . and for whom he gave his life.”