“What is the meaning of this?” Bradok demanded.
The leader of the guards recognized him after a moment, a surprised look passing over his countenance.
“I’m sorry, Councilman, but I have my orders.” He turned to Silas. “Silas Weatherstone, I’m directed by the city council to place you under arrest. Please come with me.”
Bradok’s mind raced. How could Mayor Arbuckle have heard about Silas so quickly?
“Sapphire,” he whispered.
She must have gone to Arbuckle when Bradok didn’t return home and warned him that her son might expose his plans. Arbuckle hadn’t taken any chances; he must have had Bradok followed and ordered the arrest of Silas.
“Of course I will come with you, Guardsman,” Silas said, putting a restraining hand on Chisul. He took off his apron and handed it to his son then turned to the lone human. “If anyone comes to help with the boat while I’m gone, Perin, please let them in and continue with the work,” he said.
Perin nodded forlornly but said nothing.
Silas bade Chisul good-bye. The guardsmen had formed up around Silas, as if they expected him to attempt to make a run for it. But Silas walked easily behind the guard captain, with his head held high, trying neither to outpace him nor fall behind.
Bradok followed to the door and watched as the soldiers marched out of sight. He wanted to do something to help, but if Arbuckle were behind Silas’s arrest, there wasn’t much he could do at the moment. He put his hand in his pocket and felt the etched metal of Erus’s strange device. Silas hadn’t been any help in determining what it was. On impulse, Bradok pulled it out of his pocket. The tiny words that appeared from the intricate etching were still plainly visible in the soft glow given off by the purple gem.
A person’s destination depends more on his choices than his direction.
Bradok looked off, up the passage where the soldiers had taken Silas. The whole council might be against him, but he resolved to follow after Silas and speak on the cooper’s behalf; that, at least, was a choice he could make.
He slipped the device back into his pocket and started off through the milling crowd. As he made his way along the tunnel that led back to the main cavern, Bradok tried to come up with a plan, but he had no idea what he would say to the council. Arbuckle’s course seemed set, and Bradok doubted he had any power to change it. Still, maybe he could bribe Arbuckle or some of the councilors to obtain Silas’s freedom. Fortunately he had plenty of money and other goods to bribe the council with.
When Bradok emerged from the side tunnel into Ironroot proper, he could tell something was sorely amiss. An eerie stillness hung over the cavern. Nobody was strolling among the grass and flowers of the central square, and the sidewalks were conspicuously empty. At each street corner, however, a city guardsman stood with hammer and shield at the ready.
“Halt,” the nearest one called, catching sight of Bradok.
“What’s this all about?” Bradok demanded as the guard approached him.
“The council has enacted a curfew,” the guard said. “No one is permitted on the streets in the upper city after ten.”
“I’m Bradok Axeblade and I’m a member of the city council,” Bradok countered. “I wasn’t informed of this. When did the council meet to decide this new curfew?”
“It is my understanding that they are meeting now, Councilman,” the guard said. “They sent word to all they could find. I’m sure they’ll be glad to see you.”
Bradok wasn’t so sure. “Thank you,” he said as the guard turned to resume his post.
Bradok turned toward the upper end of the cavern. The guards seemed to be posted at the entrances to the side tunnels, so he wasn’t challenged again, though several of the guards looked at him uncertainly as he passed by.
The main cavern of Ironroot followed a natural curve, making it impossible for Bradok to see city hall until he reached the central square. Before he reached the square, he heard a low, rumbling noise. When he came around the facade of the dry goods store, he immediately knew why-city hall had been besieged.
The building itself stood at the top of a raised platform of stone with a brick courtyard in front. All around the base of the stairs gathered a mob of some twenty or thirty dwarves. Among the crowd, Bradok occasionally caught the glimpse of a weapon. At that sight, Bradok understood the curfew; it was intended to keep the mob from growing and the protest from spreading.
A dozen armed guardsmen stood atop the steps leading up to the main entrance, shoulder to shoulder, with their hands on their weapons. Even from more than a block away, Bradok could feel the tension in the air. All it would take would be one spark, one ill-chosen word or deed, and violence would erupt.
Bradok took a deep breath and pressed on. To reach the council building, he would have to pass through the angry crowd. No one seemed to notice when at first he began pressing his way to the front. He had almost broken free of the mob when a big, burly dwarf with squinty eyes and a bulbous round nose stepped squarely in front of him. He wore the leathers of a blacksmith and carried a broad, heavy warhammer as if he’d held it all his life.
“You’re that new councilman, Braden something-or-other?” he said in a voice reminiscent of a stone being dragged over a sand-strewn floor.
“Uh,” Bradok said, not sure he should answer that.
“Why is the council arresting people all of a sudden?” the dwarf demanded in an uncomfortably loud voice. “Did they say ‘Reorx bless you’ when someone sneezed? Or maybe they’ve got the symbol of Paladine embroidered on their underwear?”
“I don’t know,” Bradok said, conscious of the eyes of many nearby dwarves turning to him. “I just got here.”
“It’s that new councilman,” someone in the crowd yelled.
“He’s the one behind that street-preacher law,” someone else called.
Bradok heard the stone before he saw it. Over the rumble of the mob came the whistling noise of air moving against an uneven surface. Before he could move, a stone struck him on the cheek. Bradok stifled a curse and clasped his hand to his bleeding face.
From behind him, Bradok heard the guards on the stairs come clattering down. Time seemed to freeze in that moment. But Bradok knew with exquisite clarity what was about to happen.
“Stop!” Bradok shouted commandingly, putting out a blocking hand to the oncoming guards. “If I need your help, I’ll call,” he said. “Till then, stay at your posts.”
The words seemed to hang in the air a long time, like smoke in an unvented room. Finally, all citizens and guardsmen seemed to take a breath at once. The soldiers loosened their grips on their weapons and backed up the stairs, never taking their eyes off the crowd.
Bradok looked back at the burly smith. “I don’t know what has happened here or why anyone has been arrested,” he said through clenched teeth. “But I intend to find out.”
“What good does that do us?” the smith asked.
Bradok put his hand on the man’s shoulder and looked him in the eye.
“I give you my word,” he said earnestly, “that I will find out and I will come back out here and tell you everything. Is that good enough?”
The tension still lingered in the air as Bradok’s words died away. Finally the smith spoke. “I’ll tell you what’s happened here,” he said in his gravelly voice. “The council’s arresting citizens whose only crime is trying to remind us of our values, of the old ways.”
A murmur of assent came from the crowd.
“Now I don’t know you, mister new councilman,” the smith said, “but I know that we won’t stand for this persecution.” The smith hefted his hammer off his shoulder and pointed it at city hall. “Now you go in there, and you tell them cowards that they can’t go around arresting people at their own will and pleasure. You tell them we won’t stand for it.” His coal black eyes narrowed as he leaned in so Bradok would have no trouble hearing his next words. “You tell them there’ll be blood if they keep this up.”