The thains-come-lately looked over their shoulders aghast and pressed back against those nearest them. Cracks opened up in the wall of gray capes, and the vocates plunged into them. Jordel continued his shouting, and soon they could hear his brother Baran doing the same in another part of the crowd, and Illion began shouting it, too, and no one in recorded history had ever heard Illion shout anything, and eventually they were on the other side of the crowd, climbing the stairs into the Chamber.
A few vocates were standing before the open double doors to the Chamber proper: Rild of Eastwall, resplendent in purple leggings; Gnython the Rememberer, wearing a green armband on both arms; Kothala of Sandport, sporting a red cap, and a few others.
“Fine ladies and gentlemen,” Jordel rasped (his voice still ragged from shouting), “perhaps you could tell your underlings not to block the streets. There’s more than one way to impair the Guard,” he added.
That spurred them to action; it takes fear to motivate the frightened, Aloê thought. They rushed away to give orders to their disorderly followers.
The pale sun had climbed more than half way up the cool blue sky before the vocates were assembled at Station, and the Guardians accused of Impairing the Guard stood, with folded hands, awaiting the Graith’s judgment. Aloê was obscurely pleased that Naevros had rallied for the occasion. If his clothes were not new, they looked it. His wounded hand looked almost healthy, except for the angry red line where it had been reattached to his arm. He held himself like a person who mattered. But he did not wear the red cloak of his office, and neither did Bavro wear his gray cape.
Lernaion did wear his white mantle of office, however, and Bleys presumably did, too, but it was hard to tell whether the oldest Guardian’s cloak was actually white. His clothes were filthy; his person was filthy; Aloê could smell him from where she stood at the Long Table, halfway across the great Chamber of the Graith. If he was at all embarrassed by his condition, he didn’t show it.
Since the Summoner of the City was among the accused, Noreê stood forward to convene the Station. No one objected to this—at least not out loud. But Aloê could not have been the only vocate who thought their peer was taking too much on herself.
“Vocates,” she said, actually rapping the Long Table with the silver staff of exile, “stand to order! We are come here to settle the fates of our members, accused of Impairment of the Guard and murder of the Guarded. I called you here because the Summoner of the City is among the accused and may not speak here, except in his own defense. If you prefer that someone else preside here, I will stand back.”
Silence.
“Go ahead, Noreê,” suggested Gyrla.
“Thank you, Guardians,” Noreê said. “I call on our vengeancer, Aloê Oaij.”
All faces in the room turned to Aloê. She’d thought much about this moment. It was a chance to wax rhetorical, to magnify herself in the minds of those who are impressed by torrents of well-chosen words. The last trial for Impairment had happened around the time she was being born, but she had read about that case and many others.
In the end, she eschewed any attempt to soothe or startle her listeners with rhetoric. She stated plainly what the conspirators had done and how she had discovered it. She concluded by saying, “The only witness I see who is not present is Ulvana, late of the Order of Arbiters. She was under guard at the High Arbitrate; perhaps she could be sent for.”
“That won’t be possible, I’m afraid,” Noreê said. “I received word from the High Arbitrate last night that Ulvana had committed suicide.”
Aloê felt a sudden stab of grief and pain at this. She was also angry: that the message had come to Noreê and not her; that Noreê had not bothered to tell her until now. The pale cold Guardian loomed over them all these days, sole ruler of the Wardlands. It would have to be stopped somehow.
“Did she jump or was she pushed?” Aloê snapped back.
“If I understand you, Vocate Aloê, you are suggesting that the High Arbitrate may have killed Ulvana in secret to prevent her testimony today.”
“It seems possible, at least.”
“It seems irrelevant, at best. Unless her testimony is key to your case.”
“No. I have stated my case. It is time for the witnesses to ascend to the Witness Stone.”
“May I speak?” Naevros called up from the floor.
“You may speak in your defense after you testify on the Stone,” Noreê said.
“That’s just it. I don’t intend to present a defense. Neither does my junior colleague. We will accept death or exile at the Graith’s choosing, or your vengeancer’s alone.”
“Hm.” Noreê allowed herself a cold smile and turned to Aloê. “What do you say, Vengeancer?”
“I’ll abide by the Graith’s decision, or exercise the prerogative if we can’t come to an agreement. But I think the accused should stand together in punishment; they are all equally guilty.”
“We can save part of a day if the summoners also waive their defense,” Noreê said, without much sign of hope. “Lernaion, what say you? Do you admit your guilt?”
“I defer to the judgement of my elder peer,” said Lernaion.
“Bleys: will you admit your guilt?”
This was the moment that horrible old man had waited for. He did not speak at first, but pretended to consider. Then he lifted his head high and cried out, “Waive my defense? I might do so for the good the Graith and the Guard, to which I have devoted the entirety of my very long life. But I will not waive, for the convenience of you, my fellow Guardians, or for the well-being of anyone in the world, my defense of the Wardlands. Everything, everything that the dedicated young vengeancer has told you is true. And it is not all. I have many secret deeds of blood and fear to my credit. I have killed—extorted—threatened—seduced—corrupted—stolen. These are crimes, if you please, if we stood in one of the courts of the unguarded lands. But we do not. All that I have done, all that I have ever done, was done to maintain the Guard.”
“Summoner Earno,” said Noreê coldly, “you may speak in your defense after you testify on the Stone—”
“Is that a threat?” shouted the red-faced old summoner. “I tell you, young Noreê, that I have come here expressly to testify on the Stone! I will speak, not in my defense, but in the defense of the Wardlands and in defense of my colleagues too shamed and bemused to speak for themselves. I have suffered; I have been beaten; I have endured night and day the torments of nightmares in that hellhole you consigned me to; I have kept the thin, fragile thread of life unbroken in my ancient body for this, and this alone: to speak and be heard where I could not be silenced! Lead me to your Witness Stone and let the Graith read the truths written in my heart!”
His voice broke on the last word. Aloê, glancing around the Long Table, saw that many of her peers were visibly moved at Bleys’ performance. That was the first time she suspected that the murderers of Earno would escape exile.
“The Stone is in its usual place,” Illion pointed out mildly. There were a few laughs at this, but most of the vocates still seemed taken with Bleys’ dramatic performance. He strode over to the dais of the Witness Stone and laboriously climbed the steps to reach it.
“You will wait for us to establish rapport with the Stone first, Summoner Bleys,” Noreê called down the Long Table.
“Take your time,” replied the great seer calmly.
Illion was standing next to the Stone: he placed a hand on it, and his eyes began to glow with rapture. He held out his other hand to Baran, who stood by him. Baran took the hand and closed his eyes. In time, he too showed the signs of visionary ascent.
It did take time, but one by one the vocates, of varying levels of skill, joined the rapport with the Stone. The only exception was Gyrla, who jumped down contemptuously without saying a word.