Elder Race(18)
The next petitioner was a broad woman, looking haggard from lack of sleep. She had to croak a few times before she could get the words out strongly enough to be heard, and even then one of the court stood at the foot of the scaffold to relay everything.
“The demon came to our village,” Lyn heard. “At first it was the cerkitts and the other beasts. The demon got into them, from what they ate, or from the bites they got when they went into the trees. Things grew on them, like eyes, like crystals. They went feral, and whoever was bitten by them, or just was too long near them, they got it, too. My own sons went to cull the herds of the rot, but some never came back, and some came back but weren’t themselves. The demon had taken them for its own.”
There was more to be said there, but her nerve broke and she, too, stepped back, which left a thin, scarred man standing out from the crowd. His left hand was wrapped in rags, and when he moved to free it, Lyn thought she would see the mark of the demon the woman had spoken of. Instead, though, he raised a hand short all its fingers and marked with the broken tree brand, meaning he was a criminal cast out from his home.
“Some of you know me.” His voice was surprisingly strong. “I am Allwerith Exiled, and in any other season it’d be death for me to stand here.” Indeed, there were plenty of bleak looks at him from his neighbours. “The Third Daughter’s people chose me to speak here because no others here saw what I saw. Because I had fled to Farbourand to get from under the shadow of my judgment here at Watacha.”
Lyn consulted her inner map and reckoned Farbourand was a frontier sort of place, one of the lawless outposts where trappers and prospectors came to resupply before heading out into the wilds again.
“I saw where the demon came first,” Allwerith declared. “A certain clearing near that place, where all the trees were overrun with its spawn, where all the beasts, great and small, had been slaved to it, and made into its bricks and timbers, for the things it was building there. I saw circles and great cords growing from the earth, and all of it set over with spines and black eyes. And men, too, all part of it, doing its will or being pieces of its creation. And none at Farbourand believed me, and then the demon came, with men and beasts all made to do its will, and none got out but I. And I came to Birchari and warned them, and they beat me out with switches for the lies they said I told. And there are some here who escaped Birchari who will give the truth of my words. And I came here, and I praise Elhevesse Regent and I praise Jenevesse Third Daughter and all their servants, for here I was believed.”
He clenched his one fist, the stumps of the other hand twitching, and stepped back into the silence. Jenevesse cocked an eye at Lyn, who swallowed.
She tried to remember how her mother did it: address such a great assembly, sound poised and certain, not the frightened child so far out of her depth. Her heart was hammering, but she heard the voices of her tutors in her head and took hold of her breathing, levelling and slowing it, picking people from the crowd to look in the eye, nodding, spreading her hands to show her sincerity.
“News of the Ordwood’s plight has reached Lannesite, as you hear,” she told them, and heard her own voice steady and clear. At the corner of her vision, Esha gave her a nod of approval.
“It is an ill time for all when evil magic is loose in the world,” she told them, “and threats such as this demon cannot go unanswered. But we have seen such magic before, in the hands of monsters and evil men. We all of us have heard a tale of Lucef Half-Elder, in whose day the land was plagued with monstrous beasts, some that destroyed and others that simply poisoned the world with their presence. And Lucef, who was wise in the ways of sorcery, destroyed each one or bound it with strong words so that it would not trouble his people. Lucef, it is said, was born half of our people and half of the ancient strain of makers, so that even as a child his understanding of the secrets of the world was beyond the ken of wise men.” And yes, everyone knew the Lucef stories, or their own version of them. So: “Let me tell you, then, of my own ancestor, Astresse Once Regent, when her land was threatened by the sorcerer warlord Ulmoth, who had raised from deathly sleep some of those beasts that Lucef bound. Ulmoth brought his army of monsters and madmen onto the soil of Lannesite, but the Once Regent knew that craft must be fought with craft.
“In that time of need she braved the journey to the Tower of the Elders, where dwelled the last of that line, Nyrgoth, and he rode alongside her and used his words of power to bind Ulmoth’s beasts and send them back to the earth.” More and more eyes were flicking to the sorcerer’s tall, silent presence at her shoulder. She saw the current of understanding ripple out through the crowd, mouth to ear, people craning their heads for a better view of the man’s twisted horns and not-quite-human features. She saw hope break like the dawn sun over hills.
“I have brought no armies,” she confirmed to them. “I have brought the great sorcerer himself to confront the demon and break its hold over these lands. With his craft and his power he will go to its lair and break its grip over your sons and daughters; he will purge its taint from your orchards and pacify the corrupted beasts of the forest. He is Nyrgoth Elder, last of the ancients, of a race whose very thoughts are magic such as no human wizard ever dreamt of.” And she was seeing wide eyes, smiles, the desperate need to believe in her, in her, Lynesse Fourth Daughter, least valued of her line. For just a moment she could forget all that had gone before, all the years of falling short of the standards demanded by her mother and demonstrated by her siblings.