The Duelist 11, page 22
“I will be silent no longer!” Sinopa shot back. “This Council is the reason Ashers are feared and mocked. This Council is the reason the Hearts were sick, why our Islands were rotten and infested with the Scourge. The greed of the Council has poisoned Aventoll, taken countless lives, all for your own enjoyment, all so you can be rich.”
“And what, exactly, do you intend to do about it?” Councilman Crane asked in a voice that was suddenly dangerously calm.
“You violated one of the most sacred laws of this institution,” the fox-man declared, and he pointed at Crane. “You sought to spill blood outside of sanctioned combat. As the transgressed, Councilman Brightwood has full entitlement to make you stand trial before your peers.”
Sinopa looked back at me, but I kept my glare fixed on Councilman Crane. Even if I had the right to make the parrot-man stand a trial, it would of course be a sham trial. The Council would be the jury, and regardless of the fact they’d seen Crane try to attack me, they would deem him innocent.
“That’s not necessary, Councilman Crevan,” I said to Sinopa, but I still didn’t look away from Crane. “Councilman Crane didn’t actually spill any blood. I think we can let that particular bygone be bygone.”
“That is the first sensible thing you have said since arriving on Alem,” the parrot-man remarked with a very smug smile, smug enough that I wanted to punch it clean off his face. “You know you have no right to the position you hold, you stole it from a family that has held it for generations. If you have any shred of honor within you, you will renounce your seat back to the Council and never again presume to consider yourself our equal.”
“Hey, now,” I said, and despite how casual my words were, my tone was ice. “I never mentioned any of that. I chose not to prosecute because we all know you could have killed me right here, and you still wouldn’t have been convicted of wrongdoing. This is nothing but a boys’ club that knows not to break ranks.”
“You will learn to address the Council of Ashers with more respect, or I will do a great deal more than spill your blood,” Crane warned, and Sha-Kane’s admonishments from the pulpit went entirely ignored this time.
“You can’t threaten us,” I told the parrot-man. “Nor Aventoll, anymore. You don’t have the Scourge under your influence, because we healed the Heart of Aventoll, and we’ve purged your poison from the Islands, all except Eng and Lycae.”
“Eng and Lycae?” Crane snorted. “For the last time, the Council had no part in what happened to Eng. The Engish rejected the tenets of the Council and the Temple Order, they prided themselves on being logical, and yet they refused to listen to reason. They enacted that Curse so they would no longer need to pay dues to the Council. And look where it got them.”
“They certainly don’t pay their dues now,” one of the other Councilmen scoffed, but I wasn’t going to break my staring contest with Crane to see which Councilman specifically had spoken.
“Eng figured out what you’d done,” I said to Crane. “All of you. The Engish figured out you had that damned machine and were using the Scourge as weapons of terror, using them to keep the system of power-- your power-- in place. So you summoned a High Priestess of the Order and bastardized transformation magic, holy magic, to turn them feral.”
“Never let it be said that Travelers don’t have fascinating imaginations,” Crane said haughtily, and a ripple of smug laughter echoed around the circular Chamber. His mismatched eyes then narrowed. “You have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“So if I say the Council has been Kavo Alda’s lapdogs for the past several decades, you’d deny it?” I asked lightly.
Something flickered in the parrot-man’s eyes just for a second. It wasn’t quite anger, or fear, but it was something similar. Something much deeper and more intense. But Crane managed to smother it before I got a proper look.
“Kavo Alda is a criminal of the highest order,” Crane announced angrily. “That you would dare imply the Council would work with someone like him--”
“I’m not implying it, I’m stating it outright,” I interrupted him in a flat tone. “You already had more money and power than you knew what to do with, but when the Nightmare came along, you couldn’t jump to him fast enough when he promised you even more-- all you had to do was start murdering your people with the very threat you were sworn to destroy.”
“I am growing less and less amused by the lies you continue to spout,” Crane warned me in a tone like acid.
He was, at the very least, keeping a better lid on his temper than before. Maybe he knew that to attack me a second time would just result in Sinopa or me killing him for real. I almost wanted him to try again, to push his luck too far. I was getting tired of listening to his self-justifying bullshit.
“Not lies, only truth,” I said coldly. “I know they might sound unusual to you, this has been a house of lies for so long I half-expect you all to believe up is down and dark is light.”
“You are creeping dangerously close to impertinence, boy,” Crane warned me in a growl.
“I will remind you, Councilman Crane, that Councilman Brightwood has full right to speak as he wishes, since he is a member of this Council,” Sha-Kane interjected with a pointed glare at Crane.
I suspected the osprey-man standing at the pulpit was the only reason I hadn’t been attacked by some of the other Councilmen. They despised me, but they at least had a grudging respect for Sha-Kane. He’d held his seat for decades and had won it by becoming the protégé of a childless legacy. He had at least a shred of legitimacy in their eyes, whereas I was just a murderer.
“And I wish to speak the truth, for once,” I said to the Council. “Enough of these stories you peddle to make yourselves look good to the Peoples. You Cursed Eng for daring to question your authority, just like you murdered the eight Lycaens of the Sacred Sixty-Four and stole what was theirs.”
“How dare you?” Crane demanded. “How dare you lay these accusations to the highest institution in the land?”
“Because they’re true,” I snarled at him.
My patience was beginning to wear thin, but I forced myself to reel it in. If I attacked first, the Council would initiate a guilty vote faster than I could blink, and then we’d all be screwed. I needed to goad them into opening the memorial chamber, into letting me access the machine. I was confident the earth guardian sword would destroy it, if only I could get inside.
“House Sepin is just an offshoot of House Hapor,” I said as I recalled one of the examples Amaya had given me when I’d asked why there were ten Councilmen estates, instead of eight. “The second son of Hapor killed one of the Lycaen Ashers generations ago. There is no honor in that seat, only lies and murder. Same for the Argar seat, another lineage of murderers that started as the Vinta family.”
“You will silence yourself, boy!” one of the other Alemic Councilmen declared, and I had to assume from his outrage that he was either Councilman Sepin or Councilman Argar.
Not that it mattered much. All of them were just as bad as each other.
“You refused to accept that the Lycaens might know how to fend off the Scourge without Ashers,” I said. “You were terrified you might lose your power, so when they refused to renounce the Moon as their god, the equal and opposite to Mercedes, you murdered their Ashers and poisoned their home, dooming them to generations of exile.”
“Nonsensical stories,” Crane said dismissively, but his calm tone was undercut by how his eyes had narrowed to slits. I couldn’t even tell they were different colors anymore.
“You can’t intimidate me,” I told the parrot-man. “We’ve all grown sick and tired with the same threats, over and over. You can’t force us into compliance without your demon attack dogs, and you can’t even fight properly without relying on magic trinkets.”
I gestured flippantly to the chain that Crane’s Duelist Stone hung from, and his face flushed in a combination of embarrassment and fury.
“Seriously,” I said mockingly. “When was the last time any legacy even fought a real Duel? When was the last time any legacy had to fight for anything? Your entire lives, you’ve been handed everything on silver platters, all it cost you to maintain them was your basic sense of decency. So, no. You can’t intimidate us. Not with what you did to Eng, or Lycae, or the sons who wouldn’t go along with your sick plans.”
Crane leapt to his feet and stood there glaring at me, but he didn’t make another move to attack. Maybe he was waiting for the right moment, or maybe he knew attacking again would only be signing his death warrant.
I leveled my gaze at the parrot Councilman and let him see the anger that burned in my eyes, let him know I was done playing his stupid political games.
“This ends now,” I growled. “Open the memorial chamber, and let me destroy the machine.”
“For the last time, there is no machine,” Crane said. “The Scourge wanders of its own accord across this world, and it is drawn only by impure hearts. If it so happens that those impure hearts are the ones who oppose the Council, well, that would make sense, would it not? If they reject the Council, they are the furthest from Mercedes’ blessing.”
The parrot-man smiled a dangerous, knowing smile, and I had to clench my fists to keep myself from launching at him. The smug bastard could dress it up in pretty language all he wanted, this Council had been using demons as their personal hitmen for decades.
“Then you won’t mind opening the memorial chamber and showing it to me,” I said flatly.
“Absolutely not,” Crane said at once. “The memorial chamber is the private sanctuary for the direct descendants of the Sacred Sixty-Four. It is a shrine to our ancestors’ sacrifices.”
“And when you say ‘sacrifices,’ are you including the eight Lycaen Ashers who were kidnapped and murdered, their families slaughtered?” I demanded. “When you refer to the Sacred Sixty-Four, do you mean the eight Lycaens who actually fought the Scourge in those first days, or are you referring to the eight secondborn sons who became murderers, all so your families could have a little more power?”
“I don’t know where you get these idiotic ideas,” Crane sneered. “The Lycaen Eight rejected their blessings, they said they wanted nothing to do with the goddess of the Sun, they wanted to live in their squalid, savage little Tribes, howling at the Moon, terrorizing good, devout citizens.”
“You murdered them!” Sha-Kane shouted, and I was surprised to see such a strong outburst from the osprey-man, but I made no move to stop him. “You slaughtered their heroes, cursed their home so they could never go back! Your legacies are built on lies and greed. There is nothing noble about any of you here, not a one. My master saw that. Why do you think he chose to pass his seat onto someone who wasn’t poisoned by generations of opulence?”
“Your ‘master’ was a foolish creature who never understood one fraction of the power he possessed,” Crane growled at Sha-Kane. “Councilman Aras was an arrogant fool.”
“Councilman Aras refused to bow to the whims of Kavo Alda, of a man who sought only to tear Aventoll to pieces for his own enjoyment,” the osprey-man snarled back. “You are the fools, for going along with his plans. You would slaughter one another if it would get you more power, don’t pretend like you wouldn’t. You are traitors to your world, your peoples, the very ancestors you claim to revere. How many thousands of Aventollians were killed because the Council wanted power more than safety? The Lycaens, the Engish, countless innocents whose only crime was daring to question why the Council had so much and they had so little?”
Some of the Councilmen, mostly the Engish ones, were starting to look the slightest bit cowed, and I began to dare to hope that Sha-Kane might have gotten through to them. Sinopa and I were viewed as young, reckless renegades, but the osprey-man had a sliver of genuine respect from the other Councilmen.
I wondered if the Engish Councilmen knew about their Island, if they knew it had been Cursed by the Order and the Council’s instructions, if they knew what it was like there now. I suspected they had to know the truth, but maybe not the full extent of it.
“I’ve been to Eng,” I said, and I finally looked away from Crane to speak to the rest of the Chamber, and the Engish Councilmen in particular. “I’ve seen the canyon cities, the tunnels, and the workshops. All perfectly preserved under the stone, because no one has been there to disturb them. It’s like a ghost city. Except for when you disturb the Engish that still remain. They’re less than animals, driven only by the need to rend flesh from bone. The Council, this Council, did that to one of the proudest and most intelligent peoples in Aventoll. Because they couldn’t allow anyone to question their authority.”
The Engish looked even more cowed now, and some of them were shuffling a little nervously. Maybe, if it came to a real divide in the Council, they would be on my side.
“What does it matter what state Eng is in?” Crane demanded. “They brought the Curse on themselves.”
“You say that, but I know you’re lying, and so do you,” I told him. “The Eng-folk’s only crime was daring to ask questions. And once they found out the Council and the Temple Order weren’t as perfect as everyone claimed, you worked to silence them by taking their very minds from them. You stole their personhood, their selves. That’s as good as murder, as genocide. You slaughtered an entire Island’s culture. Just like Lycae.”
“You--” Crane began as his feathers ruffled in outrage, but I didn’t give him the chance.
“How many more Islands will have to be destroyed or Cursed?” I asked. “Will the Council just keep knocking off more? What happens when Alem is the only one left, and the Heart has become so poisoned that even your stupid machine can’t keep the Scourge at bay? What happens when the noble Council of the Ashers of Blood actually has to fight for once, a real fight? Will you be the extinction of the Peoples? Will you spit on everything Mercedes ever created?”
Crane looked like he wanted to scream and kill me and throw something all at once. He was almost trembling with rage, and if not for the fact that Sinopa Crevan was still standing beside me with his sword drawn, I suspected the parrot-man would have tried to attack me again.
“If not for the laws of this Chamber, I would cut you where you stand,” the parrot-man hissed, and I smiled at him coldly.
“There’s a way you could do that, you know,” I said to him. “Duel me.”
Crane’s eyes widened and then narrowed again.
“Do you take me for a fool?” he demanded after a moment.
“I take you for a power-hungry tyrant who never gave one shit about anything other than himself,” I told him flatly. “Duel me, and you get the glory of being the man who killed the ‘upstart Traveler’ that caused the Council so much trouble. You bring the Incarnate back under the control of the Order. You’ll be lauded as the hero who preserved Aventoll’s rotting status quo, the man who condemned the ship to sink, drowning everyone on board.”
“Or you could be luring me in a trap to take everything my family has ever worked for,” Crane shot back. “I am not Teivel Tas. I will not risk my family’s legacy for a matter of pride.”
“So you think you’ll lose?” I smirked. “You think I’m better than you, the guy who came from nowhere, with no family name? Is that a bit of self-awareness I detect, Councilman Crane? A bit of humility?”
“Watch your tongue,” he hissed. “I will not fall victim to the same tricks you pulled on Tas. I will not let you eradicate another of the Sacred Sixty-Four.”
“Why not?” I asked in a mild tone. “It would only be two. Your lot have already eradicated eight. It’s hardly the same.”
“Be silent!” Crane snapped, but I knew he was just saying it to try and assert dominance by being loud.
I was not going to be silent, and they all knew it.
“Duel me,” I said again. “Prove you’re not just someone who’s coasting on the achievements of better men, of decent men. Prove you’re actually worth your miserable life, that you’re capable of doing something besides ordering people to do all your fighting for you. Were you the one who had the idea to send Teivel Tas after me? That wasn’t a wise move. You should have come yourself, Crane. Maybe your pretty little necklace would have given you a chance. At the very least, I wouldn’t have ended up the owner of Tas’ estate and found the machine his family built for the Council.”
“There is no machine!” Crane shouted at me. “Enough of these lies!”
“Kavo Alda must pay you really well if you’re still not giving him up,” I remarked. “What did he promise you for my death? A pretty young wife? More gold? Magical power? Or did you not even demand payment, because you knew I would come here and start tearing everything you built to the ground?”
“The Council would never work with Kavo Alda,” the parrot-man declared, but I swore I could feel the faintest faltering in his tone.
I was starting to wear him down. His greed was no match for the Stranger with the Indomitable Will.
“Well, the Council has,” I said. “He helped slaughter a settlement of Lakuna children, and years later he even kidnapped one of them, enslaved her, and gave her to Tisen Tas as a gift. She was held prisoner by Tisen and his son, Teivel, for eleven seasons. Under the Council’s orders, under Kavo Alda’s orders, because the Council knew only the Lakuna children could get to the Heart of Aventoll.”
“The Heart of Aventoll is a myth,” Crane scoffed.
“Then why did you send Teivel Tas to follow me there and kill me and the Incarnate before she could heal it?” I demanded. “Enough with the lies, Councilman. Tas told me as much before we Dueled. Is this really the way the Council operates? Lies upon lies, even in the face of people who know better?”
I knew I was being repetitive and annoying, and it seemed to be working. Crane was inching closer and closer to a full outburst, but I needed to push him further.
I needed him to agree to the Duel. That was the only way we’d succeed.
“Duel me,” I said yet again. “And if you win, you’ll be the hero of the Council. If I win, you all have to open the memorial chamber and let Sha-Kane, Sinopa and I see what’s inside.”
