“You will have him taken to the Inquisition Room,” Xanin continued, “where he will await the arrival of an Inquisitor from Flamekeep. None of you is to speak a word of what you have seen or heard in this room today, on pain of expulsion from the Church.”
The Bishop turned back to Andri.
“Your exile will be provisionally revoked until this matter is resolved. However, I request that you accompany me to the Cathedral and put yourselves at the disposal of the Inquisitor, to expedite the process.”
Both Greddark and Irulan looked at him, but Andri knew that despite Xanin’s cordial language, they didn’t really have a choice. Maellas was their only bargaining chip, and they had to give him up to prove that he was guilty. Andri nodded and sheathed his weapon, gesturing to his companions to do the same. They had to trust in the mercy and wisdom of the Church. As the guards escorted them and Maellas to the waiting carriage, Andri could only pray that trust was not horribly misplaced.
The Inquisitor was on the next rail from Flamekeep, and her questioning was not nearly as unpleasant as it could have been, at least for Andri and his companions.
Once Maellas’s guilt was ascertained, the only thing that remained was his sentencing. Though once a well-respected Bishop, he would suffer the same fate as every convicted lycanthrope in Thrane-burning at the stake. But whereas such executions were usually public, Maellas would be burned in a private chamber below the Cathedral that had been constructed during the Purge for just this purpose. The Church would punish its own, while ensuring that the public at large never discovered the true identity of the werewolf, or that he had been operating under the very nose of the Church for years. As for Andri and his companions, and those soldiers who had been in the gatehouse, their silence was insured by the judicious application of a Mark of Justice on each of their left shoulders. The Inquisitor was vague as to what would happen should they ever speak of what they knew to anyone who was not authorized to hear of it, but she hinted that Maellas’s fate would seem pleasurable by comparison.
Bishop Xanin made a statement to the public, announcing only that the true killer was a werewolf who had been caught and would be punished, and that the shifters now in custody would be freed. When questioned by chroniclers about the nature of the lycanthrope’s punishment, Xanin had responded simply, “Death.” Maellas’s absence was explained away as a long-overdue visit to his homeland of Aerenal, which the Aruldusk Archives promptly reported was due to his failure to find the real killer. The new Bishop’s staff did nothing to disabuse them of that notion.
So three days after their return to Aruldusk-on Initiation Day, the anniversary of the day when the priesthood of the Silver Flame declared itself a faith independent of the Sovereign Host-Andri, Irulan, and Greddark found themselves sitting in the gallery of a small amphitheater beneath the Cathedral, waiting for Bishop Xanin to arrive and set his former superior to the torch.
Maellas had not yet been shackled to the charred wooden pillar in the center of the underground chamber. Instead, he stood a few feet away, restrained at the wrists and ankles by silver manacles that were in turn connected by heavy chains to rings set into the smooth stone floor. Apparently there was some special ritual for binding a lycanthrope to the stake that only the presiding prelate could perform. Either that, or Xanin just wanted to do it himself for reasons Andri didn’t even want to try and fathom.
Andri saw that while the elf hadn’t been gagged, he did sport a new onyx amulet about his neck. Andri guessed it was to keep the cleric from casting any spells, or perhaps to prohibit him from speaking altogether. Whatever the necklace’s purpose, Maellas remained silent, for which the paladin was unaccountably grateful.
While they waited, Andri examined the room, wondering how often it had seen use since the Purge had ended. The thick coating of greasy ashes at the foot of the stake did not look a hundred and fifty years old.
The gallery consisted of five tiered benches. The trio sat at the lowest level, their feet resting on the amphitheater’s floor. Above them, the ceiling was dotted with small holes, which Andri surmised were used to disperse the smoke and convey it to the skies above the Cathedral, where it would mix with the haze from burning incense and silverburn.
Hooded acolytes in plain gray robes guarded the room’s only two entrances, and Andri’s eyes darted from the doorway at the top of the gallery stairs to the smaller one near where they sat at floor level. He wondered which one Xanin would use, and how much longer the new Bishop would make them wait.
Andri glanced over at his companions, trying to gauge their level of impatience against his own. Greddark appeared characteristically stoic as he gazed about the amphitheater with a faint look of disdain, probably thinking his people could have done a much better job carving the chamber. Irulan, though, seemed nervous, her eyes flicking from acolyte to acolyte, sweat beading at her hairline. There was something different about her, and it took Andri a moment to pinpoint what it was-one of her long, looping braids had been shorn off near the skull, leaving a noticeable gap in the intricate headdress. Ah, yes, now he remembered-it was Javi’s totem braid, and she had said she would cut it off and throw it in the Thrane River once he was freed. Andri could only hope she hadn’t also made good on her promise to kill the young shifter afterward.
There was a noise at the lower door, and Andri tensed, expecting Xanin. But instead of the Bishop, yet another acolyte stepped into the room, barring the door behind him. The sound of a second bar being shoved home came from the other doorway.
Andri half-rose from his seat, his hand going instinctively to his hilt. Something wasn’t right here.
The newly-arrive acolyte threw back his hood, revealing himself as a brown-haired shifter with braids like Irulan’s. Then he pulled a silver dagger from within his robes, and Andri realized what was wrong.
With a cry, he drew his own blade and sprinted for Maellas, Greddark at his heels. As the paladin ran, he called argent flame to his sword. Even as he did so, he wondered who had betrayed them. This execution was supposed to have been secret.
He and the dwarf beat the acolytes to the stake and positioned themselves in front of Maellas, weapons raised. Irulan, who’d been a step or two behind Greddark, now stood uncertainly in the no-man’s land between the two groups.
“Our quarrel is not with you, paladin,” the male shifter said to Andri. “We’re here for the moontouched. Step aside.”
Andri shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
The shifter’s face grew grim. “Then you’ll go to your grave knowing you died defending a murderer.” At his signal, the other acolytes-shifters all-drew their own weapons.
Andri reached out to pull Irulan back away from the shifters, but she hesitated.
“Andri, are you sure-?” Then, as she searched his eyes-looking for what, he wasn’t certain-she seemed to reach some decision. “No,” she murmured, answering herself. “Of course not.”
Shaking her head, she moved to guard his left side, while Greddark took his right. The paladin planted his feet, prepared to shield Maellas with his own body, if necessary. The murdering elf deserved to die, because the Church had declared it so. But he would die according to the laws of the Church, and not at the whim of a group of vigilantes.
He knew Xanin would summon soldiers when he found himself unable to enter the amphitheater, but as Andri parried one sword aimed at his head and felt another duck past his guard to score his ribs, he realized they might not make it that long. The shifters outnumbered them two to one. He hadn’t imagined things would end this way when the Keeper had first summoned him and introduced him to the feisty but beautiful Irulan Silverclaw. He wished he’d had the opportunity to get to know her outside of this investigation, then wondered what his parents would have thought of his feelings for a shifter. At the thought of his father, he had a sudden vision of Alestair laughing as he watched his son die defending a werewolf. The image was so strong that he thought he could even hear the pyromancer’s sardonic chuckle.