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The other Judges dispensed swift and brutal judgment, as they had to me. Rope and Frost executed those who warranted it; Flint and Silver handled the lighter penalties. Rue ducked participation, dealing with threats to the people in the Guild rather than with criminals.
The shows portrayed them differently, but I’d met Frost and Flint. A giantess fully seven feet tall and colder than the moon, Frost had stopped to speak with Silver, ignoring me like she would an insect. Flint had smiled, but the menace his emotions radiated, deadly and poised, made it easy for me to decide to leave the officefast.
It hadn’t been the killing I did that angered them; it was the fact I’d done it without their permission or consent. It added to my distaste for the Guild’s hypocrisy. I could be violent or murderous here as long as I followed the rules.
Greene had said, “Fix it as rapidly as you can.” His blood and his pain would fix it. If he repeated the order and I kept him from rescinding it, he was in for a very bad day.
Dry and warmer, I headed back to Riveredge. The proprietor let me use their pump. I discarded the filthy clothing into their washtub, to be made into cleaning rags. He also had electrical tape; I traded some candy for a small roll.
Clothed and cleaned, I reviewed my plan as the same surly Wardens flew me over the moat, and as I walked through the parks to the elaborate house overlooking the river.
The domestic let me in, and led me to a spacious office, all metal and ceramic, on the first floor. I waited for Administrator Greene, sitting in an uncomfortable chair and playing with the roll of tape. My anger faded to calm.
I would collect some recompense for the dead and the violation of the river.
To pass the time, I searched the infonet for a spirit that met the parameters of what I’d encountered on my way to Durgion The Wendigo, a spirit of endless starvation, matched most of the particulars. The only oddness would be if people survived an encounter with it.
I shivered.
Greene made his entrance, leaving the door ajar as he strode over to me. “Are you done? I still see flooding.” His face and tone overflowed with contempt. He didn’t bother with the courtesy of a direct gaze, instead looking over me to a screen that showed camera views of the exterior of Durgion.
I waited, silent.
After some minutes, he looked at me, drumming his fingers in a sharp staccato on his thigh. Rings glittered with the motion, red and blue and gold. “Are you stupid? Fix the problem.”
“By your will,” I murmured, the words chilling in my mouth. I was up and a strip of tape was over his mouth before he blinked.
A knife jumped into my other hand as I cut off another long piece of the tape. His expression shifted from disdain to confusion to fear as I pinned his arms using that strip, despite his struggles.
There are many places where the body can bleed that are painful but not fatal. The coward was trying to scream before the first cut. He didn’t manage it before I began my slow torture of a man who had caused so much pain. Who had hurt the spirit. Who had hurt his people. Each flash of my knife was retribution for those he had hurt, but also for the lives lost because of his greed and selfishness.
Strangely, I neither felt glad nor upset about what I was doing. I only acted because it was what needed to be done. Inside my mind, I felt my connection to the spirit. It was watching, waiting. Our agreement was that Greene felt its same level of pain and humiliation. He hadn’t felt it yet. Not when I removed an eye. Not when he lost an arm.
Not when I took more.
I ceased when the screens showed that the waters had begun to subside. Connected to my mind still, the water spirit took my offering of pain as well as blood and accepted it. Exacting his pain for the river probably saved Greene’s life, although he didn’t see it that way.
People don’t understand altruistic motives. His pain and fear echoed through me, even wearing gloves, but it didn’t slow me down.
This warm glow at the end must be what virtue felt like. I cleaned my knife on a doily, with medtechs rushing to his side as I exited the office. I detoured through the kitchen, taking rations for the trip back before I left the house. I sent my preliminary report, emphasizing the plight of the few settlers left in the corridor to Falo, only mentioning my solution to Durgion and Greene in passing. Time enough for that when I filed the full report; Silver would already have had an earful by then.
A spring invaded my step. If I pushed it, I could be back at the circle in four days, and be reunited with Dmitri.
ChapterTen
ALYS
It was still afternoon, although the sky was a warmer blue than it had been for days. The edge of the northeastern forest bulked ahead of me, and I paused at the ruined bridge spanning the river. I decided against picking my way over rusted metal and made an early camp in a clearing, with the river behind me and protruding ground rock on two other sides. I could find the ford where people crossed the river in the morning. It had to be nearby, or there’d be a trail away from the road.
Traveling alone made for long nights of watching and listening, but I had ways of making it easier. Namely, the warm fire crackling in front of me, doing its best to chase away the chill, and the food would make it less difficult. When sleep wouldn’t come, eating gave me the much-needed energy I needed to keep going.
The sunset painted the sky in shades of red and violet, pierced by the Durgion towers, visible even a half day’s walk away. Back braced against a tree, the stars a glorious arch above me, I listened to the evening. Singing teased the edge of my consciousness, and I drifted in it, drowsing and letting my ears keep watch.
I didn’t hear the music with my ears, anyway. My psychic abilities were picking up the singing from the sky, from the elves. On a level beyond words, it whispered that I could join them. That with them, I could be free.
But I knew better.
The howl, from the same direction as the city but much closer, snapped my eyes open. As the eerie sound faded away, I was aware of the silence, the cessation of animal noises, a quiet in which my heart thudded in my ears. The breeze picked up. It came from the lake, clammy and cold, and an ice-fog swirled gently across the ground, creeping until the world was hung in white curtains.
