Marsheila Rockwell - Legacy of the Wolves

Xanin threw his hood back and blanched when he saw Maellas. “It is you. We thought you’d gone on retreat.…” He trailed off, his eyes icing over as he looked from the bound prelate to Andri.

“What is the meaning of this, Aeyliros? Not only have you defied yet another official edict by returning here, but you have added the charges of kidnapping and assaulting a Bishop to your long list of sins! Have you abandoned your faith completely? Or just your wits? Not even the Keeper’s favor is going to get you out of this fix, boy.”

Andri couldn’t blame the priest. If someone had told him a month ago that he would soon be holding a knife to a Bishop’s throat after having been exiled from that same Bishop’s city, he would have thought they were mad. Was it any wonder Xanin was now questioning his sanity? He’d questioned it himself more than a few times since this whole affair began.

“Her Holiness charged me with apprehending the murderer who has terrorized Aruldusk over the course of this past year, Your Excellency,” he said, more calmly than he felt, “and that’s what I have done.”

Xanin’s blonde eyebrows fairly shot off his forehead. “Bishop Maellas?” he exclaimed. “You are insane.”

“Not at all. Our investigation revealed that the true murderer was not a shifter, or even a group of them, but a werewolf. Surely you would agree that is a far more plausible explanation?”

Xanin’s brows descended as his eyes narrowed. “Even if it is,” he replied, “what has that got to do with the Bishop?”

“Allow me to show you.” He looked at the captain, who had been following their exchange with interest. “Captain, would you hand your dagger to Master d’Kundarak, please?”

The soldier hesitated, looking to Xanin for direction. The Ancillary Bishop gave a curt nod. The captain withdrew his blade from the sheath strapped to his thigh and handed it to Greddark, hilt first. The dwarf then exchanged daggers with Andri, keeping the silver weapon firmly pointed at Maellas while Andri hefted the captain’s blade, a simple, non-magical dagger with a keen edge.

Then, before anyone could react, he spun and plunged the blade into Maellas’s naked chest.

Xanin cried out in horror, and the soldiers rushed forward, only to be held at bay by Irulan’s longsword and Greddark’s alchemy blade, which now burned with a bright yellow fire.

Andri withdrew the dagger while Maellas thrashed about, helpless in his silver chains. Silence descended in the small room as the wound closed of its own accord, leaving no blood-or indeed any sign at all that the elf had ever been injured.

“And now the silver dagger,” he said, switching blades once more with Greddark, while the dwarf kept his eyes on the guards and his sword at the ready.

Maellas began to struggle in earnest now, vainly pulling at his bonds and backing away from the paladin. But with Greddark’s flaming blade on one side and his own silver dagger on the other, there was nowhere for him to go, and he bumped hard into the wall after only a few steps.

Taking advantage of the elf’s momentary distraction, Andri darted forward and sliced the silver blade across Maellas’s forearm, just deep enough to draw blood. As the rich red liquid welled and began to drip on the wooden floor, Bishop Xanin gasped, and made the sign of the Flame, as did the soldiers.

“Flame forfend!” Xanin whispered, his face pale and his eyes huge. “This … this is some sorcery!” But he did not sound as if he believed it.

“Question him yourself, Your Excellency,” said Andri, “or better yet, call an Inquisitor. You will see that I am telling the truth. Maellas is a werewolf and a killer, guilty of at least twenty murders, and those are only the ones we know about. He has hidden within the very heart of the Church for over a hundred years, and no one realized his true nature. But now that his evil has been exposed, his sins cannot be allowed to tarnish the Silver Flame any further. As acting Bishop of Aruldusk, it is your responsibility to see justice done.”

Xanin drew himself up at that, his expression hardening. He turned to Hal. “Summon a carriage.” As the soldier sprinted away, Xanin gave the captain his orders. “You will transport Maellas to the Cathedral. Make sure that he is seen by no one.”

Andri noticed that Xanin was no longer referring to the elf by his title, and he realized that the Ancillary Bishop, for all his abrasiveness, was actually on their side. That, or the thought of succeeding Maellas was tempting enough that he was willing to take them at their word. For now.

“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.