Faith Hunter - Seraphs

Heart racing, I caught myself on the judgment desk, drawing on my amulets. Unexpectedly, the tourmaline ring answered, saturating my system with unfamiliar power. Battle-lust rose up, tempered by the strange energies of the ring-shaped visa. Tactics I hadn’t considered presented themselves to me, gifts of the ring of the seraphs, help I hadn’t known was available. My mind separated out one strategy, a line of attack with myriad possible outcomes. Image. Around me, men were still drawing weapons.

Choosing the tactic almost at leisure, I dropped my cloak to the floor with a shrug. Before it puddled at my feet, before the bells on my skirt had time to sound, I drew my blade and threw up a hand. I shouted, “No!” The word roared, amplified, so loud it hammered the walls. My mage-sight flared on, the room and everyone in it radiating with energy. My neomage attributes blazed, skin glowing. All movement stopped. The echo of my command died. Every eye in the building was on me, my back to the crowd, my sword extended.

My long blade was poised at Elder Culpepper’s throat. He grunted softly, his wide eyes ensnared by mine. Fear, hatred, and fury merged there. I eased the blade tip back an inch. My heart thudded in my ears. Slowly, I lowered the hand that stretched to the ceiling, far overhead. I had thought the stone ring was a dead political tool. I hadn’t known it possessed any strength except that of governmental and legal protection. Hadn’t known it was a diplomatic library and an amulet of power I could draw upon as I had with my voice just now. Clearly I had a lot to learn, but I didn’t have time to think about all that. My skin was blazing. And I was holding a sword to the throat of an elder. Oops.

Stunned, Shamus Waldroup’s eyes attracted mine. He shook his head slightly. With one look, I gleaned that whatever had been set in motion today, it hadn’t been planned by the council. My eyes flicked back to Culpepper and my lip curled. Not the entire council. I swallowed, throat dry and burning in the aftermath of my shout. My fingers, shaking and cold, brushed the donut-shaped talisman, making certain it was still attached to the amulet necklace. Following the basic strategy I had gleaned from it, I shifted my sword to my left hand and turned, so my back was no longer to the crowd, facing the audience, head high. Allowing the town to view a neomage, the way the plagues and the sins of humans made us.

Speaking softly as I turned, I said to Waldroup, “I was called here today to hear charges against me. Read them.”

“Put away the weapon,” he whispered, his eyes on my hand and the blade. “Please.”

The hilt, the prime amulet, was almost hot in my palm. The skin of my hand was bright, white scars blistering, my body luminous. Reacting to the strategy found in the tourmaline visa, I had drawn on every amulet I was wearing. In the wash of their energies, I was shimmering, slightly drunk on the mix of power swarming into my blood. I thought about muting my attributes, but it was a bit late for that. And maybe the gracious “please” was a start to rational negotiations. With a decisive flourish, I sheathed my blade in the walking stick, the motion jingling my skirt bells.

Relief flooded Waldroup’s face and he banged the gavel. “You guards get back over there against the wall. You two champards put them swords away. We ain’t gone have no violence here today.” When no one moved, he banged the gavel again. “You heard me. Do what I said, all a you, or stand in contempt a court.”

The guards holstered their guns and stepped back one pace. Audric and Rupert hesitated a long moment before resheathing their blades. The sound of steel on leather was supple, threatening. The guards retreated two more steps, widening a circle that had tightened around us. The testosterone was so thick I could taste it on the air.

As I repositioned, I caught sight of the TV camera at knee height on the edge of the platform. The news crew had mounted the dais. Fury still twisted Elder Culpepper’s face. A quick look confirmed two others at the long table had been prepared for aggression. I thought there might be weapons beneath their jackets. I didn’t know Culpepper’s cronies, but I’d remember them, and so would the camera lens panning the bench. Of the remaining four judges, Shamus and one other were for me, it was clear. The other two had poker faces and were impossible to interpret. “Read the charges,” I said again, hoping a return to procedure would restore the peace.

Shamus shook a sheet of paper, the rattle carrying in the too-quiet church. “It has been brought to the attention of a kirk elder that the licensed mage in Mineral City, Thorn St. Croix Stanhope, has indulged in debauchery, decadence, and dissipation, leading our town’s human males into immoral and iniquitous behavior.” The accusation seemed to bounce off the church walls, a bright, harsh sound.

“Thorn?” Jacey called from the crowd, disbelieving. The camera swiveled to focus on my friend as she stood with an expression of disbelief. In the sea of black clothing her red dress and emeralds shimmered. “ Our Thorn?” The pronoun seemed to say several things at once: that I was one of them, that I was innocent, that I belonged to the town, that the accusation was ludicrous and everyone knew it, that I was a jewelry maker and a prosperous one at that. Jacey laughed, the sound infectious. Several others laughed with her. The level of antagonism in the room plunged. I could have kissed her.

“Sit down. When the judges want comments from the crowd, we’ll ask for them,” Waldroup said. Jacey sat, a confident smile on her face. I was pretty sure the camera loved it.

“When and with which men?” Audric asked. “What evidence is to be presented? And when can the defense question the accusers?”

Shamus scratched his head, gazing at the cameraman, who was repositioning to sight along the bench. I was sure he rued letting in the crew for the meeting. Mineral City was now hot news. If things got out of hand, the town fathers would have an image problem no matter which way things worked out. Image, the visa had suggested to me, a hypothesis and proposal with the greatest likelihood of success. Which meant the visa was an interactive amulet. If it had been alive it would have been purring with pride. As it was, I felt its distinct feeling of smug satisfaction. It was disconcerting. I wasn’t sure I liked it.

“This ain’t no big city court like they got in Raleigh or Atlanta or Mobile,” Shamus said. “We mostly mediate minor stuff here.” He was explaining for the media. Damage control. I took a breath, the first full one in minutes, and stopped a smile before it lit my face. “As to crimes, if someone’s guilty, they confess and we punish them. Big crimes, federal stuff, goes to the district court in Asheville. We ain’t had a federal crime in over twenty-five years. We just usually read the charges and talk it through.”

“The licensed neomage has been called before a legal court,” Audric said. “Specific charges? Witnesses?”

“That would be me,” Culpepper said. His rage mutated into something colder as his gaze raked me, pausing at my breasts, pushed up by my mage-shirt. He thought he had me, and surely had my punishments designed and arranged, and he didn’t care if the television camera saw it all on his face. My breathing sped up and I worked to appear unmoved, even as I slid my thumb across the release on my walking stick to make certain my blade was still free. Culpepper raised his voice. “I heard the confession of a twelve-year-old boy who was seduced by her wicked dancing and led into lewd and lascivious behavior.”

“Who, where, and when?” Audric asked.