Chapter Fifty-One

Speranzi didn’t see or hear or feel a thing, the whole world was a fog as the faith she held in the innate goodness of man was burned out of her mind. She remained in this fog until another woman’s voice pierced her ears, “Mistress! You’re killing him!”

That snapped her out of the fog and she saw clearly for the first time. Corwin Amber was gurgling with desperate urgency, his fat fingers clawing at her hand.

“You knew!” Speranzi roared and released him, he fell with a heavy thud, “You knew!” She yelled again as he gasped, hacked, and coughed.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the similarly nearly naked elf woman who, catching Speranzi’s eyes, turned with a scream and ran to the corner of a room, her strip of sheer cloth was turquoise colored and because of that, it did even less to hide her intimate flesh than Illyana’s, she curled up in a ball in the corner and shielded her eyes from the monster that was Speranzi Jadara.

The sick feeling in Speranzi’s gut roiled further, “I always thought of you as a good man! The best of men! But you let us come into this place… you’ve been here before! Were you about to hurt that one?!” Speranzi leveled her accusing finger at the elf in the corner.

Corwin hacked and coughed even more in answer, rising from his ass to get up to his knees before slumping forward and catching himself, he vomited at Speranzi’s feet, splashing her boots with much of his last meal.

“How could you bring us here?! How could you-” Speranzi began, but he managed an answer in the form of a shout of his own.

“I didn’t! I have to do what my uncle says… at least as far as coming here! I hate this! I hate all of this…” He spat some of the acrid vomit juices off of his tongue and down onto the floor. “Didn’t I tell you that your belief would not last through this city… the slave trade is not just a way to give the unchosen of the gods a place in the world… not some act of kindness… it’s worse than nobles and peasants, rich and poor… it’s ‘people and ‘not people’...”

Speranzi stood statue still as he pushed himself up, wobbly as he was, to his knees.

“Tonight… like every night… there will be phony moans in some rooms, blood in others… pain in them all… and then tomorrow all those who caused all that pain will enter the temples and praise the gods for their blessings and thank those gods for choosing us to stand atop the world. And while they’re all praying and chanting and listening to the priests… ones like her, “he gestured to the woman who was whimpering in the corner, “will be downstairs in the lower levels being healed by the magic caster here, and doing what they can to help each other through another day while they wait for the night to come again.” Corwin wiped the spittle from his face and beard and said, “That’s how it is, I haven’t done anything… I can’t… like you said, I’m soft, I hate this place. This city… the gods of men…”

“Then why haven’t you fought back!” Speranzi snapped, and instantly she felt regret slam into her like a punch to the gut as the fat, middle aged merchant began to quietly cry.

“I’m a coward…alright! A coward! I don’t have the will to fight! I’m weak! I’m fat! I do the little things I can… occasionally getting a slave out without catching anybody’s eyes… but that’s all… nobody who can fight, wants to… not even you.” Corwin said, and she felt her knees grow weak as his answer came like another punch to her gut.

“I’m… a paladin.” She whispered it like a protest, but it was a reminder. “The gods are all I have…” She looked over at the quivering elf, even if Corwin had no intention of using her, they would be leaving soon.

And when they left?

‘It means I’ll be leaving them to a horrific fate… bad enough what happens when a siege ends… but a lifetime of it? A hundred years… more?’ As she tried to comprehend it, and that the very faith she’d spent her life defending was not only supportive of this, but worse, in a holy city…

‘I brought captured elves back here… I believed… and…’ She didn’t realize she was about to vomit until it was already under way.

She doubled over and hurled out her disgust onto the same pile created by Corwin a moment earlier.

“No… I won’t allow this. I won’t!” Speranzi snarled. “This can’t be what the gods I serve would allow! And I’ll prove it! I’ll show this whole city, everyone… that this violates the will of the gods!”

Corwin’s hand wavered as he searched for something to hold on to until he found the end table and slowly pushed himself up to his unsteady feet. “How will you do that?” He immediately regretted asking, as he could see the answer on Speranzi’s face.

“The same as I was going to do already. Trial by combat. I’ll put the whole doctrine on trial if I have to! They may not be human… or…” she stopped herself before she said ‘chosen of the gods’ and then repeated, “they may not be human… but they’re obviously people…” Speranzi’s eyes narrowed in their focus as she looked at the wobbly body of Corwin Amber, the bruise around his neck was already taking shape.

She bowed her head, “My apologies. You were the only one to try to warn me… tried to tell me… and look what I’ve done to you. I ask that you forgive me, but if you will not, I understand.”

“I’ve never been so unjustly ‘justly’ attacked in my life…” Corwin managed to form a weak smile on his face, “But do you really think you can win against the one who sealed the God of Demons… do you even know who you’d have to fight?”

“Yes. I worked for her once, a long time ago. She definitely has divine blood, even if it isn’t ‘awakened’ she’s still formidable. But I will call on the gods themselves for my power, as she did when she sealed Damaxa away.” Speranzi closed her eyes as she felt the mana coursing through her body. “My geas was made for the sake of my faith, my belief that the gods are just above all… we may have corrupted their teachings. But they will aid me in my hour of need. After all, I made a vow in their name, to win a soul to their will.”

Corwin could only put his hands on her shoulders and whisper, “I beg you, don’t do this. I can buy some more slaves… we don’t have to say a word about the ones we’ve brought with us, we can set them free at the border of the Divine Kingdom, there are places where they can sneak over and make their way home.”

It was the wrong thing to say. “The Divine Kingdom… yes… if this can happen here, what’s happening there…?” The more she thought, the more Speranzi’s eyes opened to the horrific possibilities.

“On the way in, I heard a scream.” Speranzi said, it wasn’t exactly a question.

It didn’t need to be. “It could be any number of things. Crucifixion, whipping, even humans aren’t immune to cruelty if they break the law. If you walk the streets with clear eyes in the early hours of the day, you’ll see humans in silver manacles. They’re the human convicts, you may also see some of the older elves wearing iron. Both will be cleaning the streets or setting up shop, performing their obligations… but screams are more common than bardsong here.” He shook his head, “I… I look at the ground a lot here. I just want to get out, to go home…”

Speranzi raised her head, “I need to see for myself. And I won’t be looking down while I do it.”