Gorinthians (55 page)

“
Does she know that we sent
them?” Sentina asked. She set her brush down, trying to hide the
trembling.

“
It wouldn’t take very much
reasoning to guess who was trying to kill Ferrich,” Denrik
admitted. “Especially now that Captain Kerns has rescinded the
order to have Ferrich brought back dead or alive."

“
What should I do?” Sentina
whispered. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“
It wouldn’t matter if you
did,” Denrik commented. “Morindessa would find you. I don’t foresee
my own life lasting much longer either.”

As Denrik finished his
sentence, Morindessa released a knot of air that she had set behind
his ear. There was a small detonation and Denrik fell to the floor
in a heap. Morindessa reached out with her
yar
and began changing the doors’
structure, until it looked like another piece of the wall. Furious
pounding from outside gave evidence of the guard’s efforts to enter
the room. Sentina was staring at where her door had been, her chest
heaving with deep breaths. She looked around the room like a
trapped rat and looked for her persecutor.

“
We need to discuss a few
things, Sentina,” Morindessa told the frightened princess, standing
several paces in front of her. Sentina stared at the air in front
of her where Morindessa’s voice was emanating from.

“
Morindessa?” Sentina’s
voice was barely a frightened whisper.

“
Yes. Morindessa,” the
dark-haired assassin confirmed in a deadly quiet voice. “We need to
discuss your next order to Denrik. I think that it would be wise to
cease any further efforts to murder your brother. The only reason
you are still alive is that he insisted that I let you
live.”

“
But he killed our father,”
Sentina whispered. “Why would he spare me?”

“
Your father died several
years ago,” Morindessa told her. “Your father’s body was possessed
by another spirit. The man you thought was your father was not even
killed by anyone that you know; but that is all beside the point.
Ferrich wants you to live because he wants nothing to do with
ruling the Southern Realms, and he doesn’t want to start a war
between the nobles with another succession.”

Sentina began weeping
softly. Morindessa was uncertain if it was in relief or something
else. “I didn’t want to kill him,” Sentina confessed after a
moment. “I was just afraid he would try to kill me. I didn’t think
that he would, but after news of my father’s death, I just didn’t
know.”

“
I am going to bring
Ferrich back here to the palace tonight,” Morindessa told her
coolly. “I would imagine you can explain things to him better than
you could to me. We will see you in the morning.”

“
Wait a minute!” Sentina
cried out. “There is still another assassin after Ferrich. You
didn’t leave him alone did you?”

“
He is in much more capable
hands than my own right now,” Morindessa assured her. Just the
same, Morindessa decided not to take any extra time
returning.

Moving over to the balcony,
Morindessa changed the wall back into a door and the guards crashed
through the door with their weapons drawn. Morindessa slipped over
the balcony rail, using her
yar
to hold her against the side of the tower as she
slid straight down. As she neared the ground, she increased the
pressure of her
yar
against the wall, bringing her plummet to a graceful
stop.

She moved quickly back
through the streets, half-jogging back to the Silver Swan. As she
neared the inn, she could feel Ferrich’s resonance burning brightly
from her room, as well as Riah’s and Jesha’s. She felt a wave of
relief wash over her. She had not doubted that Riah and Lochnar
could keep Ferrich safe, but there was always room for
accidents.

The common room was
completely empty now; the front desk had a small bell for late
arrivals to ring. She turned at the front desk and walked quickly
up the stairs to her bedroom. Riah opened the door before she
arrived, smiling out at her. Morindessa moved into the room to find
Ferrich sitting in one of the armchairs with a relieved expression
on his face.

“
How did it go?” Riah asked
her.

“
She said she would behave
herself now,” Morindessa informed them. “I told her we would stay
the remainder of the night in the palace, and then talk with her
tomorrow.” Morindessa suddenly noticed Lochnar was in the room as
well, sitting in the armchair at the far corner. “Was there any
trouble here? Sentina said there was still one more assassin on the
loose.”

“
There was one,” Riah said
calmly. “He tried to get close to Ferrich. He said he had a message
from you. Father appeared out of nowhere behind him and gave him an
extra orifice. His body is a couple of streets over.”

Chapter 30

Lendel stood on a small
patch of cloud and looked down at a large city far below him. He
knew that there was something odd about sitting on a cloud in the
sky, but he could not recall what. In the large city below were
strange flying objects, some of which carried people. Bright green
gardens peppered the entire city, giving one the idea the city had
grown out of the ground. The buildings within the city certainly
looked like no other buildings Lendel had ever seen. Many of the
buildings resembled large, knotted tree stumps with doors shaped
like knotholes on the sides. Green foliage covered other buildings.
This succeeded in completely hiding the fact that they were
buildings at all, except for the steady stream of people moving in
and out. A medium-sized lake in the center of the city was laced
with walkways that crisscrossed over the top of it. Small streams
emerged from the lake to trickle down throughout the city, like a
heart feeding the rest of the organism with lifeblood.

There was a relaxed, almost
reverent, quality about the city. The citizens walked through the
streets with none of the urgency that filled most cities. There
were no shops for clothing, food or any other items Lendel could
see from his lofty perch in the sky. Throughout the tranquil city,
he could see people talking in small groups, their faces filled
with varying degrees of interest.

Lendel could also sense
other beings with his
yar
, hundreds of them scattered
throughout the city. It took him a moment to realize they were
Gorinthians.

“
Salem, the City of Peace,”
a voice behind Lendel clarified.

Lendel turned around to face
the voice. A man garbed in a white robe sat behind him on a cloud
of his own. The man's clean-shaven face was untouched by the years.
His eyes were light brown, bordering on orange. He was gazing down
at the city with a fond look in his strange eyes.

“
Who are you?” Lendel
asked, not really knowing why he asked. He did not feel any real
curiosity. The question just seemed like a way to start a
conversation.

“
I am known by many names,”
the man replied with a smile. “What do you think of the City of
Peace?”

“
Why are there Gorinthians
all over?” Lendel asked with a small frown. Something about
Gorinthians seemed wrong, though he could not remember
what.

“
They are there to protect
the people from themselves,” the white-robed man said with another
flash of teeth. “When a person tries to rape or murder another
person, one of the Guardians will possess their body for a short
time. When the person has calmed down, the Guardian releases the
person. That way, there are no jails, no capital punishment and no
crime. We have simply taken away the option to commit
crimes.”

“
Guardians?” Lendel asked,
creasing his forehead in puzzlement. “I thought they were called
Gorinthians.”

“
That is what they are
now.” Orange-brown eyes twinkled at him as if at a joke. “Once,
they were known as Guardians and protectors of the people. That was
before an evil man with no regard for a human’s right to peace and
harmony did something terrible. He changed the Guardians so that
when they possessed a human’s body, they expelled the current
Spirit prematurely. After that, the Guardians had no purpose, no
reason to live. That is when they began their war on humans,
fighting for their right to a purpose.”

Lendel shook his head
dazedly. What the man said sounded right, but Lendel felt like
something was missing. It was as if his head had been stuffed in
wool. Thinking took almost too much energy. He slapped his arm
several times, hoping a little pain might induce more lucid
thought.

“
This was the only city of
its kind,” the white-robed man continued, seemingly unaware of
Lendel’s struggle. “The founders of this city wanted to prove to
the world that men could live in harmony, while still remaining
free. You see, when a person breaks a law in another city, they are
punished for it. That does not fix the wrong they committed. As
often as not, the person learns a few more bad habits from others
like himself. Many of the people that commit crimes for their first
time are good people who are just slightly out of harmony with
society. By taking the choice away from these men to murder an
innocent, we not only save the would-be-victim, we also save the
would-be-criminal.”

“
But these people have no
freedom,” Lendel insisted. “They have lost their right to a
choice.”

“
Not true,” the man smiled
widely. “They have every right to decide what they want to wear,
what they want to study, where they want to live. They have the
same choices any citizen has who obeys the law. They also have the
right to choose to murder or rape someone. They just lack the
ability.”

“
If it was so perfect, why
didn’t more people support it?” Lendel was not sure if he was
asking the right questions. He felt like he was being force-fed
everything he said.

“
Indeed why?” The other man
stared down at the beautiful city with a sad smile on his face.
“Politics is a weapon for the powerful to make the many feel like
they are in control. When other cities saw how prosperous Salem had
become, they grew jealous. This jealousy made it easy for other men
to convince these cities that The City of Peace posed a threat to
their own freedom. The rulers of the great cities of the world
united against Salem, killing every man, woman, and child who would
not renounce their belief in the City of Peace. These citizens were
killed because they said they would rather die than live in the
barbaric world of the past.”

Lendel mulled the
information over, trying to find the reason his mind kept shouting
out that this was wrong. “I think there is something wrong with the
idea of taking away any of a person’s freedom, even the ability to
choose wrong.”

The other man shook his head
with a sigh. “You are just not getting it, are you? You are trying
to protect the right of a person to rape and murder. If your sister
was a victim of a rapist's disgusting appetites, would you still
believe in that person's inherent right to choose to rape? Or
murder? I understand your desire to protect a person’s right to
happiness and well-being, but restricting a person’s right to
heinous acts of aggression is not an infringement on those rights.
It is a protection of those rights.”

Lendel nodded slowly. It did
seem to make sense. He had never really thought about it in that
light. Why should he protect a person’s right to rape or murder?
“Why are you telling me all of this?” Lendel had no idea where that
question came from.

“
Because one day, you might
find yourself on the side that advocates the criminal’s right to
oppress,” the white-robed man said seriously. “Remember there are
those who still want to bring back Salem, the City of Peace.
Remember and act according to what you know is right.”

“
Are you going to sleep all
day?” a light voice inquired from somewhere above him.

Lendel looked up, and
suddenly the world around him receded and Cha’le’s innocent face
appeared above him, smiling mischievously. Lendel slowly sat up,
taking a deep breath. “I need to talk to Thistledown.”

“
What’s the matter?” Cha’le
asked in concern. “You look like you just saw your own
grave.”

“
I'm not sure,” Lendel
lied. “I just need to ask him a few questions.”

“
Did you have another bad
dream?” Cha’le asked sympathetically. Her large blue eyes made it
hard for Lendel to concentrate.

“
Maybe bad,” Lendel
muttered softly, “maybe good. We’ll see what Thistledown has to
say.”

Standing up, Lendel blushed
as he realized that he was still in his smallclothes. Cha’le had a
small smile curving her lips as she appraised him. He hurriedly
pulled some black trousers out of the large wardrobe next to his
bed and tugged them on, almost tripping as he jumped into them. As
he hurriedly reached for a dark wool shirt, a hand slapped his
away.

“
Not that color I don’t
think,” Cha’le told him, studying his wardrobe. “This
one.”

She pulled a white silk
shirt with black scrollwork lining the cuffs and neck. Lendel
stared at it with instant loathing. “People will think I am a
girl!” Lendel protested weakly. “
I
will think I am a girl if I put that thing
on.”