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.

"He refused to say when. I didn't ask where. The accusation is enough for a kirk elder to charge a harlot. But let me remind you all," Culpepper said, his voice rising, looking past me at the crowd, "lest we doubt, the whole town saw her dance. At the last sun-day, the early thaw celebration, she wore pants and boots, dressed like a man, her body posed to entice. The mage danced before us all, a public spectacle. She moves like a harlot. We all saw!"

He was right. Well, sorta. Along with half the women present, I had worn jeans and boots to the town's early thaw gathering, where Audric and I had competed in the dancing, beating the band and winning a wager. The whole town knew that. It was fact, and one fact, even an unrelated one, added corroboration to accusations. Though there was no law against a woman in pants, and never had been, the observation was calculated to appeal to the orthodox.

"Will the accuser come forward for questioning?" Audric asked.

"No. I will not break the seal of the confessional for a mage and I'll not have him traumatized again. It's my right to bring charges and to testify for an underage youth."

Audric shrugged a huge shoulder, his cloak moving as if with a hard breeze. "We request that the charge be dismissed."

Culpepper darted a glance into the crowd and smiled, showing teeth. I really didn't like the look of that smile.

"What grounds?" Waldroup asked.

"The crime is hearsay. No dates for the alleged offense have been offered, no accusers have come forward." He looked at Culpepper. "The charge is gossip. And gossip is a sin," Audric said, "punishable by branding."

"He has a point," Waldroup said.

"As you wish. We have other accusers," Culpepper said, satisfied. The expression on his face said he wasn't surprised to have his first accusation thrown out. He had come prepared and had multiple legal assaults at the ready. I figured there was a witch-catcher under his chair too, for use if I was pronounced guilty. If humans took an unprepared mage, they would win, humans having much greater muscle mass than mages. But I wasn't unprepared. Culpepper didn't seem to know what that meant in terms of winning and losing a confrontation. Of course, if I fought, caught on camera, public opinion would crucify me. And not just me, but all mages. Even if I won, I lost. Maybe the elder was counting on that.

The elder slid a paper to Shamus. On it was a list of names. I would have bet the store that the accusers were orthodox. The orthodox wanted women in long wool dresses, unrelieved black, and ugly as sin. They wanted their women quiet and soft-spoken, chaste and dull, and to walk behind their men and masters. I wore slacks, leggings, and bright colors. I was a divorcee. And a mage.

"Call your witnesses," Audric said. He glared at a bailiff. "Get the accused a chair."

The bailiff looked at Culpepper, who inclined his head. The exchange was caught by Waldroup, who sat back, the shock on his face quickly masked. He stared at Culpepper for a long moment before turning his attention to the rest of the town fathers, as if contemplating a new reality. His gaze settled on the judges who were obviously siding with Culpepper. There had been a shift in the political climate and Shamus recognized he was on the outside.

I was offered a chair at the head of the platform, facing the assembly. I stepped over my cloak and approached the seat as if it were a throne offered to a queen. Before I sat, Rupert lifted my cloak from the floor and settled it with a flourish on the seat. The red silk lining picked up the radiance from my skin and glowed like a jewel. I let Rupert adjust the cloak for warmth in the unheated room and I rested the walking stick across my lap.

I could smell the assembled with both nose and that related mage-sense, the mind-skim. The human smells were sweat and the reek of unwashed bodies, leather, perfume, and moonshine. Beneath them seeped excitement and fear. Humans were beautiful in mage-sight, with the soft glow of life, the auras they carried - all except Audric, whose half-mage attributes rested beneath an oddly lifeless human glamour. I could pierce it if I wanted, and see him as he really was, but I didn't bother. As I watched, two more brown-robed bailiffs came in from the cold, bringing the total to five.

Rupert stood to my right, between the guards and my chair. Audric crossed the room and took up a stance beside the nearest bailiff. The guards didn't like that, but there wasn't much they could do if Waldroup allowed it. The tiny baker seemed disposed to allow the accused and her champards a lot of leniency at the moment.

Waldroup read the first name and called out, "Will Amos Ramps come forward and take the witness seat?"

An old man in black shambled forward, climbed the steps, and sat in a chair to the far right of the long table occupied by the fathers. "Swear him in, Tobitt," Waldroup directed the first bailiff.

Whispers swept the gathering and Amos' head came up fast. "Ain't no one said nothing about no swearing in. I was jist s'pposed to say my piece and go."

"I think we'll do this a bit more formal than usual. Swear him," Waldroup said. Culpepper's eyes narrowed and he sat back in his chair.

A look of alarm crossed Amos' face as Tobitt held a black leather-bound Bible to him. "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help the Most High and all the seraphs?" the guard asked.

Amos looked from the Bible to the table of erstwhile judges and gulped, saying, "I do."

"What do you know regarding the charges brought against the neomage Thorn St. Croix?" Waldroup asked.

Amos tugged on his collar. "I heard - "

"Objection," Audric said.

"Sustained," Waldroup said. "What do you know? Not guess, or suppose, deduce, or assume. Not what you mighta heard. What do you know? And be careful, Amos. I'm the senior judge here, no matter what some others might believe. If I think you're making something up, I'll toss you in the pokey so fast your head'll spin off and take flight."

Amos blanched, looked for help at the table, and when none was forthcoming searched the crowd. "Mabel?"

"Your wife can speak on her own if she's got something to say. What do you know about the accused?"

Amos gulped again, looked at the Bible now sitting on the edge of the long table, and dropped his head. Since the seraphs came, people who lied on the witness stand had been known to drop dead. Not often, but once was too many times. "Nothing."

"Would the witness please speak up?" Audric asked.

Amos shrunk lower in his chair. "Nothing."

"Fine." Shamus banged his gavel. "The witness is dismissed. Mabel, you got anything to say? If so, get on up here, swear the words, and say it."

"Just that she's a whore. All mages are whores. We all know that." Every head swiveled to locate Mabel. The TV cameraman maneuvered and focused tight on her face.

"Yeah!" another voice yelled. "Hang the mage!"

"Let me have her first for a while," a third voice shouted. "I'll show her how we treat mage whores in Mineral City."

"They have sex in the streets," Mabel called out, "tempting man and seraph both, leading immoral, licentious lives. Orgies and - "

Shamus banged his gavel so hard I feared it would come apart, but Mabel just raised her voice.

" - wild parties, and drunken revels. Dancing with her clothes off." Someone whistled a cat-call. General laughter filled the hall. "Sinning and carousing and - "

"Guards, escort both the Ramps out, and take Mabel down to the jail. Gag her if necessary," Shamus shouted over the sound of Mabel's rhetoric, the clamor of the crowd, and his own rapping gavel. The two robed guards wearing Tasers and billy clubs waded into the crowd. One with a gun at his waist lifted Amos beneath one arm and assisted him off the stand and toward the cold. The number of opposing weapons in the room was cut in half.

"And if anyone else thinks they can flaut this court by speaking outta turn, or speaking opinion or gossip, think again. I'll have you in the jail in two seconds flat. You can spend the night in a cell next to Mabel there." The crowd roared with laughter as Mabel's tirade was cut off in mid-accusation, a gag stuck between her lips and a length of duct tape slapped on. She windmilled her arms, landing a solid thunk on Tobitt's head before she was cuffed.

Watching the men on the bench with him rather than the action on the floor, Shamus said, "I take my responsibility to the edicts of the High Council of the Seraphim very serious and everyone gathered here better take it serious too.

"Guards, when you get back from locking Mabel up, I want one of you at the front of the meeting hall and one at the back doors. If anyone opens his or her mouth out of turn, arrest 'em." The gavel banged again. "Anyone got anything specific to say about the accused?" When a hand was raised in the back of the hall, Shamus said, "The court recognizes Ken Schmidt. Come on up and get sweared in, Ken."

Schmidt was a miner who occasionally sold some fine quartz crystal to Thorn's Gems, specimens he had strip-mined from his claim near the old feldspar mine. A big man, he was bearded, with cold-reddened hands and a lumbering gait. We had dated once not long after my divorce. The blind date had been arranged by Rupert and Jacey, and had been a dismal failure. I had no idea if he would speak for me or against me, and from the look on Culpepper's face, half wild hope, half angry despair, neither did he.

Wearing rough clothes that looked as if he'd come straight from his claim, Ken sat, making the chair squeak, and was sworn in by the remaining guard. Waldroup said, "Say your name and address, and speak your piece."

"Kenneth Schmidt. I'm a miner. Got no mailing address, but I got a claim, duly registered with the claims office. I pay my taxes. I go to kirk every single meeting when I'm in town or when the weather allows me to trek in. I dated Thorn St. Croix once." A buzz started in the room. Ken looked at me from under bushy brows. "I been looking for a wife, long time now. I got a good claim, I make good money, and I can provide for a woman and kids." His heart was in his eyes, his whole soul there for me and the crowd to see. Ken Schmidt was in love with me, or thought he was. And he intended to save me.

"We went to dinner at the Blue Snail. She had a salad and I had the spaghetti. And then I took her home."

"Did the accused at any time try to seduce you? Or indulge in inappropriate behavior, actions not suitable to a chaste and virtuous woman?" Shamus asked.

"No, sir. She was perfectly, well, perfect. Just the kind of woman a man would want to take as wife. Honest. Kind, too. When I asked to see her again, she said it wouldn't work out between us. She let me down all gentle like. And that's all I got to say."

The next witness wasn't so kind. I recognized him as a fiddler, one of the town's musicians who played at early thaw feast days and holidays. One of the musicians who had played for the dancing Audric and I had won. And he had lost.

When he had been through all the preliminaries, Eugene looked at me, met my eyes, and lied. "She and me been having an affair. She won't let me alone. Calls me, comes to my door and window at night, climbs in bed with me and has her way. I'm ashamed and need to confess, need to clear the air and find a way to get free of her immoral hold on me. I want her locked up. That's all I got to say," he echoed Ken's closing words.

"When did the accused last come to you?" Audric asked.

"This morning just after dawn."

Audric looked at the bench. "May I address the senior judge as a witness?" Shamus' brows rose toward his bald pate, but he gestured permission. "As a baker, you must rise every day at dawn. Do you look outside?"

Shamus nodded. "Check the weather, just like every businessman who depends on people being out and about. Bad weather, we get less customers, so we make less bread. Why you asking?"

"Your bakery is across the street from Thorn's Gems. This morning when you looked out, were lights on above the shop?"

Shamus scratched his bony chin. "Reckon they were."

"And could you see in the windows?"

"No, can't see in from the street, what with the porch over the walkway. But come to think of it, there might coulda been some shadows moving. Why?"

"The witness lies. Thorn St. Croix and I were practicing savage-chi and savage-blade from before dawn until eight o'clock. You saw the evidence of that movement in her windows yourself proving she was at home, not in the witness' bed."

Shamus stared from Audric to me to the man on the witness seat. When he spoke, his voice was too low to carry off the dais. "Eugene. You want to reconsider your accusation?"

Red-faced and uncertain, Eugene pulled on his collar as if it was too tight. "Well, maybe it wasn't this morning."

"Some sweet young thing crawls in your bed and you don't remember when? I don't think so. Recant, or I'll think you need some time to reflect. Maybe a long time to reflect."

Eugene's breathing had sped up and a slight sheen of sweat beaded his face. When he looked at me, something malevolent swam in the depths of his eyes. "She's a mage. Mages are all whores." Voice filled with revulsion, he said, "She's evil. She's a temptress."

"But she didn't come to your bed?" Shamus, the chairman and chief judge, clarified.

"No. I guess she didn't. But she tempts a man. Just having her in this town is a cause for immoral thoughts for every man and boy. She's a wh - "

The gavel banged as Shamus cut him off, his face darkening, his dark-skinned knuckles pale on the wooden hammer. "That's enough. Guards, escort him to the jail." Two bailiffs lifted the witness by his arms and shuffled him off the stage. "Maybe a few days in a cell will convince you of the error of bearing false witness to this court, Eugene. And you're lucky the seraphs didn't strike you dead for lying."

"Well, I got something to say," a voice called from the back of the room.

"The court recognizes Derek Culpepper," Shamus said. "Come on up, son. And to prevent any conflict of interest or unethical proceedings, I'm sure the elder Culpepper will agree to remain impartial, and not vote his opinion on any evidence brought before this bench by his son. Elder?"

The elder didn't look as if he thought that was a good idea at all, but a quick glance at the camera convinced him of the futility of argument. Culpepper jerked his head with ill grace as his son bounded up the stairs to the witness stand. Derek was a flamboyant businessman, partial to vivid-colored clothing, a man with more money than taste. Today he was dressed in a gray wool suit with a tiny yellow pin-stripe, a cranberry-toned overcoat, and a purple shirt. His tie was a bright spring green. And his shoes were orange leather. It nearly hurt to look at him.

Holding to both chair arms, I opened a skim and my sight together. The world reeled and tottered like a top around me. Gorge rose in the back of my throat. The otherness of the blended scan stole my breath, but I saw what I needed to see. I released both senses.

As Derek took the witness seat and was sworn in, I lifted a finger, attracting Audric's attention. When the big man bent almost in two, I said into his ear, "Get him to say if he hates mages. And if he does, make him empty his pockets."

Audric turned a curious eye to me, but I offered no explanation.

Derek accused me of inviting him to my loft, drugging, and then seducing him. I didn't bother to hide my grin at his words. Even if I'd been in heat, a condition that had been known to cause mages to mate with a reckless lack of inhibition, even across species, I'd have had better taste than to choose Derek. A couple of women in the crowd must have agreed, because a titter rippled through them at my smile.

I didn't bother to listen to the dates and times Derek offered, occasions when I had my lascivious way with him. I just stared at his left overcoat pocket, waiting. When he finally fell silent, Audric said, "Are mages and their conjures a danger to the human population?"

"Yes. They should be wiped from the face of the earth. The Mage War was proof of that. The US military tried to destroy them, over eighty years ago, and would have if they hadn't been attacked by magic and annihilated." The crowd murmured uneasily and I could feel the weight of human eyes. "The nuclear weapon that was aimed at the mages would have left the Earth a clean and chaste place, worthy of the Most High. Now, because they're still here, still polluting the face of the world that the Lord hath made, God the Victorious won't come and finish the cleansing that was the apocalypse."

That was a new one. I'd heard all sorts of reasons for killing mages, but never a claim that mages were keeping the Most High from coming to earth.

It was an accusation I couldn't answer, an allegation that was pure prejudice. The end of the world hadn't been exactly what the ancient prophets had been expecting. There had been seraphs, winged beings with swords who appeared in every major city in the world. There had been plagues and wars and rumors of wars. Most of the population had died.

But to the consternation of Christians and Jews, there hadn't yet been a rapture or a messianic appearance. The Muslims had been devastated to discover that other religious believers had survived too. Only nine hundred people in Utah had lived through the plagues. The Hindu messiah, the Kalki Avatar, hadn't come. Most telling, the Most High had not yet appeared, though smart people never said so aloud. People with big mouths had been known to drop dead when making that observation. Derek Culpepper, gloating and satisfied, left the dais.

An accused had the right to speak, and because Derek hadn't asked a question, I didn't have to answer one. I could, however, speak to the prejudice, and to the fatal altercation between a handful of mages and an entire army. The Mage War was taught to every mage child from the cradle up. It wasn't taught quite the same way in human schools. Truth, the tourmaline ring whispered. Use only truth.