The Armies of Daylight - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,103

suppressed screams.

The white light pouring into the shadows of the Bishop's cowl outlined high, hard cheekbones and threw into prominence the sudden blackness of the grooves that bracketed the full, ungiving lips. "My lord King," she greeted him stiffly.

Eldor turned his head, scanning the room, taking in every detail of that chill, hushed tribunal. The light of the glow-stones caught the sheen of the black leather mask, puckered grotesquely with the draw of his breath. Behind the eye slits lay only a horrible, enigmatic darkness.

"My lady Queen tells me that you hold court."

Rudy bowed his head, weak with sudden relief. Trust Gil , he thought, to know to whom to go and what to say .

The rasping voice went on. "It seems that the invitation that you must surely have sent to do capital justice in my own Realm has miscarried, for I received none."

Govannin raised her head, her words bitter and harsh. "Since the days of your grandfather Dorilagos, it has been given to the Church to do its own justice."

Eldor linked his hands behind his back, the scarred mess of the left winding like some red, knobby growth around the strong, slender whiteness of the right. The mask rippled as his head turned, pulsing slightly as he spoke again. "Are these, then, the Church's own?"

"They are heretics," Pinard's deep voice replied, "as you know, my lord. They are seducers of innocence. To have truck with them is to share their crime."

Rudy guessed dizzily that the words probably referred to Ingold's metaphysical seduction of Brother Wend, but he could see the King's broad, flat shoulders stiffen and he felt the mad gaze brush him like the tip of a soldering iron.

Govannin went on slowly. "This is a new age, my lord King. The hope of salvation through wizardry has perished, and with it many good warriors of this Keep. The might of the Church shall work for the salvation of those who are left, whether they will it or no. We will not be stopped from this."

The shrill edge of Eldor's voice cut the air like a flint knife. "Nor will I have the Church passing sentence of death or of anything else without my knowledge, my lady Bishop. However many warriors you may have been lent by the Emperor of Alketch, however much he would like to establish his rule and his pet Inquisition in the North, I am still the Lord of the Keep of Dare, and justice and the power of life and death are mine and mine only. Whoso does not recognize that power in me is a traitor to me, to the Keep, and to humankind. Do you understand?"

Within her cowl, the Bishop's face was white and rigid with fury. She spat the words at him. "Do you, then, ally yourself with these-traitors? Traitors to God and to humankind, whose defenses they have murdered-and to you?"

"My lady," Eldor said softly, "to whom I ally myself and why I choose to do the justice that I do are none of your concern."

"They are my concern where they touch the Church!" she shrieked.

"But as these are all excommunicates, they are outside the realm of the Church entirely, are they not?"

He might be mad , Rudy thought, but you get him into the kind of Church-State hassle that Gil seems to understand so well, and he can handle himself better than a sane Alwir ever did .

"Don't chop logic with me, my lord!" She strode forward, and for all her small size, against the gold haze of the torches, she seemed suddenly taller, a dark, thin spider in an aura of flame, holding the center of a steel web of Faith that stretched throughout the Keep. "You are master of their bodies and their lives, but I am the master of their souls. I have said that these here are damned and have passed sentence of death upon them. Will you go against that and let them free to do what evil they will? It is because of their doing, my lord, that you wear a mask today."

The silence that followed these words was so long, so intense, that Rudy could have sworn that everyone in the room could hear the hammering of his heart. He sensed Eldor's gaze upon him again and his soul twisted, like a beetle trapped under the concentrated glare of a burning glass. He felt that his guilt stood out all over him, like the sweat that trickled down his face. The