destroy us otherwise have miserably failed! And now this one is dead, and they have lost their ties to the Jhesta Tu. Yet another blow to the army of the pitiful Dragon of To-gai!"
Pagonel Wad no strength to argue as the cheers went up about Yakim Douan, so he fell within himself, trying again to gather his life energy, trying merely to keep some bit of consciousness.
He did hear the Chezhou-Lei warrior ask Yakim Douan if the prisoner should be hung publicly, or burned, and was not surprised when the Chezru Chieftain told his warrior to finish Pagonel then and there.
And the mystic couldn't begin to stop the blow. He tried to open his eyes, wanting to look into the eyes of the man who would end his life.
"Wait!" came a cry from somewhere in the back. ?Hold your weapons and your judgment!"
Pagonel did open his eyes then, to see Merwan Ma rushing down the long stairway behind Yakim Douan, a magnificently decorated chalice in his hand.
Yakim Douan worked very hard to keep his expression stoic as he watched the traitorous Shepherd rush down the stairs, bearing the damning chalice.
It took him a moment to steady himself, to try to play through this potential disaster - and in that moment, Merwan Ma was not silent.
"He hides the stone - he has hidden the stone for centuries!" He reached into the bloody chalice and pulled forth the gemstone, then tossed the cere-monial cup aside. ?In here!"
Gasps arose all around him, but Yakim Douan held his calm and motioned to the side, to a bank of archers.
"It is all a lie!" Merwan Ma cried. ?Transcendence is a trick and no mira-cle." He ended with the air blasted from his lungs, as arrow after arrow bored into him.
He was sitting then, though he knew not how, and knew not why, whis-pering, ?A lie," over and over again, And then Yakim Douan was there before him, reaching down.
"God-Voice," the confused and dying man gasped.
Douan pulled the hematite from him and walked away.
"How clever!" the Chezru Chieftain shouted. ?Look at the conspiracy that our enemies have created about us!
Give them credit, my friends."
"Was that not Merwan Ma, your former attendant?" asked one of the vis-iting Yatols.
"It was," answered Mado Wadon, who had served beside Merwan Ma for so many years.
"Obviously fallen traitor to us for the cause of our enemies," said Douan.
"But he was murdered, in Dharyan!" cried another.
Yakim Douan held his smile and held his calm. This one wasn't going to be easy to wriggle out of, he realized, but he knew that delay was on his side. Soon enough, reports of the fall of the Dragon of To-gai would flood in, and his people would be more receptive to whatever explanation he offered.
"It is a puzzling riddle," he said. ?But one that we will unravel, I assure you."
"And what of the stone?" asked Mado Wadon.
Yakim Douan fixed the man, the Yatol who would obviously succeed him if not for Transcendence, with a hateful glower. ?It is a gemstone, a hematite, I believe."
"What the Abellicans call a soul stone," another offered, suspicion evi-dent in his voice.
"Why, of course," said Douan. ?Else their little ploy would have been for naught. I will summon Master Mackaront of Entel in the morning and pre-sent it to him."
It pained Pagonel greatly to see Merwan Ma slump down on the stairs, so perfectly still that the mystic knew that his friend had died.
The warriors holding him had relaxed their grip as they, along with the Chezhou-Lei who was supposed to deliver the killing blow, stood and stared dumbfounded at the surprising events about them.
Pagonel weighed the reaction as much as he could. He heard the buzzing of the Yatols, recognized the doubt in their words and whispers, but he heard too the continuing assurances of Yakim Douan in a debate that was now one-sided.
He and Merwan Ma had done exactly as they had intended, though, and for that, he was grateful. They had planted the seeds of doubt, and perhaps those would take root and grow, ending the reign of the tyrant Douan.
Pagonel had only one more thing to do.
He fell into himself again, gathering his energy, bringing every ounce of life force he could muster together in one collected ball, preparing for one burst.
He reached out tentatively, hoping that the Chezhou-Lei would continue to delay, would give him the moment he needed.
Then he felt the connection to the hematite held by Yakim Douan.