Retribution

The Return

Twenty-three children came with us on the journey back to the mainland.

Just twenty-three.

There may well have been more survivors and I prayed to Polla that those children were able to tap some hitherto undiscovered vein of evumite in order to stay alive. It might prolong their existence just a little longer, enough to keep them going until another force could be sent to investigate the operations on the island thoroughly.

We made sure the rescued children were fed well. They were, understandably, very silent and unwilling to say much, no matter what language I tried. Aboard the other two ships we kept our prisoners in chains below deck, feeding them meagre rations for the day — which was, probably, more than they would receive when we got back to the palace gaols.

Now that the investigation had been concluded, I used the opportunity to write down my discoveries in full so that I could present them to the queen and send an urgent messenger to brief the Sun Chamber on the entire affair.

It had been a curious journey from discovering the severed and discarded pieces of Bishop Tahn Valin, before finding Grendor of the Cape, Lydia Marinus and Tagg and Meruwa Drennar — highly influential people within the nation — dead in a public place, their bodies dumped. Originally it had looked like their lives were not connected but all of them were, in fact, bound together by this vile operation.

I thought again of those who had committed the murders, who had been victims and had escaped, bided their time, and taken revenge when the opportunity came. If I had gone through the experiences they had endured, if I had suffered the same daily privations as them — being made to crawl through tunnels, being beaten and worse — would I have been able to let those experiences go?

Murder was murder, however, no matter how justifiable. To remove a life from this world is the decision of the gods, and the gods only.

For now, though, the difficult choice of what to do with these people was not mine to make. All I could do was simply inform the rulers and lawmakers of what had gone on, and let them come to their own conclusions, no matter how uncomfortable they were. It was for nation states to enforce their own justice, and not the will of the Sun Chamber.

We were meant to sift through the debris and present the case as we saw it. Should we operate any differently, should we demand that nations behave in a certain way then that would create a very different Vispasia, one not too far removed from being an empire. That was not what the Sun Chamber was about. Besides, it was unlikely that any royal would want to submit to a higher authority — other than their gods.

During the afternoon I leaned over the balustrade observing the distance, lost in my own thoughts, my cloak flapping in the breeze. Leana approached me with her welcoming insouciance, her boots heavy on the deck.

‘No sickness still?’ she asked.

‘None.’

‘No seizures?’

‘Nothing for many days now.’

‘This evumite — you claimed it had properties. This whole mining operation has claimed that too. The reason for our being here is based on the realization that this rock has properties.’

‘What are you getting at?’

‘Spirits save me. You have not taken the ring out of your pocket since you realized what it could do. It obviously helps you. Will you keep it?’

It was true that I had recovered swiftly from my injuries when I had been beaten, and that my seizures and sickness were no longer a concern. There was no denying that owning such a thing would enhance my life in numerous ways. Not only would my seizures be a thing of the past, but my work might improve if I could recover from the unavoidable skirmishes that came from being an Officer of the Sun Chamber.

‘It could,’ she added, ‘make both our lives a lot more simple, could it not?’

‘If I take this for my own gain, Leana, then am I any better than those men and women who made children suffer in dark tunnels, simply to enhance the pleasure of their own existence?’

‘We cannot know if it was pleasure. The people who owned it had much to gain by remaining alive — land and wealth and status. Therefore they had much to lose in death.’

‘Either way, this stone has the blood of children all over it. It has the history of an operation that is unspeakably sinister, that has destroyed the lives of the most innocent of our world.’

‘You are still stupid if you do not take it. Your life was a challenge with your seizures and now it is not.’

‘That may be so. However, we managed to cope with the problem, more or less. If my seizures have gone away, then more problems will come to fill in the void and occupy my mind. But the issue remains that the stones are not only evidence in this case, but it would be improper if I left here with one in my pocket. It would be a theft — not only of a trinket, but my morals would forever be gone.’

I expected more admonishment from Leana, but none came. Instead she nodded. ‘Good. I expected you would say that, so I am pleased that you have not disappointed me.’

‘Nice to know that you’re checking up on me.’

‘You are not the only one who understands morals,’ she replied. ‘I have read the same books as you, albeit in more refined languages.’

‘And probably in better bindings,’ I added, a nod to her once-fantastic wealth — something else that I had learned so recently.

Leana did not respond to my comment. Instead she laid a firm hand on my shoulder before marching back across the deck, leaving me alone with the blue vista, the cool breeze and the repetitive sound of oars cutting through the water.