Whom Gods Destroy
Were it not blasphemy to say it, Vlodr would have sworn the Gods were bickering. The Hand of Judgement had been relating to his brother in intricate detail just what he planned to do with the offender; the Lawgiver had been impatiently trying to shush him while he read the pamphlet yet another time. Something in the pamphlet, or perhaps in the Hand's ranting, quirked the corner of his mouth into a delighted half-smile. "The man does have a point," drawled Sirrus lazily. His brother sputtered to an indignant halt.
"Sit down, Achenar," the Lawgiver snapped, before the Hand could find words to express his outrage. "You may be the Hand of Justice, but it's my place, not yours, to decide if you can have him."
Vlodr very nearly shifted in his formal stance, the relief and the hope were so painfully strong. At last, he thought, at last they've done with testing us. But then he saw the complicit smile on the Lawgiver's face, and the hope left him as abruptly as it had come.
"Trust me, dear brother," murmured the Lawgiver. And with a glance in Vlodr's direction, "Guard! Bring the prisoner."
Vlodr bowed carefully and precisely, although neither of the Gods was watching him, and left the Hall of Judgement. In the waiting room, the two guards watching the prisoner stood and stretched. Vlodr stretched too; when you may well be standing at attention for the rest of the day, you take every chance to stretch that you can.
"'Bout ready in there?" rumbled Drixt, but Vlodr shook his head at his colleague. It wouldn't do to walk in on Their Graces out of their proper positions; Vlodr always gave them a few moments to arrange themselves.
The prisoner stood up abruptly, and Vlodr wondered if he would try to escape. A high-caste like him wouldn't stand a chance against the three burly guards even without the chains, but someone was bound to try it eventually. Was this one daft enough for it? The prisoner only looked at his guards pleadingly. "You've got to listen to me," he said desperately. "Read the pamphlet; I gave a copy to your friend there. I don't care if they kill me, it has to stop, before they kill all of us! You work in this very building, can't you see what they really are, what they're really doing?"
"The Gods are testing us," recited Drixt heavily, "as they tested us when they first came as children with their foster-parents, claiming to be anything but Gods."
"What good is a test that no one can pass?" the prisoner exploded. "You, you're useful to them now, but when they run out of higher castes they'll turn on you, too. You know they will! Stop and think, man!"
Vlodr drew himself up and glared back at the blasphemer. "We are Troug," he said firmly. "We guard people, and places, and things. We lift, and we carry. We do not think. We do our duty, and leave the issues to our betters. We leave the thinking to the Gods." The other Troug guards nodded in curt agreement, and the prisoner shook his head despairingly.
"Time now," said Vlodr. It would be very bad form to let Them get impatient. As the other guards took up their positions on either side of the prisoner, he pushed the double doors wide, stood aside as the prisoner was brought in, and closed them again. Taking up his position in front of the doors, hands clasped behind his back, he intoned, "Comes now before the glory Elodaris the Printer, of the Exoy caste. Judge him fairly, O Sirrus, Giver of the Law! Correct him and set him on the path of righteousness, O Achenar, Hand of Judgement, as the Lawgiver may decree!" Surreptitiously, he scratched an itch with his left hand.
On the dias before them, the brother Gods had arranged themselves appropriately. No matter how many times he had stood guard in the Hall of Judgement, he still felt the power and the majesty of them, the elegant and urbane Lawgiver beautiful and terrible on the iron Throne of Judgement, his Hand the beast crouched on a low stool at his side.
Sirrus sat motionless for a moment, enjoying the dramatic pause; he knew that he looked as if he were waiting for the opening words of the Rite to settle into the stones of the Hall. Achenar fidgeted at his side, an obedient terrier waiting to be let loose on a rat. At precisely the right moment, just before the prisoner got up enough nerve to speak or Achenar said something embarrassing, the Lawgiver raised the pamphlet in one elegant hand. "Elodaris, Printer," he said in his most judicial voice, "It is charged that on or about the fifteenth of Iyaris of this year you did print, or cause to be printed, a blasphemous work entitled 'Who Gods Destroy'. Have you anything to say in your defense?" That'll be the next change, he thought to himself. Stupid thing to ask, really. But these people are so traditional, we have to pace out the changes or they'll start to balk. Can't have them balking yet.
"I do," said the prisoner, the defiance in his voice as predictable as his answer. "What is blasphemy, my Lord, if not a kind of libel? And truth is and has always been an absolute defense against charges of libel. Prove that I've lied, and you'll have me -- but you can't, can you? If you find me guilty you will only have done exactly what I've written that you would! If you let me go, you've proved me wrong, but if you prove me wrong, you can't find me not guilty." He glared triumphantly up at the dias.
The Lawgiver inclined his head majestically. "Gods cannot err," he said gently, "but we can... consider the issues." Vlodr blinked. That silly high-caste logic puzzle was actually going to work? Somehow, he doubted it.
"Blasphemy is a greater offence than mere libel," the Lawgiver went on, as if to himself; "but the long tradition of not censoring publications on the basis of content alone should not be completely ignored, even by a God. We may be merciful in your offense against Our persons.
"However," and here he leaned forward, "there is still the matter of form. Well do we remember, when we came to you in the guise of children, the importance our teachers placed on the proper use of the language. How often did Quinara tell us that to abuse the language was to abuse the dignity of the people who spoke it?" The prisoner looked baffled, but Vlodr remembered the child-God's old tutor very well. She had been one of the first to die when they returned.
"So let us consider that you have published -- or caused to be published," he said with an airy gesture, "a pamphlet which you knew, or should have known, or had a duty to know, contained..." He glanced at the pamphlet in his hand and his eyes widened in feigned surprise. "Dear me, which contained at least twenty-three grammatical errors. Participles dangling, questionable antecedents, and simply appalling punctuation. For example, the title itself, 'Who Gods Destroy'. Who would that be, Elodaris? Do you know anyone who goes around destroying Gods? No? Perhaps you meant, people the Gods destroy?" His mild schoolteacher manner gave way suddenly to cold fury. "The accusative of who is WHOM, you pathetic little lackwit! 'Whom Gods Destroy' is what you should have written!"
He leaned back, calm and judicial once more. "What shall we do about this, Elodaris? You've abused the dignity of your own people by printing such ungrammatical nonsense. What shall I do with you?"
"You could give him to me," said the Hand of Judgement in a voice hoarse with anticipation. "Give him to me."
The Lawgiver smiled down at the prisoner before him. "Why not?" he drawled lazily.
"Because---" the printer began hastily, but whatever he meant to say was choked off as the Hand of Judgement grabbed his metal collar and jerked him off his feet. Drixt, having seen this coming for quite some time now, made it to the inner door to the Place of Punishment in time to look dignified about opening it. Grinning, feral, the Hand giggled at his prey as he dragged it to the Place of Punishment.
As Achenar's voice and the choking struggles of the printer faded down the hallway, Sirrus smirked. "Doesn't he know what a rhetorical question is?" he asked the room in general.
(November 2002)