Lawspeaker Cyln : The Dawn

Cyln reached the edge of town as the new day was dawning. She paused for a moment, uncertain about what she would do. Her breathing was shallow despite the long walk, but came out as a thick mist in the chill morning air.

Squaring her shoulders, she began to walk through the silent streets in the direction of the court. Around her, the houses were still, but their silence went beyond simple early morning sleepiness. There was an emptiness about them.

She had been in no hurry to reach the village. Conflicting emotions had struggled through her mind while she walked: anger, sadness, regret, shame. Above it all memory of the Valdus child plagued her, his face burned into her eyes. His pleading still rang in her ears. Where his eyes had once been hopeful, they were now glazed over, dead.

Movement in a window caught the periphery of her vision, but when she looked up the figure ducked out of view. As she walked, the action became almost familiar. A quick tug at a curtain here, a ghost like face there, always disappearing when she looked properly.

In time she came to the court house. The entrance gaped open, flapping loosely in the breeze having not been repaired after she broke it open. Although it had happened only a few days prior, it already felt like another lifetime.

Cyln ducked inside and glanced around the empty room. Chairs were overturned, several of the benches were broken, and the wooden rail which ringed the well had been entirely destroyed. All had been damaged during the unrest which had seen her thrown unceremoniously out of town.

The flaming throne banner of the Concordium, which usually hung proudly over the judges seat, had been ripped down. The space looked especially empty to Cyln. Even the flaming torch which represented the eternal power of law in the colony had gone out.

She crossed over to the judges' bench and sat down, surveying the chaos all around her. The disorder was unbearable. She rose again quickly, braced her staff against the table and then began righting the courtroom. Upturned chairs were placed back in their rightful positions, broken furniture was placed outside, and a barrier of broken struts made to separate the well from the public gallery.

"You came back then?" a familiar voice broke Cyln's concentration.

"Without law we be little better than animals," she quoted, carefully placing the chair she was holding before turning to the small Gervian man watching her, "and I've just seen the worst that beasts can do."

"And you still returned?" the man continued, his words probing.

"Yes, Shireeve Cornalatus, I returned!" she snapped back, the anger coursing suddenly through her veins. When she had first left the battlefield, her mind had been consumed with rage. harbouring a bloodlust she could barely contain. These people deserved death for the anarchy they had created.

"There's nothing more you can do here. The people wouldn't listen to you even if you had their skulls between your claws and threatened to crush them. The only one who could have helped us, you ordered executed."

"His death be justified. He tried to illegally seize power!"

"Well, he's hardly been in a position to assist since you humiliated him. Even the Past Speaker wouldn't listen." the Shireeve sneered back "Seems the word of a Lawspeaker does carry some weight after all."

"You mean he be not dead?" Cyln barked back, her eyes blazing with anger.

"No, wait!" Cornalatus said quickly, realising his error too late. He tried to bar the entrance to the cells, but Cyln bulled him bodily aside. The Shireeve tried to grab her from behind and stop her, but the action only made her angrier and she virtually threw him down the stairs.

"Let her come!" came a slightly muffled voice from below.

"Laurelius!" Cyln jumped down the remaining steps, the familiar voice tugging at what self control she had left.

Cyln landed on the ground with a grunt, her boots thudding loudly with her weight. She shouldered her way into the cell block, tearing the key and hook out of the wall as she tore past. She flung the hook aside, and began to sort through the various keys as she approached the familiar prison cell. She found the right one just as she reached it.

"Come to execute your order, Lawspeaker?" The coolness of the voice made her halt with a start. The man she remembered had been craven, his speech nervous, but those words were spoken with calm control.

"I heard you and Cornalatus talking upstairs. I do wish you people would stop tearing doors off their walls, it's so very barbaric."

Inside the cell, the tall Gervian councillor was sitting on the edge of his cot. He looked gaunt and unkept, his clothes clearly having been worn for several days, but his eyes were lit up with some unseen force.

"Hello Cyln," he finished, rising smoothly to his feet as he saw her, walking calmly over to the metal bars which enclosed one face of his cell.

"Explain" she said simply, clenching a fist by her side. "No-one had the heart to do it, and I wasn't about to start getting my hands bloody," the Shireeve said with a shrug as he joined her by the cell. He was careful to keep his distance from the hulking Ursian.

"I must say, I am surprised to see you back here. I was under the impression that you had been thrown out of town and that I was forgotten."

"I returned." Cyln said, her voice carefully level.

"So I see. The question, however, is why?" he replied his voice equally level. He turned his back on her and walked with measured paces back to his cot.

"Ah yes, something about having seen the bloody work of beasts." he said with the final step swivelling on his heels to face the Ursian once more, he then adopted her husky voice and continued, "Without law we be little better than animals."

Cyln bared her fangs at the Gervian, uttering a warning growl. The councillor raised a hand in supplication. From above them, noise of people arriving in the court room could be heard by footsteps and the scraping of chairs on the wooden floor.

"I apologise, that was rude," he continued, ignoring the interruption. "I have been somewhat without social niceties here. Allow me to explain myself. Fear makes us do things we regret. For myself, my more base instinct to control came through. For them..." he gestured upstairs with a shrug, "well, you saw that for yourself."

Cyln, her anger stilled for a moment as the truth of what he said sank in. She let her clenched fist relax. Conflicting thoughts ran through her head, uncertainty, shame, even, she had to admit to herself, some fear that had sat there unnoticed until now.

"You once said you be wanting to command these people, Laurelius," she said at length, having taken a deep calming breath. Voices from upstairs were getting louder, one rising above the rest.

"Mer!"

Both Cyln and Laurelius looked up at the ceiling, concentration broken, trying to make the words out.

"Murer!"

The word rang out again accusingly, still muffled by the wood. The lawspeaker glanced back at the counsellor, her eye narrowing as her mind furiously worked.

" I be giving you that chance then." she concluded at length, "Lead them."

She threw the key between the bars and, without waiting to see if he caught it, made her way back up the stairs to face the voices coming from the court room. The word was now clear and it stung in her ears,

"Murderer!"

By Gareth Kay