Chapter 25: Balance

The door to Elaene’s cell opened.

“It’s time.”

Elaene nodded. Her eyes were dry, and she allowed herself to be lead out of the cell.

As she passed the Sunset Knight’s cell, she gave Lito Laeth a small nod of the head. Lito stared back, impassively. It didn’t surprise her. The Sunset Knight was used to sacrifices.

Why couldn’t Paene had stayed under his torture induced coma for another few days? Elaene had finally started to make herself useful to the Carpenter, and was planning on breaking Lito out at any time when she was betrayed and captured.

Now everything had been for nothing. Torturing Lito… assisting the Carpenter in scheduling his little ‘demonstrations’… even breaking the near sacred law of impartiality in the first place. It had all been for nothing.

Was it worth it? She asked herself.

No. In fact, everything after she broke impartiality had been a betrayal of everything that she believed in. At the time, she had thought she had been doing the right thing… but now she wasn’t so sure.

The endlessly confusing walls of Raven’s Run rushed by, as the jailor roughly pushed her through the halls. She felt disoriented when they finally broke out from under the mountain, into the sunlight. The Wall was before her, still broken on the lower end. The cavern loomed from across the bridge, and she thought that she could see things moving in the deep. They started across the bridge, making their way to Cael Proper.

Elaene started to pray for forgiveness from the King in the Deep. She wasn’t sure whether it was worth it. She wasn’t sure whether it would work. She had broken one of the rules, the rules that their order had been designed for.

Priests and priestesses were supposed to act as sacrifices to serve the rest of the people. They were supposed to offer their time and their life to improving the spiritual, mental, and emotional help of their charges.

Wasn’t that what she had been doing, though, for Lito? She had sacrificed herself, in a very real and irrevocable way, to ensure that things went well for her.

That’s not the same as spiritual health.

The thought came unbidden to her. And it was true—Lito could have suffered and died under the Carpenter’s assault—and still went to the silvery halls of the King in the Deep. And that, that alone was Elaene’s responsibility. Not to ensure that any worldly success occurred.

They were nearing the halfway point. Elaene started to feel sick.

Why hadn’t things been easier? Why had she been put in an impossible situation, where inactivity would feel like betraying her charge, and activity was definitely betraying herself?

This is nothing new.

And yet, it felt as it was. Serving at the Table hadn’t been difficult; serving at the Drain hadn’t been this conflicting.

Maybe the world was getting into more and more of a tangle. Her faith told her that at some point the King in the Deep would tire of his creation, an drown the world in dark and cold water. The Elders of Ard-Abthen had predicted that he would do so when humanity had devolved to such a state that the ‘project’ wasn’t worth continuing.

If that was the case… then it would make sense that the world and the people in it would only get worse. More corrupted.

They had reached the end of the bridge. In the main square, a crowd had gathered. Elaene kept her head held hid. She would not give the Carpenter the satisfaction of breaking.

The Carpenter’s voiced carried. He droned on about her crime, all the wrong that she had done to the Carpenter and to the city as a whole.

She took the time to look at the structure in front of her.

There were two pillars of rock, about thirty feet away from each other. Each one had a metal platform on the top, where one or two people could reasonably stand. Connecting the two was what looked like a metal knife—it tapered out slightly on both ends, but came to an impressive point. There was a pole, horizontal and a good distance above the thin walkway, that mirrored it above.

A noose was hanging from the pole, swinging back and forth.

The Carpenter ended his speech. The jailor pushed Elaene forward. She saw Paene, standing next to the Carpenter. She couldn’t place the expression on the face. She wouldn’t have called it sad… it was as if Paene was considering a problem that was far distant from the situation.

The jailor pulled himself up on to the metal platform. He reached for Elaene, and hauled her up after him.

Elaene looked out across the metal knife. She couldn’t breathe.

The jailor reached out, and caught the rope in his hand. He tugged on it, hard, and she saw that the rope slid freely along the pole high above her.

The jailor slid the noose around her neck, and pulled it tight. Then he pulled her hands behind her back, and tied them there.

Elaene stayed quiet as the Carpenter strode over. He smiled at her, and got close enough to talk.

“It was well done,” the Carpenter said. “I was surprised how far you took the act with the Sunset Knight. Cutting her hair off… that was a delicious touch. If I may ask—were you trying to save yourself, or trying to help her?”

“Why does it matter?” Elaene gasped.

“It doesn’t,” the Carpenter said. “But I would feel better if I knew that you were doing this for some higher purpose, and not for selfish reasons.” He shook his head. “You priestesses were supposed to inspire and guide us—how sad to see that you’re just the same as everyone else.”

Elaene didn’t understand what the Carpenter was doing. Was this a moment of final honesty? Or was he simply messing with her, trying to get inside and wreck her head before he died? She didn’t answer.

The Carpenter turned to face the crowd. “I am not a cruel man,” he said, “despite whatever has happened before. I have no desire to murder a priestess. But is she a priestess? She violated the law of impartiality, practically the only mandate of her priesthood. It is a narrow path to walk, true, but she vowed and promised to walk it.”

He turned to Elaene, as if he was speaking to her, but his voice continued to carry.

“I offer you an option, Elaene—let us see if you can walk the narrow path once more. If you can traverse from this platform to the other, it will show that you have the care and the balance that you require to rejoin the priesthood. If you cannot… well, Elaene, it will be only what you deserve.”

Elaene bit back her retorts—how could her physical dexterity possibly correlate to her mental and spiritual well being?

It was an impossible task. She looked at the knife ridge in front of her, and shuddered. No one could possibly walk across without falling—especially without her arms to guide and balance herself.

The Carpenter turned to her, and retained his normal voice that the crowd could not hear. “Good luck, Elaene.” He sounded elated, as if he was having trouble keeping his laughter in. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

Elaene bared her teeth. “You’ll drown right next to me, Carpenter.”

She took her first step. The rope slid along, staying tight across her neck. She buckled, but regained her balance. She took another step.

Elaene had said those words to the Carpenter in sudden, hot anger.

Was it true? Was she destined for the Sunken Hells the next Solemn Vigil?

Was one foolish moment enough to cause the King in the Deep to loose trust in her completely?

She took another step.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. She would make him see. She would make them all see.

The rope burned against her neck as she dragged it along. Sweat ran down her face as every muscle in her core and legs strained to keep her upright.

People were shouting around her. She ignored them.

The halfway point loomed ahead of her. She pushed the fear back and focused on that point alone. She rotated her feet as she stepped so that they were perpendicular to the tiny ledge. It seemed to help.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Paene running by her, towards the bridge. She didn’t stop to think about why. She just took another step.

She crossed the halfway point.

There was still away out. The Carpenter would be true to his word, with so many people watching he had to be. She could still return to Ard-Abthen, make attonment for her sins. This one moment didn’t need to define her, she could still get out.

The people around her continued to shout—and this time, she heard them.

“The Wall is breached! The Wall is breached!”

“Defend the city! Get some weapons and move!”

Confused, she slipped.

The rope tightened suddenly against her neck, choking her.

Her legs were straddled across the ledge. She tried to hook one along and pull herself up. She couldn’t breathe.

Gods. Gods forgive me.

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