Mercy (Short Story)

Year 601

"Conscience." The King's voice shook with emotion and tears that Conscience Astin could not see from her place on the floor. "You are charged by the Council with—with treason to the oaths of secrecy you took." He paused and sniffed loudly, and as the seconds, then minutes dragged on, Conscience Astin found herself wishing desperately that he could get through it. What made him hesitate? Yet the longer he waited, the longer she would live.

She was going to die.

"Highness." Conscience Astin could hear the voice of the Councilwoman. "You must continue."

She was going to die. She didn't want to die.

"I know."

She was going to die. The floor's white tile was beginning to look like flame; the cord was digging into her back and knees as though it was eating her.

"Would you have me declare you guilty, or do you declare yourself to be innocent?"

"I am guilty." Conscience Astin watched a tear leave the end of her nose and hit the marble. Better to die with honor, having never failed her master, than to make foolish attempts to save herself. "I advise that you end my life in the flames of Ghora Nox, as is customary for a conscience." She was proud, at least, that her voice did not shake.

There was another long pause. Conscience Astin knew that what she had done was right, but something felt wrong. There were rustling noises and murmurs coming from the front of the room, where the King stood. Then came a shout, strangled and anguished.

"No!"

It was the King, and Conscience Astin looked sharply up from the floor in terror. What she feared, she did not know. She only knew that something was terribly wrong.

The King's face was red and his eyes were streaming tears. His thin hands trembled, and he looked wildly from side to side at the Council-members who were trying to placate him.

"I reject the advice of my conscience," he said. "She has not transgressed. She will not be punished. The responsibility, the blame, and the punishment lie with me alone, and I alone will burn for them."

Abinel tried to move to him, but the cord that held her knees to her chest would not even let her crawl. She lurched and her cheek smacked the floor, but she did not care; she looked back up as soon as she regained her balance. He had never rejected her advice before; she had not dreamed he would do it now.

As the room erupted with shouts and cries and hurried conversation, the King stepped down from the dais and walked to Abinel; nobody stopped him. Maybe they were all too shocked. He reached her, then crouched so that he was at her level. For a few moments they were the only silent people in the room, and they stared at one another with pained, frightened eyes.

"You cannot do this," Abinel finally said. "They will imprison you, beat you, kill you—don't let them kill you—"

"You're my adviser." The King shrugged shakily. "I can accept or reject what you say, just as the Council said. I know what I'm doing now." He pulled a knife from within his robe and began to cut clumsily at the cords holding her down.

"You have no idea." Abinel told him furiously. "You're giving everything up, everything you have. You are not invincible. The flames will burn you just as they would burn me."

The cords snapped and lay useless on the floor. The King helped her to her feet and then began to work at the cords around her wrists.

"It doesn't matter," he explained, his voice cracking. "I was as trapped as you were. I couldn't really do the right thing before." He looked up at her and smiled through his tears in an attempt to be brave. "I can now. Isn't it wonderful?"

The cords around her wrists came away, and Abinel's expressionless face crumpled for the first time in over twenty years. Then the tears came, hundreds of them, hot and blinding and terrible. She cried for her lost life, for the King, for her freedom, for the unknown future, for the moth in the dungeon, for the Justice that had brought them to this room, and for the thin, weak hands which had somehow become strong enough to do the impossible. No wonder the King had been kept from the truth; it had taught him compassion and shown him something else which Abinel had forgotten existed.

It was the one thing which Justice could not break.