Chapter 62: Thirty Paces

Garrick used a pail of whitewash and a paintbrush that had lost most of its bristles to paint the Sun Mark on the back wall of Hale’s courtyard. It was early in the morning when he got to it, and he was supposed to make a circle with seven rays coming off of it, but what he ended up with looked like a fried egg that had been stepped on by a horse.

"It doesn’t look like that," Kai said.

"It’ll do," Garrick said. "Either you hit the target or you don’t. I doubt the sun is going to notice if it’s not pretty."

Princess Seris had drawn the real Sun Mark in her notebook from a description in Hale’s old law books. She held the page up next to the wall and studied the two of them for quite some time, and eventually she put her notebook away and decided that it would do, as long as no one from the Radiant Church ever saw it.

Then Garrick paced off thirty paces from the wall, counting out loud as he went. The problem was that Garrick’s paces were nearly double the size of anyone else’s, and he ended up standing in the middle of Hale’s vegetable garden with his boots planted on top of the turnips.

"Those aren’t paces," Mira called from her seat on the edge of the well. "They’re more like jumps."

Sunny paced off the thirty again with his own long, measured strides, and he stopped much closer to the wall, right beside the well. He marked the spot by drawing a line in the dirt with the toe of his boot, and then he stepped away.

"Thirty paces," Sunny said. "If you follow the old law’s way of measuring them."

Kai stepped up to the line Sunny had made and stared at the wall. It didn’t seem very far away at all, and that was what scared him the most, because he had once aimed a spell at a stalk of wheat from an arm’s length away and hit a statue on the other side of the yard.

[You are already sweating]

"It’s hot out," Kai whispered.

[It is just past dawn, and Mira is wearing a shawl]

Kai didn’t bother to answer her, and instead he aimed his finger at the dead center of the painted circle and took a deep breath.

"Minor Smite," Kai said.

A small stream of golden light shot from his finger and made it about ten paces towards the wall before it veered sharply upwards into the eaves of Hale’s house. Something cracked and began to buzz very loudly, and a wasp nest the size of a cabbage dropped out from under the roof and landed in the cook’s herb garden.

The cook came out of the kitchen door wielding a broom, and the moment she saw the wasps, she went straight back inside and slammed the door behind her.

"Well," Garrick said. "At least you hit something."

Kai tried a second time, and his next Smite veered to the left and hit the side of the well with a loud clang. One of the stones broke loose and fell out, revealing a small hollow hidden behind it, where three dusty bottles of wine had been tucked away. Justiciar Hale, who had been watching from his chair on the porch with a cup of tea, suddenly became very interested in the bottom of his cup.

"They were a gift," Hale said, without looking up. "From a magistrate, many years ago."

"Right," Kai said.

His third Smite found a rat’s nest in a hole under the garden fence, and his fourth knocked a loose tile off the roof that would have fallen on the cook’s head the next time she came outside. By mid-morning, Kai had fired twenty-two spells at the painted Sun Mark on the wall, and he had missed it every single time.

[Twenty-two misses. That is a new record]

"Thanks for keeping count," Kai whispered.

[Someone had to]

Kai slumped down onto the edge of the well and buried his face in his hands. Mira walked over and sat down next to him without saying anything, and after a few moments, she bumped her shoulder against his.

"Try it the other way," Mira said softly. "Aim at something else. It worked at the Cathedral."

Kai knew that it was the obvious answer, and he had been thinking about it all morning. He stood back up on the line Sunny had marked, turned his back on the wall completely, and pointed his finger at the gate on the other side of the courtyard.

"Minor Smite," Kai said.

The spell shot towards the gate, and just like the one at the Cathedral, it stopped halfway there and hung in the air as if it was thinking it over. Then it turned around and drifted back across the yard, over Kai’s shoulder and above the well, and it came to rest right in front of the painted Sun Mark and hovered there for a long moment.

Everyone in the courtyard held their breath.

Then the spell drifted off to the side of the circle and sank into a crack near the bottom of the wall. There was a tiny squeak, and a little brown mouse popped out of the crack and scurried off into the turnips, with the tail that had been stuck in the wall dangling free behind it.

Nobody said anything for a long time.

"At least you saved a mouse," Garrick finally said. "I guess that’s something."

Kai walked over to the wall and looked at the crack the mouse had come out of, and then at the painted Sun Mark right next to it, which didn’t have a single mark on it.

"Why didn’t it hit that?" Kai whispered.

[Because I do not hit what you want me to hit, Kai. I hit what needs to be hit. A painting on a wall does not need to be hit. A mouse stuck in a crack does]

"So the loophole only works when the wrong thing is the right thing," Kai whispered.

[Yes. I am sorry. I do not think I can be outsmarted the same way twice]

Kai leaned his forehead against the cool stone of the wall and closed his eyes. At the Conclave, he was going to point his finger at the Sun Mark, and his spell was going to fly off and hit whatever in the Hall of Seven Doors needed to be hit the most. Maybe it would be a wasp nest, or a loose stone, or some hidden bottles of wine, but either way, everyone in the city would watch the God of Failure fail again.

Brannoch came to Hale’s house shortly after noon with two of his smiths, and he listened to everything that had happened that morning without saying a word. When they were finished, he crossed his massive arms over his chest and stared at the painted Sun Mark on the wall for a long while.

"Then the Conclave must reject the proof," Brannoch said. "Voss is a fugitive. He should not have the right to choose anything."

"That is where the problem lies," Princess Seris said, and she opened her notebook to a page covered in tiny handwriting. "I read further last night. A proof can only be rejected if all seven churches agree that it is unfair. If even one church will not reject it, then the proof stands."

"And Voss is still considered my church’s elder under the old law," Brannoch said slowly. "Does that mean that he would cast the Iron Father’s vote?"

"No," Justiciar Hale said from his chair on the porch. "A vote has to be cast by someone standing in the Hall, and a fugitive from the King cannot stand anywhere. When an elder cannot stand in the Hall, his vote goes to whoever holds the next highest office beneath him, and that is you, Brannoch, since the smiths chose you as their leader. But the old law never says anything about a proof being sent in by letter, and Voss sent his before he ran."

"Then the five churches who stand with us will reject it," Brannoch said. "After that, we only need to convince the other two."

Princess Seris looked down at her notebook and didn’t answer him. Kai already knew which church she was going to ask first, and he had a bad feeling about what they were going to say.

Elder Marrow came up from the docks to Hale’s house that evening with Nerine at her side, and the old woman still smelled of the ocean when she arrived. She leaned her cane against the edge of the dining table, sat down across from Kai, and listened patiently while Princess Seris explained everything to her a second time.

When Princess Seris was finished, Elder Marrow slowly shook her head.

"We will not reject the proof," Elder Marrow said. "The ocean tests every ship that leaves our harbor, and it does not ask whether the test is fair. We told you that we would not stand against you, Mr. Mercer, and we will not. But we cannot reject your proof either. That is simply not our way."

Nerine looked down at the table and turned red, but she didn’t argue with her elder.

"That’s okay," Kai said, and he was surprised to find that he actually meant it. "I understand. I’d probably make the same rule if I were the ocean."

Marrow looked at Kai for a long moment, and then the old woman smiled.

"You are a strange god, Mr. Mercer," Elder Marrow said.

"I’ve been told that before," Kai said.

It was getting late, and most of the house had already gone to sleep, when Celestine called for Kai to come to her room. She was sitting up in bed, drinking a cup of the young priest’s willow-bark tea, and Princess Seris was sitting in a chair beside her with her notebook open on her lap.

"The princess has told me about the Sun Mark," Celestine said, and her thin voice was sharper than Kai had ever heard it. "Tell me exactly what Voss wrote. Every word of it."

Princess Seris read it out loud to her again, and Celestine closed her eyes while she listened.

"The center of the Hall of Seven Doors," Celestine repeated. "Are you certain that is what it said?"

"Yes," Princess Seris said. "I copied it down three times."

Celestine set her tea down on the small table next to her bed, very carefully, because her hands had begun to shake.

"The Hall of Seven Doors was given a new floor forty years ago," Celestine said. "The original floor had cracked, and the High Priestess paid for new stones out of the Cathedral’s treasury. She made certain that she laid the Sun Mark at the center herself, with her own two hands." She opened her eyes and looked straight at Kai. "I was that High Priestess, Mr. Mercer. I laid that stone on the same day that I silenced the gods."

The room went so silent that the only sound was the fire popping in the kitchen.

"What’s under it?" Kai asked.

Celestine didn’t answer him for a long while, and when she finally spoke, she wouldn’t look at him.

"Voss did not choose that stone by chance," Celestine said. "Someone told him to choose it. And if your spell hits what needs to be hit, Mr. Mercer, then I am afraid it is going to hit whatever is underneath that stone."

[Kai]

"I know," Kai whispered.

[It is midnight. 342 days. 1 day until the Conclave]