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[Thraxas]

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Kayla Ariesus was roused from her slumber by a sudden flash of light. She instinctively placed a hand in front of her face to shield her elvish eyes from the source---a hand-held lantern. She could sense several people in the room with her, all of whom were quite uninvited and unwelcome. "W... who are you? What are you doing here?" she stammered as she slid backwards in the bed as if a far corner of it might provide some sort of defense. She pulled the sheet up to conceal herself.

"Get up and get dressed, elf. You're coming with us," came a surly voice in a tone laced with malice.

"Get out!!!" she cried. "Get out before..."

"Before what, wench!? You'll call the guards?! Take a good look!" the voice replied as a face emerged from behind the lantern. The livery and panoply of a soldier of the township of Yew was quite visible... as was the glimmer of a drawn sword. The leering, impatient, human snarled at her. "Now get up and come along... quietly!"

Kayla resigned herself to her fate and, as calmly as she could, obeyed.

(to be continued)
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"If a criminal has what you want, you do business with him."

[Thraxas]

---

The sheriff's office at the Court of Truth was dim and dank, the torches on the walls giving barely enough heat to break the chill of the early morning. Kayla, shivering, had been seated at the table for what seemed to be an hour before an officer whom she had never met before, accompanied by two guards, entered and sat down across from her. He let drop a single sheet of paper onto the table in front of her. "Kayla Ariesus?"

She nodded. "I am."

"Kayla Ariesus, you have been charged with the high crime of treason as an accessory to sedition and murder. What you see before you is a confession which you will sign. Please take time to read it first," he stated coldly.

Her first impulse was to argue, to defend herself against the charges which she knew to be false. Instead, she held back and elected to fulfill his suggestion. She picked it up and began reading...

"I, Kayla Ariesus, did knowingly and intentionally withhold vital information about a conspiratorial elvish group centered in Heartwood whose avowed purpose was to disrupt the regime of Lord Regent Thraxas. I did this because I was a member of that group and because, at least at the time, their interests and objectives coincided with my own. That group, known as the Heartwood Faction, was, and is, guilty of numerous crimes including death threats, mutilations of humans, the defilement of a Shrine sacred to humans and the citizens of Yew, and the murder of Thraxanduril of Yew, the Lord Regent's twin brother. Although I did not personally take part in any of those activities, I did nothing to prevent them or report them to the proper authorities, nor did I warn anyone of an impending assassination plot against the Lord Regent's brother. I, therefore, confess my guilt and plead for the Court to be lenient with me inasmuch as law and the compassion of the Court allows for such heinous crimes. I am willing to forego my day in Court and will accept the judgment rendered by the Lord Regent, in the hope that by this confession, the wide arms of Compassion will embrace me instead of the firm hand of Justice.

Signed,

_____________________

Kayla Ariesus"

She let the paper fall to the table. "I cannot sign this! It would be my death warrant!" she exclaimed. "You think me such a fool, knowing what I know about the Lord Regent and his "compassion"?! You must be mad!"

Retaining his stone-faced expression, the sheriff motioned for a guard to bring container of ink, and a pen to the table. "Sign the paper," is all he said, leaning back in the chair.

Petulant, Kayla scowled. "I refuse! I demand to see an attorney! I *will* have my day in Court!"

The sheriff sighed. "Let me tell you what will happen if you insist upon your day in Court... shall I? It is simply this: you will be found guilty of all these charges and you will be executed. Do you know how you will be executed? No, it won't be a chopping block and the headsman's axe, or the heavy blade of a guillotine such as Nujel'm sports. Rather you will be burned alive... at the stake... in the public square."

"You cannot! You dare not! I am kinswoman to the Duchess Molly Kaldhel! She would never permit that!"

"M'lady, we do not care if you are the offspring of a god. This *will* come to pass. Now, sign the confession and pray that the Lord Regent is lenient. If I tell him of your strivings to resist, he may be less so in the end."

Kayla looked at the paper, knowing it signified defeat and her total ruin. She began to pray.

(continued)
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"If a criminal has what you want, you do business with him."

[Thraxas]

---

In the end, Kayla held out. Now, as she sat on the bed of her tiny cell deep within the prison north of the Court of Truth, she wondered how much longer until their patience ran out. She realized the case had been deliberately postponed to allow the memory of her crime to fade entirely from public view. The last anyone knew she was under house arrest in Yew. She had not seen nor heard from her cousin Molly in a month or more. Everything was in place for her sudden and untimely demise... perhaps an arrow in the back as she fled from her captors... or her own, faked, suicide in her cell? They could get rid of her in any number of ways. How long could she last? Which way would the end come?

They did not check on her very often, she noticed. There was no need. The cell walls were thick and the bars secure. That might work to her advantage. She began whistling a melodic, haunting, tune... one taught her by an ancient elvish sage, her tutor, in childhood.

Within the hour a fox squirrel appeared at the barred window of her cell. It easily slipped through, bouncing along the floor to jump up on the bed and into her lap. Kayla stroked the tiny creature's head and smiled. Knowing time was of the essence, she closed her eyes, placed her index finger on the squirrel's head, and implanted within its mind a message. The action took only a few seconds. She petted it once more, then placed it close to the window bars from which it jumped through and away.

The message it carried was simple and sent on a long journey to Skara Brae and House Gauntlet: "Dearest cousin, I am now in prison in Yew. I fear for my life. Come quickly or I shall surely perish. Kayla."

(to be continued)
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"If a criminal has what you want, you do business with him."

[Thraxas]

---

Days passed with still no word from her cousin. Perhaps it was too early, Kayla mused. Skara Brae is not that far, but perhaps the creature sought for the Duchess in Malas. She paced the floor, fearful and uncertain about her future. She was hungry and breakfast was overdue. As if in response to her thoughts, the cell door opened and a guard brought her a tray of food, placing it on the small table by her bed. She immediately noticed that it was cooked meat, something she never touched, centered among an array of none-too-fresh greens. "I am grateful for your kindness, but I am afraid I cannot eat that. I am entirely vegetarian," she remarked, trying to sound patient and kind. She even added a respectful smile.

The guard, preparing to exit, turned around and glared. "Eat it, or eat nothing, elf," he replied spitefully. He left, closing and locking the door behind him.

She wanted to cry; trapped between being famished and being forced to eat something that she had all her life thoroughly detested. She examined the items, at last considering eating the greens. As she picked one leaf up to put in her mouth she noticed something dark lying beneath it.

She screamed.

The dead eyes of the severed head of the squirrel she had sent stared up at her.

She heard the guards' mocking laughter just outside her door.
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"If a criminal has what you want, you do business with him."

[Thraxas]

---

Recovering her composure, Kayla covered the animal's corpse and said a prayer over it, asking forgiveness for having cost it its life.

Fortified once more in her resolve, Kayla began singing another tune, one quite out of range for the hearing of human ears... one created for emergencies such as this... very difficult to do and quite easily botched.

However, she soon heard the flapping of tiny wings and a hummingbird flew in the window, alighting on the bed beside her. She touched its head and implanted the same message as before. Conveying to it a sense of urgency and a warning of danger, she sent it on its way.
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"If a criminal has what you want, you do business with him."

[Molly]

---

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a dart of blue and green pass by her. It gave her a start as she heard a sound she had not heard since childhood. A message... She turned to see the rapid fluttering wings of a humming bird. She opened her hand and the bird floated down into it and stood there. As their eyes met the words became clear. She smiled at the delicate creature and motioned to the honey water dripping from the vines near by.
Eat little one then speed back my message to her. Gently touching the birds forhead she implanted the message. Fear not my dear I will be with you soon. I leave tonight. She rased her hand to the sky and the bird fluttered off for her meal and spead on her way like a shooting star across the amber sky, towards Yew.
She called a scribe to her and had him take a letter to Regent Thraxus, to Lord Isk and another to Lord Alister Flagg, the lawyer that was employed by Thraxus for the trial. She also had him pen a letter to post with the town criers around Sosaria with an update to the trial procedings. She dismissed the scribe to finish making the copies of the update and finished her packing. She called for a messenger to deliver the letters to Isk and Thraxus and kept a copy for her records. She told the messenger to find Will so he was aware of where she had gone in such haste but not until after he had delivered the letters. She gave him a bag full of gold and provisions for several days travel. She packed up some for herself and headed out towards the bridge and on to the main road to the moongate.
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Grand Duchess Molly Kaldhel
Oracle of Truth
The House Gauntlet
Sanctus, Luna, Malas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXoGDbJ5nLU
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"In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman."
-Margaret Thatcher-