By Heresies Distressed Read Online Free PDF

slaughtered here on their own ships with their parents, there isn’t one of them who doesn’t understand exactly why he’s about to hang.”
    Lakyr swallowed hard, and Rock Point twitched his head in Graivyr’s direction.
    â€œFor centuries the Inquisition has meted out the Church’s punishment. Perhaps there was once a time when that punishment was true justice. But that time has passed, Sir Vyk. God doesn’t need savagery to show His people what He desires of them, and these men—and others like them—have hidden behind Him for far too long. Used Him to shield them from the consequences of their own monstrous actions. Used their office and their authority in the service not of God, or even of God’s Church, but of vile and corrupt
men
like Vicar Zhaspahr. Now it is time they, and everyone like them, discover that the vestments they have perverted will no longer be permitted to protect murderers and torturers from justice. These men never dreamed
they
might face death for their crimes. They are about to discover differently . . . and perhaps at least some of their fellow inquisitors will be wise enough to learn from their example.”
    Lakyr stared at him, then cleared his throat.
    â€œMy Lord,” he said hoarsely, “think before you do this!”
    â€œOh, I assure you, I
have
thought, long and hard,” Rock Point said, his voice as inflexible as his title. “And so have my Emperor and my Empress.”
    â€œBut if you do this, the Church—”
    â€œSir Vyk, ‘the Church’ sat by and watched when the Group of Four planned the slaughter of my entire kingdom. ‘The Church’ has allowed herself to be ruled by men like Zhaspahr Clyntahn.
‘The Church’
has become the true servant of darkness in this world, and deep inside somewhere, all of her priesthood must know that. Well, so do
we
. Unlike ‘the Church,’ we will execute only the guilty, and unlike the Inquisition, we refuse to torture in God’s name, to extort confessions out of the innocent. But the guilty we
will
execute, starting here. Starting now.”
    Lakyr started to say something else, then closed his mouth.
    He’s not going to change his mind
, the Delferahkan thought.
Not any more than I would, if I had my King’s orders. And
, he admitted unwillingly,
it’s not as if Mother Church hadn’t already declared herself Charis’ enemy. And he’s not wrong about these men’s guilt, either
.
    A spasm of something very like terror went through Lakyr on the heels of that last thought, but he couldn’t unthink it. It echoed somewhere deep down inside him, reverberating with his own anger, his own disgust, when Graivyr and his fellow Schuelerites turned what ought to have been—
could
have been—the bloodless seizure of the Charisian merchantmen here in Ferayd into bloody massacre.
    Perhaps
, a tiny little voice said in the shadowed stillness of his heart,
it really
is
time someone held those who do murder in the Church’s name accountable
.
    That was the most terrifying thought of all, for it was pregnant with the dreadful implication of other thoughts, other decisions, looming before not just Sir Vyk Lakyr, but every living man and woman. As he watched the nooses being fitted around the necks of the struggling men on HMS
Destroyer
’s upper deck, he knew he was witnessing the seed from which all those other thoughts and decisions would spring. These executions were a declaration that men would be held accountable as
men
for their actions, that those who exhorted murder, who tortured and burned in “God’s name,” would no longer be permitted to hide behind their priestly status. And that was the true iron gage the Charisian Empire had chosen to fling at the Church of God Awaiting’s feet.
    The last noose went around the last condemned man’s neck and drew tight. Two of the priests