He swept his gaze over them all. "These fears divide us, each from the other," he told them. "They make us fear each other and keep us from talking to each other. Let me tell you who are human what rumors have been circulating among our homes and workplaces."
He told them about the Law of Degree, about the other rumors flying wildly among the nonhuman communities. He added some he had heard elsewhere_how a demon-worshiping human sect had sprung up, whose initiates must murder and eat a nonhuman child, and how the humans were planning to descend on the homes and workplaces of nonhumans on a particular night to burn and pillage them, killing adults and making children into pets and slaves. He added the rumors of drugs in the water supply that would kill or incapacitate nonhumans but were harmless to humans, and the stories that there were those within the Church who planned to declare all nonhumans to be demons or descended of demons.
He saw by the startled looks among the humans that they had heard nothing of these tales_and as he and Nightingale wove their web of courage and clarity, he saw that they were all beginning to think, comparing the rumors and finding them suspiciously similar.
"Do you see what is happening?" he asked them. "Can you see the hand of one source behind all of this? How could these tales be so similar, and yet so cleverly tailored to match our darkest nightmares? And how else could someone keep all of us from even speaking to one another, except by making us fear one another?" Then he challenged them. "Can you think why someone would do this? What would he have to gain? Ask yourself that_for there is gain to be had here, in making us fear each other, in keeping us hiding in the darkness of our homes and listening only to rumors and wild tales."
He chose his next words with care. "For all that I am strange to you who are human, I am a student of your history. I have seen this pattern repeated before_in your history, and in our own, for we are not as different from you as you may think. We have had our tyrants, our exploiters, our would-be dictators. Here is what I have seen, over and over again. When people are divided against one another, there is always a third party standing ready and waiting to profit when both sides have preyed so much upon each other that they cannot withstand the third. Sometimes it is another land, another people, but I do not think that is the case here." He took a deep breath, and made the plunge. "I think that the third party here is a single person; a person who would see both humans and nonhumans enslaved to his purposes. First he drives fear enough into the humans that they grant him the power he needs to make slaves of the nonhumans. Then he turns that power upon those who gave it to him, and enslaves everyone."
There were a few nods out there; only a few, but that much was encouraging. The rest would need time to think about what he was saying.
"Ponder this, if you will," he finished. "How soon would it be before something like a Law of Degree was applied, not only to those who do not look human, but to those who do not meet some other standard? When have any of you ever seen a law that took away the freedom of one group used only against that group? How about if our unknown enemy convinced you all that it should be applied to the indigent_street trash, beggars, and the like? It sounds reasonable, does it not? And who would really choose to have beggars and slackards sleeping in doorways, if they could be out doing useful work_and at least, as slaves, they would not be drinking, robbing, causing trouble in the street. But how if, after a delay of time to make it comfortable, it was then applied to those who_say_do not own property? After all, if you do not own your home, are you not indigent? What if it were applied to those who did not have a business, were not in a Guild, or happened not to have a job at a particular moment? After all, if you have lost your job, are you not indigent?"
Startled looks all around the room showed him that he had not only caught their attention, he had brought up something they had never in their wildest dreams thought of. Very probably the majority of the humans here only rented their tiny living-quarters from someone else_and every manufactory worker lived in fear of losing his job.
"Before you dismiss these truths as fantasy, remember that every one of you who has been robbed, cheated or raped_or knows someone who has, human or nonhuman_knows that there are those in our world who are capable of such evils. Remember that it is fear that makes all this possible," he concluded. "Fear which keeps us from organizing, from questioning to find out the truth, which keeps us divided, human from nonhuman, men from women, those who are prosperous from those who are not. Remember that, go and think and talk and ask questions; and then, if you will, come back to Father Ruthvere. He is a man of caring and courage, and he has tasks that need doing to make certain that this enemy does not take all our freedom away from us."
He stepped down from the pulpit then, in an aura of stunned silence, and Father Ruthvere stepped back up into it.
Then the talk broke out, an avalanche of words, as those of the Chapel and those who were not cast questions up to Father Ruthvere, and he answered them as best he could.
His best was fairly accurate, since he, Nightingale and T'fyrr had been talking about this for the past three days, gathering all the information they could and putting this little meeting together. They had decided that Father Ruthvere, and not T'fyrr, should be the putative leader of this group; he was human and would be trusted by the humans_he was a man of the Church, and presumably honorable and above reproach. Not that the real leader would not be T'fyrr_
Or rather, the real target. I am the obvious target, leaving Father Ruthvere to do his work.
Fortunately, the Father was honorable and above reproach, and he was trained to be a leader of his flock. He had the skills T'fyrr did not; T'fyrr had the skills of rhetoric that he did not.
Perhaps, rather than the leader, I should style myself as a figurehead. Or perhaps an organizer? Oh, no, I believe I like Nightingale's term better: "rabble-rouser."
But standing behind the pulpit and filling the choir loft was another group that T'fyrr and Nightingale turned to face_as many of Father Ruthvere's fellow Churchmen as could be gathered together here at such short notice. T'fyrr had not had a chance to look them over before he stepped up to make his speech, but now he saw that among the grey, black, and brown robes, there were two men dressed in the red robes of Justiciars, two men and a woman in the deeper burgundy of Justiciar Mages, and one iron-faced individual in the white and purple robes of a Bishop.
His hackles rose for just a moment at that_but a heartbeat later, he smoothed them down. While the face of this man might be implacable, his eyes were warm and full of approval. He had heard T'fyrr out, and he seemed to like what he heard.
He knows the truth when he hears it. He is hard and cannot be shaken, but he is no fanatic. He knows reason; he does not let fear blind him. And he is no one's tool or fool.
It was this man who approached them first, while Nightingale swallowed and groped for T'fyrr's hand. He clasped it, reassuringly. The Bishop's eyes flickered down to their joined hands as the motion caught his attention, then they returned to T'fyrr's face with no less warmth in them than before.
And he sees nothing wrong with a human and one who is not being together. That alone shows more of an open mind than I had dared to hope for.
"You are a remarkable speaker, musician," the old man said in a surprisingly powerful and musical voice. "Your command of rhetoric is astounding."
T'fyrr bowed a little, acknowledging the compliment. "It is not just rhetoric, my Lord Bishop," he said in reply. "Every word I spoke was the truth, all of it information gathered not only across this city, but across the Twenty Kingdoms."
"That is what makes it astounding," the Bishop said with a hint of a smile. "Rhetoric and the truth seldom walk side-by-side, much less hand-in-hand. And that was what I wished to ask you, for some of those rumors I had not heard in this city. So the poison spreads elsewhere?"
T'fyrr nodded, and the Bishop pursed his lips thoughtfully. "That seems to match some things that I have observed within the Church," he mused. "And_I believe I agree with you and your friends. There is a force moving to destroy our freedoms, a secular force, but one with fingers into all aspects of life, including the Church. Would you not agree, Ardis?" he called over his shoulder.
The woman in the robes of the Justiciar Mages stepped forward, regarding T'fyrr with eyes that were remarkably like that of a Haspur_clear, direct and uncompromising. "I would agree, my Lord Bishop," she said in a challenging voice as remarkable as the Bishops. "That, in fact, was why I was visiting my friend Ruthvere. His letters indicated to me that there were some of the same elements moving in Lyonarie as had been at work in Kingsford just before the fire that destroyed our city. I wanted to see if that was the case and do something to prevent a similar tragedy if I could."