The Awakening by Bevan McGuiness Read Free Book Online

purpose?’
    ‘Yes. What is the point of ritual torture, such as we had yesterday? How is the Empire of the Asan served and made better by that?’
    ‘Surely you cannot be questioning the right of any people to punish wrongdoers?’
    ‘Punish, yes. But ritually torture to death the friends of suspected plotters for the entertainment of the nobility?’
    ‘That is our way. It has always been thus.’
    ‘Oh come now, Domovoi. You can do better than that. “It has always been thus”? How feeble is that! It is not an answer, it is the last refuge of the impoverished mind in defence of the indefensible!’
    Rather than answer, Domovoi observed the First Son. He was barefoot, clad in the simple clothes of a scholar, leaning against a tree in a magnificent garden kept for the enjoyment of his family alone. As with so many of the ancestral possessions of this family, there were odd customs associated with it. For example, custom dictated that no visitor was ever permitted to go barefoot within the garden. Neither could anyone not related to the family by blood ever eat any of the produce. Here, beneath this tree, which spread branches over the ceremonial meditation bower, tradition held that neither the First Counsellor nor his son could ever wear shoes of any sort. Over the centuries most of these occult laws had passed into quaint legend, to be trotted out for the amusement of whatever guest happened to be visiting at the time. Recently, however, Shanek had been showing an unhealthy obsession with these ancient customs. The Appointed One saw his duty in directing the First Son towards the future, not the past.
    ‘You are distressed today, First Son?’ Domovoi asked.
    Shanek sighed. ‘Yes,’ he said. He closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun as it shone through the leaves. The bark was rough against his back. He enjoyed the sensation almost as much as he did the feeling of the dirt on his bare feet.
    ‘May I be permitted to know the reason, First Son?’ Domovoi continued.
    Shanek shrugged. ‘I don’t really know, Domovoi,’ he said. ‘But something is not right. I feel…’ he paused, seeking the right word, ‘disappointed,’ he said finally.
    ‘In what?’ asked Domovoi.
    ‘I don’t know. Everything.’
    Domovoi frowned. ‘Everything, First Son? The birds disappoint you? The trees? The earth beneath your feet?’
    Shanek smiled. ‘No, Domovoi. Not everything. In fact most things do not.’
    ‘But what does?’
    ‘I really do not know. But there’s this all-pervading sense of…’ he paused again, groping for a word, ‘wrong.’
    ‘Wrong?’
    ‘Yes. Something, and something significant, is wrong.’
    ‘Can you be more specific, First Son?’
    ‘The Asan, us. We are wrong.’
    Domovoi sighed. Always it came to this. He had been the Appointed One to Shanek’s father and he had asked the same questions, come to the same conclusions. In between his times as Appointed One, he had taught at both of the finest locii in the Empire. Whilst there he had been exposed to the keenest minds, and with them he had wrestled with the ethical dilemmas now plaguing the First Son.
    Truly, he welcomed the evidence of such a perceptive mind. It was just that he wished that just once, someone would ask something new. With the barest flicker of an eyelid, he brought his mind to order and composed himself to address Shanek’s concerns.
    ‘The issue of the ethics of slavery is one that has exercised the finest minds throughout the history of the Empire—’ he began.
    ‘And one that will always remain to vex us in our quiet moments of introspection,’ Shanek completed. ‘Yes, Domovoi, I have read your lecture on the subject. As it is the definitive work, it would be lax of me not to. But you did not address the core issue.’
    ‘Which would be what?’ asked Domovoi.
    ‘How can one person own another?’
    ‘It is not a question of ownership, but one of power.’
    ‘No it is not,’ snapped Shanek. ‘Power