Station Of Seers : 21

The Council deliberated for many hours. Crinomu had confounded them with his last revelation, subtly implicating every seer in his crime. Whilst all were shocked, given their nature many found it impossible not to feel at least a little latent twinge of paternal instinct. Crinomu had put them in a complete quandary. Although Gyrun continued to urge termination of the pregnancy, the longer the discussion continued the more the members of the old party softened their stance as though Kalonia could become a home of true rebel angels. There were even some who flirted openly with breaking the Vow Of Earth and the Conclave be damned. Hirrilow could not permit this, whatever his private sympathies. When all discussion ended, the judgement was his to make.
"For this crime which breaks the law by which Enclave and Rider are rightfully separated under the Vow of Earth, I sentence you to ten thousand years within the vurtiversal void, to wander the silence and to know the darkness as only one of our kind can know it," he declared in solemn tones to a grim smile of satisfaction from Gyrun.
"Yet let it not be said that this Council is without mercy. The child may live, provided it is limited by the same rule as its mother and does not leave this Enclave. And further, I decree that as the child and mother are guiltless, so shall they not suffer for the sins of the agent who dares to call us all fathers. Crinomu shall remain within the Embassy to the Substrate for so long as mother or child still live, depriving neither of the emotional help which is their need and their due. And we seers shall be as fathers where we may and not begrudge the innocents their brief lives and shorter happiness.
"One day they shall die in their time, as all mortals must and Crinomu shall suffer the anguish of that death as all immortals must who dare to love them. We need not hasten to enact the punishment now. When both the humans are dead his term in the Embassy will end forever and then he shall return to the vurtiverse and serve his sentence!"
Crinomu dropped to his knees weeping and he thanked the mercy of the Council for this boon was much more than he had expected, even as the ultimate punishment was much worse. But though Gyrun bowed and acknowledged the Council in his heart he felt that the crucial issue had not been treated properly according to the strict laws of justice the Guardians had established. The seers had gone too far this time; well beyond the sins of prophesy for which the Enclave had been Cursed.
It was said afterwards that the trial of Crinomu and the judgement of Hirrilow was the true beginning of the doom that would one day come to all Kalonia. For it was then that Gyrun lost faith in his leader and began secretly to work with his allies against him. And on this path there could be no going back.