Barge Fall Inn.

104^th of Hunter’s Moon, 719

Elder Rimheit has made her case.  Make this right, she says.  I know her life has not been easy, which is why such a reductive viewpoint surprises me so.  It is not as simple as making things right.  It never is.

What would she have me do?  Expose Jofridus for the demon-worshipping traitor that he is?  Grab him by his ear and drag him to the Lunarch himself?  News of this treachery would likely do more damage than good.  If the church’s name were to be sullied, so many innocents would suffer the consequences.  Whether Avacyn is real or not, the idea of her is all that is keeping humanity alive.

She wants justice.  Justice for the church, for Reika, for her poor young daughter Elsi.  I haven’t the heart to tell her the truth; there is no justice.  Nothing can make the death of a little girl right.  No debt can be repaid that will even the balance.  Hang a man, desecrate his corpse, enslave his spirit – will that erase his wrongs? 

Justice exists only as an idea that makes the blind masses feel safe. 

The only true law is that of costs.  Cold, brutal economics.  A man can steal as much bread as he wants, as long as he is willing to pay the price in pain and time.  Murder is not evil, it is merely expensive.

By this account, Jofridus is much in debt.  And soon I will collect.

Raben