The silence in the hall was so thick you could almost touch it. A silence heavy with fear, judgment, and unhealthy curiosity. All eyes were fixed on the platform where the most imposing figures of the ZORA tribe sat. The Chief, whose wrinkles seemed carved by the weight of every decision he had ever made. The Elders, their faces like masks of hardened wood. And the Priestess. Her face, impassive, seemed carved from the ancient ivory of the sacred altars. Her eyes, two black shining stones, scanned the audience, and ZE-RAK had the unpleasant sensation that they lingered on him with particular intensity.
The Tribal Chief spoke, his deep voice rolling like distant thunder.
"This assembly is now open. Elder MOULE, you have brought the gravest of accusations against Elder ZE-BE. Present the facts. Let the ancestors hear the truth."
Elder MOULE stood up. He was a man with a lean body and piercing eyes that shone with cold intelligence. An almost imperceptible gleam, a gleam of contained triumph, flashed in his gaze as he addressed the assembly with a solemnity that sounded false to ZE-RAK's ears.
"I thank you for granting me this opportunity to speak, Chief, Priestess, brothers of ZORA. As you all know, our clan is governed by taboos, sacred laws that protect us and maintain balance with the spirit world. Their violation cannot go unpunished. This very morning, as I was heading to the beast pens, I noticed strange behavior in Elder ZE-BE. A feverishness in his step, a gaze... empty, as if absent. Suspicious, I decided to follow him."
A murmur ran through the crowd, a shiver of unhealthy excitement.
ZE-RAK clenched his fists so hard his nails dug into his palms. Lies. How dare he? His father had never had an empty gaze in his life. His eyes were always full of fire, life, determination.
"And it was then, hidden in the thorny thickets bordering the forbidden edge, that I saw him," continued MOULE, his voice feigning horror and disbelief. "He cold-bloodedly killed a hawk, our sacred animal, the one who carries the ancestors' messages to the sun!"
This time, the murmur became a wave of stupefaction. Muffled exclamations erupted.
"What? ZE-BE? Impossible!"
"The sacred animal?No! The ancestors will curse us!"
ZE-RAK felt a deadly cold run down his spine. It was too grotesque, too monstrous to be true. Father, who had taught him to respect every life, every spirit of the forest? What an absurd lie...
The Chief raised a weary hand, and silence fell, heavy with tension.
"Silence! The floor remains with the accuser. Continue, Elder MOULE."
MOULE resumed, emboldened by the unrest he was sowing. "When his own hunting companions, men who revered him, saw him commit this impious act, horrified, they tried to reason with him, to bring him back here to explain himself. That's when he went mad! A murderous madness seized him. He killed them. All of them. To silence them and hide his crime. Only the hunter MASSI, gravely wounded, miraculously survived thanks to my intervention."
The hall exploded. This was the last straw. Some screamed their denial, faithful to the end to the image of their hero. Others, fewer in number, already cast accusing glances, feeding an ancient jealousy that ZE-BE's glory had kept in check.
"That's a lie!" cried a voice in the crowd.
"He's making it all up out of jealousy!ZE-BE was the best among us!"
"Or perhaps his exploits were too good to be true..."another whispered maliciously, his face hidden in shadow.
ZE-RAK remained like a statue, rooted to the spot. His world was collapsing, but his trust in his father remained an unshakable rock. This story was a web of lies, too perfect, too horrible to be true.
The Priestess raised her hand, and silence fell again, immediate and respectful. Her authority was of a different nature, older and deeper than the Chief's.
"Elder MOULE," she said, her voice clear and cold like spring water. "You know that slandering an Elder is a severely punished crime. The weight of your words is as heavy as the judgment stone."
"I know, Priestess. And I swear on my name, on the souls of my ancestors, and on the breath of life that animates me, that I have spoken the strict truth. I take full responsibility before the spirits and before you."
All eyes then turned to ZE-BE. The Priestess fixed her inquisitive gaze on him, a gaze that seemed capable of seeing through flesh and bone.
"Elder ZE-BE. Do you admit to having killed a hawk, our sacred animal, messenger of the ancestors?"
ZE-RAK's heart stopped beating. He leaned forward, as if to catch the words before they left his father's mouth.
ZE-BE stared straight ahead, his face strangely calm, smooth like a lake on a windless day.
"Yes," he said in a monotone voice, without inflection. "I admit to killing a hawk."
A shock ran through the audience like an electric discharge. ZE-RAK staggered, as if he had received a club blow to the chest. The air left him. No. No, it's impossible.
"WERE YOU AWARE that it was a hawk?" insisted the Priestess, her intonation strange, as if asking a coded question.
"No," ZE-BE replied, still in the same flat voice, devoid of all emotion. "I did not know."
The Priestess closed her eyes for a moment, as if listening to an inner voice, the whisper of the wind or the spirits.
"He lies," she declared coldly, reopening her eyes.
The crowd was lost, confused. Why confess and then deny immediately after? ZE-RAK felt confusion twisting his mind. Something was terribly wrong. This wasn't his father's voice. This wasn't his gaze. It was as if someone had emptied his shell and slipped in an automaton reciting a nonsensical script.
The questions continued, each of ZE-BE's answers more absurd and contradictory than the last, each cross-examination by the Priestess revealing a blatant lie. He confessed to the murders of his brothers-in-arms with a coldness completely foreign to him, then lied about insignificant details, like the color of the bird's plumage or the position of the bodies.
Suddenly, ZE-RAK understood. This wasn't his father speaking. This was a puppet. His will had been stolen. He took a step forward, his throat tight with a visceral urgency.
"Wait!" His voice, young and broken, cut through the protocol. "I... I think my father isn't well! He... it's not him speaking! Look at him!"
The Priestess turned to him, and for the first time, her mask of impassivity cracked. A gleam of alarm, sharp and rapid, shone in her eyes, quickly suppressed by cold anger.
"SILENCE!" she barked, much harsher and more personal than necessary. "A boy without rank, without experience, has no voice here! Return to your mother and respect the judgment of your elders!"
Stunned by this verbal violence, ZE-RAK stepped back, as if slapped. He clenched his fists, feeling the gaze of hundreds of people on him. She knows. She knows something and she doesn't want me to speak.
"This is difficult to continue like this," the Chief resumed, looking genuinely worried and tired. "Elder MOULE, do you have evidence corroborating your words? A witness, tangible proof?"
"Yes, Chief," MOULE replied, a hint of satisfaction in his voice. "I call upon the intermediate-rank hunter who was present, the sole survivor of this massacre, the one who saw the madness in his mentor's eyes: MASSI."
The name struck ZE-RAK like a dagger. MASSI? His father's favorite disciple? The one he treated like a second son, to whom he had taught everything? The one who shared their meals, who laughed with them? A betrayal so intimate was crueler than all of MOULE's accusations.
The man made his entrance, and a deathly silence greeted his presence. A bandage stained with brownish blood wrapped around his torso. His face, usually open and confident, was pale, marked by physical pain and... something else. Shame? Fear?
"I, hunter MASSI, answer the call of the Elders," he said in a hoarse voice.
"Tell us what you saw," ordered the Priestess, without giving him time to breathe, to collect himself.
MASSI carefully avoided looking at ZE-BE. His gaze lost itself in the void, above the crowd.
"Elder MOULE speaks the truth," he began, as if reciting a lesson. "I saw everything. We were hunting. Elder ZE-BE spotted the bird. He... he raised his spear. We shouted, we begged him. It was a hawk. But he didn't listen. He pierced it." His voice broke, but it wasn't a break of emotion, it was the fracture of someone forcing words they don't want to say. "When we tried to stop him, to bring him back, to understand... he... he became unrecognizable. A beast. He slaughtered all our brothers. I owe my life only to Elder MOULE's intervention." He lowered his head, unable to say more.
The Priestess turned to the Chief, her face once again a stone mask.
"In cases where the truth is obscure, where words oppose each other and hearts are full of darkness, there is only one way for our Ancestors to decide directly. The sacred way. Judgment by blood."
The Chief gravely inclined his head, a gleam of deep regret in his aged eyes.
"A judicial duel," he sighed. "So be it. Let it be so. May the Ancestors themselves judge the truth in these two men's hearts. May the victor be recognized as just."
The sentence fell like a blade. ZE-RAK felt the ground give way beneath his feet. No. Not a duel. Not when father has that empty gaze, that voice from beyond the grave. He wanted to scream, protest, beg, but the words stuck in his throat, suffocated by the weight of fate. It was too late. The machinery of the plot was in motion, oiled by lies and betrayals.
He had just witnessed, powerless, the programmed destruction of his father, not by weapons, but by words. And the worst was yet to come.