“At high tide the waves crash over this stone bank with ferocity. Were we to remain here for another few hours, we would be easily swept out to sea. In another age, the accused were brought here to the end of the bank before high tide. They would hold on to the God Rung with their bare hands. If they were able to resist the waves, they would be set free. If not, the sea or the gods, or whatever the so-called ‘nobility’ of that time pretended to believe in, judged the accused.”

Dyeawan wonders why she was unable to figure that out for herself. Now that Edger has explained it, the purpose of the God Rung seems obvious.

“You’re quiet,” Edger observes. “You want to know why the answer eluded you.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t worry, Slider, this wasn’t another test.”

“Then what is it? Why have you brought me here?”

“It’s a lesson. You couldn’t see the God Rung’s purpose because your mind isn’t capable of working like those of the people who built this. You’re not cruel, punitive, cowardly, or conniving.”

“I’ve seen cruelty before.”

“Not like this, not used by those who rule.”

“Maybe they believed in what they were doing. Maybe they had faith, like you have in me and in what the Planning Cadre does.”

“Faith does not relieve one of obligation or action. True faith isn’t in an imagined deity or some mystical force that solves all one’s problems. True faith is a reason to act, or it has no useful function. The men and women who built this rung used faith to excuse themselves from acting, from responsibility. They were cowards, and their cowardice bred cruelty. These were petty people who attained their station and status through lies about the sanctity of bloodlines, of extraction. Their entire lives were built, not around function or purpose, but around lies and self-interest.”

“Not like now, like us,” Dyeawan says, almost as if repeating words from a poem or a song.

“No. Crache was founded on a very simple doctrine: on the belief that the best person for a job should do that job, regardless of their parentage or how the flesh between their thighs was formed. Their beliefs even excluded women from performing many tasks simply based on the fact they were women, viewed as weaker and inferior to men in all ways. Our belief is that people, not gold or steel or wood or stone, are our finest resource. Finding their purpose, their function is everything… even in the condemned. That’s why we allow citizens to form Gens, to pool resources and talent and offer their skills and services. The best are rewarded as we are rewarded with the benefit of their function.”

“I’ve read about nobility. Being noble is supposed to be a fine quality in a person—”