One afternoon Crazy Hawk came to Gray Deer's house still wearing his work clothes.  "One of my friends just came to the shop," he announced, "the word's all over the city.  The Hoods are mad about The Voice encouraging the merchants to stand up to them, and about the drug dealers mysteriously disappearing all over the city.  They don't like him making the Warlocks enforce The law about The Children of Spirit being sold into slavery.
    2  They've put a death price on his head; fifty gold coins to anyone who brings The High Hood in this city proof he was the one killing him."
    3  "Only fifty?" asked The Voice. "Why, I'm insulted!  I'm worth far more than fifty!"
    4  "This is no joke," argued Bright Sword, "no joke, indeed.  From now on you go nowhere without a bodyguard. I'll select two of my best men."
    5  "If there's people around me with swords," disagreed The Voice, "some of the people I deal with won't come near me.  I don't need an escort, I can fend for myself."
    6  "You made me in charge of everyone's safety," argued Bright Sword, "and told everyone else they were to obey me. If you exclude yourself from that authority, who will next decide they can fend for themselves?"
    7  The Voice shrugged. "Point made and won," he agreed, using an expression from a popular discussion game. "I will accept your escort. But they must be discreet. And, speaking of Guardian, how's that project coming I had you working on?"
    8  "We'll be ready in two or three nights," Bright Sword told him.  "If the Hoods were mad at you before, after this they'll double your price!"
    9  So it was, three nights later, panic roared through the city.  Hooded groups of men and women broke into hundreds of houses seizing the drug dealers that had been selling Pon, Blue Grass, and distilled wine.
    10  They executed them on their own doorsteps, burning their supplies in their own fireplaces.  The next day the city was in an uproar.  Many praised what had been done, others condemned it.
    11  "Who are these people," they argued, "to take the Law into their own hands?  Who are they to be Speaker and Judges?"
    12  "All were caught with the proof," answered the rest of the people, "the blood of our children on their hands.  If there was a question of anyone's guilt, they were left for the Warlocks.  When The Law is helpless the people must act."
    13  The city Warlock came and questioned The Voice, who told him he had encouraged the people to fight back, but he did not know who any of the actual raiders were, and this was true.  For he had forbidden Bright Sword to tell him.
    14  The Speaker left, deciding it was best not to bring charges.  The Voice's popularity was such that to try to arrest him could have started riots!  So the local authorities were cautious in their dealings with him.
    15  Bright Sword's predictions proved true. The Hoods doubled the price on The Voice's head. And the following week, when six cartloads of Blue Grass and Pon were attacked and burned, just outside the city gate, they added fifty more gold.  The Voice was indeed getting unpopular with the Hoods.  He would become unpopular, still.
    16  One evening six men attacked him as he walked home, but he and his guards made quick work of them.  Only two managed to flee back into the darkness.
    17  The City Speaker wrote complaints to The First Speaker, that The Voice was interfering with his authority, that The Voice's followers were acting as Warlocks without authority.
    18  The First Speaker wrote back, saying, "Send me a charge that I can directly accuse him of, and I will send you troops.  But unless you can precisely tell me of crimes he has committed, I can do nothing.  It is not illegal for citizens to attack lawbreakers.  If you can prove any of the persons punished were not guilty of crimes, you can bring the charge of murder, but you will have to prove that this Voice directly ordered his followers to do the killing."
    19  Now, this irritated The City Speaker for The Voice never told his people to kill.  He simply told them to do what The Law required in each case.  And if The Law said execution, that's what the people did!  But The Voice never said 'Go execute this man, or, that man.'  So The City Speaker had no charges.
    20  One afternoon Gray Deer was coming home when a young man suddenly stepped out of the shadows and stabbed him.  The knife met his arm, not his chest, and Gray Deer was able to subdue the man.