"Congratulations, Sergeant Lyra" began the priestess. "I know the goddess will be pleased at the return of the rock to Her treasury. However, I wonder if you might explain this."
A servant brought in a squawking, angry hen.
"It's a chicken, your reverence" Lyra began.
"It's my niece!" the priestess exploded. "How did she get turned into a chicken, Sergeant Lyra? How did you end up in command of the expedition?"
"I have no idea" Lyra began, and began the prepared story of the commander's heroic death. The priestess waved her into silence. "Save it for the court-martial" she said, as Lyra was taken to a prison cell.
+++++++++++++++
This doesn't look good, Lyra thought. If they got the real story it would look like mutiny, and it wouldn't work to simply point out what an ass the commander had been and that if she had stayed in command, they would probably have lost the stone and maybe Atelia would have taken over the world, who knows. What they would care about was the insubordination, and the fact that the high priestess's beloved niece was now a chicken. How had she gotten to be a chicken anyway? Lyra had left her as a stableboy.
She heard Robin in the distance demanding to be imprisoned with his mistress, and smiled. She hoped the next warrior woman he hooked up with would be kind to him. She knew that Robin, Audrey and Yvana were all working on the outside for her, but there was little they could do.
There was only one chance, and Lyra hoped that the Goddess really placed a high value on that rock.
+++++++++++++
"Sergeant Lyra, do you have anything to say to defend yourself?" said the priestess who was judge in the case.
Here goes, Lyra thought. "I appeal to the justice of the Goddess."
"You realize that by putting your case directly to the Goddess, you have no appeal against whatever punishment she decides to give you, and that she is bound by no law save her own desires."
"I am aware, your reverence."
"Then so let it be done!"
+++++++++++++++
Lyra, her accuser the high priestess, and the chicken stood before the altar of the goddess. There was not point making a plea--the goddess already knew. All the risks that she was taking, all of the the punishments the goddess had delivered over the centuries, deaths, torments, transformations into animals and inanimate objects, age regressions and progressions, and the benefits that had sometimes been given as well, crowded into her mind. But Lyra had always been able to be relaxed on the eve of battle, and she calmed herself and focused her mind.
"I can hardly wait to see what she does to you" smirked the high priestess.
Lyra just smiled.
"I think she, sqee, squawk!" Her mouth was becoming a hard beak. The priestess was shrinking as a weird growth came over her body. In a few seconds Lyra stood not beside one, but beside two chickens.
She heard a voice in her mind. "Both of these foolish women put themselves and their families advancement ahead of my service. Let them live as chickens until each has laid a thousand eggs! You kept a clear focus on what you were supposed to do, and let nothing interfere with the achievement of the goal! But you are not entirely innocent, either. Your penalty will be to take care of these chickens, and to do it yourself, don't shove off the responsibility on a servant, or you might become a chicken yourself or something even lower!"
Lyra picked up a chicken in each arm and left the temple to where her friends were waiting. Well, she thought, hope everybody likes omelets!
THE END