When Empty Eyes left the Monastery of Law following morning services, the clerks did not interfere. They had grown accustomed to the sight. When it came to Adjudicators, abnormal behavior wasn’t just likely; it was inevitable. Like all magic, using the Blade of Law had consequences. Within the abbey, speaking openly about these consequences was frowned upon and speaking about them directly to an Adjudicator was punished. But when the monks did discuss the damage that resulted from use of the blade, they referred to it as legislative exhaustion.

            There were no explicit rules against an Adjudicator walking around town but the first time Empty Eyes made a break for the front gates, the clerks yelped and jumped in the way. They stalled the behemoth long enough to confer with each other and agreed that if he were seen mingling among the populace, the abbey’s reputation for impartiality would be damaged. After voicing these concerns to the Head Clerk, the old monk laughed like they were grandchildren squabbling at his feet.

            “Mingle? Tell me children, when your duties force you to venture outside these walls, do you often see a line of people waiting to befriend our Adjudicators? No? If you’re concerned enough to interrupt my breakfast, just cover him up to hide his friendly demeanor,” Head Clerk Georgio Wisen IV ribbed his pupils. If an Adjudicator wanted to go for a walk, you let him go for a walk. Head Clerk Wisen had dealt with countless more inconvenient displays of exhaustion during his long service at the abbey.

            The monks took the Head Clerk’s suggestion literally and tailored an outfit covering Empty Eyes from head to toe. In the end, the work took five standard sized robes and made the Adjudicator look like an eight foot tall child on Spirits’ Day.

            Whether or not the costume was a success was arguable but on the streets, nobody dared to approach Empty Eyes as he strolled through the morning market. Who knew what devilry he could perform with or without his dagger? It was a question best left unanswered and so the people of Iratari gave him and his bedsheet a wide berth and looked at their feet as he passed. Empty Eyes gave no indication he noticed and moved with purpose.

            Every night, Piaire Limonne went to bed and prayed that the beast would forget about his humble bakery and every morning the Adjudicator squeezed through his shop’s door again. When the brute wandered in many weeks ago, Piaire assumed the monster was lost and would promptly stumble back out, before or after killing him. Instead the creature just planted himself in front of a display case and wouldn’t budge. Seconds before Piaire decided to fall to his knees and confess all sins past, present and imagined, the Adjudicator pointed to a shelf. Every day since, the ritual played out the same way: Empty Eyes entered, Piaire handed over a pastry already waiting in a paper bag, Empty Eyes left and the baker swore to himself that if this bizarre routine carried on for just one more day, he’d retire.

            Empty Eyes walked and patted at himself often to check that the treat was where he left it. After the bakery came the park and the feeling of the warm pastry pressed against his breast spurred his pace. By the time he approached the entrance to Iratari Park, he was almost jogging and failed to notice the figure chasing behind him. The Adjudicator ducked under the arch of the park gates and after waiting a safe interval, his pursuer followed on soft feet.

********

            Iratari Park was one of the few places in the world that could hide someone Empty Eyes’ size. Ancient Watchtower trees dominated the park and looked down on every manmade structure in the surrounding city. Some of the trunks of the largest titans required the outstretched arms of twenty men to encircle. The enormous trees made Empty Eyes feel small in a good way and he watched the canopy far above as he stomped along one of the walking trails. In the early days, he would encounter other visitors in the park but that was only a few times and they always ran away. These days the park was his alone. Even the wildlife spread word of the strange beast roaming their communities and wherever Empty Eyes went, the woods were quiet.

            The Adjudicator spotted the pair of rotten oak stumps that marked the trailhead to his own secret path. Minutes later, he was in an open patch of grass too small to be called a glade but too special to be missed if you went looking for it. In the middle of the clearing was a treasure that Empty Eyes had discovered all those weeks ago: the hollowed out trunk of a massive, dead Watchtower.

            The great Watchtower had been hewn by lightning, carved by fire and finished by generations of insects. The trunk had a crack large enough for Empty Eyes to enter and an interior that allowed him to sit with his feet sticking out when he stretched. It was the perfect hideout. Isolated, secret and his. He often daydreamed about fashioning a sign that read “Fort Mine” and nailing it on the entrance like all the shops in town had. He knew that few things worked better than a sign when you wanted to let people know that a spot was taken. But the sign was just a fun idea. He had no means of acquiring the materials and even if he did, he couldn’t read or write.

            Empty Eyes squatted within the walls of Fort Mine and withdrew the bakery bag from his robe. He then broke the clerks’ rules and removed his hood. What nobody outside of the Monastery of Law knew was that an Adjudicator unarmored and unhooded could be a more gruesome sight than one in their full panoply. His skin was white and without hair. Tumors propagated his face and made his features bulge and difficult to distinguish.

            The disfigurement was by design and a premeditated effect of his strict diet of Wheatcream. The thick gruel was developed by the Monastery and dulled the mind to a point where an Adjudicator could withstand the mental trauma of activating the magic within the Blade of Law. In addition to acting as a heavy narcotic, the Wheatcream twisted and stretched the physical body until all human design was abandoned in favor of one virtue: growth.

            When the topic of an Adjudicator’s appearance arose in a class of junior clerks, Head Clerk Wisen preached: “The Law is the Law. It is not pretty; it is not man’s friend nor is it his enemy. The Law must be a force apart from man and his machinations. My children, next time you wish that our honorable Adjudicators did not turn your stomach to look at, remember this: some men can never be made to respect the law, but all men can fear the law.”

            Empty Eyes cupped the cinnamon twist in both hands, brought it close to his face and inhaled. He hoarded the smell, exhaled and did it again. Some kinds of spells didn’t require an ancient talisman and the magic that linked scent with memory was one. Another deep breath. Cinnamon. Singing. A soft touch. A special day.

            The Adjudicator first caught the scent of a fresh batch of cinnamon twists while returning from trial many weeks ago. He nearly tripped over his own feet when he smelled them. The next morning, after being bullied into wearing a big, itchy robe, he went hunting for Piarie’s Bakery.

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            Eating the cinnamon twist was a formality, albeit a tasty formality but before Empty Eyes could, he heard someone or something trampling in the deadfall nearby. He pulled his legs in close and wondered if Fort Mine would hide him. Eating sweets wasn’t a violation but he had been explicitly instructed not to remove his hood or robes for any reason. For an Adjudicator who has broken the rules, there was only one penance: a reduction in Wheatcream.

            Empty Eyes fumbled with his hood, not yet willing to sacrifice his cinnamon twist for the use of both hands. A branch snapped. He dropped the hood. A footstep. He made ready to run but it was too late; someone was blocking the exit of Fort Mine and they were staring right at him.

********

            A girl, no more than eight summers, stood in the crack of Fort Mine and prevented any retreat. She wore a new dress already dirtied without care; her hair was in curls that framed her plump cheeks. When she spotted Empty Eyes, she didn’t scream or run. In fact, she grinned and made Empty Eyes feel exposed as if she had caught him in the bath.

            The girl wasn’t shocked to find the Adjudicator in the park; that was her plan. She had followed him before but always chickened out at the park gates. That morning she swore on her life that she’d discover what the Adjudicator was up to. She just never expected to find him tucked in a broken old tree like a raccoon with cinnamon on his nose.

            “You’re not a monster,” the girl declared, seeing through yet another trick by grownups.

            Empty Eyes did not move.

            “I knew it but everyon—Hey! Is that a cinnamon twist? Is that what you do at Piaire’s every morning? My nanny gets strawberry bread from him sometimes,” the girl said and Empty Eyes clutched the pastry.

            Who was this girl? Why was she watching him at the bakery? Was this a test by the clerks?

            “You’re being very rude just sitting there and staring. Do you talk?” The girl pressed. She was unaccustomed to being ignored.

            Empty Eyes had never been very good at problem solving and life at the abbey was so simple. Do not break the rules. What were the rules? Whatever a clerk tells you to do is a rule. Simple. But he could not remember any rules to help him out of his predicament. He did recall something about talking to the public but that was never explained well and this girl spoke to him as if he was already in trouble. Was he? She did kind of sound like a clerk or at least someone in charge and Empty Eyes couldn’t risk his Wheatcream; his head already hurt so badly at night.

            “Are you the public?” Empty Eyes croaked.

            “What a silly question. I guess maybe you’re slow or something. That would explain it,” the girl said and matched the sluggish pace the Adjudicator used when she next spoke. “I’m Lily. My mom picked it out. Are you the owl or fox?”

            No response.

            “Your head, your head! Owl head or fox head?” Lily raised her arms over and over to make a circle above her own head. She might have pantomimed an owl and fox if she weren’t already starting to feel like a monkey. She reset to reconsider her angle of attack.

            Empty Eyes was reconsidering retreat. He didn’t come to Fort Mine to feel dumb or confused. Maybe if he immediately confessed whatever infractions he may or may not have committed, the Head Clerk would be merciful. Now the strange girl was making big circles with her fingers around her eyes. Something clicked.

            “My helmet?” Empty Eyes touched his head.

            “Yes!”

            “Owl.”

            “Empty Eyes! We saw you yesterday! Those poor Minnistons. I met them before, you know. Boy, that was scary. I’ve seen Long Tooth too. My Dad took me last winter. Wow, wait until I tell him I met Empty Eyes! I told him you go to the park too but he didn’t believe me. He did his ‘uh huh’ thing when I told him,” Lily accelerated back to her usual speed.

            “I don’t like that name.”

            “Huh? Why not?”

            “I just don’t.”

            “Oookay. What do you want to be called? What’s your name?”

            The true answer to Lily’s question had been lost long ago and was impossible to retrieve. The citizens of Iratari swore that Adjudicators siphoned the souls of those they tested but the truth wasn’t far off. The Monsters of the Monastery did not collect souls, only memories. Transcribed within the mind of Empty Eyes were the complete lifetimes of every man and woman that he had judged. Lily was asking him to pull a specific drop of water from the bottom of a raging sea.

            “You don’t have a name,” Lily answered for him. He wanted to lie but lacked the requisite creativity. “Well, that’s not going to work for me, Not Empty Eyes. If we’re going to be friends, I have to call you something.”

            Lily sat in the dirt of Fort Mine and ground the problem down until she had a solution that met her standards.

            “Your name will be Knotty. Hear me out. Two summers ago, I had a bull at Daddy’s ranch called Knotty. He wasn’t the prettiest but boy was he strong! Daddy says he might be the strongest bull he’s ever owned but Knotty let me pet him and feed him and would come running when I called him. Sometimes he’d even let me ride him and it was nicer than any horse. I bet Daddy that I could fall asleep riding him but I never got the chance. Trust me. Knotty is a good name and you have to admit it fits. What do you say?” Lily finished her pitch.

            Empty Eyes said nothing. The girl might as well have been whistling for as much as he could follow. As Lily often did, she took the initiative and the absence of rejection for approval.

            “Good. I’m glad that’s settled, Knotty. You should be happy, it wasn’t the first name I considered…”

            Lily whistled on and Empty Eyes silently repeated the name to himself. Knotty. He had no idea how to judge a name but he could recall how he felt when he learned the name Empty Eyes belonged to him. Sad. Like he should apologize when someone said it. He didn’t feel that way about Knotty.

            “I like it.” He said, interrupting a story about a three legged cat Lily once owned.

            “Great! That’s great. But you know what they say: every good deed deserves a reward,” Lily held out her palm.

            Empty Eyes stood fast and considered fleeing for a final time.

            “Knotty. Friends share. That’s a rule.”

            Watching the Adjudicator’s fat fingers split the cinnamon twist made Lily picture a man trying to pluck the wings off a fly. She laughed and took her half. She didn’t even mind that it was a little smashed on one end.

            “Thank you very much, Knotty.”

            Lily sat back, ate and admired her work. Who else in the world could claim to have named their very own Adjudicator? And as far as she was concerned, the friendship was legally binding; the contract paid in cinnamon and sugar.