Trial

A thorough search of the Fool’s things, as luck would have it, turned up nothing. He grinned and clapped his hands as everyone began showing an interest in his things. His act was perfect. The Hunter hauled me outside, into the looming storm, shouting for the other pilgrims to follow her. I shivered in the rain as all eyes turned to me. My neck was still bleeding and my throat was parched.

“I vote to put him on trial ourselves,” said the Wizard. “Right here.”

“I know I don’t get a vote,” I said. “But I request… humbly… that you let one of the monks be the judge. To preserve impartiality.”

“I agree,” said Lilly, quietly. My heart warmed. I had at least one ally. Grudgingly, Asuana agreed.

***

The trial took place in the church. Pews creaked, filled with bald, bruise-covered monks who craned their necks for a better view. I sat in the front pew, alone and positioned in such a way that, whenever lightning flashed beyond the stained-glass windows, I could feel colors crawling across my face. The judge, an ancient monk who looked terribly uncomfortable, sat upon the altar. The Wizard, it appeared, was to be my prosecutor. He had volunteered, of course.

“Father,” said the Wizard to the judge, “I am capable of casting a spell that will compel the young murderer to tell the truth. I need only a moment to prepare the enchantment.”

The monk rubbed his wrinkled forehead. “Brother.”

“What?” said the Wizard.

“I’m a brother, we have no fathers. Our order of monks is…” He searched for a word while trying to find a comfortable position to sit. First he crossed his legs one way, then another. Popping his neck and knuckles, he said, “…is different.” The monk twisted, popping his back. “Cast your truth spell if you wish.”

“Bear in mind,” said the Wizard, “that the spell merely invokes a compulsion. It can be resisted, so do not assume that everything that tumbles out of the little whelp’s mouth can be trusted.”

“I never assume anything,” said the judge. “Is the world real, or are we merely dreaming?” He reached his left arm around his head to scratch his right ear, shoulder popping in the process. “Please refer to the accused as ‘the accused,’ not as ‘the little whelp.’ Words matter on occasion.”

The Wizard’s face reddened. He didn’t seem to know how to respond to the criticism of an older—probably wiser—man. “Of course, Your Honor.”

“Brother.”

“Brother!” said the Wizard. “With your leave, I will begin.”

At the judge’s nod, the Wizard waved his hands. Almost immediately, the effects of enchantment seeped into my brain, clouding my thoughts. I felt warm, safe, and sleepy—almost exactly as I had felt once after drinking too much rum on the Ariel Angel. Not good, part of my brain said. How can I make a coherent case like this? But although I tried, I couldn’t make myself care. Proving my innocence didn’t matter in the grand scheme of the universe, where the planets turned like wheels, where I was an insignificant insect compared to the infinite—Stop, I told myself. Focus.

“Nial,” said the Wizard, “let’s start with the obvious question. Did you kill Sir Mau?”

It would be funny to say yes, I found myself thinking. Just for giggles. Just to see the look on their faces. A titter escaped my lips.

“Is that funny?” demanded the Wizard. The sea of monks behind me whispered.

“No,” I said. “Not really. Maybe a little bit. What was the question again?” That was good. That was convincing. In the moment, I actually thought I was doing well.

“Did you kill Sir Mau?” said the Wizard, pacing self-importantly across my field of vision.

The motion unsettled my stomach.

“Could you stop moving?” I asked, politely. “It’s making me sick.”

Suddenly, the Wizard’s finger was in my face. “Did you kill Sir Mau?”

“No,” I said. “Definitely not. I’m positive about that. For certain.”

“You protest strongly,” said the Wizard. “Are you nervous? Because you’re guilty?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Ha!” said the Wizard, clapping his hands. “He admitted it!”

The judge rubbed his feet and popped each toe individually. “Nial, what question did you just answer?”

“He asked if I was nervous,” I said. “I’m pretty nervous. You’d be nervous too, I bet, if they thought you had killed someone.”

“And are you nervous because you’re guilty?” asked the judge.

“No!” I said. “People think I’m guilty.

“I see.” The judge rubbed his eyes. Then, to the Wizard: “Tell me your name again, Mr….”

“Professor Octavius,” said the Wizard.

“Professor,” said the judge, “I am temporarily relieving you of your position as prosecutor.”

“Your Honor! I—”

“Brother,” corrected the judge. “You may have your position back when you learn to control yourself. Until then…” He pointed at the Hunter. “…you shall ask the questions, Asuana.” Like a petulant child, the Wizard stalked off and took his place next to the Fool, who gave him a hug. The Hunter stood quietly and crossed the church floor like a dark wraith, commanding instant respect with her silence. The monks behind me grew still. My heart sank. She was the kind of person people listened to, the kind of person people trusted. And she wouldn’t overstep her bounds the way the Wizard had. Even through my hazy thoughts, I felt a tremor of fear.

“Did you kill Sir Mau?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“Answer out loud, if you please,” she said.

“No. I didn’t kill him.”

“When I asked you if you knew who had taken my knife, did you have it?”

“Yeah…” I said glumly, unable to stop my lips. “It was in my boot.”

The monks behind me murmured. Some began to chant. The judge raised his bony hands for silence.

“Who have you killed?” asked the Hunter.

“A man on the ship,” I said. At first I thought the Wizard’s spell was putting lies into my mouth, but then I remembered that they were truths I never spoke of, nor thought of if I could help it. By the time I realized this, two more sentences had tumbled out, “He tried to take me into the cargo hold one night, to… do things to me. I dumped his body overboard before anyone could wake up.”

I put my face in my hands and began to sob. A few yards away the Fool began to cry too.

“Have you killed anyone else?” said the Hunter, gently.

“My father,” I said. “And my mother.” When I realized that everyone was looking at me in horror, I realized I must have left out some important details. My foggy mind tried to recall what I had just said out loud and what I had merely thought. “It wasn’t on purpose,” I explained. For some reason, the horror on everyone’s faces wasn’t going away. “I didn’t want them to die,” I added. That should do the trick. No… they still looked horrified. “Maybe ‘kill’ is the wrong word. My dad got sick. And my mom cut her own wrists. But it was my fault.”

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Asuana’s face, at least, softened, perhaps seeing some of the truth in my face. She switched tactics. “Have you always had thoughts about killing?” she asked.

“I’ve always wondered what it would be like.” What am I doing? I bit my own tongue, trying to bring myself out of the daze. I barely felt it. So I bit harder. Blood filled my mouth. Although my thoughts were sluggish, a measure of clarity returned. “What I mean is that…. I’ve thought about… about the morality of killing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whether it would ever be right to kill…”

“And was it right to kill Sir Mau?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. In the silence that followed, I realized that I’d been led into a trap. Damn. Trying to mend things, I said, “I don’t know why he was killed. So I don’t know whether it was right. I doubt it though.”

The Singer shot to her feet. “What about Madam Bela?” she demanded. “You’re the one who told me she was murdered. You said you saw bruises.”

“What’s the question?” I asked. The Singer looked rather beautiful, I realized. This made me think: Where’s Lilly? My attention wandered, so I bit my cheek, bringing tears to my eyes.

“How did you know?” said the Singer. “How did you know she was murdered?”

“I saw marks on her neck,” I said. “Or at least I thought I did.”

“And who do you think killed her?” asked the Hunter.

I took a deep breath and felt the mental fog begin to dissipate, flinging the force of my will against the Wizard’s enchantment. From the corner of my eye, I could see the Wizard flinch and begin to move his hands, trying to recast the spell.

“At first, I thought that you did it. Because I saw your black mask. But now, I think it was Father Ori. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was.”

“Why?”

I sighed. “He’s been following us. I spoke–”

The Wizard completed the spell, and I felt the enchantment seeping into my brain. But this time I was ready. Clearing my mind, I pushed back against the fog; picturing my mind as a misty forest like the one around my house growing up, the one in which my parents were buried. I imagined a cruel wind shrieking through the shivering trunks, destroying the mist in its path, leaving the air clear, crisp, and cold. The Wizard cried out, drawing the judge’s attention. “Is there something wrong, Mr. Octavius?”

Holding his head, the Wizard said, “No. Nothing’s wrong. I um… Oh, yes! The murder weapon. I’d like to introduce the murder weapon, with your permission, Your Honor—I mean, Brother.”

“The alleged murder weapon,” corrected the judge, reaching his hand down the back of his shirt to scratch his lower spine. “Let’s see it.”

“Actually, you can’t,” said the Wizard, approaching the altar.

“Excuse me?”

The Wizard held out a seemingly empty hand. “It’s invisible.”

The judge blinked. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“Feel for yourself.”

Taking the knife, the judge held it up to the light, hefted it, and felt the metal with his cheek. “How do you know this is the murder weapon?”

The Hunter stood and said, “I saw the cut on Sir Mau’s throat. It was the perfect size for that kind of knife. I’ve cut enough throats with it to know.”

“I have never witnessed,” said the judge, “a pilgrimage with so many…” He groped for a word and finally said, “weirdos.” It seemed like a strange word for a monk to use. Now that I was sobering up, I began to notice subtleties of the situation that had escaped me when I was drugged. One such subtlety was a wink that the old monk exchanged with Asuana, and the faint quirk of the lip that Asuana sent in reply. For the second time, I wondered if the monks had met Asuana before.

Before I could ponder it further, Professor Octavius jumped in, “That isn’t all, however. The knife was found in Nial’s hand—after it was stolen from Asuana several days ago. We all scried him trying to dispose of it in the outhouse. Ever since he came back from the showers acting strangely yesterday, I have taken the liberty of scrying his sessions alone. When I scried him acting strangely with his escort, Madam Du Vreil, I called the rest of the pilgrims to see. We all saw it.”

“Did you steal the knife, Nial?” asked the judge.

I mumbled that the Fool had stolen it, and that I had merely accepted the stolen goods.

“Ha!” said Professor Octavius. “And there’s more. The knife is enchanted.”

“So I see.”

Professor Octavius grinned, as if he were about to pounce. “I have attempted to disenchant it, but I can’t. I know with certainty that such a spell could only have been cast by a vastly powerful wizard.”

The judge turned his somber gaze on me. “Are you a vastly powerful wizard?”

“Not that I know of,” I said.

But Professor Octavius was not finished. “A lie! He admitted just recently to being a necromancer!” His voice echoed through the church.

“It’s true,” said one of the monks in the audience. It was Benji. “I overheard them talking about it.”

“Are you a necromancer, Nial?” asked the judge.

I looked at Lilly. She met my eyes and shook her head; you don’t have to do this, she seemed to say. But I could not condemn her to whatever was in store for me, and heck, I wasn’t supposed to leave the monastery anyway. What better way to bow out of the pilgrimage? “Yes. I’m a necromancer.”

Some of the monks began to wail prayers toward the ceiling. Others fell to their knees in the aisle. The church filled with sound. When it quieted, Professor Octavius asked, “Did you enchant the murder weapon?”

“No,” I said.

“Then who did?”

“I already told you…” I looked at the Fool. When Octavius followed my gaze, he made a show of bursting into laughter, theatrics for the judge’s benefit. It occurred to me that maybe I should have been kinder back when Professor Octavius was dictating his letter to me; I’d obviously made an enemy somehow, and I was pretty sure that had been the moment.

“I know it sounds crazy,” I told the judge. “But he’s an incredible wizard. He’s one of the Five.”

The judge looked at the Fool. “Are you a vastly powerful wizard, Sir?”

The Fool clapped his hands and grinned, bouncing up and down on the pew.

“What’s your name, Sir?” asked the judge.

The Fool nodded vigorously.

“He’s deaf,” said Asuana. “But we do have reason to believe he has powerful magical gifts and that he is more intelligent than he appears. Granted, though, it’s hard to tell sometimes.”

“Hmm,” said the judge. “I see.”

I tried to indicate to the Fool (via improvised sign language) that now would be a good time to do some magic. But the Fool just grinned, pleased that everyone was looking at him. Professor Octavius spread his hands and began to speak, using a voice that had probably captivated and terrified thousands of students over the years. “We have seen the evidence. The young accused admits to being curious about murder, admits to having killed before, admits to being involved in the study of evil magic, admits to taking the murder weapon. We have strong circumstantial evidence that he ensorcelled the blade to be invisible. We’ll probably never know why he killed Sir Mau. Was it jealousy? A crime of passion? We’ll never know what Nial was thinking just before he did it. But we do know that no one else was in possession of a knife at the time of the murder. We do know that no one else could have enchanted the knife. We do know that he tried to lie about who enchanted it. This is hardly a difficult case.” His words hung in the air like a spell.

The monk stretched and hopped from the altar, knees popping. “Do you have anything to say, Nial?”

“Yes.” I rose, thinking furiously. I didn’t want Lilly or Asuana actually thinking I was a murderer, but I didn’t want everyone thinking I was completely innocent either, or they might still bring me with them. I glanced at the windows, wondering if Father Ori was peering through the stained glass. My theatrics would be for everyone in attendance.

“The evidence points against me. I know this. But that doesn’t make me a murderer.” I let that hang in the air, hoping to disenchant the magic of Professor Octavius’s words with silence. “I’ve killed before—yes. The man I killed in the cargo hold was trying to hurt me, though. And I know at least some of my fellow pilgrims have obviously killed before this all started. Since then, though, the only people I’ve participated in killing were twenty-five nomads, for whom I helped acquire sand vipers to make an airborn toxin. We all participated. It wasn’t even my idea. It was Asuana’s. Yes, I used necromancy to summon Sir Mau’s spirit—but only to try to unravel the mystery of the killer, to try to prevent more deaths. The spirit said I killed Sir Mau, but I have reason to believe that the spirit was being puppeted by Father Ori, a morl who has spent several centuries Gathering humans who have magical abilities. My use of necromancy is admittedly unsavory. I wish there had been another way. There wasn’t. But that doesn’t make me a murderer.

When people seemed to be waiting for me to go on, I held the floor. “The only confession I can make is that I have never been lucky, not since the day I was born. I was never rich. My father died of an illness. My mother killed herself when I was at sea. I had to educate myself with whatever books I could find. When the pilgrimage began, things began to go wrong. Someone attacked Father Ori. Then Father Ori had to sacrifice himself for the rest of us. But it didn’t work. So we had to kill the nomads. Then it turned out Father Ori was probably evil. And we accidentally uncovered a lost city in the desert, and it’s been raining ever sense. On and on. Nothing has gone right. Hell—that might actually be my fault—for being so damn unlucky. Maybe I’m cursed. Maybe it’s the universe punishing me for, uh, you know… being a necromancer. But I’m no murderer.”

The judge leaned against the altar, bony elbows wrinkling the satin covering. “Unlucky. I see.” Professor Octavius opened his mouth, but the judge silenced him with one annoyed wave. “You’ve had your say, Professor. Now it’s my turn. You roused me from my chants and meditations to preside over this highly irregular proceeding. And now I shall finish doing exactly that.”

He turned an apologetic gaze on me. At that moment, Benji walked to the judge and began whispering in his ear. This went on for a moment or two as the old monk nodded and pondered whatever Benji was saying. Then Benji gave me a glance and took his seat again.

The old monk continued: “Whether you’re a killer or just unlucky is certainly an important distinction—and one that requires further inquiry. But either way—you cannot be allowed to continue the journey into the mountains. Your punishment, for being an unlucky necromancer or for being a killer, is to stay here while your companions proceed. They will ask their questions at the shrine as you chant and meditate with us. Tomorrow morning, when they leave, we will blindfold you. Unable to see which way our brothers escort them, you may bid them a blind farewell. And then, your training, reconciliation, and contrition will commence. We will discover all the dark places in your soul and destroy them. If you are a murderer, you will be one no longer. For here—at the foot of the mountains—is where you will stay for a long time.”

“How long?” I asked, meeting Lilly’s gaze.

“Until we deem you pure,” said the judge. “Or until fate would have otherwise.”