That night Jonathan tossed and turned for hours. Even after he’d pushed himself to the brink of exhaustion by cooling the stones of the warehouse’s floor until they had a rime of white frost on them his mind still rebelled at the idea. Between killing a goblin today and his brother’s trial tomorrow he was too lost in his own mind to rest easy. The trial was supposed to settle everything. With any luck in a few days he’d be making the long uncomfortable journey back to the surface to deal with the wreckage of his life that Marcus had left behind. But this was the first time Jonathan had ever killed something bigger than an insect, and it weighed on him.
Every time he closed his eyes he saw that goblin’s dying frenzy as it flailed and clawed, snapping Jonathan’s face with those hideous yellow teeth even as it finally died. It was all mixed up. He should be grateful that tomorrow they were going to behead Marcus for everything he had done, but there was some regret there too that Jonathan still hadn’t managed to stamp out. If only he’d managed to stop his brother from ever trying something so foolish they could both be home living perfectly normal lives.
When he finally drifted off only hours before he needed to be up, he dreamed that his brother was found guilty but that he was required to execute him to prove his innocence. Jonathan screwed it up somehow though, and instead of stabbing him through the heart he ended up merely piercing him through the chest. It was his brother, not a goblin, that screeched and snapped at his face as he slowly died on top of him. It was terrifying, and he woke up in a cold sweat with his chest heaving.
Minutes later, Boriv opened his door. “What are ye layin around for lad? Today of all days is not the day to be runnin late,” the dwarf bellowed. All traces of the sympathy and camaraderie they’d shared yesterday had vanished overnight, and Boriv was back to his usual gruff self. “Get a move on!”
Jonathan jumped to it, changing into one of his dwindling supply of clean clothes he’d saved just for today. As soon as he’d finished, they were out the door and walking briskly. For once they were walking deeper into the city, but Jonathan had trouble looking up from his shoes often enough to appreciate it. He’d waited for this opportunity for weeks, but now all he wanted was for this to be over, so the buildings just blurred into the background and the cable cars went unappreciated. It was only when they finally reached the temple of law, which was so covered in windows and skylights that it might have been half made of glass, that he noticed a large hole in the roof of the cavern.
“What’s that, Boriv?” Jonathan asked, pointing at it. It looked more than anything like a train tunnel that went straight up, but Jonathan was fairly sure that even in his funk, he would have noticed a flying train.
“Boy - ye have bigger things to worry about than airflow.” The old dwarf answered, shaking his head as he walked to the entrance. “Didn’t you ever wonder where all the bad air was going? Why didn’t all suffocate from the forges and the trains? Because the heat from the forges pushes it up the damn chimney and… bah. Just don’t worry about it.”
Bad air? This was a concept that puzzled Jonathan. He spent several minutes thinking about it while Boriv spoke to the guards, and they slowly made their way inside the building through layer after layer of security and bureaucracy. He knew that air could be fresh and that it could be stale, but could air actually get so stale that it eventually went bad, just like cream or bread? He wished he was an air blooded and could reach out to try to feel the difference, or that he could speak dwarvish and could understand what everyone around him was talking about, but since he could do neither, he just stood there quietly playing the role of Boriv’s pale and oversized shadow as best he could.
The trial itself was mostly a let down. Not because nothing happened of course. First came some sort of ceremonial guards, and some chanting. Eventually a black robbed dwarf that Boriv told him was the magistrate eventually appeared, taking a seat on dais that allowed him to tower over everyone else in the room. Finally Marcus was led out in manacles and chained to the dais in the center of the court in a spectacle that was completely unnecessary. His rags scarcely covered his emaciated body that was too weak to struggle or the web of scars that wandered his flesh in a map of pain that showed just how broken he truly was. After that though, all of the arguments were in Dwarvish. For hour after hour the dwarves discussed and debated, and these debates were punctuated by brief flurries of page turning before the arguments raged once more. After that, the magistrate left, and the rest of the finely dressed dwarves filed out after him. Finally the guards came and took away Marcus, leaving Boriv and Jonathan alone on the bench of the ornate courtroom.
“So that’s it then?” Jonathan asked finally. “What happens next?”
“Aye. That’s it lad. Yer brother is judged guilty, my actions were found almost entirely defensible, and the court has seen fit to grant a small measure of leniency allowed it, by not executing ye as well tomorrow.” Boriv stood as he spoke, and unable to meet his apprentice’s eye, he walked towards the exit instead.
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“Wait, me? What?” Jonathan’s head was spinning at the very idea. “Do you mean having me carry out Marcus’ execution?”
“Well that was discussed too. Ye can if ye like. It always speaks well of a clan when one of their own swings the headsman’s axe,” the dwarf answered solemnly. “But I told the Magistrate that ye probably weren’t ready for that, and that I’d swing it myself if need be. The court will accept either option.”
“But what does that have to do with me being executed?” Jonathan asked again, shocked that the old dwarf wasn’t hearing him. Was he going crazy?
“Lad - ye saw what root and branch meant just as I did the day I had to bring justice to Dalmarin. Did you ever ask yourself why you were the only relation we spared?” Boriv asked, looking Jonathan in the eye for the first time as they left the Temple of Law. “Why did the brother of the ring leader live while the baby brothers and sisters of one of his thugs had to die?” Jonathan took a step back, and he pondered the question and realized that even after all these years working for him, the man in front of him was still a stranger.
“Because… because you swore not to kill me?” Jonathan guessed.
“Aye.” the dwarf said bitterly. “Because I swore ye’d live before I knew the whole story. That was foolish of me, but what’s done is done.”
“So what about my sisters then,” Jonathan asked as his mind continued to travel down the thread as this new and more awful version of dwarven justice took shape in his mind. “Did you—”
“No lad. Rest easy,” Boriv reassured him. “Both your sisters are fine. Once they marry into a new family they no longer belong to yours legally, so they were never in any danger.”
“So they were never in any danger, but I was?” Now that they were on one of the smaller side streets and had something resembling privacy, Jonathan started to raise his voice in outrage. “I was the one that warned you of what they were planning, Boriv. How can I be guilty of a crime I was trying to prevent?”
“Ye wouldn’t be executed for committin a crime exactly,” the old dwarf said, sighing as he scratched his beard. “Look - ye did a good thing. Ye are a good lad. No one disputes that. Yer brother though - he tried to destroy a locomotive to steal from dwarves, and when someone does that, ye have to make sure to punish that behavior in a way that rips out the roots so it never happens again.”
“So you’d kill me for what my brother tried to do even if you couldn’t have stopped him without my help?” Jonathan asked, exasperated. “How does that make any sense?”
“Normally ye would already be dead, even though that doesn’t make any sense to ye according to the laws of men.” Boriv nodded in agreement. “In this case though, the damage to my honor and my clan’s honor, should we be forsworn, prevented that. So we found a middle ground accepted by all parties.”
“And what’s that?” Jonathan prodded. “Will I just be put in prison instead, as a warning to the others?”
“Not at all Jonathan,” Boriv grumbled. “I don’t think ye appreciate how hard I worked to keep your neck off that choppin’ block. I told them what a good lad you were. That ye were a hard workin’ goblin slayer who was good with sums, and found a loophole to keep you breathing. The least ye could do is show a bit of gratitude.”
“I’m sorry Boriv, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.” Jonathan apologized. “Please tell me the next step? What did the court decide?”
“Tomorrow yer brother has a date with the executioner, in a few days I’ll catch a train back up to Dalmarin, but I’m afraid ye’ll have to stay behind.” Boriv said sadly. “I know that’s not what ye wanted but…”
“It’s okay,” Jonathan said, trying to stay positive, “Once all this is done I’m sure I’ll join you and—”
“Ye aren’t hearin’ me lad,” Boriv interrupted, “The law agrees we can spare ye, but only as long as we have ye in custody. I’m afraid ye are here for the rest of your life.” Just like that Jonathan’s world fell away.
In order to spare his life for doing nothing wrong, the dwarves were never going to let him leave this hell ever again. It was madness, but there was no trace of humor in the old dwarf’s tone. They actually thought that the most just solution to all this was to force a man to live underground for the rest of his life. The conversation continued after that, as Jonathan sought to find alternatives or loopholes. In Boriv’s mind, as well as apparently in the mind of the Magistrate, there were none. The dwarvish policy of root and branch apparently existed to make sure that no traitorous or dishonorable blood was allowed to fester, and so the reason they would let him live down here, was because it in effect killed any chance of ever fathering children and spreading the criminal blood of house Shaw any further. It was madness, at least to him.
For Boriv though, it was cause for celebration and he insisted on taking his apprentice out for a few drinks and food that Jonathan could barely pick at. Even after Boriv left him alone in the warehouse that looked like it was going to become a lot more than a temporary home, Jonathan still couldn’t wrap his head around the farce that was their verdict. Even with the beer he couldn’t quite bring himself to cry in the face of this injustice, but as he sat there in the dark he couldn’t help but feel that death might have been the kinder fate.