CHAPTER ELEVEN - SECOND EPISTLES TO THE COLONIALS

Dear Eygi,

Been a while! Terribly sorry about that. Goodness, several months already - I know you must be terrifically busy, but I thought you might like to know what I've been up to - obviously, I'd love to know what you're up to as well!

Been awfully busy, really. So, my pupillage's been going on for a while now. It's... interesting. Judge Halima is a wonderful teacher, slightly scatterbrained, but she's got the kind of intellect I can only aspire to develop. I study with her for about half the day, the other half is for the same sort of studying the two of us did back in the day, more generalised, more academic. The pupillage is really where we get practical experience, start to develop our ability to use the law in the field. Halima says that a judge who can't come up with a judgement to a case, with supporting arguments and proper application of principles, within a matter of days is more or less allowing injustice to run free. Have to remember laws on the spot, know exactly what to consult, who to ask, all that business. Honestly, I'm surprised we don't have clerks or assistants, all that Sister Halima has is little old me, and I'm more of a student than a helper. Then again, I think some of the judges outsource some of these jobs to the people in the outer temple, not sure if it's exactly formalised, but it feels necessary. I get the feeling that we're all working like steam engines just to stay on top of the work, feels like Sister Halima is dashing everywhere at once some days, and I just have to try and keep up.

Interesting, though. I mostly just hold her cape, fetch her tea, listen to her ramble about obscure points relating to her current cases, but I'm being coached in how to put together proper briefs for her. Quite fun stuff, really, just handling her papers and whatnot. I get to see all the little scribbles she makes on random points, little things to follow up on, little timings she has to pay attention to... I honestly don't know how she makes time to sleep, let alone eat, drink, and so on. Right now we're handling a fairly small case, just a little exercise of estoppel law. No names, naturally, but one person promised the other person a fee for his accounting services, the other person then failed to get him the... creative interpretations of his accounts that he wanted, the interpretations that would let him pay less tax, and refused to pay up. Naturally, the contract is all fudged and halfway verbal, not like he could say 'I want you to make me exempt from tax' in a written document. The accountant wants his pay regardless, so we're having to dive into the whole thing, and both of them are trying to seem like innocent little songbirds who have no notion of criminality whatsoever. Should be interesting, but apparently Sister Halima deals with issues like this every other week. She'll put together her judgement, submit it to the city office, and that'll be that. I doubt the loser will try and appeal, but that's about the limit of it - I doubt there'll even be much of a fight over equity, I think both parties are treating this like a cocked pistol. 'Pay up/sod off or I'll invoke the judges again, I will'.

All very fun. I honestly wonder why you left, there's more than enough fun here, even for someone with enlightened tastes! In all honesty, I'm very much enjoying it all, just handling the arguments in my head, helping put together the right passages, arranging the brief properly... usually she gets her briefs done by a little fellow in the inner temple, but she thinks I should be able to put them together for her in about a month or so. And that's just the case I'm helping her with, she's dipping into a whole raft of others - an unjust eviction, some unlawful dismissal, another case of estoppel involving a wheelchair...

It feels useful, doing all of this. Very useful. I mean, once we settle something, it's settled - done, completed, finished. No appeals, no complaints, nothing. We share a customary sweet with both parties, we chew it, compliment it as we're meant to, and that's it. Deal's done. It's rather like being a lawyer, a conventional judge, a police officer, and a priest all at once, it feels like we're blending all the roles together in a slightly mad fashion. I mean, I'm from Mahar Jovan, the judges aren't quite as big over there... well, for now. Feels like a fair few people in our year are getting sent off to other cities, setting up new outposts, trying to embed ourselves all over the continent. It's odd, it feels like proselytisation, but we're... just judges. We're just convincing people to have faith in our abilities, our impartiality, our authority. I suppose that's why Fidelizh started the whole thing - this city has gods riding around on people's backs, and judges do quite a few similar things. I mean, ritualised costumes and behaviours, coupled with this kind of... self-worship, the god isn't just a distant force, it only has value when it incarnates through a human.

Sorry, my brain's been whirring lately, and I thought it was a good thought. I'm sure someone else has had it, but I really don't have time to read anything but my textbooks. Staying up late at the moment just to finish the assigned pecia, at this point I think I've written a small library of notes just for myself.

Anyway. I hope you're doing well, as always. I'm sure you are, of course. Ever since that... business a few months ago, I've been a bit worried, you've seemed slightly down. Have you given those walks a go? They've always done me a power of good. Do they have enough kaffs out there, in the colonies? I keep imagining rustic villages with one little tavern filled with moustachioed men swilling beer, but I think that might just be my inexperience talking. I'm sure things are more developed... goodness, I can hardly imagine the sorts of parties you must be getting up to in your hall! I dearly hope the weather is favourable. It's starting to rain over here, the heat is fading and the moisture's coming. The streets are stained yellow by the dust, and the rain washes it all down to the riverbed. The pollen is so thick, too - thick enough for me to drag a finger through. I'm considering asking Judge Halima for advice on clothes, I'm definitely missing your eye for this sort of thing. Do they get citrinitas out in the colonies? Just had a sudden thought, I mean, it's spicy stuff, very potent. Do you find citrinitas to be unbearable in the countryside? I mean, just thinking logically, coca wine excites the senses and makes time shrink down to the tiniest increments, is that awful when there's not much to do? I wouldn't know, I've been busy ever since I arrived here three years ago, I intend to be busy four years from now, and likely to be busy for the rest of my life. Maybe you ought to mount an experiment?

Anyway.

I'm sorry to bother you, as per usual. But I like talking about my thoughts with you, my day, my life in general. I don't really talk with the others, never managed to get myself over that initial barrier, and now I'm here. Funny how that works out. You miss some vital early stage, and it's impossible to go back and retry it. I mean, I'm not hopeless. You helped me with that. But I still find myself happier with solitude than company, most of the time. I feel an ache, sometimes, down in my stomach. This pressure behind my eyes, too. Makes me want to move and talk with people. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up, my skin prickles and tightens, and I know every part of me wants to move and speak. Then I try, I talk, and... slowly the prickle fades, and I feel how thick and clumsy my tongue is, and how dull my voice can become, and I hear it echoing around the corridors... and I stump back inside, sit down, and get back to work.

Maybe that's how my life is going to be, then. Pressure and catharsis, over and over and over again. Like the contraction of an invisible heart. Is that sustainable? And does it just stop me from getting over that hurdle? When I first met you, I was in a hair-prickling mood... was that just luck? If I'd not had that itch, I wouldn't have followed you to that kaff, never spoken... anyway. Sorry, I like rambling in these letters, I apologise if I sound too conversational. Anyway. Maybe I've just been unlucky, and my urge for catharsis never comes at the right time. I'm having an urge for catharsis now, felt the need to write a letter. I wonder what would happen if the urge comes, and then... nothing? Nothing meets it?

I hope you're well.

Yours,

Tanner

* * *

Years could pass that way. Years did. Years of writing letters to Eygi, hoping they'd be seen and understood. She was more open than she was in any other circumstance, talked about her thoughts, her loves, her fears. Offered up unflinchingly to the eager, hungry void of a blank sheet of paper. Pour ink down the throat and watch as it vanished, swallowed up and replaced by more blank sheets, more blank space, even if only between the lines. There were episodes, naturally. Lots of episodes. There was the case she handled in the sweltering, stinking shantytown on the riverbed, one that Sister Halima had let her take precedence on, only providing advice and supervision. Still remembered the stink of that place, that endless, endless stink... greasy food, stagnant water, hot dust that had once been riverine mud, buildings crammed next to one another, sometimes rising up several stories in creaking, shivering pagodas. In the dry months, it was a yellow, pollen and dust-filled hell, hot and baking, no relief from the heat, no relief from anything. People lay sprawled in their porches then, staring out with sallow eyes at the city beyond. And in the wet months, like when she came, the rains filled up countless tiny canals within the shantytown, bursting the banks and trickling through the streets. She had to borrow riding boots to avoid ruining everything she wore, and she pinned her cape upwards until it was multiple feet above the mud.

The northerners were here. All of them. The myriad orphans of the Great War. Most of them had no states left, just dead kingdoms and contaminated fields. Every year they tried to shunt more away, give them ways back north, over the Tulavanta River and into the cold. But it was never enough. Only so many could go. And mutants were still up there, a chittering ocean of monsters that flowed in and out of various areas, going wherever there was contamination to feed upon. Another layer of natural disaster, set alongside storms, earthquakes, floods... all those three, and the mutants. The remains of the Great War's armies, sometimes the human veterans too, corroded by the conflict and turned into wheezing wrecks. The cities were empty, and their inhabitants either died, fled south, or became part of the mutant ocean. These lot were the survivors of state upon state. Often hated each other, and were a perpetual problem for the city. Banish them to the colonies, and accept them as permanent residents? No, just let them sit here, and wait for the chance to send them home. Most of them wanted their homes back, if only they were available.

She'd judged a case there involving a property dispute. Nothing more. On one side, an aristocrat from the old country, on the other, a commoner from a different kingdom who had no time for foreign titles. Encroachment, really. Judges showed up to mediate between the groups, but internal affairs within the groups were reluctantly surrendered. Tanner had just read the law, said the words, done the rites... eaten a sweet with the two contesting parties, settled it on behalf of the aristocrat. He'd arrived first, established a dwelling first, intended to dwell there for a further length of time than the young upstart, and acted in a way that benefited the broader community by serving as a kind of... father-figure to the lost and wayward. Pompous ass, but he had the right to hold his territory against encroachment. Tanner's first semi-proper case, and she'd handled it just as she was meant to. Wrote the judgement out fully, gave copies to both parties, had it read for the benefit of any observers, and then ate the ceremonial sweet to put to bed any lingering feelings. The judgement was for the logical side of the argument, the sweet for the irrational. Sister Halima had taken her out to lunch as a treat afterwards.

She'd written a full account to Eygi. And time rolled on. She had more jobs to do. More roles. By the time she reached the dawn of her seventh year, she wasn't really a student - just a judge waiting for the right permissions to come through. A judge in all but name, a judge who just needed a little scrap of experience and examination before she launched off. And she proceeded into this year with silence all around her. She couldn't say she knew her colleagues very well, but she didn't feel the need to. She had her outlets and her purpose. Her purpose kept her going, and the outlets released the pressure when it built up too much, and she found the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. The wriggles of discontent as she moved through a life cycle that was well-planned out, and well-executed in most details.

Eygi was that outlet. The long, rambling letters she wrote to her were an outlet. Some people went out to drink. Some people had mental breakdowns. And she wrote letters to an old friend. It was convenient, really. Happened on her own schedule, at her own time. If she wanted to write a letter, she wrote a letter. Simple as. Other people had to make time for others, had to arrange their lives in a certain way, had to be inconvenienced in a hundred respects. Not Tanner. She just worked, worked, worked, and when she needed, to, sent missives to Eygi, little dispatches from the front lines. The engine was working. The golden braid was functional. Her life cycle was established and perfect. An animal couldn't move through life with her level of dogged determination, her lack of reflection, her commitment. Years could flash by and she barely noticed them.

And in years, Eygi had never come to visit. Not once.

Anyway.

On the dawn of her seventh year, Tanner was awoken by a tapping on her chamber door. And a soft voice speaking. For a moment, she was frozen... then she recognised the voice.

"Tanner, time for you to be moving. We've a rite to perform, you and I."

Sister Halima.

Tanner bounded from bed, hissing as her bare feet made contact with the ice-cold stone flagstones. She responded like a dog being summoned - sleep forgotten, purpose asserting itself. Unusual, though, being summoned so early. She dressed rapidly, slipping into the outfit she'd bought years ago, bought and promptly duplicated. Never bought anything else, really. Never needed to. Grey blouse with a high, high collar, little pearl buttons up the middle, up the back, up the sleeves and around the cuffs, as was the fashion. Black skirt, little pearl buttons around the waist, up the seam, around the hem, as was the fashion. Dark cape with green interior, plenty of ribbons to seal it around her neck. Little soft-soled shoes which whispered over the ground. And delicate satin gloves. To invite luck - much like the collar. She hesitated as she combed her tortoiseshell hair fiercely away from her face. Right. Right.

A tiny clap. A snap of the fingers. She leant down over the candle she had burning whenever possible, then inhaled, resisting the urge to cough. A murmur, even as the smoke coiled in her throat like a fat snake. A murmur of ritualised, secret words, forbidden to outsiders.

The lodge had let her do this once she turned twenty. To light her own candle. A tiny derivation of the greater candle burning in the lodge. Banishing witchcraft, banishing misfortune, surrounding her in a comforting haze of tradition that allowed everything to slide away. Like water from the skin of an eel. She was already withdrawing a match to relight the candle, as was meant to happen... right, matches, matches, just underneath the papers she kept in this drawer. Page upon page of scribbled text stared back at her, and she ignored all them, grabbing the matches and getting to work. No mind for the texts once she'd written them, had her catharsis.

Her voice was soft, a little scratchy from the smoke.

"Will I need my lenses? Or my quill?"

Halima's voice was lilting and playful, barely audible through her door.

"Not unless you're blind as a bat."

"...right. Right."

She stumped over to the door, clasping her hands in front of herself... no, no, she needed something. Just for luck. A tiny pair of pince-nez, clasped firmly over her nose. Not meant to help her see, her eyesight wasn't that bad, but she liked to... it was luck. As taught in Mahar. The little glasses filtered what she saw, and made it luckier. Just a tiny bit. Filtering out the bad. She liked to think it was like... dipping her head into water without shutting her eyes. The sort of fuzzy, golden glow around everything which resulted... well, it was close to what the glasses did, in the confines of her large, mad head.

Years and years in this place. And she hadn't changed. Just endured. The world was something to be endured, and she'd become quite the expert in this field.

Her door creaked.

"Good morning, Sister. Is something wrong?"

Halima blinked, smiling faintly.

"Oh. Goodness. It is morning, technically. Doesn't feel like it. Well, come along. We've something to do."

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Tanner had questions, but suppressed them. An air of ritual hung over tonight, and it demanded obedience. A judge would obey, at least, so she did. Loyally kept pace with Halima, ignoring the urge in her legs to move faster - restraint, always restraint. Halima said nothing as they walked. Lost in her own thoughts, as she was wont to do. Even now, she seemed to tower over Tanner. Clever, confident, effective, content with her life... a respected judge, part of the legal engine. A well-oiled, well-functioning part. She didn't ask for Tanner's friendship or adoration, she didn't ask for anything but competence. And Tanner... well, if Eygi was her outlet, then she dearly wanted Halima to be her future. Tanner's shoes were utterly silent in the corridors, while Halima's shoes clicked sharply on the stones. They walked through the blue light which emanated from the walls, ignored every darkened door on all sides.

They went deep.

Deeper than Tanner had been before. To parts of the inner temple where the walls were less shiny, more... roughened. Like they'd been hewn from living rock and left as such, not tiled decoratively.

Suddenly, Halima spoke, her voice echoing strangely around the uneven stone.

"What is the first and most prominent right of humanity?"

Tanner bowed her head slightly.

"The right to be punished, sister."

"Explain."

"Because... upon the right to be punished rests the right to everything else. If you can't be punished, then you can't be responsible, not really. And if you can't be responsible, you can't be free and functional. If you can't be punished, you can't be taught, and nothing can be enforced. Without punishment, there's no law. From the right to be punished comes everything else."

Halima's smile was light, barely visible in the dim glow.

"Well recited. You've been practising?"

A small flush.

"Arts of memory. I've been trying my best."

"Ah, good, good. Never good to be lazy, in my mind - keep the habit up, not good to depend on books for everything. It's funny, though, isn't it? That conception?"

Tanner was silent. Didn't know how to answer, and not sure if she should. A little shiver ran through her, a feeling of uncertainty. Suppressed quickly. Halima stopped suddenly in front of a heavy metal door, iron and warped. Carved with the image of an empty throne, the same symbol as the city of Fidelizh, the same symbol on her coins, the same symbol in the headquarters of the Erlize. Halima spoke softly, reverently.

"The throne is the seal of the lonely monarch. Always. The queen of the wastelands who walked away from her kingdom and left it to manage itself, believing independence was the only way to live. The Golden Parliament took the symbol after we did. We had it for a very, very long time. They simply pinched the notion. Can you guess why we liked it, for such a long time?"

The... oh. The lonely monarch. Heard rumours of her, but... well, it was one of those concepts that was so basic to everyone that, if she was referenced, she was referenced like everyone knew who she already was. And Tanner had always been too awkward to ask. Never found a time to research something everyone already knew about, and after the first few years... well. Mahar Jovan didn't revere her, anyway. And Eygi was forgetful, she often forgot many of Tanner's questions in her letters, forgot to answer them, anyway. She wracked her brains, large as they were...

"...because the law isn't a king. Or a queen. It's a concept, shapeless and vague, that we pin into place. It's an empty throne that no-one is meant to sit in. It's a throne that we have to keep reminding ourselves is a throne, and not just another chair, and definitely not something to be sat in."

"Excellent. Perceptive. Yes, we liked the concept for that reason. The Golden Parliament just liked the idea of a symbol of a departed monarch - and this was more convenient than trying to carve a severed head on a spike. Less fit for parody, anyway."

Halima reached forward, pushing gently on the door... it swung freely on well-oiled hinges, and Tanner noticed that the floor was devoid of dust. Someone came here, and regularly... but this part of the temple was hidden, secluded, not meant for normal access. Again, the heady scent of ritual, almost overpowering... the door swung, and beyond lay a tiny, tiny room. Just a tiny passage, a tiny room, and in the centre of the room, a hole. A dark hole with no visible bottom. Above it was a metal pole mounted into the stone, almost looking like it'd grown from the rock. A horizontal pole over a black hole, in a room too tiny for any normal work. Barely large enough for a human. The air of ritual became more sinister, all of a sudden. Tanner stepped slightly back, rubbing her hands together, squinting until all she could see was what the pince-nez filtered. Remembered the smoke in her lungs. She smelled something old and rotten in the air. Something she didn't want to infect her. Halima's face was grim.

"The right to be punished. The judges, once, were a priesthood. We ruled as priest-judges over Fidelizh and the colonies, oh, hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of years ago. We were here, and we made divine law. The law was a shapeless, faceless, nameless god, it was something only a judge could incarnate. What we decreed was perfect. We weren't just separate - we were the state, the kingdom, all of it. The king listened to us, the queen obeyed us, we ruled. And in those days, we had the right to execute. To punish. If the most primordial human right is the right to be punished, then the most primordial human authority is the authority to punish. This is where we hung people. They'd walk in, and either jump into the hole or hang themselves. Most chose to hang themselves, then we'd cut the rope and let them fall into the dark. There's a hollow place there, no-one's sure of how deep it goes. Some say it goes to the underground rivers - the remnant of some ancient spring."

Tanner was frozen in spot, staring at the looming hole in the ground. Black and all-consuming. The rock around it slightly jagged, like it was ringed by teeth. The head a colossal lamprey, with a throat that descended deep, deep, deep into the earth... she wondered how many bodies lay beyond it. For a second, she thought she could smell them. Pile upon pile upon pile of bones, rising high, high, high... the world had underground rivers, why not underground mountains? Did things live there? She imagined bloated, pale rats, eyes hollow and smooth, gnawing at marrow. She imagined mutants gliding under a black, subterranean sky, starless and bleak, swooping to pluck at the bones. She imagined humans, mutant humans, clicking and slithering over the mountains, wearing armour of bones, with weapons of bones. Her mind whirred, and she felt... not her purpose slipping, that never happened, she just felt the urge to write down her thoughts, the urge for catharsis. Eygi would want to hear about this. If she was allowed to talk, obviously. Her voice was pitifully small compared to that leering mouth in the world. It overwhelmed her with silence, and she thought even a bellow wouldn't conquer it.

"What happened?"

"Change. One king had a few new ideas. He strode into our temple, no god riding on his back - the king was a kind of god, how could a god ride a god? He strode in, and challenged us to defy him. In the end... our authority was based on faith. And he no longer had faith in us. Rights were changed around. Many little changes, some larger ones, all sorts of alterations... eventually, the king had the sole right to authorise death, and more things besides. Taxation was to the state, and his accountants would manage it. And other laws changed, too. Little ones. But ours couldn't."

Halima turned on her heel, pushing that vast, awful door closed with a thump. Taking away the darkness, locking it up like a shameful secret. Tanner followed loyally, sticking to her heels. Many passages down here, didn't want to get lost. If she had a choice, she'd turn around and leave - but she subordinated herself, let Halima lead. Story of her life - subordination, because if she had a choice, she'd do nothing and die solitary and solemn and stupid. Plus, stinking of fish. Subordination to purpose helped. And Halima, right now, was the strongest representation of that purpose.

"So... conflicts emerged. It's been pointed out, of course. You remember your first lecture here, all those years ago? Art of memory, should be fine for you."

"I remember."

It was where she'd met Eygi and Halima. Of course she remembered. Halima smiled very faintly.

"Good, good. Very good. In that lecture, some girl-"

"Eygi of Yorone. That was... well, that was her name. Sorry, Sister, didn't meant to interrupt."

Halima's eyes twinkled.

"...Eygi of Yorone, goodness, you do have a good memory. Well, this girl, Eygi, asked about a case where the law of a city states that duelling is a permitted activity. Our law does not agree, and we cannot change our law for every city, not if we want to have any kind of consistency, and thus authority. Sooner or later, you have to take a stand on something, fixate on truth, refuse to give way. Refuse, refuse, refuse. No matter what. A human death is a human death, if we include excuse after excuse we dilute the value of human life, we continually withdraw punishment and thus withdraw authority. Every unpunished death is a loss. Terrible shame. In that lecture... I think I talked about that, about how some lines have to be kept, some borders maintained. The usual. And trust me, there are other examples. For the sake of the order, we keep quiet. We don't cause a fuss, not unless we know we can win. Taxation is the province of the state, if they want to write loopholes, they write loopholes, have fun. We let their accountants deal with the majority of it. War is the province of the state, we don't poke around charging every soldier with murder."

Tanner blinked.

"...well, we do keep logs."

"Yes, yes, quite. Describe, if you'll be so kind. I want your view."

A small cough.

"Well, we... can't charge the state with waging war, and we can't come up with a proper legal framework for when a war is justified and not. So we write books. Long, long books of each and every excessive act of a war, every bit of damage, the number of casualties, the fallout... if we can, we chart the law from beginning to end. We estimate every civilian who died, and every bullet expended. Everything we can."

"And why?"

"Because then we know who was wronged the most."

"Why?"

"Because..."

She trailed off. This wasn't her area - this was what they called warfare equity, it was an arcane branch of the law, mostly practised by a handful of very intense judges who spent most of their time inspecting ammunition reports in windowless rooms. Not her field, and it was so specialised that you had to go out of your way to pursue it. She hadn't. It meant poking around battlefields, it meant examining the bodies of the dead, it meant confronting some very ugly business indeed, and doing it without much reward. The states involved disliked any notion of them being culpable during a war, or that their opponent deserved something in the aftermath... in a bitter, difficult war, no-one liked being told that in the grand tally, they'd lost less. They'd destroyed more. Because they weren't trophy cabinets - the reports which they created were grim, huge, leather-bound and thick. They were judgements. Just... judgements which could never be executed on, statements of injustice that would remain un-rectified. Halima hummed.

"Because, Tanner?"

"I don't know, sister. I'm sorry. I didn't-"

"No, no, no, we don't advertise it, not exactly the most glamorous feature of our order. But nonetheless an essential one."

She paused. A huge set of doors loomed before her. Metal, well-oiled, the same image of an empty throne.

"We do not budge. We do not forgive."

She leaned closer to Tanner, her eyes glittering like opals. Tanner locked up, unused to the proximity with Halima.

"And we do not forget."

She pushed... and the doors swung wide.

Within was a corridor. A long, dark corridor, illuminated by solemn blue light, barely able to banish the shadows. The corridor seemed to have no end. And at regular intervals, there were urns. Huge, grey, metal urns, the size of a child. Plain cylinders, adorned only with carved vines and flowers, until they seemed almost like vases. But vases weren't meant of grey metal. Vases weren't hidden in a place like this. Vases didn't have enormous stoppers held on with a mountain of gleaming red wax, dusted clean, as if they were precious objects and not something held in the dark, next to the hanging-hole. A deep place in the earth, like they were ashamed of it and wanted it far, far away... or beneath everything, the foundation of foundations, the point on which everything was suspended. Which was it? Exile? Foundation?

Her thoughts whirred, a gyre that widened and widened and widened, straining at the edges. Felt the urge for catharsis, to scribble all of this down in a letter, then review it, survey it, and shove it in a drawer before writing a more polite one, with fewer digressions. Eygi responded to letters when they were brief and to the point, easy to read, easy to answer. But Tanner was never going to give up her letter-writing, not when it was her only outlet for stress, for her thoughts, for the things she couldn't express in polite company. And so her drawer filled with unsent letters, and she drafted time after time before she dared send anything Eygi's way.

Letters that grew shorter and shorter with each year.

Tanner's mouth was dry, and she licked her lips a little. She felt like she was being resurrected, dragged out of the grave and stood up on her stiff legs. Revived after a long, long sleep, a sleep devoid of dreams. The sharpness of the world was blistering. But her gloves soothed it, the smoke in her lungs soothed it, the glasses tinted it pleasingly, and her cape settled around her shoulders like an anchor. And even her voice, which wanted to be quiet and demure and potentially non-existent, spoke with a confidence she didn't feel.

"Sister?"

"We remember. We always remember. Every conflict."

Her hand reached out to trace over one of the urns, caressing it like an old friend. It was the closest to the door, and gleamed with distinct newness. Did they forge these in the outer temple? Had she inhaled the smoke of a forge-fire from time to time as she wandered the streets?

"This one has one of my cases. From some time ago. Quite some time ago. One of my first, even. A man of the Golden Parliament committed a crime. He struck a working girl with a cane, smashed her into the mud, then strode onwards. The girl came to us, as was right and proper. And we came to him, as was right and proper. He claimed that she had been propositioning him, and as such, was attempting to corrode the moral authority of a member of the Golden Parliament - quite an offence. He added slander to the mix, for slandering his good character, and obstructing the passage of a Parliamentarian, likewise serious. Of all these crimes... we only recognise slander. And we dismissed this quickly. Leaving a case of a man who smashed a girl's cheekbone on the metal cap of his cane, made her face swell up like a rotten fruit."

Her speech quickened.

"I submitted my judgement. He was liable for damages, obviously. He'd assaulted a girl, and there was no easement in place, there was no context, there was nothing. I asked that he pay compensation to the girl, as this was deemed to be more restorative - a jaunt to a jail would do nothing, but this would ease matters. It was a properly justified judgement... but I knew it would never go through. The Parliament's rules supersede ours. They simply declined to prosecute, and my judgement was... just so much paper. No sweets were eaten. No grudge dispersed. I still remember how my little fireplace had green and blue flames when I threw the sweets inside, when that man rejected his right to be punished. They almost become animals, or children at that point - when they shirk from punishment, choose comforting fictions rather than unrelenting reality."

Tanner stared. Halima's voice became slightly lower, almost growling, and her fists were clenched. This was the most passionate she'd seen her. Ever. Halima was a being of veils, she uncloaked herself a layer at a time - when she walked, she was shrouded completely, lost in thought. When she talked of the law, she unfurled a little, her confidence exploded outwards like the rays of the sun. And now... now she took off a layer Tanner didn't even know existed. And beneath was something angry and smouldering. Something bright as the sun, and just as enduring, just as fierce. Something which burned. It felt like she was seeing... it was almost embarrassing, but it was like seeing her nude. Nothing hidden, nothing concealed. It was like seeing her father's friend, Clarant, weeping like a child when he'd dragged her father home after the accident. Unmade down to the most primordial level. Clarant wept. And Halima snarled.

"Do we simply forgive it? Accept our place?"

Tanner was silent. Unsure of how to respond. Unnecessary. Halima answered for her.

"No. We don't. This is a lesson we teach every judge, once they reach their seventh year. We do not forget, and we do not forgive. We wrote his name down in a great ledger, noted the money he owed the girl, and the interest to be paid due to his lack of payment. He died two years ago, natural causes... by that time, the sum he owed was vast. His children cannot become judges. His name is blackened in our records. When we helped record the census, we had him noted as a recalcitrant. He didn't mind, of course. His children had better fates than the judiciary, and he had no need of our services. If he had, he'd have needed to pay. When he died, we added his name to a sacrificial ledger and burned it. All the crimes we failed to punish, that we recorded, judged, and failed at the last moment to satisfy. We burn it in secret. We write our failed judgement ledger in secret. And we keep this place down here, to remind us of how limited our work still is."

Tanner nodded quietly. Halima took a deep breath, steadying herself.

"This is... part of your initiation. You're more or less a full-fledged judge, and a fine one. We look forward to having you as a colleague. But this is one of the things you must learn, before you start practising. There's other rites, some nice dinners you can go to when you finish this year and can be sent off to practise properly, there's all that. But this is first. This is the foundation. We don't forgive. We don't forget. Now..."

She reached out, and slowly ran a small knife around the rim of the urn, popping off the wax and unsealing the innards. Grey ash. Piles of it, stinking of rotten eggs, flowing out slightly in a stream of lighter-than-air particulates. How many failed cases lived in there? How many unpunished crimes? And when would it be emptied - when the judges were in charge again? When the golden law was perfected? When the world was harmonious and would remain harmonious? Or would these urns sit here, forever? Below them was a cavern of bones. Here was a hallway of ash. And above was a labyrinth of paper. From primordial punishment, to smouldering grudge, to detached function. Halima dipped a single finger inside, and beckoned for Tanner to lower her head. The giant hesitated.

"Do you accept this?"

"Accept...?"

"Accept that we don't forgive or forget. Accept that many crimes simply go unpunished, and each one is a wound to us. Accept that, and yet continue to judge regardless? To hope for the day when our law is so self-evidently perfect and easy to understand that it will emanate through the world, like a note humming from tuning fork to tuning fork, perpetuating itself forever? Do you accept to continue searching for this perfect law, and to struggle through the imperfect until we reach that point?"

Tanner nodded quickly, lowering her head to Halima's level. No doubt. Purposeful struggle. Pointless and eternal. She didn't have faith in the golden law, not really. But she envied those who did. She loved the idea of having that kind of faith. And she'd found that faith was a habit - one that you wore yourself into. And once you were finished, once the hard work of carving the soul was done, then... the rest of the world would proceed forever. Tanner thought that her mind was a chaotic thing, her body was a chaotic, enormous thing which needed restraint. And sooner or later, that restraint would set in, and she'd not even regard them as restraints - just her natural, divine-inflicted limits, as constant and enduring as the sun. An exoskeleton, really. As natural as her bones. Halima offered her these restraints, and gave them freely.

Why on earth wouldn't she accept them?

"I do. I accept."

"Forever?"

"Forever."

The ashen finger reached out... and painted two long stripes on her cheeks, descending from her eyes. Like two ashen tears coursing down her face. Weeping at the incomplete work. At the imperfect law. And all the while, Tanner's eyes remained completely dry. But she had the appearance of weeping, she had the role of weeping. And that was enough.

"Then allow me to have the privilege of calling you Sister Tanner."

Tanner hesitated...

And smiled.

"You may, Sister Halima."

And with that...

Tanner Magg of Mahar Jovan, born to a dockworker, freakish since birth...

Allowed the long, coiling braid of the golden law to settle around her shoulders. Soft as velvet. Vital as a jugular.

Enduring as the bones of the earth.