Demetrius was in the dean’s office for the second time today, though this time he was sinking into the deep plush chair in front of the dean’s desk. The dean was leaning back in his own chair, his considerable bulk overflowing the sides. His fingers were laced together over the oceanic swell of his blue robe. His voice as he spoke was as high and nasally as ever, though Demetrius felt he was trying to sound reassuring, “Anything I can offer you, m’boy? Eclair? Macaron? Strudel? Cannoli?”

Demetrius shook his head in the negative. His hands were trembling and so he gripped the upholstered arms of the chair in which he was submerged. The dean carried on unperturbed, “Something to drink then perhaps, just to calm your nerves of course. Wine? Brandy? Whiskey? Scotch? Sherry?” Again Demetrius shook his head, he was beginning to wish he could flee. The campus security had acted quickly though, and everyone on the scene was rounded up like cattle. They had told Demetrius that the dean had summoned him personally, and had brought him back to the opulent office unresisting.

Feeling that it would be rude not to accept something, Demetrius said, “Perhaps some tea, sir?”

“Ahh, yes, it is a bit early still isn’t it. Right, just a moment.” The dean hurried produced a teapot and a kettle from a beautiful redwood cabinet. He filled the kettle from a tap that was set into the wall near his table of decanters and bottles. He placed the kettle on a flat, round stone, and shortly it began to whistle. The steaming water was poured into the pot, and he returned to his desk with a cup on a saucer and the pot and placed both on the desk he returned to the table of delicate looking bottles and decanters and grabbed one of them. “Just for flavor, of course,” he said, pouring an amber liquid into the porcelain teacup.

Demetrius looked at the amber liquid in the cup and then filled it the rest of the way with the tea from the pot. He sipped at it, and it was indeed a strange flavor, seemed to clear his sinuses, and made him cough. “Not like they serve in the cafeteria, is it sir?”

The dean made a sort of noise that could have been a laugh, and he began emptying his pipe into a small plate before him, “I have some fine cigars, if perchance you’d like to partake? No? No, no of course not.” He was using a sharp metal rod to clean the inside of the bowl of his pipe, and then produced a silver tin from inside his desk, and began filling the bowl with a dried, brown, leafy material. “Demetrius, what really happened out there?”

Demetrius began to recall the memory, and did his best to explain how he had just finished cleaning this very office and was making his way back to the men’s dormitory. He told of the argument between Kimble Lane and the junior professor, Veles. “And right before the orb hit him in the chest, I saw him put his hand in his pocket.”

The dean sat, puffing his pipe. He stood and crossed back to the table of crystalline glassware, and filled a goblet that looked like a half sphere. When he spoke, there was a sadness to his voice, “Much as I suspected. Not Lane’s style, that stick up his arse would’ve snapped in half before he cast an unauthorized spell.” The dean was pacing back and forth, swilling the drink in his goblet. Demetrius tried to take another drink of his tea, and choked again.

The dean turned to him suddenly, and said, “Demetrius, I am going to ask you to do something that is terrible in the best of times, and may be life threatening in the trying times we find ourselves living in.”

Demetrius was staring into his teacup and looked up so suddenly that he spilled some of it onto his colorless smock. He said, “Sir?”

“I need you to testify in open court.”

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Demetrius was pacing back and forth like a caged rat. Books were toppled, and the mattress upon which he slept was disheveled. His feet tangled in the blankets, and he bent over angrily, and picked them upon and pulled them into a tight ball before throwing them at the corner. Sweat poured from his face, though the room was chill as ever. The only light in the room was a sliver of orange creeping in around the edges of the door.

Demetrius looked around, and found his ‘lamp.’ He picked it up, and concentrated, but nothing happened. With a sigh that seemed to sap some of his nervous energy, he set the stone down again, and sought a metal box. It was half concealed under a pile of his borrowed books. Inside he had a store of sulphur matches, candles, and his candle holder. He set up a white candle, and struck the match, warm light filled the small chamber. He shook out the match, and sat on his matress staring at the flame burning atop the candle.

“I just got done uploading my album of the University!” Cyndy’s strange words flitted into Demetrius’ mind, and he was shocked to find that he welcomed the distraction.

“Beg pardon?” Demetrius was exasperated, but it was nice to have someone to talk to, even if nothing she said made any sense.

Cyndy flew in front of his face, waving the tiny rectangle she always had in her hand in front of his face, “The school! Pics before the fracture!”

Fracture? Demetrius decided to try and bring the conversation back around, “Cyndy, do they have trials where you’re from?”

She was poking at her rectangle and answered offhandedly, “Uh, duh. Big deal trials, about who you can and can’t sell cakes to, that sort of thing. That was a media circus, memes and everything.”

Demetrius decided to try again, “What about when people have to testify against really bad people?”

“Oh, they get put in witness protection. But mostly they’re killed. Cartels and stuff are pretty good at tracking them down.”

Demetrius felt the knot tighten in his stomach, “Witness protection?” The dean had told Demetrius that the full force of the Licensing and Regulations department would protect him.

“Yeah, you know, they take them away, change their names, and they live in hiding until the mob tracks them down and kills them.” She buzzed particularly close to Demetrius eye and was waving her rectangle, “Look, I got a pic of Kimble in his cell, he looks a lot skinnier without his armor.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Demetrius could see nothing but a miniscule glow on the rectangle she was trying to show him, but the words had registered, he exclaimed, “They took away his armor?”

“Yeah, he was pissed A. F. Didn’t fight them though.” She giggled at this.

Demetrius had difficulty imagining director Lane without his sword and armor. “The dean says I have to testify, tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” She sounded excited, “OMG the trial is tomorrow?”

“Yes!” Demetrius was beginning to think that perhaps she was grasping the gravity of the situation, “And half the school supports Veles, I don’t know what to do, I already told the dean what happened, and I don’t want to lie, but I also don’t want to get killed for telling the truth!”

“Oh Demetrius, you’re not going to get killed.” She paused for a moment as if considering, “At the University.”

Demetrius, who had never thought of living anywhere else, felt a wave of relief. If he was safe at the University, he was safe.

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Brilliant light cascaded through the massive windows. They were twice again as high as a man and the bottom was at least that same height from the floor. Demetrius was grateful that he was not responsible for cleaning on this side of the campus. The cold stone he was sitting on was not very comfortable, and he had heard many students complaining about having to listen to lectures in the amphitheater for this very reason. Wouldn’t bother me, it’s glorious. He had never been in this building before, but he had seen it from the outside. Beautiful basalt columns rose in the center of the floor, which was far below where he sat, and judge Gast sat on the highest of these pillars in a magnificent throne wearing stately black robes.

The pillars may have been made by magic, grown from the ground the way the old stories said the Towers were. They may have been natural. There was very little wood and metal in the room, almost no furniture. It seemed like the entire staff and student body were present to witness this event, and as he looked up and down the swell of bodies on the stone benches, he felt his bowels shake. I can’t do it!

Below all of the seating, there was a large open area that surrounded the pillars. It was here that Kimble Lane stood, feet shackled together. His hands were chained as well, connected to a heavy looking chain that wrapped around his stomach and was attached to a metal ring in the floor. He was standing in a cage that seemed to be made from very smooth, shiny black stone, with filigrees of silvers catching the colorful light on every bar. He wore simple cloth clothing, the same color as Demetrius’ and his mouth was bound with a strange looking device that allowed him to breath but not to speak. Demetrius had stared at him openly for minutes when he had first noticed him. Kimble was not a kind man. Demetrius had always been afraid of him, but he was not a malicious man, and Demetrius didn’t think he deserved to be treated like this.

Cyndy had told him that it was traditional. She said that the Tower wizards that were captured were bound a similar way, and kept in the same sort of cages. It was the best thing to do with someone so accomplished in magic that had been deemed a threat to the school.

“But he’s not a threat!” Demetrius had whispered to hear, causing the many people surrounding him to look around.

“Of course he’s not, but he’s been ‘deemed’ a threat. That’s practically the same thing.”

After that she had started flying up and down the aisle, near the narrow stone staircase. Dean Stinson himself had elected to represent Kimble, and as such he was on another of the towering basalt pillars, directly below and to the right of judge Gast. Demetrius didn’t recognize the man that stood on the pillar to the judge’s left. He was not wearing robes, rather he was wearing a very sharp grey jacket and slacks. His features were clearly quite attractive even from this distance, with shining white teeth and suntanned skin. His light hair was parted very carefully, and Demetrius felt that he must have seen this person attending school in years past, but could not remember. He recognized the man who was cowering in mock fear on a chair next to him though. Veles had his entire midsection wrapped in bandages, and he kept casting fearful looks at Kimble as though he were afraid the caged man was going to break free and kill him. To his credit, Kimble still managed to maintain an air of dignity in spite of his mortification.

When the trial had started, the man who was on the pillar with Veles had been given the opportunity to speak first, “Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed scholars,” he swept his eyes around the massive room as he spoke, the light from the stained glass window behind him making his blonde hair look like it was glowing, “Your honor. I see no reason to belabour the abused here any longer than is necessary. We seek to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Kimble Lane, former director of the Licensing and Regulations department, acted maliciously, using an unlicensed spell on school grounds for the purpose of attacking a fellow member of the staff before a crowd of impressionable witnesses. We will further prove that he did so with the intention of killing Alec Veles!” He paused as the crowd collectively gasped. On the opposite side, Dean Stinson appeared to be fiddling with his pipe. Demetrius felt a pang of worry. “By the end of this trial, nay, I say by the end of the day, it will be obvious that Kimble Lane had not only the means and motive, but also a bitter vendetta against professor Veles, a vendetta that was public knowledge, and that he acted in a vicious and hateful manner that was characteristic of a man whose rise to prominence through this hallowed institute of academia, was achieved through bloodshed and fear mongering.” The man returned to where he had been standing on the basalt column, and gently patted Veles on the shoulder. Veles flinched as if he’d been struck, and Demetrius heard several in the crowd making sympathetic sounds.

Dean Stinson stood, and casually put away his pipe. He looked down at director Lane, and then swept the crowd with his eyes, “The founding of this institution was based on the principles of control.” With his rotund frame, still draped in deep blue, and his nasally voice, he lacked the charm of Veles’ representative, “The days long since passed, when the Towers robbed this land of all its resources and joy, and stole from the very people who lived in and defended their Towers all dignity and humanity. Those dark days ended, and the dawn of an age of enlightenment began, because of this school and its founders.”

“Dean Stinson,” it was judge Gast who interrupted him, “Please, try and keep your opening statement on topic.”

“Your honor, you of all people, understand the importance of remembering our history, you were there after all.” It was not an untrue statement, but in his delivery he had achieved a murmur of laughter from the assembled crowd. Demetrius did not laugh, he was looking around, his eyes anxiously scanning up and down the rows of seats.

“I understand that it has been a while since you lectured, and I remind you that we are here to discuss the alleged attack of Alec Veles by Kimble Lane.”

The dean looked over his shoulder at the judge, and Demetrius thought he saw him wink, “Ahh, but what was the alleged victim engaged in just prior to the attack? Was he not leading a protest against the very foundations of the University!”

“Objection, your honor! Relevance!” Veles too seemed somewhat shaken by the Dean's words.

“Overruled Mr. Martin I’ll allow it, given the importance of context to your own professed allegations of motives. I would, however, like you to get to the point, Otis.”

The Dean was smiling when he returned his gaze to the crowd, “Yes, your honor. We will hear testimony from a witness today, a completely unbiased witness, who will be able to offer evidence that should provide a reasonable doubt against the conviction of Kimble Lane.” Demetrius noticed Martin whispering to Veles, and Veles whispered back. Martin looked around furtively, his eyes continuously darting between Veles and the cage Kimble was held in.

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