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The Sentence; Flawed Short Story
Topic Started: Sat Oct 7, 2017 10:17 pm (40 Views)
Ioann
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Anticipation truly was the worst form of torture. Too apprehensive to be bored, he sat in the tiny, bare cell awaiting his sentencing. The iron manacles at his wrist remained cool and appropriately heavy. His slim, perpetually ink-stained fingers looked out of place against the burnt orange of his jumpsuit and under restraints that better belonged on a common criminal. But he was a criminal. For nearly two decades he’d toiled under Yuri ‘Red’ Viskovien, forging and altering trade agreements, deeds, court summons, and hell, even party invitations, when Red’s fancy struck. And at last, the toil of these long years would finally be put to rest.

All things considered, the trial, or what it amounted to, had been relatively brief and civil. Only a few constables as witnesses. Their testimonies, suitably damning, left little in the way of counter-argument. By Ioann’s estimation, the charges fell short of the guillotine even after Balefire’s Taming Laws, and he should have been thankful.

He hoped the courtroom would be empty. Hoped not even Viskovien would be present to witness his humiliation.

A sharp rap on the steel door startled him.

“Gregori,” the bailiff’s voice barked. “Your time’s up. Stand up and go to the back of the cell.”

Ioann obeyed, feeling the tug of manacles around his ankles, impeding his shuffling steps. A heartbeat later, he heard jingling at the lock. The heavy door swung open and Bailiff de Germaine stepped in. She was short but broad, with bobbed black hair and the kind of eyes that said matter-of-factly, ‘don’t [removed] with me.’ In practiced movements she unlocked the chains at his feet and drew him out of the cell. Two other constables were standing in the narrow hall between the holding cells of the Courthouse.

“Henriksson, Holmes, if you would,” de Germaine ordered. Her voice sounded raw. Like she’d been arguing. Like she was almost… regretful.

Her two associates grabbed Ioann by either elbow and escorted him forward. The short constable took up the rear, ignoring the cacophony of jibes and bribes and cat-calls that issued forth from the other criminals awaiting sentencing. It was still a remarkably crowded place considering how long and how effectively the Taming had suppressed Balefire’s rampant underworld. Ioann had seen dozens of smaller gangs dissolve over the last year as fencing operations, gambling dens, and whorehouses were raided with zeal by a revitalized Balefiren Constabulary and its Cascadian deputies. Most well-connected bosses escaped, it was true, since half were in the government itself and other half too deeply cloistered to be dug out. But their underlings were scooped up in droves. And so the intricate, shadowy, net-like infrastructure of the boroughs had unraveled.

In a way, it had meant opportunity for Ioann. More law meant more documents that needed his alterations. Viskovien called on him with greater frequency for more interesting contracts. Even doubled his stipend. It had also drawn Ioann back into a world he’d equally loved and loathed, one he’d been trapped in since Elena was taken from him.

The walk to the courtrooms was dull beneath the underground tunnels of the Courthouse. Each gray, crete hallway looked like the last, a veritable labyrinth of manufactured stone that allowed criminals to be brought between their appointments with privacy and secrecy. Eventually they came to a set of even stairs. His two escorts paused and allowed de Germaine to walk up ahead. She withdrew a key, turned the lock, and swung open the grated door at the top, followed by a richly inlaid mahogany one. They followed, and Ioann emerged from a side door at the head of the courtroom.

“Mister Gregori, if you please?”

Ioann looked around the courtroom, heart sinking. It was crowded to the back doors. Hundreds of citizens, law students, clerks, and others were piled onto the rows of dour, dark-wooded benches. More bystanders gawked from their perches in the back and sides of the room, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, to catch a glimpse of the proceedings. Viskovien was nowhere in sight, nor any of his lieutenants. The low rumble of dozens of conversations simmered off as one of the Judges addressed Ioann.

A crowded courtroom was a very bad sign.

He looked up to the bench. Behind it sat thirteen men and women wearing the traditional black robes of office, identities hidden behind large expressionless ellipsoids of brushed silver. The masks reflected warped visions of the courtroom’s occupants, a twisted, distorted reality punctuated by flickering orange lanternlight that served only to further unnerve Ioann.

Thirteen Judges were an even worse sign.

“Y-yes. I am Ioann Gregori,” he responded. De Germaine and the constables brought him over to his lectern with stiff efficiency and began to lock his manacles to the iron ringed embedded atop it.

And then Ioann saw the very worst sign of all.

At the front of the lectern there was a large, flat block of dark wood scored with deep gouges. The top surface was stained a foreboding deep brown. Beside it sat a ceramic bowl with one flat side pressed up against the wood.

Ioann began to sweat profusely.

“No…” he whispered.

De Germaine, still fiddling with his lock, finally snapped it into place. As she stepped away from him she avoided his gaze, but he could see the firm muscles of her jaw clenching and unclenching, felt the anger that burned off her like a furnace.

“Mister Gregori,” one of the Judges intoned. It was almost impossible to tell who had spoken behind those damnably frightening mirror-masks.

“You are called here for sentencing. You have been found guilty of six counts of fraud, three counts of trespassing, three counts of larceny, and one count of evading arrest.”

“…and stand accused of an additional two counts of bribery and one count of fraud since your arraignment-” added another of the Judges.

“-nevertheless,” cut in the first voice, “your sentencing today will be for the former. Do you know the penalty for these thirteen charges, Mister Gregori?”

Ioann found his throat completely dry. Thirteen counts... six more than had been discussed in the trial. Bringing up the discrepancy at this stage was useless. Ioann tried to swallow, but there was no saliva to lubricate the motion. A heavy weight seemed to press down on his chest, preventing him from drawing breath even to respond, or cry, or scream. The edges of his vision started to stretch and blur.

“…Mister Gregori? Do you or do you not know the penalty for your crimes?”

“…I do…” he managed to rasp out.

“Very good. The penalty for these crimes is death by guillotine-”

At the word, Ioann’s knees grew weak and his teeth began to chatter of their own account. His vision narrowed to a tiny tunnel, whose end terminated on thirteen silver-faced gods of judgment. He grabbed onto the edges of the lectern to keep himself upright, but his grip was slick with sweat and he began to slowly, inexorably, drift toward the floor.

“-but in your case, we have discussed a certain amount of leniency. Excepting the additional charges, which will be determined at a later date, but in light of your history as a non-violent criminal, we have agreed on a less severe sentence.”

Less severe. Life, perhaps? Ioann coughed, his mouth and throat still parched. He heard the crowds behind him murmur in surprise. His knees stopped shaking.

“Y-yes?”

“We felt the traditional penalty for fraud would serve you well, as a reminder of the actions you have committed against the people and interests of the sovereign city of Balefire.”

“No… No!” he shouted. “You don’t understand!”

“Master Physicker, Madame Bailiff?”

“No! No! Nonono!” Ioann screamed. “He will come back!!”

He felt two undeniably strong hands grab his right hand. Others held him at the shoulders, the neck, the legs.

“NO!! NONONO-”

His hand was pulled upward and placed on the block. His narrow, black-splotched fingers were spread out like the legs of a squashed spider.

“-NONONONO-”

He struggled, writhed against his captors, but their grip was iron, their will implacable.

“-NONONONO-”

The thirteen silver masks of the Judges looked back at him without remorse, or pity, or any expression at all.

“-NONONONO-”

He saw the flash of the blade reflected in the masks of the Judges.

“-NONONONO-”

Then heard a very definitive thump of the blade striking through to the wooden block.

“-NO-”

He words bled to pure screaming even before the pain hit him. A cascade of razor lances of pure fire and ice and rage and searing and agony and pain. Painpainpainpainpainpainpain. Warmth ran down his hand, spread across his clothing. He felt it on his face, tasted himself on his teeth.

Painpainpainpainpainpainpain. His knees buckled, and his head sunk into his chest. The hands released him.

And then everything went still. Absolutely still. One by one the orange sconces on the courtroom’s walls flickered out until darkness enveloped everything.

The silence stretched for a heartbeat. Two. Four.

Finally, from the mouth of the man in an orange jumpsuit, an inhumanly deep, slow, rumbling laugh rolled forth. Lit from within by a pulsing, white-blue light, the figure stood slowly, regarded the now-cauterized remnants of his hand with dispassion, and gazed around at his captors with a sense of malign amusement. The room remained eerily silent as he turned his eyes to the crowd.

“Mister Gregori?” the bailiff asked.

The threads of reality started to warp around his head. Crackles of white-blue light issued forth from nothing, then thirteen runes formed of pure arcane appeared and began to rotate like an obscene halo at his temples. He let out a soft, self-satisfied sigh, then raised his arms as high as the restraints would allow.

Five serpentine lines of pure white-blue light flashed at the maimed digits on his hand. He eyed them appreciatively, flexing and unflexing them as if they were flesh instead of magic.

“Mister Gregori?”

She placed a single, tentative hand on his shoulder.

He laughed again, a maniacal, chaotic sound that drove a spike of fear into de Germaine’s gut.

THAT’S NOT MY NAME...

Bright slashes of white-blue light arced outward toward the bailiff, lifting her into the air in a spatter of gore. She landed on the floor in two pieces. Another bright flash and the manacles were rent apart. The man in the jumpsuit leapt onto the lectern in a single bound, arms stretched wide, a predatory snarl on his face.

NOW YOU’RE ALL MINE,” he spat.

It was only a moment before the courtroom surged to respond. The crowd began to rush the door. Mad panic reigned as shouts and screams accompanied each person’s base instinct to escape. A small boy cried for his mother, trampled underfoot. A law student threw a punch at an elderly woman who tried to cut in, shattering her glasses. At the front of the room, four of the Judges stood, arms outstretched in anticipation of arcane violence.

“I thought we were protected in the Courts!”

“How did he...”

“Lower the remaining wards, dammit!”

“There’s no time!”

A sphere of pure thaumaturgical energy, crackling with blue and white light, swirled up around the man in the orange jumpsuit. He stepped down off the front of the lectern and began to approach the long bench at the courtroom’s head.

“LOWER THE WARDS!!”

The sphere of energy extended five, eight, ten feet in every direction. Within it, the tiles below blacked and curled like burnt leaves and stray documents, whipped up in the chaos, turned to ice, or burst in flames, or dissolved in air with audible snaps.

On the bench, the thirteen Judges began to back away. Two peeled off and ran towards the door, but twin slashes of light felled them. A bold of spiraling energy shot forth, skewering the next two closest. Smoke licked off gaping holes in their chests, eerily lifelike in the stretched shadows.

Then they began to attack. A torrent of fire and lightning and ice and black tendrils of pure energy snaked toward the man in the orange jumpsuit. He pulled the circle of energy about himself, deflecting the attacks, then flung it away. The blast wave surged outward, tearing holes through the reality of the courtroom. Bright slashes of light struck again and again, countered by ineffectual elemental lances.

As the lifeless corpses of man and woman, citizen and Judge fell like sheaves of wheat around him, the man in the jumpsuit laughed.

Abilities Used

Edited by Ioann, Sat Oct 7, 2017 10:39 pm.
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