Young Writers Society

One Master Pillet, advocate of the prosecuted, fretfully nibbled at the remnants of a fingernail of his right hand pinkie, all the time watching the Mithrilan Great Grand Hall of Higher Fairness and Justice promptly fill up. Just as he had expected, hordes were swarming in to watch the court proceedings.

Magicians and Magi, and Witches and Sorceresses, and Priests and Priestesses and masses of High Officials and the mysterious Comers from Duriel made up those hordes, along with some of the more affluent artisans and merchants - or at least who had enough on those silver spoons tucked in their mouths to pay for the entry ticket. And that entry ticked was more or less ruinous, since the Great Grand Duke of Mithril himself decided to honor and enlighten the proceedings with his in turn most honorable and enlightened person. Thrown out with a wallop were, in a most pious example, a certain distributor of vegetables, who very much needed to sell garlic in the Great Grand Hall, and a farmhand who just had to parade around with a pair of pitchforks, jabbing one or two indignant lordlings in the eye. Master Pillet sighed and began grinding ripped cuticle between his small and sharp teeth – of the fingernails themselves, unfortunately, there was too little to do anything constructive with.

“She’s dead! The witch is dead!” screamed one of the numerous High Officials who had just respectfully took his place in the dais right of the podium where was the place both of Master Pilled and the prosecuted.

Master Pillet was a person positively viewing the world around him, with the prized ability to crush, likewise cuticle, any court opponents in the Great Grand Hall vicinity. There were not a lot of things in his life that he would change, given the chance, and even less prosecutions that he would have otherwise left alone. With a little gloom and discontentment the advocate would have to admit, however, that the case of Arianna de Saindon most definitely fell under the former category.

That shocking opinion was not in any way influenced by the fact that the de Saindon proceedings dragged on for the last five years; quite the opposite, Master Pillet received regular monthly pensions for his representation of the prosecuted, and could be caught smiling dreamily, a fuzzy warm feeling somewhere in his chest, at almost every bit of information of any abrogation or the case being postponed indefinitely. He was touched neither by the outright discourtesy of his client - ah, today’s aristocrats! - or her rudeness, really. In fact, he wasn’t even that very affected upon seeing that client faint just seconds ago, or, as the already spreading whispers held it, being attacked by magic. No, Master Pillet was worried by none of the already mentioned. Master Pillet was worried by the sum he would have to pay for his wife’s new fur coat, only because the Madam Pillet had seen that very client wear it not two days ago. To no avail came wailing, begging or tears; the fur had to be bought and duly presented to his wife, and that was that.

“Master Pinkle, Master Pinkle! We are in need your expertise, Master Pinkle!” called the Great Grand Judge of Higher Fairness and Justice. The Great Grand Judge, who had just apparently been woken from his afternoon nap, was not in the best of moods. The Lady Cyan, who sat at the bulky man’s right, yawned, while the Lady Crimson, whose place was at his left, merely showed her amusement through a properly amused half-smile. Their role in the court proceedings remained rather undefined, for apart from occasionally commenting in loud voices on that or the other person’s outfit, the two Ladies did absolutely nothing to justify their seating arrangements in the left dais. But both Ladies clearly saw the court prosecution as a delightful occasion to set precedence on mithrilan fashion. Today they had a large, brightly colored ribbon sewn on to the right sleeve, an accessory long since unfashionable, because from ten years ago. Yet on this day fortune would smile upon the makers of ribbons.

The summoned Magus, a frightfully tall man who was just conversing with a very pretty sorceress, one that despite that prettiness was ribbon-less and in result throwing very dirty looks at those of the Ladies, sighed resignedly. He slowly plodded up toward the podium in the very center of the Great Grand Hall, the hems of his outrageously purple robe flapping in the nonexistent wind. Time after time he threw morose looks to his cushioned chair and the pretty sorceress a row behind. When after a long, long while he reached that podium, his face very grim indeed, he caught the unconscious Arianna by her chin and commenced muttering under his breath strings of words unintelligible to the general audience.

Master Pillet, who was standing a step or two away, did not seem to notice the appearing out of nowhere colorful fumes, so deep he was in his grieving. He sniffled once after once, and even took out a lavender handkerchief, dabbing his eye with every renewed sob. His shoulders were hunched, and his whole person seemed to be sagged: before his eyes was the price tag on that fur fluttered about, blotting out bright green vapors, which appeared in the exact same amount as the parched yellow ones.

For his part, the Magus examined the hazy blotches very closely, narrowing his eyes and poking at them with his fingers. Those awfully important actions were taking some time, and meanwhile, the impatient audience was beginning to grow restless. It was only a matter of time before the crowd was throwing bets as to what Arianna de Saindon would do to that poor Magus if she were to regain her consciousness with him looming over her and prattling his abracadabra. The reason behind the prosecution of de Saindon, her horrid temperament, was common knowledge – the Lady de Saindon went the tiniest bit too far when she reviled the Great Grand Duke for not giving her his arm upon their leaving the ballroom together.

To the general disappointment, however, the woman did not budge, not even when the Magus started snapping right before her nose, or was subjected to any other mystifying gesticulations. Finally, however, the man straightened his awfully tall self and with one movement dissolved all the colored smoke. He stood like that for some time, an ugly scowl scrawled over his face.

“Well? Well? Open that gob, was it the hokey pokey? The hocus pocus, mumbo jumbo whatsis?” growled the Great Grand Duke from his very own dais, and the Magus, after a split second worth of hesitation, nodded once. He then – the Magus, not the Great Grand Duke – dematerialized immediately, with the more intelligent specimens of the magical community hastily following his suit, each and every one them being a potential key figure of the soon to be legendary court proceedings.

Master Pillet snapped out of his broodings, opening his eyes widely at the sight of the chaos around him, and when the advocate finally understood what was happening, he almost squealed and started to jump up and down in happiness. His reaction was quite the opposite of that of the multitudes in the Great Grand Hall. The Great Grand Duke of Mithril, for example, roared like a wounded boar, with the High Officials on his left and right doing exactly the same, their self survival instincts kicking in. Each tried to be as authentic as possible, which clashed with every other person in the Great Grand Hall who wanted to express his or her opinion on the matter, and who direly needed that opinion to be heard by everyone around. Only three people remained absolutely calm: the Great Grand Judge could be seen once more taking a nap, unperturbed by the noise; the Lady Cyan was positively bored, and demonstrating that boredom with a small, elegant yawn; the Lady Crimson like always seemed highly amused by everything and everyone.

“She spelled herself! She did it herself!” shouted a voice.

“They killed her! People,” screamed an anonymous man, “people, I tell you, they killed her!”

“Yes, yes! Kill her! Kill her! And kill the hocus pocus people, too!”

“No, no, it was them who killed them, her – her who killed her, them – them who killed her!”

“Tyranny!”

“O, dear. O, my. O, dear, dear, my…” whispered the very pretty sorceress, one of those magicals, who did not leave. With every passing second her voice became more and more faint. “O dear, dear, dear, my… O, my…”

And that very pretty sorceress did indeed have what to moan about. It was not enough that her attempt of dematerialization floundered miserably – instead of dematerializing anything at all, she successfully managed to in fact materialize something. That thing was a sunny-yellow lightning bolt which floated for a bit under the ceiling of the Great Grand Hall, but only for a short while. Quite promptly, it pointed itself at the podium which sported the unconscious Arianna de Saindon, and struck.

***

End of Part One.