Realms of Shadow - Lizz Baldwin [11]
Andoris nodded slightly. "You are."
At this answer, Jelal's face broke into a relieved smile.
Back in Andoris's bedchamber, the homunculus let out a soft sigh.
Even though the words had been spoken too quietly for the crowd to hear, the transcription crackled into glowing life in the air between the columns. As the spectators read it, a murmur swept through the crowd. Andoris realized what they were eagerly anticipating: that the emotionless, infallible Andoris would abandon both logic and the law.
Back in the bedchamber, the homunculus growled softly, We'll show them.
"I understand you've reached a verdict," the accused said.
"I have," Andoris said in a clear, carefully measured tone. "Have you chosen a method of execution?"
"I have." Jelal glanced across the city toward the spot where the mythallar pulsed blue energy into the sky. "If you really must find me guilty of murder, I choose to die by touching a mythallar."
He looked up expectantly, as if waiting for a reaction.
Though the crowd whispered urgently, Andoris remained utterly impassive.
The young man's smile slipped, just a little.
No! the homunculus wailed. Tell him to choose a death that will allow him to be resurrected!
Andoris brought his hands in front of him, revealing the object he'd been clasping behind his back. With a flick of his fingers, he teleported away the enormous red ruby. Jelal had made his decision.
No! Make him change his mind! Andoris waited until the crowd fell once more into an anticipatory silence, then gave his judgment.
"Jelal Derathar, I find you guilty of murder, in that you did maliciously and with forethought cause the death of a toad belonging to Quinar Redux, a creature that was a familiar to this arcanist. The sentence I impose upon you is death."
The young man recoiled.
"No!" he cried. "I thought you'd give me a fair trial."
"I did. Your own testimony confirmed your guilt." "Didn't you listen to my testimony?" Jelal asked in a frantic voice. "I'm guilty of property damage-even involuntary slaughter-but not murder, and certainly not with malice aforethought. When I projected the duplicate of myself into Quinar's laboratory, I ordered it to smash all of his magical apparatus and spell components. It was a spur-of-the-moment impulse, a crazy, stupid act of retaliation for him having seduced my lover with that potion He forced her to… to… Doesn't that make him the guilty one?"
Jelal looked wildly around, but though some of the spectators were nodding in agreement, Andoris's face remained as devoid of expression as his mask. He swallowed, like a man feeling the noose around his neck.
"I was seeing red," said Jelal. "I didn't even realize the toad was in the laboratory at first. As soon as I realized what it was-Quinar's familiar-I tried to stop my double. I couldn't. It was as if it had a mind of its own. It just kept smashing, smashing…"
Back in Andoris's bedchamber, the homunculus worried its lip with sharp teeth. See? He didn't mean to do it!
Andoris ignored the taste of blood. "Do you have anything more to say before sentence is carried out?"
"It was just a bloody frog! For all we know he's already resurrected it. Surely the life of a frog-even if it is an arcanist's familiar-isn't equal to the life of a man."
"Death is the sentence the law proscribes."
"But I am your son!"
His face devoid of expression, the judge began the spell that would teleport Jelal into contact with the mythallar. Already the crowd in the Columned Court was thinning. In the distance, Andoris could see them clustered around the building that housed the mythallar, peering expectantly in through its barred walls. Magical energy crackled down his arm, toward the pointing finger. As it coalesced to a hot, white point, the young man's lips curved into a sneer.
"Tell me, Lord High Justice Derathar, what's it like to be right all the time? Are you going to enjoy watching your own son d-"
* * * * *
Nooooo!
Andoris clung to the silver chair,