The Crucible

(A Memory in Eleven Acts)

-I-

Ffamran stands with his back pressed to the door; the memstone in his hand hums faintly as it records the voice drifting from the room beyond. Gabranth's voice is too steady to be believed.

"Your innocence is assured, My Lord. The servants have signed confessions; their execution is to be carried through without formal contestation in a week's time."

Vayne's reply is nothing if not impressed. "You have my thanks, Gabranth. Had I fully comprehended your efficiency in seeing to these matters, I might have dispatched My Lord Brothers in a more... timely... fashion."

Ffamran's heart freezes in his chest.

-II-

Cidolphus leans hard over his desk. "Vayne Solidor is our meat and bread. had you forgotten? Without him as financier, we are nigh on destitute. Do you truly think I will support you in kicking the pillars from beneath this institution?"

Ffamran is sweating in his armour. "Father, please..."

Cid waves an impatient hand. "Spend your hysterics on another's ears. I'll have no part in this."

Ffamran tears off his helm, to better be heard. "Vayne is a murderer. Surely regicide demands the hand of justice?"

Cid's eyes are dark with displeasure. "You require an education in what is unjust."

-III-

"I have evidence, good Your Honour Drace," Ffamran insists, leaning as far over her desk as he can.

"Irregardless of what evidence you present, Bunansa," Drace says slowly, "The effort you make is a dangerous one. Should you be mistaken..."

Ffamran straightens, choked with outrage. "I have Vayne's confession in hand. There is no mistake to be made."

"Hold your tongue, Bunansa," Drace insists, gently. She is worried for him. She thinks he is young and green; she thinks he has no right to speak. Ffamran strides from her office, sickened with the desire to dash her across the face.

-IV-

Ffamran walks into the senatorial roundtable without invitation. The other magisters are conspicuously absent.

"Explain yourself, Your Honour Bunansa," Gregoroth demands.

Ffamran salutes immaculately, but his mouth is too dry to offer preamble. He fixes his precious memstone to a data extraction cradle and places it on the table with trembling hand. Gabranth's voice fills the room. The senators stare in disbelief.

"Vayne killed them," Ffamran intones redundantly. Why is he afraid? He's Judge Magister, for gods' sake.

When Gregoroth scowls, Ffamran realizes that he has no power whatsoever; speaking again would be suicide.

Shaking, he quietly takes his leave.

-V-

Gabranth's gauntlet rattles Ffamran's skull when it strikes, but does not cut.

"You have no place to accuse My Lord Vayne of these treacheries. You would paint yourself in such treason as to suggest My Lord capable of murder?"

Ffamran bites a gash into his lip, breathes. There is no fault in the truth of what he knows; of what Noah knows. Justice demands this. He will persist. This is merely a test.

"I have the... recordings," he gasps, through a mouthful of blood. "You suggested it... first."

Gabranth growls (feral, enraged, bent evermore to his denial) and strikes again.

-VI-

Ffamran stands with closed eyes in the humid darkness of his armor, listening to his own trial.

Bergan says the memstone is a forgery. Rather than contest this, Drace reminds the senate that Ffamran is too young to comprehend the consequences of his actions. Zargabaath pleads his intelligence and promise. They both insist a boy of sixteen cannot handle the sentence for sedition. Ffamran hates them for this maudlin display, and is perversely glad when it fails to exonerate him. He doesn't need their pity.

Gabranth volunteers his hand to the whip. Thirty lashes is easy work for a Landisian.

-VII-

Justice is a farce written for the amusement of righteously indignant men. Ffamran knew he would encounter something distasteful to this end in his career as Judge Magister, but this is rich indeed.

He is escorted to a platform erected in the centre of Tsenoble's square. As a crowd gathers to watch, some enthralled, others weeping for his youth, he is stripped to the waist and tied to a whipping-post. Determined to drink in this attention while it lasts, Ffamran sighs; Cidolphus will make everything disappear.

When the lash falls, he screams in anger; but his indignation fades, favoring new, exquisite pain.

-VIII-

The pain of being lashed is like nothing Ffamran has ever known. He'd hoped to take his blows with dignity, but what strength he has is being torn from him by shards of glass woven into leather tails. The whip does not slap, it rips. It dashes the breath from his lungs, drags violent gasps of pain from his throat.

Cid stands among the gallery. Ffamran cries out to him between lashes, sobbing "Please... Father...!"

The doctor shakes his head silently. Only then does Ffamran realize that he's lost. He is going to die.

Lost in disillusionment, crushed, he surrenders to unconsciousness.

-IX-

Ffamran wakes to a young healer whispering spells, soaking bandages in potions. Her dark brown eyes sparkle with tears.

"Ah... please. Don't cry, miss," he admonishes weakly.

"You're likely to scar," she whispers, dabbing potion over the lashes across his back. "I'm... sorry, Good Your Honour."

"No," Ffamran croaks. "Don't call me that."

She finishes bandaging him in silence. The potion stings but her fingers are cool, feather-gentle. The liniment she uses smells of eucalyptus. When she steps back to survey her work, studying him with quiet sad eyes, he finds himself caught off-guard; he longs to kiss her breathless.

-X-

Ffamran grits his teeth, holding in the tears. "You dare abandon me?"

Cid's eyes cut like blue razors. He lunges. "You deserve every damn lash. What right do you have to such an inexcusably..."

Ffamran stands his ground, righteous. "I am Judge Magister."

"You are an idiot child, and you dishonour me."

Ffamran doubles his fists. "You expect me to let Vayne destroy Archadia? No!"

"See, Venat?" Cid murmurs. "He's useless."

Ffamran vision goes white with rage; the next moment Cid is on the floor, bleeding from the mouth.

"Useless?" Ffamran cries.

"You're not my son!" Cid screams. "Get out!"

-XI-

Ffamran will never stop running.

Cid has sounded the alarms. Soon the mastiffs will come growling down every hallway, mad for blood. The walls are taunting now, flashing red; the lift isn't getting any closer; Ffamran feels like a fugitive. He is a fugitive. All he wants is to disappear into thin air...

...Thin air. He skids to a halt and turns left into the scrapyard hangar.

There, a vision with wings awaits his intervention. He sees her and grins, suddenly forgetting fear; She's the perfect airship, and nobody wants her... Yet.

"Hello, darling," he murmurs. "Fancy a spin?"