You're caught. At last.
The court's a cast of thousands,
a sea of faces, I see, of faces
I should know, and do, but don't;
they won't come clear through tears
that blur my eyes and blurs that tear
my mind, and where's the Tin Man?
There. I recognise the smile he smiles
with his eyes, that's just for me.
Raynz, in chains. Alone.
His face is stony and his eyes are cruel
and, though the court is cool, he shines
with sweat. The lines across his brow
are new - the creases deepen as the
chatter ceases and the judge arrives.
We rise (who can) and every man
and woman in the jury (we are ten)
display the silver lines of our authority.
'A zipper-headed jury?' sneers the Counsel,
'It's a joke - a token group of broken
minds, with due respect,' though his derision's
barely-hidden, 'cannot be expected to arrive
at a competent decision. I object.'
The judge remains unmoved. 'The court
is satisfied that every member of the jury,
though "impaired",' and in her voice there's fury,
'still retains the power of reason and of thought.'
And clever Raynz (who Wyatt told me
had demanded he be tried by scientific peers)
stares back at us through twenty damaged years
and realises his mistake. Perhaps he should
have been a little more specific.
He marks us, one by one, and when he
gets to me, he starts to shake, or is it
me who's shaking? I can't tell; the walls
are breaking down - I see a past I'd rather not revisit.
We were never friends in the Before,
and we were never, nearly, almost lovers - how
we came that close I can't imagine, now.
Overlapping minds, both craving more, and still
it isn't long before Ambrose discovers
all the things you try to keep, you kill.
Those you cast aside, you end up saving.
Loyalty's an anchor, not a shield.
Some equations have no resolution
I've been drifting; here's the prosecution
with his lists of dates and fates and dry, cool facts
that have my fellow jurors shifting, each recalling
acts no less appalling for confusion's mists.
Like shouted horrors coming back as echoes,
sounding down the years like 'please don't do this',
all the while pretending that we're dreaming.
Easier to let ourselves be foolish
than to see his smile and wake up screaming.
We sit and listen to the 'whys' and 'hows'.
The prosecution's careful: checks we don't forget
our purpose, helps us link the 'then' to 'now',
coaxes us towards a resolution. Meanwhile, the defence
talks first of sorrow and regret, the nature of
remorse, the dreadful force the Sorceress commanded
and the acts that she demanded of the few
she held in thrall, as if poor Raynz was just
the axe, quite blameless for the forest's fall.
'This is not about revenge.' But, oh, it is
and hard to miss the hungry looks on faces
now shut out of lands in which we shone.
The books of searing knowledge that once burned
our thoughts are gone, instead, our hands
are empty or, on pages, brightly coloured shapes
cavort and play - that's all a zipperhead can read.
We're simple creatures. Now Raynz sees, with growing dread,
today we're very simple, yes, indeed.
Except I'm not. I think that I neglected
to include a little detail - through the Viewer
who's beside me I'm connected. Not quite Ambrose,
more than Glitch. It doesn't really matter which.
Though fractured I am still the same. The sum
of all our parts is more than any name
and what he stole from me was more than just
a brain. I moved the stars. He broke the
universe so he could hear it shatter.
Then, silence as the stories all wind down
to nothing, and we're led away to
contemplate our verdict; all for show, for who
could say of this man 'let him go - he
only followed orders - show him mercy?
No - he ruined lives no magic can restore.
He'd not relent if our roles were reversed.
He's not the man I might have been if I
had loved the princess, not the Queen.
I think...
I think...
I think of lines
the lines on Raynz's brow. The silver lines we wear.
The lines of prophecy that showed us how
the world would turn, and where, and what
we'd find, and who would take our piece
of mind, and Raynz - it's you.
You stole the world I knew, the friends
who crossed the line you drew.
I do believe in ghosts...
I do...
I do...
So this is how it ends.
'Guilty' doesn't seem sufficient, somehow.
Evil can't be weighed, or gauged, or measured.
Each of us he hurt has, sometime, raged,
dreamed of ways in which he'd be repaid,
vengeful fantasies we treasured. Round and round
it goes - a trap you set yourself, and
only you are snared. Evil has no mind -
it doesn't breed - it grows like apple seeds
on what you feed it. And...I'm scared.
I'm scared, because enough of me remains
to know what sour fruit I'd invent - when
death seems lenient, too fast for all the
torment that he made us suffer. Raynz
looks to me again, when finally we're asked
'before the judgement's read, will anyone speak
up for this man?' I simply watch from deep inside
my hollow, zippered head, and count back from one hundred.
finishing at last what he began.
...ninety-nine
...ninety-eight
...ninety-seven...