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Chapter 130:

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Daniel did feel better after sleeping under the blanket of ghosts. Walking was still out of the question, and his core ached, but he was better.

The other humans in the room didn't share his optimism. They were hungry. Starving. According to them, they'd been getting by on just one 'meal' a day, and that wasn't agreeing with them. They weren't like Vlad, Daniel, or the other ghosts, who could live on air alone.

It wasn't like human-safe food was easy to come by in the Ghost Zone, outside of a rare few realms Vlad had taught him about. If the humans were right about how long they'd been in the Zone, and how long they'd been in the Bends, it was remarkable that they'd found so much food.

It put an extra impetus on getting out and getting to safety. Preferably somewhere in the human world. However, getting them out past the ghost bounty hunters would be a problem. One that they may or may not have solved beforehand, according to some of the humans.

Ugh. The only thing for it was to go up. At least the Bends' truce seemed to be holding, for the moment, although the humans, from the adult, Mr Lancer, to the short boy named Mikey, said that it hadn't held on lower floors. Daniel didn't remember that. Apparently exiting (he didn't remember that, either) and then re-entering the Bends caused his memories of the journey to be reset, or scrambled.

Whatever, whichever. Daniel would be happy to done with this, to be out of the Tower and back home, wherever that may be.

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"The committee has begun to eliminate possible trial methods," announced Wolfsbane as he came in.

Maddie paused mid push-up. Being confined, no matter that the rooms were nice, was wearing on her. It wasn't healthy to be so sedentary. She knew that she had already lost muscle tone.

"What?" she asked, very intelligently.

"The preliminary committee, or initial committee, if you prefer, has begun to eliminate possible trial methods."

"I thought you were working on punishments," said Jack, as Maddie peeled herself off the floor and wiped sweat off her face.

"We are," said Wolfsbane, serenely. "That is generating the most debate, however, other things do get accomplished. Thus far, the methods eliminated are trial by omen," he began to lay down sheets of paper, "trial by fire, trial by ritual combat-"

"Specifically thirty-six of the one-hundred-and-eight types of ritual combat previously used in trials adjudicated by Libra," interjected Azalea cheerfully, coming in behind Wolfsbane and closing the door.

"- most kinds of bench trial, trial by water, trial by expert opinion-"

"Wait, isn't that a kind of bench trial?" asked

"No. The expert isn't a judge. Compurgation, cruentation, obviously. Compurgation is only acceptable in what you would consider civil cases, and you need a corpse for cruentation. Normally they wouldn't have even been considered, but this isn't precisely a normal trial. Trial by long needle, and trial by self, unfortunately..." Wolfsbane put down the last sheet of paper.

"Why are there so many kinds of trial by ritual combat?" asked Maddie.

"Because there are so many different kinds of ritual combat," said Wolfsbane. "I have always been surprised that there aren't more."

"You don't know boredom until you've seen trial by curling," said Azalea. She shook her head. "The Scottish are weird. I'm so glad that only happened once."

"Why is it bad that they got rid of trial by long needle?" asked Jack.

"What? Oh, no, it's good we got rid of that one. The pity is that trial by self was eliminated. In that trial, the accused would imbibe a truth potion, or Stygian waters and make an oath to tell the truth, and then say whether or not they thought themselves guilty."

Maddie frowned. "You didn't tell us about that option."

"It is essentially always eliminated in truly serious cases," said Wolfsbane. "In any case, do you think you could pass such a trial?"

"No, but that doesn't mean that you should have kept it from us," said Maddie.

Wolfsbane's eyebrows went up. "I apologize," he said. "I meant only to save time when I glossed over it. As you know, there are a great many kinds and categories of trial used by Libra, almost all of which were more likely to be used. I told you of the ones I thought you were most likely to encounter. That one has been eliminated."

Maddie pursed her lips, trying to determine whether or not she should take exception to any of that. On one hand, she was very upset, on the other... She was trying to be better about her reactions to ghosts. She was trying to understand more. Trying to overcome what she now knew to be prejudices, pretty extreme ones.

"But you could have fought harder for it," said Jack.

"I did fight hard for it," said Wolfsbane. "As did others. Doing that established a precedent, established our position. But it wasn't ever going to be the trial actually used, and its exclusion was minor compared to other events that occurred in this last session of the preliminary committee."

"Eliminating trial by fire is very important," said Azalea. "Melting isn't pleasant."

"Melting?"

"Yes," said Azalea. "It's a slow fire. Perfect for melting, if you don't have enough conviction."

"Humans don't melt," said Maddie.

"I didn't know you guys were fireproof," said Azalea.

"We aren't."

"Humans do not melt," said Wolfsbane, now distracted by his papers. "They burn. Not all ghosts melt, either."

Azalea flushed green. "Oh. Right."

Wolfsbane put down his last stack of paper, and straightened it carefully, so the edges were parallel to the edges of the table. "Most likely, the other forms of ritual combat will be eliminated over the course of the next few days. That has both advantages and disadvantages for us."

"What would the disadvantages be?" asked Maddie.

"It would eliminate an easy out," said Wolfsbane. "Let me explain: Trial by combat traditionally allows for a person to volunteer to be a champion, provided that the people being substituted agree to the substituted. Daniel would likely volunteer under those conditions, but I can't imagine that the prosecution would choose to fight him. On the other hand, that particular loophole would be easily closed in the initial committee, and even if it wasn't... Would you want Daniel to expose himself to that kind of risk?"

"No," said Maddie.

"No, of course not! We're Fentons! We fight our own battles."

"Yes, that being said, would you like me to maneuver to keep any of these on the table?" Wolfsbane retrieved another folder from he apparently bottomless bag, and spread out the contents. "I must caution you, it is unlikely for any of them to become the final choice, but it is possible, especially if we bring up and allow the closure of the loophole."

Maddie opened her mouth, then closed it. "No," she said.

"What? But, Mads, I'm sure we could beat some fil- Ah, um. We could beat some... Uh. We could definitely... win... at some of these."

"That's not the point," said Maddie. "The point is..." she trailed off.

She wasn't sure what the point was, here. Getting home intact was important, but... Her thoughts roiled. What was the point? Justice? No. They had to get back, for their children, but they were guilty. Guilty of hurting their children, of hurting Danny, in particular.

That was it. Their children. Their relationship with their children, and, as much as she hated to admit it, with these ghosts. This was about fixing that, about showing that they were sorry, that they wanted to do better, to be better.

"You said that it wouldn't work, anyway," said Maddie. "It would probably be a waste of time and effort."

"Yes, that's true," said Wolfsbane. He folded his hands in front of himself. "What kind of a trial would you prefer me to spend my time and effort on?"

"Is there any way we could have a trial like one we would have in the the living world?"

"There are a number of trials on record with Libra that used methods currently employed on the material plane. It is also possible to submit for consideration new methods, or to invent methods from whole cloth. That is part of what the initial committee is for."

"Of course," said Azalea, "whatever you submit will be twisted out of all recognition by the committee. That's just what happens."

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"Why is this taking so long?" complained Sam. She was sprawled across the bunk in their berth in a way that her mother would probably call unladylike. But who cared? It wasn't like anyone could see her underwear.

Okay, maybe Tucker could see her underwear, but she didn't really care. He'd seen her with half her clothes burned off, not to mention what Aragon had forced her into that one time, and... Other things. Underwear alone was a non-issue.

"You know why," said Tucker, glancing tiredly in Sam's direction. He was lying down on one of the other beds, resting his eyes. He had definitely strained them staring at his PDA over the last few days.

This was true. Sam just felt like complaining. It was a stress reliever. Not a very good one, true, and one that she knew got on other people's nerves. It certainly got on her nerves when other people did it.

"Yeah, whatever," said Sam, running her hand along the boards that made up the closest wall of the ship. Somehow, she knew that they weren't wood. How did she know that?

"I don't know," said Jazz, looking up from her book, a trail of glowing yellow hands merging with her right as a faint glow as soon as she stopped moving it. "Why is it taking so long? This ship must be faster than whatever Danny and the others got there in."

Tucker and Sam exchanged glances. "I'll take it," said Sam, after a moment. She sat up, pulling her legs up into a crossed position. "Did Danny ever tell you how things in the Ghost Zone move?" It wasn't a given, Jazz hadn't been in the Zone as many times as Sam and Tucker, and Sam couldn't remember whether or not Jazz had been there for any specific navigational conversations.

"Yes," said Jazz. "He mentioned something about some of the the islands and doors moving. He said it made the Zone hard to map."

Sam nodded. "We found out that there are three types of ways things can move in the Zone." She made a face. "This stuff likes the rule of three for some reason." She made another face. "Unless you count the rivers? And things that move under power? Then that's five. I don't know. Anyway, there's fixed stuff, that's rare, stuff that's caught in currents, and things that move in orbits. Elysium is on an orbit. So are the Isles of the Blessed."

"I thought those orbited Elysium," said Jazz, frowning slightly. She had been to Elysium before. A number of times.

"Some of them do," mumbled Tucker.

"Yeah," agreed Sam. "Anyway, I don't have orbits memorized, but I'm pretty sure we left Elysium in the direction opposite the one it orbits in."

"So we were moving away from Danny all this time?"

"Basically, yeah. And I have no idea how this 'Tower' place moves. We should have asked, but I kind of forgot about the orbits."

"Same," said Tucker. "Don't forget that time and space can just get weird, here, too. Just like back home."

Jazz made a sour face. She'd been stuck in space-time distortions in Amity Park before. More than once. But that gave way to confusion. "You didn't mention any of this on the ride from the Far Frozen. It seems like the kind of thing to bring up."

"It didn't really matter, then," said Sam, "and we were kind of trying to avoid, you know. Elysium doesn't really move that much, anyway. It's orbit is small."

Jazz nodded, tapping her fingers. "We didn't ask how long this would take, did we?"

"Nope."

"They might not have exact numbers, either," said Tucker. "The Wastes aren't well-charted, even by GZ standards, and I got the impression that where we're going is a mess. Time travel isn't the only reason the Infinimap is valuable."

Jazz rubbed the bridge of her nose. "How do ghosts even get around?"

"Ghost homing sense," said Tucker.

"We really need a better name for that," said Sam.

"The question was rhetorical," said Jazz. "I know ghosts can have all sorts of extra senses. Mom and Dad aren't completely useless scientists. But we should be getting there soon, shouldn't we?"

"Hope so," said Sam.