Emperor Jircniv had various images in his mind about what this curious 'judge' might be like. But in the back of his mind, likely by his own reckoning influenced by his own experience with Fluder as his teacher, he expected an old man stooped by the weight of time and with a long white beard and a wrinkled face, perhaps an unassuming face and keen eyes.
And when Fluder entered with the robed 'street judge' at his back, Jircniv was proven at least partially right in his expectation. 'The eyes are keen at least.' He thought, the judge seemed to see everything and appraise it all in an instant.
More noteworthy than his expression was that the judge's step never faltered. Most who entered the royal court of the Emperor faltered at least a pace or two when they beheld the splendor of the great hall… but this one did not. If anything, the visitor seemed to be utterly unimpressed, giving nothing a second glance or an appraising look as if he were trying to guess the expense of a tapestry or vase or the equipment of the guards or… anything.
And this caused Jircniv's hair to stand on end. Expressions could lie, lips could lie, tongues could lie, a man's whole body could lie, except for one thing. First impressions. The poor would gawk at wealth, the hungry at food, the thirsty at a fountain, the lustful at what they found beautiful. A man drawn to another man would look longer at a man he counted beautiful than he would at a woman. A greedy man would leer at coins where he would look only in passing at flesh.
And the judge looked at nothing with any particular interest, not even the emperor himself. 'He should be looking at me as the source of opportunities, or a potential danger, or… something… but I might as well be furniture. And unimpressive furniture at that.' Jircniv's thoughts unsettled and bemused him both at once, and he tightly controlled his expression to retain his regal air.
"Welcome to my home, esteemed judge. You've been doing my people a service, and as such, you are to be treated as a welcome guest." Jircniv said with a glance at his guards.
Leinas was on duty today, her hand was as always, tense on her blade. While she was the least loyal to him personally, she was also the most vigorous of his defenders as all her hopes of a cure rested on him.
"You are gracious." Momonga said, drawing his hands across his hips to feel the skirt beneath before folding them behind his back. The woman on the wall was the one who most caught his eye, the constantly seeping wound was intimately familiar. 'Necrosis curse. The eternal rot. Unfortunate.' He diagnosed it at once and then added, "If I may ask, if you will pardon any rudeness in doing so," he brought one hand out and leveled it toward Leinas, "is there a reason your guard is under a curse?"
The entire court gasped, and Leinas stiffened, she clenched her jaw, but Jircniv raised a hand to still the voices of those who might have spoken up. "My bodyguard was injured fighting a monster long ago. No cure has been found. She is not being 'punished' if that is what you're asking."
"No cure for the Eternal Rot? That's… easy." He said, and the jaws of the court dropped, not least of them all was that of Leinas, who did not wait for the Emperor to speak up.
"You're lying!" She snapped. "I've seen hundreds of healers, priests of all the gods, even a monster or two! Nobody can cure this… thing!" Her hand gripped tighter on the hilt of her sword as she felt the taunt stab at her soul.
"If you will permit me?" Momonga said, and curled his leveled hand toward himself, beckoning Leinas to approach him.
Jircniv felt his mind reel, in keeping with his vow to Leinas he'd had the curse researched thoroughly and while there were clues to a possible spell to reverse it, no one had ever been found who could.
She was looking down at him with her one visible blue eye, and he nodded his quiet approval.
Leinas left her place on the wall, more out of curious anger than any belief that he could do anything, but when she was near, his hand opened so that his palm was over the bandage. [Cancel Curse Five Eternal Rot] He cast his spell, and for a moment her entire body, indeed the body of every person in the hall, the guards, the courtiers in their fine clothing, the emperor himself, all held their breath. Leinas's tale of heroism and tragedy, her abandonment by her family, her fiance, all her friends, leaving her nothing but a mockery of her former radiance and her unrivaled skill… it was a literal stage play now…
And yet out of nowhere?
The black and blue light glowed for a moment, and then Momonga's arm fell away, without thinking, he opened a hole in the air and drew out a mirror worth more than the art on the walls, a finely etched golden hand mirror with a frame of pure glass with platinum etchings glowing with runic magic.
Leinas stared at her bandaged face, there was no more seepage coming down, and instead of blindness in that eye she saw the inside of the fabric wrap.
With a trembling hand that formerly held her sword, reached up and pulled the wrap away from her head. The stains of old yellow pus were crusted around her eye, chipping and falling in bits as the bandage was removed. An instant later the one to work this miracle reached into a hole and brought out a white cotton cloth and handed it to her. She took it without thinking, her breath caught, her heart froze up, she wiped away the crusty yellow bits and stared dumbly at her face reflected back at herself.
"I'm…" She said.
"I'm…" She tried to speak again.
"I'm whole!" Leinas had run out of air by then, so it came out as a squeak, her knees weakened and she fell to the floor, so that she was at Momonga's feet, he politely held the mirror tilted down so she could still see herself.
And as if the sudden pain in her knees made the moment real, or perhaps having just remembered the need to breathe, she inhaled deeply and shouted so loud that the paintings on the wall rattled, "I'm whole! I'm whole! I'm whole!" She laughed with wild glee and without a second thought for her dignity as a royal knight or a noblewoman of proud lineage, she wrapped her arms around Momonga's legs and hugged him like a child who just found her missing mother or father. "It's over! The nightmare is over!"
"I suppose congratulations are in order." Momonga said and stored the mirror again when she ceased looking at it and began weeping into his robe.
"No! More than that!" Leinas shouted and pushed herself up to her feet, she spun around and bowed to the Emperor. "Your Majesty, you did your best to keep your oath, I know you searched for the cure to my curse, but would I be correct in assuming you did not know your guest carried it?"
Jircniv could only dumbly nod, while he had no talent for magic, he knew very well from Fluder that seventh tier or greater was necessary for magic of that sort, and the only way to cast any seventh tier spell required a confluence of powerful priests or other casters all aligned in thought, and doing so would drain them all to the point that a second casting was impossible for days or even weeks.
But this visitor had done so flippantly and on his own.
"Then I wish to pledge myself to the one who cured me. I will ever be grateful to your Majesty… but I owe a debt that I must repay, as a woman, and as a knight." Leinas pronounced her declaration, and Momonga had to fight the urge to blink.
"Hold!" He covered his surprise up with a dramatic interruption, laying a hand on Leinas's shoulder. "True, I cured you, but I would not have been here to do so if your wise emperor's laws were not what they are, or if he were not so interested in his people's welfare that he wanted to show his thanks to someone who helped them in turn. My actions today are nothing but the embodiment of his own will."
Leinas seemed briefly taken aback, stunned to silence. Had he wished it, he could have asked for her body and she would not have cared if it were right then and there that he wanted her. Had he demanded her title, her lands, her eternal soul… even if he'd demanded her suicide, dying at the height of happiness wasn't so bad, knowing she would not be oozing pus forever was a welcome thing.
And yet even if he hadn't refused her offer, he hadn't accepted so much as the credit?
"You're generous to try to help me retain a servant, good Momonga, but the work was yours, not mine. How can I reward you? Gold? Jewels? A title? You've done a great deal for my people in a very short time, and now done the impossible for a faithful servant… surely there must be something I can offer you." Jircniv asked, and while he meant every word, his mind was working overdrive, the guest in his hall had proven capable of the impossible, and he'd done it in front of Fluder. 'The old man will pledge himself to the visitor now, Leinas will be loyal to him forever, with his first blow he won over the city, with his second he took two of my strongest servants… and has made me 'thank' him for it! What will his third blow bring? I must do something to salvage this or I'll look like a miser!'
"You are gracious." Momonga declared as his inner actor emerged, "But I have no need of gold or jewels, I have far more of those than a beach has sand. I don't need a wife, for I already have the greatest beauty in the world. I don't need land or title, as I already have both in my home. I don't need more power, I have that aplenty, as I'm sure you will agree when you hear why the Draconic Kingdom is no longer at risk. No, I need none of that. If I might be so bold, gracious as you are, your majesty has not offered me the greatest of all possible gifts."
Jircniv searched his mind for what that might be, the dramatic posture of the visitor was far from the humility of a peasant, and between the overt display of power and his frequent displays of wisdom, not to mention the magic and that mirror he'd so casually pulled from nowhere… 'I don't know what happened with the Draconic Kingdom, but… I doubt I'll be long in finding out. If all that he says is true… and I don't sense a lie… he really is beyond the norm. And on closer inspection, those aren't a judge's robes, those are close, but they're vastly more expensive, even I can feel the magic on them… so what does he want?! What is this 'greatest of all possible gifts'?!'
Nothing came to mind that wasn't somehow tied to the sorts of things you would ordinarily offer, land, title, power, position at court, all of it. All of it by his own words were as nothing… any offer would then seem miserly. And this stranger, curious as he was, spoke to Jircniv as a peer, a rare equal in a world of subjects. 'When was the last time I was able to speak to someone as a friend?' He wondered.
And then it hit him.
A smile slowly spread on the emperor's face, and it was with equal slowness, mirrored on the face of his guest.
"Then let me offer you my friendship. If that is not too poor a gift for you, wisest of all judges?" Jircniv said, and Momonga inclined his head.
"That, friend Jircniv, is a gift I truly welcome." Momonga said, and only then did he make his most courteous and deep, dramatic bow as if he were a performer before an audience.