Heaven Cent (32 page)

A handsome young man with flat duck feet came up. “Fulsome Fee,” he said, and took the next seat in the box. Dolph was chagrined again. That was the leader of the folk who had tried to force the members of his party to interbreed with them, to revivify their waning stock. Nada had foiled them, but surely Fulsome carried a grudge against Dolph and his friends, Grace’l included. What could be worse man this?

A buxom woman garbed in green leaves, whose reddish brown hair fell to her feet walked up, her body swaying in a manner that caused even the nonhuman folk to watch with interest. Dolph had seen that walk before! In fact, this was—

“Vida Vila,” she said, and undulated on to the hanging jury box, her hair waving along behind her. She was the nature nymph whose tree Marrow had threatened to chop, and who had then wanted to marry Dolph, because he was a prince. She had turned out to be all right, in the end, and though Dolph was not yet versed in the fine points of adult female anatomy, he was sure that hers could serve as a model for study. But he had gone on to become betrothed to not one but two other girls, and if Vida learned about that, she might turn into a bear and attack him. He was distinctly nervous about having her on this jury.

Still, he remembered how protective she was toward children. That could count in his favor.

“Fulsome Fee and Vida Vila, I hardly need to talk to you about the importance of preserving children,” Dolph continued. “Grace’l is being punished because she cherishes children; you know that. I know you can't support that.” He saw that he was correct.

The box was now half full, with no really good jurors for his purpose. But they weren't really bad, either. What would the rest be like—the ones from the gourd?

The next juror stepped up: a woman who looked like nothing at all. “Onoma Topoeia,” she said, introducing herself, and as she spoke she looked exactly the way she sounded, which was rather strange.

O no! Dolph thought. She's going to change her mind every time anyone speaks!

“Onoma, doesn't it seem odd to you that a person should be punished for doing something decent?”

“Nothing seems odd to me,”-she said, looking oddly like nothing. “Everything looks just the way it sounds.”

Dolph found it impossible to relate to her. He didn't know where she stood. But if he barred her from this jury, she might be replaced by something worse. He decided to gamble that she would not be too bad.

Next came a pig, towing a block of ivory almost as high as himself. It had been partially carved, and was evidently to be a statue of a female pig. “Pyg Malion,” he said, and trotted on to the box. Vida and Onoma had to help him haul up his ivory; evidently he planned to work on it during dull periods of the trial. Was that good or bad for Grace’l, Dolph wondered, and dreaded the answer.

“What is it that you are sculpting?”

“Galatea, the loveliest of pigs. I love her.”

“But she's just a statue!” Dolph protested. “An ivory statue, and not even finished yet.”

“Neither is your case,” Pyg retorted.

He had a point. Dolph decided not to challenge.

The following creature looked so completely stupid that Dolph wondered how he had ever qualified for jury duty. “Ignor Amus,” he said dully, and blundered on to the box. Dolph liked him no better.

“Do you think a woman should be punished for—”

“I don't know nothing about anything,” Amus said.

“Then how can you vote on it?”

“I'll just vote the way everybody else does. That's what I always do.”

Well, if the majority voted Dolph's way, this creature would be all right. Better to let him be.

But worse was coming. This was a big, heavy-bodied animal with broad horns who looked twice as stupid as the prior juror. “Oxy Moron,” he lowed with light heaviness.

“How's that?” Dolph asked.

“Oxy Moron. I'm stupidly clever. I like routine contrasts and bright darkness.”

“Uh, about the defendant—”

“She's a nice meanie.”

“But—”

“And you're a smart fool.”

Yet again Dolph pondered, and yet again decided to leave well enough alone. This creature just might be making sense.

Dolph could not even attempt to categorize the last two jurors. They seemed to have no fixed forms.

“I am Synec Doche,” the first said. “You may address me by any of my parts, or any part by the whole, small-foot.”

Dolph's head was spinning. He couldn't understand any of these folk! He went to the last.

“I am Meto Nymy,” the man said. “You may describe me by any of my attributes, loser.”

Baffled, Dolph retreated. How would these strange folk vote? He could not tell. “No challenge,” he said.

The hanging jury was complete: twelve odd creatures. How they would decide Dolph could not say, but it did not look excruciatingly good.

“Counsel for the prosecution,” the stallion said.

A new figure emerged from the throng. Seeing her, Dolph almost fainted. “Princess Ivy,” she said clearly.

His sister! His snooty fourteen-year-old sister! Of all the times and places for her to show up, this was the very ultimate worst! How bad could his luck get?

Bad luck? No, he realized. This was the gourd, where the Night Stallion ruled. This was the realm of dreams, and the stallion was the master of bad dreams. Grace’l was on trial for the way she had messed up a bad dream, so now she was suffering her own bad dream, and Dolph was in it with her. Luck played no part in this; the night stallion was Grafting the slowly closing pincers of the worst of dreams. A dream from which neither the defendant nor her counsel could wake. A dream whose end would be—what?

Dolph had been nervous before, and afraid. Now he was terrified. Grace’l had tried to warn him of the stallion's power; now he appreciated the nature of that power. The stallion had only played a game with him, giving him irrelevant doors to agonize over, while setting up this horrendous trial. And was the jury also irrelevant because the decision had already been made? No, he could not accept that! But how was he to change the outcome and save Grace’l from destruction? For he knew this was what conviction would mean. He was alive; he would wake when the dream was done. Grace’l would not.

His terror remained, but his thinking caused it gradually to change from the urge to cower to the urge to fight. There was no way that he, a mere child, could hope to fight the power of the Night Stallion. Not here, not in the stallion's bailiwick. Not by the stallion's rules. Yet he had to try. This was not bravery on his part, but desperation. Grace’l was all bones, but she was a good person, and he had to help her somehow.

“The defendant is charged with spoiling a duly constituted dream,” the judge Night Stallion said, “and with violating her exile. How does she plead?”

“Oh, I did it,” Grace’l said unhappily. “I—”

Dolph jumped up. “She doesn't mean that!” he exclaimed. “She pleads Not Guilty!”

“But I did—” Grace’l said. “I wouldn't try to deceive—”

“Not Guilty, by reason of—” Dolph paused, his inspiration failing. Of course she was guilty; not only was this a rigged trial, she was bound to lose even if it was fair. But that was like the doors with the impossible questions: either answer was just more trouble. He had to get her out of that kind of choice, between guilt and guilt. He had to find a way to make it all right.

The entire court was frozen, awaiting his plea. The jury was watching him, and so were all the creatures of the audience, and the judge, and his sister. All waiting for him to say something really stupid. So that Grace’l would wish she had come here without him.

“By reason of—” Still he was stalled. What could he say to make it better, when none of these creatures were on his side or Grace’l’s? That the ends did not justify the means? They would turn that right around, and prove that die end of sparing a decent troll did not justify the means of messing up a well-prepared dream. That the end of finding the Heaven Cent did not justify the means of violating Grace’l’s exile? That was the crudest part of it: by their definitions Grace’l was wrong on both counts, and he could not counter those definitions. Yet still he knew there was something wrong, and that she should not be punished for her decency. How could he make that clear?

“That it just wasn't like that,” he concluded miserably.

The judge frowned. “The defendant pleads Not Guilty by reason of that it just wasn't like that,” he repeated tonelessly.

There was a snicker from the audience, echoed in the jury box. Ivy sniffed disdainfully. He had blown it, as she had known he would.

“Prosecution?” the judge inquired.

“We intend to prove that it was too like that,” Ivy said promptly. “That foolish skeleton messed up a perfectly good dream, and then came back to gloat about it. Off with her head!”

The audience applauded, and several members of the jury nodded. There was a statement with guts!

“Make your case,” the judge said.

“The prosecution calls as its first witness Truculent Troll,” Ivy said, reeking with confidence.

A tall, ugly, mean-spirited troll came up to the witness stand. “Do you know what will happen to you if you don't tell the truth?” the stallion asked him.

The troll quailed. “I'll tell anything you want, honest!” he said quickly. “I swear!”

“Witness has been duly sworn in,” the judge said.

Now Ivy started in, in the way she had. “Truculent, are you from the same village as Tristan Troll?”

“That blankety bleep?” Truculent exclaimed, enraged. “You know what that mule-bottom did?”

“Just answer the question,” the judge warned.

“Yes, I'm ashamed to say I'm from that village.”

“And what did Tristan Troll do?” Ivy asked.

“He tried to wipe out our village! He had a tasty morsel, that we all would have shared, and he let it go! We nearly starved! We had to tide through on crottled gleep! I still get sick just thinking of it!” Indeed, the troll looked ready to retch. An orderly sidled near with a basin, just in case.

“Your witness,” Ivy said with a smirk at Dolph.

His witness? Dolph had no idea what to do. He sat there stupidly.

“Counsel for the defense, do you wish to cross-examine this witness?” the judge asked.

Dolph looked at the troll. “He does look pretty cross, but I guess not.” There was another titter through the audience, and he realized that he had blundered again in some way. So he reversed himself. “Uh, I mean, yes, I'd better. Troll, what was this tasty morsel you say Tristan let go?”

“A female homo-sap juvenile,” Truculent said gruffly.

“A what?” Dolph asked, thrown by the description. He had thought it was a little girl.

“A human brat.”

“Do you mean a little human girl?”

“That's what I said, idiot.”

Dolph saw a reaction in the jury box. It was Vida Vila. He remembered that her kind was protective of children. Maybe he had something here after all. “You were going to cut up this little girl and roast her?”

“Naw, we don't use knives. We just tear 'em apart and chomp 'em raw.”

Draco Dragon was salivating, but Itchlips Goblin was looking unhappy. Fulsome Free seemed angry, and Vida Vila was outraged. He was scoring! This jury did have some scruples.

“Thank you,” he said politely. “That will be all.” For the first time he suspected he might have a chance.

The troll departed. Ivy, grimacing for some private reason, called the next witness: a little boy.

“Little Boy,” she asked, “are you from the human village that the trolls raided that night?”

“What's it to ya?” he responded.

The Night Stallion twisted his horse lips into a frown. “How would you like a dream like this?” he inquired of the boy. A picture appeared over the boy's head, showing a giant hairbrush descending.

“Yes mam!” the boy said instantly.

Dolph realized that this trial was no joke, in this respect. The witnesses were expected to answer without being irrelevant or sassing the members of the court. Was it possible that the verdict was not already sealed?

“And do you know the girl who was captured by the trolls?”

“Yeah.” The boy was about to say more, but he glanced at the judge and changed his mind.

“What kind of a person is she?”

“A nerd. A real dope. And bossy too. You know how girls are.”

Dolph had to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. That boy really knew his stuff!

But Ivy played it with a straight face. “So the village would have been better off without her?”

The judge glanced at Dolph. "Do you have an objection? That calls for a conclusion on the part of the witness.”

But Dolph, getting smarter, had been watching the jury. The question had angered several members. His side was better off with it, because Ivy was doing his job for him. “No objection,” he said.

“Yeah, sure,” the boy said. “She was a pain! I'm sorry she came back.”

Ivy realized she had made a mistake. “Your witness,” she said, ending it.

Dolph approached the boy, who was younger man himself. “So you don't like that little girl?” he asked.

“That's what I said!”

“Do you like any girls?”

“Of course not!”

“So you'd be glad if the trolls carried them all away and ate them?”

“Gee, that'd be great!”

Dolph looked wisely at the jury and nodded. Several members nodded back. The boy had been revealed as a brat. “No more questions.”

Ivy, disgruntled, called her next witness. “Mare Frigoris.”

A black female horse trotted up, seeming quite solid. Again, Dolph reminded himself that this was the gourd; the night mares lived here, and so were as solid here as anyone.

“State your name and occupation, please.”

The night mare did not actually speak; instead she projected a dreamlet into the minds of the listeners. In this little dream she had the form of a pretty black woman with her black hair in the form of a ponytail. “I am Mare Frigoris, after whom the Sea of Cold on the Moon is named. I carry bad dreams to those who deserve them.”

“How long have you held this position?” Ivy asked.

“Three hundred years.”

“You are then an experienced carrier of dreams?”