Chapter 5
The First Verdict
The petition was valid.
The System confirmed it the moment Sorvane signed â€" a brief pulse behind
Kaelen's eyes, like a bell struck once in a distant room.
⟦ PETITION RECEIVED ⟧
⟦ PETITIONER : PELL SORVANE ⟧
⟦ SUBJECT OF JUDGMENT : CREST HALVORN ⟧
⟦ SOUL APPRAISAL WILL PROCEED UPON CONTACT ⟧
⟦ THE JUDGE IS BOUND TO DELIVER VERDICT ⟧
Bound. That word again.
Kaelen folded his copy of the petition and tucked it inside his coat
next to the letter from Edric Soln's body. Two pieces of paper. The
whole architecture of what he was apparently becoming, carried in a
breast pocket next to his heart.
He told Rynn that evening.
She wrote it all down, then looked up. "When?"
"Tomorrow," Kaelen said. "Halvorn takes breakfast at the Meridian
Hall with the other Councillors every second morning. Public enough
that he can't have me removed without witnesses."
"He'll have guards."
"Yes."
She wrote that too. "Are you nervous?"
He thought about it honestly. "No. I've stood in front of worse men
and told them things they didn't want to hear." He paused. "The
difference is I was carrying a Church writ then. Now I'm carrying
something I don't fully understand yet."
"Does that bother you?"
[It should. A man with half a lifetime of bad decisions behind him and
no employer he trusts has just been handed the ability to judge every
soul he looks at. That should bother me considerably.]
"Ask me again after tomorrow," he said.
The Meridian Hall was the finest building in Grimholt's upper ward â€" all
polished dark wood and imported glass, the kind of place designed to
remind visitors that money was a form of power and power was a form of
architecture. Kaelen arrived early, before the Councillors, and found
a seat near the back where he could see the room.
Rynn sat two tables away with her satchel and her pen and an untouched
cup of tea, positioned to look like she had nothing to do with him.
The Councillors arrived in a cluster at the second bell. Seven of them.
Old money and new money and the money that pretended to be neither.
Crest Halvorn was near the centre â€" not at the head of the group, which
was a choice. Men who had killed six times learned not to make themselves
look like leaders.
Kaelen stood up when they reached their table.
"Councillor Halvorn."
The group stopped. Halvorn looked at him with the practiced calm of a
man who received challenges the way other men received weather â€" as
something that could be managed.
"I don't know you," Halvorn said.
"No," Kaelen agreed. "I'm the Judge. I've been petitioned to deliver
a Verdict on you." He held up the petition. "By the laws of the God's
Eye System and the authority of the Scales, you are required to stand
and be appraised."
The room had gone quiet. Fifty people at their breakfasts, all very
still.
Halvorn smiled. The kind of smile a man produced when he wanted a room
to understand that the person across from him was not a threat.
"Judge," he said slowly, tasting the word. "I've heard some rumour of
that title. A drifter claiming divine appointment." He looked around the
table at his colleagues, inviting them to find this amusing. "Tell me,
who gave you this authority?"
"A dead god," Kaelen said. "I find that answer either reassures people
or frightens them considerably. You appear to be the first variety."
He looked directly at Halvorn.
The God's Eye opened.
⟦ SOUL APPRAISAL â€" ACTIVE ⟧
Name : Crest Halvorn
Age : 57
Sins : 341 | Mercies : 4
The full ledger unrolled in Kaelen's vision. Not just the number â€" the
acts themselves, laid out in sequence like pages in a book that only he
could read. Six deaths. Forty years of smaller corruptions woven through
them. The mercies were genuine â€" three of them toward family, one toward
a stranger â€" which almost made it worse, because it confirmed that he
had known the difference all along and simply chosen not to apply it.
⟦ VERDICT OPTIONS ⟧
I. ABSOLUTION â€" Not supported by record
II. PENANCE â€" Partial. Restitution to victims' families.
Public confession of commercial fraud.
III. CONDEMNATION â€" Supported by record. Six counts of ordered
murder. Irreversible.
IV. EXECUTION â€" Supported by record. At Judge's discretion.
⟦ THE LEDGER DOES NOT LIE ⟧
⟦ CHOOSE ⟧
Kaelen stood in the quiet dining room with fifty witnesses and read the
options the System had placed before him.
Halvorn was still smiling, waiting for whatever theatre this was to
end so he could have the man removed.
[Execution is supported by the record. He killed six people and was
planning a seventh. The System isn't wrong.]
[But I've carried out executions before, on orders, for a Church that
turned out to be rotten at its core. I swore I wouldn't do that again.
Act without thought. Kill because the authority said to.]
[The question is whether this authority is different.]
[I don't know yet. And I'm not going to find out by starting here.]
"Councillor Halvorn," Kaelen said. The room was perfectly silent now.
"By the authority of the God's Eye System I issue the following Verdict:
Condemnation. You are to be held by the city watch pending a full
accounting of your commercial dealings over the past twenty years. The
details of six ordered deaths will be provided to the watch's senior
council by written testimony from this office." He paused. "Resisting
this Verdict will be noted in the Ledger."
He felt the System pulse behind his eyes.
⟦ VERDICT ACCEPTED : CONDEMNATION ⟧
⟦ THE LEDGER IS UPDATED ⟧
⟦ FIRST JUDGMENT COMPLETE ⟧
Halvorn's smile had not moved. But something behind his eyes had.
"You," he said quietly, "have no idea what you've just started."
"Three hundred and forty-one," Kaelen said. "That's how many sins are
on your ledger. I've read all of them. Enjoy the accounting."
He turned and walked toward the door.
Rynn was already writing.