Reminiscences (DGS Oneshots)

of Klint van Zieks

The night was dark and still. Warm. Pleasant. And the park was empty. Save for one lone figure. Awaiting him on a bench. How Klint wished the man had not come. If only he had refused his invitation.

Klint hesitated, his fingers flexing at his side. He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to. He couldn't possibly. This was an order in which he simply could not comply.

And then he commanded Balmung to stay and he found himself walking briskly towards the man on the bench. The Lord Chief Justice. They bowed to one another. And Klint hesitated. He could just turn away now. Couldn't he? No. It was far too late already. Wasn't it?

"What's this about Klint? It's so unusual for you to send a summons like this. Is it your wife? Is something amiss with her health?" the Lord Chief Justice said, standing. His eyes were kind and full of concern, his face a smudge of severe white in the surrounding darkness.

"No."

"Barok?"

"No."

"Why don't you sit down and tell me what's troubling you," he urged, resuming his spot on the bench and motioning to the space beside him.

Klint rubbed his forehead, his eyebrows heavily furrowed, distress twisting his features. "I...I cannot...I..."

"Klint?"

"It's the Professor," Klint said, going still. He dropped his hand and met his mentor's stare evenly.

"What about the Professor? Have you found something?"

"I know...I know who he is. And who his next victim shall be."

"You know!? That's excellent news!" the Lord Chief Justice said, springing to his feet, a relieved smile rising to his lips.

"...Is it?" Klint said, trying to regulate his breathing, to appear impassive and collected.

"Marvellous work, Klint! Now we can stop him. If we go to the Yard right now—"

"We cannot."

The Lord Chief Justice's smile fell away. "Do you not have evidence?...Or is it someone...It's someone in the judiciary isn't it?"

Klint looked away. His throat pulsed with a hard, visible swallow.

"...Klint. Tell me the truth. Is it Lord Stronghart?"

Klint tensed. "...Why would you think that?"

"He has long lambasted me over the crime plaguing our city. Every time someone gets falsely acquitted, he is at my door. We have argued quite fiercely before about justice. He thinks I am not doing enough. But I have done all I can do. My hands are bound by the law. And by what I know to be right. Klint, I know you see things the same way I do. Extrajudicial killings...are still murder."

Klint narrowed his eyes. "...Are they now?"

"To murder outside the law and to do so in such a brutal fashion. There is no justice in that."

"No justice...in that..." Klint said slowly, voice low and seething, leaning into a trembling edge. "Yet there is justice in watching the guilty go free? In watching them pay off the damnable jurors? In watching them present forged evidence so they can repeat their crimes? Do you even see the people in the streets!? How the common man suffers! Do you know how many lose everything because of them!?"