The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 25: The Grand Curia, Part 5

 Once he had prepared himself as best he could, Ammas took up the airy spirit from its perch, opening its cage as he held it to his lips, whispering softly to it. "You have served me well for many years, and I am grateful. Your service may be at an end. I hope it is not, but if so, I have one final request." 

The spirit pulsed happily, basking in the praise. Gently Ammas murmured his instructions, commanding the spirit to leave this place if he did not return in two days' time; leave and seek the wind, ride the thermals until it came to Autumnsgrove and Othma Sulivar. There it would deliver a message, informing Othma that Ammas and Carala were lost, and pleading with her to find a way to bring Casimir to safety. 

The spirit rose from its cage and circled his head in a jaunty orbit, which Ammas took to mean it agreed. Willingly it nestled back into its cage, but Ammas left the little silver door open. Reflecting on the years the spirit had given him -- he had tamed it almost a year before settling in Munazyr -- Ammas returned to his seat, looking from the spirit to the hat in his lap, the charms gleaming softly in the spirit's light.

Ammas was so deep in thought he seemed to be asleep, seated on that bench in his robes, studying the glittering charms of his hat, when he heard Denisius call down into the cellar. "Ammas? It's nearly eleven."

"Very good," Ammas called, surprising himself with the steadiness of his voice. He rose and set his hat on the crown of his head. Lightly he patted his belt and sash, pausing when he felt the shape of the tin of spirit salve. Othma's warning echoed in his brain. How much damage he had done to himself in his use of the salve was an open question. He was not yet an old man, but nor was he young, and he must be cautious. Only as a last resort would he call on the Dead again. After checking his blade, Ammas turned toward the courtroom to gather Barthim and Casimir, then joined the others upstairs.

Silenio and his men stared at him with undisguised fear as they saw him in his full cursewright attire, a sight the prince had not seen since his youth and which his men had never seen at all. In his hands Ammas carried Silenio's jeweled sword, its sheath gleaming with precious stones and threads of platinum, its hilt fashioned in the shape of his personal seal: the Deyn eagle with a maul in its talons.

"Are you well enough for battle, your highness?" Ammas's and the Prince's eyes met, and while there was hatred in each for the other, perhaps some spark of respect was there as well.

"I am, Mourthia. Well enough and eager enough."

Ammas nodded, offering the Prince his sword. His men were already armed at Ammas's request. For a moment he found himself unable to breathe, Carala staring with enormous, watchful eyes. Barthim had not sunken into a fighting stance, but the cords stood out on the side of his neck as his gaze remained fixed on the Prince's sword hand. Vos and Denisius both had their hands on their sword-hilts. Neither one of them savored the idea of fighting the prince, but they knew where their loyalties would lie if it came to that. For a second or two Denisius was so sure that Silenio was about to bellow an order to his men to seize them that he almost heard it.

But when Silenio accepted the blade he only belted it to his hip, nodding to Ammas. "You know the way to the Grand Curia?"

"I do. It's an easy road."

"Then lead the way, Mourthia."

Nearly a dozen strong they strode down Rowancroft Street, Ammas in the lead with Denisius and Vos on one side of him and Silenio at the other. Carala, Casimir, and Barthim occupied the middle ranks, with Silenio's men bringing up the rear. Barthim muttered to Ammas that he was not pleased to have the prince's men with their blades at his back.

"And I'm sure he's not pleased to have you at his back."

That, the bouncer admitted, was a fair point.

As Hangman's Harbor was visible from any given point in Gallowsport, so was the Grand Curia if one looked in the opposite direction. Its vast circular bulk loomed above everything, even the Prefect's home at Bluestead House. Until now Ammas had always found its presence comforting: a sign that even in this unruliest of cities, the law was unassailable and incorruptible. Even as a boy he had quickly understood this was a naive view, but still the sight of that mighty court was soothing somehow, and was always one of the few things not related to his family that pleased him when he visited this place. Now he saw it as a brooding fortress, leering at them as they drew nearer to the bluffs, its night-darkened windows capable of hiding any atrocity behind their blind glass.

The main entrance to the Curia building was an elaborate portal officially designated as the Common Court Foyer and known throughout Gallowsport as the Executioner's Mouth. In Ammas's youth it had been guarded day and night. Before they drew in sight of it he led them along a side alley that wound through the streets and narrow, close tenements and businesses to a blind wall only a little above the Curia's ancient foundations. This, Ammas told them, was a door generally used by advocates or judges who wished to slip in or out of the Curia unobserved and unaccompanied by a judicial guard. 

"I met my father or one of his clerks at this door many times," he whispered, trying the brass key in its lock. Silenio regarded Ammas skeptically, and he was not alone: the man's knowledge was twenty years out of date, and there was no reason not to think this door might have been blocked off, or rebuilt into a privy, for all they knew. But the key turned at once, the door swinging open on a darkened hall, and one by one they filed into the shadowy confines of the Anointed Realms' highest court.

The Grand Curia could be a bewildering place to the uninitiated. So many who were obliged to venture there were just so, intimidated as much by the judicial guards and the priestly judges as they were by the lifelong criminals who knew this building as well as their own homes. Despite the seemingly endless rows of offices, records rooms, and lesser courts, the concentric corridors of this vast building ultimately led to one destination: the Grand Curia itself, the largest courtroom in all of the Anointed Realms, where the most momentous cases and vexing appeals were heard on a regular basis. 

Ammas's knowledge of the building was useful, but Silenio knew it quite well himself, and his information was far more current. None of them feared becoming lost, but they expected to be challenged at every turn, and no one was sure Silenio's authority would be respected, not even the prince himself. Yet they met no one. The Curia was as silent as a tomb, Casimir's lamp picking out frowning sculptures of ancient judges and celebrated advocates, though the names of those long dead seer-magistrates had been carefully chiseled away from their plinths.

A set of double doors over twelve feet tall marked the central entryway to the Grand Curia itself. "The archives are located behind the High Bench," Ammas whispered to them. He alone had ever ventured there; Denisius and Vos's search of the court records weeks before had not extended beyond the outer offices, under the diffident supervision of a single bored clerk. "A door off the Overseer's chambers. There are probably other entrances, but I'm afraid I don't know them." He turned to Carala. "How bad is it here? Can you scent them?"

The puzzlement on Carala's face answered his question for him, though he had no explanation for it. "They have been here, Ammas. But not often. It's faint. Not at all like it is in the city."

Ammas frowned, laying a hand on the wicket gate cut into the vast double doors. "All right. But they must have a reason for wanting access to the archives, and we must know what it is." Slowly he drew his dagger. Denisius, Vos, the prince, and his men already had their blades out. Barthim's eyes darted rapidly from side to side, constantly checking his flanks, his nostrils flaring expectantly. Wordlessly Ammas tugged open the wicket gate and stepped into the Grand Curia.