The clearing was surrounded by members of the Lodge seated on branches of the trees. The crowd was still chattering among themselves. Elissa approached high-sister Priscilla. She may be old and incredibly wizened, but she was the most experienced member of the Lodge Elissa knew. And she readily accepted the task of representing the defence for Nannade when the offer came up. Elissa would have done it by herself too, but she had no proper court experience, unlike Priscilla.
As she saw Elissa coming closer, Priscilla, who stood next to Nannade right now, looked in her direction. She could no longer speak, but her raven familiar Rrokhaa spoke with her raven-voice on the old witch's behalf.
"What is your concern, child?" it cawed.
"I want to thank you again so much, high-sister Priscilla, for taking the defence. Your experience is highly valued."
The old witch chuckled, then Rrokhaa continued. "Not all think like you. Many consider me old-fashioned and obsolete. But the young need the shade of old trees to play and grow, don't they?" The old witch patted Nannade's head again, the girl shot her a glare that could pierce steel, almost as if she wanted to snap her teeth at her hand.
"I think she won't be very cooperative." Elissa said to Priscilla, then she knelt down to Nannade. "None of this will get any better for you if you don't cooperate!" She wished Garrett would talk to her, but he seemed to have made up his mind. He wasn't trying to kill her anymore, but he refused to give her any more reason to shoot angry glares at him. She tried to come up with something to tell the girl, but the Arch-Druid interrupted her.
Loganna told the crowd to come to a rest and be silent for the trial to commence. Everyone took their places. The defence to the left of Loganna and the highest judges, the prosecution to the right. The accused knelt in the middle of the large clearing, directly opposite of Loganna, wrapped in a wooden chain. It was carved from the grand tree, which towered above all other trees in the vastness of Sturreland once, but fell during the great sundering, roughly thirteen centuries ago. Every link was engraved with powerful glyphs and runes of binding. It was impossible to break free from it. Nannade had shown good cooperation on a base level with the Hidden Hand Black Surgeon, but still, nobody trusted her. Around the clearing, between the free space and the trees in which the crowd was seated, a line of Guardians stood with their staves and spears. All of them wore special leather scale armour, every scale individually hardened and inscribed with glyphs.
Loganna began to read the charges. Engaging in a blood pact with a foreign spirit entity. Drawing a foreign spirit entity from the outside through Sturreland's ley-lines. Attack on members of the Lodge. Attack on a guest of the Lodge.
As the charges were being read, most members of the crowd started to talk among themselves. It was a rather large gathering, but by far not all members of the Lodge were present.
Loganna had to calm the crowd back down again. Loganna turned to Nannade.
"How does the accused plead?"
Nannade wanted to say something, but Priscilla put a hand on her head and Rrokhaa spoke up. "In light of the defendant being not of age and an apprentice, I have assumed official guardianship for the purpose of this trial, the accused pleads not guilty."
The girl seemed to want to say something, but when she tried to stand up, the Guardians behind her stomped their staves on the ground and the wooden chain yanked the girl back down, scotching any attempt at rebellion.
Loganna acknowledged towards the Guardians' vigilance and went on. "We will now proceed to hear the report by Black Surgeon of Hozorcia, a Hidden Hand and specialist on blood pactitioners commissioned for this case."
Black Surgeon took the centre. He had a large stack of papers to read from and took long, meandering paths across the clearing, alternating between speaking to the judges, the crowd, the accused and the witnesses, rather than addressing merely the judges.
He announced that he had structured it into three parts: the report on the girl's body, the report on the entity she had made a pact with and the report on the bond between them.
He started by describing the usual physique of a crolachan demi-human of her gender and age, about the development Elissa and Garrett had observed and influenced, for example with the special brew Garrett have had Elissa make for the girl, and how her current body differed from this "normal" development. He noted her heightened senses, her flexibility, her speed and strength and her resilience.
Next, he moved onto the spirit that lived inside her body now. This was what Elissa, Faan and Garrett had tried to find out for the last five years, ever since Faan noticing it in her dreams.
"The spiritual being she entered a pact with" Black Surgeon began, "has no sense of a corporeal self as familiars would, but it still has its own, completely separate will. It has neither destroyed nor changed the girl's higher cognitive functions. It claims to have lost its entire name safe for "Ssil". It claimed to have had numerous contacts with the girl she refers to as "the priestess" and at times "the promised". What exactly this means is unclear, but since the entity is partly abstract rather than natural, I came to the conclusion, that the spirit has been worshipped by some people as a tutelary or patron spirit. It was originally a snake spirit, but centuries, possibly millennia of worship added layers of abstract concepts onto this spirit of nature. It has referenced several titles it had been given, among them are "devourer of vermin", "bringer of just death", "certain vengeance" and "silent one". It is highly predatory and solitary in its personality. The being also said that it had been entrusted with an ancient task that had it return to the girl regularly. The life force it acquired through worship allowed it to traverse long distance in the ley-lines and emerge at the place of power nearest to where the girl lived, even allowing it to manifest close by, but during the ritual, it shed most of this life force to accommodate the girl's body's limitations. I believe that this was what alerted the Guardians of the Lodge to the incident. It is unclear, whether the spirit still receives life force from worshippers and whether it also lost the largest part of its name during this shedding process."
Black Surgeon took a short break and took a gulp from a bottle of water. Then he continued, script in hand to meander around to open space of the clearing.
"This brings me to the third part of my report: the bond between the girl and the spirit. The spirit was tasked with something relating to the individual that is the girl, most likely her well-being. I interpret this as the reason why it did not interfere with the girl's own will, as to preserve her identity as an individual. This is at least my explanation. It seems to be submissive, even if not entirely obedient to the girl. The girl and the spirit share a single subconsciousness. They are connected at an intuitive level. This goes far beyond the mental connection which a medium shares with their familiar, as it does not require active "calling out" to the other party and their conscious reaction. She is able to cast spells from pre-written formulas, even if not able to consciously control them afterwards. I believe, that since the spirit made frequent and close contact with the girl throughout her life, especially in her dreams, her subconscious level was already influenced from a young age on. I also assume, that if the spirit was present before her birth, this could explain the girl being an already awakened medium by the time it arrived under Elissa's care as she reported."
Elissa remembered how Nannade had talked about a path only she could take. Was this it? Was the spirit really present before Garetas himself? Was it keeping the girl safe? Maybe even safe from Garrett and Elissa?
Black Surgeon finished his report with the usual formalities concerning the report and his statements. Then left the stage to the side, but he did not stand very close to the prosecution. In fact, Elissa hadn't seen him interact with them to any extent.
Next were the witness reports, Elissa, Garret, Faan, and the Guardians who arrived later on the glade. Nannade was also granted to give her report, but decided to abstain. Then Priscilla again acted in her stead, pulling forth a piece of paper, which she claimed was given to her by Black Surgeon. It was the statements the girl made about the night in question while in containment.
They said that she had had the idea for the ritual while thinking about her teacher, Garetas, who had led her to belief her freedom would be granted, if she could take it from him, surpass him. In order to achieve this, she decided to "take a different route, one only open to her and no one else", rather than "chase after Garetas' stupid, thick-headed demands." She also said the spirit had helped her, for example with altering the Lodge's usual ritual for binding a familiar to better suit her ends.
Garrett slouched his shoulders and hung his head low as the statements were read, but Elissa propped him back up. She reminded him that his training methods had been appropriate and to not be so easily swayed to shame by an angry, stubborn, pubescent girl.
The stage was given to interrogations. The first person they called upon for questioning was Garrett. After he had taken the oath, he stood in the centre while the chief prosecutor, a druid named Dennicus who Elissa knew almost nothing about except for his high status, walked around him in circles, which seemed to annoy Garrett a great deal.
"Mister Garetas, is it true that your occupation is that of a Hidden Hand under the call sign "Purple Paw of Halonnes"?"
"Yes."
"And is it true that the accused is your current apprentice in training?"
"Yes."
"And is it true, that you were paid out a bounty for the slaying of a werewolf within Sturreland during the summer of last year?"
"Yes."
"And was the accused with you to assist you on that job."
"Yes."
"Did you ever inform your apprentice of the nature of werewolves and blood pacts?"
"Yes."
"Thank you. I have no further questions."
The interrogations by Dennicus and Priscilla were a slow and long process, but Elissa felt as if she was grinding her teeth into dust from stress and trepidity. Over and over again she looked over to Nannade, hoping she would return her looks, but she never did.
All the relevant information was dragged out into the clearing from the significant people on the clearing. The numerous lessons Nannade had received, the reports on the dream reports and few sightings of the mysterious spirit with the green eyes.
It was then, after countless questions and answers, that Priscilla moved to make her case. She moved to the centre of the clearing, and Rrokhaa started to speak.
"A long time ago, when I was still an apprentice of the Lodge, an old Druid named Partelleon, already old and grey as I am, told me story from his apprenticeship many decades before.-"
Loganna interrupted Priscilla. "High-sister Priscilla, is this story going anywhere? How many childhoods do we still have to pass?"
"BE QUIET, CHILD!" The raven cawed loudly, while Priscilla stomped her cane on the ground. "As I was saying, when Partelleon was a young apprentice, hey had just bid farewell to a peculiar being that they used to care for and consult. It was a large stag with the upper body of a man. They called him "the living temple" because in him lived an ancient spirit of a stag and protector of the woods. This spirit had been an important guardian of Sturreland and had been fused with the man in a ritual performed by the Lodge. What Nannade has done was once a common practice among our kind, and many other cultures as well. I am sure the young Mister Black Surgeon can verify that."
Loganna raised an eyebrow. "So we should not punish the girl because two long lifetimes ago our predecessors did something similar? That is idiotic! It is forbidden now!"
Priscilla seemed to smile under her hood. "But why is it forbidden?"
"Have you not heard? Just last years, a man made a blood pact with a wolf to become a vicious werewolf." Loganna tried to stare down Priscilla, but the woman was probably mostly blind as well.
"But the girl isn't a werewolf. She's still a girl. The report said as much: she is still an individual, she is still herself."
"Blood pacts are an affront to humanity."
"Why? Because it changes humanity? We all change. We all use magic to heal and adjust our body, we ask the spirits to mend a boy's legs if he was born crippled!"
Loganna paused for a while.
"But we do not know whether she is a danger. We can't let her run free. The punishment for this sacrilege is death, no exceptions. If we start making exceptions now, we won't be able to stop!"
The girl stood up slowly. The guards were about to stomp their staves again, but Loganna commanded them with a raised hand to halt. At the sight of Nannade's determination, even Priscilla did not dare to stop her.
Nannade stood, still wrapped in chains and took a single step forward. She spoke up. "I was thrust here, from one slavery to the next, my life set out by everyone but me. And I was told: the only freedom is the one I can take myself. If I shall die for doing so, then let death be my eternal freedom. There is nothing I can do to sway you. You look down upon me from your centuries of experience, yet deny me my own as sacrilegious."
As she said these words, a shock hit Elissa. The girl had just accepted the death penalty for herself. The crowd grew restless, Loganna tried to calm them down again. Elissa looked to Nannade, begging her silently to look over to her, maybe one last time, but the girl was just scowling at the judges. Elissa turned to Garrett. The disappointment on his face spoke clearly of what kind it was: a teacher disappointed in his apprentice. "Garrett, do something, we have to make her snap out of her tantrum!"
He nodded. "I feared as much."
He stood up. "High judges, I believe I should be giving a clarification to the court and my apprentice to shed a brighter light on the circumstances."
"Well then." Loganna said. "Speak."
"Yes, I pushed her. I pushed the girl because I believed that it would work on her. But I didn't think it would work into this direction. It was inadequate of me to force a person so different from me to wander the same path I took in the same foot prints that I left. I want to show something to the accused." He looked to Loganna for approval. Loganna nodded.
Garrett walked over to Nannade and knelt down to her; she was just scowling at him. He reached for his pocket and pulled forth Nannade's vial. She turned even angrier now that he was dangling it in front of her. It was empty. He took a knife and pricked her wrist. Bright red blood gushed forth and he caught it with the vial. He healed her cut with a quick wipe and an incantation. Then he put the plug back on the vial and held it for her to see. As the vial rejected the blood which it did not recognize as that of the daughter of Nannade's mother, it turned from its healthy bright red to a perfect pitch black. Realization and shock appeared on the girl's face, but she quickly re-established her façade of spite and resentment. Then, slowly bubbling up from the depths of her mind, regret, shame, and guilt came to the surface. The girl tried to keep herself composed as tears welled up in her eyes. She started to snivel and turned her head down. When she finally grasped what she had done and what she lost, thrown away by her actions, she let out a blaring cry shaking even the trees at the edge of the clearing.
She keeled over and pressed her face on the cold ground, as if she was hoping to suffocate herself in it. Her bawling and screaming echoed from the cliff face. Over and over again she cried "Mammy" and "I'm sorry!" The crowd murmured, Loganna tried to look somewhere else but didn't know where, Priscilla looked with deep sympathy from her sunken-in eyes, Elissa started to get teary eyes herself, Faan pressed his cheek against hers, and Garrett softly ran his fingers through Nannade's hair. He picked her up, still in chains, turned to the forest and looked at the judges. Loganna nodded and beckoned two Guardians to follow him. Then he carried the girl off into the depths of the forest, until it swallowed all her cries.
Loganna called a break of undefined length, but told everyone to stay within sight of the clearing. Black Surgeon used this opportunity to walk over to Elissa.
His face showed remorse and sympathy as he approached her. "I am deeply sorry. I do not want the girl to die."
"Are you not the one who is specialized in hunting pactitioners down, to cast judgement upon them, Black Surgeon of Hozorcia?" She said his call sign with a sort of mocking veneration.
"Yes. And that's why I say that she should not die. She is no abomination. She is not inhuman; she is a rare case even among those who do not lose their will and mind."
Elissa wanted to believe that. That he truly cared for the girl. Garrett would have killed her for sure that night had she not stopped both of them, but he had come around.
"I believe the girl will need a lot of work and discovery to fully understand her transgression. But she should not be forsaken."
"And who would teach her in this world where she was left alone even before this transgression? You?"
Black Surgeon smiled. "It would be about time I took on an apprentice."
Elissa tried to smile back, but she was already back in deep sorrow.
Eventually, Nannade came back from amidst the trees, followed by Garrett and the two Guardians. She returned to her place and knelt down. Garrett remained behind her.
Loganna beckoned everyone to return to their places and silence was quickly re-established in the court. "Does the defence still have anything to say?" She asked.
Garrett nodded. Then the girl raised her head and spoke to the judges.
"The Lodge had not just condoned, but furthered my education into an assassin and thief for the past six years. Arch-Druid Loganna had personally accepted me. I have read books and learned under a teacher of the Lodge, I learned about anatomy, poisons, spells, traps, and much more with the Lodge's help. Now, they say I am dangerous. If I wasn't before, what was I then?" The girl paused for a moment, looked into the crowd and to the prosecution, then continued. "I have absolved my test of moral commensuration under druid Herlewin." She apparently had found Herlewin's face in the crowd, but he looked away. "I was deemed to be capable and morally adequate. But now you say I am not? Based on what? The report said it, I'm still the same individual, the serpent couldn't have taken this from me, it always wanted my well-being. Hidden Hands do not kill because someone has power, but because they misuse it. If I am dangerous because of my new capabilities, then the Hidden Hands must settle this, I am their apprentice, yours only as a formality. If I am dangerous because I am no longer the same person, then I ask you to prove it, you want to put me to death, not the other way around. If I am a sinner, then prove what sin against my humanity I have committed? If I even ever possessed that to begin with."
Nannade kept eye contact with Loganna the entire time. Her eyes were watery, swollen up and red, but her face showed no sadness or fear anymore.
Loganna had fallen back in her chair, holding her forehead. After a while, she sighed and turned to Black Surgeon. "Mister, you are the specialist. Can you draft a special test and report on whether she is dangerous and if yes, for what reason?"
Black Surgeon stood up and spoke to the judges. "I must again stress the uniqueness of Nannade's case. I am a specialist in dealing with blood pactitioners, abominations, possessions, ghouls and other forms of spiritual transgressions, that is why I was summoned. And part of my experience is having seen hundreds of such entities and this girl is probably the most human-like – apart from being crolachan - one would find. If one were not familiar with crolachans, one would easily ignore all her abnormalities. Her body is symmetrical and healthy. No mutations, disfigurement or constant pain as it is usual for abominations. Her mind is clear and self-defined. This is all a result of unique circumstances and lucky coincidences, based on the spirit, the girl's past and the exact ritual she happened to perform, and thus, the result is unique in many ways." Black Surgeon had spent quite a while with not answering Loganna's question, and annoyance had appeared on her face. "But, if you insist on making an exact judgement then, yes, I could draft such a test and report, but it would not be done in a time frame as short as you had previously given me. I'd also have to call to aid many other specialists on a similar matter for only they can make an exact judgement."
Leeriness appeared on Loganna's face. "Well then, do prosecution or defence have anything substantial add?"
Nobody raised as much as a finger.
"In light of lack of evidence to warrant us ignoring the law – which states that the punishment is death – we shall proceed to the casting of judgement. Pass around the ballot jars and ready your tokens."
Two pots were passed around and each member of the crowd dropped their token in either a white pot for innocent or a black pot for guilty. By the rules, each member had to handle each pot and do so separately to give everyone a chance to vote either way. Elissa watched the pots wander and the tokens drop. Every time a token fell in the black, her heart sunk a notch lower.
The pots were returned to the judges and they started publicly counting the tokens. It seemed for every token in the black pot, there was a token in the white pot as well. Until the end, it was close and Elissa could barely bear the tension, her hand cramped and turned sweaty. Then the final token was taken from the white pot. The black pot was not yet empty.
Four tokens made the difference. Guilty by a narrow margin.
Loganna raised her voice. "The inner jury of the Lodge has deemed the girl guilty. The punishment is death."
The crowd grew restless, loud cries and yells but also cheers were heard.
"She's a child!"
"You have not enough support for this!"
"This is not over!"
"Death by four tokens? Unheard of!"
The guards failed to bring order back into the crowd. Even the judges to Loganna's side were at odds with each other and Loganna.
Elissa tried to hold back tears, Nannade was just looking to the ground, seemingly in defeat.
Eventually, Loganna cast a spell and her voice boomed across the clearing, shaking the trees and the people sitting in them "The verdict stands, but on demand of my high judges, we will convene on the severity of the punishment." They turned around and a passageway in the cliff face opened, which the high judges and Loganna entered, then it closed again behind them, leaving the clearing deafening with chatter and wrought up talk.
Elissa ran over to Nannade, embraced her and held her head, she held the girl as tightly as she ever had, she could feel her heart hammering in her chest and against the girl's skull. Together, they waited for the final verdict. The Guardians had problems keeping the crowd orderly, rarely had something split the Lodge so cleanly in half. Elissa feared that she was the parting of a cleft within the Lodge. No matter how Loganna decided, there was no telling what would happen beyond the law. Rarely had she seen so many of her fellow brothers and sisters up in such a fury. The time seemed to stretch to infinity and all that was left to do was waiting and hoping, but eventually, the cliff face opened again.