Marché was cutting a line through the sand, establishing the territory of his argument. Oola must have been the sort of man who wasn't used to having his accusations refuted, for the tiny man's face was bordering on volcanic. The final bud of greased hair sprouting from his scalp bobbed and bounced as he swivelled his head, glimpsing the uncertain expressions of his devout spectators.
"I won't stand for this!" He declared, "For all we know, these two gentlemen could be conspiring with Baccharum Silas to clear his name! Who's to say they aren't necromancers themselves!?"
Marché resisted the urge to grimace as Oola's hammer of justice struck the nail right on the head. With a lack of evidence to secure a guilty verdict, he was resorting to the power of suggestion - trying to convince the jury that two humans and an Elf had no right to be trusted in such tumultuous times.
Before he could open his mouth with a hot-headed reply, Roland raised his arm to Marché's chest, preventing a knee-jerk rebuttal that would place them in a bad position to continue the trial. Roland's confident expression gave Marché the pause he needed to step back and allow his ally to take the floor.
"You must understand that our reason for coming to Baccharum's defence is based on chivalry, rather than conspiracy." He began, "Marché and I were once his associates in the city. We shared a very profitable and very friendly business relationship. Aiding him in a moment of weakness is only our way of thanking him for that."
"I see…" Oola nodded along to his words, "-And if I may be so bold, may I ask what sort of business Baccharum Silas was known for during his stint in Tonberg?"
"Do you expect me to answer that question dishonestly?" Roland asked, "To put it simply, he was a crook - and a fine crook, at that. Wanted posters printed with his name and a hefty reward of gold could be seen all over the city."
"You would openly admit in the presence of the Iron Jury that the man you're trying to defend is nothing more than a criminal?" Oola raised a brow so far that one of his eyes threatened to leap out of its socket, "All the more reason to condemn him for his actions, conspirator or not! And if you claim to be associates of his, would that not make the two of you criminals as well?"
The rancour of the crowd heated up from simmering to boiling. Many a clenched fist was held high as torrents of Dwarvish abuse cascaded down from the layered jury.
"Criminals…" Roland repeated, "Perhaps so. But one only becomes a criminal when he breaches the almighty dogma of 'law'. And if the 'law' imposed on a country's people seems intent on stripping them of their rights, then the act of becoming a 'criminal' may exist separately from the concept of 'evil'."
"Pure, undiluted rubbish." Oola exhaled through his nostrils, "Are you trying to waste the jury's time with a half-hearted preamble on justice and oppression?"
"I understand where you're coming from." Roland replied, "-And, if you're so certain that Baccharum and all of his associates can be called 'criminals', then I'm sure you would be eager to recount exactly what it was about his business that could have been called deplorable."
"How very endearing - a human who believes that the mountains are free from the constraints of objective morality." Oola took to the floor, stepping out from behind his desk, "Racketeering, debt-collecting, gang warfare… one does not need to guess at the composition of Baccharum's operation, for all organised criminals are much the same."
Roland smirked, "But who was the target of Baccharum's crimes?"
"The institution! The state!" He answered, "His crimes were an affront to the prosperity of your - and I will admit - less-than-stellar country."
"You're casting too wide a net." Roland replied, "Since you're dancing around the issue, I won't waste any more time - Baccharum's target was always the Church of the Golden Dragon."
"-But had he relented from becoming a thorn in the Church's side, would Tonberg have fallen to the necromancers?" Oola presented that question with a tilt of his head, as if there was no rational answer.
"Spend an evening collecting testimonials from the most common of Tonberg's citizens, and you'll quickly find that most would blame the city's downfall on the Church. Towards the end of Alistair Awldwyn's reign, we were trapped in a continuous cycle of oppression on all sides. Protestors or apostates were dragged out into the streets and murdered in broad daylight by the knights of the Church."
Roland was finally moving into his wheelhouse. It couldn't be denied in good faith that the Church played a significant part in Tonberg's eventual downfall. He would be able to twist that public image into a positive depiction of Baccharum's actions. From his tales, the Elf would be considered a hero - the kind of hero that wouldn't go unnoticed by Dwarves.
"T-This has nothing to do with the trial!" Oola stammered out, "You're trying to lead this case astray to distract from the crux of the argument! Your Honour!"
The Judge, who up until that moment had deigned to remain silent, opened his fire-coloured eyes and nodded enthusiastically, "This cannot be denied!"
"Your Honour." Roland turned his attention to the bench, "With all due respect, Oola was the first to suggest that Marché and I might be Baccharum's co-conspirators. Not only is this detrimental to the case - and an attack on our characters besides - but his technically 'illegal' actions carried out in Tonberg did more to benefit the Dwarven people than any king or body of faith. Therefore, as a result of his service to Dwarves in spite of stereotypical relations, I believe that there is a case to be made for a lack of motive on Baccharum's part."
"Motive!? A lack of motive, you say!?" Oola shuttered his eyelids with every word, "Necromancers are not rational! They require no motive besides the death of every living thing!"
"-Which makes it all the more unlikely that Baccharum would ever stoop to their level." Roland continued, his voice cool as ice, "He provided protection to Dwarven businesses from the Church, allowing workshops and the like to flourish across the city. He contested the draconic and unspoken oppression against nonhumans, going as far as to engage in open conflict with the Acolytes of Reunification - a traditionalist band of exiled priests allowed to operate with the Church's blessing. Do these sound like the actions of someone who would even think of allying himself with a band of omnicidal necromancers?"
Oola had no answer. He was smart enough to know that speaking further would only damage his case, but his silence was met with disapproval from the crowd. Roland's words rang true for many Dwarves within the mountains, especially those who had fled from Tonberg and experienced its discrimination firsthand.
"-Of course, this is to say nothing of the suspicious circumstances regarding Baccharum's departure from his stint as Elven diplomat." Roland pressed, "Given his service to Dwarvenkind, he was a fine candidate for the position. But just as he was granted the honour, an inconsistent piece of evidence emerges to paint him as a double agent working for the Order of Necromancers? Doesn't that seem just a tad far-fetched?"
"Hearsay! Drivel! Pure hogwash!" Oola turned his back to the defence and slammed both hands against his desk, "The contents of the letter are all that matters! Your Honour - these three men are as guilty as can be! Surely you cannot deny what's written!?"
The sentiment was met with endless booing from the jury. Given what they'd heard, and the lack of Oola's ability to counter or refute any claim of Baccharum's service, the true underdog of the case had emerged, and Roland knew from experience just how tantalising and charismatic an underdog could be.
The Judge allowed the commotion to continue for a few seconds before rattling his gavel against the bench, unable to command total silence from the room but persuasive enough to allow his voice to rise above all others, "Enough! I am ready to deliver my verdict!"
The glass of televised reality withered and waned as the boat leaped from the crest of a violent wave. Lieze reached out to steady the steel disk against the table, causing the luminous projection hovering over it to stabilise. Something hard and small bounced around within the disk's smooth, concave surface
"What are those fools doing…?" Drayya smiled broadly as a sigh escaped from her nose, "I assumed the 'no killing' rule would naturally involve keeping their heads down until we arrived, but here they are - testifying to thousands of Dwarves at once regarding the evils of oppression and the innocence of our anything-but-innocent ally."
"It's working, too." Lieze said, "They're more persuasive than I would have given them credit for. We were right to send them into the mountains. This has the potential to cause some chaos."
The item bouncing around within the Scrying Disk was a clip from Marché's fingernail. When Lieze discovered the artefact in the dungeon, she made a point to collect articles of her servants' identities for the purposes of observing them. Once the fingernail clipping had been placed into the disk, a luminescent and incorporeal window appeared above it, depicting the world through the eyes of Marché.
"Was this your plan all along?" Drayya asked.
"The last letter we sent would have been noticed by someone." Lieze replied, "Correspondence from the border will be heavily monitored, so it was inevitable that a second out-of-place Redcrown would be seen as suspicious. I'm just glad it ended up working out."
The shimmering portal over the disk flickered and faded into nothingness. The artefact was only capable of sustaining its effect for one minute, leaving Lieze and Drayya in the dark as to how the trial could possibly conclude.
"Do you want to use one of Roland's hairs?" Drayya asked.
"I've seen enough to know that they've got the situation under control." Lieze shook her head, "How close are we to the Dwarven border?"
"Lüngen tells me we've already passed it." She sat back in her chair, stretching her arms, "But he mentioned that you wanted to explore some of the Sages' towers, so we'll be sailing all the way to the Kanin Delta. It'll be a long hike to the mountains no matter where we disembark, so it may as well be somewhere useful."
"There's a Sage's tower there?" Lieze dropped the Scrying Disk into her Bag of Holding.
She nodded, "-And as far as we know, the Dwarves were never interested in pilfering their studies, so it should be undisturbed."
"The Kanin…" Lieze tried to recall the geography of the region, "If we're approaching from the coast, we may be able to spot Akzhem from there."
"The Black Forest, eh?" Drayya placed both hands on the back of her head and looked towards the sky, "I never thought I'd lay eyes upon it, but I suppose that's where we'll be heading after the mountains."
The Dwarves, then the Elves, then…
Lieze's mind couldn't help but wander to the far future. After the haze of war and violence had cleared, what would her goal be? She hoped to discover that answer through a deep analysis of the Sages' journals, and the identification of whatever the Light in Chains truly was.