Chapter 19 – Predicament

The interrogation room was surprisingly spacious and well decorated. A copy of the letter sat on the table. A man wearing the pauldrons and striped tabard of a captain was reading a copy of another of the identical letters.

“Captain Mandez? Here she is,” one of the guards escorting her said.

“Hm? Good. Have a seat, Mirian.”

Mirian sat. Captain Mandez was silent as the other guard left and shut the door behind them. She heard it lock and expected Mandez to start interrogating her, but he was silent. She looked around the room. There was a nice vase in the style favored by Palendurio artisans, and the two glyph lights illuminating the room were of the latest design. The table was a nice polished oak, and the carpet an import from Akana Praediar. It had the sparse, simple designs they favored. Mirian thought it was ugly. She much preferred the complex geometric designs of the carpets out in east Baracuel.

Captain Mandez set the letter down and looked calmly at Mirian. Mirian’s heart was beating out of control and her hands were trembling. Gods, how had she been so stupid? Of course there was a simpler explanation for ‘predicted a murder’ than prophesy, and that was ‘did the murder.’

“So, did you ever figure out who was breaking into all the Academy buildings?” Mirian asked.

“I don’t know,” the man said casually. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“Akana Praediar spies,” she said.

“Ah. Of course.” The captain smiled at the letter in his hand that mentioned the Akanan attack in five days. Then he was quiet again.

“Aren’t you supposed to ask me questions?” she said.

“Sure. What would you like me to ask you?”

“How about ‘did you do it?’”

“Did you kill Platus?”

“No.”

Captain Mandez gave a sad smile again. “I find that quite hard to believe.” He sat there, staring at her again.

“I don’t actually have anything to hide. I’ve never been to the room. Didn’t interact with Platus except in the dueling room. I knew he would die because it happened last time, just like the attack happened last time. Probably, it was one of the spies that killed him because he knew something. If you act now and start evacuating Torrviol, call in the Baracuel Army, you’ll save thousands of lives. Maybe more, I don’t know how it ends. But no witness or evidence will tie me to that room. The Gods gave me a prophecy. I don’t know why, but I have to try to stop what’s coming.”

Captain Mandez lounged back in his chair. It was a nice, cushioned chair, dyed a rich blue. “I have two witnesses who will testify they saw you enter the building in the morning.”

Mirian’s heart raced. “That’s a lie,” she snapped.

Mandez leaned back farther and knocked on the door behind him. The guard entered. “Did you see Mirian enter the Alchemistry building this morning?”

“Yes, sir,” the guard said.

“Very good.” The guard closed the door. Mandez leaned forward. “That’s the eye-witness testimony of a sworn officer of the king’s justice. We both know you did it. Give me the details, sign a confession, and I’ll tell the magistrate you’re a sympathetic figure. Driven mad by… something, I suppose, and after a few years of hard labor and treatment by the clerics for whatever ails that mind of yours, you’ll be able to live out the rest of your life. Not in peace, mind you, that guilty conscious will follow you wherever you go. But the alternative is execution.”

It was supposed to scare Mirian. And it did. But it also made her angry. “Officers of the law aren’t supposed to lie before a magistrate! When my letters went out, there was a reason I didn’t give the guards one. Are you corrupt, or just incompetent and lazy!?”

Mandez was unfazed by this outburst. “How many of these letters did you write?”

Mirian narrowed her eyes. “And why would you care? That doesn’t affect the case at all!”

He gave a dramatic sigh and stood up. “Oh, just idle curiosity. Well, when you’re ready to tell the truth, let me know. I’m going to… go have lunch.” He knocked on the door again. “Throw her in the cell. Not gently.”

“I am telling the truth. You just can’t handle it! Fucking incompetent bastards, if you were doing your job you would have caught the Akanan spies and prevented this disaster!” As the guard dragged her down the corridor, Mirian shouted, “The blood of the innocent is on your hands!”

When the door was closed on her cell—which was not nearly as nice, it contained a chamber pot, a cot, and a tiny barred window—Mirian finally cried. They’d searched her and confiscated all her things—her notebook, her glyph pen, her writing supplies, even her coat!

She sat on the filthy cot and cried more, feeling sorry for herself. She’d ruined it all. She’d been given a second chance, and not only was the attack going to still kill everyone, if she did manage to escape, her reputation and career was going to be over. She’d be expelled from the Academy, her family would be disappointed, and Platus had died for nothing. And when the attack came, she wouldn’t even have the spellrod she’d designed just for that purpose! The Gods had wasted their time on her. Mirian punched the stone wall, which hurt a lot, and didn’t really make her feel any better.

A few hours later, she’d cried enough and was starting to get both bored and hungry. “Hey, do prisoners get food and water, or are you also violating the king’s decree on the fair treatment of the accused?” she yelled through the door.

The answer, apparently, was ‘yes.’ The door was solid oak, reinforced with metal bands and, she guessed, strengthening glyphs and wards on the other side. She used the chamber pot to pee, and instantly regretted it. The smell permeated the whole room, and the tiny window did nothing to alleviate it. Then, she spent some time thinking about how she had promised to teach Selesia again today and then go have dinner. She’d been looking forward to that. Now she’d screwed that up. There was nothing to do and no one to talk to, so Mirian stewed in self-hatred for a bit before she tried to distract herself. She started passing the time by reciting magichemicals and their formula, then got bored of that and went through all the myrvites she knew and what special organs they had, then got bored of that and noticed it was getting dark.

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Mirian pounded on the door again. “Even prisoners get a meal and water! King’s decree! Even a child at primary school knows that!”

Still no response. There wasn’t even a blanket on the cot. This was Torrviol, not some frontier dungeon! What was wrong with these guards? They were just straight up violating the king’s law.
The smell of piss may not have been able to escape the room, but the winter chill easily made its way in. Mirian didn’t sleep at all, she just spent the night curled up on the nasty cot, shivering.
She was exhausted and miserable as the sky brightened, and she kept drifting off to sleep then immediately waking up wracked with cold, teeth chattering. And she was thirsty. Gods she was thirsty, she hadn’t had anything to drink since the morning before her first class!

Finally, the door opened. A woman dressed in a thick red coat, decorated with gold embroidery, looked down at her. “Captain Mandez, what in the five hells are you doing?” she said, and it took Mirian a moment in her sleep-deprived haze, to realize she wasn’t the one being yelled at.

“Hm, must have been an oversight,” he said.

“It wasn’t,” Mirian whispered hoarsely. She wasn’t sure if the woman—clearly the magistrate of Torrviol—had heard her.

“She’s a student of the Academy. We are not barbarians, Vicent. Does the king’s law mean nothing to you?”

“It was an oversight,” the captain said. “I’ll see it’s fixed. Even murderers get fair treatment, right?”

The magistrate’s voice got cold. “It will be my office that determines that. Do not overstep yourself. Are we clear?”