Even if she isn't?

"And hold the shadow double inside the maze-circle until we find some way to dispel it," Wentar continued. "But how are we to tell which is which?"

"Wentar," Andoris began thoughtfully, "when you teleported one of the accused to a different plane to see if the shadow double would dissipate, which one did you choose?"* * * * *

When the trial resumed, the Spiral Court was even more crowded than it had been before. Word had gotten out that a decision was about to be rendered in the case, and the walls were so crowded with spectators that it was impossible to see the testimony that scrolled up the ivory spiral. Even Shadow had come to watch the proceedings-albeit surrounded by a protective bodyguard of his disciples.

On the floor below, all was in readiness. Andoris sat on one of the silver chairs. The second was empty. Wentar had explained the legal technicalities of permanence versus quasimagical non-permanence as it related to the issue of the shadow double being a person or creature. The crowd had listened in mystified silence, understanding the legal explanation but uncertain why it was being given, then Wentar had disappeared. Now it was up to Andoris.

Raising a hand to hush the crowd, Andoris spoke. "Earlier today, High Justice Wentar and I discovered the source of the magic that is sustaining the shadow double. There is a third mythallar on Karsus Enclave."

A buzz of excited voices rushed up through the Spiral Court. Andoris waited for it to subside, watching the faces of the two accused. They seemed wary but puzzled-as though they knew which mythallar Andoris was referring to but were unaware of its significance. This was perfectly logical. All knowledge of having used the mythallar to create and sustain the shadow double must have been erased, together with Blamira's other memories.

"One of these women is a quasi-magical spell effect, and thus is not responsible for its actions, according to enclave law. Therefore, Blamira must be found guilty of the crime with which she has been charged and dealt with accordingly.''

The homunculus's voice was nearly lost to Andoris in the excited crush of voices that followed this p.r.o.nouncement.

Even if the law's not fair?

Andoris held up a hand for silence. "As for the shadow double," he continued, "since it is no more than a spell effect, it can be dispensed with."

Just a spell effect....

"In a few moments, I will conduct a trial by ordeal," he announced. "I will teleport both of the accused to a spot more than one mile distant from the enclave, where High Justice Wentar is waiting.

Whichever one is the shadow double will be too far removed from the sustaining magic of the mythallar and will cease to exist."

She'll die.

"Whichever one is Blamira will survive the journey. High Justice Wentar will immediately teleport her back here, to face sentencing."

He turned to the two women, a distant corner of his mind feeling the homunculus tremble.

"Have you anything to say before your ordeal?"

The two women squared their shoulders then, a heartbeat behind one another, they shook their heads. From the grim look in their eyes, Andoris could see that both women knew what the end result would be: in a few seconds one of them would cease to exist-and the other would be facing a death sentence. All of the haughtiness they'd displayed earlier was gone.

"Do it," the woman in the gown said grimly, the fingers of her hand drumming nervously against her thigh.

"I'm ready," the second said, her face pale.

Andoris nodded and chanted the words that would fuel his spell. As he spoke, he pulled two pinches of fine-ground amber from the pouch at his belt. Feeling the magic build within him, he concentrated, sending it down into his fingertips. He flicked the dust into the two maze-circles.

Both women vanished. In the crowd above, Shadow tensed and leaned forward expectantly. For the s.p.a.ce of several heartbeats, the Spiral Court was utterly still then the woman in the gown reappeared, a look of relief-and dread-on her face. Andoris nodded, having seen what he'd expected. He was turning to sit down again when he heard excited shouts from the spectators above. He whirled-and saw that thesecond woman had also reappeared. Both stood, gaping at the other.

An instant later Wentar returned to the Spiral Court, teleporting in beside Andoris with a soft popping noise that was lost in the uproar.

"What happened?" Andoris asked. Distantly, he could feel the heart of the homunculus thudding in its chest.

Wentar gave him an exasperated look and said, "We must have been wrong about the mythallar.

The shadow double really is permanent. Now we're back at the beginning again."

Wrong? How could we have been wrong? the homunculus raged. In a fury, it s.n.a.t.c.hed a pillow from the bed and tore it to pieces. We've never been wrong before. Never. We can't have been!

Andoris ignored the distant commotion-venting his emotions was what the creature was for, after all, and he'd taken care to ensure that emotion and pain only flowed in one direction: from arcanist to homunculus. Strangely, though, he found that his fingers were starting to curl. Only by concentrating was he able straighten them.

Vaguely disquieting thoughts began to surface. Was he losing control? Firmly, Andoris pushed these doubts away-only to find they had nowhere to go. The homunculus, already filled to the brim with a stronger emotion, was unable to accommodate more. It continued its furious a.s.sault upon the pillow, tearing it to shreds.

What if... rip ... we were wrong about... rip ... Jelal, too?

Like an incoming tide, memories from more than twenty years before rushed back at Andoris.

Dizzy, he gripped the edge of his chair.

The accused was a young man with an athletic bearing, his chest bare above baggy, striped silken pants that were tucked into knee-high leather boots. Blond hair hung in a braid over the mantle of truth that draped his shoulders. His wrists were heavy with gold and silver bracelets, and a mult.i.tude of rings sparkled on fingers and thumbs. He stood in the Columned Court, ringed by pillars and gawking spectators, staring up with a confident, almost c.o.c.ky expression at the judge who stood on the dais with hands clasped behind his back and an ivory mask pushed up on top of his head. The younger man gave a quick, graceful bow.

"It's good to see you again, even under these circ.u.mstances," Jelal told Andoris softly. Then, with a slight tilt of his head, "Tell me-am I still your favorite?"

Andoris nodded slightly. "You are."

At this answer, Jelal's face broke into a relieved smile.

Back in Andoris's bedchamber, the homunculus let out a soft sigh.

Even though the words had been spoken too quietly for the crowd to hear, the transcription crackled into glowing life in the air between the columns. As the spectators read it, a murmur swept through the crowd. Andoris realized what they were eagerly antic.i.p.ating: that the emotionless, infallible Andoris would abandon both logic and the law.

Back in the bedchamber, the homunculus growled softly, We'll show them.

"I understand you've reached a verdict," the accused said.

"I have," Andoris said in a clear, carefully measured tone. "Have you chosen a method of execution?"

"I have." Jelal glanced across the city toward the spot where the mythallar pulsed blue energy into the sky. "If you really must find me guilty of murder, I choose to die by touching a mythallar."

He looked up expectantly, as if waiting for a reaction.

Though the crowd whispered urgently, Andoris remained utterly impa.s.sive.

The young man's smile slipped, just a little.

No! the homunculus wailed. Tell him to choose a death that will allow him to be resurrected!

Andoris brought his hands in front of him, revealing the object he'd been clasping behind his back.

With a flick of his fingers, he teleported away the enormous red ruby. Jelal had made his decision.No! Make him change his mind! Andoris waited until the crowd fell once more into an antic.i.p.atory silence, then gave his judgment.

"Jelal Derathar, I find you guilty of murder, in that you did maliciously and with forethought cause the death of a toad belonging to Quinar Redux, a creature that was a familiar to this arcanist. The sentence I impose upon you is death."

The young man recoiled.

"No!" he cried. "I thought you'd give me a fair trial."

"I did. Your own testimony confirmed your guilt." "Didn't you listen to my testimony?" Jelal asked in a frantic voice. "I'm guilty of property damage-even involuntary slaughter-but not murder, and certainly not with malice aforethought. When I projected the duplicate of myself into Quinar's laboratory, I ordered it to smash all of his magical apparatus and spell components. It was a spur-of-the-moment impulse, a crazy, stupid act of retaliation for him having seduced my lover with that potion He forced her to ... to ... Doesn't that make him the guilty one?"

Jelal looked wildly around, but though some of the spectators were nodding in agreement, Andoris's face remained as devoid of expression as his mask. He swallowed, like a man feeling the noose around his neck.

"I was seeing red," said Jelal. "I didn't even realize the toad was in the laboratory at first. As soon as I realized what it was-Quinar's familiar-I tried to stop my double. I couldn't. It was as if it had a mind of its own. It just kept smashing, smashing ..."

Back in Andoris's bedchamber, the homunculus worried its lip with sharp teeth. See? He didn't mean to do it!

Andoris ignored the taste of blood. "Do you have anything more to say before sentence is carried out?"

"It was just a b.l.o.o.d.y frog! For all we know he's already resurrected it. Surely the life of a frog-even if it is an arcanist's familiar-isn't equal to the life of a man."

"Death is the sentence the law proscribes."

"But I am your son!"

His face devoid of expression, the judge began the spell that would teleport Jelal into contact with the mythallar. Already the crowd in the Columned Court was thinning. In the distance, Andoris could see them cl.u.s.tered around the building that housed the mythallar, peering expectantly in through its barred walls. Magical energy crackled down his arm, toward the pointing finger. As it coalesced to a hot, white point, the young man's lips curved into a sneer.

"Tell me, Lord High Justice Derathar, what's it like to be right all the time? Are you going to enjoy watching your own son d-"

Nooooo!

Andoris clung to the silver chair, breathing heavily. For the first time in decades an unfamiliar emotion filled him: pain. He shoved most of it away, and shuddered with relief as it was forced into the homunculus, but a tiny shard of the emotion remained. It felt like an icy sliver in his heart.

Back in his chamber, the homunculus sat on the floor with its knees drawn up against its bony chest, and its wings folded tightly against its back. It rocked back and forth like a wounded child, alternately moaning and sobbing, fresh tears sliding from its eyes each time it squeezed them shut.

Jelal was telling the truth-the mantle said so.

I know, Andoris replied.

The sentence wasn't fair.

I know, but it was ... the law.

But he's dead!

The homunculus flailed out of its fetal position, seizing a portrait of Jelal from the wall and hurling it onto the floor. When this gave it no satisfaction, it smashed an inkwell on top of the picture. Black inkexploded in all directions, obliterating Jelal's smiling face.

How could we have murdered our favorite son? We hate ourselves!

A part of Andoris's mind held onto the here and now. He was standing in the Spiral Court, hearing but not really hearing the murmurs of the crowd and the anxious questions High Justice Wentar was softly asking him. Another part of him was staring through the homunculus's eyes at the destruction that had just been wrought-at the spreading pool of black ink, surrounded by a fine spray of dots.

Staring at them, Andoris was struck by how tiny they were, how small a s.p.a.ce they occupied. A realization came to him then-one so startling that he didn't even notice he was sharing the homunculus's pain when it slammed its hands down onto the broken gla.s.s of the inkwell, cutting them in several places.

His realization was that an ordinary mythallar was absolutely enormous-it had to be, because of the material that went into its construction: long strands of the Weave itself-but a mythallar made of shadowstuff, made from the s.p.a.ces between the Weave didn't need to be so large. It could be compressed, tiny. Small enough to place inside a shadow double.

This would explain why Blamira found herself unable to command or dispel the double after erasing her own memories. Fueled by a self-contained source of magic that came directly from the Shadow Weave, the shadow double was independent of her. It had been all along. Incapable of being under her control from the start, it had to be innocent-created solely to provide her with an alibi, probably after the crime itself.

For the briefest of moments, Andoris felt his lips twitch. In any other man, it would have been a smile, but Andoris pushed the emotion securely back into place- back into the homunculus.

Only to have it shoved back at him again.

Your hypothesis is very clever, said a mocking voice, but what makes you so sure you're right?

Seizing a piece of gla.s.s off the floor, the homunculus held it above its arm.

Were you right about me?

The shard slashed down, and bright red blood joined the black ink on the floor. Andoris tried to force the homunculus to stop but found he could not.

"Of course I'm right!" he shouted. "I can prove-"

In mid-sentence, he realized that he'd spoken aloud, and not only spoken but shouted, his voice loud with anger.

Wentar gaped at him through the eyes of his mask.

"Andoris," he said softly. "You look so ... strange. Are you unwell? Should we adjourn?"

For the first time in many years, Andoris felt uncertain, like a man who suddenly finds that the solid ground beneath his feet has turned to thin river ice. He glanced wildly around the Spiral Court. It wasn't just Wentar who was staring at him.

Sometimes it isn't good to be right all the time, a small voice whispered as the homunculus lay down on the floor in a spreading pool of blood. Sometimes doubt brings . .. justice.

Then it was gone.

With a soft sob, Andoris lurched forward and found himself plunging down into the icy waters of guilt. As he struggled to surface, he realized something. The finer points of law and being right didn't matter. Justice did.

Had the first trial by ordeal been successful, he would have been condemning an innocent creature to die. Just as he had condemned his own son. Still shaking, he raised a hand and waited until the Spiral Court was quiet. Then, with a confidence he had not truly felt in many years, he gave his verdict.

"On the charge of espionage, I find Shiris Blamira guilty, and sentence her to death without possibility of resurrection. I find the shadow double she created innocent. I also find it to be ent.i.tled to all of the rights and privileges enjoyed by a 'person or creature' even though it is sustained by a mythallar. I realize that this sets a precedent, but it is my prerogative, as Lord High Justice of Karsus Enclave, to do so.

"Finally, I am taking the unusual step of choosing the means by which Shiris Blamira will be executed. There will be a second trial by ordeal. Each of the accused shall be taken to the Shadow Consortium, where she will place her hand upon a shadow mythallar. The shadow double, since it isalready in contact with a mythallar, will be immune. The arcanist Blamira will not. By touching it, she will be utterly destroyed."

As the two Blamiras braced themselves for this second ordeal, the crowd above broke into an excited tumult. Ignoring it, Andoris pulled his mask from his head and stared at it. Tears poured down his cheeks, dripping onto the cold ivory and running down its blank cheeks. His fingers trembling, Andoris released the mask. It fell onto the stone at his feet, and split with a loud crack. He wouldn't be needing it anymore.

a.s.sa.s.sin's Shadow

Jess Lebow