The Mock Gryphon was acting as Judge. It should have been the Mock Turtle, but he was feeling a bit depressed, and had gone off somewhere quiet to have a nice lie down. The Mock Gryphon had been voted in as replacement Judge, over his loud objections, because his voice had been the loudest in declaring a need for a new Judge. He was therefore not in the best of tempers, and was quietly determined to find as many people guilty as possible. Someone was going to suffer for this indignity, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be him. He slammed his gavel down hard, and the general chatter died away as the spectators looked interestedly to see what was happening. The Mock Gryphon wondered what to do next. Banging his gavel had pretty much used up his knowledge of legal matters. Gryphons, on the whole, didn’t have a lot to do with the law. They tended more to biting smaller animals’ heads off, and then being politely regretful to their meal’s next of kin.
“If I might have your honour’s attention,” said a loud and carrying voice, and the Judge looked hopefully down at his official Prosecutor. The current holder of this office was an Ostrich wearing pince-nez and a somewhat supercilious expression. He had been the subject of a large number of political cartoons in his day, and had been insufferably condescending ever since. He spoke loudly and confidently at all times, on all kinds of issues, whether he knew anything about them or not, but was continually undermined by the bucket of sand he carried around with him, just in case he felt the need to bury his head in a hurry. He glared around at the packed Court, and sniffed loudly in a way that suggested he had better things to do with his time than stand around waiting for Certain Individuals to be quiet. The spectators, who knew a good sniff when they heard one, settled down happily and passed pieces of spoiled fruit among themselves, ready for the first witness they didn’t like. The Ostrich struck a dignified pose, and cleared his throat. Given the length of his neck, the process was a long and intimidating one, and the Ostrich made the most of it, glaring disdainfully at the spectators all the while. They loved it. This was what a Court was all about.
“My Lord and honoured members of the Jury, we are Gathered here today on a most solemn matter. One of us has been shot and injured by an outsider. We must determine why, and how, and where.”
“In the stomach!” said the Sea Goat loudly. “Then out my bleeding back, and after that I lost track of it.”
“Silence in the Court!” said the Mock Gryphon, gavelling for all he was worth. “Order! Order!”
“Chaos!” shouted a punk llama at the back, just to be contrary. “Anarchy! Riot! Don’t vote, it only encourages them!”
It then spat defiantly in all directions, until the Court Usher suppressed him with a solid blow to the side of the head with a large croquet mallet. A trio of young ducks in sailor suits took advantage of the llama’s dazed condition to rifle its pockets for anything interesting or smokeable.
“My Lord,” said the Ostrich, “I must insist on silence. This is a most important matter, and must be discussed in depth.”
“Bollocks,” said a nervous-looking unicorn. “All that matters is we’re under attack. The hunting fraternity have finally found us. I say we should all disappear into the deepest holes we can find, pull them in after us, and stay put until someone comes down to tell us it’s all over. Head for the depths and batten down the hatches, lads. I’ll lead the way.”
“You’ll stay where you are,” snapped the Mock Gryphon, gavelling like fury. “No one’s going anywhere till we’ve talked this through, and the Jury have made a decision.”
“What, that rabble?” said the Sea Goat, glaring incredulously at the dozen assorted creatures on the Jury benches. “I wouldn’t trust that lot to guess my weight. I’ve seen more intelligent-looking life forms lying on their backs in butchers’ windows. The only reason they’re staying put is because their ankles are chained to the benches. Be honest, did we really choose these geeks, or did we just draw straws and they lost?”
“It was all done quite properly, in accordance with tradition,” said the Ostrich, curling its beak in disdain. It rather liked the effect, and did it again, even though beaks as a rule don’t normally curl all that well. “All members of the Jury meet the necessary requirements.”
“Yeah,” said the Sea Goat. “They’re warm and breathing.”
“Hold your peace!” snapped the Ostrich.
“What, in public?” said the Sea Goat. “I’m not in the mood. And even if I was, I wouldn’t want to be looking at you while I was holding it. You are definitely not my type.”
“You will be called to give your evidence in good time,” said the Ostrich. “Kindly remember where you are.”
“Kindly get on with it,” said the Sea Goat. “Or I’ll tie a knot in your neck.”
The Ostrich decided that it hadn’t heard that, and turned to face the Jury, most of whom had already lost interest in the proceedings, and were trying to bribe some of the spectators to take their place. One was trying to raise interest in a friendly game of chance. Another claimed to have a deck of pornographic playing cards, but as all the pictures were of ducks, it was hard to be sure. The Usher confiscated the cards and ate them, just to be on the safe side. The Ostrich cleared his throat again, and the Jurors glared at him mutinously.
“My noble ducks, voles, squirrels… and small furry mammal with a Disgusting Habit, I must regretfully insist you give your full attention to the evidence as it is presented to you,” said the Ostrich firmly. “Otherwise we’ll be here all bloody day, and some of us have got homes to go to.”
The Jury nodded approvingly. This was the kind of language they could understand. They put on their best paying-attention faces, and looked expectantly at the Ostrich, who swelled visibly under their gaze. He did so love to be the centre of things. He hadn’t had an audience this large in years, and had every intention of making the most of it.
“I call my first witness,” he said grandly. “Call the Glorious Radioactive Terrapins.”
Several people took it in turn to call the Terrapins, including a handful of spectators, who were just trying to be helpful. There was an embarrassingly long pause, and finally the Usher went to see what was happening. He returned almost immediately, shaking his head.
“You’re going to have to do without the Terrapins,” he said flatly. “Apparently they got into an argument over who got top billing on their late lamented TV show, and they are currently duelling each other to the death, or until they get bored. Either way, there are steel weapons flying in all directions, and I’m not getting one inch closer to them than I absolutely have to. Call someone else instead.”
“Very well,” said the Prosecuting Ostrich, wishing he had some teeth, so he could grind them. “Call the gopher of gloom, Robbie Rabbit.”
A great many creatures called for Robbie Rabbit, having acquired a taste for it, and the Usher had to move among them with his croquet mallet to restore order. The Mock Gryphon gavelled like there was no tomorrow, but no one took any notice, apart from a handful of disreputable looking weasels, who were busily taking bets on which direction the gavel head would fly when it finally worked loose. The Hyena laid about him with his mallet with verve and vim, until he finally achieved an uneasy silence, with vague undertones of mass rebellion. The Hyena grinned toothily, and looked hopefully around for someone else to intimidate. He’d rather taken to being an Usher. It opened up whole new vistas of legally approved mayhem.
Someone cleared their throat, and raised a hesitant hand. There was a sharp intake of breath from everyone in the vicinity, followed by a mass moving away at speed in all directions, to get out of the line of fire. The Hyena’s grin widened, and several of the more timid onlookers fainted dead away. Mostly on the grounds that if they were going to end up unconscious anyway, they preferred to do it in a way that didn’t involve extensive bruising. The Usher made his way through the crowd, creatures parting before him like waves, and fixed his best intimidating stare on the animal with its hand in the air.
“Yes?”
said the Hyena, hefting his mallet meaningfully.
“I don’t mean to be a nuisance, and I could be wrong, but I think I might be the one you’re looking for. I think there’s a possibility I might be Robbie Rabbit.”
The Hyena lowered his mallet, and blinked at the Rabbit. “Either you are, or you aren’t. Aren’t you?”
The Rabbit sighed wistfully. “If only it were that simple…”
The Usher grabbed the Rabbit round the throat with one bulky paw, and removed him from the crowd in much the same way as one plucks a weed from among flowers. He made his way back to the front of the Court, the Rabbit hanging limp and uncomplaining from his fist, and dropped him into the dock, which was also serving as the witness stand. Mostly because no one had got around to building a witness stand yet. The Ostrich provided a chair for the Rabbit to stand on, and the Rabbit peered dolefully over the edge of the dock. He wasn’t much to look at, being basically short, thin and very grey. Even the bits of him that weren’t grey somehow gave the impression of being so drab and lifeless that you couldn’t help feeling they ought to be grey too. His whiskers drooped, and his long ears bent in the middle. His face seemed to consist almost entirely of a pair of exceedingly doleful eyes above a twitching nose, and he looked very much as if he’d have to cheer up considerably just to feel depressed.
“Your honour,” said the Ostrich, “allow me to present my first witness.”
“Guilty,” said the Mock Gryphon immediately.
“But your honour, he’s just a witness!”
“Are you sure? He looks guilty.”
“Quite sure, my Lord. If I might continue…”
“Don’t you know?”
The Ostrich decided to rise above that, and turned the full force of his personality on the Rabbit, whose ears drooped a little further in response.
“You are Robbie Rabbit, the loopy lupine, the hare with a hang-up?”
“Well, that’s a difficult question to answer,” said the Rabbit sadly. “I could say I was, but how could I be sure? Just because I look like him in the mirror, that’s no reason to go jumping to conclusions. I remember having been him, but those memories could have been artificially induced. Or hallucinations. So could you. All of you. For all I know, this whole Court could be nothing more than a particularly depressing delusion I’m having. In which case I’m talking to myself, and I do wish I wouldn’t. I think I’d like to go home now, please. I’m not feeling very real.”
“I could prove you’re real,” said the Hyena. “If I smack you round the ear with the business end of this mallet and you feel it, which you will, that’ll prove you’re real.”
“Not necessarily,” said the Rabbit. “I could just be imagining you hit me.”
“Oh no; not the way I’d hit you. You’d have no doubt at all that you’d been hit.”
“But how does that help prove that I’m Robbie Rabbit?”
“Because I’d tell you you were, just before I hit you!”
“But how would you know you weren’t just imagining it? You could be suffering from the delusion that you’re hitting people with a croquet mallet, when in reality you could be doing something else entirely, like reading a book or picking flowers. I mean, how do you even know you’re really a Hyena? I see one when I look at you, but how can you trust my fallible judgement on something so important as your identity?”
The Usher opened and shut his mouth a few times, and then sat down on the steps beside the dock to have a bit of a think. The Ostrich, being made of sterner stuff, tried again.
“I say you’re Robbie Rabbit, and since I’m the Prosecutor in this case, what I say goes. Now, will you please tell the Court what you observed of the attack on the Sea Goat.”
“I don’t know what I saw,” said the Rabbit sadly. “If I saw anything at all, and wasn’t really somewhere else at the time. I’m not even sure I’m here. And if I am, I wish I wasn’t. I think I’d like to go now, if I haven’t already gone.”
The Judge leaned over the top of his desk and gave the Prosecuting Ostrich a hard look. “Get this Rabbit out of my Court, before he convinces us we’re not here either, and we all disappear up our own…”
“Quite, quite,” said the Ostrich quickly. “That will be all, Robbie Rabbit. You may step down.”
He gestured for the Rabbit to leave the dock, but by this time the Rabbit had decided he really didn’t exist, or the Court didn’t, or both, and either way there was no point in responding to an order he probably hadn’t heard anyway. The Ostrich gestured wearily for the Usher to remove the Rabbit, which he did with some gusto, having decided that he personally must exist, because he was having such a good time. Particularly when it included using his mallet. He dragged the uncomplaining Rabbit from the dock and dropped him at the front of the spectators’ benches, where he was promptly put to use as a foot rest.
“I think that I think, therefore I think that I am. I think…” murmured the Rabbit sadly, but no one paid any attention, not even him.
“Call the next witness,” said the Ostrich, just a touch desperately. “Call the Sea Goat.”
“I’m already here,” snapped the Goat. “And no, I can’t get out of this wheelchair, so there is no point in trying to get me into the dock. Just wheel me over to it and I’ll lean against the bloody thing.”
Between them, Bruin Bear and the Goat wrestled the wheelchair into position. The Ostrich looked meaningfully at the gun the Bear was carrying.
“Self defence,” said the Bear, casually allowing the muzzle to drift in the Ostrich’s direction. The Ostrich decided he wouldn’t press the point. He gave his full attention to the Sea Goat, who was sucking noisily at his vodka bottle. The Goat was not looking his best, but then, he never did. The bloodstained bandages round his middle seemed out of place in the animals’ world.
“You are the Sea Goat?” said the Prosecuting Ostrich.
“If I’m not, the wife’s in for one hell of a surprise when I go home tonight. Of course I’m the bloody Sea Goat; what do you think I am, a bleeding platypus? God, those things are ugly. Living proof that the Creator has a sense of humour, and it’s a bloody nasty one at that.”
“You have to confirm it for the Court,” said the Ostrich doggedly. “State your name, and tell the Court exactly what happened at the cemetery.”
“I’m the Sea Goat, and some bastard shot me. Right, that’s it, Bear; wheel me out of here.”
It took a little time, and not a little patience on everyone’s part, but the Court finally got a detailed picture of what had happened out of the Sea Goat. The spectators muttered uneasily among themselves. Most had never had a real enemy in their lives, never mind someone who shot from hiding and then got away in a military-issue helicopter. The Goat took comfort from his bottle and fixed the Ostrich with a bloodshot glare.
“When are we going to get down to what really matters; namely, working out what the hell to do about this?”
“That is what this Gathering is here to decide,” said the Mock Gryphon, and then rather wished he hadn’t, when the Goat fixed him with his glare. Being shot had done absolutely nothing to improve the Goat’s disposition, and he didn’t care who knew it. He looked at the assembled spectators, and then at the Jury.
“You have got to be joking. This lot couldn’t decide to take a piss if their boots were on fire.”
The Judge banged his gavel. “That’s enough of that! Any more and I’ll find you in contempt of Court.”
“No you won’t,” said Bruin Bear.
“I have to agree with the Bear,” said the Prosecuting Ostrich. “Mainly because he’s pointing a gun at me.”
The Mock Gryphon looked down at the Bear and his gun, and decided the Ostrich had a point. “The witness is excused, and may leave the witness stand. He may also go to hell, if it isn’t too much trouble.”
The Bear wheeled the darkly muttering Sea Goat away, and the Mock Gryphon looked very hard at the Ostrich.
“One more witness like that, and
we might as well all pack up and go home.”
“Early days yet, my Lord,” said the Ostrich breezily. “I call my next witness; Scottie, the Wee Terror.”
Before anyone else could take up the Call, the Court was suddenly disrupted by a series of startled screams, as something small but very violent made its way through the packed rows of spectators. Animals of all shapes and temperaments hurried to get out of its way. Those at the front scattered as a small but extremely determined looking dog emerged from the press of bodies.
It was a Scottish terrier, wearing a cut-down leather jacket with steel studs and chains. Its collar had spikes on, there was a safety-pin through its nose, and for such a small dog it seemed to have an extremely large mouth, positively crammed with teeth. There was an air of menace and mayhem about the dog, and the cock of its head suggested it was the kind of creature that didn’t suffer fools gladly. If at all. It padded forward, sniffed disdainfully at the Ostrich, raised a leg and pissed against the dock. The smell was appalling, and steam rose on the air. The dog glared about to see if anyone dared object, and then jumped up on to the chair in the dock and fixed the Ostrich with an arrogant glare.
“I trust there’ll be none of this Are you Scottie nonsense? Everyone knows who I am, and if they don’t, then to hell with them.”
The Ostrich nodded quickly, and turned to face the Jury. It seemed safer to look at them. “My noble ducks, voles, squirrels… and small furry mammal that’s Still Doing It, allow me to present to you Scottie, the Wee Terror, a beast of great distinction and high standing in our community.”
“Damn right,” said the small dog. “Give me any trouble and I’ll rip your head off. Now get on with it, you oversized pigeon. I’m not here for my health, you know.”
“Scottie has travelled far and wide in the town, searching for news of our enemy, and through persistence and determination has put together a disturbing picture of the problem we face. I should like at this time to call for a vote of thanks for his devotion to duty.”
Shadows Fall Page 23
