Heaven Cent

by Piers Anthony

  "What is it that you are sculpting?"

  "Galatea, the loveliest of pigs. I love her."

  "But she's just a statue!" Dolph protested. "An ivory statue, and not even finished yet."

  "Neither is your case," Pyg retorted.

  He had a point. Dolph decided not to challenge.

  The following creature looked so completely stupid that Dolph wondered how he had ever qualified for jury duty. "Ignor Amus," he said dully, and blundered on to the box. Dolph liked him no better.

  "Do you think a woman should be punished for—"

  "I don't know nothing about anything," Amus said.

  "Then how can you vote on it?"

  "I'll just vote the way everybody else does. That's what I always do."

  Well, if the majority voted Dolph's way, this creature would be all right. Better to let him be.

  But worse was coming. This was a big, heavy-bodied animal with broad horns who looked twice as stupid as the prior juror. "Oxy Moron," he lowed with light heaviness.

  "How's that?" Dolph asked.

  "Oxy Moron. I'm stupidly clever. I like routine contrasts and bright darkness."

  "Uh, about the defendant—"

  "She's a nice meanie."

  "But—"

  "And you're a smart fool."

  Yet again Dolph pondered, and yet again decided to leave well enough alone. This creature just might be making sense.

  Dolph could not even attempt to categorize the last two jurors. They seemed to have no fixed forms.

  "I am Synec Doche," the first said. "You may address me by any of my parts, or any part by the whole, small-foot."

  Dolph's head was spinning. He couldn't understand any of these folk! He went to the last.

  "I am Meto Nymy," the man said. "You may describe me by any of my attributes, loser."

  Baffled, Dolph retreated. How would these strange folk vote? He could not tell. "No challenge," he said.

  The hanging jury was complete: twelve odd creatures. How they would decide Dolph could not say, but it did not look excruciatingly good.

  "Counsel for the prosecution," the stallion said.

  A new figure emerged from the throng. Seeing her, Dolph almost fainted. "Princess Ivy," she said clearly.

  His sister! His snooty fourteen-year-old sister! Of all the times and places for her to show up, this was the very ultimate worst! How bad could his luck get?

  Bad luck? No, he realized. This was the gourd, where the Night Stallion ruled. This was the realm of dreams, and the stallion was the master of bad dreams. Grace’l was on trial for the way she had messed up a bad dream, so now she was suffering her own bad dream, and Dolph was in it with her. Luck played no part in this; the night stallion was Grafting the slowly closing pincers of the worst of dreams. A dream from which neither the defendant nor her counsel could wake. A dream whose end would be—what?

  Dolph had been nervous before, and afraid. Now he was terrified. Grace’l had tried to warn him of the stallion's power; now he appreciated the nature of that power. The stallion had only played a game with him, giving him irrelevant doors to agonize over, while setting up this horrendous trial. And was the jury also irrelevant because the decision had already been made? No, he could not accept that! But how was he to change the outcome and save Grace’l from destruction? For he knew this was what conviction would mean. He was alive; he would wake when the dream was done. Grace’l would not.

  His terror remained, but his thinking caused it gradually to change from the urge to cower to the urge to fight. There was no way that he, a mere child, could hope to fight the power of the Night Stallion. Not here, not in the stallion's bailiwick. Not by the stallion's rules. Yet he had to try. This was not bravery on his part, but desperation. Grace’l was all bones, but she was a good person, and he had to help her somehow.

  "The defendant is charged with spoiling a duly constituted dream," the judge Night Stallion said, "and with violating her exile. How does she plead?"

  "Oh, I did it," Grace’l said unhappily. "I—"

  Dolph jumped up. "She doesn't mean that!" he exclaimed. "She pleads Not Guilty!"

  "But I did—" Grace’l said. "I wouldn't try to deceive—"

  "Not Guilty, by reason of—" Dolph paused, his inspiration failing. Of course she was guilty; not only was this a rigged trial, she was bound to lose even if it was fair. But that was like the doors with the impossible questions: either answer was just more trouble. He had to get her out of that kind of choice, between guilt and guilt. He had to find a way to make it all right.

  The entire court was frozen, awaiting his plea. The jury was watching him, and so were all the creatures of the audience, and the judge, and his sister. All waiting for him to say something really stupid. So that Grace’l would wish she had come here without him.

  "By reason of—" Still he was stalled. What could he say to make it better, when none of these creatures were on his side or Grace’l’s? That the ends did not justify the means? They would turn that right around, and prove that die end of sparing a decent troll did not justify the means of messing up a well-prepared dream. That the end of finding the Heaven Cent did not justify the means of violating Grace’l’s exile? That was the crudest part of it: by their definitions Grace’l was wrong on both counts, and he could not counter those definitions. Yet still he knew there was something wrong, and that she should not be punished for her decency. How could he make that clear?

  "That it just wasn't like that," he concluded miserably.

  The judge frowned. "The defendant pleads Not Guilty by reason of that it just wasn't like that," he repeated tonelessly.

  There was a snicker from the audience, echoed in the jury box. Ivy sniffed disdainfully. He had blown it, as she had known he would.

  "Prosecution?" the judge inquired.

  "We intend to prove that it was too like that," Ivy said promptly. "That foolish skeleton messed up a perfectly good dream, and then came back to gloat about it. Off with her head!"

  The audience applauded, and several members of the jury nodded. There was a statement with guts!

  "Make your case," the judge said.

  "The prosecution calls as its first witness Truculent Troll," Ivy said, reeking with confidence.

  A tall, ugly, mean-spirited troll came up to the witness stand. "Do you know what will happen to you if you don't tell the truth?" the stallion asked him.

  The troll quailed. "I'll tell anything you want, honest!" he said quickly. "I swear!"

  "Witness has been duly sworn in," the judge said.

  Now Ivy started in, in the way she had. "Truculent, are you from the same village as Tristan Troll?"

  "That blankety bleep?" Truculent exclaimed, enraged. "You know what that mule-bottom did?"

  "Just answer the question," the judge warned.

  "Yes, I'm ashamed to say I'm from that village."

  "And what did Tristan Troll do?" Ivy asked.

  "He tried to wipe out our village! He had a tasty morsel, that we all would have shared, and he let it go! We nearly starved! We had to tide through on crottled gleep! I still get sick just thinking of it!" Indeed, the troll looked ready to retch. An orderly sidled near with a basin, just in case.

  "Your witness," Ivy said with a smirk at Dolph.

  His witness? Dolph had no idea what to do. He sat there stupidly.

  "Counsel for the defense, do you wish to cross-examine this witness?" the judge asked.

  Dolph looked at the troll. "He does look pretty cross, but I guess not." There was another titter through the audience, and he realized that he had blundered again in some way. So he reversed himself. "Uh, I mean, yes, I'd better. Troll, what was this tasty morsel you say Tristan let go?"

  "A female homo-sap juvenile," Truculent said gruffly.

  "A what?" Dolph asked, thrown by the description. He had thought it was a little girl.

  "A human brat."

  "Do you mean a little human girl?"

  "That's what I s
aid, idiot."

  Dolph saw a reaction in the jury box. It was Vida Vila. He remembered that her kind was protective of children. Maybe he had something here after all. "You were going to cut up this little girl and roast her?"

  "Naw, we don't use knives. We just tear 'em apart and chomp 'em raw."

  Draco Dragon was salivating, but Itchlips Goblin was looking unhappy. Fulsome Free seemed angry, and Vida Vila was outraged. He was scoring! This jury did have some scruples.

  "Thank you," he said politely. "That will be all." For the first time he suspected he might have a chance.

  The troll departed. Ivy, grimacing for some private reason, called the next witness: a little boy.

  "Little Boy," she asked, "are you from the human village that the trolls raided that night?"

  "What's it to ya?" he responded.

  The Night Stallion twisted his horse lips into a frown. "How would you like a dream like this?" he inquired of the boy. A picture appeared over the boy's head, showing a giant hairbrush descending.

  "Yes mam!" the boy said instantly.

  Dolph realized that this trial was no joke, in this respect. The witnesses were expected to answer without being irrelevant or sassing the members of the court. Was it possible that the verdict was not already sealed?

  "And do you know the girl who was captured by the trolls?"

  "Yeah." The boy was about to say more, but he glanced at the judge and changed his mind.

  "What kind of a person is she?"

  "A nerd. A real dope. And bossy too. You know how girls are."

  Dolph had to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. That boy really knew his stuff!

  But Ivy played it with a straight face. "So the village would have been better off without her?"

  The judge glanced at Dolph. "Do you have an objection? That calls for a conclusion on the part of the witness.”

  But Dolph, getting smarter, had been watching the jury. The question had angered several members. His side was better off with it, because Ivy was doing his job for him. "No objection," he said.

  "Yeah, sure," the boy said. "She was a pain! I'm sorry she came back."

  Ivy realized she had made a mistake. "Your witness," she said, ending it.

  Dolph approached the boy, who was younger man himself. "So you don't like that little girl?" he asked.

  "That's what I said!"

  "Do you like any girls?"

  "Of course not!"

  "So you'd be glad if the trolls carried them all away and ate them?"

  "Gee, that'd be great!"

  Dolph looked wisely at the jury and nodded. Several members nodded back. The boy had been revealed as a brat. "No more questions."

  Ivy, disgruntled, called her next witness. "Mare Frigoris."

  A black female horse trotted up, seeming quite solid. Again, Dolph reminded himself that this was the gourd; the night mares lived here, and so were as solid here as anyone.

  "State your name and occupation, please."

  The night mare did not actually speak; instead she projected a dreamlet into the minds of the listeners. In this little dream she had the form of a pretty black woman with her black hair in the form of a ponytail. "I am Mare Frigoris, after whom the Sea of Cold on the Moon is named. I carry bad dreams to those who deserve them."

  "How long have you held this position?" Ivy asked.

  "Three hundred years."

  "You are then an experienced carrier of dreams?"

  "Yes."

  "And do you take pride in your work?"

  “Of course. It is a great and necessary profession. I take my work most seriously."

  "And were you the designated carrier of the dream for Tristan Troll that night?"

  "I was."

  "Did you have any reason to doubt that it was a quality bad dream, suitable for the occasion?"

  "No. It was presented in a package. In fact, the full effort was so important that it required three night mares to handle it. I was the first: a position of honor."

  "And did that dream occur as scheduled?"

  "No." The black maid in the dreamlet frowned. "It was a disaster, and a sore embarrassment to us all."

  "Exactly what happened?"

  "A critical part was to be played by a female skeleton—"

  "The defendant?"

  "Yes. But instead of scaring the dreamer as she was supposed to, by playing the part of the skeleton of a female of his tribe who had starved to death because of his dereliction, she—" Here the dreamlet maiden faltered, appalled by the enormity of the betrayal.

  "Take the time you need," Ivy said sympathetically. "Tell us in your own words exactly how that wretch ruined your work of artistry."

  The dreamlet girl recovered her equilibrium. "It was so subtle, so devious, I didn't catch it on my initial review. All of the dream was correct, guaranteed to keep the victim screaming in his sleep until he was more horse than me."

  The audience and the jury burst out laughing at the pun. "Order in the court," the judge said indulgently.

  "Then why didn't it work?" Ivy persisted.

  "Because of those few words she whispered at the beginning of her part.” the black mare girl explained. "She told the troll 'I think you did right.’ Then he knew that it was only a dream, and that even those who had come to torment him didn't want to. He no longer took it seriously, and he hardly suffered at all. The entire night's dreaming was ruined!" Here the mare girl broke down, and was unable to continue.

  "Your witness," Ivy said smugly.

  What was Dolph to do with this witness? There was no question of the facts; Grace’l had certainly done the deed. "No questions,” he said.

  "The prosecution has no more witnesses," Ivy said. She needed no more; she had made her case.

  The facts were clear enough. Dolph realized that his only chance was to change their interpretation. Surely the jury would be able to appreciate Grace'l’s motive, once her side was stated. He knew just the person to make this clear. "Mela Merwoman."

  Mela walked up. She had her legs for this, and they were just as pretty as they had been before.

  "Mela, are you acquainted with the defendant?"

  "Yes, I got to know her well when she was at my lair."

  "What kind of a person would you say she is?"

  "Well, of course she's not alive; she is formed of bones. So I don't know whether it's fair to judge by—"

  "Make an effort," Dolph said, in the curt courtroom manner that seemed to make the best impression. He didn't know much about trials, but he wasn't stupid.

  "I'd call her a really nice person. She cares about people, and she always tries to do what's right. Her friend Marrow is that way, too; he—"

  "You say she cares about people," he interrupted, knowing that they could not afford to stray from the topic and fudge the point. "But she is not alive, not truly human. How could she care about a human child?"

  "She cares about anyone who needs caring about," Mela said simply. "There are some living folk who don't care." She looked darkly at Draco Dragon. "Grace’l is a nonliving person who does care."

  He saw Vida Vila reacting in the jury box; she was unlikely to vote against Grace’l after this. Fulsome Fee was nodding agreement too; he had a concern with children, for his folk needed more of them.

  "So if she had to punish someone who had saved a child from harm, would you say mat she was justified in—"

  "Objection!" Ivy cried. "Conclusion on the part of the witness"

  "Sustained," the judge said.

  But Dolph had made his point; more heads in the jury were nodding. It had been no accident that Grace’l messed up the bad dream for Tristan Troll. She had done it because of the way she felt about people. How could she be condemned for that?

  "Mela, if you had to play a part in a bad dream, like the one Grace’l—"

  "Objection!" Ivy cried. "Irrelevant, immaterial, and misleading!"

  "Sustained."

  Well, it had been worth
a try. "No more questions.” he said.

  Ivy had no questions; Mela could only make Grace’l look better.

  Next he called Tristan Troll. There was a stir in the audience; this was a daring move! But Dolph knew he had to be daring, if he was to fight his way to anything like an even chance for Grace’l.

  "Tristan, why did you let that little girl go?" he asked. "Please tell this court in your own words, with as much detail as you need." He knew this would be a touching story.

  "Objection!" Ivy cried. "Irrelevant! We don't need to know why, just that he did it, and what the defendant did then." Naturally she did not want this touching story presented.

  "This is the act that started this whole thing," Dolph said. "We have to have it straight, because the bad dream was what got Grace’l in trouble. How can we judge her, if we don't know exactly what caused her to do what she did?"

  More members of the jury nodded. They were not inflexible at all; he was winning them over! He had surprised himself by his logic; he might have a better mind than he had suspected.

  "Overruled," the judge said. For a moment Dolph was disappointed, thinking that he had lost the point; then he realized that it was the objection that had been overruled, and he had won his point.

  "I had always thought of the human folk as mere animals," the troll said. "Just so much flesh waiting to be caught and eaten. But when that little girl spoke to me, and told me how bad her loss would make her family feel, I thought of my own little cub troll, that I always wanted but never had, and I remembered how lonely it was without her, and I didn't want to do that to anyone else, not even human folk. So I let her go. I know it was foolish, because trolls never spare humans, nor humans trolls, but that was the way it was."

  Dolph figured that was enough. Anyone on the jury who had a child would understand. "Your witness."

  "But you knew you were doing wrong, didn't you?" Ivy asked the troll. "So that you deserved punishment?"

  "Objection!" Dolph cried.

  "I withdraw the question," Ivy said with a smirk. She had done her damage, regardless of the answer. "No further questions."

  Finally Dolph called the little girl as a witness. She came to the witness box, and she was impossibly little and cute.

  "Do you understand what the trolls intended to do with you, before Tristan let you go?" he asked her.