“By the most ancient prohibition of law, this court lacks the power to command, order, or compel that you enter baptism, repent, and embrace the Christian faith as needed for entry into this sovereign knightly order, albeit one outside the faith may serve as lay manservant; however, a due concern for public safety can and does require that you be commanded to foreswear and repent of all the worship of demons, particularly that you shall reject and foreswear the Machine, and foreswear his Master, and all his works and all his ways; that you shall resist the glamour of evil and hate it; and you shall heed no promise by the Machine, neither of increased life nor augmented intelligence nor any other reward of this world.

“So ordered.

“Do you understand the grave sentence that has been laid upon you? If you have any bar or hindrance or objection that might prevent your performance, speak now.”

Illiance said only, “I have nothing.”

“To carry out the sentence, you better go find and unhex whatever biotech hex you placed on Sir Guy. Court is dismissed. And if you see the Beta Maidens, Suspinia and Vulpina, send them over here, please.”

Illiance nodded, and rose from his knees. With no ceremony or formal word of departure, he turned and departed.

At this, Montrose raised his hand to Fatin and beckoned her forward. “And what complaint is yours, young Miss?”

4. Motion for Dismissal

Fatin the maiden stepped forward to speak for the Witches. The mention of the Christian faith had set her teeth in a grimace, looking as allergic to the mention of such things as a Clade-dweller to anyone not his clone.

“You dare sit in the seat of judgment?” said she in a fiery tone. “This is a farce.”

“Maybe so,” said Montrose wryly. “But it is not a farce of my making.”

“We reject that the Judge of Ages has any authority to sit in judgment over us.” She pointed her charming wand at him. “You should be standing trial, not trying others! You murder whole periods of history, condemning aeons and civilizations, and imagining you have the right to judge them? Are you a god?”

Menelaus said mildly, “You say it. I never claimed to be a god.”

Mickey cleared his throat, and bent, and whispered in Menelaus’ ear, “Actually, I think at least once in the last hour, you said you were.”

Menelaus raised his good hand as if to rub his nose, and spoke from the side of his mouth, “You are not helping.” Then to Fatin he said, “Okay. Fair is fair. You caught me.”

There was a murmur of confusion as Menelaus rose wobbling from the judgment seat, reached with his one good arm, and took up the claymore of Sir Guiden, fumbling to try to draw it from its sheath. Mickey, eyes wide with silent questions, leaned and drew it, dropping the scabbard, and proffered an arm to Menelaus.

Down Menelaus limped, leaning on the arm of the stout man, and when he came to Fatin, he passed the massive blade from Mickey to her. The sword was too big for her. Even in both her small hands, it wobbled.

With a nod, Menelaus gestured at the iron throne. “Take a seat.”

Fatin said, “What does this mean?”

Louhi, her gray and skull-like face high above Fatin’s like a vulture circling in a desert, said in a voice of spits and coughs, “Beware, maiden Fatin! He practices his craft on you. Take no gift of the underworld! Recall the chair where Theseus sat!”

Menelaus said, “Hope you don’t mind if I sit down? My feet are killing me.”

Menelaus with a grunt sat on the ground, and tugged at the torn garb he had stolen from Rada Lwa, wiggling to get comfortable. Seeps of blood were beginning to turn the bandages wrapping his feet pink. “Who the hell makes a floor out of gold? Next netherworld, plush carpet, for sure.”

Then he looked up, saying to Fatin, “You were made a promise. I was there. If you helped the Chimerae fight the Blue Men—which you did—the Judge of Ages would be delivered into your hands—which I am. So I am giving you a turn. There is the judgment seat. Sit in it. Make your accusation, hear my defense, pass judgment. The little boxes will translate your words to everyone here. Crappy translation, so avoid colloquial expressions.”

The line of Witches armed with muskets and pikes, given no orders, parted and shuffled left and right, forming a half circle with Menelaus in the midst. Menelaus realized he had spent too much time among the Chimerae. The sloppiness of the maneuver made him wince, and he wondered when it would be that the half circle of musketmen would realize they were standing in each other’s line of fire like pantomime footsloggers from a slapstick comedy.

He was alone in a wide space of bloodstained floor, with only two or three corpses to his left or right.

With a dignity almost equal to that of Ctesibius, Fatin mounted the dais, sat, and grunted and lifted the swaying claymore, and dropped it, clanging, so that it rested across the armrests. The friars carried the weight of the overlarge sword on their bowed heads like Atlas carrying the globe.

Fatin raised her slender hand and said, “Earth and sky, wood and water and hill, magnetism and electricity, attend me now and be my witnesses! The trial of the Judge of Ages is come. I myself will speak the accusation. Hear my story, elements of the world—and you human people, hear me as well! I accuse him of being the greatest of criminals.”

Menelaus made a little gesture of circling one forefinger around the other, like a fisher reeling in a line. “The Defense moves that you make it a little snappier, Your Honor. We are kind of pressed for time here. Of what am I accused?”

The expression of Fatin at first was one of simple surprise at the audacity of the question, but hardened into a look of injured anger that Menelaus would pretend not to know. “You slew our world. Do I need to conjure up images of the dead cities, slain by starvation and power loss, the once-proud skyscrapers showing the skeletons of their girders against a sky empty of planes and rocketships forever?”

Menelaus looked at her quizzically. “I did not destroy your civilization. It self-destructed. It was poxy meant to immolate itself from the get-go. Your Honor, I move to dismiss on the grounds that a cause of action has not been stated for which relief at law can be granted. Are we done now? The Bell is coming. I want to see if maybe we can get out of the chamber through the cistern. Alalloel went that way.”

Fatin screamed, and, at that moment, looked every inch a Witch. She tossed the huge claymore, ringing, to the dais floor, and rose and pointed one trembling finger at Menelaus, spitting the words as if delivering a curse. “The Hermetic Order knows the science to predict the future! They created the Simon Families. They meant us to prevail. They gave us the future! The future belonged to us! It was the prize and the possession of the Witches!”

Menelaus thought bitterly of all the people who thought the future belonged to them, as if it were a tract of unclaimed frontier. They had calculated without the presence of men like Blackie, who had already fenced off the free ranges of the future with a barbed wire called Cliometry.

Back Fatin sank in the throne, her head tilted forward, her girlish mouth sullen. In a colder voice, she continued, “Only someone who knew their same predictive calculus of history could steal our future from us: only a fellow Hermeticist in rebellion against them. You, in other words!”

“They wanted you to fail,” said Menelaus heavily. “You don’t think Del Azarchel gives a rat’s filthhole about your polygamy and your polytheism and your airy-fairy belief in dancing wood sprites? He is a Spanish Roman Catholic, very old-school. He just needed you to destroy his Church so he could have his toys take over the world. The Church outlawed Xypotechnological emulation of human brains: and so was in the way, and had to go.