That's all? "If I fell, Volski, just fell, then please explain this to me." I held up my mangled, swollen left hand. "Please tell me-" my tongue was a lump in my mouth at the words "-please tell me what Tsana did."
Confusion. Pain. Grief. Volski grieved for me though I was not dead. "It was an accident."
"Tell me."
He swallowed hard again, and took his patting hand away. He looked to the gallery, its permanence and beauty. I couldn't bring myself to do the same. I would find no comfort there. Instead, I watched the emotions on his face. Wondered if he wished he had not noticed me at all. "She panicked, when Grandeur started to come down. You wouldn't have believed it, Tanyana. On the ground, with all that glass and metal and stone falling on us, it was all we could do to keep ourselves alive!"
"Yes, it must have been terrible." And yet the very image of peace and quiet from my position, eight hundred feet up and falling fast.
"Nosrod caught you first, he made a webbing, soft, strong. Ingenious. But it disintegrated. Must have been the panic, we all felt it. Nothing we created would hold."
That, or the furious crimson pions none of them believed existed.
"Llada did… something like cushions. Worked well. For a moment. And then-"
"And then?" I felt very quiet and still. In my mind I could see myself falling, the scrambling attempts of my circle to save me, and the pions destroying everything they tried. I could see it as clearly as if I had been awake still. As if Grandeur hadn't knocked me out from the start.
"And then Tsana, she panicked, and she constructed glass."
"Glass," I whispered.
"It was an accident, the tribunal said-"
"Fell through it, did I?"
"Y-yes."
"Lots of blood, I imagine."
He nodded, looking ill. "It was terrible. Just horrible."
I stood too quickly, swayed, and grasped the back of the seat.
"Where are you going?" Volski leapt to his feet, hands out to hold me, but I leaned back and steadied myself. "Can I help you home?"
"I'm going to the tribunal chamber. They need to know-" I blinked dizziness away "-I need to tell them!"
"Let me help you!"
But I didn't need Volski, not any more. He buzzed around me like a fly as I crossed the gardens, climbed the steps, and entered the tribunal chamber.
Tribunals were held in a grand old hall built of smooth marble. Carvings glared down from a high and imposing ceiling. I glanced up at them as Volski and I walked the long path to the single desk barring the way to the tribunal chambers. The Other, his face twisted and monstrous, seemed to follow us. Why had they carved so many of him? His distorted form, his red eyes, his long and leering tongue. A horde of Others surrounded the Keeper Mountain, where a single large light fitting had been installed. I supposed it was symbolic, the way Grandeur was supposed to be symbolic. The Keeper was more than just a mountain; in the old world myths he was a guardian too, a barrier between us and the terror of the Other. He was a light holding back the darkness.
Volski, I could tell, was more concerned with the people around us than the Other on the ceiling. The hallway was crowded, hushed words rose to the ceiling like humming smoke. Eyes watched us, whispering mouths turned our way.
The desk was a wide slab of roughly cut stone with a polished surface. A bored-looking woman sat behind it, a lamp in the design of a lily lighting her face.
I stormed the desk in my tired, shaking style. She looked up, eyelids heavy, her own pink handprint on her cheek. "Documentation?" she droned, before I had opened my mouth.
It wasn't what I had expected, and I realised I didn't really know what to say. "I- er- I need to speak to someone." Who? "Someone who presided over a particular tribunal." How were tribunals identified? Dates? Numbers? I turned to Volski. "Do you remember the date it was held? Do you have anything to prove-?"
"Don't bother." The woman behind the desk straightened. No sleepiness remained in her face. Her hazel eyes were sharp, her face suddenly angular and hard. "No documented slide, no tribunal. No point."
"No." It wasn't that simple. "I need to speak to someone about a tribunal that was held without me. I need them to set up another one, or reopen it, or whatever it is they do. What's the word? An appeal! I need an appeal. To tell the truth!"
She lifted an unimpressed eyebrow. "Listen. You can't walk in here and demand to talk to a veche representative. They're not dogs to bark at your command."
"But-"
"I said no! The veche calls you to a tribunal, not the other way around. Who do you think you are that you expect the veche to jump when you shout?"
I realised the whispering had gone quiet.
"What about me?" Volski, until this point hanging back uncomfortably, leaned on the desk beside me. The silver veche bears on his strapping navy coat shone in the lilylight. "Can you help me?"
The woman let out a rather overstated groan. "And what do you want?"
"He's just going to ask you the same thing!" I jumped in. "But you'll listen to him, won't you, because of those damned pins on his coat."
She gave me a firm, level look. "We are all equal before the veche. No matter how… dirty."
"Other's shit."
"One more word like that and I'm throwing you out." She lifted a hand. Enforcers I hadn't realised were there materialised from the crowd. Their bears were roaring, furious and large, and they shone from belt buckles, hats and shoulders.
"You can't just-"
"Tanyana!" Volski slapped a heavy hand on my shoulder and I gasped into silence. Bastard had hit my left side. "I assume you cannot direct me to a veche member who oversaw a particular tribunal?" he asked the woman behind the desk, and positively reeked urbane diplomacy. "Even though I was there?"
"That kind of information is sealed." She glared at me. "For what must seem at the moment to be obvious reasons."
I glared right back.
"What kind of information can you give me?" Volski pressed on.
"Transcript slides are available to the public. All sensitive information removed, of course."
"May I have one, then?"
So, as it turned out, I needed Volski after all. The woman grudgingly gave up the records: two small glass sides, each about the length of my finger and as thin as a fallen leaf. Every word crowded inside them was written in pions. They held answers more securely than any lock could have. At least from me.
"I haven't given up," I told the woman behind the desk, even as Volski started to walk away. "I won't let this stop me."
"How exciting for you."
I followed Volski to one of the few empty stone benches that lined the hallway. The enforcers watched us, the crowd watched us, even the woman behind her desk. My bandages were hot. My stitches ached.
"What more can I tell you?" Volski asked. "I told you about Tsana, I explained-"
"I don't think this will help." I pressed the bandage down on my hand, looked up and held the shocked gaze of a wealthy woman in satin and pearls. Wasn't the bell a little early for pearls? What did she have to look so scandalised about? "I need to tell people what really happened. I need to make them understand that I shouldn't be, well, like this." I scowled as the unruly bandage started to curl. "How will reading those lies help me do that?"
Volski was silent for a heavy moment. "Tanyana. It's all we've got."
We? This was hardly his fight; my circle had made that very clear. He would leave, as soon as I let him, as soon as his failing sense of duty and guilt abandoned him. But when would I have this opportunity again? "Fine. The stitches then, tell me about the stitches."
Volski held the slide out at arm's length, and lifted it so he could peer through it. A gentle flick of his fingers and the pions inside leapt out of the glass, shining their words in a bright golden light that I could only imagine. All I saw was a faint mist that gathered in the space between Volski and the slide. He scanned, mouth moving, fingers occasionally twitching. And frowned. "Are you sure you want-"