Dragon and Judge

The One stepped to Jack's side. "You should not have invited him back," he said, his voice dark. "We do not want him here."

"I want him here," Jack told him. "I think he's the key to some questions that need answering."

"It will end in death," the One warned.

Jack felt his throat tighten. "It usually does," he said. He gestured to Thonsifi, who had come up silently behind him. "I'll start hearing cases in an hour," he told her. "Can you get the complainants lined up for then?"

She bowed her head. "I will," she said, and headed toward one of the apartment pillars.

"You need to rest after your visit to the mine?" the One asked.

"Actually, I need to walk," Jack said. Stepping around the other, he headed down the path toward the Great Hall.

"Where are we going?" Draycos asked quietly.

Jack took a deep breath. "To find the place where my parents were murdered."

He had reached the nearest end of the Great Hall before Draycos spoke again. "You don't believe anymore that they died in the mine?"

"No, they died right here in the canyon," Jack said, pausing at the base of one of the Great Hall's supporting pylons and looking around. It would most likely be on the far side, he decided, somewhere along the northern part of the river. The area up there was much more open than the part to the south.

And now that he was looking, he could see the hint of where the pathways had once been. Stepping around the river side of the pylon, being careful not to step into the water itself, he headed along the ground beneath the building. "In fact," he added to Draycos, "I'd lay money that it was right in the middle of arguments in the case."

Draycos stirred on his skin. "Apparently, I have missed something."

"No more than I did," Jack assured him, feeling slightly disgusted with himself. "This thing above us is the Great Assembly Hall, right?"

"Correct."

"Why Great?" Jack asked. "Why not just call it the Assembly Hall?"

He felt the K'da's sudden twitch of understanding. "Once there was also a Small Assembly Hall."

"Exactly," Jack said. "Only eleven years ago, it was blown to bits, or at least wrecked enough that it couldn't be fixed. So they tore it down."

"Or they didn't want evidence of what had happened to remain," Draycos said slowly. "Remember what the shuttle pilot, Eithon, said on the way?"

"That there was danger in the mine."

"Only the parts we visited seemed perfectly safe."

Jack shrugged. "Scare tactics."

"Or else the danger wasn't going to come from the mine itself," Draycos said.

The skin on the back of Jack's neck gave an unpleasant tingle. Trying to look casual about it, he glanced over his shoulder.

Bolo hadn't left. He was still standing by his aircar, fiddling with something in the rear storage compartment.

Only what he was really doing was watching Jack. "Oh, boy," Jack murmured.

"He's watching us?"

"Oh, yeah," Jack said, turning back around to face forward. "He's trying not to look like it, but he is."

"Perhaps we should abandon our search until later?" Draycos suggested.

Jack shook his head. "Too late. He already knows I was in the mine—he would have seen the Golvins' shuttle parked at the entrance on his way in. And there's no reason why I should be walking around under here unless I was looking for something that's not here anymore."

"Assuming he knows about that."

"Oh, he knows," Jack said. "I know his type, Draycos— Uncle Virgil hung around with far too many just like him. They're all smooth and polite and professional on the surface, but underneath they're as vicious as anyone you've ever met. Their job is to fix other people's messes and loose ends. Usually by making a few messes of their own."

Draycos seemed to digest that. "I doubt he will take any action right now," he said slowly. "Though if he doesn't fear the Golvins as witnesses against him . . .?"

"No, we're okay for the moment," Jack assured him. "Even if he doesn't mind shooting me in front of everyone, he still doesn't know how much I know or who I might have told it to. He has to worm all of that out of me before he makes his move."

"I suppose that's reasonable," Draycos said, a little doubtfully. "What then is our strategy?"

"Basically, we're going to play the game right back at him," Jack said. "See if we can figure out first who he is and what he knows."

"A dangerous game."

Jack sighed. "Yeah, but it's the only one in town."

They reached the other end of the Great Hall and emerged again into the sunlight. Jack continued along the river, peering into the water and the muddy bank.

A hundred yards from the Great Hall, he found it. "There," he said, squatting down and touching a small piece of blackened wood poking a couple of inches out of the mud at the edge of the river. "See it?"

Draycos shifted across Jack's skin to where he could look through the neck of his shirt. "A piece of wood?"

"A piece of burned wood," Jack corrected. "Very important difference." Carefully, he dug a finger into the mud beside the shard.