Chapter 23: The Democratic Assembly

  "A deal?"

  "Exactly! Nobody makes deals as great as I do, and we can both benefit from this!" the Orange Prince exclaimed with delight.

  At the same time, he looked at Justinian with a serious gaze, furrowing his brow as if trying to win a staring contest.

  "And what would you gain from this?" the young man asked the foundational question.

  Shedim Medaiash didn't answer right away but played with the tension like a seasoned master of ceremonies.

  "I want you to owe me a favor," he smiled cunningly, "just that."

  Justinian thought for a moment.

  'This devil doesn't look trustworthy; I can't let myself get needlessly dragged into trouble.'

  Finally with a respectful gaze, he answered.

  "Unfortunately, we are currently on a journey, so I cannot promise such a thing. Perhaps we could determine a penalty that Franciscus should pay for breaking your esteemed regulations?"

  Here, he weighed his words for a moment, as if for better effect. "There will be no problem with the payment... he is a de Deviliare, after all."

  The prince didn't seem too pleased with this proposal, but when he heard about payment and dues, he involuntarily raised his eyebrows. For a moment, he looked as if he was waging a serious internal battle, then he averted his gaze from Justinian and asked:

  "How high a payment are we talking about?"

  He was clearly unable to control his desire to at least get information about the potential compensation.

  Hearing this, Justinian smiled inwardly.

  'You're already mine.'

  He adopted the pose of a slightly embarrassed, yet wealthy young master from a good house, scratched his cheek, and said:

  "A noble upbringing taught me to repay my debts with interest... I am sure that the ruler of my mountain, Ignatius, would also approve of this."

  During his studies with Rudnicki, the young man learned that he had not made any pact with the Emptyhead, and it was just a bluff from the ruler of his mountain.

  'If debt collectors come for him, that'll teach him not to deceive people!'

  Meanwhile, the Orange Prince looked as if he was using all his willpower not to shout "AGREED!". Ultimately, however, his internal struggle was doomed to fail from the start.

  Soon, he nodded his head, as if a little sad.

  "Agreed... we will have a normal trial and determine the debt to be paid."

  "Many thanks!" Justinian bowed, still maintaining a respectful expression.

  He also breathed a sigh of relief internally, knowing Franciscus would be safe.

  'Besides, a regular trial is a triviality when Doctor Totius is on our side...' he thought. 'That arrogant devil will probably end up paying us compensation...'

  However, that was definitely not his problem.

  "In that case, it's time for us to get going," Aldona cleverly interjected, "after all, we can't waste so much of the prince's precious time."

  The devil on the throne nodded.

  "The trial will take place this evening. It's just a shame that nothing came of the favor..." he threw in at the end, as if in passing.

  Justinian said his goodbyes and was already halfway to the exit when the city's ruler was still dwelling on the matter.

  "We could have negotiated such a good deal..." he said, resigned.

  Then, as Justinian was right at the door, he added:

  "I could have even told you who the perpetrators of the attack on your kingdom are..."

  Hearing these words, the young man froze instantly. In his world, time stopped, and the only thing that existed were the implications behind the Orange Prince's words.

  "Is everything alright? You look like you've seen a ghost," Aldona asked with concern as they left the prince's residence together.

  He was all pale and struggled to catch his breath. The mention of the attack on his kingdom here, after so many months, suddenly shook his entire perception of hell.

  'How on earth could he know that?!' he wondered inwardly, as his companion's worried expression brought him back to reality.

  He smiled unconvincingly to reassure her before revealing the truth.

  "As we were leaving, the prince mentioned that he knows who attacked my kingdom," he said in a trembling voice.

  His sole purpose, his perception of everything, and his meaning in this cruel world all boiled down to that one event. Aldona had spoken with him about it many times before and knew of the event that constantly drove him to seek revenge.

  Now, hearing what he said, she furrowed her brow.

  "Who is this devil anyway?" Justinian asked, shaken.

  The noblewoman thought for a moment, then sighed.

  "No one really knows."

  "What do you mean?"

  "What is known is that the previous ruler of the Mountain of Swamps and Darkness took him on as his representative adept a few years ago," the girl began. "He rarely participated in tournaments, so his skills and even his origins are not particularly well-known."

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  The young man was, of course, not very pleased with such generalities. He needed information to solve this puzzle as quickly as possible.

  "And the subject was just dropped like that? In this hell, not a day goes by without people inventing new rumors!" he said, slightly annoyed.

  His interlocutor just shook her head.

  "It's all because the Mountain of Swamps and Darkness is quite peculiar... Do you know where the mountains' names come from?"

  Justinian, of course, had no idea. Ignatius had never revealed any useful information about hell to him.

  So Aldona continued.

  "The Mountain of Research and Development, the Mountain of Plague and Misfortune, the Mountain of Envy and Conflagration, and also the Mountain of Swamps and Darkness—these were all domains ruled by Boruta's generals when he arrived here 100,000 years ago to wage war in the name of the new ruler of hell, the king of names and symbols," she said in a quiet voice.

  "So the current ruler of hell?" Justinian asked, surprised, not expecting information of this sort.

  "Is not our first ruler," the noblewoman nodded. "Of all the mountain rulers, only Rokita has survived to this day... He was also the most secretive of them all, and besides his very loyal adepts, few knew what was happening on the mountain."

  The boy processed this information and finally sighed. It seemed that to get information, he would have to talk to the prince himself.

  Although all of this tempted him greatly, he was no longer the naive teenager who had first arrived in hell months ago. He knew that if he allowed this mysterious matter to become an obsession, he would be easier to manipulate.

  "We need to focus on freeing Franciscus. I will try to deal with the prince myself."

  Aldona nodded.

  "What about the trial? In Redland, different customs apply than in the noble lands. Humans can't even speak before the assembly..." she began.

  Justinian, however, had a way.

  "That won't be a problem, we have Doctor Totius, after all."

  The noblewoman gave a wry smile at the mention of the irritating spirit. To this day, she believed he had been trying to mock her during their discussion about beavers and fish. His formal education, however, did seem genuinely useful for this matter.

  "By the way," the young man added as they headed towards the market to discuss the details of their plan, "if that mountain was so mysterious and Rokita so powerful, why did Maleficius attack him of all people?"

  The young girl could only sigh heavily at this innocent question.

  "Nobody has any idea about that either..."

  That evening, at the final assembly of Redland, the case of Franciscus was to be tried.

  This assembly voted by a show of hands on individual matters, which were then counted, and decisions were passed by a majority vote.

  "The matter of transferring municipal assets to pay off the Orange Prince's debts," announced the speaker, who then presented the collected evidence and motions.

  "The prince wanted to appeal to Boruta regarding the takeover of Mountain of Swamps and Darkness. Unfortunately, he used only 2% of the funds obtained from the residents for this purpose, and the rest he allocated to paying off his debts," read a thin devil with a dried-out face and glasses, in a serious tone.

  "That's nonsense!" Shedim Medaiash, immediately jumped up from his throne. "I have no debts!"

  The accuser looked at him without emotion and said to the assembly gathered in the hall.

  "The prince is correct in saying he has no debts. The payment has indeed nullified all of them."

  The Orange Prince gritted his teeth, fidgeting in his seat, as someone from the assembly raised a hand.

  "Were the contributors informed of this?"

  The devil with the dried-out face pondered for a moment, then reached into his leather bag. He pulled out a 66-page rulebook for contributions, titled: "HOW TO STOP THE STEAL."

  "Yes, on page 50, in print that is visible if you take a magnifying glass and hold up a mirror, there is a mention that a portion of the funds may be used to pay off his business obligations," he replied dispassionately.

  The questioner acknowledged this with a nod, and then the vote took place.

  Justinian watched this with curiosity and growing frustration—the prince's character seemed awful, and the boy regretted wasting his time even sitting here.

  'I wonder how they'll judge the devil's...'—he didn't even have time to finish the thought before the result of the vote became clear.

  The devil with the dry face nodded and declared the assembly's verdict.

  "The Orange Prince is found not guilty in the matter of the transfer of assets," he said without a trace of any emotion.

  For all the voting devils, that justification was sufficient to find the accused innocent.

  "Now we will move on to the matter of the misuse of the budget designated for city development."

  In this manner, a dozen more different cases were processed, most of which concerned the peculiar former adept of Rokita.

  The main person of interest got very emotional about all of them and sometimes commented out of turn.

  "The wall is still being built!"

  "We will reclaim our mountain!"

  "STOP THE COUNT"

  The last shout came just as the assembly was not voting in accordance with his wishes. In general, however, the whole mechanism, although quite absurd to Justinian, was also quite efficient. In the meantime, another matter occupied the young man's mind.

  'How on earth does he know anything about that attack?!'

  The young man had been in hell for several months now and had spoken with various powerful figures like Boruta and his mentor Rudnicki. None of them, however, knew that such a thing had even occurred.

  'If it's a bluff—how does he know my story?!'

  The whole affair was extremely irritating and made his heart beat incredibly fast. After all, revenge was his only goal and a way to honor the words of the deceased Teresa. He had to find out who was behind that terrible attack.

  The problem lay elsewhere.

  'This damned devil is clearly toying with me!' Justinian clenched his fists in anger.

  Whenever he tried to broach the subject, the Orange Prince would immediately play dumb. He acted as if he didn't care at all or didn't know what the boy was talking about.

  The last few hours passed in this way, during which Shedim Medaiash never once let down his cynical guard.

  'What could he possibly want?' the young man wondered.

  The matter of the small favor from earlier kept coming back to his mind, but the term was so broad that it was hard to take it seriously. Of course, he could always lie, but apart from his aversion to such practices, he also remembered Rudnicki's advice regarding cultivation.

  "Daily deeds, especially if the stone has no echo, influence the kind of character you forge for it," the devil had said during training, enjoying his favorite quince liquor. "If the essence of your soul's desires is a notebook of transgressions and punishments, and you yourself behave like a hypocrite, then the foundation you are building will become weaker."

  The boy sighed heavily and finally came to a decision.

  'Let's see if we can make something out of this...'

  "I may agree to the condition concerning the favor," he told Shedim Medaiash when the proceedings of one of the cases concluded.

  The Orange Prince received this with a huge smile.

  "Well, you should have said so from the start!" he said, clapping his hands. "We would have saved ourselves some unnecessary waiting."

  His mood visibly improved, and now he looked at Justinian with a warm gaze. He was clearly pleased, yet it still seemed as if... he was waiting for something.

  The matter was clarified shortly after, when Franciscus was brought into the hall.

  "The case of illegal use of a place of inspiration for poets," the dried-out devil announced, in the same emotionless tone as before. "The accused is Franciscus de Deviliare."

  Justinian sighed inwardly when he saw his friend.

  'At least they didn't treat him badly...'

  The devil child, despite being shackled, did not look as though he had been treated particularly harshly and, with his usual serious expression, took his place before the popular assembly.

  "He will be represented by Aldona Borowiak," the speaker announced.

  It was a natural choice, as according to Redland's local law, humans had no voice before the assembly. This meant Justinian had to ask the noblewoman for help, to which she readily agreed.

  'With Totius in her pocket, she shouldn't have any trouble...' he sighed from his observer's position.

  Earlier, when they found out when the case would be tried, they had retrieved Franciscus's magic pipe from custody, with the great metaphysico-philosopho-socio-ecologist inside. This was a safeguard in case the Orange Prince tried to pull anything.

  "We have been informed of an agreement reached between the accusing party and Franciscus de Deviliare to resolve the matter amicably," the old devil continued. "Is this still current?"

  Aldona nodded confidently.

  "Yes, it is."

  "Then we can determine the amount of the fine to be paid, as well as its deadline. The case will thus be closed."

  Justinian, observing the proceedings from a position that did not allow him to speak, sighed with relief. It seemed that this time, things would go without any problems.

  Unfortunately, just then, the voice of one of the parties spoke up.

  "Wait!"

  The Orange Prince called out, causing Aldona and Justinian to raise their eyebrows. The speaker, in his usual tone, asked if he disagreed with the arrangements.

  "No, no, quite the contrary," the devil admitted. "The problem, however, is something else."

  "Namely?" the irritated noblewoman asked.

  "How am I supposed to know that this boy is Franciscus de Deviliare?"

  In the hall where they were, a complete silence fell after this absurd question.