Judge, Jury, and Pardoner

  "And I didn't do nothing to him, your great Ladyship," said the young-ish human woman, who while still painfully thin, looked a world better than the young green-eyed, blonde haired woman that Marci had sprung from her cell three days prior.

  Marci exhaled and shook her head; the woman's lies as clear as day.

  "Except you did, you can't lie to me," said Marci, slumping further into her seat and closing her eyes.

  This was certainly not something she had ever pictured herself having to do. Well, at least, not since she'd fled from home, and the prospect of one day becoming Queen of Edrain had shifted from 'inevitable' to 'over my dead body.'

  Holding court, or the nearest thing to it. Specifically, working through those she had freed from prison, and trying to figure out what the fuck she was going to do with them: both those who were innocent, and those who were guilty of the crimes they were accused of.

  "That- but- I-" stammered the woman, whose name was Hildegard Allmayer. She took a deep breath. "He hurt me. Over and over again. And- and I just- I just snapped…"

  Marci focused on her connection to the woman, searching the surface of her mind…

  Truth.

  She'd been sentenced to life in prison for the crime of murdering her husband, a man she had been all but forced to marry, and who, from what Marci could sense, had horribly and wretchedly mistreated her.

  Marci wasn't a judge, and even if she could be fairly confident on the veracity of the accused testimony, that didn't mean she was a stand in for a proper jury. And what she was not, was an executioner, and she didn't like the fact that she was de facto a jailer, with the party of heroes who had tried to kill her and quite a few captured wardens in the cells that were below the barracks levels of the Dreadfort. Nice cells, she'd made sure, with proper bedding and furniture and access to baths and good food, but still a dark, sunless prison all the same.

  And what was she supposed to do with this woman? A woman who was clearly both victim and murderer? Marci didn't even like the idea of prisons; they'd seen horrible, tortuous institutions designed to humiliate and degrade rather than just protect the public.

  "Mistress?" asked Jonda, who was standing next to her with a clipboard. "Your verdict?"

  "How long were you in prison?" asked Marci.

  "How long?" said Hildegard. "I… I believe five years, your Dark Ladyship."

  Five years in Saxmoor prison, that seemed like punishment enough. More than enough, even. Far too much.

  "Then once I find a way to return you safely to civilisation, you'll be free to go," said Marci. "Until that time, I can find some paid work for you, if you're willing."

  Marci hesitated for a moment, before relinquishing control of the link over her. The woman's mind vanished from her Shardsense, leaving only the impression she had of her body.

  "I'm- I'm free?" she said, her eyes gleaming as tears began to stream over her cheeks.

  "Yes, although I don't know how easy it will be for you to resume your new life," said Marci. "You'll be wanted by Altnd."

  "Thank-you!" sobbed the woman. "Thank-you, your Dark Ladyship! People- people always say how bad demons are, but- but you've been nothing but just to me! I won't forget it!"

  Marci opened her mouth to point out that she wasn't actually a demon, before sighing and giving up. No one ever believed her anyway.

  "'Pardoned,'" muttered Jonda, who seemed to be greatly enjoying her role as court clerk, making a note before clearing her throat. "And… Heinrick Weiss? Is Heinrick Weiss here?"

  "Here, Dark Lady," said a rather suave and confident man who despite wearing some rather simple, mass-produced clothes that Marci had had the kobolds throw together to repce the fetid rags most prisoners was in, held himself as if he was dressed in a three-piece suit.

  "And can you tell me what you were accused of?" asked Marci.

  "Of course, great Lady," he said, bowing low. "I was, without a shred of evidence, accused of the murder of a series of women I'd never met-"

  Liar.

  Liarliarliar!

  "Dungeon!" shouted Marci, cutting him off and recoiling as she caught sight of more of his surface thoughts than she intended and glimpsed what she could only describe as the mind of a psychopath: cold, calcuting, and utterly devoid of regret for the crimes he definitely had committed. "Now! And- and stay there!"

  The man shut up as the compulsion of Marci's order came down on him like a ton of bricks, and although he struggled, he jerkily turned and stumbled out of the throne room. He, like all of those who she had freed, had pledged themselves to her, and although she had never used the compulsion of any of them prior to that, she was pretty sure that people with those kinds of bonds couldn't actually resist her will, if she chose to exercise it like that.

  Marci turned away from the man, shuddering in disgust.

  "Are you well, Mistress?" asked Jonda after a moment, as the room, filled with roughly half of the remaining prisoners descended into muttering.

  "That's- that's enough for today," said Marci, shaking her head and trying to clear her thoughts from the memories she had unintentionally witnessed. "I'll… I'll do the rest ter."

  "Yes, Mistress," said Jonda, turning to address the others and raising her voice. "Her Malevolence will hear the rest of your petitions another day. Please disperse back to your accomodations."