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"Objection, Milord!"
The smooth, deep tones of the prosecuting council filled the small courtroom. The judge turned his head slightly to look over at the objecting figure, or at least his hologram appeared to. The matrix of light even caught the wobble of the overweight judge's jowls as his fat lips moved to say something. The voice came a moment after the lips moved, a slight bug that the developers had yet to work out of the system.
"I find you to be a most objectionable fellow, councillor."
The media gallery laughed at the obvious joke, not wanting the judge's ire turned in their direction. It was known for judges to clear the court for the smallest reasons. It wasn't a common occurrence but they weren't taking any chances.
The hologram turned to look at the prosecution council. "Why, pray tell, have you interrupted this time?"
"Milord, my learned colleague has insulted my witness yet again. I, respectfully, implore that the court ask him to refrain from addressing her in such a manner."
Ben Corbin, lead barrister in the prosecution's case, tried not to roll his eyes as he made his request, knowing already that the judge would, yet again, overrule his objection. It was almost enough to make him walk over to the projection box and pull the network connection, quietening the over-paid, over-fed excuse for a man who sat in judgement over the proceedings. The court system, in his highly educated opinion, was a joke. Judges presided over up to three cases at a time, watching them on small screens from their plush chambers, paying attention to none until someone like him called for an objection, disturbing them from whatever sports event was being televised at the time.
Ben looked up to find the piggishly small eyes looking down at him as the jowls moved again.
"Overruled!" The judge seemed to lean forward, speaking directly into the microphone so that his voice boomed around the room.
"May I ask, Milord, why?" Ben asked, seemingly distracted by notes in front of him, appearing to search for a particular reference. He could feel the glare of the judge and the shocked look that his opposing council was giving him but he persisted, still not looking up. A palpable silence filled the room.
"No, councillor, you may not!" The judge again leaned close to amplify his voice. "And I would remind you that I have the power to find you in contempt!"
Ben looked up, a smile on his face. He could see the judge's eyes narrow as he met them. A blind man could see that the judge did not like Ben Corbin, but Ben had dealt with men like this before, drunk with power and a fat purse. He stayed standing for a moment longer, just long enough for the judge to think he was going to say something else, before sitting down again.
The questioning continued. A rather small, dishevelled man who looked like he was due to take his annual bath any day now, replaced the woman. Unkempt hair, jumping with lice, hung like rats tails almost covering eyes that looked more red than brown, their natural colour. The man looked like it had been too long since his last fix. Fingernails, encrusted with dirt, scratched at a sore on his arm as he started to speak.
Ben watched the witness carefully, even though it turned his stomach to do so. A lifetime, and more, of experience screamed at him that the man on the stand was lying. There was no one thing, more an amalgamation of actions that added up to a conclusion. The way he kept bouncing a leg nervously. The way he was picking at a fingernail. The way his eyes kept flicking to the left.
It wasn't that the man was a bad liar, well, to a practiced eye he was, but the decision would lie with the jury, the hundred million or so people currently living within the bounds of the British Sealed Zone watching on Court TV and most of them only watched to have a chance to enter the daily lottery.
("Guaranteed prize of ten thousand EuroPounds every night and the chance to flick the switch on tonight's execution - Live on Justice Tonight, BBCLegal at 6pm. Dinnertime wouldn't be the same without it. Vote early to get your ticket!")
Ben smiled to himself. The man's arguments should be easy to tear apart; a few trick questions and he would look like a fool. He scribbled notes to himself, reminders of the blatant fiction that spewed from the dirty little man's mouth, which would need to be revealed during the cross-examination.
Suddenly, Ben felt the hairs on the back of his neck stiffen under his white legal wig. A breeze seemed to run through the courtroom, rustling papers and robes. Ben looked up. Dread crawled over his skin and clamped around his spine. His eyes flicked around the courtroom, the pen dropping from his hand, forgotten as old instincts took control. Something was wrong here, deeply wrong, but he could not put his finger on the problem. His eyes found the windows above them, checking each in turn. They were all closed tight, their catches firmly in place, as they should be. His hand dropped to his side, reaching for something but there was nothing there. Instinct guided his hand. He could feel a tingling along the back of his hand and could feel the, now, palpable presence of cold metal under his touch. He opened and closed his hand, fisting it, but found that something stopped it from closing completely. Sparing a glance, he looked down, slightly surprised to find the ethereal outline of a sword at his side. Something seemed to crawl over his hand, cold, hard, uncomfortable but strangely familiar. Metal clinked as he flexed his hand again.
Ben's hard eyes looked over the room, taking in the apparent obliviousness of the people around him. His assistant shuffled papers as she ordered the files into an arrangement that she thought was helpful. The opposing council was pestering his witness to answer a question. The media watched the proceedings, taking no notice of the fact that their hair and clothes were being disturbed by the ever-increasing force of the wind that filled the closed courtroom. It was almost as if for them, it was not there… Ben's mind turned over with possibilities but none seemed likely.
"… Is that not right, sir?" The voice of the defence council broke Ben from his thoughts. "Sir? Please answer the question."
Ben looked up, glancing over at the witness. Something was off. The witness, a small, rat of a man, was now sitting up straighter. His blue eyes - weren't they a bloodshot brown before? - were twinkling as they watched Ben's movements before hardening. The corners of his mouth dropped into a hard expression, one that crawled over Ben's mind but stayed just out of his reach.
Ben's breath caught in his throat as his brain slotted the last piece of the puzzle into place. He had seen those eyes before. It seemed like he had watched for those eyes, that expression, for an eternity.
A voice, whisper soft, echoed around the room, seeming to come from the witness' lips but it was too soft, too hushed and seemed also to come from a hundred different places. The whisper formed into words but the language was old, older than Ben had heard in a while. The words seemed to fill every corner of the room, every iota of space, reverberating off the walls. Ben's hands flew to his ears as the noise filled his head, deafening him. He stood, forcefully enough to jar the bench, startling his assistant. Her hands caught his arm and he looked at her, taking in her puzzled face. His eyes crossed over the courtroom scene. It seemed that every eye was on him. Ten or more blinking red lights pointed at him as cameras recorded his every move. Ben could feel the pressure grow behind his eyes, stabbingly sharp. Laughter filled his ears, laughter and a language forgotten by everyone barring the rarest of scholars.
The room swam as he tried to focus on the words, understanding them, pulling the language from the depths of his memory. He put a hand out to steady himself but missed the bench in front of him and fell to his knees. He heard a gasp around him and tried hard to focus. His eyes sought the man in the witness box. He was now standing, his hand outstretched, his lips moving. Ben pulled himself up. The whisper died down and a single, clear voice took it's place.
"It is good to see you in your proper place at last, old friend."
The last two words dripped with verbal venom and sarcasm. The voice itself was oddly feminine, not a man putting on an accent, pretending but the tone and cadence of a woman, only the pitch was wrong. The language was English, sixth century English. Ben crawled to his feet, a sneer settled on his face.
"I would say that it is a pleasure, but I could have gone the rest of eternity without hearing your shrill tones again, milady." Ben answered, in the same language.
The voice laughed. "Sorry to disappoint you, Sir Knight but I'm tired of hiding in the shadows."
"The shadows? That's where you have always lived… And that is where you shall remain!" Ben threw the words at her.
The laughter filled the room again. "Over your dead body, Sir Knight."
The man stood, a hand outstretched. Ben recognized the first murmurings of the spell being cast and called on his own inner power. Metal crawled over his skin. It was cold and uncomfortable, just like before but this time the metal was visible. It seemed to grow, a link at a time as if it was knitting itself before his eyes. It crawled over his skin covering his hands, his wrists, his arms and down over his torso until he was covered in dragon scale chain mail. Light flashed off the buckler shield attached to his left forearm. His right hand instinctively went for his broadsword, sheathed at his left hip, drawing the sword just in time to deflect a blaze of dark lightning that originated from the dirt encrusted hand of the possessed witness.
"Impressive, Sir Knight, but I expected no less."
The witness started to murmur again, his hands moving in a complicated pattern. Almost without realising it, Ben was moving. He sliced the sword down on the bench in front of him, neatly splitting the wood. He slammed into one of the pieces, sending it skittering across the tiled floor. He started running, making his way towards the witness stand.
Part of him heard the commotion behind him, the media gallery was alive with flashes and cellphone conversations. Another part of him registered the judge shouting at him, screaming about contempt and the policemen moving towards him, weapons drawn, but none of that mattered.
Ben's vision narrowed down to the witness in the box, to the lips moving casting a spell, to the ice blue eyes taking in the civilians in the courtroom, the media, the other witnesses, the members of the public who had won tickets to see 'justice - up close and personal'. A hand gripped him, but he shrugged it off, only one target in his sights. The witness moved, stretching his - her - hand out to focus the spell. But Ben was there… Jumping into the path, sword up. The energy was already committed, the point of no return had been reached and the lightning had to be released.
The black steams left the witness' hand, heading toward the gallery, towards Ben. The first tendril hit the sword and Ben almost buckled. Only sheer willpower held him true. The tendril reflected off harmlessly, hitting the wall at the back of the witness box and leaving a harsh black burn mark.
Another flash shot from the extended fingers of that filthy hand. Ben angled his sword, easily catching the power and reflecting it. The black lightning struck out at it's source, catching him in the shoulder. The witness' hand jumped and the path of the lightning changed to dire effect. The courtroom filled with the smell of burning flesh as a trail was made from injured shoulder to chest. Ben tried to move the sword, reflect the energy away in a different direction but the damage was already done. As suddenly as flicking a switch, the lightning stopped. The witness flew backwards with the force of the last lethal blast.
Ben stood fast, still guarding the courtroom. The witness seemed to fold in on himself. His hand rising to touch the path of destruction written across his chest. He looked up at Ben with questioning eyes, brown eyes once again, before falling forward.
The nebulous voice echoed a last thought around the courtroom. "This is just the beginning, Sir Knight. The hunt is on!" And then it was gone.
Ben was breathing heavily as his senses focused out again. He turned, sword still in hand, to see the entire court watching him. It was unnaturally quiet.
Then, a cacophony erupted. Media questioned, light bulbs flashed, policemen warned and all the while, ten red lights tracked his every movement. Reality hit Ben like an anvil. His eyes went wide as he realised that his transformation would likely make the prime time spot on tonight's news network broadcasts.
He cursed. He had to get out of here and he had to do it now! Policemen surrounded him, trying to keep him from escape. He slashed his sword, aiming just wide of their bodies, not wanting to hurt the men, driving them back slightly. Another slice and a hole opened in the circle. It was now or never. Ben ran.
The chain mail started to disappear as he banished it again, unravelling link by link, disappearing into the ether where it would stay until he needed it. Ben turned a corner, using the few seconds head start to hide himself in an alcove. He pulled off the artificial wig that he found himself wearing again, dumping it into the rubbish bin beside him. Next to go were the barrister robes, part of his life for the past five years. But he had no time to mourn their loss, or indeed the loss of this identity that had, now, become part of his history.
Concentrating, he let years fall away. The grey tinges that had been crawling into his hair and beard receded and vanished, leaving only thick brown hair behind. The wrinkles around his eyes tightened and filled until it was as if they had never been there. His deep blue eyes lightened changing to a steely grey. Gone was Ben Corbin, Crown Prosecutor. His time was past. In his place was someone new (or should that be old?), someone who had not walked the land in more time than he cared to remember.
He stepped out of the alcove and straight into the policemen who pushed him aside in their quest to find the fleeing barrister. He allowed himself a smile before pulling a phone from his pocket. Opening it, he dialled a number from memory and waited for agonising seconds until he heard the click of the phone being answered.
"Merlin, this is Galahad. We have a problem!"
He clicked the phone closed, dropping it into his pocket again. It was time to go home.