Xindii stared in wide-eyed amazement as he saw the gangly judge slink into his chair. He was the tallest man he had ever seen. Only the Yanir were reputed to measure in at least 12 feet.

Xindii glanced at Josiah and he replied with a sly wink.

Xindii discretely leaned over and whispered. 'Is he?'

'No,' Josiah shrugged, 'He is Yasabi, although Yasabi and Yanir apparently share some ancestry. Mainly the height,' smiled the Mapper.

'And we are both keen listeners, Mr. Kahn . . .'

The old Yasabi judge peered over his half-moon glasses, smiling or sneering. It was a hard call.

Xindii leaned back into his chair, careful not to antagonize.

'. . . and my patience - as was theirs - is rapidly thinning with age.'

Xindii leaned back into his chair, leaving Josiah in full command of his defense.

He looked to his right and saw the advocate for the prosecution. A burly gentleman named Harris Japer, a renowned prosecutor who - according to those in the know - would tear his prey asunder.

A career spanning thirty years in the Frugalmeyan forces. It was only his misfortune to lose a leg in the deserts of Salt that gave him an interest in law. That fateful injury changed his life. No land mine or back blast. Shrapnel or warfare. Just a hungry Salt worm that had caught him napping. Its razor like incisors severing the leg just below the knee cap. They say in his frenzy of fear and torment he pursued the beast into the desert sands where he bled it out and retrieved his own leg for the medics to re-attach. Hyperbole at its finest. But looking at the brooding bearded gentleman, Xindii wasn't so sure.

Xindii caught his gaze and shivered. The decorated officer and now sought after lawyer looking almost tranquil. Preparing his mind for battle.

Looking to his left he saw Josiah Kahn. His friend and mentor. Advocate. The most renowned Mapper in Testament. Powerful and gracious. His knowledge of the law gained in his extra-curricular activities in Varosium years ago. To study the science of dreamurlurgy needed your full devotion but there were those who needed grades to even come close to its plethora of literature and experiments. Some, the lucky few, walked straight into Varosium and dreamurlurgy, undertook its practices for over two hundred years and gained their letters. Some, like Josiah who had come from distinct Mapper nobility still needed the grades. Varosium had granted him access to its cloisters but in order to better himself he undertook arduous semesters of law and biology hoping to pass in flying colours. Luckily for Xindii, he did. Although, Josiah's proclamation that he was a bit rusty in law hadn't filled Xindii with much confidence.

No matter. He was grateful for what it was worth. He was no saint. He had murdered people. Driven to near insanity through his dabbling with Reverie and later through his unbidden liaison with Hadigan, spiked, drugged with the most dangerous drug ever to do the old bastard's bidding. It had took a man named Josiah Kahn to come to his aid. Vanquish the man of pockets, nurse him, separate dream from reality and nurture him back from the grip of the Auditors.

Josiah Kahn.

Mapper.

Advocate.

Friend.

The old Yasabi judge coughed and then shuffled a few papers, gaining peoples immediate attention.

'Well, shall we begin?'

The courtroom shuffled with a collection of muffled footsteps and moving chairs.

'Excellent, then I'll get the ball rolling. I have a table at Villiers at one o'clock master Xindii and I don't wish to be tardy. So, I hope you and yours will keep everything and I mean everything to the bare minimum.'

He then cast his gaze over to the prosecution. 'And that goes for you Master Japer. No heroics, please.'

Japer looked to the floor, respectful.

The old Yasabi then returned his gaze back to the Jeppa boy and smiled.

'Heironymous . . . I may sound rather direct and callous, but, I see this case as rather - to quote a very old term - cut and dry. The evidence is damning and irrefutable -'

Josiah stepped forward and was cut down instantly.

'Mr KAHN. If you step forward and interrupt me again I will find you in contempt. You will have your chance, or have you forgotten the customs of court being so long since you practiced it?'

'Sorry your grace.'

Josiah stepped back.

The old Yasabi took his tiny spectacles from his nose and placed them upon his desk where he leaned into his chair of justice and sighed.

'To clarify, Heironymous. This is not a trial. The evidence that has been placed at my fingertips and before my eyes is enough. You yourself have confessed to these murders, which I might add has saved you a lot of bother.

'You are of an age where the commonplace justice for such a crime . . . sorry, plural, crimes, cannot be carried out justly. The age of sixteen forbade me to send you to the Repository and the faux incarceration of Reverie. The coal fields and the Perenthian pits are for rapists and molesters.

'Perhaps I could send you to the deserts of Salt and help with the railway to Kissledaw, no? Perhaps a few years of hard labour and blistered skin could help you see the error of your ways. Maybe exile to Mo'Katha, the black pole where you could eek out your existence in a hole in the ground, hunted in the eternal blackness by creatures unknown, hhhmm?'

The judge threw the papers from his table into the air where they eventually settled on the hard lacquered floor.

'But we can't do that either, can we? Because you are too young.'

The old Yasabi now seemed bitter, deflating almost into the depths of his chair. 'If you had been a year older I would have your friend here devise you a particularly nasty Reverie for you to inhabit.'

'HERE HERE.' shouted someone from the rafters above.

The judge looked up and then pointed to the steward to his left. 'Remove that person, please.'

Within the minute they had been ejected.

'This is my temple of law and I will not be upstaged or ridiculed.'

Silence.

The Yasabi clapped his hands together. 'Well, master Xindii. What are we going to do with you?'

Xindii sat in silence and then realised that the judge was in fact asking him a question. He stood up to arched eyebrows.

'I know not sir what the court asks of me but I will meet my punishment - whatever it may be - in penance for my folly . . .'

Xindii decided to look around the court and saw the tearful eyes of the families he had shattered. 'I'm sorry. So sorry.'

Josiah placed his hand on his arm and Xindii sat back down.

'So advocates, what are we do to with this troubled young man?' the judge asked.

Harris Japer stood from his desk. 'Your grace, if I may. I have some questions!'

The old Yasabi raised his eyebrows. 'The floor is yours Mr Japer. But remember the boy isn't on trial. He has already confessed. This is a hearing to discuss his future. Not his demise.'

'His demise?'

Japer smiled and Xindii didn't like it.

'Of course not your grace.'

Harris Japer came onto the floor and Xindii felt immediately unsettled.

'Mr Xindii,' Harris smiled. 'Heironymous, there has been something niggling at me for a while now. It all goes back to that night in Jeppa. At your home. You said that after you had conjured the Reverie in your room you ran from it. You hid in the toilet. Petrified of what was lurking in there? Yes?'

Xindii nodded.

'I'm sorry?'

'Yes.'

'Thank you. Could you elaborate for us?'

The judge perked up. 'What is this all about, Mr Japer?'

'My lord, if you would bear with me. All will become perfectly relevant.'

'Very well.'

Japer turned back to Xindii. 'Go on. Paint us a picture, Xindii . . . with words.'

Xindii looked to Josiah and he nodded prudentially.

'It was just a thought. I'd been reading Around the Construct in Eighty Months. I loved the bit when Loquin creates the Butter-Skeet and escapes the tower of Onyx. In my heart I wanted to do the same . . . flee. Escape from Jeppa forever . . .'

Harris Japer prodded him further. 'So, you imagined a Butter-Skeet?'

Xindii looked to the floor. 'I tried.'

'And what happened next, Xindii?'

He took a deep breath and continued. 'The book, it started to move. As if something was trying to get out . . .'

'And then?'

'I ran . . .'

'Ran where?'

Xindii hesitated. Unsure of Japer's tone.

He repeated himself. 'Ran. Where?'

'To the toilet.'

Harris Japer smiled. 'Ran to the toilet,' he declared. 'Not out through the front door to tell your Ma and her client - Hapadash Silveri - that there was a monster in your bedroom. Why?'

'Why what?'

Harris chuckled to himself and Xindii saw Josiah close his eyes.

'Are you really that detached from reality that you didn't think there was danger to your Ma and Mr Silveri? Unless of course, you really didn't care. One jot.'

Josiah rose from his chair to interrupt but the judge held his gaze.

'Did you care, master Xindii?'

Xindii started to shake. 'I was scared . . .'

Harris threw his hands into the air and slowly walked over to his clients. 'You were scared. I bet Hapadash Silveri was scared when,' Harris looked at his notepad, 'the dream beetle borrowed into his back. I bet Sergeant Gally was scared when it ripped him in two. I bet Constable Kratz was scared when it severed her head from her body, her last thought - probably - I'll never get to wear that wedding dress next weekend. I bet your Ma was scared when that poison ate into her heart her last thought being 'what happened to my son?'

Josiah leapt from his chair. 'Objection, your grace.'

'Sustained. Mr Japer could you wind it in a little.'

Harris Japer held his hands up in defense. 'Sorry your grace. I beg my pardon.'

'Very well' replied the judge, 'are you finished?'

'No . . .'

The judge put his hand to his temple. 'Very well.'

Harris Japer turned about. 'Josiah Kahn. As a respected and distinguished Mapper, is it possible to see or sense the latent power of a potential Mapper?'

'Yes.'

Harris nodded.

'And did you not sense such a power within the accused at your Booktique seven hours prior to the carnage he wrought?'

Josiah smiled. 'And what would you have had me done, Japer? Chained him to the table? Knocked him unconscious?'

'But you could gave helped him?'

'It takes a Mapper years, decades to achieve a calmness in the mind. To be at one with the powers he or she may possess. Anything I could have taught him in our five minute chat that afternoon may have increased the carnage later.

'Yes, I felt a power within the boy. But by law and centuries of practice and ritual there was nothing I could do for the boy . . . And it eats at me every day.'

'Yet you stand as his advocate, why?'

'Out of respect, Japer.'

Harris's amusement diminished every time Josiah used his surname.

'Oh, why?'

'It isn't his fault! If this lad had been born of nobility or breeding he would have had a chance to hone his birthright-'

'WAIT.'

The two advocates turned to the judge.

'Birthright?'

Josiah stepped forward. 'Yes your grace.'

'Explain.'

'Most initiates of dreamurlurgy are born from a distinct line. A brotherhood that dates back millennia. Over time that brotherhood disbanded but their beliefs and practices remained. Passed down from generation to generation and over time the remnants of that brotherhood became the Mappers. Forged in blood; nobility.'

Harris scoffed at the idea. 'This child is not noble blood. He's a runt. A Jeppa waif.'

'Exactly.'

'Exactly what? Mr Kahn?'

'We live in interesting times, your grace. And nothing is more interesting than the end of creation. There is a story, a myth, that as long as man has been allowed to dream and swim in its waters we have left behind parts of ourselves. That the waters now run high, fit to bursting. That something now stirs in the limitless fathoms creating waves. That the waters now flow effortlessly into our own. Not just through nobility but whoever swims too far.'

Josiah looked casually at the boy to his right as did the judge.

'Bollocks.'

The old Jasabi slammed his gavel down. 'Mr Japer, hold your tongue.'

'Sorry your grace but enough of the fanciful. This boy is a cold blooded killer and it is the wishes of my clients that he sees punishment fit for his crimes.'

'And what is your proposition, Mr Japer?'

'Twenty years' service in the Frugalmeyan armed forces. On the front line.'

'You can't condemn him to that your grace, surely?' 'Demanded Josiah. 'It's a death sentence.'

'Exactly.' replied Harris.

'No.'

'Your grace?' remarked an infuriated Japer.

'Oh I quite agree with you, Mr Japer. The boy is at the right age and I think . . . I believe that this boy deserves at least a fighting chance. But to send him straight to the front line we are killers ourselves . . .'

The judge turned to the jury.

'It is in your decision we trust. Do you send this boy to certain doom or do you trust in yourselves to give this boy a fighting chance and learn to fight. To better himself. To gain redemption and forgiveness. We live in an age of certain doom with a creeping darkness but let's be seen to show that the darkness hasn't yet seeped into our hearts.

The choice is now in your hands ladies and gentleman . . .'

'What do you think?'

Josiah placed the hot coffee down on the sticky table and passed Xindii the fullest. The Mapper had turned at the machine and failed to notice one of the jury members – a rather solemn faced Hotch woman - who wanted the nauffle instead of the full spread they were no doubt laying on in the Jury room. Shocked, the Mapper had swerved, scolding his fingers but moving on with a determined gait.

'About what?'

Xindii took the coffee. He needed some kind of stimulant to shift him from the sludge. He felt restrained, on show; laid bare for all to see and that vulture, Harris, had ripped the flesh from his bones.

'Harris made me look like a fool in there.'

'He is just doing his job, Xindii. He can't be condemned for that.'

'What? He ripped me apart. I'll be sent to the front line and be dead within a week.'

Josiah saw the boy escape into himself, afraid. Almost cowardly.

'Calm yourself. Breathe. Do not let your mind wander and let it overrule you. It's what got you into this mess.'

The boy looked up from his coffee

'I'll be dead within a week, Josiah.'

The Mapper leaned on the table with his elbows and moved the coffee

'You're probably right.'

Xindii looked up from his foamy coffee, outraged at the Mapper's casual disregard.

'I'm not here as your nanny or nursemaid Heironymous Xindii. The reality of your predicament is finite. Justice will be served. Remember those you have killed and what they left behind. Children, widows, lovers . . .' Josiah slinked back into the cold pliable plastic of his chair.' Do not expect a pat on the back and five weekends cleaning the streets of Gas Town.'

'What the hell am I going to do?'

'Pity.'

'What?'

'Your only saviour will be pity. And hope. Hope that the jury will see the truth of it. That a boy lurks underneath the veneer of a killer. That a killer can gain redemption and respect. That Heironymous Xindii can turn a corner . . .'

The boy from Jeppa looked at his would-be teacher.

'How can I gain redemption with a bullet in my head?'

The Mapper took a sip of his coffee. 'That's just it my boy, they don't care if you live or die. Redemption can be a malleable virtue. It bends both ways.'

'So, either way. I'm fucked.'

'Not necessarily.'

Xindii looked at the Mapper with a curious gaze.

'Don't let it bend . . . Prove them wrong.'

'How?'

'Do what they ask of you. Use your brain, Heironymous. Perform your role with gusto. If the verdict is to join the frontline as cannon fodder then you do your best to survive. If they want you as their cabin boy then you scrub their boots until your face reflects back. If the captain wants his cigar lit then you light it. If you see a bullet with your name on it . . .'

'Duck?'

'Return it to sender.'

The door to the canteen opened and the clerk of the court announced the hearing would resume in five minutes. The jury had made their decision.

'Moment of truth.'

Xindii pulled himself up from the chair. 'Moment of doom.'

Josiah put his hand on the scared boy's shoulder.

'Get rid of that!'

'Of what?'

'The frightened little boy . . .' Josiah made his way to the exit. 'You left him on the Isle of Jeppa the day you committed murder.'

Xindii felt the punch to the gut and stopped.

The Mapper turned about inside the doorway. 'No more poor orphan Xindii. It's time to take yourself out of those books . . . the army is no place for little boys. Come, let us see your fate.'

Xindii took a deep breath and made his way back to the courtroom with Josiah Kahn. The truth of his mentor's words bruising his ego, inflaming the muscles of his throat.

He didn't cry though. Though he so wanted to. The tears welled at the ramparts of his sockets and he stemmed the deluge. No more. He thought of his Ma dying in his arms on the rooftop of his home. What she had said. Her dying words.

A voice talked in his head. 'Don't be scared. Whatever happens, don't be scared . . . then you must find yourself.'

Ma.

Power.

'You have such power my son.'

Power.

She knew.

She knew he had power. The power a Mapper could wield.

It could be taken from him. Whatever they decided as his fate and it probably was death then he would never know the extent of his power or that of what Ma hinted.

He walked past Josiah as he held open the door and admired the man. He could have turned his back the day they met in Brentish but he didn't. He had pursued him through streets and darkened alley. With science and fortitude and a warm hand of friendship. Dealt with his false saviour, Hadigan, the man of pockets and dispatched him in a battle of heightened Reveries. Stood as his advocate for a crime he was guilty of. Yet here, still in the gallows he stood by him, his fate certain, doom-laden even.

Not anymore.

Power.

Ma had known. That made the stakes higher. He had to survive.