Before the Fantasy Coup, as even Dianne remembers, criminal trials used to be about whether someone was guilty

Before the Fantasy Coup, as even Dianne remembers, criminal trials used to be about whether someone was guilty. Soon after Elves brought mainstream society the ability to tell insanity, truth, or lie, the legal system changed to determining how much someone should be punished. I was twelve years old when juries stopped "going out" to return with a verdict and just sat in the whole time, making sure person rights were observed.

"Do not fear, dear child," Edofine whispered to Val as she and I entered the OMHI courtroom. Dad and Sally followed close behind. Lots of family was seated in the audience already.

"Must I really sit before all these people?" Val asked. "What if I fall asleep?"

"If you fall asleep, we'll have other people testify in the meantime and wait for you to wake up. You don't have to say anything but 'yes' and 'no'. You just have to sit there so the Elves can sense your truthiness. They can't tell from a recording." I wore sunglasses instead of contact lenses in case I teared up. I hadn't worn contact lenses for days now.

I noticed the vampires in the jury were also wearing sunglasses.

The law at the time dictated at least a quarter of the jury to be the same species as the defendant and another quarter to be the same species as the prosecutor. Another three had to be Elves, whose job was to indicate if any speaker had lied. I always thought it was a little silly to have more than one, since Elves are as close to perfectly honest a people that has ever been, but bureaucrats insisted.

Since Dad was paying the lawyer and I had filed the official complaint, we had three vampires, three Eudemons, three Elves, and three humans. They dressed all about the same. It's interesting how formal wear after a generation melds together.

Our judge, though, wore a long green dress. The kind of deep, quiet green that soothes the soul. Her dappled, whorl-covered skin and leaves growing out of her hair coupled with eyes the same color as the dress. Juniper was her name, and her tree still grows just outside the courthouse.

Some male blogger summed up the problem: "You have to wonder what God was thinking: a whole species of females, every one of them to-die-for sexy, and every one of them either asexual or lesbian, depending how you look at it."

Only two years before had a Harvard study established that dryads make almost perfectly impartial judges on everything except environmental issues (where they are always for whatever will spare or plant trees). They are only interested in justice, protecting the tree they sprang from, and occasionally another dryad. No non-dryad really understands these relationships. They might kiss.

Val clutched at me when she saw Ikh. Even with hands shackled to the table he made obscene gestures at her. I cleared my throat and caught Juniper's eye.

"Really, Mr. Dahl," Juniper said with crisp diction, "are you shooting for contempt of court before your trial has even begun?"

His lawyer scolded him too low for me to hear. Ikh raised his eyebrows. "A mere female will not tell me what to do."

"Confound it, Ikh, I'm the one on your side," she said.

The psychiatrists went first. "I have had a discussion with Miss Val - who had Mr. Rivki Anghel by her side at the time, which I recommend for her testimony as well - and read the results of tests I had her fill out. She meets the criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder."

Ms. Barnes, Ikh's counsel, asked, "Isn't it possible that she developed the condition from watching her mother kill her father two years ago?"

"I concede that it would have been sufficient," Edofine said. "However, most of our discussion centered around how Ikh treated her."

The OMHI-appointed psychiatrist for Ikh, once he took the stand, said, "We must bear in mind that Ikh was also severely abused by his father."

"Objection!" A few people laughed, because it was Ikh who said it. "My father did his duty, that's all."

"Would the defendant please speak only when spoken to?" Juniper tapped her gavel. Every time I see a dryad I marvel at how fluidly they move, like they were all born ballet masters, maybe to compensate for their trees' slow creak.

"He's going to break through those chains," Val whispered.

I took a sip of Edofine's drink from my thermos. It made me need to go to the bathroom from time to time, more often than hydrating for lacrosse games did, and I wondered how fully alive people found the time. Then I squeezed her hand. "I doubt he can snap steel. And they wouldn't let him bathe in dandelion water, so he can't use his blood to weaken the handcuffs without burning through his own flesh."

"I think you underestimate him."

Sally stroked her hair. "Oh, love, you've made him out to be much more powerful than he is."

I had to go up for the attempted-murder-or-not portion of the charges. "I don't believe he was trying to kill me," I said

"What makes you so certain?" asked the prosecuting lawyer, Mr. Dysart.

"I'm pretty sure anyone Ikh has intended to kill is dead now. Besides, when he stabbed me, he said, 'Next time it's wood'."

"So he did admit tacitly to knowing that a steel knife could only incapacitate you?" Ms. Barnes asked when it was her turn.

"Yes."

It was a little embarrassing when they asked me how Val conveyed her cry for help. Turns out Juniper knew "My Name is Luka" - she was over seventy years old then - and sang it for the benefit of the jury. I think she wanted to sing and was looking for an excuse. Dryads are second only to Elves in their love of song.

When Val took the stand, she spent the duration of her recorded testimony staring at her hands. She wore a new purple dress today. Our lawyer advised her against hiding any of her bruises with makeup. I had to steer clear of them as I stood behind her and massaged her shoulders. There was no place for me to sit.

The Elves in the jury and the audience broke down more than Val did. A few cried loud enough to hear across the courtroom. They were already under a lot of strain from sensing Ikh. Edofine's pupils were dilated.

All the sound Val made was a quiet request. "Could Ikh stop looking at me please?"

"You're not even looking up," Ms. Barnes said.

"I can feel him looking at me."

"You feel a lot of other things from me," Ikh hissed.

Vines shot from Juniper's fingertips, crossed the bench, and appeared to either rap Ikh on the knuckles or firmly tug at his thumbs; it was hard to tell. It was disturbing and exciting at the same time.

Ikh turned gray. "Objection," Ms, Barnes said. "This is cruel and unusual."

"There are eight-case precedents and you are well aware of it. Objection overruled. Besides, it was simply to get his attention." The vines withdrew. "Would the Elves present their evaluation?"

"Truth in every respect, Your Honor," one said, pale.

"I think I shall be sick now," one stage-whispered, rushing to the door with his hands over his ears.

Mr. Dysart asked Val, "What is your current attitude to your brother?"

"Abject terror," she mumbled. "I'm terribly sorry, but I think…"

"Are you all right?" Juniper asked.

She nearly banged her forehead on the edge of the witness box. I grabbed her just in time. "If you'll excuse me."

"Faker!" Ikh shouted.

"I'm going to add a year to your eventual sentence the next time you speak out of turn," Juniper said.

A Eudemon in the audience stood and began what sounded like a traditional war chant. It reminded me of the Maori Hakka performed before rugby games, only with less refinement. Two other Eudemons, OMHI security guards, dragged him out.

I carried Val out behind them, looking for a place I could lay her out. "Thanks," I said to one of the guards.

"I'm coming after you, little vampire." Who knew Ikh had friends? This one had several weeks of beard stubble, matted hair, and streaks of blood surrounding his violet irises. He contorted his body several different ways in a few seconds, but the guards were at least fifty percent larger. Their crew cuts and scrubbed countenances made him a bum by comparison.

"He doesn't represent the whole species, you know," one of the guards said. The other one remonstrated in Eudemon.

I made what I hoped was a brother-I-know-your-pain chuckle. "Nobody represents their whole species. Do you know where I could put her?"

"Can you handle him alone?" one guard asked the other.

The unruly one tried to kick his way free and got taser-ed for his pains. "Unconscious, sure," the guard said, hefting him over one shoulder.

"Need help carrying her? You're not very big. Call me Merve." His nose looked like it was broken in childhood.

"Physicist just throw in their calculators when it comes to vampires." I shifted so her chin was higher up and she wouldn't have a crick in her neck when she woke. Usually when I got this close to a girl her neck preoccupied me in other ways. That was the beauty of a true love I couldn't bite.

Merve led me past some EMPLOYEE ONLY doors. "I have a place where I nap between night shifts. It's not pretty but it'll be better than the floor. Gort will go tell your family where you are."

It was a cot in a narrow room with Magics League lacrosse, football, and basketball team posters. Several were signed. I put her down and pulled a Laconia's Leopards throw over her. "That's my team," I said, sitting on the floor. I let him have the only chair.

"Yeah, I know. You won me twenty dollars once."

"You bet on me?" I didn't approve of gambling but I was flattered.

"We do a pool on who's going to use their powers in a game. I was certain you'd go bat at least once and you did. I suppose our friend Ikh took you out of the season?" He pulled a cooler from under the cot. "Is there anything you can drink?"

"Oh, I can have Clear Splash. No calories."

"Just don't tell the guys I drink it. Got a certain image to maintain."

I sipped the fizzy, fruity water to be polite. Hopefully he'd think my face was at Ikh's perversity. "Is it okay if I ask you something a little personal?"

"I'll let you know when you ask it." He popped open a beer.

"I know why Val is the way she is, but how come Ikh and his friend are so ridiculously violent and cruel while you're…decent? Kind, even?"

He took a deep breath. "These Dahls came from Maine. Big orthodox Eudemon stronghold, Maine. I'm second generation; grew up in Laconia, where it's all about diversity and mixing the races. It's like comparing your standard Christians with people convinced that all non-human sentient beings are spawn of Satan."

"I'm Mormon myself," I said.

He pulled out a cross from under his shirt. "Presbyterian. You're welcome to check it out anytime and so on."

"Same, same."

Val shuddered in her sleep, though she always said she never dreamed.

"If you want to listen to the rest of the trial, there's a speaker I can turn on. Would it wake her?"

"No. Her narcolepsy doesn't work that way."

Merve sighed. "My parents dealt with a crapload of stuff like that too. They considered themselves lucky to find each other. Converting to their church helped a lot. Gave 'em a…kind of…"

"Template?" I asked.

"Yeah." He turned the speaker on. I heard Ikh's voice, which made my scar hurt again.

"…And I think the problem is not with me but your imposition of your human and Elven standards on a cultural tradition. Val was always babied, from the very beginning. Someone needed to teach her how things were done. Mother's favorite - look where it got us. Father would not have died without the little b-"

"Ikh Dahl!" I couldn't tell if it was the judge or his lawyer.

"You know what? Screw this. You can throw pills at me, try to make me break down, lock me behind walls. I'm getting out.

"Do you have anything to say that will not actually make us dislike you more?"

"Weaklings, all of you."

"I'll take that as a no. Males and females of the jury, have you found anything objectionable in the procedure of this trial?"

"Other than the defendant?" A few chuckles met this. "No, Your Honor."

"Have any person rights been infringed?"

"No, Your Honor."

"Ikh Dahl, for your crimes of multiple rape counts, assault and battery, and felony incest-"

"We used birth control!"

"Thank Heaven for small mercies. I'm adding an extra year for your outburst. You are hereby sentenced to sixty-eight years in a close security prison, with a parole hearing in twenty-three years. It will be solitary confinement until after three years of psychiatric treatment."

"Give him life! Give him life!" I think that was Sally.

"Ikh Dahl, if you make any escape attempts it will indeed be a life sentence. Court adjourned."

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