‘This then is your defence?’ asked the second magistrate,
a bald man with a forked blue beard. ‘You claim your rights are superior to those of the Avatar? We have brought you learning and law. We have supplied the means by which you can avoid starvation. And you repay these gifts with acts of savagery and attempted murder.’
‘Your gifts were unwanted,’ said Boru. ‘You imposed them upon us. And we slew no-one. Nor was that ever our intention. The Avatar in our village was captured and held – despite him killing three of our comrades. The Banis-baya have always been a people of the land. We have never been warriors or killers. We are free men.’
‘You are not free, little man,’ said the second magistrate. ‘You are servants of the Avatar. And you are disobedient servants. I found your defence lacking and non-persuasive. Your friends will lose their lives. You, as is our custom, as the speaker for the condemned, will not die. The sentence upon you is thirty years. Take them away.’
The men were led from the courtroom and into a long corridor. An Avatar guard took Boru by the arm and led him through a side door into a long narrow room with bench seats. ‘Sit down,’ said the guard. ‘You will wait here until your name is called. Then I will come for you.’
Stunned by the sentence, Boru had not resisted. As the day wore on another ten men were brought in to sit with him. Boru knew each of them well, but no-one spoke. The scale of the calamity which had befallen the Banis-baya was too great for conversation.
By mid-afternoon three of the men had been led away. As dusk settled they came for Boru.
He followed the two guards to a circular room. There were three Avatars there, each wearing blue silk robes. At the centre of the room was a stone sarcophagus filled with green crystals which shimmered in the lantern light.
‘Remove his chains,’ ordered one of the blue-clad lords.
As they fell away Boru straightened. He was young, and tall and strong, his hair the colour of ripening corn. ‘Climb into the sarcophagus,’ ordered an Avatar.
‘What is happening here?’ he asked them.
‘Do as you are told. This will not last long and you will be free to go within the hour.’
‘Free? But I was sentenced to thirty years.’
Two of the guards took him by the arms and led him towards the glittering crystals. Shrugging them off, he climbed the sarcophagus and sat upon it. ‘Lie down upon the crystals,’ came the order. Boru did so. The men moved back. He could feel the gems digging into his skin. ‘Close your eyes,’ they ordered him. This order he also accepted. Bright lights played painfully upon his eyelids and he felt sickness rise in his belly. Then he passed out.
Some time later – it could have been an hour or a day – he awoke. The two Avatar guards hauled him from the sarcophagus and led him, without chains, back into the corridor, along past the courtroom and out into the light of day. ‘Go back to your home,’ they told him.
Confused, he had wandered down the courtroom steps into the fountain square. By the time he reached it he was tired, which was surprising, since it was only a short walk. He sat down on the marble wall of the fountain and felt the cool spray from the column of water. As he sat he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees.
Then the shock hit him. His arms were skinny, the flesh gone, the skin wrinkled and dry.
A young woman approached him. ‘Are you all right, old one?’ she asked, laying a hand on his bony shoulder.
‘I am a young man,’ he said, his voice grating.
She glanced nervously back at the court building. ‘I am sorry,’ she said. Then she hurried away.
Thirty years they had taken.
The twenty-five-year-old Boru sat by the stream, holding out his skinny fingers to the blaze, and thought of the Avatar sleeping in his wagon.
‘I will see you fall,’ he promised himself. ‘All of you.’