I came to consciousness, or whatever semblance of it allowed me to hear the argument underway. Unable to recognise the voices, I concluded they must belong to the Jewry. Apparently the ten chassidic men took no issue with Yidoni's verdict (indeed, they quite agreed), but rather with the mechanisms by which it ought to be carried out.
"If he's to be stoned," said one stooped voice, "then it's imperative he be first pushed off a two-storey building."
"That's obvious," came a reply—but in what world was the height of my suspension such a measurement? There followed a heated mathematical debate involving various archaic units until one Jewrer brought a proof: in his country, a suucah was considered valid so long as its roof height stood a minimum of ten handbreadths. "And The Accused was certainly at least twenty handbreadths in the air."
This was well received by most.
"Ah, but is falling considered pushing?" singsonged a dissenter.
"Put that thumb away," snapped the Rabbi. I presumed his authority given the way he expounded to the group that even if they validate the height of my fall, the very fact that I'd been hanging was problematic, since hanging could only occur after stoning. "So you'd do well to listen to me, Mendel," he said.
As they continued to bicker, my faculties returned enough for me to realise my legs were not broken. I waited for their next verbal crescendo and then cracked an eye open, gathered my strength, and ran for the exit.
Hurdling the desk, I shoved past my tormentors—Winston Lane, Lydia, Desiree—taking the entire Gallery off guard. I crashed into the courthouse doors and out onto the portico—only to be caught in the damn thickets!
"I told you to watch out," sneered the White Ram, ripping me from the thorns and dragging me back inside to the jeers of the Gallery. Blood streamed down my arms, streaking the floor in red.
"Let me go!" I cried, but Ivan Pronin only followed behind pulling childish faces at me.
The White Ram hurled me before the Judge's bench and the Ten Chassidic men quickly encircled me. Rolling up their sleeves, they removed their black phylacteries with which they then bound me.
"You can't do this," I pleaded, for far worse than the straitjacket, the leather burned my skin as I twisted and writhed. I continued to scream until the Judge issued a gag order and the White Ram stuffed a piece of wool in my mouth.
"Has the Jewery reached its decision?" asked the Judge.
"Yes," said the Rabbi, un-scrolling a yellowed parchment from which he read the following verses:
"Hear now our ruling, ye son of misrule,
who acts high-handed, the way of the fool.
A wise man should keep, his eyes in his head,
Not prattle about, and derange his bed.
Pride and anger, envy and lust,
have since removed thee, from world thou trust,
Now Laughter and Madness happily reign,
and so thou is unfurled, thine world insane.
Each face they wore, each mask displayed,
Was thine own guilt, not theirs betrayed.
This Gallery showed what ye dared not see—
A court of mirrors, not mercy.
The Learned One, with guiled pretence,
Let ye to prosecute, and he defence.
He bore no horns, yet smelled of fire—
The oldest tempter in lawyer's attire.
The Accused did climb, where no soul ought,
To murder the father, and covet harlot.
His lips have lied, his seed profaned—
Let bronze be the altar, and shame be his name."
The Courtroom fell to silence until Ivan Pronin asked what the hell it all meant.
"Did not you hear?" said the Judge. "Bronze be the altar."
There was a general approval for this elucidation and so the White Ram blew his horn. "Who has Bronze?" he called.
The Gallery quickly divested themselves of their bronze effects, holding up their jewellery, watches, piercings, and bracelets. Did nobody wear gold? Gagged and bound, I could only watch as they set about their work.
The Imbecile smashed the desks for wood and the White Ram tore strips from his fleece for kindling. The Professor was accosted until he revealed a hidden pouch of tobacco (this being the source of his burnt musk) and duly provided a single match.
A fire was started and soon the flames blazed so hot that my skin prickled and scorched. One by one the Gallery threw in their bronze effects, soon amassing a great heap of metal within the flames. The Giant Spider acted as a crane, lifting the molten block from the fire by thick gossamer thread.
"Pay attention," called Yidoni, taking on the role of foreman as he held up a Tarot card—The Altar—whose design was to be followed precisely.
"Now just hold on," said Winston Lane, scanning through the yellowed parchments on which the Jewry had scribed a dense set of calculations. "What the hell's a Cubit?"
"It's the distance between your elbow and the tip of your middle finger," replied one Jewrer but this caused yet another argument since each person had a different arm length. The Rabbi eventually set the measurement according to my own dimensions. "It is after all, Isaac's Altar," he said.
A call for construction tools was made but when Ivan Pronin produced a child's penknife, Desiree snatched it away. "Batediz," she told him. "It must be made of one."
"Then allow me," said the Judge, employing his trusty stethoscope to beat out the metal accordingly. He made it five cubits long and five cubits wide. Its height was three cubits. Its horns were made of one piece with the Altar, protruding upward.
Suddenly it stood complete: a great bronze altar in the middle of the courtroom. The White Ram hoisted me onto its top and the Gallery hissed from their pews. I struggled in panic. I screamed mute into the woollen gag.
"You should've signed the confession," said Lane, sneering as he loomed over me.
"I'm sorry, babe," said Lydia, still supported by Desiree who smiled her red lips at me and said: "Swaddled again, mon cherie."
The Professor looked on from the side, his face unreadable, his eyes going back to his small mirror. Up above me, Vanessa's head emerged from the giant spider's belly but her face held no pity. Despair took me as the Rabbi began to chant:
"Let ye present, thine offering of sin,
Ye blood shall we dash, to the very last hin.
Let angels all cry, blind tears in thine gaze,
When penknife cuts throat, and on pyre thou Blaze."
"Amen," the Jewry called out in unison, and the Gallery repeated it. Finally, Ivan Pronin submitted his penknife and Yidoni seized the blade, raising his skeletal hand to the heavens. The silver blade glinted in the light and—
"Give it back!" cried Yidoni, as a raven suddenly snatched the knife in its beak. The Imbecile tried to swat it down but the bird was too swift for his heavy paws. Suddenly it let out a piercing shriek and its wings grew so large that a malevolent wind blew through courtroom.
"Isaac's mine," it screeched in Raven's voice.
The wind turned hurricane and the altar quaked beneath me. Yidoni was thrown off balance and his Tarot cards cascaded like dying leaves. Thousands of spiders dropped from the ceiling and all about me was a black rain and dreadful shouting.
The raven wheeled a wide arc above the altar—and in that wild arc the blade caught the phylacteries binding me.
Snap.
The leather fell away like a snake's skin and I pulled the wool from my mouth. I gasped. I moved. I was free.
"Stop him!" someone cried. "Lest he flee to Azazel!" But the altar gave way amid screams of confusion. The gallery aisle was littered with discarded masks, my hollow faces staring as I staggered towards the courthouse doors, flinging them open—and this time, the thickets did not catch me.
"One question," said the Professor. He leaned easily against the lintel, one hand flipping his little mirror open and closed. "Do you truly wish to escape?"
My eyes grew wide—I nodded—YES.
No words shall relate what I saw in that small mirror—only that it stirred something deep within my belly, and a dark laughter to escape my lips.
I ran into the unknown.
THE END??