At that point I decided to ditch my tough guy act and cooperate with Quillion. I told him everything that had happened to me that night in detail, up to the moment when the Sentinel took me into custody. I finished by showing him the seam on my neck as evidence that Victor Baron had recently reattached my head to my body.
When my story was done Quillion looked thoughtful. The walls became less solid looking as he considered, wavering as if formed from crimson liquid, and I realized the chamber was linked to his mind. It certainly made for a good interrogation room. Confronting suspects with scenes of them committing a crime was a great way to get them to confess. But I reminded myself that what I'd witnessed wasn't exactly the magical equivalent of video from a security camera. It was a recreation based on interpreted evidence and not proof by a long shot. Unfortunately an Adjudicator doesn't need proof. He or she just has to believe a suspect is guilty in order to pronounce a sentence. I just had to hope that my story, strange as it was, had sowed a seed of doubt in Quillion's mind about my guilt.
"You must admit that on the surface your story is quite outlandish," Quillion said after a time. "You expect me to believe that someone knew you carried Edrigu's mark, and what's more, that they knew it could be used to gain access to his collection. And that this someone stole your body, somehow animated it, and used it to steal the object?"
"I told you that Acantha asked me about Edrigu's mark and showed a close up of my hand on her program. Hundreds saw it, maybe thousands. One of them must've realized what the mark could be used for."
"Then why not just steal your hand?" Quillion asked.
I shrugged. "I'm no expert in Darklord magic. Maybe most of my body was needed for the mark to work properly. Maybe someone wanted to frame me and they wanted to make sure there was enough of 'me' present to be recorded by whatever security methods Edrigu had in place. Are you sure the chamber guardians saw me as complete? In other words, did I have a head?"
"Yes," Quillion said, but then he frowned. "I'll admit that the guardians' mental description lacked a certain amount of visual clarity, however. It's difficult to see through an aura of flame, you know. Their impressions of you were more mystically derived than visually. They know it was a zombie that entered the chamber, and they recognized the power inherent in Edrigu's mark. You are the only individual in the city who matches those criteria."
"So my headless body might've been used to commit the theft. Someone might have been controlling it from a distance, like a marionette with a very long set of strings."
"I suppose," Quillion said, but he sounded unconvinced.
I decided to try a different tack. "What was stolen?"
"An object of some importance to Edrigu, obviously, since he wore it on his person. Unfortunately none of his servants seem to know its purpose and since the Darklord himself is asleep and cannot be wakened to tell us more…" Quillion trailed off.
"Contact Victor Baron," I suggested. "He can back me up."
"Speaking with Baron would prove nothing. You could've committed the theft, perhaps at the behest of a client, and later cut off your own head and gone to the Foundry to have it reattached in an attempt to establish an alibi."
"I'm not a mercenary," I snapped. "I'm a private detective. There's a big difference."
"You do favors for people and they pay you in return," Quillion said with a shrug. "Perhaps this time the payment was enough to get you to suspend your moral code."
I wanted to tell Quillion he could shove my moral code up his hairless ass, but I knew it wouldn't help my case, so instead I said, "You could ask Devona. She-" I stopped myself. Quillion would just assume she'd lie to protect me. "We could ask Dis to verify my story. With his power…"
"Father Dis is a god," Quillion said stiffly. "He has far more important matters to attend to than deciding the fate of one zombie."
Quillion's dismissal of my idea had come a bit too quickly and was made too forcefully for me to take it at face value. A second later I realized what was really going on.
"You won't ask Dis to help me because you can't. He's resting just like the Darklords, isn't he?"
Quillion reluctantly nodded. "Dis normally uses far more energy than any of the Darklords during the Renewal Ceremony, but this year was especially taxing for him. He sleeps deeply, and like the Darklords, he cannot be awakened until he is restored to full strength."
This was bad for the city. With Dis and the Darklords temporarily out of commission Nekropolis was virtually unprotected. If a major crisis developed there would be no one available to deal with it. Hopefully, things would keep running smoothly enough until the Darklords awakened. If not… well, I didn't want to think about that.
"So what are we left with?" I asked. "We agree on the fact that my body was used to commit a crime, but there's no way I can prove to you that my consciousness wasn't in the driver's seat at the time the theft took place."
"That's not precisely true," Quillion said. "Because of your previous service to the city, I wanted to give you the opportunity to explain yourself. But since you are not able to do so adequately, I'm forced to rely on my usual methods of extracting information from those I question."
I didn't like the sound of that.
"I hate to break this to you, but I'm a zombie. Torture won't work on me. Whatever you do, I won't be able to feel it."
Quillion gave me a cold smile. "This is another thing that's not precisely true." As he spoke the crimson walls began to edge toward green and their hard smooth surface began to shimmer and flicker. "You know the flames which burn upon the surface of the river Phlegethon?"
This was sounding worse all the time.
"Yes. They're magical flames that burn the spirit instead of the flesh."
Quillion's smile widened.
"The Adjudicators created those flames."
He gestured and the walls of green fire, no illusion this time, came rushing inward toward us. For the first time since I'd died I felt pain – pain beyond anything I'd ever imagined was possible.
I screamed and I continued screaming for a very long time.
In the end I confessed. At least, I think I did. I don't have any memory of actually doing so, but Quillion made the green fire go away, and I lay on the floor of the Inquisitory, grateful that my dead body once more felt no sensation, though the echoes of agony still lingered in my soul, and I wondered if they always would.
He asked me more questions: who hired me, where was the bone flute now? But I just lay there, barely able to think, let alone answer. Besides, I knew it didn't matter what I said. Quillion believed me guilty, and that was the end of it.
"Very well," he said after a while, sounding irritated. "I suppose we'll sort out the rest of the details in due time. If nothing else, hopefully Edrigu will be able to track down the artifact once he awakens, and then we'll discover who hired you. For now, I pronounce you officially guilty of a crime against a Darklord and sentence you to be incarcerated in Tenebrus until the end of your days."
"You can't be serious!" I shouted. "This isn't about justice! It's about you having power and using it however it suits you! There's been no due process here, no real standards of evidence… I've spent my entire career in law enforcement one way or another, Quillion, and I can tell you that you wouldn't know justice if it walked up and bit you on your bald ass!"
Quillion's gaze became arctic cold. "Goodbye, Matthew, and may Father Dis have mercy on your soul."