For Emmara was the obvious choice. If any of the guilds had to take possession of the power embedded in this ancient place, the safest, least corruptible choice would be the Selesnya, the guild of life and unity. And if any of the Selesnya had to represent that winning guild, then Emmara should be the one to accept the prize. He knew she would do the right thing with the power contained here. He knew her victory was his purpose. All Jace had to do was give her all the advantages he could in the race to come. She would prevail, and perhaps the guilds wouldn’t resort to destroying each other.
Jace walked into the courtyard and beheld the floating monolith of rock that formed the dais. A staircase had been built to approach the dais, a blocky spiral around the rough slab of rock, so that the dais could be used for speeches or announcements. Jace climbed the staircase and stood on the dais. Prickling sensations spidered over his skin. The dais was like a bell that rang so low it couldn’t be heard, only felt. Jace reached his senses inside the monolith, trying to understand the source of the power. He needed to know what he would be handing to the Selesnya, to Emmara.
Jace couldn’t see into the interior of the floating slab of rock, but he sensed patterns within it—thoughtlike patterns. Mana flowed throughout the stone. Jace projected his mind into the space inside the rock and sensed a presence, a consciousness. The monolith was inhabited somehow. As Jace reached his senses into it, he perceived the shape of a human man in his mind’s eye. He wore layered robes in the Azorius style, like a guildmage or judge, but his skin was composed of coursing streaks of light. This man who somehow dwelled within the stone at the Forum of Azor had no eyes, as Jace perceived him. In place of eyes there were only empty holes in his face, and Jace had the sense that he could see through the empty eyeholes into the man’s hollow interior.
But the being had some kind of life to it. In Jace’s mind’s eye, he saw the man turn and regard him. Jace could sense intelligence of a kind coming from this being, so he reached out his mind to it.
“Pardon me,” Jace thought to the being.
“Greetings,” the being said. The voice felt soft, but with a feeling of force behind it. “I am the bailiff. I can provide information.”
“The bailiff?” Jace thought to it. “Are you Azor?”
“No. I am the executor of the bidding of Azor. I was created by him to enact his will.”
“You’re a magically-created intelligence. A homunculus.”
“I have not been furnished with the definition of that term. But you are correct that I am a being created by magic.”
“But you’re just a mind. You have no physical form. You’re bound here, to the Forum of Azor.”
The luminous being put his hands out in a symmetrical gesture, then folded them inside the sleeves of his robes. “I am exempt from physical form, yes. I am a being made of law. I am the regulations and specifications of the Assessment, and I am the mechanism by which it shall be conducted. And when I have made the Assessment, I shall be the one to deliver its verdict.”
When the bailiff said the last word, Jace felt the word crackling with constrained energy. Jace had the sense that this being was connected directly to Azor’s maze somehow, that he was its symbol, or its manifestation.
“You are the maze,” thought Jace. “You’re the agent of the maze itself.”
“The Implicit Maze is the form of the Assessment, and I am its executor.”
“So you’re using the maze to assess the guilds. From your perspective, the guilds are … on trial, in a way. You’re the judge.”
“It is not my judgment, but Azor’s. The Implicit Maze is the form of the Assessment, and I am its executor,” the bailiff repeated.
“You’re aware that the maze-runners are about to embark on the Implicit Maze?”
“Yes.”
“So, the maze-runners—they will receive something if they succeed?”
“I do not understand this query.”
Why didn’t the bailiff understand? Jace wondered. Wasn’t the whole purpose of the maze to hide its prize?
“Those who’ve been selected to stand trial for their guilds—the maze-runners,” Jace thought at the bailiff. “What are the conditions under which one of them will win?”
“There is no condition under which one shall win,” said the bailiff. “All shall succeed, or I shall deliver the Supreme Verdict. The success or failure of all of the guilds is at stake.”
Jace had learned that the maze’s purpose was to encourage cooperation between the guilds. But he had to know what that would mean for Emmara in particular, if he was going to send her into the danger of running the maze. “What do the guilds earn if they all succeed?”
“If they prove themselves equal to the task, then the most worthy shall actualize the Guildpact.”
“The Guildpact.” It was the magically-binding agreement that, until recently, had governed the guilds for thousands of years. “When the Guildpact was broken, that’s when you came alive, isn’t it?”
“The Assessment was initiated by the dissolution of the Guildpact.”
“So there will be a Guildpact again, like before?”
“If all succeed, then there shall be a Guildpact. But not like before.”
“What do you mean?”
“The most worthy shall actualize the Guildpact.”
The bailiff’s body swirled with light, which Jace felt as a pressure in his mind. Jace felt great power behind the bailiff’s presence, and fatigue crept over him as he kept his mind connected to it.
“All right, so the winner will rekindle the Guildpact somehow. Good. That’s good. But what happens if the guilds do not succeed?”
The bailiff shimmered. He blinked, but his eyes were still empty holes. “Then I shall deliver the verdict.”
“What is the verdict?”
“It is the Supreme Verdict of Azor.”
“But what does that entail?”
“If, in the course of the Assessment, one or more of the guilds’ chosen do not appear for the final sentencing, then the Guildpact cannot be actualized.”
“Wait. They all have to appear? They all have to make it here, to the Forum of Azor?”
“That is the Assessment. That is what is meant by the success of all.”
“And if they don’t? No Guildpact?”
“All will have failed the Assessment. The will of Azor will be to deliver the verdict.”