The Sacred Garden

Chapter Five

Andred woke up alone in his cell, his head ringing from nightmares that had merely recapped, over and over, the scenes from the day before. His own voice seemed to still be echoing: "Nesbin, take care of Leela!" Rodan's befuddled: "Where will I go after?" Leela's barely-coherent vows of revenge. 

"Situation," said Andred aloud – it was comforting to hear a voice, even if it was his own. "Imminent peril. Everyone I know in the universe, right now, is inaccessible to me, and I need to get out of here."

He walked over to the bars and shook them. The experiment resulted in an unfortunately loud wheezing sound, but the bars felt satisfactorily weak. As he gripped and pulled at them, they felt like they might dissolve in his very hands – rust flew in clouds everywhere.

"Well, this is something," Andred muttered to himself. He kept on twisting at the bars until the guard came to take him to council.

There was, fortunately, no audience at this meeting, though the room was set up for it. The council desk was a horseshoe-shaped table around which a dozen men and women sat, each wearing a robe of a distinct color. At the open end of the table were two columns of benches. Andred sat between two guards on one of the foremost benches, and stared at this new set of judges.

As they called roll, they called it by color instead of by name. They addressed each other in this manner, as well, so it was "Magenta," "Blue," "Viridian," "Gold" - the apparent leader of the group – rather than any titles or names. It was hard to understand who they were, then. Were they also judges? Were they the town/city/nation ruling council? Were they merely a formal sort of jury?

Most of the members of the "Color Council" were elderly, if not downright ancient. Gold was helped trembling to his seat by a couple of assistants. There was one exception – a young man addressed as Turquoise. He stood out in every possible way – deeply tanned and muscular, with a thick crop of dark hair and bright eyes. Straight-backed instead of stooping, restless instead of subdued. He looked sullen, even angry, and sat quiet, arms crossed, at his seat at one end of the table, while his fellows smiled and chatted with each other.

He looked as impatient as Andred felt (the council took its leisurely time at calling themselves to order), and Andred spent part of the waiting time watching him tap his foot. Then he looked up in time to catch Turquoise hastily avert his glance. Andred supposed he should have spent more time trying to catch the young man's eye, establish a connection on the council. Too late now – it was finally coming to order.

"We are here today," began Gold, "to decide the fate of Andred here, of – of – well, I have 'uncitied,' here, but boy, you must be of some origin, some village or even some missage-stop somewhere."

"Gallifrey. I'm Andred – of Gallifrey."

"Never heard of it."

"Must be Armonon," broke in Scarlet. "I heard rumors it was a spy who was caught in the garden."

Turquoise cleared his throat. "The charges I have read do not say spy or even Armonon. We really can't let that be a factor in this case."

"We're just having a conversation," replied Gold, with a touch of peevishness.

"You called us to order!" exclaimed Turquoise, with what sounded like unnecessary anger – Andred was sharply reminded of Leela's tendency to overreact. "At that point, there is no 'conversation.' There is only legal discourse!"