One Is Chance; Forty-One Is a Count
"You committed an injustice, didn't you?"
It started that night.
After the courtroom emptied and the lamps had burned down to half, I spread out the table.
The gods' names ran across the rows.
…Pan.
I moved my fingertip to the right along his line.
Abduction. Territorial seizure. Blasphemy. Murder. Oath-breaking.
…There's no column for disappearances.
…Oh, right. Disappearance was never a case.
What vanished wasn't a crime. It vanished, and so it was simply gone.
…So that's why it never got caught all this time.
I drew a new column.
Pan across the top, disappearances down the side.
The cell where they met was empty.
…Am I supposed to be the one to fill this in?
But if I don't, these things just stay here.
I picked up my brush.
…I'll read just one page, then sleep.
I read one.
Then two.
…Wait, why am I reading all of these?
Three.
Four.
Then, at some point, I glanced toward the window.
It was bright.
…Oh.
…It's morning.
The next day was the same.
I pulled the precedents where Pan had been cited. Since I only had to sweep my eyes down that one row of the table, I thought it wouldn't take long — but once I pulled them, I had to check where each one had been cited in turn.
…Why does this keep growing?
On the second night, I wrote one line at the top of the list.
— One is chance. Forty-one is a count.
Then I stacked three more pages on top of it.
Two mornings later, my desk had a small tower of clay tablets on it.
Two scribes were standing in front of it.
"…What is all this?"
"Precedents. Only the ones where Pan came up."
"…You did this in a single day?"
"There was a table."
The two of them looked at each other.
One of them picked up a tablet and flipped through it.
"…These have numbers on them."
"Yes. Without numbers, you can't find anything."
"…But there were never numbers here before."
…Excuse me?
The scribe beside him took the tablet.
"…May we take these up to the upper offices?"
"…Sure. Doesn't matter to me."
The two of them carried the stack away.
And didn't come back.
What came next was an elderly scribe.
A face I'd never seen before.
"…You did this?"
"…Yes."
"…In two days."
"…Yes."
He stared at the list for a long while.
"…I've been here twenty-two years."
"…Yes."
"…Where is your seat?"
"…In the far corner, back there."
"…"
He looked that way.
"…No lamp, is there."
"…No."
"…I'll have one sent over."
…Damn.
…Don't tell me he means I have to work straight through the night.
Just then, another scribe hurried over.
Quick steps.
"Inspector. It's… about what you pulled yesterday."
"…Yes?"
"I submitted it upward."
"…I'm sorry?"
"That case falls under my charge. I apologize."
…Hold on. You submitted it? Upward?
"But you see…"
The scribe drew a breath.
"It's being opened. Today."
"…What is?"
"The trial. That case."
…Huh?
…My case? Already?
"A god has been summoned twelve times in thirty years. Each preparation took half a year."
"But this time, the grounds were all laid out in order, so it got docketed immediately."
…Because I laid them out?
"…Will you come? As it happens, it's today."
I gave the scribe a look.
One day gone, just like that. But observation meant sitting — I wouldn't have to do anything, just sit there.
"…I'm coming too!"
The scribe volunteered first.
It was my first time going into the inner reaches of the courthouse.
The columns grew thicker as we went.
"Observers may take the platform at the rear."
"Yes."
After a few steps, I asked.
"…But the god. Will it actually come?"
"Pardon?"
"The summons. If it doesn't show, doesn't that just end things?"
The scribe shook his head.
"It is called by the Styx. It cannot refuse to come."
"…And if it doesn't?"
"The river brings it. The gods know that better than anyone, so when they are called, they come."
…Wow. So that actually works?
"This is only my second time on the record, too."
"…Pardon?"
"When a god stands trial."
The scribe smiled a little.
"The first time, my hands shook so badly I ruined half the record."
I thought about it as I walked.
In my past life, I wrote reports.
The good ones got rejected. The rejected ones nobody read.
Even when they were read, half the time nothing came of it.
Writing things down was where my job ended; everything after that was always somebody else's.
…But here.
What's written gets called, and what gets called comes.
…I am a little curious whether that actually works.
Where the corridor ended, I heard the sound of chains.
Two figures were being led along.
Humans.
One had a chain at the neck, one at the wrists.
…Are they defendants too?
The hall was vast.
The columns stretched back to somewhere out of sight, and the center lay open and empty.
There were some people in the gallery.
Maybe twenty.
I sat in the very back row.
Just then, a bell tolled.
Around that time, up on the bench, Themis was turning over the tablets.
The soft rasp of clay on clay stopped for a moment.
"…Bring him in."
Screeeech—
The doors opened.
Goat legs came through first.
The shaggy fur went down to the knees, and the hooves scraped the stone floor.
His horns caught once on the doorframe.
It was Pan.
God of shepherds and flocks.
Bailiffs stood on either side, gripping the chains.
The chains were black, and rippled like water.
…The Styx.
…So that's the famous thing.
The god walked, on his own feet, to the center of the courtroom.
And stood.
In the temple, humans bow down.
My homeroom teacher had said that.
In the courtroom, the god stands.
…He really is standing.
A sound came from beside me.
The scribe.
The hand holding his brush was trembling.
…Ah. So that part was real too.
I looked forward again.
Pan simply stood there.
He was taller than the doors, and every step he took made the floor lamps sway — but standing still, he made nothing sway at all.
Themis spoke.
"Have you anything to say?"
Pan lifted his head.
"There are no witnesses."
The voice pressed down on the whole hall.
"There is no body. It has been so for eighty years."
"On what grounds, then, have you set me in this place?"
…That sentence.
That's the line that was written on every single tablet.
No witnesses. No body.
Over two days, I had read that line a hundred and twelve times.
And reading it, I thought nothing of it.
Everyone wrote it that way, so I assumed it was just how things were written.
…That was an eighty-year shield.
The courtroom was silent.
Someone in the front row bowed their head.
The chief clerk, tablets still in hand, went still for a moment.
Then she opened the next tablet.
"…I will now read the harms."
The hall grew quieter still.
"The miller's daughter. Sixteen. Spring."
My hand stopped on my knee.
…The miller's house.
I'd heard about it at the dinner table.
— Same thing happened at the mill across the river last year. They had one daughter, and she vanished in the spring.
— Did they find her?
— Find her? Things like that, nobody goes looking.
…So that family was here all along.
"The millwheel house's daughter. Fifteen. Spring."
"The shepherd's daughter. Fourteen. Spring."
"…"
There were no names.
They were called by their houses.
But one by one, they were read.
These were the things I had seen as ink on clay tablets.
I had lined them up in order, oldest first; split them by cause; bundled the identical entries into one heap.
…Read aloud like this, they became people.
The recitation went on.
Fourteen. Sixteen. Thirteen. Fifteen.
Around the twentieth, a sound rose from the gallery.
The front row.
Someone was pressing a hand over their mouth.
The person beside them gripped their back.
That one wasn't crying.
They were just staring straight ahead.
…A bereaved family.
The recitation went on.
Around the thirtieth, another sound.
From a different seat.
"Forty-one. The hill house's daughter. Sixteen. Spring."
The chief clerk closed the tablet.
The hall went still.
A few breaths could be heard.
…It wasn't just twenty people after all.
"The grounds."
The chief clerk opened the next tablet.
"Unverifiable cases: one hundred and twelve. Of those, matching jurisdiction: forty-six. Matching season: forty-one."
"Cross-referenced against the unresolved-cases digest, entries three-oh-one through three-oh-four."
The numbers I had assigned were being read aloud in a courtroom.
"…And."
The chief clerk lifted her head.
"Cases with no witness: forty-one."
"Same season. Same jurisdiction."
"One is chance—"
"Forty-one is a count."
…That logic.
…I wrote that in the summary of my list.
On the second night.
One line, at the top of the heap.
I'd written it assuming no one would ever read it.
The courtroom was reading it now.
Pan's mouth closed.
A hoof scraped the stone floor once.
And then stopped scraping.
I watched that for a while.
…Forty-one nothings, gathered together, become a something.
The courtroom was quiet.
Themis closed the tablets.
"…Then, next."
Beside me, the scribe raised his brush.
And did not write.
…Why isn't he writing?
Nobody said anything.
The chief clerk, too, stood there with the tablets in her hands.
…What's going on here?
I looked forward.
Pan just stood there.
The two bailiffs held the chains, but they weren't moving either.
…Ah. They can't sentence him.
Come to think of it, of course.
They can't kill him.
He's a god.
There's nowhere to imprison him, either.
Such a thing doesn't exist in this country.
Exile is what you do to humans, and driving away offerings is what gods do to humans.
…Then what, exactly, do you do with him once you've caught him?
…So this is why they never summoned anyone.
Call, and he comes.
He comes, and he answers.
That much works.
…But there's no step after that.
Themis opened her mouth.
"Pan."
"What am I to do with you?"
…You're asking HIM that?
Pan raised his head slightly.
"…There is nothing you can do."
"It has been so for eighty years."
…Oh, this guy.
…He's seen a lot of these, hasn't he.
Themis said nothing for a moment.
Then she asked.
"…Is the count finished?"
The chief clerk looked at that tablet.
"…Not yet."
"…What remains?"
"…Five of the forty-six could not be cross-checked. And three where the jurisdictions split."
"…Eight cases."
Themis's voice came down.
"Then the matter is not yet finished."
…Huh?
That was my line, too.
"Remain by the river until the count is done."
The bailiffs pulled the chains.
The god was dragged out.
The sound of hooves scraping stone lingered a long while.
…Wow.
…They really dragged him off.
What is this courtroom's power level? It's seriously strong.
The hall was silent.
Then a sound rose from the front row.
Someone stood up.
And then another.
…Is it over?
It wasn't.
The people who stood didn't leave.
They just stood there.
Pan was gone through those doors, and they were watching them.
One sat back down.
As she sat, she set what she held in her hands onto her knees.
That scrap of cloth.
What vanished stays vanished.
The god being dragged away doesn't bring the daughter back.
I looked at her face for a while.
She wasn't crying.
…Because now, at least, it's been written down?
For eighty years, that had been written nowhere at all.
Today, it was read aloud for the first time.
…Not even by name — read by house.
It took a long time for the gallery to empty.
Everyone filed out slowly.
I just sat there.
…I should go, shouldn't I.
Beside me, the scribe was putting away his brushes.
Checking, it seemed, whether he'd used all three.
"…Did you break any?"
"…No."
"…That's a relief."
"…Yes."
As he packed them, the scribe's hand stopped.
"…Inspector."
"Yes."
"…They say the count must be finished."
"…Yes."
"…And that it must be finished by someone who can count."
…That's me, isn't it.
I rose from my seat.