The Judgment of the Carriage-Master: A Dreadful Calamity by the Great Zlatoust Temple

The smog of the city had barely settled when the news reached the taverns: Alexei Yarkov, the master of the 'Auto-Nom' transport concern, shall find no mercy in the eyes of the Lords of Law. The appellate court of the Sverdlovsk region has spoken, and its voice is as cold as a winter midnight. Yarkov is to remain behind iron bars, locked away in the gloom of the gaol until the year's end.

It was a wretched scene that unfolded in August, when the Leninsky district court first cast the shackles upon him. His solicitors, those silver-tongued advocates, pleaded for a lighter chain—perhaps a bail or a home confinement—but the higher court brushed these pleas aside like dust from a coat. The verdict stands: the prisoner shall not see the sun of freedom until the tenth of December.

What is the crime, you ask? 'Tis a tragedy of the most harrowing sort. The crown’s investigators allege that Yarkov, in his greed for coin, neglected the very safety of the souls who paid his farthings. He is charged under the statutes of the realm for providing services that defied all laws of safety, leading to a slaughter that screams for justice.

Picture the horror of that June evening, near the hour of nine. In the heart of the city, beside the hallowed walls of the Great Zlatoust Temple, a passenger coach—a monstrous engine of iron—ploughed straight into a throng of innocent folk waiting at the stop. The crash was thunderous; the screams, piercing. Four souls were snatched away in an instant, including a poor child of but nine years, whose life was extinguished in a heartbeat. Others lay broken in the gutter, their blood mingling with the city grime.

Now, the sleuths and constables have uncovered a sinister truth: the carriage-master, Yarkov, drove his driver to the brink of madness. He forced the poor wretch to toil far beyond human endurance, ignoring the need for sleep and respite. In his quest for profit, he turned a driver into a ghost and a coach into a weapon of death. Now, the prisoner waits in the silence of his cell, while the ghosts of the Temple street demand their due.