Sharp Tooth, who had gotten his nickname from a nasty bite he had given to a long-time tormentor, practically severing the man’s nose from his face, looked at Crabs warily.
“We were told to stay put,” Sharp Tooth said.
“We were told to lay low!” Crabs snapped back.
“They’s the same, ain’t they?” Sharp Tooth queried.
Crabs looked around the room menacingly. “I ain’t gonna starve in my own house, you hear? And, what the heck—even in prison they feed you! I’m goin’!”
Crabs grabbed the large couch in front of the main door and began to pull. In his weakened state, he couldn’t get it to budge, but a fury soon overtook him, giving his body a strength it shouldn’t have possessed.
He yanked the couch out of the way and looked cockily at his timid comrades.
“I’ll go with,” Sharp Tooth said.
“Stay the hell here!” Crabs said. “I’ll take Chris.”
Chris had been with him when he had gotten busted, and they had both made the decision to cooperate. It didn’t take them long to figure out they had been sold out by their underlings, most of whom were now holed up with them in this fireplace.
But he was also pretty sure that these underlings didn’t know that he and Chris had in turn set up Tats, which had then caused Mr. Brass to get involved, which had then caused things to really go haywire.
Now seemed as good a time as any to have a little powwow with his fellow traitor and talk about whether it might be a good idea to leave Sivingdel for good and never come back. He had almost accumulated a million falons, though his nightly binges on alcohol, Smokeless Green, and whores kept making the pursuit of that number as futile as a dog chasing its tail. Nonetheless, he could learn to tone it down a bit and stretch that money out as long as he needed to.
He and his family in the junkyard had often survived on two hundred falons a month.
The feeling of fresh air against his face as he opened the door and stepped outside provided more pleasure than any of his other vices could have if a night’s worth had been concentrated into five seconds.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Ahhhhh,” he said slowly exhaling.
He noticed Chris was being awfully aloof, not commenting at all on the pleasure of fresh air after nearly a week inside that sweaty furnace.
He opened his eyes, ready to tear into him, when he saw the yard was full of police. One was standing right in front of him.
“Crabs, is it?” the officer said, grinning, eyeing the telltale tattoos on his neck.
Crabs felt a sharp knock against his head. The pain was intense, but he was out cold before he could so much as whimper.
Chapter 44
If a person had mistaken Eddie’s lithe frame for just another one of the sinewy branches reaching out horizontally into the air of the thick forest, he could not have been justly excoriated. His dark brown clothes mirrored the color of the tree, and if his body occasionally adjusted itself slightly, the branches themselves could not boast plenary resilience against the occasional gust of wind.
But if the observer had noticed that from this one branch alone fell drops of some liquid matter, he may have directed his attention singularly enough to see the sweat falling from Eddie’s brow.
This was no grown man, but was a far cry from the sniveling kid who had ran home from school with bullies on his heels. This was a wiry young teenager, little comprising his frame besides muscle and bone.
He didn’t see Tristan most days. The aloof old man stopped in about once per month to monitor Eddie’s progress and deliver food. Harsh though the old man was predisposed to be, even his caviling nature found little to quibble about when it came both to Eddie’s improvement and dedication.
He preferred to evaluate Eddie unobserved, since he felt that is when any student is most likely to surrender to the powerful instincts of indolence and complacency. But watching the young student, even surreptitiously, was like seeing a reflection of himself from centuries before. There was clearly no physical or mental desire that could properly be described as competing with the young student’s zeal to progress in the arts of magic.
Eddie had begun with incantations designed to enable him to root himself to objects. He would stand on a thick tree branch for hours at a time in calm weather. Then, in windy weather. Then, on a thin branch.
When Eddie stood twenty-four hours without food or drink on a branch no wider than his fist several hundred feet above ground in spite of several nasty wind gusts, Tristan decided it was time to take him to the next level.
Starting on a branch a few feet from the ground, he instructed Eddie to lean forward while simultaneously invoking the chant “Iksun,” the incantation for balance.
Like a weightlifter who has accustomed himself to a particular weight, but struggles when just ten to twenty pounds are added, Eddie could lean forward no more than ten to fifteen degrees without toppling over altogether.
His brain, clutching the invisible but very present forces around him, struggled with the added weight the same way the pectoral and tricep muscles quiver beneath a theretofore unattempted load.
Day after day, his body felt lighter at increasingly sharp angles until he finally achieved a full horizontal pose, only his feet touching the branch. Tristan, never one who believed in overindulging himself, much less anyone else, could not help but heartily congratulate this student, who had reached the goal much quicker in his training than Tristan had, not that he parted with that secret.
Eddie’s next move would have surely betrayed to even the laziest observer that this was no tree branch, as he calmly adjusted his body into a hanging position, only the bottoms of his feet touching the branch.
The sweat really began to pour now, as his heart rate soared, since these exercises exerted his body as much as his mind. He had reached his most stubborn roadblock so far on what had otherwise been a seamless charge forward through every exercise his master had given him.
When he had first achieved the ability six months ago to hang vertically, he thought the next step would be easy. Instead, it threatened to prove itself his triumphant nemesis. This exercise was that of walking upside down.
The difficulty in conquering this exercise lay in the cruel chasm separating the strength required to hang from one foot versus two, and the lack of any means of a more gradual transition between these two opposing cliff walls.
But to walk upside down would first require that he be able to hang from one foot. He had a strange confidence that today would be the day. A furious determination swept over him. He had been practicing from a low branch to soften the impact of his countless falls, but today he decided that perhaps the knowledge of the low price of failure was the very reason for its perpetuation.
A hundred feet down was a long way to fall, and while there was a branch or two he might be able to grasp on the way down, the odds in favor of a fall being fatal were rather high. Sweat pouring down his face, he slowly removed one foot from the branch.
It felt as if a hundred pounds had just been attached to his head. His body wanted to fall, but he flexed his mind repeating “IKSUN! IKSUN! IKSUN!!” furiously.
His body held. He counted to five, and put his other foot back a split second before he would have otherwise gone crashing hopelessly to the ground.
“Impressive,” a voice uttered.
Eddie quickly lifted his hands upwards towards the branch and propelled himself on top of it more nimbly than a monkey.
Tristan was there.
“A few more weeks, and I think you’ll be walking underneath any surface you please.”
Tristan had gotten back from delivering one of Eddie’s letters. They were several thousand miles to the east of the events of Selegania, but Tristan had enchanted a pholung and flew westward enough to turn over Eddie’s letters to an international courier.
Though Tristan had not returned to Selegania since
having left it, he had been close enough to sense that something radical and transformative was happening there.
That is good. All truly great wizards are thrust immediately into dangerous adversity upon completion of their formal training. If they cannot survive that, then they never possessed the inner qualities necessary to excel in the craft.
“Thank you, master,” Eddie said, glad for a brief respite. He could tell something was on Tristan’s mind, but his powers of mindreading were far too weak to penetrate the opaque medulla of Tristan’s soul.
Chapter 45
“Hear ye! Hear ye! The honorable Governor Sehensberg has chosen to honor us with a few words on this momentous occasion!”
The roaring crowd clapped mightily and cheered with equal vigor. In the city square, stood a large gallows that had been constructed in a mere twenty-four hours by around-the-clock workers earning several times their normal hourly pay, but the heightened pay rate seemed like a small sacrifice to the most-grateful city government for their inestimably valuable work of construction.
Twenty-seven doomed men stood atop the gallows, all gagged so as to prevent any unseasonable outburst during the governor’s speech. The gallows had been erected in a triangular formation pointed towards the crowd, with the more serious offenders placed towards the front so as to make more public their ignominious demise.
The sound of the crowd dulled from a frenzy to a low roar, then to a whisper, and then to silence as their duly elected governor stood before them ready to deliver his address.
With considerable gravitas, the governor began, “Citizens . . . neighbors . . . friends . . . .”
A pen would have made a clatter if it had hit the ground.
“Today is a sad day. But, today is also a happy day.
“Like the thrust of sunlight through a dark cloud following a devastating hurricane, today’s justice represents the next chapter following what has been undeniably a blot on our community, our city, and our country.
“Today, the message shall be sent to every knave that acts of terror and devastation will not make us cower. They will not make us quiver.
“They will merely strengthen that unique spirit and resolve that makes us proud to call ourselves Rodalians!”
“Wuu-HU! HANG ‘EM!” said a particularly loud voice amongst the otherwise polite applause.
The governor dignifiedly waited for the restoration of silence.
“I want to make it clear that I deserve little, if any, of the credit. The interim police chief, within just twenty-four hours of my appointing him, hit the streets with his men and rounded up the perpetrators of what has surely been the worst series of violent crimes in our city’s history!”
Loud cheering and applause erupted, while the governor briefly presented a stern-faced man with a thick moustache that looked like it could deflect an arrow.
“Needless to say,” the governor resumed, with a sly smile, “I plan on recommending him to permanent elevation to city police chief.”
“YAHHHH!!” screamed one man amongst a chorus of other jubilant outbursts.
“Chief Halden is no career paper pusher. He’s a veteran officer of some of the most challenging sections of this city, and he’s the right man for the job!”
More jubilation.
“But though today we deliver justice to the fallen, let us not forget that not all of the victims were innocent, and it is with great sobriety that we should contemplate the reality that a culture of corruption emboldens criminals to carry out heinous crimes on such a grand scale.
“But we shall not dwell on the past. We shall not further castigate those who have already paid the ultimate price for their life of crime and corruption. We shall, instead, look forward to a new chapter in Sivingdel’s legacy.
“A chapter where, like a forest’s rebirth after being cleansed by fire, the surviving citizens of our city become more prosperous and more engaged in their community than at any previous time in Sivingdel’s history. Let a new generation of citizens aspire to become policemen, to become councilmen, to become senators, to become mayors.
“The deaths of those public servants embroiled in corruption has already served to demonstrate the futility of the wicked path. And the righteous executions of the outlaws before us today will serve as a reminder to all future outlaws that your end, too, will be ignominious.
“Standing right here,” the governor said, pointing to Crabs, whose eyes were nearly bulging out of his head in anger and desperation before the display of wanton hypocrisy and who was trying desperately to emit some sound in spite of the gag that had been placed ferociously down his mouth, “is a miscreant named Crabs. This . . . bandit is the mastermind of the dastardly wicked acts that have rained down upon our republic like a plague. But, today, he stands before you, ready to submit to the justice of the state and having prepared a written confession of his crimes. Let us thank him for this final, and perhaps, isolated act of charity that he has committed before going to meet his maker.”
A sober murmur of agreement could be heard from the crowd. Almost too low of a murmur, because for an instant, Crabs’ redoubled efforts to scream in spite of the gag produced a sound too loud for the governor’s comfort.
However, the crowd went wild, cheering and hollering, when the governor waved them farewell and retired to a seat on the edge of the gallows where he could watch the action up close.
A severe, humorless man then approached the audience and said mechanically:
“Confession of Crabs, real name unknown.
“‘I have lived a short and nasty life. I was baptized into crime at so young an age I cannot remember a time where I understood or appreciated the difference between right and wrong. My malicious cunning brought me success in the underworld, catapulting me to kingpin status and putting me on par with the mayor and several city councilmen in terms of power.
“‘My arrogance became so overwhelming that when the mayor asked me to destroy evidence related to a corruption investigation Chief Benson was conducting on him, I sent my thugs in broad daylight to burn the police headquarters to cinders just in case there was any paperwork there on me I wouldn’t take too kindly to having presented in court someday.
“‘I then panicked, afraid the mayor and several of his fellow criminal associates—which included a senator, two city councilmen, and a private detective—would rat me out. So, I had them killed too. Additionally, I ordered several of my fellow scoundrels, all of whom stand with me on the scaffold today, to kill two brave federal agents for refusing to accept my bribe offer. They did the deed without a moment’s hesitation or reflection.
“‘I know my life is about over now, so I hope you all will forgive me, and I hope Kasani does too.’”
The stern orator stood directly in front of Crabs, which served to block most of his rebellious and indignant squirming and violent facial contortions, all of which indicated he was as repentant as a wolf licking its bloody lips with pleasure.
“Execute sentence!” the orator then said.
CREAK, CREAK, CREAK, CREAK, CREAK!
The sound of one trapdoor after another opening in rapid succession filled the air, followed quickly by the sound of snapping necks as the men’s bodies reached the ends of their ropes.
The crowd cheered wildly, with a notable exception.
Mr. Simmers, near the front of the audience, watched somberly as the instrument of the state executed the traitors in his ranks with full public and legal backing, though his large, fake moustache changed his appearance so drastically not even Crabs recognized him.
Chapter 46
Many times one has been said to “hit rock bottom,” whether it be because of the loss of a job, the termination of a relationship, the death of a spouse, or some other calamity. While in many cases, no doubt the powerful metaphor has been properly employed for the pathetic situation, in others hyperbole has stretched it and seen it used for almost any scenario involving a mild degree of
unpleasantness.
In the present case of Senator Hutherton, few would question the appropriateness of saying that the once proud statesman had indeed hit such a shocking low, several weeks prior to the present scene, that few metaphors could be applied to it with exaggeration.
Though he had once used Smokeless Green for the occasional “edge,” it had quickly become a source of recreation and later an essential nutrient for basic functionality. From there, his use only became more dire.
When, Robert, his oldest servant, a man in his mid-sixties, witnessed Lord Hutherton—as he was usually called in the house—go on a six-day binge of green powder sniffing without eating so much as a morsel and not sleeping a wink, he decided it was time for a tough intervention before his master gave himself a stroke or a heart attack and left him and the rest of the servants unemployed.
Hutherton had kicked, screamed, spit, and cussed as Robert picked the man up like a bratty young child and carried him towards what had been known in Hutherton’s younger days as “The Calm Room.” Having been Hutherton’s tutor from the time Hutherton was a small child, he had been authorized by the elder Hutherton to chastise his young brat however he saw fit short of blows.
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