The Spine of the World

by Philip Athans

  “You were the one who wanted to come here,” Robillard reminded him.

  “It is my duty to be here in witness,” Deudermont answered.

  “I meant here in Luskan,” Robillard clarified. “You wanted to come to this city, Captain. I preferred Waterdeep.”

  Deudermont fixed his wizard friend with a stern stare, but he had no rebuttal to offer.

  “Stop yer wiggling!” the guard yelled at Creeps, but the dirty man fought all the harder, kicking and squealing desperately. He managed to evade their grasps for some time to the delight of the onlookers who were thoroughly enjoying the spectacle. Creeps’s frantic movements brought his gaze in line with Jharkheld. The magistrate fixed him with a glare so intense and punishing that Creeps stopped moving.

  “Draw and quarter him,” Jharkheld said slowly and deliberately.

  The gathering reached a new level of joyous howling.

  Creeps had witnessed that ultimate form of execution only twice in his years, and that was enough to steal the blood from his face, to send him into a fit of trembling, to make him, right there in front of a thousand onlookers, wet himself.

  “Ye promised,” he mouthed, barely able to draw breath, but loud enough for the magistrate to hear and come over to him.

  “I did promise leniency,” Jharkheld said quietly, “and so I will honor my word to you, but only if you cooperate. The choice is yours to make.”

  Those in the crowd close enough to hear groaned their protests, but Jharkheld ignored them.

  “I have four horses in waiting,” Jharkheld warned.

  Creeps started crying.

  “Take him to the block,” the magistrate instructed the guards. This time Creeps made no move against them, offered no resistance at all as they dragged him back, forced him into a kneeling position, and pushed his head down.

  “Ye promised,” Creeps softly cried his last words, but the cold magistrate only smiled and nodded. Not to Creeps, but to the large man standing beside him.

  The huge axe swept down, the crowd gasped as one, then broke into howls. The head of Creeps Sharky tumbled to the platform and rolled a short distance. One of the guards rushed to it and held it up, turning it to face the headless body. Legend had it that with a perfect, swift cut and a quick guard the beheaded man might still be conscious for a split second, long enough to see his own body, his face contorted into an expression of the purest, most exquisite horror.

  Not this time, though, for Creeps Sharky wore the same sad expression.

  “Beautiful,” Morik muttered sarcastically at the other end of the platform. “Yet, it’s a better fate by far than the rest of us will find this day.”

  Flanking him on either side, neither Wulfgar nor Tee-a-nicknick offered a reply.

  “Just beautiful,” the doomed rogue said again. Morik was not unaccustomed to finding himself in rather desperate situations, but this was the first time he ever felt himself totally without options. He shot Tee-a-nicknick a look of utter contempt then turned his attention to Wulfgar. The big man seemed so impassive and distanced from the mayhem around them that Morik envied him his oblivion.

  The rogue heard Jharkheld’s continuing banter as he worked up the crowd. He apologized for the rather unentertaining execution of Creeps Sharky, explaining the occasional need for such mercy. Else, why would anyone ever confess?

  Morik drowned out the magistrate’s blather and willed his mind to a place where he was safe and happy. He thought of Wulfgar, of how, against all odds, they had become friends. Once they had been rivals, the new barbarian rising in reputation on Half-Moon Street, particularly after he had killed the brute, Tree Block Breaker. The only remaining operator with a reputation to protect, Morik had considered eliminating Wulfgar, though murder had never really been the rogue’s preferred method.

  Then there had come the strangest of encounters. A dark elf—a damned drow! —had come to Morik in his rented room, had just walked in without warning, and had bade Morik to keep a close watch over Wulfgar but not to hurt the man. The dark elf had paid Morik well. Realizing that gold coins were better payment than the sharpened edge of drow weapons, the rogue had gone along with the plan, watching Wulfgar more and more closely as the days slipped past. They’d even becoming drinking partners, spending late nights, often until dawn, together at the docks.

  Morik had never heard from that dark elf again. If the order had come from for him to eliminate Wulfgar, he doubted he would have accepted the contract. He realized now that if he heard the dark elves were coming to kill the barbarian, Morik would have stood by Wulfgar.

  Well, the rogue admitted more realistically, he might not have stood beside Wulfgar, but he would have warned the barbarian, then run far, far away.

  Now there was nowhere to run. Morik wondered briefly again if those dark elves would show up to save this human in whom they had taken such an interest. Perhaps a legion of drow warriors would storm Prisoner’s Carnival, their fine blades slicing apart the macabre onlookers as they worked their way to the platform.

  The fantasy could not hold, for Morik knew they would not be coming for Wulfgar. Not this time.

  “I am truly sorry, my friend,” he apologized to Wulfgar, for Morik could not dismiss the notion that this situation was largely his fault.

  Wulfgar didn’t reply. Morik understood that the big man had not even heard his words, that his friend was already gone from this place, fallen deep within himself.

  Perhaps that was the best course to take. Looking at the sneering mob, hearing Jharkheld’s continuing speech, watching the headless body of Creeps Sharky being dragged across the platform, Morik wished that he, too, could so distance himself.

  The magistrate again told the tale of Creeps Sharky, of how these other three had conspired to murder that most excellent man, Captain Deudermont. Jharkheld made his way over to Wulfgar. He looked at the doomed man, shook his head, then turned back to the mob, prompting a response.

  There came a torrent of jeers and curses.

  “You are the worst of them all!” Jharkheld yelled in the barbarian’s face. “He was your friend, and you betrayed him!”

  “Keel haul ’im on Deudermont’s own ship!” came one anonymous demand.

  “Draw and quarter ’im, and feed ’im to the fishes!” yelled another.

  Jharkheld turned to the crowd and lifted his hand, demanding silence, and after a bristling moment they obeyed. “This one,” the magistrate said, “I believe we shall save for last.”

  That brought another chorus of howls.

  “And what a day we shall have,” said Jharkheld, the showman barker. “Three remaining, and all of them refusing to confess!”

  “Justice,” Morik whispered under his breath.

  Wulfgar stared straight ahead, unblinkingly, and only thoughts of poor Morik held him from laughing in Jharkheld’s ugly old face. Did the magistrate really believe that he could do anything to Wulfgar worse than the torments of Errtu? Could Jharkheld produce Catti-brie on the stage and ravish her, then dismember her in front of Wulfgar, as Errtu had done so many times? Could he bring in an illusionary Bruenor and bite through the dwarf’s skull, then use the remaining portion of the dwarf’s head as a bowl for brain stew? Could he inflict more physical pain upon Wulfgar than the demon who had practiced such torturing arts for millennia? At the end of it all, could Jharkheld bring Wulfgar back from the edge of death time and again so that it would begin anew?

  Wulfgar realized something profound and actually brightened. This was where Jharkheld and his stage paled against the Abyss. He would die here. At last he would be free.

  Jharkheld ran from the barbarian, skidding to a stop before Morik and grabbing the man’s slender face in his strong hand, turning Morik roughly to face him. “Do you admit your guilt?” he screamed.

  Morik almost did it, almost screamed out that he had indeed conspired to kill Deudermont. Yes, he thought, a quick plan formulating in his mind. He would admit to the conspiracy, but with the tattooed pi
rate only, trying to somehow save his innocent friend.

  His hesitation cost him the chance at that time, for Jharkheld gave a disgusted snort and snapped a backhanded blow across Morik’s face, clipping the underside of the rogue’s nose, a stinging technique that brought waves of pain shifting behind Morik’s eyes. By the time the man blinked away his surprise and pain, Jharkheld had moved on, looming before Tee-a-nicknick.

  “Tee-a-nicknick,” the magistrate said slowly, emphasizing every syllable, his method reminding the gathering of how strange, how foreign, this half-man was. “Tell me, Tee-a-nicknick, what role did you play?”

  The tattooed half-qullan pirate stared straight ahead, did not blink, and did not speak.

  Jharkheld snapped his fingers in the air, and his assistant ran out from the side of the platform, handing Jharkheld a wooden tube.

  Jharkheld publicly inspected the item, showing it to the crowd. “With this seemingly innocent pole, our painted friend here can blow forth a dart as surely as an archer can launch an arrow,” he explained. “And on that dart, the claw of a small cat, for instance, our painted friend can coat some of the most exquisite poisons. Concoctions that can make blood leak from your eyes, bring a fever so hot as to turn your skin the color of fire, or fill your nose and throat with enough phlegm to make every breath a forced and wretched-tasting labor are but a sampling of his vile repertoire.”

  The crowd played on every word, growing more disgusted and angry. Master of the show, Jharkheld measured their response and played to them, waiting for the right moment.

  “Do you admit your guilt?” Jharkheld yelled suddenly in Tee-a-nick-nick’s face.

  The tattooed pirate stared straight ahead, did not blink, and did not speak. Had he been full-blooded qullan, he might have cast a confusion spell at that moment, sending the magistrate stumbling away, baffled and forgetful, but Tee-a-nicknick was not pure blooded and had none of the innate magical abilities of his race. He did have qullan concentration, though, a manner, much like Wulfgar’s, of removing himself from the present scene before him.

  “You shall admit all,” Jharkheld promised, wagging his finger angrily in the man’s face, unaware of the pirate’s heritage and discipline, “but it will be too late.”

  The crowd went into a frenzy as the guards pulled the pirate free of his binding post and dragged him from one instrument of torture to another. After about half an hour of beating and whipping, pouring salt water over the wounds, even taking one of Tee-a-nicknick’s eyes with a hot poker, the pirate still showed no signs of speaking. No confession, no pleading or begging, hardly even a scream.

  Frustrated beyond endurance, Jharkheld went to Morik just to keep things moving. He didn’t even ask the man to confess. In fact he slapped Morik viciously and repeatedly every time the man tried to say a word. Soon they had Morik on the rack, the torturer giving the wheel a slight, almost imperceptible—except to the agonized Morik—turn every few moments.

  Meanwhile, Tee-a-nicknick continued to bear the brunt of the torment. When Jharkheld went to him again, the pirate couldn’t stand, so the guards pulled him to his feet and held him.

  “Ready to tell me the truth?” Jharkheld asked.

  Tee-a-nicknick spat in his face.

  “Bring the horses!” the magistrate shrieked, trembling with rage. The crowd went wild. It wasn’t often that the magistrate went to the trouble of a drawing and quartering. Those who had witnessed it boasted it was the greatest show of all.

  Four white horses, each trailing a sturdy rope, were ridden into the square. The crowd was pushed back by the city guard as the horses approached the platform. Magistrate Jharkheld guided his men through the precise movements of the show. Soon Tee-a-nicknick was securely strapped in place, wrists and ankles bound one to each horse.

  On the magistrate’s signal, the riders nudged their powerful beasts, one toward each point on the compass. The tattooed pirate instinctively bunched up his muscles, fighting back, but resistance was useless. Tee-a-nicknick was stretched to the limits of his physical coil. He grunted and gasped, and the riders and their well-trained mounts kept him at the very limits. A moment later, there came the loud popping of a shoulder snapping out of joint; soon after one of Tee-a-nicknick’s knees exploded.

  Jharkheld motioned for the riders to hold steady, and he walked over to the man, a knife in one hand and a whip in the other. He showed the gleaming blade to the groaning Tee-a-nicknick, rolling it over and over before the man’s eyes. “I can end the agony,” the magistrate promised. “Confess your guilt, and I will kill you swiftly.”

  The tattooed half-qullan grunted and looked away. On Jharkheld’s wave, the riders stepped their horses out a bit more.

  The man’s pelvis shattered, and how he howled at last! How the crowd yelled in appreciation as the skin started to rip!

  “Confess!” Jharkheld yelled.

  “I stick him!” Tee-a-nicknick cried. Before the crowd could even groan its disappointment Jharkheld yelled, “Too late!” and cracked his whip.

  The horses jumped away, tearing Tee-a-nicknick’s legs from his torso. Then the two horses bound to the man’s wrists had him out straight, his face twisted in the horror of searing agony and impending death for just an instant before quartering that portion as well.

  Some gasped, some vomited, and most cheered wildly.

  “Justice,” Robillard said to the growling, disgusted Deudermont. “Such displays make murder an unpopular profession.”

  Deudermont snorted. “It merely feeds the basest of human emotions,” he argued.

  “I don’t disagree,” Robillard replied. “I don’t make the laws, but unlike your barbarian friend, I abide by them. Are we any more sympathetic to pirates we catch out on the high seas?”

  “We do as we must,” Deudermont argued. “We do not torture them to sate our twisted hunger.”

  “But we take satisfaction in sinking them,” Robillard countered. “We don’t cry for their deaths, and often, when we are in pursuit of a companion privateer, we do not stop to pull them from the sharks. Even when we do take them as prisoners, we subsequently drop them at the nearest port, often Luskan, for justice such as this.”

  Deudermont had run out of arguments, so he just stared ahead. Still, to the civilized and cultured captain’s thinking, this display in no way resembled justice.

  Jharkheld went back to work on Morik and Wulfgar before the many attendants had even cleared the blood and grime from the square in front of the platform.

  “You see how long it took him to admit the truth?” the magistrate said to Morik. “Too late, and so he suffered to the end. Will you be as much a fool?”

  Morik, whose limbs were beginning to pull past the breaking point, started to reply, started to confess, but Jharkheld put a finger over the man’s lips. “Now is not the time,” he explained.

  Morik started to speak again, so Jharkheld had him tightly gagged, a dirty rag stuffed into his mouth, another tied around his head to secure it.

  The magistrate moved around the back of the rack and produced a small wooden box, the rat box it was called. The crowd howled its pleasure. Recognizing the horrible instrument, Morik’s eyes popped wide and he struggled futilely against the unyielding bonds. He hated rats, had been terrified of them all of his life.

  His worst nightmare was coming true.

  Jharkheld came to the front of the platform again and held the box high, turning it slowly so that the crowd could see its ingenious design. The front was a metal mesh cage, the other three walls and the ceiling solid wood. The bottom was wooden as well, but it had a sliding panel that left an exit hole. A rat would be pushed into the box, then the box would be put on Morik’s bared belly and the bottom door removed. Then the box would be lit on fire.

  The rat would escape through the only means possible—through Morik.

  A gloved man came out holding the rat and quickly got the boxed creature in place atop Morik’s bared belly. He didn’t light it then, but rather, l
et the animal walk around, its feet tapping on flesh, every now and then nipping. Morik struggled futilely.

  Jharkheld went to Wulfgar. Given the level of excitement and enjoyment running through the mob, the magistrate wondered how he would top it all, wondered what he might do to this stoic behemoth that would bring more spectacle than the previous two executions.

  “Like what we’re doing to your friend Morik?” the magistrate asked.

  Wulfgar, who had seen the bowels of Errtu’s domain, who had been chewed by creatures that would terrify an army of rats, did not reply.

  “They hold you in the highest regard,” Robillard remarked to Deudermont. “Rarely has Luskan seen so extravagant a multiple execution.”

  The words echoed in Captain Deudermont’s mind, particularly the first sentence. To think that his standing in Luskan had brought this about. No, it had provided sadistic Jharkheld with an excuse for such treatment of fellow human beings, even guilty ones. Deudermont remained unconvinced that either Wulfgar or Morik had been involved. The realization that this was all done in his honor disgusted Deudermont profoundly.

  “Mister Micanty!” he ordered, quickly scribbling a note he handed to the man.

  “No!” Robillard insisted, understanding what Deudermont had in mind and knowing how greatly such an action would cost Sea Sprite, both with the authorities and the mob. “He deserves death!”

  “Who are you to judge?” Deudermont asked.

  “Not I!” the wizard protested. “Them,” he explained, sweeping his arm out to the crowd.

  Deudermont scoffed at the absurd notion.

  “Captain, we’ll be forced to leave Luskan, and we’ll not be welcomed back soon,” Robillard pointed out.

  “They will forget as soon as the next prisoners are paraded out for their enjoyment, likely on the morrow’s dawn.” He gave a wry, humorless smile. “Besides, you don’t like Luskan anyway.”