Eden, Dawn

by Archer Swift

Chapter 36

  “To answer the riddle of how he got from his camp to Scott’s,” Dylain said enticingly, “I call on a most reliable witness. The traitor’s clan member and best friend, Judd Williams!”

  Like death warmed up, Judd stood forward, shuffling on his feet as the crowd drew quiet. “Uh, on two occasions…” he hesitated for a conflicted second, “…I’ve spotted Ristan arriving back to camp at first light,” he agonisingly spat the information out. “It was clear he had been outside the camp boundaries in the dark hours.” Then he looked at me, directly into my eyes. “And the second occasion,” he said, almost questioning me, begging for an answer, “was this morning.”

  Again, the audience vented their fury; rage mixed with contempt and spleen. This time, even the Mzees shook their heads vehemently, disgusted with me. I wanted to explain myself, not to my leaders or to the crowd or to Dylain, but to Judd. I so wanted to tell him that he wasn’t wrong in his statement, but that he had jumped to the wrong conclusion. His accurate testimony sealed a false judgment. More than anything else, Judd’s account slammed any last doubts that I might be innocent.

  “Tsk, Traitor? You wanted to defend yourself, eh?” Dylain spread his hands out wide and clicked his tongue in mock pity, his face alight with unbridled, delicious smugness. “Using the dark hours to commit your abominable crime. Just like them! Armed with one of their weapons.” Spinning back to his audience, he puffed out his chest. “But … but there’s still one more thing…”

  Always the showman! I’m finished, but he wants to plunge the knife deeper.

  “This weapon of his,” he waved the dart high in the air, “injects a poison that paralyses a victim before causing excruciating pain. Tell me, Traitor; where does this poison come from?”

  I just shook my head despondently. Pointing out that he had lied about the pain inflicted by the weapon would not have helped my plight. I would have to explain why I had so much knowledge about them and their weapons. I had to give Dylain credit. He left nothing to chance.

  A mean cur of a human being, he sashayed over to me and without warning, jabbed his forefinger in my left eye. “What is the source of this poison, Traitor?”

  I winced as pain tore through my head, and tears filled my eyes—in the background, I heard Dylain’s contemptible horde roar with laughter at my injury. I rubbed my assaulted eyeball only to aggravate my bruised forehead. But suddenly, strangely, the pain dissipated. Almost instantly. Or rather, a horrible thought punctured my already beleaguered mind, and trumped my pain and discomfort. Numbed, I felt an icy-frost envelope me.

  How did he know I knew about the poison’s source?

  Has Shumbalic betrayed me? Miltredic?

  “Answer me, Traitor! What is the source of the poison?”

  “The weeds,” I replied short of breath; squinting, my eyes still misted over. No, they were both so sincere, so completely genuine. The moments we had shared could not have been a charade. The only conclusion I could accept was that Miltredic must have been followed. He must be in danger. His family must be at risk.

  Shumbalic!

  “The what?” said Dylain, his voice shrill with ecstatic delight, revelling in my demise.

  I was horribly distracted. “What?”

  Dylain scoffed. “What is the source of the poison you used, Traitor?”

  “The weeds.”

  “The weeds!” Dylain turned to his audience duped by his skulduggery. “This traitor not only murdered our most-vaunted Mzee, a man we all loved deeply and looked up to, but he was planning on killing us all. It was he who planted the weeds along the river in the last year…”

  Now I knew how he manipulated the Mzees, why they had consented to this inquisition. He volunteered to clean up the weeds. Perhaps he claimed to have found some link to me. In the wild insanity that characterised our fragile human psyche, pounded by ten years of desperate survival, Dylain had played on the suspicions and phobias of everyone, including the Mzees. I was never going to get a fair hearing, not even in a private setting.

  Stumbling around in my own thoughts, it was only now that I realised the throng was baying for a public execution again. Cainn and Ruzzell were masterful rabble-rousers.

  “Quiet! Order!” yelled Dylain, and the crowd went silent.

  ‘Order’ … the signal to his loyal rooters to reel in the audience?

  “As I said, before this conspirator asked to defend himself, I too would love nothing better than a public execution given the crimes he has committed, but I offer you an alternative.” Dylain cocked his head and splayed his hands. “No longer can we remain vulnerable to them, and the alliance they have struck with Ristan Abel. If they can get him to turn, what’s to stop it from happening again? Our group of Mzees is old, and it’s weak. Feeble, puny…”

  Here we go! The finale, the climax!

  The Mzees were clearly not expecting this. They looked at each other baffled, mystified. Dumbstruck.

  “I’ve sat in the presence of these codgers for a year now,” Dylain clicked his tongue and waved his hand, “pleading with them for a change to how we do things. Freedom from these old-school values that stifle initiative and independence; that kowtows to the brainless and the spineless. A change that would give us a chance of a future beyond mere survival. But no, they’ve imprisoned us with these conservative boy-scout ethics; forcing us to watch our damn Ps and Qs.” He chewed on a string of curses for effect. “They’re stuck in their ways, and where has that brought us … to the brink of extinction! Enough! Enough I say. I could give you a public execution, but we’d be no safer, no stronger. And this bunch of senile old men and women would want to keep you pathetic and vulnerable.”

  The concern and dread I now saw marked across our leaders’ faces caused jets of anger to shoot through my soul. He was humiliating them; men and women who had wisely and selflessly served us at great personal cost.

  “Make me Chief, Chief of our people, and I will lead you to a better, more secure future!”

  Cainn and Ruzzell started applauding, urging the crowd to do the same. The young men immediately followed suit, mindlessly compliant to his every prompt. The noise was deafening, the support ostensibly overwhelming.

  I looked around the audience, my left eye still stinging and moist. Those on their feet cheering made up a third of the entire crowd, yet they tugged at their neighbours, urging them to join in.

  A table appeared, carried in by Shawz and Justiz—otherwise known as Mouse, one of the young men who had accompanied Cainn in the morning delegation. Dylain mounted the table and stood above us lapping up the applause. Revelling in his revolution.

  “Come on,” he said. “I need your support … this is a day of history, a new beginning. Give me your heart and I will give you this traitor’s head on a plate.”

  Yikes! So much for Scott’s way of doing things.

  Ruzzell and Cainn both roared and revved Dylain’s zealous converts on feverishly—the fanatical young blades, who seemed first to encourage, then demand and eventually threaten others to their feet. I looked at Judd; dejected and downcast. So down, I thought he would topple over. Reeling on his feet, refusing to clap or cheer. He looked at me momentarily before yanking his head away.

  I was just about to turn to see if I could spot Gellica when I felt someone grab me. Arms wrapped tightly around me.

  It was her!

  She grabbed my face in her hands. “Rist, tell me, please tell me the truth. Did you kill…” her head shook, unable to stomach the possibility, “um, did you?”

  I looked her in the eyes. Despite the crazy noise and my cracking headache, despite that my life could end in the next few minutes, a tranquil moment dawned. The riotous noise around us seemed to skirt to the background. The images of chaos and anarchy faded to the edges. I looked into her warm hazel-brown eyes, wet with tears. Beautiful. I had the chance to tell her the truth. I could now find peace.

  “Gellica, you know me. I loved Scott like a father,” the tears stream
ed down my cheeks. “I couldn’t harm him anymore than I could hurt you.”

  She ran her fingers along my chin; her eyes, dazzling and uplifting, locked on mine. Time seemed to freeze. She leaned in as her eyes closed. My body trembled. She kissed me, her warm lips pressed against mine, lingering. I kissed her back, wonderful; the pain in my head eased as I breathed her in.

  It was our first kiss; it might be our only kiss. In seconds, I felt her pulled away from me as I was jerked to my feet. No! I wanted to spend every moment of my life with her; we might just have had our last.

  “Gellica…” my eyes locked on her as Brucie and Cartyr dragged her away. “I love you…”

  I wasn’t sure if she heard me … Ruzzell and Cainn lugged me in front of the table Dylain perched on.

  “She’s all mine now, Lover Boy,” taunted Ruzzell.

  I ignored him.

  Did you hear me, Gellica?

  “Silence! Order! Right, I receive your vote of confidence. As Head Chief, I make one concession,” he said as he turned to face five terrified Mzees. “I will not only let these elders live, but will retain them as my counsellors. They have much wisdom to share, and I will draw on that acumen if necessary to chart our way forward. Now, that’s enough kind mercies. Hmm, what do we do with the traitor, the one who aligned with our mortal enemies?”

  “Kill him! Kill him!” Cainn and Ruzzell worked the crowd, pumping their cronies into action. I heard the Mzees trying to appeal against my death, but their voices were lost in the wall of noise.

  A terrifying hush fell upon the crowd as Dylain held his hands up high, charming them into silence. “Kill him, you ask,” he teased before rubbing his hands together. Sneering, he slobbered over his next words: “Yes, yes … let’s do that!”

  Dylain’s heart was black as pitch. As dark as a starless, midnight sky. And as septic as a neglected latrine.

  I felt a breath escape me, shuddering out so violently it hurt.

  My end was near.