The Executioner's Cane

by Anne Brooke

  As Simon rolled his head, he caught a glimpse of a small rounded figure beneath him to the right. His vision was so darkened he could not have recognised her in the flesh but the remnants of his mind etched her name in stone. Jemelda. It was right she should be here as she and her fellows had judged him to the hilt and found him wanting. It was right she should watch his punishment all the way to death. Odd how he could accept it today, when before he had fought it and begged for help. He tried to smile and felt the blood welling up from his cracked lips. He needed her to come nearer, he needed Jemelda to hear him.

  When he tried to speak her name, no sound came out of his mouth. Not only that but the effort cost him dear in terms of the tug on his upper body and the almost unbearable pull on his arms. Darkness jagged in front of his eyes and he fought to remain awake. Jemelda.

  The plea came from the depths of his mind, but he had little hope she would hear it. Still, a flash of white he sensed more in his thoughts than in his eyes sprang past him and he felt the soft passage of the snow-raven’s wing on his hair. Then the bird was gone and he could have wept again at the loss of it. Please, please.

  “What do you want, Simon the Murderer?”

  He blinked in the direction of the cook’s voice. The ice in her words, the depth of suffering behind them, brought fresh agonies to his bones. Again, he tried to speak to answer her but could not. When she asked the question again, this time more quietly, his head fell backwards and the gnarled angles of the tree pressed into his hair. He found he was panting. Unable to catch his breath, it felt like he was being hanged all over again, but this time without the rope at his neck. How could he ever tell Jemelda what he needed to bring his suffering to its true fullness?

  Use me.

  The shock of the strange voice filling his head made him gasp and he struggled for comprehension. It was neither his own, nor anyone or anything he could recognise. He had once heard the snow-raven’s voice, but that was swift and fragmented, like the wind, and spoken with images he had needed time to understand. This new voice was different from any he had ever heard in his life: it was born from the clouds but also buried deep within the earth; soft like a playing cat and as hard as the once-proud mountain; it clung to his mind and shuddered through his skin. He longed to hear its strangeness again but wondered if it would destroy him.

  You know me already. You have always known me.

  Simon was about to protest the lie of those words which filled and surrounded him, but in that moment, the silver and black shapes created by the letters in his thoughts spoke their own kind of truth.

  You are the mind-cane. You … you have never spoken before. Somehow his own whispered disbelief made its logic known, in a way his lips could not. The shape of the cane’s utterances was a hook to hang his mind on and a wall to rest against.

  No matter. Use me.

  Simon could not see how. He also could not see how the cane could communicate with him when he had hidden it away so as to be all the more open with these people. What he wanted was a greater pain to purge his wrongdoings. If the mind-cane wished to do this, then in his weakened state it would kill him. So be it then, so be it.

  Do it, the Lost One said, with the last of his mind-strength bringing the object he desired to the topmost of his outer thoughts. Make Jemelda bring this to me.

  A burst of silver and terrible heat in his body, and the mind-cane’s words vanished from his grasp. Jemelda too was gone. Or at least he could no longer sense her. He could in fact no longer sense anything. No. He would fight to remain here, where these people had placed him, for as long as they wished it. Death was not a door he should walk through until they willed it. More than anything, he needed to drink deeper of the pain they had granted him. So much deeper. What remained uncertain was whether he might stay alive for long enough to feel it.

  Simon did not know how much time passed as he hung there, arms extended from the ropes that tied him to the tree, legs dangling in the loose bonds that prevented him from gaining traction to ease the pure agony of it. He could not tell whether it was day or night. Although it had been after midday when the Lammas people had tied him here, it could have been hour-cycles or day-cycles since then. He did not think he would survive for more than a day here though. Not with the pain and this great thirst upon him. He wasn’t sure but he thought he might be groaning, although he didn’t know how he could even produce such a sound.

  Something happened then. Something new which he hadn’t experienced in this solitary prison of necessary pain. He felt the touch of a hand upon his naked foot. He felt it and gasped. It seemed a lifetime-cycle since anyone had touched him. Though it might mean his death, his blood rejoiced in the sensation of warmth. Even though everywhere on his skin he was hot and cold at once. Immediately he felt something rough at his side – not flesh – and a shape at the edge of his vision.

  “Drink this.”

  The words were Jemelda’s. She might have been whispering but, to Simon, the sound was as piercing as the noise of battle in the Gathandrian fields. His thoughts filled up with the memory of what had happened there: the violent deaths of so many Gathandrians; the sheer presence and threat of the mind-executioner; the terror of what might be happening to Ralph; and most of all his own utter helplessness. The images swept through his mind with an insistence like that of the boundless seas. He could not gainsay them.

  And, without tears, he was weeping. Gasping after a forgiveness which would never come and he must live with the pain of it always, no matter whether he died in the flesh or not. He had to live with it. When he opened his lips, hands which were neither harsh nor gentle seized his head and a cold bitter liquid filled his mouth. His eyes widened, though he could still see nothing and he swallowed it down, as much as he was given, recognising the salt taste and rejoicing in the pain it would bring him. Winter-sour beer. The drink given to the livestock before they died. It hastened their ends, and would hasten his, but would deepen the agony he took from it. It was what he had wished for. The mind-cane, and Jemelda, had understood. Here, on this tree, his flesh would be divided from his blood, his skin from his bone, his heart from his mind. He would, once and for all, suffer the kind of agony he had brought to others. It was right. It was right.

  Faster than he had anticipated, the pain set in. His throat felt as if a hundred needles were piercing his skin and the warmth of blood flooded his mouth. For a long moment strung out of time itself, the harsh liquid he had drunk oozed down into his body. It filled him with icy spikes. As if the drink itself was cutting outwards through his flesh. He screamed. He didn’t know he was capable of screaming or even if anyone other than himself could hear the sound. But his mouth formed the shape of it. He could not get any air, or not enough to sustain him. Something grasped at his head and the beaker disappeared from his lips. Simon struggled to turn, bring the deadly brew back to his mouth but cool fingers held him back. He felt the scarlet shape of her name engraving itself in his skin even as the poison inside him plunged outwards to meet it.

  Jemelda.

  Then his thoughts vanished to a place he had never gone. The cruelty of the stars and the burning depths of the earth. The pain travelled with him. It was part of him, it was him. But beneath the agony of it dwelt the understanding that he was, perhaps for the first time willingly, stepping on the path he was meant to take. So, with the pain, came satisfaction and peace. The Lost One watched in wonder as lines of crimson scarred his arms and body, blood weeping from the wounds. With each drop, a name came to his mind, etched in black and dripping with menace. Some of them he knew – the shadows of their faces drifting in and out of his memory – and some of them he did not. But all of them were dead because of him, all of them he had killed to keep Ralph Tregannon’s good opinion and to save himself. Every iota of the pain he felt would be worth it – a sacrifice for what he had done. And if it killed him in truth, then let the will of the gods and the stars be done. Because, with each name, the purity of the pain in his f
lesh plunged deeper and his mind became ever more splintered.

  Soon he would be as nothing. Worse than nothing. And the only things which would be left were the snow-raven, the mind-cane, and Ralph. At the thought of the Lammas Lord he must surely leave behind, he found he could weep at last.

  As the first tear marked him, silver and white exploded from within the dead names’ darkness, and he found he was falling, his body racked with pain and his mind empty. When he stopped falling, he truly understood that then he would die.

  Let it come then, let it come, he breathed.

  Ralph

  Instinct drives him. At his feet lies Simon’s father. He had thought the man was dead; had Simon told him this, or had he merely assumed it? This is not so and the Lammas Lord will use this knowledge to save the star-forsaken scribe, or may they all die in the attempt. With one hand he grabs Annyeke and with the other he flings the emeralds up into the air. As they flicker and dance on the wind, Ralph seizes the old man and pulls him closer.

  “May the gods and stars take us where we so much need to be,” he whispers.

  A roar of encompassing flame and the three of them are spun through darkness on an impossible journey. Annyeke’s colours rampage through him: yellow and green. Meanwhile, the old man whimpers, but does not struggle.

  Ralph has scarcely begun to orientate himself, if such an act were possible, when the green fire swallows itself up once more and comes to rest in the jewels clinging to his fingers, leaving him and his companions exposed to open skies and wild sound. By the gods, he will never grow used to this method of travel, which remains neither elegant nor dignified. But oh how necessary it is.

  He is up on his feet before he has time to take another breath. He knows the shouting before he sees the people, as he cannot forget the voices of those who were once his villagers. Jemelda’s voice comes most clearly to him, and that of the blacksmith too. Above and beyond all these, he sees Simon, his body wracked with suffering on the tree. The rope pierces his flesh, and his tongue is lolling sideways as if desperate for water which will never arrive in time.

  Ralph cries out, one long sharp note that pierces the noise of the huddle of people witnessing this death. He half-lifts the old man in his arms and drags him across the stone courtyard. He doesn’t know if he will need him or what the old man can do, but the emeralds brought him to the scribe’s father, and Ralph refuses to let him go. Behind him, Annyeke says something he can’t hear and he doesn’t stop to listen. He must reach Simon, before it is too late. Perhaps it is already too late. When he glances round, desperate to see if she has any wisdom she can impart, the First Elder is running in the other direction, away from the tree of death. Above her the strange white raven flies, calling out its sorrow in the falling snow. She has betrayed him and later there will be a reckoning, he thinks as darkness fills his mind. If Simon dies then Ralph’s vengeance will never find rest.

  Three times his feet slip on the scatterings of resting snow across stone, the old man holding him back and wailing like a young marsh-cat, but finally he is there, at the execution place. The people part for him like the trees part for the wind and he spits out his commands as they spring from his very depths.

  “You kill this man when it is I who commanded him to do the things that ruined you? How you have judged wrongly, and punished the hearth-dog when you should punish his master. I have spent too long grieving for my crimes, but that time is past. I am here and I order you to bring this innocent man down.”

  All these year-cycles, and Ralph has never berated the villagers in such a way. Yes, he has suspected them of treason, harried and pursued them and murdered them too, but he has never confronted them like this. Neither has he admitted his wrongdoing, and the shape of the words in his mouth brings its own strange freedom.

  Jemelda, his treacherous cook, speaks first, stepping up and gazing directly at him as if she is an equal. “It is too late, Lammas Lord, as the murderer is dead.”

  The blacksmith curses and spits on the ground. “He died too soon, great sir. The rope should have kept his agony for longer.”

  Without a thought, Ralph knocks the man down so he sprawls sideways, slipping on the snow, and the people surge back. So much has his power amongst them diminished and how he should have remembered this before fighting with those he needs to appease.

  “No, no.” The voice comes from one he has forgotten and the people have discounted. He glances down, mind pierced with a rising sense of pain, and the villagers crowding them both come to a halt, as the old man cries out again. “My son, my son, I abandoned you and now you are dead.”

  Ralph can see it is true. Simon’s tongue is swelling even in the cold air, and his whole body is slumped on the tree. His heart pounds like the absent drums heralding death and he knows all in one torrent how his crimes have returned to pierce him. He staggers forward but the old man is faster. He reaches his dead son and wraps his arms around his feet, pulling at the ropes that bind him. He is weeping loud enough to wake all the Lammas dead but Simon is beyond any response. Ralph pushes his way through the people to reach him.

  “Help me untie him,” he orders, panting hard and not looking at any of them. There will be time for his own grief later. “We must take this man down. Don’t you think there’s been death enough in these lands?”

  His voice is steadier than he’d hoped, but all he can sense in his head are the colours of despair: black, purple, white. So it has come to this and yesterday which he thought the worst is not so.

  It is the cook’s husband who helps him first. The old man holds Simon’s body as best he can while Ralph struggles with the knots. The blacksmith has tied them well, but a combination of desperation and brute force at last gets the scribe free. Finally the cook’s husband and Ralph lay Simon’s body onto the snow. As Bradyn continues to cry over his son, the Lammas Lord pulls off his cloak and lays it over the scribe though only the gods and stars know why he needs to be protected from the snow now. At the same time, Ralph wonders once more where Annyeke has gone and curses her absence.

  Annyeke

  She saw at once this scene did not require her. Funny how, since taking on the Eldership of Gathandria, her instincts had become sharper. They had no doubt experienced more use lately and, besides, something else was calling her: a narrow golden cord in her mind drawing her away from the courtyard with its death and despair and towards the castle. She refused to think of Simon and what might be happening to him, she couldn’t mourn for him yet. It was impossible to deny whatever was calling her and, who knows, it might be the key to help the Lost One. More than anything else at that moment, she longed to help him, even now.

  As she ran across the cobbled stones layered with snow, the icy wind pummelling her face, she heard the sound of the snow-raven crying out over her head. Even though she feared it less than she used to, its piercing note reverberated in her mind. A sudden gust, and its pale softness was closer than she’d imagined, the wings brushing through her hair. She ducked, but already the great bird was ahead of her, flying round the corner of the castle and then upwards back into overcast sky. Was it where she was meant to go? To the corner of the castle? The gold cord in her mind was growing ever more powerful, pulsating until it drove almost all her other thoughts into hiding.

  She reached the other side of the battered walls, slipped a few more paces and fell to her knees. At head height she saw a small door, which was glowing, sparking crimson and black and silver. The shape of it sprang fully-formed into her imagination as if it had always been there and she knew what it was at once. Cursing, she scrabbled with the opening and pulled the door outwards to reveal a small cupboard. It smelled of spices and bread. Worse than anything this day might demand of her however was the presence of the mind-cane. Annyeke couldn’t help but give a small cry as its physical proximity connected with the image of its calling in her thoughts. It was like fire and ice, air and sea filling her very being, impossible to understand and impossible to contain.<
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  Before she could scramble backwards in a vain attempt to protect herself, the cane sprang out, all but pushing her down. She had no real idea how it had managed to miss her or what its intentions were, but as it freed itself from its strange prison and righted itself in the air, Annyeke stood up and smoothed down her dress. She’d be damned for the eternal time-cycle if she, First Elder of Gathandria, did not face this challenge on her feet and with something approaching dignity.

  “What do you want?” she asked in a whisper, cautious still about allowing the words she spoke to dwell in her mind only for fear of what the cane might do to her there.

  She didn’t expect an answer as, to her knowledge, the mind-cane had never communicated with anyone apart from Simon, unless it was to threaten or wound, and that she supposed was a kind of communication in itself. But the cane sprang to her side as if obeying an order she had not given and the next moment she felt the warm glitter of its touch for a brief moment on her hand. From some deep-seated obstinacy even she hadn’t realised she possessed, she somehow prevented herself from crying out. At the same time, the sound of weeping rolled over her: the old man, Simon’s father. It was the end then, the Lost One was truly gone.