The Executioner's Cane

by Anne Brooke

  Not so: you must hold that remembrance, and look again, my friend.

  The mind-cane had never spoken to him, in any fashion, with such gentleness before, and Simon was moved to obey. Not that any other choice remained to him, as the both of them were together in this silver no-land, poised between one time and the next, just as he had been at the Lammas outlands before the great mountains.

  He turned his attention back to the cane’s carving. For a while, longer than he would have wished even though he did not think of himself as an impatient man, nothing changed. Then he realised the carving was not only beginning to glow a deeper shade of silver, but it was pulsating too, slowly turning as if linking itself to a more demanding rhythm, one Simon could not yet hear.

  He could not help himself, he reached out to touch it. Before he could complete the gesture, fire leapt from the cane, a long rich flame of all the colours in the world and more besides, piercing the silver structure around them and flying out towards the skies. Simon gasped and rose to his feet, staring as the flame spread itself wider and wider even as it travelled upwards until at last the whole expanse of the sky was linked to the cane’s constellations. He heard singing also, the voice of the mind-cane multiplied a thousand times until the magic of the notes filled his whole being, body and thought, skin, bone and blood. He thought he had never heard anything so beautiful and never would do so again, and he listened and gazed, quite unable to do otherwise, as the fire linked the hidden stars to the land, and back again, and all the gods sang the beauty and meaning of it.

  It was for this he had come; it was for this he had been formed. May the gods and stars themselves grant him the joy and memory of it, he prayed, and knew his plea was surely answered. So the song continued until, in the end, he could take no more joy, being only of the land not yet of the skies, and somewhere the mind-cane knew this, as it knew everything, and the fire ceased, returning to its source, and the song was quiet and everything around them was still.

  After a time-cycle and a time-cycle again, Simon voiced his thought to the cane, knowing at last the strange truth of it. You are the stars, aren’t you, he said. You are the stars and the gods themselves if we could only see them; the carving you carry is no carving as we know it but the life and pulse of the world above, dwelling here on the land below.

  He needed no answer, but the mind-cane gave it him nonetheless: Yes. I am the beginning and the end, the stars, the moon and the sun, the earth you stand on and everything between. Know me.

  With that, the silver glow around the carving flew to Simon’s hand even as he reached up to catch it. If catching such a phenomenon was even a possibility, but had he not seen things as strange as this before? This time, he felt no pain or sudden jolt of power, as had been the custom with the mind-cane when it linked with him. Instead, his mind opened out so all the colours and light, all the sound and silence of the world flowed through his thought, and he found he was laughing with the kind of delight he had never known. His skin too was glowing with reflected light and he could almost track the journey of the cane’s life-force as it passed through his blood; he was at the same time utterly overpowered and utterly free.

  He didn’t know for how long a cycle the wisdom of the mind-cane stayed with him but he understood when it left: at the right time, when he could see how too much happiness might well be beyond his ability to live through. He understood something else too; why the cane had communicated with him in this way, and what it was now intending to do.

  Slowly the sense of overwhelming joy and release drifted away, although the memory of it hovered, like the silver stars and moon, in the depths of his mind, and in his blood and on his skin too. He didn’t think he would ever lose it, but other truths remained. His visions had been right.

  Simon sat down once more. The mind-cane drew closer, its vast connection to the stars and gods above no longer visible but the Lost One knew it remained, if unseen. He took a breath and ran both hands through his hair.

  “Is this what must be? You have decided?” he asked the artefact, finding it easier to voice the words aloud rather than permit them to dwell only in his thoughts where he feared they might prove too powerful to bear. “I don’t believe I can …”

  Then he found he couldn’t finish the sentence, his face wet with sudden tears he was unable to brush away. By the gods and stars themselves, they knew him to the core so what need to hide? His grief itself surprised him as he had not realised his affections had grown so silently and been rooted so deep. Even the glimpse of the joy beyond this life did not lessen the sense of sorrows to be borne now. His end was not yet a while, and all things still needed to be lived through for a time-cycle and a time-cycle to come. So be it.

  “I don’t believe I have the strength to bear it,” he finished quietly, gazing at the mind-cane. “So much have you settled yourself inside me.”

  Where I will remain, where it matters.

  In spite of all to come, the Lost One couldn’t help but laugh. “You are outside the great time-cycle and I within it, or you would not think such thoughts so easily.”

  We are different but we are the same.

  Simon allowed this concept to work its slow way through him before speaking. “Yes, in some ways we are, now. But come, you have a purpose and together the two of us must fulfil it, or what will the gods do then?”

  He stood up and took the cane in his grasp, treasuring its smoothness and warmth against his skin. How at home it felt there. If he had been pondering how the journey back to the world they had come from would be, then there was no time to consider it as the view in front of him shimmered and reformed itself into the Lammas fields. In the distance, the Tregannon castle rose up, jagged but on the way to wholeness once more, against the night sky.

  “Simon.” It was Ralph who spoke first, already stepping forward and clutching him so he did not fall. Which the Lost One might well have done as the method of returning had made his eyes swim and his skin feel hot. So much for thinking this time was easy. “Simon, you’re here.”

  The Lost One smiled at the foolishness of the Lammas Lord’s words, under which so much dwelt that Ralph did not know how to express. If the stars were willing, he would no doubt have to get used to this; the Lammas Lord had always been different.

  He gripped Ralph’s hand, leant his forehead to the other man’s for a heartbeat or two, rejoicing in the wildness and new strength of Lord Tregannon’s mind. His thought-recovery was progressing beyond the Lost One’s hopes, and the value of the emeralds had proved immeasurable. But it was Ralph himself who had made the possibility of mind-healing real. Simon could not forget it.

  “Yes, I am here,” he answered simply. “Did you think I would not be?”

  Ralph smiled a response, gathering his leadership and his sense of dignity around him again like a new cloak.

  “Of course,” he said, stepping away. “You cannot stay away from me for long.”

  Simon raised his eyebrows at that and the mind-cane fizzed a little in his hand. Ralph glanced at it and coughed.

  “And nor I from you,” he said, lowering his voice even though there was nobody around them to hear. “You know it. So, what will happen now?”

  Ah yes then, they had reached this point sooner than the Lost One had wished, but so it must be. The mind-cane had made its choice, but it was up to Simon to bring it to fruition. He prayed for the courage to carry out this act to the full as, without his own willing consent, the cane would have no choice but to stay. If this happened, then he would be no better than the mind-executioner himself.

  He brushed his fingers over Ralph’s face, partly for his own comforting. Then he took several paces away from him, so he was standing with a clear view of both the castle and the ruined mountains.

  “This,” Simon said, stretching his arms as wide as he could, still holding the mind-cane. “This must happen now, and may my own heart utterly consent to it.”

  He wasn’t ready, not by a long river, but the ca
ne had made it clear the time was now and he would have to bear it as best he could. So the Lost One stood, hands outstretched towards the sky, waiting though he wasn’t sure for what. At first the heavens were empty, only the stars in sight. The mind-cane hummed in his hand and he could feel its vibration penetrating his skin and, again, one lone tear slid slowly down his cheek.

  For a time-cycle longer, the sky continued to be clear of anything but stars and still the Lost One waited. He knew as if it had been branded on his bones he had to do this, he had no choice. Or rather, he had already chosen, no matter the loss to come. His arms grew tired and his head ached, and from nowhere he found he was praying, to the gods and stars, and to the great Gathandrian Spirit , wherever it might dwell: in the sky, in the air, in the earth, in the cane. And, over and over again, the words in his mind were these: great Spirit, come, come, great Spirit.

  What held him there, apart from Ralph’s presence, was something deeper he could hardly express to himself: the understanding what he did now had been waited for throughout all time-cycles. It was in some way more important than his discovery of the cane, the terror of the mind-executioner, the wars and even, perhaps, his growing connection with the Lammas Lord, forged from guilt and pain but opening out into light, and love.

  So he waited, peering into empty sky. Then, when he thought he would stumble and fall from the pain in his body clamouring for attention, he felt Ralph step beside him, on the right, where he held the mind-cane up as high as he could. The Lammas Lord grasped his arm, holding it firm, and Simon almost cried out with relief. Slowly the trembling in the Lost One’s body lessened and he felt his breathing grow steadier again. With this help, he could wait for whatever he was waiting for a while longer.

  Thank you.

  He could not speak, could scarcely even nod his thanks, but he hoped Ralph could hear the gratitude easing itself through his thoughts.

  The moon was at its height and the sweat pouring from both of them when Simon finally spotted something bright at the far horizon. Something small and white which could have been a distant star but was not. He made a noise, nothing but a small moan, hardly worth the hearing, but Ralph tightened his grip and drew subtly closer. Simon could sense his readiness for whatever was to come. It made him smile; he wasn’t ready for whatever it might be himself, but the Lammas Lord had always had a soldier’s spirit.

  The white dot in the clear night sky drew ever closer and ever larger, until finally Simon could see the shape of the snow-raven, drifting on the wind towards them. He wanted to cry out, to greet the bird or acknowledge its mysterious presence but he could perform neither act, as his throat was closed with tears. He swallowed them down as the bird came nearer, almost upon them now, and freed his arm from his companion’s support. The ache of independent movement shot through him but he ignored it. There was more at stake here than his own mere comfort, much more.

  Ralph protested, made to reach out for the Lost One’s hand again, but from somewhere Simon found the words he needed: No, please, this is something I need to do alone, for the sake of us all.

  The Lammas Lord shook his head, but stayed back. Simon closed his eyes for a heartbeat or two, finding the will he needed, before opening them again. The time-cycle was now. The great snow-raven was above them, slowly circling. The Lost One knew it would be the last time he ever saw him. Simon remembered how the bird had challenged him and helped him, sometimes being his only companion on the strange journey he had taken, he remembered both the sharpness of his beak and the softness and safety of his wing.

  And then, before he could stop himself, he found himself shouting out to the floating bird, “You have been my friend, in good and bad, and to see you again here is both the best and the worst the Spirit has asked of me. So take this gift I offer you, the gift you have been waiting for, and let the Spirit’s will be done in all time-cycles.”

  With that, he took the mind-cane and flung it into the sky. Its black and silver patterning sparkled in moonlight, and fire leapt from its carving as it flew. Before it could fall back to the earth in its trajectory, the snow-raven swooped down, a song of darkness and light piercing the air, and grasped the cane within its talons. Ralph cried out, and Simon fell to his knees. As he watched, the raven circled them three times, and then with another burst of song, the golden and red notes of which fell softly to the earth, the bird and the cane drifted away. To other lands and, no doubt, other stories.

  The Lost One held them both with his gaze until they were only a vanishing point in the sky, and then nothing at all. He felt Ralph’s steadying grip on his shoulder but the Lammas Lord did not speak. Simon knew he would never see them again, not in this world, and the pain of loss remained. The bird and the mind-cane had changed everything for him and now they had gone.

  At last, he lowered his eyes to the ground. When he blinked he saw one of the golden notes the raven had sung lay shimmering on the grass. He reached out, touched it, and felt its brief burst of warmth before it too was no more.

  Slowly, he stood up and rested his hand on Ralph’s where it still lay on his shoulder.

  “It is over,” he said quietly. “From now on, we must do what we have to do alone.”

  *****

  One week-cycle later and he still felt bereft. Odd how the knowledge he would see the mind-cane and the snow-raven no more in this life had only deepened since they had left him. Some of the villagers had tried quietly to reassure him that both cane and bird might well return, but nonetheless he knew. It was only Ralph who had not tried to comfort him with falsehoods, and he was grateful. With the rest, Simon smiled at their words and moved the conversation on as best and as fast as he was able. He was simply pleased they felt able to talk with him at all. And indeed there was much to talk about: the continued rebuilding of the Lammas village and the castle; the nurture of the crops; even the way the community itself was changing, partly because of the rebuilding and partly due to the will of the people to make it so. He suspected the world of Lammas would not be as it had been before the Wars, and he wondered what Ralph thought of it, as well as about the rekindled relationship between them.

  The answer to this puzzle could easily lie in a simple reading of the Lammas Lord’s thoughts, but Simon did not wish to be so intrusive, even after the nights he and Ralph had spent together. Too much had ensued from the scribe’s lack of mind-sensing caution in the past for him to revisit it again. Even so, the scribe could sense the confusion uppermost in Ralph’s mind and wished to offer him support, as well as clarity, if he could. He knew the man too well to assume the Lammas Lord would come to him, no matter what intimacy they shared; such an act would surely go against all his father’s traditions.

  So Simon waited until one evening, after the people had returned from the fields and were busy preparing their suppers. He had been working on the high windows of the castle’s south wall all day, using the skills the people had recently tried to teach him. He suspected he was a better scribe than he was a stone-master but he was doing his best and building up the simple layers around the window apertures. The complicated work he would leave to others more fully equipped for the task. He was aware Ralph was engaged in similar work below in the great dining hall and main entrance.

  They would need to speak to each other, he knew it, and it might as well be now. He put the stone he was holding in place, pressing down onto the mud and clay mix until he felt no more give, and covered over the mud-barrel. He would need to reconstitute it in the morning but the work was in any case almost finished. Then he stood, stretched his back until his bones felt loose again and made his way downstairs. As he walked, he eased out his mind until it touched Ralph’s, taking care to let the man know of his intentions.

  The result was to be expected; by the time he entered the dining hall, Ralph had already put away his work tools and was in the act of placing the mud-barrel in the corner of the room. When he saw Simon, he stood upright and smoothed down his hair, a gesture which scattered a see
d-throw of drying mud over it.

  “Are you done for the night?”

  The scribe nodded.

  “I see,” said the Lammas Lord, and then seemed as if he wanted to say more but did not know how to begin.

  Simon waited.

  “Let us sit,” Ralph cleared his throat at last and gestured at the side table in the centre of the room. “We can talk undisturbed here.”

  Simon smiled at the tone of command in the instruction, and sat down, an act both in keeping with and utterly disrespectful of the former Lammas laws. Obedience to the castle Lord was part of the make-up of the land, but Ralph should have been allowed to take his seat first.

  He gazed up at his companion. “Thank you.”

  Ralph nodded, and Simon could feel the mix of colours in his lover’s mind circling and dancing until the blend of them settled once more: deepest crimson and a startling blue laced with white. A dangerous blending but one so familiar to the scribe that it made his blood sing.

  Then the Lammas Lord sat also, at an angle to him. “You seem somehow naked without the mind-cane. You will miss it.”

  In spite of their mind-closeness, Simon had not expected such a question; Ralph had always had the capacity to startle him. He laughed.

  “Is that something you have gleaned from my thoughts, or something you ascertained for yourself?”

  Ralph frowned. “I know what it is to have honour taken from me so I can see it in your eyes, Simon. You miss the artefact.”

  “Yes,” he replied simply. “I do.”

  “And it will not return to you.”

  “No, it will not.” That much Ralph had certainly discovered from his gifts as a mind-sensitive.