Execution

by Alexander Gordon Smith

  Alex, said Furnace, and his words ended the chaos, rooting me back inside the room. His voice was the sound of continents shifting, and yet within it I could also hear the husky, gentle tones of an old man and the higher pitch of a boy, each speaking the same words and yet ever so slightly out of sync. There is no reason to fear me.

  ‘What are you?’ I asked. I wasn’t sure if the words left my mouth, but it didn’t matter. He could see inside my mind as if it were his own.

  I am old, he said.

  He was, not just years, not just decades, but centuries. That knowledge lay in my head, impossible but undeniable. The nectar had kept death at bay while generations of people had lived and died, while billions turned to dust and ash around him.

  Not nectar, Furnace corrected, reading my mind. What runs through my veins is something far more powerful.

  I remembered my visions, the stranger in the orchard, the one who had forced Furnace to drink his blood. What was it if it wasn’t nectar?

  In your soul, you already know, he replied. This blood is eternity, immortality. It has existed since before mankind stepped onto the earth, and it will exist long after the last of us has rotted back into the dirt. It is the very essence from which the nectar is made. I died, and behold I am alive for ever more, and I hold the keys of death and the grave.

  My thoughts were a storm and I fought to remember why I had come here. But all that existed were questions. Questions, and the unrelenting terror.

  ‘What was that thing? The creature in the orchard?’

  The two faces – the old man and the boy – seemed to howl in silent agony at the question, their mouths open too wide as their heads writhed back and forth. But the being which overshadowed them smiled without smiling, the place where his eyes should have been seeming to grow brighter and darker at the same time.

  He has no name, and yet he has many, said Furnace. He saved me, and now he will do the same for you.

  Furnace’s hands moved as he talked. The two smallest fingers were missing on the left, the thumb absent from the right. His remaining digits were slender and too long, three or four knuckles on each one. They unfolded with a sound like popping joints until both his palms were facing me. Pipes and valves punctured his ancient flesh, imprisoning him within the machine. I doubted he could move even if he wanted to, and surely even if he did break free then he would just fall apart.

  The thought brought me back, quenching some of the fear, reminding me why I was here. I attempted to get up, ready to attack. Furnace was so withered, so broken, that killing him would be no different than smothering an old man in his bed. I was so much stronger than him. I called out to the berserkers in the room, imagining them reaching out for Furnace, ripping him from his contraption, tearing him limb from limb.

  ‘Kill him,’ I wheezed at them. ‘Do it!’

  The berserkers didn’t move, blinking their oil-well eyes at me. One shifted its position like a restless cat and I could see the immense bulk of its body, endless clusters of muscles barely held by a patchwork of skin. It settled on its haunches, its face the most human thing in the room.

  ‘Kill him,’ I commanded, but those few words had used up all but the last of my strength. Furnace began to laugh, a sound that I felt rather than heard. It seemed to sit on my spine, gripping my vertebrae like a dirty fist. I tried to get back to my feet, ready to run my bladed hand through Furnace’s open chest, but my body wouldn’t obey.

  Did you really think it would be that easy? Furnace asked, his eyes blazing black light, roaring like blowtorches. Did you honestly believe you could control them?

  I had been controlling them, the berserkers. Ever since the hospital I’d been able to tell them what to do, hadn’t I? Once again Furnace plucked my question from my skull.

  You did not have the power, he said, his voice like liquid thunder. I read your mind, Alex, and I relayed your commands to my children. It was not you who gave them orders, but I.

  I didn’t want to believe him, except I knew it was the truth. I felt panic once again claw through my body, dousing the nectar like a blanket over a fire. What the hell was I doing? Did I honestly think I could just walk into Furnace’s own house and kill him? I was going to die here, I was going to be executed.

  No, said Furnace, his tone surprisingly calm. It is I who will not live to see tomorrow.

  I lifted my head, feeling like the weight of the world was pressing down on it. For a second the blurred, flickering silhouette of the stranger faded and I could see the two other people beneath, the boy and the man. Both looked utterly exhausted, especially the kid. His thin face reminded me of the inmates inside the prison, the ones who looked like they would never be able to get through another day behind bars. The face vanished once again behind the invisible grin of the stranger.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said.

  Why do you think I brought you here, Alex? said Furnace.

  I opened my mouth to give an answer, realising that I didn’t have one. I thought I had known. There had been a reason I had come here, a reason I had thought it would be so easy. I had come to kill Furnace. My thoughts were disintegrating, collapsing in on each other. I saw one in the confusion, grasping for it before it could disappear.

  ‘You didn’t bring me here,’ I said, faltering. ‘I … I came for you.’

  Did you? More laughter, insects scuttling on the underside of my skin. Are you sure about that, Alex?

  I wasn’t sure about anything any more. The weight on my head grew too much and I let it drop, collapsing onto my elbows, looking like I was praying in front of an altar.

  Why do you think I showed you everything I did? Furnace went on. Why do you think I let you escape from the prison?

  ‘You didn’t,’ I spat. Furnace laughed, gesturing to his side where an old-fashioned telephone nestled in an alcove within the machine. It reminded me of the one in the warden’s office, back in the prison, and I knew instantly that they had once been connected. I wasn’t sure why he’d needed one, given that he could talk to the warden through the nectar, but the sight of it there brought back the memory of when I’d first heard Furnace, the way his voice through that phone had made my ears bleed. He had known everything that we were doing, he had seen it all, and he had let it happen.

  Didn’t I? he went on. Why didn’t I stop you, Alex? Why didn’t I send a hundred berserkers, a thousand? Why didn’t I turn your friend Simon against you? He laughed, the sound making the blood boil in my head. Why did I lead you to the tower, and give you the strength to defeat my old general, Cross? Why did I grant you the power to fight the human army? And why did I show you the path here, to my kingdom?

  ‘You didn’t,’ I spat.

  Except he had done all of those things. Everything that had happened had been orchestrated by the creature that hung before me, this madness of man, machine and monster. I shook my head, unable to accept it, coughing out the same denial again and again and again.

  That is part of the nectar’s beauty. It makes puppets of mortals. This is something that you will soon discover for yourself, if you are willing.

  ‘Willing?’ I managed, a ribbon of black blood oozing out with the word.

  You have to be willing, said Furnace. It can work no other way. But you will be. I am old, Alex, so very old, and even he cannot keep me alive for ever. By doing this you will keep your promise. The only way to kill me is to take my place. I need an heir, but such a gift cannot be given lightly.

  I shook my head again, fury detonating inside me. There was no way I would do what he asked. I was here to kill him, to stop him, not to replace him.

  ‘Why me?’ I asked.

  Save your breath, Alex, he said. It will become clear. Let me show you something.

  The room came apart, the columns and the vaulted ceiling spinning away from the floor with such speed that I was gripped by vertigo. I realised I was back outside again, standing on the top of the island, surrounded by berserkers. I tried to look around but I had
no control, like in my dream. Then the view swung from side to side and I realised that I was looking at the world through somebody else’s eyes.

  They are here, Furnace said. And they come without mercy. Watch.

  I heard the soldiers before I saw them, swarming from the forest in groups, their weapons blazing. Bullets tore through the first berserkers, so much firepower that their immense bodies were pulled into the air and dismembered by the hail of lead. I expected the others to fight back, but they all seemed rooted to the spot, including the one whose head I occupied. I could almost taste its emotions, a mix of anger and panic that sat in my mouth like bile.

  ‘Fight back!’ I called to it, to all of them, but it was no use.

  A soldier fired a rocket from a bazooka, the missile hitting one of Furnace’s freaks and causing a fireball so big that I could feel it down here in the vault. Pink and black rain steamed down onto the island, and yet still none of the berserkers moved.

  The creature whose head I occupied looked round, showing me the front of the mansion. I could see the behemoth we had met in the woods, its frame dwarfing the people who cowered by its side – Zee, Lucy and Simon. At the rate things were going out there it wouldn’t be long before they were dead. And even if they survived the firefight I knew that Panettierre was here on the island, leading her troops, wanting to turn us into specimens.

  The view of the island vanished with the same gut-wrenching speed it had appeared, sucking me back down into the basement. I retched, a string of black spit hanging from my lips. It felt like the room was still spinning, the confusion causing my vision to darken, my body to shake uncontrollably.

  ‘Why are you showing me this?’ I demanded, anger returning some of the strength to my body. I managed to crawl up on my knees, my hand resting against the pillar. ‘Why aren’t you fighting back?’

  I am old, Furnace repeated, lifting his mangled hands in surrender. My time for fighting is at an end. It is your turn to take control, Alex. Only you can save them, only you can win this war. Come to me, child; accept what I have to offer.

  Furnace’s hands lifted, gesturing towards part of the machine I hadn’t really noticed. There was a human-shaped space there, straps for arms and legs and a metal cradle for a head.

  It will be easy, child. And it will be quick.

  I knew that even now I was following Furnace’s plan, just a marionette dancing along to the movement of his fingers. But what could I do? If I stayed here, on my knees, then the army would win. Panettierre would have her victory, she would create monsters of her own, and the world would be buried beneath a tide of nectar. Zee would be dead, Simon and Lucy too, probably. And what of me? There was little doubt about my fate either. They would cart me back to the hospital, run more of their tests until I took my last breath. Either that or they would execute me in this very room.

  At least if I obeyed Furnace, if I accepted his offer, I would stand a chance. If nothing else, at least I would be in control. If I accepted, I would become the executioner. And isn’t it always better to be the one who kills than the one who dies? A seed of doubt wormed up from the anger, from the fear, but it was too slow. I had made my decision.

  ‘What do I do?’ I asked, pushing myself up, my legs almost too weak to hold me. I staggered over to Furnace, trying not to look at his tattered flesh, at the glass pipes that ran through his body.

  Will you accept my gift? he asked. It was the same question which had been asked of him, centuries ago, in the orchard. And I knew I would give the same answer. I saw the blood that pumped through Furnace, the pure, undiluted power from which nectar had been distilled, and the truth was that I wanted it more than anything else in my life.

  ‘I accept,’ I said. The stranger’s face unfolded, shadowed petals blossoming, contracting, blossoming again.

  I knew you would, Furnace said.

  He reached out to me, his fingers on my head, pushing the hair back from my brow. His flesh was as cold as ice.

  Thank you.

  Life

  The moment I made contact with the machine it seemed to know what to do. The pulse inside it grew in pace and in volume, vibrating so much that it made my bones rattle. Two figures walked through the chamber door, the maskless wheezers, their corpse grins so wide that it looked as though somebody had sliced them open from ear to ear. They staggered towards me, the needles around their chests clinking, and the sight of them made me feel like I was back inside the prison, watching the blood watch stalk the cells. I panicked, every muscle in my body tensing, my lungs unable to draw air.

  What the hell was I doing?

  Do not be afraid, said Furnace, and his voice – half whisper, half thunder – was impossible to disobey. It chased the fear away. They will not hurt you.

  He was right. The wheezers were gentle, and they were kind. One slotted my hands into the straps before buckling my legs in place. The other held my head tenderly in its creased, leathery hands, pulling the cradle down over my scalp and fastening it under my chin. They worked together to clip a massive belt around my chest, leaving it loose enough for me to be able to breathe. When they stood back, their bodies spasming, their fat, black tongues thrashing in the wet pools of their mouths, I was held fast. But there was no pain.

  When I was turned, all I had to do was drink, Furnace said. I remembered the vision, the boy who had been nailed to the tree drinking the blood of the stranger. But we are a more civilised people now. We trust in science as well as magic.

  I angled my head so I could see him, both of us strapped side by side, like we were on the fields of Golgotha. His head swivelled around, those three faces still fighting for superiority, their movement so fast now that it made my head hurt to look at them. I didn’t turn away, though.

  Begin, said Furnace. The wheezers separated, walking to the sides of the machine where they busied themselves with wheels and levers. I didn’t care. The method of what was happening wasn’t important, only the result.

  Something slid from the framework around me, half a dozen needles connected to plastic tubing. They sank deep into the flesh of my upper arm but there was still no pain, only a slight discomfort. With a stomach-turning noise three of the needles began to pump, and I watched as the red-flecked nectar was sucked out of my body.

  That nectar, the new nectar, is the most powerful we have ever managed to create, Furnace explained as he watched the flow. But even its power dims in comparison to the blood. We must drain you of it before I pass on my gift.

  I could feel my body growing weaker as the nectar flowed out of it, the same way it had back in the hospital. Unlike then, though, I was about to be given something far better, something that would turn me into a being of unthinkable power.

  A being? Furnace said, once again reading my thoughts. You will become nothing less than a god.

  I looked at the figure beside me, a boy who should have died hundreds of years ago, a man who built an empire and who lived to see it change the world, and a creature that was older than time. I smiled, knowing that I too would experience the same gift.

  The smile was short-lived. The chamber was growing dark as the last drops of nectar were cleansed from my body. A sense of dread began to rise in me, like I was sinking into cold water. Without the nectar, I would die. Was this just another of Furnace’s cruel tricks, to lure me to my death with the promise of eternal life? There was another noise, the gurgle of a straw in an empty cup, the red-flecked fluid in the tubes disappearing. My vision had now faded completely and my hearing was following fast. Furnace said something to me but his words were no more than an incomprehensible noise, as if my ears were stuffed with cotton wool.

  Then, for what felt like an eternity, there was nothing.

  Distantly, I sensed the machine change pitch, its growling pulse softening. Immediately my body began to burn, an onslaught of fire and ice in every single cell of my being. Even the rush of the nectar was nothing compared to this. It was as if the very fabric of the universe was a
plaything that I could use – or destroy – any way I wished. I was instantly alert, more alive than I had ever been. My eyes snapped open and I saw that the other three tubes had turned black as the stranger’s blood was pumped from Furnace into me. I heard myself laugh, and that laughter was as loud as Furnace’s had once been, an explosion which rocked the chamber and flooded into the world beyond, to be felt in the soul of every living thing on earth.

  The thought of it made me cry out with joy. I felt my mutated body slough away, felt myself rise up out of my scarred, twisted flesh, felt the fear and the anger wash out of me, knowing that I would never again be punished by the weakest of human emotions.

  I kept on cackling like a lunatic, even though some last part of me, of the boy I had once been, realised the horror of what was happening. There was almost enough of him left to make sense of the nightmare that was unfolding, to know that of all the fates I could have prayed for, this was by far the worst. But that part of me was almost completely lost now, a lone voice whispering in the middle of a hurricane.

  And then it was gone. There was only the stranger’s blood.

  ‘Why me?’ I asked again, each word a sonic boom.

  It is you because you are here, Furnace said, his voice muted, more human. I saw his body begin to fall apart as the blood left him, his skin cracking into dust, his bones breaking, his limbs folding into crooked spirals. The figure of the stranger was fading, and I knew why. It was leaving Furnace, deserting its old host. It was moving into me. For a second there were only the two human faces, then in a blink of an eye the boy’s alone remained. He inhaled, as if it was the first breath he had ever taken, and his pale eyes were filled with sorrow. But whether it was for me or for himself I couldn’t tell.