Execution

by Shaun O. McCoy

  The Tree Lord takes to his feet, a sneer on his face. “You threaten me, in my own tree?”

  Callodax nods in response. “I do.”

  “Get out of here.”

  Callodax regards the masses of treemen with contempt. “You have three days to deliver the wights to me. Fail this, and you will die.”

  The redhead takes a breath.

  I look to Cid. She’s frowning.

  It’s the ammo. Dendra is almost out, and no doubt the infused is offering it to them at bargain basement prices. That’s got to be why he thinks he has the leverage to threaten them.

  “Are we okay?” I whisper.

  Not looking at me, Cid says, “Cris, I think we’re fucked.”

  The sounds of shuffling undead come down through my cell’s ceiling, keeping me awake—keeping me at the mercy of my own terrible thoughts.

  The sword doesn’t even bother waiting for my dreams to appear anymore. It hovers above me in my cell, spinning with the tangibility of a full on hallucination, dangling precariously on that single thread.

  All that has happened to me since I’ve come to this city, our imprisonment, the attempted rape of Cid, the trial—all of it has done nothing to stave off our doom. All it’s done is put names onto the analogy of my story.

  The sword is Callodax.

  The horse hair is the thread of my son’s goodness.

  Damocles is my son—or me. Let’s say it’s me.

  And then it strikes me that things aren’t so bad. The epiphany is familiar, like that terrible moment when I realized I deserved to be in this prison.

  Aiden is a wight. I knew Hell was going to take him away from me completely. I knew that the tiny piece of good in him was delicate, as delicate as a single strand of horsehair, and that the dark perversion which grips his soul would eventually take over. I knew it.

  I know it.

  And this development with Callodax, this is a good thing. When this whole journey started, I’d kept my son on edge for weeks, torturing him physically. Am I not doing a similar thing by keeping him on a moral edge now? A wight needs devils, or an infused. My son needs to be in their care. What could I or the infidels have to offer him?

  I have to tell him. I have to tell him it’s okay.

  More than that, he’s still got his faith blinders on. I need to remove them. I need to let him know how he’s been manipulated.

  I roll over to the wall closest to him.

  I rap on it gently a few times.

  “Aiden?” I whisper.

  No answer.

  “Aiden?” I try again.

  “Quiet, Cris.” His voice is raspy.

  I put my hand up against the wood. “I need to tell you something. When you and Durgan were talking. When you said—”

  “I hate you, Cris,” he says calmly.

  His words do all that a blow would. I lose my breath. I see stars. Tears form in my eyes.

  He’s hurting, I understand that. The trial. Seeing the infused. Durgan calling into question his entire existence.

  I sit up. “You need to listen. You’re about to be taken by the Callodax and I—”

  “I hate you.”

  The hell is he saying? “You need to listen, son.”

  “You’re nothing to me. You’re not my father. You’re an infidel. I hate you.”

  How could he say this? How the hell could he say this? I’ve done everything for him. Everything.

  I leap to my feet. “You’ve no right!” I shout. “Not after what I’ve done for you. Not after that. I risked my life, I risked the infidels’ lives, I murdered a whole damn room of innocents just to keep you alive. I dragged a fucking Nazi across hell for you. And you hate me? You fucking . . . ingrate!”

  His voice is calm. “You’ve done nothing to help me. You tried to make me human. You killed my mother. You killed my father. The only thing you ever did for me was help me finish becoming a wight. That was harder than you knew . . . but you only did it because you wanted me to become your son. I’ll never be your son.”

  I’d known this was coming. I’d known Hell would get him, and it’s finally taken him away from me.

  I spent three years tracking Myla. I slew an Archdevil. I found a way to cure my son. I dragged him across Hell. I traversed Soulfall. In the end, I’m no better off than if I had just stayed home.

  Q had known. He told me to forget my son and make another one.

  That’s what I should have done.

  I hang my head and cry.

  Nightmares of murdered innocents wake me from my slumber. It feels like I have not slept long, but who knows. The mists are thick outside, my chamber is dim, my breathing quick and shallow.

  I’m covered in sweat.

  I see the redhead entering, her food basket in her hands.

  One of the guards nods as she enters. “Ghela,” he greets her.

  Was it Ghela’s footsteps which woke me, and not my guilt-laden dreams?

  She kneels softly beside my bars, casting a quick look over her shoulder toward the guards, red curls whipping about. Her blue eyes seem black in the dark, and her pale, slender hand reaches out to me.

  We meet, palm to palm, and I feel her warmth radiating through her fingers.

  “Are you okay?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  Who knows why I said that. The only “okay” thing I can point to now is that I’m not dead yet . . . and even that’s debatable considering I’m in Hell.

  She passes me a bowl of devilwheat. I taste it out of politeness.

  It’s got some sinfruit in it.

  She leans forward. “I sweetened it for you.”

  “Stay back from the cage, Ghela!” a treeman shouts.

  “I love you,” she whispers.

  She’s so sincere, and I feel a surge of hope at her words. She turns away, and in that last second before her face is hidden from me fully, I see her top lip twitch into a sneer.

  I try to square that expression with her profession of love. Was she thinking of someone else? Was she sneering at the guard? Was she remembering her past?

  I watch her walk across the prison chamber to feed Cid.

  Durgan sits in his cage, unmoving, paying no attention to her.

  No.

  Oh fuck no.

  Not again. I can’t take this.

  Durgan has watched everyone as they entered and exited. He paid utmost attention to every visitor. Except her. And she’d been feeding him, I remember her telling me how gross the wight’s food was.

  Why would he bother watching her? She’s Durgan’s messenger. She’s one of Keith’s.

  And now it all made sense. It was Ghela who had snitched about my lie to Keith . . . a lie which she could not have heard because I fucking remembered her being on the vines when I passed through Dendra. Come to think of it, she’s probably the reason why Amirani’s witness is dead.

  And of course this would happen.

  Of course.

  After the things I’ve done, don’t I deserve this?

  If I deserve this prison, don’t I deserve my son’s hate?

  Don’t I?

  I feel like I’m going to cry again, but I don’t. I’m not going to be a bitch. I don’t need to cry.

  I awaken, my heart thundering in my chest. There had been demons all around me. In my dream. It was just a dream.

  “Cris?” Q’s voice comes to me through the wall. “Cris, the hell is going on?”

  These nightmares are tearing me apart.

  “I’m okay,” I lie again.

  I look up, the treemen are by my cage. Josh looks horrified. He’s stunned. Shaken. His friend pulls him away from the bars.

  “Cris,” Q says. “You were screaming. I thought you were dying.”

  I think about this. “I am. We are. We all are.”

  “Is it the trial?” Q says. “What’s gotten you?”

  What’s gotten me? Really? What the fuck’s gotten me? My son is lost. You fucking idiot. I’ve lost my
only son.

  My only son.

  I wait for a moment, the sweat cooling on my body. Josh and the other guard move away.

  “He’s gone, Q.” I can hear the tears in my voice.

  Who would have guessed I’d spend the end of my life crying five times a day.

  “Your son?” Q’s voice asks me.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s been gone a long time, Cris.”

  I breathe in the humid air. He’s right. My son has been dead a long time. But to me, he died today. “He said he hated me.”

  Q grunts. “Cris, I don’t think you’ve thought this through.”

  “Look. Maybe I lost him a long time ago, but—”

  “No, Cris. I don’t think you know what it means to hear a wight say they hate you.”

  I think about this. About how backward wights are. “Okay, I’m listening.”

  “Your son’s soul is untouched. The body that looks and acts like your son, it’s the result of his soul being filtered through a taint. It poisons his actions, thoughts, words and deeds. It makes evil feel like good, and good feel like evil. It makes love feel like hate.

  “You’ve been looking at this the wrong way. When your son loved you, despite being a wight, this should have torn you apart—because now, when your son tells you he hates you, he means something else. Somewhere, wherever your son’s soul is . . . he . . .”

  He loves me.

  The cord is thin, and it cuts into my palms . . .

  But it must break. It broke before. I’d clung to it, and climbed it, hand over hand while it made mincemeat of my palms.

  And it would break again.

  A sword dangles from the end of it, far below me. Not the Sword of Damocles, but the sword of an infidel. It glows a soft purple.

  But it must break.

  It has to break.

  It has to break because I’m going to use it to kill the people who want to hurt my son.

  And then I’m going to kill my son, because he wants to hurt himself too.

  Men are coming down the stairs.

  Am I peaceful?

  No.

  Come what may.

  The treemen fan out into our chamber. Fabian is among them, trying to look strong and big, which probably means he’s in some deep shit.

  But I’m not worried about that.

  Because I’m peaceful?

  No. I’m not. Because I’m warlike.

  Come what may.

  The bells jingle. Iron squeaks against green wood as the three bars of my prison rise. As always, they only come up a few feet.

  I stretch, and notice I am protected from my agony by something. The pain in me is a distant thing, shouting alone, lost in some cave, destined to die as Hell irrevocably heals my wounds.

  The infidels taught me a few sit out drills during our wrestling classes. I walk to the bars and use the maneuver to slip through the tiny opening. I come to my feet, bouncing. I’d been wrong about my body—it feels good. Damn everything else. I feel good.

  My body moves, almost as if propelled by the will of some god of vengeance, walking with the others up the stairs. The world around it passes in a blur as we retrace our steps.

  Josh is saying something to me.

  I look to him.

  “I said, for what it’s worth, I respect you.”

  I nod.

  Psychopomps soar through the open, slightly humid air. The breeze whispers around us with the gentle murmur of leaves, branches and birds. The mists below diffuse the abyss’ illumination enough to give us an even lighting. Cid seems well. Her swelling is completely gone, and the scabs on her face give a good contrast to her preternaturally pale skin.

  Neb is slow, as stiff as a board.

  But not me.

  Something has changed. Something deep within me has begun to understand.

  We travel down to the Prima Tree. My sight is on point. I notice some of the tiniest details which I missed before . . . like the infidel marked panel behind the gate where the Tree Lord will enter. It reminds me of the panel Cid had used to drop the armory in our safe chamber.

  That’s where Amirani must have installed the trigger to jettison the tree.

  Wouldn’t that be something.

  The crowd has beat us here. They stand across the platform. I recognize some of the faces. The strained, pained face of Fabian’s wife. The gorgeous red curls of Ghela. The narrow face of the Accuser.

  I see the huge hanging counterweights they use to bring barrels up into the Prima Tree, each nearly touching, this one slightly lower than that one on the ends of their pulleys.

  They take us to the cage . . . all of us, save Aiden.

  And there, entering with Keith on one side and a darkly dressed Carrion born soldier on his left, is Callodax, the infused. My son’s future father.

  I take in a deep breath. Am I at peace with this?

  He can raise my son to be the wight he was meant to be . . . but there is something else in the back of my mind. My intuition is going mad. Everything I’ve ever learned about Hell is that no matter how well I perform, no matter how many demons I kill, no matter what lands I traverse, I will always somehow lose. But I can’t believe it. My heart beats. I feel like I can win. Like Hell will break.

  It’s best not to lie to oneself.

  But I can’t shake the feeling.

  Hope springs eternal . . . but in the endless pit of Hell, an eternal spring is just a drop of spittle in a gaping canyon.

  Yes.

  But the feeling won’t go away.

  Aiden is not taken to the cage like we are. He is brought to the platform.

  He seems calm. His hate has made him strong. He has nothing to fear with Callodax. Nothing at all. Maybe he’s figured that out already.

  The Tree Lord had not slept well. I see the lines of worry on his Jesus face. So, Son of God, did you decide to make a deal with the Devil, or not? Are you smart enough to sense your own destruction?

  Aiden marches up the stairs and stands defiant, hands behind his back, his feet apart . . . much like an infidel might. Ghela stands next to me, just beside my bars.

  The Tree Lord rises. “You’ve all heard the threat, made here yesterday. I have spoken more with Callodax, and come to understand the source of his ire. Please remember also that his was a threat of inaction. He merely means to say that if we do not trust him, that he will not be our ally.”

  There is some mumbling.

  A quick glance at Callodax’s face reveals nothing.

  The Tree Lord glances toward us. No. Not toward us. Toward Ghela. Wait, she’s not his agent—but I get the feeling from the Tree Lord’s glance that he thinks she is. I’m amazed by how much I underestimated her. Maybe it’s because Igraine was right and I’m a sexist bastard. Maybe it’s because I can’t imagine someone who is not an infidel being this powerful. But I cannot be a fool any longer. This woman is my enemy.

  “I have agreed, then,” the Tree Lord says, “to include the young wight as payment in our ammunition deal with Callodax and his mistress, Igraine. He will be delivered on the morrow, along with our barrels of sap and bloodwater upon receipt of the ammunition.”

  Amirani stiffens. “You have not pronounced judgement on the wight. I assume that if you want to change his execution from the fall to extradition, you would first have to find him guilty.”

  The Tree Lord sits down. “I pronounce him guilty.”

  “We’ve not finished the trial,” Amirani points out.

  “He’s had enough of one,” the Tree Lord says.

  “It barely started!”

  I cloak myself in calm. You could have had it differently, Tree Lord. I’m sorry for what I’m going to do to you.

  The Tree Lord bangs one fist against his throne’s arm. “He’s a wight. He needs no trial. Only people need trials.”

  “He’s attached to a human soul.”

  “Enough!” the Tree Lord pounds his fist again. “I summarily find all dyitzu guilty as well,
but you and I can argue the finer points of that later.” He comes back to his feet. “As for the infidels, I understand that their behavior is not just reprehensible for a person of Dendra, but for their own kind as well. For this reason I have decided to send for the Infidel . . . or someone high enough in their standing to carry weight. Ares, Endymion, Huginn or Muninn. Someone of that nature. They will advise me of what kind of judgement they think you should have.”

  Ah, that’s their game. Callodax is trying to lure high powered infidels here, probably to kill them.

  I look to Ghela. Her sneer is back, a victorious one this time. The Tree Lord has been played.

  Oh, sure, it looks like he’s made the right decision. In his mind, all Callodax has over him are the devils his men are “keeping at bay.” The Tree Lord knows that a crew of infidels would happily wipe out the devils at the edge of his village. Ares would be a particular treat. The Order are scared shitless of him, and I can’t imagine the Carrion born have a different opinion.

  Callodax inclines his head and takes a few steps forward, wry amusement in his smile.

  Whichever infidel comes is walking into an ambush.

  I look up and see the sword.

  Break, little string.

  Come what may.

  I turn to Ghela, grasping the hilt of Damocles’ sword. “Make sure you feed me tonight. I have news,” I whisper.

  She nods in agreement.

  The string breaks. The sword is mine.

  Callodax, you are my weapon.

  In the dark of night I hear her soft steps on the wooden stairs. Come to me. You’ve helped write Callodax’s play so far. It’s time to write a few lines for me.

  Ghela passes between the guards, walks by Aiden’s cage and comes to me. As always, Durgan appears to ignore her.

  Her cruel face is covered in shadow. She kneels by the bars, her burlap clothes settling around her. She offers me the food.

  “Leave the city tonight,” I tell her. “Wait for us by the Northern Lethe. We’ll be there in the pre-dawn, right when the silver light returns.”

  She frowns. “Oh, Cris. The Tree Lord won’t let you escape.”

  I smile. “No. We’re not escaping, we’re being let go! The Tree Lord is playing Callodax for a fool. Ares came in last night and struck a deal with the Tree Lord. Amirani has no need to go get Ares—you understand? Ares is already here. We’re being freed, the boy included, tomorrow just before first light. The Tree Lord didn’t like Callodax’s threat, and our freedom was the price he paid for infidel protection.”