by Luca Tarenzi
She instinctively moved backwards - a futile exercise as she was leaning against the wall - and then forced herself to remain calm. She straightened her back and sat cross-legged.
She looked at the king for an instant, then she bowed her head in greeting. She was wounded, a prisoner and very scared, but she was determined not to give up on what dignity she had left.
Albedo looked straight back at her. Then, unexpectedly, he leaned down to be at eye-level with her. In the silence of the cell, his ponytail made a rustling, disturbing noise.
"How are you?"
Verdigris felt a desire to close her eyes. "I think I've got a temperature."
The king seemed ready to put out his hand to touch her, but he didn't. "I'm really sorry. It'll soon pass."
Verdigris nodded tiredly. If it doesn't kill quickly, it heals quickly. As the Moryan saying went.
"I need to ask you something," said Albedo after a moment of silence. "Even if I think I know the answer."
Verdigris didn't utter a word.
"Do you know where my sister is now?"
"No."
The king remained silent for a while. "Why did you let her drag you into this?"
Verdigris said nothing and even resisted the impulse to shrug her shoulders.
"You're going to remain here a little longer," said Albedo. "Then, in a few hours, we'll come and get you to take you to the Lake."
Verdigris lifted her head suddenly. "What?"
Albedo stood up and looked elsewhere. "You'll be at my side during the execution."
Verdigris felt an explosion of white rage inside her, stronger than exhaustion, more burning than fear. "Why?" She was well aware it was the king before her, but she couldn't stop herself. "Because it was also my fault? Because I was also there and so I also have to be punished? Do I too have to watch my friend die?" She stood up on shaky legs, having to lean against the wall to steady herself, but she barely noticed. "Was it not enough to have captured me? Now you can keep me prisoner as long as you want. Do you have to torture me as well?"
Albedo's expression remained unmoving, but his Glamour vibrated two octaves higher, filling the cell with a cry like a seagull. "Nobody is trying to hurt you. Least of all me. My plan has never been to keep you segregated, here or elsewhere." For a second, he seemed to be on the verge of saying something else, but he simply shook his head. "I'm sorry about what you'll see tonight. I'm sorry it has to happen. Needleye has forced me into this." He breathed slowly and looked at Verdigris again. "You need to be there for her, not for Thaw."
Verdigris blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Needleye will be there somewhere. I'm sure. She'll try to free him right up to the end. I know her and I know what she'll do. You also know."
Yes. Verdigris pursed her lips tightly. Yes, she will.
"That is why you need to be there. When she appears, I want you to talk to her. I want you to bring her back to her senses."
Verdigris shook her head. "She won't listen to me. She doesn't listen to anybody. You’ll need to jump on her and keep her still by force."
"We will, if needed. But you will still need to speak to her. Such madness cannot go on, especially now. We need a return to order." A touch of something frozen, frosty entered the king's cloud. "Needleye needs to be brought to order. You are going to help me do that."
Verdigris felt the defiance in her words before she said them, but again she couldn't stop herself. "What if I don't want to?"
These words bounced around her cloud like the far-off tinkling of blades.
Albedo smiled slightly, but without any joy. "You're no fool, Verdigris. You never have been. We don't know each other well, but I have never taken my eye off you. You are the Sluagh of the tribe. You are important. You know I'm right. You know the only sensible path is to control Needleye."
Verdigris bit her lip and lowered her gaze. "After tonight, you'll never control her again." Deep inside her, a part of her, the part that never let her forget she was a coward, was screaming to keep quiet, to bite her tongue. "You want to kill one of her only two remaining friends and you think this will make her reasonable?"
She couldn't see the king's face, but she felt the spasm that ran through his Glamour, sour like a squirt of vinegar.
"There is no other way. If she doesn't learn this time, she never will. I cannot simply pardon her. I can't pretend nothing happened." Albedo was silent for a moment. "Verdigris, look at me."
Verdigris jumped, fighting the opposing desires to obey and disobey.
"Look at me."
Verdigris looked up, into the king's eyes. Into the eyes of the king who was only a few years older than her, who looked so like Needleye. The same face. Those same eyes that tried to exude absolutely belief. The same shoulders, bent by an invisible weight. The same need to believe, above all and at all costs.
"War is imminent." Albedo breathed in deeply, his cloud following him, contracted. "I have done everything in my power to delay it, to buy us time to prepare for it. But now it is nearly on us and we aren't ready. Surely you realize as much? Can you not sense it in the air? It will come before winter, brought by Waspider. Now more than ever, I need to control everything in my reach, because there is no more margin for error."
Verdigris had lowered her gaze again, without realizing it. She forced herself to look up.
The king was now looking down, into the darkness at the bottom of the cell, seemingly trying to focus on something there.
"Now more than ever the tribe needs to trust me, to see my rule works and the only way forward is to comply. They need to see that loose cannons like Thaw have no place in our machine that has to work if we want to survive." Albedo suddenly looked back at her. "Needleye needs to understand this, more than all the others because now I also need her." His voice wavered, but his words came out without hesitation. "Our feelings don't count. Our friends don't count. Now, there are only the right decisions and the wrong decisions. Mistakes and consequences."
"What if that is not enough?" Verdigris whispered so softly even she barely heard her own words. "What if Needleye turned her back on you once and for all? What if..." Her voice almost trailed off completely. "What if this is the wrong decision?"
"Then, I'll have to do without her. Like I have chosen to manage without Thaw. Mistakes are made in war." Albedo stiffened as though shivering. "The one thing that cannot be done is to avoid decisions."
Then he turned and left in a hurry, closing the door. His movement was not unlike that of someone escaping.
From below, the execution platform looked much higher. Once again Needleye found herself in a position she'd never been in before.
She'd reached there by almost slithering through the plants and grass right along the edge of the Lake. Now, she was under the raised walkway that led out to the actual platform, about two feet offshore. The platform and the walkway had been fashioned with an array of disparate materials - bits of wood for the most part, but plastic, cork, metal and even cardboard had been used when nothing else was available - and it was held up by scaffolding of rusty pipes that rose at least seven inches above the water.
The design was clever and solid, created to withstand the elements and to be repaired easily. The pipes were tied together with thick rope and a complicated system of knots that Needleye would have never been able to replicate. Luckily, her vague plan required a different approach.
She moved as close to the water's edge as possible, careful to not touch the water, before she climbed onto the scaffolding and up almost to the height of the walkway. Next, she started to inch towards the side.
Those two feet felt endless to her. It was a relatively easy climb, with the pipes providing plenty of footholds, but beneath her was emptiness and then the Lake. Right now, she had no intention of discovering whether her new familiarity with the Sirens meant she shouldn't worry about falling into the water. Of course, she also knew that, if things didn't go well that night, she would find out whether she wa
nted to or not.
When she reached the platform, she sought a position from which it was impossible for her to be seen from above or from any point on the shore. Having found a comfortable enough spot, she sat astride a pipe, and took five minutes to rest. There she sat, her elbows on her thighs and her chin in her hands, smelling the chemical odor of the Lake carried on the breeze that ruffled her hair. She studied the mesh of pipes and ropes more carefully, working out with reasonable certainty which were the supporting ones.
The platform was never packed during executions, with only the prisoner, the executioner - almost always Livid - and perhaps the king with one or two people in tow present, often to pronounce the sentence to all. The rest of the public watched from the shore.
When she felt she'd rested enough, Needleye took a deep breath, got up from the pipe and pulled herself along to the first knot she reckoned was important. She drew out her dagger and patiently began to cut away at it.
She knew this was going to be no quick task and sunset was far nearer than she wanted. Still, she'd worked out how much time she needed and decided that, provided she kept going, it would suffice.
The platform wouldn't fall even once she'd cut most of the ropes. At least, she was fairly sure this would be the case and she assumed no more than three or four people would be on the platform. Then, she figured it would take but a few kicks to send it tumbling down.
It took a few minutes to get through the first piece of rope. Needleye put the dagger between her teeth and moved to the next point, a touch lower down, and began the process over again. Her fingers had already started to ache, but she forced herself to forget about the pain.
Her plan was really not a great one, dangerous and with unforeseeable consequences. The entire platform would plunge into the Lake, along with everyone on it, and she'd have to jump into the water before the others to avoid being crushed by the falling pieces. Then, everything would be in the hands of the Sirens.
Needleye screwed up her eyes and began cutting even more vigorously.
Her plan was to wait right until the very end, the moment before the burning torch she'd seen in the vision was millimeters from Thaw. If nothing had stopped the mob, no mysterious force had come to the fore, then she would act.
The consequences were something she and the others would have to react to in the moments that followed.
10
Thaw stumbled and one of the guards escorting him grabbed his arm to prevent him from falling.
"Watch where you tread," the guard growled.
Thaw's eyes were not looking anywhere, in truth. He was completely focused on the rope.
Four armed guards had come to pull him from the hole and he'd laughed. Did they really think so many were needed to escort one famished, exhausted prisoner to the scaffold?
Perhaps they were right since he was the prisoner.
His laugh had been internal, not letting them see anything. These guards were taking him to people who planned to burn him alive. He had to remain in control of his emotions, all of them.
As he'd imagined, they'd tied his hands back up, cursing Livid's inability to do it properly the first time, and then they'd started dragging him along the pathway that ultimately led down to the water's edge. Thaw had let himself be led, passively but slowly with his head bowed, as if he truly had no strength left. The whole time they shuffled along, he focused his Glamour on the ropes holding his wrists tight.
He could hear the hum of voices drawing closer, eventually becoming loud enough to disrupt his concentration.
He looked up and took in the vegetation around the Lake, pierced by the rays of the setting sun. He couldn't yet see the Lake or the murmuring mob, but they couldn't be far.
Thaw narrowed his eyes in concentration again, focusing once more on the rope. The effort was already making him dizzy and the evening shadows seemed darker and more blurred than usual. He was asking his body for an almost unnatural effort and he wasn't sure how long he could go on. The ropes were slackening, though, less strong. He only needed to keep concentrating a little while longer. Then, he'd need to muster up any remaining energy and keep it ready, for the moment on the platform.
A low ray of sun fell on his face, forcing him to open his eyes. The vegetation had thinned quite suddenly and now the Lake stood before him. In the dying light, the water was black like oil, only broken by the deep green of the mold along the banks and the odd patch of dirty white foam that looked like it had been spat out by some giant. The walkway went from the shore to the platform, with rows and rows of Goblins having gathered along each side, all looking at him and the guards in front of him.
Thaw cast an eye over the masses, guessing at least two hundred people were there, much of the tribe. Only those people needed to guard the tents had been left behind, he figured.
He closed his eyes and, once again, felt the desire to smile. He'd never realized just how famous he was. They'd all come to watch him die.
He, too, had witnessed executions in the past, especially in the time of the old king, but there were seldom so many people present. Were they all there solely because Albedo had ordered them to be? Perhaps they were curious to see what would happen when the son of a Siren was burned alive.
He raised an eyebrow and shifted his hands so it was impossible to see he could move them. Then, he thought that there were probably just loads of people who'd prefer him dead.
He'd never hurt anyone in the tribe. Well, no more than any other orphan in the tribe, although his ratio of broken bones and gouged eyes was well above average. He knew, almost by instinct, that nobody had ever really liked him.
Even in such a diverse and changing group as the Moryans, where the concept of diversity was blurred, he was different in a unique way, a way that was his and his alone. Part of him, the side from his mother, came from an incomprehensible place. He was part alien, something the other Goblins instinctively didn't trust. Thaw himself didn't really feel they were wrong. Treating the unknown cautiously was a survival strategy in the Landfill and he'd done nothing to help matters by keeping the nature of his Glamour hidden.
He didn't care and even now he didn't wish he'd done things differently. He realized that if nobody else on dry land had his powers, then knowing about such powers would only have made others covet them. Plus, Glamour could be stolen, just like blood. He knew some - many - Goblins were prepared to secretly bleed the little Siren bastard that nobody wanted to be near simply to gain powers that nobody else had, even if only for a short time.
The guards pushed him between the two parts of the crowd and onto the walkway, which squeaked unnaturally when he put his foot on it.
Amid the humdrum of the crowd, he raised his head and looked forward, making sure his face showed absolutely no expression. He wouldn't show any fear or the reckless bravado some in the crowd were expecting. He was not going to be the protagonist in this monstrous play that had been prepared for him.
Yet, he smiled inwardly, knowing he also had no intention of disappointing them. After all, they were there to watch a show, weren't they?
His plan was to provide just the sort of spectacle the good Goblins of the tribe would struggle to forget.
Below, Needleye listened, with eyes closed, to the steps coming closer. Five Goblins, four who strode heavily and one less so, dragging his feet.
She breathed in deeply, got right into position and forced herself to keep her cloud as tight to her body as possible so noone above would sense it.
It would soon be time for action.
From her position, she couldn't see what was happening above on the platform, but the noise painted a clear enough picture. Over the last half-an-hour, she'd heard the crowd gathering slowly along the banks of the river. Then, some people had climbed onto the platform and stopped right above her and hammered something onto the platform. Then, it had been quiet, with only the odd whispered word breaking the silence.
Now Thaw had arrived.
Needleye
placed her palms against the pipe on which she was sitting, fingers open, and stretched her legs. She was on the right side of the scaffold, about three inches below the boards. Behind her, a load-bearing pillar stood, reaching right down into the Lake. She guessed this would remain standing after the platform crumbled. Her feet pushed against another, smaller pipe placed horizontally. This was one of the two - she was fairly sure - that would collapse the structure once moved. All she would have to do was push with all her might.
The other pipe to move was at the other side of the scaffolding, but she wouldn't be able to reach that one and have enough time to escape. So, she'd tied together a few pieces of rope she'd cut from the scaffolding and looped one part around the pipe. She held the other end of the rope in her hand.
Push with her feet. A sharp jerk with her arms. Then a head first dive. The rest she would leave up to the Goddesses.
Without a sound, Needleye closed her eyes and prayed.
This wasn't something she'd done much in the past. No Goblin did. For as soon as they could understand, the tribe's children were taught the Goddesses dealt with immense matters that were impossible to understand - such as the governance of the universe - and not little details, like the lives of Moryans.
The only thing that those distant ancestors of the fairy people could do in this world that was so much bigger than them, was to help themselves. The only "powers" the Goddesses had given to the smallest of their offspring was to be able slip unseen through the gaps in space, through the cogs of fate and natural laws, fighting tooth and nail to survive, finding new passages whenever possible and not giving in until their final gasp of breath.
So, Needleye did not pray for help from above, as she knew it would never come. She did not ask Titania to shake the world back into place. Nor did she turn to the Queen of the Air and Night to make things collapse slowly enough to give her time to escape. She didn't even ask the ancient, unnamed Goddess to part the waters below her or to harness and hold back her daughters, the Sirens.