Death's Executioner

by Charlotte E. English

  There would be no living with oneself afterward, Konrad knew. He understood Talin’s feelings exactly.

  He ought to destroy himself over the mere possibility of it, but he could not. He was not yet finished. He still had so much to do.

  ‘Right,’ said Tasha after a time. ‘What are we going to do?’ She alone of the three seemed scarcely touched by the horror and the tragedy of the past two days. She’d sat very still as Nanda thought and Konrad brooded, looking at nothing, motionless and emotionless. Could she be so very implacable? For once, Konrad was not the murderer in the room. Tasha had actually outdone him in death, today.

  ‘The malefic,’ said Nanda. ‘We need to find it.’

  ‘It could be anywhere,’ said Konrad, for that was a thought that had been plaguing him, too. Where had it gone, between attacking him at the ice-house and entering The Shandrigal’s Temple at Talin’s instigation? What if there were several other knots of tragedy all over the city right now? Others who’d died? Others who’d been struck, and now colluded in the destruction of their friends?

  Spirits above, what of the inspector? If more had died, the police would be summoned all over the city tonight. Summoned into fresh danger, perhaps. He wrestled with an urge to get up at once, run back to Ekamet and retrieve Alexander. Bring him down here, where he would be… safe.

  Safe? No one was safe. Were it possible to protect him, the rest of his men remained in danger, along with everyone else. And if Konrad’s instincts did not lead him awry, wherever Konrad was could be the most dangerous place in the city.

  ‘Maybe it will find me,’ Konrad said. ‘Even down here.’ He was hoping for that, in truth, for out here there were far fewer people to be endangered by its presence.

  Only his maddening and maddened friend Tasha, together with the person he loved best in the world.

  ‘All right,’ said Nanda. ‘Supposing that’s true, we need a way to fight it. And there is a way.’

  Konrad sat up, ‘There is? What way?’

  ‘There were once three blades, blessed in some way by The Shandrigal, that could destroy them,’ said Nan. ‘Two are lost. The third is now at the Temple.’

  ‘The Shandrigal’s Temple?’

  ‘Yes. The enclave brought it — it’s been under their guardianship — but I don’t know which of them is carrying it or I’d probably have taken it.’

  ‘Taken as in stolen?’ said Tasha with a gasp. ‘I am impressed.’

  Nanda responded with a grave little bow. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Pity you couldn’t carry out this admirable plan. You don’t have any notion which of them is most likely to have it, by any chance?’

  ‘Possibly Niklas. He’s the big, cold, silent one with my hair colour. Alternatively Lady Lysak, or…’ she shrugged. ‘Whoever is the leader of their enclave. I have no idea who that might be.’

  Tasha subsided into silent reverie. Konrad could almost see the thoughts flashing through her mind. ‘While our favourite kleptomaniac arranges her ideas, what do you think are the chances of finding those other two blades?’

  ‘About nil. I got the impression they were lost long ago, as in, the last time malefics roamed Assevan. If not, we have zero clues as to where they might be or how they got there. The only other possibility I can think of is somehow making another one.’

  ‘How possible is this possibility?’

  ‘Also about nil.’ Nanda sighed. ‘I did not get a chance to see the blade, so I can only guess at what makes it… potent, when other blades are not. It’s the property of the spirit-witch enclave, but they were clear enough that it was made in partnership with The Shandrigal’s Order. Some combination of spirit and Shandral magic, then? I thought to consult my Mistress. Perhaps She can help.’

  Konrad’s smile was crooked, thinking of his own Master. ‘Is she prompt to answer entreaty?’

  ‘No.’ An answering smile flickered over Nanda’s face, soon gone. ‘I feel terribly out of my depth, Konrad. It isn’t a pleasant feeling.’

  ‘It really isn’t. What’s worse is knowing that even Diana and Katya are similarly outfaced. What’s anyone supposed to do?’

  Nanda hesitated. ‘The other thing about the blade…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s— Anouska, the elder, said that nobody fights a malefic and lives. You can’t get near enough to it to use the blade without being struck, and you know what that means.’

  ‘So it’s a suicide mission for whoever expects to dispatch it.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  He stared at Nanda. ‘Nan, tell me you aren’t proposing to wield it.’

  ‘I am not in the best health anyway—’

  ‘No. I should do it.’

  ‘You of all people cannot be permitted to die. Not now. What are we even doing down here, if you’re that resigned to a speedy trip into the hereafter?’

  ‘I’ve got two different death penalties on my head right now,’ said Konrad. ‘Diana’s personal curse, and the malefic. I can’t dodge them both forever. But perhaps I can take the malefic with me when I go.’

  Nanda stared right back at him — and then, surprisingly, laughed. ‘Listen to us. What a pair of tragedy queens. Are we in so great a hurry to martyr ourselves?’

  ‘Someone has to do it.’

  ‘Maybe someone will. Someone else. Maybe when we walk out of here, we’ll find that the malefic reappeared, was duly skewered by Niklas or someone else unspeakably brave and self-sacrificing, and it’s all over.’

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it?’ Nanda abandoned the daydream with a sigh — and then a gasp. ‘Where’s Tasha?’

  ‘She’s—’ Konrad broke off, the inescapable fact of Tasha’s absence hitting him forcibly. ‘How did she do that? She was right here.’ Right here being a mere few feet away. ‘Tasha?’ he called.

  Silence.

  ‘She’s gone to steal the blade,’ said Nanda. ‘Konrad, I am not persuaded that’s the best idea.’

  ‘Wasn’t it what you wanted?’

  ‘It…’ she hesitated. ‘Anouska wasn’t exactly overflowing with confidence in me as a possible vanquisher of malefics.’

  ‘So what? Who is she to judge?’

  ‘She wasn’t wrong, though, was she? Look at me. I am not exactly at my best. Maybe someone else would be better.’

  ‘Like me.’ Konrad smiled. ‘I can do it. I’m good at killing.’

  Nanda regarded him gravely. ‘So you are.’

  ‘Also quite good at dying. Admit it, I’ve had more practice than most people.’ Konrad spoke lightly to hide the sinking dismay doing terrible things to his insides. He didn’t want to die. He knew it with a vehemence which might have surprised him, a few dark months ago. But he was running out of other choices.

  ‘What’s it like?’ Nanda said. ‘Dying?’

  ‘It… um, it’s…’ Konrad groped for words.

  ‘Unspeakable?’

  ‘Best if you only do it the one time,’ he said, but he was aware that Nanda was no longer fully listening. Hard to say what it was that gave him that impression, for she was still looking at him. A slight shift in focus, a faint glassiness to her attentive gaze…

  He stopped speaking, and waited. Would she notice? She did not. She sat still, taking in slow, shallow breaths, as though her mind were somewhere else entirely. Not just her thoughts, but her whole mind.

  Then, shadows lurched and tumbled at her feet, and something else was there. It snarled something.

  Nanda sat, gripping the edge of her branch-woven pallet and trembling so hard her teeth chattered. The bones of her face protruded through her paper-white skin, as though she had lost a portion of her bodyweight on the spot.

  Perhaps she had, for the something at her knee took shape, growing more solid by the instant. Konrad was reminded of Inkubal, only this being was more distinct, more substantial, for all that it looked wrought from shadows. Eyes of dirty gold glinted from within a dark little face, teeth fl
ashing in a too-wide smile. It stroked Nanda’s knee, prompting a renewed shudder from her.

  ‘Mistress,’ it said silkily.

  ‘What is your name?’ said Nanda at once, gaining some degree of mastery over herself. She sat up, willing herself to strength and calmness. Konrad watched her do it, wondering and appalled.

  ‘I am called—’ said the creature, and uttered a stream of incomprehensible syllables.

  ‘You shall be called Stev,’ said Nanda, picking only the first of them.

  Stev smiled. ‘And what is my task?’

  ‘Guardianship.’ Nanda pointed at Konrad. ‘Something evil stalks that man and you are to keep watch for it.’

  ‘Evil?’ said Stev, head tilting. ‘More evil than me?’

  ‘Much more. Will you do it?’

  ‘What is to be my payment?’

  ‘The usual.’ Nanda uttered the word firmly, and would not meet Konrad’s eye.

  ‘Nanda,’ he said. ‘This is not— tell me this is one of the five.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Nan, you cannot take on a sixth pact. Please don’t do this. We can manage without it—’

  ‘How?’ she snapped, rigid with exhaustion and wrath. ‘How, Konrad?’

  He was silent, for he had no answer.

  She turned back to the thing called Stev. ‘Are we agreed?’

  ‘I will pay it,’ Konrad said. ‘The price. You’ll take it from me.’

  Stev regarded him in a silence which seemed to Konrad disdainful, but at length nodded. ‘So it shall be.’

  And Konrad felt it at once: a slackening of energy, a rush of tiredness, as though a weariness long-suppressed caught up with him all at once. The effect was, briefly, intense, and then it faded — leaving him indescribably lessened.

  ‘Good,’ he said thickly, trying unsuccessfully to shake the sudden fog from his thoughts. ‘This thing. A malefic. You—’

  ‘You may sense it on us,’ said Nanda. ‘We have both been near it.’

  Stev did not move, but Konrad felt a sensation as of tiny hands crawling all over him, or intense little eyes subjecting him to a palpable scrutiny.

  Stev’s dirty-golden gaze grew wider. ‘That,’ he hissed.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nanda. ‘Don’t get too near it.’

  ‘And what would you have me do?’

  ‘Watch for it. Warn us of its approach. Find where it has gone, if you can.’

  ‘I cannot do all of these things at once.’

  ‘Find it, then,’ said Konrad. In answer to Nanda’s half-uttered protest, he said: ‘The serpents will watch.’ Already he had called them, before he was fairly out of The Shandrigal’s Temple. He felt their approach: they had gone far from him, but they drew rapidly nearer.

  ‘Can they?’

  ‘Eetapi followed its trail, through the spiritlands.’

  ‘She wasn’t just following the trail of corpses?’

  ‘Perhaps. But, Nan, that thing will leave a trail of corpses wherever it goes.’

  Hideous thought, but inarguable. He saw her swallow.

  ‘Go,’ said Nanda to Stev. ‘Waste no time. Bring us the first news of it that you find.’

  Nanda tore open a door, small but potent: the thing Stev fell into it, and disappeared.

  ‘Now what?’ said Konrad.

  ‘We wait. Either for the malefic to find us, in which case we await death. Or for Tasha to come back with the blade, and Stev to return with news, in which case we hunt.’

  ‘Three of us against a malefic,’ said Konrad. ‘Madness.’

  ‘It’s the only way.’ Nanda spoke with resolution now. ‘The Order, and the enclave, will shore up the passages between Ekamet and the spiritlands, reducing its options. And if any more have been struck, and are liable to prove a danger, they will deal with that, too. As will your Order. But to have so many set out to kill the thing — numbers can only give it more to destroy.’

  ‘There’s nothing else the witches can do, to fight it? Nor the Shandral? You deflected it—’

  ‘Yes; perhaps they can do as much, and keep themselves safe. Perhaps others, too. But we don’t want to deflect it again, Konrad. We want to kill it.’

  With which words, she sealed her own fate, and Konrad’s too.

  Konrad felt emptied of the necessary energy to care, at least about his own fate. Nanda’s, though. That could still prompt an emotion: a bleak despair.

  Right, then. He took a slow breath, meant to be steadying, and tried to ignore the sudden tremor in his hands. After all these years, that it should still horrify him so…

  Master, he called into the aether. Master. I beg You, attend to me.

  Silence stretched, a peculiar frozen silence as of suspended time. Konrad held his breath, torn, as ever, between hope and fear of success…

  Then came the wave of knee-weakening terror, and the blast of killing cold that heralded his Master’s presence. You call upon Me? said The Malykt. Again?

  Chapter Seven

  Konrad swallowed, did his best to gather his thoughts, too aware of Nanda’s white, frightened face across from him. She had scooted as far back on her pallet-bed as she could get and sat plastered to the wall, as though she’d gladly fall through it given half the chance.

  He’d like to do that, too.

  ‘Master,’ he said aloud — no sense now in concealment, Nanda might as well hear what he had to say.

  And whatever response he was given.

  ‘A malefic has manifested,’ Konrad said.

  Yes, said The Malykt.

  Nothing else.

  Konrad licked dry lips. ‘It is— beyond our knowledge, Master. What might we do against this foul creature?’

  Nothing.

  ‘N-nothing?’

  It is a duty belonging to My Sister. Why do you trouble Me with so inconsequential an occurrence?

  ‘Inconse—’ Konrad stopped, and swallowed. ‘Your Sister? But I thought— The Malykant’s duties—’

  It is your duty to see that such manifestations occur infrequently, said The Malykt, and with every freezing word Konrad shivered harder. It is the duty of Her followers to remove the problem when they do.

  The Master spoke as though Konrad ought to be fully aware of all this, as though it were common knowledge. Well, once it was. The Malykt had not kept up with the changing times.

  Konrad, gathering himself, resolved upon one more try. ‘Master. If You would but help us, there is nothing I would not—’

  He did not even get to finish the sentence. The Malykt thundered, You have already promised to die for Me, Malykant. What more can you give?

  What more indeed. Konrad felt the confirmation of his worst fears like a block of ice in his gut. ‘I— I see,’ he said.

  And I am waiting, added The Malykt.

  Then He was gone, His dread presence fading away between one breath and the next.

  Konrad required several breaths before he could speak again.

  ‘I am intended to die, then,’ he said.

  Nanda just looked at him, white still, and drawn. Then the fear left her. She sat up, drawing herself away from the wall, drawing herself up to her full height. Her chin came up, the fire of resolve flashed in her eyes, and she set her lips tightly together: all signs Konrad knew well.

  ‘Right,’ she said. Only the one word, but uttered with a firmness which proposed to defy the whole world if necessary.

  Konrad waited for more, but nothing came. ‘So,’ he said, trying unsuccessfully to still his trembling, ‘While it is apparently a Shandral problem, it appears it would be best if I take on the duty of slaying the malefic.’

  Nanda was not looking at him. Her gaze was fixed somewhere over his shoulder, fixed upon nothing, most like, but what was passing through her mind. He could guess at none of her thoughts, watching her face. ‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘That would likely be the best thing.’

  Konrad could not suppress a startled exclamation. Of all possible responses to his dreadful statement,
he had not expected that one. Would she not even try to talk him out of it? Did she accept the prospect of his demise with such equanimity? Her mind turned on the problem of the malefic; that resolve of hers, that was Nanda laying the burden of obligation squarely over her own shoulders, Shandral that she was. She had no thought to spare for Konrad’s fate in the midst of such a crisis, and that was right. Konrad ought not be so distracted by it, either.

  Unbecoming of a hero, to worry so much about the miserable self. He never had been much of a hero, had he? But he could try. How would a hero think, in this moment?

  If I must die, best that I do so in a worthy cause, and take the infernal malefic with me.

  Konrad replayed the sentence a few times, until he found that he could accept it.

  Only, he worried — for Nanda the most. Perhaps Alexander would look out for her, and Tasha. Would it be enough?

  ‘Tasha,’ said Nanda, as though echoing his last thought. ‘I need her. Serpents, Konrad, quick. Is she coming yet?’

  ‘With the blade,’ he said. Yes, best to get the business over with quickly. ‘Eetapi?’

  No answer came. She was yet too far away, and her brother too.

  ‘They are close,’ he told Nanda. ‘But still a little beyond reach.’

  ‘Why?’ said Nanda.

  He blinked, nonplussed. ‘What?’

  ‘Why are they out of reach? They are never far away from you.’

  ‘I… sent them on an errand. They have been seeking the malefic.’

  ‘Is it like to be so far away as all that? I think not.’

  He could not tell her about the serpents’ other errand, not without revealing the terrible plan he had come up with for freeing her from her own troubles. So he shrugged. ‘I do not control their every move, as you know.’

  A copout, and Nanda knew it. But she said nothing else, for a little while. Then: ‘Either this malefic is not following you, or we are better hidden here than I expected.’

  Konrad had been thinking the same, in the intervals between his various existential crises. Perhaps he had been mistaken on that point — How very like you to find an explanation centring especially around yourself — Diana’s words echoing through his thoughts, harsh but fair, much like the Master Himself really.