Before he was fully upright, a naked, decomposing arm snaked around his neck from behind, and his first reaction was an absurd disgust at the vile stink of it. In vain he stabbed and ripped at the arm; its undead owner held on.
A female Wanderer with half-decayed breasts hanging to her waist beat his left hand with a rock, smashing again and again until his bones broke and he let fall the dagger. An ancient indeterminate with a completely bald head twisted the iron rod from his grasp. Fleshless limbs twined about his chest, his arms, and legs, and slowly dragged him down.
He was on his back, putrescent weight pinning him, Wanderers looming over him to blot out the sky, and more were approaching. All those still capable of locomotion were converging on him.
That’s right, thought the Magnifico Aureste. Keep coming, carrion.
They carried rocks and sticks in their hands. Their arms rose and fell. He heard dull thudding noises, but did not feel the blows.
How many minutes? No matter. It was time.
The small finger of his right hand had suffered dislocation, but the hand and right arm remained unbroken. He could still slide his hand a few inches along the ground to reach his pocket. He could still delve into the pocket to bring forth Grix Orlazzu’s flask of liquid lightning.
He regarded the flask. It was thick-walled and sturdy, designed to withstand minor accidental shocks. Some force would be required to break it. Had he enough strength left?
Yes.
The ground all about him was studded with rocks. He smashed the flask against the nearest with all the remaining power that he owned. He saw and felt the heavy vessel break. He saw the fluid within spill forth to meet the open air.
Innesq. Jianna. Sonnetia, thought Aureste.
An overwhelming blast of white light blinded him, and he saw nothing more.
When the dust settled some minutes later, the area surrounding the entrance to Grix Orlazzu’s refuge lay strewn with hundreds of body parts, none of them moving.
Deep underground, four arcanists stood and one sat in a circle, hands and minds joined. Before them whirled the image of the Source, which their powers had called into being. For the five of them, nothing else in the world existed.
When the rumble of an explosion sounded overhead, only Sonnetia Corvestri noticed, instinctively clapping her hands to her ears. The great stone blocking the entrance trembled in its seat. White light flashed in through a small breach in the wall of the shaft, but vanished in an instant. Stones rattled, a few fell, and the breach widened, but the damage was minor. For the most part, the walls of Orlazzu’s refuge stood firm. The arcanists worked on, unaware.
Their minds labored hugely. At length the bands and pockets of shadow marking the column of light faded away, and its velocity of rotation increased. Faster and faster spun the pictured Source, its effulgence intensifying from moment to moment, until it glared with overwhelming brilliance, yet the eyes of the arcanists remained wide open and fixed upon it.
Faster, faster, and the light took on a certain ghostly transparency signaling transfer among dimensions. It was at once immediate and incalculably remote. Transparency at last conquered radiance, and finally the column spun itself beyond the realm of human perception.
A final searing burst of pure, uncompromised glory, and the image vanished from view.
It was done.
The circle of arcanists broke. Their hands disengaged. Individuality reasserted itself. A deep groan that was almost a bellow thundered out of Ojem Pridisso. A sigh gusted from the depths of Innesq Belandor’s lungs and he slumped in his wheeled chair, eyes closed, head sunk on his breast. The four standing arcanists collapsed to the stone floor, where they lay unmoving, either asleep or aswoon.
Sonnetia’s eyes had closed against the unbearable light. Now they opened again, and she looked about her. The arcanists were motionless and unconscious. Her gaze fixed on her son, and she attempted to rise, but found herself struggling. The floor beneath her seemed to pitch; presumably the effect of her own dizziness and confusion. She paused, drew a deep breath, steadied herself, and stood. But the tremors intensified. A bass growl menaced its way out of the depths of the world, and an answering cry escaped her. Making her way to Vinzille’s side, she knelt and touched his face. He stirred a little and—unwilling to wake him—she withdrew her hand at once. Her concern was needless. The floor shook, the deep thunder rumbled underfoot, and Vinzille slept on.
She rose again, and some perverse blend of dread and fascination seemed to drag her to the shaft, almost against her will. There before her were the rungs set in the curving wall. In her mind’s eye, she could see Aureste climbing them hand over hand to exit the shelter—how long ago had that been? It could only have been minutes, but it seemed an age.
She could hardly climb the shaft, with the world shuddering and tossing about her—she would be thrown from the rungs if she tried it. Nor could she abandon the safety of Orlazzu’s shelter, exposing her unprotected self to the unknown terrors awaiting above. She could not and should not, but somehow her hands were on the cold iron, and so were her feet, and she was climbing toward the surface, as Aureste had climbed. The walls quivered as if palsied, but her will and her grip both held.
At the top of the shaft, she discovered the lever jutting from the wall, and did not hesitate to depress it. The great stone swiveled, and fresh air rushed in. Fresh? Sonnetia gagged on the stench of putrefaction and seared meat, overlaying something greater and deeper that could hardly be identified. For a moment she paused, resting her damp brow against the cold stone wall, then resumed her ascent. Without allowing further time for thought or doubt, she pushed herself up and out into the world.
It was early in the day, but the sky was deeply somber, almost crepuscular, and the low light reflected an odd greenish tint. The ground quaked and lightning shot the heavens, but she hardly noticed. Her attention anchored upon the surrounding ground, blasted by explosion and strewn with countless charred bodily fragments of varied and indeterminate species. Aureste was nowhere in evidence, and she knew in an instant, beyond all doubt, what fate had befallen him. The same instinct that had forced her from the safety of the shelter now impelled her to venture forth in search of his remains. But tears and darkness dimmed her sight, and identification was impossible.
She had taken no more than a few steps before a flash of movement at the edge of her vision spun her around in time to see the great stone doorway swinging shut. She did not know how to open it. Until the arcanists awoke, she would remain outdoors. The shivering of the ground underfoot threw her to her knees. A great wind was rising—a bellowing dark monster laced with fire. She had never imagined, much less encountered such a black gale, whose uncanny nature was unmistakable. Evidently the cleansing of the Source had loosed vast forces upon the land. There was no guessing what change they would wreak before they dissipated.
Without attempting to rise, Sonnetia crawled to the great rock slab and clung to it, her sobs lost in the seismic and atmospheric tumult.
The tremors and storm winds sped outward from that place. Over and under the land they thundered, hurrying toward the sea.
Jianna did not know the hour. She knew only that it was the last day of her life, and she had little idea how much of it was left. Some time earlier, she had awakened from a dream in which she had met her father. It had been a rare gift of a dream, filled with warmth and hope that had buoyed her spirits for a while. But the quiet minutes had passed, the warmth had gradually seeped out of her veins, and with it had gone her courage. Now she sat huddled and shivering in the corner, arms wrapped around her knees, mind filled with visions of her own impending death.
Her eyes were swollen but dry. She had exhausted her tears hours ago. She was very cold, and her innards were knotted to the point of pain.
A scraping sound caught her ear, and she raised her head. The small panel at the bottom of the door opened, and a bowl of gruel slid into the cell. Her last meal. She wanted none of it; the very th
ought of food literally sickened her. A wave of nausea rose up and receded, leaving her drenched in cold sweat. She looked down at her hands, and saw that they were shaking.
Jianna drew a deep breath. She was the daughter of the Magnifico Aureste Belandor, and she did not mean to go to her death trembling and visibly terrified. Celisse Rione, without a drop of noble blood to grace her veins, had not revealed the smallest particle of fear on the scaffold. She had displayed nothing but courage and composure, and had done so in the face of an execution by torsion offering potentially infinite pain. Jianna’s own appointed doom of exsanguination was mild by comparison.
You’re lucky, that one’s easy as a walk in the public gardens. The guard’s words rang in her mind, and they contained a measure of truth. Death by blood loss was, by all report, not tremendously painful. Neither was it quick, however. Quite the contrary, in fact.
The Faerlonnish method of public exsanguination was designed to please the spectators, and did so by offering them a measure of direct influence. The condemned was strapped to a wooden framework holding his or her body upright. The executioner opened a vein or an artery in the wrist, and the blood gushed down into a bucket or basin positioned to receive it. Immediately upon cutting, the executioner would apply bandages or a tourniquet to halt the bleeding. The condemned was then offered the opportunity to address the spectators. He could say whatever he wanted. He could sing, he could whistle, crack jokes, recite poetry, deliver monologues, curse and harangue, or engage in conversation with onlookers. So long as he kept his audience entertained, the bandages remained in place. From time to time, however, the executioner would request a show of hands in the victim’s favor. A lackluster response triggered the release of limited blood flow, following which, the condemned was offered another opportunity to amuse. A decided display of spectator boredom or impatience, however, dictated the final removal of all bandages, after which, death quickly followed.
From the victim’s perspective, there was really no reasonable point in prolonging the process. But reason did not always rule, and the instinct to preserve life was powerful. Certain resourceful, charismatic, desperately pitiable, or spectacularly insane victims had been known to last for hours. There was one particularly famous case, a malefactor nicknamed “Yodeling Breeteelio,” who had managed to survive upon the scaffold from early morning until nightfall.
As for Jianna, she had no intention of speaking. The sooner it was over, the better. No doubt Falaste would share her sentiments.
Resting her head on her hands, she sat motionless, both desirous of conclusion yet dreading the sound of approaching footsteps.
Her mind was alive with thoughts of the past; happy thoughts, by and large, for most of her young life had been filled with good fortune.
Then came the sound she awaited—the thud of footsteps advancing along the corridor. She glanced down at her hands; perfectly steady again. She stood up.
The footsteps halted outside her cell. The key clicked in the lock, the door opened, and light from the corridor poured in. Two armed guards waited there. One would have been enough, but perhaps they anticipated some resistance from the condemned.
“Time,” one of them informed her. “Let’s go.”
She walked out of the cell, and each of the guards took one of her arms. They did not handle her roughly. They scarcely glanced at her face. Their demeanor was stolidly indifferent. She did not struggle.
Along the corridor they moved her at a smart clip. Very soon they came to a door, before which waited some civilian functionary of the prison, a grey cockade of office on his shoulder. Beside him stood a clerk bearing a ledger and some documents. The guards halted and saluted. The functionary nodded. His eyes skimmed over Jianna as if he hardly saw her. Nobody spoke. They waited. Moments later, another pair of guards arrived, with Falaste Rione walking between them.
Jianna’s gaze locked on him. He was unshaven, unshorn, and very pale. But he walked with a firm step, and his expression was thoughtful. The grey-blue eyes that rested on her face were filled with a calm, steady encouragement.
I love you, she told him silently, with her own eyes and face. He responded in kind.
“Ho, a pair of lovebirds, is it?” One of the guards had noted the look that passed between them. “You two want to coo sweet nothings at each other out there, you’ll make yourselves popular, for sure. You might win hours. Think about it.”
Neither of them needed to think about it.
Someone opened the door, and the daylight entered upon a sharp current of fresh air. Indeed, the breeze was exceptionally brisk. They went out into the prison courtyard, and there was the scaffold, supporting a pair of upright wooden posts, each post furnished with a heavy crosspiece, evidently adjustable in height. Sets of thick leather straps with heavy buckles were attached to posts and crosspieces at irregular intervals. Back and forth between the two frameworks moved the executioner, adjusting the placement of wide basins, tweaking straps. Jianna remembered the man. He had killed Celisse Rione.
At one side of the scaffold lay a pair of long, drab burlap sacks. In recent days, wood to feed the funeral pyres had grown so scarce and dear that none could be spared to build coffins for condemned malefactors. Sacks and a few shovelfuls of lime would do.
The last time she had attended an execution, it had been as a member of the audience, close-packed about the scaffold. Her eyes scanned the courtyard now as if searching for her own cloaked and masked figure out there. Today the spectators were not so numerous as they had been upon the morning of Celisse’s death, yet there was a considerable crowd assembled. For a moment, it struck Jianna that her vision must be distorted, for the citizens seemed almost a collection of Wanderers, with eerie, slightly greenish faces. She blinked. No mistake. The faces all around her were oddly altered, even Rione’s. She glanced up at the sky, and noted that the clouds were suffused with foreign color that lent the daylight a subtly uncanny quality. She had never seen anything like it.
They hurried her toward the scaffold, and as they went, the breeze swelled to a chill wind strong enough to lift her cloak and spread it on the air. She thought for a moment to feel the ground tremble under her feet, but that was surely the product of her own terrified fancy.
But she was not terrified, she realized. Not any longer. Deeply sad, yes. Grieved and angry to be robbed of the life that she loved, and of which she had not begun to drink her fill. Angrier yet that they would destroy Falaste, whose life was worth so much more than her own. Perhaps the strength she had seen in his eyes accounted for the change. Whatever the reason, she knew that she could endure whatever came, and she would die, but she would not break.
A burst of confused vociferation reached her ears, and it came from the spectators. She had not imagined that trembling underfoot—all of them had felt it.
The skies overhead were darkening, as if the sun yielded to eclipse. The wind was rising, sweeping through the city, proclaiming itself like a new monarch.
The human voices dwindled to an uneasy buzz.
They moved her deftly up the short flight of wooden steps, as if transferring a package. Behind her came Rione.
From the vantage point of the scaffold, she could observe the crowd, which now stirred and grumbled, at once avid and uncertain. Its members regarded her death as a form of public entertainment, but somehow they did not seem like enemies. She even fancied to catch a hint of pity upon a few faces.
The attendant bearing the documents stepped to the front of the scaffold and began to read forth the list of the condemned prisoners’ various crimes, followed by the full text of both death warrants. His voice was all but inaudible, lost in the rising howl of the gathering wind. The darkness of night was enveloping the Witch courtyard. The attendant was finding it difficult to make out the words of the warrants. Thunder growled overhead, and an answering growl rumbled below. An unmistakable tremor rocked the prison grounds. Cries of alarm arose among the spectators. Several were thrown to the ground, a few
went reeling into collision with their neighbors, and some of them fled the scene. But many remained.
Lightning flickered across the sky, and the howl of the wind rose to a full-throated bellow. Garments and hair whipped wildly. Branches, leaves, ashes and grit from the pyres, dust, dislodged roof tiles, slivers of glass, and bits of refuse whipped viciously through the air. Seizing the two long sacks that lay ready on the scaffold, the gale swept them up and away. The clerk with the ledger strove manfully to retain control of his fluttering warrants and documents. His lips continued to move. Presumably he still read aloud, but his voice was swallowed alive.
The guards had not lost sight of their purpose. As the thunder boomed, the lightning glared intermittently, and the gale roared, they set about fastening the prisoners to the wooden uprights. Two of them secured Rione with leather straps buckled around his chest, waist, legs, and ankles. A couple of knife strokes sliced through his sleeves, baring his wrists. His arms, extended at right angles to his body, were strapped to the horizontal wooden crosspiece.
Jianna’s guards hurried her to her post. As they went, an immense flare of lightning bathed the darkened world for an instant in razor-edged radiance, thunder crashed, and a tremor rocked the ground with sounds like buried explosions. The scaffold shook violently, pitching Jianna and her guards to their knees. Fervent curses erupted from the guards.
In a quieter world, perhaps there would have been some audible herald of disaster. As it was, it seemed without warning that one of the big rooflights, shaken from its moorings atop a Witch turret, came hurtling down into the courtyard. The heavy light struck one of the spectators, killing him instantly. Cries of terror arose, and the remaining citizens fled. Within moments, the courtyard was empty of visitors.
Even the executioner was nonplussed, but not to the extent of neglecting his duty. He gestured, and the guards struggled to their feet, hauling Jianna with them. One of them released the strings at her neck, removed her cloak, and tossed it aside. The wind promptly swept the garment from the scaffold. Pressing her firmly against the upright, they proceeded to buckle the heavy straps across her chest, around her waist and legs. Her sleeves were cut open, and they commenced strapping her arms to the crosspiece.
The Wanderers Page 36