The Executioner's Cane

by Anne Brooke

  It didn’t take long for the ground and the soil beneath it to begin to burn. In her mind’s vision, Jemelda could almost see the corn seeds and the seeds of spare herbs scattered at the edges of the field turn to nothing but ashes and dust. The fire-oil knew how to sink deep into the earth and destroy everything it met, especially with the power of the prayers Thomas had muttered and the song she had sung.

  As the fire reached its height, the cook swung away and beckoned for her people to follow. The murderer would be dead by the winter-cycle end and that, by all the strange darkness that danced and rolled within her, was her solemn promise.

  Seventh Gathandrian Interlude

  Annyeke

  She forced herself to stay alert, knowing she must not lose consciousness with the pain of the fire in her mind. The elders were rigid with the same pain; she knew it because of the echo, or rather the blast of it in her thoughts. The people were the same, and in those people the two she cared for most: Johan and Talus.

  As she whispered her husband’s name, she became aware of the grip of his hand on her shoulder where somehow in the midst of the chaos he had found his way to her.

  Thank the gods, she cried out in her mind and felt the mirror-sense of the words in his own. Then, as the horror deepened: Talus?

  With me, Annyeke, Talus is with me.

  At once she wrapped the net of her thoughts, sparse though it was in the heat and fire, around the boy’s mind and found Johan’s mind-net already there. The flames around Talus subsided and she caught the thought-sense of his cry which, under the circumstances, was stronger than she’d hoped. The elders and she had been the centre of the strange attack and, as a child, her charge had been lucky. She hoped the grown Gathandrians could, joined as they were, take care of themselves.

  Was this the work of Iffenia? If it was, then the Book of Blood had certainly helped her. In the middle of the crimson heat, Annyeke saw a flash of emerald. The Lammas jewels. For a heartbeat or two she wondered if someone could be travelling to them through the wild green passageway the emeralds were able to create, but she felt neither movement nor the punch of the borderline between their two countries. No, the green she saw was steadier and more contained. She needed to find out what it was and quickly.

  I can protect Talus for a while, Annyeke. You must discover it.

  She nodded her thanks at him, then making sure the net around the boy maintained its strength, she reached deep within her thoughts for the Lammas mark. It slipped through her fingers like launderer’s soap and she muttered a soft curse she hoped her husband would overlook. With a shake of her head, she tried again and this time caught it. The wisp of green felt as if it were sparkling into her skin, emerald turned to the strangest of water, but in mere moments she’d understood why it was there and what it was telling her. A heartbeat more and the heat was beyond bearing, and she let the light go, watching it vanish to see if it gave up any more of its secrets but it did not.

  She came back to the knowledge of her body and the strong presence of Johan and Talus beside her. Around them the people and even the elders were rather less determined and she knew then, as if for the first time, how much they needed her.

  Help me, she asked her life-partner, the link between them ensuring the privacy of her need. He reached for her at once, understanding without further words what she was after was a hand to support her, rather than a mind from which to gain comfort. She would face the elders and the Gathandrians with her own clear thought as a leader should. What she did not know was how they would respond to the truth she had seen.

  Once upright next to Johan, with Talus gripping her other hand, Annyeke cast her mind-net across the people. The colours of it, blue and gold and winter-white, fizzed for a moment in the air before settling into the Gathandrians’ thoughts. She found the elders – yes, even the Chair Maker – were helping the process and was grateful.

  There is fire in the Lammas Lands, she said. Because of our link with the Lost One, its power has come to us also, but the fire is real. We must face the battle for the sake of the lands we dwell in, both our neighbours’ and our own. We thought we were building peace but peace comes through battle and must always be fought for. This is something we should have learnt by now and we must carry it always in the day-cycles ahead. I will speak with the elders and, if the power we have permits it, I will speak with the Lost One also. The fire-link which has come to us will help me. Then I will come back to you and give you the choice of what you wish our city to do. For now, we must continue to work and pray and build our futures together.

  When she finished speaking, Annyeke glanced at the elders. She understood their surprise and dismay at her words because she had already told the people more than they would have admitted. Well, she had no patience for men who pretended to know everything. She had explained to them how things were very different under her leadership and they would have to grow used to the experience. That was all there was to it.

  Before any of this, however, she would need to speak to the Chair Maker about his wife and, more importantly, about the Book. She needed to find out what, if anything, he really knew.

  Chapter Eleven: Fire

  Ralph

  Heat tracks through him and his dreams are nothing but flame. He understands it isn’t real but he is unable to wake and return to the world he knows, or doesn’t know. Damn the scribe for undoing him, but if Simon had died how much worse would it have been. The man is impossible in all his ways.

  In his dream, he sees a figure in front of him. A tall man, facing away, and his cloak is jewelled with emeralds, the same that have proved so powerful and strange in recent days. The man is bearded, a fashion which Ralph despises, but he knows if he turns back to look at him, it would be like gazing in mirrored glass. This man has never turned to him in his dream, not even so much as a glance, and Ralph has always been running to catch him. Odd how in life, when his father was alive, Ralph took pains to ensure their paths rarely crossed, but in his dreams he experiences the opposite need. Simon had something to say about this, once, but Ralph had brushed his words away with a cutting response about the scribe’s own father. That was the trouble with being linked with the mind of another, however poorly: Simon and he understood more about each other than someone not gifted with mind-skills. Ah but it could be a joy too, how he knew it.

  In his sleep, Ralph thinks he cries out and his father begins to disappear, heading off into the distance where the woods and mountain lurk, as if pursuing a path only he can see. Because there is no path, or not one Ralph can ever distinguish, not in all his year-cycles of this dream. As if constrained by the vision itself, he begins to follow his father who makes his way with ease through bracken and gnarled branches that seem to reach for Ralph and hold him back. He is struggling for breath. Always the dream is like this, and always he fails to overtake his quarry.

  This time he sees something different in the dream, and the fact of it gives Ralph a greater determination to win. The sky over the trees is neither black nor the darkest of blues, but a deep and fiery red. Strangely it feels hot though the colours are a long way distant. His father is framed by them. He doesn’t know what it means in relation to the dream but he has to draw closer to it in order to follow his father.

  It’s hopeless. Already his father is gaining ground on him, and Ralph knows the chance to confront him even in this world of fantasy will soon be gone, again. Another flash of red in the sky draws his glance and he sees a spark of fire falling down upon him. Memories of the flames he’d endured on the mind-executioner’s journey jolt him backwards but in the depths of his thought he hears his father’s voice: stand firm when danger strikes. And he does, the warm feeling of loss surprising him. He never liked his father, but he can’t stop thinking about those words, said so often. The words of a soldier.

  So when the fire falls, Ralph reaches upwards to grasp it, experiencing the sensation of dream-heat on his skin, and the sudden knowledge his father is close by, after
all, and has never perhaps been far. He opens his mouth to talk to the man, though he can’t yet see him, but the noise he brings forth, half groan and half shout, wakes him and he opens his eyes, gasping and coughing, to see the unfamiliar grey shape of one of his guest-rooms shimmer into place around him.

  The lack of his father is the first thing to pierce him and he curses his own foolishness. The man is dead and vanished from the land, by the stars’ sakes, and there can be no reconciliation until his own time has come, and perhaps even not then depending on which legend he chooses to follow. The second sensation to burst upon him is the fact that the crimson heat remains. It is in his head and on his skin, an echo of ruby where his gaze meets the night. He stumbles upwards, ignoring the now-familiar pain which shoots through his leg, and the window seems a long way distant.

  When he reaches it, he blinks. He sees nothing obviously wrong outside; the night is cold but no more so than he expected, and the courtyard is empty. All he can hear is the occasional wood-owl and, further away but not far enough for his liking, the long cry of a wolf on the hunt. He waits a while longer but then decides he is nothing but a mind-fool driven by childish dreams, and he is about to return to bed and, gods and stars willing, sleep when something deeper snags at the edges of his thought. It is the crimson sky he dreamed of.

  Ralph takes a chill breath and stares into the distance. There is a glowing over the fields beyond the village. His fingers grip the jagged stone at the window frame and he draws in a breath again, sniffing the air like a hound about to be loosed onto a valley-fox. He can smell smoke and knows at once what he is seeing is real, not just an echo of his dream. Though his mind too is fiery-hot and it is as if there is a greater power etching the knowledge of flame into his consciousness.

  He curses and half-runs half-limps to the corridor outside. The fields are burning and he must rouse what people he has left in order to tackle the destruction. This must be Jemelda’s doing and it almost makes him break his stride to imagine what rivers of hatred towards himself and the Lammassers must flow through her blood to bring her to this act of terror.

  By now, the Lammas Lord is clattering down the stairs, hearing the faint woof of his remaining house-dog as it stirs itself in the empty hall. He gathers the cloaks and cloths from the broken table and runs outside. He cannot afford to give in to pain now. He must fight for survival. In the courtyard he yells for Frankel, stumbles across the stonework towards the kitchen where the servant must surely be and pulls aside the curtain.

  The cook’s husband is already standing and clutching a fire-torch in hands which tremble. He is dressed in a thin woollen tunic, and Ralph thrusts one of his own cloaks at him.

  “Come, we must go to the fields. The seeds will be burning,” he snaps but if he thought Frankel would show surprise, he sees none. The servant merely nods and follows him. He will not keep Ralph’s pace, no matter the injured leg, but he will come after him. That much the Lammas Lord does understand.

  Outside, Ralph sees his steward. He has almost forgotten Apolyon and curses himself for his lack of wit. The boy will be useful.

  “The fields are burning,” he says. “We must rouse the village and those few dwelling in the woods beyond to help us if any are left who are minded to do so. Bring the drums with you. You know where they are.”

  He doesn’t wait for any response but makes his way through the water and runs to the village. He ignores the pain. May the stars give him the strength he needs to fulfil this task.

  The path to the village contrives to slow him down, but the sense of urgency drives him on. Behind him, he can hear the boy begin to beat the drum even as he must be running to catch his master, and this obedience is a further encouragement to his speed. Finally he arrives at the old well and yells out his message to any remaining few who might be minded to hear him.

  “Fire in the fields, come out, my people, if any of you remain here, and let us fight it!”

  Above him he glimpses a cloud of whiteness floating over the ruined houses and it takes him a heartbeat or so to understand it is Simon’s snow-raven. The great bird plunges towards the earth and Ralph raises his arms to avoid the attack, but he is not the raven’s quarry. The bird flies past him and he catches the soft warmth of feathers on his fingertips. To his surprise, it carries the colours of Simon’s mind, blue and a hint of gold, and he wonders how much the scribe realises this. No time to ponder the meaning, as the raven attacks the house nearest the well, destroying part of the standing wall and bringing the fragile stones tumbling to the earth. The noise brings out a meagre scattering of figures from the shadows, just as Ralph understands the bird is drawing the villagers’ attention more effectively than any of his shouted commands.

  He doesn’t waste time but begins to run towards the fields still yelling his warning whilst the great white bird continues to rouse what people there might be who take shelter here at night from the terrors of the wood. With the noise of the drum swiftly nearing them adding to the fracas, there is no room for anyone to sleep.

  He is ready for it. Because, throughout it all, the wild race to the village and now to the burning fields which are thick with smoke and acrid smells, the Lammas Lord’s blood is up and his heart is racing, his injured leg merely an irritation to be dealt with later. This is battle indeed, of a sort, the fire an enemy to strive against, a physical act he can grasp, not the mind-wars which have left him so foolish and weak. He is a soldier, despite or perhaps because of his father’s best efforts, and he delights in the role.

  At the field, he takes stock of how much damage has already been done and the direction the flames, wind-driven, are sweeping in. Jemelda has started the fire at the south end where the soil is driest but she must have taken fire-oil from the castle or village supplies as flames are even now licking across the field. She has been cunning and he cannot help but admire her. It is not the open plains of battle, no, but it is a good strike at their walls of survival.

  Not only that but the fire is no ordinary fire, even though he cannot understand it. The flames are singing. All the while Ralph has been running here, he has been aware of the faint humming accompanying him and getting ever louder but he imagined it was the wind or his own blood pulsing through his body. He had no idea it was this.

  The boy, Apolyon, reaches him first. The drum he continues to beat draws the villagers after them as, by the stars, the instrument always has the power to move or terrify any Lammasser. Ralph is sorry he has had to use it, but this is war.

  “Do you hear it?” he asks the boy, signalling him to cease the noise he makes with a click of his fingers.

  Apolyon stops at once. “What, my lord?”

  “The fire’s music.”

  Ralph doesn’t wait for an answer. This close to his one remaining personal servant, he can sense his confusion already. The song must be for him alone then but he cannot interpret it. Besides his small band of villagers is coming close behind and he must show them how to act, by deeds not words.

  He darts forward, sweeping the heaviest part of the cloak he carries across the burning soil. The song rises but he shakes it out of his head, quickly building a make-shift wall in his mind as Simon taught him. His skills are lesser than the scribe’s so it will not last long against such an attack, but it will have to suffice. Thick cloth deadens the fiery soil and swallows up the flame. Smoke flares from where Ralph has begun but it will not reignite without more fire-oil to enrage it.

  He takes another step and repeats the action, just as the sparse number of people, only a handful of men and women, join him and begin to do the same. Together they form a thin line of slow-marching defence against the fire’s harsh teeth and together they advance. The flames bite and snatch at their skin and always the Lammas Lord can hear their song and the strange cry of the fire’s dying but it seems to disturb no-one else amongst them that he can tell, and so he makes no question of it. Enough for the soil to cease its burning so some of their seed and grain may be saved.
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br />   A few moments later and he gestures for one or two of the men to tackle the fire on the far side of the field where it threatens the grasses. There is less grain there as it’s closer to the woods and the foxes, but fire-oil and grasses do not mix happily, and they must prevent their conjoining. The earth has been their friend up until now and Ralph does not want it to turn enemy. Not if he can help it. He has heard the legends of fire and earth in these lands, lived them in some fashion also, and he does not want to see their like again. Overhead the night-owls screech a warning and at the edge of his vision something lopes in from the direction of the woods, towards the furthest of the men doing his bidding.

  “Wolf!” he yells and he is already running, brandishing his cloak and making as much noise as he can in order to disorientate the animal. The two men swing round and one of them cries out when he sees the wolf. Ralph can hear the noise of it even above the song of the flame. The man who has cried out starts to run back across the field towards the main group of Lammassers, and Ralph shouts again.

  “No.”

  The conflagration of noise and fire spooks the wolf, and the beast swings towards the wood, his tail sparking flame where the fire-oil has brushed against it. The animal’s howling pierces Ralph’s mind-wall but he pays it no heed. Because the man has not stopped running, and Ralph doesn’t need to be a mind-sensitive to know the fear of the wolf’s teeth and jaws drives him. The Lammasser is still running across the middle of the field when he should have taken the outer path for safety’s sake, and Ralph can tell he doesn’t know the animal which terrifies him has already been frightened away and is a danger no more.