The Woad to Wuin

by Peter David

  “I need you to listen to me.”

  I suppose the urgency in my voice was sufficient to capture her attention or interest, at least for a few moments. “All right,” she said neutrally. “I’m listening.”

  “You’re right. I don’t remember Mishpuh’cha.”

  “I knew it. Bastard.”

  “Or,” I continued, “any other town or city, village or the peoples therein. I don’t remember any of it.”

  She stared at me for a long moment, and then she shook her head. “This is the most pathetic—”

  I gripped her by the shoulders, perhaps a bit too hard, because she winced and tried to pull away. I eased up a bit but still didn’t let her pull clear of me. “Sharee … one minute I was dying in the desert … and the next thing I knew I was standing outside a burning city, and there was this dead man with my sword sticking out of him. Everyone’s calling me Peacelord, they’ve all sworn fealty to me, and I couldn’t name a single one of them if you put a sword to my throat.”

  “I’m willing to test that claim if you are,” she said. She didn’t look impressed by what I was saying.

  “You have to believe me,” I told her with rising urgency. “It’s all a blank. All of it. I have no idea how I got there, or how I came into this situation. It’s as if I’ve woken up in the midst of some great nightmare.”

  “You didn’t seem to be too nightmarish when you drunkenly condemned myself and my fellows to death.”

  “Is it …” I licked my lips, which felt suddenly very dry. “Is it possible … the gem had something to do with it?”

  “The gem?” She looked at me strangely. “You still have it? Where is it?”

  I was about to tell her … and then I remembered exactly who I was talking to. Bare minutes ago she had been speaking very loudly and aggressively about killing me. It would be sheer folly to tell her that her precious gem was affixed to my chest. The next thing I knew, someone might be trying to cut it out of there with a dagger, and they’d likely be none-too-delicate about it.

  So I settled for saying, “It’s safe,” and then, anxious to turn the conversation away from the gem, I continued, “And once I get you out of here, you will be, too. At least as safe as your own wits and ingenuity can make you.”

  Sharee stared at me in bewilderment. “What are you talking about? Out of here? I don’t—”

  “I have no intention of executing you,” I told her. “Listen … here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to take you out of here with me. The gaoler is already expecting to find this cell empty, and in that regard I do not intend to disappoint him. Once I get you upstairs, you’ll switch into a simple but effective disguise; a cloak with a hood that I left in a bundle at the top of the stairs. You sneak out with your appearance thus concealed. Most of the stronghold is sound asleep, so you should not be challenged—”

  “Am I to be on my own, then?” she asked with a trace of sarcasm. “The brave Apropos not to be by my side?”

  “I’m taking enough of a chance as it is,” I told her sharply. “I’m giving you a chance at freedom. The major problem is getting past the front gate, that massive thing of stone. Frankly, I’m not sure how in the world you’ll manage it. But if you’re ingenious enough, which I believe you to be, then you should be able to find a way out. From there you can go back to the Cartesian Plains or wherever you—”

  “And what of the others?” demanded Sharee.

  At first I had no idea what she was talking about, so alien to reality was the notion that she was suggesting. But then I understood. “The others? You mean your fellow assassins?”

  “My fellow warriors against a dark and frightening presence … namely you,” she corrected me, and I couldn’t believe the poison in her gaze. I couldn’t believe it because here I was taking these mammoth risks, and all she was doing was glaring at me because in her mind I wasn’t doing enough.

  I got to my feet. I know that she noticed the alacrity with which I did so, but I did nothing to let on that I knew she had seen it. “Sharee … the risk I am assuming by arranging for your freedom is horrific enough. One missing rebel can be—”

  “What, tracked down? That is what you were going to say, is it not?”

  I reached up and rubbed the bridge of my nose between my fingers, trying to ward off a headache I sensed thundering toward me. In the meantime Sharee continued, “You wish to make the hunted prey out of me, isn’t that it? I appear to have escaped, and the next thing I know, your men are in hot pursuit and it’s all a great day of sport.”

  “No, it’s nothing at all like that!”

  “That’s how it seems to me!”

  I waved my arms about like a headless bird. “Believe it or not, Sharee, not all the world is automatically the way that you perceive it! I am trying to set you free!”

  “Why?”

  “Because—!”

  Her scorn did not diminish one iota. “Because why?”

  Because this is all my fault and I’m sorry I did what I did to you when I had that ring on me and because I care about what happens to you.

  I couldn’t believe those thoughts crossed my mind. They were horrific admissions for me to make, even to myself. And naturally I would be damned if I said as much to her. There’d be no point to it. She would just laugh in my face, or accuse me of lying, or start whacking at my chest again.

  I must have had a truly ludicrous expression, because Sharee was staring at me as if I had suddenly turned into a drooling imbecile. It took me a moment to focus on her as she said with annoyance, “Well?”

  And I said the first thing that came into my mind. “Because you’re not expecting me to.” I figured it had worked one time, not worked the second time, so I’d see how it fared this time around.

  She laughed low in her throat. “So out of sheer perversity, is what you’re saying? I’d believe that of you.” But before I could congratulate myself on having pulled it off, she backed away from me, her arms folded resolutely across her chest. “Just the same, I’ll stay put here, thank you.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to knock her unconscious, sling her over my shoulder, and haul her out of the cell just because I couldn’t stand to see her standing there defying me with such casual haughtiness. The fingers of my free hand (the other still holding the torch) curled into a fist and trembled in frustration. “Damn it, Sharee! What the hell do you want from me? I’m trying to save your life!”

  “Save the lives of the others. I’ll not wander free while they die for the same crime which we conspired upon together.”

  “I can’t! Don’t ask more of me than I’m able to give!”

  And in that infuriatingly arch tone that she was so adept at producing, she replied, “That’s when people are at their best, Apropos. That’s when they become greater than they are. When they try to give more than they can give … and succeed.”

  In total frustration I slammed my hand against the walls of the cell. “I am sick of this! I am sick to death of being lectured by you! You’re the one who’s stuck in here, not me! You’re the one who conspired to murder me! You still haven’t given me a solid explanation for that one.”

  She approached me and I actually backed away, keeping the torch between us. She didn’t appear to notice it, and we went in a small circle as she advanced. “An explanation is required? Look at what you’ve become! You’ve not only turned into everything that I was afraid you would, but into everything you were afraid you would!”

  And then something she had said in passing came back to me, and things began to click together in my head. I pointed at her and said, “You once commented that you thought I had potential for great evil … and if I achieved that potential, you’d stop me. Is that why you wanted to know where the gem was? Because you think it has some sort of power that can be used against me?”

  Her jaw set, she said disdainfully, “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “No. No, you don’t,” I concurred. “And I don’t
have to let you go. But I tried. And you wouldn’t have it. So my conscience is clear.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes! And the notion that after tomorrow I won’t ever have to listen to your lectures or your condemnations or your arrogance … it brings me more joy than I can possibly express.” I backed toward the door, still maintaining the torch between us. I didn’t actually think she was going to try and make a break for it. I doubted she would have given me the satisfaction of thwarting an escape attempt. “We’ve taken turns getting each other out of life-threatening situations, Sharee. But you’ve landed yourself into this one now, and if you don’t want my help—”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “Says the condemned woman. Oh, but I forgot,” I sneered. “You’re not afraid of dying.”

  “No. I’m not,” she said coolly. But as she said that—as she was faced with my exit from the room that would seal her fate—I saw, ever so slightly, a flicker of apprehension in her eyes. It could just have been my imagination, of course. Or it might have been that she had just put up the bravest front I had ever seen. It might have been that, like me, she had become a consummate actor as a means of surviving in our little world of brutality, one day at a time.

  I paused at the door, and then, on impulse, I held it wide for her. “It’s your last chance, Sharee.”

  But she just shook her head and replied, “No, Apropos. It’s yours.”

  I walked out, slammed the door behind me and twisted the key in the lock, making sure that the bolt slammed home. And I wasn’t sure, but as the lock clicked shut, I could have sworn that I had heard a very brief, choked sob. However, I was more than happy to chalk that off to my imagination … because it was so much simpler that way.

  Chapter 6

  Gallows Humor

  Rarely is there anything as festive for a people as an execution. If there’s one thing that brings citizens together in large number, it’s the government-mandated slaying of someone other than they themselves.

  Monarchs know this. That is why the more canny ones try to arrange for as many executions as possible. Supposedly this is to serve as a warning to criminals near and far that their activities will not be tolerated. But the truth is that citizens are starved for entertainment. Bored citizens become rebellious citizens. So giving them something to watch, such as executions, allows them to redirect those gloriously hostile impulses that all humans possess toward something other than the monarchy itself. It doesn’t matter if the economy is deteriorating, or if the streets are lined with horse manure, or if the nation is in a state of war that is draining both their resources and the lives of their young men. As long as the people are distracted by entertainment, they can forgive just about anything.

  Obviously, in my new incarnation as Peacelord, I was quite aware of this, for at some point in the past months I had had a gallows erected in one of the larger courtyards. I realized bleakly that that might be one of the uses to which I put prisoners when I took them from their various cities. As I had endeavored to justify my actions in other endeavors, so now did I try to find some sort of rational reason for such brutality. Unfortunately, nothing came to mind. But after a few blasts of some very potent ale, I found myself caring significantly less about it. I did not, however, allow myself to become as drunk as I had been the night before. I wanted my head clear. I wasn’t sure why. That perverse aspect of my nature, I suppose, to which Sharee had alluded. I didn’t want Sharee to think for a moment that I was unable to withstand, sober, the sight of her dancing on air.

  I wondered why the opinion of an annoying little weaver that I was about to have slain should have been of any consequence to me. I had no reason to want to please her. She had been more trouble than she was worth from the very beginning. A niggling conscience when none was asked for, a constant reminder of my infinite shortcomings … as if I needed someone to present a perpetual catalog of them.

  And the fact that I was so clueless in the matter began to anger me. As I dressed to head down to the courtyard, dark thoughts flittered across my mind like shadowy sparrows and then began to build nests there. Kate, the picture of excited joy, was bustling about the chamber, studying in the mirror the ivory gown she was wearing. She chattered endlessly about what a great day it was going to be and how pleased she was that I had not let the little enchantress sway me in any way. The Lady Kate was oblivious, of course. Oblivious to my mood and the fearsome notions that wrestled for control of my mind, oblivious to the fact that I had sneaked down to the dungeon just the previous night. Once I would have found such mindless prattle annoying. Now it seemed a pleasant diversion from the remorseless demands for introspection that Sharee insisted on foisting upon me.

  Damn the girl, I thought. Damn her for refusing my generosity. Damn her for sitting in judgment on me. Me! The constantly bustling Kate had moved away from the full-length mirror, and I stepped in and studied myself in it. I was dressed entirely in black leathers this day, with a black half-cape over the shoulder. My beard, which I had decided not to shave off, was neatly trimmed to a point, and I was pleased to see that my signature smirk was firmly in place upon my lips. Any sympathies I might have had for Sharee were dissolving like parchment in water. She had brought this business on herself, I reasoned. I was simply doing what obviously I had been destined to do.

  Yes … destiny. I was starting to become a big believer in that. Destiny, I realized, was not what you predicted you would become, and then you tried to live up to it. Instead, destiny was that which you achieved, and then you looked upon your accomplishment and decided that it was always intended to be yours by divine right.

  In the back of my mind, some of the old fears remained. Sharee seemed to have an inordinate amount of lives and luck, and part of me was concerned that somehow she would manage to get out of her present predicament. If that was the case—if she did escape—she would never rest until she had her revenge upon me. Why, I must have been insane ever to even consider allowing her to escape. I had deluded myself at the time into thinking that Sharee, on her own, would pose no threat. That she required her cronies and co-conspirators to present a danger to me. But upon reflection, I realized that it was she and only she who was the real danger. She would never rest, never stop plotting to get me.

  Why?

  Jealousy. Had to be. She saw where I was in life, how I had outgrown her. She knew that I possessed the jewel that she craved. Oh, she cloaked her motivations well enough in high-flown words and criticisms of me, but it was all tripe. She wanted to tear me down because she could not stand to see how far I had risen. Sharee wasn’t great or wise or clever or mysterious. She was just a petty, jealous little thing, and now she was going to meet the fate that all her kind met.

  “It saddens me, in a way,” I said, unexpectedly (even to myself) finishing the train of thought out loud.

  Kate, who had been adjusting a tiara in her hair, stopped and looked at me quizzically. “What does, my love?” she asked.

  “Having to execute Sharee.”

  She froze at that and then lowered her hands, even though the tiara was still lopsided. “You’re not … thinking of—?”

  “Sparing her?” I shook my head vigorously as I strapped on my sword. “Of course not.”

  She breathed a visible sigh of relief. “That’s fortunate. Because she does present a great peril to you, you know. If you value nothing else, you must value your safety and dispose of her.”

  “I know all that,” I said, securing the sword. “It’s just that she is clearly so galled over seeing all the success that has come to me. The sight of it makes her suffer with jealousy. Once she dies, her suffering will cease.”

  “No, my love,” Kate assured me, coming over to me and draping herself upon my shoulder. “Her suffering will have just started as she burns in the afterlife for scheming to bring about your demise. The gods have fiendish plans for her, I’m sure.”

  “The gods have fiendish plans for everyone, my dear.” I laug
hed. “We should not take too much rejoicing in them, for who knows what awaits us and whether our fates will be even more dire than the weaver’s.”

  “They won’t be,” said Kate with confidence.

  With that, she extended an elbow to me, and I took it as suavely as I was able. And together we headed down to the courtyard to watch the execution of the extremely and excessively annoying Sharee.

  The courtyard was absolutely packed with apparently everyone who resided within the walls of Dreadnaught. Vendors were selling anything they could to a crowd that was anxious to acquire their wares. The most popular item was a tunic that was illustrated on the front with the silhouette of a hanged man. Little boys were running around with executioner’s hoods on their heads, pursuing shrieking girls while waving their little nooses at them. Small strips of steak were being offered on spikes of wood—“Steak on a Stake,” it was called. In one corner of the area, a puppet show was being presented. I could see that I was clearly the hero of the piece as a puppet (which wasn’t a bad likeness of me at all) was seen whacking away with a diminutive paddle at another puppet. Children and adults alike were watching it and clapped their hands with delight.

  Naturally as Kate and I made our appearance, a roar of approval went up. And I have to say, if a day has to be your last, then one couldn’t have asked for a nicer one. There was not a cloud in the sky, which in turn was the purest blue I had ever seen. We made our way across the courtyard, and I caught a glimpse of the executioner stepping up onto the gallows in response to our arrival. I tossed off a salute to him, and he returned it, which got yet another cheer. Like me, he was also dressed in black, but he wore no leggings—simply a tunic that came to about mid thigh, and large buccaneer boots, plus the traditional mask. The garment was sleeveless as well, enabling us to assess the awesome musculature of the man. He was solid muscle and sinew; obviously in addition to hangings, he excelled in putting people on the block as well. He could have swung an ax with enough force to drive it halfway to the center of the planet. At this time he bore no ax; however he did have a dagger shoved through his belt, its razor-sharp blade gleaming almost blindingly. It was a common enough instrument for a hangman to carry. Sometimes those being hanged had the remarkable lack of sportsmanship to not die. Particularly if they were not heavy enough, the noose would not break their necks, and then they would just dangle there, their feet flopping about in the air. That could be amusing for the first minute or two, but sooner or later people would tire of—or even become uncomfortable with—their gyrations. So the executioner would pull out his knife and either stab them to the heart or slit their throats for them. All part of the job.