Death of the Immortal King

by Sarah McCarthy

  “Which you would not have been able to attend if you were dead.”

  Elaine clenched her fists.

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Not fair? It’s not fair that you’re alive, either. Do you really not see that the choice you made would most likely have resulted in your death?”

  Elaine ground her foot into the carpet. “OK. Fine. Yes. I see that.”

  His eyebrows lifted and his shoulders relaxed.

  “Well, I’m—”

  “But I’m not sorry.”

  His jaw clenched and he sighed through his nose.

  “And why weren’t you there?” she asked.

  His gaze darted to the side. “I’m sorry. The business took longer than I thought it would.”

  “That’s it?”

  He leaned forward, his eyebrows knitting together. “I really am sorry.”

  “You’ve got hundreds of people working for you; couldn’t one of them have done it?”

  He sighed, grimacing. “I’ve suspected one of my men of skimming off the top. I needed to be there when he thought I wouldn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

  “Why didn’t you?” She had looked for him, after the race, had had to ask around, and heard from a neighbor that he’d stayed back. It had been embarrassing.

  He ran his hands over his face again. “You know some of the people involved.”

  Elaine pulled back. “I wouldn’t have told anyone!”

  Her father sighed. “Not on purpose, of course, I know you wouldn’t. But… you’re not the best at hiding your emotions. I’m sorry, Elaine, I really am.”

  Elaine crossed her arms in front of her, cradling her elbows with opposite hands, sympathy warring with the hurt inside her.

  He looked up. “How’s your boat?”

  “It’s fine. I’ll take care of it.” It wasn’t fine, but she could fix it.

  That evening, as they ate dinner together on the balcony overlooking the town and the fjord below, Elaine watched her father, examining his face closely, thinking about what Jole had said. The tiniest of doubts had crept into her mind. Was there something he wasn’t telling her after all? Her father was very old, and he never talked about his previous lives. Said he preferred not to. She’d always trusted him implicitly, loved him fiercely. He was all she had in the world. But now she wondered. The rights to reincarnate were expensive, and his business had suffered recently. What would he do to keep that immortality?

  6

  Elaine

  The knock at the door came a few weeks later. Elaine sat by the fire, finishing her breakfast; her father was out on the terrace drinking his morning tea. She went to answer it, and as her hand rested on the doorknob, she could hear heavy male voices and the shifting of feet. She hesitated, but the knock came again, louder this time.

  “Open up, by order of the Mandrevecchian.”

  Soldiers. Her heart thudding, she pulled the door open. Arrayed on their doorstep and the street outside was most of the Tarith city watch, as well as some of Dunla lo Finly’s private guard.

  “Yes?” Elaine asked.

  “Elaine ni Connoly?”

  Elaine looked at Jasper na Finly, whom she had known for years. “Yes.”

  “We have orders to search your home. And for the arrest of Cormac ni Connoly. Stand aside.”

  She gripped the door frame. “Wh—why? What’s he supposed to have done?”

  “The charge is treason.”

  Her skin went clammy and the blood drained from her face. “Treason? How?”

  “Stand aside.” He moved towards her, pried her fingers off the door frame, and pushed her out of the way, thrusting a piece of parchment into her hands. Shaking, she pressed against the wall as the soldiers stomped in, their boots tracking dirt across the rug. Elaine stared at the parchment, trying to focus on the words, but there wasn’t much. No specifics. Nothing about what he was supposed to have done or what evidence they had.

  She heard a teacup break, and a few moments later they reappeared with her father in chains. They led him out onto the front porch and Elaine followed them.

  “Dad?” she asked, trying to control her voice, but it came out as a thin quaver.

  “Everything will be just fine, Elaine.”

  “Do you know what this is about?”

  He stood, his back straight, his black eyes calm, his broad shoulders square.

  “Don’t worry, Elaine. I love you.”

  Panic rose in Elaine’s chest; the parchment crumpled in her hands.

  “Don’t worry?! What are you talking about?”

  “Come on, this way,” Jasper said, jerking her father’s arm, pulling him away from the house.

  “When will he be back?” Elaine asked, following them and struggling to get control of her voice.

  “I don’t know,” Jasper said. “And if you keep disrupting us, I’ll arrest you, too.”

  “Where do I go? Who do I talk to about this?” Elaine tried to gather her wits.

  “Take it up with the office of Dunla lo Finly.”

  “A Finly can’t order the arrest of a Connoly,” Elaine said sharply.

  “Elaine,” her father said gently. “It will be all right. Please go inside and let me take care of this.”

  “But—”

  “Now.”

  Her father almost never used that tone, and when he did it shook Elaine to her core. It reminded her that her father was hundreds of years old. She swallowed.

  “OK.” She turned, even though everything in her wanted to keep arguing, and walked into the house.

  She watched through the windows as the guards led her father up the street. People came out of their houses, or peered out from behind curtains, whispering to one another as they passed.

  “That’s not legal,” Elaine said to herself, her voice sharp. “A Finly can’t just arrest a Connoly like that.”

  In the back of her mind her suspicions about her father clamored to get out, but they were so new, so unbelievable to her that she couldn’t bring herself to accept them. Her father had always been there for her. He’d spent every afternoon one summer teaching her how to sail. He’d always made time to listen to her whenever she’d had a problem. Every employee he had treated him with a respect bordering on awe. She couldn’t just throw all that away based on some suspicions she had no evidence for. Except now he’d been arrested.

  That wasn’t evidence, though.

  Elaine carefully folded the parchment with the arrest orders and tucked it into a pocket. She smoothed her dress and hair with shaking hands, then took a few deep breaths and pulled her cloak on. She was going to do something about this.

  Gilmurry ma Connoly’s office was down by the docks. It was one in a long row of expensive homes overlooking the waters of the fjord. People who wanted to live near their boats, or who wanted to see for themselves every shipment as it arrived in Tarith, lived on this street.

  Elaine was invited in by a tall, thin woman with ink stains on her fingers.

  The woman showed her into a sitting room with gilt chairs and paintings of boats adorning the walls, their triangular sails bent into the wind. A large Connoly crest dominated one full wall.

  “He’ll be with you in a moment,” she said, and left.

  Elaine just stood there, nervously staring at the paintings. It hadn’t been long when an inner door opened and a man wearing the Finly crest came out. He started when he noticed Elaine then gave her a curt nod and swept past her.

  Gilmurry stood framed in the doorway. He was a large man with big hands and a windswept beard. His greying hair was tied back in a ponytail, secured with a blue silk ribbon that matched his blue silk tunic, belted around his large waist with a thick leather belt.

  “That was fast,” he said, eyeing her. “Come in.”

  He turned and moved into the back room, settling himself behind a large oak desk. Elaine followed him.

  “Who was that?” Elaine asked.

  “Messenger from Dunla
. Informing me of your father’s arrest.”

  “They didn’t tell you before? Aren’t clan leaders supposed to be informed first?”

  “Probably figured I’d warn him if they did.”

  “What did they say?” Elaine asked. “They can’t just arrest him like this, can they? He hasn’t done anything.”

  Gilmurry looked at her levelly. “Have a seat, Elaine.”

  Elaine sat, but didn’t stop talking. “Did they say what they arrested him for?”

  “Treason.”

  “They didn’t get any more specific?”

  Gilmurry picked up a piece of parchment from his desk and read.

  “Cormac ni Conolly hereby stands accused of conspiring against the interests of Mimros. He is to be questioned on this day, the Twelfth of Her Lady the Goddess Ceony. By order of the Mandrevecchian.”

  “What does that mean? Conspiring against the interests of Mimros?” Elaine asked.

  “That’s all it says. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what it’s about.”

  “But you can do something, right? Clear this up? It has to be a misunderstanding.”

  Gilmurry set the parchment back down and looked at Elaine steadily, waiting for her to finish. His eyes were a slightly dark shade of green. “It doesn’t say what he’s accused of. And if he’s found guilty, they won’t ever say. They’ll just execute him.”

  “That’s not right, though. They can’t just… execute him and not say why.” Elaine swallowed.

  “Yes, they can. If he’s a threat to Mimros, or the Mandrevecchian. Or if the Mandrevecchian thinks he’s a threat. They wouldn’t want the specifics getting out. They think it invites more. They’d rather quell it and pretend it never existed. They’ll kill him and burn his body in a public pyre. All you’ll get back is ashes.” Gilmurry had been looking down at the paper, speaking almost to himself, but looked up. “I’m sorry, Elaine. I’ll do what I can, but it won’t be much.”

  Elaine paused at the door to her father’s office. The air was still and heavy as she took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold. The tea-stained mug sat in its usual place on the large oak desk. The rows of books filled the floor-to-ceiling shelves that lined the walls. The leather-bound ledger rested in the center of the desk, and his slippers sat on the rug by his chair.

  She paused, and the silence hit her. The whole house was empty and still. She rarely came in here, and almost never without her father. It felt wrong, but she had to know.

  Hardly daring to breathe, she pulled open a drawer of the desk. Notes, letters, an assortment of pens in neat holders. Everything organized. She paged through the letters; mostly they were discussing trade deals with neighboring clan leaders, or shipment updates from his captains. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that jumped out as treason.

  She went through the rest of the drawers, finding a clay statue of the goddess Numenos that she had made for her father when she was much younger, but again no evidence of treason.

  She replaced the last of the drawers and circled around the desk. A small, circular, blue rug adorned the floor on one side, and when she stepped on it, she felt the floor give just a little beneath her. Elaine rocked back and forth, just to make sure she hadn’t imagined it. Her trepidation rising, she pulled the rug aside.

  At first, it looked just like the rest of the wood floor. But then she saw the outline. The boards had been cut, and there was a rectangular shadow with a small round knot in the middle. She inserted her finger into the knot and pulled, and a small portion of the floor lifted away to reveal a compartment beneath.

  Vials. She reached down and lifted one out. Holding it up to the light, she examined the white, milky substance inside. What is this?

  She tilted the vial back and forth, watching the liquid move inside. She had a guess. Pomir’s Iris had once been abundant in Mimros, but it had been so popular it had been harvested nearly to extinction. And then it had been banned. But the sap still got in to Mimros from the iris fields of the east. In the cheap districts of almost every town and city you could find dreamers, passed out in the streets or, red-eyed and sunken-cheeked, doing whatever they could to get their hands on more.

  Was this what her father had turned to, to pay for his immortality? She hadn’t seen any of the signs of use in him. Not that she’d had any experience with it up close.

  Her stomach twisted as she stared at the evidence. It crossed her mind what it would mean if the watch found it. She swallowed. She wanted nothing to do with this, with lying or smuggling, but if they found this, they would execute him. She lifted out the rest of the vials, gathered them into her skirts, and carried them, clinking softly against one another, into the kitchen. There she poured them one by one into the sink, rinsing them down the drain with water from a pitcher. The vials she arranged neatly in their cupboard of miscellaneous jars and jugs. They looked just like any other kitchen tools now.

  She returned to the study, replaced the lid and the rug, then went to stoke the fire. For a long time, she sat in front of it, trying to get warm, wondering what she had just helped cover up, and whether it would be enough.

  For the next several days, Elaine ni Connoly made herself a nuisance in Tarith. She visited every powerful clan member, both Finlys and Connolys, but she was invariably turned away at the door. Dunla lo Finly, leader of the Finly clan, refused to see her. That was expected, but even the people she had thought of as good friends refused to see her. She didn’t receive a single response to any of the letters she wrote. She was not allowed to see her father, had no idea where he was being kept.

  Elaine fell to praying, asking Numenos herself to help her see what she needed to do, or what she needed to learn from this.

  The watch returned several times to search their home, turning her father’s office upside down, and exclaiming over the empty secret cache in the floor. They never noticed the clean vials in the kitchen.

  7

  Elaine

  Elaine was sitting on the balcony, the sloping roofs of Tarith extending out below her, a full cup of tea gone cold on the table next to her, when again there was a knock at the door. Across the water, the mist poured over the rim of the cliffs. She didn’t move.

  The knock became a heavy pounding echoing through the otherwise silent home, loud enough to be heard over the wind that blew around the eaves. Her limbs heavy, Elaine picked herself up, wrapped her shawl more tightly about her shoulders, and went to answer it.

  Gilmurry ma Connoly stood on the doorstep, still and sober, in his light blue tunic with its thick leather belt. He wore a large wool overwrap with a simple silver Connoly crest. Two short daggers hung at his side. Behind him were five members of his personal guard, and three members of the Tarith Watch.

  Gilmurry ducked his head in an apologetic greeting. “Miss ni Connoly, your father has been convicted of treason and is to be executed today. I am to take you to the execution.”

  Elaine gripped the doorframe, trying to keep herself upright.

  Gilmurry waited, an expression of terrible pity on his face.

  “You have to stop this,” Elaine said. “He hasn’t done anything. You know he hasn’t.” Except she didn’t believe that now, and he could tell.

  Gilmurry’s eyes flicked towards the soldiers behind him. “He’s been convicted of treason, Elaine. The punishment for treason is death.”

  “But what’s he supposed to have done?!” Elaine’s voice rose, slightly hysterically.

  “I don’t know. But they wouldn’t execute him without reason.” His words sounded forced, and Elaine’s eyes blazed.

  “This shouldn’t happen,” she protested. “This is wrong.”

  “If you want to see him alive, you’d better hurry,” Gilmurry said flatly.

  Elaine glanced up and saw a thick column of smoke rising above the square a few blocks away. The blood drained out of her face and suddenly she was sprinting up the street, Gilmurry and his guards running after her.

  The square was crowded and
choked with smoke. Elaine pushed her way through the people, shoving them out of the way indiscriminately. A few shoved back and swore at her until they saw who she was; then they backed away.

  In the center of the square was a pyre, a five-foot-tall pile of brush and cordwood, soaked in oil, and roaring with heat and flames. In the center, barely visible through the smoke, was her father. A sack covered his head, and his hands were tied behind his back. He moved sluggishly, his head lolling down his chest.

  Blindly, she ran towards the fire. She kicked a log, thinking wildly that she’d kick the bonfire apart. Someone grabbed her by the arm, and she whirled around, lashing out with a fist, which connected with something. Whoever it was fell back, and she turned again to the fire.

  But now strong arms gripped her, pulling her away. She coughed, choking on the smoke and her tears. Gilmurry was there, holding her back, leading her away into the crowd. They stared at her as she passed, pulling back silently.

  “Get back, get back,” Gilmurry said, unnecessarily.

  Elaine stumbled. The crowd parted further, a silence settling across the square as the roaring of the flames died down, the fire burning itself out. The smoke drifted over their heads, blown by the sea wind, and Gilmurry marched Elaine, barely able to stand, towards a raised platform at the other end of the square.

  The crowd turned from the dying flames, watching silently as Elaine was led up the steps onto the pinewood boards of the stage. She was dazed, but no longer crying; a sense of complete unreality washed over her as she stared out at the faces. Familiar, but without any familiarity in their expressions.

  A caller came up behind them and unrolled a scroll.

  “The ni family has been found guilty of treason against Mimros. Cormac ni is hereby stripped of immortality and clan affiliation and has been executed on this day of the Goddess Ceony. His daughter, Elaine ni, we find unknowing of his treason. For her association, however, she is hereby stripped of all clan affiliation and property.”