The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

Jemelda’s. She might have been whispering but, to Simon, the sound was as piercing as the noise of battle in the Gathandrian fields. His thoughts filled up with the memory of what had happened there: the violent deaths of so many Gathandrians; the sheer presence and threat of the mind-executioner; the terror of what might be happening to Ralph; and most of all his own utter helplessness. The images swept through his mind with an insistence like that of the boundless seas. He could not gainsay them.
    And, without tears, he was weeping. Gasping after a forgiveness which would never come and he must live with the pain of it always, no matter whether he died in the flesh or not. He had to live with it. When he opened his lips, hands which were neither harsh nor gentle seized his head and a cold bitter liquid filled his mouth. His eyes widened, though he could still see nothing and he swallowed it down, as much as he was given, recognising the salt taste and rejoicing in the pain it would bring him. Winter-sour beer. The drink given to the livestock before they died. It hastened their ends, and would hasten his, but would deepen the agony he took from it. It was what he had wished for. The mind-cane, and Jemelda, had understood. Here, on this tree, his flesh would be divided from his blood, his skin from his bone, his heart from his mind. He would, once and for all, suffer the kind of agony he had brought to others. It was right. It was right.
    Faster than he had anticipated, the pain set in. His throat felt as if a hundred needles were piercing his skin and the warmth of blood flooded his mouth. For a long moment strung out of time itself, the harsh liquid he had drunk oozed down into his body. It filled him with icy spikes. As if the drink itself was cutting outwards through his flesh. He screamed. He didn’t know he was capable of screaming or even if anyone other than himself could hear the sound. But his mouth formed the shape of it. He could not get any air, or not enough to sustain him. Something grasped at his head and the beaker disappeared from his lips. Simon struggled to turn, bring the deadly brew back to his mouth but cool fingers held him back. He felt the scarlet shape of her name engraving itself in his skin even as the poison inside him plunged outwards to meet it.
    Jemelda.
    Then his thoughts vanished to a place he had never gone. The cruelty of the stars and the burning depths of the earth. The pain travelled with him. It was part of him, it was him. But beneath the agony of it dwelt the understanding that he was, perhaps for the first time willingly, stepping on the path he was meant to take. So, with the pain, came satisfaction and peace. The Lost One watched in wonder as lines of crimson scarred his arms and body, blood weeping from the wounds. With each drop, a name came to his mind, etched in black and dripping with menace. Some of them he knew – the shadows of their faces drifting in and out of his memory – and some of them he did not. But all of them were dead because of him, all of them he had killed to keep Ralph Tregannon’s good opinion and to save himself. Every iota of the pain he felt would be worth it – a sacrifice for what he had done. And if it killed him in truth, then let the will of the gods and the stars be done. Because, with each name, the purity of the pain in his flesh plunged deeper and his mind became ever more splintered.
    Soon he would be as nothing. Worse than nothing. And the only things which would be left were the snow-raven, the mind-cane, and Ralph. At the thought of the Lammas Lord he must surely leave behind, he found he could weep at last.
    As the first tear marked him, silver and white exploded from within the dead names’ darkness, and he found he was falling, his body racked with pain and his mind empty. When he stopped falling, he truly understood that then he would die.
    Let it come then, let it come, he breathed.

    Ralph

    Instinct drives him. At his feet lies Simon’s father. He had thought the man was dead; had Simon told him this, or had he merely assumed it? This is not so and the Lammas Lord will use this knowledge to save the star-forsaken scribe, or may they all die in the attempt. With one hand he grabs Annyeke and with the other he flings the emeralds up into the air. As they flicker and dance on the wind, Ralph seizes the old man and pulls him closer.
    “May the gods and stars take us where we so much need to be,” he whispers.
    A roar