The Executioner's Cane (19 page)

He sensed a presence in the centre of the
scene, straight ahead, and was drawn towards it. He had encountered
this before, after the battle when Annyeke had killed Gelahn, and
Simon himself had entered the realms of the dead to try to rescue
her young charge. However he had not expected to meet the Spirit of
Gathandria again quite so soon, although “meeting” didn’t
accurately describe the experience in any way. Because he had
walked only a few steps when the Great Spirit of the lands slipped
through his skin and bone and poured its strange energy through his
blood, which was the only way to speak of the sheer devastation and
ecstasy of it. He fell to his knees, scrabbled like a child on the
ground, fingers digging deep into grass and soil, and panting hard.
His thoughts and memories, all the loves and pains of his life
exploded out of flesh and time-cycle and into bright air. It turned
him inside out, it made him know what death was like and it also
gave him strength.

The words that launched themselves from his
heart to the heart of the being ravishing him were these: Show me
then, show me what is my life, and then I can live it.

A long silence in which everything happened
and also nothing. Simon became aware the light around him was
fading, but the light inside was growing stronger. He rose to his
feet, staggering under the strain. Across his vision streams of
people and vast lands flowed past, and he felt as if he were seeing
all the worlds and races that had ever been up until now. He feared
them and he longed for them too.

Is this what you see when you watch us,
Spirit of Gathandria? So many people needing you and with none to
help them?

The Lost One did not wait for any response;
he understood the answer lay within the depths of the question, and
what he had asked was what the Spirit saw. He was aware of the wide
beginnings of calm, perhaps even acceptance.

I am closer to you than I think. How then can
I help them?

Simon closed his eyes, shutting off the
scenes in front of him from his sight but not his mind. It was
strange how much he felt at one with the air and the earth and the
sky above, how his body was no longer a barrier but a channel. Was
this what death meant? He laughed, but quietly, because this was
indeed what it meant. Death was all around him and within him, and
over and beneath him too. It was impossible to ignore or deny,
stronger even than life in its intensity. He stretched his arms out
as far as he could and flung his thoughts into the darkness within
and without.

So this is true. I am dead and this is the
end of my journey. As that is what you wish, Great Spirit, then it
is also what I long for, with even more passionate acceptance than
you could ever plan for. Because of you I have sought my death at
the hands of Lammas and it has been done. Your desire and mine are
here fulfilled and you have all of me, body, mind and heart. Do
with me here what you wish to do. Everything or nothing, it does
not matter, as I am yours, in life and in death. Let all of it be
as you alone have wanted.

When the Lost One opened his eyes, he was
crying. His own words carved the richness of meaning into his mind,
giving back the power with which he had spoken them. He could see
them dancing like young birds within a circle of green. Beyond it,
light and dark flowed round them, and within that dwelt the
unknowable, powerful Spirit. No, as even that understanding was too
impartial; it was truer to acknowledge the Gathandrian Spirit was
everywhere, not merely in the elements holding him safe, but here
in the words and the circle, and even in himself. Even in death,
especially in death.

I will stay with you forever, and indeed I
long to do so if you permit it, but allow me in this moment-cycle
to want one thing above all: that you will make my death count for
those who still dwell throughout the lands, and they will not be
punished for what they have done. By the gods and stars who live in
your unbearable light, Great Spirit, there has been punishment and
pain enough, and now is the time for life and peace, if peace is
possible. Let it be so.

These words flowed out of the Lost One’s
mouth and heart and mind, and spun through the air to join their
fellows in the thought-circle. Its emerald edges all but vanished
to allow them entry before closing up again. As it did so,
something sparked in the shadows of Simon’s memory.

The circle was green, emerald-bright.
Emerald. He drew in a breath, feeling the warmth of it in his
throat. At the centre of the world of the dead, could life still be
felt and remembered in the way it had been, once? He did not dare
recall it, only knowing that for this glorious line of eternity he
and the Gathandrian Spirit were one, the memories and emotion
shared. Perhaps this was as it had always been, if only he had
known it.

Is this not the end, but only the
beginning?

A rush of confidence, such certainty as the
Lost One had never experienced, drove him forward to where the
green circle danced and sparkled with words. His words. The
Spirit’s words. Simon found he was laughing, and the light from the
laughter flowed within the air like a silver stream on a bright
spring-season morning. Still laughing, he reached out and touched
the circle.

It exploded in green, enfolding him in light
and music. Simon felt free, truly alive, as the colours invigorated
his mind. At the heart of the emerald was something black and
silver: the mind-cane, an object which had somehow wormed its way
into his affections and not let go. He had no idea how it had come
to be here, in the Land of the Dead, but the sight of it gave him
renewed hope. He did what he had been born to do: he grasped the
cane, feeling its warmth and power meld with his own, and slashed
it across the exploding circle.

The world turned white and he spun through
the air as the ground beneath him disappeared. With it vanished the
people and the histories he had sensed and seen, but their loss was
his alone; he knew they remained as they had been. Even for the
Lost One, some acts of salvation were not his to perform. As he
tumbled through the absence of things, the circle and the cane went
with him, strange comforts in the unaccountable light. Indeed,
falling through air was an experience he should be used to by now,
and he wondered if the Gathandrian Spirit would ever stop testing
him like this. Surely he had proved himself enough?

The choice is yours alone.

The voice came from nowhere and everywhere,
it was within and without. If Simon had been forced to choose to
whom it belonged, then his answer would have been the mind-cane.
Something had changed.

What choice? he formed the words and breathed
them out as he continued to fall, hoping his obvious foolishness
would not be too cruelly punished.

The choice of life or death.

The Lost One would have laughed again, if he
had found air enough to do so. Then that is easy; I have died
already and am in the Land of the Dead. If there is a choice, then
it must be for life, but life not as I wish it but as you alone may
grant.

He had not intended to add so much to his
decision, but the words flowed through him like water and he knew
he was not speaking them on his own. For this time-cycle, he and
the cane and the circle were one: he was as dark as winter and as
bright as the silver carving on the artefact; he was as green as a
forest and as wild as the fire which sparked from the magical
circle. He was Simon the Scribe, he was the Lost One.

It was enough. He landed without warning on
earth and ice, and he did not have air to cry out even as the pain
scorched through him. Beneath his cheek he felt the roughness of
stones. Somebody grasped his body and he felt himself lifted
skywards. Was he to be hanged from the tree once more? He tried to
reach out with his thoughts to learn who it was, but the energy for
that had vanished. The Lost One had never felt so helpless, in
spite of the fact he could feel the cane in his grip and sense the
emerald power, though even that was lessening rapidly. It must be
returning into the form of jewels it dwelt within. No time to
ponder further as a hand at the back of his head offered him
support, and he felt strong fingers digging into his hair. Not the
Lammas Lord then, at least so his memory told him. A sudden sense
of movement and then he could hold onto this renewal of life no
longer. His mind spun away, desperate for familiarity, but found
none.

Annyeke

If she were being entirely truthful with
herself, as a First Elder of Gathandria and more importantly as the
woman she most definitely was, she never expected anything to
happen. When the Lammas Lord flung the emeralds at the cane where
it hovered over Simon’s dead body, she had no idea what he meant to
achieve. It even crossed her mind it might have been some strange
Lammas tradition she didn’t know about or that Johan, in his
studies of them, had never mentioned. An honouring of the dead. She
never expected the green fire to roar into life and engulf the
mind-cane, whilst the screams of the villagers echoed through the
air. Without a further thought, Annyeke launched herself across
Simon’s body. At the same time, someone else landed above her and
she felt the Lost One and herself gathered into a rough and
juddering embrace. The Lammas Lord.

She had no further opportunity to respond as
the green fire swept over them, and the only thought filling her
mind was brightness and energy, the seasons rolled into one vast
triumph, and the sky and the land as all but inseparable. She
closed her eyes and gasped, unable to bear the power of it, whilst
Tregannon’s grip on her tightened and he cried out, pouring strange
curses into her ear.

It lasted longer than she could ever recount
and was over before she could fully understand where they had been.
As it had been somewhere different, she was sure of it. A land far
away from both Lammas and her beloved Gathandria, a land as far as
the distant stars themselves, and at the same time closer than her
own heart.

The fire vanished and she heard the dull thud
of something falling onto the snow. When she opened her eyes, she
could see the cane and the handful of jewels lying as innocent as
sunshine a man’s length away from them on the earth. The screams of
the people stopped and all she could hear now was whimpering, all
she could taste in her mind was the aftershock of their fear:
yellow, orange, black. Most of them were running away, back across
the water, over the field the other side and to the woods. She
wondered if they would find any safety there, but did not think so.
What had happened today, what was happening still, was beyond all
their understandings. Of the Lammassers, only the small woman, her
thin husband and the grim-faced workman remained, as well as
Tregannon and his young steward. She could only admire their
courage.

Tregannon let her go.

“Simon?” he whispered. “Simon?”

As if responding to the Lammas Lord’s voice
alone, and as if he had been waiting only for that stimulus, the
man in her arms shuddered and drew in a sudden, harsh breath. It
was her turn to cry out; the Lost One had been dead, she had known
this fully in her mind, as had those around her. He had been dead,
and now he lived again. She had seen one such miracle herself after
the battle in the Gathandrian park, where the Lost One had brought
back her young charge from the dead, a gift for which she would by
the stars love him for all her living days. But she had not truly
thought to witness it again, when the Lost One himself was
dead.

How the day-cycles were changing, and their
worlds were all new.

The Lost One opened his eyes, his breathing
steadying, and Tregannon began to cry, harsh sobs he made no effort
to hide. Annyeke felt the pressures and pain the Lammasser had been
holding inside leech slowly, and only a little, out of his
blood.

“How …? I c-cannot … this day. What-what
happens now?” he whispered, to himself.

From smiling down in ridiculous fashion at
the Lost One, Annyeke eased round and faced Tregannon, feeling the
words already crowding her tongue.

“Now we have hope,” she said.

Chapter Eight:
Beginning Again

HOPE

Jemelda

She breathed deeply, feeling her whole body
tremble. Since the war, she had dreamed of nothing but destroying
this man if she ever had the chance, and she had spent the whole
morning gathering together the people who would help her do it. She
thought she had done it, in spite of the Lammas Lord, the cane and
the strange green fire. He had been dead, she knew it; the
blacksmith’s slow rope and the winter-sour beer had made the
murderer of their people suffer and die.

Now he was alive again, as in the quiet of
the snows she heard his breathing, the cries of joy, saw that
moment of true betrayal from the mouth of their supposed Lord. The
injustice of it took her insides and twisted them so Jemelda could
no longer name any of the emotions within her blood. It was as if
she had created the best meal she could imagine and laid it out on
a pure linen tablecloth and then the wood-wolves had satisfied
their hunger on it.

It was beyond her endurance. She became aware
Frankel was gripping her hand and must have been beside her for
some time.

“Jemelda,” he whispered. “Jemelda, my
love?”

Behind his simple words lay something deeper,
a plea, but she refused to acknowledge it. She had gone too far
down this road of vengeance to turn back and, besides, she owed it
to the decimated villagers. Somebody had to die: an ancient law but
a true one. She slipped her hand from her husband’s and took a step
away from him.