The Forever Gate (2 page)

The guards forced Hoodwink to kneel. One of them stuff a pillow under his knees. Funny, that they'd waste comfort on a man who'd soon know the ultimate discomfort. The gol lawmakers wanted to cast themselves as ethical. Beheading was quick and painless. And
comfortable
.

The guards jammed his neck into the circular notch of the lower panel, and secured the similarly-notched upper plank onto his neck, completing the head-prison. So much for comfort
—Hoodwink was bound fast beneath that blade, locked in a hole that offered no leeway.

"Behead! Behead! Behead!"

The bronze bitch was the only thing protecting him from the deadly steel. Except that was no protection at all. The guillotine could cut right through the collars in a single blow. Made them seem like the paper collars children folded for themselves in their games of adulthood. With the headman's sword, at least there was a chance that the first blow would merely cut
into
the collar, and maybe only graze the skin beneath. It usually took two or three strikes to actually reach the neck, even with a fully sharpened blade. Which was why the courts had replaced the sword, he supposed. The sword offered what only the condemned and the drunk had the courage to try—a chance at freedom. Face the beheader's blade, and hope to your maker that it took the collar off and not your entire head. Hoodwink had only ever seen one man survive it, fifteen years ago. The man in question had escaped in a flurry of lightning strikes, only to have the soldiers track him down and execute him on the street.

Hoodwink had stopped going to executions after that.

At least that man had had a chance at survival, though. Hoodwink wouldn't get that chance. The cold steel of this machine that assembly-lined death made sure of that. Lift the blade. Press the button. Chop off the head. He felt sick to his stomach. Good thing he hadn't eaten all day. It wouldn't do to sick up in front of all these people.

For her, he did this for her.

But would it be enough?

"Behead! Behead! Behead!"

The executioner approached from the front. He was a fat gol, though not as stout as Briar. A black hood covered his face. Wouldn't want to splash head blood on his features now would he? A long black apron hung around his neck, secured at the waist, just like a butcher's. That's what the man was after all. A man-butcher. The red sword of his profession was proudly stamped into that apron.

Hoodwink cursed the gol, but he couldn't hear his own voice above the crowd. He noted that the executioner carried the blunt-tipped, green-colored sword from the dungeon at his waist. A backup in case the guillotine failed? He had no idea. Hoodwink wished all of a sudden he hadn't stopped going to executions...

And then the gol sidled from view, moving off to where he could work the mechanisms of the guillotine. Hoodwink tried to crane his neck to look, but the head-prison held him firmly.

"Behead! Behead! Behead!"

The cries of the crowd crescendoed, only to abruptly cease as a collective breath was held.

Hoodwink heard no sound for long moments. Finally a distinct, malevolent CLICK came to him.

He felt the vibrations as the blade descended along the guides, and the loud rasp of steel on steel consumed all else.

His life flashed before him. A childhood spent on the streets of Luckdown District. Puberty, and the years of swindling and wenching that had earned him his name. Then came the two weeks of power at fifteen years old, the two glorious weeks before the gols found and collared him. The collaring changed him, and he sobered up, attempted to earn an honest living. He almost succeeded. But then the jewel that lit up his life was taken away. She deserved so much better.

The blade struck.

The impact jolted his entire body. A dark veil descended over his vision. The basket rushing up to meet his head?

No.

He blinked a few times, clearing away the darkness. The collection basket remained where it was a pace below him.

The impossible had occurred.

His head was still attached to his body.

Beside him, the executioner grunted in surprise. A few gasps came from the audience.

Hoodwink felt his face grow hot. A weight like that of the entire world pressed on his neck. He felt vertebrae and tendons shift ever so slightly.

It was obvious the blade hadn't passed clean through the bronze bitch, but he couldn't tell how much of his own neck was severed, if any, because the entire area
throbbed
. He had the presence of mind to wiggle his toes, and that told him what he needed to know.

He heard the executioner straining beside him, and Hoodwink's neck jerked up and down within the head-prison. There came a pause, and the executioner must have looked at the judge, because Hoodwink heard him say, "Well keep trying you fool."

Hoodwink's head jerked up and down more rapidly, and stars pocked his vision. The executioner set a heavy boot on Hoodwink's shoulder, and pressed, hard. It felt like Hoodwink's whole right side was caving in, while his neck bent the other way.

Finally the blade slid free with a loud rasp. Hoodwink heard the killing instrument slam into the top of the guillotine, and he felt the vibration as the blade began its second beheading attempt.

A tingle of power arose inside him, and time seemed to slow. It started as a spark, deep in his mind. A flicker of electricity that expanded outward, and traveled down his neck, across his torso, into his arms and legs to the tips of fingers and toes. The electricity pulsed through him in waves, a starving hound leashed before a helpless doe, waiting for its master to unleash its fury.

The bronze bitch had sprung a leak.

He pushed against that leak, and electrical energy held at bay for twenty years rushed into him.

The entire apparatus exploded from him. Guillotine, shackles, collar, blade.

The courthouse erupted in screams as debris tore through the spectators. Hoodwink glanced at the nearest benches. The onlookers were bruised and bloodied. He tried not to look overly long. He'd already seen one man with a bloody stump in place of an arm, and another with a thick shard of wood protruding from his belly. Hoodwink didn't need to see more. He knew those images would haunt him enough.

Beside him, the judge and nearby guards lay unmoving, bodies mangled and broken. The executioner himself was still standing, torso nailed gurgling to the judge's desk by the guillotine blade. Hoodwink felt no regret for these. They were gols. Not real people like the spectators.

The guards at the back of the courthouse were forcing their way forward through the mayhem. Hoodwink tried to draw more lightning, but couldn't. He was so out of practice, he'd mistakenly used all his charge in that opening gambit. It would be hours, maybe days, before he fully recharged.

He snatched up the executioner's blunt-tipped sword and made for the back door by the judge's desk, the same door they'd carried the guillotine in from. His limp had worsened
—a wooden shard protruded from his leg, adding to the pain of his previously twisted ankle. 

Hoodwink reached the door, but one of the guards now blocked his path. The very same collared guard who'd helped secure Hoodwink to the guillotine.

Before Hoodwink even raise his sword, the man stepped aside. "Be free."

Hoodwink passed the human guard warily, and threw his weight into the door.

He burst into the snowstorm.

The sudden cold took him aback, but he forced himself onward. The frigid gale blinded him, and brought tears to his eyes. He hardly recognized this for a city street. He could see maybe ten paces, no more. Snow drifts had buried everything, leaving only a blurry landscape of white mounds.

He had to find shelter, and soon. The wind clawed right through his orange robe.

His limp actually got better out there. The cold numbed the pain, just as it numbed everything else. But he advanced no faster, because the snow swallowed his legs to the thighs.

He heard shouts behind him as guards emerged from the courthouse. Hoodwink ducked down an alleyway, visible as such only because of the concave notch the drifts made between houses, and waded through the snow.

He reached the alley's edge and peered from it. Through the whirling snow he saw the spectators fleeing from the front of the courthouse. Good.

He hid the sword in his robes and joined the crowd, just another spectator injured in what the criers would undoubtedly call a terrorist attack. He raised the collar of his shirt, pretending to shield himself from the cold wind, when in reality he was more concerned about hiding his lack of collar.

He had to get rid of these jail-issue robes, or hide them. He stared at the ermineskin cloak of the seemingly well-off woman just ahead. But she had a bloody arm. Hadn't he done her enough damage?

He risked a backward glance. The guards had emerged from the alleyway, and were scanning the crowd through the snowstorm. One of them met his eye, and gave a shout.

Hoodwink cursed his luck, and shoved his way through the crowd, limping as fast as he was able.

"This way!" An old man grabbed his hand and led him off to the side. "I have a shard! For your leg!"

Did his wound look that bad?  He let the old man lead him through the blowing snow. He could feel the electricity seeping back, fanning that spark deep in his mind. But it was a gradual seeping. Too gradual. A snail crossed a city street faster. It'd be another day, maybe two, before he returned to full strength.

He glanced over his shoulder. The wind whipped that veil of falling snow aside, and he caught a glimpse of the guards. They were closing the gap, and fast. Worse, more had joined the chase from a nearby barracks.

The crowd thinned, and soon the only thing between the guards and Hoodwink were the snowdrifts, and the blizzard. He pushed on, limping for all he was worth, but it was useless. The crunch of those boots kept getting louder.

He gave up.

"Leave me, old man." Hoodwink pushed the old man away and turned to face his pursuers. He tried to tap into his powers, but he couldn't even muster a spark.

It looked like the entire city guard had joined in the chase. The street was full of them, four ranks thick. Most were gol, but there were a few collared among them. Every sword was drawn.

Beside him, the old man fainted.

Hoodwink raised his palms in surrender, wondering if they'd execute him on the spot.

Hoodwink wondered how his epitaph would read. "Escaped User terrorist. Tried to destroy the Forever Gate. Spit on him."

The guards slowed as they neared, perhaps suspecting a trap.

Hoodwink smiled, standing there on that street where he'd probably die. "Well hello. It's my favorite friends. I've saved a surprise for you." Well, might as well play up their suspicions.

The closest guard—their leader?—was a gol with nasty cuts on both eyeballs. The broken guillotine had mangled up his face pretty good. No man could function with a face like that, not without some serious healing. But this was a gol, not a man, he had to remind himself.

The guard stopped a full three paces away, and lifted a hand to halt the others behind him. The snow whirled between Hoodwink and the gol as the storm raged on.

"What's wrong Bleeding Eyes," Hoodwink said into the silence that followed this unexpected standoff. "Case of the willies?" In answer came only the howl of the wind.

The gol, and those behind him, weren't even looking at Hoodwink's face, but rather at the ground beside him. The old man?

When he glanced down, he noticed a glow spilled from his leg, around the wooden shard embedded in his calf. The light seem sourced from the drops of blood that trickled into the snow.

Drops of blood that glowed blue.

He bit down a sudden terror. It meant nothing. Didn't it? But he'd accessed powers he hadn't used in ages. Forbidden powers. Maybe the gols collared them for good reason. Maybe he was about to die. Maybe—

No. He could use this. He would die anyway if he didn't. If he showed fear.

He looked at the men again, and saw the uncertainty written on those faces. Not quite fright. No, you couldn't frighten gols. But indecision, yes.

"You know what this means, don't ya?" Hoodwink took a menacing step forward. "I'll give the whole lot of you five seconds before I explode my own body. You think the guillotine was something? Just wait till you're all reduced to cinders." That wasn't possible, of course. Especially not now, given how low his charge was. But the gols couldn't know. Nor even the human guards among them. Who could say what a murderous uncollared adult could do? They'd certainly heard the same stories as him. Stories about uncollared teens ripping men apart with a look. Maybe they'd even faced some of those teens. "Five seconds. Drop your swords and run. I'm fully charged, baby. Five."

"Four."

"Three."

"Two."

They ran. All it took was Bleeding Eyes turning his tail and the rest of them broke ranks. It was a complete route. Some slipped in their terror to be away from there, and they fell into the drifts. But they always got up again, with a frantic look back, beards covered in snow, and ran faster than ever.