Authors: Usman Ijaz
1
Adrian opened his eyes and looked from Connor to
the two men that stood outside their cell. One was the captain of the Guard,
but the other was a man who was shaped like a bell. He was short, only coming
to the Captain’s nose, and he scowled as though he had tasted something sour.
Dark brown eyes stared out of a round, pudgy face. His gray, thinning hair was
close cropped. A small beard hugged his double chin and framed a petulant
mouth. The clothes he wore were of silk and hung loose on him, perhaps at an
attempt to disguise his enormous girth. Over his shoulders he wore a satin
cloak that looked too thin to offer any warmth. At his waist rested a
pearl-handled revolver on one hip and a golden-filigreed sword on the other.
Lord Wendyl had arrived.
Adrian met those curious, malevolent eyes and
could feel the other man cataloging everything about him in his mind. He stared
back defiantly, full of a useless anger that boiled beneath the surface and
longed to be let loose. The man turned from him and looked to the captain.
“Why do you have him in a simple cell?”
“Where else to put him?” asked the captain.
“You should--”
Alexis, who had been watching closely, spoke up
suddenly. “Lord Wendyl, You must listen to me--”
It was as far as he got. Wendyl’s left arm flew
from his side and ended with his gun pointed in the Legionnaire’s face. Adrian
found himself stunned at the speed the obese man had employed. He would never
have thought a man so big could move so quickly.
Alexis stared at the gun almost indifferently, but
Adrian had seen the brief hint of surprise in his eyes. Connor watched on with
his mouth agape.
“Shut up, boy,” Wendyl growled. “You interrupt
me a second time and I will not hesitate to blow that traitorous head of yours
away.” He lowered his pearl-handled revolver and holstered it as he turned to
face the Captain again. “You should have thrown him in the dungeons.” His voice
had returned to that calm rasp once more.
“Yes, my--”
“Are the gallows complete, Marx? Is that
contraption I saw outside actually capable of carrying this out?”
“It should be. My lord.”
“Then go and let it be known that the hanging is
to take place soon,” Wendyl told the captain. “I want a crowd to witness this.”
The captain turned stiffly and walked away.
Adrian watched as Wendyl moved closer to their
cell, edging his face in between the bars to get a better look. He seemed to be
studying some odd specimen that he had captured. At last he pulled back, his
round face twisted.
“God. I thought we had killed you all off by
now. Where have you been hiding, boy?”
Adrian made no reply. A smile creased Wendyl’s
thin lips. “No matter, you will soon join the rest of your kin.” He turned his
gaze on Connor, shook his head slightly, and turned to regard Alexis. For a
long time the lord simply stood studying the Legionnaire.
At last he said, “Well. Now we know what side
Grandal rests on. And Teihr?” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
Alexis moved closer to the bars, his hands
wrapped around them. “You have to let us go. We’re on a mission from King
Aeiron, and can’t afford to be held like this!”
“Look around you, boy. You are not in Grandal
anymore! Here the only law is that of the High Council, and since they are not
here there is only my law. Do you understand that?” Wendyl demanded. Then, calm
once more, he said, “And what would this pressing duty be, I wonder?”
Alexis looked at the other man, and shook his
head. “If I thought it would do any good, I would tell you.”
Wendyl shrugged. “Who knows, perhaps it will
sway my mind.”
Alexis sighed. “We are traveling to the Ruins,
to search for the Source of Light, in hopes of saving this land and fools like
you all over.”
Wendyl’s hand darted to his side and struck out
like lightening. There was a dull sound as the barrel of his revolver crashed
against the steel bar where Alexis’s right hand had been a second ago. “Do not
make light of me, boy,” he growled through clenched teeth as he holstered his
gun. “You believe that because you are in Grandal’s Legion it protects you? I
could kill you right now where you stand. I could shoot you, and it would be no
different than shooting a cur. You would die a dog’s death, for all the
markings on your hand and all the foolish notions in your head. Do you believe
me?”
Adrian stared at the man in horror. He didn’t
need to look at Wendyl’s face to know that he meant every word. Across from
him, Alexis held himself back from the bars and stared murder at the lord.
“Now,” said Wendyl, in a conversational tone
once again. “What is really your reason for traveling with the likes of him?”
He pointed a finger at Adrian without ever turning to look at him. “Is it
perhaps to smuggle him to someplace safer?”
Alexis answered through clenched teeth. “I’ve
told you already. You chose not to believe me.”
Wendyl snorted. “A lie. You told me a lie, boy,
and I chose not to believe it.”
“Then you have killed us all.”
There was silence for a long time. Wendyl took a
step closer to the Legionnaire’s cell, and asked quietly, “And what is this
Source of Light then, boy?”
Alexis shook his head. Adrian saw him watching
Wendyl, and wondering whether it was worth the bother, wondering if his words
would fall on deaf ears. At last he seemed to come to the conclusion that he had
to at least try. “It is difficult to explain. I only know that soon this world
will begin to wither and die, as the Source itself has been dying for decades
now, and once the Source is dead, there will be nothing to be done for us. Life
will slowly fade from these lands, until every nation is as dead as the Ruins.”
Wendyl laughed abruptly. “A rich tale, indeed.
But I still do not believe a word of it.”
From outside came the noises of the gathering crowd.
“Listen to them, boy,” Wendyl said as he turned
to face Adrian. “They yearn for your blood. They will not have long to wait,
not long at all now.” He turned back to Alexis with a frown. “A pity that I
cannot kill you as well. Your ties save you for now; it is not within my powers
to kill the blood of royalty, but that is not to say it is out of the High
Council’s reach.” He smiled thinly. “For now, however, you may content yourself
with watching your friends die.”
With that lord Wendyl turned and marched away.
Alexis called after him, but his cries fell on deaf ears.
2
The feeling that Connor felt then was a familiar
fear stirring back to life, like a frantic beast rising from a state of light
slumber. But underneath the fear was a queer acceptance: he had known this
would happen. He looked from Adrian, who appeared to be feeling much as he did,
to the hall outside their cell. Slowly, on legs that didn’t quite feel his own,
he stood up and went to the long bars.
“Alexis, what are they going to do to us?”
The Legionnaire looked at him ... and in his eyes
Connor saw all the understanding he needed. He had known it would come to this.
Alexis turned his head aside, as though unable to look at him any longer. He
seemed to be in a great deal of pain.
Footsteps sounded down the hall and Connor
turned to see the Sune Guard marching towards them. Adrian came to stand beside
him to watch the men approach.
“I’m sorry,” said Alexis miserably. “I’m sorry I
got you into any of this.”
“You did all you could,” Adrian told him
quietly.
The Guard stopped before their cell and Connor
saw with no great surprise that they all had their swords in hand.
“Step back,” said the captain with a stone face.
Connor and Adrian took two steps back. A man
moved to the cell door and unlocked it with a key at his belt. Four of the guards
marched in and seized Connor and Adrian by the arms, one to each side of either
boy. They were led out and then down the hall without another word. Connor
looked over his shoulder at Alexis, as did Adrian, and he saw that Alexis’s
knuckles were white from gripping the bars. The sudden realization that they
would never again see one another nearly overwhelmed him right there, but he
pushed the feeling away and willed himself to be strong.
They were led through the main lobby of the
jail, out the door, and into the gray light of dusk. Connor found himself taken
aback by the sheer size of the crowd that took up the town square. It looked as
though all of Sune had come to witness their hanging. The crowd was thick and
spilled back into the streets. The only clear space was around the gibbet that
had been erected. Connor saw that there were even people on the rooftops,
watching calmly. The faces that turned to look at them as one were for the most
part bereft of any emotion. They looked on with the faces of folk that might
not enjoy what was to take place, but did not plan on interfering either. They
were simply watching.
Stone faces
, Connor thought, and felt a shiver
travel up his spine.
But it became immediately clear that not all
felt a cold indifference. Vulgar shouts came from throughout the crowd, and
some even began to throw the rocks that they held. The ones on the rooftops,
perhaps thinking themselves out of reach of any castigation, were especially
keen to let loose their stones. None of the stones struck Connor or Adrian, and
after a few curses from the guards they stopped.
The guards started them down the small stairs of
the jail and towards the crowd. Connor glanced at the cloudy gray sky and
realized that he felt just as lost as such a sky seemed to warrant. The crowd
parted before the guards as though a path was being cloven through them. It
didn’t take long for them to reach the raised dais, where a proud lord Wendyl
awaited them.
The gibbet had been erected on a large wooden
dais, and to Connor it looked like nothing more than an oversized empty
doorframe. It had been constructed in haste, as was apparent simply by looking
at it. It consisted of two thick beams standing erect with another nailed
across the top. Hanging from the top beam were two long ropes that trailed like
snakes’ tongues on the wooden floor. Connor couldn’t take his eyes off the
ropes as he and Adrian were led up the short creaking stairs and onto the broad
platform. There they stopped, and lord Wendyl turned to face the watching
crowd.
“I do not make the laws,” he said to them in a
voice that carried far into the silence. “That is the Council’s duty. I simply enforce
them. But even was it not my duty to hang these two, I would still do so, for I
know that it would be a great justice to humankind everywhere. We all believed
that the Ascillians were dead, and now we know otherwise. This boy here proves
that.” He moved over to Connor and Adrian and looked at them as though deciding
what to do with them. Connor felt a strong hatred towards the lord as he
grabbed Adrian’s face harshly in one hand and turned it to the crowd. “See his
eyes and know him for what he is!” Wendyl roared. “And know that Grandal aids
him! With this boy was also captured a Legionnaire of Grandal, one whose duty
it was to take the boy someplace for reasons unknown. Or perhaps he was to be
taken where he could do the most harm. We will learn the truth once the
Legionnaire is questioned.” Soft mutters arose from the crowd, but they were
quickly silenced as Wendyl went on, still holding onto Adrian. “Whatever
Grandal’s reasons for hiding and aiding an Ascillian, they cannot justify
treason against the rest of humanity. The truth will be spread throughout every
nation, and Grandal will answer for its crime! But Grandal’s time will come
another day.” He pulled Adrian closer to him, and turned him so that the people
could see him. “This day we come one step closer to eradicating his kind, so
that we may never again need fear them. His death, and the death of his friend,
will be a message to those few Ascillians that may still be alive this day. We
do not need them, nor want them!”
A few scattered cries arose from the watching
crowd. Wendyl abruptly shoved Adrian back, and then backhanded him across the
face. Adrian went sprawling to the floor in surprise. Connor stared at where
his cousin lay, blood running in a thin stream from one nostril, and then at
the fat lord. For a moment he was gripped inexorably by shock and fear, and
then those emotions were overrun by one so strong that they might as well not
have been there. He broke free from his restrainers’ relaxed grips, and ran at
Wendyl in a blind rage, aware that he was screaming at the top of his lungs.
Wendyl hadn’t been expecting the assault and
Connor nearly bowled him over, but the man was too heavy. Instead Connor
grabbed his loose clothing and tried to push him off the dais, not caring if
the man pulled him down with him. But the man would barely budge. As Wendyl
reached out to pry him off, Connor bit him on the arm as hard as he could. The
fat lord shrieked and tried to jerk his arm free but Connor wouldn’t let go.
Wendyl struck at him then with his free hand, and bright pain exploded in
Connor’s head. He stumbled back and fell on to the wooden floor. Guards immediately
seized him in iron grips.