The Executioner's Cane (16 page)

“Wait.”

Again the tone of command works its ancient
magic and the boy halts. The air smells of stale bread and herbs he
cannot differentiate. It also smells of emeralds in his thoughts,
but he cannot tell where they are.

“Wait, boy,” he says, this time more gently.
He does not want to terrify him so much that he leaves; Ralph has
done this so often the boy is probably the only one left.
“Apolyon.”

At the sound of his name, the boy’s breathing
steadies.

“Why are you here?” Ralph continues. “Do you
not wish to witness the death of the scribe?”

“No, my lord. We have had too much of
death.”

Apolyon shows wisdom beyond his year-cycles
and beyond the year-cycles of them all in saying it.

“Good. Because I must try and save him. Tell
me where the scribe left the emeralds. I must find them soon.”

As he is talking, Ralph is already hunting,
pulling the table to one side, though he sees nothing underneath.
Then a few strides bring the Tregannon Lord to the back wall of
cupboards. He hasn’t got long before Simon will die. He must hurry.
Ralph wrenches the cupboards open, scrabbling in the dark to see
what he longs to. Still nothing. The boy’s voice brings him to
himself again.

“Sir, they are yours. Can you sense
them?”

Ralph spins round to face him. The young
steward has never directly questioned him before, and has certainly
never spoken unless he commanded him. There are a thousand things
Ralph should say for this intrusion, things his father taught him,
but those days are over, and he needs to learn to listen to the
truth.

Closing his eyes, he reaches out with the
little mind-power he has to pinpoint the Tregannon jewels. He no
longer cares if the boy realises what he is doing and what these
mind-skills mean. Let him.

When Ralph opens his eyes, he knows where the
jewels are and who has put them there. Frankel, the cook’s quiet
husband took them from Simon and they are hidden in the depths of
the small cupboard near the washing area. A heartbeat later and
they are in the Lammas Lord’s hands. The boy gasps as the green
glow flows across Ralph’s fingers but he pays him no heed. He is
too busy fighting the unexpected heat which launches through his
skin the moment he touches the emeralds.

Ralph can’t fight it for long; it burns him
up and he fall backwards against the table, displacing a jug and a
plate that fall with a clatter to the stone flooring. The next
moment, Apolyon is beside him. The Lammas Lord has no idea why he
should be so concerned and tries to warn him to stay away. Nothing
comes out of his mouth, but the boy seems to understand Ralph’s
expression as he frowns and pauses in the act of trying to reach
for him. At the same time, the green fire enters Ralph’s mind.

Foolishly, like a man who hopes he can win,
the Lammas Lord fights it for one long and agonised moment. Then
the green fire forms a circle as it did when the mind-executioner
fought his last battle, and Ralph is pulled roughly into the middle
of the flames.

He can’t breathe and wonders if by now Simon
feels the same. By the gods and stars, whatever he does, he must do
quickly, or he may be too late. Then, when he expects to be plunged
into darkness, his throat opens and he sucks in air. It’s green. In
fact everything is green and he is floating, but where he is it is
impossible to say. It is similar to the journey he took with Simon
and the mind-executioner from the Lammas Lands to Gathandria,
except that journey was wild and terrifying in its strangeness;
this one is calmer, more fluid. And he is not arriving anywhere
else, but instead he is simply floating in a world of the emeralds’
making. The time-cycle has stopped. It is impossible but he knows
it to be true. This must indeed be part of the unknown power of the
jewels: they are a mind-road and a harbour, of sorts. He is
certainly no longer in the castle kitchen and neither is the boy
with him; he can sense nobody here but himself.

What do the emeralds wish him to do and can
they help him save Simon?

He stretches out his hands and presses his
fingers against the mysterious green circle that surrounds him. It
gives a little but not enough to break through into whatever is
beyond. Just as he wonders how he can discover what his next step
should be, the area of the circle ahead of him bursts inwards and
someone comes flying through. Behind this figure, Ralph catches a
glimpse of broken stone walls and flying papers and a wide-eyed boy
before the flame closes in on itself again.

He turns his attention to his new companion,
already groaning and struggling to rise. It’s a woman. For a full
heartbeat he has no idea who she is, but then she turns and glares
at him, as if he is the perpetrator of her sudden entrance to the
emeralds’ circle. When, in fact, he has no control over what his
family treasures can do. He recognises her red hair and the fury in
her eyes.

“Annyeke Hallsfoot,” he says, finding the
name suddenly in his thoughts even though he is not aware of
knowing it before. “You are from Gathandria. You are First
Elder.”

He knows this already, but the situation does
not inspire any sensible phrases to his mouth; it is not something
his father had ever prepared him for. All to the good then; perhaps
he can do better on his own.

Before he can say anything else to the point,
whatever the point may be, Hallsfoot leaps towards him with an
energy Ralph can only admire and pummels her fists against his
chest. The blows make him gasp and step backwards, and she
increases her attack. In spite of this, it is a matter of moments
only to grab her arms, turn her round and hold her so close to him
that she can do no further damage.

Still, she spits and kicks. “Let me go. Why
have you brought me here? You of all people have no right to do
this and I will fight you to the death if I have to.”

“Be still, woman,” he begins before reminding
himself this is no way to speak to any leader, whatever the gender
or the difference in their cultures. “Forgive me, I mean First
Elder. But be still; I have not brought you here deliberately.
Believe me. I only wish to save the scribe from death, and you
appear.”

She stops fighting and turns round in his
arms before he finishes speaking. Her expression changes. Before he
can stop her, she reaches out and presses her fingers to his head.
At once, it feels like a new kind of flame has exploded within him
and he gasps. He even thinks he might fall but somehow she holds
him upright. She’s strong, for a small woman, and how that thought
carries her disapproval on its tail as she links to his mind. Her
dislike of him, also, but he can’t blame her for it.

“What are you doing?”

Hush, be silent. This is the quickest way to
speak with each other, though I’ll thank you for not judging me on
my height. I don’t believe I’ve judged you on your appearance when
there are so many other factors about you that are ripe for
judgement.

She’ll get no argument from him. The flame of
her fingers settles to a dull heat in his mind and in a heartbeat
he discovers the following, details offered and fed back to him
through her: she’d been snatched away from rebuilding the elders’
core to be with him; neither of them understand why the green fire
has brought them here; and finally she sees something hidden in
him, a secret knowledge, which may somehow help Simon when he needs
it most.

The emeralds are a bond between our lands we
have not yet used to the full.

The words are spoken in his thoughts as well
as hers, and then the link is broken. Her fingers are gone.

“Wh-what?” he stutters. “What does it mean?
The emeralds are a passage through lands, that I have seen, but how
can they be a bond too?”

Let me think, she waves her hand at him, but
there is no time for thinking. Simon is dying.

“You do not have time for thinking,” he grabs
her arm and hisses in her ear. “Hold the green flame in your hand
with me and let it do what it will. Now.”

She concurs. When her hand touches his, the
green circle of flame begins to dance and swirl around them,
knocking them both onto the ground. If ground is what this mystical
place possesses. Ralph tries to protect her but it is impossible to
tell which way the circle swings or how to stand against its wild
movement. Beneath him, Annyeke cries out, staring at something
beyond him. When he turns to face whatever enemy is at hand, he
sees there is none. Instead the fire around them is exploding and
through it, he can see nothing but the fierce emptiness of sky.

“No!” he clutches Annyeke to him, trying to
protect them both from what he cannot understand. By the gods and
stars, he will do something right in these difficult time-cycles,
even if it profits them nothing.

Let me go, the woman wails in his head. I
can’t …

In the twinkling of an eye, the circle
vanishes entirely and Ralph feels the tremor of the emeralds in his
grasp, as if their power has come home to roost. At the same time,
he and Annyeke land with a thump on something mercifully soft.
Ralph curses in relief they are not dead, that the emeralds did not
plant them in the sky, and rolls over. He lets Annyeke go.

… breathe, she completes her sentence at last
and Ralph can only admire her sheer bloody-mindedness.

He staggers to his feet and dusts himself off
before offering her a helping hand.

I can manage.

“As you wish,” he dismisses her as the more
important mission takes over his mind. “We must help Simon. We have
to save him.”

Yes, we must. If he is in the danger you
think he is. But you must tell me what that danger is, Lammas Lord.
Our Gathandrian mind-circle is not what it was and the elders and I
don’t know what’s happening. Tell me.

She doesn’t know. Why doesn’t she know? She’s
read him, hasn’t she?

Annyeke shakes her head and speaks aloud.
“You Lammassers. You never change – I sensed only what was in the
outskirts of your mind, not what you hold deepest. Interesting to
see though that you bear the fate of the Lost One in your inner
being, isn’t it? After what you did to him, that is.”

Ralph flinches. She doesn’t need to remind
him; he lives with it every day, every moment-cycle, by the stars.
Still, he answers her question, “The remaining villagers at the
castle intend to kill Simon. They are hanging him from the tree,
the tree from which I tried to hang him before. Tell me, you who
hold the wisdom of the magic city in the palm of your hand, will
they succeed this time?”

When he finishes, he finds he is holding her
cloak in his fingers, twisting it round and round until she is all
but trapped once more against him. For a few heartbeats, he stares
at her and she stares back, before he comes to his senses and lets
her go.

Annyeke shakes out her red hair and blinks at
him. “You still love him then, though the last thing you will do is
admit it.”

How he has given away too much and how he can
never take this moment back.

“What if I do?” he says with a snarl. “It
does no good to Simon. We must go to him, save him if we can.”

He makes a move to depart but Annyeke steps
in front of him. “Not so speedily, great Lord, don’t you see we are
no longer in your lands at all?”

Ralph opens his mouth to object to such a
concept but remembers the emeralds’ powers and looks for himself.
He blinks and sees it’s true. He and Annyeke are standing in a wood
and on all sides the tall trees, oak, beech and wild wintergreen,
thrust their branches up at the morning sky. The soil beneath their
feet is as white as snow.

“The White Lands?” Ralph asks, though the
answer is obvious. “Simon’s birth-land? Why?”

I don’t know, she answers, her eyes darting
around as if seeking enemies. He too should be on the alert, but
the unexpected landing has shaken him. But I hear a keening and we
must follow where it leads.

He listens but hears nothing but the voice of
the wind and the rustle of branches. “I hear nothing.”

She shakes her head. It is a keening of the
mind. Come, let us go.

Ralph frowns at her disappearing back. Even
in his ruined state, the thought of following a woman’s lead makes
his stomach recoil but, nonetheless, he does it. She moves at a
fast pace under the trees and doesn’t pay any attention to the
thorny undergrowth that catches at his legs and tears at his skin.
They should be finding a way back to the Lammas Lands, not chasing
mind-shadows in a strange country.

It is important, Tregannon, it might give us
the way back. Stop wasting energy. Hurry, for Simon’s sake!

Annyeke increases her speed and Ralph does
likewise. If Simon is to be helped in this way, however that can
be, then he will bare his face and body to all the thorns and
branches in Lammas and every country and pay no heed to it. Pray to
the gods and stars the rescue will be soon.

Without warning, the woman in front of him
comes to an abrupt halt, and Ralph all but knocks her over, saving
them both at the last moment by wheeling left into the density of
trees. She pays him no heed.

“It’s stopped,” she says, her words now in
the air as well as in his mind. “I can’t hear it any more.”

Ralph brushes aside the few oak twigs
obscuring his vision.

“I don’t think it matters,” he says,
beckoning her nearer. “Look.”

The two of them stand side by side, both
slightly panting, though she is more breathless than he, and gaze
out at the scene before them. In the heart of the wood, a small
glade opens up to create a haven of light in a world of darkness.
Ralph notes the softer grasses lining the forest floor and, at the
edge of the glade, a pale cow, a span and a half beyond the height
of a man, suckles her calf. A short distance from her lies a stone
hut, half ruined and looking as if it has not been lived in for
many a generation-cycle. The chimney however, if it can even be
called by that name, is producing smoke, and Ralph smells its heavy
spices in the air. What interests him most of all these is the man.
He is old, his dark hair salted with grey and the lines on his face
burnt there by the sun. There is something about him which is
familiar but he cannot place it. His cloak is torn and so thin that
Ralph can swear the light shines through it. The old man is crying,
silently, his body swaying with the rhythms of his grief, and it is
almost the only movement occurring in this star-forsaken wood.
Ralph wonders if he has been crying for so long that the
possibility of stopping is unthinkable. He is reluctant to break
the strange spell of weeping, but already Annyeke is stepping
forward into the glade, the colours of compassion flowing from her
like a spring river: blue, pink, mauve.