The Executioner's Cane (37 page)

“That’s it,” Thomas whispered in her ear. She
had not realised he had been so close behind her. “It’s the vision,
the blank parchment. It must be some evil thing sent by the
murderer. See, we must destroy it and then perhaps the murderer’s
power will be gone.”

Before she could stop him, the blacksmith
pushed her aside so she fell against the roughness of bark, and
then darted towards the vision, flailing wildly in an attempt to
seize it. The shimmer of white separated and flowed over him so for
one long moment Jemelda could no longer see him at all. She heard
him scream out and a wave of anger pushed her forward, shouting, as
if any of her words might drive away whatever it was which had been
sent to attack them.

A heartbeat later and the whiteness
surrounded Jemelda too. She thought she might have cried out but
couldn’t be sure as her voice was nothing but emptiness and air.
Every thought, every wish, every hatred and every love was sucked
from her as if she were nothing but vapour, as if she had never
been born.

Beyond this, however, something stronger than
her very self, that wilder presence she could not begin to name
held on to her. A rush of sound in her ears, like water, then she
stretched out her hands and met the softness of cloth and the
warmth of skin. She would save this man from his own foolishness;
he was necessary for her purpose.

Thomas?

How she longed to say his name but her tongue
was trapped and she could not speak. Thomas. In her grasp he was
suddenly a dead weight and she could barely hold him, and herself,
upright. What was happening? This was her time, her mission and she
would allow none to thwart it. Thomas’ foolhardiness would ruin all
her plans and desire. He might even kill them all.

She could not allow him to do this evil. And
she would not: from inside her in a place she didn’t know she had,
a scarlet rage exploded. It filled the blankness of her blood and
mind, gave power to her skin and flesh so she could reach for
Thomas’ head, open her mouth and breathe that same fire that filled
her over him also.

That fire was words: angry, bitter ones which
terrified her to feel but thrilled her too. The flow of them
through and over her was like being plunged into the baker’s ovens
when the heat was rising. When, in her life at the castle, she had
passed by the place where the corn-bread was made where the fires
were hottest, they had all but scalded her skin. This was a hundred
times more powerful and more fulfilling. The bitter heat made
Thomas jump and groan, and she felt him struggle to stand. And
suddenly, because of the fire or because of whatever dwelt within
her or perhaps both, Jemelda found her voice again.

“Let it go, Thomas!” she cried out, holding
him fast to her. “Let it go. Use the rage I’ve given you and find
your words and your mind again. Come back to us and do not ruin
what we have so bravely started.”

She didn’t know if she’d reached him, or if
she ever would, but then he groaned again and this time she
recognised the ramblings of speech, though she could make no sense
of it. She felt as if the ingredients were there, in her very
grasp, but she could not blend them together to make anything good.
Because of this, the strange anger flared up out of her again and
plunged once more into the man she held. He opened his mouth – she
could see it this time – and she heard words. Real words. She was
not going to lose what she’d come here for by all the stars
above.

“Jem-el-da?... What …?”

“Come back to us,” she said, realising how
hoarse she sounded, as if she was learning to speak for the first
time. “You have been a fool, Thomas, but we can still salvage the
power we have, if you come back.”

As the sheer brightness of the vision
loosened its hold on them, and the white emptiness began itself to
disappear, Jemelda kept on murmuring any words that came into her
head. They were a barrier against the whiteness whose strength had
been summoned too soon. They drew back Thomas’ soul from wherever
it had been taken and made things right again.

Gradually, the trees and the bracken
shimmered into view and she could smell the dankness of grasses and
wood. Thomas breathed more steadily against her but he was quiet
and she knew she alone couldn’t return things to where they should
be. Anger flared within her again, but then she saw the rest of the
people on their knees or clinging to branches around them.

“Speak,” she said as clearly as she could.
“Please, say anything at all. The vision has taken our words and
lives away, when its purpose is surely to help us not to fight us,
and we must bring ourselves back if the scribe is to truly die. So
speak, as I do not have words enough for the task.”

For another moment, silence. And then the
words began to come. Meaningless and uncertain at first, but still
that pure melding of thought and sound. It reminded her of the
delicious moment when a new recipe came together and she knew it
would be good. It kept the darkness at bay. Her people’s words grew
stronger and Jemelda began to recognise prayers and old tales, and
the names of loved ones, both dead and living.

Finally Thomas shuddered and opened his eyes.
He stared right at her as if he had no idea who she was, and then
she saw the glimmer of memory and life come back to him.
“Jemelda?...”

“Thank the stars and gods,” she whispered,
words coming to her from deep within where the glorious darkness
lay. “You are with us once more. You had, I think, almost destroyed
our mission, but we are ourselves again. Some things we fear might
actually be for our greater good, Thomas, and you must learn to
trust me for this. But, no matter, now we are safe again.”

A howl from beyond the trees proved her words
more than false. Jemelda swung round, holding on to Thomas, and
caught the flash of yellow eyes from the shadowy undergrowth. A
wolf, and one primed for hunting, if she was not mistaken. By the
gods she prayed it was alone.

“Run!” she yelled at the rest of them. “Stay
close together, but run!”

She hadn’t needed to tell them to stay
together as the dense trees would do that work, alongside their own
sense, if they kept it. She grabbed the nearest man, one of the
poorer farmers, as he fought his way past her and gave Thomas up to
his care.

“Look after him,” she ordered. “It is not his
time, understand?”

He nodded but his eyes did not rest on her.
As the rest of the group surged past her away from the howling of
the wolf, she hoped it would be enough. She would make it be
enough, and so she let the man, and Thomas, go. The blacksmith was
more alert now, able to stand for himself. One less difficulty to
cause her grief and she was glad of it.

The wolf howled again, its rising song making
her heart beat faster and her hands clench. The rustling of grass
and bracken told her it was on the move. For a heartbeat only, she
turned to run in the direction her people had taken. If she kept
close to them as a group then they might be safe. But they might
not. The wolf was no doubt desperate for food as they all were.
Above all, she must save the people – she would have need of them
and soon.

She swung round and headed off at an angle
from where the last of the group, Thomas and the farmer, had
disappeared. She could hear the wild crashing noise they made and
knew she had to make the wolf follow her, not them. Surely she was
now strong enough to defeat it – she and … and … Iffenia. The name
came to her in a flood of realisation and acceptance and she almost
laughed aloud with the fierce joy it brought. So she opened her
mouth and yelled. This time she didn’t care about the words, it was
the noise she needed. At the same time, she crashed her way through
the brambles and trees in front of her, drawing blood from her arms
and face where thorns pierced her skin. The smell of her blood
would draw the wolf to herself.

“Follow me, follow me!” she cried out, and
began to run as best as she was able.

The wolf howled for a third time and she
sensed the fierce intent of its pursuit of her, all but feeling the
heat of its breath at her back. Better her than the people however,
and the madness inside her thrilled at the realisation of the
chase. Was this what she had wanted all along? But she couldn’t
die. There was too much at stake. She and the power she carried
with her would fight until the last drop of blood was gone if she
had to.

A passing branch struck her on the shoulder,
the shock of it making her scream. She grasped it and, with a
mighty wrench, tugged it free. She hadn’t thought she’d have the
strength to do it but it surely must have been loose. Swinging
round, she thrust it in the direction of the wolf and had the
satisfaction of hearing the animal howl, this time in pain and not
in pursuit. By the stars, it was nearer than she had anticipated.
Blood from the wolf spattered against her skin, warm and acrid, and
she thrust the branch forward again. She was rewarded with another
howl, but did not try a third time. Letting the branch go, she
plunged her way through towards what she hoped was the edge of the
wood. How this journey was proving more than she could bear, she
did not even know if she would survive it, her wild anger of before
being suddenly and unaccountably gone.

Then, the welcome glimmer of sunlight. She
could scarcely believe it. Somehow she could sense the outer border
of the woods. The trees were thinning and her path became easier.
But, although the path was more passable for her, it was so too for
the wounded wolf.

Savage teeth grasped her leg and she screamed
and fell. When she turned round she could see the wolf’s visage.
One of its eyes was torn out, leaving streaks of blood and yellow
jelly in its place. It must have been the branch but she knew her
attack had not been a lucky one, as it only enraged the beast more.
As it tore at her ankle, the pain flooded through her, and with it
that anger again. By the stars how she had missed it. With a wild
cry, she somehow staggered upwards and launched herself at the
wolf. The animal would not expect it and perhaps she might have a
chance to survive. She drove her fist into its missing eye, and
prayed it might be enough.

Simon

Ralph had gone to hunt for Jemelda with a few
of his most trusted people, such as they were. Simon had felt
Ralph’s impatience with the new vision and meaning Annyeke had
brought to them, and all the more so as Lord Tregannon was a
soldier not a man for stories. So Simon was left here with Annyeke,
his father and Frankel. There was one other though: Ralph’s steward
whom he had ordered to stay. The boy’s leg was maimed, it was true
but the shaft of additional concern Ralph felt towards him had
flowed over Simon also. He couldn’t have missed it.

He gestured to the boy and sensed his name
even before the lad came running: Apolyon. It meant something in
Ralph’s old language, but as he wasn’t here, Simon couldn’t tell
what it might be.

“Apolyon,” he said as the boy stopped and
gazed up at him with an unaccountable expression of trust. And how
that brought back memories of the other boy who had died earlier on
their great journey together. “Apolyon, is there somewhere quiet in
the village we can go?”

The boy nodded, but Annyeke stepped
forward.

“Surely you can find the stories you need to
tell more easily here, Lost One?”

Simon knew, from the openness of her mind,
that Annyeke did not believe there would be time to journey to the
village, bearing in mind the frailty of both young and old. But,
with all his thought, he understood they needed to travel there in
order to begin. The white shimmer of the raven and the heat of the
mind-cane told him that.

“No,” he said as gently as possible. “Stories
do not come from the rich but the poor. Why would the rich have
need of them? If I am going to try to find a fresh legend, then it
must be at the village, First Elder, where everything began for me.
And it will involve us all. Stories of any kind do not in the end
come from nothing, but from the people and things around us.”

After a flicker of hesitation, she nodded.
“Then we had better start out.”

Simon took the lead, knowing how in the
recent past before he had encountered the mind-cane and before he
had died he would never have assumed such a thing. He would have
freely given the honour to Annyeke. Now it seemed natural. He hoped
he wouldn’t get too used to it, however. One day, if they and the
land survived what they needs must face, he hoped for a normal life
again, whatever that might be.

So he set the pace to the village, with
Apolyon at his right and his father leaning on his arm on the left.
Behind him followed Annyeke and Frankel, whilst overhead the
snow-raven flapped a slow path across the nearer sky. Odd how the
ice beneath his feet seemed to be softer, melting in what must
surely be a false harbinger of spring. It was too soon for a thaw,
but something in the air had changed since Annyeke’s return, since
his own acceptance of the new role she brought him. It would not be
denied. In any case, they were, by any measure, no kind of an army,
and if Ralph were here he would have laughed to see them.

But we are not an army, Lost One. We are not
here to fight battles but to build a peace.

He blinked at the sudden influx of Annyeke’s
words directly to his mind. Sometimes, peace too needs an army, he
replied and, when she did not respond, left it at that.

As they walked through the water and onto the
path leading to the village, the boy tugging at his hand in
eagerness in spite of his limp, Simon felt a frisson of excitement
spark through him. It sprang from the mind-cane and also from
himself, as if his deepest thought was rejoicing at the cane’s
secret knowledge. Something was about to begin.