Execution Page 6

  My son better lie his little wight ass off.

  “Do you want to watch us suffer?” the Tree Lord asks.

  “No,” Aiden says, shaking his head.

  “You’re lying.”

  Aiden looks at his feet.

  “We’ve heard from another of your kind,” the Tree Lord booms, speaking now as much to the gathered crowd as to Aiden. “We know you desire to torture us. We know that your mind is filled with the Devil’s thoughts. We know.”

  The crowd murmurs in agreement.

  “We know!” the Tree Lord proclaims, raising his hands to the delight of the onlookers.

  Aiden shakes his head again. “I don’t!” he shouts. “I didn’t choose to be a wight. My mother made me one. She fed me wightdust because she was in love with some demon. But I’m not. I don’t love the Devil. I love my father.”

  Is he acting?

  So many people take in a breath that the crowd sounds like a hungry fire sucking in oxygen. My son bolts, dark tears streaming from his eyes, his legs propelling him toward the side of the stage nearest me. The guards lunge forward to stop him even as the crowd retreats. The treemen catch him, but Aiden doesn’t struggle. Instead he cries in their arms, his hands reaching out to me.

  His high voice cries out, “Cris! Save me.”

  His plea tugs at me and I’m pulled by it into the wooden bars. The ropes creak with the force of my weight.

  Now the crowd is reacting to him differently. They step forward, as if no longer disgusted.

  The guards climb up onto the stand, one of them carrying Aiden. They put him down roughly, facing him toward the Tree Lord.

  “Answer the question.” The Tree Lord is unfazed. “What do wights want?”

  “I told you,” Aiden whines, “I don’t know. I just know what I want. I want to be with my father. I want to kill devils. They made me drink the dust. I didn’t want it.”

  People mutter amongst themselves.

  A sparrow flies over us. Come on, little bird, you know you want to shit on the Tree Lord.

  It doesn’t.

  Traitor.

  “Why did you enter our city?” the Tree Lord asks.

  Aiden raises his chin again. “I was barely conscious the first time. We had to make it to the Erebus quickly. They wanted to save me, to stop me from becoming this. We almost made it . . . but Dad said we were just a little late.”

  “And the second?” the Tree Lord asks.

  “We were being chased by Keith’s people. They were trying to kill us, so we ran. They drove us and a horde of creatures into you.”

  Everyone looks at Keith.

  I grin. My son may be doomed, but he’s kicking ass up there. I wonder how much of it is Amirani’s coaching.

  A man wearing a white T-shirt approaches the stage. “If you wouldn’t mind, sir, I’d like to ask a couple of questions.”

  “You are the Accuser, that is your right,” the Tree Lord agrees.

  “Do you feel any different now that you’re a wight?” the Accuser asks.

  Aiden shifts from foot to foot. “I don’t get tired. It’s harder to feel things sometimes. It’s like my feelings come to me through some fog. But I still feel. It’s like my soul is far away.”

  The Accuser waits for the crowd to quiet. “Has it gotten any farther away in the time that you’ve been a wight?”

  Aiden shakes his head. “No, it’s like the fog is clearing, and I’m more and more me.”

  I’ve no idea if these statements are true, but I hope like hell they are.

  “So you like other children?” the Accuser asks.

  Cid shifts beside me.

  Aiden nods slowly.

  The Accuser motions to his right.

  A man comes out, an infant in his arms.

  Aiden is stone faced.

  I hear Q mutter under his breath.

  “What?” I whisper. “What’s going on?”

  El Cid’s lips barely move as she answers me. “Could your son, before he was a wight, make no reaction as a child was tortured in front of him?”

  I think about this. “I don’t know.”

  And that’s the truth. His formative years happened under Myla’s influence. I’d not known him since he was four.

  The infant laughs as the Accuser lifts it high into the air. The man turns quickly around so as to make the baby seem to fly.

  The infant gurgles in delight.

  Oh, that’s what Q had told me. To a wight, a child laughing is like a child crying.

  Aiden remains stone faced.

  The Accuser walks up the steps of the stand and holds the baby up to Aiden.

  The crowd again sucks in a breath, probably fearing for the child’s life.

  Aiden twitches. Then, as the infant giggles, Aiden turns his head away.

  “This wight is an excellent liar,” the Accuser says. “See how he’s disgusted by little Ethan? I’m not surprised. Now I won’t say for certain that he didn’t fool the infidels. It’s possible, I suppose, they really do believe this thing before us is good. I don’t think so, but they might. Even so, they should know better, and that doesn’t make their breaking the law any more acceptable.”

  He takes the baby down the steps.

  Aiden is looking at his feet again.

  Damn. That did not go well.

  “I’m satisfied,” the Tree Lord says. “Amirani, do you have any questions you’d like to add?”

  I’m not sure how he’s going to undo that, but he’s an infidel. I’m sure he’ll think of something.

  Amirani shakes his head. “No, Tree Lord. I have nothing to add.”

  Fuck. This had better be like one of those movies where the lawyer is silent for the whole trial and then drops a motherfucking truth bomb to save the day at the end.

  “Then let’s bring out the Nazi,” the Tree Lord says.

  Nebuchadnezzar shares a nod with my son as they pass each other in the cage’s doorway. Two treemen flank him as he strides toward the stage, his boots clopping loudly on the wooden floor. The crowd doesn’t seem to know what to think of him, which is odd. For Neb’s part, he doesn’t appear to care about the crowd at all.

  He mounts the steps quickly and stands, legs spread shoulder width, his chin raised. He looked half-dead when they dragged us here, but all this hate seems to have given him a second wind.

  “You don’t seem very respectful of the proceedings,” the Tree Lord notes.

  Nebuchadnezzar snorts. “This is hardly Nuremberg.”

  Q quickly covers his mouth. The crowd buzzes.

  “A death sentence here is just as fatal,” the Tree Lord shoots back.

  “If I wanted to avoid your justice, I could,” Nebuchadnezzar says. “I’d tell you how I didn’t dare cross the infidels, and that I led them to Soulfall against my will or my better judgement, and you’d forgive me.”

  “You went to Soulfall?” the Tree Lord asks.

  “Yes,” Neb answers.

  Some in the crowd stir, but I’m betting most people don’t know what that place is.

  The Tree Lord shifts in his throne. “You said ‘if.’”

  Nebuchadnezzar grimaces. “I’ll not tell you those things.”

  “Then why did you, other than the fact you are a Nazi, help smuggle a wight into my city?”

  “I protest,” he says, and for just that moment I hear the German accent in his voice. “I am damned, but I am no Nazi.”

  I’m really starting to like this guy. Fuck me for it, but I am.

  “Oh?” The Tree Lord smirks. “Are you an infidel now?”

  Neb cocks his head to one side. “I’m trying to be, my Lord.”

  “The guilt starting to get ya?” The Tree Lord still seems amused.

  “Yes,” Neb says flatly.

  The Tree Lord’s face goes grim, and he sits up straight before leaning forward. “Why did you bring a wight into my city? Twice!”

  “The second time was clearly understandable,” Neb says, pointing to Ke
ith. “You should put him on trial for that—”

  The Accuser breaks in. “You might as well accuse Ethan! How can you hold someone else responsible?”

  Neb cocks his head again. “I certainly shall accuse the babe, the second Ethan grows up, gets an army, and herds me here against my will.”

  The crowd fucking loves that. They burst into jeers. One of the children starts to cry. The Tree Lord raises his hands, silencing the entire crowd except the child.

  “But the first time—” the necromancer begins.

  “Now wait just a second,” the Accuser breaks in.

  “Why not,” Neb says. “It’s your damn trial. Why would you care what I have to say?”

  The Tree Lord raises his hands again to silence the hoots and hollers, clearly exasperated. “Please, continue to answer my question.”

  Neb grins at the Accuser. Then his face becomes serious. “I don’t really follow the infidels. I follow Cris. We all wanted a parent who loved us more than anything. Who would protect us. If my father had been like that, maybe I wouldn’t have become a Nazi, I don’t know. But Cris is that kind of parent. His son was stolen from him, taken to the darkened city of Maylay Beighlay. The boy was lost by anyone’s reckoning. Anyone but Cris’. He marched into that city and killed an Archdevil. I’m thinking you already owe him for that. Then he dragged his half dead son out of there. Are any of you fathers? We’re all children.

  “When the infidels came to my home, I had intended to send them away. I couldn’t, not when Cris asked me to go. I follow him because I don’t want to be what I am. I don’t want to be a Nazi. I think his will is enough, enough to cancel out the wight in his son. It’s been enough so far. I know you doubt Aiden’s intentions, and to tell you the truth, so do the infidels. But you know infidels; they have to study everything. The plan was to slay Aiden at the first sign of his turning.”

  The Accuser stands up. “May I, now?”

  The Tree Lord sighs. “Go ahead.”

  “I just showed that the wight was evil. As soon as he was out of your reach, as soon as you had a moment of weakness, that wight would have escaped. He would have begun killing.”

  Neb frowns. “I thought as you did. Even I, a necromancer, wanted the boy killed. The two circumstances you speak of, however, where the boy was out of our reach, and when we were incapacitated . . . well they’ve both happened, multiple times—both before and after we had him in our custody. As for the rationale behind why the boy behaves morally, you’ll have to ask someone else.”

  “You don’t deny bringing a wight into our city?” the Tree Lord asks.

  “I was complicit with bringing a leper into your city. At that point, he wasn’t yet a wight. Keith’s the one who brought a full on wight in.”

  The Tree Lord pops his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “Leper or wight, the sentence is the fall.” He points down.

  Neb shrugs. “I really couldn’t give two shits what a man like you wants to do to me.”

  Damn it, Neb!

  The Tree Lord leaps to his feet. “You, who slaughtered innocents by the millions, attack my character?”

  Neb nods. “I’m sure you know what Fabian does to your prisoners. Even at my worst, I would never have allowed that.”

  There is another silence, and this time it affects even the child. They know. This whole damn town knows. But no one looks at Fabian. Not a damn one of them. Oh God they must want to, but they just don’t dare.

  Fabian speaks up. “We’ve heard enough of this, my Lord.”

  The Tree Lord motions to Amirani. “Anything you’re curious about?”

  Amirani shakes his head.

  Neb doesn’t wait for a dismissal, but instead marches down the stairs, his grey overcoat swirling about his ankles. His guards have to jog to keep up with him as he heads to our cage.

  “Bring the leader up next,” the Tree Lord orders.

  Cid seems so tiny on the stage. She crosses her arms beneath her small breasts. From this distance I can barely tell that she’d been beaten the day before. Only the red and purple discolorations on her face and right eye give any hint of her trauma.

  “You seem to have taken some damage in your journey,” the Tree Lord remarks.

  She shrugs. “A little from that, Lord. A little of it was from Fabian trying to work himself up to an erection.”

  The crowd is eerily silent.

  Cid turns to Fabian’s woman. “Don’t worry, miss, he failed. You aren’t a cuckold. I must not have been attractive enough.”

  The woman’s face, a mask of anger after Cid’s erection comment, breaks down into despair as she lets out a choked sob. Cid knows how to kick a person verbally.

  Cid’s arms fall to her sides. “He’ll beat you tonight, you know that, don’t you?”

  The Tree Lord clears his throat. “If you are to make such accusations—”

  Cid raises a hand, and for some unearthly reason, the Tree Lord stops speaking. She steps to the edge of the platform, then glares down toward Fabian even as she continues speaking to his wife. “Poor girl, he’ll beat you for what I said. He’ll have some excuse, but you’ll know it’s because of me. You’ll know I unmanned him, and that you have to take the beating for it.”

  Fabian turns red.

  Finally, the crowd reacts, breaking out into a buzz of boos and worried murmurs.

  Cid returns her attention to the Tree Lord. “You ought not allow that beating to happen, Lord. If she comes to you, will you offer her your soldiers’ protection?”

  “There’s no need for that,” the Tree Lord says. “No need at all. I trust Fabian.”

  Cid shrugs. “If I were a betting girl, I’d say Fabian already beat her after his attempt to rape me. Why not have her take off her shirt to show the bruises.”

  Will the Tree Lord allow this? Probably not.

  “The bruises are from a fall,” Fabian’s woman says quickly in his defense, but that’s probably the worst defense I’ve ever heard in my life.

  Just like that, the idea that Fabian might not be some insane woman-beating-psycho-rapist was untenable.

  Fabian is fuming, his hate-filled eyes focused on his wife—only beating her for what she said wouldn’t help him much now.

  Cid addresses the Tree Lord, “The monsters I keep don’t beat defenseless women.”

  Amirani steps back quickly, and Neb stiffens. I think she may have just condemned us to the fall. Is everyone going to pick a fight with the Tree Lord?

  “That will be a separate trial, at a separate time.” Any hint of the Tree Lord’s Jesus-like expression of calm is gone. “You will answer my questions.”

  Cid adjusts her stance so that she’s facing the Tree Lord. She clasps her hands behind her back and nods her assent. “I shall answer.”

  “You took a wight into this city?” he asks.

  “As has been previously said, I did not. We were herded into the city by Keith’s soldiers. We are guilty of smuggling a leper through your city in hopes of reclaiming his soul. We did not consult you, and we are guilty of breaking that law. It is our request that you grant us clemency since it was an errand of mercy.”

  “I’m running short on mercy,” the Tree Lord booms.

  Cid smirks. “I can imagine. After forgiving Fabian, it seems like you’d be running a little low.”

  Again the crowd breaks into angry muttering—but the anger is starting to find a better focal point. Fabian gives a few furtive looks to his neighbors.

  “Why did you not kill the wight?” the Tree Lord yells. “Infidels are not supposed to spare devils.”

  “Because it’s not over,” Cid says.

  Now every eye is on her, including mine. For just a moment, I feel something stir deep inside me. Hope.

  No. Fuck hope. Fuck her. Hope’s destroyed me. Every sacrifice I make, every effort, every damn step I’ve taken toward hope has left me lower. I slayed a God damn Archdevil to rescue my son, and did I get him back? No. I got a godforsaken leper. And then I ca
rried him across Hell to face Soulfall, and I won, and did I get my son back? No. Hell gave me a wight. But not a normal wight, a wight with just enough humanity for there to be something left to lose.

  But I know what happens next. That last part of him will be ripped away.

  There is no hope in Hell.

  There is no hope. Cid is lying to manipulate the Tree Lord, and there is no chance that my son can be restored.

  “What’s not over?” the Tree Lord is asking.

  “The boy,” Cid says. “He’s not lost. There is a way, and Nebuchadnezzar can confirm this, that even a full-blooded wight can be restored. Only, so far, there has been no wight willing to try it. This could be the one exception. I couldn’t kill the wight because, right now, that’s only the body of a wight. The soul is still the soul of a little boy, and as an infidel, I have no right to slay him. Now believe me, if I had the first inclination that he was turning the rest of the way, I would have destroyed him.” She turns to Fabian. “Like I will destroy you for what you tried to do to me.”

  This pushes him over the edge. “You? You destroy me? You’re about to be back in my prison, missy.”

  El Cid shakes her head and points to the Tree Lord. “In his prison. And if you try to rape me again, then you will assure that I don’t fall, but that you do. Everyone knows what you do.”

  The Tree Lord clenches the armrests of his throne and pushes himself to his feet. “I said that is for another day. We have just survived a siege, El Cid, and you walk in here destabilizing my forces . . .”

  Cid shrugs. “Give me a gun, I’ll defend your city. Give me my team, I’ll go out and clear away your enemies.”

  “You pled guilty to the charges,” the Accuser says. “The rest is you using your infidel training to confuse the issue. This case is, however, black and white. You are guilty.”

  El Cid looks at him. “Yes. I’m not lying. I’m not going to say I didn’t break the law. I’m asking the Tree Lord if the law needs to be changed because it doesn’t appear to be just in this circumstance.”

  “Everyone has excuses,” the Accuser says. “Everyone can justify why they did their crime. The law is black and white so that people like you will know that if they do a thing, they will face the consequences.”