Gregory Keyes - The Charnel Prince

“No,” she said firmly. “I’m tired of running. I won’t run anymore.”

The woman smiled faintly. “You feel your power waking, but you are not yet complete. You are not ready for this trial, I promise you.”

“Then I will die, and that will be the end of it,” Anne said.

“It will be the end not just of you, but of the world as we know it.”

“I do not much care for the world as we know it,” Anne confided a little haughtily.

The woman sighed. “Why did you come here?”

“To tell you. If you are so certain that I must live, then you will help me, I think.”

“We are already helping you, Anne. My sisters and I have strained ourselves, woven as much into the web of fate as we dare. We foresaw this moment, and there are two paths. One is the path home, to Eslen. At this moment your mother is locked in a tower, and the man who murdered your father sits the throne. A moment approaches there, also, and if you aren’t there to greet it, the result will be terrible beyond imagining.”

“And the other path? The one in which I face my pursuers and free my friends? The one I’m going to take?”

“We cannot see past that,” she whispered. “And that is gravely worrisome.”

“But you said you foresaw this moment.”

“Yes, but not your decision. We feared you would take the unseeable, and have provided all the help we can. I do not think it will be enough.”

“It will be enough,” Anne said, “or you will find another queen.”

The monks had been piling wood in a huge cone all day, but soon after it grew dark, they lit it. Cazio watched the flames lick hungrily up toward the oak branches above.

“Do you suppose they’re going to burn us?” he asked z’Acatto.

“If they meant to do that, they should have tied us up to the logs. No, boy, I think they’ve something more interesting in mind.”

Cazio nodded. “Yes. Something to do with those.” He meant the seven posts the monks had erected earlier, but he also meant the newer, somewhat more worrisome detail they had added only a few moments before—three hanging nooses suspended from a low tree branch.

“You always said I would end in a noose,” he told the old man.

“Yes,” z’Acatto agreed. “I never imagined I would be joining you, however. Speaking of which, how is your plan coming along? The one you promised Artore?”

“I’ve got the broad strokes of it laid out,” Cazio said. “I’m mostly lacking in details.”

“Uh-huh. How are you going to slip your bonds?”

“That, unfortunately, is one of the details.”

“You work that out while I get some sleep.” z’Acatto grunted.

They were silent for a while as Cazio watched the play of light from the fire. It seemed as if giants made of shadow were leaping from the trees into the clearing and then retreating again—doing footwork, as a dessrator might. He glanced longingly at Caspator, where the sword lay with the rest of his effects.

His bonds were loosening again, but if experience was any guide, someone would be along presently to tighten them.

Cazio himself was tiring, and was almost dozing when it finally started. The monks were leading captives to the perimeter of poles around the mound and securing them there. It took the first of their screams for the drowsy Cazio to understand that they weren’t tying them there.

“Oh, buggering lords, no,” Cazio said, redoubling his efforts at the ropes. He watched helplessly as a girl who could be no more than five had her arms stretched above her and nailed there.

“No!” he screamed. “By all that’s holy, what do you think you’re doing?”

“They’re waking the sedos,” Artore whispered. “Waking the Worm.” He looked frightened, which he hadn’t before.

“How can . . .” Cazio stumbled off, overcome by the horror of it. “How can men do things like this?” he finally managed.

“I don’t think we’ve seen the worst,” Artore predicted. “And I think I’d best bid you farewell now.”

Cazio saw someone coming in their direction. He lunged at the robe-clad monk, but the rope went taut around his neck and jerked him back.

“Stop it!” he screamed as the man cut Artore’s leash. Artore was faster than he looked. He head-butted the monk in the face. The man jerked back, and then moved with blinding speed, striking Artore in the pit of his stomach. The man gagged and fell to his knees, and the monk took him in an arm-lock and conveyed him to the post.

“Z’Acatto?” Cazio said feeling his breath coming suddenly short.

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

“What for?”

“For dessrata. For everything.”

The old man didn’t say anything for a moment. “You’re welcome, boy,” he finally answered. “I could have spent my life worse. I’m glad to be here with you.”

A monk was coming for z’Acatto. Euric was coming for Cazio.

“Don’t get too sentimental,” Cazio said. “I’m still going to get us out of this, and then you’ll feel silly.”

The men were almost on them. Cazio tried to relax, so he could move quickly. He would have just an instant when the rope was slack, and he would have to use that instant well.

Euric smiled and punched him in the jaw. Cazio felt his teeth snap together, and suddenly he was choking. Just as quickly, the pressure released, and he stumbled forward, dragged by the knight who had him from behind in a wrestling hold.

“Can’t kill you yet,” Euric said. “You’re one of the guests of honor. I thought I would have to play your part, and I was ready, too, but then we found you.”

“What are you babbling about, you filthy sod?” Cazio snarled.

“Swordsman, Priest, and Crown,” the knight said, unhelpfully. “And one who cannot die. We’ve got a priest, and a royal, though she doesn’t know it yet, I’m afraid—and now we’ve got our swordsman. As for the undying—well, you’ve already met Hrothwulf.”

“Is any of that supposed to make sense?” Cazio asked, as Euric hustled him up the mound and stood him up on a block beneath the gallows tree, then set the noose around his neck. Another man brought Caspator and stuck the blade point-first into the ground in front of him. Cazio gazed greedily at the weapon, so close and so unreachable.

Now he had a good view of all the victims nailed to the posts. He could see their faces in the firelight. Z’Acatto already hung with them, blood drizzling from his crossed palms, not more than six perechi away.

Artore was there, too—and he’d been right. It was getting worse. Going widdershins—one by one—the monks were carefully cutting their victims open and pulling out their intestines. They stretched these to the next post and nailed them into the arms of the next victim, then cut his belly, too. As this happened, a sacritor on the mound began chanting in a language Cazio had never heard before.

Meanwhile, a new party entered the clearing, a richly dressed man and woman. The man was tall and austere, with graying mustache and beard. The woman looked younger, but it was hard to make out her features from this distance, partly because she was bound and gagged.

“There’s our royal,” a voice said, just near Cazio’s ear. He turned and saw one of the monks step onto the block beside him and calmly place the noose on his own neck.

“I honestly never knew,” Cazio distantly heard himself say. “Never. I have seen cruelty, and malice, murder, and casual mayhem. But I never in my worst dreams ever imagined such sick depravity as this.”

“You don’t understand,” the monk said softly. “The world is dying, swordsman. The sky is cracking and soon will tumble down. And we’re going to save it. You should be honored.”