Chapter 16

Will opened his eyes. His world was shuddering and rocking from side to side. He sat up. This was difficult, because his wrists were bound in the white chains behind his back. When he was up, however, he found himself wishing he had never woken.

He was in a small wooden cart, drawn by an old horse, vaguely familiar– and then Will recognised him: it was old Bantanamo, stolen out of his stable at the palace to make the mood twice more ominous. Will's heart sank. On either side of him were seated armed guards.

Looking forwards, he saw, perhaps a hundred feet away, his destination. The gallows.

Will stared blankly for some moments, uncomprehending. That was when they entered the crowd.

The throng screamed and pulsed like a living beast, and a little boy with sandy-blonde hair threw a rotten apple at Will. This seemed to signal the start of a competition, because suddenly the air was thick with out-dated food and insults. Will sat subdued, for once in his life at a total loss as to what he ought to do. These chains that bound him were chains forged of the High Magic, and against the High Magic Will Stanton was powerless. He had been out-thought, out-manoeuvred. It had infuriated him, but now it made him despair.

Have I lost?

–

Alanna knew something was wrong even before Aram Sklaw had demanded a search of the palace for his missing apprentice. She had known when Will had not returned that night, at the time he had said he would. Will was never late. It was impossible, unheard-of, for him to be late. When he didn't have enough time, he made it. So it was inconceivable for him not to be there when he'd said he would be.

And when Stefan came to find her at breakfast, she knew by his shifty way of walking that something had happened. Was happening.

"Will Stanton," he said, keeping his voice very soft, "is in a lotta trouble. Ye need t' get a pardon, from yer buddy th' Prince or somesuch."

"What?! How bad could the trouble be? I will not use Jonathan to help him get out of some silly scrape!" Alanna was outraged. How could Will expect her to do that?

"I don't think ye understand, squire," said Stefan, trying to keep his voice calm and reasonable. "Somethin' is wrong with Will. He's lost his Gift or whatever it was he had. Coz he ain't usin' it let me tell ye, an' he's halfway t' th' gallows already."

"What?" asked Alanna, her voice deathly quiet now.

"Ye heard me. He'll be hanged today, this hour, if nothin' is done."

Alanna stood, breakfast forgotten. "Does George know? Tell him to delay the hanging for as long as he can. What's the crime? Tell Aram Sklaw."

"If George can do anythin', ye can bet he's already doin' it. Laughing Nell's got that covered. Will's bein' done for theft and assault or some bollocks like that. No one knows who's pullin' th' damned strings neither. There's no one talkin' an' no one t' buy off."

Minutes later Aram Sklaw and Prince Jonathan had been notified, and Alanna had them all flying for Hangman's Hill, where all criminals died.

–

Someone was reading out his charges as Will was pushed up the gallows' steps. He heard 'condemned to death by hanging', then slid on a decaying peach and crashed down. The guards shoved him the rest of the way up to the platform, and the hangman took it from there, snatching at his collar and dragging Will to his feet.

As Will stumbled upright, he caught a good look of the hangman's face.

Rissena of the Dark smiled sweetly back at him. She had used the hangman's body to materialise. "Good morning, Will Stanton, I hope you had a pleasant last night's sleep. I'll be your executioner for today. Do feel free to have an excruciating experience."

All at once his depression vanished. It was something about her cockiness, her certainty, that triggered the change. He could almost feel his spirit rekindling, soaring. He grinned roguishly at Rissena of the Dark.

"You think you've won here, in this country, on the battlefield of this world. But today, this isn't a victory for you. You don't know it, but the seeds are sown and your time here is slipping away as we speak. Consider yourself beaten."

"Will Stanton, you're forgetting who is about to destroy whom. This noose was forged especially for people like you and me, out of the High Magic, so that men could dictate their own futures. Today your future looks grim."

The noose was tossed over his neck and pulled taut around his flesh, but Will wasn't afraid or doubtful or even lonely anymore. Rissena of the Dark, at his ear, whispered; "And since you mentioned it, I'm not seeing any seeds anywhere." And departed, to winch the hangman's rope up, so that Will would have the slowest, most agonising execution available to mankind.

Will felt the cord tighten around his throat and knew it was almost time. At the edge of the crowd, he thought he heard a shout, but couldn't quite make it out.

Will grunted, his throat constricting painfully as he was hoisted, swinging, off the ground. He kicked uselessly with his legs, trying in vain to reach the ground. Kicking his life away. He could feel panic, his body's instinctive reaction, creeping over him, and he struggled.

Higher. The crowd were cheering and booing and shrieking for him to die. Will didn't want to die. He started to gasp for breath, the rope biting into his throat, choking him. If only it would end–

"How does it feel, Old One?"

It was Rissena of the Dark, at his side once more, to taunt him.

Tiny tears trickled out of the corners of his eyes. He didn't want to cry, but he couldn't help it. He didn't even know how they got there.

"I'm impressed, I really am, you're going where no Old One has gone before, or at least where no Old One has so painfully gone before."

He wanted to tell her to shut up, but his throat, his throat, it hurt so much. A gurgling cry tore itself from his mouth.

"If it's any consolation," said Rissena conversationally, "you're putting on a very entertaining performance for all these people. They're loving it. And your lips are turning blue, so you must be at least half-dead now."

I'll – I'll be back.

"No, you won't," Rissena assured him, "at least not in time to reverse the damage the Dark will have wrought. But don't let that concern you, please, focus on the pain."

The pain. It was all-consuming. His body burned with it. His throat felt like it had been broken in two. His eyes wanted to pop out of their sockets, and he couldn't breathe, hadn't been able to breathe for an eternity at least.

"Will!" someone screamed.

Will craned his head down, wincing as the rope bit deeper into his skin. It was Laughing Nell.

It's OK, he tried to tell her, but he couldn't force the words out of his swollen mouth, could barely think them. Don't cry for me.

And there – was that Alanna? Was she crying too? And with her – his vision blurred, but he did recognise them – George the Rogue and Jonathan the King-To-Be and was it? No, not ageing Aram?

"Rissena." Will croaked. "These are the seeds."

And then Captain Aram stood in front of Will, so that Will saw him clearly and could not mistake him for another. He had climbed up on the scaffolding. To say goodbye? Rissena was amused, surprised but still amused. She let the scene play out.

"I know you're honest, laddie." Aram Sklaw said, his voice so quiet no one else but Will could hear it breaking. "I know it."

Then he grabbed Will's kicking legs and yanked him down. His neck broke instantly. The torment finished.

Will's body looked awful; Rissena of the Dark had not lied – his mouth was blue, his eyes protruded revoltingly from beneath their closed lids and his throat was bruised red and grey, in the pattern of the rope that had throttled him.

Will should have been dead, but as guards lifted him off the gallows for burial, and Rissena stood bursting with anger that her fun had been spoiled, and Aram Sklaw walked beside the body, a hand took his.

Aram Sklaw looked down. Will Stanton looked back at him. He felt very weak and very old. He knew he was almost out of time.

"Goodbye, sir."

The guards carrying Will dropped him in their terror. Laughing Nell and Alanna reached him then, but he was already fading.

"I did what I had to do." He could hear Merriman's voice in his head, calm, clear, as it had always been. Will relaxed.

And then there was nothing left, nothing but his clothes, lying empty and as frail as leaves in autumn.

Above, unnoticed and almost invisible in the daylight, something that might have been likened to a shooting star exploded its way out of the world, out of time itself.

Next to the gallows' platform, in front of the cart that had driven Will to his fate, Bantanamo slid down to lie on his side and quietly died; his lease on life elapsed.

Laughing Nell's knees hit the cobblestones of the street, her fists following numbly, and screamed wordlessly. When she lost her breath, she sobbed, staring at her bloodied knuckles.

The Rogue caught her wrists as she was about to strike the ground again. He stared at her, slack-jawed and incredibly moved; the sole witness to her madness. His eyes begged her to communicate her grief, so that he could understand and share her burden.

But Laughing Nell could not explain the madness, or the anguish that had induced it, could only give voice to the words bubbling, trickling through her mind, words that hardly made sense to her anymore:

"Damn! Damn! Damn! He always told me never t' worry! He said he couldn't die!"

"Sometimes when they are touched by the Gods, men think that." Prince Jonathan said.

"Will wasn't touched by the Gods," Alanna answered, and wouldn't explain. She knew now, deep in the recesses of her soul, beyond the faintest doubt, that all Duke Roger of Conté's endeavours would be destroyed, and she would be their destroyer. She blamed Duke Roger for Will's death. Everything bad or unfair that had happened to her always ended up connected with him. She would get her proof, and then Duke Roger of Conté would be sorry.

–

Duke Roger heard the shouts of the gallows' crowd go silent, and then Delia, who had been sitting in front of him, morphed into his master, as Rissena of the Dark materialised before him.

"Is it done, master?" he asked, "Is Will Stanton dead?"

"He is gone, for now," was his answer, "However an Old One, such as Will Stanton is, can never die, just be blasted out of time."

"Master?"

"You must prepare for his return."

The End.