163 - I went to death happy

Mana lies chained in his room. He left it too late—who could blame him?—so it falls to me. Two days before I am to fight him, they announce that unless I change my mind, I will be executed. Artira stalled too long, I think. But in honour of my matchless achievements in the Ring, it will be done in a way that causes me no pain.

In fact, it will be done in the Ring, so my loyal fans can grant me a proper farewell. Of course; they’ve promised all those poor citizens who’ve won and lost fortunes a spectacle, and by Celestialis they’ll give them one. Skorsas! I call. What shall I wear? He is still saying I should not die because I am Celestialin, whatever that means.

It is the Imperial Pharmacist, First Amitzas Mahid, who will perform the execution, in the center of the Ring, by poisoning me with a vein-needle inserted into the crook of my arm, the Director tells me. Two guards will stand near, to help me hold steady. The feeling will be no worse than falling asleep.

It is that day, and I give everyone in the quarters my farewells. You never truly know the feelings of people around you, until they’re losing you. Even among the grizzled old serving-staff who I thought incapable of tears, I see tears.

Skorsas lays out no clothes, not knowing which. I choose a plain white linen robe, my crystal and my father’s wisdom-tooth, nothing else. He dresses in plain white too, and takes all his jewelry off, to match me.

Between the Legion Mirrors, we can already hear a thunder from the Ring: thousands of feet stamping the planks. He grips my hand; his is steady as oak.

After the silence of noon observance, the din swells again. I hear the chant, reminding me I can change my mind even now: “Raikas! Live!” A hawker bawls, “Mourning dye! In sympathy, I’ve marked it down!”

We step into their sight. The noise seems to triple, as everyone rises to their feet. Even Mana’s fans want me to change my mind, so they can see him beat me. White banners are waving everywhere, with the same words, as are the white kerchiefs.

In the Ring, Amitzas stands in his white robe, his things on a stand, two younger Mahid in armour at his side. They even have my bier, in my colours, the wood black, the satin heart-blood red, the braid gold. Kurkas is in his box, as I expected, though he has the glass doors closed. Minis is there, too, standing with his hands and nose pressed up against the glass, his eyes wide and blinking.

I kiss Skorsas goodbye, long and tender. Then I step into the Ring, through the gate that is usually mine. Amitzas stands spear-straight as always, the wind ruffling his robe.

The two Mahid reach to take my wrists. I whip my arms free, and say, “Try that again and I’ll kill both of you. Do you think I need to be dragged to what I chose?” While they stand flat-footed—torture me all they like, they’re still scared of me—I walk between them to my place.

I don’t want to waste any time, I just want to get it over with, but the gong crashes for silence. It is a long time before it comes. All-Spirit spare me: the Director rises, to speak.

The gist is, what a tragedy this is after my various victories. But he pads it with so much pompous chaff that any power it could have is lost. He means to draw it out in the hope that time will sap my resolve, I see, when he mentions for the third time that I could yet change my mind. A duel of wills that is no contest. Finally, perhaps nudged by Iska, he makes a grand and frilly finish, then asked me if I have any words to say to the people of Arko, who stood with me through good and ill all this time.

I look all round. They cry out to me, the roar catching through the stands like fire again. I hear the words of those closest, as always. “No, Raikas! You can’t die! You can’t die!” –“Raikas, I love you, please, please, don’t do this!” –“Die, and you’ll be a damned coward like all barbarians!” That one no doubt had a bet on me to live. “Raikas, we all love you, live and be free, champion of our hearts, live and go home with our blessing!”

No one is human, who can hear fifty thousand people cry out to him in the hopes of saving his life, for whatever reason, and not be moved in some part of himself, by their sheer number. It is worse for a semanakraseye, I suspect; even though they are Arkans, I feel a voice in me whisper, “The people wills.” But I need only to think and remember all that has happened for a moment, to harden myself again.

I pull up the sleeve of the robe and thrust my arm out to Amitzas, clenching my fist to bring up the vein. I’ve said enough. This is all I wish now. “Arko,” I say with my naked arm, “you call me the champion of your heart, you call on me to flesh out your lusts and dreams, to live the tale you want to see but not live yourself. You claim to love me, to cherish my life. But do you think, because you flinch away from the bare truth, that I, who have had my face ground into it for a year and a half, fail to see it? Do you think I should not return you in kind? If you wished to save me, you should have treated me better. If you loved me, you should have set me free. Stop lying to yourselves, finally, and see what you do.”

The yelling rises to such loudness it hurt my ears, as they make their last desperate bid to persuade me, or giving up, shriek in anguish, women and men alike, as if they’re being tortured. Once they molded me into a stranger; that’s all in the past now.

But so much greater than their number is the silence in me now, the peace between my thoughts; they can touch it as much as fifty thousand ants can shift a mountain. Soon it will outlast them, and spread to them.

So I wait, with my arm outstretched. It takes long enough before the last pleas and whimpers fade away, and the last fool takes advantage of the quiet to hear his own voice, that my arm gets tired. For the first time in too long, I hear the voice of the harmonic singer, and the wind.

The Director can’t hold off any longer. He signs to Amitzas, who has the vein-needle filled already; he never plays things out for no reason. He lifts it in his hand, looks into my eyes, takes my wrist with the other hand, feeling my pulse. “Are you all right?” he says, under his breath lest the front rows hear, so quiet it is now. “Do you need to be held?”

“I’m fine, I won’t move,” I answer. He says, “Good,” and takes my forearm on his, in his healerly way. I clench my fist to bring up the vein. He touches the needle to my skin and presses it through quickly, finding the vein on the first try, as is his skill. As the drug goes in, I feel it as a cold tingling, rising slowly up my arm. It is done.

The Mahid shift in close behind me; I almost turn and snap at them again, but realize they are readying to catch my fall.

The chill fingers the inside of my shoulder, and I think, When it reaches my head, that will be the end. I look back over my other shoulder, for Skorsas. He stands in our gate, leaning, his hands clenched around the bars. As the cold seeps up my neck, tingling at the back of my tongue, I send him a kiss and a grin. He answers in kind. I wave to Iliakaj in the Fighter’s Box; he makes the sign of the fist, for strength. The silence in me suddenly deepens, then turns to darkness over my eyes as if I am falling down out of the world into myself, and that is all.

†

Sometimes I think, if only it could have been that merciful. But as life is not so simple, neither is death. A voice cut into my mind: “Iska! Iska, he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!” It kept going, hauling me out of the darkness of death, which turned out to be sleep; I was in my bed, in my room, and had not even fought my forty-ninth yet. The voice was real though: Jamaias’s.

I got up, threw on my bathrobe and submitted myself to the ankle-irons and collar. The door of Mana’s room was open, and a clutch of fighters and boys, were gathered around, looking in, ignoring the two Mahid standing like ebony doorposts. I didn’t push in; they would let me through out of respect for my forty-eight chains, if nothing else, if I did, but I didn’t feel like pushing. I could see nothing.

Iska came up, and went in, casting me only the flash of a glance. In a bare moment he came out again. “Clear off,” he said, to everyone except me and the Mahid. Two boys were coming up the stairs with a litter. I looked in.

Mana’s corpse lay on the bed, naked as for sleep, his neck red, and the seed-and-cotton mattress soaked, with blood. Just inside the shield-side neck muscle, where the brain artery runs, a long gash lay open; Iska examined it, squeezing out the last oozing blood that kept him from seeing, and finding the artery, which was half-severed diagonally, with his fingers. Beside me, Jamaias stood trembling with stifled sobs. I put my arm around him.

Mana’s sword-arm hung over the edge of the bed, his hand trailing on the floor; under it lay a crumpled kerchief, also bloody, part-wrapped around a knife-shaped shard of glass; it was from his water-glass, we saw, when Iska found the other shards on the floor by the night-table. He stood up, and shut the door in the faces of four Mahid.

“No one could have come in here last night, not with those two spooks there,” he said, softly. “He did this to himself, with that”—he fingered the shard by Mana’s hand—“wrapped the end of it in the kerchief so he’d have a good grip. I need no explanation, why.” He glanced at me. On the night-table lay the ebony arm-ring, laid on top of a sheet of note-paper. He saw me looking at it, and looked himself.

“You look numb from pain, lad, but not surprised,” he said, as he slipped the paper out from under the arm-ring, delicately. “But I won’t tell anyone that, unless I’m truth-drugged. This… must be Yeoli writing.” He handed it to me.

Chevenga, this is for you, to remember me by. Know that I went to death happy, infused with your strength, heartened with certainty that you will do as you promised. Go with All-Spirit, my heart’s brother, as I do. Mana.

“You needn’t tell me anything, unless it’s addressed to anyone other than you, except one thing,” said Iska. “Does it prove he did it to himself?”

“Yes.” I let go Jamaias to pick up the arm-ring. Still warm? In the heat of Arko, it was hard to tell. I tucked it in the sleeve of my robe. I wanted to be alone when I put it on.

-

To find out why "The Serpent's Tale" avoided Mana's death, and also how the book editor was punished for Life is Everything, click here.

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