Shrine of Stars

Chapter Ninteen The Execution

It was a fine, bright, hot day. Myriad small craft swarmed around the black barge which, with a sleek galliot on either side and a claw-shaped flier above, carried Yama and the judicial panel to the execution site. The event had a holiday air. The brightly colored sails of sightseers’ skiffs, pirogues, yaws, cockleshells, yachts and pinnaces cracked in the brisk wind. There was a raft carrying a hundred sweating, bare-chested drummers who beat out long, interwoven rhythm lines. Merchants in sampans and trows sold food and wine, souvenirs and fireworks. People held up their children to see the evil mage; other children threw firecrackers at the waves. Motorboats got in the way of sailboats and there were shouted arguments and exchanges of colorful insults. A whole raft of drunken men tumbled into the water when rocked by the wake of a chrome-plated speedboat’s buzzing disc. They swam back to the raft and clambered on board and drank some more.

The fleet passed a strange cluster of hexagonal pillars of black basalt; long fringes of red waterweed spread out from them, combed by the river’s strong currents. The far-side shore was the thinnest of gray brushstrokes.

Ahead, a line of black rain clouds marked the fall of the river over the edge of the world.

Yama was quite calm. He spent most of the journey speaking with Mr. Naryan, who wallowed in a glass tank of water on the barge’s weather-deck. They talked about Angel, of how she had come to Sensch and made herself its ruler, and changed the citizens in the first act of heresy which had set Confluence aflame with war.

“She spoke at the shrines at the edge of the world,” Mr. Naryan said in his soft, croaking voice, “but I never learned what she did there.”

Yama laughed. All his cares seemed to have lifted away in this last hour. He did not spare a single glance for the execution frame which stood on the platform at the bow of the barge, but it drew Pandaras’s eye again and again, and each time a cold shiver ran through him. Now in the moment of our death is the moment of our rebirth into eternal life. Pandaras glimpsed Usabio in a motor launch beyond the portside galliot and felt a grain of anger sharpening his resignation. Yama’s chambers had been stripped as soon as he had been marched out of them. The furniture had been reduced to matchsticks and the sheets cut into strips. No doubt the warden was here to make sure that the traders selling these souvenirs to the holiday crowd did not cheat him.

Yama told Mr. Naryan, “Angel called the last surviving avatars of the Preservers to her, and learned how to use the space inside the shrines. She made a copy of herself, the aspect that later destroyed the avatars. And I think that she made contact with the feral machines too.”

“She was always with me,” Mr. Naryan said. “I found her aspect in many of the shrines I visited, but she was fey and willful, and did not seem to remember much of what happened in Sensch. I have that honor.”

“You told her aspect that story. And so she was able to put it in my book.”

This amused Mr. Naryan, who rolled back and forth in his tank, barking sharply. Water slopped on the deck and a sprayhead flowered above him, soaking his exposed gray skin until it gleamed. A soft red light glowed at the center of the machine which clung to the ruined socket of his right eye. He said, “It is a fine irony. There are many stories about Angel, but only I remember the truth. Well, there is also poor Dreen, but he was seduced by the crew of Angel’s ship, and went with them when they left this world. I will meet him again one day, of course. The Universe is infinite, but there are only a finite number of worlds. I will find him and save him from his mistake.”

“You all want to live forever,” Yama said. “But you cannot live forever because the Universe will not live forever. I have always wondered: what will happen when time ends, and you meet the Preservers? Will you try and destroy them?”

The woman in the mirror-bright armor told Yama, “We will have destroyed the Eye of the Preservers long before then. There are ways of ablating black holes. Once it is small enough, an event horizon achieves closure and nothing can escape from it before it evaporates. At least, not into this universe. We will seize the last day and make it ours. But by then, of course, we will have already made the Universe ours. We will not falter as the Preservers faltered,” she said, with a look of pure, fierce conviction. “We will never cease in our striving.”

Yama smiled and said, “There are many universes. Or rather, many versions of one universe. Everything that can happen will happen. Perhaps even your victory.”

“We do not need to think of the far future,” Mr. Naryan said. “That dream is what paralyzed this world. Because the Preservers promised infinite life in the last moment at the end of all time and space, their foolish worshippers believe that there is no need to do anything in this life. Everything on this world has been bent by that false hope, mesmerized by it as a snake mesmerizes a mouse. But the future is not shaped by a promise; it is what each person makes of it.”

“We can agree on that at least,” Yama said. “After the feral machines rebelled, the civil service decreed that it must suppress any change, because change implied heresy. Yet the Preservers changed us all, and set us here in the hope that we would change ourselves.”

Even the indigens, Pandaras thought, with another cold shiver. The burden his master had laid upon him seemed impossibly heavy. He was only half-listening to this idle talk, paying more attention to the soldiers who stood nearby. He had resolved to try and grab a pistol or even a knife if Yama would not save himself. He would give up his life if he could free his master.

“We do not need gods,” the woman in the mirror-armor said, “because we will become more than gods. We will continue this conversation at the end of all things, when we raise you from the dead, Yamamanama.”

Yama bowed to her and said, “I thank you for the courtesy.”

Enobarbus came back from the bow, where he had spent most of the voyage. As usual, he was bare-chested. A pistol was tucked into the red sash at the waist of his white trousers. Hot wind tangled his bronze mane. His scars blazed in his broken face. He said, “It is almost time. You should ready yourself, Yamamanama. We do not have a priest, but you may pray alone if you wish to.”

“I am done with prayers,” Yama said.

The barge and its escort were passing long shoals of gray shingle to starboard, where all the wrack of the world was cast up: dead trees whitened by long immersion in the river; innumerable coffins, mostly empty; scraps of waterlogged clothing and bits of plastic; the bodies of men and animals; thousands upon thousands of bones; once in a while the bleached carcass of a ship. Water reivers, living on floating platforms with powerful motors to counter the strong river currents, sifted through the stuff cast up on these shoals, but today they were under guard far upriver. Only white gulls picked over the bones and the artfully preserved bodies; thousands of them rose like a snowstorm as the procession went past.

The roar of the fall of the river grew ever louder. Strong currents raised the skin of the water into muscular humps that shifted and clashed in little flurries of white foam. The ramshackle fleet of boats and rafts unpicked itself, beating back against the currents until only a few foolhardy craft were left, ignoring warnings broadcast from one of the galliots.

A line of black clouds was directly ahead, trailing skirts of silvery rain. The river ran straight beneath them, rising in a glassy hump at the edge of the world, a curb of water fifty leagues long. One small pirogue foundered, swamped by the chop.

The three people aboard jumped into the water and were swept away at once. No one tried to save them; they were responsible for their own lives. Most of the other small boats had turned back, although Usabio’s powerful motor launch held station a little way off from the barges, and another launch hung half a league to stern.

The motors of the black barge and the two galliots roared and roared, holding them in place. The flier dipped lower, casting a shadow over the three vessels. Armored troopers were lining up along the rails of the galliots. The compromise was this: Yama would be bound to a wooden frame and thrown into the river, but would be killed by sharpshooters before he was swept over the edge of the world. The sharpshooters did not need to be accurate. They were armed with carbines whose beams could boil the river.

Now the pace of things quickened. To Pandaras it seemed that everything was being swept along as if caught in the river’s accelerating currents.

Yama was stripped of his clothes. With a swarm of machines darting overhead, jostling to get the best view as they recorded or transmitted the scene, he was led to the bow of the barge by a pentad of soldiers in black plastic armor and black masks. They guided him with nervous pats and quiet words. Pandaras tried to follow, but an officer took hold of his good arm, and no matter how much he wriggled, he could not get free.

There was a pause, then a shift in focus. Mr. Naryan had begun to make a speech. Yama was marched back between the soldiers so that he could hear it. The barge’s motors roared on a long low note that rattled Pandaras’s teeth. His heart beat quickly. The barked orders of officers marshaling the sharpshooters on the galliots blew across the churning water. The distant launch was moving toward the barge now. Pandaras could no longer see Yama; the members of the judicial panel were in the way and the officer held him firmly. When they parted, he saw that Yama had been led back to the bow and was being lashed to the execution frame by five masked soldiers.

Pandaras cursed the ancestry of the officer who held him, and protested that he must be allowed to tend to his master in his last moments.

“He’s beyond help now,” the officer said. “Compose yourself. This is a great moment in history.”

The square execution frame was constructed from lengths of timber exactly Yama’s height, reinforced with crosspieces and laid over a circle of thick balsa sections. It was held upright by slanting braces. Chains rose from each corner, knotted to a ring. The ring hung from a hook which in turn depended from the jib of a crane manned by a pentad of soldiers stripped to the waist. The slack chains swung and jingled as the barge shifted in the currents. Once Enobarbus had checked the ropes which fastened Yama’s wrists and ankles to the frame, two soldiers knocked away the braces. The chains took up the slack and the frame was lifted and swung out by the crane, its top tilting backward until Yama lay level with the swift water beneath him. Soldiers hung onto ropes, checking the frame’s tendency to swing to and fro.

Trumpets brayed from the galliots on either side. Pandaras’s heart quickened. Was this the final moment? He tried to get free again, but the officer got him in a headlock and twisted his arm up behind his back until the pain forced him to cry out. “You’ll be free in a moment,” the officer said. “Have patience.”

Something was wrong. The sharpshooters were breaking ranks and turning around. The launch was still coming on, heading straight for the portside galliot. Something small and bright shot away from it, rising high into the air as the launch roared on through wings of spray. The flier lifted away, turning toward the launch.

Pandaras’s first thought was that Yama had called on a machine to save him. But the thing which had shot away from the launch was not a machine, but a man standing on a floating disc that cut through the air so swiftly his ragged cloak flew out behind him. Just as Pandaras realized that it was Prefect Corin, an energy bolt struck the flier and it burst apart with a deafening blast of blue fire, and fragments rained down in long arcs, trailing smoke and flame as they smashed into the river. At the same moment, there was a tremendous crash and a flare of flame swept down the length of the portside galliot. The launch had struck it amidships and exploded. Pandaras felt heat wash over him; the officer cursed, but did not let go of him. The galliot was on fire from one end to the other and was beginning to list as water poured through the hole in its hull. Soldiers were running about inside the flames, their screams tearing at the air. Some pitched into the river and were swept away at once. Ammunition exploded, bright flares rippling within the flames. The burning galliot swung around, its motors stuttering, and began to drift toward the falls.

Prefect Corin rose above the flames. The sharpshooters on the galliot to starboard took aim, lowered their carbines and looked at them, took aim again. Nothing. Either Yama had willed it or Prefect Corin was draining energy from the grid. Some of the soldiers on the barge, armed with percussion rifles, began a ragged fusillade. Too late. Prefect Corin extended his arm and a bolt of blue fire struck the stern of the starboard galliot. Water flashed into steam and the casings of the big motors burst; panicked soldiers ran toward the bow as smoking streams of molten metal set fire to the well deck. At the same moment, the officer holding Pandaras screamed and clutched at his mask, which had shattered around the slim black shaft of a machine. Pandaras twisted free and dashed forward, dodging amongst armored soldiers and gorgeously costumed members of the judicial panel.

Enobarbus aimed his pistol at Prefect Corin, threw it away when nothing happened, and grabbed a rifle from one of the soldiers. Prefect Corin dipped low, rushing straight toward the execution frame, which still hung above the chop of the water. Enobarbus took aim with the rifle, not at Prefect Corin, but at the chains which held the frame. Sparks flashed when a pellet hit the hook and he lowered his aim and got off two more shots before Pandaras struck him and tried to climb his torso.

Pandaras managed to claw one side of Enobarbus’s face, but then he was picked up and tossed aside. The barge and the sky revolved around each other; he struck two soldiers and knocked them down, fetched up against something that rang dully against the back of his head. It was Mr. Naryan’s tank. Enobarbus had thrown him halfway down the barge. Pandaras jumped up and ran forward again. At the bow, broken chains shook and danced beneath the crane’s jib. The frame was gone.

Pandaras swarmed halfway up the crane and saw Prefect Corin’s floating disc scudding away above the waves, chasing something borne on the strong current. Two half-naked soldiers were climbing toward him, and he kicked out and dived into the river without thinking, and at once realized that he could hardly keep his head above the surface. The water was like a living thing in constant torment. Pandaras was caught in a current that forced him down amongst glittering fans of bubbles, then shot him back to the surface. A wave washed over him and he snatched a breath and glimpsed a shadow cutting toward him, and was pulled under again just as something twitched across his flanks.

A rope. He grabbed hold with his one hand and tangled his feet around its end. Whitecaps slapped his face one after the other. The side of a small boat pitched back and forth above him. Someone leaned down and grabbed him by the collar of his tunic and hauled him over the side.

Pandaras sprawled on his belly in a slop of water. The river had pummeled all the strength from his muscles. A motor roared and the launch made a long sweeping turn. Pandaras tried to stand up and fell into a nest of plastic bags, each containing a splinter of wood or a strip of white cloth, and knew who had rescued him.

Usabio turned from the helm of the launch, grinning hugely. He locked the controls and came back, bracing himself as he reached down to help Pandaras. And reared away, screaming and pawing at the splinter which Pandaras had jammed into his eye.

Pandaras kicked Usabio’s legs from beneath him and struck him with all his weight. Still screaming, Usabio pitched backward over the side of the launch and was gone.

The launch was heading away from the fall of the river. It took Pandaras several tense minutes to work out how to unlock the little machine which controlled the launch’s motors and turn it back.

The two galliots were on fire and drifting toward the edge of the world. The black barge was moving away, a cloud of machines swirling around it. Pandaras bounced the launch over the waves as fast as he dared. There was no sign of the floating disc, no sign of the frame. And no sign of either Prefect Corin or Yama.

The launch drew fire from the barge; machines buzzed it like angry hornets. Pandaras turned it away in a wide arc and pointed it upriver.

He did not believe that Yama had died. He swore to find him. He thought that he would spend the rest of his life looking, but he was wrong.