Ruiz felt sick to his stomach, but he couldn’t turn away.
The first major episode of Rontleses’ Expiation began. The conjuror flung a thin white silk over the former coercer, who sagged in the middle of the frame, apparently exhausted by the preliminaries. The folds of the silk settled over the victim like fog, and by some trick of arrangement, seemed no longer to be hiding a human shape, but something monstrous, something pregnant with ugliness. The torches guttered low for an instant, motion rippled the silk — then the conjuror whipped it away.
Rontleses had suffered a terrible metamorphosis and now resembled a huge spider with a half-human face. By some means, the ligaments of his legs had been stretched or severed to allow his legs to be twisted up behind his head and over his shoulder. His toes pointed downward in an unnatural manner; they jiggled feebly, and his arms waved spastically from beneath his buttocks. Four artificial limbs had been attached to his abdomen; these flipped about with more energy than his natural limbs, and after a moment Ruiz saw that they were animated by snakes held within the pale leather tubes. The reptiles struck at each other, and at Rontleses’ flesh, with indiscriminate enthusiasm.
Rontleses could not scream, apparently because the spider mask he now wore over his lower face also functioned as a gag. But his eyes were wild with pain, and he jerked his head violently to and fro, adding to the theatrical impact of his new form.
The conjuror bowed low to Lord Brinslevos. “Thus do we see the Expiant in his true shape, an insect who would sting his Lord’s hand.”
The Expiation proceeded.
The conjuror poured onto Rontleses’ body a hundred insects, which burrowed into the victim’s skin and disappeared, until the conjuror clapped his hands and shouted an arcane word, whereupon the insects emerged and flew away. The exit wounds formed a bright red message in the angular Pharaohan script. It seemed to be an apology, but it was legible only for an instant, before the blood ran down Rontleses’ torso and blurred the letters.
An intermission ensued, while the conjuror treated the victim for shock and stanched the blood.
When the Expiation resumed, the former coercer hardly seemed human, except for his eyes, which now appeared to view the world with as much bewilderment as pain. He hung from his frame and accepted the further indignities inflicted upon him with more docility than his executioner considered proper. Fire was employed, and knives, and various irritant venoms, and once again Rontleses writhed with as much vigor as his broken body allowed. Clever barbarities were enacted upon him, for perhaps another half hour.
In the end, Ruiz could no longer stand to watch, and so missed the moment of Rontleses’ death, which was marked by a silence from the crowd. The silence seemed so portentous that he stood and, peering from his cage, witnessed the finale.
The corpse of Rontleses sat up in its coffin and pointed a pallid finger in Ruiz’s direction.
Its mouth dropped open and then moved with a fair semblance of life. “Wuhiya the snake oil man is to blame,” the corpse shouted, in a metallic buzzing voice that seemed entirely appropriate to its speaker. “Wuhiya has killed me, but he’ll commit no more mischief.” Its dead lips pulled back from its broken teeth in a grim parody of a smile. “Ha, ha.”
Ruiz wondered what sort of apparatus animated the corpse, and whose voice issued from the torn lips. The eyes were dull, and looked in slightly different directions; that was the weakest part of the illusion, in Ruiz’s opinion.
“Wuhiya plotted to destroy my Lord, from jealousy and madness, and he clouded my mind with his poisons, so that I failed my duty, and deserve no less than I’ve received. But I have my Lord’s forgiveness, and I go now to the Land of Reward without regret.” The corpse dropped its quivering finger, inclined its head respectfully toward Lord Brinslevos, and then fell back into its coffin.
The show was over. A murmur of disappointment ran through the crowd, and someone spoke close at hand. “The Lord was easy with Rontleses. Too bad; he deserved far worse, and now the oil peddler will suffer in his stead.”
Ruiz shuddered. If he had just witnessed leniency, of what did harshness consist? The datasoak had glossed over some of the particulars of Pharaohan criminal justice; so much was certain. He felt the death net tug at his life, a bit more strongly than before, and for an instant he was almost tempted to give in and spare himself even the possibility, even the contemplation of such pain, such degradation. But then he shook himself and took a firmer grip on his unruly emotions.
Denklar will be here soon, he told himself, and forced himself to believe it.
Chapter 12
But Denklar did not come. Laborers took Rontleses’ coffin away, and the square emptied. The temperature dropped, until Ruiz stood shivering in the center of the cage, unable to bear the icy touch of the metal on his naked body. He wrapped his arms around himself and hopped from foot to foot, minimizing the time each foot must spend in contact with the iron, and also attempting to generate a bit of internal warmth.
Hours passed, and the lights of Stegatum went out, until the town lay silent and dark under the starblaze. Still Denklar did not come. Ruiz’s teeth chattered and his spirits sank.
Long past midnight, he heard the scuff of careful feet just outside the cage, and he suppressed a laugh of hysterical relief. But the steps seemed lighter than Denklar’s could be, and a voice too soft and melodious to belong to the innkeeper spoke from the darkness. “Wuhiya? I’ve brought a water reed. Here.”
A slender tube slid through a chink in the iron, and Ruiz took it gratefully. “Thank you; you’re kind.”
“It’s little enough,” said Relia the doxy. “I’d do more if I could, but what help could I be? Here’s another one; keep it till you need it.” She slipped another reed through the chink.
Ruiz snapped off the end of one reed, and allowed the slightly sour watery sap to drain into his mouth, which was dry as ashes, both from the effect of the day’s deprivation and from terror. The fluid tasted wonderful, and for a brief instant he was entirely content. The sensation dissipated almost as swiftly as it had come. “Relia,” he said, leaning against the cold iron, peering out. “Tell me, have you seen Denklar this evening? How did he seem?”
Relia sniffed. “He always seems the same, but tonight? I can’t say. He’s gone; no one knows where. The cooks were most put out, what with all the extra custom tonight, yokels in for the killings and so forth. Very odd, if you ask me — Denklar’s always on hand when silver’s to be had.”
Ruiz’s spirits plummeted again. Where was the innkeeper? Had he run away, for some reason beyond Ruiz’s comprehension? Or was there something else wrong, something that hadn’t yet occurred to him? A conviction grew in him that the latter explanation was somehow the true one, but his day in the cage and his witnessing of the coercer’s Expiation had combined to slow his wits in some subtle way. He pounded his forehead with his fist. Think, Ruiz Aw, he exhorted. But nothing came.
“Well,” said Relia, in a voice of soft regret. “I’ll have to go in now; the night’s cold and I’m not dressed for it.”
“Wait!” Ruiz cast about for a purposeful course. Relia constituted his only avenue of action. “You said you’d help if you could.”
“Yes. But what could I do?”
“Could you bring me something else?”
“Perhaps. The cages aren’t watched at night. No one is clever enough to unlock them, from the outside or the inside.”