TWO HUNDRED THIRTY-SEVEN: Here-to-There XVII

Executioner Vill-ma was a younger woman than Alden had expected, with a prominent forehead and eyes that were almost fuchsia. She met them at the door, wearing the burgundy and black robes of her office and a pair of hair decorations that looked like they were made of something’s vertebra. Her greeting was an ominous warning to eject any lies they might be thinking of telling from their bodies before they approached one who had long studied the offspring of retribution and mercy.

And then she had them spit three times on the blade of a heated knife before she let them inside.

This is the second time a wizard’s made me spit on something in a matter of days.

The ritual with the knife made Alden expect the whole executioner experience to be formal and gravely serious, but as soon as the knife was sheathed and handed off to one of two assistants standing beyond the door, Vill-ma became much more casual.

With Stuart anyway. She seemed inclined to pretend Alden didn’t exist unless she was asking him a direct question and he was answering it.

It wasn’t his favorite way to be treated, but it might have been for the best, under the circumstances. He found Vill-ma unsettling, and he wasn’t sure how much of that was her fault and how much was his nerves about what they were all doing here.

The executioner’s tone was warmly educational as she poured wevvi into two cups and encouraged Stuart to examine a black ring engraved with the logogram for death. This was the ring all executioners who’d finished their training were given. It cut wizards’ heads off. Hers had only severed one so far. You couldn’t even use it to slice melons, only necks! Such a pity.

Did Stu-art’h want extra spice in his wevvi? Maybe just a tiny pinch? Goodness, she hoped he wouldn’t mind saying hello to her son. He was in the courtyard with his tutor. The boy was much too young to know who the Primary was, but when he was a little older, the story of meeting Stu-art’h would be a good one to tell him.

After going on like that for a while, she finished garnishing the drink, then passed Stuart a cup and took the other for herself.

[Don’t complain, please,] Alden texted when he saw Stuart stiffen at the realization that the two cups hadn’t been meant for both of them as her guests. [I doubt she’s trying to offend me, and I don’t want to drink boiling artificial wevvi when I’m hot.]

Stuart turned a look of protest his way.

“But the law enforcement official wearing a magical headsman’s axe on her finger needs to know what I think of her terrible wevvi manners right this second.” Or something like that. That’s definitely what he’s thinking.

Stuart refrained from saying anything, though, and sipped his wevvi while the executioner led them through the house. She praised Stuart for being a student at LeafSong and for being a young person who turned to the law rather than trying to manage another wizard by himself. In the courtyard, they met her son, who was kneeling on a cushion and learning to read with his tutor. He was quite a bit more interested in the presence of an alien than in the Primary’s son, and as they left, Alden was treated to the sound of a small voice urgently asking the instructor, “What do humans do?”

From there, she took them to see a collection of recordings of infamous criminals. They were arranged on shelves alongside the recordings of the investigators, subduers, and executioners who’d dealt with them. While the three of them stood beside a table that held the records for someone who’d blown up a building, Stuart explained what Olget-ovekondo had done in careful detail and described the evidence they had. Alden confirmed everything he could confirm…and told himself that letting Kibby blow up a building was not a crime that would ever end up in this woman’s library.

Vill-ma listened, her dark pink eyes bright. “You explain it so clearly! Just like the report you sent on your way here. You should consider pursuing the path of an investigator, if executioner isn’t to your liking. I don’t see why a votary can’t do it.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d tried to recruit Stuart. She seemed passionate about her job.

“We will have our honesty verified if you or the accused requests it,” Stuart said. “And we are both familiar with a healer from whom an even deeper verification could not be denied, if that much becomes necessary.”

That was what they’d agreed to say in the car, although Alden was reserving the right to change his mind if it went that far. Stuart seemed to think it wouldn’t.

“I doubt either will be required,” Vill-ma said. “If the person has done what you say and they haven’t somehow forgotten it. Once I remind the guilty that demanding every sort of verification and delay they can think of will make their sentence harsher, they usually develop the sort of good judgement that would have prevented our meeting in the first place.”

She hummed. “I’ve heard enough to be satisfied that the accused should be called to speak. Are you ready to do it?”

Alden swallowed.

“Yes,” Stuart said.

******

“Stars above and oontsies below.” Executioner Vill-ma was amused. “Is this one not going to answer an official call?”

Standing behind her and Stuart in the library of recordings, waiting for the moment when he would say his piece as a witness, Alden was just trying not to fidget. All kinds of thoughts he hadn’t expected were flooding his head as the minutes passed and Olget-ovekondo failed to answer.

Was Olget staring at the call notice, frozen in horror?

Was he crying with the siblings who’d tried to get him out of Stuart’s sight in a hurry so that this kind of thing wouldn’t happen?

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Was he furious? Screaming about the unfairness of it all? Cursing humanity and knights, breaking dishes, desperately searching for excuses…

What if this ruined Tass-ovekondo’s life?

What if they let this go, and Olget went on ruining other peoples’ lives without consequence?

When the man finally, finally, did answer the executioner’s call, Alden let out a huge sigh that probably made him sound like an impatient asshole. But the broken tension was that strong.