The God in chains

The god on the execution table asked Cael to take off his mask.

“No,” Cael said.

“I prefer to see the face of the man who kills me.”

“Then close your eyes.”

The god considered this. His wrists lay in iron cradles bolted to the stone. Gold ran through the restraints in fine channels, too delicate to explain the width of the chains hanging beneath them.

“I’ve tried that,” he said. “They’re still here when I open them.”

Cael set his instrument case on the nearest empty surface.

There were four guards inside the chamber, two by the stairs and two beside the table. Above them, behind a wall of smoked glass, Chancellor Vey stood with the imperial physician. Neither had come down to witness the death at close quarters.

That was sensible. Cael had seen what came out of dying gods.

He had never seen one look quite so much like a man.

The prisoner wore a clean white shirt with one cuff repaired in a different shade of thread. His pale hair had been gathered over a shoulder, away from the restraints. He appeared perhaps thirty. There was nothing in his face to account for the hundred and seventeen years recorded on the door.

Except, perhaps, the way he watched the guards. He knew which one would look away.

Cael took out his blade.

“You’re late,” the god said.

“The sentence specifies the third bell.”

“I meant a century.”

Cael checked the edge against the light.

The blade had no inscription, no jewels, no ceremonial weight. His work required accuracy. Everything else got in the way.

A speaking tube above the table clicked.

“State your name and office,” Vey said.

“Cael. Imperial executioner. Ninth instrument.”

“State the subject.”

The prisoner turned his head.

Cael read the brass plate fixed to the table. “Ilyan. Last surviving sovereign divinity. Condemned under the Edict of Quiet.”

“Ilyan is sufficient,” the god said.

Cael did not answer.

Vey continued. “Upon completion of this service, your obligations to the Crown will be discharged.”

For the first time since entering, Cael looked at the glass.

The chancellor placed a document against it. Cael recognized the emperor’s seal at the bottom. His own name occupied a narrow space above it.

Discharged.

He had been promised the document before. Never shown it.

“What will you do?” Ilyan asked.

Cael returned his attention to the table.

“After,” the god said.

“Stand still.”

“A modest ambition.”

Cael unfastened the prisoner’s collar.

Ilyan went silent.

It was a small change. He did not pull against the restraints, but his fingers flattened on the stone. Cael paused with the fastening between his thumb and forefinger.

“Will you need the shirt removed?” Ilyan asked.

“No.”

The fingers relaxed.

Gold markings circled the god’s throat and disappeared beneath the cloth. Not jewelry. They lay under the skin, broken here and there by older scars.

Cael had matching marks on his left forearm.

His were black.

He tugged his sleeve down.

“Proceed,” Vey said.

Cael opened the last compartment of his case. Inside lay a narrow lancet and a glass dish. Three drops from the executioner. Three turns of the binding wheel. Then the blade beneath the jaw, angled up.

He had performed versions of this rite nineteen times. The things he had killed had begged, bargained, screamed in voices that broke stone. One had offered to make him emperor.

None had asked what he wanted afterward.

He pierced his thumb and let the blood fall.

Ilyan stared at the dish.

For the first time, his expression changed without his permission.

“Wait.”

Cael reached for the wheel.

“Your left arm,” Ilyan said. “Show me.”

The speaking tube clicked again. “Ignore the subject.”

Cael made the first turn. Beneath the floor, a mechanism answered.

Ilyan pulled at his right wrist. The iron cut him. A bright drop appeared and traveled into the gold channel.

Nothing opened on Cael’s skin.

He noticed because he would remember it later.

The second turn drew a low vibration through the table.

“Cael.”

His name, without title or number, sounded different in the prisoner’s mouth.

“The third turn,” Ilyan said. “Don’t—”

“Complete your duty,” Vey said.

Cael turned the wheel.

The chamber lights brightened.

Ilyan stopped speaking.

It was that sudden stillness, more than the warning, that almost made Cael hesitate. But the order was lawful. The warrant was sealed. Beyond the smoked glass lay a life in which no one would ever order him into another room like this.

He set his left hand against the god’s shoulder.

Warm.

He had expected that. He disliked that he had expected anything else.

Then he placed the blade.

The first cut opened beneath Ilyan’s jaw.

Pain struck Cael in the same place.

He jerked back. The blade rang against the floor.

Something hot slipped beneath his collar.

For a moment, no one moved.

Cael pressed his fingers to his throat. They came away red.

On the table, Ilyan looked from the fallen blade to Cael’s hand.

“Oh,” he said quietly.

The god’s wound was shallow. So was Cael’s. A fraction more pressure would have opened an artery in both.

“Pick it up,” Vey said.

Cael looked toward the glass.

The imperial physician had stepped backward.

Vey had not.

“Chancellor.”

“Pick up the blade.”

Cael wiped his fingers on his coat. The stain was almost invisible against the black.

He bent.

Ilyan caught his sleeve between two fingers.

It should not have been possible. The wrist cradle had moved.

“Look at your arm first,” he said.

The black marks were crawling past Cael’s cuff.

He pulled the sleeve back. Lines he had worn for years were unfolding across his skin, separating into letters he could not read. A narrow seam of gold ran through each one.

Ilyan raised his right hand as far as the restraint allowed.

On the inside of his wrist, a black line interrupted the gold.

Cael touched the fresh wound at his own throat.

The god flinched.

“No,” Cael said.

“I would welcome a more useful observation.”

“What did you do?”

Ilyan glanced toward the glass. “I asked you to wait.”

One of the guards by the stairs moved.

Cael watched him lower the crossbar over the door.

The other guard slid a key into a brass box mounted on the wall.

There were no locks inside execution chambers. Not on the exit.

Cael knew every one in the palace.

“Step away from the table,” Vey said.

Cael did not move.

The second guard turned the key.

A shutter fell across the glass, hiding the physician and the document bearing the emperor’s seal. Thin metal arms rose from the edges of the table. One opened beside Cael’s hip.

An empty wrist cradle.

Ilyan’s gaze dropped to it.

Whatever he saw in Cael’s face made him stop smiling.

“How much did they tell you?” he asked.

“Enough.”

“No.”

Cael brought his boot down on the arm before it could close.

The sound carried through the chamber.

“Restrain the instrument,” Vey said through the tube.

The guard nearest the table reached for Cael’s elbow.

Cael caught his hand, turned it, and put him against the stone. He struck the guard once beneath the ear. The man folded without a cry.

The second guard drew his sword.

Cael took the fallen man’s weapon and held it low.

“Open the door.”

The guard’s eyes flicked to the tube.

Cael knew that glance. He had made it himself.

“Open it,” he said again.

A crossbow clicked behind him.

Ilyan pulled him sideways by the coat.

The bolt tore through Cael’s shoulder.

On the table, white cloth darkened in the same place.

The god’s breath caught. His knees buckled against the foot restraint.

Cael stared at him.

The wound at the wrist—the one made before the third turn—had never appeared on Cael. The throat and shoulder had.

The wheel had done this.

He reached for it.

“Wrong direction,” Ilyan said.

Cael stopped.

“Clockwise is a release,” the god said. “Counterclockwise resets the recipient.”

Recipient.

The word lodged somewhere behind Cael’s ribs.

“Do not touch that wheel,” Vey said.

Cael turned it clockwise.

Every chain beneath the table went slack.

Ilyan fell forward.

Cael caught him because the floor was stone and, apparently, that had become his problem too.

For a moment he had an armful of warm weight, pale hair across his mouth, the god’s hand gripping his uninjured shoulder.

“Can you stand?”

“Yes.”

Cael released him.

Ilyan’s knees gave.

Cael caught him again.

“That was a lie.”

“A hopeful assessment.”

The crossbowman was winding his weapon.

Cael pushed Ilyan behind him and kicked the instrument case across the floor. Metal scattered under the guard’s feet. The man stumbled.

“Can you do anything useful?” Cael asked.

Ilyan was looking at the floor.

More precisely, at the gold lines between the stones.

“I can open the door,” he said.

“Do it.”

“The man with the key has to let go.”

Cael crossed the space before the guard could draw. He trapped the man’s wrist against the brass box and drove his shoulder into his chest.

Pain burst through the wound.

Behind him, Ilyan made a small, furious sound.

Cael did it again.

The key came loose.

Ilyan laid his bare palm on the table.

Light traveled through the gold channels.

The crossbar lifted.

Above their heads, something enormous stopped turning.

For the first time, Cael heard the city beyond the walls: a bell losing momentum, a distant shout, then many voices.

The chamber lamps went out.

In the dark, Ilyan found his wrist.

“Left,” he said.

Cael pulled him through the doorway.

They made it six steps up before the god stumbled. Cael put Ilyan’s arm over his shoulder and took his weight.

“You said you could open the door.”

“I did open the door.”

“What else did you open?”

Ilyan did not answer.

Red emergency lamps came on along the stairs.

A plan of the palace hung beside the landing. Cael had passed it on his way down without looking closely. He knew the routes. He had not needed a map.

Now the illuminated lines were changing.

Gold drained from the lower chamber. Along the streets beyond the palace walls, district after district turned black.

The last god’s prison was connected to every lamp in the capital.

Cael stopped.

Ilyan followed his gaze.

“Yes,” he said.

A door opened above them. Boots sounded on the upper stairs.

Cael dragged the god into the narrow space behind a maintenance pillar. They barely fit. Ilyan’s breath warmed the unmasked side of his face.

Cael put a hand over his mouth.

Golden eyes met his.

Ilyan looked at the hand, then back at him.

Cael removed it.

Neither spoke.

Through the speaking tubes lining the stairwell came Vey’s voice, stripped of ceremony.

“Seal the palace. Secure the replacement alive.”

The words repeated on the floor above.

Secure the replacement alive.

Cael looked at the gold beneath his own skin.

Beside him, Ilyan slowly closed his torn collar.

“They didn’t bring you here to kill me,” he said.

The empty restraints below began to strike the table.

“They brought you here to take my place.”