Treason

It was nearly dawn. I woke the earth around me, and it raised me gently to the surface. I spread my arms, and the earth took its firm shape under me. I looked around to see if I had been observed. I had not.

The graveyard, like the place of execution, was near the southern edge of the city, outside the wall. The sea was nearby, and festering garbage on the shore, mixed with the smell of the normal number of clumsy crabs that couldn't remember which way the water was, made the place unforgettable to my nose, if not to my other senses.

I refused to be stupid the same way twice. This time I would enter the city more subtly.

I pushed into quicktime and made my way among the hovels clustered around the walls until I found what I dubbed "garbage gate" and went inside. I saw only the seamy side of Gill. In the years since then, I've seen many cities, but for slime and sludge Gill is queen of them all. Their position at the isthmus between Landlock and Slashsea won Gill a role as the largest merchant Family in the East. Yet the wealth didn't show up in the city of Gill itself-- people with property moved east into the mountains, building wood or stone mansions that would make princes in other Families jealous.

In Gill, poverty and business made an uneasy division of the town. Warehouses and manufactories and wholesale houses made way for slums and whorehouses and gaming rooms. In the nighttime, the gaiety must have been something to see; in the early morning, the city seemed weary. And still a little drunk.

There were corpses on the roads leading to the garbage gate. I passed a wagon loaded with dead bodies, stopped in the middle of the road. Several men who looked little healthier than their cargo wearily hoisted another piece of human flesh into the cart for the trip to the graveyard. There are few places where life isn't cheap, but this was the first place I had found where even the poor (especially the poor, who are often kinder to their dead than the rich) had so little regard for the dead that they were cast like garbage into the street.

The palace of the governor of Gill, now the headquarters of the East Alliance, rose from the warehouse district like a wart among moles: there was no attempt at grace, only a great grey block of stone brooding among smaller and yet somehow more inviting structures that stocked cloth, salted meat, and leather.

Gaining entry to the palace was difficult. The doors were all closed, and guards stood with their backs against them. There would be no subtle way to enter, even in quicktime-- not through the doors. It attracts too much attention to knock over a guard. And the force of my passage, in quicktime, might well kill him.

I would have to wait until later in the morning, when people were passing in and out. So, for nostalgia's sake (and probably with an unconscious plan for petty vengeance) I sought out the gate where I had been taken the day before. As I walked along the streets I became more and more depressed. I wondered if Gill were really exceptionally vile, or if all cities, even Mueller-on-the-River, were this bad to those who had no money. The harsh hill country of Humping was kinder to its residents than this artificial desert of stone and dirt.

I saw in the distance as I neared the gate that the executioner's cart was already in business. What a busy day it had ahead of it! I toyed with the idea of breaking an axle, but decided it wasn't worth the time or trouble. Instead I went on to the gate, hardly glancing at the cart and the hooded prisoner as I ran past, and found what I was looking for. The captain who had so silently taken me to my death the day before was in a guardroom whose door was latched. I unlatched it and walked in. Placing myself directly in front of the captain, who was alone, I slipped back into realtime. I had seen the effect often enough in Ku Kuei-- from his point of view, I simply materialized out of thin air.

"Good morning," I said.

"My God," he answered.

"Ah, first question answered. You can speak. It was quite irritating not even to be greeted yesterday before you took me off and killed me."

His look of terror was delightful. "I am not a vengeful man, but now and then this kind of thing does wonders for the soul. I won't bother you long. I'm just checking up on this murder business you have here. For instance, who decides who's going to die?"

"P-Percy. The king. It isn't my fault. I don't decide anything."

"Never mind all that, I don't do the judging around here. How many people a day do you take from the city gates straight to the graveyards?"

"Not very many. Honest. You yesterday, Lord Barton today, and I can't remember anybody for months before that. And usually they're taken as they're leaving, not as they arrive."

I tried not to look shocked. Barton! He'd ignored all my advice and come here anyway.

"You handle it very efficiently," I said.

"Thank you," he answered.

"What happens to you if something goes wrong?"

"Nothing does."

"But if it did?"

"I'd be in trouble," he said. He was begi

"Then you're in trouble," I said. "Because Barton isn't going to die. And if you should succeed in killing him, I'll be back for you within the hour. No matter how much trouble you get in for his failure to die, just remember it's better than what you'll get if you actually kill him. Now have a wonderful morning." I slipped into quicktime, pausing before I left to turn an inkwell upside down on his head.

I ran down the streets in earnest, and soon found the executioner's cart. If I had looked closely before I would have recognized Barton's clothing-- he was dressed as he had been that day in the cliff house. I climbed into the cart, then slowed to normal time long enough to say, "Don't worry, Barton, I'm with you." Then I was back in quicktime and out of the cart. The driver hadn't noticed me, and if any passerby saw me, he'd only blink and wonder whether the alcohol from the night before was still in his blood.

I got to the place of execution and waited out of sight among the stacks of straw. It took a half hour for the cart to arrive, and then the routine of the day before was followed-- the archers lined up, very casually, and their leader, not the captain from the gate, raised his arm. I slipped into quicktime and walked out into the space between Barton and the archers. I paced back and forth (I become visible when I stay in the same place too long) until the leader's arm fell and the arrows were loosed. Then I collected the arrows in midflight, took the hood gently from Barton's head, and stuck the arrows through the hood into the straw directly behind Baxton's chest. Then I walked back to my concealed observation point and watched.

It took a second in realtime before the archers realized that Barton's hood was off and no arrows were sticking into his chest. Then, angrily, the leader of the archers told them to go collect their arrows, furious that they had missed. When they found the arrows sticking through the hood in the straw, however, even the leader became alittle less outspoken. There was no natural way those arrows could have ended up directly behind him.

Barton was smiling.

"I don't know what kind of tricks you're pulling," the leader said furiously (yet there was fear behind his voice), "but you'd better stop 'em."

Barton shrugged and the leader formed up his archers for a second try. I slipped back into quicktime. In order to put an end to this quickly, I took the arrows in midflight and this time shoved them through the pulling wrist of each of the archers. For good measure, I took a few more arrows out of one archer's quiver and impaled the leader's hand, fastening it firmly to his thigh, while similarly sticking the three men lounging around watching the execution. Then I was back to my observation post and into realtime.