Chapter 9
The Executions
Kimah Agalal adjusted his hat three times in the mirror, but no tilt was going to hide his rotund tummy. He adjusted his gold royal adviser sash across his shoulder and reapplied the seven pins that were holding it to the fabric wrapped around his waist. It was a hopeless effort.
“You look fine, brother,” Eranos said from behind him. “Can I use the mirror now? You do realize that this is my day, right?”
Kimah spread his black collar and folded it down once more. He looked at Eranos in the mirror, who was jeweled, robed, and draped in royal purple. He didn’t need a mirror. Dozens of attendants had groomed, manicured, and dressed him earlier.
“This is not just your day; this one is for all of the Agalal clan. We have reached the culmination of millions of years of work, brother. The Goblin War … The dozens of millennia spent in the library feeding Jehovah those books … The bribes and the murders …”
“I know how much you’ve done, Kimah. That’s why you are my right-hand man.”
Kimah grinned and let his pride glow through his cheeks. He had earned this day.
“Now, get into the market and show off our spoils,” Eranos said as he bumped Kimah out of the mirror’s reflection and adjusted his own trinkets, sashes, and collars. “I want him feeling nice and wretched by the time I make my offer.”
“He’s restrained, right?” Kimah turned to find Eranos smirking.
“Oh, quite,” Eranos replied. “Tell the executioner to keep up the good work!”
As Kimah pushed through the double doors of the throne room and exited the Courts into the square, he was hailed by an executioner to his left. The prisoner’s head was downcast, and he had fresh stains on his shirt and tattered pants. Below him were the remains of hundreds of vegetables and fruits. Kimah looked down the stairs to make sure that the crowd had ceased their mortars.
“Has he eaten or drunk anything yet?” Kimah asked.
The executioner shook his head.
“Good. He should look extra weak and pathetic, then. Where is the other executioner?”
“Dead. Lying in a cell.”
“Goodness gracious! What happened?”
“His heart stopped beating, and he had trouble breathing and just … living in general, I guess.”
Kimah looked at the purple wings binding Lucifer’s red ones over his head. “Will they hold?”
“I think you would know if they didn’t.”
“Well, let’s get on with it then.”
Kimah pranced down the stairs and gloated to the crowd. “Here he is, my friends! Leader of the Doomed Legion! Your new King has captured him even easier than the mad scholar Jehovah did, and look how he struggles down the steps now. Is this who you looked up to? What a travesty! His talents were wasted under a cruel, inept crown!”
Kimah bounded down the stairs three at a time to extricate himself from the vegetable firing range. Despite his head start, he was pelted by no fewer than four pieces of produce.
“Don’t worry, folks! General Lucifer here will be taking the grand tour of Alurabum with me. With just under three and a half hours until the festivities begin, our great commander here will have plenty of time to bask in the wonderful changes his family has brought to our city!”
“Yours or mine?” Lucifer loudly asked the executioner.
“Mine. Definitely mine.”
Kimah paid them very little attention. He shook hands with the crowd and kissed a few baby demons of varied colors that were handed to him. He was quickly molested by some of the street walkers who were standing right next to the conservative new mothers.
He embraced two of the scantily-clad prostitutes and hung from their shoulders as he watched more fruit mortars connect with Lucifer’s face. “Ladies, ladies. Don’t you know I’m a married demon?”
“No, you’re not!” one of them shouted with a playful smile. “Or at least, you didn’t seem to be married last night!”
The crowd laughed and moved along with Kimah, but he didn’t let go of the prostitutes until they started pulling on his fragile sash. He wagged a finger at them and jogged ahead of the prisoner as the mob parted before him.
“The poor prince hasn’t eaten today,” Kimah baited the crowd. “Surely, someone has something for him to munch on!”
The executioner pulled Lucifer forward. With his various bindings, the prisoner was an easy target. Kimah grinned as Lucifer leaned his head back and spat seeds and fruit innards into the air. He appeared to mumble something to the executioner, who in turn shook him off.
They walked toward the main barracks and military academy, the streets and thirty-foot stone walls lined with thousands of demons. Lesser and greater demons, soldiers and factory workers, children and crippled old hags were all cheering him on now.
“And what of our mighty Fifth Legion?” Kimah yelled to the soldiers at the top of the barracks. “The Kadingir clan sent them to Earth, and now our brothers, sons, and fathers can never come back home. “
The soldiers looked down at Lucifer, but none of them tried to throw any food. Perhaps the army officers had ordered them not to. The common folk on the ground level certainly hung on his every word, though.
“Over a million of your kin gone! And what reasons did they give you?”
“None!” An old man screamed as he hurled a melon at the prisoner. “Not a single justification for my wife and son!”
“We will give you answers,” Kimah said, hugging the man and raising his hand high. “For we are not the tyrants you have overthrown these past few months! We are the caring rulers of old. We are the bringers of peace and prosperity.”
“Don’t you guys have more produce to throw?” Lucifer screamed. “The less thudding you make against my body, the more I have to listen to this conniving piece of crap!”
“That’s right, ladies and gentlemen!” Kimah smiled. “Let him have it! The Prince has not yet become full. You, sir, help your child with that rock and upgrade your artillery. Let the outgoing regime know just what you think of them and their flagrant disregard for your lives.”
A young demon threw a rock and hit Lucifer solidly in the face. Kimah bit his lip to stop himself from laughing.
“You’ve seen how they warred against each other. But did we not have our own problems? Did they care about us?”
“No,” the crowd yelled.
“But here we are … Knee deep in demon blood … wading through a civil war. You know what? I think I might even understand now where Jehovah and his angels were coming from. I mean, what choice did they have, really? Look who and what they had to deal with.”
He pointed at the drenched, hunched-over figure behind him. The executioner was dragging Lucifer along now and he kept looking up to the soldiers on the barracks.
“Remember me, men!” Lucifer called to them.
“Yes,” Kimah said. “Remember the leader who lost 25,000 of your brothers, fathers, and uncles. What victories has he brought you recently? Anything within the past 150,000 years? Are we not champions in battle? Have we not destroyed everyone we’ve ever faced? Do we not deserve to win once again? Well, you’ve beaten another enemy back across the gates today. The Kadingir clan has lost its great battle against the people of Chaos. Our ultimate triumph starts here … on the streets of Alurabum!”
A vast cheer roared over the rooftops as men and women broke into chants, song, and screams. Kimah jumped on top of the concrete base of a magical lamppost and waved to the crowd. He pumped his fists, and laughed at the females who were flashing their breasts at him. Yesterday, he was nobody. Today, he was a god!
The crowd moved around to the south of the city, past the great markets and shops of the rich. Zinanbar tinkled across the palms of hundreds of merchants as they sold confectionery and more rigid ammunitions. They pelted Lucifer mercilessly, and Kimah goaded them on but dissuaded several of the larger, denser demons from dismantling buildings for stones to throw at their mark. There ha
d to be some order, after all.
“Don’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he destroyed more of your city,” Kimah told them. “Don’t you give him that!”
The prisoner and his executioner continued to talk. The darkly dressed demon pulling Lucifer along by a leash was just as soiled and spattered as his prisoner.
“We should get you a longer leash,” Kimah apologized to the executioner.
“Too late for that,” the demon shrugged. “Thankfully, the coat is waterproof. Vegetables, fruit, blood … it should all come off.”
“That’s good to hear,” Kimah clasped his shoulder and avoided more fruit lobs.
The mob now numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and Kimah had them hanging from his every word. He stopped the procession several times to organize the youths like a striker battalion, each cocking their arms to hurl food or rocks instead of wings at a single target.
Even as they passed through the slums of western Alurabum, Lucifer remained quiet. He hadn’t tried to plead his case since the mob visited the barracks. Maybe he was done fighting. Maybe Eranos was right. A broken demon could be built back up. If the Agalals could give him something to live for again, he might become one of their staunchest supporters.
The lesser demons of the slums had lost the most family in the lottery, so they were the staunchest supporters of the overthrow. But they didn’t have enough zinanbar to waste precious food. They lobbed clay and mud instead, and Kimah was greatly impressed with their planning and perseverance. Tables had been prepared with bricks of the dark stuff—no doubt baked weeks in advance.
With the recent deaths of many of the middle class and artisans, perhaps these crafty individuals could plug the holes in the mercantile industry. Kimah rubbed his hands together greedily. There was no profit like slave labor profit.
He pleaded, baited, and cajoled his way through the crowds and delivered his prisoner to the main market in front of the palace with fifteen minutes to spare. Eranos was already there, sitting on a golden throne on a balcony overlooking the plaza. Kimah waved to his brother and raised his hands to the sky.
Eranos nodded back at him as Kimah ascended a makeshift stone platform at the center of the plaza. All the booths, tents, and buildings had been removed for this event. He grasped the wooden center block and tried to shake it, but the masons had done their jobs well. No matter what force came down on this block, it would resist mightily.
Kimah jumped down from the execution platform and went back to the small dais perfectly situated in front of the large crowd. Like a musical conductor, he rolled up his gold and black silky sleeves and motioned for quietness, and the mob of demons all too happily complied. The main event had arrived. A royal bloodletting.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the new king Eranos, in his grace and majesty, has bestowed upon me the honor and privilege of orating today’s events. I, your humble and faithful servant Kimah Agalal, rejoice with all of you in the justice of this day.”
The demon mob cheered and jeered once more.
“Look how far we’ve come in so short a time. Only months ago, our great King Eranos fought the lottery, and yet the Courts went ahead with it anyway. He went to task for you then, and day after agonizing day, he watched as more were taken in this great culling. A million souls lost!
“And for what? To quench the irrational blood-thirst of an evil, maniacal monarchy—a brood of disobedient, selfish, and arrogant termites that burrowed into the very foundations of our society. They wormed their way into our guts and hollowed us out.”
The crowd came to life again. “Kill the bastards! Kill them all!”
“I am but a mouthpiece of His Majesty,” Kimah said, pointing to his lips and then holding onto his chest. “But I know his pain. I know his suffering. Who could have stood by and watched and done nothing? What soulless creatures would have possibly bathed in the blood of our youth and thrown away an entire immortal generation?”
The multitudes shook their heads in response. He smiled.
“The Kadingirs, that’s who.”
He turned toward a third platform where Lucifer and his executioner now mounted the marble steps. The executioner pushed Lucifer into a black zinanbar cage, which locked automatically behind him. The executioner unlocked the shackles for long enough to pull Lucifer’s wings through the bars to rebind them and manacle the prisoner’s hands against the bars.
“Look at their hollow eyes,” Kimah said. “Look at their wretchedness!”
Boos and hisses drowned out the speaker, and demons close enough to Lucifer spat in his face. Kimah looked up at the balcony where Eranos remained seated. The new king rose as his brother gently pushed with his mind to signal that the crowd was ready.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Kimah said, “King Eranos speaks!”
All around the square, demons dropped to their knees. Finely garmented ladies knelt in the mud next to naked children, already coated with years of grime and dirt. They put their filthy fingers into their mouths, poked at the hems of the beautiful dresses and playfully lifted up the rich, intricately-patterned skirts.
“My fellow demons and loyal subjects,” Eranos spoke smoothly. “Thank you for standing beside me and opposing this evil tyranny that came before me. Thank you for having the strength and conviction to see this day through. The Kadingir clan has left us with a great chasm in our hearts. Our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, aunts and uncles, and other close relations have been stripped from our bosoms and cast into the vast void … the eternal abyss. I can’t bring your loved ones back. I cannot undo the tragedies that have been committed against us all.”
Kimah looked at the faces of the crowd. Tears brimmed in every eye. Even the stalwart royal guards, dressed in their finest black, purple and white doublets, fought back sniffles as they held the mob at bay.
“But …” Eranos continued, “I can offer you something to begin the painful process of healing and start filling that void. Blood for blood. Eye for an eye. Today, I present to you Ostat and Olivia—the rulers who have brought you so much pain, death, and misery. Today … we fight back against their oppression and greed by taking their souls from them, just like they took away our loved ones forever!”
The crowd erupted all around the city. Maelstroms popped up beside the balcony and executioner’s block as long distance viewers tuned in.
“Bring out the traitors to Chaos!”
Kimah couldn’t hear the wheels of the carts over the chants, cries, and screams, but he knew that Ostat and Olivia were making their way to the chopping block. He could see the food flying across and into other demons’ heads. He watched as huge brutes ran into the pulsating mob. They kicked, punched and spat at the prisoners being pulled behind four black-masked executioners.
And then there they were. Ostat and Olivia, both bruised and wet, arms in pillories and heads forced downwards. Each was gagged, and blood dripped from their faces. Ostat’s brother Batarel walked beside them with an active shield that repelled the clay and food missiles being flung all around him.
Kimah watched as Batarel somberly moved to the Prince’s platform and stopped beside his nephew. Batarel placed a hand on Lucifer’s shoulder, and the shackled demon said something to his executioner. The executioner nodded. Kimah wondered what they were talking about.
Eranos waved toward Kimah to indicate that his speech was finished. Kimah waited for the old king and queen to be hauled past him and followed them up the ramp to the stone slab. The crowd was already chanting for the Kadingir heads.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please!” Kimah said. “Allow me to be the instrument of your justice.”
As the royal couple were slowly wheeled around to face the majority of the crowd, Kimah bent down to be at eye level with Ostat. “Ostat, I will ask you both a set of simple questions, and you are to nod your head for yes or shake your head for no. Do you understand?”
Ostat nodded, but Lucifer screamed above the chattering crowd. “Let him speak! For mon
ths you have silenced my family so that we could not answer the people’s questions. They seek justice, and you, oh mighty Eranos, claim to be a just king. Will you not allow their voices to be heard so the people can see and hear this royal treachery for themselves?”
Kimah looked up to Eranos, who had a hand to his chin and a furrowed brow. Kimah knew that Eranos still wanted Lucifer to command the Chaos armies. He was the most capable military man in the universe.
The new king stood up and approached the railing. “Being a just king, as the prisoner has noted, I will grant this request, but I warn you citizens to take care how much weight you give this creature. He has killed your loved ones without remorse, and he will try to soften your hearts and your minds with lies. Stay strong and stay vigilant.”
“Thank you, wise King,” Lucifer said from his platform.
Kimah eyed the Prince shrewdly. He was up to something, and Eranos was giving him and Ostat a dangerous platform. He motioned one of the executioners aside and spoke into his ear. “If I give a cutthroat sign, you are to behead Ostat and Olivia regardless of the circumstances. Do you understand? This comes straight from the King.”
The executioner nodded and resumed his post beside Ostat. Kimah looked to Eranos and then removed the gag from Ostat’s mouth. Ostat coughed and licked his lips before dipping his head as best he could toward Eranos.
“Here are the charges,” Kimah continued loudly. “We have evidence that you gave an executive order to murder a million demons. Is this true?”
“Yes,” Ostat said. “I gave an executive order to conduct a lottery to save our universe and the pattern that projects it.”
“Well, with a savior like this, who needs enemies?” Kimah asked sarcastically. “A few more heroic deeds like that and we would have nothing left to save, now would we?”
“The Council assured me that one lottery of sufficient size would be enough,” he replied.
Kimah quickly turned to the crowd to head off any discussion of the Council. This had already gotten out of hand. “He has admitted it. We’ve all heard it directly from his mouth, but there are more charges.”
He turned on his heel and put his finger into Ostat’s face. “Did you or did you not send your son Lucifer and 25,000 of our loyal soldiers into a foreign realm without any reconnaissance?”
“The Council assured me that my nephew Jehovah was incapable of creating a primal pattern and had not been trained in pattern magic. We believed we were stopping an insurrection against the people of Chaos. We had no idea the Council had allowed such dangerous knowledge to leak from the Chaos Library.”
“And Jehovah was the only Kadingir clan member to be involved in this plot to use forbidden magic on our people and against our universe?”
“No.”
“Who else?”
“My son Michael and nephew Gabriel were among the offenders,” Ostat said.
“And you would let them go? You would allow them to conspire against us and give them hundreds of thousands of years to prepare an army to kill more of our demon children? How do you plea to this charge of aiding and abetting a treasonous litter?” Kimah raised his hands to the crowd. He was sure he had Ostat now.
“I would kill them with my own bare hands if you would but let me go. No father should have to see his own son rebel against him. Look what he has done to me and his mother? Look at my wife.”
Olivia leaned against Ostat’s shoulder and closed her eyes.
“Do not ask us to feel sorry for you and your kin,” Kimah redirected the conversation. “Where were you and your kin when the lottery came down?”
“I don’t know. Where were you and your kin?”
Kimah shook his finger in Ostat’s face. “This isn’t about me. This is about you.”
“You’re right, and I have a request. When that executioner’s blade removes my head from my shoulders, I want my body added to the lottery. Use my soul to reinforce the zinanbar deflector. I beg you!”
How to twist this? It only took Kimah a couple of seconds to come up with the answer.
“So, when you are about to die, you finally join the lottery. A martyr now that your death is imminent. How convenient! Can you believe this guy?”
But behind him, Kimah heard a small boy ask his mother what a deflector was. Similar questions sprouted simultaneously throughout the crowd. Kimah looked at the executioner and his hands began to shake. He steadied them atop his large belly, so they would be in position to give the signal. He turned his back to the bulk of the crowd and eyed the lead executioner directly.
“The zinanbar deflector,” Batarel said from Lucifer’s platform, “is the product of the lottery. It is being built ten light years away, directly in the path of Jehovah’s super weapon. When the pattern bolt arrives in seven months, the deflector that the Council petitioned for will be operational. It will divert the bolt away from our primal pattern and will save us all from extinction.”
Kimah panicked. His hands jerked to his throat so hard that he punched himself in the esophagus. He coughed and wheezed but once he got back control of his faculties, he made the cutthroat sign. Clearly. In front of everyone.
Behind him, he heard a wet thud and then metal on stone. Kimah’s eyes grew wide as something round and bloody bumped against his leg and then rolled down the stairs and into the crowd, who appeared to be in such shock that they didn’t even kick it around like they usually did at beheadings.
Another thonk and the shink of metal grinding through wood and biting into concrete, and then another squishy bounce. The hair stopped this one closer to Kimah’s leg. Olivia looked up at him from glazed eyes. Her lips trembled briefly, and then they moved no more.