3.
"I regret that it took us so long to arrive," Casavir said in his resounding voice as he walked up from behind the two of them. "But Only Qara and Zhjaeve were requested to join our leader on his parley with Syndey Natale, and so the two of us were given leave to join you."
Sand nodded distractedly. Some part of him appreciated that the two steadfast companions, Casavir and Khelgar, had come all of this way to be at his side in facing the shadows of his past. But somehow, though the dawn came with golden light and a warmth that revived the limbs, he could not find comfort in the presence of those he'd come to trust. Khelgar, while sturdy as the rock below their feet, was, well, a dwarf, and despite his attempts to lose his innate prejudices, Sand found nothing in common with the hack-happy warrior. He and his son Nar were here to stand witness to an execution- and the end of a story that badly needed closure. Casavir could at least hold his own in conversation, though he would never be a great scholar by any means. Remembering his manners, he gave a slight bow in Casavir's direction.
"It is good that you have come. Bel'Juazra deserves a witness to the proceedings to ensure that the sentence is carried out humanely. Do not imagine that we are here for our pleasure." Sand turned back to the execution arena, waving a hand to indicate that Nar should be seated beside him. The two found an unoccupied stretch of bench among the rabble who were even now pushing and shoving for purchase.
"Nothing humane about an axe as big as that." Khelgar's eyes rose from the bottom of the double-bladed jagged axe where it dug into the sand that supported the block to its heavy grip. It was easily bigger than himself, and, despite his wrath at Grobnar's use of himself as a unit of measurement, he realized that he often found himself sizing up weapons by whether or not he'd be able to wield them. He'd have to have been twice his size to even lift that monstrosity- fortunately, the executioner was. The executioner's shoulders put even Casavir's to shame. He was a thick ox of a man with a beard dyed black and red in alternating streaks. He wore the typical executioner's mask over his blunt, sloping forehead.
"She has committed many evils," Casavir said evenly. Finding space for his bulk was more of a task, although he had foregone his usual plate mail in favor of sensible traveling leathers. Khelgar pushed his way into the bench beside Casavir, snorting and cursing, his favorite warhammer, Storm, firmly between his knees as though he would need it at any moment. The execution made for a grand public spectacle. There were food vendors pressing hot pies on the audience that had gathered, loud guffaws, ribald jokes, and a general air of anticipation. The first execution of the season brought out people from all backgrounds.
Nar felt a shudder of distaste ripping through him. He loosened his color with one hand, thinking of his comfortable home in his quiet street, his favorite teapot, his spot by the hearth. Then he sneezed violently, drawing a glare from Sand.
"The ultimate betrayal," Sand whispered, as if in renewed horror at the memory. "To kill one's own father. Is she so easy to condemn, though, paladin? There are some who would say that he was deserving of his fate."
Casavir flushed deeply at the reference to the gossip in question. If the rumors were true, and Elisa Bel'Juazra's father had earned her loathing contempt with his lecherous advances upon his own daughter, could anyone condemn this final act as anything other than an act of desperation? But if what the truths the demon had wormed from her were based in fact, why had she not spoken in her own defense when brought to trial? It made little sense to Casavir, who saw an order to the world that separated true from false, black from white.
His thoughts were interrupted by the rising jeers of the crowd in one massive body of sound. The accused was being led into the arena by a single guardsman. She wore a scandalously translucent gown in the deep red that she favored. Her head was not hung in shame as many would have hoped. Instead, she lifted her jaw defiantly to the headsman as if daring him to drink in the sight of her. Sand drew a breath in slowly. The night before, she had been so different in the thrall of the demon who sought to bargain for her soul. It had been so easy to turn to leave the room when the charisma and fire that was Elisa sat unmoving and lost within her own mind. Her hair blew softly with the breeze around her bronzed shoulders. Within that veil, he knew, were eyes that flared like the gems that had adorned her throat on the night he had taken her long ago. And yes, he had wanted the wand. Yes, he'd planned every step, every seductive touch and word. But he'd not planned on the memory of the tender give that her skin would have at the end of his fingertips or how she'd react to a kiss on the underside of her knee. He had no defense against the vision of the loveliness of her legs intertwining with his own. Had there ever been before, and would there ever be again, a beauty like Bel'Juazra that would stain his memory so? He let out the breath he'd taken, feeling uncomfortably exposed.
"Remove her veil." The executioner's harsh bark silenced any murmur that the crowd had left in it. Elisa Bel'Juazra stood at last stripped of that simple piece of filmy gauze that had covered her eyes, and the audience drew a collective breath. Her beauty, freed, untamed, stunned those that had come to see her to her end. But there was more than defiance in her eyes. Nar clasped his hands tightly as his chest clenched in the realization that the otherness that he saw there was something akin to sorrow.
"Are we going to let them do this?" He whispered in his father's ear. "Why doesn't she do something? She could burn them all to ashes if she wanted."
"The anklet that she wears is ensorceled. She can no more cast a spell than free herself without a key."
"Then we should give her one," Nar said. "This isn't right. If what she said was true, he deserved to die, didn't he?"
"And where do you propose we stash one very dangerous, fugitive sorceress?" Sand queried, watching intently as the guard led the lady to the block.
"Do you truly believe this woman's claim?" Casavir pressed from the bench behind them.
"You're out of your blasted minds, all of you," Khelgar grumbled.
Sand sighed. "This is going to take some creativity."
Nar braced himself for torrents of fire or random crowd members being turned into mind flayers. Later, he'd think with wonder on his father's use of subtlety. Sand's hands flickered with the first movements of a spell- and then, before any of the four could say another word, the executioner lifted up his axe with both of his hands, as big as small hams, and began to charge into the crowd. Nar shook his head in admiration as people scattered in terror. The guardsman began to charge after the crazed man, shouting after him with his sword raised. Now, all it would take would be a well-placed invisibility spell...
Elisa Bel'Juazra winked out of existence.
--
"Just what do you suppose you're doing, stuffing a woman into a sack like a common... oh. It's you." The party of four and their traveling cart had already been on the road for a good bit when Sand sat the Bag of Holding onto the wood frame and opened the lip of it. At the time, he'd been proud of the acquisition, and he now felt quite pleased with himself as Bel'Juazra pulled herself out of it with her hair plastered to her head. She didn't look quite so lovely after an hour stuffed into the black hole of a room with little air to breathe.
"You can put anything into a Bag of Holding," Sand said smugly. "As long as it'll fit through the hole."
"You're a fool."
"And you're an ungrateful, pampered demon-loving whore, Bel'Juazra. But I suppose you didn't deserve to die. I have studied much of justice and have had a great deal of time to do so. You were a fool to try to bargain with that creature."
Elisa fiddled with her hair as she stared down at the cart's bottom. "Perhaps I was. But what do you get out of all of this, Sand?"
The wizard glanced over at Nar, who was chewing on a bit of orange as he enjoyed the passing of the landscape. "Oh, I imagine I've gained something. A good challenge, or at the very least a regular customer."
"You're becoming sentimental in your old age, wizard. A pity. You could have been so much more had you been willing to pay the price."
"I may have rescued you, Lady Bel'Juazra, but I don't have to listen to your scathing drivel." With that, he gathered himself up with as much dignity as possible and went over to visit with his son.
