Από την οπτική του Bruce.
“As many of you know,” Garret declaims, “Tonight is a solemn occasion. Two months previous, Elysium was defiled by an act of violence. Though the shedding of blood is in our nature, Elysium has always been holy ground to all Kindred, a place where one can speak in safety. This protection extends to the lowliest of outcasts, and the punishment reaches to the most prominent of elders.”
I wonder how Raphael feels about that formulation.
“In accordance with the rules of Elysium and the laws of the Prince, a punishment has been decreed. Now we carry it out, in your view, so that all of our Kindred may know the justice of this court is stern and constant.”
As he speaks those words, Solomon comes forward.
He emerges from the same arch Maxwell used. (I wonder what the two of them talked about backstage?) He’s stripped to the waist and the relief map of scars on his torso must be visible even up at the top, in the cheap blood section. He walks with his head held high, not like a shamefaced prisoner. Justine Lasky is two steps behind him. She’s probably supposed to look like his judge, but she looks like his handmaid.
Behind her, on a little rolling platform, sits a brazier of white-hot coals. Someone I don’t know—not mortal, but strangely unfazed by the flames—is pushing it, and when it rolls to a stop he produces a small bellows and starts pumping it up. I can hear people shifting away behind me and I have to sit on my hands to keep from moving back myself. Inside me I feel every muscle tensing to run, but I won’t give in to the fear. The elders around me sit
still. I will be like them.
Garret, with a bow, accepts the sword from Maxwell and shoves it down deep in the coals. They leave it there to heat up. I’m sure a blowtorch would be faster, but so much less dramatic. There’s probably some crusty old handbook
of Kindred lore that describes the proper way to beat someone with a hot sword.
Justine produces a pair of handcuffs, and Solomon says,
“Those won’t be necessary.”
She takes a half-step back, but then Maxwell speaks.
“Put them on, Solomon.”
There’s a tone to his voice that doesn’t fit. Everything to this point has been Grand Guignol, stagy, overblown. But the Prince sounds like a man who’s just fed up with this shit. He sounds like he’s not playing along. Like he’s
not playing at all.
Solomon looks over at him and for a moment—just a moment, the first moment ever—I see him look uncertain.
But he rallies.
“Fine.”
Justine puts the cuffs on Solomon’s wrists. He raises his hands by his face, looks at them, adjusts them so that they’re tighter… and then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he snaps them. I’m close enough that I can see the center link go spinning up into the air, and I hear it plop into the water behind him for some porpoise-trainer to find. Maxwell is now on his feet. He didn’t jump up, there’s no anger—he just stood. He looks resigned.
“These can’t stop me now,” Solomon says, jingling his new bracelets. “What good would they do if I lose myself?”
Prince Maxwell shakes his head. “You really do have lessons to learn about proper formalities. Don’t you?”
“Isn’t that what this is all about?”
The two of them are usually so chummy, but not now.
There’s a low mutter throughout the hall, punctuated by voices pressed into urgent hisses, words spoken with unintended shrillness. I’ve heard a lot of muttering at Elysium, but for the first time ever there is no voice, not a
single one, with a tone of irony or sarcasm. This is serious and everyone knows.
Maxwell holds out his hands for thick gloves, puts them on and draws the burning sword.
“Kneel.”
Solomon does.
“One!” the Prince says.
I should be enjoying this, but I can’t help but wince as the first blow lands.
Solomon’s expression, however, does not change.
“Two!”
The second blow is harder. It whistles through the air and Bishop Birch’s body shudders with impact, but he doesn’t flinch. His hands lie open on his knees, calm and still.
“Three.”
Maxwell’s voice is low this time, slow, and this blow is more like a caress, a slow stroke along a rib, and I realize that with the others there was little chance for the sword to really burn. This time, though, I hear flesh sizzle. I’m close enough to smell it.
Solomon’s hands quake, but his face remains unchanged.
“Four!”
Another hard blow. He’s hitting each time with the flat of the blade, and this time he sends it right into the side of Solomon’s head. Solomon can’t stay upright and he falls.
A snarl creases his face… and then disappears, like wrinkles in a sheet when the bed is getting made. Calmly, steadily, he pushes himself upright for more punishment.
Maxwell makes him wait. He goes to the brazier, puts in the blade and stokes it himself.
“Five! Six! Seven!”
The strikes come in blistering succession, falling on shoulders, back and then the soles of Solomon’s bare feet.
Birch’s nostrils are wide like a mad dog. His eyes squeeze shut and then pop open, his hands curl but don’t quite clench into fists…
And Maxwell pauses.
He takes a step to the right and to the left, examining the kneeling form before him.
“Hm…” he mutters. His face is thoughtful.
Solomon is sweating. Vampires sweat blood.
“Yes… Eight.”
I never dreamed Maxwell had this in him.
It’s another slow and gentle touch, but this time it’s with the tip, it’s in Solomon’s ear. No one deserves this. I hear the hubbub behind as Kindred stumble to their feet and flee this scene, gripped by the fear of fire and more, the fear of the Prince.
Still Solomon does not move away. His face is contorted and blood steams as it runs down his chest. The Prince follows the drip line with the tip and makes a slow, hot, excruciatingly thin cut down the side of Solomon’s neck.
(How can he do it? How can he stay still for this? I know what the red fear is like, I know what must be screaming through his veins but he stays there, motionless, just taking it.)
“Nine.”
This time he cuts with the edge. This time the crowd is silent.
He swings it in a rapid sweep, skipping down the knobs of Solomon’s spine, slicing off coins of flesh at each bone.
Solomon rears upright, mouth open and fists clenched…
But he does not scream, damn him!
Instead, he opens his eyes and looks right at me. He holds my gaze, makes sure I see him seeing me. His face is utterly inscrutable and that makes it worse than any spoken threat or menacing grimace.
Then, slowly—and Maxwell is waiting, he makes no move to interfere—Solomon turns the same gaze on Justine. I see her eyes widen, and when he sees the same, he turns his face to the crowd. Is he looking at all of them? Or has
he picked out someone in particular?
Suddenly, Maxwell seems bored.
“Ten,” he says, and swats Solomon lightly on the ass with the cooling weapon. Without even looking he tosses it to Garret. “Clean this,” he says, then turns and leaves without a backwards glance.
The muttering begins at once.
Από το A Hunger Like Fire με ελάχιστα απαραίτητα edits για την ιστορία μας. Πολύ αξιόλογο βιβλίο, αλλά οι παίχτες μην το διαβάσετε όσο παίζουμε αυτό το campaign!