Even though I don’t know his crime, I know he deserves death. His head is slumped forward; a tangle of long black hair hides his face. He looks as if he’s already accepted his fate. I watch long ropes of saliva oozing down, fluttering in the wind.
“Not too close now, child,” the guard says, but I’m not sure why; the prisoner’s hands and head are bound in wood, he can’t reach me. I take a step back anyway, without taking my eyes off him. I look at his sun-reddened hands, his soiled legs, somehow still standing after days in the town square’s pillory, and I wonder…
“What do you know?” I ask the criminal, not expecting an answer. The only response I get is from the guard, a truthseeker sage, who gently places his quarterstaff to my chest. He towers over me in the black robes of his order, standing proud in the midday sun, a carefully trimmed brown beard under his chin.
“What does he know?” I ask again.
“That’s enough, now,” the sage replies and I realise that this might be the first time a sage has never answered one of my questions.
This sage, like all the sages, is bound to tell the truth. Although the sages were not bound to answer every question, it was rare that they didn’t have an answer. I took advantage of this, spending as much time as I could in their halls, pelting them with all manner of probing questions. To most people, I would have been an annoyance, but to the sages, curiosity was the highest virtue. They called me, ‘little sage’. I liked that. Once I got to meet the High Sage and I asked why the stars were aligned. He smiled at me and said with questions like that, someday I could become a Disciple of the Tower too. Someday I knew I would.
I don’t think the bearded sage will answer me directly, so I try a different tactic. “Sage, why’s he locked up?”
The truthseeker pauses, considering his answer then kneels down to my height and explains, “To be a sage is to be wed to knowledge, you understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I reply.
“All knowledge, regardless of origin, has value to the sages. To know is to live.” I am well aware of the twelve truths the sages live by, but this seems to be avoiding the question. As knowledgeable as the sages are, they have a habit of slipping into sermons.
The sage continues, “There is some knowledge, however, that is self-immolating, that destroys all that it touches. It’s like an infection, it must be identified, controlled and destroyed before it can spread any further. It is far worse than a simple lie, we call it dark knowledge.”
I turn back to the prisoner, wondering how the mind of someone so weak could contain something so dangerous.
“What is this lie then?” I ask.
“Little sage,” the bearded sage replies with a smile of both reassurance and warning, “If you knew his crime, you would suffer his fate.”
I continue to stare at the prisoner. Suddenly he moves. I hold my breath but I do not move, I only stare as he raises his head to reveal wild black eyes, bloodshot and determined. Over his mouth and nose is a leather mask forbidding him to speak. It looks like a dog’s muzzle, wet with the saliva that has seeped through the gaps. I stare and he stares back at me as if willing me to know his lie…
A day later and it feels like the entire town is gathered in the square as I push between cloaks and legs before finally making it to the front of the crowd. The prisoner’s wooden pillory is now gone, replaced by a mountain of logs and sticks gathered from the forest. Protruding from this mound, like a tower on a hill, is a single wooden stake.
I’ve just made it in time to catch the end of the procession; a line of maybe hundreds of black-robed sages, quarterstaffs in hand. I catch the bearded sage amongst them and he flashes me a smile.
From out of the group, two of the sages pull the prisoner toward the pyre. His mouth is still bound shut but from behind it, I can just hear his muffled shouts of protest. All the town jeers and shouts at the sight of him and I can’t help but smile and shout along with them.
The sages bind him to the post then take their place with the others in a circle around the pyre. I recognise the white robes of the High Sage and watch as he climbs atop the pyre then, speaking in a language I don’t understand, addresses first the crowd, then the prisoner, then the crowd again before descending.
I can hear my heart in my ears now, even over the roar of the townsfolk. The High Sage takes a flaming torch, holds it high for all to see, then carefully sets it down within the tinder.
It takes a long time for the fire to catch, all the while the prisoner is tugging at the rope around his hands and the spectators are becoming more and more expectant. It’s as if the sages had planned this slow burn in order to build the anticipation.
When the fire does catch, however, it spreads almost immediately. The flames crackle and rise as the thick stench of hot ash fills the air. Desperation has consumed the prisoner now. His wrists bleed into his rope bindings. In his eyes, I see that he is no longer human, but a caged animal that would rather eat itself than starve to death.
The flames are so high that the ones that first touch him are not from below but instead lick his face. He writhes away from the heat. His long black hair smoulders then catches alight. He screams as the flames climb up the side of his face, but it’s stifled by the mask which now catches fire itself.
Somehow through the flames his eyes seem to find me in the crowd. Though half his face is aflame, though his body writhes, his eyes lock onto mine and though I want to look away, I stare back. The mask burns off and his pain-soaked shriek at last escapes and pierces the air.
He holds my gaze and, in a wail that seems to last an eternity, he cries out his final word, “GOD!”
That word, if it was a word, is one I’ve never heard before. It echoes through the square, lingering long after the man himself is engulfed in light. The sinner is gone, but no one cheers, no one dances. A strange stillness has come over the town. That word has cast confusion in the townsfolk, but within the sages, horror. Their smiles have fallen and the colour has drained from their faces. The High Sage incessantly shakes his head, then, before anyone can stop him, he pushes past the other truthseekers and propels himself into the flames.
The other sages look to each other, then turn to the crowd. I see their bitter acceptance as they draw their quarterstaffs. The people scream; they start to run. I see some people trampled to the ground as our protectors club their staffs down upon limbs and skulls.
Perhaps if I hadn’t pushed to the front, I might have been able to run. The bearded sage looms over me. There’s no feeling in his eyes. I raise my hands over my face, but I can’t stop the sage’s blow.
ANAX
