Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 65
The shadows elongated and bent, shortened and faded, as if the
spirits were waging a war with some unseen enemy across the
amber heaven of the canvas.
A metal handle clanked; the bucket containing his blood
was taken out of the tent, to be burnt. One of the attendants
bent over him, holding a mallet and a long spike with a Tshaped
head. Placing the spike under his chin, the man
hammered it up, nailing his tongue against his palate, piercing
the palate and the nasal palate and imbedding the iron deep into
his brain. The T held his slack jaw shut.
"Speak no more," said the attendant, and putting down
the hammer he nodded to someone at the door of the tent.
Six men entered, looking solemn. Some stared at him;
some looked everywhere else. They lifted the pallet he lay on
and he passed out from under the sky of canvas, to the sky of
night.
Diadem, the only moon of Ventus, was up and glittering
like a tear. The rest of the sky was clear and splashed with
stars, rank on rank, gauze on gauze of finest points of white.
The river of the galaxy ran across the zenith. The human
mourners fell silent, leaving only cricket sounds that seemed to
come from the stars themselves.
The night air lessened the smell of burnt meat that had
pervaded the tent.
Torches to the left, right, ahead and behind. Spirals of
grey moved up to dissolve among the stars. Murmuring voices
and the sound of shuffling footsteps, as he was carried out
across the plain toward a dark hill.
The hillside rose steeply, blocking the stars. The torches
lit a deep cut in its side, where a bare rock face had been
smoothed, maybe centuries ago. Deep letters were carved over
a slotted doorway uncovered by a huge stone slab. The slab