The Execution of the Hex
Inheritance #1
This is the first scene of Inheritance: In a world where magic is forbidden, a carpenter stops by the town square to watch the execution of a hex.
Inheritance #1: The Execution of the Hex
Ingram slogged through the downpour to watch the execution of the hex. His calloused fingers were wrapped around the tight straps of his wife’s wicker basket, filled to the brim with tomatoes and onions and mullets for tonight’s dinner. The mud sucked at the leather of his boots as he pushed through the crowd that had gathered in front of the town square’s ramshackle scaffold. Ingram stood in a pool of water that reflected the leaden clouds from which poured unending strings of rain. Somewhere behind the cloudscape existed a sun he had not seen for days.
“Bring forth the hex,” the headsman bellowed.
Two guardsmen carried onto the platform a naked man whose every bone pushed against the skin in rebellion against the little food he had been given since his capture. He was tied at the ankles and the wrists and gagged with a dirty cloth, and he wriggled like a worm in a child’s hand when the guardsmen pushed his head against the chopping block. It was the fifth execution of the month; Ingram had seen every one, as had every other villager, because to miss an execution was suspicious at the least.
The headsman’s voice rippled over the crowd. “Bear witness, for here kneels a man guilty of hexcraft. One who can twist and warp shadows to his will. He is an abomination unto nature and a corrupted soul. Let his death warn all those who are tempted to walk the path of the cursed craft.” The headsman turned to the man and gripped with both hands the haft of his ax. “By the laws of the realm, your life is hereby forfeit.”
As the headsman raised the ax above his head and readied himself to bring it down, the platform plunged into darkness. The little light that served as a reminder of the gray morn was pushed away in a wide circle around the hex, covering the guardsmen and headsman in oily darkness. The crowd gasped at the vile display of the hex’s powers. Those closest to the platform pushed back against the others so the shadows wouldn’t touch them.
But the headsman was undeterred. His ax cleaved the air and bit through the flesh of the hex’s neck.
Light returned to the platform as suddenly as it had disappeared. The hex’s head lolled from the chopping block and came to a standstill on the final plank of the platform facing the crowd. The head’s gagged mouth was contorted in an unheard scream, its eyes set in a final stare that Ingram struggled to look away from. For an eternal moment, there was nothing but those two wet globs, loose from the cooling flesh that surrounded them and growing in size until they towered over Ingram.
Then the world returned. Ingram found himself on his knees deep in the mud, with two men trying to get him up by the armpits. He grunted and stood. “What happened?” one of the men asked as he handed Ingram a few potatoes that had fallen out of his wicker basket.
“My wife,” Ingram said, unsettled and confused by what had just happened but unwilling to tell either man the truth.
“I’m sorry,” one said. “Take good care of her,” said the other. Ingram nodded and, with a reluctance that worried him, looked at the platform. Empty but for a youngling who was scrubbing the blood and the impure off the wood.
Together with the crowd, Ingram plodded home through the stink. Rain clattered on the tuff and trap, sluiced down drains and overhangs, and created rivers and lakes from streets and doorways. When he was certain there was no one else around to watch him, he stood near a window that glowed with the warmth of a fire and looked down. Against the light stretched his shadow, acting in perfect accordance with the movements of his body. Thank the lords, he thought, and he proceeded with a relief that stretched from finger to toe.
Once home, Ingram put down the basket and stripped off everything but his undergarments. The floor was cold to his bare feet as he hurried upstairs and laid some blocks of wood and kindling inside the fireplace of their bedroom. Soon, a fire burned and flicked tendrils of light on the pale face of his wife in their bed. She stirred. Ingram moved to her side. “How are you?” he asked and she moved her hand from underneath the many blankets for him to hold it, but he dare not touch her.
Something had changed. More than he could see it, Ingram sensed that she was riddled with rot. It rode through her body on the waves of her blood and clung to her organs like barnacles on a ship. Why he had this sensation, he did not understand, but he knew it was true. She had one or two more days of life left. He swallowed. “They killed another hex today,” he said quietly.
“Good,” she said with her eyes still closed.
Back downstairs, Ingram lit a fire in the kitchen and plumped the wicker basket onto the table. He took a peeling knife and grabbed a potato from the basket to make dinner. Nothing was wrong with him, he told himself. It had been too much lately, with his wife on her deathbed and today’s happenings in the town square. He was shaken, that was all.
He tried not to think of the hex’s eyes as he peeled the potato. It had a patch of white mold on its side. His hands trembled as he carved it off. On the other side, too, there was a patch of mold. Ingram realized there was little on the potato that wasn’t mold, and with sudden anger he threw it against the wall. There had been no mold on any of the potatoes he had bought this morning, he was certain of it. He looked at the basket and grabbed another. This time, he felt it. From his hand into the tuber crept something invisible that caused it to rot.
“No,” Ingram said and he dug for a plump tomato. “No, no, no,” he said as the tomato withered and grew patches of white and green that spread and spread until it covered all the tomato’s flesh. Ingram dropped it to the floor, where it splattered open. He must be dreaming. He was still in the hex’s mind. Soon, he’d be back in the town square standing between everyone else. Nothing would have happened. He paced the kitchen, waiting, his knuckles white where he gripped the knife, unwilling to accept that he had inherited something of the hex.
Inheritance #1: The Execution of the Hex