"Guh--" Tom Richardson gulped beside me. "Goddesses, what a damn mess."

I nodded in numb agreement. I'd seen worse, I tried to convince myself.

Surely, I'd seen worse. . .but the truth was I hadn't.

Blood streaked the cell walls and pooled like volcanic glass beneath Evin

Souther's body.

"Looks like he tried slashing one of his wrists," I whispered. "After last

check, right? Probably planned on curling up in bed. . .having the whole

night to bleed."

"He-he asked for a pen and paper," Tom said. "I thought he was going to

write a letter. So I brought them. But then I realized that I'd forgotten

to ask him about his meal. . ."

"And Evin heard you coming back. Decided to speed things up. Slit his

throat."

Tom groaned. I glanced at him and saw that the young man was trembling, his

skin gone lamp-wick yellow, his grip on the cell bars probably the only

thing keeping him up. He had been a butcher's son, before becoming my

deputy, but slaughtering pigs couldn't prepare someone for seeing a fellow

human like this.

"Tom!" I snapped. "Go get Dr. Garvey. Tell him what's going on."

"Ye-yes," he said, and stumbled away, each click of his boot-heels

thunderous in the silent jail. Sighing, I turned back to Evin's body. I

felt old and weary.

"Shit," I hissed. I glanced out the window and saw the moon, a perfect

sickle curving between the bars. A little before midnight, then. A widowed

man and two children expected to see their mother's killer hang, in proper

accordance with the Goddess-Writs, in five hours. I'd be damned if I

disappointed them.

Spiteful bastard, I thought, leaning my hand against the doorframe. Sticky

moisture met my skin and I pulled my hand back with a grimace.

"Shit," I muttered. "This is going to take forever to clean up."

#

I met Garvey on the front step of the jailhouse. He wore a dark coat and

carried the flat metal case containing his medical instruments.

"Just for show, Ben, you understand," he whispered as he entered the jail.

"I know you know a dead man when you see one. Mertta Larch is up across the

street--sitting out on her porch. Let her think whatever she likes."

I smiled and shook my head. Dr. Garvey was a middle-aged man, but new to

the Falls, and still hungry for the big city intrigues he had left behind.

A doctor, being called out to the jail the night before an execution. .

.Mertta would know exactly what that meant--you can't live across from a

jail for twenty years and not know--but she would keep her mouth shut. I

leaned my head out the door and saw her, an aged stick of a woman,

ankle-length hair loose and flowing around her body as she sat on her porch

steps sipping a drink. She met my eyes and nodded, her features grim,

before turning and slipping back into her house. Yes, she would stay quiet.

Davinia Cormunt had been a friend of hers.

"I sent Tom around back with the cart," Garvey said. He pulled off his

hat--a floppy, shapeless thing--and handed me both it and his coat. I set

them down on a chair beside the door. Garvey scratched at his ginger hair,

his round face shining with exuberance. He glanced at me, opened his mouth

as if to speak, then simply smiled and forged on past me toward the back of

the jail. "We got it onto the cart okay," he said. "But I think your man

pulled a muscle or two doing it, so it'll be up to you and I to unload it."

Tom waited in the narrow lane that separated the jail from its stables,

looking shamefaced and standing a little off-center. Time to send him into

the Hills for some hard riding, I told myself. He's getting soft.

"Ben, you get the back," Garvey said. "Tom, you just hold that damn horse

steady. Star's good enough to ride, but. . . well, keep an eye on his

feet."

I hadn't wanted to risk bringing a lantern into the alley, and luckily the

moonlight was still good enough to see by. Garvey spit in his palms and

dragged a plain, dark box over the wagon's tailboard, until half its length

dangled over the edge. I stood alongside the box and slipped my hands under

it, between the widely spaced slats comprising the wagon's bed.

"Okay, on three," Garvey said. When he counted off, I hauled up on my end

of the box. The cheap, unfinished wood bit into my hands as the box's full

weight tugged at my arms. Garvey and I moved toward the door as quickly as

we could. Every other step Garvey stumbled. I gritted my teeth and

struggled to hold up my end of the box. Tom followed close behind us,

shutting the outside door as we managed the single low step leading into the

jail. Per Garvey's grunted instructions, we set the box down in the holding

cell beside Evin's body.

"Whew! That's a job," Garvey said, rubbing his hands. He gestured with his

chin to the box. "Why don't you get the lid, Tom. Give us a breather."

The box's lid lifted silently on well-oiled hinges. A figure formed of

shining, neatly jointed metal lay within it. The three of us stared down at

it.

"This is very, very new," Garvey said. "A definite improvement over the old

clay ones." He pushed his hair back behind his ears.

"What about the face?" Tom asked, and I had to admit that was concerning me

as well. The golem's face was simply an arrangement of various flat, heavy

planes. Usually, the golem-maker accompanied the golem, and sculpted the

face to match the deceased while we watched.

"Not to worry," Garvey said, pulling a cardboard box from his case. He

opened it and I saw that it was full of shining sand, so white and sparkling

it reminded me of the powder snow I had seen on my last trip into the High

Buttes.

"Just a bit," he whispered. A slim metal rod had been fastened to the lid

of the box and, taking it, Garvey dipped its rounded tip in Evin's blood.

His motions neat and precise, he slid the rod into a small hole in the

golem's forehead and upended the box over it. The sand fell in a shifting

cloud that settled on the golem's face. As if being shaped and prodded by a

man's hands, it assumed an exact seeming of Evin's features. With a

grinding of clockworks, the limbs slimmed and lengthened until they matched

Evin's narrow, tightly muscled body.

"Now," Garvey said softly, as if speaking to himself, "wake up."

The golem's eyes opened.

"Get on the bed," Garvey ordered. The golem did so, sitting perfectly still

and staring ahead at nothing. I shuddered, a wave of cold washing up my

back and into my face.

You executed nine men in a like number of years and used a golem twice, I

told myself. It never bothered you before--made it easier, in fact--so why

now?

Why?

Well, maybe because of the new nature of the one sitting on the edge of the

bunk. The clay golems had reeked of old, Lady-sanctified traditions, made

of the same earth over which our rivers flowed. This thing smelled of

cities and painful, intrusive newness.

I rubbed a hand across my eyes. The smell of blood was quite strong now,

and I had a sudden vision of the flies the morning would bring.

"Tom, go get some rags," I muttered. "We better get started on this."

#

The sun had just cleared the horizon when Tom and I led what appeared to be

Evin Souther from the jail and into the town Circle, where nearly half of

the Fall's residents had gathered. The crowd split cleanly before us. The

Falls, after all, was a small town, the sort of place where it's okay to

beat your wife, your children, your husband, your horse, but--by the Three

Sweating Goddesses--don't do it where the neighbors can see. Davinia's very

public, very messy murder, shot in the back by a man claiming to have been

driven mad with longing for her, was not a thing to be forgiven.

With whispered commands we urged the golem towards the hastily erected

scaffolding. Rauld Emeryth, the local wainwright, had built the structure,

and had stretched and measured the rope which hung from it. I saw knowing

looks on a few faces, Mertta's among them, but there appeared to be precious

few. Hopefully most would assume that the golem's shambling gait was merely

the natural reticence of a proud man being led to his death. I felt

confident that those who suspected otherwise would keep their mouths shut.

Roger Cormunt stood at the outer edge of the crowd, closest to the

scaffolding, with his two daughters. Kate, only three, clung to her

father's shoulders and played with his hair. Nine-year-old Jean stood a

foot or so from him, her back rigid. The intensity with which her wintry

eyes focused on the golem depressed me--no child's eyes should look like

that. A calming sense of justification washed over me.

We reached the scaffolding and began to climb. I winced at the heaviness of

the golem's footsteps on the old scrap-lumber steps. Once at the top we

positioned the golem over the trap door and ordered it to turn and face the

crowd. Tom fastened its hands behind its back while I settled the noose

around its neck. A sense of professionalism led me to place the knot beneath

the golem's left ear where, on a living man at least, the rope would be most

sure to snap the neck. Garvey's face jumped out at me from the crowd. His

eyes shone with excitement. Doubtless, he wanted-expected-needed this

progressive thing to perform well.

I stepped up to the very edge of the platform, Tom moving a little behind me

and to the right. Jean's eyes burned up at me.

"Only the Goddesses can forgive," I announced in a voice I knew would carry

to the back of the crowd. I threw the switch. The rope snapped taut as the

trapdoor swung downward from beneath the golem.

--Perfect--

Too soon for that thought. With a squeal of shearing metal, the golem's

head tore away cleanly from its body. The body disappeared beneath the

scaffolding with a thump. The head, falling a few seconds behind it, hit

the ground next and, rolling forward, came to a stop at Jean's booted feet.

The girl gasped, and the sound fell, perfect as a keystone, into air that

had emptied of the tiniest human noise. All seeming of Evin's features

vanished. Metal vertebrae shone in the sunlight. Dr. Garvey cried out and

ran forward.

Blood surged into my cheeks. That's right, I thought, we weighed Evin for

the rope last week. . .

"Dammit, Tom," I snapped, angry at myself more than anything. "Go and help

Dr. Garvey with that thing. I'll talk to the Cormunts. And next time,

weigh the damn golem. Of course it's heavier than clay or flesh."