The Forever Gate - By Isaac Hooke Page 0,2

single User. But he had to play this out to the end. Had to protect her, and to hell with this sham of a trial.

The judge lifted an eyebrow. "Then I will pronounce sentence. For the attack on this city's most important asset, and for the countless gol lives lost, I sentence you to immediate death by beheading."

"Thank you your honor." Hoodwink gave the onlookers a flourishing bow.

"He's mad!" Someone in the audience.

Hoodwink cocked his head. "Mad? You're the collared. It's you who are mad, I say!" If they didn't believe he belonged to the Users before, they would now. The Users were the biggest advocates of an uncollared society. At least their graffiti implied as much.

"You're collared too buddy!" came the audience repartee.

Two guards restrained him. As if he could run anywhere with his arms and legs shackled. Both guards had swords belted to their waists, and one guard was an obvious gol, with the sword-and-shield symbol stamped into his breastplate. The other was collared, and his plate was free of markings. That seemed an odd dichotomy to Hoodwink—to be collared and free at the same time.

Hoodwink decided to play up his terrorist role. He was rather enjoying this. He looked at the collared guard like a judge. "You'd help kill someone who only wants the same thing as you? Someone who wants to be free?"

The guard elbowed Hoodwink in the ribs. "Keep silent gutter scum!"

The outer door near the judge's desk abruptly flung open, and three gols wheeled a guillotine in from the cold. Hoodwink's heart sank when he saw it. He'd hoped the snowdrifts were too deep to convey the thing from its storehouse, and that the executioner's sword would be favored instead. Flakes of snow followed the death device inside. Hoodwink shivered. And not from the cold.

One of the gols slammed the door behind him, shutting out the storm, and then the trio wheeled the guillotine forward, bringing it between the judge's stand and Hoodwink.

The crowd broke into a chant. "Behead! Behead! Behead!"

As the guards escorted him to the guillotine, Hoodwink noticed the various scenes of decapitation imprinted on the blade. Severed heads with eyes and tongues sticking out in over-dramatization. Headless bodies pumping blood. The inscription brought a fresh shiver: "Through me pass into the city of woe."

The guards forced Hoodwink to kneel. One of them stuff a pillow under his knees. Funny, that they'd waste comfort on a man who'd soon know the ultimate discomfort. The gol lawmakers wanted to cast themselves as ethical. Beheading was quick and painless. And comfortable.

The guards jammed his neck into the circular notch of the lower panel, and secured the similarly-notched upper plank onto his neck, completing the head-prison. So much for comfort—Hoodwink was bound fast beneath that blade, locked in a hole that offered no leeway.

"Behead! Behead! Behead!"

The bronze bitch was the only thing protecting him from the deadly steel. Except that was no protection at all. The guillotine could cut right through the collars in a single blow. Made them seem like the paper collars children folded for themselves in their games of adulthood. With the headman's sword, at least there was a chance that the first blow would merely cut into the collar, and maybe only graze the skin beneath. It usually took two or three strikes to actually reach the neck, even with a fully sharpened blade. Which was why the courts had replaced the sword, he supposed. The sword offered what only the condemned and the drunk had the courage to try—a chance at freedom. Face the beheader's blade, and hope to your maker that it took the collar off and not your entire head. Hoodwink had only ever seen one man survive it, fifteen years ago. The man in question had escaped in a flurry of lightning strikes, only to have the soldiers track him down and execute him on the street.

Hoodwink had stopped going to executions after that.

At least that man had had a chance at survival, though. Hoodwink wouldn't get that chance. The cold steel of this machine that assembly-lined death made sure of that. Lift the blade. Press the button. Chop off the head. He felt sick to his stomach. Good thing he hadn't eaten all day. It wouldn't do to sick up in front of all these people.

For her, he did this for her.

But would it be enough?

"Behead! Behead! Behead!"

The executioner approached from the front. He was a fat gol, though not as stout as Briar. A black