Rafen (The Fledgling Account Book 1)

by Y. K. Willemse

  He only had a glimpse. The room was a deep, comfortable black, excepting a small circle of naked blue light at the head of the double bed, where the dripping Lashki Mirah was in an ugly sprawling position, grasping King Robert’s throat with one spidery hand and pointing the vibrating copper rod to his head with the other. King Robert’s doughy white face gleamed with sweat. Beside him, Queen Arlene’s head and arms were visible from beneath the luscious covers. She was unconscious, her face pale green. Momentarily, Rafen wondered if this were real or if he were dreaming again. The Lashki Mirah whipped his head around, his black dreadlocks slicing the air. The copper rod was then directed at Rafen, and a burst of blue kesmal filled his vision. Rafen was lifted into the air and blasted backward against the left wall of the outside hall.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  In the

  King’s Bedchamber

  Collapsing on the floor, Rafen discovered somehow he had retained his sword, and actually blocked the kesmal with it, which was the reason he wasn’t dead yet. Like a fallen mountain, Alexander was crumpled on the floor to Rafen’s left, vaguely stirring. Etana stood over him in a white nightgown, clutching a thin silver scepter and protecting him with bright yellow kesmal from the two philosophers. Richard cowered behind her, screaming while the philosophers sent crackling, colorful streamers through the air.

  Ignoring the protests of his now thrice-thumped head, Rafen leapt to his feet and shot back into the room, his left arm burning with the kesmal that swept down it into his blade. Roaring insanely, he raised his sword and directed it at the Lashki Mirah, whose blue kesmal was streaming down the length of the copper rod and into King Robert’s temple. With the force of a rifle being discharged, a monstrous, messy flood of fire erupted from the end of Rafen’s blade, flying straight toward the Lashki’s head.

  Rising to his feet blindingly quickly, the Lashki cast the partially conscious king back onto his pillow. He whipped the copper rod around to meet Rafen’s kesmal at the last second, expertly catching it on the metal. The fire burned on the rod in a tangled mass.

  The Lashki’s black eyes were focused on his left hand, which held his weapon. Some of the flames had licked his extended index finger. He watched with disbelieving intrigue as the cobwebby flesh slid away to reveal gray charred bone. Nothing and no one had harmed him since he was mortal.

  The Lashki tore his eyes from his finger, and Rafen staggered backward. Tearing the gold circlet from King Robert’s head and giving a demented howl, the Lashki leapt from the bed and ran with supernatural speed toward Rafen. He halted with perfect poise, three steps away, and Rafen swung his sword in the air, desperately trying to do kesmal again. The Lashki grasped the copper rod tighter, and blue waves expanded around him, threatening to swallow Rafen. Rafen flung himself against the wall left of the double doors, and the kesmal rolled out of the room.

  Still connected to the tip of the rod, a wiry cord shot toward Rafen, who tried to catch it with his sword. He felt the cord whip around his ankle and tighten. Rafen whirled around to dart away. The Lashki jerked the rod upright, sending him sprawling on the floor. He scrabbled at the rug near King Robert’s bed, but the Lashki coolly sucked the cold blue cord back into his rod. Struggling frantically, Rafen was dragged across the floor. Then he was at the Lashki’s feet, and King Robert’s gold circlet with the amethyst dropped to the ground near him. Before Rafen could grab it, the Lashki hoisted him up by the hair with one hand and thrust the copper rod to his throat with the other. Writhing, Rafen tried to escape. The moment he felt the cold (and dangerously sharp) rod at his throat, the voices broke into his brain: the same voices he had heard when he was seven. They blurred his sight and made everything look far away.

  “What were you thinking, Rafen?” the Lashki said loudly. “That you could kill the immortal? Let me show you death.”

  A light flashed, and Rafen was jerked away and thrown to the floor. His sight clearing, he realized he lay right of the double doorframe, in which Etana and Richard Patrick stood. Richard had fallen to his knees and looked like he might faint. Etana’s scepter blazed bright yellow in her hand. She looked like she was about to be ill. Three steps from Rafen, the Lashki snarled.

  “You would get between me and Rafen?” he said.

  Etana pointed her scepter at the Lashki. He smiled a yellow-toothed smile and directed his copper rod at her and Richard, sending an explosion of blue toward them. It obscured everything. Richard was screeching, and Etana screamed. The kesmal cleared, and they were gone.

  “Etana!” Rafen started to rise, feeling like he was suffocating.

  Something struck him fully in the upper chest, like an iron-clad punch. The air flew out of Rafen, and the room spun around. All sound was momentarily blocked out except his own heavy breathing. He stumbled back against the wall and slumped to the floor, his sword sliding from his hand.

  “Leave him alone!” King Robert shouted. A dribble of blood at his mouth, he staggered between Rafen and the Lashki, his belly sagging and his long white nightshirt askew. The Lashki laughed a horrible throaty laugh, sweeping his copper rod in the king’s direction and knocking him aside with kesmal. Annette rushed through the double doorframe and past the Lashki to fall on her knees beside her prone father. Her sobbing reached Rafen’s ears.

  “No,” Rafen croaked, struggling to pull himself upright again the wall. Black approached the edges of his vision. He couldn’t… breathe…

  The Lashki was directly before him, holding his chin with slimy fingers. His left hand held the copper rod to Rafen’s throat once more, and the voices filled Rafen’s brain.

  “I came mainly to kill the king and the two heirs to the Sianian throne, while my servants finished the royal family,” the Lashki said softly. “Now I see I should have focused on you all along, Rafen. How absentminded of me.”

  Despite the voices shrieking in his head, Rafen dragged his hand to his phoenix feather. He felt the rod break the skin on his neck – a spurt of warm blood… And then the room morphed into the crags from the dream he’d had. The Lashki abruptly withdrew the copper rod from Rafen’s throat, transfixed by someone to his left.

  Fritz’s ash-colored hair stirred in an unnatural breeze. His blue eyes pierced the Lashki.

  “Rafen,” someone to Rafen’s other side said sharply, “get up and fight.”

  Dropping to a squat, Thomas retrieved Rafen’s sword from the floor. He shoved it into Rafen’s hand, wrapped one arm around Rafen’s back, and pulled him to his feet.

  The Lashki’s black eyes were dilated. His breath rasped.

  “Did I not say one would come after me?” Fritz advanced. Hissing, the Lashki stepped back, his rotten teeth bared. “You will not be unbeaten forever, Alakil!” Fritz shouted.

  As both Fritz and Thomas whipped out their swords, Rafen directed his own at the Lashki, his arm searing in the now familiar way. He dropped his right hand from his phoenix feather.

  The crags they stood on vanished, and Fritz’s and Thomas’ forms became transparent specters. They melted into Rafen’s sides, below his ribs. He suddenly felt five heads taller. His torso swelled, and he stood without support, heart blazing. The Lashki narrowed his black eyes in triumph and raised the copper rod again, which shone with blue kesmal. Rafen’s sword had turned smoldering red and now shook so badly he could barely hold it. With a war cry, he unleashed another blast far stronger than the one that had burned the Lashki’s finger, and with a sonorous rumbling, the inferno filled his vision. From behind it a flurry caught his attention. The Lashki flung himself sideways with unearthly speed, seizing Annette’s hair.

  The torrential roar of flames - everything shaking - windows shattering. The smoke cleared. The end of King Robert’s double bed was on fire, and the mullioned windows to the left of its head were in jagged fragments, their curtains burnt up or in flames on the floor. Shards of glass sprinkled the near vicinity. The floor and wall were blackened where the flames had passed. Dawn had come, and pale yellow light crep
t through the windows. Birds sang.

  Rafen glanced about wildly, wondering where the next blow was going to come from. Looking ill, King Robert struggled to rise from the floor to Rafen’s right. Queen Arlene had come around and was leaning over him, her white face like a beacon in the half-light. It shone with tears.

  King Robert kept saying in broken disbelief, “He took Annette. He took Annette.”

  Someone moved behind him. Trembling uncontrollably, Rafen turned to see Etana stagger into the room, clutching the double doorframe for support. Relief flooded him at the sight of her. He could have died then and been happy.

  “Etana!” King Robert said. Queen Arlene partially held him up with her arm.

  “I’m all right,” Etana said shakily. “He blasted me, and I tried to block it, but I think my arm is broken.” Her right arm hung limply at her side. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I think I fell unconscious. I don’t remember. I wanted to help.”

  “Alexander,” Rafen said in a cracked voice. His thumping head made it hard to think.

  “I saved him,” Etana said.

  “With kesmal?” Arlene asked, eyes wide.

  “Yes,” Etana whispered. “I did kesmal. More than I’ve ever done in my life.”

  “What about Richard?” King Robert asked.

  “Ran,” Etana said. “He left me.”

  “You must tell everyone you see to make sure the palace is secured,” King Robert told her. “Everyone. It must be tightly secured.”

  “Do you have the strength?” Arlene said softly. “Be careful.”

  “Yes,” Etana said, a smile lighting up her weary face. She left the room.

  “Where did he go?” Rafen stared around him. His chest was still painful, and it was difficult to breathe. “Where is the Lashki?”

  “He took Annette,” King Robert murmured from the floor. Clutching Queen Arlene’s shoulder with one shaking hand, he bowed his head and wept, half wheezing.

  Everything was turning a comfortable black, and Rafen wondered if night had fallen again. Perhaps this time he’d be able to get some sleep. His sword dropped from his hand, clattering on the floor. A dim sensation of falling… his chest still throbbing, and thunder in his head.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The

  Seventh Child

  He lay on something unbelievably soft, his head propped up on a mound of pillows. Vague memories of his first time in a bed after escaping Tarhia revisited him. He would not open his eyes, because the Lashki would be standing before him with the copper rod. Someone spoke, disturbing the warm silence.

  “Thank Zion Arez was able to heal her arm with kesmal. Now it only has to be bound,” King Robert’s rumbling voice was saying, somewhat bleakly. “She did a marvelous job.”

  “Of course she did, Robert,” Queen Arlene answered smoothly. “She is a Secra indeed. She saved Alexander’s life.”

  They were talking about Etana. Rafen struggled to remember a dream he’d had about her recently. It had been an incredible dream. They had known each other before, thousands of years ago.

  “Why did he leave, Arlene?” King Robert asked. “He just stared at Rafen, lowered the rod, and waited for Rafen to attack him. The sword moved by itself… Rafen must have summoned it with kesmal.”

  “Rafen is a blessing to us,” Queen Arlene said.

  A pause. The King Robert spoke again quietly. “She was saying sorry to me. Annette. She was terrified. She didn’t know what she had given herself over to. Arlene, if only she had told us something!”

  “She prostituted herself to Nazt,” Queen Arlene said. “She has received what she wanted.”

  Queen Arlene’s even footsteps left the room. Silence once more.

  Rafen opened his eyes a crack. He lay in King Robert’s and Queen Arlene’s immense bed, the luscious covers thrown loosely over him. At the far right, King Robert sat on the mattress near the charred foot of the bed, his face still blanched. Black circles ringed his watery blue eyes. His tousled hair hung over his pale forehead.

  Sunlight streamed through the shattered window, and a slight breeze stirred beneath the covers. Rafen shivered. Though his chest was pounding, breathing was easier than before. His head still felt as though a club had smashed it. Rafen moved his hand up to his chest. Someone had changed his shirt, which had been covered with dirt and blood from the battles the night before. Rafen’s muscles tightened in fear. Then he discovered his phoenix feather in the clean hem.

  Who had done it? Rafen hadn’t wanted anyone else to know. He remembered his dream about the feathers. He had very nearly not reached it. He didn’t want anyone to take it from him now that he had it.

  “Your Majesty,” Rafen said. He sounded strangely small to himself, and his mouth was dry.

  King Robert jumped and turned to him. “Rafen.” He managed a weak smile. “How are you feeling, my dear boy?”

  “All right,” Rafen said. “Who changed my shirt?”

  “Your shirt?” King Robert looked puzzled. “Etana’s manservant did. Etana checked you to see if she could help, though it seems we must let nature run its course. You’ve received a mighty bruise.”

  “Did he say anything?” Rafen asked urgently. “The manservant?”

  “Barnabas?” King Robert almost laughed. “No. He’s mute, Rafen.”

  An extraordinary stroke of luck.

  “Is Etana all right?”

  “She is going to be fine, Rafen.”

  “What about you? Are you hurt?”

  “Well,” King Robert said, “I have a dreadful headache and probably would have been killed if you hadn’t arrived at that precise moment. I also have two broken ribs which Arez healed and Arlene kindly bound for me. Other than that, I survived, because the Lashki stopped thinking about killing me and started thinking about killing you. Otherwise he would have given that last blow his full force.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rafen said.

  “About what, my dear boy?” King Robert’s forehead was furrowed.

  “About last night. About—”

  “Ah, I see.” King Robert gazed at the crimson rug on the floor. “Well, it wasn’t your fault. Really. It was so sudden, Rafen. I wasn’t able to sleep last night. I thought something was wrong, but I couldn’t tell what. And then I turned to my right, and this blue speck appeared in the darkness…” He pointed before him as if he could still see it. “Before I knew it, he was on Arlene and then he moved to me. I thought for certain it was over, Rafen. That was how it happened with my brother. He attacked him when he was in bed too.”

  The king shuddered.

  “I know someone must have undermined all the security. And I know Annette regretted it immensely in the end. What I didn’t realize was how long it had been going on, how long everything had been planned. A great number of philosophers in my trust who I’d thought were protecting the castle have actually been weakening its kesmalic defenses the whole time. When King Albert and Richard came, they also brought with them a number of philosophers who seemed perfectly trustworthy. They turned out to be devils too. So while we were all trying to survive in here, some good man raised the alarm and a very fierce battle went on in the corridors. Jacob had the presence of mind to make sure my children were protected first. Thankfully we outnumbered them by many, but all the same, the apple was ripe to fall, Rafen. Very ripe.”

  Rafen wondered if the two men who had attacked Alexander last night had been people King Robert had trusted.

  “What are the voices from the rod?” Rafen murmured. “The Lashki listens to them. They give him his power, I think.”

  “The Lashki’s power is his own,” King Robert said grimly. “Though he certainly listens to the voices. They are Nazt, the black spirits of the East that strive to control the hearts and minds of men. They were bound together by those who sought power aside from Zion, but they defied control. By now, they would have covered the face of the world and destroyed everything if it weren’t for the presence of the last Runi and Se
crai, who one day will finish Nazt for good.”

  “The Phoenix has power over Nazt, doesn’t he? Why didn’t the Phoenix come?”

  “The Phoenix came in a different form last night.” King Robert’s eyes, now glowing with warmth, met Rafen’s. “You, Rafen, are the Fledgling. He lives within you.”

  Lost for words, Rafen stared back at King Robert. At his look, King Robert smiled. Then he became serious again.

  “Do you know why the Lashki left last night, Rafen? It’s most unlike him to leave before a death.”

  Rafen stared at the embroideries of mountains, hills, and clouds on the white bedcovers around him.

  “It was… there was… Fritz and Thomas were there,” he said at last.

  King Robert’s eyes met Rafen’s.

  “They were,” Rafen said. “I saw them. And he saw them too.”

  “What did they do?” King Robert asked. “Tell me everything, my dear boy, everything. What happened?”

  While Rafen explained, he remembered things clearer. He raised his hand to his neck and felt beneath his collar for where the copper rod had broken his skin. Sure enough, a stinging, shallow cut the length of his little finger was there. King Robert’s eyes were a bright blue when Rafen mentioned Thomas. He was holding his breath.

  “I raised my sword, and then—” Rafen recalled dropping his hand from his phoenix feather, “—then they vanished, and I did kesmal.”

  “And not any kesmal,” King Robert murmured. “The Lashki wouldn’t have wanted to get in the way of that. Not since he was mortal has anyone been able to hurt him… except you, Rafen.”

  Moving his hand to his phoenix feather, Rafen wondered what had made Fritz and Thomas appear. Perhaps the Lashki’s and Rafen’s proximity, along with Rafen’s dire need, had called Fritz and Thomas up at that moment. The four runners from the dream had all been united momentarily. For a second, Rafen was tempted to ask King Robert what the phoenix feather meant, besides making him the Fledgling. The Lashki, Fritz, and Thomas had not all been Fledglings. The answer, he knew, was in the vision he had seen after receiving the feather, though he couldn’t remember anything except snatches of images.