Fool's Gold

by Jon Hollins

  “The Slayer!” shouted another voice.

  “As was foretold!” shouted another.

  “He fulfills the prophecy!”

  Will’s brow furrowed. What prophecy? What was everyone talking about?

  “Look what he holds in his left hand!”

  Instinctively Will looked down at his left hand. In it he held the glowing orb. Nothing else.

  Nothing made sense. Everything was darkness and shadow. He hefted the orb higher, trying to make out more clearly what was going on. As he did, it twisted in his hand. And as it twisted, he glimpsed something he hadn’t seen before. Some pattern or design painted upon the orb’s surface.

  He turned it in his hands to get a better look. And then he saw what the crowd had seen.

  Not a pattern. Not a design.

  A pupil. A pupil in a glowing orange orb.

  No. In an eyeball.

  In his hand, held up for all to see, he had Mattrax’s dead, staring eye.

  And the crowd went wild.

  PART 2: A JOB DONE WRONG

  26

  Morning Worship

  Lette could think of no greater sign of how terribly awry things had gone than the fact that she was waking up to the sound of children’s laughter.

  She stood up from her bed of pine needles, wiped drool from her chin, and tried to put the pieces of the previous evening together.

  She had been hidden in the portcullis lock. She had gotten out, killed a guard, found Quirk. Everything had been going well. Then she had opened the portcullis to Mattrax’s cave. And that must have been what alerted the guards. Some mechanism she had missed, or more likely, never been in a position to discover. But at the same time the guards came running, so did the villagers. Balur and Firkin must have had something to do with it, but afterward Balur was tight-lipped on the subject. Still, the soldiers and the villagers had clashed in the cave mouth. Then the fight had spilled deeper and deeper into the cave. And then, in those depths, Quirk…

  The thaumatobiologist had killed how many? Twenty? Thirty? Enough to make Balur look as if he’d just been handing out love taps all night. The thaumatobiologist had flung fire about like a bartender serving drinks on Barph’s feast day, lost in some passion Lette neither understood nor wanted to understand. There had been no way to reason with the woman, and Lette thanked all the gods that Quirk had collapsed eventually. Just keeled over unconscious and dribbling. Though that wasn’t before her antics convinced almost everyone in the cave that Mattrax was awake and angry. Even Lette would admit she had felt fear grip her bowels when the first jet of flame had come.

  Except Mattrax had been out cold. Hadn’t even come conscious as Balur had beaten the brains from him.

  Gods, that had been a mess. Balur had been in almost as much of a passion as Quirk. Lette still wasn’t sure how she’d managed to drag the lizard man away. Not before he’d gotten himself elbow deep in Mattrax’s skull by any reach. Still, she’d managed it. But by then it had become clear to her that the only real option left to them was to get into the crowd and lose themselves. So she’d made Balur grab Quirk, and hidden amongst the villagers, they’d been whole enough, safe enough.

  Except then Will had gone and shown up clutching that cursed eyeball…

  She looked around her. Women and men were all still gathered around the cave entrance. Campfires burned. People sang and danced. Their half-feral children ran everywhere whooping, and screaming, and—for the love of all that was holy—laughing.

  Where had the children even come from? Gods, if Balur had brought them up to the cave to do murder last night, she was going to kill him.

  There was an atmosphere of celebration in the impromptu camp. And though this barren mountainside was nothing like the packed streets of Essoa, where she had grown up, something in the air reminded her of the city’s annual carnivals. All the rules thrown out for a day. The children ruled the households. The dockworkers told the nobles what to do. You went into a store and just took what you wanted from the shelves. Everyone was on the streets, shouting, running, dancing.

  The first carnival she remembered, she had gone into a pastry store. It was the one she and her brothers and sisters passed on their weekly sojourn to the temple to pour libations in the hopes that Toil would bless their father’s work, and Klink would bless his purse. Everything in the store’s window always looked fluffy and delicious, covered in layers of powdered sugar. The store owner had welcomed her with a broad smile, had helped her hold her skirts out so they formed a pouch into which she could sweep armfuls of pastries. And then she had found a quiet rooftop from which she could watch the festivities, while she stuffed her face. It had been glorious. A day of pure gluttony and pleasure.

  Then the next day she vomited four times. She felt nauseous for two days more. Every time she passed the pastry store she felt sickness roll through her. And it was not just her. The day after carnival, all of Essoa crawled, a beaten, groaning thing. It was a stinking beast crawling through the filthy aftermath of its own indulgence.

  Yes, this reminded her of carnival very much.

  They had to get out of here.

  Correction, they had to take advantage of the shrinking window of opportunity they had for retrieving as much gold as they could from Mattrax’s cave, and then get out of here.

  She cracked her neck, pulled a few leaves out of her hair, and set off into the camp. Children ran past her, yelling something about a prophet.

  The prophet… That could be a problem.

  She opened her ears to the voices of the crowd. Situational awareness, she’d heard others in her profession call it. Knowing-where-the-next-knife-is-coming-from was a term that sat better with her.

  “Where did he come from?”

  “Is he going to stay?”

  “Is Mattrax really dead?”

  “Must be some avatar of the gods. Ain’t no way no mortal man can just be killing a dragon. Probably Klink, I reckon. Dragon keeping all that gold in one place, ain’t natural. Money meant to flow. Old Mattrax pissed off Klink and now he’s paid the price.”

  “Like to get my hands on his dragon…”

  “Oh, you’re awful.”

  “The axe, I reckon. Dug it up from some tomb like as not. Take away that axe and he’d be nothing special.”

  “A prophet they said. Prophet’s talk. Prophesize. Clue’s in the name. Mattrax was just the start of it, I tell you. He’s come to lead us.”

  “Didn’t look like no prophet. Just looked like some kid. Some farm boy with an axe.”

  “What in the Hallows did we drink last night?”

  They were gathered in small groups. Three men sitting perched on rocks, their heads leaned in. Two women using puddle water to wash the mud from their faces. A young couple leaning against a tree stump, wrapped in each other’s arms. A gaggle of teenagers, gathered around a discarded breastplate bearing the tattered heraldry of the Dragon Consortium. And all of them were talking about Will. Every last one.

  Yes, the prophet was going to be a problem.

  There was a flow to the crowd, she realized. Some faint gravitational pull. She gave in to it, moved with the masses. She felt like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It was a reassuring feeling.

  When she found the source of the pull, she thought perhaps she should have known.

  Firkin was perched on a rock pressed up against the mountainside. A little stone pulpit. He sat cross-legged upon it, potbelly protruding over his filthy underwear. His beard blew in a morning breeze that sent his words billowing over the small crowd that had gathered at his feet.

  “—and verily it was said unto, erm… unto… it was a farmer, I think. Worked in a field anyway. Nice man. Used to buy folk drinks. Very important that. The prophet is always saying that giving someone a free drink is pretty much the height of, erm… being prophetic. Root of all goodness, I think. Wet a man’s throat and, erm… verily you shalt be raised up. Thou shalt. Very high. Like really, really way up there.”


  He was slurring badly, eyes half-closed.

  “Anyway, it was said unto this man. It was said verily to him. That erm… to have thine balls back, then thine must follow he who slays the beast. And verily the beast was slain as you saw.”

  Personally, Lette wanted to slay Firkin very, very badly. But that next knife—it would come from the crowd if she tried it. And while she was good at her job, there were a lot of people here, which would mean a lot of knives.

  Instead she limited herself to calling out, “Firkin, what the fuck are you doing?”

  Firkin lurched, as if shaken from a trance, or more likely as if he had been nodding off into a drunken stupor. He stared at her blearily, tugged at the tangled mat of his beard, and cast it over one shoulder.

  “I am preaching,” he said, “profound truths.”

  A murmur of agreement rose from the crowd.

  “You,” said Lette with a certain amount of feeling, “are the swill at the bottom of the barrel and you are leaking out and staining all these good people.”

  Public speaking was not her thing. Still, she was damned if she was going to give ground before a creature as base as Firkin.

  The crowd, though, seemed to have other ideas. The murmurs became mutters, an angry tone slipping into the sound.

  “Did we not see him?” shouted one. “Holding Mattrax’s eye?”

  “He came from nowhere!” yelled another.

  “The gods sent him!” It was more than one who called that out.

  “Probably Barph,” said Firkin with a hiccup. “Good god, Barph is. Always my favorite. Got his priorities right.”

  Lette ground her teeth. “You are listening to the words of a drunkard you would have kicked out of a tavern nine nights out of ten. Your prophet is Will Fallows, a farm boy most of you I imagine have known since birth.”

  The muttering stuttered.

  “Does sort of look like him,” said someone nearby.

  “I ain’t following Will Fallows fucking nowhere,” someone replied. Lette smiled.

  Then another voice rose up, louder. “Will Fallows is dead.”

  Silence fell.

  “My name’s Dunstan Meffit,” said a heavyset man with a patchy beard clinging to his rolling chin. “I done worked with Will Fallows since he was a child. Worked for his father before him. And three days ago I went to his farm, and found Mattrax’s soldiers there. The barn was burned to the ground, and they told me Will had burned in it. One of the men had his face burned up, said he’d been in the barn and seen it himself.” The man suddenly seemed to realize he had the attention of the whole crowd. He tugged at his beard and ducked his head. “Least that’s what they told me.”

  He shuffled back toward anonymity. Lette attempted to find enough expressions of contempt to pour upon the man.

  Firkin beat her to it. “He is returned!” he yelled. For a man with such a shrill voice, he could achieve surprising volume. “The gods have returned him to us! They have sent their prophet down into the shell of this Will Fallows! A miracle! Another! He returns from the dead! He kills the dragon!”

  “Three nights ago, Will Fallows was looking for his manhood in a cave with me,” Lette retorted, but it was too late. The crowd was in a passion. Shouts of “A miracle!” rose up all around her. Firkin leaned back on his rock, smiling beatifically. He closed his eyes and appeared to fall asleep.

  If she ground her teeth any harder, Lette realized, she was going to crack a tooth. Still, there was one person who could end this. She pushed out of the crowd and went to look for Will.

  She found him siting by himself, leaning up against a trunk at the edge of the tree line. He looked up as she approached. He was a mess. Dried blood formed a flaky beard beneath hangdog eyes. The axe he’d been holding the night before was laid out on the leaves beside him. She didn’t think he had slept at all. She grimaced. He grimaced right back.

  Finally she asked, “What did you do with the eye?”

  He shrugged. “I threw it away.”

  Lette sighed. “Well thank the gods for small mercies.” And then—because if anyone could fill in the gaps, it seemed he could—“What happened?”

  He shook his head. “I panicked. They were all praising me, claiming I saved them. Except it was me and my ridiculous excuse for a plan that put them all in danger in the first place. And they were all pressing in. And, gods, I thought they would crush me to death or something.” He shuddered. “When I managed to get out of it, I just ran and hid.”

  Lette took in his hiding place. The edge of an open plain of scree. “You’re shit at hiding,” she told him.

  She grinned at him. After a moment he grinned back. “Thanks,” he said. “I think I needed that.”

  She nodded. “Quite all right.” Then, because the answers still weren’t all there: “I know you didn’t kill Mattrax,” she said. “So whose blood is that?” She gestured to the weapon, to his face.

  He explained about the guard. When he was done, Lette found she was impressed. She hadn’t been sure Will had murder in him. And telling the tale seemed to have calmed him a little.

  It was time. “You know Firkin is sitting on a rock,” she said, “preaching that you’re a prophet, to everyone who will listen to him?”

  Will’s calm retreated. He curled up on himself. “Please,” he said. “You have to go and tell them it’s pig’s shit,” he said.

  “No,” she told him. “You do.”

  He looked at her imploringly. “I swear that’s all I’ve said to anyone since I left the cave. They don’t listen. Or they listen and get angry. One man called me a fraudulent fuck and I had to take a swing at him with my axe before he’d back off. And once I’d done that, even more people gathered and started screaming at him that he was a heathen.” He shook his head. “They want a prophet, but they don’t want to bother listening to one.”

  Lette grimaced. That was simple enough, she supposed. Firkin told them what they wanted to hear, Will didn’t.

  Which left her original plan.

  “We have to get out of here quickly then,” she told him. “Firkin’s making a mob, and nothing good ever comes from a group of folk most people associate with pitchforks and public burnings. So we find Balur, we find a wagon, we load it up with as much gold as it will carry, and we run like Lawl has opened up the Hallows at our heels.”

  That, it seemed, was a plan Will could get behind. He stood up, checked to see if anyone was pointing and screaming in an adoring manner. Firkin’s sermon, however, was drawing more and more of the crowd away. Which was about the only benefit Lette could ascribe to it.

  They found Balur closer to Mattrax’s cave, sprawled out on last night’s debris, head pointing downhill, mouth open, and snores rumbling out of him that sounded like giant pigs rutting.

  Lette kicked him in the side of the head. Balur grunted. So she kicked him again.

  “Be leaving it a-fucking-lone, woman,” Balur rumbled. Only his jaw moved.

  “Woman?” There was no way Lette was going to let that shit lie. She went to kick him again. Balur’s arm shot out fast enough that she had trouble tracking it. He caught her ankle.

  “It is already feeling like Mattrax was taking a shit in my skull. I would be begging you not to be kicking it anymore. Ours has been being a long and fruitful partnership and it would be being a shame for it to end with me being the one to be tearing your leg off and to be shoving it up your arse.”

  Lette sneered. “Like to see you try.” The truth was, though, that if Balur wanted to, she would see him both try and—assuming she didn’t pass out from the pain—succeed.

  Balur grunted, let go of her leg, and rolled into a sitting position. He let out a second grunt, somehow deeper and more profound, and put his head in his hands.

  “Be reminding me,” said Balur, his voice even more gravelly than normal, “to not be drinking any more Fire Root potion.”

  Lette groaned. So that explained it. “You stupid, silly fuck,” seemed the best way to su
mmarize that situation.

  Balur grunted. “Was killing a dragon.”

  That, she knew, would in Balur’s mind excuse any behavior. Show up at a Batarrian wedding, tear the bride in two, and use both halves of her as a latrine? Okay as long as it resulted in an unimpeachable display of one’s might.

  “It was an unconscious dragon,” she pointed out, for all the good it would do.

  “Wasn’t seeing you killing it.”

  Will, Lette realized, was staring and pointing. Both she and Balur turned to look at him. Will’s finger wavered at Balur. “You?” he managed.

  “Of course him,” Lette said. “Who else would get drunk enough to cave in Mattrax’s skull.”

  “So… so…” Will’s jaw worked. “Balur’s the prophet,” he managed. He looked off at where Firkin sat. “They should be worshipping him. Not me.”

  Now it was Balur’s turn to look confused. “They are worshipping you?” He looked from Will to Lette. “Why are they worshipping the farmer?”

  Lette couldn’t quite resist the short, sharp punch to Balur’s pride. “They think Will killed Mattrax,” she said.

  The transformation was immediate. One moment Balur was a sagging ball of scales and aches, the next he was an eight-foot towering statue built in honor of righteous rage. His arm snapped out, caught Will around the neck.

  “You are claiming my kill?” he roared. Brown phlegm flew out of his mouth, spattered Will.

  Maybe that particular punch had been a little too short and sharp…

  “Balur,” Lette said, affecting patience.

  Will croaked.

  “I am going to be killing you,” Balur growled at him. “Or are you going to be claiming that as suicide as well?”

  “Balur,” she repeated.

  “I shall be arranging your intestines so that they shall be reading, ‘I claimed the rightful kill of Balur, mightiest of the Analesians.’”

  Balur always got far too invested in the whole revenge thing.

  “Bal—” she started for the third time, then changed her mind and went for the more direct, “Hey, you, the son of a whore lizard.”