Fool's Gold

by Jon Hollins

  Lette wasn’t entirely sure why, but the crowd pretty much lost its collective shit over that.

  The tone of the crowd was different that day. Instead of tavern shanties, battle hymns rose up into the blue skies. Old songs, sung on feast days. Choruses from the epics, about divine champions spearing great beasts, tearing other armies limb from limb. Slowly the journey was transitioning from chase to charge.

  The Kondorra valley spread out as they made their way southward, the rolling hills that edged the river Kon transitioning into stretching grassland. Wild horses ran alongside them as they marched. Herds of cattle watched from a distance. And Hallows’ Mouth presided over it all.

  The volcano squatted, solitary in the center of the plains, rising abruptly from the flatland, like some wart grown out of all proportion. Smoke streamed from its crater, smudging the sky to the south and west. Trees and shrubs seemed to avoid its shade. Its walls were a stark, craggy black. Occasionally she thought she could make out long, sinuous shapes flitting through the air above it.

  She caught sight of Quirk, riding a horse slowly through the crowd. She hurried up beside her.

  “Is that…?” she said, pointing to the flying shapes.

  “The Consortium?” Quirk didn’t look down. “Yes.”

  Lette tried to calculate the distance, to allow her eyes to accommodate for the distance.

  “They’re fucking huge,” she said eventually.

  “Yes,” said Quirk. “Yes, they are.”

  She did not, Lette thought, sound like a woman at peace with herself.

  “Will says you’ve changed your mind about his plan. That you’re going to play the merchant for us.”

  Quirk rode on for a few more steps. The horse she sat astride was a gray mare, flecks of white dappling its sides. Its footfalls were slow and steady, pushing through the long grass of the plains.

  “I wouldn’t say I changed my mind. But I will play the part of the merchant for you all.”

  Not exactly the answer Lette had expected. Not, she thought, really the answer she had wanted either.

  “If you don’t sell this…” she said. She tried to make it sound like a threat, but the truth was, if Quirk didn’t sell it, Lette would most likely be put to the sword and be unable to wreak any revenge whatsoever.

  “I’ll do my part.” There was steel in the thaumatobiologist’s voice. “This, I have come to realize, is important to me. Not for the same reasons it’s important to you. But it is important. Gods, it’s about the only thing I’ve got left now.” She finally looked down at Lette. Gave her a hollow smile. “All the compromises I’ve made.”

  Lette didn’t really give much of a shit about the compromises Quirk had made. The thaumatobiologist had a rod shoved up her arse and it would take several strong men and a barrel of grease to work it out, and Lette was shit out of grease. Still, motivations did concern her. If Quirk was only going through with this because she saw it as a way to save her own skin, to sell them all out for some gold and a ticket back to Tamathia, well, then that was something she needed to know about.

  “So why is it important?” she asked.

  “Did Will tell you about my past?” she asked. “Did I make for good pillow talk?”

  Lette didn’t rise to the bait. “Yes,” she said. “He did. Hethren. Banditry. Mass murder.” She didn’t say she was sorry for it. She wasn’t. Quirk had made it out alive. There were plenty of people who hadn’t.

  “Yes,” Quirk said. “Banditry. Mass murder. And then redemption. Good people took me in when no one should have done. They made me into someone new. They made me into a person who could become Quirk the thaumatobiologist. A woman who could lose herself in books. A woman who could—and I’m sorry if this sounds like bragging—but a woman who could excel in her field. And I have become that for one reason, and one reason alone. To express my gratitude. To say thank you for being given the chance to be someone new. And I told myself a lot of things about who I’d become. I told myself I was reformed. I told myself I’d left magic behind. I told myself I was a good person now. That I was kind. And a lot of those things have been stripped away from me. I am not good. I am not kind. I am still that scared little girl who wants to make all her fears burn away. But the thing that remains, the one thing that lasts while everything else collapses into ash… I am still a grateful woman. That’s still who I am. And I made those good people a promise. I promised them I would come out here, and that I would come back with knowledge about dragons that no one else had. That no one else had ever dared to have. That was how I would repay my debt. Because they truly and honestly care about the wealth of human knowledge. They are good people. They are kind people. And I will honor that. I will do anything and everything I can do to honor that. And if that means pretending to be some fucking merchant so that you can put the lives of ten thousand men, women, and children at risk, and try to steal gold you don’t deserve, then I have found that I can live with that. And I’m not proud of it, and I’m not going to repeat it again, or explain it any more than this ever again. I’m going to shut it away, and try to ignore it. And if I get out of this alive, I will act as if I am the good, kind person they have tried to make me. Because that will be a form of thanks too. Even if it is a lie.”

  She looked down at Lette. “Does that answer your question?”

  Lette considered. On the whole, she found she believed Quirk. The woman simply wasn’t that good a liar. She had her demons, but so did everyone. It was just that Quirk seemed to take hers so very seriously.

  Also there was the fact that Quirk’s reins appeared to be on fire.

  “Yes,” she told Quirk. “That answers it. But there is one other question.”

  Quirk ground her teeth.

  “Cattak,” Lette said. “Who is he? What’s he to Will?”

  “Cattak?” Quirk sounded surprised. “He’s a looter. He was acting as a scout for me. But now that we can see the Consortium’s forces on our heels, there doesn’t seem much need for him. I didn’t know he and Will were still in contact.”

  Which was another answer Lette hadn’t wanted.

  “So,” she said, “Cattak didn’t help you build the dragon skull?”

  Quirk twisted her head onto one side. “Some men did. Maybe they report back to Cattak. I don’t know.”

  “But he wasn’t there personally?” Lette pushed.

  “I didn’t see him.”

  “A looter?”

  “Yes,” Quirk nodded. “That seems to have started back up again. I’ve seen three temples with their roofs missing since this morning. Lawl alone knows what use they think all the lead will be now.”

  Lette nodded slowly. What use indeed?

  70

  Hubris Is a Dish Best Served Charbroiled

  In the depths of Hallows’ Mouth, Kithrax raised his head. Gold coins tumbled from it. Below him, magma bubbled and rumbled. And yet, the sound of rumbling geological rage was still not quite enough to drown out the sound of Horrax’s flatulent snoring. The squat brown dragon was oozing over the edge of one of the ledges that lined the volcano’s central vent, drool spilling from his mouth to hiss and spit in the molten rock below.

  He could kick Horrax, push him over the edge. Maybe he’d recover before he hit the magma, maybe he wouldn’t. Kithrax wasn’t worried about the consequences should Horrax survive the fall—he’d been itching for an excuse to rip out Horrax’s throat for the best part of a century now. No, it was that he might subsequently be expected to administer Horrax’s swampland territory to the west. Gods, the less he had to do to sully his life by interacting with humans the better.

  Rather than sit there and wait for the murderous rage to overwhelm his senses, he shrugged fully from his nest of gold and pushed off into space, launching himself toward the open crater of the volcano, riding the thermals out through the volcano’s rocky mouth, and drifting silently up into the night sky.

  It was all spread out below him. The whole absurd pageant. The prophet
’s pathetic forces. The Consortium’s own overwhelming army.

  Why did they bother? Why did they struggle? What did they imagine they would accomplish? Did they imagine that there was some glory in dying this way? That when they arrived in the Hallows below, that Lawl would be down there waiting to shake them all personally by the hand?

  “Well that was futile, but jolly good show all the same.”

  Lawl was a lecherous, anarchic imbecile, and so were all the other gods. They had done nothing to save these morons when Kithrax and the rest of the Consortium had rolled into Kondorra, and they would do nothing now. His was the face of the future. This pathetic flailing below him was the last gasp of the past.

  “Should eat them now.”

  The face of the future gave a decidedly unbecoming gasp of surprise.

  Bruthrax laughed as he swept past over Kithrax’s right shoulder. Considering the size of the massive red brute, he could be surprisingly quiet.

  “Should just go down there,” Bruthrax said. “End it now.”

  Kithrax could not quite restrain himself from snapping at Bruthrax in anger.

  “I’d enjoy eating some of them,” Bruthrax went on, ignoring Kithrax. “Always fight on an empty stomach, that’s what I say.”

  Kithrax got himself under control. He flapped up to fly parallel with Bruthrax, a sleek shadow to Bruthrax’s crimson bulk. “That,” he hissed over the wind, “is because you’re a fucking moron.”

  Bruthrax laughed easily. “Without a doubt.”

  Kithrax grit his teeth, and tried to explain using very small words. “We are above them. We are like gods to them. They are puny. They do not concern us. If, for a moment, they start to think they do, then this sort of shit”—he snorted fire at the masses below—“will become the norm. They can hiss and spit, and fuss like little infants, but we will ignore them.”

  “Like you ignore Horrax?” Bruthrax laughed again, like thunder in the sky.

  Kithrax ground his teeth again, harder this time. “I have my limits. Do you wish to find them?”

  Bruthrax executed a lazy, carefree barrel roll. “You think you’re above all of us,” he said. “I get that. It’s okay.” A shrug rolled the length of his sinuous body. “But you’re not. You’re down in the shit with Horrax. Just like all of us.” He swooped down toward the gathered troops. “Shit like this will keep on happening. They’ll keep on fighting. It’s stupid and pointless, but so is life. It’s probably especially stupid and pointless for the people living under your rule.”

  He rolled away.

  Kithrax knew he should abstain from sniping and bickering. It was below him. But he was tired, and offended by Horrax, and Bruthrax, and the poxy little prophet below him. “I’ll gnaw the resistance out of their guts,” he snapped.

  Bruthrax cast a glance back over his shoulder, circled Kithrax once in a slow circle. “Then you’ll end up having to kill them all, and you’ll rule over nobody. Though perhaps you’d prefer that.”

  And with that he flapped away.

  71

  The Third Day

  Will was already getting dressed when Lette woke in their cot the next morning. He was dressed as plainly as ever, a rough work shirt, dull brown britches, leather boots that had seen better days. A farmer. A young farmer even. In his early twenties. And he was about to lead ten thousand men into battle. And they didn’t even know it.

  “Good morning,” she slurred through the last vestiges of sleep.

  He turned, looked at her, smiled. “Good morning,” he said. “At least, well… I suppose the morning is all right. But by midday we should be in position. Which means a lot of maneuvering to make sure everyone is where we need them to be. And it’ll take the Consortium army time to get organized. So I suppose it will be a little after midday when we enroll in their army. So I guess the morning—”

  “Will?” She cut him off. He was adorable still, but his nervous rambling was too much.

  “Yes?” He pulled himself back from the brink of mental chaos.

  “Where were you last night?” The tent had been empty when she had come to bed close to midnight. And she had fallen asleep before he came back.

  “Oh,” he said. “Talking to Cattak. He was coordinating. Getting Quirk’s merchant’s wagon ready. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but he is a surprisingly crafty man. Heart of an artist.”

  “Hmm.” She nodded. “Will?” she said again.

  He had bent to pull on his second boot. He looked up at her. “Yes?”

  “Why would anyone need lead from the roofs of three temples two days before a battle?”

  She watched him carefully. The way his brow furrowed. The way he looked away from her, down at his boot. He tugged it on hard and sharp.

  “No idea,” he said. “Why?”

  “Because that was what was looted the night before last.”

  “Oh.” He stared off at the tent flap. “No idea.” He shrugged. “Hope perhaps. Or belief. Planning for a day after today.” He smiled. “That would be nice.”

  Despite herself, she smiled as well. That would indeed be nice. The idea of a future. Of quiet times. Of days that weren’t full of marching and fear.

  But those thoughts were a trap.

  “Cattak was a looter,” she said, leaning back on the bed, stretching broadly.

  He didn’t start. Didn’t jerk around. No sign of surprise at all.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what Quirk told me. But he’s reformed now.”

  That’s what Quirk told me.

  So he assumed she had gone to Quirk. Which of course she had. And if he had expected that, he could have expected this question. Which could explain the lack of reaction to her questions.

  It could…

  She decided to push it, show her hand completely. What would she be losing at this point? A few hours of companionship?

  “Quirk said she didn’t see Cattak when she was working on the dragon skull.”

  He did move at that. A grim certainty set in. The fucking liar. She prepared to beat the truth out of him.

  “Shhhh!” he hissed at her. He stepped toward where she was lying.

  Lette hesitated, caught off-balance. What was he—

  “Don’t talk about the skull,” he whispered, bending down to place lips so close to her ear that his breath tickled. “We don’t know who’s listening. And no, she wouldn’t have seen him. She was putting all the bones together. He was off slaughtering and stripping cows down to the bone.”

  An explanation for everything. Simple and neat.

  Too neat?

  Maybe, but it seemed a step beyond Will to have planned that far. And what could he hope to gain from deception anyway?

  Sell one of us out to save his own skin. They don’t know who the prophet is. They don’t know it’s supposed to be him. He could go over there, sell out Balur. Sell out me. He’d have me surrounded by the enemy. A lot of gold would go his way…

  She pushed the voice away. If Will’s plan was betrayal, if the plan died, if they didn’t try the plan… all the outcomes were the same.

  So whatever the plan was, whether it was what he said it was or not, she might as well go forward anyway.

  Will sat up, tousled her hair. “Stop worrying,” he said. “We’re totally going to see five dragons die today. It’ll be great.” And with that, he slipped away.

  The morning passed much as Will had predicted. He had let Firkin loose among the crowd, and the old man was in fine fettle, screeching out words of praise as he staggered through their numbers, a wineskin swinging from his hand.

  “Say they can rain down fire on us, do these dragons. Didn’t see Dathrax raining anything down. Just saw him raining down. In little pieces. All chopped up by the prophet he was.” Even Firkin’s hiccups and belches rang out over the crowd’s noise.

  “Bunch of fat liars!” he screeched. “Bet their fire is a lie! Couldn’t roast a sausage if their lives depended on it. And they’ll depend on more than sausag
es tonight! Will depend on us! And we’re not dependable! Can only depend on us to go stabby-stab-stab.” He thrust his wineskin at the heavens. Wine slopped down onto him. He licked at it as it dripped down his chin and into his beard.

  “Liberation! Reparation! Inebriation!” Voices rose with his, chanting. Lette wondered if the crowd knew what they were saying.

  A man elbowed her. “Why ain’t you singing.”

  “Because I’m not a fucking idiot,” she told him, and as his face curdled, put a fist into it.

  She went to find Balur instead.

  He was perched on the back of Quirk’s thaumatic cart, searching through piles of armor and jewelry as it trundled along. The whole crowd was wheeling around to the east, to put the river Kon at their backs. It was a poor defensive position, truth be told, but Will’s hope was that it would provoke the Consortium army into forming up to the west. And as there was no plan to actually fight, the poor defensive position didn’t really matter. It just provided a buffer zone to exist between the armies while they put their plan into action.

  Balur plucked a bejeweled helmet from the back of the cart and held it up to her. “It is being some farmer’s family heirloom,” he said. “The old man had been hiding it from the dragons for thirty years. Then he was hearing about a prophet, and was getting some hope, and was giving it up like it was his redheaded stepchild.” He perched it on top of his head. “Is it making me look prophetic?”