by Bruce Blake
The thing with the split in its white, fleshy mask stared right at him, the pale skin gone from the features what hid beneath. No doubt he gazed upon a face what'd belonged to a man. Despite the blood coverin' cheeks and forehead and nose, he felt a spark o' familiarity in his chest what flared enough to make its way into his noggin, too.
Before he scrutinized the blood-soaked face, the others grabbed it, pulled it down toward the ground and outta his line o' sight. Horace's heart skipped a beat or two, knowin' he should've recognized them eyes but unable to place them.
He shook his head, put the thought from mind. The things what wanted to kill and eat him had given him the opportunity to.
XLI Rilum – Now
The second other slammed into them and once-was-Rilum heard another snap, but recognized the sound didn't come from him. His leg made the first noise. Even now, as he stood fighting with his companions over this man his mind called 'father', the jagged ends of the broken bone grated and ground together, pain like he'd never experienced shooting along his thigh.
For the first time in forever, he sensed the specter of a life before, an age before the white gauze cowl inhibited his vision and satiating the hunger meant everything. An existence somewhere other than this forest. Visions of water washed through his mind, the sounds of waves against wood, and the screech of gulls. Heat on his face, rain on his cheeks, the pang of loss in his heart.
Heart.
The tasty muscle found in the chest, but it wasn't the tissue itself aching so, was it? A bit of flesh and sinew didn't experience such things; that came from somewhere else. How long since he'd felt any ache other than the hunger? How long since his life included the bouquet of oiled boards, the flavor of brine on his lips, the freedom of open water and endless sky?
One of his companions caught him off guard, a sharp talon finding its way along his face from forehead to chin. He jerked back, so it only grazed him, but it found him enough to split his flesh. Blood rushed into his mouth, threatening to choke him. It stung his eyes.
The sensations gave him pause. He blinked.
Blinked.
The white gauze disappeared from his vision, color returning to the trees and leaves, the glimpses of sky peeking through the boughs overhead. He spat the coppery taste from between his lips, a long string of thick, bloody saliva falling onto his chin, dangling. His eyelids flitted again; he looked past his companions trying to kill him, and his eyes met those of the man. Memories and feelings rushed into once-was-Rilum, some invigorating him, others crushing him, the sum of them so tangled and indecipherable they became nothing more than a knotted ball clogging his chest.
He saw him clearly, knew him.
He wondered if his father recognized him, too. Would he come to his rescue? Protect him from death at the hands of his former companions?
Before the father turned his back on him to flee, once-was-Rilum understood these weren't possibilities. The others would tear him to pieces in the blink of an eye. No, this was his opportunity to save the old sailor.
And so the pale abomination once and again the son of Horace Seaman didn't experience the same heartbreak as when his father left him before. This time when the man turned his back on him, he determined to ensure his survival.
The two others grabbed his shoulders, dragged him to the ground. Once-and-again Rilum let them, his mind and body set on ending their existence though it meant the end of his own.
He clamped his jaw, growled in the depths of his chest, and flashed his talons out at the throats of his companions.
XLII Teryk - Memory
With the tall man's hand on his shoulder, the words they spoke became clear, as when Ailyssa laid her fingers on him. He hadn't expected it to be so; Juddah touched him without the same effect, but the slender man—whom the others called Ive—placed his grip as though he understood its ability to help him comprehend. As soon as the word left the one-armed fellow's lips, he realized he'd spoken his name. After not knowing it or his history, not understanding those around him, he possessed an identity, a story.
"Teryk? Is that me?"
"You are Teryk, prince of the Windward Kingdom. And I am Trenan. Do you remember?"
The Windward Kingdom.
Scraps of memory filtered through the haze clouding his mind from the moment he recalled Juddah pulling him out of the surf. He found a shred of familiarity in the face of the one-armed man, a sense of safety and warmth when he gazed upon him. Without a doubt, he knew him, and he'd been someone important in his life.
His eyes moved from the grizzled warrior to the two young women seated on the log. The younger of them didn't kindle the same feelings in him as the fellow calling himself Trenan, but then his gaze found the second woman. His heart jumped in his chest and a word struggled its way to his lips.
"Danya."
Where the name might have come from, or what it should mean, eluded him, but the woman's reaction made it plain it belonged to her. Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to speak. The muscles in her legs flexed as though she meant to stand but an impediment held her back from doing so.
"Teryk. Thank the gods."
"It appears the young prince lost has found his way again," Ive said, his grip on Teryk's arm tightening until it caused pain. "Does anyone care to remind him why we find ourselves in the last place we should want to be? Or will the task also fall to me?"
"The scroll, Teryk," Danya said. "Do you remember the scroll?"
He narrowed his eyes, concentrating. His mind tingled, the answers he searched for beyond his reach, taunting him. He recalled a cavernous room made of marble. Statues towered along one side, a lectern stood at the far end. The image wavered, then he saw Danya standing by the rostrum, her hands leaning on it, holding open a scroll threatening to roll itself back up if she let go. Behind her lingered the woman he'd seen in a foggy, near-forgotten vision of fire falling from the sky.
Rak'bana.
It came to him unbidden and unexpected but he realized it belonged to her, as he now understood himself to be Teryk, the prince.
"The firstborn of the rightful king," he muttered, no more understanding of where those words emerged from than about the name Rak'bana.
"Yes," Ive said. "And do you remember what it means?"
Teryk stared straight ahead, his breath shallow as he concentrated harder. His gaze crawled from Danya with her look of expectancy to Trenan, his visage unreadable. Fellick shifted, moving toward the one-armed man, positioning himself between the soldier and the princess. Beyond the unfamiliar people, at the top of a short hill, stood the men in black robes who'd killed Juddah and forced Ailyssa away. They remained motionless, arms raised to the sides to form a rough circle around a group of mounted warriors. None of them moved, but the sight of the shadowy figures tied a knot of anger in his gut. Now he recalled his name, he realized the connection he and Ailyssa shared came after everything else—she hadn't been a part of his life. But she'd been the only person to help him when he found himself lost, and she was gone.
"Teryk?" Ive prompted, pulling him out of his trance.
"I am the firstborn child of the rightful king, prophesied to save the kingdom from the return of the Small Gods."
His heart swelled as he spoke, and a lifetime of experience and emotion flooded into him. How many times can a son disappoint a father? Words sharp as knives had injured him time and time again, expressions of discouragement, accusations of failure. He'd never grow in the king's shadow and his kin before him, didn't expect to have a chance to until he and Danya discovered the scroll. Now the opportunity to prove himself existed. After losing his way, forgetting his identity and purpose, and finding himself locked up in Juddah's barn, these revelations laid out a distinct future ahead of him.
He sat straighter, pulled his shoulders back. A smile tilted his lips. He'd save the kingdom and show everyone his value, leave his father no choice but to be proud of him.
"There's but a small problem, right, Trenan?" Ive
raised his hand, a dagger Teryk hadn't seen him draw held loosely in his finger. He pointed it toward the one-armed man. The master swordsman glared at him.
"What's he talking about?"
Trenan's eyes found the prince, his expression softened, but he chose not to answer. The weapons merchant clicked his tongue twice, shook his head in mock disappointment.
"You don't want me to tell him, do you? I feel it's better if it comes from you. What do you think, swordmaster?"
Trenan didn't speak, so Teryk turned his attention to Danya.
"What does he mean?"
She shrugged, but the set of her mouth and the tilt of her brows suggested she might know.
They're lying. None of them believe I can save the kingdom.
He rose, arms and legs flooded with the adrenalin of anger. Wasn't it demeaning enough his father didn't judge him capable of being a man? Now his sister and the soldier who'd raised and trained him had lost faith in him, too... if they'd ever had it.
"Tell me what he's talking about, Trenan. I command it."
The master swordsman lowered his eyes, bowed his head.
"My prince," he said so quietly Teryk strained to discern his words. "You are not the firstborn child of the king."
For an instant, the statement made little sense, and he thought Ive might have broken contact with him, but he felt his grip on his shoulder—looser, but present. Understanding dawned as he remembered things he had no right to remember, and Teryk's brow furrowed, his jaw tightened.
"What are you talking about? Explain yourself."
Trenan inhaled a slow, deep breath between his lips, let it out the same way. "The king is not your father, Teryk." He paused, swallowed hard. "I am."
Everything took on a red hue around him. His pulse beat in his ears. He looked from the soldier to Fellick, then Evalal, and finally Danya. None of them appeared as surprised as they should have been. Suddenly, his life made sense. A recollection of a hidden courtyard passed through his thoughts. He let it go.
"Does he know?"
"I..." Trenan began but then stopped, seeming to reconsider his response.
"Does he know?"
"He doesn't, but I believe he has always suspected."
Muddled, painful memories congealed in his mind. Everything fell together: his father's derisive comments; his parents' obvious preferential treatment of Danya; the care with which Trenan had trained him. His lips pressed into a bloodless white slash across his face, his eyes narrowed. The master swordsman might have looked after him, taught him and watched out for him, but he'd also deceived him for his entire life.
I'm not the firstborn. The prophecy isn't about me.
His lower jaw moved forward and back, grinding his teeth as his mind unwound the deceptions of everyone he'd ever held dear like unrolling a tangled ball of yarn. He recalled stolen glances between Trenan and his mother, unnoticed when they happened but living in his subconscious. He remembered his father's unearned flashes of anger, the stealthy looks, whispers and laughter of the queen's guards when he walked past. Even Fellick and Ive knew, and he didn't remember them being part of his life.
Did everyone know this secret? Everyone but him?
I have been such a fool.
He'd believed the words inscribed on the scroll capable of redeeming him, offering him the path he longed for to prove himself. But the dream lay dead, stolen from him by the people who said they loved him but lied to him for so long.
His chest tightened, his breath shortened. Trenan spoke, drawing his attention, but the pounding of his heart in his ears hid the words from Teryk. He dragged his gaze away from the treacherous swordmaster, past the squat and powerful Fellick, the lithe, concerned Evalal, until his stare rested upon his sister. Her mouth moved, but to him it made no sound. He recognized his name from the way she shaped her lips, nothing else.
He continued staring at her, his mind working through his rising anger, his disappointment. If Trenan sired him, then he wasn't the heir to the throne, and the scroll did not refer to him. The revelation placed Danya as firstborn and destined to save the kingdom while he languished. With the truth out, the king would disown him...if he let him live.
"How could you do this?" he said, the question rumbling in his throat.
Danya's eyes widened, her head moved side to side. Her lips continued shaping words but Teryk heard nothing over the roar in his ears as his anger hardened into rage.
"You stole it from me. I'm meant to be the world's savior. Me."
He leaped forward, his body taking over and moving of its own accord. He snatched the knife from Ive's hand with so little effort, he might have thought the man handed it to him. His bare foot fell on a sharp rock sending pain shooting through his sole; he ignored it, the sensation suffocated by his blinding anger.
The world around him slowed.
Trenan stood, face contorted and mouth open wide as he shouted unintelligibly to Teryk. Fellick shifted, blocking the master swordsman. Evalal's body tensed, but she remained as unable to move as Danya beside her.
Teryk's vision narrowed, everyone disappearing from his view as it dwindled until he saw his sister, the blade in his hand, and nothing else. He heard naught but his heart slamming against his ribs, felt only the rage coursing through his limbs and filling his chest, thought about how his destiny—his one chance at a meaningful life—had been wrenched from him.
The point of the dagger pierced the skin of his sister's—half-sister's—throat. A tiny mist of blood fell onto the blade as it slid deeper. Her face twisted, surprise leaving it as it transformed into a mask of sadness, pain, disappointment.
I won't disappoint anyone anymore.
The full length of the knife thrust into her neck until the hilt pressed against her and the tip broke the skin on the opposite side. Danya convulsed, blood bubbling at the corners of her mouth. She stared into her brother's eyes, unspeakable dismay glistening at the edges of her eyelids. Her lips moved as though she wanted to speak, but her words became a cough spraying crimson droplets across Teryk's hand and forearm. Sticky redness ran along her chin; she coughed again, choking on her own life-giving fluid.
Teryk yanked the knife out of her throat, a thick, red gout following it out, running down her neck and staining her shirt. He took a step back, his vision of everything around him opening again. Beside Danya, Evalal's mouth hung wide, her face twisted as she wailed. Farther to his left, Trenan struggled against Fellick's hold to no avail. His sister teetered in her seat for a few heartbeats, tears spilling from her eyes, tinting pink as they mingled with the blood on her chin and jaw.
She shifted, her shoulder tilting toward him, as though she wanted to reach out and touch her brother, but her bindings prevented her from doing so. Her expression betrayed a longing to connect one more time. Teryk glared at her, batted her attempt away, his anger not in the slightest satisfied despite the bloodletting.
She pitched forward onto the ground, head coming to rest against his ankle. Blood gushed from her throat, splashing across his feet and turning the dirt to grisly mud.
Teryk lowered the knife and watched her life draining from her. The rage in his chest drained away along with it, his awareness of sounds returning—Evalal's sorrowful wail, Trenan saying the princess' name, Ive clicking his tongue.
"Tch, tch, tch. Look what's happened here. No more firstborn child. A shame, I say. A shame."
Vaguely aware he understood the man's words when he shouldn't, the blade slipped out of Teryk's slackened hand, thudded against the ground beside his foot. He crouched, used his fingers to brush the hair plastered to his sister's forehead away from her face and looked into her eyes staring ahead, her life flickering out in them like a candle in a stiff wind.
"Danya?" He stroked her cheek with his fingertips. "Danya?"
His rage disappeared, the memories of disappointments and failures displaced by adventures they'd gone on together, laughter shared. None of the blame for this belonged to her—she didn't c
hoose who fathered him, or that she'd be the chosen named in the prophecy. It wasn't her hand which inscribed the ancient words upon the scroll, nor did she leave it for them to find. Truly, she loved him and supported him whenever he needed her, when no one else did. And now he'd betrayed her, ended her life.
"What have I done?"
Teryk leaned forward until his forehead touched his sister's. The energy she'd always possessed, the light that shone from within her, disappeared, extinguished by his instant of unfathomable, unreasonable anger. His heart shrank inside his chest, tightening, shortening his breath until tears ran from his eyes.
"What have I done?"
XLIII Vesisdenperos - Return
The sculptor opened his eyes as though waking from a long sleep, but understood this wasn't the case. His eyelids didn't open, but his awareness, his consciousness. For many cycles of the moon he'd hidden within his clay creation, carried around like a satchel full of essential contents waiting for the proper time to be untethered and used. Did the golem itself realize he dwelt inside it, dormant, awaiting his summons? Doubtful. The sculpture likely knew nothing beyond his assigned duty: retrieve the Small God and return with him to Teva Stavoklis.
Many things returned with his sight and awareness. A group of priests made up the circle, gathered around an ancient stone and wood altar where a figure lay. A chanted incantation rang in his ears and drops of rain splattered on the hard clay surrounding his consciousness. Beside him stood Kuneprius, his friend and mentor, the closest thing he'd ever had to a father. An agonized and despairing expression twisted his features as his hands came down, plunging the knife they held into the chest of the gray man lying on the holy table.
In that instant, Vesisdenperos realized the significance and timing of his wakefulness. This prone figure before him was a Small God from behind the Green, the very thing he and Kuneprius dedicated their entire lives to retrieving.