Spirit of the King kj-2

by Bruce Blake

  Fear becomes panic. I want to call out, but I know it will be worse if I make a fuss-he’s told me so before. He steps toward my bed and I see him more clearly. He’s naked. My muscles tense like they know what will happen. The man speaks in a low, growly sound forming words I should understand but don’t. He kneels beside me and I see his face.

  I’m his daughter, but this is not my father.

  Tears roll down my cheeks. Over his shoulder, the shape of the black-cloaked figure looms. I move my mouth to ask for help and this father-not-father slaps me across the face. The figure doesn’t come to my aid as the man lays his naked body on top of mine. Perhaps the figure isn’t real, but a trick in the dimness.

  I choke on the sickly-sweet odor of sweat and leather as the man’s weight presses down uncomfortably. I close my eyes, clench my jaw and pretend I’m somewhere else.

  ***

  This new room is very different than the last. Many colored silk pillows are scattered about the room, some of them spilled over and off a comfortable-looking blue divan, most tossed here and there around the floor. Tapestries woven in purple and gold adorn three walls while a floor to ceiling sheet of polished silver dominates the fourth. I’m drawn to it; it’s my first opportunity to get a sense of who I am, if not who I was. I stand before it and see my red hair and green eyes, the ripped dress hanging off one shoulder. I’m a young girl now, though older than the girl I was in the other room that let sunlight in through the cracks in the wall. Looking at myself, I see a scratch on my cheek, a welt on my shoulder, and other pains reveal themselves as well. The one between my legs dominates.

  I look around the room, suddenly scared. Is the man here?

  He’s not, but a woman I hadn’t noticed stands near the door. She would be beautiful but for the scar where her nose should be. Her nostrils are black holes in her flat face, giving her a porcine look. My thoughts linger on this until I see the riding crop she taps against her thigh impatiently.

  “You have defied the king. He is displeased.”

  I should respond but don’t know what to say. Perhaps plead for mercy, but it doesn’t seem like something I’d do, so I don’t. The woman strides toward me. Her dress is of light blue silk inlaid with golden flowers and hugs tight to her narrow hips like a child afraid to be left alone. I step away but the mirrored wall is behind me.

  “He’ll be here soon and you’ll be punished.”

  She taps the crop hard against her thigh to emphasize her words, cringing slightly at the pain she causes herself. Despite the way her scarred face makes her look and the threat inherent in her words, her tone is filled with tenderness, like she speaks words she doesn’t want to say but must. We stand for a minute, she tapping the crop against her leg, me looking for a way to escape through the solid mirror. I hold my breath; her lips form a hard line beneath her ruined nose but her eyes look perched on the edge of tears.

  The door swings open and a man strides into the room. The woman ceases tapping her thigh with the crop.

  “Bow before your king,” she demands, tenderness gone from her voice.

  I genuflect as commanded but can’t take my eyes off this king. He wears a robe of black velvet so long it drags on the floor behind. There are many colors embroidered on it-silver and gold and green and red-too many to count. But it isn’t the splendid robe which pins my gaze to the man, it’s his face. This is the same man who visited me in the other room, but this time I’m not his daughter and he’s not my father.

  And yet he’s the same man.

  The woman approaches, mouth pulled down in a theatrical frown making her look more like a pig. She brandishes the crop as she speaks.

  “Turn around and receive your punishment.”

  I do what she says because I have no other choice. Outside this room are men with swords and spears, men who’d rape me and kill me if I tried to flee. I face the mirror and my breath fogs its surface. Through the mist, I see the man. His arms are crossed in front of his chest, he wears a satisfied look on his face. Beside him stands the black-cloaked figure, but he doesn’t notice. The harbinger exists in my imagination.

  The woman pulls up the hem of my dress, hiking it up to my waist to expose my bare buttocks. In the reflection, I see her raise the crop. The king smiles.

  “You won’t bite me unless I ask next time, will you?” he says.

  The riding crop slaps my naked flesh. The force of the blow pushes me forward to hit my head on the mirror. I cringe and squeeze my eyes tight shut but I won’t cry.

  I won’t give him the satisfaction.

  ***

  It’s not a room this time but a chamber carved of stone and lit by a strange luminescence which seems to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. It’s beautiful, the way the shifting light shines on the smooth white walls-blue to pink to green-but I don’t have time to appreciate it because there are people in the chamber, things are happening. I take it all in with a quick glance, but my eyes stop on the figure at my feet.

  The man.

  There’s a weapon in my hand. He seems unconscious.

  I’m guarding him, though I don’t know why. I stare at him, hatred brewing inside me. I want to use the sword to punish him for the things he’s done to me but something keeps me from it. Against my will, I turn away from him and toward the others in the chamber. It feels as though I’m the participant in a dream with no control over my actions. I’m observing, no more.

  The others in the room are engaged in some sort of ritual. A man with a scarred face and blond ponytail kneels before an old man with a long beard. The third man wears the clothes of a soldier. I should know two of them, but names and happenings are beyond me.

  Like the other places, I’ve been here before.

  I forget it all when a dagger plunges into my leg. Startled, I drop the sword and sink to the floor, grasping my wound. The man I’d been guarding-the man who raped me and beat me, the man who was my father and my king-steps away and pulls bow and arrow from his back. He releases two arrows. There are cries, then blackness and light. I struggle to my knees and see him looming over the man dressed like a soldier lying on the floor. The old man is gone, the scarred man doesn’t move to help.

  “Help him,” I want to scream but still have no control.

  The man he threatens is important to me. The dream makes me rise to my feet and lurch across the room. Blood trickles down my leg as the muscle works around the blade planted in it.

  The pain is excruciating.

  The man raises his sword, ready to strike, and I pounce on him, but he’s strong. He pushes me away and opens a wound in me from hip to shoulder. The soldier lying on the floor stares at me, face twisted by shock and outrage. The man who cut me leers at me before my strength leaves and I slump to the floor.

  Something else happens in the chamber, but I don’t know what. My experience is of pain and blood and the realization that he’s killed me. Light fades. I attempt concentrating on the dim figures of the men to ground myself, to keep myself there, and notice the cloaked figure standing behind them, watching. Eventually the darkness wins. I hope to return to the endless field and the boundless blue sky.

  But there is nothing.

  ***

  The time it takes for the black to become white seems considerably shorter than last time. The fact it seems anything at all is a vast improvement. The black-cloaked figure already stands before me when my eyes begin to work. I stare for a while, waiting for this person to do or say something, but silence remains. I want to speak but don’t attempt it-my voice has already failed me too many times. The figure floats in the white nothing. After a time, I give in and am surprised to find I have a voice.

  “Who are you?”

  “One who cares about you, child.” It’s a woman’s voice.

  My chest is tight; tears threaten at the memories of the things I’ve just seen, of the things done to me. I feel there’s more, that these visions were but a small part of the wrongs this man did me. />
  “Why am I here?”

  Without moving, she is suddenly beside me, crouching. “I have shown you why you are here. You are dead.”

  “You showed me?”

  The cowl rocks forward and back. “Yes, child.”

  I take a deep, shuddering breath and taste her perfume on my tongue. I want to be mad at her for what she showed me, but I can’t; my rage at the man in the visions is greater.

  “Why did you do this to me?”

  “Because you have the right to know,” she says. She caresses my cheek with the knuckle of one finger. “You have the right to know who did those things to you. He yet lives while you languish in this purgatory.”

  The tightness in my chest becomes anger, boiling and festering and aching to break free. The scenes flash through my mind again, those and others. My teeth grind, my breath becomes short, forceful bursts spilling from my nostrils.

  “You would like vengeance on this man, would you not?” Her voice is gentle, caring, and my anger at the man increases with the sound of it. I nod feeling the cords in my neck strain with the movement. “I can send you back to find him.”

  “Yes,” I hiss through my teeth. “Yes.” My fists clench into balls in my lap.

  “Good.”

  The black cloaked figure stands, reaches beneath her long robe and pulls out a sword. It gleams with unseen light as she lays the blade on my shoulder. I don’t pull away from the dangerous-looking edge; I know she won’t hurt me.

  She’s here to save me.

  “Who is this man?”

  “You are called Shariel,” she says ignoring my question. “It is not what your name was before, but you are no longer that person, that victim. Now you are strong. You are my angel of retribution.”

  Somehow she has flipped the sword around without my notice and offers me the hilt. I take it in both hands and hold the sword before me like a sacred item. Steel, the fifth God-the warrior God-forced out by his brothers and sisters, all but forgotten long ages ago. This blade will help me avenge all the wrongs done me and others. The man is the embodiment of all things wicked. As my anger grows, so does my pride, for I’ve been chosen to punish him for the evil he’s brought to the world. The sword feels good in my hands. I swing it once, testing its weight, and I’m pleased.

  “How will I find him? Who is he?”

  “He will come to you, child,” the black-cloaked woman says, standing at my side. I replace the sword in the scabbard somehow hanging at my belt, but I don’t bother to wonder how it got there. “I will make sure of that.”

  My hand touches the spot on my torso where he cut me open and spilled my life on the floor of the underground chamber. My fingers feel a ridge of scar, a reminder of what the man did to me. Anger blossoms anew.

  “Who is he?”

  “He is a devil incarnate,” she says, her voice unnaturally calm. “And his name is Khirro.”

  Chapter Seven

  The sound of the river had become a murmur, still noticeable but fading with each step carrying it farther into the distance. Khirro hacked at a tangle of brush, wishing he didn’t have to but accepting there was no other way through. He still remembered the one-eyed mercenary torn apart in a field of Lakeshi grass, and each time his sword contacted a branch or bush, he wondered if this was the time he’d meet a similar fate. Also, if they were being watched as Athryn believed, the noise of clearing a path would make them easy to follow. A droplet of sweat rolled over Khirro’s brow into his eye; he wiped it away on his sleeve.

  “We should make our way back to the river,” he said over his shoulder to the magician following close behind.

  “I agree it would be easier, but it is not safe.”

  “Nothing is safe in this cursed land.”

  Khirro swung the Mourning Sword again and the thicket fell away, opening onto a small clearing circled by tall fir and hemlock. He hesitated at the edge as Athryn stepped up beside him. Something didn’t seem right. The ground was too clear, the circle too round, like something other than the Gods created it.

  “Something is peculiar,” Athryn said, putting words to Khirro’s feeling. Far behind them, leaves rattled and a branch snapped. They both glanced back then looked at each other.

  “We have no choice,” Khirro said.

  Athryn nodded. They stepped across the brink between forest and clearing and Khirro wished again they’d discovered the secret to Athryn’s powers. The magician claimed he knew, but he hesitated to share. Spilling Khirro’s blood had almost worked, but making the air shimmer in the shape of a tyger wasn’t enough to keep them from danger.

  But what is it he won't share?

  They crept into the clearing, their steps silenced by a thick carpet of decaying needles beneath their boots. No rocks lay strewn on the ground in the open expanse, no branches fallen from the trees overhead. And no sound. The trees didn’t hide chirping birds; insects didn’t buzz about their heads.

  It’s autumn, almost winter. The bugs are done, the birds have gone south.

  His thoughts lacked the ring of truth and did little to ease his discomfort.

  “Someone created this place, Khirro,” Athryn said.

  The air around them seemed to swallow his words as soon as they cleared his lips. Khirro nodded and eyed the brush growing to the edge of the clearing so thick, it gave the impression they’d entered an outdoor room bounded by leafy walls. The area was symmetrical, a perfect circle. Even the branches of the trees overhead stopped precisely at the edge of the circle, allowing the autumn sky to peer down on them like an unblinking gray eye.

  “We should not stay here.”

  The brush behind them rustled, confirming Athryn’s words. Khirro looked back and saw nothing, not even the shiver of a leaf. Unease made his head feel light. This was no giant following them, no animal, but something else he couldn’t begin to imagine.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  Athryn hurried ahead across the clearing toward the far side and Khirro followed, the Mourning Sword in hand ready to clear the way. As they approached the wall of brush, Athryn pointed.

  “Look there.”

  Khirro’s gaze followed the magician’s finger and saw what he indicated: an opening in the thicket, a spot where the growth was thinner, perhaps easier to get through.

  An old trail.

  Athryn plunged ahead into the forest with Khirro hard on his heels. The ground was smooth and level beneath their feet, free of rocks and roots, making the going easier and faster than it had been before.

  They ran without looking back for a while, hoping to put some distance between themselves and whatever pursued them, leaving behind the unnatural clearing. Khirro held the Mourning Sword in his right hand but didn’t need to use it. No branches whipped his face, no thorns plucked his clothes. For a small, seemingly unused trail that looked overgrown a moment before, it quickly became easy going. After a few minutes, Khirro checked over his shoulder to see if their pursuers were within sight but saw nothing.

  Not even the trail behind them.

  Fear flared in Khirro as he thought again of the field of tall grass that took the life of the one-eyed mercenary and came close to taking his, too.

  The path was closing behind them, sealing them in the forest.

  He looked to the front again, at Athryn running just ahead of him, but couldn’t see past. Straining and stretching as he ran, he peered around his companion and saw that the path appeared to open around them, a vague line before them widening to let them through, then closing again after they passed.

  We’re being herded like animals. But where?

  “Athryn, wait,” he called, already slowing his pace. There was no way for the magician to know the trail was closing behind them. “Something’s wrong.”

  The magician turned his head, blond ponytail bouncing against his back, and opened his mouth to reply. Then he disappeared.

  Khirro skidded to a halt at the edge of the pit, toes dangling over the lip and sending dirt c
ascading into darkness below. If he hadn’t slowed, he would have followed his companion into its depths.

  “Athryn!”

  He fell to his knees a safe distance from the edge lest the ground give way and spill him into the hole. Khirro squinted, struggling to see his friend, but couldn’t. Snarled roots held together the earthen sides that fell away into absolute blackness, deeper than he could see. A woven mat of vines and branches still hid a portion of the opening.

  A trap.

  “Athryn.” Khirro lay on his belly, head hung over the edge. “Athryn. Are you all right?”

  A groan, quiet but distinct, floated up to Khirro on the earthy smell of loam and dirt. He breathed a relieved sigh-his companion had survived the fall. Now he had to hope he wasn’t badly injured and find a way to get him out.

  But who would set a trap in the middle of the forest? In Lakesh.

  The Mourning Sword still in hand, Khirro put his hands palms down at shoulder width on the loamy earth, readying himself to stand and intending to search for vines to braid into a rope with which to pull Athryn out.

  The feel of fingers gripping his ankles stopped him, surprised and suddenly afraid. He twisted, trying to break free and glimpsed a flash of inhuman green skin-so green it was difficult to discern from the leafy background or believe he’d seen it at all.

  And then Khirro tumbled into the hole, pushed by the green hands, and light and autumn sky receded above him.

  Chapter Eight

  Therrador crept from the tunnel and replaced its camouflaged cover, déja vu sending a shiver through him. The last time he used this method to slip out of the fortress, he’d gone to the salt flats and met with a woman he didn't know at the time was the Archon, and she'd revealed Graymon’s abduction. He gritted his teeth, determined this foray would yield a very different result.

  This time he stole from the fortress to get his son back.

  He paused and looked across the flat land toward the Kanosee camp fires-closer now than they were before. The Archon had moved her camp as close to the walls as seemed prudent given the Erechanians' fear of the undead soldiers that made up a portion of its troops.