Eulogy

by D. T. Conklin

  Part Four

  Yes, now we come to what he was.

  Ark was the Prophet.

  There. I said it.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Two days later not a single wave rippled in Skuven Bay. The Wave Spider slid through the water, its hull carving deep and true. Villeen stood at the ship's figurehead, her hand resting on the wooden woman's hips, her eyes to Rippon's approaching docks.

  The sea's calmness offered a strange contrast to what she'd seen.

  Sailors chuckled at her back, displaying their plundered items in rough, seaworn hands—an oak jewelry box, an ancient suit of ringmail, and countless trivialities. They'd spared no mercy for Targ, burned it to the ground and stole everything not nailed down. No villagers remained alive.

  She'd asked for a ship of killers, and Rokand had delivered.

  Yet she'd failed.

  True, her father's instrument had died, but it hadn't drawn out her father. In the second that she'd plunged her blade into his instrument's side, Villeen had felt him. High above, his thread of gentahl had struck like a cornered snake.

  It had lashed down, screaming unintelligibly.

  Then it had vanished.

  From that day to today, nothing had changed. She could've used her gentahl to return to the castle, but she'd needed time to think. So she'd waited beneath the ship's deck for any hint or glimpse to indicate she'd angered her father.

  Nothing—neither whisper nor wail.

  Fluffy white clouds pillowed a blue backdrop. Seagulls cawed and flapped through the sky, and sailors chuckled and grinned in sick satisfaction. Their captain strode amongst them, a wide band of metal hanging from his neck. He'd strangled a woman with it, before he ripped it from her corpse.

  Rippon's moldy docks grew closer with each breath.

  He should've shown himself!

  Should've—a word with very little meaning. Her father should've seen what she did, and he should've reacted in terrible and violent fashion, a battle to shatter the sky, a sorrow to lay it low. He should've let Villeen avenge her brother, and she should've seen an end to his vileness.

  Instead, what did she have?

  Could've.

  She could've done things differently, but she hadn't. Why? Where had she gone wrong? Had Fier been right that it was pointless to kill their father's instrument? So it seemed. The man's death had altered nothing.

  The answer eluded her, ducked amongst her thoughts like a thief in the darkest shadow. In a way, it was pointless to think about. Her fortieth birthday would arrive in less than a week. No time remained.

  What would happen on that day? Fier would know.

  Wave Spider's captain clapped her on the shoulder. "I'd call that a success. We've got their shiny all to ourselves. Ain't no one going to take it. And the best part? Hah! The king approved it. All hail Abennak!"

  Sailors echoed his cheer.

  Wave Spider cut wide, then angled in to run beside the docks. Lines were thrown and knots were knotted. Villeen stepped from the ship, ignored the captain's parting shout, and set off through the streets. Her father's parchment people watched her, their eyes squinted and accusing, as if they knew of her failure. Clothes, little more than rags, hung from skeletal bodies and, next to what was once a butcher's shop, a boy gnawed a bone.

  He looked up and peeled back his lips.

  She swallowed hard. They couldn't have known about her failure.

  Void take me, they can barely even think!

  Rippon's castle loomed ever closer, and she trudged to it with her head low and her cowl pulled tight. She slipped past the gatemen and shoved open the large double doors to the castle. Greenish-brown mold had begun to invade the inner corridors, slippery and moist against her boots.

  Rokand met her at the entrance. He wore his customary uniform, pressed to perfection, but his face was creased into an odd squint. The man itched his forehead, refusing to look her in the eye. "My men saw your ship floundering in the bay. Like a bloated whale, they said. Blasted wind didn't push you very quickly, did it?"

  "Toss your pleasantries to the void, General. Where's my brother?"

  "Come with me." He turned to lead her through the castle, and spoke in a low voice as they neared Abennak's throne room. "Brace yourself, woman. Four or five days is mighty long. Especially here."

  "I don't care. Where's my—"

  "Abennak wanted to see you first."

  "Demon-damn, the man can rot on his pyre!"

  "And he might."

  He gently opened the throne room's door, thrust out his jaw to indicate she should enter, then followed a few paces behind. This room was immune to the city's mold, and the walls had been scrubbed clear, but something had changed. The scent of copper hung heavy, and banners and streamers lined the balconies, hanging in purples and blues and whites.

  Like a celebration.

  Abennak's grainy voice echoed. "Itty bitty girl, come hither dither and wither. Quickly, quickly, or we'll find you a pool of blood. Oh, brilliant! We'll plop it there, by the far column."

  A tall, granite slab dominated the center of the room, blocking her view of him. Wider than two men, it obscured over half the isle, and she squeezed between it and a column.

  "Don't turn," Rokand whispered. "It's not worth the sight."

  "The girls love to swim," Abennak said, and he giggled. "Kara watches their smiles for hours and hours. Wheee!"

  The scent of copper was overpowering. She knew this smell: blood, entrails, death. She'd first encountered it the day she killed her brother, and she remembered it from days ago, when she'd killed her father's instrument.

  What have you done, Abennak?

  She straightened, forcing away her anxiety, and mounted the dais. "Your daughters should be spared no expense, Abennak. They're precious."

  "Yes, precious." He bounced up and down, like a child about to receive his favorite treat. "So precious. And pretty too, yes? They're a twinkling star and star before the sun drives it away. Bastardly sun!"

  She offered a careful nod. "Where's Fie—"

  "Where's your brother?" He pressed the edge of his hand to his forehead, and leaned forward to slowly—ever, ever so slowly—scan the room. "Brother and brother!"

  "I'd hoped you would know."

  "Why is he gone and gone?"

  Gone. Her brother had been sullen and argumentative in the weeks leading to the attack on Targ, but he'd been downright furious on that last day. He'd watched her sail away, his fists clenched in anger, nostrils pinched and bloodless.

  She forced the words from her lips. "Where did he go, Abennak?"

  "Flippity and flappity, he thought he'd see a man about a thing or a thang."

  "Damn you." She took a step closer. To what, slap him? Yes, if she must. This man had always known far more than he revealed. "Tell me!"

  "Calm yourself," Rokand hissed.

  "I miss him," Abennak said. "He'd dance with me in meadows, and we'd catch fireflies. That's a memory, isn't it? Ah, how few of those you have." He grinned, but it wasn't the foolish grin of insanity. It was more, deeper, as if he'd discovered how to shirk off the madness. He laughed at her. "Will you do those things with me?"

  Villeen opened her mouth to answer, clicked it shut. Without Fier's advice, she felt as if she were swimming in liquid ice, teeth chattering, amongst the waves she'd so recently crossed. No sun or moon or stars to guide her. No land in sight. Emptiness. Churning.

  She'd failed to lure out her father. Fier had abandoned her.

  Someone at her back groaned, and she spun.

  One of her father's parchment men lifted his face. He hung from the granite slab, his arms spread wide. Nails had been hammered through his wrists, and blood smeared the stone. Small scratches marred his stomach and, beside him, another man hung, eyes open but lifeless.

  Entrails slopped.

  This isn't what I'd wanted... oh merciful....

  "The king built it the day you left," Rokand said in a low tone. "Your bro
ther took one look at it, spun on his heel, and left. I think he and the king talked later but, if so, I wasn't there."

  The first man groaned again.

  Villeen spun to the Mad King. "Take it down, Abennak."

  "You're too dour," the king said. "Dour! Rokand, bring the assassin. We've business and business, and he'll enjoy these tidbits. They're juicy, like an apple or a melon or a secret."

  The general nodded reluctantly and marched from the room.

  "I'm sorry," Villeen said, eyeing the granite slab. "I can't let this continue. Take it—"

  "Can!" The king clenched the edge of his throne's armrest until his knuckles whitened. His eyes bulged, but he heaved a massive, calming breath. Then, in a weak, pitiful voice, he said, "It's been so long and long, and you promised and promised. Did you kill your father? Is he dead and deader, the deadest?"

  "It wasn't as easy as that."

  "Villeen, I can't... I can't stop the madness, but I hope to control it... I hope so much. I miss them, my Kara and the girls. I can't fail. Won't fail. Just trust me."

  "What will you do?"

  "I'll find him, and I'll end it. I should've done it so long ago, but I couldn't. I didn't have the heart. But who would? Ah, will you trust me? An hour, a day, a year, you'll trust me?"

  She hesitated. He was asking permission to hunt her father. But, if he knew where the Prophet was, why hadn't he told her? What he'd let her do in Targ was a mockery, and now he expected to make it all better? Let the sun shine, the flowers bloom, the smiles stretch wide?

  His madness hadn't receded. It had teetered then plummeted.

  "Time is slip and slipping away," he murmured.

  "How can I trust you? You know everything and say nothing!"

  "Ah, but what is a word if not a memory. And memories... I hold millions. You'll trust me with your life. You'll trust me with all their lives."

  "I—"

  Sanity, feeble though it was, ended.

  Abennak's gentahl slithered through the room like an angry snake, latched onto the parchment man's mind, latched onto Villeen's. So demon-damned powerful. It jerked, wrenched and twisted. Skin flayed from the sacrificed man to plop on the stones in a lagoon of steaming, sticky gore. The man whipped his head back and forth, begging through coarse screams.

  Flesh continued to twitch and bubble.

  "They've all got families," the Mad King muttered. "Pretty little houses. Pretty little lives. I have none, nothing, blank. Your father took it from me. You took it from me."

  "I didn't mean for this!"

  "But you did it all the same."

  The parchment man, though he was her father's toy, didn't deserve torture. Everything Fier had said seemed true. They'd simply enforced their father's plan, but they'd chosen wrong at every junction. Perhaps it was true. She'd come so far, but what remained?

  The Mad King—her first failure.

  No one ever wins. None of us will win.

  Abennak chuckled. "Control... it's such an interesting concept, don't you think?"

  "I—"

  "I know what it is. I've felt it. I've feared it and feared it and feared it. Yet I've used it too. While you were gone, your father whispered to me. He gave me permission to use more."

  "No!"

  Villeen strove to clench her fists, to tighten her face, to stop the overpowering fear that overtook her muscles. She hadn't intended this, hadn't known this. "Abennak, you can't believe what he tells you. His words were born in a sea of venom and hate—"

  "I hate!"

  Abennak again thrust his gentahl, stronger and more furious than ever, into the room, and Villeen trembled at the might of it. Raw, like a mountain spring. Another fragment thudded onto the slab's base, rose into the air, and drifted to his outstretched hand. The parchment man shrieked, but the Mad King caressed the tissue, drew the warm, gooey hunk over his hands like a bar of soap, then scrubbed the arm of his throne with it.

  Bits fell at his feet.

  "Kara always rubbed my shoulders when I was upset." The Mad King shrugged. "No more caressing or laughter. No, there's only hate and pain and agony. Oh, void take me, the agony."

  The Parched Man hacked a single, final cough.

  Silence.

  Villeen hung her head. The instrument's death hadn't drawn out her father, and that final failure shattered her promise to the king. Like shards of glass, they'd pierced Abennak, enraging him. He couldn't mourn his family or love their memory.

  He giggled, laughed, cackled.

  If only she could've fled the castle and found her brother. And yet, that would've been wrong. She'd forced madness on Abennak in too many ways. It had spiraled out of control, and she couldn't simply retreat. She needed to find a way to pull him from the brink.

  Before he falls further.

  Her brother must've had a reason for leaving. Had he found their father? Another clue that was too important to ignore? It was out of her hands. She couldn't trust Abennak, but she'd rely on Fier and hope he uncovered the answers.

  From now on, Abennak was her problem.

  "Control. I'll control this island," Abennak said, more to himself than her. "Have you ever watched a colony of ants? They follow without question." He spread his arms wide. "This is my colony. It's mine!"

  She touched his forearm, attempting to ignore the specks of blood. "Abennak—"

  "They scurry and scurry and I'll have an army. Their little clawed feet will sweep across the kingdoms. Their mandibles will pinch my prey. Poison! And at the end, your father told me I'd find my Kara. I'll snuggle my girls."

  Her father's notes didn't mention any such reunion. Instead, they said, 'Even in those moments of lucidity, the Mad King will fall prey to madness. His family will be a shattered promise.'

  "What do you plan, Abennak?"

  He winked. "They'll all feel what I've felt. They'll love."

  "I don't understand how."

  "Understanding isn't for you. Have you ever thought and thought of that?"

  "No, I—"

  The far door swung open, and the assassin, Wisk, marched in with Rokand silent and steady at his back. They approached the dais, and the general bowed. Wisk looked the king square in the eye.

  The assassin—another man from a life better left behind. He'd laid low since the tournament with Irreor Ark, and she'd not seen him in the castle halls. He also held answers about her father but, like the king, he refused to release them.

  Damn him!

  "What do you want, Abennak?" Wisk said.

  "He's your king," Villeen snapped. "Adress him with respect."

  He lifted an eyebrow and smirked. "Tell me, girl, how much respect have you given this man? You drove him insane and failed to stop your father. You did fail, didn't you? Your face tells me you did. No, I'll address the king as I wish. And you, girl, will step back."

  No one had called her a girl since she was a child. This man was ancient, close to seventy, old enough to have known her father. Old enough to have seen Kelnak tickle her and call her girl.

  Confused and betrayed, she stepped back.

  Wisk said, "Who's the mark?"

  "No mark or mark, but a target. They're different, you see." Abennak dug his nails into his throne's armrest, and bits of flesh plopped to the ground. "Acquire and find and fetch something for me."

  "I'm not a demon-damned errand boy."

  Villeen scowled, her gentahl twisting in her mind, preparing to lash out in defense of the king. She'd forced too many broken promises on Abennak to stand idle as the assassin tossed insults. So what if Wisk had known her as a child? She was far from helpless, now. Her gentahl proved it.

  "Don't test me," Abennak murmured, tilting his head at the assassin. "Itty bitty ant, with your pincers wide and dripping, you've no idea what I am. Imagine life as a vacuum, little ant. Just a blank space."

  "Threats?" Wisk squared his shoulders and touched one finger to a throwing knife. "I sent the Ark boy away without a finger. I've done your dirty work f
or weeks without reward. Why? So you can sit on your throne and play king? Pah! Send a tracker to fetch your—"

  "And you would suck and suck it up, until it fills you to bursting. But you'd crave more. Stones skipping. Leaves twitching. Fragments. All inside you."

  Villeen retreated another step. The king described what her father had done to Torden. How could he possibly know? The assassin was deadly, but something new had entered Abennak's voice. Something visceral and lethal and frigid now dwelled in his expression.

  Wisk hadn't noticed the change. He'd not known the man long enough, and he must've felt secure in his arrogance and power. He said, "I think not. Contain—"

  Abennak's gentahl pierced Villeen, just as it certainly pierced the assassin. Power expanded, at first sweet quivers and guaranteed desires, then something ominous, until it squealed and clawed their minds.

  The Mad King clenched it, thrust it, twisted and wrenched it.

  The assassin dropped to the floor and screamed.

  For several moments, Abennak allowed the other man to draw another breath, only to blast it out with a lash of gentahl.

  Another.

  The assassin writhed and folded upon himself. A part of Villeen, larger than she cared to admit, enjoyed his pain. He'd taunted her, disrespected both she and the king, refused to tell her how he knew her father. Now he paid.

  And another.

  "I could crinkle and wrinkle your mind," Abennak said. "Easier than stepping on an ant. Hah, her father gives and gave me permission. You two are my messengers and my fitting fetchers."

  The assassin wobbled to his feet. His face had turned ashen, and he gripped his stomach as if to withhold his insides. He hunched over, jaw clenched in pain, but no blood stained his fingers.

  It tortured only his mind.

  Abennak took Villeen's hand in his. "In Farren, there's a woman who mucks around in the dreges. Blackened hair, but she wears only a cloud. See and see through it, but I can't pitter or patter her mind. She's vile, twisted, warped. Aieee! Find her. Bring her to me."

  "Why?"

  "Armies don't lead themselves, my precious little ant."