Eulogy

by D. T. Conklin

  Rokand stiffened. "I thought I would lead the armies! My king—"

  "Yes," Abennak said slowly. "I am, aren't I?"

  The general frowned. "Yes, my king."

  "Her name is Kleni," Abennak said, and he released Villeen's hand. "She'll come and come when called, of that I'm certain. Give her a promise, a little one. Something like 'You'll rule the world' has a nice ring. You're good at promises, aren't you?"

  Villeen couldn't find the strength to acknowledge him. Why did the Mad King want a woman from Farren? His current general was trustworthy, loyal to the death, and would follow him to the very depths of the void.

  If Abennak wanted this woman, it was for more than leadership.

  And yet, what could she say against it?

  "One and one, her name's Kleni." Abennak said, and he swung to the assassin. "Then two and two, her name's Kipra. You'll find her in the city, wallowing in her thinks and thunks."

  Wisk shook his head. "I'll need more than that to—"

  "And in the depth of the night, you'll stab him in the back. Bring me the woman."

  "Bring you who?" Wisk snapped.

  "Steel, all shiny and rippled and perfect. Ah, but she wasn't supposed to be perfect. She should've been marred and scarred and terrible." Abennak dug his fingers into the throne, scraping them back and forth until blood and flesh lodged beneath his nails. He licked his fingers, sucking each in consideration.

  "Why not have Wisk find both?" Villeen asked. "I could stay with you, and we could catch fireflies in the mea—"

  "Steel is dangerous. But the other woman, ah, she's far, far more dangerous—in a different way. I need her to lead my generals. She'll enjoy making them listen to her. A touch, a hug, a kiss."

  "But—"

  "Find her, and quickly. Leave the other woman for the assassin."

  She offered an uncertain nod. "How do you know that?"

  "I don't know it," he muttered. "Control it. I must control it. Won't fail. Can't fail. Please, Vill, just trust me. Go."

  Villeen gripped her gentahl and flung it into their minds. Perception lurched and choked with a blank, hollow hunger. The sunken depth accelerated with icy calm, caressed and propelled across her skin with the intimacy of a lover's moan, and then exploded into reality.

  She stood deep within Rippon's catacombs.

  A fire roared in the chamber's center, illuminating rivulets of water that ran down rough-cut stone walls. Green moss, tinged with yellow flecks, captured the moisture to combine it with the existing liquid.

  It pattered rhythmically.

  This place comforted her in a way the castle couldn't. She'd spent her childhood beneath a mountain, and the jagged walls and dampness reminded her of that place. If only she could've brought those days back, but that wish was simply foolishness. Her years of planning had failed, and Fier had been right.

  It was so obvious. Why hadn't she seen it earlier?

  Because I was blinded by vengeance.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Blackness.

  Where am I?

  -We're dreaming.-

  You're talking to me? Wait... No! I don't belie—

  -Be silent! I need to think. Ah, I never planned for this to happen. Villeen, my sweetest daughter, you took it too far. You did too much. Helt should've lived. He should've found the Plague Stone, defeated the Zrin Beast, killed Abennak. Now, none of it matters. How do I salvage this?-

  Silence.

  I'm you?

  -Or I'm you. It makes little difference.-

  I can't believe that. It's another tric—

  -We, or I—however you consider it—hid within ourself. We couldn't let them see me. We couldn't allow our children to understand what we'd done. Damn our daughter!-

  My insides feel like they'll tear from my gut, from my chest. My leg burns. Void take me, this hurts. And the thread... your thread lashes me. Again and again, it lashes me.

  -We didn't want this, but we had to do it to build my world. My people will forgive me. They must. Everything we'll give them—the thoughts, the emotions, the love—they'll accept it.-

  What have you done? Why reveal yourself now?

  Silence.

  -We've defeated us.-

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Ark slept.

  Kipra sat beside him, hugging her arms to her chest and nibbling her lip. He'd slept for a full week—twitching, groaning, moaning. She and Bran funneled soup and water down his throat to keep him alive, but his face was sunken and his skin loose and dehydrated.

  Outside, a hammer chimed against metal.

  Bran's shack now served as a sickbed for Ark. It was the only place Kipra felt safe keeping him, for the city had become increasingly dangerous. Perhaps he would never awaken, or maybe he'd awaken changed.

  Pernik paced at the foot of the bed, limping slightly on his wounded leg. "I saw a boy fall once. Head smacked a stone. Blood everywhere. Before that, the kid was smart and healthy. Afterward... an imbecile."

  Both Bran and Kipra muttered, "We know."

  The old officer repeated the story each day.

  "I just don't see anything good—"

  "Go check on the men," Kipra told him. "Make sure they cleared the wagon at the east gate. Also, someone is looting shops again in the southern district. Send a few men to find out who. And, Pernik, find my demon-damned sister."

  "But—"

  "Now!"

  He ducked his head, trudged from the room, and slammed the door.

  This had been Kipra's life for the past week. She'd taken Ark's place, but she wasn't him.

  Farren had disintegrated after Kylen Crest's death. Without leadership, many of his men had resorted to random violence. They hid in shadowy basemenents, emerging at night to steal what they could. Not that much remained to steal. In addition, someone had murdered the High Seat three days ago, and another had been elevated to the position.

  Kipra wasn't a leader, but the council expected her to be.

  Thankfully, a few of Crest's men had asked to help. Ten of them? Twenty? More appeared each day, Parched Ones to the last, and they heeded her without question. She'd commanded them to protect any merchants who were brave enough to enter the city.

  "Pernik is just worried," Bran said.

  "I can't take it anymore. Not now. Your mother won't return for another hour?"

  "Or more. Food is hard to find."

  She sighed. "I'm doing everything I can, but I'm not him."

  Bran shifted his cudgel between hands.

  The blacksmith wore a full set of chainmail, forged by Krayr before his death. Unconsciously—or very consciously—he ran his fingers across its rings, and they tinkled as he touched them. He couldn't shake the memory of his father, not after throwing Kylen Crest into the flames and finding a vengeance he'd never truly wanted.

  'Shake a memory by wallowing in it,' Bran had explained. 'So this just feels right.'

  Sunlight and the sounds of the city streamed through the shack's window. The merchants again hawked their wares, children scuttled through the streets, and wagons rumbled across the cobblestones. Farren, a city crammed full of Parched Ones, had already forgotten about the blazing warehouse and the battle.

  Bloody Ark! I don't understand it. I never needed it like you did. I needed something different, but not this. Not leading the Parched Ones. I need you to lead them. Damn you, wake up!

  He didn't.

  He steadily breathed—mouth parted, eyes closed, arms resting across his chest. The gash on the back of his skull healed. The flayed patch on his leg, sliced to the bone and oozing puss, healed slower. Tough, gnarled scabs covered the cuts on his arms and back.

  "I wish I could've talked to him more," she whispered as she touched his finger with hers. Her skin itched at the contact, and she struggled to ignore it. "He accomplished more than any of us cared to try, but I treated him like shit. Always did."

  "Yes, you did. You probably drove him away in the first—"

&nb
sp; "Don't blame me for that! My mother and Kleni, they...." She'd tried to talk to Bran twice since the morning of the battle, but each time something within her—some hidden place she couldn't admit—devoured her excuses. "I don't know why I can't say this."

  "You don't need to. I don't blame you, and I don't think he does, either. Each of us has a demon. Mine is my inability to escape violence. I can't stand the thought of hurting people, but I do it anyways."

  Fearing the answer, she asked, "And mine?"

  "The memory of your mother. Your sister's choices."

  He was right, but demons had cuddled her in the nights, armored her in the days. Anger had surrounded her for too long and, no matter how she tried to flee, it whispered and taunted.

  Again, she touched Ark's hand. "What's his?"

  "He doesn't—"

  The door smacked against the wall as a Parched Man entered. A dusty tunic covered his skinny chest and arms, and he wore thin leggings that barely reached his boots.

  Kipra scowled.

  Emotionless, he said, "The council needs your advice."

  "They need it now?" She rolled her eyes. "I'm not a—"

  "Yes. Now." He spun on his heel and shuffled away.

  Stunned silence filled the room, broken only by Ark's shallow breaths and the smithy's chiming. These mornings were fleeting, filled with hopes and desires and wishes—hopes to see Farren rescued from itself, desires to slay their own demons, and wishes to see Ark awaken.

  But he didn't. No. Instead, she would order the council to do what they should've done for years. Worthless bastards, all of them.

  "Have they found Crest's body?" Bran asked.

  "I don't know." She stood. "You're coming?"

  "Not until my mother is back. I don't want to leave him alone."

  "Fine."

  She stomped from the bedside, knowing her annoyance was misplaced. Neither Bran nor Ark had forced her to consult the council. It was something more—the helpless look in the Parched Ones' eyes, the way they watched her, as if she could fix them. Ark had given everything to save this city. How could she do any less?

  However, Parched Ones weren't human. They lacked some necessary element—emotion, willpower, or some other intangible quality—that formed real people. They laughed without joy, cried without sadness.

  Their gazes tracked her as she walked through the streets.

  Only one in ten ignored her. They were true humans, and no flakes drifted from their skin or hair, and the deadened, emotionless glow didn't flicker in their eyes. These people mingled with the Parched Ones as if they couldn't see the difference between themselves and the creatures they lived with.

  What separated them?

  Kipra frowned as she climbed the steps to the Council House. Massive double-doors blocked the entrance and two guards, both Parched, stood before it with spears in their fists. Before this last week, she'd come here only once—to deliver a set of daggers to a councilman.

  Now she mounted these steps every day.

  The taller of the guards bowed. "They're waiting, Lady Stee—"

  "I'm no lady!" She shoved the doors open.

  White stone pillars rose to the ceiling. Sunlight blazed through colored, triangular skylights to the marble floors, and a long mahogany table occupied the center of the room. The council sat around it—twenty men and women of various ages, all Parched. They jumped to their feet as she entered.

  "I'm here," she said, as if that should appease them.

  They examined her. Blinked. Waited.

  And she let them. They called themselves leaders, but they followed like a duckling trailing its mother. Ark wouldn't have allowed it. He would've expected them to act on their own, make their own decisions. They weren't stupid, just not human.

  Instead, they'd huddled within this opulence as the city starved. They'd allowed Crest to manipulate them, and now they begged for another to repeat it. Sure, she wanted to help them, but their inability to help themselves infuriated her.

  "Well?" she asked.

  The new High Seat, Yaron Kenn, said, "We need your advice on—"

  "Have you found Kylen Crest's body?"

  He licked his lips, and a speck of skin fluttered to the floor. "We've searched the ashes five times. Nothing."

  "And my sister?"

  "We've searched every brothel. Nothing."

  The flames had, in all likelihood, devoured Crest's body, but Kleni could inflict immense damage. More than half the city groveled at the mere sight of her. In addition, the former High Seat had died under mysterious circumstances—naked, with a smile on his lips and a dagger in his back.

  Kleni was obviously still in Farren.

  Kipra waved for the council to sit. "And the former High Seat?"

  "We still haven't discovered who killed him. Probably never will." Yaron cleared his throat, a crackling, gurgling expulsion, and looked up to her. "The people are still starving."

  "Of course they are. The smart will leave. They'll try to get off the island, impossible though that may be. There aren't enough ships to carry even a tenth of them." She shrugged, unable to call them people. "The stupid will starve."

  The other council members tossed uncomfortable glances at each other.

  Yaron scowled. "So the smart won't be able to get off the island. They'll starve. And the stupid? Right—they'll also starve."

  Again, she shrugged. "What do you want me to do?"

  "Direct us!"

  Kipra muttered a curse. The Parched Ones failed to act on her advice. The city remained clogged, they hadn't found Kleni, and all they could think to do was sit here and find an answer in her. But she wasn't an answer or a solution.

  She was simply a placeholder until Ark awakened.

  "Have you sent a message to King Kinslek?"

  "No."

  She wanted to wrap her hands around his Parched throat—squeeze and squeeze—but she couldn't. Ark might have done that, but Bran would've assuredly frowned on it. Killing this man wouldn't solve anything.

  Through gritted teeth she said, "Why not?"

  "Leave us," Yaron told the council.

  They grumbled at him, then heaved themselves from their chairs and shuffled from the room, their long robes trailing across the dusty floor.

  The High Seat turned to Kipra. "They don't agree." As if the idea somehow embarrassed him, he said, "Kinslek is not our king."

  "What!"

  "I know it sounds absurd." He held up a hand to forestall her protest. "But there's something different between us. I can't place it."

  Void take me, he knows.

  The calmness of his voice, the matter-of-fact manner in which he'd spoken, his introspection—they unsettled her. This man was different from her, different from the other Parched Ones. He was something new, something strange and somehow alarming.

  He said, "I feel—"

  "He's your king, and you'll bloody well—"

  "In my chest, in my blood. Something should be here, but it's missing. The others are the same as I, but they won't admit it." He sighed. "They can't. In any case, it's all the same in the end—they follow easily enough."

  "What's your point?"

  "Kinslek is different than us, and so he's not our king."

  What could she say to that? "King Kinslek rules this kingdom. He commands the men, the women, the goats. The grass, the stones, the trees—they're all his. Everything is his."

  "Maybe. Maybe not."

  Like the wheels of a wagon, the conversation spun in Kipra's head. Faster. She'd come here not to discuss the Parched Ones, but to provide leadership. However, Yaron unearthed her questions and fears, an anxiety she'd buried her entire life, and brushed them off, looking to her as if she could somehow solve his puzzle.

  It's not my bloody problem!

  "You can't turn to me for advice then throw it in my face," she said. "Send a message to your king and request—"

  "Can you see the difference in me? No one else does." He rubbed his foreh
ead, held out his hand for her to see the flecks of skin. "Why can't they see that? I don't know—"

  "Yaron."

  He looked up.

  "Stop making excuses. You have a responsibility to this city, so do it. Send for Kinslek. Clear the people from the streets and create some order. Find my sister. It's on your head if you can't do those things."

  He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "You don't believe me?"

  She couldn't tell him she did.

  ***

  Kipra returned to find a horde of almost fifty Parched Ones milling about the shack. Clad in an assortment of chainmails and studded leather, and wielding swords and bows, they scrutinized her approach. One wore the same armor as Ark, with a black starburst engraved over the breastplate. Kinslek's Keeper. Unlike the others, he wasn't Parched, and thick, dark hair grew on his arms, face, and neck. A rickety wagon and donkey stood next to the shack, loaded high with cloth bundles, and the sound of cursing emanated from her friend's home.

  Kinslek's Keeper held up his hand. "I'm sorry, but we can't let you—"

  "Move, or I'll do it for you."

  He frowned, looking over her leather leggings, shortswords, midnight hair, then back to her leggings. The bastard grinned and said, "The blacksmith didn't expect you back for a few hours."

  "The blacksmith isn't always right."

  Just most of the time.

  "I'm Ogdhen." He bowed low. "Your Keeper in shining—"

  "I don't care."

  She brushed past Kinslek's Keeper to enter the shack, uncaring that she'd left him with his hairy face near the cobblestones. The man hadn't even tried to hide his pleasure at the sight of her. She should've gutted him.

  Inside, Bran and Graelina sat at the table with two others: a portly, dingy man with wild hair, with a half-dressed whore at his side. Bowls of thin, watery soup lay on the table, barely touched except for Bran's, who'd apparently slurped up the entire thing.

  The woman smiled wide, and the dingy man matched it.

  "Void's tit," he said. "You're certainly being what he'd described, but I hadn't been thinking he was right. Can't no man be thinking of a woman like yourself without—"

  The woman jabbed him in the ribs. "Control yourself, or you'll find your balls hacked—"