Eulogy

by D. T. Conklin

  The general turned to him, and Marrek clenched his teeth.

  Death and madness dwelled in that gaze, as did something else, deep beneath, flickering and kind. A promise, but the promise of what? The feel of a laugh, a wife's touch?

  Lies.

  "Today will be different," Marrek growled. "It will be my day!"

  He roared and smashed the first soldier from his feet, then the second. He sliced the remaining man's hamstring and shoved him from the wall. The soldier's scream ended with a sickening crunch.

  Marrek stood before Farren's general.

  "Why are you here?" the man asked.

  Marrek laughed an empty laugh. It didn't matter why he was here or what he'd accomplished in his life. "You'll fall, and I'll feel. Now die!"

  He held his shield tight to his body and swept his blade toward the other man's side. Ah, how he'd enjoy the feel of his weapon biting into the man's armor, into his flesh.

  Today was Marrek's day.

  Farren's general caught his attack with one sword, then lanced a second blade toward his neck. Marrek blocked and rolled it to the side. He shoulder-charged Farren's general, but the man skipped and pivoted away.

  So fast.

  The general's first blade whipped out to carve Marrek's neck. Pain seared, stark and bright, like a promise. But this promise wasn't a lie. It was truth. Strength fled Marrek's legs, and he sank to his knees.

  "I wouldn't have needed to kill you, except she wouldn't love me," the general said. "Why wouldn't she love me? She whipped me and cut me. They both did. I just wanted to feel... anything."

  Blackness.

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Villeen retook her seat outside Abennak's pavilion and watched the battle unfold. Steel-tipped arrows arced back and forth over the battlements like swans necks, some of them striking others to fill the sky with sparks.

  It was only morning. This would continue for how long? Hours? Days?

  She shook her head. Abennak will end it before the light falls. He's a party to throw, and he won't miss it.

  Another volley ricocheted.

  Her father's book rested on her lap, and she flipped to one of the later pages.

  The words were hastily scrawled, their edges jagged and cutting, the tan parchment half-torn from the pressure of each stroke. It read, 'And I'll give them fire and fury and tenderness. At the end, I'll provide them more than they've ever dreamed of, more than I could ever know. I'll give them an empire.'

  Paid for in blood.

  Abennak stood ten paces away, closer to the fighting, and he wrung the goat's lead-rope between gnarled hands. Anxiousness. His back was to her, but his expression was easy to imagine—anticipation, sprinkled with a shake of tension. An opened mouth, squinted eyes.

  The goat bleated, and the Mad King reached down to pat it on the head.

  "There and there." He dropped to his knees and lifted its floppy ear, then pressed his mouth close. In a high-pitched squeal he said, "Om and nom and nom. We shall gobble them up, won't we, my little goat?"

  Villeen shuddered, but the goat didn't seem to care. Most of the grass on the hillside had been trampled by hundreds of feet. Only a thin, dusty patch still swayed in the breeze, and the goat snatched it up with methodic precision.

  The king patted its head and turned to her. "You disagree?"

  She shrugged. "It is what it is."

  At least he wasn't killing people for the sheer joy of it, like the piled bodies in Renek. It seemed as if the deaths in Farren sated that portion of him, at least for the time. Hopefully forever.

  "What if it is what it isn't?" He rose to his feet, tugged the goat to the bench, and sat beside her. "Where oh where is the Kipra?"

  Villeen threw a glance over her shoulder, to the pavilion. Multicolored banners hung from every surface, and only the barest hint of tan canvas remained. "She didn't want to see her city destroyed, and I can't blame her."

  "Pfft... you? Where's the drive and fury? Vengeance to cloud the sky and crack the rocks! You're not the Vill I remember." He drew out his next word with a snake-like hiss. "Imposter."

  "I know I did things I shouldn't have, especially in Targ."

  "Ah," he murmured. "And did you enjoy and rejoice in them?"

  "No, I—"

  "The scent of blood, heavy in the air, the sprinkle of sticky wetness against your cheek—how much glory and gory can one moment contain?" He stroked her cheek with his knuckles, soft and gentle despite the roughness of his skin. "It is what it is, and it is what it isn't."

  She sighed.

  Abennak pointed to the city. Soldiers clamored up the ladders, reaching for the battlement's edge. "I asked you this before, didn't I? Look from my shoulder, Vill. Observe with my eyes. What do you see?"

  A knoll jutted from the hillside, and Kleni stood atop it. She lifted her bare arms, and her voice rang out across the encampment. "Yes! Take the city! Cut them all down!"

  At her side, her minstrel played an unheard song.

  A handful of spearmen gained the battlements, engaging a group of Farren's defenders. Spear tips flashed in the sunlight, and blades met them. They stabbed and whirled, and blood speckled the wall as two defenders fell.

  Rippon's soldiers surged forward to kill three more defenders.

  Villeen lowered her gaze. "We're winni—"

  "Watch!"

  The spearmen slayed yet another defender, their momentum growing with each death, and they stalked the battlements. They killed in unison, one spear thrusting out as another was retracted.

  Repeated.

  A brown-haired man leapt amongst them, and his longsword and dagger twisted and twirled. He slapped away two spears, stepped inside their reach to hack them off at the haft.

  Then he killed.

  The second and third spearmen dropped faster than the first, and he slaughtered the fourth and fifth in the blink of an eye. Even from this distance, his screech lifted high and true. And yet, it wasn't the screech of a warrior, or the scream of a wounded man. It vibrated with fury and pain.

  It was the screech of youth, a maddened child.

  Undeniable. Unquestionable.

  "Void take me," Villeen whispered. "What is—"

  "Yes," Abennak said, "my brother is here."

  "Void take us all," a voice said from her side.

  She whirled. Fier clenched his gut as he stumbled toward her, blood seeping from beneath his fingers. He held two objects in his other hand, a leather-bound book and a ragged doll. His face was the hue of freshly burned ash, and his reddish-gray hair was clumped at the temples.

  He took another step, then crumpled.

  "Fier!"

  Villeen leapt to his side, pulled his hand from his gut, and cringed at the sight. A crimson pool slopped from the wound, and dull-white intestines peeked beneath his robes.

  "Abennak!" she screamed. "Help me get him into the pavilion."

  For once, the king didn't return a quip.

  They carried Fier, who still clenched the book and doll in his hand, into the pavilion, and placed him on the king's bed. His eyes twitched, his face pinched in agony. He unleashed a moan, gripped Villeen's hand with slippery fingers, and held to them.

  Tighter.

  Sounds of battle continued outside, and the pavilion's canvas did little to muffle the clang of weapons or shouts of soldiers. Abennak's goat bleated again, and it gave Villeen a scathing look, as if blaming her for its lack of grass.

  Kipra rose from the corner and approached with a hesitant step. "King's cock, what happened to him?"

  Villeen looked up, then back down, uncertain what to do or say.

  Do something!

  "I had to know," Fier mumbled, and he shifted his gaze to Kipra. He gritted his teeth and spoke through the obvious pain. "It was worse than I'd ever imagined."

  "Hush," Villeen whispered, and she brushed the hair from his forehead. "Don't talk."

  "Must. No choice left to us."

  "Choices and choices," Aben
nak said. "But which will we pick?"

  Villeen's gentahl writhed in her mind, ready to use.

  Once, she could've chosen to save the king's wife and daughters, but she'd let them die. She’d watched them burn and, in her own way, mourned their passing, but their deaths had been required. The king never would've fulfilled his portion, otherwise.

  Fier's death wasn't required.

  She snatched a thread of gentahl, split it into four distinct pieces, and plunged them into the others. She forced them deep, uncaring that changing a person's body, how they looked, the elements that created them, was one of the most difficult aspects of the power. Close the wound. Knit the flesh. Only her father had come close to mastering it. Her failed attempt in Rippon's castle proved it.

  Villeen's gentahl rocked, and she snatched it tighter to steady the threads.

  Deeper.

  Harder.

  Twisted.

  And the power whiplashed.

  It snapped back into her mind, and pain clouded her vision. Spots exploded as she shrieked and fell to her side, clutching her temples in an attempt to lessen the sensation. From beyond that haze, her brother's voice reached her.

  "It's impossible, Vill, even for you."

  She struggled to her knees, groping for his hand again, and warmth flooded her as she found it. Her head ached, a constant, merciless pounding, but the feel of his skin, the curve of his smile....

  "Save him," she said to Abennak.

  "Me and me?"

  "You altered over ten thousand minds when you destroyed Renek. Healing him should be like swatting a fly. I won't lose another brother. I Won't! Knit the flesh. Put him back together. Save him."

  Silence.

  "Abennak," she said, growling in both pain and anger. "Save him—"

  "Like you saved my wife and daughters?"

  The muscles in her face slackened and drooped, and her mouth hung wide. How could he have known she might've been able to save them? True, she hadn't even tried, but that didn't explain how he'd known.

  "How could you possibly—"

  "I knew it all."

  Her failure in Rippon's castle, coupled with her failure here... she wouldn't have commanded the strength to save his wife. It would've whiplashed back into her mind, wouldn't have stopped the boils from bursting or the sickness from advancing.

  "Vill," Fier murmured, and he tightened his grip. "You don't have to explain yourself. He knows. He understands. Please, just trust me, and I'll tell you everything. We don't have much time."

  Trust me.

  She'd never trusted him before, not truly. His intellect, his easy examination of her father's notes, his disappointment in her decision to attack Targ, countless other little things that had proven her wrong—she should've trusted him, all these years.

  She gripped his hand tighter and gave a solemn nod.

  Kipra shoved past the Mad King to stand at the foot of the bed. "Is Ark still alive? If you've done anything to him, I'll rip your guts through that hole and dance with them."

  Fier chuckled, a weak expulsion that gurgled in the back of his throat. "I don't think I could do anything to him, even if I'd wanted. He's far, far too powerful. But how could you understand that?"

  Kipra frowned. "I don't give two crisped shits, where is—"

  Villeen lifted her hand for silence.

  "—Ark?" Kipra leveled a deadly stare at the wounded man. "What did you do to him?"

  "Fier taught and taught," Abennak murmured. "Tell them."

  "No!" Villeen shouted. "He needs to rest, not sit here and yap for your pleasure. Go watch your battle, damn you, and leave me alone to tend my brother." She lowered her head as tears welled. "Demon-damn, this isn't what I'd wanted. I'd wanted something—"

  "It's okay, Vill," Fier said, and he scanned the others. Though his face was deathly pale, his cheeks reddened slightly. "I did teach him gentahl. It was a mistake. After that I found the house where he'd grown up. Not Kiln, but here."

  "Say it," Abennak said. "They need to hear it."

  Fier winced. "Irreor Ark pulled me into his mind... two days ago. I didn't think he'd be so strong. How could I have known! What I saw there was brutal. I... I should've known it was him. I sensed him at the tournament, but I never put the pieces together. So foolish."

  "You're rambling," Villeen said. "Who is he?"

  "Our father."

  Silence.

  Abennak nodded, a sorrowful dip of the face.

  Fier's last words tickled Villeen's skin, like a secretive spider scuttling across the tiny hairs of her arms. Up and down it bristled, and nothing would stop it—not reason, not anger. How long had she searched for her father? Impossible to know for certain. Years ran together, a misty haze of rage and vengeance.

  Her father had killed Torden. Now Fier also lay wounded.

  She could've destroyed Irreor Ark in Rippon's courtyard. If only she'd known. If only she'd listened to Fier, and hadn't attempted to re-create her father's creatures. She could've sensed him, could've ended it.

  Outside, one of the armies cheered.

  "No," Villeen said, and she lifted her voice to shout, "No!"

  Kipra matched it. "You're lying."

  Intense pain forced Fier to jerk and twist his face. When he regained his strength, he said, "When Farren was just a speck on the map, a mining settlement to feed the Synien Isle, Irreor Ark.... No, that's not really right. I should call him Kelnak. That's who he is."

  "He's Ark," Kipra snapped. "Take the rest of it and shove it."

  "He is, in a way," Fier said with a chuckle. "But also not. His home was in what we now consider the western district. It's still there, though no one goes near the place. It's too worn down, even for Parched Ones."

  He coughed, and crimson stained his lips.

  "Be still for a moment," Villeen whispered. "You used your power to stay alive?"

  "I was pulled into our father's mind. I saw what was done to him. He... in his mind... he made me into his father. I was me, but I wasn't. I... I can't even explain it. Void take me, Vill, he's so powerful. He stabbed me there. It shouldn't have been real, should've only been a memory, but the strength of his gentahl made it real.

  "When I escaped, I was alone. I don't think anyone is strong enough to completely heal themselves, but I managed to remove the pain and stanch the blood."

  Villeen attempted to envision it. Her father had killed Torden, and now he'd wounded Fier beyond repair. If his own father had beaten him, had struck him into the mud and filth, then he'd deserved it.

  She'd come so close to forgiveness—for herself, for Abennak, and maybe, just maybe, for her father's people. They hadn't chosen this. They hadn't done it.

  Her father had.

  "I couldn't hold the thread any longer." Fier's voice grew weaker. "And so I'll die. But this is too important to ignore. They beat him, Vill, beyond anything you can ever imagine. Burn me on a pyre, he was just a child."

  And vengeance... it would find her father. He'd wallow in it.

  Kipra curled her golden fingers into a fist.

  "If only you knew," Fier told her, pulling his attention from Villeen. "I'd always wondered what could drive a man to discover gentahl. Now I know. What was done to him—it drove him insane. It magnified his power, for a man without reason is capable of anything."

  "But why," Villeen asked. "It doesn't make sense!"

  "He needed to yearn and learn to love," Abennak murmured.

  She pivoted on her knees.

  The king had remained so quiet these past moments, silent as a mouse in a den of cats, that she'd forgotten he was there. Of course, a dying brother didn't help. Yet Abennak reminded her of something with those simple words.

  Love.

  She'd known love, once, though it seemed so long ago now. She'd loved her father, her brothers. She'd loved life, and then it was torn from her. Her father had... she'd never been able to admit it to Fier... but her father had stolen Torden's mind. He'd ripped it from her
brother with gentahl, and nothing had remained.

  Somehow Abennak had known.

  "All this time, you knew," she said. "Why wouldn't you tell us?"

  Sorrow dwelled in his expression.

  "Were you younger or older?" Fier asked.

  "Older and older."

  "I thought so. The oldest brother always seeks to protect the youngest. See, I saw the places where the two of you slept—and there were two. I knew there was someone else with him in that hole. The stench of that place!"

  Villeen leaned forward to rest her forearms on the bed. The blankets were smoother than she'd anticipated, soft against her skin. If only Fier's question had been as smooth.

  If only he weren't dying.

  And Abennak was her father's brother.

  "They were easier on me," Abennak admitted, his voice both rough and gentle. "I tried and tried to save him. Wasn't strong enough. So I whispered to him, wallowing amongst our own filth, and we played soldiers and mudmen when sunlight shone into our prison. Two hours a day, sometimes less, if it rained and rained."

  Fier opened the book he'd brought, Sojourns from the Inner Empire. A message was scrawled on the first page with a charcoal-like substance.

  ~~~~~

  Let this book guide you, for it shows what's truly out there. The characters, the places, the stories within—they're all true. Down to the tiniest speck. Fall within them, and let them wrap you in their embrace.

  Your loving brother,

  Abennak

  ~~~~~

  "Void bloody void," Kipra rasped. "That was my favorite—"

  "We lived in the basement," the king continued. "A narrow, barred window hung near the ceiling. Grass swayed, so green and vibrant, all a'rustle and a'tustle. Wagons rumbled past, carrying ore to the Synien Isle. We named our only toy Irreor Ark, and he always defeated the mudmen."

  "Irreor Ark will save us," Kipra said. "Void bloody...."

  "He always told me I'd be a king," Abennak said.

  Villeen reread the passage one final time, then slid the book to Kipra. The woman deserved to know what Irreor Ark was. He was a murderer of families, a flagrant killer, and certainly not a man to be trusted or adored.