The Last King's Amulet pof-1

by Chris Northern

  “What did they do to you?”

  “I changed my mind, Sumto. Nothing more. As you will. The cause of Kukran Epthel is just and honorable and deserving of our dedication. I have dedicated myself to his cause.”

  “I notice you don't wear a stone,” my meaning was clear.

  “A wise man does not take a wild dog into his home and trust it with his children on the first day. First it must be trained and earn your trust.”

  It sounded like a quote.

  The public areas were larger rooms, designed to impress subtly. There were people here, waiting as the commoners have always waited for the masters of their fate to decide it. In the city such places were relaxed, people talked, laughed and joked with each other, discussed their purposes, traded favors, sought advantage in their negotiations and asked advice. Here the people were nervous, solitary, quiet. They looked down as I sought to catch their eyes. They shuffled their feet, hugged the walls and avoided each other as they awaited their fate. The contrast was marked. I recognized them as Geduri by their dress, imitating city fashions with tokens of their heritage worked into the designs. Some were city folk and these were the most worried, the most nervous, the most timid. Clearly the judgments were likely to go against them and they were only here to try. I wished them luck, but wished more that they would either flee south to freedom or rise up and fight for it.

  The doors ahead were guarded. That was anathema to me – what ruling class needed to protect itself from its people? The doors had been defaced with a branded symbol, the white wood scarred forever. The room they opened into had been changed; where once it would have been lush and decorated, it was now bare and austere. Two large windows were hung with drapes that admitted the barest amount of light that was needed to see. There were no lamps; not one. Only the shrouded daylight lit the room dimly. At the far end a dais had been built and a throne installed. We loathed thrones, the mark of kingship. Even the consuls of the city did not have thrones. Or the king, though it would be the kind of joke we appreciated. Of course, the king of the city was not in fact king in any meaningful way, not as barbarians have kings, but merely a tribute to our past, an acknowledgment of our heritage; the king had little power, and certainly no throne. A chair should not be a place to lounge but a place to rest your butt while you did business. It is not there to impress or raise you above your peers. A man's character and deeds should be the only way to do that, to be better than your peers was not the product of a throne. That was for men who were not better but sought to steal the appearance of superiority with trappings and baubles. Every patron of the city had earned the respect given, had worked for the dignity and standing he had earned to the point where none could fail to acknowledge it. Thrones were for men who had earned nothing.

  Seated on this throne was a tall figure wrapped in a black robe of a thick, rough cloth.

  Sheo went to one knee as soon as the door opened and bowed his head. I was shocked. No man of the city bowed. Not even a commoner. To see a patron bow before a king was an affront to me, an insult to the city. Kings bowed to us. Not the other way round.

  Our escort was also on one knee but only for a moment, only until they saw I would not kneel. Then it wasn't long before I was beaten and forced to my knees and held down by two burly men with a hand on each arm. There was a pause and I took the opportunity to look around the room. I was in for more shocks. Several of those standing against the walls were dead men. There was no mistaking that. Some had open wounds that dripped a clear fluid. Their skin was gray. Some had bloated stomachs filled with gases that vented even as I watched. I shuddered. Their faces were vacant, fingernails black, eyes dull. They moved. Not much but enough to tell me that these corpses were animated by spirit even though their bodies decayed.

  The figure in black beckoned us forward and we came to our feet and approached. I went with them. There was no point in fighting them. Nothing to be gained. I walked to stand in front of the figure on the throne. He waved the others aside and they moved a few paces back and turned to watch. There was something sick about him, the hands and face gray. He reached to a table by his side and took a small eye dropper from a tray, leaning his head back he dripped water into each eye and blinked a few times, tears of water dripping down his face. His eyes were dulled by some disease, perhaps cataracts.

  “The eyes dry,” he said conversationally as he put the eye dropper back in the cup of water. I noticed the ten carat stone then, worn on a ring. “A small price for immortality.” It was then that I realized he was as dead as the bodies about the wall. A lich. A dead body animated and inhabited. A poor immortality, I thought, fighting back revulsion.

  “Immortality? You are a corpse.”

  “The body functions. The blood replaced by… another liquid. It isn't the same, of course, but it has the benefit of not wearing out. It will not grow old, or weak. It will endure.”

  I almost asked him what it was like, but decided I didn't want to know, and didn't care, so I held my tongue.

  “What's going to break you Sumto? Afraid of the dark? Rats? Torture? What will make you obey? We will find the way to break you in time. And I have time. All the time in the world. There is no escaping your fate. One way or another, in some capacity or another you will serve the cause.”

  “What cause?”

  “The cause of freedom. My cause. I am told that you freed your slave, that you have a good heart.”

  I let the attempt at flattery wash over me. “No one is free of duty or obligation. The rational man sees reality as it is and knows that his choices are limited by his surroundings and ability. Once you have found the facts and assessed them there is usually no choice left, the facts decide for you. No one is free of that.”

  “I am not going to debate semantics with you, Sumto Cerulian. Or debate at all. I am only interested in knowing how to make you serve. Only interested in what will make you obey me, once and for always. It will happen, you will serve, it is only a matter of when and in what capacity. Your companions are choosing to join me one at a time, each obeying in his turn, and you will too, in time.”

  “Join him, Sumto. He's opened my eyes, let him open yours,” Sheo seemed calm, but his voice was dull and unenthusiastic.

  “What are you fighting for? What does your city offer?” Kukran Epthel asked.

  “Freedom.”

  “Are your slaves free?”

  “Better a slave of the city than the lie of slavery you offer without even being honest enough to call it that. Our slaves are mostly people who opposed us. And a slave can work hard and become a freedman, his son free, his grandson a knight, his great grandson a patron.”

  “And how many achieve that?”

  “Damn few, but that's not my responsibility. It's there for them if they want it.”

  “And you, born to privilege and wealth? What do you know of hardship and suffering?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I'm learning.”

  “Not fast enough.”

  I shrugged. “I am my own man and will serve my own ends.”

  “No. At some point you will obey, and then you will be mine and serve our ends.” His hand drifted to an amulet that hung around his neck and he turned it idly as he spoke. “What then is going to break you? Not torture. Becoming one of these?” He gestured to the undead lining the room. I didn't look at them. My eyes were fixed on the amulet that he toyed with as he spoke. There was a symbol on it that I thought I recognized but could not place.

  The idea of becoming one of the walking corpses that lined the walls turned my stomach but I could not let him see that. I was going to die. It didn't matter how. Face it. Accept it. There was no way out. I would become a spirit and see the world in a different light, I would be free, if changed. “No? Maybe this, then? Jerek!” He said the word with force and intent and I wondered what the word meant. It was a command, an order. For a moment nothing seemed to happen, then a faint whispering came to my ears, one word repeated in a broken pitiful wine. A pe
arly light swirled softly into being between us and a small, translucent figure formed within it. A misty image of a child writhing, seemingly in torment, its non physical body looked broken in every way I could imagine. “Master master master..” it repeated the same word over and over again, whimpering it between ruined lips.

  “Death is no escape.” I didn't look at it but I saw. I'd never imagined anything so evil as what had been done to this spirit. “You may end up serving me thus, if all else fails. Jerek, tell me his weakness,” he commanded the child.

  The ethereal child moved close to me, chilling me as it touched and then faded away with a new word coming softly to my ears. “Love, master. Love is his weakness.” With that the spirit child was gone.

  “Then we must find what you love, and control it,” Kukran Epthel said softly. “Take him away.”

  62

  They took me back to the same room, now empty. I paced the chamber, exploring. There was a window and a balcony, light streamed in from cool day beyond and I stepped out into it. For the first time in I didn't know how long I felt a cool, fresh breeze, saw the sun and the sky. Leaning on the balcony rail I looked out over a courtyard. It was almost a thirty foot drop to paving stones that would break my legs for sure. Directly opposite my window beyond the courtyard was an open archway not more than sixty yards distant. In the courtyard and on the flat roofs of the wings to either side there were barbarian warriors on guard. Not much chance of escape. I counted them. Two on each roof. Two at the gate. Two in the courtyard. Other people came and went, some warriors, some soldiers, many civilians, but two guards paced the courtyard, back and forth against the walls, endlessly. Eight guards to watch me climb down and capture me at the bottom. That was if I could climb down. I looked up. Two more stories and a flat roof where there were doubtless more guards. Looking back down, I watched the guards for a while. They were alert, attentive, focused. Maybe at night it would change, I thought, and resolved to look then. For now I enjoyed the freedom of the balcony, the warmth of the sun on my face, the cool breeze drifting across my skin.

  I knew now where I was. It was Undralt, as I had supposed. I did not recognize the town but the terrain beyond. I knew where I was now. And I knew that men of the city would be coming to free me. Orthand was out there somewhere, with a legion. And the city was doubtless raising more legions to come and reclaim the north, to put down this enemy and reclaim these lands. They would have a fight on their hands, though; beyond the city walls lay an army encamped all around. Thousands of men. I didn't count, just soaked up the spread of the vast encampment and guessed. Thirty thousand, plus those billeted in the town itself. They would have a fight on their hands, but four legions would be more than enough, and the city could raise those numbers in days. Maybe they already had. Maybe they were already on their way, marching up the north road as we had, yet in numbers sufficient to the task.

  The patrons and highest ranking members of the colleges had stone of twenty and thirty carats and more and the knowledge to use them. Nothing could stand against us for long. If four legions were not enough then the patrons would lead eight north. Time would see us prevail and the city would go on. In the meantime I had my own problems to deal with, some of them mental and emotional. Love is his weakness. What on earth did that mean? I didn't love anyone; apart from my mother and sisters, of course. But he was hardly going to send an invitation for them to join us. And even if they were threatened I would not join forces with something as revolting as Kukran Epthel, self styled king, lich, a walking corpse that pretended to virtue. Not wholeheartedly.

  I sighed and turned to re-enter my prison. No mistaking it for anything else. Then I hastily turned back. A face had seeped into my awareness but not disturbed my train of thought. I looked again, seeking amongst the people I could see. Looking for the face that had come to mind. Then I found him and shook my head in despair. A one-eyed ugly man with burns on one side of his face and a scar on the other. It was Meran. One of the guards in the square was my freedman, Meran. He saw me. Looked for only a second, then turned away, indifferent. Was everyone I knew destined to serve my enemy? With a heavy heart I turned my back and went into the room. I didn't want to see any more.

  The smell of food had assaulted me as soon as I had walked into the room but until now I had been ignoring it. Roast beef, a rich gravy, vegetables. I was hungrier than I had ever been in my life but I didn't trust the food. Thirst and hunger warred in me for a while as I stood over the table trying to think. If it was drugged, what difference did it make? If I didn't drink I would die. Thirst was a pain in my throat and mouth. I needed to drink but still I held back and thought. Tried to think. They could have forced water into me when I was unconscious. If they wanted to drug me I would be drugged. Accepting the rationalization, I gave in, grabbed the pitcher of water and drank. It felt wonderful. Later I ate and slept. There seemed nothing else to do for the moment. I would have to wait and see what their next gambit was before I countered it.

  63

  In the dream – I knew it was a dream, it had that quality and I recognized it at once – Jocasta came to me.

  “Sumto? Can you hear me?”

  “Of course I can hear you,” I said turning to her.

  We were standing in a garden. I didn't recognize it.

  “Don't be afraid,” she said. “I am here.”

  “No need to be afraid in a dream.”

  She smiled and I realized she was pretty. Not that I had not always thought so, but that at that moment I realized that I wanted her and always had, though she had been even younger than her sister when she and I were betrothed. Orelia and I would have been married when she was sixteen if her family had not changed their minds about me. Orelia had been fourteen when we met, and Jocasta only twelve.

  “This is not a dream, Sumto. I am really here and so are you, though that is not what I meant.”

  It didn't seem to matter much what she was saying, I was detached, warmly appreciating her presence and her voice. “What do you mean?”

  “I am here. Nearby. Not more than a mile from you.”

  I smiled. “No. You are safe in the city and I am glad of it.”

  She shook her head, coming close, smiling. “I am here, nearby, and this is not a dream.”

  “Kukran Epthel sent you, didn't he.” I was suddenly angry. “Jerek told him that you were the one I love and he is seeking to use you against me, or your image, for I know you are not really here. And neither am I. This place does not exist except in my delusional mind. They drugged me, didn't they?”

  “Oh, my dear sweet man, what did they do to you?”

  Through gritted teeth I answered. “You already know the answer to that.”

  She reached up and touched my face, standing close. I did not seem able, or willing, to move. “I do not, and I need to know what they intend. How can I help you if I do not know what they are trying to do?”

  I wanted to take her into my arms, hold her, and tell her nothing of what I had been through or what I knew would be my fate. I wanted her safe, back in the city, not here were they could find her… but no. This was not real. This illusion would not hold me. “This is a trick.” I stepped back.

  “Sumto, you must listen to me. I am a sorceress of no mean ability. I can help you if you let me.”

  “Sorceress? You are a child. Talk sense if you are going to try and fool me. Try a little harder!”

  She sighed, I thought she was trying to hold onto her temper. “I am eighteen and no child, I assure you. I am what I say I am, and I can help you.”

  “Lies,” I stepped back. “It takes years to learn sorcery, time and money. No family would spend money teaching a woman sorcery, let alone a girl.” I turned and walked away, closing my eyes and fighting the dream.

  My will prevailed, the scent of the ethereal garden faded and she was gone, her parting words fading away as the dream disintegrated into darkness, “No one taught me, I…”

  64

  When I
woke, Sheo was sitting at the table, waiting for me.

  “Sumto,” he greeted me with courtesy.

  I didn't answer, but swung round and sat on the edge of the bed to look at him.

  “You should serve him, he is righteous, his cause just,” he came right to the point.

  Shaking off sleep I replied calmly. “That's why he tortures people, because he is so righteous. That's why he tricks people because he loves the truth.”

  He ignored me. “Can't you see the city we served is selfish and wrong? We take and take, whatever we want, whenever we want it, use it and discard it and take it again.”

  I gestured out the window, “And what is he doing?”

  “Taking back.”

  “So we are two children fighting over a sweetmeat.”

  “No, he is an adult taking from an older, bigger child and giving back to a younger and more vulnerable child.”

  I didn't answer him, my attention wandering over the table, something was attracting my attention. There was a large jug of beer and two glasses. Sheo leaned forward and poured a glass. “For you?”

  “No.” It was harder to say than I remembered from my drinking days.

  He shrugged. ”You will drink it later, no doubt.”

  “You drugged me.”

  “Yes. In the water; a drug that lowers your resistance to addiction. There was also a tiny dash of wine, just to get you started. You are already a drunk, everyone in the city knows that. It does nothing on its own, of course, but now we can feed you any drug we like. We decided to start with alcohol. I know you like it, are you sure you won't take a sip?”

  “I'm sure.” Getting up and walking away was probably the hardest thing I have ever done. I could smell the hops, the living yeasty scent pulling at me. I made it to the window, and out onto the balcony. I wanted to throw myself over onto the hard flagstones below, but I couldn't do it. Yes, I liked booze. Beer, wine, that western drink they distill… whiskey, it was fiery and harsh but warmed the belly nicely. Yes, I like my booze all right. They had found a weakness. Another way to alter my state of mind and make me more malleable. I gripped the rail, acutely aware of its texture, and looked out over the courtyard thinking only about my waiting beer.