The Noble Fool

by Heath Pfaff

  I looked down at my sword, still in the same position, at the bottom of the arc that had cleaved Brutal's life from him. Blood ran down its length, some of it from the people on the wall, but most of it from the fresher kill, the blood of my most recent teacher. A single drop fell to the ground, and I thought, despite the rush of the water, I could hear the sound of it hitting the stone, thrumming like the beat of a massive drum. I had betrayed the king. I had betrayed the king's enemy. I was a man without a place.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder, and a moment later that same hand was pushing back the hood on my cloak, and Malice was in front of me, gazing into my eyes, her dark orbs shining with barely contained tears as she looked upon her lost friend. I looked away from those honest eyes, knowing that if she knew my story, she would not look at me the same way any longer.

  "By all that is good, it is you, Lowin, and look at your eyes! They're amazing." Her voice was soft, as it had only ever been when we were in private, and I felt her hand against mine. "You've already taken your first changes, how did this..." She broke off in mid-sentence and I could hear the sound of horsemen approaching, armor clinking behind us, hooves on stone. The whole battle had only taken a few minutes, and yet I had come through another shaking change. "Be silent, I will do the talking." My dear, lost friend whispered to me as the knights approached.

  "Malice," The lead rider said as he approached, though I didn't look up to face him. Instead I sat numbly staring at the body that lay before me. Brutal's cold, dead eyes still held the look of betrayal that had flashed in them at that last moment before my sword had taken the light from the darkness forever.

  "This is a member of the Knights of Ethan, he had been bewitched by an enemy of the crown, but he broke the enthrallment and dispatched the one binding him. He is an ally," I heard Malice explaining, and afterward there was a heated debate between the two, but I didn't bother to take notice of it. Whatever happened, I felt lost. Some time passed, and I felt a tug on my arm. I looked up and saw that Malice was looking at me, an expression of expectation on her face. I didn't know what she wanted, for I had not been listening, but I shook the excess blood from my sword and slid it back into my scabbard, knowing it would need to be cleaned more thoroughly later. I drew up my hood, and whatever Malice had needed from me, this seemed to satisfy her. She lead me away, amidst a sea of kinsmen on horseback, though many of them watched me closely, hands on the hilts of weapons, some with steel bared to moonlight, so that I might not mistake their intent. I couldn't blame them. Brutal and I had laid waste to many of them.

  Brutal had not been a bad man. In fact, he had been good to me despite our differences, and I respected him, might have even called him friend under different circumstances. Now he was dead at my hands, betrayed by one he trusted with his life. I had made a hard decision, in that brief moment before Brutal was to kill Malice, and it would be one that I would have to live with for the rest of my days. Malice lived, and Brutal did not. Had I not acted, then Brutal would live and Malice would not. The only way I could find comfort in my decision was to tell myself that I would have had a much harder time justifying letting Brutal kill Malice. All the world was a landscape of confusion, a place where there were no wrongs or rights; just fighters with different ideas, willing to kill to achieve their vision of peace. I was weary of it all, and tired of not having a place amidst the chaos.

  I was vaguely aware that I was being led into a room, small, but comfortable, and that Malice was having another strongly worded debate with someone, though I didn't know who. There were hard words between them, but in the end Malice won through, and the guards left my presence. I found myself alone in a room with the black-eyed warrior that had been my teacher all through my training. I had feared her at first, but, in the end she had proven to be my most trusted friend. Despite myself, I felt a surge of joy that she lived, and with it, a surge of guilt that I had killed my traveling companion so that she might do so. She led me to the bed and bade me sit down, which I did mechanically, then she took a seat in a chair across from me.

  "Tell me how you've come to be here as you are now," and while it may have been a command to some, I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was only asking for my story, and that she would not force what I didn't want to say. I suddenly found that I wanted to tell her everything. Indeed, that I needed to tell her everything, lest I die from keeping it all contained within me. And so, with a heavy heart, I told her of all that had happened to me since the time I had taken the eyes of Kyeia.

  "What will you do now?" She asked quietly once my story had run its course, and I was unendingly thankful that there was no recrimination in her tones. If there had been hate, or disappointment in her voice, I was not sure I could have gone on. Too much had happened, and too many doubts plagued my mind. To find one more friend lost would have been the final straw.

  I shook my head. "I don't know. I must find Kyeia. Beyond that, I am uncertain."

  "I know you don't want to hear this, Lowin, but have you considered the possibility that Lucidil lied to you about Kyeia?" Malice's voice was soft with compassion. "I've not heard of a Bound One surviving before, and no one has told me anything about Kyeia still being alive. If it were true, it would be amazing, but...."

  I had, in fact, considered that possibility many times, but I could not think of a single way in which Lucidil would profit from telling such a lie. He wanted my help, and lying to me, especially about such an important thing, would not endear his cause in my heart. If he were to lie to me about Kye, I would never forgive him, and would certainly never aid him.

  "He has nothing to gain from lying to me about this," I told Malice after a moment of reflection.

  She didn't protest, and I could tell by the set of her face and the look in her eyes that she agreed with me. There was also something else hidden in her eyes, some deeper consideration that I could not read. After a few moments of silence, my long-estranged friend spoke again.

  "The king will want you for questioning." There was a subtle strand of worry in her words, "As soon as news of what has transpired here arrives, he will send others to take you into custody. If you're going to go on, we'll need to leave soon, tomorrow morning at the latest." I caught the implication of her phrasing, whether she intended me to or not, though I believed that she did intend it.

  "We?" I asked, though I didn't need to. Her intentions were clear.

  "I know where you're going. I've been to the fortress-villa before. I can lead you there far better than anyone else, and I don't intend to let you go off on your own." She stood up from her chair and walked across to the bed where I was sitting, placing a hand on my shoulder. "You and I, Lowin, we're alike. I want to help you."

  I smiled for a moment, but then shook my head in a sharp negative. "If you go with me, you'll be a traitor to the king. The way I go now leads only to more trouble..." ...and death. I added this last, silently in my head.

  Malice sat down on the bed at my side, and leaned against me, her weight seeming slight against the powerful new body I possessed, a stark contrast to how it had seemed months before, when we had last been so close. "I listened to your story, and I have felt your pain reflected in myself. Long have I questioned the actions of my king, privately, but now I have a chance to see for myself. I need to know what is happening, to know if Kyeia is really still alive, and what that means to our kingdom. I am tired of lies and half-truths, tired of the politics and foolish sacrifice. Let us go find the truth together."

  I shook my head again. "You don't know what you're getting yourself into. I am a rebel of two forces. I have no one to turn to when this is over, Malice. Once I have Kyeia, I will have to find my own way, for no one will want to take in a man who is an enemy to everyone. Whether Lucidil wins or the king conquers, I will be a rebel in this world."

  "An enemy to them, but a friend to me. That's what matters. Besides, only the king's men know that you killed the other Broken Sword, how would Lucidil ever know? You can t
ake comfort in that, at least." Malice's tone was pleading.

  "Lucidil has eyes everywhere. He will know what has transpired here as fast, if not faster, than the king will," I told her, and I believed it to be true. Lucidil had eyes in places only he knew, and they fed him all the information he would ever need. What the king knew, so too did Lucidil. Neither of us spoke of the third enemy I had mentioned, the riders of the strange dragon boat, as I think we both preferred not to think of what that darkness could mean.

  I felt the brush of Malice's hair as she turned her face to me, so close that the warmth of her body flowed into mine. Her voice was a whisper in my ear, "None of that matters in the least, Lowin. I want to go with you, and I will do it." Her lips brushed my neck, and a shiver of exultation ran through my body, despite the emotional turmoil within me. I turned my face to hers, meeting her eyes. The dark eyes, those monstrous, beautiful, orbs I had once thought beyond the ability of portraying any emotion at all, were heavy with feeling, water-glazed with pent suffering. Her lips pressed against mine, hungrily, but gently, and we laid back into the bed, her body covering mine as my arms encircled her.

  Her fingers made deft work of the ties on my cloak, and I moved to do the same with hers, no thought of resisting the advances anywhere within me. Together we drew ourselves from our layers of armor, slipping free of those walls of protection we put in place to guard ourselves from the world beyond. One by one the shields fell to the ground in quiet whispers of cloth on floor, until we lay together, exposed and vulnerable in our peculiar flesh, muddled bodies of beast and human entangled in gentle embrace. As I pierced her flesh and felt the warmth of her existence envelope me, I was overwhelmed by a great rush of energy awakening in the center of my being and reaching out to the black-eyed beauty who so gently invited me in. Never had such fierceness been passed on so gently. We were a battlefield of roses, doused in a storm of cherry blossoms, turbulent and tranquil. As the world surged about us, the center of her female essence quivering tight about me, and I loosed my very being into her, I felt a profound change overcoming us both, though in her I knew it was most acute. I knew not what it meant, for I was lost too deeply in the rush of the moment, but another great shifting had just taken place.

  We lay in bed together, Malice's clawed hand resting atop my chest, and her body stretched next to mine. If she had wanted to kill me, it would have taken but the slightest effort on her part, a mere flexing of her powerful hand, but her touch was no more than a ghost of pressure against my skin. The world beyond our room went on, but we lay quietly together in the dark of the early morning, the chill air flowing freely from outside to caress our flesh. I knew the moment couldn't last much longer, but I did not want to let it go. It had been too long since I had been able to put my worries aside, even for a short time. Malice stirred next to me, and I felt the pressure of her full breasts leave my arm as she sat up. I looked at her, watching the movement of her body that should have been impossible to see in the darkness of the room, but was instead highlighted by my enhanced vision. She was different than she'd been the night before, but I was hard pressed to place my finger on exactly what had changed. In the low light, any physical changes were beyond my ability to detect, but to my acute senses, some aspect of my female friend had undergone a transformation. She moved with a subtly enhanced grace, seemed just a little more alert, and any number of other minor little differences that were hard to describe individually.

  "We should get moving," she said softly, her voice little more than a whisper. "There is an underground channel that runs out from this bridge and emerges several miles into the woods. It's a route for gathering supplies or sending for aid in the event of a siege. It is locked down, and only I and the captain of the guards know that it exists, so we should be able to leave that way without attracting notice."

  "Alright," I agreed, forcing myself to leave the comfort of the bed. My clothes were in a pile on the floor, and it took a few moments to separate my articles of clothing from Malice's. It was obvious that Malice would not be dissuaded from her chosen course of action, and I found that I did not want to try to do so any longer. I did not want to be responsible for dragging her into harm's way, but I couldn't deny that I preferred the idea of traveling with a friend, someone that I could trust. We dressed quickly, donning our cloaks, and prepping our gear for travel. It would be impossible to stock up on supplies without drawing notice, so we took only what was available in Malice's room; some dried meat and bread from a meal the day before, and some supplies for maintaining our weapons.

  We exited the room with as much caution as possible, and found that, thankfully, the hallway beyond lay empty. I don't know what Malice had expected, but I had been certain that danger would lay in wait just beyond the threshold of her room. Life was making me paranoid, it seemed. From Malice's room, she led the way through the interior of the gate-wall. It was larger than it seemed from the outside, but still not a large place. We passed some few guards on our route as they went about their patrols. It was impossible to avoid them all, and they gave us looks filled with daggers as we passed. I felt watched and pursued. We went down several flights of stairs until I knew that we were a floor or two below ground, below even the level of the river beyond the outer perimeter of the gate. I could not hear the water running beyond the wall facing the shore, but I knew it was there. The air was dank and cool, flavored with unfamiliar mold and rot, but not all together unpleasant. It had an earthy odor that reminded me somewhat of the deep woods during the rainy season. We pressed on, going two more floors down, until we came to a long corridor with a hole in the wall. At first glance the hole appeared to have been knocked through the brickwork of the structure, but it was in fact a well-crafted secret panel, designed to look like a flaw in the building. It hung ajar, and Malice came to a stop quickly as we came within sight of the opening. Her stillness alerted me to trouble before she even spoke.

  "That shouldn't be open," she whispered to me, as she began to edge her way through the gap in the stone. I followed her, my hand on the hilt of my weapon. Beyond the door was a small room, large enough for maybe four full-grown men with their arms stretched fully to either side of them. The ceiling was low though, only a few inches above Malice's head. At the far end of the room from the one Malice and I had entered was another door, a heavy metal structure with an intricate locking mechanism adorning the inside. It was rigged so that a key must be inserted and turned, and then four crossbars, each twice as thick as a man's arm, would be disengaged from the their stone prisons all around the edge of the door frame. It would be quite difficult to force an entry through that door, but I assumed that Malice had a key.

  Unlocking the door, however, wasn't our most pressing issue. Three guards stood in the room, two to either side of the door and one directly in front of us as we entered. As we passed through the entry way, the two guards at the door drew their weapons, and the third guard stiffened and placed his hand on his sword's hilt.

  "You are not permitted to pass, Malice, by order of Good Captain Fintry. If you turn back now, you'll have no trouble from us." The guard who had not yet drawn his weapon said. There was fear in his eyes, mirrored by that in the eyes of the other two guards.

  "Captain Fintry has no authority over me, Marts Trepin. At this fortification I and I alone am the final word of the king," Malice replied coolly, though I could sense a tension in her body, like a bow about to lose an arrow. I grew tense as well.

  "Captain Fintry has sent a report of your conduct with the traitor to the king for evaluation, and until his testimony is heard and the king rules on your guilt, you are not permitted to leave this post under any circumstance," the guard Malice had called Marts Trepin replied, a smug smile coming to his face as he displayed his perceived advantage. "So I recommend you take yourself back up to your quarters with your murdering friend there, and make yourself comfortable for a while." He drew his sword and waved it in Malice's face menacingly.

  Behind us, and com
ing fast, I could hear the sound of clinking chainmail. Other guards were on their way, probably sent after us by those we'd passed in the hallways. The captain of the guard must have acted with some haste to make all the preparations he'd put into place. The situation was quickly growing dangerous, and Malice and I were not in a good position to fight. The area was too cramped for full mobility, though we would still have an advantage over our human adversaries. They had to swing a sword to have an effective weapon, while we merely needed room to rake claws. Their numbers, however, were enough to cause us trouble if things became heated. Malice blurred into motion without giving any warning at all. When she slowed again, she was holding Trepin's arm, detached from his body, his sword still gripped in the hand of the severed limb.

  "I am now going to count to three," Malice said, dropping the mess of flesh to the ground. In the dim light of the torches in the room I thought, though it was hard to be certain in the dark, that her eyes flashed a deep shade of green. "If I reach three, and any of you are still in this room, I will not be taking just arms." She had to speak loudly to make herself heard, because Trepin was now screaming in a shrill voice and trying to stem the flow of blood from his new stump. The sound of armored men behind us was growing steadily louder, their pace probably hastened by the screams coming from the room we occupied. The men in the room with us, even Trepin with blood gushing with every step, ran for the door as Malice uttered a single syllable. "One." Before she reached "two," the room had been vacated, swords left to clatter on the floor by the terrified guards.