King of Shards

by Matthew Kressel

  “Rebekah!” he shouted, but his voice made no sound. “Rebekah, I’m here!”

  Wolf-like, her head snapped toward him, a beast pointing toward its prey. Her pupils dilated, grew huge, as she found his eyes. Her brown eyes, swirling with green, were an autumnal forest. Each was enormous, a banded Jupiter across the sky. Lips the size of universes floated up to his ear. She whispered, “Where are you, Danny?”

  She touched a giant finger to her golden waist and brought it up before his face. Her finger glowed with molten gold, like dripping honey. She touched his forehead and rivers of delicious warmth entered him. It warmed his brain, flowed down his neck and shoulders, relaxed his torso, calmed his waist, settled in his legs and feet. He was cocooned, a swaddled baby. He wanted to sleep so badly.

  “Where are you, Danny?”

  The wedding—her horrid face! Falling through the Abyss—its impossible size! The desert, Azru. Yarrow and the DanBaer. They rushed through his mind like a fast-forwarded film.

  “Gehinnom,” he mumbled. “Gehinnom. Gehinnom.”

  Rebekah smiled.

  Her voice faded, her Jupiter eyes receded into the blackness of space. The wine-dark sky became blue again. Rana and Marul stood over him. It took him a moment to realize that the world had shifted ninety degrees. His head had slammed into the sand.

  ——

  Everyone stared down at him, their faces backgrounded by azure sky.

  Caleb helped Daniel sit up. His mouth was as dry, and his skin felt as if it were on fire.

  “You were mumbling to yourself,” Rana said. “You didn’t hear me shouting at you?”

  “I just hallucinated,” he said.

  “What did you see, Daniel?” Caleb said. His moon-white eyes probed into his.

  He remembered everything, vividly. But he said, “Nothing. I mean, I don’t remember.”

  “You’re watersick,” Marul said. “And sunburnt. You need to eat. If you don’t eat soon, you’ll be just as dead as Yig.” She turned to Grug and said, “Apologies, Grug.”

  “It’s true,” Grug said. “How can Daniel hold up the Earth if he cannot stand.” Grug looked at the Mikulalim for a long moment, when they nodded and picked up one of the trunks. They positioned it behind Daniel, while the other Mikulalim began hoisting a tent.

  Rana handed Daniel a piece of dried meat.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “Oxen thigh, spiced with cinnamon, turmeric and salt, sun cured.”

  “I don’t eat meat.”

  “Then die,” Marul said. “It’s your choice.”

  He stared at the flesh.

  Caleb said, “It’s but one meal of many we must take if we are to make it home, Daniel. When you are back on Earth, you can become vegetarian again.”

  A shadow fell over their heads as the Mikulalim hoisted the tent cloth. Grug took off his hood and sighed. The shade was a blessed respite for them all. Daniel took the meat from Rana. He turned it over in his hands.

  “Just eat it,” Rana said.

  It smelled like shoe leather. When he licked it, it was salty and bitter. He could taste the animal fats. His mouth would have watered had he had the moisture.

  “Est gezunterheyt,” he said.

  “Huh?” Rana said.

  “Eat in good health. What my grandmother says before meals.”

  He took a bite, swallowed. It traveled down his esophagus like an invading army. The taste took him back more than a decade, when Gram had stewed her brisket all afternoon until the meat was so tender it melted in his mouth. The flavor would linger on his tongue for hours afterward. His parents had been alive then, and he savored the memory.

  “Well?” Rana said.

  “It’s decent,” he said, taking another bite.

  “Decent?” Rana said. “My mother made this!”

  He smiled. “In that case it’s delicious.”

  She smirked. “Nice try, pebble head.”

  As the food entered him, he felt his energy returning. He tore at the meat with his teeth. It was good. Why had he been so repulsed by this?

  “Slow down,” Marul said. “Have some water too.”

  Soon everyone was eating and drinking, including the Mikulalim.

  “Caleb,” Marul said, “what happens when we reach the Bedu? They revile the Mikulalim. And as for demons? Loathe is too weak a word.”

  “Our Mikulalim guides will depart before we reach the Bedu,” Caleb said.

  “And what about you?”

  “I will pass as a human.”

  “They’ll know you’re a demon.”

  “I’ll hide my powers. They won’t sense me.”

  “They’ll see through your lies and flay us all alive.”

  Daniel listened as they discussed their plans, but the vision of Rebekah still haunted him. Was it just a dream, a hallucination brought on by fatigue? Or was that truly her, Mashit, reaching out across universes? And what had she said?

  Where are you, Danny?

  “I will handle the Bedu, Marul,” Caleb said. “You need to focus on readying your spell to get Daniel and me back to Earth.”

  A Mikulal poked his hooded head into the tent. “My lord,” he said. “Something has just appeared above the city.”

  “Something? What is it, fool?”

  “Best my lord sees for himself.”

  Rana leaped out of the tent, and everyone followed her. In the air above Azru a small thunderhead spun within what looked like a dark hole in the sky.

  “A rain cloud?” Daniel said.

  “Not in the desert,” Caleb said. “It’s her.”

  “Her?”

  “Who do you think, Daniel?” Caleb said. “Your lovely wife comes for you.”

  He remembered the dream. “Rebekah is coming?”

  “Mashit!”

  “What is that cloud?” Rana said. “What does it mean?”

  “Pack the tents!” Caleb shouted. “We move, now!”

  “But what is it?” Rana shouted over the growing wind.

  Caleb said, “It’s a door. And we don’t want to be here to see what comes through.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Mikulalim hastily packed the tent, while Rana stared at the growing cloud. It spun like the water in Mama’s cistern, round and round. With each cycle it grew a little larger, a little darker. The desert wind picked up, blew sand in her eyes.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder. Startled, she turned to face Daniel.

  “Your home is there,” he said. “Go while you have the chance.”

  But she couldn’t leave now. She had only just begun to learn who she was. If she went home, she’d just be another ordinary person, working til her back and her dreams shattered.

  “Rana! Daniel!” Caleb shouted. “Move, now!”

  “On Earth,” Daniel said to her, “there was a storm just before I came here. I wasn’t there to protect my grandmother, and I’ve regretted it since. If something’s coming through that door, then you should go and protect your family. It’s where you need to be.”

  She nodded. Daniel was right. How could she leave her family alone? What if they needed her help? She turned and shouted to Caleb, “I’m going home!”

  Caleb dropped his satchel and ran to her. “You’ll do no such thing.”

  Marul came over. “What’s all this?”

  “I’m going home, Marul,” Rana said as a ball of emotion welled up in her throat. “I’m sorry, but I can’t go on with you.”

  “What’s there to be sorry about?” Marul said. “Azru is where your life is.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” Caleb said. “You’ll be safer here, with us.”

  “I’m going home to my family.”

  “I forbid it!” Caleb said. The Mikulalim surrounded her.

  “So,” Rana said, “will you kill me if I try to leave?”

  “Not kill,” Caleb said. “Subdue.”

  “If you don’t let her go,” Marul said, “I won’t help you get back to Earth. Sh
ove me back in that cave or kill me here, but I won’t help you.”

  “Same for me,” Daniel said. “I’ll stop here unless you let Rana go home.”

  Rana was strengthened, knowing she had such allies.

  “Imbeciles, all of you!” Caleb said. “Don’t you understand what’s coming through that door? Mashit will kill you all, the Earth will crumble, and the Cosmos will fall asunder. All because of your pathetic human sentiments!”

  “It’s our sentiments that make us human,” Daniel said. “Let Rana go.”

  Marul crossed her arms and stared at Caleb. “You know where we stand.”

  Caleb turned to Rana. “Are you willing to give up the knowledge of who you are? Who you can be? If you go home, you’ll be just another forgettable human.”

  Rana was torn. She wanted to know more than anything. But Mama, Papa, and Liu needed her. She had to return, to see them through this demon storm. “I’m going home,” she said.

  Caleb shook his head and shouted, “Fools! If Rana dies, do you know what the Cosmos loses? Do you? Grug, give the idiots their wish. Escort the baby home.”

  Caleb’s words brought Rana no relief. How she wished she could stay!

  Marul approached her. “So now it’s you, Rana, who leaves me.”

  Rana was about to speak when Marul pressed a finger to her lip. She put her hands on Rana’s shoulders “No, my Little Plum,” she said. “No sad goodbyes or wet eyes. Save your water. Just go and hug your sister for me.”

  “I will,” Rana said.

  “Well? Go!”

  “There’s one more thing I have to do.” She strode over to Caleb and unsheathed her knife. Grug stepped to block her, but Caleb said, “No, Grug.”

  Rana grimaced with the pain as she dragged her knife across her palm. She wringed her blood onto the sands. “By the Great Goddess Mollai, giver of rain and succor, with my blood on her desert, I vow that if any harm comes to Marul or Daniel, I will kill you.”

  Lightning flashed behind her, and thunder rolled across the desert. She shivered. The Goddess, she thought, must be listening.

  “You don’t need to vow to your worthless deity,” Caleb said. “I want them alive as much as you do, Rana. The Cosmos needs their help.” He held up his hand. “You have my word, by Great Abbadon. I shall let no harm come to them.”

  “A demon’s word is . . .” Marul trailed off. “Go, Rana! Leave while you can. Demons are fickle creatures.”

  “We are also,” Caleb said, his eyes fixed upon the storm, “the most single-minded.”

  ——

  Caleb had been born eons ago, had seen myriad creatures rise and fall in glorious, fleeting symphonies. He had tumbled through the Great Deep not once, but twice, plunging through the Abyss where Eternity rested her weary head. He had endured countless forevers. He had become a patient sort. But Rana’s parting felt as if he were losing his right arm.

  Bring her back to me, Grug, Caleb commanded in the silent tongue. Alive and unharmed. Lead her in circles across the sands. Pretend to be lost, adrift on tides. Have her don the necklace Havig has given her. It will hide her from the Legion’s eyes. And when Rana is weak and watersick, bring her back to me. We’ll delay long enough for you to catch up to us. Be as quick as you can! Time is not in our favor.

  Yes, my lord, Grug said.

  Marul approached Grug. “Promise me you will be safe,” she said. “Both of you.”

  “You will see me soon enough,” Grug said.

  “I hope so, Grug,” Marul said. “I really hope so.”

  Remember! Caleb commanded. She must survive, at all costs! Even of your own life.

  Grug frowned and nodded once. And with swift farewells, Rana and Grug sped off toward Azru. Caleb watched them for a moment before he directed the party on again. They ascended a dune, and at its peak Marul stopped to watch Rana and Grug until another dune rose to obscure them. It obscured the city too, and the cloud hung like a stain above it.

  How did Mashit know we are here, on Gehinnom? Caleb wondered. Does she know we are in the desert now, racing for the Bedu?

  They treaded over a landscape of orange sand, the tides helping them along. No course seemed wiser than any other, but the knowledgeable Mikulalim led them forward.

  They crested a dune, and Marul shrieked. A cyclone of man-sized scorpions watched them, ready to attack. But the Mikulalim whispered fire into the fabric of the world and the scorpions burned. Daniel averted his eyes as they screamed. Marul stared at the dying creatures, fascinated. Smoke rose from their carcasses, betraying their position as the few squealing survivors scuttled down the dune’s far bank. Hawks circled above, and when the party moved on, the birds flew down to peck at the carcasses.

  They walked for hours, mostly in silence. Daniel sidled up beside Caleb as the sun was getting low. Long shadows exaggerated the dark circles under his eyes. Was this exhaustion, or was his Mikulal nature growing?

  “I have questions,” he said.

  “I may not have answers.”

  “When we go back to Earth, what happens?”

  “We stop Mashit and her Legion from killing the Lamed Vav.”

  “How?”

  “By warning them. Hiding them, if we have to.”

  “You know where they are, then? Who they are?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” The truth was that Marul knew their names, and he didn’t, but Daniel didn’t need to know this, yet.

  “I don’t get you,” Daniel said. “You sent Yig to die to serve as a lesson for the others. If you have no compassion for one man’s life, why do you care about the Lamed Vav?”

  “It’s purely selfish, Daniel. I don’t want to suffer for eternities when the Earth shatters and the Shards wither. Nor do I want to everything I know to crumble to ashes. Mashit needs to kill one, perhaps two more Lamed Vav, and then—” He slapped his hands together. “We’re dust.”

  Daniel gave him a curious glance. “So why does she want to destroy everything? Where is her sense of self-preservation?”

  “She is a short-sighted fool. She always has been.”

  “But not you, king of demons?”

  “What do you see when you look at me, Daniel? A cold-hearted beast? A monster? Do you think I’m brutal for brutality’s sake? I am merely being honest about the nature of reality. I did not make the predator kill its prey. I did not create the scorpion’s sting or the snake’s venom.” He gestured up at the sky, which was steadily filling with gray clouds. “Our glorious Creator fashioned the world that way.”

  “But you yourself said we always have a choice,” Daniel said. “Nature may be brutal, but we don’t have to be. The choice between good and evil, that is the beginning of morality.”

  “Are you quoting Deuteronomy to me?” Caleb said. “‘I put before you life and death, good and evil. Choose—’”

  “’Choose life so that you may live.’”

  “I am choosing life, Daniel. For all. If some have to die so that the rest may live, then by any moral equation, I am correct. The fault with humanity is that you’re too focused on your immediate social groups. You fail to account for the great tapestry that weaves its threads through the Cosmos. From a distance, one death is minor when compared to the fate of all.”

  “My grandmother says that each man is a universe. Kill a man and you destroy a world.”

  “Kill a Lamed Vavnik,” Caleb said, “and you destroy a trillion worlds.”

  Daniel had no answer for that. Soon, Caleb thought, you will learn the truth, Daniel. You will see that my course is the only path, as all others lead to ruin.

  With your help, Daniel, Caleb thought, we will make the Creator tremble and awaken from her eons-long sleep. And when she does, it will be too late for her or anyone to stop us.

  ——

  The sun hovered above the DanBaer, as if afraid to set. Their shadows stretched for hundreds of paces behind them as Rana ran toward home. Grug kept a steady pace beside her. The traders coming in from the Tatt
ered Sea never ran to Azru, not even when marauders were hot on their heels. But she wasn’t a trader, and her family was waiting.

  The storm had doubled in size in the last hour. With every moment the vortex spun faster. Bleak clouds raced around the wide rim, as if its giant mouth might swallow Azru whole.

  “Mistress,” Grug said, “the best route is this way.” He pointed away from the city, deep into the desert.

  “You’re trying to get me lost, aren’t you?” she said.

  “I’m trying to protect you.”

  “You think I’m a fool. I’ve seen traders coming in from the Tattered Sea ten thousand times. This is how they come.”

  “When the tides flow south,” he said. “Now they flow west. We’ll be swept into the desert if we don’t turn now.”

  “Ox-ass, Grug! I know Caleb doesn’t want me to leave him. He’s no different from the sweaty drunkards at the fermentaries. I’m not a person to him. I’m a thing to be used! Go back to your king, Grug.” She reached for her knife, in case he objected.

  Grug’s hideous lips were the only things visible under his hood. “Please, mistress. This is the way to safety.”

  “What will you do if I don’t go with you?” she said. “Knock me unconscious and drag me back to him?”

  “I have orders to see you to safety.”

  “I’m sure,” she said. “As you saw to Marul’s.”

  “I cared for her. I gave her what she needed.”

  Rana had a vision of the two naked, locked in each other’s embrace. She suppressed a shiver. “You gave her everything but her freedom.”

  “If I could have freed her, I would have. The king would not allow it.”

  “Your king killed your brother. How are you still faithful to him?”

  Grug sighed, a sound like the final breaths of a thousand dying men. “I have no choice.”

  On Bedubroadstreet she had met charlatans who used mind-witchery to charm people out of their pockets. A man had once compelled her to undress before she had awakened and reported him to the king’s sentinels. Of course they subsequently hired the man to work in the king’s harems. “Is it a magical compulsion?”