The Jack of Ruin

by Stephen Merlino

  “So you admit I’m right.”

  “No, I don’t, because you’re wrong: I did kiss her, once, and it was a disaster.”

  “What? When?”

  Harric grimaced. “Not proud of it, Fink. It just happened, last night when you were escorting my mother to her cairn. You know, the victory and everything, we were feeling good, and it just happened. Then, this morning, I found her trying to chop off the finger with the ring on it.”

  Fink made a gasp or coughing sound. “She doesn’t do anything by halves, does she?”

  “No. And it scared me, Fink. If things got out of control with us…” Harric shook his head. “No. I’ve got to do right by her, even if it isn’t easy or comfortable or satisfying.”

  Fink shuffled his feet. “You can’t keep away from her, kid. It’s a Body Compulsion. She’ll come for you. Hard.”

  “I don’t care what it is. It doesn’t compel me. So if it’s forcing her, then I can’t be near her. It’s that simple. I have to leave her. I have to strike out on my own.”

  I know a spell to dull my enemies’ blades

  and turn arrows to ash in the air.

  I know a spell to sunder fetters

  and one to close a wound.

  But none can tell me a spell

  to undo the harm done by a lie.

  —From “Lessons from a Red Adept,” found in imperial library at Samis.

  36

  Truth & Illusion

  Harric turned away from Fink, his mind spinning through the implications of what he’d just said.

  “Leave?” The word came out of Fink like a squeak. His white eyes bugged like Harric had jabbed him in his ample gut, and he started wringing his hands. “Kid. She’ll chase you. Doubled with an Opening, I doubt she can resist it, and if you resist her advances, it could go really bad.”

  “You think I should just let it happen for her own good? What the Black Moon are you talking about? If I go along with this horse shit, you don’t think that would go bad? She’d hate herself and me as well!” He stared into Fink’s inscrutable face with a growing sense of disbelief. “And don’t tell me you forgot that if she chases me I can hide in the cobbing Unseen.”

  “Calm down, kid. She’s going to hear you.”

  In fact, Caris had stopped her training and was peering through the darkness in their direction.

  Seething, Harric hopped down behind the seedling log, where they’d be less likely to be overheard, and tugged Fink after him. The imp landed before him, blinking in surprise. Barely able to keep his voice a whisper, Harric leaned into Fink. “Are you so worried you might lose your place at the Sir Willard banquet of souls that you’d advise me to stay, even if it endangers her? Even if it endangers me? Well, cob your cobbing snacks, Fink. It’d be better we both starve. I’m serious about this.”

  Fink spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Kid, calm down.” The black tongue flicked nervously over his teeth. “Are you telling me you’ve decided to leave her? Leave the others?” His bald black head shook as if he were anticipating a denial.

  Harric frowned. He hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself, but since the incident in the stable when Caris nearly amputated her finger to prevent the ring from compromising her integrity, and since that same day when Willard nearly murdered him, his heart had been steadily—if secretly—turning toward departure. Now that he had confirmation the ring had even worse in store for Caris, it seemed the clearest possible decision. “Yeah,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “I guess I am. It’s time to leave. Just like you predicted.”

  Fink let out what seemed a very forced laugh. He gestured with his hands as if trying to physically calm Harric. “Look, kid. Naturally, you’re emotional about this. And, just as naturally, we’ll do whatever you want about it. But I’m thinking of what’s in your best interest here. This ‘knight’s man’ act with Sir Ragleaf puts you in the best possible position to help your queen, which is your primary concern, right? Sir Blue Balls is right in the center of Her Majesty’s concerns with the Kwendi ambassador.” The black tongue licked at the corners of his mouth. “That means if you stay with him, you’ll be one of the first outsiders to see the Kwendi lands.”

  “Yes, all of that is true,” said Harric, “and none of it matters.”

  “Seems a little extreme, don’t you think?”

  “You don’t know Caris, Fink. She is very disciplined. So far, miraculously, she has resisted the weaves in the ring. She can be damned proud of herself for that. But now it’s starting to overpower even her. And when that third band wakes, what then?” Shuddering, he turned away. “It’s inevitable, Fink: I have to strike out on my own.”

  “What would you do, kid? You have no connections, nothing.”

  He turned back to face the imp. “I don’t know yet. I’ll figure something out. I guess I’d want to scout ahead of Caris and make sure their way is clear, maybe clear the way if I can.”

  Fink’s scowl twisted upward on one side. He glanced around like he was worried someone might overhear.

  “You predicted this would happen someday. You said I’d need to break away, that these friends wouldn’t understand my new life. What happened to the ‘price of heroes’ and all that?”

  Fink’s grin seemed frozen in place. Taloned hands rubbed and twisted together. “Someday, kid, I said someday. But now? Seems you ought to stay with Sir Ragleaf as long as you possibly can. That’s where you can do the most good.”

  Harric let out a breath through his nose. Something in the imp’s manner rang false. He sensed an urgency beneath the facade of nonchalance that took him back to the moment in Abellia’s tower when he’d overheard her in conference with some mighty presence. They too had expressed an urgent need, some agenda above and beyond their desire to help Willard and Brolli. Details of the memory eluded him again, but now he studied the imp’s features in an effort to understand the connection. It had to be something about the Kwendi magic. Fink had as much as told him the Unseen wanted the secret to the Kwendi magic, and the Bright Mother must want it, too.

  “And what do you want from it, Fink?” he said, watching the imp closely.

  Fink grinned and patted his ample belly. “I wouldn’t mind staying at the banquet of souls until we absolutely have to leave.”

  He’d had evaded the question. Fine. Harric would make him sweat. “I’m sorry, Fink, but that’s exactly what I am saying. Time’s up. We absolutely have to leave.”

  Fink’s grin froze again. The white eyes shifted to the side, then he ducked his head as if conceding a point. “All right. Look, I can’t remove the ring, kid, but give me a couple days, and I’ll see if there is something I could do to disable one of these weaves.”

  Harric’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Are you saying you forgot you could do this until now that your food supply was threatened?”

  “Kid.” There was a plea for understanding in the way Fink said the word, but his eyes also darted to the sides like he was cornered. “It isn’t like that.”

  “Then tell me what it is like.”

  “It’s like I didn’t want to ask my sisters for help, that’s what it’s like.”

  Harric felt his blood turn to ice water. He’d only met Fink’s sisters once, and the encounter still troubled his dreams. “Oh. They might be able to do it?”

  Fink grimaced. “Maybe. But only for a price.”

  Harric heart shriveled a little. “Ah.”

  “I could ask Missy to take a look. She’s good at this sort of thing. Maybe she could disable a weave without hurting Caris.”

  “So. The price. What kind of price?”

  Fink’s grin went flat. “The price is souls, kid. Or a claim on yours. Only one kind of coin in the Unseen.”

  Harric did his best to push down his horror, to hide the panic this brought, but his heart was hammering so hard that he guessed Fink could hear it. He held the imp’s gaze a moment longer, then turned to watch Caris while this news sank in.


  She had stopped her drill and laid the practice sword against a log. Lifting her water pail in both hands, she drank deeply, snorting between gulps. A tiny rivulet spilled down her neck to soak the front of her shirt. Moons, he did not want to leave her. He wanted to help her. He wanted to help her protect the Queen.

  Leaving made no sense. But it made the only sense.

  The real prospect of leaving her suddenly clarified something for him: he couldn’t leave her with the lies he’d told, which already created a gulf between them. If he left without first telling her the truth, the gulf would be permanent.

  As Caris drank, the hoops of the ring’s two active weaves ceased to smolder and waver, and the spirit fire vanished, leaving bright white bands looping in and out of her spirit. Peering closer, he saw the third—lurking, gray, and faint—like an ember in ash awaiting a wind to bring it alive.

  “What do you say, kid?” Unease had raised the imp’s voice an octave. Almost to a whine. “Give me tomorrow and the next day? That’s two more days and two more nights after tonight. Should be enough time for me to find Missy.”

  When Harric didn’t answer, Fink followed his gaze to the dormant Compulsion. “Missy will know what to do. Maybe she could do something to keep that weave dormant.”

  “What do you think that third hoop is waiting for?”

  “Souls if I know, kid. Comic timing?”

  “Thanks. You’re a big help.” Harric let out a long breath. “All right, go ahead and ask Missy. But”—he held up a finger and met Fink’s blank eyes—“only ask her opinion. No touching Caris until we say.”

  Fink cringed and wrung his hands. “Heh, sure. I…can make her promise. But promises have a price, too.” His head swiveled about as if he suspected his sisters might be near enough to hear.

  “One more condition.” Harric nodded to Caris. “If that third hoop—the Mind Compulsion—comes into play before Missy comes, the deal’s off, and we leave.”

  Fink bobbed his head. “Sure. Of course.”

  “All right, go ahead. No harm there.”

  Caris set down the pail and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. After a long stare in the direction of the hillock camp, she grabbed her sword and launched into another series of sweeps and thrusts—the Cane, Tailor’s Yard, Widower—each executed with precision and speed. Moons, she was good. And again, the hoops of the ring ignited with spirit fire.

  Harric rose his head, suddenly more alert. “That fire on the rings. When she resists the weavings—either by fleeing into the horse world, or by fleeing into her training—the weaves start to burn…” His words trailed off as his mind caught up.

  “Probably when she’s angry with you, too. Give her a reason to hate your guts and those weaves will light up like bonfires.”

  “Fink, that could be the key. Are you saying the two active weaves—the Opening and the Body Compulsion—won’t work if I do something she hates?”

  “The weaves would still work, kid—you should know that by now, since you daily do something she hates—but when you do something she hates, her natural emotions are temporarily strong enough to counter the artificial ones from the ring.”

  Harric’s mouth opened and closed. If anger and determination strained the weaves, maybe all he had to do was tell her the truth, and the weaves would bend to the breaking point—or, at the very least, fuel her resistance. Something solidified in Harric. He stepped back from the log and turned to retrieve his clothes. “Come on, Fink. It’s time I come clean. Kill two birds with one stone.”

  Fink crow-hopped after him, peering up at Harric with wide eyes. “Harric. Partner? What are you thinking? You aren’t going to tell her about me, are you? Kid?”

  “I think I have to.”

  “Heh. That’ll go over like a plague boil on a bride.”

  “That makes you the plague boil, doesn’t it?”

  “Maybe you want me to come with you? I’ll smile real nice.”

  Harric stopped. “Fink, I’ve thought about this. Even if Sir Bannus ambushes us before dawn and kills us all, I still have to do this.” A little bubble of panic rose in Harric’s middle as he realized that if he was going to die, he wanted to die with everything clear between him and Caris.

  “She could take it bad, kid. She could rat you out. Then what?”

  “Have you not been listening? Sir Bannus is in the valley. We could be dead before she has a chance to rat me out.”

  “Will you stop with the whole ‘Bannus is going to kill us so nothing matters’? You’ll be in the Unseen.”

  “Not if he catches us during the daylight.”

  “And if he doeesn’t kill you and you leave her, then you lose all that staying with you offers. No look at the Kwendi lands. No reward from the Queen. No recognition. Nothing.”

  Harric nodded. “I have to take that chance. She’ll hate me, but we want that anyway.”

  Fink tugged at his enormous nose. “If you get her mad enough to burn out the rings, there’ll be nothing urging her to keep your secret. As long as the rings function, they keep her conflicted and quiet. Once they’re gone, she’ll share your secret.”

  “Probably.” Harric shrugged and started for Caris. “But it changes nothing. I have to do what’s right, then worry about the rest.”

  “Not yet, you don’t.” Fink stopped him and held out a hand, palm up. “Not until you give me my nexus stone. I’ve seen your people take witch-stones from Ibergs. You give it to me and I’ll keep it safe.”

  Harric deposited the glassy black stone in Fink’s waiting hand, and suddenly the risk of the whole thing felt a lot more real than it had a moment before.

  Better to be slapped by truth than kissed by flattery.

  —Attributed to Queen Chasia

  37

  Open Eyes

  Harric donned his clothes and circled Caris’s horse camp until he could approach from the direction of Willard’s camp. By the time he’d completed the circuit, Caris had stopped her training and put her sword away, and when he joined her, she had leaned over the water bucket to splash her face and swab her neck with a rag. Idgit noticed him first and swiveled her ears in his direction, nickering.

  Caris’s eyes found him and she stood, nostrils flaring.

  “Hey,” he said. Water dripped from her chin down the curve of her collarbones. She reached back with both hands to tie her hair behind her head, which stretched and pulled at her clinging shirt. He forced his eyes away, but her gaze feasted on him like she’d missed him for weeks.

  “Are you sleeping down here?” she asked.

  His heart fell. Had the ring already made her forget Willard’s instructions that he sleep separately? “No, Willard wants me to sleep on the hill.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “Plus, remember how you said you’d kill me if I did?”

  She clamped her jaw shut, and her face darkened. “You said you loved me,” she said, voice suddenly ragged. “Was that a lie?”

  The pain in her voice stabbed at him and hardened his resolve.

  “No, that wasn’t a lie,” he said. “I do love you…but there are other things I haven’t been truthful about, and…well, this might be our last night alive, and I came down here un-say those things and tell you the truth before it’s too late. You probably aren’t going to like what I have to say, but hear me out.”

  Caris’s eyes went cold. He could practically see the word truth resonating in her, calling up a part of her uninfluenced by the ring. “You lied to me?” she said, voice low but hard as stone. “About what?”

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He could practically hear his mother shouting a dozen dodges to extract himself from this reckless mistake—everything from a line that would turn it all into an ill-conceived jest, like, I lied when I said I’d never touched magic, because I’ve touched you, and you’re magic, to self-pitying lines like, I lied when I said I’d be fine if you never love me, because I won’t. The words flooded to his lips, ready to spill forth in an easy con. />
  But he clenched his teeth and swallowed back a lifetime of trickster training.

  “I didn’t lie when I said I loved you.” His voice came out faint and trembling, which made him angry. Louder, he said, “I meant that, but you should know a couple things before you give that too much weight. Things like my training. My childhood. I never told you the whole truth about that.”

  “What does your training have to do with love?”

  He suppressed a groan. Truth telling was harder than he’d thought it would be, and he was doing it much worse than he’d expected. It shouldn’t be hard—just say it like it is, no creativity required. So he forced himself to keep talking, groping around for an entrance. “My training makes it hard for me to say this. I sometimes wonder if I might…or even if I can—”

  “Gods take it, spit it out!” She rammed her sword in a log. “I swear I’m about to throw you in the river.”

  “Right. Okay.” He took another step back, hands up. “For you to understand, I need to tell you what I was trained as—”

  “Then cobbing tell me!”

  “Promise you won’t repeat it to anyone.”

  “Toss yourself, Harric. I don’t make the Rash Promise.”

  Harric winced. He’d won her apprenticeship with a Rash Promise from Willard, so she had grounds to be wary. But all the same, it was part of his plan to keep her angry—and thus more herself and less influenced by the ring—and that was working. “All right, then I’ll simply have to trust you, because nothing else will make sense until you know. It’s like this: my mother didn’t just train me to be a courtier, Caris. She trained me as a courtiste. The courtistes are real. My mother was one—the best, if she’s to be believed, which she isn’t—and she raised me in their ways.”

  Caris stared, pursing her brow. He could practically see her mind putting this information together with what she already knew of him and his mad and murderous mother. As she did, the snarl faded and her jaw grew slack.