King's Folly

by Jill Williamson

  “Hinckdan Faluk,” a man’s voice called out, “come forward.”

  Five Woes. The voice had come from the other side of the crowd. Hinck couldn’t see the speaker. He swallowed his fear and entered the mob. It parted for him, dozens of masked people stepping back, staring.

  Trevn owed him for this. He owed him forever.

  Hinck reached the front, where a low altar ran along the floor in front of the dais. In the center a fire pit burned. A shallow, silver pan hung above the flames, suspended from an iron chain. A man in black robes stood between it and the platform. He wore a silver mask with fangs around the mouth. His eyes, looking out from two holes in the mask, were gray.

  A mantic!

  “I am Moon Fang, Inferno and Supreme Master of the Flames. The gods have found you worthy, Hinckdan Faluk. A hundred souls agree. You have been given the call. Do you accept it?”

  The room was silent.

  Hinck swallowed. “I do.”

  “The Veil that hides the Sanctum of Mysteries is drawing aside. Will you enter?”

  What kind of a game were these people playing? “Uh, I will?”

  “Place your right hand over your heart and raise your other to the gods. Repeat after me to make your vow under the name Shadow Claw.”

  A vow? He would break any vow the moment he saw Trevn. But he couldn’t very well back out now. Hinck set his hand over his heart and lifted his other. Moon Fang spoke, and Hinck repeated his words.

  “I, Shadow Claw, in the presence of the gods, the shadir, the chosen demigods, and the heroic human worshipers, most solemnly pledge and swear to faithfully obey the commands of my elder Flames, to give my steadfast respect and support, and to heed all mandates, decrees, edicts, and charges set before me. I will divulge to no one the happenings beyond the Veil, upon punishment of death. This oath I seal with my blood.”

  Oh gods, blood?

  Moon Fang reached out, those eyes seeming to look through him. “Give me your right hand.”

  Hinck held out his hand. It was shaking.

  The man pulled a knife from his robes. Hinck drew back and bumped into someone.

  A snicker from the crowd.

  Moon Fang flipped the knife around, hilt out. “Take the sacred blade.”

  It looked like a regular blade to Hinck, though as he took it in his hands, he saw that the pommel was made of bone, carved in runes—some he recognized from the stone marker.

  “Add the blood of your right hand to the pan,” Moon Fang said.

  They wanted a blood oath. It was no different from the Renegade Rs he and Trevn had cut into their hands years before. An oath that superseded this one.

  Hinck made a careful cut across the fat edge of his hand and pinched the skin until a drop of blood fell into the pan.

  It sizzled.

  Trembling, Hinck returned the knife to Moon Fang, who set it on the platform behind him. “The gods accept your offering, Shadow Claw. All initiates must also undergo a physical trial in order to receive mystic wisdom. Do you accept?”

  There was more? “I do,” Hinck said, and hoped he would not regret it.

  “Remove your tabard and tunic and kneel at the altar.”

  Hinck stared at the man, then glanced over his shoulder at the wall of masked faces, at the eyes glinting from the holes.

  Should he make it out alive, he was going to kill Trevn. Cut Trevn’s hand and fry his blood. Make him strip down in front of a hundred people. He pulled off his cloak, dropped it at his feet and loosened his belt. He pulled off his tabard, his tunic, and dropped both on top of his cloak. The chillness of the dungeon kissed his skin. He dropped to his knees at the altar.

  Moon Fang reached down to the coals, then came to stand before Hinck on the opposite side of the altar. Hinck’s gaze clapped onto the branding iron in the man’s hand, on the fiery orange glow of its head.

  They were going to burn him? Fear pulsed through his veins. He edged back from the altar.

  “Hold him,” Moon Fang said.

  “No!” People lunged up from behind, grabbed his arms, pushed him down on the altar. The stone was cold against his chest and arms. He struggled against those holding him, terror making him desperate. “Stop! I changed my mind. I don’t want it.”

  “You have given your pledge and will honor it,” Moon Fang said.

  Fire seared the center of Hinck’s back, between his shoulder blades. He screamed, shocking himself with the volume and pitch of his voice. It sounded foreign. He hadn’t known he could make such a sound.

  The hands let go, but the burning continued. Hinck sat back on his heels, trembling, and gasped in air where there wasn’t enough. His back throbbed.

  “Be discreet,” Moon Fang said. “Discuss this matter with no one. Now take your place at the back of the line.”

  Hands again grabbed Hinck, pulled him to his feet. Someone shoved his clothes into his shaking arms. He hugged them to his chest and wandered through the crowd to the back of the room, glad to put distance between him and the branding iron.

  “White Raven. Come forward!” Moon Fang yelled.

  Hinck found a place against the far wall and stood wobbling—back, throat, and heart pulsing. The crowd parted as a man wearing a white bird mask made his way forward. It was Oli.

  “White Raven, you disobeyed a direct order,” Moon Fang said. “Do you deny it?”

  “No,” Oli said.

  “You will be fed tonight, but you will not be cleansed. Do you understand?”

  “I do.”

  “Then take your place at the back of the line.”

  Oli wove his way back through the crowd, heading for Hinck. He stopped before him. “You should get dressed.”

  Hinck looked down at the forgotten bundle in his arms. His back ached. He imagined raw skin, cooked skin, peeling . . .

  Oli grabbed his arm. “Hey.”

  Hinck stared at the dark eyes looking at him from behind the mask.

  “I tried to warn you,” Oli whispered. “Now snap out of it and put on your clothes.”

  Oli grabbed the wad from Hinck, shook out his tunic, and dropped everything else. He held it up as a onesent might. “Arms in, let’s go.”

  Hinck threaded his arms through the holes, and Oli pulled it over his head. The fabric scraped against the burn like a razor. Hinck arched his back and whimpered, trying to get it off.

  Oli did not coddle him. “Now the tabard. Come on.”

  Hinck gave in and allowed Oli to dress him.

  “There will be a moment where you can spit it out,” Oli said, cinching Hinck’s belt around his tabard. “See how they take their portion, then circle back? You can get rid of it then.”

  What was he talking about? Hinck glanced back to the dais. A line had formed before the altar. Moon Fang was feeding each person a spoonful of something.

  “What’s on the spoon?” His raspy voice startled him and he cleared his throat. He needed to snap out of this daze, gather what little wits he had left, and pay attention.

  “Evenroot,” Oli said. “It allows us to see the black spirits in the Veil.”

  Hinck moaned. “But that’s poison.”

  “Yes. We take the poison, then pray to the spirits to cure us. The prayer is an oath of allegiance. Tonight the spirits won’t accept my oath. That is my punishment.”

  Hinck met the dark eyes in the bird mask. “But you’ll die!”

  The bird mask shook from side to side. “Not from one spoonful. They water it down. But I will be painfully sick.”

  “Then you should spit it out too,” Hinck said.

  “The spirits will know. They always know.” Oli grabbed Hinck’s shoulder and squeezed, looked directly into his eyes. “But you must not swallow. Spit out the poison and ignore the spirits. The brand means nothing. As long as you don’t swallow, don’t pray to them ever, they cannot claim your soul. Don’t give them power over your soul, Hinck,” Oli whispered. “Death is better.”

  Hinck shuddered.

 
; Oli led Hinck to the line. As each person approached the front, Moon Fang whispered something, then fed them a spoonful of evenroot. When Hinck reached the front, the man said, “This is the milk of Gâzar, the King of Magic. Taste and become one of his children.”

  Gâzar of the Lowerworld?

  Moon Fang lifted the spoon to Hinck’s lips. Hinck opened his mouth and took it. It was sweet and gritty and icy cold and made the inside of his mouth tingle. He turned and followed the line of people toward the back of the room, holding the substance in his mouth. He tripped on his own feet, and a single drop of milky pulp slid down his throat like a shard of ice. He spit out the rest immediately, but it was too late. What had he done?

  He grew frigid inside, as if ice had melted into his veins. Every nerve tingled, burned with cold. Hinck gasped, wanting the sensation to stop. Someone grabbed his shoulder.

  “What did you do?” Oli. Angry.

  The cold intensified. Hinck fell to his knees, shivering, gasping for breath.

  A creature dressed in shadow reached out to him. Hinck stretched his arm toward it, then pulled back. No. He must not give himself to the spirit. “Go away,” he said. “I don’t want you.”

  The spirit vanished in a wisp of smoke.

  Hinck blinked, panted in tiny hitches of air. The room warped and twisted in bands of colored smoke. The candlelight stretched. Drums came from somewhere. People started dancing. Someone screamed. A woman lay on the stone platform on the dais, writhing, shrieking in horror. Chains held her captive. Drums beat louder. Creatures appeared from the smoky air, leathery with wrinkled skin in various colors, some with three eyes. They fell upon the woman. Her wails intensified, then quickly silenced.

  People continued to dance. Some fell to the ground and thrashed about. Others got up and went on dancing. The creatures continued to reach out, and Hinck denied them each time.

  In the midst of it all, Hinck saw Oli fall to the floor, screaming. He did not rise.

  Kalenek

  The days passed slowly in the underground river. They ran out of food, so Jazlyn used magic to catch and cook fish. Jhorn, Inolah—and without a say, Ferro—refused to eat for two days, but Inolah finally gave in to Ferro’s begging and fed the boy. At that point even Jhorn ate.

  But Jazlyn’s root tails eventually ran out. Now they were all hungry, and the mantic witch looked haggard and ill.

  She wasn’t the only one. A crowded, jostling boat made sleep difficult for everyone. Such erratic rest kept the worst of Kal’s nightmares at bay, but his growing fatigue was making him irritable.

  Jhorn kept the lantern off most of the time, wanting to preserve it. He lit it for short intervals. During one such time, Kal showed Jazlyn the piece of leather with the runes Lady Lebetta had drawn and asked if she could translate them.

  “Rune magic is Magonian,” she rasped. “Tennish mantics do not use such primitive methods.”

  This confused Kal. “I thought all mantics were the same.”

  “An insult to my kind,” she said. “Evenroot gives a mantic spiritual eyes to see shadir. Each mother realm has its own ways of communicating with the shadir. Magonian mantics prefer rune magic and potions. Tennish priestesses rely on the language of the gods. We speak to the shadir as equals, which makes us infinitely more powerful.”

  “Infinitely more indebted,” Jhorn mumbled.

  This left Kal no closer to having completed his mission than when he had left Wilek in Farway. He hoped his prince would not be too disappointed.

  After what felt like a month of darkness, the daylight came like lightning that flashed and remained in the sky.

  The river had exited the ream and now flowed along the bottom of a deep, narrow canyon. Kal squinted up at the cliffs, heart swelling with recognition. “The cracks of Jeruka!” he yelled, relieved to know they would not sail off the end of a cliff. “We must be nearing the bay.”

  Sand sprinkled down the cliff walls here and there like tiny waterfalls. The canyon ran straight ahead, but in the distance it narrowed and turned.

  “Everyone get down and cover your heads!” Kal yelled.

  The coming bend was not a turn but a section of rock that had fallen from above, leaving only a narrow gap in the canyon for the river to pass through. Kal hoped the wagon would fit. He glanced at Jazlyn, but she was asleep—in a haze, Qoatch had claimed. Kal tucked his head between his knees.

  The port side hit the fallen boulder and knocked the wagon in a half circle. The motion threw Kal against the side, sending an ache up his arm. The impact slowed the wagon’s movement around the fallen rock. On the other side of the boulder, the swift current sucked them in and quickly increased their speed again. Kal kept low as the wagon banged between the cliffs and more fallen rocks.

  “The wagon cracked!” Grayson cried.

  Kal glanced at the leak, grabbed a leather bedroll. “Put this against it.” He tossed it to the boy just as movement above captured his attention. “Avalanche!” he yelled. “Heads down!”

  They swept into a shower of sand and rocks. The wagon bashed against another fallen boulder in the rapids. A stone hit Kal’s shoulder, another his knee. Water was filling the wagon quickly. Kal tried to help Grayson plug the crack, but it was too big. They were going to sink.

  The wagon rattled through another narrow opening. Up ahead, the canyon yawned into the Eversea.

  Almost there. May Onika’s god help them.

  Chunks of rock rained down and struck the sides of the wagon, chipping at the poured stone. One fell onto a pack behind Burk. The boy yelped and pitched the rock overboard.

  “Boulder!” Jhorn yelled.

  Kal looked ahead. Where? Nothing but clear sea as they shot out into the mouth of the river.

  Then they hit. The boulder had been hiding just beneath the water’s surface. The impact catapulted the wagon up out of the water, above the submerged rock. Kal’s body fell back over the side, and he plunged headfirst into the sea.

  Underwater, Kal could still hear the low rumble of the avalanche, but more than that, he felt it. Deep, powerful vibrations surged through the water around him. He opened his eyes, and the saltiness stung. White bubbles spiraled around him as tiny rocks shot through the water. He glimpsed a colorful reef on his right and a wall of white light on his left. He kicked toward the light. He could see nothing overhead. No wagon. No people.

  His head burst through the surface, and he thrashed around, looking for the others. The tattered tent they’d been using for a blanket floated before him. On his right, a pack. On his left, Jhorn gripping a water jug, eyes wide with confusion. Beyond Jhorn were several others: Prince Ulrik, Burk, and the dune cat, fur pasted to its skinny body. No sign of the wagon. Kal swam toward them slowly, searching for Inolah and Onika and Grayson. Could they not swim?

  Continuous splashes pulled his focus to the cliffs behind him. An avalanche of rocks tumbled down into the water. This was more than an avalanche. It was an earthquake as well.

  The vibration became so intense, the water tickled Kal’s skin. Clouds of white sand swelled up beneath him, hiding the reef from view. Waterfalls of gravel, dust, and stones poured down the precipice.

  As rocks fell from above, he suddenly realized—the Five Woes were upon them. He had seen all five now.

  Down the coast, a deafening crack felled a section of cliff as large as Castle Everton. Just before it crashed into the sea, Kal caught sight of houses atop it and heard the distant screams.

  Five Woes!

  “Sir Kalenek, my mother!” Prince Ulrik yelled. He had a hold of Ferro and Jazlyn. “Help her!”

  Kal saw Inolah and Onika at the same time. Inolah was floating facedown in the sea. Just past her, Onika splashed and flailed. Kal swam to Inolah, flipped her over. “Nolah!” He gripped the back neck of her dress and paddled toward Onika, dragging the empress along.

  “Onika, I’m here!” Kal reached out. Her hand slapped his face. “Calm down.” He grabbed her arm, and she climbed on him, submerging
his head beneath the waves. Kal pushed away from her and kicked himself back to the surface. He spat out a mouthful of salty water. “Onika!” He grabbed her wrist. “Relax!”

  Qoatch swam up to them. “Pass the empress to me.”

  Kal handed Inolah to the eunuch and pulled Onika close. “You must calm down,” he said. “We ride the waves. We don’t fight them.”

  “I can’t . . .” She panted, choking him with her arms. “Can’t swim.” Her cheeks had flushed bright pink. He marveled at how her pale skin bared every emotion.

  “Well, I can. We’ll simply float here until help arrives.”

  The roaring subsided—the earthquake and avalanche over—but the swish of sand still rained down the cliffs and into the water. Then came a rolling wave that must have lifted them three levels—a result of the fallen cliff, no doubt. Onika screamed, but this far from shore, the wave did not curl or swamp them. It merely carried them farther out to sea.

  Kal swam in place, supporting Onika’s weight. The blind woman clung to him, pressing the side of her head against his tunic. There they waited, riding the waves of the Eversea and the countering swells from shore, which decreased with each passing. In the growing silence, soft sounds became easily noticeable: Onika’s breathing, murmured talk from the others, the lap of the water against their bodies, the dripping of water from their hair, the purr of the breeze, the distant hiss of waves hitting the cliffs.

  “I can hear your heart, Sir Kalenek,” Onika said, pulling Kal from his reverie. “It has been broken but will someday heal and be filled with joy.”

  The words stunned him. The way she saw into people . . . So strange. But could she be right? Would he ever find joy?

  Kal and Onika had drifted apart from the others, who were now clustered in a circle. Kal was relieved to see Inolah awake and swimming on her own. And Grayson, holding tight to Qoatch. A high-pitched growl brought up a chorus of laughter.

  “Rustian?” Onika whispered.

  Kal chuckled. “Your cat does not sound happy.”