Parasite Soul

by Jags, Chris

  “Stop them!” Brannock howled, a tremor of desperation coloring his voice. “Stop them, or it’s our heads for certain!”

  Simon, recalling the path of skulls, didn’t doubt that. These men had already allowed him to escape once. Sympathy for their plight caused him to hesitate, but only fleetingly. He heard the men splashing into the lake behind him. They wouldn’t be able to follow him in their armor, so long as Simon made the open water.

  “A bow!” Rowland shouted, his voice an octave higher than normal. “A bow, does anyone have a bow?”

  Someone just behind Simon made a grab for him. Gloved fingers brushed his shoulder blades. Yelping, he dove forward, surrendering to the inky blackness, churning the water with his scissoring legs. Even through the rush of liquid in his ears, he could hear the roar of frustration behind him. Someone was shouting orders, distorted beyond comprehension by the water. Simon just hoped none of the old boats rotting on the shore were still serviceable.

  Surfacing, he looked for Niu. He couldn’t see her anywhere, and the chill of the lake was already seeping into his bones. It would be a poor showing if he survived all that he had and died of pneumonia, but at that moment it seemed to him to be a very real possibility. Scanning the beach as he clumsily trod water, he saw the figures of the three guards racing along the shoreline. He wondered whether they planned to launch a patrol boat and how long that would take to organize. Perhaps they would instead post watchmen at various points about the perimeter of the lake. Either way, Undinell was an expansive body of water, and they would find it difficult to stop two people slipping through any net they chose to cast.

  As he was gathering his wits, attempting to orient himself for what promised to be an exhausting swim, Niu broke the surface a few feet in front of him. Discovering that Simon had been unable to match her speed, she’d doubled back. Pulling clinging strands of wet hair from her dark eyes, she pointed out across the lake at a blur Simon couldn’t distinguish.

  “Follow me,” she said, and ducked back under the water.

  With very few options, Simon took one last longing look at the shore and followed her.

  IV

  In the wake of its forceful contact with the wall, the unfortunate plate exploded into fragments and rained down on the carpet.

  From the start, Princess Tiera Minus had been opposed to her father’s idea of marrying her off to whomever managed to slay the beast the town criers had dubbed The Cannevish Wyrm. She was no one’s property, to be bartered for services rendered. If the King followed through with his plan, she’d promised herself, her groom wouldn’t survive the wedding night. She’d smirked whenever the dragon had devoured another would-be suitor, making no secret of her mocking relief.

  Then farmer-boy had showed up at court. Tiera had found herself unaccountably attracted to the lad. He was incredibly common, of course; coarse in his manner, scruffy and slovenly; his hair looked as though he’d sawed it off with a blunt rock. For all that, he was well-built, even strapping, and if his eyes showed no great depths of intelligence, at least they were an attractive shade of sky blue. Undoubtedly she’d want to have him put down eventually, of course, but she’d enjoyed the idea of toying with him a bit first.

  Who could have imagined, with his having been offered the opportunity to wed a princess, that this presumptuous rustic would have the temerity to ask for the hand of that lowborn whore Niu! A mere servant, a gift! How even a peasant could be so short-sighted, so unambitious, baffled and infuriated Tiera. Would he have stooped even lower, had he the choice? Perhaps he would have preferred a milkmaid?

  Panting, she glared at the shattered plate without really seeing it. Nor did she notice the scurrying blur of her remaining handmaiden, Farrow, as the girl - brush and dustpan in hand – made haste to tidy up the mess. Instead, she stared at some blank middle space at an unreal world, where - for all the allure of her beauty and power - she couldn’t command the heart of a simple peasant.

  Her father had agreed that the insolent wretch needed to be punished. That, he said, was his domain, to be left in his hands. Tiera had argued, but her father had remained firm. Eventually, she’d resentfully agreed to this stipulation, on the understanding that she was free to do as she saw fit with Niu. If Tiera couldn’t ruin Simon personally, she’d decided, then she would damn well vent her frustrations on the bitch who’d bewitched him. Fifty lashes would be enough to break her spirit, after which the real punishment would begin.

  As events unfolded, the wily handmaiden had foreseen her fate and disappeared in the night. Tiera had placed the girl’s chambers under surveillance; Niu’s only possible escape route had been the hair-raising descent from her chamber window to the courtyard a hundred feet below. This astonishing display of skill and courage only heightened Tiera’s antipathy. When she finally laid her hands on the witch, she would have her flayed alive. Or perhaps hanged? No; too quick. Possibly burned at the stake. How unfortunate that Tiera knew of no method of resurrection through which the handmaiden might be subjected to all three fates.

  Satisfied that her father’s men were in hot pursuit of the insolent peasant and the infuriatingly capable handmaiden, Tiera had contented herself with ordering the men responsible for monitoring Niu’s chambers executed. In vain they’d protested that, stationed in an interior palace hallway as they were, it would have been impossible for them to have observed Niu’s escape; Tiera wanted someone hurt, a salve for her wounded pride.

  No one, she thought fiercely, gown rustling along the rug as she swept back and forth, no one rejects Princess Tiera of the House of Minus.

  Casting her gaze around her magnificent bedchamber, her eyes lingered on the luxurious four-poster bed, carved from rarest western grettwood, that she might have shared with the strapping young peasant. With his sun-weathered skin and calloused hands, what a change from soft, powdered nobility he might have made, even if she had to burn the sheets afterward! Who knew what delightfully crude techniques such a raw specimen might have used to entertain her? At least one of her more experimental noble peers told giggling tales of peasant men being hung like oxen, if only one could overlook their ill manners and the grime beneath their ragged fingernails.

  If that’s the case, perhaps I’ll mount his manhood on my wall, Tiera thought sourly. Right next to Niu’s head.

  A single, anxious rap upon her chamber door jolted her out of her vengeful reverie. The palace servants knew better than to interrupt her when her mood was so vicious. A guardsman, then, no doubt about her father’s business. She waved a perfectly manicured hand irritably. Farrow hurried across to the door and edged it open.

  “Message for the princess,” a mustachioed soldier said through the crack in the door. “If she would kindly join the king in court.”

  “Tell him I’m busy.” Tiera folded her arms and glided across to the open window, staring out over a city which she currently wanted to set alight.

  “The princess should be advised that the matter concerns her.” The guard said nervously, still addressing Farrow. “A report is to be presented as to the status of the… refugees.”

  Tiera’s eyes widened. “Do we have them?”

  The soldier studied the floor and answered cautiously. “The princess would needs attend to learn the outcome of the search.”

  “No, then,” Tiera snapped. She flicked her wrist dismissively. “You may inform father that I will be in attendance presently.”

  “M’lady.” The man inclined his head and disappeared from view. Farrow closed the door and stood awaiting instruction, her hands folded in front of her. Her doleful expression infuriated Tiera. What did the girl have to be so downcast about? Was not serving the princess about the greatest honor a commoner could aspire to? Could her own perceived misfortunes possibly equal Tiera’s own? She wanted to slap the glumness off the wretched girl’s face.

  Restraining herself, she swung back to the window and glowered at the rooftops below, toying with her shimmering diamond necklace. Quell di
amonds, the finest in the known world. She had the deepest fondness for these coldly beautiful drops of crystalline ice, as hard and pale as her soul. She would wear no stones which had not been mined by their tiny southern neighbor; they were of the highest quality and the craftspeople of Quell were unparalleled.

  It wouldn’t do to arrive in court too promptly, she decided, or her father – who had taken significant liberties with her freedoms over this whole affair to begin with – might come to think that she was entirely under his control. If she waited too long, however, he would receive the report without her, and she hated being out of the loop, however temporarily, especially when the news was intimate concern to her and she might otherwise have been able to influence any decisions her father made.

  Relying upon instinct to guide her timing, she watched the ants scurrying about below as though their lives were of any importance to the kingdom. If only she could reach down and grind them into the cobblestones; that would go a long way to assuaging her anger.

  If only my brother was here.

  But Merequio’s presence wasn’t an option. The hunting accident had stolen him from her. Whirling eddies of snow seemed to obscure Tiera’s vision as she was transported back to the time and place which had irrevocably changed her life.

  There is nothing to be done for him. Those hateful words, spoken by one of her father’s huntsmen as she’d thrown herself upon her brother’s corpse, snaked through her brain as though hissed directly into her ear. Try as she might to concentrate upon the cityscape below, the pattern of Merequio’s blood, staining the snow, superimposed itself over her vision. His ruined face came to her unbidden, his jaw hanging horribly slack, his head twisted at an unnatural angle. She remembered flying to her father for comfort, but he’d held her only stiffly, his eyes already in the process of hardening to a glassy blackness; an abyss from which they’d never fully returned.

  And nor have I, Tiera thought. Damn you, brother. You should be here today. Her deceptively delicate hands bunched into iron fists. I hate you.

  Abruptly, she swung toward Farrow, whose anxious eyes immediately dropped toward the floor.

  “The door, girl! Get the door!”

  Farrow sprang into action. Her startled-deer movements and awkward mannerisms were as frustrating as her lifeless eyes. Niu - the bitch – had, at least, a spark of life and grace about her. Farrow, whom Tiera’s men had purchased from a peasant family at a very young age, had all the spirit of an abandoned, broken doll. Perhaps it was coming time to replace her.

  Sweeping out of her chambers, Tiera entered a short hallway. Tapestries decorated walls which were ancient and eroding. Tiera promised herself that when she eventually inherited the kingdom - either as ruler or through control of whatever fool she was forced to marry - she would tear down this irrelevant monument to the past and have a magnificent new palace constructed. This she swore, if it broke the back of every laborer in Cannevish.

  A descending flight of stairs, worn smooth, brought her to another, longer hall. This was the palace’s central nerve, connecting the banquet hall, the throne room, and the king’s royal suite. At the end of this passage, sealed off, her brother’s old chambers were collecting dust. To the best of her knowledge, his personal possessions had never been moved. She longed to order his rooms unsealed. She thought she might be able to let her brother go if she could just say farewell to his echoes one final time, but she knew her father would punish her if she tried. Seemingly determined to bury Merequio’s memory, he’d forbidden her - or anyone else - access to his sanctum.

  An enormous guard was posted outside the door to enforce this decree, with instructions that nobody, not even Tiera, was to pass inside. Warrington was his name, she thought, or Warringsworth, something similar. It didn’t matter. He was an irritating reminder that her authority had limits. Much as she’d bullied and threatened this man, he remained an immovable force. He was replaced at night by a shorter but more sinister man who frankly made Tiera’s skin crawl.

  Tiera didn’t respond well to having anything forbidden her, but if there was one person in Cannevish she held in healthy respect, it was her father. She didn’t fear him, exactly; she had no difficulty speaking her mind in his presence, yet she found herself aggravatingly obedient to his wishes. Hard, never outwardly affectionate, Minus was a difficult man to love, even for a daughter. Still, as far as family went, he was all she had, and as little as she liked to admit it to herself, she clung to that.

  She shuddered as she passed the boarded up suite, brushed, as ever, by Merequio’s ghost. Would he ever leave her completely? Part of her desired nothing more, resenting his hold upon her mind; part of her knew she would never be able to cope with the aching hole in her soul.

  Favoring Warring-whatever with a smile so poisonous it might have felled a weaker man, she turned left into the short passage which led to the throne room. Trailed by her colorless servant, she made a measured entrance. Few courtiers were in attendance, which suited Tiera just fine; more often than not she wanted to suffocate these mewling sycophants with their powdered wigs. Her father adorned his throne as though he’d been sculpted into it. Facing him, one hand raised in salute, stood General Gharletto, a towering, square block of a man, his beard as wildly unkempt as that of the lowliest beggar.

  King Minus turned a blind eye to Gharletto’s appearance; he was widely known as the only man whom the monarch respected. The General wasn’t even required to kneel in the presence of royalty. His stalwart defense of the kingdom during invasions he’d historically repelled before Tiera’s birth had earned him the reputation of a fearless, almost godlike warrior in Cannevish. His fleeing adversaries had often described him as completely mad; how else could they explain a man willing to charge an enemy line without soldiers at his back, roaring like a thousand dragons? Legend had it that Gharletto had returned from his last campaign so utterly drenched in gore that his own men could no longer recognize him.

  Advanced now in years, Gharletto’s legendary battlefield prowess had faded, yet he’d never lost the esteem of his soldiers, the people, or his liege. He’d been the first man in the kingdom to publicly offer his services to eliminate the Cannevish Wyrm, but King Minus had declared him too valuable to the kingdom. The truth, as Tiera saw it, was that her father couldn’t allow one of the nation’s greatest legends to be seen to fail. He’d therefore put the general on the ‘vital’ duty of border defense, while his agents spread rumors of potential invasion. In that way, the uncritical of Cannevish didn’t question why their legendary hero hadn’t yet dealt with the greatest threat to their way of life in decades.

  By way of contrast, Tiera wasn’t remotely fond of Gharletto, repelled by his hooked vulture’s-beak nose, rotting teeth, and careless manner. She understood his value as an icon, but when she was in charge, by Vanyon, the man would learn to address her with the proper respect.

  Behind the general knelt two quaking soldiers in chains. Both were young men; a tow-headed lad and a larger, bearded fellow whose little pig eyes bugged with fright.

  “Princess,” Gharletto acknowledged, nodding toward Tiera as she entered. His eyes lingered on her a moment too long.

  Insolent prick, she thought as she swept across to her throne and seated herself with all the stiff dignity as she could muster.

  “These men,” King Minus waved a hand at the terrified prisoners as Farrow fell in behind Tiera’s throne, a somber shadow. “Why have you brought them before me?”

  Gharletto picked at his teeth. “Well, normally, I’d see to their punishment myself. But seeing how as yourself, Majesty, and your daughter have a vested interest in the outcome of their failure, I thought I’d make you a gift of them. These two halfwits lost track of their charge not once, or even twice – damnable enough – but three times. They allowed this lad Simon to sneak out of the inn what where we had him housed, and later failed to apprehend him and the handmaiden as they fled into the lake. Then, instead of turning the issue over to the nearest
guardhouse, where the officers would have been able to deploy troops to patrol the shoreline in a timely fashion, they took it upon themselves to commandeer a fishing boat and scour the lake on their own, in the dark.”

  “Their incompetence is astonishing, a disgrace to our forces,” King Minus commented coldly, which both hapless prisoners recognized as a death sentence. They began to babble and bleat, eyes bulging with terror.

  “Please Your Majesty…”

  “…tried to correct our mistake…”

  “…took it upon ourselves…”

  “…have mercy, Your Majesty…”

  “…a family to feed…”

  The monarch raised a hand and the prisoners fell silent. Sweat trickled down their foreheads and into their eyes. The bearded man was shaking like a storm-tossed leaf. When he heard his sentence, Tiera thought with a cruel smile, he would likely fill his britches.

  “Execute these men however you see fit,” Minus told Gharletto. “Quietly, though. Dispose of the bodies. We don’t need the general public to learn of their bungling.”

  “Please, Your Majesty!” the bearded soldier howled, his face pressed to the carpet. “My mother, my sister, how will they survive?”

  The king contemplated him in silence for a moment, then spoke to Gharletto.

  “Execute this man’s family as well,” he said. “He will become an instructive example to your soldiers about what it means to make a fool of the Cannevish Guard.”

  The unfortunate soldier mouthed like a landed fish as all color bleached from his face. “No! No, Your Majesty, no…!”

  “Take them away,” Gharletto waved a hand. As his men moved to obey, and the wailing, desperately struggling soldiers were force-marched from the chamber, the general returned his attention to his monarch. “We’ll have them, Majesty, the lad and the handmaiden. Men are scouring the shores of Undinell for any trace of them, though that will take some time. It’s likely they drowned in the crossing, but if that’s not the case, we’ll have them soon enough. I’ll be supervising the hunt myself to see that there are no further mistakes. I expect the lad will head home, and we’re already making inquiries into where that home might be. It’s a matter of time, and sooner rather than later, I should think.”