The Kingmaker Contest

by Troy Clem

  Olister put a hand on the gold box. “You already looked inside.”

  “That was the test?” Pasqual looked puzzled.

  “We weren’t ready,” Tess protested. “Let ‘im go again.”

  Olister laughed. “There is no being ready. Either you have the gift or you don’t.”

  Tess straightened out her gun arm and pointed it more directly at Olister. “I guess ya don’t understand the point a this. Test ‘im again.” Olister put a wick into one of the vials and walked with it toward the lit oil lamps that were hanging near the door that led to the vestry. “Where d’ya think yer goin’?”

  Olister lifted the vial toward the lamp. “I have rituals to perform on a particular schedule.”

  “D’ya want me ta shoot ya?”

  “No,” Olister said. “But I’m not going to let your inability to be rational prevent me from getting my work done.” Olister lit the wick, walked back to the altar, and set down the lit vial on the smooth black surface.

  “Test ‘im!” Tess shouted.

  “I admire you,” Olister said. “Strong young woman who takes what she wants. Can I give you some advice? Go solo. He’s only holding you back.”

  “Ya don’t know anythin’ ‘bout ‘im,” Tess yelled. “Ya don’t ‘ave the right ta judge ‘im.”

  “I know him, sweetie,” began Olister, walking around to the front of the altar. “Sorry to break it to you, but I know him better than he knows himself. I was in the room when Pasqual was born. He was too big, but there was nothing I could do to save his mother. They sliced her open to pull him out, but he wasn’t breathing. Everyone turned to me. He was the first male in the Domm line for generations and no one wanted him to die.” Olister looked directly at Pasqual. “When your eyes did finally open, something was wrong. You didn’t scream, and you stared right through people like nothing was there. I handed you to your father but he refused to hold you. I judged you then and I do the same now—you’re worthless.”

  Pasqual let out a guttural scream, his voice cracking as it went up and down in pitch erratically, and charged Olister with tears in his eyes.

  “Stop, Squally!” Tess shouted, but Pasqual was screaming too loud to hear her.

  Olister reached for the gnarled staff leaned against the altar and jabbed it—in a deliberate and confident manner—into Pasqual’s chin as the boy charged. The giant young man was stopped like he hit a stone wall, and was knocked onto his back. Olister shoved the staff into Pasqual’s neck and pinned the behemoth to the ground. Pasqual flailed as he struggled to get up.

  “‘Ow are ya doin’ that!” Tess exclaimed, stunned for a moment. It had taken a dozen Koy-boys to hold Pasqual down, and they’d failed to keep him down in the end. Pasqual was exhausting himself trying to fight against the power of Olister’s staff. His struggling grew weaker and weaker, and slowly he stopped fighting altogether. “Let ‘im up!” Tess yelled, preparing to fire the pistol—but the gun fell out of her hands with a loud crack on the hard stone floor. Her vision faded and her knees buckled. “What… What’s ‘appenin’?” She fell to the ground; as she drifted out of consciousness, she had a fleeting thought: she had not smelled the incense Olister lit. But of course she had inhaled the lit vial's odorless perfume.

  Eye of the Dryad

  Time was hard to trace as they ran through the forest, but eventually Theo noticed the canopy of trees had green leaves, which he had never seen in autumn. The forest was tightly packed, and the canopy was so thick, it was like night had fallen. The little specks of light that penetrated the thicket of leaves and branches had the exact effect of stars. The trees narrowed the path in front of them and framed, as if through a door at the end of a long hallway, an ash-grey tree with no leaves. The bark was peeling from its broad trunk, it had only a few branches, and it wasn’t touched by even the faintest dot of sunlight. In the center of the trunk—about five feet from the ground—was a giant knot with a center as black as onyx.

  When they neared the end of the hallway of trees, an old Sigandar woman stepped into their path. She had the same bright white wrinkled skin as Danaje but was lacking the same vibrance and youthfulness, and her hair was such a pale yellow it might be called white. “Onqul you knock over!” Nagima yelled to Dak, trailing just a few feet behind him. “Stop do not!” She held the sack that contained Burk’s body close to her chest.

  Onqul wore a cloak made from animal bones, but the hood was the furry head of a bear. She widened her stance and had no intention of being knocked over. Dak kept running but, despite feeling a rush of wind against his face, he didn’t get any closer to Onqul than ten feet. Whatever boost of energy Dak had felt when he scooped up Theo and ran from the previous battle was fading.

  Theo felt drawn to the knot of the tree behind Onqul. He couldn’t explain why, but it felt as if the knot was watching him somehow. Peering into him as much as at him.

  “Nagima,” greeted Onqul with a devilish smile. “Getting to Her was never happening.”

  Nagima stopped running as she felt Onqul’s magic pushing her back. “Step aside you would if truly you understood Her.”

  Onqul laughed. “Stupid girl. Servant of the Mother have I been for sixty years. Four times have you correctly understood Her. Inherently correct your view therefore must be? Flawed is your conclusion.”

  “Mortality you have placed on Her visions,” Nagima lectured. “Foolish are you. Flawed are your beliefs in the Mother and in magic.” Nagima pulled out a dagger, cut her palm, and soaked the outside of the sack that contained Burk’s body with her blood. “Not stronger death magic is than life magic.” She hurled the dagger at Onqul and wiped the tears that were rolling down her cheeks from her face with her free hand. Nagima rubbed her tear-soaked palm on the sack, adding to the saturation on the woven fibers, then tossed the sack into the air. “Most powerful is the combination of the two.”

  The dagger whistled past Onqul’s ear, distracting her as Burk’s sack ignited overhead. Bursting from the flames was a fiery phoenix that flew right into the old hag’s chest, its force knocking her off her feet. The phoenix flew toward the Mother’s knot eye and burnt to ash and smoke inches before colliding with Her; Burk was gone.

  Dak had not stopped running even though he had been making no progress against Onqul. He was certain that, if he stopped, the pain in his calf would be too great, and he wouldn’t be able to start running again. When Onqul was knocked down, the force holding Dak gave way and he was moving at a full sprint. He nearly fell from the suddenness and had to jump over Onqul, jostling Theo in the process, but he held tight with his arm.

  It made no difference to Theo. His peripheral vision was black and what he could see was losing saturation and the edges were blurring. The unimpressive dirt ground and the once wondrous green trees that surrounded them might as well have been the same muddy color, for the detail with which Theo could see them. His pain had turned to numbness, and he was losing the will to hold back what he was certain would be his final sleep. Theo was so tired, and a sleep seemed like a pleasant idea.

  Onqul tried to grab Dak’s ankle as he leapt over her, but she missed. “No!” she shouted while scrambling up. “Her bring out to me!” she barked to her right. Two apprentices dragged Danaje into Nagima's view. Nagima knew they were Onqul’s apprentices by the bird bones they hung from their cloaks to show their devotion. Danaje’s arms were tied and her mouth was gagged. One apprentice had a dagger to Danaje’s throat. “Stop them will you,” Onqul said to Nagima. “Or die will Danaje.”

  Dak slowed and turned back to Nagima, and then looked to Danaje. Tears were welling in his eyes—Danaje had been a close mentor and he didn’t want her to die. Theo was completely blind and his hearing was already muffled. As his senses were fading away, all he was left with was an eerie sensation that the Mother was looking at him.

  “Her do not hurt,” Nagima said to Onqul. “Anger because you were not chosen to be Sha does not—”

  Onqul laughed. “Told you lies
has she. Choice there was not. Simple she has made it, but simple it was not.” Onqul turned to Danaje. “Betrayed by my friend was I.”

  “No,” Nagima corrected. “Betraying the clan you were. Death magic was most powerful you thought. Worried was the previous Sha. The dark path she did not want for the clan.”

  “Believable she has made it. Truth there is in the story.” Onqul replied. “To take the clan down a dark path the Sha did think I would. True. But in balance I believed. Enlightened our mentor was not. Life magic was good and death magic was evil she thought. Cast me out of the clan she was ready to do. Danaje said stand up we would together, but when the day came…” She turned to Danaje. “Evil she said I was. Sided with the Sha she did.” Onqul stared venomously at Danaje. “Truth tell her!” she ordered.

  Nagima looked to Danaje.

  Danaje’s gag was removed. “Her will we cannot hope to control,” she said.

  “You I love,” Nagima replied.

  “Truth tell did I say!” shouted Onqul, signaling to her apprentices to gag Danaje again before she could say anything else.

  Nagima looked at Dak who had slowed almost to a stop. “Go!” she yelled with tears in her eyes.

  Onqul yelled to her apprentices, “Stop them!”

  The apprentices dropped Danaje and ran. Danaje started to rise to her feet.

  Onqul marched toward Danaje and opened her cloak. As she got closer, she pulled a hatchet out and hurled it down at Danaje, hitting the Sha in the forehead and killing her instantly.

  Nagima had started to run toward Danaje the moment Onqul pulled out the hatchet, but she was barely halfway to them before Danaje hit the ground. Nagima got to her grandmother and fell over her, sobbing. Onqul grabbed Nagima by the hood of her cloak, but her hand was shot by a glancing arrow.

  Bir and three of his brothers led practically the entire clan down the hall of trees. “Over it is,” Bir announced.

  “What?” Onqul exclaimed looking at the warriors and apprentices in the crowd that had been fighting for her cause only minutes ago. “Cowards!”

  “Stupid to be fighting each other realized we all,” answered Bir. “Death of some in the clan was all we needed to stop. One holdout was there.” A hogtied Jaina was brought out and thrown near Onqul. “Tie you do we have to?”

  Dak laid Theo down in front of the Mother. He bowed in reverence to Her and slowly backed away. “Please help him as You helped me. I’m so grateful to You. I’m Your servant above all others.”

  Onqul’s two apprentices grabbed Theo’s legs and started to drag him across the forest floor. Dak tackled one to the ground and pummeled him in the face a few times. Once the first apprentice was down, Dak leapt up quickly, went after the other, and tackled him to the ground.

  Theo tried to roll over, but the attempt was short. He was too broken to move any part of himself. He couldn’t see anything, but he could feel something sliding up his legs, between him and his bandages, slithering against his skin like a dozen tiny wet snakes with no scales. They slid around his arms and his torso. His bandages split and ripped away as the slithering tendrils made room for themselves and squeezed Theo tight.

  “She has you in her vines,” Dak managed between blows. “Just let her take you.”

  The first apprentice ripped Dak off the second and held him down. The second apprentice slowly got up, a bit disoriented, but ran to Theo and started pulling the Mother’s vines from his body.

  Nagima looked to Bir. “Him you help,” she pleaded, pointing at Theo. “Take him She must.”

  Bir looked at his brothers for confirmation of commitment to Nagima. One handed him two arrows with a nod. Bir knocked both arrows side by side, pulled back, and released in one swift motion. In a blink, both of Onqul’s loyal apprentices took an arrow to the eye—one in the left and the other in the right—then they slumped over and stained the ground with their blood.

  The vines leaned Theo up as if he were standing. His vision and other senses were slowly returning to him. He was looking at the Mother, and Her vines tilted and adjusted his head until he was staring directly into her black knot eye.

  Theo felt like he was being pulled toward the eye, but his body wasn’t moving. He closed his eyes and the sensation stopped. The Mother’s vines grabbed hold of his eyelids and made him stare into Her darkness. His mind, his consciousness, was pulled from his body and into the mind of the Mother. He imagined it was like having a limb torn from his body—he would have to ask Dak to compare—but the limb was inside him and it came out through his eyes and nose and ears and mouth and nails and skin all at once. It was painful at first, but soon faded to mere disorientation.

  Everything was white, yet somehow not bright—and Theo had no sense of direction. Like smoke rising from a fire becomes indistinguishable from the sky, he was the white; but there was another in the boundless void. While Theo and the void were one, the presence was part of the void and still separate. Theo didn’t see it, but he felt it moving inside the void. Inside his mind.

  Zap. Theo could only describe it as a flash of lightning in his mind. He had no pain, but the white turned to darkness for a moment and then back to white. Zap. Another flash of lightning, but this time the darkness didn’t turn back to white. He slowly blinked; it was bright, but, as his eyes adjusted, he eventually saw people. At first Theo thought they were hanging from the ceiling, but he must have been upside down. He had no sensations to corroborate those feelings; he might as well have been looking at a painting hung wrong.

  Theo could distinguish between individual objects and people, but he couldn’t see faces or details that were only ten feet away from him, and everything was blurry. The people were moving, but standing still. Theo reasoned that he must have been rotating, but he didn’t feel any movement at all. He tried to look around but had little ability to move his neck, and the further left or right he did manage to look, the blurrier his vision became. As his rotating slowed, the upside-down wrinkled face of a smiling bald man with ruby red lips came into his field of view. The old man wasn’t blurry like everything else—he must have been standing very close. Zap.

  Suddenly he was back in the white. The presence invading his consciousness. Zap.

  Theo was in the forest. There were muffled voices, but he couldn’t see any other people. He looked around, but the further he looked the blurrier things were, just as before—and when he stopped trying to look, his head snapped back to where the view was clearest. He was walking, yet had no control of his feet—but he had more control of his body than the previous vision. He lifted his hands into view (they were slightly blurry), and touched them together. He could see his hands touch each other, but couldn’t feel his touch.

  He decided to stop fighting the experience and accept the journey. Through the trees, in the distance, Theo saw a massive mountain peak and his body stopped walking. “Ironhead,” Theo heard emerge from within the muffled conversation that had been perpetually happening around him.

  Theo’s head turned to the right and he clearly saw Nagima and Dak standing next to him. His head turned back and the mountain was gone. He was standing at a treeline that bordered a large open field bathed in the afternoon light. A thousand feet in front of him were the giant wooden doors into Ironhead Fortress, the only way into the mountain stronghold. The massive, ornate doors were just as he had seen in all his books, but far more detailed and vibrant. He turned to his right again. Where Nagima and Dak would have been standing was a young man in a knit cap whose skin was more brilliant white than even Nagima or Danaje’s, and whom Theo had never before seen. A portion of the man’s ear had been cut off, giving it a flat top. The young man smiled at Theo. Theo looked back toward the doors. Two people were walking toward them and Theo was suddenly walking to meet them.

  The taller of the two was an elderly man in a flowing tattered brown cloak. He was gaunt, he walked with a hunch, and the hair on his head and eyebrows were grey. He was being helped by a young girl, about Theo’s age, wear
ing a traditional dress of royalty, but she was Sigandar. As she got closer, Theo saw her vibrant blue eyes and was certain that she was Nagima. Theo felt a tingling sensation in his heart as it beat slower. The tingling sensation traveled up his spine and filled his head. He felt happier than he had ever felt before, and as the tingling sensation grew his heartbeat slowed even more.

  Theo walked faster toward Nagima. Nagima gently let go of the old man’s arm and ran to Theo. Theo ran to Nagima and they embraced. She was about the same height as him, maybe an inch taller, and Theo rested his head in the crook of her neck, closing his eyes and smiling. When he lifted his head again, the sun was nearly set and the field was full of the dead bodies of fallen royals, guards, and Sigandar. He let go of Nagima. She was older and several inches taller than him—exactly as she looked when he first met her.

  In the distance, bodies were being piled up to make room for wagons and horses to come onto the field. On the ground near him, families were dead: fathers, mothers, and children. Their contorted bodies reminded him of the horrible war stories he’s been forced to read by his instructors. Intense sorrow grew in Theo. His heart continued to slow its beating, and felt like it was being constricted under enormous pressure. His vision was closing in from the edges, becoming darkness.

  Theo could feel the boundless white void and the presence still penetrating his mind, but the darkness became the black knot eye of the Mother. He could feel his body healing. He felt strong and wanted to fight for control of himself, but the Mother won out and he was quickly back into the void. Into the white.

  The Mother continued to probe him. Theo tried to probe back and fight against the Mother’s control of him, and for a brief moment he saw something: the sun made of red, orange, and yellow glass. As soon as he saw the image of the sun, it exploded, and erupting from it were hundreds of creatures. They looked like they could have been deformed humans. Their skin was hard and grey, their eyes yellow, they were wearing sparse clothing, and they all had swords and shields. Theo’s heart went from barely beating to pounding a thousand beats a second. The monsters were charging him and he was powerless to do anything but shut his eyes. His heart seized from the terror as they clawed at his face and body. There was no pain from the monsters’ attacks, but his heart was in agony, feeling like it was being squeezed for all its juices.