The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  “Hey!” she snapped and was about to order Kairah to back off when the woman took hold of the leather cord around her neck and snapped it off in one fluid motion. Kairah dangled her mother’s ring in front of her face, the purple-haired woman’s eyes narrowing as she considered the ring.

  “That’s mine!” she made a swipe for the ring, but the taller Kairah lifted it out of her reach.

  “This is an abomination,” she said in a cold tone.

  “It’s my mother’s lucky ring!” Maely snapped back, anger rising inside her.

  “This is a compulsion talis!” she hissed.

  Maely stopped reaching for the ring. “A what?”

  “A compulsion talis,” Kairah repeated in a more amicable, if not still a cold tone. “It impresses your will upon another’s mind, and forces all but the strongest of will to obey.”

  Maely stared at the ring. Now it all made sense. Her mother had said she used it to get better prices and favors from her clients, and Maely had used it on the shopkeeper and probably the riverboat captain; both men having called her mistress.

  “I didn’t know,” she confessed.

  Kairah didn’t seem to hear her. “Among my people, using such a foul thing is a most egregious offense.”

  “What did you just say?”

  Kairah looked up at her, eyes widening with fear.

  “What are you?” Maely demanded, although this time there was no undercurrent of power to her words.

  Kairah remained silent.

  “You act like you don’t know how the real world works. You have a powerful talis or talises. Your skin is the whitest that I’ve ever seen, and your hair is the color of an Apeira well. I’m not stupid!”

  She sighed and nodded. “Your unsolicited aid facilitating my escape from the crystal golem has earned you an explanation.”

  “And you talk funny, even for a noble,” Maely added.

  Kairah flashed an amused smile. “Your suspicions are correct. I am not human,” she said in a lower tone. “I am an Allosian.”

  Maely stared at the woman, her mind working to digest what Kairah had just told her. “One of the fey-folk?” she excitedly asked.

  Kairah shot a nervous glance out from behind the wagon, and then put a finger to her lips. “Please, not quite so loud.”

  “Sorry,” Maely whispered. The outburst was childish, and could have garnered attention neither of them needed. “It’s just, I always thought your kind were just a story.”

  Kairah nodded. “That is the common assumption among your race, a fallacy we have encouraged.”

  “What are you doing in Rasha?”

  Kairah glanced over the stacked hay in the bed of the wagon at the crowd massed near the edge of the canal. Maely followed her gaze and saw a group of Rasha guards approaching the group.

  She looked back at her. “Not here.” She left the cover of the wagon and began walking briskly up the street.

  Maely caught up to her. “You still have my ring.”

  Kairah nodded. “And it would be a dereliction of my duty as a student of the College of Disciplines not to take it back to Allose for destruction.”

  Maely’s anger bubbled up and she snapped, “It’s mine!”

  “It is dangerous,” Kairah calmly replied. “Do you realize the kind of trouble this talis could cause? I make no exaggeration when I tell you such talises have been at the root of rapes, murders, and even wars among your people.”

  Before Maely could retort, Kairah turned right onto a narrow side street. Maely had to work to keep pace with the taller woman’s long strides.

  “Where is Allose?”

  Kairah shook her head beneath the hood of her cloak. “That is our most closely guarded secret.”

  “Why?”

  Kairah glanced at her and Maely saw something in her face that looked like surprise.

  “Because of you,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. Maely thought that her look must’ve betrayed her confusion because Kairah added, “humans” in clarification.

  “You’re afraid of us?” In light of all the legends of Allosians with their powerful potions, talises, and magic, the very idea they would be intimidated by puny, non-magical humans was laughable.

  Kairah was silent for a long moment before answering, “You are not educated, are you?”

  That remark affronted Maely’s pride and again she had to stamp out the flames of rising anger. “I know my letters!” she snapped. “That’s more than most farm women!”

  “I meant no offense,” Kairah said patiently. “I was referring to education in a specific discipline, namely history.”

  “I don’t know much of history.” Maely conceded.

  “Well, suffice it to say.” Kairah made another unexpected right turn, this time into a circular commons with benches and trees. “Your kind drove us into hiding by abusing the talises my people had gifted to them. The majority of Allosians have come to accept our decline as a course of the natural order, but not my brother, Jenoc.”

  “He’s the one who sent that crystal golem after you?”

  Kairah nodded. “Probably two of them.”

  Two? The thought terrified her.

  “Jenoc believes Shaelar rightly belongs to my people and the humans must either be controlled or …”

  “Or what?” Maely probed.

  “…eradicated.”

  “Like, killed?”

  Kairah nodded.

  “All of us?”

  “Yes,” she said sadly. “To that end, my brother is trying to incite your people to war amongst yourselves.”

  “War is nothing new,” Maely said. “My mother said that my father died in the war with Haeshala when I was a baby.”

  Kairah shook her head as she wound around a tree. “You do not understand.”

  Maely bristled, her eyes narrowing. She really has a talent for accidentally talking down to people.

  “Jenoc,” Kairah continued, “plans to teach your people how to create weapon talises.”

  “What?” Maely stopped. “But we don’t have magic.”

  Kairah stopped and turned to face her. “There are talises that allow humans to spell-cast like my kind. It is how your ancestors were able to make enough weapon talises to become a threat to us. Fortunately, for us, that secret has been lost to your people. But Jenoc plans to teach it to the military leaders of your three nations.”

  Maely felt her heart sink as the awful realization of what Kairah was suggesting settled on her. “He wants us to wipe each other out.” Kairah looked surprised that Maely had figured it out. “What?” she snapped defiantly. “Surprised I’m not as stupid as other humans?”

  The hood of Kairah’s cloak shifted as she shook her head. “I do not share my brother’s beliefs, Maely. I do not think humans need to be destroyed. I believe all life is sacred, and that humans have as much a right to exist as Allosians.” She turned and resumed walking. “That is why I am here. I plan to warn your leaders so they will not be deceived by my brother’s warmongering.”

  Maely resumed following her. “That’s why you’re trying to get to the capital,” she said. “And why you wanted Jek to be your guide.”

  “And now I think that I will need more than just a guide. I will need a protector.”

  Maely scoffed. “And you still want Jek? Sure, he’s athletic, but except for wrestling, he doesn’t know how to fight. He’s also clumsy.”

  “I believe your friend has bonded with a powerful ego talis.”

  “That sword?”

  “Yes. I would guess that, like your ring, this was the first time the sword has been near an Apeira well in years, and so it began working after regaining a charge. Apparently, the sword makes its wielder into a skilled warrior. And it is of Allosian make, I could tell that even from afar. It is too elegant and subtle to be the work of ancient humans.” She cast a concerned glance at her, “Forgive me, Maely, but your people as a whole lack subtlety. The weapon talises humans crafted were crude, showy, and us
ually resulted in an explosion of some sort.”

  “The point?” Maely asked through clenched teeth.

  “Like I said, the sword is an ego talis. An ego talis is a talis that has been imbued with a rudimentary intelligence, and can think and communicate through a psychic link it establishes at bonding a wielder.”

  “It’s alive?” Maely asked.

  “Yes.” Kairah descended a flight of stone steps into a public garden. A large tree surrounded by stone benches stood guard over the colorful array of flowers bursting around its roots.

  Maely’s eyes widened as she drew in a breath, there was nothing like this back home. She turned toward Kairah. “It’s lovely …” Then she stopped short. To her surprise, the Allosian woman stopped and bent to examine the flowers. After a moment, she straightened and turned to face Maely.

  “The bond will endure until the talis loses all of its charge. Until then, your friend Jekaran will not be able to ignore it, and will likely feel drawn to retrieve it.”

  “Gymal took it with him,” Maely said in a tone of realization. She looked up at Kairah. “To the western rock-lands.”

  “Then that is where I must go.” Kairah turned and began striding toward the west.

  “Wait!” Maely shouted as she rushed to catch up with the Allosian woman.

  “You wish to accompany me?” Kairah asked.

  Maely nodded. “I need to keep following Jek.”

  Kairah cocked an eyebrow. “Following? Were you not traveling with him?”

  Embarrassment made Maely’s face feel warm. “Yes, but,” she hesitated, “he doesn’t know it.”

  “You are in disguise, then?”

  “I was.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s none of your damn business!” she snapped.

  “Is Jekaran your mate?”

  “No!” Maely inwardly cringed as her sharp denial surely had given her away.

  Kairah eyed her. “Very well. I will question you no further on the matter.”

  Maely’s only reply was a forced scoff. She tried to appear unruffled, but Kairah’s questions had strummed chords too close to her heart. No, she was not Jek’s wife. But she wanted to be, wanted it more than anything. For years, she had imagined the two of them wedding in the village square amidst dozens of friends. Then Jek would move into her small house and the two of them would borrow a plow from Ez to begin planting. With the money she had saved over the past five years, they could buy a couple of swine from Tegrall or maybe even a cow. They would have their own farm, in their own corner of the world.

  She had replayed that fantasy so often that every detail was perfected, so much so that it was almost as clear as an actual memory. It was silly-girl day dreaming, but it didn’t have to be. If only she could convince Jek that he needed her as much as she needed him. She had tried to tell him how she felt on several occasions, but always lost her nerve. And Jek was so thickheaded that he never read deep enough into any of her hints. All the meals made from his favorite foods, mending his clothes, tending to him when he was sick, a dozen other subtle I-love-you’s he didn’t recognize.

  She fully intended to dissuade him from joining Kairah’s quest. Let someone else worry about the big problems, she thought. The Allosian woman could find another guide. But they needed a way to get rid of that sword talis, and giving it to her seemed the perfect way to avoid a whole heap of trouble. Maybe Gymal will agree to go with Kairah to the capital, she thought. He is a noble after all, and aren’t magic and politics a noble’s business? And maybe the urgency of a crisis would overshadow Jek’s crime.

  What was more important, an illegal possession of a talis or the extinction of … all of them?

  She nodded, everything seeming so clear. They could go home and start a life together. Maely just had to tell Jek how she felt and hope that he wouldn’t reject her. Her jaw clenched tight. That possibility terrified her more than the idea of a talis war. A talis war might kill her, but rejection by the man she loved would destroy her.

  Kaul made certain to meet the eyes of the pair of Rasha guards he passed, smiling as menacingly as he knew how. Their faces flushed and they quickened their pace, pointedly moving to the other side of the street. Kaul chuckled to himself. This close to an Apeira well he didn’t have to worry about having to budget his dread medal’s Apeiron charge. It was satisfying to know everyone feared him on what they thought was an instinctual level.

  Oh, how he loved to see confusion and terror in people’s eyes. It made him feel powerful.

  Kaul sauntered up to the jailhouse. Once he would have been afraid to go anywhere near such a place, but that had been in the days before he had earned his way into the leading ranks of the Rikujo. Back then, he had been the one to be afraid, he had been that one that was weak. How he hated that fear. It was an emotion for those who were weak, and he was not weak. The thought made him clench his teeth as tenuously controlled rage boiled up within his chest. It swelled like the cumulative pressure of a steam cooker, and he only knew of one way to relieve it.

  I’ve come a long way since then, he told himself. Now there are very few whom I fear. And when he finally claimed Argentus’ sword, there would be no one: not guard, soldier, general, or king.

  Kaul climbed the three stone steps to the porch to the jailhouse and threw open the door. He smiled at the fear in the eyes of the two guards sitting at the table. They were bound and gagged, and Kaul could see the sweat rolling down their foreheads. He took a step in and that’s when he saw a third guard lying on the floor in a pool of blood still leaking from his open throat.

  “Lord Kaul,” one of his lieutenants said as he deferentially bobbed his head. The man’s name was Arkell and he was the only other person in the room.

  “Lysan said you found out something,” Kaul said as he carefully stepped over the blood as it oozed across the floor. “What is it?”

  Arkell stepped over to one of the bound guards and ripped the gag from his mouth. “Tell him what you told me.”

  The trembling guard looked at Arkell and then to Kaul. “W-we arrested a boy with green eyes, almost a week ago.”

  “Argentus’ nephew,” Kaul said. He had learned from the villagers he questioned in Genra that the boy’s name was Jekaran and that he was not Argentus’ son, but his nephew. Kaul chuckled as he called to memory the screams and panic of those peasants as they desperately ran about, trying to escape or fight the fires he had started. He wasn’t sure if the village burned down, he had to leave so quickly, but he hoped it had.

  “It gets better,” Arkell nodded at the guard. “Tell him what you arrested the boy for!”

  “For possession and use of a weapon talis,” he quickly answered.

  Kaul was across the room in two steps. “What did you say?” he demanded.

  The bound guard visibly paled. “H-he used a weapon talis fending off a gang of thieves.”

  “What sort of weapon talis?” Kaul automatically directed the full potency of his dread medal at the guard. He used the talis so often he didn’t even have to think it anymore, it happened as naturally as he breathed.

  The guard’s eyes widened and he began to tremble violently. He made a few choking noises and then slumped off the chair and crumpled to the floor, dead. Kaul shrugged. Apparently the intensity of fear had been more than the guard’s heart could take. That happened sometimes.

  Kaul turned to the other guard and tore the man’s gag from his mouth so hard that it jerked the guard’s head forward and audibly made the man’s teeth clatter. “Same question,” he said, and this time he drew down the level of fear he was radiating so as to not kill the man before he had a chance to answer the question.

  The guard’s wide eyes vacillated between Kaul and the man’s dead comrade on the floor. “S-sword,” he stammered. “It was a sword!”

  He bonded it! Kaul ground his teeth in frustration. He knew the possibility existed from the moment he saw the boy’s image and caught onto what Argentus had done. He had just
hoped his old friend wasn’t going to allow his own kin to bond the talis.

  Argentus’ agrarian retirement hadn’t gentled the man’s ruthlessness as Kaul had originally assumed.

  Kaul leaned in so that he was inches from the guard’s face. “Where is it?”

  “T-the magistrate, h-he gave it over to the boy’s lord, a w-well-finder. H-he s-said he was going to take it to the k-king.” The guard’s teeth chattered as though he were standing naked in a midnight blizzard.

  Kaul straightened and turned to Arkell. “The boy will be able to lead us to it,” he then looked back at the guard. “Take me to the cell of the boy with green eyes.”

  The guard looked horrified. “H-he, h-he, h-he,” the man stammered.

  “He what?” Kaul said as he reflexively increased the potency of his fear aura.

  “E-escaped,” the guard choked out.

  Kaul gritted his teeth. “And your magistrate let you live? Is not the penalty for allowing a prisoner to escape, death?” He focused his fear aura into a single wave, all directed at the guard with full potency.

  The guard couldn’t muster a response. Instead he just shook, tears streaming down his pale face. He coughed and grimaced with pain, and then his eyes rolled back as he, too, slumped to the floor, dead. Kaul seldom killed this way, for two reasons: first it wouldn’t work on everyone, and second it cost a gross amount of Apeiron, nearly half of what his talis could hold. So it was that he really could only employ the method when he was in the vicinity of an Apeira well.

  As Kaul watched a line of blood trickle from the man’s nose he felt the pressure of his rage wane if only slightly. Like a steam cooker, Kaul needed to relieve the cumulative pressure that built up inside of him. In this case the boiling pressure was his rage, and the method of relieving it, bloodshed. And like a steam cooker, failure to vent the heat would result in an explosion. Kill here and there, and he could avoid an eruption of violence, although there were times when he enjoyed losing control.

  “Find the others and then catch up to me on the west road. The well-finder will have left for the rock lands by now and the boy is certain to be following.”