The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  When Jekaran left the cover of the pickets, the mercenary walked over and resumed escorting him into the camp. He also resumed his detailed and disgusting confession as if there had been no break in their conversation. The camp was quiet; the only noises Jekaran could hear being the snoring of the men and the hushed conversation of the guards.

  “This is brother Ulan,” Jekaran’s escort introduced him to the men guarding Gymal’s tent. “He is here to tend to Lord Gymal’s sickness.”

  “He doesn’t look sick,” one of the guards said as he looked Jekaran up and down.

  Jekaran’s escort grinned. “Burning in the nethers.”

  The other guards looked at each other and then broke into a round of chuckles.

  “He been spending time in the bath houses?”

  “Buggering the water boys I’ll bet,” one of the other guards scoffed.

  Jekaran worked to look uncomfortable, something that wasn’t hard to fake as his desperation mounted with every step he took toward the sword. “I do not know the cause. I am just here to heal him.”

  “I’ll wake him,” one of the guards said as he turned to lift the tent’s entrance flap.

  “No,” Jekaran blurted out.

  The guards looked at him, first with looks of confusion, then with growing suspicion.

  “I must maintain at least the appearance of confidentiality. I fear he will suspect his condition,” Jekaran put a diplomatic emphasis on that word, “and all it implies is known, should one of you announce me.” He inwardly cringed at the weak excuse.

  A tense moment of quiet followed as all of the guards looked to Jekaran’s escort for instruction. “Let the monk do it his way.” The mercenary smacked Jekaran on the back—hard. “The task is unenviable as it is. We don’t need to make it any more difficult for him.”

  They all chuckled at that.

  “Lord Gymal has thickened canvas and pelts hanging from the walls, making it as dark as a cave in there. You have a light?” Jekaran’s escort asked him.

  Damn! He hadn’t thought of that. He didn’t have a light, and if Gymal woke while he was in the tent, it would all be over. Jekaran bit his lip and was about to answer when a thought entered his mind, as though the sword implanted it.

  I will be your eyes in the dark.

  That was enough for Jekaran. “Yes,” he lied.

  His escort chuckled again and slapped him on the back before lifting the bottom of the tent flap.

  “Thank you,” Jekaran dipped his head, working to suppress a grin, knowing he would soon hold his sword again. My sword? He caught himself. When did it become my sword?

  But, then, maybe it was now.

  He bobbed one more thank-you to the mercenary guard before crouching and entering the tent. The flap closed behind him, thrusting him into utter darkness. And not just darkness, he realized, but quiet, the thickened walls effectively blocking every sound of the outside world.

  I’m here.

  Nothing.

  He was about to repeat himself, this time in an audible whisper, when the sword pushed its way into his mind so suddenly, it caused Jekaran to stumble and fall to one knee. Although his eyes remained sightless, the darkness was no longer an obstacle. Through his psychic link to the sword, he knew where everything was with absolute confidence.

  Jekaran stood and ascertained his position. Gymal’s bed—the man actually carried a four-post bed with him—was ten feet directly in front of Jekaran. Five feet to the left of the bed was a small table with the remnants of Gymal’s dinner, the greasy bones of what had probably been a pheasant. Five feet to the right of the bed was a large travel trunk, on top of which lay a leather satchel and an unusually long, wooden lockbox.

  That’s you! Jekaran said with his mind. The sword responded with wordless confirmation.

  Jekaran hurried over and knelt down at the side of the trunk. He felt along the smooth top until cold metal met his fingers. The box fitted to the sword with perfection, and Gymal must’ve had it custom designed for concealment of the weapon-his sword. That thought was accompanied by a fierce pang of jealousy that faded as quickly as it had come.

  Strange, he thought.

  Jekaran shook off the oddity and quickly found the box’s keyhole. Drawing a thin metal pin from the inside of his robe pocket, he inserted it into the lock and held his breath.

  Jekaran knew this was going to be the hard part. Because he had never picked a lock, Irvis had given him a rushed lesson on the basics. “The problem is”—the monk had said with a tone of thieving expertise that belied his round, honest face—” no two locks are the same. Even of the same design, each has its own quirks.”

  Great. I don’t suppose you know how to pick a lock, Jekaran thought to the sword.

  There was no response.

  I’ll take that for a no. He began to manipulate the pin; five minutes later, the effort snapped the pin in half. Jekaran bit off a curse and quickly drew another pin from his robe.

  Although he was more careful the second time, the result was the same: a broken pick and a still-locked box. He fished in his pocket for another pin – Irvis had bought five – and froze as his fingers found a tear in the pocket lining.

  A tear and no more pins.

  “Damn it!” Jekaran hissed.

  A snort from Gymal turned his blood cold and he froze, not even daring to draw a breath until the man’s snoring returned to a steady rhythm. I’m in trouble, Jekaran thought. Frightened, his thoughts began to race in time with his quickening pulse. What do I do? He could walk away, tell the guards he had ministered to Gymal, and be twenty miles away from camp by dawn. But the thought of never again holding the sword scared him more than discovery and capture. Logic and his sense of self-preservation screamed at him to get out of the situation now, but he found himself rooted to the spot.

  I can’t leave it, Jekaran realized. It won’t let me.

  That should’ve frightened him more than anything else, he realized, but for some reason, the fact that he couldn’t leave the sword seemed perfectly normal. Criticizing it would be like trying to find fault in a mother’s inability to abandon her newborn infant.

  Jekaran felt around in his pocket for the dagger Irvis had acquired and drew it out. At first, he tried to fit the tip of the blade into the lock, but it proved too small for the knife. He ground his teeth in frustration, some inner instinct warning him time was quickly running out. Jekaran stood and hefted the lockbox. He could carry it easily under one arm, but it was too big to hide under his robe. He chewed his lower lip, trying to keep his rising panic from overwhelming him.

  In the complete dark of Gymal’s tent, Jekaran groped for inspiration, but all that came to mind was taking the box and running. Sucking in a breath, he decided to do just that. With the lockbox under his left arm, Jekaran crept toward the back wall of the tent. He gently set it on the ground and then, brushing aside a thick fur pelt, stabbed his knife into the tent wall and began to cut the canvas downward. He moved at a maddeningly slow pace to minimize rip whispering in the darkness and listened as Gymal continued to snore evenly behind him.

  So far, so good.

  The loose flap fluttered inward as Jekaran’s blade reached the bottom, inviting a chill wind and the sounds of camp into Gymal’s tent. His heart began to pound as the loss of total quiet caused the man’s snoring to become inconsistent. In a rush of adrenaline, Jekaran dropped to all fours and crawled out of the tent.

  Once outside, he turned around and quickly reached in for the lockbox. But, while Jekaran was rushing to pull the box out of the tent, one of its metal hinges snagged on the torn canvas resulting in a very loud tearing sound. Gymal’s snoring suddenly turned into a choke, and Jekaran heard the man begin thrashing in his bed. He stopped pulling the lockbox out of the tent and froze, waiting with breathless hope that he would hear the rhythmic snoring once again resume.

  It didn’t.

  Light from a talis exploded out of the tent, and Jekaran saw Gymal’s legs swing
out over the edge of the bed and lower to touch the floor. Please don’t let him notice the tear, Jekaran silently prayed to Rasheera.

  Jekaran’s heart began pounding in his ears as he watched Gymal’s hairless chicken legs move closer to him. He was sure to feel the breeze blowing in through the hole in the tent wall. But just when Gymal was about to catch him, the man turned and walked back toward his bed. Jekaran mentally thanked the goddess and carefully released his pent-up breath. As soon as he saw Gymal sit down on his bed, he began to slide the lockbox the rest of the way out of the tent.

  RIPPPPP!

  Icy panic stabbed Jekaran square in the chest. He had forgotten that the lockbox was still snagged on the canvas wall, the tearing sound louder to him than the voice of God. Silence followed, and then Gymal’s face peered out at him from inside the tent.

  “Guards!” Gymal shouted in his nasally tone. “GUARDS!”

  “Dammit!” Jekaran swore aloud as he scrambled to his feet, the lockbox coming loose with another loud rip.

  Gymal’s shouting soon mixed with urgent bell tolling and voices of mercenaries calling to one another. Thoughts blurred, Jekaran spun and began sprinting away from the tent as fast as he could. He passed four gherns tethered to a wooden picket, and considered stealing one to make his escape. The thought was fleeting, however, as Jekaran had never ridden a ghern and wasn’t even sure how to mount one of the bipedal mammals.

  Jekaran shot a look over his shoulder as the shouts grew louder, and he caught sight of no less than three armored mercenaries, with swords drawn, sprinting after him. Jekaran weaved through the outer ring of tents and was soon running on the open plain into the darkness. A thick grouping of trees, too small to be called a forest but large enough to provide a place to hide from his pursuers, lay before him. But how far away? Jekaran wondered. He had seen the trees through Karak’s magic when surveying the area, but hadn’t thought to judge the distance between the thicket and Gymal’s camp. In the dark, it was next to impossible to tell, but that didn’t matter. Reaching the thicket was now his only chance to lose Gymal’s guards.

  Jekaran settled into a steady pace, content his chosen path would carry him to freedom, when he felt the front of his robes pull tight. And then he pitched forward, sparse grass and small rocks racing up to meet him. He hit the ground face first and then involuntarily rolled down a small hill. He came to a stop amid a cloud of dust and scrambled up as quickly as he could. He had lost his hold on the lockbox in the fall, and was quickly scanning the ground around him when the sword called out to him. Immediately he knew where it was—ten feet off to his left.

  Jekaran whirled, blinded by the light of two talises shining into his eyes from the top of the hill. Although he knew he was no match for trained soldiers, Jekaran’s sense of self-preservation prompted him to reach inside his robes for the knife Irvis had bought for him. It wasn’t there. Had he left it back in Gymal’s tent, or had he dropped it in his flight?

  “I heard that it was difficult to get alms from the nobility”—Jekaran recognized the voice of the mercenary who had escorted him into camp—“but this seems a little extreme, wouldn’t you say, brother Ulan? Or is it just … Ulan?”

  A light on his periphery caught Jekaran’s attention and he turned to his left just in time to see a third mercenary place a booted foot on top of the grounded lockbox. Realizing that he had no escape, Jekaran raised his hands in surrender.

  It was over.

  Jenoc pleads with you to answer, Aeva said. Do you wish to respond?

  Kairah hesitated for a long moment before finally shaking her head. “No,” she whispered aloud at the same time she said it with her thoughts. “It would do no good.”

  Aeva wordlessly acknowledged Kairah’s answer, and the Spirit Lily’s presence faded from her mind. It was becoming more and more difficult for Kairah to communicate with Aeva the farther away from Allose she traveled—a distance nearing three hundred miles. It was somewhat disconcerting not having Aeva’s presence constantly in her consciousness. It had been years since she experienced the kind of mental isolation she now felt, and it was wearing on her.

  Another hardship was her being so far away from an Apeira well. Rasha had only been a few days travel away from Allose, and so she hadn’t needed to go long without being able to touch a well instead of her own stored energy in order to spell-cast. Now, it had been ten days, Kairah felt very vulnerable. If she didn’t carefully budget the Apeiron she still held, it could run out. She hadn’t been in danger of running out in almost seventy years, not since she had been a child. The very thought terrified her.

  Not long after taking to the road with Maely, Kairah began to realize how much she had taken for granted living in the shadow of the Mother Shard. She hadn’t been aware of how much spell casting she did as a matter of course until she could no longer freely draw the energy. She was forced to resort to time consuming and menial ways of doing easy things, like rubbing sticks together to light a mound of tinder, sticks that had taken her almost an hour to collect. How did the humans live each day of their lives like this? How did they live without magic?

  The sound of someone approaching—another frustration to actually listen with her ears or see with her eyes to perceive such things—drew her attention away from the leaf she had been idly fingering. She looked up and saw Maely jogging out of the village toward her. The girl shouldered a bulky satchel and wore a pleased smile on her face.

  She must’ve found someone who had seen Jekaran.

  Although the fine sable cloak Kairah wore concealed her amethyst-colored hair and bare alabaster shoulders, the cloak itself was of such a fine make that it still attracted too much attention. Along with what Maely considered Kairah’s odd use of the human’s language and regal demeanor—the girl used less flattering words to describe both of these—they both thought it best Maely go alone into the village for information and supplies.

  Before leaving Rasha, they acquired some human currency by selling a small jewel Kairah had brought with her from Allose. The diamond fetched enough coin to impress Maely, but she was still disappointed that Kairah hadn’t allowed her to use the compulsion ring to gain what they needed.

  She still doesn’t understand, Kairah had to remind herself in order to quell her anger at the girl’s offensive suggestion. It was bad enough Kairah had kept a cloak acquired through such distasteful means. Had her situation not been an emergency, she never would have accepted it.

  Kairah dropped her leaf and rose from her seat on the grass underneath the tall oak. Its wide branches full of leaves had been a most pleasant shelter from the sun. She turned and placed a hand on the tree’s trunk and said thank you with her mind.

  “What’re you doing?” Maely asked.

  Kairah turned to look at the human girl and said, “Thanking the tree.”

  Maely’s smile faded. “For what?”

  “For allowing me to enjoy its shade.”

  “Do you often talk to trees?”

  “Yes,” Kairah said.

  “What do they say?” Maely asked.

  Kairah could hear the scornful laugh behind the words. “Most floras do not have the intelligence to respond,” she said patiently.

  “Most?” Maely asked, and then she couldn’t hold back the laughter.

  “What did you acquire?” Kairah deliberately changed the subject.

  Maely shrugged the satchel off her shoulder and put in on the ground. “I got two loaves of bread, some fruit, a wheel of cheese, some cured ham, another water skin, a bar of soap, and some cloths for washing.”

  “That is excessive,” Kairah said.

  Maely’s eyes flashed, and Kairah thought she was about to experience another explosion of the girl’s short temper, but the flare appeared to fade. “Well, we gotta eat,” she said in a tone of justification.

  Kairah nodded to herself. “Of course, I forget that.”

  Maely fished an apple out of the bag and took a bite. “Don’t tell me that you don’
t eat,” she said, chewing with her mouth open.

  Kairah tried to swallow her disgust at the display of bad manners and shook her head. “No, we do. Just not as often as you do.”

  Maely paused, seemed to look Kairah up and down, and then she touched her own stomach. After that, the girl appeared to lose interest in her apple for some reason.

  “Because my people channel Apeiron through our bodies, we rely more on that energy to sustain us than we do food and drink.”

  “So when do you eat?”

  “Usually we do so as part of our rituals or celebrations, or when we are away from a well long enough to need it.” Maely was about to open her mouth to ask another question, but Kairah pre-empted her. “You have news?”

  Maely nodded. “The people in that village saw Jek.”

  “So we have confirmation that he is indeed pursuing the sword talis.” Kairah let her gaze shift past the village and toward the horizon. “Did they report anything else?”

  “Yeah,” Maely said, “He was with a fat Rasheeran monk who had come for free supplies.” She laughed. “Apparently the monk upset the villagers by taking more than they thought right and proper.”

  Kairah looked back at Maely. “Jekaran is keeping company with a thief?”

  Maely shook her head. “No,” she laughed. “Our holy men have a right to take what they need in the way of supplies. He just took too much.”

  Maely’s expression visibly darkened. “My mother used to say some of the monks had a liberal interpretation of what maintenance they were entitled to. Hypocritical bastards!”

  “Your mother?” Kairah asked, genuinely curious.

  Maely appeared startled at the question, as though she had forgotten that Kairah was there. She dropped her eyes to the ground. “Yeah,” she said. “She was a courtesan.”