The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  Kairah stared at him.

  “The extreme circumstances under which Jekaran has bonded the sword has made their connection unusually strong. The speed at which this has occurred is leading to Jekaran’s being overpowered by the sword’s will. Cutting the link is not something that I am certain I can do. Even if I were to attempt it, the shock could seriously harm, or even kill, him.”

  “It nearly drove Argentus mad,” Irvis solemnly added.

  “Who’s Argentus?” Mae asked.

  Jekaran didn’t answer, but instead turned to look at Irvis. “How did he do it?”

  “He allowed its charge to run out,” Irvis said. “I was with him when it happened, taking care of you while your uncle went through the withdrawal.”

  “Are you talking about Ez?” he heard Mae ask. “He used this sword?”

  Again, Jekaran ignored her question. “That sounds like an addict coming off poppies.”

  “It was worse.”

  “Isn’t there anything you can do?” Mae pled.

  Golden womb of the goddess, Mae must really be worried for her to be begging, Jekaran thought.

  “I would need to take Jekaran to Allose. Our elders could likely break the bond safely.”

  “Then let’s go,” Mae said.

  “Maely,” Kairah said in a chiding tone. “You know that I need to see your king.”

  “I don’t care about your stupid—”

  “—how do I keep it from taking me over?” Jekaran interrupted.

  Kairah looked at him. “I know some mental exercises I can teach you. They will help you maintain control. You will also need to make certain the sword does not lose its Apeiron charge. That would have the same effect as incorrectly severing the bond.”

  “But my uncle survived it.”

  “Barely,” Irvis added. “And even then it did something to him. He was different afterward.”

  “You should also travel with me,” Kairah said.

  “No!” snapped Maely. “He’s not going to help you get to Aiested!”

  “Maely—” Kairah began.

  “—was this part of your plan? To string us along with promises of help, given only if we served you?”

  “Mae,” Jekaran said.

  “No!” she snapped at him. “We’re going home, Jek! Home to Ez and Mull! Give the sword to her, and let’s go home!”

  How was he going to tell her that Genra was no longer home for him? He knew she wouldn’t take it well. Mull certainly wouldn’t.

  Maely sniffed derisively. “I bet she’s lying about the danger of breaking the bond anyway.”

  “I don’t really wanna risk testing that,” Jekaran said. He could feel the sword pressing its will against the mental barrier he had formed. He didn’t need to communicate with it to know it was probably trying to dissuade him from listening to Maely. How did it hear? For that matter, how did it see?

  “Aek!” Jekaran heard Karak call from above him.

  He looked up to see the Vorakk shaman clinging to the rock wall of the gorge by the claws of one hand, a spirit ball floating above one of his reptilian eyes.

  “Human warriors find gherns!” Karak dropped twenty feet to the ground as easily as though he were hopping off a stump. “Must go now rok!”

  Jekaran nodded and Kairah rushed over to her ghern, effortlessly climbing into the beast’s saddle.

  “Rok,” Karak hissed and then he exploded into a run.

  “Jekaran!” Maely said.

  “We’ll argue about it later, Mae!” And with that, he snapped the reins of his ghern and they were again riding through the sandstone gorge—away from Gymal’s camp.

  Jeryn was much the way Ezra remembered leaving it: noisy, crowded, and filthy. But it wasn’t just the refuse in the street, or the horrid scent created from the mixture of urine, feces, rotting garbage, and goddess only knows what else. No, the city’s filthiness went beyond the tangible. Jeryn’s people, nobles, and governor were all corrupt to the core in a way Ezra had rarely seen in the other cities of the world. Coin would buy absolution from almost any offense, no matter how vile, and was extorted by guards as a preventative measure, ensuring access to their services in time of need. Failure to pay up could very well result in the guards looking the other way while you were attacked and robbed. Or worse, the guards might do those very things themselves.

  Those qualities had made Jeryn the perfect place for the Rikujo to thrive. While not their headquarters-Rikujo didn’t have a central location-Jeryn could be said to be the unofficial stronghold of the criminal syndicate.

  That’s what made it the perfect city for Ezra to hide out in.

  Knowing Kaul, as he did, the man would assume Ezra would stay completely away from Jeryn, and so would spend his time searching for him in the many hamlets scattering the countryside.

  Jeryn was also the last city in which Ezra maintained a safe house, a two-story cottage located in one of the nicer parts of the city. Well, maybe nicer was too generous a word, he thought. Not as rotten works better.

  When Ezra had cut ties with his former life, he had abandoned all of his other safe houses save this one, partly for its closer proximity to Genra, and partly because he had kept this one secret from even his closest allies. He hadn’t even told Irvis about it until he wrote it in the letter he sent with Jekaran.

  Jekaran, he thought with a spike of worry. Where is that boy?

  Ezra stepped away from the window and let threadbare curtains fall back to obscure his view of the street. He and Mulladin had arrived in the city two nights ago, which was almost a week later than he originally planned. For that reason, he expected Irvis and Jekaran to be waiting for him, but the cottage was just as empty as when he had left it years earlier. Well, not exactly empty. A family of raccoons had taken up residence on the second floor. They had sent Mulladin into a frightened fit, as he had been the one to discover them. They had apparently gotten in through a hole in the roof, one probably made by a thief. That would explain why his cache of weapons and Aies were missing. But the raccoons were probably to blame for his depleted food stores.

  Being robbed galled Ezra, and he was so frustrated that he almost reported the crime to the captain of the city guard. When he realized the ridiculous irony of that course of action, he had burst out laughing. He could just imagine it: Argentus, the Invincible Shadow, reporting the burglary of money and things he had stolen from others. It wasn’t really a crime against him as much as a well-deserved serving of poetic justice. Of course, he knew he deserved much more than just the inconvenience brought on by his house being burgled.

  Guilt clutched Ezra’s chest, threatening to grab his heart and drag it down into the depths of sorrow. He had long ago faced the fact that he was a wicked man destined for the deepest pit of hell, and his committing his soul to the goddess was the only hope of escaping such a fate. Part of that commitment had been a pledge to never again lie, steal, or do any man violence. But over the course of the last two weeks, Ezra had broken the first two of those three pledges. It made him sick how quickly it all returned to him, how easy it had been to remember the language of lying or the ritual of stealing.

  In the last two weeks, Ezra had stolen food from the stores of an old farmer who had taken them in for the night, clothes from the drying line of a goodwife, and coin from a peddler selling a bulbous yellow fruit Ezra didn’t recognize. He had told himself it had all been necessary, but that did little to relieve the gnawing worry that he had offended the goddess and was on the road to becoming Argentus once more.

  Don’t be a fool, he told himself. It was the sword that turned him into a monster and his redemption hinged on his abandoning it. He could never bond with it again. That would be the line, he decided. He would lie and steal as needed, and even kill to defend the ones he loved, but he would not wield the talis that had almost cost him his very soul.

  But what if you need it to defend Jekaran? A voice whispered from some dark corner of his mind. Would he not soon have the op
portunity to bond it again? He fingered his earring, the displacement talis. Being near Jeryn’s Apeira well had recharged it, and he could now use it at will while in the city. When Jekaran brought the sword back, it, too, would re-charge.

  No! That was the one line he wouldn’t, that he couldn’t, cross. The cost was too great.

  Mulladin’s soft crying drifted down from the second floor. “What’s wrong, son?” Ezra called up the stairs to him.

  “Where’s Mae?” came the congested reply.

  “She’ll be along soon,” he said with as much nonchalance as he could muster. It, of course, was an act.

  Damn me, he thought. Giving Jek the sword and sending him to Rasha made Ezra feel as though he had sent a toddler into a cave of hibernating bears. What if Kaul had sorted it out and went after Jekaran instead of him? He hadn’t seen any sign of his old colleague, but that could mean a variety of things. What if his ruse had failed? What if Kaul had found Jekaran? What if Gymal discovered the sword and had Jekaran arrested? Or worse yet, what if his nephew had bonded the talis when it re-charged from Rasha’s well?

  No, he thought. I can’t let myself be paralyzed with fear. He drummed his fingers against his leg. But I can’t wait any longer. That would mean putting himself and Mulladin in danger of being discovered. And, it would likely mean more stealing in order to make the journey, but Ezra couldn’t wait around and do nothing.

  “Come on, Mull!” he shouted up the stairs. “We’re going to go find Jek and Mae.”

  Kaul watched atop a sandstone ridge as the caravan in the gorge below finally began to move. Wagons pulled by bullocks trailed two dozen men in commoner’s clothes led by a ghern mounted nobleman surrounded by armored guards. It was the well-find expedition from Argentus’ village, and they were leaving the rock lands.

  “The men from the village were complaining their lord was planning on disbanding their expedition as soon as they are out of the rock lands. They think they will be sent home without pay,” Arkell said. He had been down among the group of miners, posing as a traveling peddler in order to glean information. He had only just returned and was standing at Kaul’s left, just inches from the ledge of the ridge.

  Pushing him would take almost no effort, Kaul idly thought. But no, he needed Arkell and the man was loyal. Best of all, he was absolutely terrified of him, even when Kaul wasn’t using his dread medal on the man.

  Still, it was tempting.

  “They didn’t find a well?” Kaul asked, still staring down at the caravan.

  “Actually they did,” Arkell said. “That’s why they’re so upset. Their lord didn’t allow any of them to excavate it.”

  “They’re just leaving it?”

  The man nodded. “Apparently, the camp was raided by some bandits, and the miners claim one of the attackers used a gaia stone to cover their escape.”

  Gaia stone? The talises that could cause ground quakes were as rare as they were powerful. In fact, Kaul only knew of one lord in all of Aiestal who owned one and he was cousin to the king. How could common outland bandits have come by a gaia stone?

  “And what of the boy with green eyes?”

  Arkell smiled. “He escaped with the bandits and took the sword with him.”

  Kaul looked back down at the caravan. “That lord must be going after Argentus’ nephew. That’s why he’s disbanding their expedition. He wants the sword.”

  “Brilliant deduction, Lord Kaul.”

  The man could be so obsequious. Kaul eyed the edge of the ridge one more time, but decided against hurling him hundreds of feet to his death. “Do they have any ideas as to where the boy has gone?”

  He shook his head. “No one said anything about that, but I think I saw their lord with a blood seeker.”

  “If what you say is true, then that weaselly little lord is going to lead us straight to the sword.”

  “Perfect,” Arkell laughed—a too-relaxed laugh. Was the man losing his fear of Kaul?

  That thought made the rage inside of Kaul boil up, the stress of his anger like pressured steam needing a release. Kaul abruptly threw his left arm out to strike Arkell square in the back. The man yelped as he pitched forward and then screamed as he fell. He hit his head on a stone outcropping ten feet into his fall and was blessedly silent for the remainder of his descent. Kaul drew in a deep breath, the feeling of pressure having ebbed.

  After a moment, he turned and walked away from the ledge of the ridge, ignoring sputtering questions from his remaining three lieutenants, all of whom were wide-eyed and frightened.

  They were afraid of him. That was good.

  He would allow them to live as long as they stayed that way.

  Nightfall found Jekaran’s group camping on the edge of the rock lands. The gradual return of foliage and grass to the landscape was a comforting sign to Jekaran. The ordeal was ending. If he could help it, he would never return to the rock lands as long as he lived. Jekaran puttered around the outer perimeter of their camp, searching for kindling, grateful for the freedom of movement now that he was dressed again in tunic and trousers—or “man-clothes” as Karak had called them. He planned on burning Gymal’s velvet dress on the cook fire once their meal was done.

  He glanced back at the camp. He knew the sword was safe, but it still unnerved him not to have it with him. Right now, the Allosian woman was studying it, a fact he sensed the sword didn’t appreciate very much. The thing was like a child, Jekaran scoffed.

  And I’m acting like its damned mother.

  Jekaran lifted some dry sticks from the ground and added them to his armful. He figured he had enough to sustain a decent sized fire—apparently both Karak and Kairah could use their magic to light one—but this was his excuse to escape Mae, and would draw it out as long as he could. She had badgered him all afternoon about returning to Genra and leaving the sword with Kairah.

  Irvis had told her some of what had happened with Ez, Kaul, and the sword, but just the skeleton, leaving Jekaran to fill in the rest. One thing Irvis had left out was that both Ez and Jekaran could never return to Genra.

  Maely seemed to have taken the news well, better than he had expected. He had thought she would explode on him, but she had only listened in patient silence.

  When he was finished telling her he had to meet Ez in Jeryn, a worried look came into her eyes. Apparently, she had left Mull in Ez’s care, and was hoping Jekaran’s uncle had taken her brother with him.

  “Knowing Ez, he probably did,” he had told her, but decided to deliberately down-play the fact that a dangerous Rikujo lord hunted his uncle. He also omitted the fact that if her brother was with Ez, Kaul would kill him, too, if he caught up to them.

  Ultimately, she announced she would go with him to Jeryn, which ignited another argument about what to do with the sword. Mae was adamantly against his staying with Kairah for any appreciable amount of time. She treated the Allosian woman with a wary vigilance, as if she intended him harm and it was her job to protect him.

  A real Allosian, Jekaran marveled. He had heard the legends of the fey-folk and their beauty, but nothing had prepared him for actually meeting one. Focusing on that beauty was the only line of thinking that allowed him to ignore the pleading summons of the sword. I’m going to have to learn to keep that that thing shut out, he resolved, and not for the first time. Could Kairah really teach him to do that?

  When Jekaran knew he couldn’t carry any more wood—his arms were so full, he was dropping sticks with every step—he reluctantly returned to camp. He found Kairah kneeling on the ground, eyes still intent on his sword. Even in kneeling on the ground, she projected the regal grace of a noblewoman—or a queen. Across from her, on the opposite side of a newly dug fire pit, sat Mae, cross-legged and unabashedly glowering at her.

  Jekaran walked up to the empty pit and dropped his armload of sticks into it.

  Irvis walked over to the fire pit lugging a medium-sized cook pot full of water. He was angrily muttering to himself, and nearly let the metal c
aldron spill as he hung it from a tripod built over the pit.

  “Have a tough time finding water?” Jekaran asked.

  Irvis scowled at him. “It’s not as easy as gathering wood.”

  Jekaran laughed and put his hands up defensively. “Hey, I won the cast fair and honest!”

  “The creek that you said wasn’t too far from here is over a half mile away. So, yes, I did have a hard time finding water. That’s why I filled the pot with my piss!” Irvis stalked angrily away from the fire pit.

  “Gross,” he heard Maely say.

  He chuckled and glanced at Kairah. She had looked up from the sword, a quizzical expression on her face. “We are having urine in our stew?”

  He laughed. “He’s just sore that I got the easier job. Come on, Brother Irvis!” He called out to the monk. “Don’t be like that!”

  The man made a reply as he stalked into the darkness Jekaran couldn’t entirely hear, but one that sounded a lot like a very vulgar, very offensive suggestion for how Jekaran should spend his alone-time.

  “He’s a holy man of Rasheera?” Mae asked with her eyebrows high on her forehead.

  “An aspiring holy man.” He laughed. “He’ll be ok. Just needs some time to cool his head.” Jekaran cupped his hands and shouted after Irvis, “Maybe in the creek!”

  The monk repeated his early admonition, this time loud enough for Jekaran to be sure of what the man was suggesting. It was at this moment that Karak returned with a brace of rabbits.

  “Esk good fire sticks!”

  “Thanks,” Jekaran said flatly. He never could tell when the Vorakk was complimenting or mocking him.

  The lizard man flashed a toothy grin as he summoned a spirit ball of fire. The marble-sized miniature sun streaked down at the fire pit and disappeared beneath the pile of sticks. A heartbeat later, a full-fledged campfire roared to life, as though it had been tended carefully for an hour.

  “That’s a handy trick,” Mae said, apparently more to catch Jekaran’s attention than to make conversation.