The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said sheepishly.

  “You never do, you dullard!” she quipped.

  She heard Jekaran step up to her right side and kneel beside her. “Why did you follow me, Mae?”

  Embarrassment dispelled her anger, and she looked away, ashamed.

  “Mae?” Jek softly insisted.

  Now was her chance. She could tell him how she felt, and why it had compelled her to follow him. She could take the chance now while she had his attention. The setting was wrong, in her dreams it happened during a moonlit stroll, or in a beautiful garden, not the edge of a creek in the middle of nowhere because she had thrown a tantrum. But if he rejected her—

  “Why do you think?” she heard herself say, not harshly, although she had intended it to be an angry remark.

  “I really don’t know,” Jek said, and the worst part was that the idiot sounded sincere. He really didn’t have any clue, did he?

  “Someone needs to keep an eye on you.”

  She felt his fingers lightly touch the back of her hair. “I can’t believe you cut it. I never thought you would.”

  Maely hiccupped a laugh. “I needed to look like a boy or else Gymal wouldn’t have let me go on the well-find.”

  “It suits you.”

  The compliment thrilled through her and she looked up to meet his eyes, suddenly feeling very vulnerable. “You like it?” she asked as she lightly touched her hair.

  “Yeah,” Jek said as he touched it again.

  Maely turned away. The dark likely would’ve hidden her blushing, but she wanted to make sure he didn’t see it. “Thanks,” she whispered.

  Jekaran rocked back onto his bottom and stretched his legs out over the bank of the creek. He then leaned back, propping himself up on his bent elbows. “Sure has been a hell of few weeks, hasn’t it?”

  His swearing always stabbed at her, not because the words were offensive, but because she knew Ez had taught Jekaran not to swear in the presence of a lady.

  She tightened lips against her teeth.

  He must’ve taken her silence for consensus because he went on as though she had verbally agreed with him. “I’ve killed bandits, been thrown into prison, met a Vorakk, was bit by a giant poisonous worm, and have been in the company of an actual Allosian. I even got to see her use real magic!”

  “Well, I was chased by a giant living statue made of crystal,” she said.

  Jek looked at her. “I’m gonna need to hear about that.”

  “Not now,” Maely said as she drew her legs up to her chest and hugged her knees. “Jek, are you really going to go with her?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “What about my brother? What about Ez? He’s got to be worried that you haven’t made it to Jeryn yet.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “But the sword—”

  —“We’ll figure that part out without Kairah,” she cut in. “You don’t need to be her servant and follow her all over Shaelar.”

  He didn’t answer. Divine Mother, did he really want to go with her?

  After a pregnant lull, he finally said, “Adventure is the lure of fools and excitement glamor to the gullible.”

  Was he reciting a poem?

  “The siren song of the world is as music to the wanderer’s feet, but that dance leads only to the soul-less grave.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  Jekaran chuckled. “Something Ez told me before I left. He meant it as a warning to avoid getting entangled in dangerous situations just for the thrill of it.”

  “Wise words,” she said. “Are you going to take his advice and go back with me?”

  “You know that I can never go back to Genra,” he said. “Ez plans to find a new place for us to live, somewhere the Rikujo won’t find us.”

  “We’ll”—she was about to say I’ll, but caught herself—“go with you.”

  Jek smiled and put his arm around her to pull her into a half-hug. “I love you, Maely.”

  Those words paralyzed her and for a moment, she was struck dumb. How she had long to hear those words from him. But the flutter in her heart quickly faded as she registered the context of Jek’s statement. It wasn’t the longed for, oft fantasized declaration she prayed for, just an expression of familial affection.

  She had to work to restrain the new wave of tears threatening to pour out of her eyes. She leaned her head on his shoulder, and he didn’t pull away.

  That was something, she tried to tell herself.

  “How about we go with Kairah as far Imaris? We need supplies for our trip to Jeryn, and we can help her charter a ship to take her up the coast.”

  “But that’s going to add at least another two weeks to our journey.” She wrapped her arm around his middle. “Ez is going to think something’s happened to you.”

  “We’ll send Irvis on ahead to let Ez know we’re safe. He can use his monk ploy to get food in the nearby villages, and it shouldn’t take him longer than a week to get there by ghern.”

  “Will he go?”

  Jek chuckled. “He got expelled from the monastery for being a pervert and so he has nowhere else to go.”

  “He’s a pervert?”

  “A mostly harmless pervert.” He looked at her. “Just make sure you have good cover when you change or need to use the privy.”

  “Gross.”

  Jekaran laughed. “Yeah, he can be. But he saved my life in Rasha when I was bit by that giant worm, and Ez trusts him.”

  She looked up at him to find him looking down at her. They were close. It would be nothing for her to move in and kiss him. She could feel a magic to the moment. He can’t be so dense that he doesn’t sense it, she thought. She just about did it, but he turned away.

  The magic faded and the moment passed.

  “So we have a deal?” he said. He threw a pebble into the creek with his free hand.

  Disappointed, Maely broke away from him and nodded. “I guess so.”

  “Good!” Jekaran said as he stood up. He reached down and helped her stand. “We should get back.”

  Maely nodded. She berated herself for not having taken the chance to kiss him. The moment had been right, but she was afraid. A mental scenario of him pulling away and then laughing at her stopped her.

  Her mother’s ring abruptly came to mind. No! she told herself. I won’t use it. I won’t force him to love me.

  He had freely chosen to go with her to Jeryn instead of with Kairah to Aiested. Surely, that meant something, didn’t it?

  It would have to be enough—for now.

  Kairah watched as the cook fire smoldered to red embers. It was late in the night, all the others having fallen asleep hours ago. She probably should’ve slept, too, in order to conserve the Apeiron within her, but sleep still felt a bit unnatural. The day before she wouldn’t have had a choice, but the well in the human mining camp had restored her to an energized state.

  Kairah looked at Maely sleeping on the ground on the opposite side of the fire. That girl was a strange one, but then again, all humans were strange. She hadn’t expected her to oppose Jekaran’s joining her. She still did not entirely understand it. Had the girl come to this mindset recently, or was that her feeling on the matter this entire time, and she had only been concealing it from her?

  You are strong again, Aeva said. I can feel it.

  “I found a well,” Kairah whispered.

  That is good. The Spirit Lily’s voice was fainter than it had been.

  I will soon be too far away to reply to you, Kairah thought. The communication was starting to take more and more effort, and she had to conserve her energy.

  I know.

  Is Jenoc still there? Kairah asked.

  Yes, Aeva said. Did you want me to relay a message to him?

  Kairah thought for a moment and then said, no.

  You are troubled, why?

  Kairah considered how much the flower would be able to understand and then decided to tell her anyway. I h
ave encountered a puzzle, a talis of unknown origin, but one crafted with the skill of my people.

  This disturbs you?

  A little, Kairah said. Instinct tells me that it is a fact of great import, but I cannot reason out why.

  “Reka fey girl not need sleep?” The quiet hiss of the Vorakk shaman startled Kairah, and she snapped her head up to find the lizard man standing above her.

  “Not at the moment,” she said. “What of you? Do you not need rest?”

  The Vorakk shaman shook his head, “Spirits no let Karak sleep ska.” He stepped to her side, tail lashing out to his right so that he could sit on the ground. “Spirits fill Karak’s sleep with death ska.”

  “You had a nightmare?” she asked, not certain what the term spirits meant to the lizard man. While she was quite familiar with humans and their history, she hadn’t taken the time to study the other races in Shaelar. Jenoc knew a lot about the Vorakk, though, and for a fleeting moment, she wished he were here to explain what Karak was referring to. If he was here, then I would not be, she thought to herself in ironic amusement.

  “Ssk,” Karak replied as he made a sharp gesture with his two right fingers. “But not fake. Real aka.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “Spirits show Karak Eater ska.”

  “Eater?”

  Karak nodded. “Eater come. Eater kill all ska.”

  “And that is why you are following Jekaran?”

  “Ssk,” Karak said. “Spirits say human boy find Eater. Karak follow. Karak stop Eater or Karak die.”

  Spirits say human boy find Eater? That had the distinct ring of prophecy to it. Could the Vorakk also have Oracles? Did this shaman also see in Jekaran the signs of a fated soul?

  “What is this Eater?” Kairah asked.

  Karak looked at her, reptilian eyes intent. “Death.”

  That brought another round of quiet, the crickets and snoring of the man called Irvis the only sounds. The two of them sat together until the lizard man rose and disappeared into the night.

  Kairah couldn’t shake the feeling that something beyond her knowledge was happening, something important, something terrible. Could Jenoc be the enemy the Vorakk shaman was referring to? No, Karak sounded like he was describing something more abstract. Could it be a talis war? That certainly would tie her into whatever fate Jekaran was marching toward.

  One thing was for certain. Jekaran needed to stay with her.

  These questions continued to swirl in her mind for hours until the dawning sun began to touch the eastern horizon. The others’ sleep had grown restless and she knew they would soon wake. Karak was nowhere to be seen, but Kairah guessed the Vorakk was not far away.

  What is going on? Why did something in the world feel wrong? She decided it would be worth some energy to cast her mind out as far she could to see if there was anything to discover about Karak’s Eater.

  She could feel a significant portion of her stored Apeiron ebb away as her mind covered mile after mile in seconds; her deficiency in the fourth discipline required Kairah to use more of her energy than she otherwise might have needed to use for the spell. In a flash, she perceived the whole of the land and its inhabitants in a wide circle with her at its epicenter. There were thousands of humans, some Vorakk raiders, and even one of the Ursaj was roaming the woods to their north, but nothing she could identify as the Eater—not that she knew what she was looking for. She was about to contract her senses when she felt something different. A gasp escaped her lips.

  She focused all of her attention on this one thing, a kind of psychic scrutiny, but as she did, it abruptly rebuffed her. Her eyes shot open and she gasped again. It was like the thing had slapped her in the face. What was that? The contact had been so startling that she found herself wet with perspiration, her chest rising and falling with hard breaths. Maybe she had just hit the limits of her psychic reach. After all, she was not very good with the Fourth Discipline.

  You said inept, Aeva said.

  Kairah tried to reply with a sarcastic quip, but found herself unable. It wasn’t because she wanted for energy, her Apeiron storage was still nearly full. It was as if she had stared at the sun too long and momentarily blinded herself.

  Kairah? The Spirit Lily anxiously called. Are you well?

  A moment later, she regained her psychic sense. I believe so.

  What was that thing? Aeva asked.

  Kairah shook her head. “I am not certain,” she answered aloud.

  “What?” Maely asked as she blearily stared at her. “Who are you talking to?”

  “Dawn is here,” Kairah quickly said. “It is time to rise from your sleep.”

  “It’s still dark,” she complained.

  “What’s this?” Jekaran said in a gravelly voice.

  Karak returned, carrying a deer over his shoulders. “Daka breakfast,” he grinned as he threw the carcass down by the smoldering fire pit.

  The sight of the dead animal made Kairah feel ill, and she was glad that she had enough energy stored to not require food. She hated seeing death. As she stared into the buck’s lifeless eyes, something slipped into place inside her mind, a familiar feeling mixed with sudden understanding.

  Karak asked, “Reka fey girl no like deer?” She looked up at the lizard man and found him staring at her, his reptilian eyes full of suspicion.

  “I am fine.” That was a lie. For in that moment of staring at the dead deer, Kairah recognized the feeling she felt when rebuffed by the alien force. It was death. She had felt death. It had been a potent feeling of lifeless rot, far stronger than a mass grave of animals, or even humans. She looked at Karak, a dread settling over her. “I think I sensed your Eater.”

  The lizard man’s face changed, and he knelt in front of her. “Reka?” he signed something with his left claw.

  Kairah shook her head. “I do not know. It happened so fast, and I was not mindful of the physical direction.” She looked at the dead deer lying next to the fire pit. “However, I now understand what you mean when you say the Eater is death.”

  “What’s this about?” Jekaran asked as he got up from his bed on the ground. “Is something wrong?”

  Kairah shared a long look with Karak before finally answering, “Yes.”

  Jekaran hadn’t been able to get any real answers from Kairah about what she had sensed. It was frustrating. Had the woman not been so strikingly gorgeous, he might’ve even been irritated with her.

  Their breakfast had taken over an hour to prepare and another hour to cook, but a belly full of venison had been worth the wait, and they had some leftover for the road. Jekaran waited until after they all ate before breaking the news to Kairah that he could only escort her as far as the port city of Imaris before having to resume his journey to Jeryn. He hated to disappoint her, but the thought of the man with mismatched eyes killing his uncle wouldn’t leave his mind. That, coupled with Maely’s pleading tears from the night before, made the prospect of joining Kairah a virtual impossibility.

  Irvis took his assignment to ride alone to Jeryn much better than Jekaran would’ve thought. He clearly regretted leaving Kairah’s presence, but the thought of being reunited with Ez seemed to soften the blow. If Karak had not approved, he hadn’t said so. The Vorakk shaman had said very little all morning. He was withdrawn and introspective. Clearly, he understood Kairah’s cryptic remarks when no one else had.

  The mid-morning suns inched closer to their peak overhead, and the time finally came to strike camp, pack up their things, and begin the day’s journey. The work progressed quickly and just as they were about to mount their gherns, Irvis called Jekaran over to him. He put his arm around him and said, “Watch yourself, child. You belong to Ez, and that sort of makes us related.”

  “Meaning?” Jekaran asked, half irritated, half amused.

  “Meaning,” Irvis said seriously, “I took care of you when you were a baby, and you’re likely the closest thing to a son that I’ll ever have.”

  “From t
he way you brag about sowing your seed, I’d think you’d have a bastard in every town from here to Maeis Tol.”

  Irvis looked ashamed. “I’ve been known to exaggerate a little when it comes to my love life. Just be careful, child, and promise me you won’t use that sword.”

  “I promise,” Jekaran said, knowing full well it was a lie. That should’ve made him feel ashamed, but it didn’t.

  The chubby monk pulled himself up into the ghern’s saddle, the beast snorting in annoyance as he did so.

  “Thanks, Uncle Irvis.”

  That made the man grin. “I like the sound of that.” He started to ride off when he paused. He turned back and waved Jekaran closer.

  “What?” Jekaran asked.

  He leaned down from his saddle. “Listen,” Irvis said in a conspiratorial whisper. “If you bed that Allosian woman, I insist you share with me every filthy detail upon our next meeting.”

  “That’s wrong!” Jekaran said loudly as he stepped away from Irvis’ mount.

  The man laughed. “I’m your uncle, aren’t I?”

  “That’s what makes it wrong,” Jekaran swatted the ghern’s backside. “Get out of here you lecher!”

  Irvis laughed as he galloped away from the group.

  Jekaran turned and looked at the others. “Guess it’s time for us to be going.”

  They mounted up, Maely with him, and Kairah on her own ghern, while Karak again insisted he could keep up on foot. They headed northwest toward the coastal city of Imaris, each one with uncertain dread clouding their heart.

  The journey progressed quicker than any Jekaran had ever undertaken before. Of course, he had never traveled by ghern before, he thought as he stretched his arm out to pat the animal’s neck. He understood why the animals were so highly valued, and half wondered if he would ever be able to afford one. All of his mathematical and entrepreneurial mental scenarios pointed to a disheartening no.

  He thought with a smile how much the sword would fetch on the illegal talis market. His psychic link informed him it didn’t appreciate the notion.

  He was beginning to get a feel for the weapon’s personality. At first, he thought its mind was similar to that of a child’s, but he was quickly rethinking the position. During a stretch of idle thought, he had called to mind one of Irvis’ bawdy jokes. It was a filthy thing about a farmer’s daughter and three strangers, but it made him laugh to himself. He was very surprised when he felt the sword mirror his amusement.