Raelen studied Pariel for a long moment. The man was truly loyal, of the rare breed of noblemen who should make up the royal court. Raelen would have him as his general when he became king. He’d even raise the man’s house to high nobility status. He smiled and placed a hand on Pariel’s right shoulder.
“Very well. Go, fetch the key and bring it to my apartments. It is in my father’s study in a locked desk drawer. The lock is not a talis, so you shouldn’t have a problem circumventing it.” Raelen glanced through a window at the dark night sky. “He was still up when he expelled me, but he should soon retire. Servants go in and out of the antechamber at all hours, so you should have little trouble getting in.”
Pariel crisply saluted, turned on his heel, and began striding away from him.
“Rasheera’s blessings be upon you, Navarch Pariel,” Raelen called.
The man halted, offered one more heartfelt salute, and then disappeared around a corner.
“We need more men like him in this kingdom,” Raelen said to Gryyth.
He was surprised when the bear-man growled, “I don’t trust him.”
“You don’t trust any humans,” Raelen scoffed.
“I trust you, cub,” Gryyth rumbled softly.
Raelen smiled.
“Leave me alone!” Jekaran screamed.
Angry jeering from his fellow inmates brought him back to the moment, and Jekaran realized he’d been talking to the sword aloud–again.
“Keep your damned mouth shut, you brain-addled lunatic!” one of the bigger men shouted.
“I’m trying to sleep, you bugger-lovin’ man-whore!” another inmate snapped.
Jekaran tuned out the subsequent threats and angry shouting. This wasn’t the first time he’d drawn the ire of his fellow prisoners by forgetting himself and speaking to the sword, especially since it had begun urgently pestering him to lower his mental wall.
Truth be told, Jekaran was trying to sleep just as ardently as any of his fellow prisoners. It was the sword keeping him awake, and by extension the other occupants of the dungeon. But he couldn’t very well tell them that. It would reinforce their belief that he was a mad.
He might not be insane, but he was a monster. How else could he explain what he’d done back in Imaris? He had absorbed the life-force of Kaul and used it to heal his own wounds and strengthen himself. He had eaten Kaul’s soul. He was an Eater, like the creature Karak was hunting. No wonder the Vorakk shaman’s spirits told him Jekaran would lead him to the Eater–it was him.
Cold nausea soured his stomach, and a sob escaped his throat. He drew his threadbare blanket tighter over his shoulders and leaned his head against the cold stone wall. Maybe it would’ve been better if the king had ordered him hanged. He’d started to drift, trying to keep the sword from breaking into his thoughts as his defenses slowly lowered. The only time it could get to him was when he was unconscious, the only time it could break into his mind.
“Brother Ulan.”
Jekaran’s eyes snapped open as he awoke with a start. He’d dropped off, but had no idea when or for how long, although his body told him it hadn’t been nearly long enough. Blessedly it’d been a black sleep without dreams and without the sword breaking into his mind. He looked up to find Hort staring at him through the bars of his cell. The man wore a lopsided grin that only made his crooked nose look even more comical.
“Go away, I’m tired,” Jekaran said as he closed his eyes again.
That’s when he heard the unmistakable metallic sound of a key being inserted into a lock. He opened his eyes again, just in time to see Hort pull the cell door open. “What are you…” he trailed off when Hort put a finger to his lips and winked. The man obviously hadn’t done much winking; the motion looked forced and awkward–and a little disturbing.
“I am here to escort you to see the king,” Hort said aloud in a terribly obvious attempt at pageantry.
Jekaran was on his feet and following Hort out of the cell and down the aisle in half a heartbeat. Fortunately, most of the other prisoners were still sleeping, but the ones who weren’t made sure to glower at him as he passed their cells. When they left the dungeon proper, Jekaran saw the two guards lying on the floor, their hands and feet bound. Hort just smiled and produced a slender, ivory wand with a ball at the point and a handle capped by an amethyst stone. Jekaran recognized the talis as Gymal’s stun baton. He must’ve stolen it from the short, balding lord.
“Why are you doing this?” Jekaran asked. “Not that I’m ungrateful.”
Hort chuckled as he tossed the ring of dungeon keys onto one of the guards’ chest. The man jerked upon impact but stayed unconscious. “I told you, Ulan. You remind me of someone I used to know.”
“Who?” Jekaran asked as they left the dungeon annex.
Hort surveyed the hallway before turning back to look at him. “My son. He died when he was about your age. Fever took him.” He shook his head. “I’d just opened my first apothecary, and was setting myself up as a village healer. But when I wasn’t able to heal my own son…well let’s just say that business venture failed.”
“I’m sorry,” Jekaran said, and he was surprised to find he meant it.
“He was a lot like you, ya know. Stubborn little bastard, but sharp as a sword. Got himself into all kinds of trouble, but was usually able to get himself out. Either that or I had to.”
The big mercenary began moving quickly down the white hallway and Jekaran followed. They turned down a connecting corridor and Jekaran could feel the floor incline as though they were walking uphill.
“But don’t think just because I like you that I’d risk my neck without compensation. I’m being paid to do this.”
“By who?” Jekaran asked.
Hort snorted and looked back at him. “You’re a smart kid Ulan, but you have a blind spot. Who do you figure sent me?”
“Gymal?”
Hort gave one curt nod. “Apparently, the king was going to have you executed at dawn so he could take that cursed sword of yours.”
So that was what the sword had been trying to so urgently warn him about. You are in danger it’d told him in his dreams. Jekaran just figured it was trying to convince him to allow it to take over so they could escape. He hadn’t thought the warning was specific. How had it known?
Hort continued on in a hushed tone, “He paid me to help you get out of the palace, and escape the city. Then we go our separate ways, and we never see each other, or Gymal again.”
“Why?”
“Don’t really know. All I can tell you is that he ain’t your enemy. Never was.”
Jekaran was thunderstruck. Gymal was the one responsible for his rescue? “I don’t understand.”
They turned another corner and Hort slowed to make sure the corridor was clear before they entered it. “Well, I didn’t ask about his motives.”
Was he really going to escape? He’d already resigned himself to his fate, one he might actually deserve for being the aberration that he knew he was. Maybe his condition wasn’t permanent. Maybe he could be cured. He’d ask Kairah–Kairah!
Jekaran stopped abruptly, making Hort turn and stop. “Where’s Kairah?”
“Somewhere on one of the upper floors in one of the king’s guest apartments. From what Lord Gymal said, it sounds like she’s still unconscious.”
“I can’t leave without her!”
Hort shook his head. “She’s being guarded around the clock by the king’s soldiers. There ain’t no way you’d be able to get to her.”
“I have to try!”
Hort sighed. “Lord Gymal said you’d do this.”
Before Jekaran could protest further, Hort rammed the stun baton into his chest. A painful shock rocked his body, and then everything went dark. When he blinked open his eyes, he found himself slung facedown over Hort’s shoulder. He tried to speak, but his mouth wouldn’t move.
No! He screamed inside his head as he flipped himself forward, landed on his feet, and whirled around to fac
e a very surprised Hort.
“How?” Hort began but was cut off as Jekaran rushed forward and slammed a fist into the big man’s gut with far more force than he should’ve been able to muster.
Hort doubled over, and Jekaran found himself tearing the stun baton out of the man’s hand. Hort looked up, wheezing, just as Jekaran struck him in the side of his thick neck with the talis. Hort convulsed, his eyes rolled back, and he slumped to his side.
Stop! Jekaran mentally screamed, but the sword didn’t reply.
The moment he’d been knocked unconscious, the sword had taken the opportunity to seize control of his body. He tried to wrest it back, but the sword just brushed his mind aside. It was not going to let go.
They were running now, running up the incline and toward one of the palace’s unbelievably tall arched doors. Jekaran saw himself push through the doors and enter into a room with two marble ramps; one descending and the other ascending. He took the path leading up and immediately knew where they were going. Rasheera protect anyone who gets in my way.
Ezra sat in a plush, velvet chair set opposite a full-length mirror. He was locked in one of Trous’s second floor guest chambers, two Rikujo enforcers standing guard on the other side of a locked bedroom door. Mulladin paced to his right, muttering in agitation and raking fingers through his brown hair. Ezra wanted to snap at the boy-man and order him to be still, but he didn’t have the heart. When it became apparent he was facing his death, Ezra had pled with Trous to let Mulladin go.
The Rikujo guild lord had smiled wanly and said, “I am afraid I cannot. Witnesses and all that. You understand, don’t you Argentus?”
It made Ezra sick. Not only had his hubris condemned Jekaran, but now innocent Mulladin was going to die–die because of him. He stared at himself in the mirror, noticing for the first time just how weary his eyes looked. An old Rasheeran proverb said that through a man’s eyes you could glimpse his soul. Well that made sense then, for his soul had been battered, and abused, worn out from a lifetime of submitting to selfishness and violence.
His thoughts automatically turned back to that first time he’d fought a duel in front of spectators. That had been the first time the sword usurped his will resulting in an orgy of blood and indiscriminate killing. A faint echo of the sword’s consciousness, the piece of itself that it had left behind, urged him to examine the memory, to dig further into that night. No!
Tap-Tap-Tap
Ezra’s head shot up and he glanced around the room.
Tap-Tap-Tap
There it was again. Ezra turned to the window and saw Irvis gently tapping on the glass. The chubby man was clinging to the frame of the window, feet perched on an apparently short ledge. The wind was blowing his hair, and his eyes were wide as they kept glancing down at his feet. Ezra shot up out of his chair and went to the window. He tried to unlatch it, but found the window nailed shut.
“Argentus!” Irvis’ muffled voice came through the glass.
Ezra lifted his hand, grabbed his own ear lobe, and mouthed “use the earring,” not daring to even whisper for fear of alerting the guards. Irvis shook his head at the suggestion. Had he lost the displacement talis?
Ezra quickly glanced around the room, looking for anything he could use to pry the window open. His eyes fell on the iron poker set near the cold hearth. He ran over, snatched the poker, and went back to the window. He couldn’t entirely tell, but it looked like Irvis’ face had gone white.
“Stop looking down!” he mouthed, which, of course, caused Irvis to look down. intensifying the man’s trembling.
“Divine Mother!” Ezra said with an eye roll. Then he went to work trying to quietly jimmy the window open by forcing the edge of the poker in between the sill and the pane, but his best efforts only splintered the wood.
“Mulladin!” Ezra hissed as loud as he could.
The boy-man had stopped pacing and now stared wide-eyed at the window. He raised an arm and pointed. “Irvis,” he said.
Ezra cringed and put a finger to his lips. He froze as the handle of the door shook. “You locked it?” he heard one of the guards accuse. He couldn’t make out the other guard’s muffled reply, but the first scoffed at it and said, “Gimme the key!”
The sound of the key being inserted into the lock made Ezra throw himself away from the window and towards the hearth. He skidded to his knees on a patch of smooth tile just as the door swung open. He gritted his teeth as he realized he hadn’t motioned Irvis away from the window, but he dared not look back.
“What’re you doing?” the first guard–a burly bald man–demanded.
Ezra realized with a stab of panic that he was still holding the iron poker. His mind raced and he blurted out, “I’m cold.”
The second guard–a shorter muscled man–scoffed. “Is this skinny old man really The Invincible Shadow?”
The first guard chuckled and strode over to Irvis. “Lord Trous did say we were to give him whatever comforts he desired.” With a motion of his hand, one that exposed a loose bracelet, the blackened logs in the hearth ignited. The resultant blast of heat made Ezra wince.
“There!” The guard said. “But Rasheera help you if you try to set the room on fire! This kindle bracelet can put flames out just as easily as it can light them. Understand?”
Ezra nodded quickly, praying with every beat of his heart that the guards wouldn’t look up at the window, or that Irvis had had the good sense to sidle back the way he’d come. The two guards shared a smirk, and then left the room.
Ezra heard the key slip into the lock, but it stopped abruptly when he heard the bald guard snap, “Leave it unlocked!”
There was a muffled reply that sounded like a challenge.
“Because it tips ‘em off when we peek in on ‘em! Gives ‘em time to hide any mischief.”
The next muffle had the deflated ring of forced acquiescence, and then Ezra heard the key withdraw. Damnation! He gritted his teeth. How was he supposed pry open the window without making noise or having time to hide what he was doing should the guards hear him.
He stood and quickly went to the window, but Irvis was gone. Rasheera send he didn’t fall to his death. “You old fool!” Ezra whispered as leaned against the glass, looking for any sign of his friend. And why hadn’t he used the displacement talis Ezra had given him. Inside the city, the well would give the earring unlimited Apeiron.
He sighed. Wherever Irvis had gone, Ezra couldn’t do any more at the moment to help him. He chuckled. Irvis even needed Ezra’s help to rescue him. Fool man! He was the best friend Ezra ever had, and he hoped Irvis wouldn’t try again, for his own sake. Get out of here, my friend. Save yourself.
Graelle sat on the corner of a gigantic bed in the room Trous had given her–a room on the same floor where he’d locked up Argentus. It was a ridiculously spacious chamber with soft chairs, silk hangings, a massive bed, and its very own fireplace. She shook her head. Trous had promised Graelle luxury like this for all of her girls, and enforcers to protect them.
She sighed. She finally had what she’d been working for these past few years, but instead of relief and satisfaction, Graelle felt only felt emptiness. She’d given up Argentus’ life as payment for Trous’ favor. She’d expected the shame to dissipate once she was away from Argentus, once she no longer had to look at his knowing, disappointed face, but it wouldn’t go away. She’d as good as killed the man herself.
Before now, she’d only killed once in her life, and that had been to escape her lover and take over The Racheta Pleasure house. She started to repeat her mantra of survival that was the salve to her gnawing guilt, but the memory of Argentus’ pathetic plea that she help save his beloved nephew stopped her.
She tried to remind herself of all the atrocities attributed to The Invincible Shadow, and how he deserved what Trous would do to him, but it failed to stoke the anger she needed to drive out the guilt. No, Argentus was dead. This man, Ezra, was a good man. An innocent man. And she had killed him. It made her wan
t to vomit.
She looked at the clock standing in the corner of the room. Trous would soon have his “duel” and Ezra would die. No, she shook her head. She was not going to go watch the spectacle. She’d retire early and try to sleep through it. It was the cowardly way, but then, she was a coward, so it fit. Graelle was broken, and that’s what broken people did–break others.
Graelle started as the windows to her room suddenly flew open. She jumped up and produced her concussion rod from within a long sleeve. She automatically raised it, preparing to blast her intruder back out the window. That’s when she saw him lying prostrate on the floor beneath the window amidst a tangle of purple curtains–Irvis.
“Golden womb of the goddess!” she snapped. “How did you climb up here?”
Irvis smiled sheepishly. “I’ve had some experience with this sort of thing.”
“Burglary?”
He hesitated before saying, “Something like that.”
“What do you want?”
Irvis looked up at her, the hair on the side of his head windblown. “I need your help!”
Graelle lowered her rod but didn’t put it away. Was she going to have to use it on this man? “Fool!” she spat. “Do you realize that by coming here, you’ve made your life forfeit?”
Irvis rose to his knees and extricated himself from the curtains. “We have to rescue Argentus!”
“Idiot!” Graelle hissed. “I’m the one who turned him over to Trous!” Why had she just confessed that?
“I know,” Irvis said as he stood and began straightening his monk’s robe.
“You do?” Graelle raised her weapon talis again. “How?”
“Well, I didn’t know until hearing you admit it, but I’ve suspected all along.”
Immediately Graelle made the connection. “That’s why you weren’t with us when we teleported into the city.”
Irvis nodded. “I wasn’t far from you, though. I followed at a distance, and when I learned whose mansion this was, I knew Argentus was in danger.”
The Lure of Fools Page 43