Even at a full sprint, it took them close to half an hour to reach the war room. Two armored guards crossed their spears before the closed set of double doors. “I’m sorry, my prince,” one of them said. “We have specific instructions not to admit you.”
Before Raelen could reply, Gryyth roared and lunged forward. The guards instinctively leapt out of the way as the eight-foot-tall, white-furred juggernaut crashed through the doors, throwing them both open. A room full of startled dignitaries stared up at them, faces pale. They were standing around a circular table, above which hovered a three dimensional, translucent map of Shaelar. Raelen moved into the room and stood a step in front of Gryyth.
“Raelen!” The king actually shouted. “You dare!”
Raelen ignored his father and quickly locked onto a dark haired, sallow-faced man standing two persons to the right of the king. “It’s over, Loeadon!” He raised his hand to point at the polymath. “I know your secret!”
Loeadon frowned. “And what is it that you think you know, boy?”
Raelen saw his father shoot the polymath a startled glance. The man’s tone was insolent, and no one but the king dared to refer to Raelen as “boy.”
“I know that you are Aiested’s enemy!”
Loeadon smirked and then threw his hand forward. A thunderclap shook the room, and Raelen saw a shaft of blue lightning lash out through the ghostly map toward him. He was shoved out of the way by Gryyth, who took the bolt of lightning for him. The Ursaj roared in pain as he was hurled back into the wall.
Raelen cried out as he saw his protector crumple to the ground, fur on his stomach blackened and smoking. He leapt to his feet and quickly found Loeadon. The black-robed man held his right arm out to the side, a whip-like bolt of lightning arcing and crackling as it bent toward the floor. It wasn’t whip-like, it was a whip; a whip made entirely of lightning. The other dignitaries in the room scattered away from Loeadon, Osarr Rakahnas having put himself in front of the king.
The polemarch drew his long sword and gripped the handle with both hands. It was a talis, a firebrand. A sword that burned as much as it cut. Rakahnas’ blade ignited and was instantly wreathed in flames. He watched as the old general attacked Loeadon, the aura of fire burning his blade throwing out a wave of heat as he swung it.
There was another thunderclap as Loeadon snapped his lightning whip up at Rakahnas. It curled around the man’s sword, and Rakahnas cried out and frozen mid swing. The polemarch began to convulse as the lightning whip crackled and arced violently. After a moment of this, the old man crumpled to the ground, his eyes having burst and his sizzling corpse smoking.
Raelen tapped his transference band and immediately his hands changed, enlarging and becoming a perfect copy of Gryyth’s clawed paws. He launched himself into the air, flipping over the table and landing with a swing at Loeadon’s head. The polymath ducked the swing and snapped his lightning whip up in reprisal. Years of training with Gryyth in the martial arts the Ursaj held sacred activated, and he dropped to the ground just in time to avoid a face full of crackling lightning.
Loeadon dismissed the lightning whip, backed away, and then waved both hands out as though he were doing a swan dive. A blast of hurricane strength wind slammed into Raelen, actually lifting him from the floor and hurling him into a bookshelf set against the wall. Wood splintered, and cracked, and dozens of thick, leather-bound books rained down on his head and shoulders.
When the deluge of books stopped, he looked up to find Loeadon moving toward his father, the polymath’s hands now wreathed in flames that did not appear to harm him. The king raised a sword, not his own, but the one that belonged to the farm boy brought in by Lord Gymal. It wouldn’t be much use to his father while still bonded to the boy.
He struggled up, preparing to charge Loeadon again. That’s when he saw a serving girl standing in the corner of the room, eyes fixed on Raelen’s father. He recognized her. It was the girl he’d helped clean up spilt tea just a few hours earlier. Why had she not fled the room? Even the high lords and some of the military commanders had done that. Raelen shook off the distraction and charged forward.
Maely backed into a corner and pressed herself against a stone column that jutted out from the wall. What was happening? What was she supposed to do? Jenoc never told her how long she had to remain with the king. She’d made him order the army to resume their advance, and then forced the king to have his servants gather all of the communication talises in the palace and toss them into the ocean, so the order to advance on Haeshala couldn’t be rescinded. Would that be enough? Could she run now? Would Jenoc kill her if she did?
“Why this treachery, Loeadon?” The king demanded as his dark robed wizard slowly approached him, his hands literally on fire.
Loeadon chuckled. “I need that sword, Highness.”
“Why?” the king demanded.
“You made a terrible mistake in allowing me to examine it. I have discerned its potential and come to believe that it is likely the most powerful weapon in all of Shaelar. With it, I shall be invincible.”
Maely saw the king scowl. “You seek my throne!”
“Of course I do!” Loeadon scoffed loudly. “It has been my purpose from the first day I entered your service.”
Maely started as a blurred shape crashed into Loeadon. The wizard cried out, and a wave of heat washed over her as one of his flaming hands flared. The prince–why did he have the hands of a bear?–yelped as he stumbled away from Loeadon, his shoulder blackened and smoldering.
The king made to move forward to join the fight, but Maely whispered, “No, you stay near me. Protect me!”
The king jerked to a stop, and began to back toward the wall, Jek’s sword raised protectively in front of him. She was probably not in much danger; if it came to it, she could use her ring, but the chaos in the room caused by a talis battle made her nervous. She wished she could just sneak away, find Jekaran, and get the hell out of here.
The heat from Loeadon’s burning hands was abruptly gone, replaced by a cold wind as the man caused a sheet of ice to frost the stones of the floor beneath the prince’s boots. He slipped mid-charge, and Loeadon used the moment to fire a shard of ice from his outstretched palm. The thick icicle buried its sharp point into the prince’s already burnt shoulder, and he screamed. It looked as if he were losing this fight.
Maely glanced to her right where the prince’s white bear lay on the floor. He was sitting up now, straining to rise. Maely winced at the sight of his blackened stomach and the blood trickling down the side of his muzzle. How badly had he been hurt by the lightning? Was he dying? Maely shrieked as the bear suddenly launched himself forward and barreled into Loeadon.
The wizard was slammed into the wall with such force Maely was sure he’d been killed. A sudden explosion of stone told her otherwise as the bear was thrown backward into the room’s large, circular table. With a shattering noise like glass, the floating ghostlike map of Shaelar flickered and then disappeared.
Loeadon stepped out of a cloud of dust, no longer looking smug. His hair was hanging down over his eyes, blood trickled from his nose, and he was clenching the bicep of his left arm, which hung lifeless at his side. The bear stood, but Loeadon pointed at him and a cold wind washed over the room. Ice formed over the bear’s feet, but it didn’t stop there. It grew over the bear’s legs, and then up to its thighs. The bear struggled and roared, but the ice kept creeping up his body. Loeadon was going to encase him in a block of ice.
Maely looked to where the prince lay on the ground. He was trying to yank the shard of ice out of his burnt shoulder, but the pain made him falter.
Perhaps now was the time for her to intervene, but to do so she’d have to give up control of the king. She’d discovered–to her disappointment–that she could only control one person at a time with her compulsion talis. The king would still remain enthralled, but it would quickly begin to fade without her maintaining her focus on him.
Something blurred on her r
ight periphery. She instinctively turned. “Jek!” she shouted. But he didn’t look at her.
His arrival did have the effect of stopping Loeadon, just as he was growing ice up the bear-man’s neck. He stopped and hurled a bolt of lightning at Jekaran, who dodged it as though he knew it where coming before Loeadon even struck. Maely expected Jek to charge Loeadon, but instead he ran toward her. Had he somehow come to know of her plight? Had he escaped and come to rescue her?
He passed by without even noticing her, and approached the king. The man glanced at Maely as if expecting instruction, but she had no time to give any. In a blur of motion, Jekaran stepped inside the king’s defenses, smashed an elbow into the underside of his jaw, and then reached forward and broke his sword arm backward.
Maely heard the sword clatter to the stone floor just as Jekaran stepped to the side of the king, reached up to cup his chin with his right hand, and the back of his head with the other. He roughly jerked the king’s head to the side and Maely heard his neck snap. That’s when she realized what was happening. The sword had taken control again as it had in Imaris.
“Jekaran!” she called, but he didn’t even look at her.
He picked up the sword and swung it just in time to knock a missile of ice to the side. He batted two more away as he made for the open doorway. Where was he going? Maely glanced at the dead king, and then ran after Jek.
Loeadon didn’t even see it coming when Raelen shoved the spike-like shard of ice into his side. The polymath cried out and Raelen’s forward moment carried them both to the floor. He didn’t give the man a chance to cast another spell, but brutally struck him in the face, his claw raking across Loeadon’s eyes and nose. The man’s head struck the stone and something fell off of his head and clattered to the floor.
“It’s over Allosian!” Raelen actually growled.
Loeadon grimaced with pain, panting loudly and trying to clutch at his left eye, which looked to have been destroyed by Raelen’s claw.
“Show your true nature!”
“W-what are you t-talking about?” he whimpered.
Raelen heard a cracking sound and looked to his left just in time to see Gryyth break out of his icy shell. The Ursaj looked injured but was able to stand on his own power. Raelen looked back down at Loeadon, who was now sobbing like a girl.
“Enough deception!” Raelen shook him.
“I-I’m not him,” Loeadon sobbed.
Raelen froze. He looked at the floor just behind Loeadon’s bleeding head and saw an ivory circlet with an amethyst jewel in its center lying upside down. It was the casting crown; the talis that let a human wield magic like an Allosian.
“No,” Raelen breathed out. Loeadon was a usurper and an enemy, but he wasn’t the Allosian. The irony of the coincidence would’ve been laughable had not the very existence of mankind been at stake.
A cold paw lightly touched his uninjured shoulder. “Cub.” Raelen looked up at Gryyth. The bear-man was holding his slave’s awl in his palm. That could mean only one thing.
Raelen scanned the room and quickly found the fallen form of the king a dozen feet away. He leapt up, knowing full well Gryyth would keep Loeadon pinned, but kicked the circlet away from the man just to be safe. After a few quick steps, he found himself kneeling next to the king. His eyes were open, staring fixedly at nothing, and he wasn’t breathing.
He was dead.
Raelen was surprised to find himself weeping uncontrollably. He laid his head on his father’s motionless chest and sobbed like a child. Although at times he had wished for this, in Raelen’s heart he’d loved his father. That’s why all the criticism, all the cruel treatment, and betrayals had stung him.
If he’d truly hated his father, he might’ve rejoiced that the throne was his. But no, King Raeleth Joran Taris the eighteenth was dead. And the worst part, the cruelest part, was that Raelen was just beginning to understand the man. Perhaps in time it would’ve led to the kind of father-son relationship he’d always hoped for. Now that opportunity was lost.
“Did he do this?” Raelen growled as he shot a baleful glare at Loeadon writhing on the ground.
Gryyth had his massive paw around Loeadon’s throat, making it hard for the man to breathe, but not strangling him. “It was the boy from Genra,” he rumbled.
Jekaran
“I will make him pay for this!” Raelen snarled.
He rose and took two steps toward the door but stopped when Gryyth rumbled, “Cub.”
“I know it’s not Seiro!” Raelen snapped. “And I don’t care!”
“No,” Gryyth said, rising to stand. “You are king, now. Aiested comes first. It is a king’s Seiro.”
Raelen stood there seething, breathing in and out, and trying to stifle his sobbing. He began mentally chanting Gryyth’s meditation mantra,
I am a clear brook flowing among the trees.
I am a meadow of clover in summer.
I am the moon silently watching the night.
“You are right,” he finally conceded. “I will let the guards hunt him down.” Raelen took a step toward Gryyth. “We need to find a speaking stone and order the army to return.”
Gryyth nodded and casually put a foot on Loeadon’s chest. The man croaked out a cry of pain. “Perhaps he can do it with that talis.”
Raelen looked at the ivory circlet on the floor and then at Loeadon. He strode over and stood above the defeated polymath. “Can you spell-cast to send a message? And do not lie!”
Gryyth increased the pressure of his foot and Raelen heard one of the man’s ribs crack.
“No,” Loeadon croaked out. “I only know a few castings.”
Raelen sighed. It was probably safer not to allow the man to use the talis anyway. He likely knew a spell-casting for healing himself, or perhaps he’d attack them somehow.
“We need to find the Allosian infiltrator.” Raelen gingerly touched his injured shoulder. It had started to feel numb, which probably meant the burn was serious. “We need to get the oath collar, and begin testing the members of my father’s court.” He looked up at Gryyth, suddenly remembering. “We need to find Pariel!”
Maely sprinted down the corridor, her slippers sliding on the smooth floor as she turned a corner. She spotted Jekaran running down the far end of the wide ivory hallway.
“Jek!” she screamed, but he didn’t even flinch.
He was about to pass out of sight again so Maely threw a wave of compulsion at him. “Jekaran, stop!”
His abrupt stop caused him to stumble and fall to one knee. Maely was relieved. She had worried that the sword would somehow protect him from the magic of her mother’s ring. She ran down the corridor until she was five paces away from him. He turned and looked at her, and she saw Jekaran’s green eyes–bright and clear. They were no longer clouded by the battle trance of the sword.
“Mae?” he asked, sounding confused.
Maely flung herself down at him and wrapped him in a tight embrace.
“How did you do that?”
“What?” she sobbed.
“You broke the sword’s hold over my body.”
Maely shook her head, it rubbing against Jekaran’s chest. “It doesn’t matter,” she sniffed.
“What are you doing here?”
Maely sobbed a nervous laugh. “I came for you, stupid!”
“But– ”
“I’ll explain everything later. Right now we have to go.” Maely stood and then helped Jekaran to stand.
Warm relief continued to wash over her as she stared at Jekaran’s dirty, pale face and ragged clothes. He hadn’t been treated well during his time here that was for certain.
“I know a way out,” she said as she took his hand in hers and began towing him down the corridor.
“Wait!” Jekaran stopped her. “Are you here alone?”
That irritated her. “Does it matter? I saved you!”
Jekaran shook his head. “We need to find Kairah!”
Maely angrily wrenched her hand free
of his. “No!”
“Mae, we don’t have time to arg–”
She moved up to him, reached up behind his head to bend it down, and pressed her lips against his. It wasn’t quite the romantic revelation she’d always envisioned, but it was time he knew what she had already come to know; she loved him and they were meant to be together. She pulled back, breaking their kiss and staring up into his stunned face.
“Mae…” Jek trailed off. “I…”
“Idiot!” she snapped. “You really didn’t know, did you?”
She moved in to kiss him again, but he gently stopped her. “Mae…” he said again.
“What?” she asked.
“I love you,” he said.
She smiled involuntarily and said, “And I’ve always loved–.”
“But not like that,” he finished.
Maely’s smile fell away and the giddy flutter in her stomach was smothered by a cold nausea. “What?” she asked in a trembling voice.
Jekaran cast a furtive glance down the corridor. “We can talk about this after we get out of here.”
“No!” Maely snapped as tears pooled in her vision. One escaped and rolled down her cheek. “We’re supposed to get married!”
Jekaran shook his head and said, “It’s not like that for me. I’m sorry, Mae.” His look of pity made her want to die right there.
“But, I came for you,” she squeaked out in a half-whisper.
“Mae, please…”
His placating tone enraged her. “It’s Kairah! Isn’t it?” Tears were now spilling down her cheeks like a waterfall. “You want her instead of me!” She reached out and slapped his chest.
The Lure of Fools Page 46