The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  “I do not know where he is.” Kairah’s voice caught and she swallowed. Tears wanted to come, but she held them back. “He goes about deceiving the human rulers in his efforts to ignite another talis war between their respective nations.” That invoked gasps and scandalized remarks.

  Kannic looked more disturbed at the revelation that Jenoc was trying to start a war than he did at hearing proof of the existence of Moriora and its incarnation in a human vessel. “That is a most grievous offense.”

  “That is why I left Allose in secret, to thwart his designs.”

  “And did you succeed?” the pink haired woman called.

  You are as dead to me as father and mother.

  A tear spilled down Kairah’s white cheek. “No.”

  The chamber erupted again into a roar of overlapping talk and shouting, and Kannic had to sound his signal talis twice before the synod quieted again.

  “Do you know the details of his plan?” Kannic asked.

  “One of the humans I brought with me was a member of the Aiestal aristocracy. He claims that an army was dispatched to attack Haeshala, and that the final declaration of war was given just before Taris fell.”

  “Let the humans destroy themselves,” a man shouted. “It is what they deserve!”

  “Apeiron desires life,” a woman called. “Should we not attempt to stop this war?”

  “The humans are always at war,” another shouted. “How is this any different?”

  Kannic shook his head. “It is regrettable that one of our people started this human conflict, but the last time Allosians interfered in human wars, it very nearly destroyed us. Let them battle as they so often do unto whatever outcome. We shall remain safe here in Allose.”

  Kannic took a vote and nearly all the members of the synod voted to sustain his motion for nonintervention. Kairah wasn’t surprised by this. Besides, there was a greater evil to contend with. Karak had confirmed by his Vorakk clairvoyance that the threat of the “Eater” still remained, though he didn’t know any more than that. She explained this to the synod as they continued to interrogate her, but no one gave the Vorakk shaman’s words much consideration.

  She told them everything, even confessing it was she that stole the illusion pendant from the College of Discipline’s treasury. She was about to tell them of the ring she wore, the talis that radiated Apeiron, when Aeva’s words slammed into her mind.

  No, Kairah!

  More than the words, there was a tone of desperation in the Spirit lily’s psychic impression.

  Why?

  Aeva’s psychic presence abruptly vanished.

  Aeva?

  The Spirit lily didn’t answer. Kairah would have to check on her sentient flower as soon as she could make it back to her tower apartment.

  Finally, six hours after she’d entered the chamber, the synod was ready to dismiss.

  “Lady Kairah, you were not authorized to leave Allose, and you admit to being the one who stole the illusion pendant,” Kannic said. “However altruistic your motivations, these infractions will have to be considered, and I expect you to fully cooperate with the peacekeeper corps and the College Elders as they determine your punishment.”

  Punished for trying to save an entire race from extinction at our hands? Hot anger flared to life inside her chest.

  “This concludes today’s session of the―”

  “I saw it!” Kairah shouted.

  The coliseum fell deathly quiet.

  Kannic glanced to his peers on his right and then on his left. “Saw what?”

  Kairah slowly turned in a circle so that the entire assembly had a chance to see the fire in her eyes. “I saw what happened to the lands whence the humans came.”

  “What are you talking about, child?” the pink haired woman asked with a sneer.

  “I beheld in vision a desolate land stripped of even the tiniest forms of life. The same black clouds that now circle Taris, with their shafts of emerald lightning, blotted out the sun. I saw bald black-rock mountains, and a ruined city full of bones. And in that city’s center, a broken Aeose, discolored green. The same as the shards of the Apeira well in Aiested after it was touched by Moriora.”

  “Are you a seer now, child?” A man sitting in the second seating tier laughed.

  “I am the descendant of an oracle!” Kairah snapped. “This you all should know.”

  “Lady Kairah.” Kannic tried to cut her off but she wouldn’t let him.

  “Shaelar is infected by Moriora!” As I am.

  “That will be quite enough, Kairah!” Kannic said.

  “This corruption will spread from Taris, and Allose will be no shelter! We must do something or suffer the fate of our ancient human refugees!”

  “Enough!” Kannic shouted.

  Kairah opened her mouth to challenge the Speaker, but froze when words entered her mind.

  Argue no more with these fools.

  Kairah looked up to the top floor of the coliseum where she locked eyes with the bald oracle, Shivara.

  Seek me out when this farce of a council ends.

  You believe me? Kairah replied telepathically.

  Shivara smiled down at Kairah and then disappeared in a flash of purple light.

  Apparently, the villagers of Gnot were quasi nocturnal, because it was nearly midnight before they’d finally all disappeared into their cottages. As soon as the last door slammed shut, Mulladin quickly reached for the key the constable’s little girl, Jesh, had stolen for him. He’d hidden it under the left cheek of his buttocks which turned out to be a poor decision, as his immediate discomfort had quickly evolved into pain. He would’ve removed it, but of course, as soon as he’d put it away, there was a surge in interest among the villagers in pelting him with garbage. He hadn’t had a private moment all day, and Mulladin was certain a duplicate key could be cast from the imprint in his ass.

  Sweet relief made him smile as he slid the key out, and turned it in his hand. He rose to his knees and reached through the bars. He started when Keesa hissed, “Don’t drop it!”

  He shot her a scowl, though he doubted she could make it out in the dark of the overcast night. “If you don’t want me to drop it, keep your mouth shut.”

  Keesa’s only reply was an indignant huff, and Mulladin resumed his effort to insert the key into the lock. Several bawdy jokes flashed in his memory, jokes he’d not understood until this moment. They made him guffaw, and he had to bite his lip to keep from spoiling their opportune quiet any further.

  “Shh!” Keesa hissed. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Mulladin had no idea how to explain that all his memories from a life as someone else were surfacing and eliciting new emotional reactions, so he didn’t try. He just kept probing with the tip of the key until he succeeded in fitting it into the lock. He made sure it was all the way in–he laughed again–and then turned it. The lock popped open with a springy click, and it was the sweetest sound that’d ever touched Mulladin’s ears.

  Unfortunately, the lock had been the one thing holding the floor of the cage to its barred dome, as Mulladin learned from suddenly dropping four feet to the ground. His knee landed on a loose stone, and he had to bite back a stream of curses trying to erupt from his mouth. He stood, massaged his knee, and then limped over to Keesa’s cage.

  Do I really want to do this? Things had been different between them ever since she’d broken down and told him her story. Hearing how Kaul had destroyed her life made Mulladin feel a sense of kinship with her. Jesh had also told him that her “flower” said they needed to work together to get the “key” back to the secret city, and as unsure of what the little girl’s instructions really meant, he felt compelled to follow them.

  It didn’t hurt that Keesa was pretty.

  Mulladin shrugged off his hesitation and unlocked Keesa’s crow’s cage. She had the good sense to hold onto the bars when the floor dropped open and adroitly landed on her feet before ducking out from under the dome of iron bars.

  �
�Come on.” She darted for the nearest building.

  She thinks she’s in charge? Pretty or not, Ez’s daughter possessed a natural talent for getting on Mulladin’s nerves. He limped along after her as fast as the sting in his knee would allow. They stopped just outside the cottage belonging to the village constable–Jesh’s father. He lived within site of the village’s center where they’d hung in the crow’s cages.

  They hopped a low fence surrounding a well-manicured yard and skulked around to the back of the cottage where there was a small barn. Keesa slipped in through a side door, and Mulladin nearly knocked her over when he stepped into the total blackness of the stable.

  “Hey!” Keesa snapped.

  She shoved him away from her harder than Mulladin thought was necessary. He massaged his ribs where she’d pressed her hand. “That hurt!” he whispered.

  “Good,” Keesa said. He couldn’t see anything but her silhouette as she carefully moved about the barn.

  “You think anyone in this inbred village is going to have a ghern?”

  “I can smell it.”

  Mulladin scoffed. “They don’t smell all that different from bullocks, and those are too slow. We’d be better off running.”

  Keesa’s silhouette stopped moving, bent over, and then a dim yellow light lit up the barn. She stood, triumphantly raising an oil lantern in her right hand. Mulladin glanced around the stables. Sure enough, a black-furred ghern bayed at them from a pen two stalls down a long aisle strewn with straw. The other occupants of the barn were a pair of goats, three sheep, a couple pigs, a cow, and an old gray bullock with red horns and a droopy middle.

  “See?” Keesa smugly said.

  “There’s only one.” Mulladin waved at the animal.

  “We only need one.” Keesa hung the lantern on a hook on the wall. “Go stand guard outside while I saddle it.”

  “Who said you were in charge?” Mulladin grumbled as he limped out of the barn.

  He stood nervously glancing between the rear of the constable’s cottage and a closed gate in the back of the fence. As Mulladin’s eyes re-adjusted to the night, a rag doll in the center of the yard caught his attention–Jesh’s doll. It sat slumped against a stone watering trough, one of its button eyes hanging off its face by a few threads.

  You have to get the key and take it to the secret city. It’s important.

  The secret city had to be Allose. But the key? Could that really be Jekaran’s sword? And what was it a key to? And was he really taking seriously the message a little girl claimed came from a talking flower? He glanced around the yard looking for any unusual flowers, but it was too dark for him to see. She said she found it in the woods, you dullard.

  The barn doors exploded open and Keesa rode out on the ghern at full speed. It leapt over the wooden fence and flew off down the road.

  “Hey!” Mulladin yelled, and immediately regretted it. Where was she going? We only need one, Keesa had said about the ghern. The words sunk in. She had betrayed him.

  “Dammit!” He limped back into the barn as fast as he could, and assessed the remaining animals. The closest thing to a suitable mount was the old, sagging bullock with red horns.

  Mulladin swiped the lamp from the wall, and hobbled over to the bullock’s pen. The animal stared at him with its black eyes while it placidly chewed some straw. It was not exactly an energetic creature. Mulladin unlatched the pen’s gate and threw it wide. Holding the lantern in one hand, he climbed up the side of the pen, wincing as the effort flared his knee pain–he must’ve hit hard for it to be giving him so much trouble–and climbed onto the back of the bullock.

  “Ya!” he shouted. The bullock didn’t do anything. “Ya!” He slapped the animal’s rump, but it only snorted.

  “How did you get out of your cage?”

  Mulladin whipped his head toward the voice. The constable was walking down the aisle, heavy crossbow leveled at him.

  “It was the talking flower!” Mulladin blurted out.

  “That’s what Jesh says. I don’t like that you’ve been talking to my little girl.”

  Mulladin inwardly groaned.

  “Get off Old Genzin, you damned lunatic!” The constable raised the crossbow a little higher, taking aim at Mulladin’s face.

  Mulladin acted on the first idea that popped into his mind, and threw the lantern at the constable. It struck him, throwing off his aim just as he fired. The bolt slammed into Old Genzin’s hindquarters, and the beast bellowed. It exploded into a run, and Mulladin had to grip its red horns to keep from being thrown. It bucked and kicked, breaking open the pig pen to the delight of a squealing piglet that raced down the aisle and out the side door.

  The rampaging bullock knocked the constable against the door of the sheep pen, but not before it stepped on the lantern, which of course broke and spilled lamp oil across the straw covered floor. The dry straw went up instantly, flames spreading across the surface of the puddle of lamp oil, and before Mulladin knew it, the inner walls of the barn were on fire.

  Mulladin used his grip on the bullock’s horns to steer it toward the barn’s open main doors. The enraged animal charged into the night, taking to the one road leading out of Gnot. When the animal began to slow, Mulladin reached back and ripped the crossbow bolt out of Old Genzin’s rump. The bullock bellowed and Mulladin nearly fell from its back as it leapt forward into another wild charge.

  Steering it was easier now that they’d reached the road, the bullock probably familiar with the way, but the creature wasn’t as obedient as a ghern. It also wasn’t as fast, but it was all Mulladin had. He prayed it’d be enough.

  Old Genzin lived up to his name. He tired easily, and Mulladin had to repeatedly jab the bullock’s rump with the crossbow bolt to keep it running. Mulladin felt sorry for the poor beast, but he needed to catch up to Keesa. His pity for Old Genzin evaporated when the bullock bucked him off and into a roadside marsh.

  Mulladin swallowed a mouthful of muddy, mosquito-infested water before he’d realized what’d happened. He erupted out of the shallow water in a spray, and wiped his eyes just in time to catch Old Genzin gallop off the road and disappear into the dark. Mulladin spouted a stream of the worst curses he knew as he slogged out of the marsh, and back onto the road. He found the crossbow bolt he’d been using as a spur and picked it up. He was going to need a weapon, and this was as close to a knife as he hoped to find.

  Mulladin jogged along the road, following fresh ghern tracks he hoped belonged to Keesa’s mount. As the night wore on a chill tinged the air. Mulladin’s damp hair and clothes made his teeth chatter, and he was convinced running was the only thing staving off a hypothermic death.

  A couple hours into his run, Mulladin stopped abruptly at the sight of lights a mile or so off the road. He hesitated only a heartbeat before leaving the road. Running cross country was more taxing, and by the time he was close enough to make out a caravan camped inside a thicket of trees, he was sucking air. He collapsed to the ground until he caught his breath and then crept through the trees, careful to keep as quiet as he could.

  For a big man like Mulladin, that was difficult, and it was only by sheer luck that he’d not alerted an armored scout patrolling mere feet from his position when he’d broken a branch beneath his boot. Well, luck and the fact that the guard looked to be totally disinterested in his job. Mulladin froze as the guard yawned, cast a perfunctory look into the dark, and then turned to return to the circle of wagons enclosing the camp. Definitely not a man taking his duty very seriously.

  While watching the guard return to camp, Mulladin recognized the two swords crossing over an Apeira well embroidered on the back of the man’s tabard–Aiestali royal guards. This was Loeadon’s caravan. The sword was certain to be in one of the large canvas tents. That meant Keesa would be skulking about the camp somewhere, if she hadn’t already swiped the sword and escaped.

  But Mulladin hadn’t expected to catch up to Loeadon for miles yet–if at all. The rancid scents of refuse and use
d latrines indicated that the caravan had been parked here for a couple of days. But why? Mulladin shifted his position to get a better look at the wagons, thinking perhaps one of the vehicles had lost a wheel or broken down. That’s when a new, more sickening smell slapped him in the face.

  It was the tart stink of bile mixed with the foulest diarrheic stench he’d ever breathed in. He gagged and covered his mouth and nose with the back of his sleeve. It was the kind of sickly reek that only animals were capable of producing. Mulladin scanned the camp until he found a picket line of oxen–pitched an unusually long distance from the rest of the camp–lying on the ground. One of the beasts simultaneously produced vile liquids from both ends, making its neighbor snort. Though dark, the sick animals were accosted by a swarm of flies so numerous, Mulladin could hear their discordant buzzing even from a distance.

  The ox who’d just produced a volcanic eruption from opposite orifices bellowed as it was doused with water from a camp worker with a kerchief tied so that it covered his mouth and nose. A second worker splashed the same ox, making it snort and lash its tail.

  “I saw her!” the first camp worker argued. “She was feeding ‘em apples!”

  “Apples don’t make oxen sick like this!” the second worker countered.

  “They does if they’s poisoned!”

  The first camp worker laughed. “Why would a little girl poison apples?”

  Mulladin smiled. Rasheera bless you, Jesh. And your talking flower.

  The thought invoked a small pang of guilt for having caused a fire in her father’s barn, one that was sure to cause a lot of damage if it didn’t burn the whole thing down. Fortunately, he’d seen Jesh’s father escape the inferno, running toward his cottage and screaming fire at the top of his lungs. It’d been that distraction that’d made Mulladin’s escape possible.

  Mulladin moved away from the picket line. The horrific stink coated the inside of his nose, and he didn’t obtain any relief until he’d circled to the far side of the camp. There he was able to make out one tent bigger than all of the others. It didn’t look as fancy as Gymal’s tent, but he imagined that it was the largest Loeadon could get his hands on in his flight from Aiested. The presence of two armored soldiers guarding the tent flap was all the confirmation Mulladin needed.