The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  “Um…” Mulladin worked to lift Jek’s now heavy sword.

  “What’s wrong?” Keesa fired a bolt of lightning that forked into two smaller lines of crackling blue. A grunt confirmed that one of the lines had struck true.

  Mull! Jekaran’s friendly voice rang in Mulladin’s head and the sword once again grew light in his grip.

  “Jek, help!”

  Mulladin’s mind cleared, his fear muted, and he exploded into a run toward the thugs charging them from the rear. He met the one with the sword first, blades clashing in a shower of sparks. Mulladin’s swing was so fierce that it knocked the Rikujo swordsman off balance giving Mulladin the chance to whirl past him and lop off the raised arm of the man with the mace. He danced back just in time to avoid a swiping knife, and spun to the side, swinging his sword out and parting the swordsman’s head and shoulders from the rest of his body. Jek’s blade cut smoothly, like it met no resistance at all–a hot knife through butter–allowing Mulladin to finish his motion without stopping.

  He faced the Rikujo enforcer brandishing the two long daggers. The man was short with dark skin. His eyes widened, and he mouthed something that looked a lot like “That sword!” Mulladin didn’t give the enforcer time to beg for his life. He swung high, the sword coming down in a diagonal cut. The enforcer raised his knives to block, but the sword of the Invincible Shadow sliced through both steel and skin.

  Mulladin’s mouth hung open. Had he really just slaughtered three trained fighting men? And in what couldn’t have been more than six seconds? He shouldn’t have been surprised, not after seeing Jekaran besting an entire army of royal guard on his own.

  Good job, Mull, Jek said.

  The hall fell quiet and Keesa ran up to him. Her black hair was covered in plaster dust, and a trickle of blood ran down the side of her head.

  “You’re hurt!”

  “One of the bastards clipped me with a blast of their concussion rod and I hit my head on the wall. I gave it back to him with lightning to his face, though! His eyes actually exploded.”

  The glow orbs in the chandeliers flickered.

  It’s getting closer, Jek said.

  “That death wave is coming!”

  Keesa broke into a sprint, and Mulladin followed. They didn’t encounter any more resistance until they had to cross the mansion’s open foyer. A wailing alarm talis drew a dozen guards, but after dispatching two or three enforcers with Jek’s sword, the remaining fighters fled in terror. One fell when he took a bolt of lightning in the back.

  The mansion was shaking now, the glow orbs flickering constantly in their swaying chandeliers. Keesa hadn’t ever used Trous’s slipgate, but she’d used others, and she knew where the basement was. That combined with Mulladin’s memory quickly saw them down several flights of stairs and into the long basement tunnel line with alcoves full of contraband. The door to the room where the slipgate was kept still hadn’t been repaired from their assault the night they left to save Jek, and one lone guard peaked out to see who was approaching.

  “Hey!”

  Lightning flashed over the tunnel and the guard fell dead. Keesa and Mulladin stepped over his burnt body and hurried up to the white structure that resembled a garden gazebo. Mulladin jumped up onto the dais, transferred Jek’s sword to his off hand, and examined the plinth upon which was set a glowing map of Shaelar.

  Blessedly, the round stone that was the key was still in the talis. Mulladin was about to praise Ez for his foresight, but cut off the thought as quickly as it formed. Apparently thinking of the man was enough to trigger whatever it was that made Jek’s mind lock up.

  Keesa stepped up beside him and stared down at the glowing map of Shaelar. She pointed at several glowing dots. “So which one is it?”

  Mulladin asked Jek where on the map Allose was, and then pointed at a mountain range. “It’s here.”

  “There’s no slipgate there!” Keesa waved at the other glowing dots on the map. She was right. There wasn’t a glowing dot where Allose should be.

  Mulladin asked Jek about it, but the sword just projected a mental shrug. The communication was so familiar in tone, that Mulladin actually pictured Jek shrugging his shoulders.

  The room rocked, and the rumbling and the hissing of the death wave–the same one that’d destroyed Keesa’s ship back in Aiested–grew louder.

  “Coordinates!” Keesa tapped the map and lines suddenly crisscrossed the image.

  “What the hell are coordinates?”

  “You big dumb ox!” She shoved Mulladin aside. “Slipgates can find other slipgates if they know exactly where to look. Ask the sword if it knows Allose’s longitude and latitude!”

  I can hear her, Jek said, his tone full of annoyance. And then he relayed some numbers that Mulladin repeated.

  Keesa touched the keystone and shut her eyes. A heartbeat later, another glowing dot appeared on the map of Shaelar, this one in the mountains.

  “That’s it!” Mulladin laughed. “Take us there!”

  Keesa gave him a sharp nod.

  Nothing happened.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Keesa shook her head. “I don’t know. I gave the command, but it’s like Allose is closed.”

  “Closed to a slipgate?”

  Keesa scowled at him. “Did it ever occur to you that the Allosians might know how to lock their slipgates?”

  He hadn’t considered that. “How do we unlock it?”

  “How should I know?”

  The shaking of the room intensified, and the pieces of the room’s wooden door started to particularize and rise into the air. The death wave was here. The tiny emerald jewels on the flat of Jek’s sword lit up. That had happened last time, and both he and Keesa had survived that wave by holding onto the sword. Could they do so a second time? It made sense that it should work, but Mulladin knew next to nothing about magic.

  A wooden beam crashed through the plaster ceiling and smashed against the floor. It too started to unmake right before their eyes. More pieces of plaster broke free from the ceiling, and a support beam tore through the room’s east wall. Even if they could survive the wave itself, this mansion was a modern construction, made of wood and plaster instead of stone. When the wave hit them in Aiested, it had destroyed wood, flesh, and cloth, but not stone. The sword could shield them from the magic, but Mulladin doubted it would protect them from being crushed by a collapsing building.

  Mulladin looked at the glowing dots on the slipgate’s map. None were more than four day’s ride from Allose, but there was a slipgate in Rasha. He knew that city, had been there with… “Take us to Rasha!”

  Keesa didn’t respond. She was staring wide-eyed at the translucent, green wave that rolled steadily toward them.

  “Keesa!”

  She shook herself and shut her eyes in concentration.

  The world around them flashed purple, but when the light faded, Mulladin found that they were thrust into near total darkness. The soft glow from the companion slipgate only revealed the area immediately around them–the stone floor of a castle? The air was musty and stale, and the sound of a slow drip echoed from somewhere to their right.

  Mulladin stepped off the dais and when his foot hit the floor, a single glow orb awoke. It wasn’t mounted on the ceiling or walls as was common, but was loose on the ground. Alone, it was little better than a torch, but it shed enough light to reveal a pile of rubble.

  “It says we’re in Rasha,” Keesa said from behind him. She was still standing on the slipgate, looking over the plinth and its map of Shaelar.

  Mulladin picked up the glow orb and lifted it above his head. His chest constricted at the sight of a mountain of stone debris piled to dozens of feet and reaching just below the top of an arch that marked a hallway. He turned slowly, surveying the room. A tiny forest of glowing mushrooms grew where the flagstones were broken up, and replaced with dirt.

  “I think we’re underground.”

  Twelve miles beneath Rasha, Jek supplied. How
did he know that?

  The darkness and dank air pressed in on Mulladin, and he desperately wanted to leave the subterranean ruins. “It doesn’t look like there’s a way out.” He returned to the slipgate and stepped up onto the dais. “Take us to the next nearest slipgate.”

  Keesa looked up from the map, the talis’s purple glow reflecting in her wide eyes.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Erassa’s gate is gone, as is Aiested’s and every other point on this map except for Allose.” Keesa glanced back down at the plinth and its map of Shaelar. “And it’s locked.”

  Mulladin forced a laugh. “What’re you saying?”

  “We have no way out,” Keesa said. “We’re trapped.”

  Apeiron swirled about Jove and disappeared into his black and green form. He sucked in more and more, oceans worth of the succulent purple energy. Patches of black begin to appear in the nebulae surrounding him. Had he eaten so much Apeiron that the supply was dwindling? What would happen when it was all gone? This place would darken for sure, but the doll was radiating Apeiron. He looked down to the glass sphere below him and the beautiful woman encased inside. He was devouring Apeiron faster than the white-haired doll could create it. What would happen when he ran out?

  Jove needed to slow his consumption before he exhausted the supply, but he couldn’t. The more Apeiron he ate, the more he needed, and Jove never had been any good at denying self-gratification. He shoved the concern aside and drew in still more Apeiron. His spherical body began to change shape, twisting and growing. Soon he was the shape of a man, but without any human features–like a living silhouette.

  It’s working!

  Jove cackled with his mind, and it soon became a real sound as his mouth and ears formed. Next, eyes showed him the purple ocean surrounding him, something he’d already perceived with his mind, but now saw with both. He watched the rest of his naked body reform, a hideous grin splitting his face.

  Gravity took hold on him again–albeit not as strongly as in Shaelar–and Jove alighted on the floating island of rock closest to the glass sphere. He landed as though kneeling in prayer, looking up at the jagged hole he’d dug into the translucent sphere.

  Jove stood and fired another barrage of green lightning bolts from his newly restored hand. The crackling shaft of emerald power struck the remaining thin layer of the glass sphere and broke it open.

  He barked out a triumphant laugh.

  Waiting for the mother to speak was terribly boring. Hours had passed, and Maely shifted uncomfortably on the ground. Sitting cross-legged was making her ankles hurt. At one point, she shifted and stretched her legs out, but a disapproving shake of Gryyth’s furry head from across the circle made her reassume her original position.

  Maely groaned softly. How do they do this? Most of the Ursaj had sat as still as statues with their eyes closed as they listened. The only ones who moved and made noise were the cubs, and their mothers when they needed something.

  Maely sighed and resumed staring at the Apeira well. She never thought she’d get tired of looking at one of the glowing purple obelisks, but hours of sitting in silence had stolen away the mystical awe of the crystalline tower. She shifted her focus to the glowing flower growing at the base of the well. It was very beautiful, and looked every bit as magical as the Apeira well.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  Almost hypnotized by the white lily, Maely’s thoughts wandered and she found herself wondering about the fates of all her friends. Was Jek alive? Did he hate her? Where was Mulladin? Was he still with Ez? Had Irvis ever caught up to them? Where did Karak go? She was even a little worried about Kairah–but only just a little.

  Where was the prince? Had he succeeded in reaching his army, and stopping the talis war? Gryyth had told her a lot about Raelen over the course of their journey. Apparently, the man was an adherent of the Ursaj’s Seiro, and trained by Gryyth in the ways of the Ursaj’s unarmed fighting. Of course, when you weighed hundreds of pounds, were nearly twice as tall as a regular man with fangs and claws, why would you need a weapon? But Raelen was human, and he trusted Gryyth enough to adopt the fighting style.

  That wasn’t the only odd thing about the prince. Gryyth had spoken proudly of Raelen’s accomplishments, almost like the bear-man was the prince’s father. But the deeds Gryyth listed weren’t what Maely first expected. They weren’t contests of physical prowess won, or scholarly attainments, or political or military victories. Neither were they the boorish bragging of a friend vicariously enjoying another’s sexual conquests.

  No, the virtues Gryyth touted about Raelen were simple things like the man’s kind treatment of his servants, his interest in the welfare of his father’s people, a love for a departed sister, and his near-obsession with changing the world into a better place. Had they come from a human, Maely would’ve immediately dismissed the claims, but there was a plain honesty to Gryyth–to all the Ursaj. They spoke confidently of the things they knew, without any signs of doubt. Could royalty like Raelen, someone even more powerful than the nobility, actually reach manhood without the taint of corruption Maely saw in all others of high station? The idea was as absurd to her as the world being round, but that’d turned out to be true. Probably.

  Jek was good and kind, if not a little stupid, but he was a peasant. Not that all peasants were specimens of benevolent humility–all men could be bastards. Still, Maely found a disproportionate amount of kindness and decency in the poor people of the world, and she’d always believed poverty to be a kind of virtue in and of itself. But if a poor man could be as lecherous and cruel as a rich man, couldn’t a prince be truly noble?

  I need you.

  The voice’s sudden intrusion into Maely’s thoughts made her jump. She looked at Sharor. “I heard that.”

  Sharor looked down at her, milky eyes focused as if the she-bear actually could see Maely. She nodded. “This part is not for you, cub. You may watch, but do not interfere. And no matter what, do not partake of the ceremonial wine.”

  Maely ground her teeth. Why exclude her now when she’d already seen so much, and heard the voice of the mother–whoever that was. It didn’t sound like a divine being. The voice was small, and childlike.

  Glynn stood with ten others and made his way to the barrel filled with the red wine. He took a wooden bowl from the top of a stack of bowls and dipped into the wine. He lifted the bowl, full and dripping, to his mouth and took a drink. The others followed and then they took the bowls to the sitting Ursaj who drank and passed the bowl to their neighbor at the right. Everyone drank, even the cubs, some so young that they had to be fed the red liquid by their mothers.

  When the bowl came to Maely, she considered disobeying Sharor. Partly because of the injustice of her exclusion, and partly because she was thirsty, and the wine looked really good. She held the bowl for a moment before sighing and passing it on.

  Upon drinking from the bowl each Ursaj would stand and walk to touch the Apeira well. It was only large enough to accommodate a circle of twelve, the first being Glynn and his followers. The Ursaj that followed touched the Ursaj in front of them so that eventually they formed columns of bear-people running single file out from the well and making it look like a star.

  Being in the first circle, Sharor and Gryyth were right behind those actually touching the well. Maely didn’t join in the file but did stay by Sharor’s side as Kerr helped her stand and she walked to take her place behind Glynn. With one paw on Glynn’s shoulder, Kerr’s paw on hers, Sharor looked down at Maely.

  “You are a good girl.”

  Maely furrowed her brow. “Thanks?”

  Sharor chuckled. “I think we would have been good friends, once you grew up a little.”

  “Hey!” Maely snapped. Then Sharor’s words registered. “What do you mean would have?”

  Glynn fell to his knees first. He shivered and moaned and then slumped, paw still extended to touch the well. Others of the Ursaj touching the well did the same, all falli
ng in a way that let them maintain contact with the amethyst obelisk.

  Maely’s heart pounded. What was happening? She moved up to touch Glynn on the shoulder. He didn’t respond. She shook him, but again received no response. She whipped around to face Sharor.

  “What’s happening?”

  “We are answering the mother’s call.” Sharor clenched her eyes shut, fell forward, and started convulsing. White foam dripped from her maw, but she diligently held onto Glynn’s lifeless form as she too faded.

  Maely glanced at a wooden bowl set on the ground behind her. It still had a bit of red wine pooling in its base.

  Not wine. Poison.

  Maely ran, ducking under three lines of Ursaj until she reached Gryyth. He was kneeling, the pain of the poison making him tremble, or was it his burns? Or both? Maely flung herself down and embraced the white bear-man.

  Her tears dripped into his fur, and she sobbed, “Why?”

  “The mother needs us,” Gryyth rumbled.

  Anger, horror, and grief warred inside Maely, and she opened her mouth to curse Rasheera, but only a desperate plea escaped her lips. “Don’t leave me here alone!”

  “The mother is still here.” Gryyth patted her back with his free paw, the pressure frighteningly weak. “Remember, you still need to wash the mud from your fur, cub.”

  Those were the last words the blue-eyed Ursaj said to her.

  Jove stared down through the bore he’d dug to the silver-haired doll. His floating rock island now hovered over the glass sphere, positioning him so he could drop down inside it. Jove wasn’t certain if that’d been happenstance, or if he’d somehow moved the floating rock. Either way it was a long fall from his perch, through the orb’s glass walls, and to the center where his doll awaited him. But gravity’s hold here wasn’t normal. Jove would fall, but he would do it slowly.

  Jove sank into a launching crouch, and was about to jump when a distant sound gave him pause. That in and of itself was strange, as the only thing he’d heard in this place up until now was his own voice and the crackling of his lightning. He stood and turned in a circle, surveying every direction of the purple ocean and its floating islands of rock. The sound grew louder. It was bestial, like a lion or a bear. Yes, that definitely sounded like a bear, but not just one, dozens. Maybe hundreds?