The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  “I think you’re brave,” Keesa suddenly said. “And loyal. You’re a good man, Mulladin.”

  Mulladin laughed.

  “You disagree?”

  “I’ve only been a man for a matter of days.”

  Keesa hesitated. “I know you’re uneducated…but kissing while I lay on top of you with our clothes on isn’t actually―”

  “Not that.” Mulladin drew in a deep breath. “You saw Trous electrocute me?”

  Keesa nodded.

  “Well, the healing that saved my life changed me.”

  Keesa pulled away and stared up at him. “What are you talking about?”

  Mulladin ran his hands over his face. “I wasn’t acting like a simpleton, I was a simpleton–a man with the mind of a child. The talis used to heal my wounds changed that. Gave me the capacity of an adult.”

  Keesa didn’t say anything.

  “Well?”

  A smile slowly crept across her face. “That’s why you’re so ignorant, and a virgin!”

  The remark actually smarted, and Mulladin ground his teeth.

  “Don’t be like that.” Keesa started laughing. “I’d been wondering how someone so intelligent and handsome could’ve remained”―she hesitated―“inexperienced.”

  “Well, now you know.” Mulladin turned away, frowning.

  Keesa’s soft hand touched his cheek and forced his head to turn back so that their eyes met. “It’s a compliment, you big, dumb ox.”

  Staring into her large, brown eyes cooled Mulladin’s irritation.

  Keesa moved in so that her lips brushed his as she whispered. “I may not be able to help you with your ignorance. But I can fix that virgin thing.”

  Before Mulladin could respond, Keesa pressed her lips against his with a passion that nearly made him forget his own name.

  You know I’m still here, right? Jek said.

  Tyrus and Karak flew down the massive white hallway following a single, glowing spirit orb. Well, Karak flew; it was all Tyrus could do to keep up with the lizard man, not that he was actually keeping up.

  “Aek!” he shouted back at him, which Tyrus had learned was Vorakk for “hurry your ass up!”

  “I’m–trying–to!” he panted.

  A group of five robed Allosians flashed into existence several feet in front of them. Karak made a motion with his hand and a dozen small glowing orbs appeared in the air around him. They swirled about like playful glow flies until Karak pointed at the Allosians. Then the glowing lights aligned horizontally, turned blue, and released a hurricanic gale. The blowback was so strong that Tyrus slowed, the wind assailing him and threatening to throw him backward. The blast hurled the Allosian standing in the center of their quinate blockade back fifty paces and blew his comrades on either side of him into the convex walls so hard that they left cracks in the white stone.

  As they ran past, one of the Allosians stirred. Tyrus bent down and rammed the stun baton into his chest. The purple-haired man convulsed and fell still. There wasn’t a lot Tyrus could do to help, and honestly, stunning the man likely made no difference. It was frustrating.

  The glowing ball darted to a set of gold-leafed double doors where it hovered. Karak slid to a stop and Tyrus was grateful for the chance to catch his breath. The doors had well-shards in them, and Tyrus knew they concealed one of the vertical carriages that allowed people to ascend and descend the floors of Allosian buildings.

  The doors parted of their own accord, and Karak stepped inside. Tyrus followed, and closed his eyes as the lift rocketed upward. The doors opened on a massive dome-shaped chamber that had to be the top floor of the cylindrical structure. More slipgates than Tyrus had ever seen filled the room. They lined the walls, satellites to one enormous slipgate at the room’s center.

  “Reka, little, rich human open fey door?”

  Tyrus smiled. That, he could do. Perhaps he wasn’t useless after all.

  Mulladin’s heart pounded as hard as though he’d sprinted a mile. His cheeks were flushed, and his chest was warm. Keesa was lying on top of him, smothering him with wet kisses and nearly choking him with her tongue. She sat back on his stomach and grabbed the fringe of her shirt and started to lift it.

  Ding.

  Keesa froze, her shirt pulled up to just above her naval.

  “Why are you stopping?” Mulladin panted.

  Keesa looked toward the slipgate and let her shirt drop back down.

  “What?” The warmth in Mulladin’s chest had suddenly shifted to the heat of annoyance.

  Keesa got off him and stood, slowly walking over to the slipgate.

  Mulladin’s anxious irritation and arousal both faded at the sight of a blinking light on the slipgate’s console. He scrambled to his feet and watched Keesa step up onto the dais. She looked down at the map of Shaelar and gasped.

  “Keesa?”

  She met his eyes. “The Allosian slipgate is open.”

  Blow after blow struck Jove’s bare flesh, making it impossible for him to rise. He lashed out with his green lightning, but it didn’t affect the white balls of light assailing him. He cried, as he was pummeled by the never-ending barrage.

  Hanging over the edge of the floating rock island, he could see the doll through the glass sphere. Oh, how he wanted her! Oh, how he needed her! She was his ultimate conquest, and Jove was sure he’d finally found a thrill that would eclipse the pleasure of his first kill. He’d known pleasure, but never again did it rise to the ecstasy of breaking that first doll.

  What was her name again?

  He still couldn’t remember. But he did remember her face. He’d never be able to forget that. Porcelain skin framed by shiny black hair, a lock of which he’d kept for years. The thing he loved the most about her though, were her eyes. They’d been a beautiful shade of blue, bright like the sky. And then glassy and lifeless. Still pretty, but dimmer in death; their whole affair tragically ending too soon.

  Jove clenched his eyes shut, tried to ignore the attacks, and focused on drawing in as much Apeiron as he could. The purple ocean all around him shuddered, and the power flowed into him, first healing his wounds, and then rushing into his core. He drank more, and more, and didn’t stop. He would have that doll!

  Maely knelt next to Gryyth’s corpse, sobbing. All around her lay dead Ursaj, old and young, even the tiniest cubs still held tight in the crooks of their mother’s arms. It was all so senseless. Why would the Ursaj’s mother do this to them? What was the point of wiping out an entire species? Wasn’t that the same as what Jenoc wanted to do? It enraged her, and she screamed at whatever god or gods would allow life to be such an unfair nightmare. She screamed until she was hoarse, and then resumed her pathetic sobbing.

  Maely had never felt so completely forsaken, not since the day her mother died. She was alone, hundreds of miles from civilization, her friends gone, her brother gone, and now Gryyth and Sharor were dead. She had food and water, the remnants of the Ursaj feast were plentiful, but that would not keep forever. It would spoil long before she could eat it all, and there was no way she could carry very much of it with her, not enough for a sojourn of hundreds of miles. Not that she even knew which direction she should go.

  A distant rumbling drew her gaze to the sky. Rising above the trees to the south was a thunderhead emitting flashes of green lightning. Her chest tightened, and her stomach twisted. The withering translucent green wind was coming again. The dark clouds were rolling closer at an alarming rate, and she had maybe an hour before they converged on the sky temple. With those clouds would come a wave of unstoppable, all-consuming death. If the speed of the clouds’ approach was any indication, she wouldn’t be able to outrun it this time. Besides, even if she did, where would she go?

  Maely looked down from the sky and her eyes locked onto a wooden bowl on the ground a few paces in front of her. It looked to still have some of the red liquid in it, enough for her to drink. She’d already faced this temptation once, but her renewed loneliness fell on her like a physic
al thing, and she decided she’d rather die by poison then be stripped apart piece by piece. So, she reached for it.

  That’s not good for you.

  Maely started. “Who’s there?” She stood and glanced around.

  A little girl giggled, but the sound wasn’t an exterior thing. It was inside her head, like when she heard the voice of the Ursaj’s mother.

  “It’s you, isn’t it?”

  I’m Aeva.

  “You made them kill themselves!” Maely screamed. “They’re all dead because of you!” Her sobbing resumed.

  They’re warriors.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” She stumbled toward the Apeira well and sank back to her knees, hugging herself as she wept.

  Don’t cry, Maely.

  “Why shouldn’t I? I’m going to die, and I’m going to die alone.” She leaned forward so far that her forehead touched the dirt.

  I’m here.

  Maely lifted her head, her eyes falling on the glowing white flower growing at the base of the Apeira well. Somehow Maely understood that the voice came from that flower. She twitched, suppressing an impulse to reach over and pull it out by the roots.

  “What are you?”

  I’m Aeva.

  “The Ursaj called you their mother. The human monks call you the divine mother. You’re the goddess Rasheera, aren’t you?”

  I’m only a dream.

  “Don’t talk riddles at me!” Maely tore grass from the ground and flung it at the flower. Was the voice really Rasheera? If so, she’d just exploded at her god.

  Please don’t be mad.

  Maely pounded the grass with a fist. “And why not? It’s over isn’t it! It’s all over!”

  There’s still hope.

  She shook her head, her tears spraying the petals of the white lily. “Can’t you see the sky? It’s coming for me. It’s coming for everyone!”

  Perhaps this is what she deserved–death. After all, she had helped Jenoc start the talis war, abandoned her brother, and worst of all, she’d forced Jek to love her by the magic of her mother’s ring. Sure, Maely may have dipped herself into the river, but there was just too much mud for her to wash off. Better that she drown.

  You are not bad, Maely.

  She wanted to scream at the voice to get out of her head, but loneliness and fear of her approaching death made her hold back.

  You care about people. You want them to be happy. You want it so bad that it makes you mad when they do foolish things.

  Maely hiccupped a bitter laugh. It was true. She’d never thought of it that way, but it was a perfect summary of who she was. Aeva seemed to understand her better than she understood herself.

  “I tried to stop Jek from going with Kairah. I tried to save him from the king. I tried to make him love me…” She broke into another fit of shuddering sobs.

  You can’t force people to do things. It’s wrong.

  Maely laughed. “I could. I had a compulsion talis. But even that wasn’t enough.”

  But you broke it.

  Aeva must’ve been peering into her thoughts to know so much about Maely, and see what she’d done. Maely recognized the familiar feeling. It was like the time Jenoc had broken into her mind, though where that was brutal and violating, Aeva’s touch on her psyche was gentle, warm–kind even.

  “That’s not the only thing I’ve broken.” She scrubbed her eyes with her forearm. “I’ve done terrible things, Aeva. I helped to start a war that will kill everyone, all because I wanted Jek to love me. I deserve to die.”

  You can still help fix things.

  “How?” Maely scoffed. “I can’t get away from that death wind. And even if I could, I don’t know where I am or where my friends are. For all I know, they’re dead.”

  An image of Mulladin exploded into Maely’s mind. He was running with Karak, Gymal, and a girl with tan skin and black hair pulled into a ponytail. And he was fighting with Jekaran’s sword?

  Jek’s dead? It’s the only way Mulladin could wield the sword.

  As if in response to the thought, another image formed. This one was of Jekaran. He was lying in a garden, sleeping, and was that Gymal’s mercenary sitting by him, feeding him from a bowl of mush? What happened to Jek? The image in her mind changed again, this time resolving into a dirty and badly wounded man dragging a satchel over blackened ground. He stumbled, and his face became visible. It was the prince. Raelen.

  The vision ended, and Maely stared at the white lily.

  You can help him.

  “Show me more!”

  You have to go now.

  Maely was about to protest, but another thunderclap–this one much closer–stopped her. “Where am I supposed to go? How am I supposed to get there?”

  Empyrean…

  Maely glanced up at the massive white structure looming above her. She hadn’t seen any doors or windows. “You want me to go inside the sky temple? Will it protect me? Is there a displacement talis inside?”

  Aeva didn’t respond. Was something wrong?

  “Aeva?”

  The ground shook. Maely stood and craned her neck. The sky above was dimming, and explosions of green flashed from within black clouds. The storm had arrived far faster than she’d expected.

  Panic thrilled through her. It was too late for her to run. Maely looked around for a place to hide, and her eyes settled on the white arch overshadowing the Apeira well. Could the Ursaj sky temple protect her? When she’d first encountered the wind, it withered and pulled apart all that it touched. But she’d been out in the open then. Could a stone shelter protect her? She exploded into a run underneath the arch and toward the front of the temple. She looked frantically for a door, but only found the white wall. She extended a hand to touch it, looking for seams that might indicate some sort of entrance. The white material was not stone. It was smooth like glass, but hard like metal.

  A bolt of green lightning struck the ground a hundred feet behind her. Maely began pounding on the wall, and screaming for someone to let her in. She doubted any of the Ursaj would be inside, but what else was she going to do? She glanced back at another lightning strike, and made to pound again on the wall. Her fist hit nothing. She looked back at the wall and found a black opening just her size. She stepped in and fell.

  The hole above her closed like a mouth as she fell away from it. A moment ago, the hole had been in front of her. Now it was above her, and the direction in front of her had become down.

  Maely closed her eyes expecting at any moment to smash against the floor, but instead she jerked to a stop. Had she landed? Maely opened her eyes and found herself suspended in the air. Gently, her feet moved downward, righting her so that she was standing, or would’ve been standing if she were floating. Once upright, she was lowered to a floor.

  Abrupt illumination made her cover her eyes, but she hadn’t needed to. The light was soft and comfortable. It came from all directions and revealed a large chamber. Maely looked up to where the door had been. That direction was now up for her and she couldn’t begin to puzzle out how that’d happened. Taliscraft was the only possible explanation.

  The sky temple’s inner room was oval shaped, and in the center was a round platform rising half a foot from the floor. Shelves and doors lined the walls, and there were even beds inside molded alcoves. Was she safe inside here?

  Maely carefully walked over to the platform and stepped up onto it. It turned purple and an audible male voice asked something in a language Maely had never heard.

  “What?” She called.

  After a beat of silence, the voice spoke again, this time in Aiestali. “I apologize for the delay. It took me a little longer to learn your language than I had anticipated.”

  Long? It’d only been seconds, and Maely had only said one word. “Who are you?”

  “My name does not translate well into your language. But the closest thing would be Empyrean.”

  Maely scanned the chamber. “You’re not a person, are you?”
/>   “No, mistress. I am―”

  “Don’t call me mistress!” Maely balled her fists at her sides.

  “Very well, then. What should I call you?”

  “Maely.”

  “Well, Maely. To answer your question. I am what you would call an ego talis.”

  Like the sword? “Then how come you don’t talk to me in my head?”

  “I can if you wish me to. But this is easier should anyone join us.”

  “What?”

  The temple rocked, and Maely stumbled off the platform, falling to the floor and landing on her stomach. Apparently, she wasn’t safe here after all.

  “May I suggest we leave this place?” Empyrean asked without even the slightest fear in his voice.

  Maely scrambled up to her feet. “How?”

  “Stand on the control dais.”

  Maely guessed Empyrean meant the raised platform. She leapt up onto it and stood in the middle of the circle. The disc turned purple again, and suddenly the chamber was gone. She looked around, finding herself back outside amidst the dead Ursaj. Darkness made it look like night, the only light coming from Aeva and the Apeira well. Green bolts of lightning rained down in rapid succession and one struck the Apeira well. It exploded into a storm of green shards, and Maely threw up her arm to shield herself, only she didn’t have arms.

  She looked down, but found that she had no body either. “Divine Mother!” She shrieked. “I’m a ghost!”

  “No, Maely,” Empyrean’s soothing voice said from somewhere unseen. “You are perceiving what I perceive.”

  “What are you?”

  “A vessel,” Empyrean answered.

  “Like a boat?”

  “You could describe me that way. But the analogy breaks down because I am not a water craft.”

  A wave of translucent green energy tore through the trees. Just like before, the trees dropped their foliage, withered and broke apart. The wave of death was pushing forward, killing the grass and devouring the corpses of the Ursaj, and it didn’t appear that it was going to slow and retreat anytime soon.