The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  Mulladin shared a look with Keesa.

  They were out of time.

  Kairah put the Zikkurat between her and Shivara. “It was you!”

  “Answer my question, child.” Shivara took a step toward her.

  Kairah trembled with a mixture of fear and rage. “You caused all of this!”

  “Did you speak with him?” Shivara shouted, her usually calm demeanor giving way to a wide-eyed feral look. “I know Boulos reached out to you once. I can sense his imprint on your soul.”

  Boulos? “The being with golden hair?” Kairah hadn’t ever spoken to such a being. Unless… “The voice I heard in my vision of the dead land. That was him?”

  “Yes!” Shivara took a step toward her. “Did he give you a message? Is he pleased with the fire I’ve started? What am I supposed to do now?”

  Fire?

  Kairah stepped backward, colliding with a table and knocking several glass instruments onto the floor where they shattered. “I saw only the past. When you communed with him and he gave you the power to strike at the woman with silver hair.”

  Shivara’s eyes narrowed. “You saw her, did you?”

  Kairah took a slow step to her right. “She is real then? The goddess Rasheera?”

  Shivara scoffed. “She always made us call her Mother. And yes, she is very real, but I wouldn’t call her a goddess.”

  Kairah inched to her right, preparing to break for one of the chamber’s doors. “Did she not create Shaelar? Did she not create us?”

  Shivara took another step toward Kairah. “She is one of the ascended; a race of immortal beings who spell-cast on a level far beyond anything we can achieve. But a goddess?” Shivara shook her head. “What kind of goddess could be deceived and trapped by her own children?”

  Aeva! Kairah strained her will, but the mental call never left her skull. She no longer had the ability to spell-cast from the Fourth Discipline.

  “So that is what you did? You trapped her in the center of the planet? In a cage of crystal?”

  “That was not our plan.” Shivara stepped to the right, casually matching Kairah’s slow movement toward the door. They stared at each other across the row of instrument filled tables, separated only by a few feet. “We were supposed to kill her.”

  Though weak, Kairah readied a spell from the Second Discipline–a simple ball of fire. She was too weak to fight Shivara, but if it gave her the distraction she needed to run…

  “How do you kill an immortal being?”

  Shivara flashed a toothy smile. “By exploiting her weakness.”

  “Gods do not have weaknesses.”

  Shivara laughed. “Compassion was her weakness. You see, Mother was going to leave us. She said we needed to prove to her and ourselves that we could hold to Seiro on our own…”

  Seiro? Wasn’t that the Ursaj code of honor?

  “…show her that we could be obedient and benevolent without her here to guide us. If we could achieve this, she promised to share her immortality and power with us. She would ascend us to the plane of existence upon which she herself lived and teach us to spell-cast.” Shivara’s smile faded. “She was going to abandon us to a life of toil, disease, and death. No more would she provide us food, build us cities, or heal our injuries and sicknesses. We were going to have to learn how to survive on our own.”

  “Such is the way of all parent and child relationships.”

  “No!” Shivara swung an arm out and knocked a bronze cube supported by a metal rod onto the floor with a deep dong!

  Kairah started and had to bite off a scream.

  “What kind of mother abandons her children?” Shivara screamed. “Takes from them the comforts of home and exposes them to the dark?” Shivara calmed herself with a deliberately deep breath. “We had nowhere to turn. So we called out through the void of space, searching for someone to save us.”

  “Boulos?”

  “Another ascended being.” Shivara’s smug smile returned. “He took pity on us, and promised to grant us immortality and the ability to spell-cast without our having to devolve into a helpless race of mortals first. He only required that we assassinate mother so he could take her place as our god.

  “He changed my followers and I, gave us the power to spell-cast, taught us how to shield our minds, and instructed us to beg Mother to leave a portion of her power behind before she left us.”

  Kairah remembered the ring Rasheera had produced for Shivara in the vision, the same ring recovered by the human monk, Irvis. It radiated a power more potent than Apeiron, and had a healing power unmatched by any other talis.

  Shivara glanced at the rings on her fingers. “This would weaken her, and make her vulnerable so I could strike at her.”

  The image of Shivara’s blonde human self holding the green flame replayed before Kairah’s mind. “With that Boulos’s own power–Moriora?”

  Shivara shook her head. “We created Moriora, not him.”

  Kairah remembered standing amid a city of bones staring up at black clouds lit by shafts of emerald lightning and asking an alien mind, “Who did this?” To which it responded, “You did.”

  Shivara’s eyes unfocused as she stared at the past. “He showed us how to take the primal elements of existence and shape them into something that could physically manifest on our plane. He lent us a bit of his alien power to craft a magic out of the natural forces of decay and death. One touch from that corruption and Mother would wilt and die.”

  While Shivara wasn’t looking, Kairah spell-cast a gentle gust of wind against the door and pushed it so it opened a few inches. She was relieved to find it unlocked, but even creating such a small blast of air was far more difficult than it ought to have been.

  I do not have much time left.

  “But you were not fast enough.” Kairah’s voice trembled.

  Shivara’s eyes refocused and she shot a glare at Kairah. “Mother was able to erect a shield in time to stop Moriora from touching her. But once the power was unleashed, it would not stop until it consumed her, and so it continued to press against her shield. She pushed back, but in her weakened state it took all of her power and concentration. The result was that all her other spells failed and she fell through the ground to the center of the planet. There she was able to create a pocket of reality where her plane and ours intersected, which somehow allowed her to halt my Moriora attack. The effort of maintaining the balance costs her dearly, though, and so she sleeps–paralyzed and vulnerable. And although Mother’s power continues to radiate from her, it is corrupted and weakened when it passes through the Moriora web, crystalizing and eventually radiating Apeiron.”

  “And did you make the Apeira wells to feed on that power? To keep her weak?”

  “You do me too much credit.” Shivara laughed. “The Aeose are simply portions of Mother’s crystal prison that she has pushed out from the center of the planet. After failing to kill Mother, our ascended patron ceased communing with us, although he did leave us with our gifts. So we used our ability to consume and manipulate energy to syphon the Apeiron. It extended our lives and changed our physical appearances to what the world commonly attributes to the racial features of an Allosian.

  “Through experimentation we devised a means for sharing our gift with Mother’s other children, though the process was imperfect, and left a great many without the blessings of longevity, eternal youth, and spell-casting enjoyed by those now called Allosians.”

  Kairah called to mind the vision of Shivara and her followers casting a spell at the base of the Mother shard, and the resultant wave of power that exploded across Shaelar.

  “The humans. They are the original creation?”

  Shivara smirked. “Most of them.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “In its corrupted state, Mother’s power did not grant us the immortality we sought. We could still succumb to injury and our bodies would simply cease to work after a few hundred years. We began to experiment with Moriora, and fou
nd that we could use it to draw in far more Apeiron than we otherwise could. We could also steal the life energy of other creations. This let us repair our bodies without healing spells, and stave off death indefinitely.”

  Horror stabbed Kairah in the heart. “You created the monsters I saw feeding on the humans.”

  Shivara nodded. “Those who experimented with Moriora found that the more life they consumed, the more they needed to sustain themselves. Those with weak wills quickly gave into their ever-growing appetites, and went insane. They would feed on anything they could.

  “By this time, the humans and those Allosians ungrateful for what I’d given them, had gathered in the west and formed an army. Their intention was to march on Allose and free Mother from her prison. Those Allosians loyal to Mother devised a way to grant their human cousins access to spell-casting. That was the origin of talis craft. The traitors made weapon talises which they used against us. Unfortunately, those proved very effective, and so I was forced to call for a parlay.”

  “The ambassadors you sent to the opposition were infected with Moriora.” Kairah shook her head. “You sent them to destroy the enemy army!”

  “My original cadre of disciples. They had proven too weak willed to abstain from overindulging in the life force of other creatures.” Shivara grinned. “So I sent them to our enemies and instructed them to use the same spell we’d used for turning humans into Allosians to spread their corruption and make more of what we called life-leeches. Though, that only worked on Allosians, and not in every case. Some were merely transformed back into humans, the only physical difference being that their eyes were green. Apparently, choice and one’s disposition has something to do with that.” Shivara waved a dismissive hand. “I never did puzzle that out.”

  Jekaran is descended from corrupted Allosians. That had apparently been what Aeva meant when she said Jekaran had Moriora in his blood.

  “When my old friends had lost control and, with the new leeches they’d created, destroyed the opposition, we quarantined them by collapsing a large portion of the continent and raising the sea to bar their way. Though survivors showed up a few years later on the new western shore–a refugee army. They brought their talises with them, and with a fresh supply of Apeiron to charge them, they continued their war.”

  “The history we were taught…Humans were never the aggressors. They were the ones trying to save Rasheera and stop you.” Kairah’s fear was receding and quickly being replaced by a flame burning within her chest. “You made the creature that destroyed the well at Taris!”

  Shivara belted out a loud laugh. “No, that was your brother. He came to me desperate for guidance on how to deal with his rage over the murder of your parents. I feigned a vision telling him that it was crucial for the survival of our species that he purge the land of humans, and that his tragedy was fate’s way of choosing him to accomplish this. True, I taught him how to summon Moriora and cast the inversion spell, but the destruction he’s wrought has all been of his own making.”

  Shivara was a monster with the blood of millions on her hands. She’d created Moriora and tried to slay her own creator. Worse, she had set Jenoc on the path of hate and revenge. Kairah flung out her hand and the fire of anger smoldering in her heart found expression in an eruption of very real flame. The stream of fire engulfed Shivara’s bald head, and the woman stumbled backward with a scream.

  Kairah broke right and ran for the door. She flung it the rest of the way open and exploded into a run. She’d only gone a few paces when something cold struck her in the back. She froze, unable to breath, speak or move as a familiar sensation thrilled through her. It felt like she was drawing on Apeiron, but instead of absorbing it, the energy flowed through and then out of her.

  Shivara walked from behind Kairah and turned to look her directly in the eyes. The woman’s head was a mass of smoldering black flesh, but didn’t stay that way for long. The charred skin smoothed and pinked, her ears reformed, and eyes returned to their sockets–but they weren’t eyes of purple as before. The color of Shivara’s eyes were a bright emerald green. Hair sprouted from her bald head, but not the Allosian shade of amethyst. It was black, and lustrous, like Jekaran’s.

  Dozens of oddities suddenly made sense; the reason Shivara’s talises drained when she touched them, why the oracle shaved her head, the purpose of the purple eye drops, and the uncomfortable tingle Kairah felt whenever the woman touched her.

  Shivara was a Moriora vessel.

  “You’ve seen much, Kairah. Far more than any of my other students. I was hoping your unusually strong oracular gifts would have allowed you to search out my ascended patron. Since I used up poor Etele, I haven’t had anyone to sit in the Zikkurat, and I was hoping you would’ve remained ignorant long enough to make contact with Boulos. What a pity.”

  Shivara withdrew a small, thin tendril of translucent green energy from Kairah’s back. She gasped and fell to the floor.

  “Your sequestered apprentices,” Kairah panted. “Just disposable tools to you, so you could continue using talises?”

  Shivara examined a lock of her newly grown black hair. “Mainly so that I could use the Zikkurat, but also so I could be discreet in my feeding. Etele’s predecessor, a girl whose name I forget–that does happen to one after she passes her first millennium of life–she was the only one of my students who managed to reach my former ascended patron, the first time I’d had contact with him in centuries. He promised me that if I started the fire for him, once the world burned down, he’d reward me with true immortality.”

  Shivara leaned down so that she was close enough to Kairah’s face to kiss her. “I’m going to be a goddess, Kairah. And you’re going to help me until you can no longer spell-cast. Then, once your transformation is complete, you will beg to join me just for the food I have to offer.” Shivara stroked Kairah’s cheek, the contact causing the same uncomfortable tingling sensation as before. “Immortality can be very lonesome. It will be nice to have a companion. You and I are going to be very close, Kairah.” Shivara kissed her and Kairah seized, the contact pulling more Apeiron through her. It was just like when Moriora’s vessel had kissed her back in Aiested–paralyzing.

  Aeva! Kairah screamed inside her mind. Rasheera! Mother!

  No one answered.

  Visions of lustful men covered in blood and worse looming over her flooded back into her mind, and for a moment, Kairah was a young maid again on the floor of a human cottage; helpless and vulnerable. She put all her fear and desperation into one last mental scream and it actually broke free of her skull.

  Jenoc! Help!

  The grass and trees withered as Jenoc passed, almost as if they were bowing to him. Their energy, paltry as it was, flowed into him, dulling his hunger pains and keeping him energized. He glanced at the thousands trundling along behind him–his children. They were his legacy, the tool by which he would end humanities dominance of Shaelar. They were the sword of his vengeance.

  Jenoc was close now. He could feel the Apeiron radiating from the Mother Shard like a warm breeze. Even had he not known where his home was, he would’ve been able to find it by Apeiron’s mouthwatering scent alone. Before his transformation, like all Allosians, he had been able to sense the Mother Shard from miles away, even take some of it into himself. But now his sense for the powerful energy had magnified a hundred-fold. He could taste the power like never before, but not partake of it. No, as he’d learned, he couldn’t do that unless he was in direct contact with the Aeose–it was maddening.

  They would cross the boundary soon, and then Allose would be visible. He had to make certain to reach the Mother Shard first, else one of his children were sure to feed on it and corrupt the Aeose before he could cast the spell that would transform all the green-eyed humans in Shaelar in to life-leeching creatures like himself. With his knowledge of the city he would have little problem beating the others to the Mother Shard. His children would also be distracted by the frenzy of feeding on new prey, Allosians fi
lled with Apeiron. Each one like a miniature Aeose. Yes, Jenoc would have little difficulty achieving his goal, realizing his revenge. His people would also die along with the humans. That was unfortunate, but Jenoc couldn’t let sentiment get in the way of his destiny.

  Kairah will die too.

  Jenoc reached into his cloak pocket and fingered the jagged crystal edges of the geode he kept there. No. He couldn’t let sentiment get in his way. It was his destiny to destroy the humans. The oracle had made that clear.

  An explosion rocked the world.

  Jenoc whirled to find a wide, deep crater where moments before had stood dozens of his children. A second blast of red fire erupted on his left flank. Cries of confusion and fright carried on the wind, and Jenoc spun about, searching his surroundings for the wielder of the flare talis. He could find no one. There were talises that allowed one to cast from a great distance, but those had passed into history during the war with the humans. So where could…

  A shadow fell over his army, hundreds of feet long and nearly as wide. Jenoc looked up just in time to see something white block out the sun–an Allosian airship. A massive Allosian airship.

  The wind whipped Maely’s hair and she trailed wisps of cloud as she dove toward Jenoc’s army. At least that’s how she imagined it. She actually couldn’t see herself. All she saw was what Empyrean saw as it swooped like a hawk for a field mouse. Another red explosion bloomed from the ground, throwing up body parts and scattering Jenoc’s soldiers.

  “Bring us around for another pass,” Raelen ordered.

  He was standing beside her on a second smaller circular dais, though while piloting Empyrean, she couldn’t see him. He had insisted she fly the ship so he could focus on attacking Jenoc’s army of life-sucking monsters. She’d wanted to argue that she had as much right as Raelen did to see Jenoc dead, but the prince did have more experience using talises, specifically weapon talises. That, and well, he was the prince. You didn’t argue with the prince.