The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  “You!”

  The goddess ring had only just begun to singe Kairah’s veins again, and although she could spell-cast, Kairah was nowhere near the level of power she had been before trying to purge the Mother Shard. But she launched a fire ball at Shivara anyway.

  The witch manifested her Moriora aura and absorbed the blast. Her wrinkles smoothed, and her face regained some color as she broke into wild laughter.

  “If your brother couldn’t kill me with all of his supposed expertise, what makes you think a flame talis would be of any use?”

  Flame talis? She does not know I regained my spellcasting.

  Shivara stepped into the chamber, still hunched like she carried a great weight, but her movements were less rigid than they had been a moment before. Kairah couldn’t risk casting any other spells at the woman while she was wrapped in Moriora, lest Kairah end up healing her. She’d have to wait for Shivara to attack.

  “I bet you stole that talis from my collection. Didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

  The woman was full and truly insane now, that much was obvious by her hysterical tone and visible trembling.

  “What was it? I see you holding nothing, wearing no jewelry on your―” Shivara froze, her glowing green eyes narrowing. She hissed. “Where did you get that?”

  Kairah put her hand behind her back, but it was too late. Shivara had seen the goddess ring.

  “It was lost when Mother fell. It’s supposed to be deep within the planet! How did you get it?”

  Kairah pushed back her fear and set her jaw. She had to force herself not to consider the fact that if Shivara was here, then Jekaran and the others were likely dead.

  “It would seem that, in spite of being imprisoned, Rasheera has been successfully working against you, Shivara.” Kairah’s only hope now was to stall while the hot energy built up inside her, making her strong enough to kill Shivara with one overpowering spell. “I have seen the ripples of fate guiding me. Rasheera herself has been communing with me in the guise of a Spirit lily. And I suspect she brought others together to stop the threat of Moriora, and to stop you!”

  “Mother always was stubborn,” Shivara said. “But it’s too late! She’s failed! I have set the blaze that now burns across Shaelar! Soon this land will be desolate, and my master will have what he wants!”

  “And what is that?” Kairah tried to will the fire inside to burn hotter, but it was more a fancy than an actual attempt. She could sooner will the sun to shine brighter.

  Shivara wagged a finger at Kairah and laughed. “Clever girl. You are trying to stall me. Why?”

  A wave of invisible discord thrummed through Kairah. It shook her, making her core feel fragile, as if it were ready to fly apart. Irvis groaned, and Graelle whimpered. Even Gymal apparently felt it, as was evidenced by his hiding his bald head in the crook of his arm. The wave was punctuated by a seismic jolt that produced fine cracks in the massive chamber’s walls.

  Shivara stared up at the Mother Shard, a delighted smile on her face. “You feel that, Kairah? The fire has burned its way into Mother’s prison. It won’t be long now before she succumbs to the poison.”

  Kairah gauged her reserve of energy. Although it was building faster, it was not yet two-thirds of what it had been. I do not have a choice. I must kill her now. Though she couldn’t afford an extended duel for two reasons: The goddess was dying, and Kairah couldn’t risk Shivara touching her with Moriora. Her quickening mind had deduced that to do so would infect her again, and perhaps even the goddess ring itself would be corrupted.

  Shivara met Kairah’s eyes. “I will ensure that this door is permanently closed so that Mother won’t be able to escape the Eater. Then Boulos will speak to me again and reward me. I know it!” A dozen translucent green tentacles sprang into existence and struck at the Mother Shard.

  Kairah gasped, and cast, but her shield materialized a breath too late, and the Moriora tendril shattered it before it even formed. Just as the snakelike undulating cords of warped air were about to sink into the crystalline surface of the Mother Shard, they evaporated.

  Shivara suddenly arched her back as a blade punched out of from between her breasts. She stumbled forward, and Kairah saw… “Jekaran!”

  He bore a look of concentration on his face, and the emeralds peppering the blade lit up.

  Shivara shrieked. “That’s not possible!”

  Was Jekaran draining her Apeiron?

  The witch’s features aged, and she was clearly weakening. Still, she managed to cast a pulse of force that repelled Jekaran and separated him from the sword. Shivara straightened, reached to her back and yanked the blade out. She brought it around and held it up before her, examining it. Jekaran was poised to charge, but hesitated.

  He is just as vulnerable to Moriora without direct contact with the sword!

  Shivara flashed a grin full of decaying teeth, and then hurled the sword so that if flew from where they stood on the chamber’s balcony and dropped out of sight. Jekaran exploded into a blur of motion, streaking toward the falling weapon.

  Shivara spun and snapped out a green tendril, spearing Jekaran in the side. He tripped, rolled, and fell to the ground paralyzed. A resounding clang announced the sword meeting the depths at the base of the Mother Shard.

  “Jekaran!” Kairah screamed.

  He convulsed like he was having a fit, but his eyes moved to meet hers. They did not dry and fall from his sockets, neither did his skin prune and wither. Though he was frozen, Jekaran was not wasting away as he ought to have. It was like he was an Allosian…

  “Conduit!” Shivara gasped. The witch’s chest wound had closed, and she appeared young again. “He’s a conduit!” Shivara closed her eyes, smiled, and shuddered with pleasure. Then she snapped them open and launched a spread of green tendrils at the Mother Shard.

  Kairah’s quickened mind, growing ever faster with the rising flame inside her, registered the attack almost before it came. She didn’t have the strength to encase the entire Mother Shard in a protective barrier, so she created small discs of translucent power. She made certain to solidify them before pulling her reach back, so that the Moriora would have no chance of connecting with her aura.

  A dozen tiny discs blocked the tendrils just inches before they sank into the Mother Shard. Each one exploded into tiny fragments that faded from existence before they could fall to the ground, and the tentacles of green energy evaporated.

  Shivara growled and launched more tentacles, all the while holding onto Jekaran and using him as a proxy to draw Apeiron. Kairah met each tendril with a tiny glass disc, again repelling the mad woman’s attempt to corrupt the Mother Shard. Didn’t she realize that by destroying the Mother Shard, she would lose the very thing she depended on for sustenance and spellcasting? But then, Kairah surmised that logic had long ago abandoned Shivara, perhaps even before she’d become a Moriora vessel. How else could one be persuaded to slay their own god if she was not mad?

  Shivara screamed, and manifested hundreds of Moriora tendrils, and Kairah stopped them all with her transparent shield discs. Another volley, and another successful intervention. Then another and another. Though powerful as she now was, that power diminished each time Kairah cast, and the gradual replenishment from the goddess ring wasn’t fast enough to keep up. She couldn’t do this forever. Eventually Shivara would wear her down.

  Jekaran had once made the mistake of hiding near a tree during a thunderstorm. Lightning struck that tree, and though it didn’t strike him directly, Jekaran remembered a paralyzing jolt flash from his hand touching the trunk, through his shoulders and chest, and then out his opposite hand. It’d been over in the blink of an eye, and while sore, he hadn’t suffered any lasting injuries. This felt like that jolt, except it didn’t end.

  Jekaran couldn’t move, save for involuntary trembling. He watched helpless as Shivara dueled with Kairah and longed to come to her aid. The feeling was all too similar to when the sword used to commandeer his body, shoving his consc
iousness aside so that all he could do was watch. How could he have been so stupid as to lose the sword? Since absorbing its knowledge and power, he’d hoped he hadn’t needed to maintain physical contact to access his powers. That was partially true, but he couldn’t shield himself from Shivara’s spell-casting or green magic without using the sword in a physical blocking motion.

  Movement at the door of the chamber caught Jekaran’s attention. Hort shambled in, hand covering a bleeding gash in his side, and the other tightly gripping the polished black scepter. He steadily approached Shivara’s back, stopping when he was four paces away from her. The mad witch didn’t notice him, or else she didn’t care. She was engrossed in trying to sink one of her hundreds of ghostly green tendrils into the Apeira well. They snapped out like vipers, but Kairah was just as quick with her spellcasting and was deftly deflecting Shivara’s barrage, a fact that enraged the woman.

  Hort lowered the black scepter so that its point touched the floor, and then began tracing a circle in lines of black so dark that they dimmed the light around them, as if sucking it in. Hort stopped an inch short of completing the circle and straightened. He glanced at Jekaran, met his eyes, and then winked. Then he turned to face Shivara’s naked back.

  “Hey, you needy bitch!”

  Shivara started to turn.

  “I’ll be your consort!” Hort leapt forward, caught Shivara around the neck while at the same time touching his scepter to the gap in the floor between the black lines, thereby completing his circle.

  As he launched himself backward, the floor inside the circle fell away into absolute blackness. Hort’s skin withered, wrinkled, and dried, and Shivara shrieked as the two of them fell backward into the hole and were swallowed up in the void.

  The singularity in the floor disappeared and Kairah relaxed. Though the fire inside her had dimmed considerably, it was already intensifying again at an ever-faster rate. She lifted the hem of her dress and ran down the steps to kneel next to Jekaran. The boy had collapsed the moment Shivara disappeared and was lying on his side.

  “Jekaran!” Kairah turned him over.

  He looked up at her, wiped away tears, and smiled. It was infectious and Kairah couldn’t help but smile back. “How are you still alive?”

  “I dunno.” Jekaran sat up, and then stood. Kairah rose with him, steadying him when he finally came to his feet, her touch blackening the sleeves of his tunic. Jekaran broke into a jog to the edge of the rail-less balcony that ran the circular interior of the chamber and looked down.

  Kairah joined him, her eyes automatically magnifying the base of the Mother Shard to find the sword. It was lying with its point touching the crystalline surface of the Apeira well. The tiny emeralds on the blade shone like stars, and the amethyst jewel in the cross guard glowed. Then Kairah noticed something else. The crackling lines of Moriora deep within the Mother Shard had become visible again and were slowly creeping toward the point of the sword.

  “Think you can translocate that back up here for me?”

  When she didn’t answer, Jekaran looked at her. “Kairah?”

  “You can pull energy through the sword and into yourself?”

  “Yeah. I did it first to Kaul. It recharges the sword and heals my wounds.” Jekaran scratched his head. “Is that what saved me from shriveling like a raisin?”

  Kairah kept her magnified sight on the sword and nodded. “I have never seen anything like it.”

  “Shivara said the sword’s name was Azrin. She said it was a key.”

  Realization slammed into Kairah. “Two worlds, but one heart, opposites that are one,” She blurted out. “Can fire love ice? Can the dark love the dawn?”

  An Apeira well shard and Moriora well shards set together in a talis.

  “That’s from that depressing poem you read me, on our way to Imaris.”

  Was it really so simple? Kairah’s vision returned to normal and she looked at Jekaran. “It is more than just a poem.” Likely scrawled by an Allosian ally of the first humans, one who had the oracular gift. “It is a riddle, and I think I know the answer!”

  “What answer?”

  Kairah didn’t respond but teleported the sword up from the base of the Mother Shard. She didn’t dare touch it for the Moriora shards embedded in the blade, and so let it clang down at Jekaran’s feet.

  “So were the two lovers, a prince and princess opposed.” She eyed the emerald shards and the round amethyst. “Yet in the secret midnight of a garden, their love could freely flow.”

  The two work together to drain energy from a target and capture that energy first for the sword, and then for the bearer.

  “Kairah?” He bent down and picked it up.

  Kairah strode back up the stairs to the circular platform bridging the balcony and the Mother Shard. “Yet the universe is balance, and fate would have her due.” She reached out and touched the crystal wall.

  Apeiron is a product of Rasheera’s pure essence diluted by Moriora. Separating the two would be to destroy her crystal prison, and all the Apeira wells in Shaelar.

  “Their love would bring destruction and end the worlds each knew.”

  Jekaran jogged up behind her. “Kairah, what’s going on?”

  Kairah turned her head to meet his anxious stare. “This is the door to Rasheera’s prison. And you hold the only key that can open it.” Kairah stared at the emeralds peppering the blade of Jekaran’s sword. “It is the only talis I have ever seen that has both Apeiron and Moriora shards crafted into it. That, combined with your corrupt Allosian heritage is what allows you to pull energy through it and into yourself.”

  “He’s descended from Allosians?” Irvis asked.

  “All humans with green eyes carry tiny Moriora shards in their blood. That is how Jenoc was able to transform so many humans into life leeches. His inversion spell would not affect a regular human.”

  “Divine Mother!” Gymal swore. “The genealogy of our house claims to have an Allosian progenitor. It’s always been considered fanciful, but if what you say is true―”

  “Likely a corruption of the truth that your ancestors were once Allosian.”

  Jekaran raised the sword to study the glowing green shards. “How is this a key?”

  Kairah glanced at the lines of luminescent green fading back beneath thick amethyst crystal. “Apeira wells are the product of Moriora tainting Rasheera’s power.” As if in response, the heat inside her flared, making her grimace. “It is like a snake’s venom in the blood of someone who has suffered a bite.”

  Jekaran’s eyes widened. “And you save that person by sucking out the venom.” He looked at the sword again. “This sucks Apeiron.”

  “And the well shard provides a counterbalance and buffer so that the Moriora will not corrupt the Apeira well it syphons from.” Kairah grimaced again but hid the expression from the others by facing the Mother Shard.

  “So we just need to suck out the Moriora?” Irvis asked.

  “Moriora cannot affect itself.”

  “But you just said…”

  The awful truth settled on Kairah with a sinking sickness in her stomach. “All of the Apeiron will need to be drawn out. The Moriora will come with it.” A tear ran down her feverish cheek, puffing to steam before it ever fell from her face. She looked at Jekaran. “I cannot use the sword.”

  Jekaran shrugged. “Okay. I’ll do it. Just tell me what to―”

  “You ignorant, peasant!” Gymal snapped. “She means all Apeiron.”

  “In the entire world?”

  “Yes.” Kairah said. “Unlike Allosians, who have physical limits to how much energy their bodies can receive to protect them from ever oversaturating themselves, those with Moriora in their blood do not have this limitation and so can take in as much energy as they desire. It would be very dangerous for anyone to channel that much Apeiron, let alone someone who does not have the cellular elasticity of a full-fledged life leech. The process could easily―”

  “Kill me.”

 
“Or turn you into a creature like Shivara.” Kairah’s tears flowed freely. “I am so sorry, Jekaran.”

  “What happens if we don’t free the Divine Mother?” Jekaran asked.

  “I am afraid she will die. And with her all of Shaelar, and whatever else she has created. Even the souls of her creatures will be unmade.”

  “Use your gift to save us all,” Jekaran muttered. It sounded like he was quoting someone.

  “What was that?” Gymal asked.

  Jekaran nodded to himself. “How do I do this?”

  “You will need to touch the point of your sword to the Mother Shard and draw in Apeiron as you have before.”

  “No, boy.” Irvis reached out a hand and took Jekaran’s arm. “There has to be another way.”

  “There is not,” Kairah said, hating the words as they left her lips. She had just pronounced a death sentence on someone she loved.

  “Is there a chance he can survive this?” Gymal pled.

  “I do not know,” Kairah lied.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve already cheated death a dozen times in just the last couple of months. My luck hasn’t run out yet.” Jekaran smiled at Irvis, but Kairah could hear Jekaran’s thoughts. He was being brave for his friends. His smile slipped. “Just in case, if you see Maely again, tell her I love her.”

  Irvis nodded and let go.

  “If I turn into one of those things, be sure to put me down before I can hurt anyone, okay?”

  Kairah nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. The flow was so heavy that her fever couldn’t evaporate them all. How had she ever thought Jekaran primitive or inferior? It didn’t take him even a full minute to agree to sacrifice himself. There was nobility in his soul greater than anything she’d ever witnessed in her people. He is my people, she reminded herself. We are all the same.

  Jekaran walked up to the edge of the circular platform. He lifted the sword, studied it, and then laughed. “You were right, Ez. Adventure is the lure of fools,” he said. “And I’m a fool.” Jekaran sucked in a deep breath and plunged the sword into the Apeira well so deep that the blade sank to the hilt.