The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  When he was seven, Jekaran had once tried, against Ez’s warning, to drink straight from Genra’s well pump. Immediately the water had filled his mouth and started to choke him, leaving him sitting in the mud sputtering and gasping, and everyone in the village square laughed at him. Pulling Apeiron from the largest Apeira well in Shaelar was like that, except this time Jekaran couldn’t pull back when the torrent began to choke him.

  The emeralds on Azrin’s blade shone brighter than Jekaran had ever seen them shine, as did the well shard embedded in the sword’s cross guard. Jekaran’s whole body vibrated and he had to clasp the handle of the sword with all his supernatural strength to keep from losing his grip.

  The crackling green lines inside the Apeira well reached for him like ghostly hands. When they touched Azrin, they coiled around the blade and slowly wound up it until the lines of green energy began feeding into the well shard. The pain Jekaran had faced when Shivara had tried to turn him recurred a hundred-fold. He tried to scream at a head pounding so fierce that it caused an explosion of stars across his vision. A mixture of fire and ice poured into him, churned within his chest as though both powers were wrestling. An overwhelming hunger settled in his gut. It wasn’t for food, but for energy. Strange though it was, the more power he drank in, the more he wanted.

  You can have that power, something whispered. He could have all that and more if he would succumb and accept his true nature. Jekaran fought off the temptation. He would not become like Shivara! The darkness amidst the power coursing into him tried a different tactic, whispering that he was dying and the only way to survive this was to embrace Moriora.

  You don’t want to die, it soothed. Accept my offer and live forever with your beloved Kairah.

  Kairah.

  Jekaran was paralyzed by the ocean of energy flowing through him, and so couldn’t look at the woman, although she stood just behind him. So, he summoned all of his memories of her in one mental collage.

  Kairah smiling at him and calling him her courageous protector.

  Kairah catching him staring at her across a campfire.

  Kairah laughing at one of his fool jokes.

  Kairah meeting his eyes as she pled with him to journey with her to Aiested.

  Kairah kissing him.

  Jekaran roared in defiance of the thing that was trying to corrupt him, and it retreated, though he could feel it hovering near–its very presence a continued temptation. But each time he considered surrendering, he thought of Kairah and held on.

  Oceans upon oceans of Apeiron flowed into him now, and Azrin had grown hot in his hands. It didn’t burn him, but he imagined that was only because the sword was part of him. Either that, or it was a trifling thing compared to the power coursing through every particle of his being. Purple light washed out the world around him, and ambient sound became far away and jumbled. It was as if the entire world had muted, leaving only the Apeira well, the sword, and himself.

  Images sprang up all around Jekaran. Moving scenes that projected from Azrin; an Allosian man holding up the sword and examining its steaming blade. A web of spells overlaying the blade and settling into its metal. He saw a marching army of humans interspersed with Allosians. He saw the sea explode over hundreds of miles of ground. He saw a ship sailing across the sea. He saw that same ship sink to a watery grave. He saw robed men opening a chest and finding Azrin. He saw it wrapped in silk and taken to a vault. He saw a man looking down at the sword.

  That man Jekaran knew. His face was smoother, and he had a full head of thick hair without the slightest touch of gray. His limbs weren’t spindly, but lean and muscled, and he was dressed in black, but there was no mistaking the face, one that Jekaran had seen almost every day of his life.

  Ez.

  Ez took the sword but didn’t use it. He ran from guards inside an expensive house that wasn’t quite a castle, but far more than a mansion. He fought with a dark-skinned man whose knives could pass through solid matter, and was nearly overwhelmed. But then Ez bonded the sword and used its supreme power to defeat his enemy.

  The vision changed to Ez leading a group of black clad thieves as they attacked a convoy so large that its armed escort was like a small army. Of course, nothing the guards could muster was any real threat to Ez, who slaughtered them with supernatural abandon.

  Jekaran saw Ez dueling different swordsmen, one by one in an arena. When he had bested all his challengers, he lost control of Azrin and slaughtered the crowd. Jekaran gasped when Ez’s fury failed to spare even a small boy. There was so much death, blood, chaos… and then bitter tears.

  He saw Ez visiting Genra, knocking on their door which was answered by a young woman with lustrous black hair–Anarilee, his mother. She was pregnant, something Ez was not happy about. The two argued, and Jekaran saw Ez angrier than he’d ever seen him before; even when his uncle had been slaughtering innocent spectators, he hadn’t looked so fierce. He actually slapped Jekaran’s mother, who–to Jekaran’s pride–didn’t shrink from her brother. Instead she pointed at the door and shouted for him to get out.

  The scene changed, though the setting didn’t. This time Anarilee was lying on a bed, sweat running down her red face as she struggled to give birth. A woman clad in black leather with hair tied back into a pony tail acted the part of midwife while Ez looked on. A thin young man with a round face, and long golden locks stood in the doorway wringing his hands. Irvis? Had the scene playing out before Jekaran not been so serious, he would’ve laughed at just how surprisingly handsome the chubby monk had once been.

  A baby’s startled wail rang out, and the woman lifted the newborn child up so Anarilee could see it. She smiled, reached out to take the infant, but her arms fell limp. Ez started shouting, and then he ran to his sister and shook her. She didn’t respond.

  The next series of images came in rapid succession with blackness in between; Ez digging a grave.

  Black.

  Ez erecting a marker with Irvis looking on.

  Black.

  Ez inside their house holding Jekaran.

  Black.

  Ez in the cellar closing the lid on a long, bundled object wrapped in cloth.

  Black.

  Tears spilled down Jekaran’s cheeks. Ez really had given up his glory and power as Argentus, and he had done it for him.

  “Not just you, but for your mother too.” Ez strode out from the purple light.

  “Ez,” Jekaran sobbed.

  Ez smiled, and Jekaran’s heart ached at the oh-so-familiar expression.

  “You’re almost there, son. Just hold on a little longer.”

  “Will you stay with me?” Jekaran asked. “I don’t want to die alone.”

  “You will never be alone again, Jek.”

  His resolve renewed, Jekaran nodded and gripped Azrin’s handle tighter.

  Jekaran shone like the sun. Kairah glanced at Irvis, Gymal, and Graelle. They had retreated, at her suggestion, from the platform and back onto the railless circular balcony that ran the interior of the cylindrical chamber. Their eyes were wide and Gymal shielded his with a hand. Even they could see Jekaran’s blinding aura. Kairah herself had stayed as close to Jekaran as she dared. Not being able to wrap an arm around the boy to steady him while he suffered and sacrificed twisted her heart strings, but Kairah couldn’t touch him. Her fever had reached a painful pitch again, and if it burned her, it would burn him. And there was the Moriora streaming into Jekaran along with the flood of Apeiron. To touch that now when they were so close would ruin everything.

  The Mother Shard had liquefied, retaining its towering shape, but undulating and churning with the consistency of quicksilver. Electric green lines converged around the blade of Jekaran’s sword as it sucked them into the glowing emerald shards. The ground shook, and chunks of white stone intermittently fell from the chamber’s high walls.

  A roar like wind through a canyon nearly deafened Kairah, but she didn’t cover her ears. It seemed important to witness in full this moment. She owed J
ekaran at least that much. In spite of the din and chaos surrounding her, and her anxious grief within, a soothing peace steadied Kairah It was a familiar feeling, one that often came when she was communing with Aeva.

  My mother. That’s who Aeva had told her she was when Kairah first asked as a young, grief-stricken girl. Of course, Kairah assumed Aeva to be the spirit of her murdered mother–

  Aeva. The Spirit lily hadn’t corrected her, but whether that was to hide her identity or comfort Kairah, she couldn’t know. Either way it hadn’t been a lie. Aeva was Kairah’s mother. She was Shaelar’s mother. She was their god, and she was dying. The unstable tremble in Kairah’s bones told her that as well as the fact that all creation was unraveling at its most basic levels. The constant quaking beneath and the roiling black clouds above testified of the end of all things. Worse, her arcane senses reported all the elements, be they solid, liquid, or gas, had become unstable. The laws that bound matter together were dissolving and giving way to aberration and destruction.

  Jekaran sagged, but held onto his sword. The light outlining him was now so bright that Kairah, even with her enhanced senses, could barely make out his profile. The blade of his sword glowed a cherry red, and thin cracks spider-webbed down the blade.

  “Hold on, Jek,” she whispered. Perhaps she ought to have shouted the encouragement, but she doubted Jekaran would’ve heard her.

  The light, sound, and shaking all reached a crescendo, and the sword exploded in a blast of light so brilliant that it blinded all Kairah’s senses; both mundane and arcane. For a long moment, all was absolute white. It was a frightening depravation that nearly made Kairah panic, but the world gradually returned.

  Kairah gasped. She was steadying herself on the circular platform’s rail. The Mother Shard was gone. In its place was empty air and a long, dark, shaft descending to depths unknown. She walked to the gap in the rail and peered over the edge. Where was Rasheera?

  “Jek!” Irvis shouted.

  Kairah turned to find the chubby monk climbing back up the stairs to throw himself to his knees at Jekaran’s fallen form. She stepped over to them and examined Jekaran’s mind, but there was nothing there. She spell-cast to scry the interior of his body and found stagnant blood, deflated lungs, and a motionless heart.

  Jekaran was dead.

  Kairah knelt opposite Irvis, Jekaran’s lifeless body lying in between them. She reached out a hand to caress his face but stopped just before her fingers touched his cheek. Her fever had increased so much that the air around her was bent with heat lines. Her touch would blister the skin if not set the corpse on fire, and she didn’t want to mar Jekaran’s peaceful visage.

  Irvis stared at the boy, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Argentus. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when the boy first came looking for me. If I had been, none of this would’ve happened.”

  Graelle climbed the steps and knelt next to Irvis, who buried his face in her chest and sobbed. Gymal didn’t approach, but remained at the bottom of the stairs, his face ashen.

  The cruelty of it all stung her. It was so completely unfair. All Jekaran had done was come to her aid and she had led him to this.

  “My courageous protector,” she whispered, and a tear sizzled on her cheek.

  Perhaps Rasheera can restore his life.

  Kairah raised her head and glanced around. Shouldn’t the goddess have emerged from her prison in power and glory? Another wave of instability rippled through all creation, making Kairah gasp and the others shiver.

  Something was very wrong.

  Kairah stood and returned to the edge of the platform. She stared down into the mammoth hole in the ground where the Mother Shard had just stood moments before. What was it Shivara had said? The fire has burned its way into Mother’s prison…

  Pain racked Kairah’s entire body as the heat from within flared to a previously unreached level of intensity. She doubled over, grabbed her stomach and sucked in sharp breaths until she could regain her composure.

  “Lady Kairah?” Graelle asked.

  Kairah didn’t answer. Instead she continued to stare into the open abyss that led to the center of the planet. The memory of her last vision from the Zikkurat flashed before her; a white lily withering before being sucked into infinite darkness.

  Kairah spared one last long look at Jekaran’s pale face, and then stepped off the platform and fell.

  Jove pulled back from the silver-haired doll and licked his lips. The kiss felt as though it lasted hours, and yet it hadn’t. Time was odd in this place–this heaven. And surely it was Jove’s heaven as he was a god left alone with a supremely beautiful, naked, and utterly helpless goddess.

  He giggled, the thrill of lustful anticipation making him giddy as his eyes hungrily roved over the doll, taking in her perfect form. His hands could go wherever he wished, to every intimate place, and there was nothing she could do to stop him. That being so, there was only one place he wanted to touch this doll.

  Jove lovingly traced his fingertips over the woman’s collar bone, and then to the side of her neck. He extended the fingers of his other hand to run them through the doll’s silver hair, metallic hair. That still awed him. He rubbed the soft spot of her throat with a thumb while bringing his other hand down to caress her shoulder and slowly moved it inward. Then all semblance of tenderness left Jove’s caresses, and he clamped his hands around the woman’s throat.

  She started to gasp and then cough. Jove applied more pressure, and physical pleasure as he remembered it made him start to breathe faster. The doll’s eyes fluttered open and he met them. Let her see the hateful lust in his eyes. Let her see the face of death itself!

  The silver-haired doll started to thrash, but that only made Jove squeeze tighter. They all did that. Silly doll. Didn’t she know that fighting him would only make it worse? He squeezed harder, his hot excitement building.

  A lance of light slammed into Jove, forcing him to release the silver-haired doll as he was thrown clear. He spun head over heels and tried to suck in Apeiron to steady himself, but it was gone. Jove’s eyes went to the blackness that now surrounded him. The purple cloud of infinite energy had vanished. Had he eaten it all?

  He tumbled over one of the many islands of rock that floated in this place, reached out and stopped himself. He came down slowly and righted his body just as his bare feet touched down. Though blackness extended in every direction, Jove could still see. Another oddity about his new heaven.

  His silver-haired doll had fallen, floated down, and was lying on another of the floating rock islands. Standing over her was a being outlined in brilliant white. He knew that woman. Though names frequently escaped him, Jove never forgot a face. That served him well on nights when the urge would strike but he could not find a doll to play with. He knew this doll. She’d been the one who’d tried to fight him back in Aiested. But she had purple hair then. Now her hair was blonde, the same colored hair as the first doll he’d broken.

  What was her name again?

  Jove licked his lips and smiled. Now he had two dolls to play with.

  Kairah knelt next to the goddess. Her silver hair fanned out to the side and was so long that it stretched the length of her body.

  “Aeva. Mother…”

  “Do not touch me, Kairah.” Rasheera’s voice was familiar and strange all at once. It brought with it memories of joy and comfort, and Kairah realized she had known this being her entire life. “I am tainted.”

  “Mother, I brought your ring.” Kairah held up the hand adorned with the band made of pure light. “Take it.”

  Something hit the ground behind Kairah. She rose and spun to find the naked man who was Moriora’s vessel leering at her from only twenty paces away.

  “You are also a pretty one.” The creature ran a gray tongue over his lips. “Two dolls, all for me,” he said in a sing-song voice.

  Kairah was so disgusted that she didn’t even deign to speak to the monster. Instead she raised a hand and blasted him w
ith a beam of white energy. The light slammed into the Moriora vessel and forced him backward. But instead of disintegrating as Kairah had expected, he dug his toes into the ground and arrested his slide. Then he began to push back.

  Kairah gasped as the creature sucked in her power and took a labored step forward into the stream of white energy. She poured more power into it, and for a few heartbeats it stopped the monster, but he adapted and resumed struggling toward her.

  Upon seeing her shocked expression, the Moriora vessel cackled. “Silly, stupid little doll! You can’t hurt me! I have tasted of that one’s essence!” He motioned at Rasheera lying on her side, curled up into a ball. “It’s changed me! Made me stronger! There isn’t anything I can’t eat! Not even your soul is safe from me!”

  Partaking of Rasheera’s essence had somehow attuned the Moriora vessel to her power, giving him the ability to absorb even the goddess’s pristine energy. Not knowing what else to do, Kairah poured more energy into maintaining the beam of light, but the creature continued to shamble forward. The heat within her rapidly diminished, and a horrific realization stabbed Kairah in the heart; she was now the only thing standing between the goddess and the end of all things, and her power was running out.

  Tyrus stared at Jekaran’s lifeless body as Irvis wept over it, and Graelle patted the monk’s back. Tyrus couldn’t walk. He couldn’t weep. He couldn’t stand. So he just sank to his knees and stared at his reflection in the glossy white floor.

  I’m so sorry, Kybon. I tried to save him, but your son is dead. I’ve failed you.

  Tyrus felt just as he had on that day so many years ago when he first received word of Kybon’s death. The paralyzing numbness, the crushing sense of stopped time, the nausea of realization; it was all coming back to him in horrible vividness.