The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  Jekaran was dead.

  For some reason that robbed Kybon’s death of any sense and meaning. Everything Tyrus had done to watch over and aid the boy, all the sacrifice and secrecy, all the patient enduring of his hate and ridicule. It had all been for nothing!

  A wind rushed past Tyrus, making him jump. He looked up to see a ball of light streak by followed by a moving distortion in the air, one that dripped luminescent liquid. Karak materialized just before flying up the stairs to the circular platform. He didn’t even spare a look for Jekaran or the others as he blurred past them and dove into the mammoth hole below.

  The Moriora vessel had already closed half the distance between them and Kairah was beginning to falter. She closed her eyes and grit her teeth. She was throwing everything she had at the creature, but it only fed his strength. Kairah began to tremble as the reality of her failure and its epic consequences stared her in the face.

  “I am sorry, Mother,” she whispered.

  She would hold off the monster as long as she could, and then Kairah would die. Everything would die.

  “Help is coming,” a familiar voice whispered into her ear.

  “Jekaran?”

  Karak, like a meteor, crashed down onto the Moriora vessel. Kairah released her spell just as her energy ran out. She stumbled backward and collapsed next to Rasheera. To her surprise, Karak did not wither away upon contact with the life leech, and the two wrestled, and traded blows. Kairah caught sight of something hanging around the lizard man’s neck–an emerald shard of crystal.

  The Moriora vessel cried out when Karak bit into his neck. The pathetic wail was less a shriek of physical pain and more the angry cry of a child throwing a tantrum. Karak ceased biting the monster, gripped him around the back of his neck, and then rolled off the edge of the floating rock island.

  Kairah scrambled up and ran to the island’s edge where she watched Karak hold the life leech fast as the two plummeted through empty space. The Moriora vessel gnashed his teeth, struggled, and managed to snap the band holding the emerald shard around Karak’s neck. It glinted as it floated away, and then the Vorakk shaman started to wither. But even in death Karak didn’t let go. When his dried husk of a body exploded into ashes, his spirit body appeared in its place and continued to hold the Moriora vessel around the neck.

  The Moriora vessel bellowed as the two disappeared into blackness.

  “Kairah,” Rasheera’s weak voice called from behind.

  Kairah turned and rushed to the goddess’s side. Her energy store was already refilling at an even faster rate than before, the heat of it already painful. Without touching Rasheera, Kairah cast a healing spell.

  Nothing changed.

  She cast again.

  Still nothing.

  “Mother, why does this not work?”

  Rasheera’s aura of silvery white winked out, and the metallic sheen of her hair had vanished so that it appeared a normal human gray.

  The goddess flashed a wan smile. “You are such a dutiful daughter, Kairah. Filled with so much compassion, with so much hope for the future. But, I am afraid it is too late for me. I will soon pass into the void.”

  Kairah shook her head, panic rising inside her in time with the heat from the ring. “Mother, you cannot die!”

  Ironically, Kairah felt the threat of loss more keenly than she’d expected. It wasn’t just the terror of the world unraveling if its creator died, but a personal pain in Kairah’s heart that was like… like… like when she’d lost her actual mother. Tears puffed to steam as they rolled down Kairah’s feverish cheeks and she bowed her head, sobbing.

  “You did not fail in this, Kairah. You were faithful in heeding all my admonitions and fulfilling the mission I gave you. This battle was a close thing, my omniscience pitted against that of another like me. And he only succeeded because he took advantage of the love I have for my children.”

  Kairah felt reality start to bend and pull apart as every particle of her being trembled.

  “Even so, I had to acknowledge the possibility of my demise, and prepare for it.”

  “I do not understand,” Kairah sobbed.

  “I am afraid I must reward your loyalty and love not with peace, but with a greater burden.”

  As if in response to those words, the fire blazing inside Kairah intensified, making her wince. It was burning ever hotter and building at a greatly accelerated rate, the pain fast surpassing intolerable and approaching all-consuming.

  Kairah worked through the agony and asked, “What is it, Mother? What can I do?”

  Rasheera’s stare bored into Kairah’s very soul, and she whispered with both her mouth and mind, “Plant it.”

  Then the goddess closed her eyes and her body exploded into millions of tiny specks of light. The miniature stars faded, and Rasheera was gone. A scream tore from Kairah’s lips, not a howl of grief, but of physical pain. The instant Rasheera died, the fire coursing through her had exploded and was so intense that the rock upon which she knelt glowed red.

  Kairah fell forward onto all fours. Her breathing was ragged and irregular, her skin burned, and her shining aura became a nimbus of white fire. The power inside her was literally burning her away. She could relieve it by casting it out of her in a spell, but Rasheera’s dying words gave her pause.

  Plant it.

  Kairah thought back to her last oracular vision. In it, she had taken the silvery lily bulb left behind when Aeva was sucked into the void, and had planted it in her own chest, replacing her heart. But what did the imagery mean? What was the lily bulb? How was she to plant it? Was she to cast a specific spell? She hadn’t reached the highest and most literal level of the vision and so was stuck trying to interpret the dream-like symbolism.

  Plant it.

  The raging fire was consuming Kairah both body and soul, and would burn her out of existence if she didn’t do something. But did that matter now? Existence itself was at an end. Perhaps she should just surrender to the inevitable.

  “Aeva…” Kairah pictured the Spirit lily growing in splendor against a backdrop of green in her atrium garden. It was a reflex she adopted long ago to help calm her in moments of great stress.

  I am your mother. Aeva had told Kairah when she was a new orphan all those decades ago.

  My mother?

  Suddenly all creation was before her. Kairah didn’t see it with her eyes, but she could feel it all. It was like casting her mind out to scry places and people, except this perception had no limit. It cast beyond the boundaries of Shaelar and well into the blackness of surrounding space. And unlike a typical scrying, Kairah not only saw everything but she could also feel everything. It was as if she were suddenly connected to the world around her: people, trees, rock, and sky.

  The white fire intensified, and understanding bloomed in Kairah’s expanding mind. She had only been drawing on the goddess’s ring to fuel her spellcasting, taking only the necessary amount of energy into her body and expending it immediately. What if she drew in all of it without casting any spells? What if she embraced it? What if she kept it?

  She looked down at the goddess ring, now only a circle of white light.

  Plant it!

  An apt metaphor divinely tailored to fit Kairah’s love of growing things. Seeds grew into plants, acorns into trees, and bulbs grew into flowers. The ring was a portion of Rasheera’s essence–a seed, like a lily bulb.

  Kairah raised her hand and pressed the ring against her breast. The ring disappeared in an explosion of silvery-white light that rushed into her and everything stilled. It was in this moment of frozen time that Kairah finally understood. Aeva’s declaration that she was Kairah’s mother hadn’t been a lie to comfort a grieving child, or even a generic truth.

  It had been a prophecy.

  Mulladin opened his eyes. A familiar face stared down at him.

  “Maely!”

  He reached up and grabbed his sister, pulling her down into a tight embrace. She struggled only a second before givin
g in and hugging him back.

  “Mull. I’m so sorry I left you!” Maely sobbed into his chest.

  Mulladin couldn’t respond for the relief and tears that overwhelmed him. His sister was here. His sister was holding him. His sister was alive!

  “This woman is hurt but breathing,” a man’s voice called.

  Mulladin let go of his sister and sat up, pain from a dozen different places trying to pull him back down. It all became insignificant when his eyes fell on Keesa. The olive-skinned woman’s face was smeared with dried blood, and she lay atop the wall above him. A blond man leaned over her; two fingers pressed to the side of her neck.

  “Keesa!” Mulladin gingerly stood and made his way to the nearest staircase as quickly as his pain would allow. He climbed to the first seating tier, shoved the blond man aside and knelt over Keesa.

  “Keesa, wake up!” He patted her cheek.

  Maely limped over to the staircase but didn’t ascend.

  “Keesa, please wake up.”

  “Mulladin?” Maely called from below. “You sound different.”

  Mulladin ignored his sister and shook Keesa by the shoulders. Her eyes fluttered open and she flashed him a weak smile.

  “Stop shaking me, you big, dumb ox, or you’ll give me another concussion.”

  Mulladin bellowed a laugh and leaned down to embrace Keesa. She groaned in pain, but then hugged him back. Then he kissed her and kept kissing her. At first, she resisted but then melted into his kiss.

  Maely gasped. “Mulladin! What do you think you’re doing? Let her go this instant!”

  Mulladin broke their kiss and smiled down at Maely. She had that familiar disapproving glower on her face that Mulladin knew so well.

  “Kissing the woman I love.”

  Maely’s frown disappeared, and her mouth hung open.

  Mulladin laughed.

  “How are you?” Maely faltered. “You’re not―”

  “Not dim? It’s a long story.”

  “My restoration ring isn’t working,” Keesa said.

  Mulladin nodded and helped her stand. “Neither is the lightning ring.” He waved up to the broken skylight beyond which was an unobstructed view of the dark sky. “And Allose’s Apeira well is gone.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Mulladin shook his shaggy head. “I don’t know.”

  The two joined the blond man and descended to the coliseum floor. Maely continued to stare at him, eyes wide and mouth open.

  Mulladin drew her into another hug. “It’s okay now, Mae. I’m okay now. I’ll explain everything later. Right now, we need to find the others.”

  Maely pulled away from him. “Mulladin? Where’s Jek?”

  Tyrus trembled as he peered down over the edge of the circular platform. The sight made him dizzy and he gripped a nearby rail all the while trying not to vomit. Why had both Lady Kairah and Karak leapt to their deaths? Was their cause so hopeless? The continued quaking and thunder from emerald lightning seemed to answer with a resounding, yes! Tyrus considered following suit and diving off the platform to end life on his own terms, but he was too much of a coward for suicide. The vertigo grew too much for him and he stepped as far away from the ledge as he could.

  Irvis continued to weep over Jekaran’s body, and Graelle soothed him with gentle whispers and a hand rubbing his back. Tyrus descended the stairs from the observation platform and crashed to his knees on the cylindrical chamber’s interior balcony. He was so weary but doubted he could sleep even if he were surrounded in blankets and lying on a feathered mattress after having drained a bottle of Haeshalan brandy. How could one sleep when the world was ending? Another quake shook the room as if in agreement.

  Voices echoed from the connecting hallway, and a moment later Mulladin shuffled in, arm hooked around Keesa’s waist, each helping the other to walk. Well, at least those two survived, not that it mattered. Following Mulladin and Keesa was a young woman with short black hair, cheeks smudged with soot, and a dress torn so badly that it left much of her chest exposed. It was the girl from Genra, Maely, and she was with a tall, blond man with muscular arms and…

  Tyrus threw himself forward so that he was prostrate on the glossy floor. “My Prince!”

  Prince Raelen opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by Maely’s startled cry. “Jek? Jek?”

  She hobbled past Tyrus and up the stairs and a shriek followed. “Jekaran!”

  Tyrus couldn’t bear to look. The sound of Maely’s pathetic sobbing was too much. He caught a glimpse of Mulladin’s ashen face, and for some reason that was what finally drew out Tyrus’s own tears. He kept his forehead touching the floor and wept.

  “You fool boy!” Maely’s eyes burned both from her hot tears and from the fierceness with which she clenched them shut.

  “You stupid, fool, idiot boy!” She laid her head on his chest. “Why did you have to leave Genra? Why couldn’t you have been happy being a farmer? Why couldn’t you have just been happy with me?”

  Irvis touched her shoulder. “He sacrificed himself for us.”

  Maely threw off Irvis’s hand. “Of course, he did!” She opened her eyes and stared at Jek’s pallid face. “It’s what he does!”

  Maely sat up and held her stomach. She rocked back and forth, her hyperventilating preventing her from expelling any more words. Her worst nightmare had come true; a reality more terrible than even Jekaran rejecting her. Dead. Jek was dead. That cold, horrible fact made Maely want to lay down beside him and join him in death.

  The quaking ground shook with intensified vigor.

  “What’s that?” Graelle cried.

  “I fear it is the end, my love,” Irvis said. “Hold onto me and we shall pass from this life together.”

  Good. Let it all end. Let this cruel, hateful world die.

  The shaking grew so severe Maely’s vision blurred from the sharpness of the constant motion. As the pieces of the chamber’s wall and open ceiling started to rain debris, and large cracks snaked up the walls, a column of blinding white light exploded from the shaft below.

  Maely shielded her eyes, and they watered as she refused to look away. If this light was the signal that the end had finally come, then dammit, she was going to watch. The thick, white pillar shot skyward, puncturing the roiling sea of black clouds and driving them back. Maely gaped as the darkness retreated, as if the light were washing filth from the heavens themselves. The white column continued to pour into the sky until azure firmament once again smiled down upon them. Then it faded, leaving behind a figure floating in the air.

  It was a woman in a sleeveless, billowing white dress with long hair that fluttered about her–hair that was silver in color and glittered with a metallic sheen. A white aura surrounded the figure, so it took Maely a moment to make out the face.

  Kairah’s face.

  “Kairah?” Maely gasped.

  Kairah smiled at her and the pain in Maely’s leg vanished. Wide-eyed, she put some weight on it and found it capable of supporting her. Gasps from the others signaled they, too, had received healings for their injuries.

  “The Divine Mother!” Irvis choked out. “Lady Kairah is the Divine Mother!”

  Kairah glanced at the former monk, and when she spoke, her voice carried a musical, otherworldly echo that not only touched Maely’s ears, but thrilled through her mind and heart.

  “I am not Rasheera.”

  “Then…”

  “I am her daughter.”

  Kairah was Rasheera’s daughter? Kairah was a goddess? Though it definitely was Kairah, the woman had a new confidence about her. She’d always been frustratingly sure of herself, but this was much different. She was… was… well, divine. She was both foreign and familiar at the same time and radiated a peaceful calm.

  Maely became very conscious of all the criticisms and meanness she’d directed at Kairah, and hoped the woman wasn’t about to visit some form of smiting upon her. Did Kairah’s new divinity let her know her thoughts and―
>
  “Do not fear, Maely. All is forgiven.”

  Maely sighed. Apparently Kairah could read her mind.

  Kairah laughed. “Yes, your minds and memories are open to me, and I see the whole of our story now.” She smiled a genuinely kind smile at Maely, one that warmed her heart and drew out tears.

  “You are a noble soul, Maely. Your willingness to sacrifice your life was a testament to this. Be comforted concerning your past mistakes, for you have indeed washed yourself clean.”

  She knew about Gryyth’s story? Well, of course she did, Maely chided herself. Kairah was God now, and God knew everything.

  “Your suffering has humbled you and taught you valuable lessons that will serve you well in your future years as queen.”

  Queen? Maely glanced at Raelen who stood beside her. He smiled at her and she blushed and had to look away.

  “I have inherited some of Mother’s memories, and I can assure you that none of you stand here by accident. She chose you, and worked through you, and others among your immediate connections. You are her champions.”

  Kairah motioned to Raelen. “Come forward.”

  Raelen stepped past Maely and bowed to one knee before Kairah. “Divine Mother.”

  Kairah laughed. “Rise, Raelen.”

  Raelen glanced at Maely, an uncertain frown on his face. It made Maely want to laugh. She’d never seen the prince looks so unsure. He’d always struck Maely as being like Kairah in that he was manifestly self-assured.

  “I wish you to know that your training in the Ursaj way of Seiro did not come by accident. It was a preparation.”

  “Preparation for what, Divine Mother?”

  “To teach it to your people, and by it make your laws.”

  Raelen bowed his head and struck his chest with a fist. “As king, I will make certain Aiestal follows Seiro, Divine Mother, I swear it!”

  “Oh you are not to be king just of Aiestal, but of all of Shaelar.”

  Raelen’s face paled.

  “And this not by the might of armies, but the power of compassion and example. There are difficult days ahead, for talises have become no more than useless trinkets. The desperate will be looking for a true leader, and you will fill that role and return honor to the human race.”