The Shadow of the Blade

by R. R. King

  “True.”

  “It can also drive a man to insanity.”

  I nod.

  “An insanity that can only be suppressed by drinking Kha’me’rah.” He spells the name slowly, and I suddenly realize it might be what he is drinking from his cup that is the shape of a boot.

  Kha’me’rah is the most expensive liquor known to man in the Seven Seasons. It is made from dragon breath, not fire, liquefied and mixed with onion then buried in the earth for at least twelve years. Kha means earth or sand in Per’uh’sian language, and rah means brain or perception. Me in the middle is an unknown syllable that must have been added through the years.

  I am oblivious to the true origin of the drink, for it is a luxury, only served to Kings and Queen of the highest reigns. I wonder if it is the reason behind King’s Thorn cunningness and steady calmness. For though it’s a drink that induces madness, it’s been said that he who surpasses Kha’me’rah’s madness, settles into wisdom and higher understanding.

  Still, Kha’me’rah isn’t the drink I used inside the grave. It was a stronger drink, as proposed by the book I read.

  Vom.

  “Vom?” King Thorn put his cup down.

  “A drink that is made from goat’s piss and doesn’t smell like urine, but rotten souls.”

  “I know about Vom,” he says stoically.

  “It is also a million times stronger than Kha’me’rah. Not a King and Queen’s drink, but low life Lurker’s drink.”

  King Thorn nods, “Though it’s still rare to find.”

  23

  Singing Bone

  In the first hours of morning, I was on a quest to follow the book’s instructions and went to find the highest place I can possibly access. I was on my knees, staring at the blurry twilight behind the trickling rain. I had chosen the highest hill I could find in this land I knew so little about. No cartographer had drawn a single map for the Season of Rain. Either the profession had been extinct there, or the locals saw no point in a map of a land buried in perpetual rain.

  It occurred to me that they couldn’t draw a map of this land in the first, due to the rain, especially the terrains with heaviest showers.

  I had to chug my way through mud and water and spot whatever I thought was the highest place I could find. I used a Singing Bone to track my way back like most of the Season’s locals did.

  This was a different kind of Singing Bone, unlike the one that exposed a victim’s killer.

  Shaped like child’s flute, it had only three holes where you breathed into each one separately so it so would recognize your voice. Rather like breathing fingerprint.

  Once the bone glowed with a color of shiny gold, it recognized you as its owner. If not, it would still be a dark and dirty brown, and you’d have to breathe into it again. This was the kind of magic I hadn’t seen anywhere in the other Seasons, but was truly impressed by.

  It wasn’t cheap or affordable for everyone. The one-hundred-and-forty-years old woman who sold it to me called it Lizart, as it was made from lizard bones, hence the ability to change colors.

  The Lizart Bone recognized three different tones from my breathing. I was instructed to blow into each hole in deferent places. The suggestions were seven hundred breaths apart in distances I walked. The heavy rain made it a harder task, but not impossible. The blows I breathed into the Lizard Bone simply marked the places I’ve been to, so on your way back and wouldn’t lose my way back from the top of the hill.

  As long as I was on the right path, it produced a sound, one that was low in tone and warm to the ears. Its pitch sang higher and rather ‘colder’ when you stray from the path.

  Each breath had different use to it. The first breath was like a real landmark like an x marks the spot to recognize the place. The second breath recorded the time of use it. The third was a mystery.

  The old woman had told me that the third told Rodmordt my location so that he would keep a grip on his people’s whereabouts. The Lizart, however, would lose its magic after three days, and you could not trace your way back unless had breathed into it regularly.

  I didn’t care if Rodmordt knew my location. He would not understand what I was doing. Nor did I understand, in all honesty.

  I found my spot on some hill I thought was closest to the sky. As instructed in the book, I sank to my knees to perform a ritual that would rid me of the Vom’s effect in my veins.

  Next to me, I held a parchment of a rare transcript that had been once my stepfather’s. It was an important piece of writing. The book said I should bring an intimate and important item nearby.

  I set the empty bottle of Vom beside me and tried my best to concentrate. It hadn’t been an easy task to walk this far under the influence.

  I took a deep breath and stared once more at the twilight in the sky. Previously, I had the idea to sneak a Vom drink into Rodmordt’s hands before the Feud, so we’d both be under its unmerciful influence. But something about this book by Lucian tempted me to follow it.

  At first, I didn’t know what it was. I had supposed my familiarity with Lucian, common from the same land, was it. But then my suppressed memories surfaced. The instructions in my book reminded me of my stepfather whom I loved more than my mother but met fewer times in my life.

  I rolled the parchment flat on the ground and remembered him using its sacred words to shake him off the Vom when I was a child. Before my stepfather’s insanity, he had been addicted to the Vom — he was rich enough to get and, unlike the masses, had plenty of supply. The bottle I drank was one of his, one I had kept for memory.

  He had taken so many lives in war. Whether justified or not, the memories gave him nightmares that shook him, and sometimes, elevated him in the air while asleep.

  They shook him so hard he needed to drink a lot of water when he woke up, as he been drained of the water in his body.

  A man should drink three pints of water a day, or he would die from a mysterious sickness I had not interpreted yet, a sickness of rigidity and loss of should from On Natural Health and Prosperity by Lucian.

  The Vom had helped my stepfather to forget about the killings, but then he began hurting us in the family.

  First, it was my mother whom he had loved him dearly. And then it was me. At a young age, I couldn’t understand that. I couldn't understand that he could love me so dearly, yet because of some drink, he would whip me with a horse’s leach inside my well. My mother forgave him. I never did. Never will.

  But I had seen him a few times on his knees — the few times I was allowed to leave the well. Candles surrounded him, reading from the parchment and asking the heavens to free him from the influence of the bottle.

  I remember he used the word exorcise instead of free. I realized the Vom wasn’t just liquor. It was a demon.

  The process to exorcise it so that he wouldn’t hurt his family anymore had been long and hurtful.

  I was about to exorcise it out of myself now and have faith in a book that paradoxically suggested exorcism and meditation in the same ritual.

  24

  Power from Pain

  “And?” Dragan is curious, enough to interrupt without asking the King’s permission. “What happened? I don’t understand what this is all about.”

  “The exorcism was a success,” I say.

  “Did it show you the whole picture like you mother had said?” King Thorn says.

  “Even more.” I say.

  “Elaborate, please.”

  “Don’t tell me the exorcism made you a new man, pure at heart,” Dragan mocks me.

  The King shushes him then directs his gaze at me, expecting me to speak.

  “I had expected to clear mind or see things I didn’t see before,” I say. “I had even expected a revelation about Rodmordt’s weakness not power, or an spiritual experience that would make a better warrior.”

  “But none of that happened,” the King says.

  “No.”

  “Nothing?” He wonders. “After all this pain
and planning?”

  “I didn’t say nothing happened. I said none of my expectations came true.”

  “But?”

  A smirk draws on my lips. Slow, assured, and victorious.

  “What was it, Shadow?”

  “The state of meditation my mind reached following the ritual affected me in the strangest ways,” I say. “It gave me an unusual power.”

  “What kind of power?” The impatient King says.

  “One that promised me the win over Rodmordt.”

  “Black Magic.” Dragan mumbles, but neither the King or I care.

  “What kind of Power?” The King repeats, eager, and lustful.

  I cling to my words with my teeth, like a card player with the best set, sure and patient and non-caring.

  “If you don’t answer me Shadow,” the King says. “I will hang you now.”

  Dragan sighs with relief.

  I know the King is true in his word, but enjoy his need. It weakens him and empowers me.

  “I think you’re stalling, wasting my time by elongating the story.” King thorn’s voice flattens with disappointment.

  “Why would I do that?” I say.

  “Because you don’t have a story. You have no resolution of how you killed Rodmordt,” the King says. “You’re buying yourself time. Either you can make up a story then or wait for a Devine intervention to save you from my punishment.”

  I say nothing. Not out of power. I am shorthanded. Lost in my thoughts.

  In any conversation, the words being uttered aren’t genuinely the words we want to express. We’re bound by social traditions, etiquette, fears and other conditions. In truth, most of a man or woman’s conversation is based on lies, semi lies, and information withheld. Some of us thrive for attention, for likability, and thus our words are sugar coated. Some of us thrive for dominance and control. Thus our words are harsh, short, and demanding — usually louder and hollower in tone. A back and forth conversation is War of all Wars. Tongues for weapons — and for healing wounds. Brains for planning. Eyes for communication — either intimidating or seducing from The War of Words by Winter Wayward Wayne.

  I am trying to collect myself and breathe consciously and hold my posture so that I won’t give away my secret. A brief tapping of my right foot gives it away though. From the corner of my eyes, I see Dragan. He is sizing me up from top to bottom. Men look for signals in other men’s behavior to determine their authenticity. I am a relatively collected and hard to provoke warrior. He will not have his way of reading my mind.

  As for the King, he is too far away. I can’t see his face. Thus I can’t confirm his real intentions. He too can’t see mine. We’re separated by seven steps with an army of his soldiers standing on each landing. A safety procedure for him. An uphill battle for me. The only way I can reach the king is through words. All of my warrior powers won’t defeat seven armies. I have nothing but words and stories to win this battle. To step up close and near.

  And now the King thinks I am stalling, which I am. He doesn’t know why I am really here, I have stopped telling myself, so my eyes wouldn’t give away my intentions.

  “I think you are right, my King,” Dragan offers. “The Lurker is lying.”

  “Possible,” King Thorn says. “But why?”

  “Why?” Dragan says. “He is an orphan Lurker.”

  “Why risk his life with stories that could be the end of him?"

  “You don’t see, my King? The Lurker never imagined you’d ask for stories to prove his authenticity. You’ve surprised him. You force him to talk for so long. And we know a man who talks long enough, eventually lets the truth slip from his snaky tongue.”

  “But he hasn’t said anything wrong. None of what he said proves to be an utter lie,” the King says. “He’s just stalling.”

  “None is lies?” Dragon growls.

  “His stories have been entertaining, if not provoking and interesting, so far.”

  “Entertainment is telling lies.”

  The King sighs, thinking about it.

  “Lies aren’t just concealing the truth. If a man detours from every question asked, that’s also a lie. If a man never answers straight forward or stalls, that’s a lie. And the best lie of all is telling stories that provoke and interest,” Dragan catches his breath. “For they delude from the main issue.”

  “Agreed,” the King says. “Like a jester performing magic tricks in my court. It’s not magic. It’s supposed to make you think it is magic, while it’s a misjudgment of the observer, having been fooled to focus one thing while the magician manipulated another.”

  “Well said, my King,” Dragan bowed his head. “His stories are his way of diverting from the real question: did he or did he not kill Rodmordt.”

  Listening to them talk about me in the third person while I am standing next to them, felt wrong. But I hold my ground, remembering my mother and the things she had taught me.

  I take a deep breath and address the King. “I haven’t asked to tell you stories. You did.”

  “True,” the King says. “But I’m known for my love of stories, so you may have come prepared.”

  “Even so, do you think that’s all I came armed with?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, let’s come to an end of this prolonged discussion.”

  “What are you offering exactly?”

  “What I have been trying to offer since the moment I stepped inside the castle,” I say. “Evidence that I killed Rodmordt.”

  25

  Truth, a Consistent Lie

  “You have no evidence!” Dragan challenges me.

  “Can you?” the King says.

  “Of course I do,” I reply.

  “In your terms, I suppose.” The King says. I don’t know what he means. “I told you if you show me Rodmordt’s head cut off, I will not believe it. I’ve seen magic—”

  “Yeah, the magic that binds and blinds a man’s eyes to see something that doesn’t exist,” I cut him off, bluntly, impatiently, and almost with no respect for a King. “And you have seen heads of one person look like another’s head through magic. I know.”

  Dragon is offended I interrupted the King. I keep talking. “And you have no means to know if Rodmordt is killed before your messenger returns.”

  “That also is true.” King Thorn says, seemingly with no offense at all.

  “And we know your messenger may not come back alive.”

  “Possible.”

  “And we know that even if he does, the people of the Season of Rain will never give away Rodmordt’s death, or your army will raid their land by dawn. Without Rodmordt ruling the Season, you won’t hesitate to raid it.”

  “Bluntly said. But true.”

  “So, in reality, there is no way for me to prove I killed Rodmordt. Because you are a paranoid King. You’re stuck in a conflict with your brothers and sisters, not sure if you should kill them or wait until they kill you,” I elaborate. “They have played their cards right by protecting and isolating their Seasons from you, leaving you lost in your thoughts, not knowing if they will attack tomorrow or just live in the peace and comfort of their lands.”

  “That’s not true,” King Thorn says. “If I’d ever known for certain they would live their life in peace in their Seasons; I’d have had no worries. But I know they will come for me one day. It’s not just a prophecy, but my father’s wish on his deathbed as well.”

  I haven’t known that. Not that I care. Not that I want to know why his father desired his son’s death. All I knew earlier is that their father had split the pages of a magical book between them, every few pages representing a Season.

  “Even so,” I say. “My point is that in reality, it’s almost impossible to prove I’ve killed Rodmordt unless his people confess of course.”

  “A factual assumption.” He says. I don’t what this means. A play on words again. What is a factual assumption? “The question is what are you going to do about it? Because, if you
’re right, it means I will kill you eventually, either way.

  “You will not kill me.” I let my voice hint at a smirk. I am insinuating confidence that will make him doubt himself.

  “How can you be so confident?”

  “Because in spite of all these obstacles, I can will show you that I killed Rodmordt.”

  Dragan doesn’t comment the time.

  A man who claims he slays dragons will be laughed at by his peers. If he claims again, he may be laughed at again. If he insists, calmly, showing no effect of their mockery, they will end up believing him, if not making him a legend from Truth is a Consistent Lie by Halbert Wonderstein.

  The King stands up again. “Then show it.”

  I smile inside, but I don’t show it. My stare is divided between the King and his soldiers. I see them clinging to their weapons. Silence buries all sound in the court, except the breathing of dragons behind me.

  “Do you have a Harpist, my King.”

  “I do,” he points at the West side of the court. “She is right behind that curtain.”

  I don’t ask why the Harpist is invisible. It’s a tradition to hide their women, jesters, and entertainers behind veiled curtains so they won’t disgrace the court with their faces. Entertainers are loved but thought of as low lifers.

  “Would you ask your Harpist to play a song?”

  “Of course. What song?”

  “It’s called the Obsolete Song.”

  I can hear the soldiers murmur. The King orders his Harpist to play it.

  I listen. Tap my foot to the melody. Then count to one, two, and three and four.

  “Here is the power the ritual bestowed on me,” I say. “The same power that led me to defeat Rodmordt.”

  Then I slowly stretch my arms sideways. My head up to the ceiling. I take a deep breath. Bend one of my legs at the knee. Another deeper breath and slowly. Ever so slowly, I elevate off the floor.