Epistem- Rise of the Slave King's Heir

by Jani Griot

  I looked up to see Ochloc holding a cowled cloak. White gold trim lined the garment’s borders. Excluding that, it seemed to have been entirely white at one point. Now, it was stained dark red with blood. Not the dried, subtle brown normally left behind. This cloth had been permanently dyed crimson with the blood of men and women.

  “Ark help us,” said Ochloc.

  He looked to my side where my ribs should have been broken. “You heal fast, like your father. I haven't had service stand by my side since your father, boy. I even disbanded the group and its operations after he died fifteen cycles ago. Now it seems I have a requirement of your damned bloodline again; may Ark forgive me.”

  He walked over to me and handed me the robe. Did he want me to have it washed? I'd never held such fine materials; the cloak melded into my hands as if it were made of silk.

  “What is that cloak, Father? I've never seen it before,” Ezra asked.

  The king didn’t answer her question but asked yet more in response. “Have I told you how your grandfather died the first time? Before his piece of the trinity brought him back to life as a god?”

  Ezra shook her head. Her forehead wrinkled in such a way that she looked aged beyond her years. Or like a newborn babe who’d been sitting in its own shit for ages.

  “No. I’ve read about the Sandmaker. That he rose to be one of only three to ascend once he was cast out of the highest realm.” She paused and looked downward. “I’ve tried to learn more, Father, but the writings from that time have either vanished or become illegible.” She looked back up at the king. Her eyes were honest, and her demeanor had softened. “That’s why I’ve asked you to take me to his crypt. Don’t you remember, Father? That I’d asked you for that? To take me to where his library is?”

  I tore my eyes from the cloth long enough to watch as the king nodded, his brow furrowed, his lips pursed. Grief was not something with which I was familiar then, but had I been, I would have recognized the pain of it in Ochloc’s face.

  The king, again, didn’t answer her but rather brought the subject back to where it had started. This was when grief took over the whole of his being. Not enough to hinder him, but enough for me to feel the shift in his air. “It's the Fury's cloak. It can only be activated by their boiling old blood. Normal, warm-blooded people like you or me would find it quite useless.” Ochloc spoke as if I held the world at my fingertips. He watched me closely.

  I examined the cloak while they talked. It was warm to the touch and holding it excited me. It was as if the cloak itself were egging me on. To wear any clothing other than my slave’s garb was forbidden, but the temptation to throw the cloak around my shoulders was nearly irresistible.

  “What do you mean it needs his old blood?” Ezra asked. She must have known as little about this mysterious item as I did. I was still patiently waiting for the wash command, myself.

  Its golden trim danced in my eyes. The ends of it unfolded around the sides of my forearms.

  “It's a relic,” Ochloc began. “My parents and this boy’s grandfather, who was a service slave, found it in their youth. Neither of my parents wanted the cloak and gave it to the slave. He had no name but was strong and healthy. As such, he was often brought along on hunting and scouting missions. One day, while wearing the cloak, the slave bounded in front of a stray arrow meant for a bird. It would have hit my mother instead, unseen by all but the slave, climbing a nearby tree. The crimson-tipped arrow bounced off the cloak as if it were made of lion steel,” he finished with reverence.

  I didn't know what was happening, but the cloak didn't seem to slip from my grasp anymore. I stared at Ochloc as he continued speaking. The peril must have been clear on my face as he went on, laughing slightly.

  “It was magic. Nothing like it had existed in the whole kingdom. Then it was, of course, stripped off the back of the slave and draped over the shoulders of my father. He wore it fearlessly into battle until he was shot cleanly in the arm; yet another arrow meant for my mother,” said Ochloc.

  The cloak shifted, moving across my body. It felt as if I were trying to put on a shirt for the first time and got all tangled up. I wore it backward, with my head through an arm hole, and I was doing my best to fix it. This would have been a standard sensation had I been putting it on by choice.

  “The abilities of the cloak hadn't saved my father from that poison-tipped arrow,” Ochloc continued, “My more-than-intelligent mother, on the other hand, developed a theory after many misgivings, trying to get the effects to work. That, and the loss of her husband, changed her. I prefer to believe she didn’t know then that her husband would yet live, though even with such knowledge, what was she to do? A punishment was necessary. She ordered the slave who had saved her life to be publicly executed, while he wore that same cloak. The cloak that should have protected her husband. The slave understood its fate and screamed in violent anger. For, what had it done incorrectly?”

  The cloak had woven itself around me entirely. It was made for a much larger man than myself and drank me up in its endless length.

  “Not a single arrow struck the slave, and a Fury was born. War, death, and violence follow the mistreatment of both men and slave the same,” Ochloc explained.

  Like magic, the cloak shrank until it fit me perfectly, stopping just above my ankles and wrists. It made my skin tingle, as if being kissed by sun. The hood obscured my features. I looked up at my lord with a smile I couldn't contain—a smile which was likely all my lord could see with all the surrounding cloth.

  Almarine entered, her face as red and filled with rage as I had been just the day before. I took a knee, hoping I hadn't made her this way. For what had I done but to listen to my lord?

  My little light... what have they done to you? Almarine looked pained as she spoke.

  Her soft voice rippled smoothly through my mind, like pond water skimmed by smooth stones. I looked up at her testy-eyed face as Ochloc spoke.

  “Ah yes, Lady Silence. Your timing is perfect, as usual.”

  She didn't bow nor bend. She just stared up at him, angry and waiting, as if there were no procedures to be followed.

  “I need you to feed the boy. Then bring him back to me immediately, along with extra rations for his journey. Quickly, now,” Ochloc delegated with purpose.

  She pulled me to my feet and held me up by the waist, immediately walking me out of the room. We hadn't made it three feet before Ezra spoke.

  “First, you're calling her ‘lady,’ as if she's worthy of the station, and now she shows you no respect!” Ezra spun, her back straight as a finely crafted arrow and looked pointedly at Almarine. “You silent nothing! Show my father more respect or I'll have you hung up by the openings of your skull.”

  Almarine stopped for a moment, then continued walking as if she hadn't heard a thing. I’d never heard Ezra’s voice so loud as she screamed into my mind.

  Mother Rat will hang for this! I swear it, boy.

  Almarine looked at me, tears running down both sides of her face.

  I'm so sorry, my little light.

  Now, after my mind has expanded, and I understand what happened that day; I wish that task hadn't been required of me. There was no beauty in wearing the Fury's cloak. I sometimes wish my world was still as simple as glancing up to see wonder.

  Only an unchained Fury may live.

  Skyscape

  The boy watched from the opposite side of the arena. He was unsure of what he’d just witnessed, but he knew something was different about the wild-haired slave in the arena.

  “Do you believe Ochloc will be able to control him? The slave seems to know his stuff,” the boy said.

  Khalif looked down at his younger brother. “Doesn’t matter what he knows or possesses. They broke him, and now he’s breaking himself further.”

  Strands of white hair slightly masked Khalif’s facial features. His eyes showed disgust, while his smile contrasted his demeanor.

  “Come, we must report to Father, boy,” said Khal
if as he looked away from the arena. It was difficult for the boy to tear his eyes from Ochloc’s slave, or from Ochloc, who laughed heartily while his guards followed him with that unconscious slave in tow.

  “I will leave you, boy,” stated Khalif as he raised his hand. The jewels on his gauntlets glimmered. A sign of magic being used by the weapon’s wielder.

  The boy didn’t know Khalif to make vacant threats, and he did not wish to be left behind, so he followed his brother. He may have been forced into Khalif’s care by their father, but he was still nameless, and until he was no longer nameless, he held little value.

  Khalif look back and sighed at the slow progress his brother had made. “No sight on this rock is worth being stranded over, is it?”

  The boy was forced to dive toward Khalif, who momentarily stood in his brilliant white cloak as a solid figure before dissolving into grains of sand. The boy took a deep breath just before his hand reached Khalif’s shoulder. The two disappeared from the back of the arena. The teleportation made the boy feel as if he were not only being ripped apart but also shoved through the center of a spinning hourglass before being put back together. He had to force himself not to vomit as he hit the floor beside Khalif.

  “You know, boy, sometimes I think you really do have the luck of our father,” grumbled Khalif.

  The boy rolled onto his side in the room, rubbing his head where it had struck the floor. The air was drier, and when he opened his eyes, he saw that they were standing in their current hideout, one of many throughout the kingdom of Vassilious. The boy could not tell if they were deep underground, or just beneath the surface: The inner workings of the magic constantly shifted the room’s location. He could only see in black and white until the effects of the teleportation had worn off. He took a moment to assess what his tasks were by which hideout they had landed in, then quickly ran to tend to those duties.

  They were inside one of Khalif’s four armories. This one was rarely visited. Only if Khalif was targeting a titan or a rival godling. Landing in this location meant that the boy’s tasks were simple: bring Khalif weapons and stay silent as he worked through his plans. The boy tried to do this, gathering various weapons and bringing one or two at a time to his brother. Each time, Khalif would simply say, “No.”

  It must have been around the dozenth trip when the boy found himself confused that his brother wouldn’t simply tell him which weapons were required; that he must guess. It was a game for Khalif. The boy frowned before running off to another rack of weapons.

  “The only way at this point is subterfuge, a direct assault would be…” Khalif trailed off, mumbling to himself, as was his habit when he plotted.

  He waved away three more weapons and the boy began to grow concerned. He had gone through most of his older brother’s favored killing instruments. Khalif’s cloak allowed him the ability to carry hundreds of weapons as if they weighed nothing. So Khalif not having yet chosen a single sword spelled trouble to—and for—the boy. But there was another option—Khalif may have only wanted to use only weapons which were not crafted by men and with steel, but with pure univers and arcana. Elements and magic.

  The boy ran over to a rack of living swords which had been forged with the souls of trapped gods. He grabbed the two rods he had left behind in the past, after he’d tried to touch one of the cursed weapons without them.

  The power of even the stationary weapon had nearly killed the boy back then. Khalif had slapped him awake that day, and as the boy peeled his drool-dampened face from the hard floor, regret plucked at him. He should have used the tools. A thing he’d known but forgotten in his hastened state. He would not make the same mistake this day.

  A curved sword stood before the boy. He’d only seen his brother use it once—to strike a sky serpent from the clouds outside the gates of their own kingdom.

  The weapon was striking enough without touching it. The blade’s diamond glass casing housed a blue lightning bolt that danced within, repeatedly striking one edge of the glass after the other. The bolt aligned with the blade’s anatomy as the rods touched the weapon; its chaotic dance focused into a straightened beam at the prospect of being wielded. Power filled the obsidian handle and a bright glow began at the pommel before the weapon hummed to life.

  The boy walked as quickly as he could with the curved longsword. He tried not to smile when Khalif took the weapon without looking at him. Khalif then opened his cloak and dropped the weapon, which vanished into the folds of his garment. He then took out a plainly designed bastard sword, handing it to the boy.

  The boy was forced to drop the rods which rang against the sandstone floor, gaining him a look of annoyance from Khalif. He ran to the appropriate weapon stand to store the bastard sword, moved back to the rods and grabbed them, then darted back to the cursed weapons.

  He skipped the second and third racks, knowing his brother hated to use those weapons unless the foe was worth risking his life to defeat. He chose a green blade with a hammer-headed hilt. The weight of the weapon slowed the boy’s pace dramatically. So much, in fact, that he had time to truly take in the large map of the kingdom behind his brother.

  “Maybe the merchant lord’s assistance will truly be necessary,” said Khalif as he glanced up at the map. He then looked over his shoulder at his struggling younger brother. The boy nearly dropped the weapon as rivulets of sweat ran down his face.

  Khalif sucked his teeth before lifting his arm. “I still do have that dragon girl chained on one of Avery’s vessels. Releasing her would be costly though.”

  The weapon the boy carried flew into Khalif’s hands. The boy froze, shocked at the sight of the airborne blade. He glanced at the gauntlets that rested on the table. The handle touched his brother’s hand, the veins of which alighted blue with Khalif’s use of minor magic.

  It was the gauntlets that allowed Khalif to control univers to the degree that he could. The boy ascertained this fact by relating Khalif’s more powerful abilities to those of which he was capable without the gauntlets.

  The green blade entered the cloak and a dozen rare weapons fell to the floor, circling Khalif. The boy moved to clean up the scattered masterpieces. He smiled as he remembered where and how some of the weapons were claimed.

  “There are four roaming titans in the immediate area that you could claim,” spoke a voice above the brothers. They looked up to see light and air twisting above them, yet nothing in the room was disturbed. The face of Volantes formed, projected above them, and the boy scrambled to clean up the blades that had fallen around Khalif.

  “Greetings, Father,” said Khalif, stepping back to look at the face of light above them.

  “With no other godlings in this region, obtaining all of them shouldn’t be impossible. The king of Vassilious and maybe that daughter…” said their father, trailing off.

  “Ezra,” Khalif softly interjected, only daring to whisper, as interrupting the Sky King had rarely brought anyone good tidings.

  “Yes, Ezra. She and her father are the only two in all the sands capable of killing my power-demented cousins. Univers may have driven them mad, but they are still tremendous opponents,” stated Volantes.

  The boy could not help but watch as four lights appeared on the map of the colossal islands that made up all of Vassilious. He assumed those were the locations of the titans. The boy approached Khalif with another sword, its blade floating slightly above the rods he used to transport it. Khalif’s mouth fell open when he saw this. He recovered from his state of shock, snatched the blade from his brother and tucked it into his cloak. Various mundane items spilled from the silken cloak, as the power of the additional blade far exceeded that of the garment’s capacity. The brothers shared a look. Luckily, the boy noted, their father was entrenched in his business of staring at the map, so he’d missed their blunder.

  Volantes continued. “The titans’ locations can change depending on which monstrosities they have inflicted upon themselves. Others are unmoving as you already know, m
y young Thinker. You have scouted many titans, and after you slaughtered the Mountain, I’ve no fear that you could handle lesser foes.”

  Thinker. That was Khalif’s official title and claim to godhood, an honor only given by the Sky Father himself.

  “Have you heard from your sister in Aspire of late?” the Sky King inquired with no pleasantries. With barely a breath taken, he continued. “Have you decided how you will use the boy in your rebellion?”

  Khalif shook his head. “No, Father. To both. As far as the boy is concerned, his mother’s tainted blood rages within him. Give him a blade and he loses himself to the weapon. His will wouldn’t be strong enough to command an ascended tool,” answered Khalif honestly.

  The boy could not let his understanding of his own failures show on his face, knowing their father would likely kill Khalif for teaching him anything more than simple forms of combat. This was how he built his sons. He forced them into rigorous training until they gained a piece of trinity and became godlings.

  “And what of the old-blooded one? Is he as connected to univers as I suspected?” asked Volantes.

  Khalif clenched his fists. “The king is not only hiding his own mixed ancestry, he is toting around a mixed-blooded slave to deter the witch hunt the Honorborn would commit to if he ever proclaimed the truth,” responded Khalif.

  The boy’s shoulders vibrated beneath the weight of their father’s laughter as it enveloped them and echoed through the room. He scrambled to pick up a small pile of throwing knives and a random array of magical weapons. Khalif stood patiently as Volantes finally stopped chuckling and allowed him to continue.

  “Through Avery and Ochloc’s very sister, we have found the burial grounds of the king’s father,” finished Khalif.