“Perhaps you should,” said Nakor. “You have an impulsive nature and a complete lack of concern for any consequences.”
“Why should I worry about consequences?” asked Bek. “Someday I’ll die; but before that I want to have things, and anyone who stands in my way will suffer for it.” He smiled. “And I enjoy making them suffer if it comes to that. If someone is strong enough to kill me, then it will be over.”
“You don’t worry about what will happen when you arise in Lims - Kragma’s Hall, to face your judgment?”
Bek shrugged. “Why should I? I am as the gods made me, aren’t I? If one of them has a problem with my behavior, then let them act. I can’t stand against a god, so if I’m wrong, why hasn’t one of them . . . turned me into a bug yet?” he asked with a laugh. “Because I don’t think the gods care what I do. I don’t think the gods care what anyone does.” He nodded, as if he had given this a lot of thought. “I guess you could get into trouble if you sacked a temple, or killed a priest for no reason, but if you leave the gods alone, then they leave you alone. That’s how I see it.”
Nakor said, “What about friends? Family?”
Bek looked at Nakor. “Do you have friends and family?”
Nakor said, “Family, no. I had a wife once, but that was a very long time ago. But friends? Yes, I have many friends, the most and best I’ve ever had, right now. People whom I trust and who trust me.”
“Then you’re lucky, I suppose.” Bek looked off into the distance as if he were seeing something in the air.
“Sometimes I think that there’s something about me that scares people. I never find I have much in common with most of them.” He looked at Nakor. “Mostly I find young bravos to ride with, looking for a good time, trouble, or quick gold. From time to time I meet a few I like; usually lads who really enjoy a brawl. There was this one lad, Casamir, he liked to drink and fight. It didn’t matter if there was 1 5 9
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no reason for it; he just would find somebody, hit them, and start one.
He really enjoyed pain.” Bek’s eyes shone as he talked. “I enjoyed watching him beat up people, until a guardsman down in Kiptak broke his head with the butt of a sword. I finished off the guardsman but had to flee Kiptak. So now I travel with whoever I fi nd who’s looking for fun, but there’s nobody I’d call a true friend.”
Nakor was silent as he considered what he knew about this young man, which was very little, and what he suspected, which was a great deal. Finally he said, “When did you start hearing voices?”
Bek stared at Nakor for a long minute then said, “When I was about eight or nine years old. How do you know about the voices?”
“Because I heard them when I was that age, too.”
“What did they say to you?” asked Bek, looking eagerly at Nakor as he waited for an answer.
“That I . . . needed to be somewhere else.”
Bek’s face lit up as he smiled. “That’s what I hear, too.” Then he lost the smile. “That and other things.”
“What other things?” asked Nakor.
“I don’t know.” Bek shrugged and looked down. “Sometimes they’re not really voices, but . . . feelings that I need to do something.
Hurt someone. Take something. Go somewhere.” He looked back at the cave. “That’s how I felt when I heard about this cave. Some of the boys with me didn’t want to bother, but I knew I had to come here.”
Nakor nodded. “When did the dreams start?”
Bek closed his eyes, as if something suddenly pained him. “I don’t remember not having them.” He opened his eyes and again stared into space. “They’re—”
After a moment of silence, Nakor said gently, “They are what?”
Bek looked at Nakor. “It’s like I’m looking through a window or standing on a tower looking down. I see things . . . places . . . people doing things.” He looked away again. “Violent things, Nakor. I see battles, rapes, burning cities . . . Sometimes it can be too much for me. It’s like when you meet a girl who likes to be slapped when you’re coupling, and so you slap her. And then you reach the point where she wants you to stop . . . and you’re there, with your hand 1 6 0
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held back and you know that she’s not enjoying it any more, but you also know that hitting her just one more time will feel so good. She gets frightened and starts crying, but that only makes you feel even better. But if you hit her now, she’ll stop being afraid because she’ll be unconscious—”
“Or dead,” said Nakor softly.
Bek shrugged. “Or dead. It’s that place in the middle, it’s being on the edge of it, knowing that in an instant everything could change. It’s like jumping your horse over something that may just be a little too high, or the feeling of running through a door, knowing that just inside the room someone’s waiting to kill you.” His eyes were wide now and he stared at Nakor with a manic expression. “I always wake with a sense of dread and as if I’m waiting for something to happen.”
“Constant anticipation?”
“Yes! Anticipation, as if those scenes are . . . just out of reach . . .
you know?” He lost his frenzied expression and his face resolved into a mask of thoughtfulness.
“Yes,” said Nakor softly. “I know.”
Bek’s features distorted once again. “But if I do the things—” He held his hand open and looked at his palm. “If I hit the girl. Hard.
Really hard. Or if I ride the horse over the jump—even if it guts itself on the fence or breaks a leg landing—or if I run through the door and kill whoever’s there—”
“The dreams stop for a while,” fi nished Nakor.
“Yes!” said Bek, standing up. “You do understand! How do you know?”
“Because many years ago I had dreams, too.”
“Did they make you do things?”
Nakor shrugged. “If I acted on them they did stop for a while, yes. I became a gambler, and if I cheated someone out of a lot of money, then the dreams would stop for a few days. I became a confidence trickster, and if I swindled someone, they would stop for a week or so. The greater the harm I did by cheating, lying, and stealing, the longer I went without the dreams.”
Bek shook his head. “If I start a fight, or get someone to do something—”
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“Bad?”
Bek shrugged. “I don’t understand bad or good, I just know what I want to do. If I force someone to do something they don’t want to do—”
“Such as?”
Bek said, “About two years ago Drago and me were in a town near Lanada. Drago was this man I met at a whorehouse down there.
We were both drunk and we took these two girls upstairs—I don’t know whose idea that was, his or mine.” Bek’s eyes grew distant once more, as if he were seeing what he remembered. “One of the whores liked being slapped around—I always ask for those. This one was a tiger. She’d whoop and holler and scratch and bite.” He fell silent for a moment, then shrugged. “Anyway, somewhere along the way it got rougher than she liked, I suppose, because she went from whooping and hollering to crying and screaming. Drago grabbed my arm and told me to stop, so I killed him. Then both girls were screaming, so I killed them, too.” Bek looked at Nakor. “I really don’t know how things got so out of hand, but they did.”
“Yes, they did.”
Bek smiled, then said, “But it feels good when things get out of control, you know?”
Nakor stood. “I do.” He stepped over to stand next to Bek, who looked up at him with no change in his mad expression.
“You’re going to hurt me now, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am,” said Nakor, putting out his hand over Bek’s head.
As Bek began to move to defend himself, a light sprang from Nakor’s palm, freezing the large young warrior where he sat. His teeth clenched and his eyes started to roll into his head, and he began to make an odd sound. It began deep in his che
st, a low grunting noise that rose in pitch as it made its way up to his throat where it became a raspy exhalation. The noise became louder, a higher- pitched shout of pain, which rose into agony.
It continued until Bek had no air left in his lungs to exhale, and could only shake uncontrollably. His teeth were still clenched and his face turned red. His eyes had now completely rolled backward 1 6 2
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into their sockets, showing only the whites. Then he started turning a darker color—from red to purple—and when his complexion approached blue, Nakor removed his hand.
A ragged gasp cut through the quiet as Bek shuddered and he fell over backward. He lay on the ground quivering and twitching, his eyes fi nally closed.
Nakor remained motionless, watching the huge youth shake like a man in a seizure. After a full five minutes, the frenzy subsided. Then Bek’s breathing slowed and he became still. He lay as if asleep for another five minutes, then groaned and opened his eyes.
He blinked twice, then settled his gaze on Nakor. Sitting up slowly, he said, “That was . . . amazing.” He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then he grinned. “I liked it!”
Nakor extended his hand and helped Bek to his feet. “You enjoy pain?”
Bek patted his body to ensure that nothing was damaged as he said,
“Sometimes I do. Pain . . . wakes things up. It makes you alert, aware.
At first there’s that desire to pull away, to make it stop, but when it doesn’t stop, you can . . . go deeper into it, I suppose you could say.
You break through the pain and on the other side there’s . . .” He looked at Nakor as if fighting for the concept or word.
“Clarity.”
Bek’s eyes widened and he nodded. “Yes! Clarity. Then you see things differently! It’s like nothing else. The pain turns into a feeling like nothing I can describe. But you know what I mean!”
Nakor nodded. “Sadly, I do.”
“What did you do to me?”
“It’s just a trick I know,” said Nakor. “There’s something inside of you, the thing that makes you the way you are. I had to fi nd it, then I had to . . . confi ne it.”
Bek stood with his hands on his chest as if feeling for something.
“Confined? I don’t feel any different.”
Nakor turned, looking over the horizon. “I know. But for a while you’ll find yourself less inclined to cause trouble. And you won’t dream, either.” He turned back toward Bek. “The day is still 1 6 3
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young and I need to do some work. I’m going to leave you here for a few minutes. I’ll be back shortly.” He reached into his rucksack and took out a golden - colored orb. He pushed a preset button and vanished.
Pug looked up as Nakor appeared in his study. “What is it?”
“Remember that youth I mentioned in my message yesterday?”
“The one who tested Tomas? Of course.”
“I’ve had suspicions about him since the moment he arrived at the cave, and now I’m certain.”
“Certain of what, Nakor?”
“I told you about the god’s dreams and memories. But what have I told you of . . . fragments?”
Pug said, “That occasionally a god will manifest his power directly in a mortal. A tiny piece of the god is placed within the soul of a person. Why?”
“I don’t believe it any longer. I know it. Bek is such a person.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes, and he is both a great opportunity and a great danger.”
Pug’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Nakor. “Go on.”
“I used a trick that I have to . . . touch something inside a person.
It’s handy when you want to know if someone has something unusual inside them, like being possessed by a demon.”
“I can see where that would be handy.”
Nakor said, “It also helps you know when someone’s lying to you. But that’s not what’s important. When I searched Bek, I found the tiniest fragment of a god. The smallest possible manifestation of divine consciousness, and with it the powers that make Bek so dangerous and unpredictable.
“Pug, Bek possesses a fraction of the Nameless One.”
Pug sat back, his face an expression of pure astonishment, followed an instant later by alarm. “You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. I am certain.”
Pug sat back. “What does this mean?”
“It means that forces are at play on a larger scale than we sus-1 6 4
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pected, for if the Nameless One can manifest even the tiniest part of his being here—”
“Eventually he will be able to manifest his full being.”
“Yes, Pug.” Nakor looked at his friend of many years. “He has found his way back into Midkemia. And we must find a way to prevent his return.”
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ELEVEN
C o n s p i r a c y
The riders came to a halt.
The three dust - covered figures stood on the crest of a rise on the road from Khallara to the city of Kesh. Caleb pointed to the lights playing against the underside of clouds in the distance and said, “That’s Kesh.”
Zane asked, “How big is it?”
Caleb dismounted. “Very big. It’s the biggest city in the world.”
They had been riding for four days—long enough for the boys to gain more experience on horseback and cover themselves in enough road grime and sweat to convince the guards at the city gates that they had ridden all the way from the Vale of Dreams. Even if they had traded for fresh mounts along the way, the journey should have taken three months or more. But the boys were quickly learning that Flight of the Nighthawks
their stepfather had resources they could not have possibly imagined a year before.
They had all left Stardock the day after the wedding, ostensibly returning north to some vague destination where Caleb’s family lived. Instead, once they were clear of the town, Caleb had used one of those spheres that the boys had come to think of as “travel orbs,”
to transport himself, Marie, and the boys to Sorcerer’s Isle.
Caleb had taken a full day to acquaint his new wife with his family and the decidedly unexpected inhabitants of the island. Most of the concepts behind the place—great magic, alien worlds and travel to them, races not of Midkemia—were understandably lost on her, though he knew that she’d come to understand in time. But her poise when confronting the many unexpected sights pleased Caleb, as did her attempts to be at ease with his parents. He was even more pleased by her obvious joy at their living quarters, which were palatial compared to what she had known in Stardock, and that she gained the affection of his parents easily.
The one tense moment had arrived with the appearance of the six sisters of the Pithirendar, bedecked in garlands of white oleanders and little else, to welcome the boys back to the island. Their overt displays of affection were more than Marie could bear to watch.
Caleb had steered her away from the reunion and had said,
“Much of what you see here will be strange, but keep one thing in mind above all others: there is no one on this island who wishes you or the boys naught but good.”
Glancing over her shoulder at the girls, who had thrown their arms around her sons’ necks, she had frowned. “That appears to be a little more than good, Caleb.”
“You’re from Stardock, Marie. You’ve seen different people from the Kingdom and the Empire. Each nation has different customs and beliefs. You’ve already seen everything one can imagine about people.”
“I’ve not seen green - skinned girls trying to undress my boys in broad daylight!”
Caleb had laughed at that. “They only want the boys to go swimming with them.” He pointed. “My father built a lake down there before I was born—”
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“He built a lake?”
“—because my mother
hated walking all the way to the beach to go swimming. Anyway, the youth of the Pithirendar need to spend a great deal of time in or near water. It’s vital for their health.”
Marie hadn’t look convinced, but Caleb had understood that for mothers, sons never truly grow up. He knew that from personal experience.
They had spent one more night together, and the next morning, Caleb and the boys had left Sorcerer’s Isle. They had used an orb to reach a stable in Landreth owned by the Conclave and then used it again to transport themselves to the road upon which they now traveled.
Caleb unsaddled his horse and the boys did the same. “Why aren’t we pushing on now?” asked Tad. “The lights look close.”
“Because they’re not. It’s half a day’s ride to the foul borough—outside the ancient wall—and then another two hours of riding to reach the gates. We’ll be there by late afternoon tomorrow.”
Zane put his saddle down and tied off his horse where he could crop grass by the road. Kneeling, he said, “It must be big. I’ve never seen so many lights in the sky.”
“Thousands of lanterns and torches, Zane,” said Caleb.
Tad joined his foster brother and they both watched the city in the distance which appeared brighter in contrast to the darkening sky.
Caleb made a fire, and after they had eaten their rations, he sat back and said, “Again.”
The boys looked at one another, and Tad gestured that Zane should begin.
“You’re a trader from the Vale, by the name of Caleb.”
Tad added, “I think we can remember that much.”
Caleb picked up a pebble and tossed it at him. Tad grinned as he dodged it easily. “We are your two very talented, very bright and able, handsome, and very brave apprentices, Tad and Zane.”
Zane nodded. “Also easy enough to remember.”
“What do we trade?”
Tad said, “Anything and everything. We are always looking for rare items of great worth to sell in the Kingdom. Gems, jewelery, fi ne 1 6 8
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craftsmanship, anything that is easy to transport and renders a large profi t.”
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