The pup’s whimper jerked Ronald from his trance. The dog’s eyes were large pools of liquid brown, the sunlight rimming the bottom in a sort of upside-down crescent. “You need a name.” He giggled when the pup’s tongue licked the hand scratching his ear. “Rascal. That’s your name. Ras-cal.” The pup snuggled into Roland’s chest, eyes closing as the Solvicar scratched the dog’s neck.
“Well look what we have here.” Jekai froze instantly. Please don’t let it be who I think it is. Please. Please. Please.
The prayer went unanswered. Six feet of bulging muscle, a crown of flame for hair, stared down at him with piggish eyes sank in the morass of flesh. Behind him cackled the human hyenas flocking him. “Seems like you have a dog. Get tired of being rejected by women? Thought the dog wouldn’t mind getting fucked up the ass?”
“You’re sick, Samuel.”
Green eyes flashed in answer to the challenge. In the space of a heartbeat Rascal was gone from Ronald’s hands. The dog mewled at having thick, sausage fingers drag their nails down its’ back. “Stop it! You’re hurting him?”
“What, this? ‘Tis only a game, you insignificant slug.” He paused, and then smiled. Ronald caught the electricity between the bully and his thugs. No. “No, you can’t do that!”
“Can’t do that? Will you listen to yourself, slug? I can do whatever I want. And what I want—” Again came the toothy smile, now widened ear-to-ear. “—is to play catch.” Without even a glance Samuel tossed the puppy.
“No!” Like lightning Ronald bounded forward...only to trip over Samuel’s extended foot and fall flat on his face. He struggled to get up, then grunted as Samuel’s boot slammed down on his spine. Ronald writhed like a fish from water. The pup’s whining became more and more frantic as he sailed from hand to hand. “Stop it! He’s just a pup! Stop it!”
Samuel paused as he caught Rascal. His free hand scratched his chin as though it held a beard. “Well now...I guess I could let you off scot-free...” Despite himself Ronald felt the warmth of hope rising in him. “But I’m not.” The hope died as Samuel drew a hunting knife.
The blood sprayed out with a soft sigh. It slapped him in a gory fan on the right cheek. Ronald almost thought he can hear the dog’s mewling; instead there were words. Why? Why did you let them kill me? Ronald did not allow himself one tear till the bullies had their fun and left him.
A child. Everyone saw him as a child. It was long past due to convince everyone of their folly. From above came the crackle of thunder, and soon the heavens wept. Ronald thought to move, but the notion of expressing his distaste smacked too close of a boy hiding behind his mother’s skirts. Not to mention how his father would berate him for acting the tattle-tale in the first place.
With gloom within and without, Ronald Jekai lay behind the tents, seething with the promise of vengeance. Things, he swore, were going to change.
He did not like being summoned like this. Swathed in the crimson robes and skullcap of his office, he had been walking the ivory-worked corridors of his home when a portal opened beneath his feet and brought him here in the white garb of an acolyte. Thank God there were no servants at the time of summoning. At least, he hoped there weren’t any. Bondservants had the tendency to make the best spies, knowing the nooks and crannies better than the nobility living there. If ever one had seen him...No. This was merely a flux of panic brought on the abruptness of the summoning. Besides, if by some miniscule chance someone did see, there were all sorts of ways to still a waggling tongue. So many, many ways.
A strange thought came to him. He had walked these corridors many times, and yet no two trips were the same. A trick of magic, he guessed, and despite the futility of such an act he scanned the surroundings for any loose clues of intent or agenda.
The place was a palace. Marble pillars balanced the arches of a ceiling that knew no end, every single one marked with twists and curls of emerald, gold and ruby. Everywhere was the sigil of Fire: spikes curving upward in a crown of red and orange, crested above the vague shape of a phoenix, fiery wings outspread. The man lost himself in the exuberance of it. He could almost feel the warmth of the Fire, the certainty of promises that would be kept. If he served without failure. The thought burned him as much now as it did the first time he swore the oaths. Servitude was such a pittance compared to the promised rewards.
The man tried to count the number of arches rising towards the ceiling of the linear path. He lost count at twenty, letting doubt worm its way into his mind. Arches meant bridges, and bridges meant other passages. Were these other rooms filled with scores of servants just like him? Once he thought his position a rarity, but now the notion of legions of devout believers destroyed such an illusion. Greater numbers meant lesser importance. It doesn’t matter. It only meant he would have to prove himself the better of any of these followers. If there were any to begin with. Encouraging paranoia was but one of his master’s powers.
The final chamber was empty. No servants, no windows, not even a scrap of decoration. He whirled about to charge from the room only to gape at the door he walked through was no longer there. “Wh-wh-what...” This was ridiculous. Men had cowed at his feet. Rich, powerful men. Leaders of the community. Yet everyone bent the knee at the mere mention of his name. And now, to suffer this, to be shuffled about like a pawn on a chess board, was too much. “I demand answers! Show yourselves!”
“As you wish.”
Again, he spun about to see a flame-haired woman and a small bureau in the room’s center, with no scuffle to mark their entrance. Manna. Again, he exulted. A mere sample of the power that waited for his hand. Servitude. Such a pittance.
“Come, my lord. You have nothing to fear from me.” The world’s impatience undercut the sensual voice. One step forward brought him mere inches from the flame-haired woman. Despite himself he peered back and gaped at the distance crossed. What power. There were near infinite ways to employ that little trick. He nearly salivated at the possibilities.
“Where is Lord Samaritan?” He colored at the crystal tingling of her laugh. “How dare you—” The ice in her emerald eyes convinced him to abandon the threats. It would not do to spit in the face of the master’s emissary.
“So, you do know control. Good.” He would have given anything to slap the smile from her face. Such a pittance.
“Listen to me, whore. I am the Grand –”
“Rank means little here. Especially to one who broke his oaths to take the path he stumbles forward.” A slender finger flicked the tip of his nose.
Pain shot through his veins like a lightning bolt; body twitching, he fell to the floor in a heap, as wave after wave of paralysis rolled over his flesh. Spittle burst from a mouth struggling to remember how to function; bowels loosed in the same manner. And her, the poxy flame-haired whore, towering over him, smiling. Smiling! At that moment, he hated her more than anything he’d ever felt for anyone before – and he’d put heretics by the hundreds to the sword. Damn you. He couldn’t even spit at her in contempt. Damn the whore. I will make you pay dearly –
“My Grace?”
Abruptly the world shattered. He was back in his room, back into the crimson cloak of his office. It was through the mirror before him he saw the acolyte, a spindly little thing almost dwarfed by the black-and-white habit she wore. She blubbered the warning of morning Mass and fled from a stony glare. Servitude. He took a moment to bask in the power of his crimson attire. Servitude. Such a pittance.
He left the mirror shattered. Let the fools divine what they will. Time to bring the light to the masses. He glided to the dais with thoughts of vengeance. There would be a reckoning with that woman, emissary or no. Soon. Very soon. Whistling a tune from childhood the man entered the chapel and began his sermons.
Lord Samaritan watched
him go. A puppet, for all his arrogance. Just as there was many ways to still a waggling tongue, there were infinite ways to separate a man from his secrets. And while encouraging paranoia was in the realm of possibility, it didn’t take an acolyte to know the man’s greed. More important was the measures one would take for fulfilling that greed. A thousand men could die, and the fool would still carry the stone if the promise of power was alive. He wouldn’t even think twice at stepping over the corpses lining his way. The precaution was sealed, the deal was done...yet Samaritan felt foul from the exchange, important or no.
“Exciting, isn’t it?” Aeon, the flame-haired woman, servant and seductress rolled into one magnificent body. She thought herself a queen, and yet she did not know the reasons behind her making. To her mind there was no making; the world began and ended with her. Ultimately it would destroy her. Indeed, it very nearly had; she had no memory of the Samaritan’s true identity. Until then, she did serve many important functions. “Can I feast on his brains when we are done?”
“When all of this is finished.” If there was an end to this. If everything went as planned. Time could be very fickle on the path it was forced to take. Nothing was certain, nothing written in stone. He would have to rely on faith. Samaritan grunted. If there was ever a word that was the antithesis of his being, faith was it. “We have much work to do.”
III
Mevos Prime.
Septias 28th, 2201 AD
Awareness was a lantern light flickering, drowning in a sea of dark. He felt as if sprawled here for hours, lying amidst the moss and the weeds and the tepid puddles leeching into the stone drop by falling drop. Hours. Time. Here. Names took shape, giving definition to the things floating aimlessly in thought and mind, lodging into his brain, blasting his mind with meaning. Memory came back like flying shards, tearing and ripping at his thoughts, though clear as crystal once imbedded. Caryl. The library. Lazarus. Mykel. My name. And one other name. Sutyr. The last filled his mind like a specter, and a sharp, greasy smell assaulted him, like ashes.
Slowly Mykel rolled over, heaved himself up on muscles weak as a babe’s, all save Ifirit; the golden gauntlet was buzzing with energy. The librarian did not know if that meant good or ill. At least with Ifirit, Mykel had proof last night actually happened.
“Hide,” he said curtly. Ifirit shrank and shrank till there was not a dot on his flesh. The bracer – ever always on the crippled arm – appeared as if everything was normal again. Then again, where was the harm in it? The dead fingers came to life with the gauntlet. Sure, he may attract trouble from unsavory quarters, but whoever saw him as a target would be mistaken. Fatally so, if it came to that. Ifirit rippled back to life, and Mykel felt its pleasure twin to his own.
For moments, the librarian examined his surroundings; the stone ruins that spoke of grandeur long past, the jagged holes in wall and floor and ceiling, gaping wounds that let weak sunlight stagger through. Moss laced the stone so thickly they might have been lovers, laying out a mosaic of twisted green snakes in every direction.
Where am I? Confusion danced like wild shamans on the edge on his gagged consciousness, straining, aching to tell him secrets he did not yet know. On the edge of his consciousness, too, danced cackling jackals, whispering evil, dark things he did not want to know. Then the memory exploded through his mind in quicksilver bursts. Lazarus, dead. Caryl and Wil, dead. John Jekai, dead. Sutyr, the demon knight. The battle, the magical gate and the orchestra of its power...and then...here, apparently.
He sobbed a lifetime’s worth as memory trampled him, squeezed him to the ground where he convulsed with agony. Caryl. Wil. Lazarus. Their faces were as familiar to him as his own, and now they looked at him with intense worry. Out, they mouthed. You must get out of here. He fixed upon a large crater in the wall. Slowly he staggered towards it and began the ascent.
The tunnel narrowed with time, forcing him to crawl like a slug under a rock. Eventually it widened enough that he could raise his head slightly to see where he was going. Darkness lay in silent wait before him. Touch was his only guide. After a while he yelped when his fingers struck jagged sloping stone. The dirt was loose and soft and ran down his fingers in an avalanche of crumbs. Mykel swallowed. Climbing up on a hill of dirt. Slowly he continued.
The inches fell away in the sounds of finding foot-and-handholds, panting made haggard by the musky air. All around him the darkness teased him, tested him, mocked him with silent laughter until he felt his wits trembling in his skull. A soft breeze fell untainted down the mountain, and Mykel jumped as invisible fingers clutched at his shoulder. Breathe. Breathe and calm down. There’s nothing here. Nothing here but me. The calm that filled him seemed hollow as a lie, though.
Time crawled past, and darkness lingered on, thickening till it suffocated him. Finally, his hands gripped something more solid than crumbling dirt. Stone. Pitted and cracked stone, but stone nonetheless. Straining Mykel pushed himself up and over, scrambling one-handed onto the sharp incline, and finally when he had solid stone under him he collapsed like a rag doll, panting. I did it. I climbed it. The exhilaration did not last long; darkness was never a good partner to share victories. So, Mykel twisted and stared at the space ahead.
The vague glimmerings of shape fluttered in the distance into an opening, broken and ancient, now guarded by a heap of rubble crammed together like piled-on brick. Mykel began clearing the rubble away and soon sunlight stabbed his eyes, revealing an ancient stairway spiraling skyward. Sunlight. Too early in the morning. Amusement faded with misery’s sharp knives. Lazarus. Grunting he staggered his way up. Lazarus. He’ll know what to do. Starkly he stared at the land, fixing it in his mind. I know this place. Memory kept flickering to a darker place, a depressed place, a place deader than this...and then he realized that he was looking at Kal Jada through the eyes of afternoon light instead of twilight. Home. I’m home.
Then why did he feel a stranger imposing upon an alien domain? Mykel knew it to be a child’s fancy, and it should have been an end to it. It wasn’t. Before long the librarian found himself ticking off the differences of a land he had spent half his life. There were far less Solvicar that he was used to, only a few at random paths, and sometimes there were nooks and crannies empty of their poisonous presence.
The people were a major concern. There were far more of them than he remembered. Jolly men, slender women, even children, bouncing and playing as if they had a reason to. A ball bumped into his leg and the child who followed it actually said please when she asked for it back. Mykel gave it back hesitantly, all the while knowing the ludicrousness of the whole endeavor. Children saying please and thank you were no rarity...but this was Kal Jada. The sham capital of the sham kingdom. Why are they so...so...happy?
He slowed as he rounded the corner. The Kal Jada citadel was never what one what deem top-notch, but even the slight effort of dignity the House maintained was denied here. There wasn’t even a guard present to ward away intruders.
“Too late,” grumbled a thick voice. Mykel turned to see a hobo half-slumped in stupor, regarding him with bloodshot eyes. “You’re too late. We’re all too late. The Coicro will come, the Coicro will come...”
Mykel swallowed hard. Drowned in filth and dank fleas, the hobo looked almost a newly-made corpse. Like the Solvicar. Like John Jekai. I killed him. A wound he believed dealt with, but the nausea tingling his gut told him otherwise. I killed a man. Mykel started away from the drunkard, speed picking up at each step. I killed. I killed a man. He brushed by myriads of people but when he bent to apologize it was Jekai’s face that stared back at him, pale and bloodless, bent in accusation. You killed me.
Other specters returned, adding their own charges, memories piecing together over their hallowed words. Caryl, Lazarus, Wil...Are you my father? Why aren’t we a family? Why did you run away? Those ey
es. Haunting. Weighing. Damning. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!
He staggered his way into the plaza. The fountain. Abruptly Mykel thrust his head into the cold water. The frigid shock pierced him in a thousand tiny needles, blasting him awake. When he cleared the water, he was chilled to the bone, but the face had dulled back into memory, not substance. And the arm. Oh, for the love of fuck...
So, there was a consequence to Ifirit’s presence. The bracer. Slender threads of leather and iron were peeling back like a banana. And it itched. It felt like his arm was on fire. The fire, crackling with the soft hum of sating appetites, twisted together into black creepers rounding the arm. In a minute, maybe two, and the Fire would consume the arm completely. I must see Lazarus. Ripping free a part of his cloak’s voluminous sleeve, Mykel bound his arm and closed Ifirit at the same time. There was a slight resistance, and the makeshift bandage helped little. Still, better this than some passerby noticing the creeper’s existence.
It was about halfway to the Red Boar Inn that the hobo’s words fully penetrated his mind and slowed him. Coicro? Mykel frowned. The man must really be drunk today; his ranting was a decade too late. The Coicro were disbanded at the end of the Three-Day War. Mykel made his way across the plaza dodging children playing stickball and other games. Small, clean children. Happy children, smiling with anticipation. Mykel paused a moment to watch them bounce away in play. Strange. Very strange.
When the Red Boar Inn came into view he stopped altogether. A red-tile roof, made from the best bloodstone of the Sian Mountains, thrust into the sky in a crimson crown. It was as if the fire had never been. Okay. Now I’m a little worried.
The common room was as it always was, with men and maids playing their game of cat-and-mouse in-between ale and tossed coins. The dancer on the stage was different, a sloe-eyed doxy with a beak of a nose and a voice that cracked the lyrics more often than not. Mykel paused to listen to “The March on Jaera Tin,” and frowned. The Coicro song, too, all but vanished from memory a decade hence. Strangely enough Mykel found himself wondering how the other singer would have sung it. Shaking it off, he made his way to the bar. “Varin! Varin! Are you there?”
Chased By War Page 4
