“No. Actually this makes sense. All those little things...All those oddities...All those guesses and the hints and the warnings...You’re really from the future.” Some of his shame must have shown, for Penelope’s eyes quivered in fear. “This is about Ariel.”
Sefiros took a deep breath. It didn’t work. “The legend is quite specific. Ariel has turned to the darkness. His fear for your life fueled his desperation, and in that desperation, he claimed a power that enslaved him.” Sefiros took Penelope’s hands into his own. The next sentence blistered his throat, but it had to be said. She deserved to know. “Penelope, it was Ariel who killed all those children.”
The inner defenses rose. Sefiros could almost hear the keys turning, the hinges creaking, the gates crashing down. And the words, teetering on scales of desperation. “No. You’re lying. I don’t believe you.” And yet her hands clutched tighter. “He...He really killed them, didn’t he?”
“. . . Yes.”
Then it happened. The crackle of one thought leading to another, and another, and another, slimming down the possibilities until that one final crystallization of revelation. “You knew this would happen.” The meekness dispersed within the howling fervor of anger. “You knew, and you did nothing.”
“No. Not nothing. Why did you think I stayed all this time? It was to teach him. I had him read the same books that inspired me. So that he would learn the same lessons. So that he could see through all the prophecies and deceptions.” Sefiros sighed away a decade of his life. “I broke my own rule. I thought myself infallible. I thought it an equation. Books and the right lessons could counteract his fall. I forgot how real the temptation was. I forgot how much he loved you.”
Silence was a gravestone on their shoulders. “Will you kill him?”
Sefiros avoided her gaze. “I took Ariel as my responsibility. It is only right that I deal with him.” A second sigh aged him a century. “Ariel is not what worries me. What worries me is you, Penelope.”
“Me?” She looked normal, sounded normal, but deep inside Sefiros could see the storm of emotion trapped within her bones, pressing and straining to burst free. Sooner or later the dam of her resolve would break, and succumbing to emotion would lead to bad decisions. One bad decision in particular.
“Penelope. Look at me.” He waited for her gaze to match his before continuing. “I have had visions of many different futures.” Somehow Sefiros’ fingers splayed out over her temples, holding her in place. “Time is fluid. Nothing is written in stone. Much of what I see changes from the sheer act of my seeing. The slightest act can influence eternity.”
“But not all.”
“No. Not all. Some elements are necessary for certain scenarios.”
“It’s me.” It wasn’t a question. “You’re talking about me.”
“All the futures I see have one common element. You. If you go to Ariel, you will die. If you confront him, you will die. If you beg him to hide and raise your children together, you will die.” Cayokite’s fingers cinched tighter, and his eyes became deep and luminous. “Promise me you will not go to him. Your life – your children’s lives – depends on it.”
“I promise.”
Half of those two dozen chairs were empty, and the half that had stayed were either sleeping the ale off or bouncing a tavern wench off his knee. Not a very good start, but the exciting part was coming up. Mykel had no doubt they’d enjoy this bit.
But of course, Penelope didn’t listen. “Golem, Sir Cayokite is going to teleport to an unknown destination. I want you to record the destination and program it into the quicksilver.”
“Yes, Mistress. Is Sir Cayokite using magic or technology?”
“Magic.”
“May I remind you, Mistress, that it is quite difficult to follow magical energy with current technology?”
“Yes, I realize that. Just do it.”
If you go to him, you will die. No. Not Ariel. Cayokite might have said so many things, but the last she didn’t believe. Not him. Not her sweet Ariel, who would laugh and smile all her cares away, who loved and supported her even as children. He could never hurt her. The quicksilver teleporter challenged her throughout the ride; that bright blue corridor composed of her memories, shooting free of the physical destruction of one’s body, all the way to the rebirth of the new body, the molecules assembling piece by piece with a machine’s precision.
The quicksilver rebuilt her straight into hell. Fire rumbled everywhere. Here veins of lava flowed sluggishly from one island to another; there the sky was black with fat plumes. Instinctively she activated her cloak’s face-veil to guard against the poisonous air. He will kill you. No. Not him. Not Ariel.
She didn’t have to go very far. Sefiros and Ariel stood upon the largest island and its broad spine of machinery wrapping around the planet. They began the slow circling of a duel, those first few seconds of judging the opponent, sizing the abilities that each one brought to the table. No. Her tired legs carried her into the middle of the circle and to Ariel. Sweet, innocent Ariel.
“What are you doing here?”
Penelope twitched. “I’m here to save you.”
“Save me from what?”
“From Sinister. He’s tainted you.”
“Penelope.” Sefiros, trembling between anger and fear. “Penelope. Move away. He’s not the same.”
“Sinister has given me the power I need. The power to save you.”
“I don’t need saving, Ariel. Nothing is written in stone.” A smile of amusement curved Ariel’s lips, as though she was a child tackling things beyond her nature to understand. “Ariel. I love you. You love me. Isn’t that enough?” She locked his eyes to hers, forcing him to see her. “It doesn’t matter if I die tomorrow or a hundred years from now. One day with you is more than an eternity without you. Please. We’re trying to help you.”
Ariel’s stony face slipped. Muscles in his cheek bunched up, and confusion lighted his eyes. Penelope felt her heart jump up her throat. He was fighting it. His anger and hate were receding. Even Sefiros had hope in his eyes. Nothing is written in stone.
“No. You’re trying to trick me. I don’t know how, but you are!” A burning chill knotted her spine, and suddenly everything was cold. A sluggish frost crawled up her legs and stomach and arms, finally imprisoning her in a skin-tight cocoon of ice. “Both of you! You’re traitors!”
No. Ariel. I love you. Please...It was impossible for her to be conscious within the eldritch prison. Perhaps it was Ariel, grabbing hold of his senses in the last instant. Or perhaps it was Sefiros’ glove pressed against the cocoon, sending heat whispering through the crystal. She saw Sefiros’ eyes through the ice and mourned the resolution on his face. No. Please don’t. Don’t kill him.
Trust me, came Sefiros’ voice. Then he rose, and Penelope found herself the unwilling witness to the battle that would destroy her universe.
Somehow the spell gave her eyes that followed the pair at every jump and twist. And the battling, oh the battling. Sefiros handled a pair of khatars with a master’s grace, even though Sefiros hadn’t touched a weapon in all the years she’d known him. I am a man from the future. Hate blazed within her. He never fought against Ariel because he didn’t want Ariel to memorize his fighting technique. This meant, once again, Sefiros had known Ariel’s fall and had prepared in case of failure.
Sefiros had no qualms of taunting his opponent. He deflected Ariel’s blade with but one finger of the khatar. He ducked under Ariel’s attacks, flowed through the latter’s defense and cut through an inch of Ariel’s signature black vest. He even put his back towards Ariel, feigning exhaustion. This isn’t even a challenge for him. Penelope felt a stab of fear at imagining the opponents that did give
Sefiros a challenge.
Ariel couldn’t help himself. With a strangled roar, his sword rose and fell and stabbed into dirt. Sefiros spun on his left knee with his right hand outstretched. He slapped the sword from Ariel’s hands, twisted as he rose to slap Ariel with his own blade, and finished the maneuver with his golden gauntlet at the left hand and Ariel’s sword in his right. Mykel looked at Ariel, looked at the sword, then tossed it back to his owner. Another humiliation. Another message. I’m not even trying hard.
Their battle raged across the catwalks, the towers, the fingers of unfinished machinery. With each crossing of steel Sefiros forced Ariel back, never relenting. Ariel’s own style was used against him, while the latter was ironically forced to wield the defensive techniques he thought was a sign of weakness. At every step, Ariel’s rage churned. He’d expected the darkness to make him invincible, only to find his newfound powers impotent. At every cross, at every twist, at every parry, Sefiros scored a minor hit upon Ariel’s vest. By the time the pair ran out of catwalk, the black vest was torn and ragged.
Now the battle took them to the molten sea of magma, floating on pieces of machinery left to rot on half-melted vessels. They were too close. No time for fancy swordplay. Just simple children’s techniques. Sefiros raised his khatar up, Ariel deflected it with a downward slash. Ariel shifted his wrists for a stab at the side, Sefiros brushed the attack away with a gesture. Up and down. Side to side. Wrists twisting left, wrists twisting right. Elbows up. Elbows down. An endless cycle of block and counter, backed with the terrible rhythm of steel against steel.
It ended, finally, with a feint. Sefiros hunched over, hands on his knees. No! Penelope cried out, but she was there in spirit only; her words were lost to her beloved. It’s a trap! Don’t! Ariel was lost in his anger now, and it told him only one thing. To kill. Now.
Sefiros easily evaded the attack and stopped playing. Both khatars – now the shade of hissing white fire – lashed out as one, and Ariel’s arms arced through the air, flipping all the way to the magma lining the planet. Ariel’s shock was time enough for a scissoring of crossed hands. The legs followed the arms into the lava. For a moment Ariel’s body hung in the air...and would have descended to death had not Sefiros grabbed him by the collar.
“A king goes to an oracle on his way home to the capital. He is told that a son not of his bloodline will succeed him. His wife the pregnant Queen is determined to foil the prophecy. She orders her troops to kidnap all the boys in the capital and lock them in the dungeons.
“The parents rebel, naturally. They take the castle and storm the throne room. The King was killed in the melee. The law says that should the King die without an heir, a junior branch of their bloodline will assume the throne. The King’s newborn son is banished before he is even born to accept his royal destiny.
“That is the way of prophecy, Ariel. I told you over and over. Sometimes the very act you take to foil a prophecy is the catalyst for triggering it in the first place. Now Penelope will die.”
“No. My powers...”
“Your powers are destruction. Destruction cannot heal, cannot protect. It led you to kill the very woman you love.”
“It was a simple mistake...I couldn’t have killed her.”
“A woman and her child are one being, connected by a fragile union. You destroyed that bond, and now the energies of your savior child will kill her in the birthing. You killed her, all right.” Sefiros climbed up the hill that was their last battle and dropped Ariel’s limbless body on its’ top. “I hope the power was worth it, Ariel. You’ve lost everything else.”
And with that, the darkness closed in on Penelope, and the wheels of destiny began to take its final spin.
They didn’t pelt him with eggs. They didn’t praise him either, but they didn’t pelt him with eggs. That was a good sign. They did praise the nubile dancer that all but shouldered him off the stage. Shayna waited for him, leaning against a pillar, her arms folded beneath her breasts and an amused grin on her face. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”
Speak for yourself. He hadn’t been this uncomfortable since childhood. Mykel joined Shayna at the bar and ordered a drink. It was sour, just as last time, just as the first time. The innkeep Simmons said he worked the vineyards themselves, and yet the notion of him squeezing the grapes was laughable. He was simply too disgusting to take up his word.
“Here.” Mykel caught the coin in mid-air; bit it to check the weight. Yes, it was genuine silver, twenty coppers from a gold mark. “Remember you’ve got readings twice in the morning.”
“Yes, yes.” Mykel could not help the exasperation in his voice. This needling called back memories of a mother’s scolding; the only means through which the librarian hated her. Simmons cast a look that suggested no tears would be shed if Mykel lost his way by accident before returning to his patrons.
Mykel hurried out from the inn’s stables through the narrow, twisting mazes of the back alleys. Even a single breath was an invitation for mugging or worse. From time to time a scream punctuated the thick miasma, and one’s foot dug into a corpse’s ribs at every other step. Secrecy was so essential that it outweighed the risk, however, and thus Mykel glided through the dark warrens to the stables of one Dreamer’s Sigh Inn.
Shayna was waiting for him at the stables. “The money?” Mykel handed it over, watching Shayna add the coin to the twine-collared leather sack at her belt. “Sit down.” The librarian did so, biting back a complaint as he did so. This was the part he hated most of all.
From a pocket hidden in her cloak Shayna took out a jar of multi-colored leeches. Beetles, Mykel told himself firmly. Shayna promised they were beetles. The Companion let the beetles loose on Mykel’s head. Immediately the creatures ran down the length of Mykel’s hair, leaving behind broad sweeps of color in their wake. Today Shayna decided to color his hair a lush, black-rimmed violet. Mykel grunted when he looked at Shayna’s hand-mirror. He’d had worse dyes. Definitely better than that time Shayna decided to have fun and colored his hair two ways; one side red and the other white.
Next was the make-up. The point was to darken the skin to a tanned shade while not using too much cover as to suggest total fraud. The muds and powders were products of nature, Shayna was quick to note. Funny that he had never seen her wear the concoctions before. Next came the eye-shields – again Shayna swore oaths that they can change the eye to exotic colors – and after that the fake nose and painted tattoos gave the librarian a foreign look.
“What are we going to name this one?”
Mykel sighed. “Norrin Rasp?”
“We used that one yesterday.”
“Antony Bell?”
“Day before that.”
“Tir Riou?”
“You just used that one.”
“Uh...Philip Dias?”
“Now that one I like.” Shayna disappeared into the stables and returned with another, twine-tied bundle that measured from shoulder to shoulder. A shake unfolded the package into multi-colored clothes, each one more vibrant than the last. Mykel winced just looking at them. “Oh, stop it. You know it adds an exotic flair.”
Then why do I feel like a doll? Mykel was smart enough not to mention that. Not a second time, at least. Thus, the librarian endured the ritual, blocking out Shayna’s complaints as suit after suit was worn and tossed away. It was ten minutes before the chambermaid found a blend she liked. “I look like a clown.”
“You’re just exaggerating.”
No, I’m not. Yellow tunic with dark trousers? He’d be lucky if the patrons didn’t chase him from the town. It had happened before, and Mykel was not eager to repeat the experience. Yet secrecy was paramount to their plan, and the essentials kept them one step from the headsman’s axe. Then Shayna sai
d she would tell the new innkeep he was ready, and Mykel was left alone with his thoughts.
Caryl. She was at the heart of this insanity. Left to her own devices she would be snatched up by her former slaver within the day. Nor could she find hope with strangers. The brand on her neck – burned into her with a cattle prod – named her a former slave. Oh, the pretense of generosity would be offered – it might even be genuine – but come the nine months there would be two more workers to slave over the fields. The winter was less cold to those not doing the farming.
Again, the chief problem rose before his musings. Money. Mykel never realized how much money it cost to take care of a whole person, much less a pregnant woman. It cost money to hire boats and the sailors that manned them. It cost money to hire horses when the boats were no longer an option. It cost money to hire wagons when horses were deemed too much of a risk. Everything cost so much money. It had to come from somewhere. Hence the plan. Mykel made more money by telling stories at different inns, but the same bard would gain the ill of innkeepers for spending money on a storyteller that served several masters. Hence the disguise. One bard was in fact several. A dangerous game, and yet the librarian had no choice. Not when Caryl was involved.
“You’re up in five minutes, Deus.”
“Dias. My name is Dias.”
“If you say so.” The attendant wisely scurried off to evade the thunder plain on the speaker’s face.
“Wish me luck.” Mykel said.
Shayna did one better. She kissed him lightly on the cheek. “You’ll do fine. Just relax.”
Mykel nodded, climbed the necessary steps to the lilted platform that was the stage, sat on the three-legged stool mandatory to each inn, and began his next tale.
LXI
It started as such a normal day. The hills were green, carpeted with white dandelions as far as the eye could see. Here and there beehives hung on stout oak branches, adding a honeysuckle taste to the air. Overhead birds glided across the sky with their children in tow, their cawing alternating with the beating of their wings. Even the sky was gorgeous, a breath-taking blue shorn of any clouds. Ah, spring.
Chased By War Page 62
