A splintering crash shook the entire ship and sent everyone sprawling. Although Aramis was already sitting, he fell flat and went sliding across the deck, slamming hard into the main mast. The wounded captain slid across the deck and would have fallen into the sea if it weren’t for Mel. He managed to grab the captain’s boot and hung on with all the strength he had as they tumbled along the deck.
The ship immediately listed and tilted starboard. The remaining sailors scrambled madly, dashing in different directions. A few moments later, as Aramis struggled to his feet, one of the sailors appeared from below deck.
“She’s taking on water!” he yelled. “Abandon ship!”
Gods, Aramis groaned, could things get any worse?
He staggered weakly toward Mel and the captain. Mel started toward him with a worried look on his face. “No,” Aramis shook his head. “Help the captain. I’m all right. I just need some rest.”
Mel hesitated but aided the captain anyway. Mel lifted the man easily. “I don’t think I can tread the water with extra weight,” he said. “We’ll need to get him on one of the boats.”
They headed to the side of the ship where the sailors had gathered. They were lowering a boat with a few men into the water with a system of pulleys. Once it was safely on the water, the men in the boat pushed away from the ship and began paddling toward the shore.
“Everyone in the boat,” Mel said to the few sailors left aboard the ship. “I’ll lower you down, but you need to take the captain.”
The men climbed into the boat and helped pull the captain over the railing. They eased him down onto one of the benches. Mel motioned for Aramis to get into the boat.
“You can’t lower it yourself,” Aramis said. “I’ll help you.”
“You can barely stand, my Lord. I don’t think you’ll be much help.”
Aramis would have argued, but he was too exhausted to think. He nodded and climbed into the boat. Mel lowered the boat easily enough until the last four feet, when he lost his grip on the ropes. The boat dropped with a sudden jerk, slamming into the water. The captain groaned. The sailors waited to move the boat until Mel had leapt off the ship and into the water. He swam near and they pulled him into the boat.
As they paddled away, the timbers of the ship creaked and groaned like some kind of large animal that was slowly dying. Close to half an hour later, they reached the shore. Aramis waited to depart until the sailors had moved the captain out of the boat, mostly because he didn’t know if he had the strength to.
He waved away offers of help and stepped out of the boat. He had the distinct feeling of falling before he saw the ground rushing up to meet him.
—
Aramis awoke feeling warmth against his skin. He turned his head toward the source and saw a small fire burning. The smell of something cooking made his mouth water. He grunted as he sat up and looked around. Mel was tending the fire and cooking. A few of the sailors sat around the fire, staring blankly into eternity. The captain lay a few feet away, his breathing shallow and uneven.
“We’ve got to help him,” he said, but his words came out as nothing more than a croak. Mel looked at him and frowned.
“I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do,” he said softly. “If I could heal him, you know I would.”
Aramis watched the wounded man in silence. I can’t stand to see anyone die, he thought. How am I going to kill my own brother if it comes to that?
His thoughts were interrupted when Mel handed him a piece of wood with some sort of pinkish meat on it.
“Fish,” Mel said, as if reading his mind.
“Thanks.” Aramis ate in silence, watching the captain the entire time. The sun was quickly descending and the temperature was beginning to drop. “How long was I out?” he asked.
“A few hours,” Mel answered.
Aramis sighed. He didn’t know exactly where they were, but he knew they were still a long way from Oakhaven. It would take them weeks to reach on foot, even longer once they got closer to the castle. His brother was sure to have troops patrolling the entire kingdom. He glared at the fire, cursing the gods for ruining his life. Everything had been perfect. He had no need to worry about being king for many years because his father had been in perfect health.
But now … everything had changed. Even if he took the throne back from his brother, life would never be the same. It could never be the same. He looked over to see Mel staring at him.
“Are you well?” Mel asked.
Aramis nodded. “Physically, I’m fine. Mentally? I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
The sailors finished their meals and worked to pull the boats further up the beach, intending to use them for beds. After they had settled down for the night, only Aramis, the captain and Mel remained by the fire.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Aramis said suddenly.
“What do you mean?”
“All of this.” Aramis waved his hand. “I don’t know if I can do what I need to. What if my brother refuses to give me the throne? What if I must take it by force? Many innocent people will die for something that won’t affect them.”
“Tell me, my Lord, how does this not affect the people? The one who sits upon the throne has more to do with the commoner’s lives than you may realize. He dictates the taxes, appoints the nobles, commands the generals and the armies. If the wrong man rules the land, do you not think that his decisions, good or ill, will affect the people?”
Aramis knew Mel was right. He had learned a lot from his father about being a king, even though he never thought he’d have to worry about kingly responsibilities for several years. “How can I kill my brother?”
“How could your brother have your father assassinated?”
“That’s different,” Aramis said.
“Exactly my point,” Mel countered. “What your brother did was evil. What you will do, if you do it, will be justice.”
“It’s not about justice.” Aramis paused. “It’s about the reckoning,” he whispered. “I want him to pay for everything he’s done. I want to kill him, but I fear that if I take that path, I may never come back from it.”
Neither spoke for long moments. “What are the sailors going to do? Are they coming with us?” Aramis changed the subject.
“No,” Mel shook his head. “I spoke to them while you were unconscious. They’re going to head back up the coast and try to find work on a new ship.”
“What about the captain? What do we do with him? We can’t travel far with him in his condition.”
“I think the sailors will take him when they go.”
Aramis rubbed the stubble on his chin. “It’s my fault.”
“My Lord?”
“The shipwreck. It’s my fault. Mordum’s agents are after me. If that were not the case, these people would be alive and sailing.”
“Possibly,” Mel said. “All men die at some point.”
“They shouldn’t have had to die early.” Aramis lay down and stared up at the sky. “I’m going to sleep.”
“Good idea, my Lord.”
At some point, his eyes got heavy and he drifted off to sleep. He awoke the next morning when the sun was shining on his face. Groggy and sore, he sat up. Mel was still asleep, but the sailors were nowhere to be found. And they had left their captain behind.
“Blast them,” Aramis muttered as he rose to his feet. He grabbed a water canteen that lay by the fire and drank deeply. The cool liquid soothed his parched throat. He relieved himself near the lapping waves and came back to check on the captain.
He was dead.
From what he could tell, the captain had been dead for a few hours. His skin was pale and his limbs had stiffened. Aramis kicked at the sand in anger. A noise startled him and he turned to see a familiar old woman. Her eyes were covered by a stained cloth and she was pushing a wooden cart that creaked as she walked.
“How …?” Aramis was at a loss for words. He hadn’t seen her in a long while.
“How what
, boy? How am I here?” she stopped pushing the cart and laughed. “I’ve told you before,” she said. “Revelation—”
“Will come in time,” Aramis finished for her.
“Took you long enough,” the old woman cackled.
Aramis shook his head. “You say that it will come in time, yet I have more questions now than when we first met.”
“Such is life for mortals. Come here, my boy. I will give you some knowledge.”
Aramis stepped closer to her and she rested one hand on his shoulder and one on the side of his head. Aramis’s vision swam and then he was looking upon a vast black ocean, only it didn’t ripple like normal water. As he struggled to understand what he was seeing, tiny pinpricks of light began to sparkle across the black surface.
Suddenly, he felt very small. The black ocean wasn’t an ocean at all, but the dark vastness of the sky and the tiny lights were a multitude of stars. Aramis staggered back, breaking free of the old woman’s touch.
“What … what did I see?” he asked.
“An impression. I can only show you a glimpse, lest you fall into madness.”
“I don’t understand.”
The old woman cackled gleefully. “Your mind is a fragile thing! It can only accept so much. To show it more would drive you to insanity.”
“It was like …” Aramis struggled for words. “Like seeing the sky and the stars, but not from here. From above, looking down.”
The old woman smiled and nodded. “Exactly.”
“Holy Goddess!”
Aramis turned to see Mel staring in wonder. His friend took a few steps, then knelt before the old woman. In that moment, Aramis realized something he had overlooked, though he couldn’t recall noticing it before. When Mel had first found him in the Nexus, his armor had a new symbol—a sun with outstretched wings, the mark of Zevea. The old woman’s cart had the same symbol etched into the wood on the sides. As though scales had been removed from his eyes, Aramis suddenly had an epiphany.
“You’re … a goddess, aren’t you? You are Zevea?”
“In the flesh,” the goddess answered.
“I’m confused. I thought the gods were immortal beings that lived … up there?” Aramis motioned to the sky.
“We did, but now we walk among you in flesh and blood. We live as you live, but we too can die as you die.” Her face turned sad.
“How?”
“It is not easily explained, but I will try. Long ago, before the stars were born, there were five of us. Alandren, the god of strength. Edria—” the goddess paused at the name, “the goddess of knowledge. Tael, the god of valor, whom you have met before. Mordum, the god of the dead. And myself, the goddess of light. We five created this world and the races that live upon it. We sought to create a balance in the expanse. There was only darkness before creation. I created the sun, the moon, and the stars. Alandren created the world, Edria created the races, Tael gave them strength to survive, and Mordum set the limit of their lifespan.
“As the people flourished, we five made an agreement. We would bless those who devotedly sought us, giving them armor and weapons. In return, their faith strengthened us. We also agreed never to directly interfere with the events of this world. But one of us did not keep this arrangement.”
“Mordum,” Aramis said knowingly.
Zevea nodded. “Yes. He broke the agreement and came to the world as a mortal, but with all his godhood. He tried to gain more power for himself. He thought that if the people saw him in the flesh, they would know he existed and would believe in him, their faith increasing his power.”
“But faith is believing in what you cannot see.”
“You are correct, but Mordum did not want to see reason. He was full of greed and malice. As he killed and rampaged across the lands, his power grew because of the souls he was taking. Thankfully, with our guidance, mankind was able to stop him.”
“Or did they? It seems like he’s causing a lot of chaos in the world right now.”
“That he is,” Zevea said. “When he was defeated the first time, we allowed a part of ourselves to empower the tools needed to stop him. What we did not know at the time was that in doing so, we lost our immortality.”
Aramis considered some of the other religions that he had heard of, gods and goddesses not named by Zevea. “What of the other gods that people put their faith in?”
“We five were the originators of creation,” the goddess answered, “but other minor gods came to our world. Though they were gods, they were not as powerful as us, and so we did not fear anything they might do within the world. That may have been one of our mistakes. The god who came to the world and called himself the Lord Aio inspired Mordum’s betrayal.”
“The man who battled Orlek?”
“The same.”
Aramis digested her words. He had difficulty believing them. He’d never been a man of faith. He believed only in what he could see. During his journey, however, he’d found that there were many things that he could not explain.
“One of the other gods you mentioned. Tael. You said I’ve met him before?”
“Indeed. When the Prophet of Edria imprisoned you, he was there as well. He spoke to you.”
The memory came back to him and he laughed at the absurdity of it. “A god was stuck in a prison?”
“Of course not,” Zevea scoffed. “He could have left at any time. He stayed because he wanted to discern your character.”
“Why?” Aramis asked.
“There is much more at stake than you reclaiming your throne. The gods are at war. Mordum has killed Edria, and he seeks the remaining three of us that still live. This is not a battle for a throne, Aramis. This is a battle for mankind. If he kills us, there will be nothing and no one who can stand in his way. Tael wanted to know if we could trust you, if you had the strength to deny the dark power that Mordum offers his followers.”
“Did I pass his test?” Aramis asked brusquely. “I’m glad to know that the people’s decisions don’t matter, that our lives are just some pawns on a board that you gods play with.” Aramis turned away from her, angry. Mel still knelt before her. That made Aramis even more angry. “What are you bowing for?” he demanded. “She’s mortal, just like you and I. There’s no reason to be worshipping her.”
“She saved my life,” Mel replied quietly. “That templar killed me. I was dying on the road and she saved me. She gave me my life back. That may not be worthy of anything in your mind, my Lord, but it is in mine.”
His sudden guilt outweighed his anger. He shook his head in frustration. “I’m sorry. You know what I meant.”
Mel said nothing.
Aramis turned back to Zevea. “What do we do, then? How do we defeat Mordum?”
“You will need the items that his followers have been collecting. The blood, the bones, and the ashes.”
“Ashes?”
“Yes. They are the ashes of Mordum’s body when he walked the world previously. When these items are mixed and the body of one of his servants is offered freely, Mordum will take over control of the body, destroying the soul of his follower.”
“Where do we find them?”
“Your brother has already found them. They were hidden beneath the castle at Oakhaven.”
“Great. We only have the bones.”
“You have the blood and the bones,” Zevea said.
“No,” Aramis argued. “The traitor prophet has the blood.”
“Edria’s prophet is not a traitor. He was protecting you.”
“By throwing me into prison? I must be missing something.”
“You were bent on revenge for the death of your father. You were not strong enough to face Mordum’s templar. You still aren’t. He was protecting you from yourself.”
“I don’t believe it,” Aramis growled. “Either way, I’m going to get the blood from him, even if I have to kill him.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Zevea kept her sightless gaze on him. “With Edria
dead, his power is no more. He used the last of it to launch an attack against your brother and his guards. His armor and his blade are gone.”
“I can’t imagine the feeling,” Mel said. He was standing now, shaking his head.
“So he has to find new weapons,” Aramis said dismissively.
“When you’ve had the blessing as long as I have, you will understand. When you have the armor and blade, you can feel the closeness of the gods. If that presence was gone,” Mel stared off into the distance. “You’d feel different. It would be like a piece of you were missing.”
Aramis wondered if he’d feel that way once the mark of Mordum was no longer a curse upon his body. He imagined he would feel free again, but as he considered it more, he wondered if it would be worse not feeling the power. Gods, he thought, I’m actually thinking of keeping the power. I’ve got to deny the temptation.
“I will do what I can to stop Mordum,” Aramis said, making his final decision. “But know that I do not do it for the sake of the gods. I do it for the people who suffer with you meddling in their lives.”
If his words bothered her, she did well to hide it. “Good. I have something that will help you on your way. It will speed your journey.” Zevea opened the top of her cart and reached inside. She dug around for a moment before pulling out two small objects. She handed one to each of them.
Aramis held up and inspected it. It was a wooden figurine of a horse. It was intricately carved, with all the details of a real horse. “What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked.
“You will summon the spirit of the animal that is bound to it. Put it on the ground and speak the word ‘Capall’. The spirit will come to you and take you wherever you need to go.”
“‘Capall,” Aramis repeated. Suddenly he felt a strong vibration in his hand. The wooden figurine trembled in his hand. He tossed it to the ground on instinct, which saved him from injury. As it fell through the air, the figure of a large horse materialized. The figurine landed in the sand next to the horse. Aramis stared in awe and surprise. The horse was identical to the figurine.
“Next time, make sure you place it on the ground first. I’d hate to see you get crushed by a few hundred pounds.”
The Restored King (The Fallen King Chronicles Book 4) Page 8
