The Forever Knight

by John Marco

  The Forever Knight

  John Marco

  John Marco

  The Forever Knight

  THE STORY

  My father was the kind of man who never taught me anything. This is not because he abandoned me when I was young, or because he worked in the foundry each day until his face was sooty black. It is simply because he showed no interest in me, not even enough to strike me. Most men have strong memories of their fathers, even if they were tyrants. My father was a ghost, no more memorable than a day when nothing happens.

  Without a father’s love, a man might still become many things. I have seen people pray to all manner of gods, and I have seen genuine magic, but I don’t account my fortune to anything of heaven. I’ve learned to place faith only in myself. It was merely good luck that plucked me from the streets as a boy. I grew up in the house of a king and became a man there, with the king’s own son for a brother. You could say I didn’t deserve any of this, and you’d be right. But in those years I endured jealous stares.

  Then, one day before I knew it, I was no longer a bastard. I was a knight, one of Liiria’s Royal Chargers. They say that our gifts are the things we are best at, and if that is so then killing is my gift. My real home, I discovered, was the battlefield, and I proudly carried the standard of my king to war; to make our country great only to see it fall. In my lifetime I’ve spilled much blood, but I have paid for these sins dearly. All the things I touch seem to wither just for being close to me. To be honest, I think I’m owed some solace now. In some parts of the world I am called a legend, a hero, a traitor, a myth. But the only thing I want to be is forgotten.

  I remember a story from when I was a boy, about a knight who spent his whole life protecting his city from a monster that lived in the hills. Every year, when the monster came to find a maiden, the knight would ride out from the city and fight the beast, and every year he would win his battle and send the monster back to the hills. Then, one year when the knight was very old, a little boy asked him why he never killed the monster and wouldn’t that make much more sense, instead of having to fight the monster every year.

  The next day, the knight rode out to the monster’s lair and killed it while it slept. When the city people heard the news, they rejoiced. The little boy asked the knight if he was happy now.

  “No,” the knight told the boy. “Now I have no reason to live.”

  For years I wondered what the story meant. Now, I think I understand.

  My father told me that story. So perhaps he taught me something after all.

  1

  Easy. .

  The sand, still warm from the day, clung to my lips as I slithered. My one remaining eye blinked away the burning. Head down, chin scraping the sand, I pulled myself with bloody fingers closer to the lair. Whenever I stalk a rass I get the same sick feeling of excitement. My guts churn. My brain turns to fire. I wanted to leap but I calmed myself. I told myself to wait, but the voice in my head wasn’t my own.

  Easy, Lukien. .

  I know, I answered back.

  Malator fell silent, but I could feel his unrest. He’s like a second skin on me, impossible to get away from. I laid my face down flat in the sand and cursed him. His home, the sword, pulsed against my thigh.

  Stay out of my head, I said. I wondered if the rass could hear my heartbeat. Let me do this alone.

  Malator retreated. I spread my fingers in the sand, took the smallest breath, and lifted my face to see. The moonlight had turned the desert into a shimmering sea, the dunes like waves. The sun had gone down an hour ago and the temperature was dropping quickly. Rass love the first, cool hours of the night, when they come awake to feed. I spied the lair, surrounded by bones. The scarlet markings of the creature’s hood writhed as it awoke.

  The sight of a rass can make a man’s heart shrivel like a dead flower. In Torlis, where I found the Sword of Angels, the rass are worshiped. I can almost understand that, but here in the real world we hate them for a reason. This one is old, a scarlet monster that kills for pleasure. Not many travelers come through the desert any more, not since the war with Ganjor, but this rass has made sport of them. He’s a hunter.

  So am I.

  I should have killed it in its lair. One stab through the brain and I could have walked away. Instead I tracked it and stopped, giving it every chance to taste me in the air. Finally, I pushed myself up just a little too quickly, just loud enough for it to sense the tremor in the sand. Its hood rose up and its red eyes opened wide. Across the sand, it gazed at me.

  I was amazed by the thing. How easily it saw me in the darkness! With no more reason to hide, I stood up. The sand fell like rain from my white robes. Curious, the rass uncoiled from its lair, swaying high against the moon. I must have looked like a mouse to it, a stupid rodent who had stumbled into its own death, because the thing seemed to smile.

  “You think this was an accident?” I asked it. “You think I made a mistake?” I hooked my thumb over my sword pommel and felt the instant surge of strength. “I’ve been watching you and asking myself the same question. It’s your nature to kill. Maybe I should just have accepted that and stayed in Jador.”

  Malator had enough. Lukien! Stop talking and do it!

  If I moved quickly the rass would strike. Very slowly I unsheathed the sword. The Sword of Angels isn’t a beautiful weapon, but now it glowed like starlight. It was my talisman, the only thing keeping me alive. I held it out in both fists and looked up into the serpent’s shining eyes.

  “Don’t think you can kill me,” I said. It wasn’t a warning. I’d been out in the desert for more than a week. I should have been dead from lack of food, or at least too exhausted to stand, but I wasn’t. I was still alive and always would be, and for that I hated Malator. “You should run,” I warned my prey.

  We both chose that instant to strike. I thrust out the sword and saw the fanged mouth coming down at me. A rass doesn’t fight like a regular snake. It’s whole body moves at once. I leapt and watched the tail fling out from the lair, trying to snare me. My blade caught its throat as I twisted away, rolling quickly through the sand. Without a sound the rass encircled me. The patterns of its body, like tattoos, rose up around me like a prison.

  There’s no time to think in battle. Strategy is for the night before. Every plan you make just disappears, and all you have is instinct.

  Draw it closer, said Malator.

  In his own life he had been a soldier too. Instead of hurdling over the snake’s body, I let the noose close around me. I squatted on my haunches, held the sword down low, and waited for the monster’s face to block the moonlight. As I felt its scaly flesh press against me, the burning eyes appeared above.

  I jumped, screaming, both arms thrusting up. I felt the sword puncture skin. Hot blood and saliva struck my face. I drew the blade deeper, not really sure what I had struck. But I was still in the creature’s coils. For a moment the rass opened its grasp in shock, only to tighten up quickly around me. The thing hissed and spat, its dripping venom popping on my skin. I pulled out the blade then stabbed it again.

  “Malator!” I summoned. “Strengthen me!”

  The snake’s muscled body wrapped around my own, crushing out my air. I thought about the mouse again. Red eyes flashed before me. I worked the sword, slicing through the creature’s jaw. It reared back its bloodied head, half its mouth hanging from fibers of flesh. It would die from the wound, but not quickly. Not before I did. And still Malator’s magic strength didn’t come. My voice was gurgled as I shouted his name.

  “Malator!”

  Where was he? I’m dying, I thought. This time for real!

  And then I heard his voice, so calm it enraged me.

  Do you want to die?

  “
No!” I screamed.

  Are you sure? You seem to be trying hard.

  The rass constricted around my chest. My rib cage groaned, ready to crack. “Stop. . it!”

  As I screamed I felt the Akari’s power flood my bones and blood, scalding me. My fingers stopped shaking. I could grip the sword again, and this time sent it charging up into that grinning, reptilian face. The tip slammed into the creature’s eye and kept on going. With all the might Malator could give, I pushed and pushed the Sword of Angels deep into the rass’s brain. Its coiling body fell away, dropping me to my knees. The rass thrashed, blinded and bleeding, its tail whipping me aside. I spun as if struck by a club. Stunned, I lay in the dirt, unable to move. The dying rass made for its lair. Half its body disappeared into the ground. . then the thing fell dead.

  I was bleeding, my shoulder torn open by the beast’s spiky tail. Every breath made my ribs cry out. The sword lay just feet away. I turned my head and stared at the enormous, twitching snake. Malator’s burst of strength had left me.

  Pick it up, said Malator.

  I could hardly hear him through the fog of pain.

  Pick it up!

  The blade seemed so far away. I made a claw of my hand and stretched for it with my wounded shoulder. Breathing was almost too difficult.

  You said you didn’t want to die, the spirit chided. Prove it.

  Some Akari were gentle, but mine was a taskmaster. “Eat shit!” I growled even as I rolled to reach the sword. My fingers touched its worn out hilt, wrapping around it. Suddenly, I could breathe again. I dragged the sword over my chest as I rolled onto my back. The fog in my mind began to lift. The pain in my shoulder subsided.

  The stars in the desert are like no other place in the world, and I remember how many stars were out that night and how close they felt to me, as if my spirit could just rise up and join them in the heavens. I felt sleepy. I wanted to let go of the sword, but I had promises to keep. Or maybe I was just too afraid to let it go. I shut my eye and felt my body healing. When I opened it again he was kneeling next to me. To anyone else he would have been invisible. Even to me he seemed a ghost, his boyish face shimmering. He shook his head with a scowl and a loud, motherly sigh.

  “My shoulder,” I sneered. “Fix it.”

  “Rest. In the morning you’ll be fine.” He glanced over the at the dead rass. “What will you do when there are no more rass to kill, Lukien?”

  I thought about his question as I lay there. It’s impossible to hide your thoughts from an Akari. That’s the hardest part about having one. They’re not like little angels on your shoulder. I wanted to tell him that the world would never run out of monsters to kill, but none of this was about the rass. I was testing myself, and Malator knew it.

  “I can heal you this time,” he warned. “But if you make me go along with this much longer. .”

  “What?” I asked. “What will you do? Leave me?”

  “You could be so much more.”

  “You keep telling me.”

  I didn’t want to talk, so I looked into the sky again and pretended not to care. I-we-had been gone from Jador too long. We were irritating each other, bored with each other. I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with Malator-a life that really had no end-and the thought frightened me more than any monster. I tried to ignore him, but he kept staring at me, waiting for an answer.

  “Malator, a friend would let me sleep.”

  “I am your friend, Lukien. I’m the only friend you need.” He bent forward, and his eerie light around me made me stronger still. “You keep looking for something that’s right in front of you.”

  “I miss her,” I said. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

  “I feel everything you feel, Lukien. I know precisely what it’s like. I was a man once, remember?”

  Malator had died when he was young, so his ghost looks young too. His smile is more like a smirk, charming and maddening. He wanted me to go home to Jador; he’d been pushing me to go back for days. Now I was out of excuses. The sword sat across my chest, rising and falling as I breathed. And the stars kept calling to me.

  If I died, I thought, I could see her again.

  Malator didn’t even pretend my thoughts were private. “But then you’d never know what lies ahead for us.”

  “True,” I nodded. But did I want to know? Not really. Not then. All I wanted was to look up at the stars and imagine I was all alone.

  2

  A day and a half later, I was back in Jador.

  Nothing had changed in my absence, which is why I took my time getting back, loping through the desert and stopping even when I wasn’t tired. I had taken what I needed from the dead rass, stuffing my prize into the leather bag I carried on my back. I spent the first night of my trip home at the hidden oasis I’d discovered on one of my earliest jaunts into the desert. By noon the next day I could see Jador on the horizon, its towers gleaming in the powerful sun.

  Even the quickest caravans take days to reach Jador from the continent. By then the sun has burned your body raw and swelled your tongue with thirst. People die crossing the desert, killed by rass or lack of water, and yet they’ve come by the hundreds to Jador. There’s a great white wall around the city, and around that is a dismal shanty town, filled with throngs of uninvited, desperate foreigners. From the shacks and shrana houses it’s easy to see the palace where I live. And yet nobody seems to begrudge the Jadori their fabulous home. They’re safe in their shacks, protected by those inside the walls.

  These people are light-skinned like me. I drink and dice with them when I have time, but today I headed straight for the palace gates. With the hood of my gaka drawn around my face, I tucked the sword under my robe and walked casually through the narrow avenues. Children and dogs roamed the stalls and the men and women from a dozen different countries went about their chores. Some were lame, some were blind, and some had ailments deep within their brains, but they’d all come to Jador with the same futile hope: to get an Akari of their own.

  To be healed.

  The noise of the crowd maddened me. After so long in the desert I’d become used to hearing only Malator’s voice. I kept my head down as I hurried toward the gate. Jadori warriors stood guard, casually shooing away the kids that came to gawk at their kreel. The enormous lizard made a show of flicking its tongue through the bars. The children laughed and pretended to be afraid, but when the kreel tasted the air again it paused and looked straight at me. The warriors followed its gaze.

  “Shalafein?” asked one of the guards.

  I stood taller and peeled my hood away. When they saw my eye patch, the children cheered. They surrounded me as the Jadori opened the gate, tugging at my robes, asking for a glimpse of the sword.

  “No!” I said as gently as I could.

  The kids-four boys and a girl-backed off. A Jadori scolded them, waving them away. I didn’t have time for their hurt feelings. They were glad to see me, that was all, but I’d been in the desert too long, and the thought of dealing with them wearied me.

  Later, I told myself. After I rested awhile I could leave the palace and be with them, my own kind. I rushed inside the gate. Once it clanged behind me, the whole world changed.

  Suddenly, there were gardens. Pools of cool water with spraying fountains. Birds picking at berry bushes. I looked up to the palace, a small city really, sprawling within the white wall. Dark toned men and women-and some of the Akari-gifted Inhumans from Grimhold-moved along the avenues. I hid from them all.

  My room would be waiting for me, I knew. Every day the girls had come and put flowers in it for me. They’d changed the water in the basin, too, because Gilwyn and White-Eye told them to and because they knew-like everyone knew-that I’d be back eventually. The thought of my clean bed weakened me a little, but I’d been rude enough already. Before I even washed my hands, I had to see Gilwyn.

  * * *

  Even with my filthy clothes and bearded face, my size let them recognize me instantly. I know eno
ugh Jadori now to speak clearly, so when they greeted me I hugged them and smiled and told them briefly of my time in the desert. Before I could make it up the first flight of stairs I ran into Monster, the hunch-backed Inhuman who looks after White-Eye. He was overjoyed to see me and told me that White-Eye would be, too, but I explained that I was just back from my sojourn and wanted to see Gilwyn first.

  “In his study,” said Monster, pointing a bony finger up the staircase. “As usual.”

  Monster smiled like he was hiding something. A crowd began to gather. I would need to see White-Eye soon, and in truth I longed to do so. She was the one who’d made me Shalafein, Jador’s “protector,” and it was really she I was sworn to protect. That she had married Gilwyn was really just his good luck. I nodded politely at everyone who’d gathered, apologized, then went quickly up the twisting staircase.

  You’re becoming a hermit, I heard Malator chide.

  “I am not,” I shot back. “Gilwyn should know I’m back, that’s all.”

  Malator said nothing more, and I was glad for that. I ran my fingers through my tangled hair as I climbed the stairs. My time in the desert had turned my skin the same bronze as my well-worn armor. Grit dirtied my hair and fingernails. I smiled as I thought of Gilwyn, sure I would find him buried in his books.

  His study, as he called it, was really just a tiny room with a spectacular view. I reached the top of the stairs and noted the study at the end of the quiet hall. The door was open, but no one ever disturbed Gilwyn while he worked. I grinned as I headed that way, expecting my heavy boots to rouse him. But he didn’t call out to me, not even when I reached the door. Surprised, I peered inside and saw him behind his desk. Bent over his papers, bright light flooding through the window, his thoughts deafened him. His cane sat propped up against his chair. Books and scrolls lined the shelves and littered the floor in unsteady piles. An orrery sat at the edge of his wooden desk, ready to fall off. Gilwyn scribbled madly in a book, the pen gripped tightly in his one good hand.