The Last Pantheon: of spiders and falcons

by Jason Jones

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  Mikhail strode into the great hall, not bothering with the salutes and courtesies and all the etiquettes. He turned into the throne room with his guards, hearing the sound of shouting. His son and Johnas were arguing, and it was clear out of the room into the corridors for all to hear. Now the king felt anger and humiliation that his own blood would act this way. As for Johnas, he knew better and had an agenda to humiliate Bryant in his youth. For his son, the king knew he harbored ill feelings and suspicion, and blended with his age, he was prone to anger. The king would stop them both and settle affairs, even though it would be the talk of the kingdom for months to come.

  “Your ship, the Sapphire, did attack me, cousin! The MorningHawk sits in your dock with trebuchet damage that you ordered!” Bryant was red in the face, hand on the hilt of his blade, pointing at Johnas, pacing, much like his cousin did. “And you make me wait hours while your servant says you are too busy with other matters!”

  “I would never order an attack on a ship of my own kingdom fool! Farrigus left angry, not being promoted to Captain of the guard, and who knows where he is now! I have men searching the sea! Perhaps you haven’t enough training in your long years as to the proper manner of hailing a fellow vessel!” The Prince of Valhirst pointed as well, but with his blade, his messengers and guards present. He did not glance once at the young servant that had awoken him, yet he knew now there was deceit in his own web.

  “Liar! Your men are known for their loyalty to you alone, because rumor has it you kill those that ever fail you!” Young Bryant’s blade came out now, and so did those of all hundred or more guards between the two relatives.

  The commotion got louder with the personal guards standing off. “Young boys always talk of rumors to impress their fathers. Try finding fact, infant!” A shameless hit towards his age, intended to get him to do something foolish, since Johnas noticed the King’s arrival. He stood straight and bowed as Bryant was heading up to the throne, blade in hand.

  “His Majesty, King Mikhail of Chazzrynn!” The guards announced and knelt fast.

  “Enough!” The king walked beside his son, placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  “Return to your ship, now.” Calmly, quietly, keeping the young Prince’s dignity, but the king gave an order, not a request.

  Bryant breathed deep, sheathing his broadsword, and turned to his men, motioning them to walk. He turned and marched out, silent and noble, yet humiliated.

  “Your majesty, what an expected visit to save your son from further….”

  “Shut your mouth, nephew!” Mikhail stomped to the throne, up the red carpeted stairs, and stood directly nose to nose with Johnas. “Your ship attacked a royal navy vessel and fled north after the ship carrying fugitives entrusted with that scroll of Annar, I know this. Bryant may not, but I do. I also know you have dealings with that Altestani warship, and not over mere trade agreements for the kingdom. Treason, I call it. They avoided my hails and continued north, disregarding the king of the country, after meeting with you.”

  “That ship was taken by a drunken city guard, who is most displeased with my not promoting him, and may have a grudge against the kingdom, sire. I have set a bounty for him and the crew, and will have your son’s vessel tended to at once,” Johnas replied with absolute sincerity, not a flinch or twitch in his eyes or words. He saw royal guard here, plenty, and he was not prepared.

  “And the carriers of the scroll said they were attacked by your guards while trying to escape this city. One was an honorable Knight of Southwind keep. Now, he is a Knight of Chazzrynn, one of mine. I have much reason to believe him over the likes of you.” The king stared at his nephew in disgust.

  “I know not why the Altestani tradeship did not hail you in return, but our trade agreements did fall through and they left most unhappy. I delayed them, in hopes you would capture them, since I knew you were at sea. As far as the fugitives from Vallakazz, they injured and killed many of my men, the wizard, Lazlette even ripped the dock to pieces with lightning. The wizards from the academy said that they would most like young Gwenneth returned, and I was assisting,” he bowed, slightly, maintaining eye contact with his uncle.

  “And the rumors that you house Kaya T’Vellon, who is wanted for murder and conspiracy to the throne? Marcus Mederris has brought me proof, evidence and testimony that she works for you in secret in some fashion.” His words came through gritted teeth, his gray beard and hair itching, every part of him wanting to throttle his own nephew.

  “Your majesty, I know not of any sightings of the former lady, but should I, you will be informed as….” his throat was grabbed by a steel gauntlet.

  “You listen, you snake! I saw a man today, cut wide open, carrying a woman that I have seen here before, in your throne room. He covered for you, blamed it on some wizard named Dasius, and tried to leave the city as fast as he could.” Johnas’ face was red, the king squeezing his neck tightly, but he continued anyway.

  “I know you have illicit dealings with several countries, and have a hand in much of what goes unseen and unheard. Your city is rich on the dirty inside, and fearful and poor on the outside. I know, Johnas, I know, and I will catch you. Do you hear me?” Mikhail threw the Prince of Valhirst to the red carpeted stone floor.

  His neck sore, trying to get air back into his lungs, Johnas stood up, thinking of the throbbing blade at his side and how it would look through his uncle’s chest.

  “Where is this man, and his woman, uncle? I can have my physicians see them now.”

  “No! They are on my ship. I will tend to those you cast aside, Johnas Valhera. They recently left your castle by the north entrance. Are you sure you know nothing of them?” the king stepped down the stairs, regaining his composure, and proceeded to walk, slowly, out of the throne room of Valhirst. “And I never said that was his woman, so you do know them it seems.”

  “I do not, but I would like to pay for their speedy recovery. Messenger, yes, you there. Hand the king your pouch for their needs. I will repay you later, rest assured.” Johnas pointed to the young messenger that was in the stronghold of the White Spider with him, the only one that could have let anyone into his room to get Vanessa. The one that assisted in waking him and getting him up top for the meeting with Bryant. The Prince knew a payoff when he heard one, and the blade vibrating at his side told him there would be blood.

  The young messenger trembled, and handed the king the leather pouch with gold coins, two hundred exactly. That was enough for three years salary almost, and now the messenger knew he was a dead man. The king looked at the bag, then raised his hand at the last moment, refusing it. The messenger bowed as the king turned his back and began to leave. Now, for the young neonate spy, it weighed ten times more.

  “Guard, you may bring it here then, we will donate it to any other families in the city that have suffered as of late.” The Prince’s eyes bore holes through the young man, who probably thought he had made the best deal of his life, and even helped out two lovers.

  The king stopped, deep in thought, at the stone entryway to the elaborate coastal castle. He leaned on the gray stone. “I am sending you my ten most loyal protectors, Johnas, to assist you in cleaning up the city, and to keep an eye on you. They will report to me weekly, and you will not interfere, understood?”

  “Yes, your majesty, thank you,” he bowed deeply, cursing under his breath.

  “By the way, the man’s name was Balric, a Harlian. Does that help you remember?”

  “Never heard that name before, my king, sorry. I wish them health and happiness in all their remaining days. Please offer my condolences for their accidental and unfortunate injuries, my leige. The wizard, this Dasius, has been dealt with, yet his death will not undo what has been done.” Johnas bowed again, drawing his blade from behind the messenger that stood next to him with the pouch. He watched the king leave, his royal armed guard following.

  “Men, you are dismissed! Post
lookouts for Kaya T’Vellon, and post bounty for Farrigus Narminson at one hundred gold falcons!” Johnas said it loud enough for his departing uncle to hear, though meant not a word.

  They all bowed and marched out. Johnas stopped the young blond messenger, grabbing him by the arm that still held the bribe from Balric D’Vrelle.

  “How would you like to handle this, my little traitor?”

  “I would rather not, my prince. I’m sorry, but all that gold for a half dead woman with burns and scars? I-I-I will give you half? I can find you a much prettier toy than her, your highness, maybe a couple. She’s damaged trade and if some idiot wants to pay ten times what she’s worth, I figure, let him.” The boy, in his late teens, offered the prince a share, feeling better to die cocky than a coward.

  The prince stared, right into his blue eyes, not believing what he had just heard. He began to laugh, hysterically, his blade in hand, his eyes welled with tears, and his stomach ached. He sat back in the throne, unable to catch a breath, his laughter echoing through the room. Soon, the young neonate agent of the White Spider started laughing as well. The two laughed till it hurt, for minutes, the young man having to sit next to the throne after going weak with hysterics.

  “So, I guess you're not going to kill me then?!” the young spy continued to laugh, tossing the coin bag into the air and catching it.

  “You’re wrong.”

  The flawless blade of the enchanted kris sword pierced the boy’s throat, the laughter mingled with gurgling and choking of blood. Then through the left side of his chest, then again through the lung, the glowing green steel plunged. The laughter died away, leaving only the fevered breathing of air and liquid. Then a fourth time, through the other lung, and the prince rested back in his throne, still laughing. The boy turned red in the face, trying to hold his hands over the wounds as he gasped for air, soaking the red carpet with his draining life.

  “But that was one of the most humorous attempts to live I have ever heard, eh he, thank you. You have brought some laughter to this dismal day, boy.”

  The prince bowed to the boy, and continued to laugh in the empty royal chamber of Castle Valhera. All the way down to the underworld chambers he laughed, tossing the bag of coins up and catching it, over and over. Echoes of insidious humor spread throughout the tunnels and passageways as the patriarch of the White Spider went to plan the search for his escaped spies.

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  His dreams were hazy, like smoke had filled his mind against his will and the faces of all those he had killed simply floated toward him in anticipation. Farrigus wandered the fog, knowing he was dreaming, trying to get back to reality, to somehow wake himself up, but he could not. His sword was gone, his dagger too, even the hidden one in his boot.

  “Terrible dream this is, can’t even kill the bastards that haunt me.”

  Women he had taken against their will, the husbands he had killed, even a few that were far too young to die, they all appeared before him. Just disembodied faces, thin, ghostly visages with only red, gray and gold for color. He heard the jingling of coins, and smelled blood. It was dark as pitch everywhere, only the ghostly lights allowed him to see. His feet made noise when he walked in the gray haze of nowhere, and he looked down and felt at his boots.

  Coins, gold and platinum, everywhere he walked. Farrigus laughed, filling his pockets and pouches, and then he smelled it. Rain, heavy rain, but it smelled of blood when it fell, and it was. Blood soaked him as he walked with heavy coins in his possession, rain of red from unseen clouds in a place he could not escape. The faces smiled, and he smiled in return.

  Hours it seemed he walked, and the faces turned to men, men aboard a ship, the Queen Sapphire. He saw the ship behind them, all of them walking off and wet with the same rain drenching them dull and red. They all walked past like he did not exist, looking for something, the ship half sunk in red waters. His mind started to remember, the hole in the ship, the landing on the island, the beach on a cloudy night. He followed the men, trying to grab them and stop them. He knew something had happened, not sure what exactly, but he knew they had to stay away from the island.

  Farrigus grabbed again, his hand passing through them like they did not exist. The deadly assassin had no blade, not that one would likely help here, so he followed the misty forms of the crew he recognized. Dozens upon dozens of men, none of whom he cared about, save for that feeling that they should not go where they were going.

  He heard them at first, the veteran killer of the White Spider crouched low in the mist, still dreaming. He saw the cats, black like shadows with green eyes, thirty, forty, maybe more. They came from the trees, the beach, the trail, and descended like a plague upon the men from the tree covered mountains. Encircling, killing, dragging the men off up the mountain, screaming. They became men, and carried the dying, the dead, and the living, to the top of the trees on the mountain as the moons came out. Farrigus tried to scream, tried to stop it, but they passed through him like a ghost.

  The blood hurt, pounding in his head, and the world was dark as he hung upside down from his feet, dangling over the valley. He was awake. He was alive. The dream was over. The cold night breeze chilled him, everything seemed strange, hanging there upside down, suspended by rope tied to some giant wooden statue, many wooden statues, with cat eyes carved in them.

  Blinking, still waking to reality, Farrigus began to sweat. His short dark hair and scraggly beard were wet with blood. There was a line of bodies swinging in the wind, also hung upside down, too far off to see in the dark of the moons, making it impossible to see where it ended.

  “Help! Someone get me down, help!”

  His eyes and mouth froze as a giant yellow green eye appeared in front of him, at least six feet in diameter, round and feline; then the other eye opened. The glow lit the area around the assassin, revealing the men that had been panthers pouring something into the mouths of the struggling captive crewmen. The giant face of the lord of the panthers smiled at Farrigus, sniffing him, purring and blinking.

  “Will you join my children and worship me, murderer?” Bansa spoke deeply, purring a constant rhythm.

  “Join what? Who are you, and what is this? Let me down!” Farrigus yelled into the eyes that glowed around him. He looked down to see how far the fall was.

  He saw nothing but a pile of bones, thousands of bones, skulls of men, cats, and other creatures over forty feet below. He heard hissing and screaming. The panther men were gutting one of the doppelgangers that had been aboard. They tossed its carcass into the pit, and then began to eat the organs that they had removed, three of them feasting like pigs at the fresh slop rail. Farrigus, in all his years of murder, felt sick at the sight of men ripping out and eating organs

  with their hands, sharing them with each other, even. He vomited, trying to turn his head to the side as it washed into his eyes and nose.

  “You are either food, or you are devout. You have the choice, since you killed one of my children. Die now, or live eternally, with me and for me, your lord, Bansa.” The great cat, its fangs as long as Farrigus himself, smiled again that feline smile.

  “Kill me, or I will find a way to kill you and all your diseased pets!” the Chazzrynn swordsman spit at the great beast, not wanting to live as a slave, not caring to worship anything, especially a cat.

  “Give him the blood, for only the brave may worship me. We have lost many children tonight, and we are in need of more to sing the songs of the moons. You will awaken tonight anew, and hunt for me, and kill for me, and you will kneel before me every night, but you will never leave.” The panther spoke as the men, some originally from his crew, held him and forced the mixture of blood and something acidic and sweet into his mouth from a bone decanter until he swallowed.

  Yellow light shone from his eyes, whiskers grew on his face, he screamed until his voice hissed and went hoarse. His mind burned and went blank, his body ached, and he was Farrigus no more.

  Exodus I:
XI

  Port of Harlaheim

  Waves splashed upon the sides of the piers that stretched out of the port of Harlaheim. No ships seemed to be leaving this morning, the docks were silent, only the surf and planks spoke aloud. The spires rose into the sky, pointed stone peaks trimmed with beams of struggling sunlight fighting the clouds to meet the waters of the Carisian Sea. Castles upon castles of rich brown and mottled gray graced the horizon, dotted with high rising towers, one in particular that could not be missed. The shining white marble tower with deep gray and black swirls of natural coloration stood in the southeast, near the center of the immense populace, the twenty story tower of Kalzarius.

  Great oaken forests surrounded the city with their vast uncountable hills, the port was filled with ships, a port twice the size of Valhirst boasting hundreds of vessels. The banners of Harlaheim, crimson red with a great black crown and rose set on it, trimmed with gold, waved in the breeze from the castle walls and upper towers of three dozen noble keeps. Feathered crosses as well peered out from pinnacles of grand cathedrals and churches to Alden in numbers unknown. Yet, the one structure that caught the eyes of all, belonged to no king or queen, no priest of the featered cross, but a mighty master of the arcane arts.

  The gate rose on the ground floor of his tower, the arcane escorts in their gray robes followed the armed guards in heavy platemail. Thirty men led the procession that protected Kalzarius the Bold, some said the most powerful man in Harlaheim. He had survived four kings thus far, and his tower had been attacked and laid under siege six times during wars, revolutions, and attempts at ousting the wizard for good. His long gray hair blew across his face in the wind, his beard to his chest waved but a little. He marched in pace as easily as a man half his age, which was over a century., His white robes with black arcane designs seemed to move with him, against the winds. Eyes of deep mottled hazel stared at his staff of straight black metal topped with a ruby of considerable size. The ancient wizard concentrated as he walked, sensing all that moved about the area of the city, and what was heading this direction.