by Rex Jameson
Cedric knelt and inched toward Ashton, again trying to appear as non-threatening as possible. The necromancer instinctively drew his father closer. He knew that this paladin would take Karl away if he could. Cedric laid his massive war hammer on the ground.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” Cedric said. “I don’t fight in human wars. I don’t get involved in petty squabbles. I’m here because you’re here. I just want to make sure darkness does not pour into this land. I know many things—things that may help you.”
Ashton bit his lip as the last of his tears pooled at his chin. Clayton limped past the paladin and drew near to Ashton’s side.
“What’s the Rule of Three?” Ashton asked.
“The spirit does not linger over a body long,” the elf called from far away.
“I’ll handle this,” Cedric said firmly.
The paladin softened his tone and eyes toward Ashton. “How did you come to learn this gift?”
Clayton grunted and crossed his arms.
“I don’t think they mean me harm,” Ashton replied to his friend. “Well, maybe the elf does.”
“Did you have a master?” Cedric asked.
Ashton thought of his master Nathan and nodded.
“Yes,” he replied. He motioned toward Clayton inclusively. “We both did.”
“And this man, your master, he didn’t teach you about the Rule of Three?”
Ashton shook his head. He looked up at Clayton, but his friend was similarly confused.
“You’re wasting time,” the elf said. “Kill the both of them and let the armies of Mallory put down the rabble. They’re already dropping pitch. It’s only a matter of time before this horde is drowned in fire.”
Clayton pounded a fist into an open palm.
“Ohhhh,” the elf replied testily. “You think you have what it takes to rip me limb from stern? I’ve seen your lot. I’ve seen thousands of your lot, but I’m still standing. Fought you down to the dens of the underworld, and here I stand, breathing. You take another step forward, you cretin, and I’ll end you!”
Ashton grabbed onto Clayton’s pants, and yanked him backward.
“Your father’s dead, friend,” Cedric interrupted as he took a few small steps forward and knelt again. “Leave him in peace.”
Ashton shook his head and crawled backward, pulling his father with him.
“OK,” the paladin said. “OK. I’ll stay right here. You have my word.”
“End them,” the elf said. “End them now or I’ll do it.”
“What are you so afraid of?” Ashton asked. “All we want is vengeance. Don’t we deserve vengeance?”
He pointed toward the holes in his father’s chest. “My father was many things. He was a drunkard. He was a malcontent. He beat me and my mother. He was gone for months at a time on his adventures to the north—times when my mother and I needed him. For a long time, we were glad to see him go, but even in his worst times, I never wished this…”
He ran his hand along the most deviated wound. “No one deserves this.”
“No,” Cedric said. “Of course not…”
“We all have it coming,” the dark elf said. “Cedric here has his reasons. My people and I have mine. Your father? It sounds like he had more reason than most…”
“What’s wrong with you?” Ashton asked, still holding onto Clayton’s leg as his oldest friend made renewed efforts to smash the elf’s face in. “Every time you open your mouth, malice drips from your gums.
“There was a time,” Cedric said, “when Prince Jayden here was rumored to have a silvery tongue. He practiced it in great halls and wooed ladies by the hundreds. A poet long ago, were you not?”
“Those days are long gone,” the elf said. “I haven’t sung a flowery verse in a lifetime. I only carve words into the chests of the damned now.”
“Are you saying I’m damned?” Ashton asked, still clutching his father and Clayton. “Or are you speaking of my father?”
“We’re all damned,” Jayden said, a sardonic smile creasing his lips.
“Then what’s the harm in bringing my father back?” Ashton asked. “Why not give him a chance at retribution? Should he not be allowed to give these bandits chase to the ends of the world?”
“The ends of the world,” Cedric said. “That’s a curious thing to bring up right now.”
“What’re you talking about?” Ashton asked, angrily wiping tears from his face. “What are either of you talking about?”
“Where I’m from,” Cedric said, “where I took my training, they have many books. Ancient things. Some are so brittle that they would crumble in but a breath from hurried lips. In them is old knowledge. Some would say forbidden.”
“Most would say forbidden,” the dark elf said. “They’re literally outlawed in your own kingdom.”
“Anyway,” Cedric continued. “In one of these books is detailed the Rule of Three…”
“Is that one of her books?” Prince Jayden asked.
“Stay out of this!” Cedric warned.
“Get on with it,” the dark elf said. “I can already see you’ve lost this argument. It’s plain as day on his face.”
Cedric waved Jayden off and looked intently and empathetically at Ashton.
“What’s your name?” Cedric asked.
Ashton looked up at Clayton, who had fixed his legs in place, no longer trying to get to the elf. He instead listened intently.
“Why does everyone want to know my name?” Ashton asked. “The woman in Dona, the Mallories and now you?”
“I ask it only so that we might speak as friends,” Cedric said.
Ashton sighed and removed his hand from Clayton so that he might cradle his late, absent father.
“They call me Ashton,” he said. “Ashton Jeraldson.”
“A good name,” Cedric said. “Since you have given full weight of your friendship, I must give mine too. My last name is Errington. Cedric Errington.”
The dark elven prince scoffed as he sat on his haunches near the edge of the clearing.
“This is all a waste of time,” he complained.
“Ashton,” Cedric said, “your father is gone. Surely, you can feel that, right?”
“Feel what?” Ashton asked.
“I’ve watched you in Dona,” Cedric said. “You hovered there over the dead, watching and listening. I believe you felt them: their spirits. They linger, especially if they are torn violently from their bodies. It’s the shock of their deaths that confuses them so. Murders are the most likely to leave a spirit behind for a time. The soul is not prepared for its passing. It waits for its limbs to respond once more. It grieves, in a way. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” Ashton said, nodding. “I felt it first in Perketh, while I sat over my friend’s grave.”
He patted Clayton on the leg.
“A strong bond,” Cedric said. “It can keep the spirit near the body for a long time. That’s where the Rule of Three comes from.”
“The Rule of Three?”
“Three days,” Cedric said, motioning toward Clayton. “You have three days to find the soul and bring it back to its body. Do that and you get your friend here. He remembers you. He may even remember himself. A human soul in a human body. The same loyalty and thoughts, for the most part. The same person.”
“But Clayton has been the same person for more than three days,” Ashton said.
“He’s talking about being dead for three days,” the elven prince shouted. “If you leave them dead for more than three days, the spirit’s gone!”
“After three days,” Cedric said, “it may be something else that returns. Something darker. It won’t be loyal. It may know you. It may know your fears and your desires. It will certainly know how to manipulate you. It may even turn on you.”
“The Rule of Three is not a law of nature,” Prince Jayden said. “It is merely a guideline. Souls have left far sooner.”
“And stayed longer,” Cedric said. “The rule is a means
of precaution.”
“It’s a means to take over this world,” Jayden said. “Necromancy is not to be trifled with!”
“What does any of this have to do with my father?” Ashton asked.
“Your father was in Dona, right?” Cedric asked.
“I believe so.”
“The bandits, this Red Army, came through Dona some five to six days past. I’ve been tracking them and you, and your father was the plaything of their leader, a man they call The Archer. Each morning he woke and he made your father’s corpse a pin cushion. You can see his marks there on your father’s chest.”
“What of it?” Ashton asked.
“So, your father’s been dead for nearly a week,” Jayden interrupted rudely. “He’s gone. Just like my father. Just like Cedric’s. Put him down. Bury him if you like, but do not try bringing him back.”
“Or what?” Ashton asked.
“You humans are all the same,” Jayden complained. “Everything’s about you. Your feelings. Your wealth. Your greed. Not a one of you know what it’s like to sacrifice. The world doesn’t owe you anything. Not answers. Not time. Not love or grief. It’s not all about you!”
“Can you feel him?” Cedric asked, waving Jayden off.
“Feel who?” Ashton asked.
“Can you sense your father about you?”
Ashton closed his eyes and swayed in the breeze. He could feel the air moving around him. He could hear the branches of the topmost limbs in the trees blowing in the wind and the sound of Jayden’s gloved hand on his dagger. He could smell the sweat on Cedric’s brow and the decaying flesh under his father’s skin. But he could not sense his father’s spirit.
“I don’t know,” Ashton lied.
“You bring this man back,” Cedric said, “and you risk bringing darkness.”
“Can you protect me?” Ashton asked.
“Protect you?” Cedric asked.
“Paladins deal in holy magics, right?”
The dark elf prince laughed maliciously. He pointed at Cedric and collapsed to his haunches.
“Hold your tongue,” the paladin said, pointing at Prince Jayden. He pulled at the neck area of his breastplate as he turned back to Ashton. “In a way, I guess. If it’s a… certain kind of darkness…”
“This is dangerous, and you know it!” Jayden said.
“You and I both know what pours out of Xhonia,” Cedric accused. “The cat’s out of the bag. Your devices have failed. We’re at the brink of annihilation. Perhaps, he’s the one…”
“It’s a new age,” Jayden said. “He’s simply the first of many. The death throes of our planet.”
“Do not lose hope,” Cedric begged him.
“My people prepared for 10,000 years,” Jayden said, “and for the next 10,000 years, we watched our cities fall, one-by-one. It’s hopeless. There are a hundred prophecies, and they’re all lies. Most of them were planted by the very ones we seek to destroy.”
“Then we have nothing to lose, I guess,” Cedric said. He motioned to Ashton to proceed. “Go ahead, then. If you must meet the darkness, then do it now while we are here. If it’s not your father… If it belongs to the dark lords, then I will see it killed.”
Ashton licked his lips and then gnawed at his lower one. Clayton knelt down beside him and put his hands on his friend and Karl. The dark elf prince inched his way closer with blades partially exposed. The paladin returned to his war hammer and the helmet he had discarded nearby. Suitably armored, he leaned against his weapon.
Ashton stared at the golden emblem on the paladin’s chest. From afar, he could not distinguish its features, but up close, he saw the design was not as symmetric as he thought. It was like a rising sun from the horizon, but it seemed wrong—like the star emerged from the ground and not from just behind it.
“Father,” Ashton whispered. “Are you there?”
He waited but the corpse did not respond.
“If you seek vengeance, I ask for you to join us.”
He closed his eyes again and reached out for a spirit. In the forest were many creatures. Deer. Squirrels. Ants and grasshoppers. A bandit hiding in a hollowed out tree trunk. But Ashton did not feel his father.
In the tree where the bandit hid, there were grubs and termites. Ashton followed their presence down into the black dirt. Earthworms squirmed in the packed earth. Snakes and all manner of vermin. Decayed leaves, remnants of life. He reached farther and was reminded of his dreams of Riley. Her skull-like makeup. Her dark eyes. The sockets of a skeleton, long dead. Eyelids flickered and he fell backward into the grass and mud.
Ashton leaned against his elbows, as his father rolled away and then pivoted on the ground in front of Ashton in circles. His father’s corpse screamed as it rose to its feet, and Clayton struck a fighter’s pose.
“No, no, no!” Karl cried. “Spare my life, Great One!”
He raised his hands as if warding off a blow, but the paladin only crept forward, and the sardonic smile of the dark elf prince was long gone. Replaced instead with loathing.
“What’s this?” Karl asked. “How am I…?”
He laughed as he appeared to recognize where he was.
“It’s alright,” Ashton said, reaching toward him.
“Don’t touch him!” Jayden yelled, gripping his daggers. “It’s not your father!”
“So strange…” a raspy voice rattled from Karl’s mouth. “This body… I was fighting in the darkness. I was dying…”
His father Karl turned around, toward Ashton. Dark lines emanated from his skin like heat rising from black tar left in the sun.
“Who do you serve?” the paladin asked, his hands wrapped ominously around the hammer handle.
Karl panicked and hid behind Ashton and Clayton, who turned around confused.
“I serve him!” Karl cried, pointing at Ashton. “He’s my master now!”
“Which master did you serve before?”
“You are her man, are you not?” Karl accused. “The Holy One!”
“Bite your tongue!” Cedric threatened.
Karl whimpered behind Ashton.
“Back off!” Ashton commanded the paladin. “You stop threatening my dad!”
“He’s not your father, boy!” Jayden repeated, holding both of his knives ready to throw. “Get away from him and give me a clear shot!”
“I’m his!” Karl promised again. “Let me stay in this world! I don’t want to go back! He’ll send me against her once more, or he’ll force me to die to the Prince. Either way, I’m dead! Let me stay here. I’ll prove my worth, I swear!”
“This creature lies!” Cedric said. “Do not worry. I will smite him!”
He stepped toward Ashton and Karl.
“No!” Karl screamed. He dropped to his knees and held onto Ashton’s hands. He pawed at Ashton’s feet. “Ask and it will be done! Command me!”
The paladin stopped.
“You cannot trust this thing!” Cedric said. “Believe me, I know!”
“I’m the most trustworthy thing in this world!” Ashton’s father pleaded. Black and red lines continued to rise from his body. “Just ask it of me, and I’ll do it. Let me prove myself to you.”
“You’re not my father,” Ashton said. “My father would never…”
“I can be so much more than your father,” the corpse said. “I can be devoted to you. Where he left you, I will never leave your side. I’ll never go to Xhonia. I have no interest in the underworld—”
“Your father went to Xhonia?” Jayden asked. “What was he doing there?”
“Stealing, he was!” the creature said. “I wouldn’t steal from you, master! Never! I live only to serve. I swear it!”
“What did he steal?” Jayden asked. He cursed and handled his blades like he was about to throw them or just scream.
“The device,” the creature said. “You know the one, young prince! The one that froze the entrance to this world.”
“You son of a—” Jayden threatened as he
lunged forward.
The creature hid behind Ashton again and pulled Ashton away from the elf and the paladin. Clayton placed himself in front of Ashton. Far behind the advancing man and elf, Mallory Keep’s walls wept black tar and fire. Fresh screams rose from the undead of Perketh and Dona.
A knife whirled through the air and embedded in Clayton’s shoulder. He pulled it out and threw it to the ground. The elven prince held another knife at the ready, circling to one flank as the paladin moved to the other.
Far away, a bugle screeched a sour note and then issued forth a monstrous call, rattling the very trees and stones along the path. The elf broke from his attack stance and backed away. The paladin also seemed to lose his nerve.
“The king’s cavalry,” Cedric said.
Even from miles away, the many hooves of the King’s Guard shook the ground and made Ashton’s stance uneasy and fragile. He fell forward, and the creature he had raised into his father’s body groped at him, pulling him back up.
“Ixfrit is here,” the creature said. “Ixfrit has master! Do these nasty men threaten you?”
Jayden and Cedric stumbled back along the path, trying to maintain their balance as the heavy cavalry charged not far past the tree line. Ashton and Clayton followed not too far behind, and the naked corpse was never out of reach. He made sure of it by holding on to Ashton’s brown tunic and cloak.
They each hid behind a thick tree trunk and watched as the King’s Guard charged along the field, stomping over bandits and undead alike. Flaming corpses ran headlong into the stampede and were flattened deep into the muck. Ashton cried as he watched women he had brought back for their vengeance, scream in agony as they watched the horses trample their resurrected children and husbands and their dreams of retribution. Dozens fell to hoofs and lances. Then hundreds. The undead trampled each other as they tried to escape.
“Do these nasty men threaten you?” Ixfrit whispered into his ear.
“The King’s men kill us indiscriminately!” Ashton complained. “They undo all that I set out to accomplish! The Mallories stand upon this ivory tower, raining down tar and fire. They escape justice. They maim and murder. They let others rape and violate their own subjects. Where is our vengeance? All is lost!”
