War of the World Makers

by Reilly Michaels

  She might refuse to speak with me, but still …

  Before he could consider it further, a voice within interrupted him, the voice of Margaret of Anjou:

  YOU CANNOT CONFRONT CATHERINE OF THE RUSSIAS.

  Why not?

  HAVE YOU NOT BEEN TOLD BY MASTER PAGANINI THAT YOU ARE FORBIDDEN?

  I have a right to know my own fate, Mother Margaret.

  EVEN I DO NOT KNOW MY OWN FATE, ZOLO BOLD.

  Have you been told by the world’s darkest wizard that you will die by his hand?

  I HAVE MUCH TO LOSE IF YOU COMMIT SUCH AN ACT, AND THOUGH I LOVE YOU, I CANNOT ALLOW IT. AND THERE IS NO NEED, FOR THE ANSWER COMES YOUR WAY.

  It comes my way?

  FORGIVE ME, ZOLO. I DO THIS ONLY FOR YOU, AND I WILL DO MY BEST TO HIDE THIS MOMENT FROM THOSE WHO MIGHT INTERFERE.

  Zolo felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see a man a bit taller than himself, a man who looked as if he’d wandered the wastes of Earth and fought demons every step of the way, a man with a black gaze like the walking dead, though with enough melancholy in the eyes to attest to the real blood still warm in his body. His face, grimy and unshaven with a few weeks of beard; his hair dark, poking out from beneath a dirty red bandana, disheveled and crusted with sand. He wore a long-sleeved white silk shirt, filthy and tucked sloppily into a wide leather belt which upheld a pair of classic black Persian salvar, or long pants. On his feet he wore the remains of Roman-like leather sandals laced above his ankle.

  Zolo observed the man closely, up and down, and it took him nearly ten seconds to realize the identity of this stranger. He swallowed hard and gasped as the two of them connected, eye to eye. The man’s face produced a weak grin, though the rest of his body remained motionless … But wait. Could it be the truth, or a convenient illusion placed before him for the purpose of distracting him from Catherine?

  NO ZOLO, HE IS THE MAN YOU WILL BECOME.

  The man spoke next. “I hear Mother Yarrow’s words,” he said. “I hear her voice now for the first time in many months. She tells me this weed of apparition placed before me, is me … the boy I once was.”

  “I … I am Zolo Bold,” Zolo said. He reached out to touch the man before him, to make certain he was not an illusion. The man winced ever so slightly, as if his entire body were in pain, and Zolo said, “Mother Yarrow brought you here to—“

  “I know why I am here,” the man said, his face grim as Siberian twilight.

  “Then—“

  “You will live beyond the age of 46.”

  “Temujin Gur said—“

  “Gur is not the final judge of our fate, but he may arise once again. I cannot say.”

  “He is dead. Master Paganini and the Princess von Anhalt killed him.”

  The man sighed and grinned weakly again, then he said, “The blackest of wizards live in Time’s hollows and crevices. He is alive somewhere. A version of him could be here, even now, disguised as one of the revelers. You can never be sure … and you are never completely safe. I know. He almost killed me.”

  Is all this true, Mother Yarrow?

  She did not answer. Zolo blinked. The man was gone. Only a few grains of sand remained behind on the floor where he’d stood.

  Zolo glanced over at the balcony nearby. Catherine was gone too.

  Mother Yarrow?

  Still, she did not answer.

  THE END

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