Birthrights_Revisions to the Truth

by J. Kyle McNeal

  Kutan drove the blade into the teller’s chest, the pressure of his thrust sending the old man backward to the floor. Teller Zenai struggled for breath as his lungs filled with blood. “He. Waits. For. You,” he rasped before a gurgling cough sent blood bubbling from the side of his mouth.

  Kutan didn’t wait for the teller to die, nor did he retrieve the blade. Instead, he rushed down the stairs to find Weevil at the base, threatening Tedel, Whym, and the others with Kutan’s sword. “No one passes!” he was screaming, swinging wildly.

  “Weevil!” Kutan yelled. “Weevil!” he yelled again and again until the boy heard him over his own fevered screams. When Weevil turned and saw Kutan, his eyes widened with an unspoken question.

  “All of you, listen!” Kutan thundered over the din of the other voices, not taking time to answer Weevil directly. “We’re not explorers. We’re messengers from the Master sent to free you. No more soldiers from Fetor are needed.” Every eye in the room was upon him as he stood on the fourth step basking in the shocked silence. “The silver robe is dead. The Master names Weevil your king.”

  Kutan had feared he’d need to use force to give the boy the kingship he’d promised. He didn’t. When Tedel and Whym dropped to a knee and bowed before the scrawny boy, the others followed their lead.

  “Your Grace.” Kutan spoke softly, but loud enough everyone in the room could hear. “Though the Master has released you, we remain his servants. You’re to provide a raft so we may return to the Mysts. We’ll take the pregnant girl as a final offering.”

  Weevil looked surprised at the demands, but to his credit, played along—more smoothly than Whym and Tedel, who stared with accusatory gapes at the mention of the girl. “Whatever the Master requires,” the boy king responded.

  As Kutan descended the last four stairs, he took the sword from Weevil, but whispered as he did. “There’s a knife in the chest of the silver robe. It’s for you.”

  Fetor, Chapter 45

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  Every man hides a part of himself—the part so ugly it must be locked away and denied. But should the lock break—should that part escape into the world—he becomes a monster. Every man possesses the potential to become a monster.

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  —Luka Ellenrond,

  Founding Father of the Council of Truth

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  Fetor

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  Weevil had retrieved the knife and sent Lem to fetch the girl. Then he’d led them to the river to choose from a selection of rafts that looked as if they were made by children—collections of misshapen branches bound together with vines. Whym had wanted to suggest building their own, but Kutan had pointed to the largest one—the only one capable of holding them all—and ignored the raised eyebrows the selection elicited. They’d left right away, using broken planks of pillaged floorboards as paddles.

  Whym watched the crumbling town shrink from view but waited for the river to turn and Fetor to disappear behind a wall of fog before speaking. “I’m not sorry to be leaving.”

  “Yeah,” Tedel agreed. “What happened back there?”

  “I’ll tell you later.” Kutan looked anxious, scanning the river ahead with a furrowed brow. “Paddle! Rapids!” he yelled and grabbed his plank. He drove the section of floorboard into the river and dug at the rushing water like a shrew clearing its burrow.

  The low rumble of the river ahead grew to a crescendo of pounding water. Whym could tell from the drop of the land in the distance it wasn’t just rapids they were careening toward, but falls. All three struck the water with a furious determination to reach the nearest side—the Mysts side.

  “Whym, hold my leg!” Kutan stood and lunged over the edge of the raft, grabbing a tree root that extended over where the rushing water had stolen the earth of the river bank. Whym, with his foot hooked under two different lengths of the vine binding, reacted just in time, catching his friend’s leg and swinging the raft sideways against the bank. He pulled against the current until Kutan, as well, could secure his feet with a vine.

  “Get! Off!” Kutan grunted once his feet were secure, the exertion turning his whole face the purple of his birthmark as he strained to keep the raft steadied against the force of the water.

  Whym hurried into action, tossing the three packs onto the bank. “Tedel, I’ll climb up. Pass me the girl.” He scrambled around Kutan and up the root structure, then held one arm down as he clung to the roots with his other. “Give her a push.”

  Tedel, who’d been able to get the girl upright on the shifting raft, pushed. The raft swung away from the bank and Whym grasped her wrists just before the Faerie splashed into the river. Whym pulled, straining to lift her with one hand. He got her high enough she could grab the root with her other hand, allowing him to shift his position so both his feet were planted. Then he grasped the girl’s other wrist with his newly freed hand, and with a howl, straightened his legs, pulling her up over the edge and on top of him.

  “Tedel!” He rolled her to the side and off of him. Panicked, he peered into the river, exhaling with relief when he saw Tedel clambering back aboard.

  “Hurry. Up,” Kutan rasped, fighting to hold on. Tedel reached the root just as the vine over Kutan’s foot snapped. The raft shot away and sped into the mouth of the falls, the crack of branches blending with the sound of crashing water as the raft was smashed to pieces. Kutan climbed up last, arms shaking from the exertion. As he reached the dirt, he rolled from his knees to his back, panting.

  Whym stood and tried unsuccessfully to see beyond the waterfall. The rising mist from the falls merged with the fog to obscure the view. “How exactly are we planning to cross back over?”

  Kutan raised his arms to his forehead, and his lips curled into a tight-lipped smile Whym knew was frustration. “If we survive the Mysts, we’ll find a way.”

  “You mean to go in?” Whym turned and looked down at Kutan in surprise. “Do you now believe the rumors? What happened in Fetor to change your mind?”

  Kutan pushed himself into a seated position but looked out toward the river. “The man upstairs was Teller Zenai; the boys, his sons.”

  “Teller Zenai?” Whym repeated, incredulous. “The Teller Zenai who issued the prophecy?”

  “Puh, puh, puh,” the girl interrupted. “Puh, puh, puh.” She pointed at Kutan and brushed the dirt with her hand.

  Kutan spit on the ground next to him then covered it with a handful of damp dirt. “It’s a local superstition when you speak of the dead,” he explained before Whym asked. “And yes, the Teller Zenai.” Again, he spit and covered it.

  “What business would the Oracle of Bothera have out here?”

  “I wasn’t told.” Kutan shrugged. “But I believe it has something to do with that statue in the square—the Master, Weevil called it. From what I gather, he’s—” Kutan paused, spit again, covered it, then looked at the girl who nodded back to him— “been leaving his children in the Mysts as some type of offering—daughters at birth, sons later. My guess is when they’re not much older than Weevil.”

  “He’s sick!” Whym sputtered, his face contorted in disgust.

  “Puh, puh, puh,” the girl interjected. Whym rolled his eyes, spit and kicked dirt over it.

  “Was.” Kutan corrected. “I believe the women are the boys’ mothers, but Weevil didn’t seem to know for sure.” He looked at the girl, who validated his assumption with the nod of her head.

  “But why get involved? Why kill anyone? They were boys. We could have just left.” Tedel paced near where the fog shrouded the swamp, his neck pushed forward like he was trying to see past the white screen. He turned and pointed at the girl. “And why take her? Do you really plan to use her as an offering?”

  The girl, frantic at the sugges
tion, scooted backward until her back hit the tree trunk. She shielded her belly with her arms and cowered from Kutan. Kutan glared at Tedel, his lower jaw thrust forward. “She’s suffered enough. When those boys come of age, she’d be the only girl. You’d leave her behind?” Then he turned to the girl. “Tell them your name.”

  She’d relaxed some as he spelled out his reasoning, but looked distraught again when asked her name. She opened her mouth wide so her lips peeled back over her teeth. Where her tongue should have rested, was a cavity—an emptiness.

  Whym was shocked. That sick bastard! I thought she was quiet, not mute. “Why—”

  Kutan cut him off, anticipating the question. “I don’t know, but I intend to find this creature in the Mysts and kill it. No more offerings.”

  The answer upset the girl as much as Tedel’s comment earlier. She let out a guttural wail and began crying.

  Tedel looked doubtful. “What makes you think you can kill it? The rumors told of a creature with strong magic.”

  “Yeah, and your ancestors spoke with birds. I’ve heard enough of magic. It doesn’t exist except in stories.”

  Tedel looked toward Whym with an expression that begged for assistance. Whym only shrugged. What do you want me to say? That Seph and Lily have magic? You think he’d believe that? He’d just think I was taking your side again.

  “What about the poisonous spiders and snakes…and the two-step tree frog?”

  “Don’t get bitten. Don’t touch.” Kutan snarked, then looked toward the girl. “Plus, who’s to say it’s not the Steward after all? We won’t know unless we go in.”

  “The Stewards were peace-loving,” Whym countered, basing his information on the little he’d gleaned from the Truth.

  “Were—” Kutan pulled the waterskin from his pack—“until the Breaking.” He took a swig and pressed it against the girl’s arm. She looked up at him, sniffled, then took it.

  “Don’t you feel it and hear it in your head?” Tedel stepped back from the fog and toward the others. “It’s been calling to me since we finished the climb down, tempting me to cross the river into the Mysts.”

  Whym had felt the same temptation, but had attributed it to his imagination. “I feel it, too. I get goosebumps just being this close. And if I look at the fog—” He shivered involuntarily.

  “Stop acting like children telling ghost stories around the fire.” Kutan shook his head as he bent to open his pack. “This area’s notorious for harboring outlaws—bad men.” He pulled out the rope they’d used on the climb down. “Stories about monsters are just to keep people away. The Botherans worship more than one god. If not a man, the teller—” he spit and covered it over—“was probably making sacrifices to some made-up god.”

  Kutan tied the rope around his waist. “We’ll use this to make sure we don’t get separated.”

  “But I don’t think you can see anything in there,” Whym protested, troubled by the prospect of entering the Mysts now that he’d seen the swamp up close. On cue, the fog ahead of them opened to reveal a path between the water.

  “As long as we can hear the river, we can find our way out. We’ll leave our packs here and not go in deep enough to get lost. We’ll be back before dark, for sure.” Kutan held out the short length of rope toward the girl, who only stared at it. “Would you rather wait here?” She hefted herself to her feet and hurried beside him, grabbing the rope and knotting it under her breasts.

  “This is a bad idea.” Tedel picked up the rope knotted to Kutan’s other side and wrapped it around his waist. “We shouldn’t go in there.”

  Yes, come to me. Whym heard the voice in his head, but still tied himself to the others with the length that remained.

  Kutan led the group of four into the passage between the white walls of fog, the slick sludge slurping as they walked. The girl followed on his right. Tedel and Whym, bound in sequence, walked behind. With each step, the passage ahead seemed to open farther, drawing them deeper into the swamp.

  “It stinks,” Whym said from behind. The stagnant swamp water filled each breath with a revolting mix of sulfur and decay. The fog itself carried the scent of mildew. “I could smell it across the river, but this is worse. I can taste it now.”

  “No worse than the Dung,” Kutan answered.

  Whym raised his sleeve to cover his nose. No, the Dung has the stench of life. This stench of death is worse. Despite being last in line, Whym had been so focused on watching the way forward, he’d neglected to look back. When he turned to check over his shoulder, a wall of white blocked their exit. “The fog’s closing in behind us,” he warned, his worried steps slowing until the rope pulled taut. “Are you sure we can find our way back?”

  Kutan glanced over his shoulder but pressed ahead. “As long as we hear the river,” he assured the group. They plodded on.

  “It feels like something’s leading us,” Tedel ventured after they’d walked a while without speaking. “Doesn’t that concern you?”

  “We’re not being led,” Kutan dismissed Tedel’s misgivings. “It’s just your eyes getting used to the light. Watch, it’ll open no matter what direction we go.” Kutan strode into the fog to prove the point. The girl followed without hesitation, but Whym and Tedel lingered until the rope dragged them in.

  “Can you see?” Whym called, surrounded by the blinding whiteness. “Because I can’t.”

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  Fools. Smeit stretched the vine-like roots that were now his appendages, feeling them shift under the sludge as they rose. He lifted one from the swamp, then another, then untied the knot around the girl’s middle. The girl growled an alarm in her throat when she felt them and reached out for the red-haired boy. It was too late. The rope dropped to the ground.

  “Don’t worry. It’s okay,” the young man assured, responding to her growled concern.

  The roots seized her, and she splashed into the fetid water. Smeit dragged her through the swamp, passing her from root to root toward his lair until he held her dangling in front of him. He brought her close so his real arms could grasp her wrists as he’d taught the silver-robed tellers—until they stopped sending men for him to train.

  The visions flowed. He saw her future, or to be more precise, her futures. He’d revealed this to the tellers when he’d taught them. The visions came as waves, with the likeliest outcomes crashing first and with the most force. Then the less likely futures curled behind, flowing into him until they diminished to mere ripples.

  Insipid. The girl’s visions were as bland as every other offering from the crumbling town across the river. Her life was a monotony of suffering and disappointment—the middle of nine children, sold to a teller by her parents, then taken to Fetor. There was no ecstasy, no triumph that seasoned her. The life inside her was no better. He consumed her—sucked away her spirit with the disinterest that prisoners beneath his old temple used to lick up the tasteless gruel splattered daily on the floor of their cells.

  Smeit held more hope for the other three. He’d been tracking them since they first neared the rushing waters that bounded his domain. These days, few ventured into the Mysts, so the intrigue had roused him from his slumber. That they smelled of the rich creaminess of Amon’s power only further whetted his appetite. Their scent’s blander than I remember of the Faerie. Maybe their blood’s been diluted by coupling with men. But that scent’s unforgettable—a flavor I’ve not tasted for many turns.

  He’d called to them, but they’d resisted, always skirting the edge of his reach. So he’d ordered Teller Zenai to capture and bring them to him. He’d watched them enter Fetor, the rotting town that once teemed with pilgrims before he’d abandoned the Allyrians for the Faerie. He’d seen the three travelers surrounded and led to the teller. But when he’d sensed the rotting man suck his last breath, Smeit had assumed they’d escape. What a pleasant surprise they sought me instead. With an off
ering, no less!

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  Kutan stumbled out of the dense damp whiteness to find Tedel and Whym already there. “What was that splash?”

  Tedel’s face blanched. “Where’s the girl?” He covered his mouth as he pointed, his hand garbling his words.

  Kutan looked to his side and noticed the rope loose on the ground. “Girl! Girl, where are you?” He dove back into the fog, jerking the others back in with him, then plunged his torso into the water searching for her. Again and again he went under, each time calling out when he rose to catch his breath.

  “Kutan.” Whym’s hands found and grasped his friend’s sopping shirt, pulling him back away from the water. “Kutan, stop it! She’s gone.”

  “Noooooo!” Kutan screamed, shaking his fists in the air.

  “Let’s get back into the open while we still know where it is,” Tedel urged. He and Whym half-dragged, half-led their leader back to where they could see. There, Kutan dropped to his knees, his clothes soaked and green with slime.

  “It’s not your fault.” Whym held up the rope. “The knot was untied. You didn’t lose her. She left!”

  Kutan remained on his knees for a time, Whym sharing a look of concern with Tedel but allowing the silence to continue. “I’m sorry.” He rose to his feet, his wet clothes flattened against his body. “I shouldn’t have taken her. And I shouldn’t have led you here.”

  Whym opened his mouth to console him, when a realization stopped him. “Can either of you hear the river?”

  Kutan and Tedel gasped. The fog was closing in, creeping ever closer. No longer was the path ahead open. The path back had been long concealed. “There’s something out there.” Whym drew his sword when he could no longer see.

  “What are you doing?” Kutan shrieked. “Put that away! We’re tied together!”

  “We’re just supposed to stand here, waiting?” Whym reluctantly sheathed his sword.