A King's Caution (The Eternal War Book 2)

by Brennan C. Adams

  Raimie sharply glanced at him, unnerved by how anxious Nylion seemed.

  Why don’t you want me to close it? he silently asked.

  “I have my reasons. They mostly involve avoiding pain and staying alive.”

  You won’t tell me more than that, will you?

  Of course, Raimie didn’t get a response, but for some reason, the lack didn’t bother him as much as it had in the past. Maybe, over the years, enough people had hidden secrets from him that he’d learned not to take it personally. Maybe practice made perfect.

  Accepting the same treatment from one who was so thoroughly enmeshed with him was somewhat peculiar, but Raimie surmised through their bond that this secret was something for Nylion and Nylion alone. Before their forcible separation, the concept that one could reserve something from the other would have raised his hackles. Now, he understood, and when Nylion unleashed a torrent of assuring contentment upon him, he accepted. Whatever his other half’s reasons may be, it was easy to say, I promise.

  They topped yet another rise and caught their first glimpse of man-made blocks in the distance. As they approached, the terrain’s inclines steadily decreased in angle until climbing them required very little exertion. Before Raimie knew it, they’d hiked into the midst of a collection of crumbling buildings.

  Mostly composed of stone, the former homes looked almost identical to human buildings throughout the known world, save for the decorative streaks of obsidian which lined window frames and sidings. Doors were non-existent, having succumbed to mold, mildew, and insects. Evidence of paving crunched beneath their feet, and exposed pipes glinted in the sunlight, brought into the open by excavation, storms, or quakes.

  Nature had long ago begun its reconquest of stolen territory. Grass invaded houses’ interiors, and vines scaled every wall.

  A quarter hour into the city, the group found a bear’s den. The bed of leaves had been built into a stable’s ruins. A distinctive imprint graced the pile, but fortunately, its occupant wasn’t home.

  Raimie’s regiment twitched at every aberrant noise, and several had drawn their swords and army-issued pistols. The ruins made even Raimie’s skin crawl. He couldn’t blame the men for their less than courageous behavior.

  When they stumbled upon a wide-open square, replete with a well’s remnants, Raimie came to a halt. Good lines of sight, sufficient cover in the nearby homes, a potential source of water. It was probably the best base of operations they’d find.

  “This is far enough,” he commanded. “I’ll go on alone.”

  The troops relaxed, shoulders loosening and nervous chatter quickly striking up. Little pulled Raimie to the side.

  “You can’t continue by yourself, sir,” he whispered. “If he discovers I let you, Oswin will kill me.”

  “Little. Come on,” Raimie softly admonished, trying not to look down his nose at the spy. “We both know how this game ends. You protest. I propose a counter-point. You agree with me, making me promise not to tell Oswin, and I avoid mentioning the lapse of protection when next I see the spymaster. Can we skip it this time? When have I ever told Oswin of my solitary excursions?”

  “As you say, sir,” Little agreed, making a sour face. “Please be careful.”

  “I always am. Watch out for them.”

  Raimie nodded to the soldiers already lounging and forming a loose perimeter.

  “I will.”

  Abandoning his retinue freed Raimie to chase the unnatural sense of doom, dread, and dismay which seeped into his every pore, the one which had afflicted he and his soldiers since entering the city. Within another quarter hour, he’d no need to follow the feeling’s vague sense of direction as Bright and Dim shuffled before him like the dead walking.

  From there, locating what he sought was easy enough. The splinters abruptly stopped, and Raimie barreled through them, cringing before he remembered they were incorporeal. He searched for what had made the two halt so unexpectedly.

  Cracks began on Raimie’s side of the buildings which seamlessly ringed the city center. After searching for an opening through the barrier, Raimie ended up climbing through a particularly rundown building’s window to reach what lay inside. The second floor of his chosen point of ingress had collapsed into the first, causing a gashing rent in the wall which faced the city center. Raimie stopped short before emerging from the dilapidated house’s shelter, in awe of what awaited him.

  The outer radius of hairline cracks culminated in a network of widening fissures. Over this, the long-abandoned city’s Esela residents had precariously constructed a thin platform. The tear floated above the stone podium. It was about six feet tall and four feet wide, but instead of the expected black center surrounded by wispy white, this tear jerked and twitched and frazzled. Its unnerving black interior bulged from its neatly contained center, and its white border reached jagged tentacles to impale the buildings which enclosed it.

  Black almost entirely engulfed several disorganized tables on the platform. Wires and glass globes sprawled over the table tops. Raimie assumed that, here, Qenan scientists had labored over their secret project before their tear had fritzed.

  While he watched, the tear distorted from its normal, elliptical shape into something resembling a zig-zag. Raimie’s brain couldn’t comprehend the otherworldly form any other way.

  “Wow,” he breathed, daunted by what the Qenans had asked of him. “Do you two plan to be helpful?”

  Bright and Dim swayed in place, Ele and Daevetch fragments blipping from the tear to absorb into them.

  “Hello?” Raimie said, snapping his fingers in their faces. “Anyone there?”

  At their lack of response, he sighed. He hated to do this to them, but they hadn’t exactly given him a choice.

  “Dim and Bright!” Nothing. Fine, then. “Order and Chaos, I require your focus,” he commanded.

  Immediately, their gazes were on him, although their bodies continued to face the tear. Something wild and feral lurked behind those usually friendly eyes.

  “I’m sorry I had to force the issue, but I need to know if you’ll watch my back or if I’m on my own,” Raimie asked.

  Softening, they fully turned toward him.

  “We always watch your back, Raimie,” Bright said.

  “Why do you need someone to do so now?” Dim asked.

  “That tear is very broken, requiring a quick fix,” Raimie explained. “I can’t close it because not only did I tell the Qenans I wouldn’t, but I made a promise to the two of you as well. The only other way I know to manipulate that terrifying break in our world is to touch it, and I’d prefer it if someone ensures nothing attacks me while I’m distracted.”

  “I don’t know…” Bright said, gazing longingly at the distortion in reality’s plane.

  “We can withstand the pull long enough to keep you safe,” Dim promised, “but don’t take too long! We probably can’t give you more than a few minutes.”

  “I can definitely promise it will be quick.” Raimie wryly grinned. “Touching those things is never pleasant.”

  Safety on this side ensured, Raimie advanced on the misbehaving tear. Swallowing his rising, uncontrollable terror, he quickened his pace.

  Gods, this was a bad idea. This was a bad idea. This was a bad idea!

  But it had to be done.

  Once he was within reach, he extended a hand for the black, and it yawed and swallowed him.

  He flailed hopelessly, unsurprised to hit an utter lack of anything solid. A clamor of chattering voices plunged into him, and for a moment, he forgot why he’d sought this particular tear, allowing the stream of information to rush through his head without listening.

  For he floated in the space between realities, and it felt like home. More so than the farm, more than the palace or Ren’s presence. It was the comforting caress of those rare moments where he relaxed in the fullness of Nylion’s presence or the long-departed relief which was found in mama’s embrace.

  Familiarity Raimie would hav
e expected. He’d been here twice before, once after the incident in the Withriingalm and once following Teron’s ambush but home? The sense of comfort was unexpected and utterly foreign, to say the least. He’d an irrational desire to kick off his shoes, unbutton his vest, and simply rest in this weightless float.

  Unfortunately, life never accommodated his wishes. The incomprehensible babble of voices which ran through his head screamed for attention, blaring so loudly a fire spread across his brain. Wiping his ears, Raimie hoped he didn’t bleed from them as he had before, but his fingers came away sticky.

  “Why are the tears in my reality going haywire?” he asked the voices. “How do I stop them from spreading? That’s what the Qenan tear is doing, isn’t it? Uncontrollably spreading? How far will it go? To the ends of the earth? My world’s primary driver for our economy shouldn’t be what destroys us.”

  The voices went silent, and Raimie floated alone. What had happened? Had he scared them away, and if so, how? Seemed a useful skill to learn-

  He dropped into a familiar world of blue and green, but something was off. Something was different.

  Trees. A thick canopy blocked any view of blue sky, including the miniature painting of the eternal war which was fixed at its summit. The mind-bending part of the change, however, was the lack of trunks anywhere in sight. Branches and leaves rustled in an unfelt breeze high overhead, but no solid, wooden supports impaled perfectly cropped grass.

  The only object to disturb the endless, green spread was a man huddled in a ball, gently rocking and crooning to himself.

  “Hello?” Raimie called. “Do you require aid?”

  The man, the god, was on his feet in an instant, angrily advancing on Raimie. Alouin’s loose fitting, phosphorescent trousers and shirt fluttered in his wake, light bouncing from their shiny surfaces.

  “Why would I need help do I look helpless who are you what are you doing here.” The words flowed in an irate, monotone flood, so fast Raimie couldn’t parse between the individual questions.

  He stepped back when Alouin strode so close to him he could feel the god’s body heat.

  “Why won’t you answer have I become so intimidating wait remember the last time your turn completed and you were allowed to leave the balance point you’re talking in stream of consciousness again they don’t do that on the outside they use inflections and pauses and-” Alouin took a long, deep breath.

  “My apologies,” he slowly said, making sure to enunciate every syllable and appropriately raise and lower his voice’s pitch. “Let’s try this again. Who are you, and how did you get here?”

  “We’ve met before,” Raimie answered. “I know you’re busy in the separate realities fixing catastrophic problems, but I thought I’d made an impression on you.”

  “Is that what I’ve been up to for the last millennia how interesting but I don’t know you.” Alouin cleared his throat, twitching. “Sorry. A thousand years with only my internal monologue to distract from the agony has gotten me out of practice with conversations. I don’t remember you. Why and how are you in my safe space?”

  “I came looking for a solution to the malfunctioning tears in my world,” Raimie answered the safest question first.

  Something had happened since he’d last seen Alouin to turn the god this ridiculously unstable. Alouin had warned him, but the warning hadn’t prepared Raimie to stand so near to an all-powerful being who seemed unhinged.

  “Which reality are you from?” Alouin snatched Raimie’s hand, his fingers sporadically twitching in the air. “Ah,” he said, eyes clearing, “the breakdowns would be my fault, but you can hardly blame me! I’ve only recently pieced enough of me together to remember who I am. Maintaining tears was next on the agenda. It’s not my fault!”

  Alouin poked him, hard, but Raimie only sprang upright once pressure released.

  “That’s…! You’re supposed to go! Who are you?” Alouin asked, head swiveling from his finger to Raimie.

  “My name’s Raimie. How have you forgotten me?” he asked.

  “You’re the one invading my privacy! You explain first!” Alouin barked.

  “I already answered…” Raimie sighed.

  Maybe repeating the circumstances which had captured the god’s attention so many years ago would be better than trying to explain, but when he looked for the clash at the sky’s summit, only leaves greeted him. Without a direct view of it, the eternal war’s pull was diminished to near non-existence, such that Raimie could barely discern its location behind the deliberate screen of tree limbs.

  If he couldn’t employ a visual depiction, he’d attempt what Alouin had done to him during their first meeting. The exhaustion would be incapacitating, and he’d have to rely both on the god to kick him home and on his soldiers to find him. He’d trust predicted outcomes and behaviors, something he despised doing, but a demonstration would be easier than an explanation.

  Raimie called Ele to one hand and Daevetch to the other, intent on melding the two into the peculiar energy which only he’d successfully produced, when the punch knocked him from his feet.

  “None of that!” Alouin declared, standing over him with fists balled at his side. “I’ve had quite enough of those assholes recently, thank you very much.”

  He dropped to his knees, one leg on either side of Raimie’s waist, and lowered his face until their noses almost touched. All Raimie could see was blue eyes dancing with carefully controlled insanity and violence.

  “No primal energy allowed,” Alouin whispered with a manic giggle.

  He rose, humming, and his fingers stroked the air until he’d found whatever he’d sought. They froze in place.

  “Bye-bye, anomalous one,” he giggled, planting a finger on Raimie’s forehead.

  “Wait!” Raimie called. “You said to remind you there’s h-”

  * * *

  “-ope!” Raimie yelled.

  The exclamation was drowned by wind’s howl. Raimie immediately shivered, hugging his arms around his chest, as icy knives of rain drove through his uniform to beat against skin. A gust swooped into the city center, and Raimie pinwheeled, taking several unsteady steps to keep from falling. It teased at his body, attempting to lift him upon its failure to bowl him over, but quickly capitulated, unable to keep still long enough to accomplish its ambitious goal.

  How long had the tear held him captive?

  The sky had considerably darkened, but Raimie couldn’t determine how far night had fallen because the tear illuminated the city center with its brilliant corona of light. A corona which stably encapsulated the ellipsoid of dark in its middle.

  Braving the tear had worked! Task complete, he could return home to Uduli, although after what he’d experienced he was hesitant to call the city home. Not after what he’d felt in the space between realities.

  In any case, his work here was finished. One last hurrah before assuming the throne over. At least he’d done some good with it. Staring at the stabilized tear, Raimie quite literally thanked Alouin for the miracle, or for what he might have considered a miracle in his early teens. The more he encountered the impossible and the more meetings he held with Alouin, the surer he became that the one who most in his world hailed as a god wasn’t truly a god at all. Alouin too often expressed surprise, fiddled with the air in every encounter, and had once told Raimie he’d little power to spare. He theorized maybe Alouin wasn’t a god per se, but a powerful mage or-

  Something tugged at his right leg, and Raimie absent-mindedly smoothed the cloth over his disturbed skin. When his hand came away soaked, alarm kicked in.

  A jagged, one-inch hole bored through his thigh, and as he watched, gouts of blood spurted from it to the rhythm of his heart.

  Where had that come from?

  “Dodge!” Dim lethargically exclaimed.

  Raimie sprang sideways, gasping at the sharp pain and flood of his life’s blood from the wound. A palm-sized pebble shot through the space his torso had occupied a moment before.

&
nbsp; He almost collapsed, the world spun so fiercely. Gods, he needed to stop the bleeding.

  “Tourniquet, Raimie!” Nylion practically screamed.

  Raimie woozily unbuttoned his vest, thoroughly regretting his decision not to wear a belt today, and painfully tightened it above the wound, but the pulsing gush never slowed.

  He began to feel faint, black bars closing in on his vision. Carefully, he hobbled toward the building he’d used to pierce into the city center, struggling to stay on his feet. Before him, Dim bodily shook Bright.

  “He’s bleeding out, numbskull, and my whole has nothing which can stop it!” he shrieked over the screeching wind. “Snap out of it!”

  Raimie stumbled a few more steps before spilling face first onto the stone platform. His pant leg was soaked, and he dragged it and the rest of his body through a shallow puddle. He managed a few additional inches before his strength gave out.

  Nylion’s familiar form lay still beside him, eyes gleaming. His terror splashed down their bond much like the rain on their backs.

  “What happens when we die?” he asked, shock making him quiet.

  Nyl…

  Raimie was so cold he was warm. The quiet stillness which accompanied the warmth made staying firmly centered impossible. Drifting was………but Nylion’s panic impeded his float. He smothered it with the comfort he’d found-

  Nylnylnylnylnylnylnyl

  -and the terror died, allowing him to unfocus and listen to the song which called him from his fleshy prison.

  “Do something!” followed by a slap.

  “What was that for?!” Bright’s crabby voice yelped. “Oh, no. Raimie, draw from me now!”

  His name stole threads of his consciousness from the song’s grasp.

  “Near a tear,” Raimie weakly protested.

  “Damn it, you magnificent human! Do you want to die? Do what I say before you drift into unconsciousness!”

  Raimie laughed at the Ele splinter’s curse, but Bright probably had a decent point in that mass of jumble somewhere. He never insisted on something unless it was necessary, and while Raimie couldn’t remember what happened if he fell asleep, he vaguely recalled it wouldn’t be good, no matter what the song’s screaming protest insisted.