The Noble Fool

by Heath Pfaff

  I decided to ask my next question. "If you succeed, and the king dies, who will you place in charge of the kingdom of the humans?" This question, I felt, was an important one. Was Weaver simply power hungry, looking to place himself on the throne, or did he really believe in his ideals enough to fight for them and hand the kingdom over to someone better suited to rule than he? Had he even considered things so far? I knew the fallen Knight to be a fierce and terrible man at times, and I did not wish to see him in a position of ultimate power. In fact, even in charge of an army such as he was, I feared what damage he might wreak upon the world, what damage he may have already wrought upon the world.

  He laughed derisively. "If I succeed, the human kingdom will be no more. My allies will each have their portion of it to do as they see fit. What's more, the pieces I give to them are pieces that belonged to them at one time or another. I have no intention of taking the throne for myself - or anyone else - merely restoring the world to a time when human greed and hunger for power were not so terrible and widespread. I will see the king fall, and the Knights of Ethan disbanded, and then I will take no more part in any of it."

  That answer, more than any other, scared me. He had aligned himself with many different peoples, and I knew little of most of them, but the Shao Geok alone were a brutal and ravenous pack. Without the king's enforcement of the borders, they would spread quickly and devour any humanity that got in their way.

  "So you will let the Shao Geok feast upon the innocent farmers, struggling to make a living at the fringes of the kingdom? That will not bother you?" I put the question to him knowing how he would respond before he did.

  "Mankind must become stronger, or they must perish. The king circles his people in protection. It has made them weak and dependent. The Shao Geok are strong, and they are smart. Why should they not have back the lands that have been forcefully taken from them over the years, Lowin? What right did the king have to push them back into these icy, forsaken realms? I have no intention of facilitating the Shao Geok's spread, but I will not deny them territories they can freely conquer." He answered quickly, as he had with all the questions I'd had so far. He knew his mind, and had thought about the results of his actions thoroughly.

  I found myself torn between wanting to believe in his cause and being appalled at the heartless way he seemed to go about it. I wondered if he hadn't aligned himself with forces far more sinister then those employed by the king, but I did not voice that sentiment. The Shao Geok were indeed intelligent and strong, but humanity had pushed them back. By his own reckoning, that proved that they were the stronger people. Just because the average farmer couldn't stand for himself, and must have the aid of the trained men of the king, did that make him any less entitled to the land he had worked himself to the bone to make fertile and productive? Weaver had skewed his view of the world to justify the things he would have to do to bring about the changes he saw fit, and that wasn't something I could knowingly support.

  "Was Silent working for you the entire time he was at Fell Rock?" I decided to ask, needing to know how much of Silent's apparent attention to my wellbeing was him, and how much was his duty. In him, I hoped, there might still be an ally.

  Silent hunched lower in his seat, and I had my answer before Weaver even began to speak. "Silent has been one of mine since just after his awakening to full Knighthood. When he joined with us, he did so under the understanding that he would be our spy, and that he would not speak a word, unless it was to me, until I gave him permission to do otherwise. If you're thinking that's how he got his peculiar name, though, you would be mistaken. Silent is perhaps the best of us at moving about without detection. He had his name before he even began to work with my motley band. The pretext for his sudden lapse into voicelessness was that he had failed to bond properly to "the voice" and had been left mute. Since the paper stating this looked legitimate, Fell Rock accepted it without a thought, and he became my full time spy there. You would be surprised what is said in front of a person who others believe cannot speak. Though if you are thinking of blaming him for that initial attack on your life, you would be mistaken. That attack was based on information from my other spy at Fell Rock, a woman who had been there a considerably longer time, and who was responsible for the construction of the exit to our travelers' rift."

  My heart started beating fast in my chest at this bit of information, as I began to consider the possibility that Malice might have been that other agent. She had been with Knights of Ethan for a long time, and had as good of a reason to hate them as Weaver and I did. She too had loved her Bound One. "Who was the other spy?" I asked, almost afraid of the answer. Would it turn out that Malice, too, had been lying to me?

  Weaver raised an eyebrow. "I don't believe you knew her, but if you must know, she is generally called Flawless, named for her defensive style, which is said to be perfect. She has been with the Knights of Ethan for 300 years and still serves with them, as a spy for me."

  To my surprise, I felt only relief at the unfamiliar name. Malice may have died at the battle of Fell Rock, but that was uncertain. What was certain, however, was that she was still the woman I remembered her to be, and not some shadowy illusion of a person I'd thought she was. For me, at that moment, amidst all the revelations coming to light, that was vitally important. Until one has experienced a sudden and terrible upheaval of their entire life, it is impossible to understand just how important a single, unchanging point of solidity can be. For all that everything else was chaos, at least one person I knew was still who I thought they were. Silent, as it turned out, had always been a spy for Lucidil. That meant he had most likely always been assigned to keep an eye out for me. Any friendship we might have had, had been an illusion.

  There was one more question I had left to ask. "You wish for me to join forces with you, that, I understand, but what exactly do you want from me, Lucidil? What is it that you have in mind for me that is so vital that only I can do it? I do not believe that you merely want me as a high ranking officer with my lack of tactile experience." I thought I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it from Weaver.

  The red-eyed monster smiled for the first time since he'd told his sad story. "What do you think I want from you, Lowin? I know you well enough to understand that you believe you've guessed my purpose. So, what do you think I want from you?"

  "You want me to kill the king for you." I said, confident that I had guessed his intent, but I was wrong.

  The fallen Knight burst into raucous laughter. "Now why would I want you to do that? The king is just a human man. Anyone among the trained warriors here could put a knife in his chest if we could get close enough. No, it is not the king that I want you to kill, my boy. I want you to kill Ethaniel."

  I stood up so fast I knocked my chair over. "What? You want me to kill the head of the Knights of Ethan? I don't have half the skills necessary to..."

  Weaver's voice cut in over the top of mine. "...but you will learn them. You are destined to be stronger than he is, and so it must be you who kills him."

  "Why can't you do this?" I demanded of him, confused at the turn of events and disturbed by just how wrong I had been in my guess at Weaver's intentions.

  Lucidil cast his eyes down. "It is true that I might be strong enough, though it would be a close fight between us. Ethaniel is still the same man he has always been, however, and I cannot look upon him without seeing the friend that he used to be." The red-eyed warrior raised his head, and his eyes were glassy, "You are the first, besides myself, strong enough to beat him, and I would have you take that burden from me. I know that I ask a lot of you, but I have no one else to turn to in this matter. Ethaniel maintains all of the security for the king, and has for hundreds of years. Without him it will all fall apart. I need him dead, and no assassin will be able to do it. I could lose most of my army trying to lay siege to his keep, and still possibly fail in eliminating that man simply because I do not have the heart to do it. He is as a brother to me. You, though, coul
d do what I cannot. With a small group you could reach him, fight him, and kill him. It would take weeks, or longer, for the king to repair the disorder that would arise, and that is longer than we need to finish this war."

  "I will not do it, Weaver," I said firmly, remembering only too well the easy laugh, and easy smile of the Knight, Ethaniel, as I'd seen him in his office that day, early in my training at Fell Rock. Killing him, I thought, would be somehow worse than killing the king, and to be entirely honest with myself, I wasn't sure I could do either of those things.

  Weaver nodded, and a faint smile came to his lips, though his eyes hardened. "I thought you might say that, noble hearted Lowin, but I am going to call in that favor that you owe me, now. Do you remember when I had the slave girl freed at Renwalk?"

  My face blanched and I nodded. I remembered Lace quite well, and I also remembered the promise I'd made.

  "Well, I am demanding my payment now. We will help you become good enough to kill Ethaniel, and in return I will not send out my Shao Geok assassins to devour your little slave girl." Weaver's tone left no room for negotiation.

  I nodded, a great numbness in my chest and the pit of my stomach. I could not revoke my word even if I wanted to. I would trade Ethaniel's life for that of Lace, a girl I barely knew, not because it was the right thing to do but because I was bound by my word, and because I felt she had as much right, if not more, than Ethaniel to live. She was no hero of war, but neither had she ever taken a life. "So be it," I said, the words feeling heavy in my mouth.

  Weaver's eyes softened and a look almost like sadness touched his expression. "Then it is done. So it must be, but let me not be ungrateful. I have one last secret, Lowin, and though you forced me to call in a favor to get what I needed, I shall still show you favor and give you a piece of information that I only recently received myself." He made a summoning gesture with one hand, and I approached him cautiously, my heart a ball of torment over what I had just agreed to do. "Come nearer. Let it be, from this day on, that we call you Lowin no more. You will be Noble, a fool with a heart too big for his chest, but one perhaps we all should envy. Come closer, Noble."

  I stepped yet nearer, taking my new name numbly, and moving until I was so close to the red-eyed warrior that I could feel his breath upon my face. I did not feel so noble, then. I felt like an assassin tasked to kill a member of his own family. In a moment, though, that mattered not at all to me. Weaver leaned over so that his mouth was at my ear, and whispered three profound words.

  "Kyeia is alive."

  "That can't be possible." I said, a mix of shock and anger coursing through my body as I pushed Lucidil away from me. That he would lie about such a matter was beyond reasoning, an unforgivable act. "I can't believe that you, of all people, would say such a thing." The restraint it took to keep myself from leaping at him and tearing him apart was phenomenal.

  His face remained calm. "I'm not lying, Noble. Kyeia is alive, and she has been moved to a private villa in the Uliona province of Iol, where she is being studied to determine why she has survived the process that has killed every other of her kind. I do not yet have a contact within the place, since I only today received this news, so I know only what my spy at Fell Rock was able to tell me; that Kyeia was taken away just hours after the transplanting of her eyes, still alive but unconscious, and has been kept under heavy guard since."

  I staggered back to my chair and sat down heavily, all the strength fleeing from my legs. Everything in my life had suddenly changed, and I was at a loss for what to make of it. I knew only one thing for certain, and that was that I had no intention of staying with Weaver if Kye was alive elsewhere. I would not break my promise to the red-eyed warrior, but neither could I allow Kye to be held as a prisoner to be studied. I would be unable to do anything else until I knew that she was safe.

  "I'm going to get her." I said aloud, expecting some form of protest from Weaver, but the red eye warrior merely nodded.

  "I would do the same thing in your shoes, my friend. I will not forbid you this because I do not believe you would be any good to me if I did so, and I ... I can only say that I wish I'd had the same chance myself. You may go, but I want you to take Silent and Brutal with you. Brutal can educate you on your new abilities, and train you in swordsmanship. Silent is a good companion as well, and I feel you already have some companionship with him. He can get places others cannot, and can gather information in places others would stand no chance," Weaver said, defying my expectations.

  I frowned, "I'll take Silent, but I don't want to travel with Brutal."

  "Brutal is my strongest warrior. He is the best one to teach you the skills you will need when you face Ethaniel, and there are few better warriors to stand at your side in a fight." His tone was taking on an air of command, but I did not intend to back down on this point.

  "He will cause nothing but trouble for us. He is too hostile," I replied, taking a stand against the will of the commander who would oppose the king.

  "You don't even know him, Noble. Brutal is intelligent and skilled. He will be an asset to you, and he is going with you. There will be no more debate on this subject. He is going, and that is my final word." A hint of "the voice" crept into his tones, and though it held no effect on me, I could sense how unmoving Weaver was going to be on this issue. I would have to cede the point, or risk Weaver revoking his permission entirely. If I lost his good graces, I would have to escape the island on my own and strike out for a location that I knew nothing about. I wasn't happy to have the fierce and mean-spirited Brutal along for the trip, but I would have to learn to tolerate him. If nothing else, I would have opportunity to strengthen my patience.

  I nodded. "If you believe he will be of value to our party, than I shall accept your decision." That resolution reached, I was eager to be back on the road again. I realized that I had no idea how to reach the lands of the Uliona, let alone a single province within them. As weary as I was of travel, the knowledge that Kye was out there was all I needed to urge me onward. I felt suddenly alive again with purpose, full with energy as I had not been since discovering that Kye was to die on my behalf.

  Lucidil's voice broke my train of thought, "I will arrange transport for you in the morning. You can leave with the dawn tide off the east side of the island. We have supply ships that come in on a daily basis, and one of them should be able to take you as far as the Uliona port city of Werin. It will be a two or three day trip by sea, maybe longer with the winter winds being what they are, but it will be far quicker than traveling by foot. I'm afraid getting any further into the Uliona territory, however, will have to be done on the ground. Werin is the only Uliona city with open ports, and you would definitely be stopped for questioning at a closed port. If the king's men find Knights of Ethan aground without orders, it could raise suspicions and make your journey far more hazardous. Uliona is, after all, considered a territory of the human kingdom, and those who have attained the rank of Knight are either still in service to the king, or fallen Knights and enemies of the crown. There is no in between for us. From Werin it is a week's walk by foot to Iol province. From there I do not know how much further to the villa in which Kyeia is reported to be housed. I did not get precise details from my spy, but I shall have maps drawn up for you, detailing what we do know."

  "Thank you, Weaver," I said, the sentiment at least mostly genuine. He could have made things much more difficult for me, or even outright refused to give me permission to go and get Kye. It wouldn't have made any difference to me if he had. In my mind there was only one thing I could do given the situation, and that was to find where the king's men were keeping Kye and rescue her. I thought that it was likely Lucidil knew that, and that was why he was allowing me to do what I would have done anyway.

  The red-eyed warrior simply shrugged, and put his arm around Fero's shoulders. "Sometimes there are things that simply must be done before one can focus their mind on the greater picture. I sincerely hope that you find Kyeia, and that she is a
lright. I do not know what tests the king's men may perform on her in order to find out why she survived the removal of her eyes, but I do not envy her the tests she will likely undergo. I have worked with the king's researchers, and I know their ways. Steel your heart for the worst, Noble."

  I nodded, "I have suffered losing her once. I would not like to do it again."

  Weaver shook his head, a troubled look about his features, "I'm afraid that being dead is not the worst, my good hearted, noble friend. I hope for her sake that she has been either left in peace or killed, because the alternative is something that I would wish upon no one."

  His words worried me, casting a shadow of doubt over the surge of hope I'd felt at finding out that Kyeia was still alive. I knew nothing of the king's research group or the lengths to which they would go in order to reach their ends, but Lucidil seemed to know, and it seemed to set ill with even his grim perspective on the world. It was perhaps how troubled he was, more than anything else, which sent a cold chill down my spine. The morning tide couldn't come fast enough.

  "Silent, bring Brutal here. He is not yet aware that I am sending him with you into Uliona territory, and it will be easier if I explain it now." Lucidil's voice of command was always direct and clear, a surprising contrast to his regularly relaxed tone, and in response Silent immediately jumped up and dashed out the front flap of the tent.

  Weaver's intense red eyes met my own again, "This will be no easy task, my friend. You will have to constantly remain alert, and do your best not to be seen. I'm going to issue all three of you regular cloaks, and I recommend you stow your shifting cloaks until you leave the city. As much as the near invisibility is an asset in battle, our cloaks are like a beacon to all who know of us, and that makes our kind easy to spot in a populated area. In a normal cloak, with your hood up, and arms covered, most people won't notice your peculiar traits - assuming you don't give them time to do so."