Carlotta and the Krius Scepter (Carlotta Series Book 1)

by John Booth

  “It’s the truth. The VIP was furious when he found out I’d put a collar on you. He said he needed you alive.”

  That sounded dangerously plausible. If the person after the box was after what was hidden inside it, he might know he needed me as well. Damn Thampthis to hell and back for his limitless stupidity.

  “The USB key?”

  “Over there, in the top drawer.” He pointed at a bureau in the corner I hadn’t noticed before. I kept my finger on the boom button as I slid along the wall to the bureau and opened the drawer. I took the USB key in my hand with a feeling of overwhelming relief.

  “Let me,” Brian said. He stepped passed the hoods, took the key from my hand and pushed it into the socket in the collar. There was a worrying buzzing sound and then the strip came free. I took it off, pulled out the key and threw it across the room. I hadn’t bonded with it very well at all during our time together. It hit the far wall and exploded sending masonry crashing to the ground, not to mention the nearest hood.

  “The key?” The Don asked. His face was almost as blue as his equipment. I tossed him the key. I was at the top of my game and knew I could take on four hoods with one hand tied behind my back. Apparently they knew it too, because not one of them made a move towards their guns.

  The Don moaned on the floor as he slid the collar off his bits.

  “Now tell me who you’re working for?” I asked.

  “That would be me,” said a man who stepped into view from the corridor. “How nice to see you again, Cear. It’s been a long time.”

  I didn’t recognize the face. The voice was impossible, he was dead.

  Two men stepped into view on either side of him, pointed strange guns at us and began firing. Brian and I jumped sideways as the weapons the men carried sprayed small balls at us at high speed. There were too many to avoid. I stared in astonishment when the first hit me and it turned out to be paint. Then the pain from the silver in the paint hit me. A second and third ball hit me and I fell to the floor, rolling over in agony.

  “Don’t worry,” the man with the impossible voice said comfortingly. “I won’t let the silver kill you. You’re far too valuable for that.”

  15. Peleus

  I heard him coming through the forest long before I saw him. The nature of the sounds told me he was alone and probably one of the Fey. I had been travelling forests for millennia and you pick up a skill or two over time. Two gutted rabbits wrapped in clay were cooking in the fire, enough for both of us if he turned out to be friendly. I hoped he was friendly because I hadn’t spread my legs for another for a season and do-it-yourself was getting old.

  I unsheathed my sword and stood with my back pressed against the trunk of a tree facing the increasingly loud noises he made. A woodsman, this one clearly wasn’t.

  He burst through the undergrowth and into my modest camp. Set up in a clearing it had the advantage of clear sky above. He stood in shade while the sun beat down on me.

  The man looked old for one of us. As if he was in his late thirties. He was certainly Fey; there was no mistaking the body build or the speed with which he moved. He carried a bronze sword somewhat worse for wear, having been used to hack the undergrowth. Bronze blades took nicks remarkably easy.

  “Forgive my intrusion, my lady. I am Peleus of Troy and wonder if I may share your camp.”

  “You seem to be in a hurry and I wouldn’t like to delay you,” I replied, eyeing him up. He looked good and eminently beddable, but if others chased him he was best gone as soon as possible. “I am sure that even the most stupid tracker could follow your trail.”

  Peleus ignored my words, his eyes locked onto the sword in my hand. It’s unique and I’m very fond of it.

  “That sword? It cannot be silver.”

  “It is a treasured gift. We are far from Troy, Peleus. What brings you to the forests of Achaea?”

  “I have been roaming the world for nearly five hundred winters. And you?”

  This put me in a quandary. It was customary for the Fey to disclose their age to another Fey who gave their own freely. However, the way he eyed my sword suggested a degree of caution should be employed. There was even a danger he would recognize my name.

  “I am older. I am known by many names, but the name given to me at birth was Cear of the Lotha tribe.”

  Peleus turned his head sideways to stare at me. “I have never heard of such a people.”

  “They lived to the south. Across the sea and far to the south. But they are long gone, their homelands returned to the oceans.”

  Peleus sheathed his sword and out of courtesy I sheathed mine.

  “No one is chasing me. I searched for you. I was identified as your kin at a village on the edge of the forest and have been trying to catch up with you.”

  “There are two rabbits cooking in the fire. You are welcome to join me.”

  Peleus unhitched his belt and slid his robe to the ground revealing that he was big everywhere.

  “Would the lady care to cement our understanding?”

  I thought he’d never ask. I slipped out of my clothes in an instant. One of the troubles with the local citizenry was their preference for boys. I’d heard the Trojans liked to dip their wick in more traditional places. It looked as if I would soon find out.

  Peleus was skilled in the carnal arts and thirty minutes later remained unspent. My own situation was different as he had brought me to fruition several times. He held my hands to the ground as he thrust into me the way a soldier might use a spear, with power and determination, and annoyingly slowly.

  “Where… is… the… sword… from?”

  He stopped dead. I tried to thrust my hips up and down but his weight and strength prevented it. The bastard certainly knew how to torture a girl.

  “A gift for services rendered. Created by a magician called Hankle.”

  “What..tribe..was..he..from?”

  I felt partial relief at the strokes he laid into me.

  “Atlantean.”

  I’ve brought men to fruition with words like ‘You’re so big,’ but I’ve never done it before by mentioning Atlantis. Peleus was unable to stop himself as at least three score strokes in under a minute raised us both to a harmonious conclusion.

  Breaking open the baked clay took fur and skin from the rabbits leaving delicious meat for us to bite into. For a while neither of us spoke. I drank from my water-skin and offered it to him. He took it willingly and sucked half of what remained out of the bag before handing it back.

  “You knew Atlantis?”

  “I knew it first as a gathering place used for the greater feasts. The tribes were learning to make do without magicians and this freed those few that remained to found the city.”

  “How long ago was that? A thousand winters? More?”

  My mind floated back through the seasons. Would he believe me if I told him how many? That it was before the flood that turned the lush lowlands into seas. I settled for the simple answer.

  “More. I was there when Atlantis was consumed by the gods. A wall of water beyond imagining destroyed it in an instant. Put six of the tallest trees you have ever seen atop each other and know that the water was higher than that.”

  “I was told that the Pharaoh Thampthis had a wife from Atlantis. Some say she was a god. They say Thampthis hid an Atlantean weapon powerful enough to give its owner the world.”

  I laughed. I was good at faking laughs whenever Thampthis was brought up. I’d had a lot of practice.

  “My sword has a fine edge that never needs sharpening, but you would have to work very hard to rule the world with it.”

  “Not a sword,” Peleus said reverently. “Something much more powerful.”

  “And what would that be?”

  Peleus shook his head. That was a relief. I’d have had to kill him if he knew what he was talking about.

  He stayed for a week and tried to steal the sword when he left. He was lucky I didn’t permanently maim him for that. Provided the wound
isn’t mortal, anything that is not removed recovers in a Fey, given sufficient time, but I don’t believe he pleasured any ladies for a score of seasons.

  -

  “Look what have you done. I didn’t lend you the sword to found an empire.” I was furious and intended to let Peleus know it. Not that he called himself Peleus in this land. I didn’t think Artur Pendragon suited him any better though. Once a rat, always a rat. I should have known.

  We were talking in a large round house. He sat on a massive gilded chair raised half my height above the roaring flames of the fire burning in the exact centre of the house. A clay brick surround kept the fire under control, but only just. Logs spat sparks into the air almost to the King’s throne.

  “I have united the tribes and founded an order of chivalry that will last for as long as humanity survives.” He almost sounded as though he believed it.

  I sighed.

  “You have united the tribes against you. Your own son leads the campaign to destroy you. You should be grateful he is human and not Fey. Your order of chivalry is as false as the Greek and Roman models it copies. Freedom for the nobles and nothing for the peasants and slaves your nobility requires so they can go prancing about saving noble women from their own kind.”

  “I will free the slaves later.” Said as though he meant it. I was sure he didn’t believe a word he was saying.

  “Give me back the sword and consider yourself lucky I don’t take your life.” I held out my hand, but though he left his throne he paced the floor, leaving my sword in its sheath.

  “The Fey are better than human. They should be grateful for our rule.”

  “The Fey were designed to serve humanity, not replace it,” I snapped back.

  “That is not true.” Denial, the idiot was deep in denial. “Only the magicians have greater claim and they support me.”

  A faker with a rowan staff and two women with power who inexplicably followed the faker… that was his magician’s claim.

  “I was one of the first of our kind. I know why we were created.”

  Peleus came up to me and knelt before me. “You know where it is, the Krius Scepter? Surely the Atlanteans wanted it used or why did they make it in the first place?”

  I felt a frisson of shock run through me. If I’d known that Peleus had found out the scepter’s name, I would never have let him borrow the sword. The sword and the scepter were connected in a way that only an Atlantian magician would be able to understand. He might have called to it.

  “I’ve never heard of the Krius Scepter and I lived in Atlantis for centuries. This nonsense has to stop. Come with me. There’s a full moon and a clear sky. This war is over.”

  “Cear, I am the king. What message would it send to the knights if I was to run away now?”

  “That the King has some brains left in his head?”

  Peleus stood and drew my sword. He pointed it at me.

  “If you are not with me, you are the enemy. Leave my presence before I am forced to slay you, Cear of the Lotha tribe.”

  “Now to accomplish that, you would really need an army.”

  Peleus brought my sword down, aiming to cleave me in two. Sadly for him I was no longer there when it arrived. Unable to stop such a powerful blow the sword continued down to bury its point deep into the earthen floor. I’d been expecting that because I knew my sword very well. I was already moving forward before Peleus completed the blow and I smashed into him, knocking the sword out of his hand and sending us flying across the room.

  Peleus was the strongest, but I was the one schooled in dirty fighting from childhood. As he tried to grip me in a bear hug, I spun in his grasp and brought both legs up over my head to smash into his face. He gurgled as the ivory heels of my boots flattened his nose. Released from his grasp, I rolled head over heels to stand in front of him. I kicked down with all my might. He managed to deflect the blow with his hands but not enough to keep his right ear.

  He screamed as the sharp edges of my boots ripped away his ear and the surrounding flesh. I didn’t wait to see whether he had had enough. My objective was to retrieve the sword. I touched its hilt and felt a tingle run through me. The sword slid from the ground as though it wasn’t there. It rarely showed signs of magic, but I took this to mean it was pleased to see me.

  Peleus ran towards me, though I couldn’t see him because I was facing the other way. He was making as much noise as a raging bull, except that a bull would sound more elegant. I moved my sword so it pointed behind me and thrust it back along my side. When Peleus reached me, the force of his run pushed us towards the round house door. He landed on top of me and for a moment I was helpless. Then my strength returned and I rolled him off of me, my sword thrust deep into his belly, the sort of wound from which not even a Fey could recover.

  He looked up at me in horror as I pulled my sword out of him and much of his guts spilled out with it. His intestines were cut into pieces.

  I heard a gasp from behind me and turned to face a couple of his knights and the fake magician.

  “You have killed the King,” said a handsome knight with the golden hair.

  “Someone had to.”

  The knights raised their swords while the magician stepped back and out of the building.

  “This is my sword and believe me when I say I am better at using it than the King ever was. I have merely taken it back.”

  They got the message. Getting killed to prove a point is stupid and none of his knights were stupid in that sense.

  “What shall we tell our men?”

  “Tell them that the Lady of Lotha took back the sword she had lent the King as he no longer needed it.”

  “Lady of the Lake would sound better,” the handsome one said under his breath.

  “I have to be going, noble knights, if you don’t mind?”

  The knights put down their swords and stepped aside for me.

  I felt relief as I made my way back through enemy lines and away from the mad war Peleus had created. I would never lend my sword to anyone again.

  16. Free

  I woke up lying spreadeagled on a waterbed. For a few seconds I luxuriated in the way slight shifts of my body created ripples under the sheets. Waterbeds are a great invention and I’ve always loved them. There was a trace of turpentine in the air that seemed to be coming from me. I was on top of the sheets and naked, but then to wake clothed would have been unusual for me.

  “Ah, the sleeper awakes…”

  I knew that voice, a voice from the past I thought I’d never hear again. Memories of the den flooded back to me. I flipped up on the bed into a fighting stance, one of the Japanese martial arts ones, as I was unarmed. The man I stared at looked nothing like the Peleus I’d left dying all those centuries ago. He had long shoulder length black hair that looked as though it had been permed and was far stockier than a Fey had any right to be.

  “Peleus?” It couldn’t be him, it just couldn’t.

  “I prefer Arthur Regis, Arthur to my friends.” He smirked at me in an irritating way that was at the same time annoyingly familiar, and that was when I knew it really was him.

  “I killed you once, but mistakes can be rectified and there’s no time like the present.”

  He put up a hand as if that was likely to dissuade me.

  “I shouldn’t try that if I was you.”

  I somersaulted off the bed and sprang at him. He put up his hands and caught me. Normally I would have used the position to kick him in the guts, but waves of unendurable pain ran through me. He held me for five or six seconds that felt like forever before tossing me casually onto the bed. It was a miracle the bed didn’t spring a leak as I bounced up and down trying to get my breath back and my limbs to work.

  He showed me his hands and I saw impossible silver rings on his fingers. From the residual shudders running through my body I knew he had silver all about him. There was probably silver thread in his suit. It was impossible.

  “I am immune to silver, a side effe
ct of the treatment that kept me alive. I have found it most useful in my dealings with the Fey.” He shrugged and smiled. “Shall we talk, Cear Lotha? It has been a long time since we last spoke together.”

  “As I remember, you tried to kill me.”

  Peleus shrugged. “As I remember, I came off the worst in that encounter. You still have Excalibur, I take it?”

  “That’s not its name. Where’s Brian?”

  Peleus looked confused for a second and then his face brightened. “Oh, the Fey boy you were with. We stripped the paint off him and dumped him in an alley. He should be home by now unless he sleeps like you.”

  That just didn’t seem likely. He was a bargaining chip and real players don’t throw chips away.

  “Am I supposed to believe that?”

  “You can call him later, if you want. He has no value to me now and I don’t want to waste my time fending off his father, whoever that should turn out to be.”

  “Torin Dar.”

  Peleus smiled as if delighted by the news. “Even more reason to let the boy go unharmed. Torin is high in the Council these days and might cause more trouble than most. I have bigger matters on my mind.”

  “Like keeping me prisoner?” Peleus kept knocking me off guard and I was confused. How had he survived the fatal blow I’d dealt him and become immune to silver? He was still after the Krius Scepter after all these years, and I had to stop him from getting his hands on it whatever the cost.

  Peleus waved at the window and pressed a button. The window slid open to allow access to the balcony.

  “You can fly away if you want. I won’t be here by the time you get back.”

  I jumped off the bed and went to stand on the balcony. Peleus made no move to stop me. I realized we were back in The Don’s Penthouse, presumably in one of the rooms I hadn’t been able to get to. I looked down at the sheer drop of hundreds of feet and felt a familiar exhilaration. I hadn’t been a hawk for days and the prospect of getting away from Peleus filled me with delight. I was tired of this adventure and fancied a few weeks lazing in a five star hotel in Rio.