The Fourth Runi (The Fledgling Account Book 4)

by Y. K. Willemse

  He hadn’t slept for a long time. Perhaps as many as three nights. The lack of rest was driving him insane.

  Zion, help me stay awake.

  The manservant stepped back from an open doorway, and Rafen passed through it, wondering what he had come to see.

  “Rafen!” Etana cried as he entered the dusky sitting room. She leapt up from the edge of a settee and rushed over to him, holding his face between her hands. “You look dreadful,” she said.

  “I’m fine,” Rafen said. “Where is my brother?”

  Etana grasped his hand and led him forward. Francisco was lying on the settee beneath a red curtained window. The room was very still and silent, and so warm after the Mountains that Rafen’s drowsiness increased tenfold. He had forgotten it had been summer when they had left home, and even now, in the middle of a Sianian winter, it felt like spring to him.

  Etana had removed Francisco’s coat and opened his shirt. His pallid chest had been blotched heavily with the Lashki’s kesmal, and great black and purple clouds ballooned on his skin. Yet the stains on his throat were already fainter, and his breathing was easier, relieved even. He was sleeping peacefully, a contented weariness on his face.

  Rafen looked at his brother, his own breathing releasing and his muscles relaxing. Then he realized how much of this experience they had shared.

  “How did you do this?” he said huskily.

  His voice was choked; in embarrassment, he turned his face from Etana’s so that she wouldn’t see him weep.

  “This,” Etana said, and he was forced to look. She held a small black bottle of stinky tonic in her hand. “You rub and rub and rub, and gradually the stains recede and the kesmal loosens its grip. At first I had to do it every ten minutes. It really hurt Francisco…” Her face clouded. “Now it only stings a bit, and I can do it every hour. We got it from the philosopher, and Lord Cyril Earl has been providing us with water and a warm room. He is going to help you, Rafen. He promised.”

  She touched Rafen’s arm. Feeling guilty that his brother was going to survive when hers had died, he couldn’t meet her eyes.

  “Rafen,” Etana said, “I’ve told Cyril about our marriage, in order to explain my state. He understands. He believes you even though he was at the marketplace the day Richard showed off Grandfather’s feather. He says he will secretly provide you with men and with a philosopher to train you, despite Richard’s edict.”

  “Etana,” Rafen said, before the spirits in his vision overcame him entirely. He made a frustrated gesture to push them back, his mind buzzing. “I have to… I don’t know,” he said, fumbling behind himself for a chair that hadn’t been there.

  Etana seized a cushioned one from near the wall and drew it up to him. He collapsed into it, clutching the armrests tightly with both hands, his teeth gritted as he tried to regain his mind.

  “Don’t let me sleep,” he said.

  “Rafen, you haven’t been resting lately,” Etana told him from somewhere above. “By Zion, we are going to get you to sleep today. You need—”

  “No,” Rafen said croakily. “If I sleep, they’ll take me. Etana, the Lashki is with the others on the mountain. If Cyril gives me men now, I’ll lead them against the Lashki. Fritz and I will finish him for good.”

  “Rafen, you don’t look nearly well enough to be doing that today,” Etana protested. She had gone white at the mention of the Lashki.

  “I don’t care,” Rafen said, pushing himself to a stand again. “Demus was teaching me to fight despite weariness. I can do it, Etana.”

  A stirring on the settee caught his attention. Francisco had opened his eyes and was gazing at Rafen.

  “Brother?” he croaked.

  Rafen sat down, absolutely still, afraid he was going to break the spell.

  “He is all right, is he not, Etana?” Francisco said weakly.

  Rafen actually laughed. He sounded maniacal, and Etana made a move to still him, her face creased with concern.

  “You’re the sick one,” Rafen said. “Are you going to stop terrifying me now?”

  “Oh yes,” Francisco said, turning to stare at the creamy ceiling. “That is over now. I am better. I feel a thousand times better. I can breathe… eat and drink.”

  A blissful smile came over his face. He looked as if he had been ushered into heaven.

  “Why did he do it?” Rafen asked, his teeth clenched against the spasms that were already taking his muscles. He was about to have another seizure. It was ridiculous. He had to go and help the others! He made to rise, and the pain forced him down.

  “Ah. The Lashki did it because he wanted to know the effects of the Soul Breaker’s Curse on you. I told him that you would finish him in the end. I have looked both you and him in the eyes, Rafen, and I know who is the strongest.”

  Those words spiraled into the blackness that covered his vision. They echoed around him. He thought he would never be rid of them.

  *

  Rafen woke with a jolt and discovered himself in a narrow, cobbled street that looked onto the square double gateway leading out of Parith. His cloak was gone, as were his gloves and balaclava. He was standing in a linen shirt and breeches. He touched his hand to his shirt hem and was relieved to discover his phoenix feather there, even though his shirt had obviously been changed.

  The spirits flocking his vision and the screaming of Nazt told him this was merely another dream. He had never left Cyril Earl’s fortress.

  And then, something told him: Now is the time to stop dreaming.

  He lurched forward, the force of Nazt palpable in his limbs, crushing his shoulders. When he tried staggering backwards, the air was a wall against his body.

  Now is the time to stop dreaming.

  If he couldn’t move backward, he wouldn’t go anywhere. He could see the Ravine in his mind’s eye, an unfathomable drop, a floor of stone, and mists swirling above it like white serpents.

  Nazt wants you to go to there, Sherwin had said.

  As he thought it, Nazt’s screaming became louder, so that his head ached with it. He clapped his hands to his temples and closed his eyes, and then he could see the chain of black bodies before him, screeching. Their gray hands were all stretched out toward him where he lay on the dusty cliff. The fingers beckoned, and he jerked upward and stumbled toward them. There in the street, his body moved two steps ahead. He fought to stop himself panicking as he stared into the empty eye sockets of the figures of Nazt. He looked up abruptly, their shriek of rage blinding while he noted the transparent cords growing out of his hands, feet, and head. Even as he looked, they beckoned again, and the hands holding the strings pulled him forward another few steps. His feet were on the cliff edge now, and he glanced down at the churning ocean below and the unforgiving rocks.

  They would never let him fall. He knew that. He made a desperate move to break the cords, but they remained glittering and unharmed. He stared frantically at one that extended from the back of his left hand. It was like a ribbon of saliva, and reflected in it, he saw Sherwin, Francisco, and Etana following him through winding paths in the Mountains, back to the Ravine. Fritz was nowhere to be seen. He burned with anger. He had to be accountable to someone. He couldn’t do this alone! The string snapped, and he reeled back a few paces. He looked again, this time with wild intensity, into a gray strand in which he saw himself and Etana, in a bed somewhere in the palace. The room was lit with a golden glow, and he was kissing her over and over. Idiot! He had consummated their marriage for his satisfaction and used her as a way to link himself to the royal courts; he should have considered her needs first. That was true love. The strand broke abruptly. He was only vaguely aware of Nazt’s shrieking as he examined another, in which he was in the Ravine, and the Lashki was speaking to him through slimy black lips. Though Rafen could not hear the words distinctly, he felt their impact, the overall shape and comfort of the phrases. As the Fourth Runi, Rafen was of course justified to kill Richard in retribution for all his deeds. Any method of acqui
ring his position in government was acceptable, as Rafen deserved it and had been wronged.

  Rafen raised his eyebrows in surprise. Was this what he really wanted? How could he be so stupid? Being the Fourth Runi was not about revenge or power. It was about saving lives and putting others first. Another cord broke – and another – and another. All the illusions he had labored under over the past few months, everything he had wanted inordinately. He was free, and he had fallen heavily onto his back on the cliff, unable to stand by himself. Nazt loured over him, the mouths opening and closing, toothless and tongueless. The air was heavy and black.

  And then he remembered he had never been able to stand on his own. Zion had always helped him, every step of the way. A supernatural force swept him up and set him on his feet, and Nazt swirled and vanished from around him. The cold street, hemmed in by blank-faced houses, filled his vision again. But he was facing the other way.

  The gate was behind him, and instead he could see the roofs of the houses, tinged with the first pale pinks and reds of morning. The streets wove through them toward Cyril Earl’s rectangular keep, surrounded by the wrought iron fence tipped with arrowhead designs. Within that keep, men awaited his leadership in a battle against the Lashki.

  And that was the direction in which he headed, his hand over his phoenix feather.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Searching

  for Rafen

  “The guard had something rather more… fortified in his canister than I believed,” Lord Cyril Earl said, standing in the center of the room with a grim smile on his face. Etana wanted to kill him for it. “He fell asleep, and it appears Rafen woke before he did. We can still catch him, Your Highness.”

  Etana leaned against the doorframe of the bedchamber, shaking as she stared at the empty canopy bed. Shortly after Rafen had had his seizure, while he was still in a somnolent state, she had prevailed upon him to take some rest and promised one of Lord Cyril Earl’s guards would watch him to make sure he didn’t do anything odd. The guard in question was now backed against the mullioned window at the far end of the room, still bleary-eyed, knotting his fingers as they spoke. Etana kept looking at the depression in the pillow, half expecting Rafen to reappear. This had been the moment, at last, when Rafen was going to have some support, some proper training, some proper protection – a chance to do what he was meant to do, to fight back against the Lashki. Everything was against them.

  She clutched her abdomen. “You’ll have to kill your guard, that’s all, Cyril. I want his head for this.”

  “Come, Etana,” Fritz said from behind her. He and Sherwin had arrived an hour ago, looking considerably worse for their trials. In order to escape, Fritz had been forced to create a miniature avalanche and an immense shield. “Rafen is not beyond recall.”

  “How do you know?” Etana snapped, whirling around to face her grandfather.

  The black circles under Fritz’s eyes were accentuated by the shallow facial gash he had received in an earlier fight.

  “A horse will not take an unresponsive rider far,” Fritz said. “And if he went on foot, he would go slower still. He can’t have left long ago.”

  “I think there are other forces at play, Your Majesty,” Cyril said, dipping his thin head. In the dim light of the room, he was silhouetted, a skinny, long-legged prophet of doom.

  “If there are other forces at play,” Sherwin said, “we better get movin’ before the game’s up.” He turned around as if that was all to be said and started walking quickly back down the corridor through which they had come.

  “Francisco will stay with you,” Etana said to Cyril. “You must take good care of him.”

  “Mobilize some men just in case,” Fritz said. “If we can’t find Rafen outside the city, we’ll send word that we need some warriors so that we can fight his likely captors. Etana, you must stay behind. You are carrying two lives, and it is too dangerous.”

  Cyril inclined his head.

  Inside, Etana was screaming. She gripped the doorframe so hard her knuckles turned white. Then she released it and spun around to follow Sherwin and Fritz.

  *

  After twice getting lost in the labyrinth of streets, Rafen found his way to the gate of Cyril Earl’s fortress. By this time, dawn had given way to the tawny colors of thoroughbred morning. A great deal of time had passed since he had last seen Sherwin and Fritz fighting on the mountainside. He would check at Cyril’s mansion, to see if Sherwin and Fritz had returned. If they hadn’t, he would take some men and retrieve them, and together Fritz and Rafen could face the Lashki and, Zion willing, destroy him. Then Rafen would ask Fritz to accompany him to the New Isles palace, where all ugly rumors about Rafen would hopefully be laid to rest when everyone accepted him as Fourth Runi.

  Rafen needed to hurry, for he felt more and more urgently that Fritz’s time was running out.

  Two dozen guards were clustered about Cyril’s wrought iron fence, their faces grim. A short, broad-shouldered man in Sianian livery spotted him and said, “It can’t be.”

  “What can’t be?” Rafen said suspiciously.

  “It is – My Lord Rafen?” another guard said, approaching him hesitantly.

  “Yes,” Rafen said. “It’s me. Why?”

  “My Lord Rafen had best come inside and speak to My Lord Cyril Earl at once.”

  “Does he know I’ve been gone?”

  Another guard called out, “He thinks you are still gone, My Lord. You must come in at once.”

  Two guards led him through the gates and along the white path that passed between the azalea bushes. Once inside, they seated him in a study and hurried off to notify Cyril. Rafen sat on the red-cushioned, wooden chair and stared at the shelves that covered every inch of wall. The rust-colored books bore various inscriptions that once would have interested him. Although Nazt was calling again, after earlier that morning, it was strangely muted. He had figured out its trick at long last. He had known Nazt snared other people by their immoral desires, but he had never thought of himself as having any… particularly immoral desires. He knew he wanted things. Everyone did. He had never spent much time figuring out what drove his actions – what he desired so earnestly and secretly that he himself did not know. The key to battling Nazt was knowing himself and his shortcomings better than it did, and naming his faults truthfully. The Lashki had always passed his wishes off as a type of spiritual progress. Rafen himself had occasionally done it. When listening to Nazt, he had sometimes assumed he was on a higher spiritual level than others. He was more informed… or not. He shuddered.

  Cyril Earl appeared in the narrow doorframe, and Rafen glanced over at him.

  Cyril had white-blond hair that was combed in straight, horizontal lines over the top of his head. His high cheeks bones gave his thin face a gaunt and severe aspect. He had an extravagantly long, skinny body, making his legs look unnatural.

  He moved another step into the room and shut the paneled door with his distended, ringed fingers.

  “Rafen,” he said in his deep, polished voice, “they all think that you are gone for good. The guard was drinking. I am very sorry to—”

  “Where the others?” Rafen said, clenching his hands. A knot of tension was growing in his stomach.

  “Sherwin, His Majesty Fritz – the Revived, shall we call him? – and Her Highness Etana all left some time ago to look for you. Francisco was told to remain, but he also got away before I had a chance to look in on him.”

  “He’s sick,” Rafen burst out, jumping up from his chair.

  “You seem to have more energy than when I saw you last,” Cyril Earl remarked, intrigued.

  “I don’t remember seeing you,” Rafen said.

  “You were very weary when Her Highness took you to the chambers.”

  “Did they leave the city?”

  “I do not know,” Cyril answered, spreading his hands.

  “They won’t be safe outside the city,” Rafen said.

  “You need not worry t
oo greatly, Rafen,” Cyril said. “It is not as if they were you.”

  “They may as well be,” Rafen whispered. “I need some men immediately.”

  It had just occurred to him Nazt was sounding much cheated in his mind. If the Lashki was listening to it as well, he would realize Rafen was not coming to the Ravine after all, which probably meant he would try to attract him another way.

  “I’m afraid my standing army is out at the moment, dealing with a riot,” Cyril said. “I do have seven hundred more men, but they are mobilizing. It will take some time.”

  “Send word once your men are mobilized, if I am not back,” Rafen replied. “I will tell you where to dispatch them. I cannot wait for them now.” He made to leave the room, pausing before he reached the door. “I’ll be back. And when I am, I will need soldiers and philosophers. We’re going to put an end to the Lashki’s life and Richard Patrick’s sway in this country. Your men will escort me and King Fritz to the royal court, where all will be made to realize I am Zion’s Fourth Runi.”

  *

  Outside the city gates, Etana clung to the reins of her white mount, staring around the slushy slope for any signs of a traveler. Sherwin and Fritz had reined in their horses next to her. They had gone a little way up the mountain, though not far because they had found nothing to encourage them. Besides this, Fritz had advised them all to stay close to the city. He was uncertain the Lashki had departed the slope yesterday and would have taken men with him if Cyril had had them available. For protection, Fritz had created a brilliant yellow shield around them all, and it moved as they did. He had tried in vain to persuade Etana to stay at Cyril Earl’s mansion for her own safety. Etana would have none of it, and Fritz and Sherwin themselves refused to let the danger outside the city stop them from looking for Rafen. His death was a greater risk than the loss of their own lives.

  Etana put her hands to her temples.

  “Where could he be?” she groaned. “Do you think he might have gone back?”

  Sherwin raised his eyebrows, skeptical.