King's Folly

by Jill Williamson

Wilek lost his breath. Harton was a mantic?

  Harton hurled the second fireball, which struck Barthos in the ear. The beast shrieked and ran into the cliff wall. Hit hard. Fell. Another ball of fire bloomed and sailed, this time hitting Barthos in the stomach.

  Barthos howled. He struggled to rise onto his legs but slumped back to the sand.

  Harton had injured him.

  It. Barthos was no god. That much Wilek now knew for certain. This creature was all animal. Looking for an easy meal.

  A third ball of fire sparked, grew slowly on Harton’s hand. He hurled the fire against the creature’s head. It wailed and thrashed in the sand.

  Then Harton collapsed.

  Wilek started toward his backman, but a snort from the creature changed his mind. He ran toward it. He needed to finish this.

  The beast lay on its back, chin pointed to the sky, neck exposed. Wilek gripped the dagger and dragged it hard across half of its throat.

  The beast flailed, head jerking up and spraying blood across Wilek’s chest. Wilek stumbled back, waited. The creature rattled and moaned, tossed and turned. When it fell silent again, Wilek came around its head and sliced the other side of its neck.

  This time the creature merely twitched. The growl in its throat was more of a death rattle. Encouraged, Wilek set to work, hacking his dagger across its neck. The blade scratched over tendons and bone. Hot blood drenched his arms and steamed the pores on his face, sending up a sour smell. He kept at it, pouring his fury at all this creature had done into every stroke until he managed to sever the head completely.

  The creature was dead. Had never been a god. Wilek crouched over it, noticing for the first time that it had two horns on its head—rather than the long ears Barthos was always drawn with. Each horn was as long as Wilek’s leg and curved slightly forward.

  He walked around to its tail and found it had a rattle, like a rattler snake, though this rattle was as long as Wilek’s arm. He realized with a jolt that the beast had all the likeness of the cheyvahs of myth.

  A moan reminded him of Oli and Harton. Wilek grabbed one of the horns and dragged the head back toward the chute. Once he was a good arrow’s shot from the carcass, he let go and ran to Oli, who was lying on the ground, moaning.

  In the darkness Wilek couldn’t tell what he was looking at. Oli’s tunic was drenched in blood. His left hand gripped the right . . . No. It gripped the stump of his right arm just above the elbow. The rest was gone.

  Wilek peeled off his tabard and wrapped the stump. The duke screamed, and Wilek went as quickly as he could, twisting the tabard tight until Oli’s arm ended in a fat roll of fabric.

  “You going to live?” Wilek asked, laying Oli’s arm at his side.

  Oli panted, grunted, and gasped out, “It feels like a god bit off my arm.”

  “I’m sorry,” Wilek said, which sounded completely hollow.

  “Am I hallucinating?” Oli asked. “Or did your backman do magic?”

  “He did magic.” Time to see about that. Wilek pushed up and walked to where Harton was kneeling and muttering.

  “You’re a mantic, Harton?”

  “A moment, please,” he said. “I have to purge.”

  The poison. Charlon had called it cleansing. Wilek waited, furious and thankful at the same time. He never could have killed the cheyvah without Harton’s fireballs, but his own backman a mantic? The revelation stung.

  Harton looked up suddenly, eyes clear. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Your Highness. I knew you wouldn’t employ a mantic.”

  “Because mantics are illegal in Armania,” Wilek said.

  “I don’t use it much, I swear. A little love spell here and there. Extra strength on the practice yard.”

  Love spells. “Why doesn’t it change the color of your eyes?”

  “It’s an easy enough spell to mask eye color,” Harton said.

  Which explained how Rogedoth hid his gray eyes. “Where did you learn?”

  “From my father, who learned from a Tennish whore. After he died, I pretended to be Armanian to get out of Rurekau.”

  “How old are you, really?”

  “Twenty-nine.”

  Unbelievable. “You’re older than me!”

  “Please don’t discharge me. I’m a good soldier. I’ll try again to quit. It’s just . . . root is addicting.”

  Wilek knew—had felt Charlon’s cravings for the stuff. His sympathy angered him. “The need for evenroot has destroyed the Five Realms! You have seen the results firsthand.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. But I never grew my own. I always bought it.”

  In Everton, even, he had known where to purchase it. “That does not make it right, Hart. I must think on what to do.” Wilek turned back to check on Oli, then stopped, an idea forming. He twisted back to Harton. “Can you heal Oli’s arm?”

  Harton glanced over to where Oli’s body lay. “Perhaps. How bad is it?”

  “Come and see.” He offered Harton his hand, pulled him to standing, and they jogged to where Oli lay.

  Harton knelt at Oli’s side, staring at the blood. Wilek unwrapped his tabard from Oli’s arm. The fabric was now soaked through. Oli groaned, tried to move away, then passed out.

  Wilek pulled the rest of the tabard free and regarded the oozing stump. If Harton could heal Oli, perhaps he would be willing to attempt a soul-loosing spell. Wilek didn’t want to hope too strongly, and praying to Arman that a mantic would free him seemed wrong somehow, so he pushed the thought aside for the moment.

  Harton grimaced at the wound. “I don’t . . .” He shuddered. “I don’t know how to replace his arm without having it here. I’ll just, um, stop the bleeding. Put a confusion in his mind so he doesn’t feel pain.” He laid his hand on Oli’s bleeding arm and spoke in ancient Armanian, just as Charlon had. Unlike Charlon, or even Teaka, he did not use a bowl or blood.

  “Izog âthâh. tsar dâm. Râphâ zōt chêts.”

  Wilek watched the bloody mass, waiting for it to dry up. Instead, blood seeped between Harton’s fingers, dripped down the side of his hand.

  “You’re making it worse,” Wilek said.

  Harton scowled. “Shh!”

  The cold crept upon Wilek like a shadow, pimpling his arms. Icy air snaked down his throat. The oozing blood frosted. Oli screamed.

  “What’s happening?” Wilek asked, shivering.

  “A moment more,” Harton said, breath misting from his mouth.

  “I won’t!” Oli yelled. “You cannot force me. Get away!”

  Harton slumped over, unconscious. Wilek shook him, found him breathing. The air around them warmed. Oli’s arm now ended in a smooth stump, just above where his elbow had once been.

  Wilek looked down on the duke. “Oli? Are you well?”

  Oli simply stared into the night sky, breathing steadily.

  Wilek sat on the ground between the two men, wondering if there were more cheyvah in this Gray. The silence chilled his arms as he waited anxiously for Harton to wake. Oli groaned and shifted several times before Harton sat up.

  Wilek wasted no time. “Can you cast a soul-loosing spell?”

  The backman simply stared.

  Frustration filled Wilek’s chest. “Answer me!”

  “I-I don’t know,” Harton stammered. “I’ve never tried.”

  “You will try. Now.” Wilek drew the pendant from inside his tunic and pulled the cord over his head. “She wrapped our hands in this. It burned a rune onto my palm.”

  Harton took the pendant, pressed the amulet to Wilek’s palm, and wrapped the cord around his hand. Wilek could still see the burn scars where the cord had seared him.

  Harton tucked the end of the twine under itself, then pulled off his other boot. A packet fell out onto the sand.

  “More evenroot?” Wilek asked.

  “It only lasts so long.”

  Wilek waited while Harton ingested the drug and fell under its stupor. It surprised him how differently Harton and Charlon reacted to evenroot.
Wilek had never once seen Charlon behave like this. Perhaps one reacted to root juice differently than powder? Or maybe Charlon was more gifted or learned as a mantic. She did ask for cleansing, though not after every spell.

  When Harton became himself again, he spoke the words of his spell without asking which mantic had cast the soul-binding. Would Harton’s ignorance of spells keep him from success?

  “Izog âthâh.” Izog, come.

  “Bâqa ze ecâr.” Break the bond.

  “Nêzer illek nephesh.” Separate the souls.

  “Bara châphash netsach.” Make free forever.

  Wilek felt Charlon briefly, as if she were being ripped away. Tears flooded his eyes and he screamed as the incredible loss consumed him. He collapsed in the sand and wept.

  Then came a sudden warmth.

  Wilek was lying on the dirt, Harton looming over him. His backman pulled the cord off Wilek’s hand. The lines from the twine were still there, but the rune mark on his palm was gone, as was the cold within. Wilek sat up. “You did it.”

  Harton winced. “You don’t feel the bond?”

  “Nor the cold.”

  “Good.” Harton shifted onto his knees. “I must purge again.”

  Wilek sat in silence, thankful to be free from Charlon. He watched Harton, curious. The spell hadn’t seemed like it had cost much effort. Harton was still lucid this time, while healing Oli had rendered him unconscious. Why had Teaka been afraid to try?

  “The shadir are coming for me,” Oli said.

  Wilek crawled to Oli’s side. “No one is here but us. Harton healed you.”

  “Healed my arm?” Oli lifted his stump and uttered a small cry.

  “I’m sorry,” Wilek said. “I mean he stopped the bleeding.”

  Oli’s gaze shifted to Harton, who lay on his face in the dirt, mumbling a prayer. “He’s asking his shadir to cure him of the poison. It’s the same with Lahavôtesh.”

  Prince Mergest’s cult that Trevn had talked about. “Which is . . . ?” Wilek asked.

  “A secret order of those who worship black spirits. I figured if I died, they would lose their power over me. I should have died.”

  “That’s why you volunteered for sacrifice?” Wilek asked.

  “I wanted my life to have meaning.” Oli’s eyes glossed with moisture. “But they owned my life, so . . .” He shrugged.

  “Are the priests of Havôt part of them?”

  Oli flinched at the words but said nothing.

  Wilek pressed on. “Did they kill Lebetta?”

  “Likely. She was inducted shortly after me. They give us tasks. People who refuse . . . Things happen. Sometimes people die.”

  “Tell me about them. What is the draw?”

  “I knew Janek and Fonu were part of something secret. They would talk, make me feel left out. So when the Feelers came asking if I was interested, I said yes. But I should have stayed away. When I found out they wanted Hinck, I tried to warn him, but he refused to listen. I know not whether he . . .” Oli shook his head and stared at his missing arm. “I shouldn’t talk of this while I still live.”

  Wilek needed to know more. “I command you to talk about it.”

  Oli chuckled. “See now, that matters not, Your Highness. Kill me if you must, but a shadir can torture my soul for eternity. Forgive me, but I will obey the shadir over you.”

  “What does that mean, ‘Obey the shadir’?”

  “Evenroot is poison,” Oli said. “But mantics make a deal with a shadir, who will heal them of the poison. Some shadir have stipulations for that healing.”

  “Why deal with shadir at all?” Wilek asked.

  “If you take evenroot in any large measure, you need a shadir to heal you or you will die.”

  Wilek looked down on Harton. “That’s what he is doing now? Asking to be healed?”

  Oli nodded, turned his head, and stared across the canyon. “You cut off Barthos’s head?”

  Wilek followed his gaze and shivered. “Harton did most the work. I just wanted to make sure it stayed dead.”

  “Wait until the minstrels hear about this,” Oli said, smiling wryly. “You’ll be the Godslayer for all time.”

  “Harton killed it.”

  “You killed it together,” Oli said. “But since you cannot let anyone know your backman is a mantic, we will say you killed it alone.”

  Wilek shook his head. “I won’t take the credit.”

  “You must, Your Highness,” Oli said. “Carry that head into Canden House and throw it at your father’s feet. There must be witnesses to see you do it too. It’s the only thing that will win back the ring from Janek.”

  This coming from Oli? “You want me to reign? You’re Janek’s friend.”

  Oli snorted. “Janek has no friends. He is self-absorbed and dishonest. I have never condoned his actions, but I could not escape his control either. I wanted to make my own life, even if it meant death. Now that I still breathe, he will likely demand I return to his service.”

  “You are welcome at my table anytime, Your Grace,” Wilek said.

  Oli stared at Wilek, eyes watery and bloodshot. “Thank you, Your Highness. I might have to take you up on that. Though I should warn you, I seem to have injured my sword arm.”

  The next morning Wilek, Harton, and Oli began the day climbing out of the canyon. It went slowly, especially with Oli’s missing arm and the struggle to drag the cheyvah head between them. By the time they reached the city, the sun had started to set.

  They made quite a stir as they took the long way through town. Three men, two covered in blood. Wilek, who dragged Barthos’s head behind him, followed by Harton, and finally Oli, who had no way to hide his missing limb. People drew back from both the sight and smell.

  By the time they entered Canden House, Rayim was waiting in the foyer with a squadron of Queen’s Guards. When he saw Wilek, he rushed forward and embraced him. “Gods be praised! We were just about to leave for Everton when word reached us that Sâr Wilek was marching toward Canden House carrying Barthos’s head. I dared hope it was true. How did you survive?”

  “It was not easy,” Wilek said. “Did you find any evenroot?”

  “In five chambers, belonging to Rogedoth, Yohthehreth, Lau, the Honored Lady Zenobia, and Rosârah Laviel. The newt spent a very long time in Sâr Janek’s apartment but found nothing. I wonder if he somehow moved it before we arrived and the newt sensed that it had been present.”

  Wilek was disappointed that Janek had managed to evade his trap, but catching the other five with evenroot should be enough to stop their plans. “Arrest those five individuals immediately and send a messenger to my father. Tell him that Barthos and I await him and his Wisean Council in the Throne Room.”

  Rayim chuckled. “With pleasure, Your Highness.”

  The undead prince carrying Barthos’s head startled at least a dozen servants on the short walk to the Throne Room. Word must have spread, because by the time Wilek, Oli, and Harton reached the fifth floor, several nobles had gathered outside the gilded doors, including Kamran DanSâr, Lady Durvah, Lilou Caridod, and Hinckdan Faluk, who gave a whoop when he saw them.

  “You’re alive!” Hinckdan shouted, ogling the severed head. “Is that Barthos?”

  “What’s left of him after the sâr attacked,” Oli said.

  Harton opened the doors, and Wilek entered the chamber first. Father was sitting in his rollchair, surrounded by Janek and three of the Wisean Five: Danek and Canbek Faluk and Avron Jervaid. Wilek had eyes only for the king.

  Sweat had beaded on Father’s pale face; his bottom lip quivered. “Are you a ghost that stands before me, my son?”

  Wilek swung Barthos’s head toward the men and let go. It rolled twice before stopping at Father’s feet, leaving a sticky trail of red goo on the marble behind it.

  “Back!” Father ordered, and his attendant pulled his chair away from the head.

  Wilek bowed deeply. “I am very much alive, Father. But your god is not.” Harton stoo
d holding open the doors for the crowd gathered there. Perfect. Wilek wanted all to hear. “Barthos is dead. He will never feast on Armanians again, be they criminals or innocents.” He looked his father in the eye. “I faced Barthos and defeated him. I demand Justness.”

  “Of course, my son,” Father said, a tremble in his voice. “Ask me for anything you want and I shall give it to you.”

  “Three things,” Wilek said. “First, that all mantics found in Armania be arrested and put on trial.”

  “What mantics?” Jervaid asked. “There are no mantics in Armania.”

  “Second,” Wilek said, with a glare at Jervaid for interrupting. “I be declared Heir of Armania.”

  “But I am Heir!” Janek yelled, glancing wide-eyed from Father to the severed head.

  “You are not even a prince of Armania,” Wilek said. “You are the son of Pontiff Rogedoth and Rosârah Laviel.”

  The crowd gasped and began to murmur.

  Janek lifted his chin. “That is a lie!”

  The king reached out to Janek. “Give me the ring.”

  Janek held his fist against his heart. “But it’s mine!”

  “Your parents,” Wilek said, “Pontiff Rogedoth and Rosârah Laviel are, as we speak, being arrested as mantics. Captain Veralla and his men found evenroot in their chambers. The abstaining fast forced upon them as they sit in the dungeon will be proof enough, Janek, that they have an affinity for the poison.”

  The crowd exclaimed over this announcement. Janek glared at Wilek. He pulled the Heir’s ring from his finger and handed it over. He knew his parents were guilty. He knew he had lost.

  Wilek shoved the ring onto his finger, confidence filling him at the feel of the warm metal against his skin. “Harton,” he said, “escort this false prince to his chambers and put five guards on his rooms until the king can decide what to do with him.”

  Harton drew his sword. “After you, Your Highness.”

  “Father, this is insulting!” Janek said. “I demand a private word.”

  “Go with the guard, Janek,” Father said. “I must investigate this matter before I can speak on it.”

  “When you find the truth, I will demand Justness from you both.” Janek strode between the men. The crowd parted for him at the door. Harton followed like a shadow.