A King's Caution

by Brennan C. Adams

  “I am not Raimie,” he firmly repeated.

  Abruptly, Kheled recalled a conversation held atop an ivy-coated arbor. In that discourse, Raimie had unburdened what he considered to be his biggest vulnerability before summarily asking Kheled to fix his father. Kheled also hazily remembered when a man disguised as his friend had rescued him from three people attempting to beat him to death. After years with no evident appearances, Kheled had nearly forgotten, but…

  “Nylion,” he said.

  “After so long, I am pleased to make your acquaintance,” not-Raimie said.

  “I don’t know if I can say the same,” Kheled replied. “Where’s my friend?”

  “Dreaming in the mind space we formed years ago,” not-Raimie answered. “He is perfectly intact, although our body may not currently receive the rest you wish, healer.”

  “What do you want from me?” Kheled asked.

  Those familiar lips moved again, but despite the fact that he desperately wanted answers, Kheled didn’t hear not-Raimie’s response, too lost in the fascination of watching someone else manipulate those well-known features.

  “Chaos, do you not think you should leave while you have the chance?” not-Raimie drawled. “If he decides once more to attack you, I doubt I can stop him.”

  Making a soft, choking noise, the Daevetch splinter popped from existence.

  “There,” not-Raimie said. “We are alone. At least, I believe it so. I have no way to determine if your babysitter currently tails your every move or not.”

  Kheled kept a pleasantly neutral expression on his face despite the shock of hearing Creation referred to as ‘babysitter’ by someone other than himself and Raimie. How many of his secrets had this second persona learned from his friend? How often was not-Raimie awake and watching behind his friend’s eyes?

  “Will you not speak with me, or shall I converse with a statue?” not-Raimie asked.

  “What would you like me to say?” Kheled murmured. “Until this moment, I’d honestly forgotten you existed, Nylion. It’s strange to see Raimie so…” he waved a hand toward the other man, “not Raimie.”

  “I cannot help the body within which I have been trapped. I hope you can look beyond the distraction of these familiar features and see me.”

  Not-Raimie-Nylion-sounded so mournful the neutral smile carved into Kheled’s face tightened. This stranger, this Nylion, was a part of his friend. He’d do his damnedest to forbid his unease and outright hostility from further damaging the fragile persona.

  “I’ve no trouble seeing you, Nylion,” he said. “That ease, however, makes conversing with you all the stranger, but don't allow my discomfort to bother you. Did you have a reason for assuming control over Ra- your body besides stopping me from erasing evil?”

  “In this time of powerful magics, you would have destroyed my only means of defense, Kheled,” Nylion reprimanded. “Prowess in combat will not help us when a Daevetch primeancer can slap us and wipe our head from our shoulders in the process.”

  “Even without Chaos, you’d have Order to protect you,” Kheled protested.

  “No. Raimie would retain Ele’s protection. I would not.”

  Kheled’s eyes widened. Oh. OH. Is that why Order wouldn’t come when called? Was it quite literally absent? Is that why this not-Raimie disturbed him so?

  “You’re solely Daevetch,” he stated.

  Not-Raimie cocked his head, brow quizzically furrowing. “I thought Raimie had told you. He has shared everything about you with me. I wonder why he failed to mention my deficiency. Was he afraid for me?” Those familiar lips curled into a smirk. “I suppose that makes me his closest companion, despite what he may say to the contrary.”

  Shadowsteal’s point touched the hollow of not-Raimie-Raimie’s-neck, and Kheled hesitated. When had he pulled the blade free?

  More importantly, what was the roiling firestorm tearing through his guts and to the back of his mouth? He remembered feeling something similar when Reive tied his adoptive nephew, Rafe, to a stake for the crime of surviving his illness. It wasn’t merely hatred. No, it wasn’t even loathing. It was abhorrence, a repugnance so severe simply looking upon the recipient’s visage made Kheled taste bile and a salty metallic tang.

  This visage, however, also evoked fierce protectiveness, a great deal of admiration, and yes, even a certain degree of love, and he pointed a sword at it.

  Not-Raimie’s mouth moved in increments, and Kheled became aware of Shadowsteal’s cold grip in his hand. No wonder the flow of time had slowed to a crawl. Fortunately, Kheled knew how to remedy his skewed sense of time. He’d learned, centuries ago, how to manipulate the damn blade’s tricks and granted skills from the one who’d forged it.

  But to lose the feeling of oneness, of being complete? To once again return to the sorry state he’d toiled through for the last two years? The rush of Ele through his veins, the thrum of energy in his very soul, he’d ached for this.

  Raimie, or something of Raimie, attempted to speak to him, and Kheled needed to hear, no matter how thoroughly undamaged he currently felt.

  Closing his eyes, he found the glob of soft, mushy tissue in his head which controlled his perception of time. Once discovered, he isolated it from the ocean of Ele which flowed in currents through his body. Outside, the soft shuffle of guards’ feet quickened to a standard pace, and not Raimie once more spoke at a regular rate.

  “Kill me, and you kill Raimie,” he said, a chuckle packed into the sentence.

  Forget about pacifying this side of his friend. Kheled’s conviction needed to be spoken, otherwise, something utterly disastrous might occur the next time not-Raimie emerged.

  “I greatly dislike you,” Kheled hissed through gritted teeth, the understatement almost dispelling the white-hot fire inside.

  “I gathered that.” Not Raimie glanced at Shadowsteal grazing his throat. “Then again, most find me disconcerting at first. You will eventually move past it, and after you have, perhaps we can be friends.”

  Kheled chuckled, a sound so low and dangerous not-Raimie paused. “No, I think you misunderstand me. This isn’t a casual, general dislike of your character. This is an absolute loathing of everything you are. You parasitize the only man I call friend, solely existing for the dregs of life he can spare to give you. Raimie already sacrifices enough of himself for others. He can’t afford to cede more to a Daevetch primeancer whose only answer to threats is to kill them.”

  Not-Raimie wordlessly stared at him, his painfully short breaths the only evidence of an internal battle he appeared to be losing. “You are upset because I killed the men in Da’kul, otherwise, you would not say these things,” he stated in a tight voice.

  “I say these things because they’re true,” Kheled growled. “I dislike anyone who takes advantage of Raimie, but I especially despise those who return his kindness with nothing but trouble.”

  If not-Raimie had appeared to be losing his internal fight before, now, it had obviously defeated him. His hugely dilated pupils almost vanished within the vast, white sea of his eyes, and his nostrils flared from voluminously surging gasps. Clenched fists locked into stone in his lap.

  “You have no idea what I have suffered for my other half, what I gladly relinquished in order to spare his youth. NO IDEA.”

  The bellow squeezed into a squeak, and Kheled was seized in a gaze of such unbridled hurt and fury it might hold a candle to his own.

  “Get out, Kheled,” not-Raimie finally continued. “Get out before we try to kill one another, destroying this wing of the palace in the process.”

  Not-Raimie made an advantageous suggestion for them both, even if Kheled could only grudgingly admit it, but could he afford to retreat from this argument? What if not-Raimie took his concession as weakness and subsequently proceeded to control further exchanges? Could Raimie afford for his second persona to dominate if ever a time came when his friend must choose between those he held most dear?

  “Oh, stop being such an ass, Eri
anger,” Creation sighed. “You’re the one who turned this conversation perilous in the first place. You can be the one to first relinquish.”

  Kheled winced. The Ele splinter was correct, and that fact pained him. He was never the one to cause a mess.

  Slowly, he backed from the room, only sheathing Shadowsteal when the door swung closed. Would not-Raimie submerge now? Would the second persona allow Raimie sleep? If so, should Kheled stay and guard it?

  No, it was unlikely anyone would wake the newly appointed king, especially after he’d rescued his investiture’s attendees. Raimie didn’t need someone to watch his door on this single night.

  Why Kheled had remained with his friend as long as he had, he couldn’t decide. Irrational concern and anxiety for Raimie were the most likely culprits, although other reasons were certainly as guilty looking. He continually forgot Raimie didn’t always need his protection. The kid could take care of himself.

  Energy thrummed in Kheled’s system, an insistent beat which begged him to move, no, dance, no, sprint down the palace’s halls and up countless stairs. When Shadowsteal’s granted excess Ele burned to nothing, Kheled stood upon one of the palace spires’ pinnacles.

  Uduli and the surrounding farmlands stretched for miles in every direction, only blocked by mountains to the south, and he could see it all. The gas fire lit city quarters which steadily grew every day, the patches of black where people had yet to take up residence, the sporadic pinpricks further afield which indicated farms. All were proof humanity and, in some rare cases, Esela inhabited these once dark lands.

  It wasn’t enough, and it never would be. The world was too wounded (he was too wounded) for this small defeat of the dark to balance the scales. Eventually, a disaster would come to destroy this scene of beauty. It was inevitable, as Kheled would inevitably fall prey to the backlash just as a tentative peace was born. He’d die and enter a war-torn world once more. Sharp sorrow pricked at his eyes.

  Damn these emotions! They’d already made him a jealous bastard this night. They wouldn’t make him a blubbering mess as well! He couldn’t keep lapsing, damn it! When he’d accepted emotions’ return all those years ago in Allanovian, he’d made a promise they wouldn’t manipulate him. Look how well he’d kept to it.

  A new light flickered awake below Kheled in the spire opposite. What on earth was someone doing on the palace’s pinnacle this late at night?

  Shifting his eyes to resemble an eagle’s, he kept watch on the illuminated floor until Oswin wandered behind a window, distractedly waving his hands. The spire the spy paced must have been bequeathed to one of the primeancer schools, and Oswin, being the night owl he was, appeared to be in the midst of making plans for dormitories or perhaps a classroom.

  Maybe the world was wounded beyond repair, but Kheled knew, despite any melodrama he might occasionally exhibit, that he wasn’t. Every time someone worked to right an injustice, to further promote the causes of knowledge and understanding, an iota of the wound which composed him healed and scabbed over.

  He was the Ele primeancer school’s head. He really should help Oswin.

  Shifting to a hawk, Kheled flew from one spire’s pinnacle in the direction of another.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  23rd of Thirteenth, 3477

  I know I said I’d never write in you again, but time passes, wounds heal, and people change. I need this place of respite more than ever.

  I met the Eselan diplomat today. When last he visited Uduli, he’d returned home after weeks of delayed meetings, leaving Emri, his son, to be my bodyguard. Have I mentioned how different those two are? How one is intolerable, and the other is, dare I say it, my friend?

  In any case, the insufferable bastard returned today, and I couldn’t fabricate an excuse not to see him. He was-how do I put this politely?-haggard. His wild eyes and frazzled hair! And the desperation! In the two years since I took the throne, no one has ever come to me in such distress.

  I must admit I was pleased to see the haughty man so humbled, even while I firmly resolved to help him to the best of my ability.

  He informed me of the terror which plagues his people’s Haven: the Eselan touched by madness who leads a band of near deathless monsters. They rape and pillage even the most well defended of settlements, leaving none alive upon departure. Several months ago, Lyzencroft sent aid to the Haven at the bequest of its leaders, and now, the great, decidedly human nation threatens to crumble before this scourge.

  I’d known his woeful tale’s contents before he spun it. Auden isn’t without its scouts and spies. So when rumors and reports concerning the Haven’s gradual destruction first trickled into court, I’d considered sending soldiers to help. In the end, I had decided not to interfere in foreign politics. I’d made the right choice if the diplomat’s claims concerning Lyzencroft prove true. I hadn’t known my wife’s homeland was in such dire straits.

  What also came as news to me were three facts regarding the terror who’s already decimated half the continent. One is that, apparently, he’s a powerful, Daevetch primeancer. I don’t know how likely I find the assertion. Since my father, no primeancers have surfaced in our world, at least none of which we know, but the diplomat was vehemently insistent when I expressed my doubts. He is a Daevetch primeancer.

  Two, he plans to march on Auden. I suppose two conquered nations aren’t enough for him. I wish him luck with his designs on my kingdom, even if he can access Daevetch. Auden has stood for centuries, despite numerous threats against it. I doubt our current one will blemish that record.

  Lastly, I’ve a name for the threat. Since father died and mother was executed, I’ve searched for an adversary to take their place. Ministers and diplomats are poor substitutes as they prove no real threat. Maybe this one will. So, his name.

  My enemy’s name is Doldimar.

  A solid month spent resting in bed and Raimie was quite finished with lying around, thank you! He proudly strolled to his next meeting, Thumb trailing him with a happy hum. Of his injuries, a slight limp continued to plague him, and Raimie thought it probably would for the rest of his days. It was the price he’d pay for rushing home to arrive before the investiture.

  If all he suffered was a limp, the cost would be worth it. Despite his complaints and dread, Raimie had discovered, in the last month, that he thoroughly enjoyed being king. Sure, the role came with immense responsibilities and headaches, but it also allowed him to help vast swathes of people. The moments where he approved a plan to repair Auden’s road system, knowing full well doing so would provide jobs for thousands of displaced people, outweighed the drag of long meetings with Eledis beforehand. Hours the two spent analyzing where they’d allocate the funds to pay for the project.

  Take today for example. Yesterday evening, Kheled had declared Raimie fit for his first day receiving supplicants. Despite the truly despicable people interspersed with those in need, listening to his subjects describe their troubles and ask for aid had been ridiculously energizing. Each problem presented a new challenge, some easy and some difficult, and where his mind couldn’t devise an immediate solution, he’d instead offered what help he could.

  Today’s final errand awaited him, and once Raimie completed it, he could proceed with the personal task he’d anticipated with both fear and eagerness since waking this morning. He paused a moment before his office’s door, allowing butterflies to settle.

  “What do you think? Still presentable?” he asked Thumb, waving at his body.

  “You look like a king to me, sir. At least your particular pattern of it,” Thumb answered with a shrug.

  So very reassuring. Of the Hand, Thumb had never been the most proficient at echoing the sentiments a moment might require.

  Taking a deep breath, Raimie breezed into his office. Someone had replaced his carefully organized book stacks to their shelves. His bedroll had long since been cleared away, and his desk had been pulled to the side, replaced by a short table and chairs.

  At the table
, two people waited for him. Eledis nervously perched on the seat positioned furthest from the window wall. Next to him, Vasnavai Dyomina lounged, her feet on the table, and tossed a dagger, end over end, into the air.

  “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting long,” Raimie opened as he hopped up the stairs, ignoring the dull ache in his thigh.

  Dyomina clunked her chair’s legs to the floor, speculatively staring at him. Raimie wondered what had caught her interest, but when he saw the last chair’s placement, he almost laughed aloud.

  He trod onto the glass which composed half the raised dais’s floor. Dyomina’s mouth gaped, but she totally lost control of it when Raimie raised a foot and smashed it into glass, making Eledis flinch.

  “Don’t worry,” he told the Vasnavai. “It’s stronger than it looks.”

  Taking a seat, he scooted forward until the table met his stomach, a mile-long drop yawning beneath his feet.

  “I believe this is yours.” Retrieving an ivory-handled, black blade from his belt, Raimie offered it to her.

  “When did yu-?” Dyomina asked.

  “I stumbled onto some free time while my healer thought I slept.” Raimie shrugged. “I believed you might require proof I was the one to borrow it last time since I didn’t personally return it to you. Please. Take it.”

  She hesitantly reached for the dagger, replacing it into the empty sheath at her back.

  “I see I made right decision coming tu dead city,” she muttered.

  “I trust your accommodations in the gardens have been suitable,” Eledis said.

  “Indeed. Very much su,” she answered. “Yu should congraetulate yur gaerdener. Did maegnificent job!”

  “I’ll pass your appreciation along,” Raimie promised. “Shall we get to signing?”

  Eledis produced a stack of paper as if by magic. “Here is the proposed treaty,” he said as he slid it to the Vasnavai.

  She took her time reading it, as she should. Eledis’ foot unconsciously jittered, and he darted glances at the sun’s position in the sky. For his part, Raimie returned to the more complicated problems today’s supplicants had brought to his attention.