by Nat Russo
“I know necromancy is new to you, but I’m not foolin’ around when I say Tor and I can take this guy easily. I mean, if it comes to that.”
Toridyn made a sound that indicated he wasn’t so sure.
“Siek Lamil would say the day you underestimate your opponent is the day he defeats you,” Toridyn said, imitating the siek’s deep voice.
“There’s another Cichlos saying I love,” Nicolas said.
“Oh yeah?” Toridyn asked. “Which one?”
“Zip it.”
Toridyn faced Kaitlyn. “That’s not actually a thing.”
The carriage stopped next to the walls of a ruined two-story building about a hundred yards off the northern side of the road. Mostly dilapidated, all that remained of the second floor was a semicircle of brick, creating an overhang. The ground was wet, but the rain had stopped.
“This should work,” Aelron said from the driver’s seat, just forward of the trapdoor in the roof. “One of the rooms has all four walls intact. Should be dry enough inside to get a fire started.”
“You think the ceiling will stay up?” Kaitlyn asked.
Aelron nodded. “See those bright specks on the rock? Religarian granite. Nothing short of a quake will tear those walls down.”
“All the same, I think I’ll stay out here,” Kaitlyn said.
“Don’t recommend it,” Aelron said. “Firebugs will eat you alive. That’s if passing marauders don’t spot you first.”
Kaitlyn mouthed the word firebugs to Nicolas, who responded with a shrug.
“Tor,” Nicolas said. “When I looked under the tarp earlier there was some bedding. Grab it and let’s get set up.”
Kaitlyn leaned close to Nicolas. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was until you asked Aelron if he could cook.”
Nicolas put his arm around her and led her into the ruins.
Two hours later, Nicolas began to question Aelron’s cooking skills. The meal was edible, if a person didn’t mind pulling hair and the occasional stone out of their bowl.
When they’d finished eating, Toridyn smothered the fire with mud and Nicolas went off behind the walls of the ruins to clean the pots and pans.
As he scrubbed his bowl with water from his drinking skin, he fumbled the bowl. When he reached for it, he dropped the water skin, spilling its contents on the ground. He stared at the water as the last of it trickled out of the skin. And though three people, two penitents, and a beagle were less than twenty feet away, he was utterly alone.
A despair he hadn’t felt since he was chained to the posts in Caspardis overcame him, and he stumbled back until his hand found the cold stone wall.
Everyone was expecting him to have the answers, to find some way of defeating these Barathosians.
And he couldn’t even manage to wash a bowl without spilling all of his water.
I can’t do this. I’m not a general. Hell, I wasn’t even a boy scout.
He rubbed his forehead.
No. Stop this! I survived being beaten, scourged, and drowned. I’ve traveled to the Plane of Death. I toppled a despotic ruler and saved a continent. I will find a way to stop them. I will!
He grabbed the water skin, straightened himself up, and walked back into the ruins. Maybe a couple of hours of sleep would do him some good.
Nicolas stared through the carriage window at the night sky of Erindor with Kaitlyn leaning against his shoulder. She adjusted her position, and he closed his eye, soaking in as much of her presence as he could. He put his arms around her and squeezed, and she kissed him on the neck.
They’d slept for three hours in the ruins, which was an hour longer than Nicolas had planned. He couldn’t get to Caspardis soon enough. Stopping was no longer an option. Not if the Barathosians could appear at will whenever they wanted to.
He opened his eyes and gazed out the window. The clouds had gone with the rest of the storm, and the sky was every bit as surreal as the Field of Judgment had been. Mujahid hadn’t been lying about Erindor having two moons. They were big. Much bigger than the full moon on Earth. The larger of the two had a yellow tint and the telltale pockmarks of meteor strikes. The smaller was reddish in color and reminded Nicolas of Mars. It hung beneath and to the left of the larger moon.
But the moons weren’t the brightest objects in the sky.
A radiant spiral galaxy filled the sky behind the moons, all six of its spiral arms visible like a gargantuan pinwheel.
It gave Nicolas a strange sensation, as if it were drawing him in.
A somber thought crossed his mind. An entire generation of Erindorians had grown up beneath Kagan’s barrier, having never seen what he was seeing right now. In many ways, they were probably as amazed by the sight as he was. How unfair was that? This was their world. Their birthright. He was the alien here. He should be amazed by the night sky of a strange world. But them? It should be as normal for them as a tree, an adda, or even a talking dead guy.
How could you do that to people? Nicolas asked through the necromantic link.
“I did what needed doing,” Kagan said. “What no one else had the power or gumption to do. I led.”
It was as Nicolas suspected. The answers didn’t matter. Because what he needed—what he truly needed if he was to help Kagan atone for his sins—was the namocea. He needed to live Kagan’s life. He needed to see through his eyes. He needed to know his true motivations. Motivations that Kagan would most certainly never reveal on his own.
“Power or gumption to do what?” Kaitlyn asked.
“You’re being a touch on the dramatic side,” Kagan said, ignoring her. “I protected the Three Kingdoms when no one else could. Nothing more.”
“Zip it, zombie,” Nicolas said.
“I am not a zombie,” Kagan said. “Zombies are mindless automatons, I am—”
Nicolas silenced Kagan through the link.
“You are quiet, finally,” Nicolas said.
Kaitlyn pulled away and faced Nicolas.
“I know you have some issues to work through with him,” Kaitlyn said. “But what if he’s right?”
“Kait, you don’t understand. He—”
“Let’s stop the mansplaining before it starts, okay? It doesn’t matter what we think. It only matters what he thinks. If he felt justified…if he has a clear conscience…”
“Two things,” Nicolas said. “One, you’d make one hell of a necromancer. But two, you’re oversimplifying. Conscience is a great guide, sure. But lie to yourself long enough, and eventually you start believing your own lie, don’t you?”
“And who’s to say what’s truth to begin with?”
“Now that’s not something a good Catholic girl would ask.”
“You’re a pope on an alien planet who has a dead man as a personal valet. You could use a catechism refresher yourself.”
Nicolas chuckled.
“Who tells these people what’s right and wrong?” Kaitlyn asked. “Do they have a Ten Commandments?”
Nicolas sat quietly for a moment. He knew her well enough to know what she was really asking. Where was God with a capital-G in all of this? Jesus? Mary? The apostles? And didn’t he have the same questions? His prayers had always been directed at Jesus. When he prayed, that is. But he never dreamed the first god who’d talk back would be someone else’s.
“If you found out tomorrow there was no god, would you change the way you live?” Nicolas said. “The way you treat people? The way you decide whether or not to steal or kill? Would you suddenly become a shitty person because hell didn’t exist?”
“Of course not,” Kaitlyn said. “But don’t you think you should get to know him a little better?”
“Does a genocidal despot get a free pass because he thought he was doing the right thing?”
“That’s my point. Who are you to judge when you can’t really know what’s in his heart?”
“Necromancers can, most of the time.”
“Then that’s worse, isn’t it? If you know he felt justified doing
what he did, and you choose to ignore that because you have some personal beef with him, doesn’t that make you worse? Doesn’t that make you willingly blind instead of accidentally blind?”
Nicolas rubbed the back of his neck. Why couldn’t he have experienced the namocea with Kagan like he did with everyone else he summoned? It would all be so much easier that way.
He rested his head against hers. “The one talent I have as a priest that allows me to see into the heart of another person…I can’t use that on him, because I didn’t summon him. Arin just…gave him to me. I assumed it’d be done the necromancer way—I’d live his life in a moment, see through his eyes, get to know him better than he knows himself.”
“Maybe Arin has a reason for you to do it the old fashioned way—talking to him, asking questions. It’s the way everyone else has to come to their conclusions about other people. Maybe you’re the one who isn’t getting the free pass this time.”
Nicolas put his arms around her again.
“You and Siek Lamil really need to have a longer chat next time,” Nicolas said.
Toby yelped as the carriage tipped toward the front, and Toridyn slid off the opposite bench.
“What the hell?” Nicolas said.
A string of swear words rose out of the night as Aelron climbed down from the driver’s seat. Nicolas and Kaitlyn met him outside.
“Broke a festering axle!” Aelron yelled, pointing at the front of the wagon. “I’m sorry, Archmage. This carriage is finished.”
“Dammit,” Nicolas said.
He climbed out of the wagon and prayed this trip wouldn’t get any worse.
Aelron swore once more. The carriage was finished. He wasn’t sure how far they were from Caspardis, but he wasn’t looking forward to walking there in any case.
“Can’t we just…rig something up?” Nicolas said. “We could use parts from the trailer we’re towing.”
“No,” Aelron said. “It’s no good. Wheelbase is too narrow. Even if it wasn’t, we don’t have the right equipment.
“Let’s not be hasty.” Nicolas glanced around the sides of the road until his gaze fell on Kagan, who was looking through the carriage window. “There’s our way. Dead Kagan, get over here.”
Kagan climbed out of the wagon and sauntered to Nicolas’s side.
“Can you lift the front of the wagon?” Nicolas asked.
Kagan took the wagon by the adda hitch, and lifted it like he was lifting a glass of water.
“There’s your new axle,” Nicolas said.
“Gonna be a bumpy ride,” Aelron said.
“It’s all we have.”
“Is that…appropriate?” Kaitlyn asked.
Nicolas rubbed his neck again, but this time in frustration.
“You’re just going to make him carry us because he can?” Kaitlyn said.
“He’s the only tool we have right now.”
“I suppose. It just doesn’t…feel right.”
Kaitlyn sat next to him on the edge of the carriage.
“He’s been the center of my reality for the last year,” Nicolas said. “Everything bad that happened to me—happened to the Three Kingdoms—is his fault. He did it. No one else. I know you think I’m just laying blame. But you can’t imagine the suffering, Kait, and I’m not just talking about myself. Can you imagine if we tried to have a baby and…”
Aelron could tell it was a private conversation. But what better way to learn the truth of a person than to observe when they didn’t know they should have their guard up?
He needed to know what this brother of his was truly made of. Aelron’s instinct was to protect his family, no matter how rotten it had become. And for better or worse, Nicolas was family.
But the coin wanted him dead, and it was never a good idea to ignore the coin.
Kaitlyn rested a hand in Nicolas’s lap.
“I understand,” she said. “You’re doing what you think is right. But I don’t see much reflection going on. You don’t talk to him. And when he speaks, you shut him up. If he’s supposed to acknowledge the evil he did and grow from the experience, this isn’t good for him. And I have a feeling this isn’t good for you either. I know the axle thing is you solving a problem, but just consider it. You’re a priest here, from what Toridyn tells me. So…act priestly toward him.”
Nicolas smiled and some unspoken communication passed between them as they entered the carriage.
Kaitlyn cared for him. It was obvious. And she seemed strong. Savvy. But then it would take a strong, savvy person to stay with a man who usurped a throne.
The carriage ride was smoother than Aelron had expected. If he closed his eyes, he wouldn’t be able to tell that Kagan had taken the place of the front wheels.
A group of people were blocking the road ahead, so Aelron drew the reins in.
“Help us, please!” one of them shouted.
The carriage stopped and Nicolas climbed out.
“Let us pass, please,” Aelron said. “We’ve no help to offer.”
Four people pulled hand-drawn wagons; a man in his thirties, a woman who wasn’t much younger, and two children. They wore the desert dress of Religar. Mud covered them from top to bottom, and they shuffled rather than walked. They must have slept on the road in the torrential rain.
They were blocking the road. And from the looks of things, they were headed toward Caspardis as well.
Not a good idea to be Religarian in the Shandarian Union.
“I said let us pass—” Aelron began, but Nicolas gestured for him to stop.
“What do you need help with?” Nicolas asked.
“Please, sir,” the man said. “We’ve no food. We haven’t eaten in two days. They kicked us out of Shandar before the invasion started because of where we’re from. We went to Blackwood, but we had to leave there too. There was no one left to help.”
“What do you mean, no one left?” Aelron asked.
“The invaders destroyed the town,” the man said. “And Shandar’s a smoldering ruin now.”
“Aelron,” Nicolas said. “Let’s get these people fed.”
“Oh, thank you, sir!” the man said. “I’m Robert. This is my wife Philomena, and my children, little Robert and Mary.”
“Not exactly Religarian names, are they?” Aelron said.
“They’re our names, now, sir.” He faced Nicolas. “And what may I call you?”
Aelron leaned in and whispered to Nicolas. “You can’t trust these people. I don’t know why they’re really here, but it can’t be for good.”
Nicolas stepped forward with his hand out. “Nicolas.”
As Nicolas extended his arm, Robert stumbled and Nicolas bent to help him. When he leaned forward, his chain of office slid out from beneath his scapular, and the large medallion in the shape of Arin’s helm dangled back and forth.
“Holy one!” Robert said.
All four dropped to their knees on the muddy road.
“None of that, now,” Nicolas said. “Please, stand up.”
The refugees shared shocked expressions, but they did as he asked.
“Holy one, you have more important things to worry about than us,” Robert said. “You must stop them!”
“I’m just Nicolas. I don’t want to hear anyone call me holy, okay? Archmage is fine, if you need to use a title, but not Holy One.”
“Of course, Archmage,” Philomena said.
The rangers had taught Aelron of the unbroken line of Ardirian archmages at the Elysian Fortress, and how they lived lives of great privilege and power. And here was Nicolas asking to be called by his first name.
“Caspardis isn’t far,” Nicolas said. “Right, Tor?”
Toridyn nodded.
“You’ll be safe there,” Nicolas said. “We’ll get you fed for the trip.” He faced Aelron. “Can you start a fire?”
After an awkward pause, Aelron nodded and began unpacking the trailer.
It didn’t take long to set up a cook pot on the roadside. Aelron use
d the wagon’s tarp as a makeshift roof to keep the fire dry, and he cooked up a pot of beans they’d gotten off the Shandarian soldiers. Nicolas made sure the refugees ate their fill before anyone else took a bite.
Kaitlyn and Philomena were getting along as if they were old friends.
After the meal, Nicolas helped Robert and the others load their things onto the wagon. Philomena did more staring than loading, though whether she was pleasantly surprised or appalled, Aelron couldn’t tell. Probably the latter. Just the thought of an archmage doing manual labor made Aelron feel strange. Either way, it didn’t take long to get everyone settled in the carriage.
When they’d finished loading, Nicolas joined Aelron and Kaitlyn on the driver’s rooftop seat, and Aelron got the carriage back on its way to Caspardis.
They traveled several miles before Aelron broke the silence.
“This isn’t a good idea,” Aelron said.
“They’ll never make it to safety without us,” Nicolas said.
“I understand the priestly charity. But that’s not what I was talking about. Even if you look past the fact they’re foreigners of questionable origin, we’ve broken an axle already. This carriage wasn’t made for carrying this many people.”
Kaitlyn had been chatting with Philomena through a small, sliding porthole on the carriage top. Nicolas leaned back and stared down into the cabin.
“Everyone okay down there?” Nicolas asked.
The dog let out a howl. It seemed happy enough. As happy as a dog missing two legs could be, at least.
“A cichlos,” Robert said. “I’d heard tales, but I’ve never met one. Now I can say I have a cichlos friend.”
“Roger that,” Toridyn yelled. “Everything’s ducky down here!”
“Seriously?” Kaitlyn asked, looking at Nicolas. “You spoke like Rambo trapped in a fifties sitcom when you were here? Do you even know any soldiers?”
Aelron didn’t even understand some of the words, much less the order in which they were used.
Nicolas smiled and shrugged.
The carriage creaked, and before Aelron could steady himself, the world did a somersault.
Robert yelled.
Aelron landed next to Nicolas, missing his face by scant inches, placing him closer to the wagon than Nicolas. This wasn’t good.
