Noble Lies

by Lyneal Jenkins

  I propped the mirror on some rubble and set to work with my dagger, trying to create as little damage as possible as I pried the tarmac from my flesh.

  ‘We are still in London,’ Adam said as the first ball popped out. I flicked it from the end of the blade. ‘Maria has refused to move you from here, claiming that we cannot be trusted. We have fought extensively about it.’

  I rolled my eyes as I positioned the blade to hook under the next ball. ‘Yeah, well I’ve seen your special moment with her now, so I'm not buying the animosity anymore.’

  ‘Eris finally agreed,’ he continued. ‘Only because she knows she cannot protect you when you are in this state.’

  I had to dig a little deeper to get the second ball free. By the time I finished, blood trickled down my jaw. ‘I'm betting she made up some other excuse, though.’

  As if by cue, he said, ‘She claims moving you will harm the child.’

  ‘Ding ding ding, we have a winner!’ I flicked the grit off the end of my finger. ‘Ana gets the jackpot, but can she go for two in one sitting. Don’t tell me’—I pulled at my right eye to expose the last piece of grit—‘I'm going with, drum roll please, Eris threatened the doctor to keep that little tidbit to herself?’

  ‘Eris made sure the doctor was on the same page as her concerning your medical treatment.’

  ‘Come on.’ I dug the point of the blade into the soft skin under my eye. ‘Don’t keep me in suspense. What did she do?’

  ‘Kye wanted to come here,’ Adam said.

  ‘Spoilsport.’ My eyes watered as I moved the blade around. One slip and I would be blind. That’s if any of this transferred to the real world. Surely Adam would shout out if I started bleeding on his side of the veil. Then again, Adam, Eris and Maria could also be figments of my mind. ‘In that case, you could have dished the dirt, being imagined and all.’ I growled through clenched teeth as I pried the grit free. I held it up to inspect. ‘Well, you’re a nasty little bugger with teeth, aren’t you?’ At least the grit didn’t respond. Then I would know that I had gone completely off my rocker.

  Adam continued to talk, telling me about how Maria wanted to create an alliance, but so far couldn’t get far past the introductions before someone started arguing. He finally mentioned the baby when his voice lost power and faded out.

  ‘No!’ I jumped off the car wreckage to face the wall of smog approaching me. ‘No. Not now. I was just about to hear about my baby.’

  The fog didn’t care and continued towards me. fingers crossed it would be Adam’s mind again.

  It wasn’t.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I fell to my knees, tears flooding my face, shudders wracking through my body so hard, my teeth chattered.

  ‘No more.’ My chest hitched and ached as if it was being hollowed out. ‘Please.’ I couldn’t stand committing one more sick, twisted murder. Thousands of years of Cleas’s memories and every single one of them so far had involved taking peoples lives, and every single murder had brought me pleasure. I groaned. ‘Not my pleasure.’ I had to keep telling myself that. I couldn’t forget. If I did, I would allow the darkness into my soul. I couldn’t be like the crazy Siis I’d calmed weeks before, the one whose bonded partner, Cortell, had given me a debt to call on when needed. I couldn’t go completely crazy. I already skirted along the flames and had no intention of jumping straight into the fire.

  It didn’t matter that they were Cleas’s memories. I felt his pleasure. I felt the blood run over my hands. I felt like it was me who committed every single atrocity. I retched, sure that this time would be the time, that I would decorate the road with my stomach contents, not that I needed to eat in The Wasteland. To my frustration, as before, nothing came up. Once my chest stopped hitching, I collapsed to the road, my legs too weak to hold me up.

  ‘You need some rest,’ Eris said, her voice clear in the air.

  ‘Tell me about it.’ If only I could break through the veil that kept me here. I had tried wishing it to no avail. I tried screaming at the sky, demanding that I am released. Again, it didn’t work.

  ‘I mean it, Adam.’ Eris continued. ‘It has been six days and you haven’t slept once.’

  Six days? Was she kidding me? It had been much more than six days. More like six months.

  ‘I will sleep when Ana sleeps,’ Adam said, his voice gruff. I could imagine him sitting beside my bed, his eyes strained with exhaustion for his child.

  I struggled to my feet. I have to break out of this frickin’ cell, and now!

  I heard a soft brush of material and imagined Eris sitting on the end of my bed. ‘It’s becoming rather strained here,’ she said. ‘There are a lot of angry humans with their fingers on the trigger, and the tension only increases by the minute.’

  ‘Is the witch not helping?’ Adam said, his voice lifeless as if he couldn’t give one damn about what happened around him.

  Eris snorted. ‘That girl would argue the sky was black if I said it was blue.’ She sighed. ‘We could use Ana.’

  I hiccupped a laugh. I would hold that comment over her head next time she threatened to kill me. I stumbled down the road aimlessly, ignoring the empty shops. I had explored them once. Never again. They may have well have sold clothes and food once, but now they were burnt husks of a room with only the charred corpses for sale. ‘Welcome to the future of humanity.’ I selected a broken fence posts from the rubble, weighing it in my hands. ‘Where everything is free’—I smashed the wood against one of the cars, shattering the remaining window—‘because the dead don’t need shit!’ I smashed the wood onto the rear car lights, shattering them.

  ‘I know,’ Adam replied to Eris. ‘Ana is the only one who can keep the witch in line.’

  I paused in my destruction, not wanting to miss the conversation that seemed to come from the very air I breathed. Or maybe it wasn’t air? How the hell was I supposed to know? Maybe I’m dead?

  The thought stopped me cold as it was the most logical explanation for what was happening. Was I in hell?

  ‘I have a confession to make,’ Eris said.

  The silence seemed to last forever. I could almost see Adam sitting beside my bed, his brow raised in query.

  ‘You are probably going to get mad when I tell you.’

  I leant against a broken stone wall, surrounding what I guessed used to be a beer garden. Some of the tables had survived the fire that had ravished the land, the wood now chard but still in one piece. I tested the bench before dropping my stick to the table and resting my legs. ‘What could you possibly have done now?’ I muttered, impatient yet apprehensive to hear her confession.

  ‘Will it be a problem for me?’ Adam asked. He sounded so drained of life, I wanted to hug him. Hell, I needed a hug too.

  ‘Better make myself a scarecrow, then.’ I imagined a stuffed figurine across the table from me while I chatted about how many I’d killed in Cleas’s memories that day.

  ‘Well,’ Eris said, ‘not as such. But she will probably have one of her tantrums when she finds out.’

  ‘Who’s she?’ I muttered, thinking of the words my parents had repeated so many times. ‘The cat’s mother?’

  ‘What have you done now?’ Adam asked, his voice more alert.

  ‘Damn good question.’ I stretched out on the bench. I didn’t seem to need food or water, which was good considering the empty shelves in what had once been the supermarket. I did feel tired, though. In fact, now that I had stopped, I felt exhausted, even if I was never allowed the release of sleep. ‘That’s what a full day of killing people does to you.’ I closed my eyes. Not that I could count the days. There was no morning or night in my isolated hell, only the grey cloudy sky that never changed.

  ‘Eris, what have you done?’ Adam’s voice was hard, pissed. He most likely gave her that glare I knew so well, the one that always made me feel like a naughty child. Good, she probably deserved it.

  It took a while for Eris to respond, and even then, she didn’t answer the question
. ‘I know how you conceived a child with her. You both have the same anomaly in your genes, a chromosome I had never seen before. I don’t have it. Neither does Gabriel.’

  ‘How is that possible?’ Adam asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Eris sighed. ‘It’s genetic, so the child will likely have it.’

  ‘How are you sure it is genetic?’ Adam said.

  ‘Well,’ Eris said in a tone that suggested she had that “I’ve been a naughty girl, but I'm so cute you will forgive me” expression on her face.

  I sat up, unable to ignore the certainty that I needed to hear this. If I didn’t, there was no guarantee that I would ever learn the truth if I got out of hell. My eyes itched with tiredness and my mind struggled to remain on topic. Never any sleep but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel the exhaustion. I rubbed my hands down my face and slapped my cheeks, trying to break through that blanket of softness that trailed my thoughts.

  ‘When I first met Ana,’ Eris said, ‘I was intrigued. The fact that she could absorb shi was something I had never come across before. I had to know what it was, and I had to understand.

  Adam growled in annoyance. ‘You are saying that you were never afraid for Gabriel?’

  ‘To be honest, Adam, I thought you knew I lied. You know the reasons I hate Gabriel, and there will never be peace between us, but I had to keep an eye on her, and not just because she interested me.’ Something creaked as if Eris shifted position in her chair, leaning closer to Adam. ‘There was also the prophecy. You know war is coming, and this time it will not be as simple as us against the Others.’

  ‘You lied to me, Eris. You tracked me down and begged me to watch out for him, assuring me that he was in danger when you simply wanted the chance to study her.’ He cursed under his breath. ‘You convinced me she was dangerous.’

  I sprang up, the tiredness gone. ‘You did what?’ I grabbed the stick, waving it up at the sky as if she resided within the clouds. All the time Adam had glared at me with suspicion and anger, all the time I had spent wondering why he hated me so much from first sight, and it had been because of Eris, meddling even back then. ‘I swear to God, Eris, when I get out of this hell hole, me and you are finally going to have that confrontation you keep threatening me with.’

  Eris sighed. ‘Don’t be too mad yet. There is more.’

  ‘More?’ I swung the bat down on the wall so hard it broke. I stared at it seething, wishing it was Eris gripped in my hands.

  ‘When she started taking in Gabriel’s shi, before she was with child, I was curious about her real family. She didn’t want to know, so I went hunting.’

  Adam sighed. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I found her father first. Unfortunately, his DNA showed nothing of interest. Her birth mother is dead, so I couldn’t check her. Both the mother’s parents are dead too, so no joy there either.’ Her words were filled with regret, but I barely noticed.

  I stared at the sky. The clouds never moved. At first it had fascinated me, but over time, the still sky creeped me out. It was unnatural.

  Her words echoed in my mind. My birth mother was dead, and Eris had found my biological father. How was I meant to fell about that? Grief? Regret? Anger? ‘Well.’ I slumped back onto the wall. ‘That was one hell of a mental slap over the head.’

  ‘Eris. Get to the point now. What did you do?’ Yay to go, Adam. At least he was getting angry for me.

  ‘I also found Ana’s full-blooded brother, which was a nice surprise. Without him, I would never have been able to map the chromosomes.’

  Brother? Did she just say brother?

  ‘Eris!’ Adam snapped, his patience at its end.

  ‘I lost him, okay! I gave him a little shi to see if he would react the same as Ana, which he did, the results are fascina—’

  Adam growled at her. ‘Get to the point!’

  I gripped the wood and splinters worked their way into my palm. I couldn’t relax. I wanted to scream at the sky, curse the world for everything happening to me. The black fog darkened my surroundings as Eris’s voice faded out. I screamed at the clouds, at the city and the corpses that shared it with me, and most of all, I screamed at Eris.

  I was still screaming when the fog swallowed me whole.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Five of us stood before the council, each wearing our heavy capes adorned with our family crest. The room was large, two lines of stone columns ran the length of the room. Priests stood to each side of us, their combined murmurs one hushed whisper that travelled the room, encompassing us. A crowd of onlookers stood at the back, a combination of family friends and general onlookers. There were many.

  The day had finally come; all the hard work I’d put in over the millennia would finally pay off. A hum of anticipation had settled over the crowd. There was a bigger crowd than usual this century as five of us had made it to kerashay. There had only been three for previous celebrations. Everyone wanted to know who would be selected to continue their priest training and there would be several of them betting on how many would make it through.

  Three of my four competitors whispered to each other, wishing the other luck. The murmurs were obviously disingenuous; how the others couldn’t detect it baffled me. Then again, people never could sense the hollowness of the compliments they received, nor the hidden desire for them to fail. People ignored the obvious.

  None of them spoke to me; they all knew I would make it to the top and they were jealous of my success.

  My fifth competitor stood at the other end of our line. She stared ahead, her eyes fixed on something I couldn’t see. Kileam was worrisome. I had to begrudgingly admit that her skills were good, possibly even close to what I could achieve. It wasn’t her skills that worried me, and I scowled in irritation.

  Kileam had joined us for the second half of training, missing millennia of exercises aimed to learn to control, tedious exercises that were fit for children. What kept me from enjoying the victory I was about to achieve was that she had come at the request of Malachi.

  Our glorious leader hadn’t trained anyone in as long as could be remembered, certainly not since the last great battle. But he took a special interest in the reserved priestess now part of kerashay, and from what I could see, he worshipped the ground she walked on, offering her the best accommodation and a much shorter time in training. Maybe the old goat had another agenda regarding Kileam.

  I looked forwards, trying to swallow my disgust for Kileam and the person who would call himself our leader. No, Malachi wouldn’t offer to train me, but there were other possibilities out there. The question was, who did I want?

  Wess was the popular choice by many. Highly regarded by the rest of the council, his skills were envied by most. He would be the smart choice, but the thought of spending my days with that constantly grinning idiot set my teeth on edge. He was one of those that put value on emotion, more so than the rest of our race. I’d heard him many times, talking about connectedness, and how love and honour were the traits that would help move us into the future, that they would bring understanding to the path we needed to take to evolve. He made me want to puke.

  There was always Dilluka. The second most powerful of us all; so high and mighty she sits on her throne, judging those that she perceives as wrong. Every time I looked at her, I wanted to put my hands around her neck, holding her gaze while I slowly squeezed the life out of her. It was a fantasy that kept me warm during cold nights.

  I sighed with regret that I wouldn’t get the chance to play that fantasy out as I had so many. One day, once I complete my training, I will first challenge Malachi as so many had before me. Unlike my predecessors, I will win. It’s my destiny. Then Dilluka will be my new toy. I had some inventive games in mind, which I indulged in for a moment. I smiled, eager to see the fear in her eyes.

  So absorbed was I in my thoughts, that I didn’t notice a hush had fallen over the room until the lead council reached their gem covered thrones. I eyed the middle of the five council seats.
None of them interested me. It was the one in the corner that I wanted, though when I took power, I wanted more than a simple oak carved seat for people to revere me on; my chair would be grander than Dilluka’s, with jewels so large, all would understand my importance. And a crown. The humans crowned their leaders. It made a statement. You could walk through the streets and people grovelled at your feet. Yes. A daku crown would do quite nicely.

  The council sat in their seats, some of them leaning over to speak to another, relaxed as they waited for Malachi to arrive.

  The minutes ticked by and mind-numbing boredom set in. The whole ceremony was a complete waste of time. Every priest deemed worthy of becoming a mentor had already studied us at length. I’d seen them nodding with approval as I completed each task set with perfect control. Kerashay was for the people, so that they could share in the triumphs of their peers—as if they could ever be equal to me—and for proud parents to weep with joy as their prodigy received the highest honour a person could obtain.

  It was all a pretence; the love, joy, pride, it was a construction created to aid collectiveness. If only they could voice their understanding, speak the truth that had been obvious to me since I could remember.

  Nothing mattered but pleasure, the one thing that motivated everyone. The strong would always dominate the weak; was their council not living proof of that? Yet they continue to hide behind their lies and falsities.

  A small smile crept onto my face; everything would all change when I took Malachi’s life. They would be my subjects to use as I pleased. As for the humans, I would rid the planet of that scourge. I might allow a small amount to survive. They were so much fun to play with.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I stumbled back into the charred table, hitting the wooden bench with my calf hard. Arched backwards, I flailed my arms around long enough to feel like a cartoon character, before I hit the ground with a thud.