Of Kings and Killers

by Will Wight

  Dark tentacles rose overhead, blotting out the light from the remaining shards of sky. A true Elder of Kelarac had arrived.

  Which meant the Lyathatan was shirking its duties.

  Calder’s Intent filtered through the mark of Kelarac and flowed down into the chains binding the creature to his ship. The Elder reacted. In a human, Calder would have called it a flinch.

  It had been hoping that Calder would die before compelling it to fight against Kelarac.

  Too bad, Calder thought. Not dead yet.

  With a roar of frustration, the Lyathatan broke the surface. Its hands pried two tentacles away from the ship, and it roared again as more tentacles wrapped around its muscled back.

  The clash of the two monsters jerked the ship one way, then the other. Petal seized onto Calder for balance.

  Calder held her up, though he felt like falling himself. “Sorry, Petal. I don’t—”

  She jammed the lip of a potion bottle against his helmet. “Take it off!” she screamed. “Take it off, take it off, take it off!”

  He couldn’t resist without hurting her, so he had to give in.

  He tore off the helmet and she jammed the lip of the bottle into his mouth. The shining red liquid tasted like alchemical cleaner, and he sputtered some of it up, but she continued tilting it down his throat. As the deck shifted and tossed beneath them, she stood on her tiptoes to make sure he drank every drop.

  Finally, she relaxed with the empty bottle as he choked and tried to swallow.

  “Could that…pffft....not have waited…two seconds?”

  She shook her head vigorously, then pointed to her nose.

  Calder raised a hand to his own nose. The tips of his armored fingers came away speckled with blood.

  Maybe it had been urgent after all.

  He fell to the deck as he gave the potion time to work. Soon his head and vision cleared, and he reached up to steady Petal. “Thank you. Hold on to me.”

  She clung to his armor as he stood and took stock of the others. Foster was mopping sweat from his forehead and holding a smoking gun while Andel was seated on the deck with his hat missing.

  Calder returned his attention to the battle.

  The fight between the Lyathatan and the kraken Elder endured, though it had become quieter. The Lyathatan was holding its opponent underwater with both hands, and if he didn’t know better, Calder would have said it was drowning the enemy.

  Beyond that, he saw the flaming wreckage of several enemy ships. The water was dark with Elderspawn corpses, and he saw two Navigator ships listing and taking on water as others approached ready to help.

  A black-and-red streak in the distance showed him that General Teach had joined the battle. An Elder that looked like a living mass of coral exploded from the inside out, dying with a furious bestial roar.

  All in all, the forces of the Empire looked as though they had things well in hand.

  Still further, the battle between Kelarac and the Regents had gone into the distance. Estyr was levitating Jorin and Loreli as well, and every wave of dark energy from Jorin or blow from Estyr’s spikes kicked up ripples across the water. But they had the Great Elder on the defensive.

  He could feel Kelarac’s rage pressing in on him, which gave him both relief and a sense of smug satisfaction.

  “Kelarac is weaker than ever,” he called to his crew. “I think we have him.”

  This was several orders of magnitude less than the might he’d seen from the embodied Urg’naut. Maybe the world wasn’t doomed after all.

  For the first time, he felt like he saw the light.

  But only for a moment.

  On the deck of his ship, the air tore open, revealing the void only a few feet away. Spots of color danced in the darkness, and between Calder and those spots, another wave of Elderspawn poured out.

  This time, they were not fish with legs. They were worms.

  The spawn of Kthanikahr.

  He sliced them and sliced them, reducing them to sludge, but they kept pouring out. His panic rose as he realized the Elderspawn would make it past him and to his crew.

  This was the difference between him and a Champion. Urzaia could have stemmed the flow of giant worms all day and laughed while doing it.

  A familiar voice paralyzed every muscle in his body.

  “Calder,” Jerri said. “They’re not here to hurt you, just restrain you.”

  She strode out of the void in a flawless golden dress. Her hair was in a neat braid that reached all the way down behind her, she looked clean and well-fed, and she wore the same reckless smile that he remembered. It was the hint of fear, the vulnerability in her brown eyes, that convinced her that it was really her and not an Elder husk in her skin.

  There was another difference between now and the last time he’d seen her: the shining emerald that she had once worn in her ear was now embedded into the crown of her forehead.

  A few of the worms slithered past him and he remembered himself enough to slash at them, but he found that they didn’t attack him. Or anyone. They slithered around him and…stopped.

  Jerri gave a wave to the others. “Hey everybody. Sorry about meeting you like…this.”

  “Nakothi take your corpse,” Foster said. He spat on the deck.

  Andel jerked a thumb at him. “What he said.”

  Petal gave a hesitant look at the two of them, but she waved back.

  Jerri sighed. “Thank you, Petal. Why don’t you all head below? I’d like a moment with my…uh, the Captain.”

  The worms had left a clear path for them to leave, but all three looked to Calder.

  Petal looked fearful, Foster defiant, and Andel…Calder couldn’t call the expression on his face anything but sympathetic.

  “Head below,” he said. “If anything happens to you, I’ll come down there immediately.”

  “You think we were worried about something happening to us?” Foster grumbled.

  But he went.

  Which left Calder alone on a deck with Jerri and about a thousand squirming Elder worms.

  Neither of them knew what to say.

  She gazed upward, flinching when another heavenly blow lit up the void. “You know, I didn’t want anything to happen the way it did.”

  “You’ve said that before. You could have avoided it all by telling me the truth.”

  “Not too late for that.” She spread her hands. “We know each other now. No secrets. And this is the truth: if no one stops the Outsider, he’s going to destroy everything.”

  The Outsider. She didn’t know Ozriel’s name.

  Well, if she didn’t know him, he wasn’t going to tell her. It may have been petty revenge, but he would take what he could get.

  “The Elders don’t want to destroy us, they just want to escape. He is the real threat.” She reached out to him in sympathy, and he allowed her to rest a hand on his arm. “You know Kelarac needs you.”

  …and that was as long as he could stomach her touch.

  He pulled away, taking three steps back and crushing a worm beneath his heel. “You’re telling me to let him possess me?”

  “I didn’t want that,” she said softly. “I wanted you on the throne as his peer. Now, it’s the only move left. But!” She brightened. “It’s not just possession! He showed me what happened with Urg’naut. It’s more like a…mixing of two people. A blend. Equal parts you and Kelarac.”

  “I’d say I’ll believe Kelarac taking an equal deal when the sky falls,” Calder said, “but the sky has fallen and I still don’t believe it.”

  “The division depends on the strength of your Intent. If you’re strong enough, you could possess Kelarac.” Her eyes glimmered at the thought.

  “I’ll decline. I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re winning.”

  She looked at him with pity. “No, you’re not.”

  Jerri gestured, and a worm slithered into their cabin. A moment later, it emerged carrying a spyglass. Calder’s invested spyglass.

&nbs
p; With its head, it tilted the spyglass to him. He shuddered with disgust and took it.

  She pointed to a spot on the horizon, and he looked.

  The sight almost brought up his breakfast.

  A pale, bald, bloated corpse waded through the ocean as though through a puddle. Its ribs were bent open and exposed, a network of organs and tendons stretching from the gaping wound. Much of its pink flesh was gray-green and diseased, and its head was tilted so far back that he could see nothing of its face.

  Nonetheless, he knew what it was.

  Nakothi’s body had risen.

  The Dead Mother was coming.

  “How long do you think it will take her to get here?” Jerri mused. “An hour?”

  “I get it,” Calder said hoarsely.

  His mind whirled. Jerri likely didn’t know what he was capable of, so he could lunge and probably kill her. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the idea, and how would it help? As far as he knew, he would only be getting rid of one Soulbound. The situation wouldn’t change.

  There was only one way he could help.

  The emptiness of death yawned in his memory and he shuddered. He couldn’t give in to Kelarac yet anyway. He didn’t know where the Consultants were.

  No sooner had he thought of them than silver mist billowed out, covering the entire battlefield.

  Jerri straightened her spine, Vessel gleaming green and an emerald fireball appearing in her palm. The sounds of battle were soon muffled, and he could barely see anything beyond the deck of his ship.

  In his heart, he gave up.

  This was his only option left. The mist meant Shera was nearby, and if she was in position, then he had no better choice. Another Great Elder was going to arrive ahead of schedule, so the faster they resolved this fight, the more lives would be spared.

  At least his life could stop Kelarac.

  She saw something in his eyes and softened. “You’ve worked hard to get where you are,” she said gently. “Harder than anyone knows. But I saw you. I was with you every step of the way, and I’ll stay with you now. You can do this.”

  He gave a dull nod, walking to the edge of the deck. He knew how to make a deal with Kelarac. He had done it often enough.

  One more time…

  “This is the best thing a king can do for his people,” she continued. “Even the Emperor gave up his life rather than losing a battle to the Elders. You can do the same.”

  Calder leaned out over the water.

  With a flapping of leather, a weight landed on his shoulder.

  “GAVE UP,” Shuffles screamed into his ear.

  Calder stopped.

  Had he really tried everything? Or was he just…giving up?

  “Shuffles,” Jerri said, “get over here.” A spark of fire kindled on her fingers.

  Unafraid, Shuffles leaped from Calder’s shoulder and fluttered in Jerri’s face. “GAVE UP!”

  “The wise man plans for his death, but does not plan to die.” Sadesthenes.

  “To our last breath.” The battle-cry of doomed troops.

  He hadn’t taken his last breath yet.

  Calder pulled his boot back onto the deck and turned to face Jerri. “I don’t plan to die here.”

  She swatted at Shuffles, who ducked her swipe and landed on the railing nearby. “I’m sorry, Calder,” she said sadly. “You don’t really have another choice.”

  She flicked her wrist and green fire crashed into his breastplate.

  Heat scorched the bottom of his chin, but it would take a while for her to drill through armor reinforced by centuries of the Emperor’s Intent.

  She clearly knew that; she was trying to strip him of his protection. Whittle him down a piece at a time.

  Which meant she thought his power came from the armor.

  Despite the heat, he met her eyes. “This time, I have a secret from you.”

  He covered the distance between them in a blink. A worm wrapped around his arm and he tore it apart like paper.

  She stumbled back, horrified and covered in worm blood. Another wave of Kthanikahr’s spawn flooded over him, instantly tying him like hundreds of ropes. Meanwhile, she conjured a green fireball in each hand.

  Calder marched forward, snapping Elderspawn with every inch. He pushed the Emperor’s helmet down over his head.

  Fire splattered on him like water on a rock.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw her honest grin when she was a girl opening presents for her birthday.

  Inside the helmet, he closed his eyes as his punch broke her ribs.

  He saw her lying next to him in the dawn light, her hair a mess, as The Testament rocked beneath them.

  Blindly, he stabbed her. He felt the sword pierce flesh.

  To deceive a Reader, she would have had to control her own Intent so as not to leave behind any memories he could access. She had dedicated her life to deceiving him.

  Every one of those memories was a lie. An Elder-spawned creature mimicking his wife.

  He had to remind himself of that as she shouted his name.

  He slashed her this time. Though his eyes were opened, he couldn’t look at her directly. He saw only the blood spatter the deck.

  Her scream was wordless and filled with pain. In spite of himself, he caught a glimpse of her ruined face; he had caught her from the chin all the way up to her Soulbound Vessel.

  She stumbled to the edge of the deck, backing away from him, and he had to choke back the agony in his own chest. She looked up with tears in her eyes, desperate for the pain to end.

  One hand was pressed to her bleeding face, but the other was leaning on the railing for support. He saw her lying against the wood.

  She had come here to kill him. Worse than kill him. To sell him to Elders.

  He let that truth run through him as he clenched his heart.

  And stomped her through the railing.

  The wood shattered, exploding into splinters. Her body fell.

  He heard her splash into the sea, but he didn’t look.

  For a long moment, he stood staring. Harsh breath echoed too loudly in the Emperor’s helmet.

  Idly, he realized that this was the exact spot where Shera had pushed her overboard. That seemed so long ago.

  If only he had never chased after her.

  He fell to sit on the stairs and began to sob. Painful, ugly cries that seemed to tear their way from his chest. He didn’t even fully understand why; his wife should have been dead to him ever since he’d found she was one of the Sleepless.

  But now…

  “Light and life,” Andel whispered.

  Calder saw the three crew members stepping onto the deck. The ship was covered by worm pieces; he must have killed far more than he’d realized.

  Foster moved over to the edge of the deck, looking down through the broken hole in the railing. Whatever he saw, he gave a low whistle. “Well, she won’t be crawling back this time. She’s gone down to…” He glanced back at Calder and coughed.

  Calder’s breath stopped.

  He strangled his own tears and shot to his feet.

  In his head, he completed the saying.

  She’s gone down to…

  Kelarac.

  “Please no,” he whispered.

  A deep voice echoed in their minds again. No words this time.

  Just laughter.

  Kelarac laughed and laughed.

  The water beneath The Testament began to swirl until it was like they floated on top of a whirlpool, except the ship stayed in place. With every revolution, the water turned a brighter and brighter green.

  Familiar Intent filled the air, growing stronger and stronger until Calder could barely breathe. Intent of greed. Intent to possess, to own and collect everyone and everything until all things that ever existed or would exist belonged to him.

  The power of Kelarac soared, and Jerri rose from the Aion Sea.

  Her eyes were covered in a blindfold of steel.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

&n
bsp; The quality of mercy is among the rarest of virtues, and rarest of all in killers and kings.

  —Sadesthenes

  present day

  In Jerri’s body, Kelarac rose into the air.

  Her gold dress grew out, becoming longer and more elaborate. Jeweled necklaces shimmered into existence hanging against her chest and rings appeared on each of her fingers. All her wounds were gone. Her face was covered from the nose up in a plate of shining steel with bolts screwing it to her face. Her emerald Soulbound Vessel shone from its new steel mount at the center of her forehead.

  She smiled, revealing triangular razor-sharp teeth of yellowed bone.

  “This body barely passes muster…but any port in a storm, as they say. And neither of us are willing to let you go.”

  Before Calder could shiver, half of a broken ship slammed into Kelarac.

  The mass of wood crashed into The Testament, and the sudden damage to Calder’s Vessel knocked the breath from his lungs. His ship rocked, the crew losing their footing under the impact.

  Kelarac never lost Jerri’s smile.

  Green fire flared into a shield around him, and he burned through the wooden ship with just a thought. Two charred halves of the wreck slid off into the ocean.

  The armored Estyr hovered over The Testament, tracking the ship she’d used as a missile. A giant iron spike stabbed down onto Kelarac.

  He gestured and a massive bronze hand rose from the depths.

  It seized the nail, holding it in place, as a humanoid figure lifted itself from the ocean floor. The bronze statue dwarfed the Lyathatan, and it was only when Calder saw the skulls carved into its crown that he realized it was a statue of Estyr herself.

  “You would be amazed,” Kelarac said, “what mankind will trade away, given enough time.”

  Overwhelming Intent blinded Calder as another statue rose, this one wearing a hat and darkened glasses. Then another, in armor and dozens of braids. Finally, a squat man carrying a staff taller than he was.

  The four Regents, cast in bronze, stood guard over Kelarac.

  They couldn’t have been waiting under this spot. He must have moved them in from elsewhere; Calder had already seen him summon other treasures. The Soul Collector was ready to spend the last of his collection.