The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  “What was that for?”

  “That’s for being an idiot!” She appraised him coolly before continuing, “Your uncle sent me to fetch you.”

  “Is it time for lunch already?”

  Maely narrowed her eyes at him and put her clenched fists on her hips. “It’s almost supper-time! Honestly, Jek, how do you ever get any of your chores done?”

  “I wait until others get impatient and do them for me!” That earned him a kick to his left shin. “Mae!” he yelped in surprise, “that one really hurt!”

  “Good!” She smirked before turning to look at Mull. “Mulladin!” she said in a tone less harsh than the one she’d used for Jekaran. “You are supposed to be mucking the cattle stalls! I’ve had Bess, Jora, and Leena grazing in the field for hours! Any longer and there won’t be any grass left!”

  “Sorry, Mae.” He tucked his hands in his pockets and stared down at the ground.

  Maely sighed. “It’s ok.” She shot Jekaran a nasty glare before turning back to pat Mull softly on the shoulder. “It isn’t your fault!”

  Jekaran decided not to push his luck by teasing Maely any further and leapt into a jog toward the trees that lay between him and the village of Genra.

  As he entered the woods, he heard Maely behind him. “Look at you, Mulladin! Your clothes are all dirty!”

  “Sorry.”

  Jekaran chuckled. Maely acted more like’s Mull’s mother than she did his younger sister. He supposed that was because she was all the mother he had. After all, she had been taking care of him ever since she was ten, when their mother died.

  Their widowed mother had lived a chronically tragic life. She prostituted for several years before fleeing from Jeryn City and its metropolitan life in order to settle down in Genra and find peace. She instead found more tribulation and heartache. You couldn’t hide many secrets in a community as small as Jekaran’s village, so it was no surprise that when word of her past profession got out, the other village women began to persecute and shun her. The men of Genra were no less cruel with their lewd advances and constant harassment. The only ones in the village to befriend her family had been Jekaran and his uncle, Ezra. Jekaran remembered, as his feet pounded against the ground beneath him, how he and his uncle had been the only ones to provide aid and comfort when Maely’s mother took ill with the fever and died.

  Since then, Jekaran’s uncle kept an eye on the two children, regularly supplying them with food and other necessities. In return, Mull would often help Jekaran with his work on the farm while Maely would launder their clothes and cook supper for them. The arrangement suited Jekaran just fine, as he didn’t have any brothers or sisters of his own, and life with Ez could sometimes get dull. He was an orphan too, or he would’ve been, his father having abandoned his mother before he was born. His mother died shortly after his birth, and, had Jekaran’s uncle not been there to adopt him, he would have ended up just like Mae and Mull.

  “Jekaran!” a voice called from a short distance away.

  Jekaran looked up to see a spindly man standing at the door of his log house, waving Jekaran over. His uncle was in his early fifties with gray streaks invading his unkempt, brown hair. He wore loose fitting pants and a hide vest over his scrawny, bare chest—a farmer, through and through.

  “Uncle Ez,” he said as he slowed to a halt. “Listen, I lost track of the hour and I’m sorry. I still have time for my most pressing chores, though.”

  “It’s ok, Jek,” his uncle said in a thoughtful tone.

  He noticed a faraway look in Ez’s brown eyes. “Is something wrong?”

  Ez shook his head. “I need to talk to you.”

  “All right.”

  “Sit.” Ez pointed at a milking stool Jekaran had left in front of the house the day before.

  “Ez, I’m sorry. I meant to put that away this morning, but I forgot and …”

  “Shut up, boy,” Ez said, not unkindly.

  Jekaran nodded and sat on the stool. He looked up at his uncle waiting for him to say something. It was nearly a full minute before he finally turned to look at him and said, “When you left for last year’s well-find, I started thinking about a lot of things.”

  “Like what?”

  “You remind me of myself when I was your age, Jek.”

  “I’m probably better looking than you were.”

  His uncle didn’t laugh. “You leave tomorrow for your second well-find, why?”

  Jekaran shrugged. “For the money. You know we need it.”

  Ez nodded. “Perhaps. But there are many other, less dangerous, ways to earn our bread. Why choose that one?”

  Jekaran shook his head, plucking a blade of grass to roll around in his fingers. Where was this going? “I dunno. I guess because it’s a good deal more exciting than felling trees or digging ditches.”

  Ez nodded to himself as if confirming something. “You feel The Lure.”

  “The wha …”

  “Adventure is the lure of fools,” Ez began reciting, “and excitement glamor to the gullible. The siren song of the world is as music to the wanderer’s feet, but that dance leads only to the soul-less grave.”

  “Wow, old man.” Jekaran’s tone dripped with sarcasm. “I never knew you were a poet.”

  “Listen, Jekaran!” Ez snapped.

  Jekaran fell silent, more from shock than to obey his uncle’s command. Ez was sometimes grumpy, but he was usually an easy-going man who loved to laugh. Jekaran rarely saw him this serious. It gave him pause.

  Ez ran a grizzled hand through his wild hair and sighed. “I am forbidding you from going on this well-find.”

  Jekaran leapt to his feet. “Ez!” he demanded. “You can’t …”

  “The hell I can’t,” Ez barked. “You will go into town and tell Vestus to take your name off of tomorrow’s roll call.”

  Jekaran couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Like any parent, Ez set limits to what Jekaran could and could not do and punished him when Jekaran broke his uncle’s rules. But the man was always fair in his punishments and although stern at times, he never acted harshly or dictatorially.

  “But, the money …”

  “There are other jobs.” Ez turned away, waving a hand in the air as he stepped into the house.

  “Ez,” Jekaran pled.

  “Do as I say!”

  Jekaran stood motionless for a long moment, the surprise of it all shoving conscious thought from his mind. That confusion quickly turned into anger and Jekaran kicked the milking stool so hard that it sailed ten feet; judging by the sharp pain that followed, he probably broke his big toe. He tried not to limp as he left the yard and began heading into town.

  Half an hour later, Jekaran walked down Genra’s one street where two giggling little boys crashed into him. Instead of an apology, they said in unison, “Hi Jek!” before running off. He barely noticed. The shock and indignation of his uncle’s rash and inexplicable action had driven away his normal playful cheeriness.

  How could Ez do this to him? He had given Jekaran his permission to join the expedition weeks ago. Why change his mind on the very eve of the well-find? He hadn’t had a problem with him going last year, and he was fifteen then, a whole year under Lord Gymal’s required age. Fortunately, for Jekaran, none of the team really liked Gymal, so no one would give him away and he was able to get away with it. Now Jekaran was of the proper age to go and Ez was forbidding him? It made no sense.

  He grit his teeth. He had so been looking forward to seeing the city of Rasha, the western rock lands, and perhaps even the great west sea. What would he tell Mull now? Of course, the boy-man would probably be so happy Jekaran wasn’t leaving, he wouldn’t care about not getting a sampling of sea shells.

  Maybe it had something to do with that poem Ez recited. How did it go again? Adventure is the lure of fools? Was he saying that Jekaran was a fool for wanting to leave the village and taste life outside of the mundane work of raising crops and tending livestock? He clenched his jaw so tightly that
his teeth began to hurt. He really did hate the so-called normal life of their small village. His childhood dreams were of traveling the world, seeing the capital city, sailing the sea, maybe even visiting one of the two other kingdoms in Shaelar. As he grew older, he conceded that, for the most part, those dreams were probably not going to come true. But the well-find offered him a chance to taste what that life would be like.

  Why take that away from me, Ez? He ground his teeth. He would get an answer out of the old man when he went back. It was, at least, his right to know why he couldn’t go, wasn’t it?

  Jekaran looked down the street to Vestus’ shop. The tall man was standing just outside his shop door on the boardwalk talking with a customer. He had begun to wave when a group of five unfamiliar men, just beyond Vestus, made him lower his arm. A potent terror abruptly struck him, begging him to turn in panicked flight, but he couldn’t. His feet felt stuck to the road, paralyzed, his mind muddled. He stood, gaping like a fool. Genra often had visitors, usually caravan travelers passing through or peddlers hocking their wares. These men were neither of those.

  Each was dressed in leather armor of various designs, and, underneath their traveling cloaks, Jekaran could clearly see swords hanging from sheathes at their hips. Too much time drinking and smoking engraved their faces with harsh lines.

  Around him, the milling villagers hushed as they took notice of the men, and a few women spirited their little ones out of sight. These men were dangerous, and it was clear everyone sensed it.

  Jekaran stepped out of their way when they passed him on the boardwalk, the foremost of their group leering at him with a humorless rictus for a smile. He stared at the man’s face, unable to hold onto a thought or even frame words. The stranger was ten to fifteen years older than his cohorts as was evidenced by a streak of grey mixed with his slicked back, black hair. But not so old that he looked weak. If anything, the man gave Jekaran the impression that he was the most dangerous of the five. He looked to be in his late forties with a beardless face and a sharp nose.

  The man turned his full attention on Jekaran, making him hold his breath. The man’s eyes were chilling: The left iris was brown, the right iris blue. Jekaran never saw anything like it.

  And I thought my green eyes were strange. He would have chuckled if he wasn’t so terrified.

  Although not unheard of, Jekaran was among a minority of people in Shaelar to be born with green eyes. It had branded him a novelty when he was a child and gave bullies an excuse to target him, but the people of Genra had eventually become accustomed to it. And, as odd as his green eyes were, this man’s eyes were an unholy aberration in comparison, though he doubted anyone with more sense than a chicken would try to bully this man. They passed him, and Jekaran couldn’t help but stare as the men walked away and then turned left into the blacksmith’s shop. A heartbeat of silence reigned, and then the palpable fear was gone. Life in the village square unthawed as everyone resumed their business, and Jekaran shifted his gaze, looking ahead to find Vestus staring in his direction.

  Vestus nodded in greeting as Jekaran jogged toward him, his eyes still fixed on the blacksmith’s door.

  “Who’re they?” Jekaran asked.

  The middle-aged grocer shook his head and said in his bass voice, “Don’t know, but I don’t like the idea of leaving my family behind tomorrow morning if they’re still here.”

  The customer Vestus had been talking to, a short man with a thick, black beard named Hyric, chimed in. “They were asking if anyone had seen a man with a crescent-shaped tattoo on the inside of his forearm.”

  “What’s that mean?” Jekaran shot another glance over his shoulder.

  Vestus slowly shook his head, “Not sure.” He looked at Jekaran and smiled. “So. Come to pick up supplies for tomorrow’s trip?”

  He dropped his eyes to the ground as his stomach turned. “I’ve come to tell you that I won’t be going and that I need you to take my name off of the roll call.” He had to force the words out of his mouth.

  Vestus’ smile faded. “Why?”

  Jekaran shook his head. He wanted to blurt out “because Ez won’t let me” but thought that would sound childish, and so he lied. “Ez needs me on the farm.” Well, it might not be a lie. Maybe that’s why his uncle forbade him, though Jekaran doubted that. No, this must be about something else.

  “Can’t say that I’m glad to hear that. We’re already short-handed as it is.” His smile returned. “You’re a good lad, Jek. Family comes first.”

  “Yeah,” he scoffed.

  Vestus’ eyebrow shot up, but instead of saying anything more, he returned his attention back to Hyric.

  Dropping his shoulders, Jekaran turned to head back home, but slowed as he passed in front of the blacksmith’s shop, trying to unobtrusively peer in the front windows to catch another glimpse of the strangers and their leader with the mismatched eyes. He saw the men standing at the front counter talking with Jerall, the village’s only blacksmith. His brows furrowed as he caught the worried look on the burly man’s face. He never considered Jerall, bear of a man that he was, would ever be afraid of anyone, but his obsequious head bobbing and refusal to meet the men’s eyes made it obvious.

  Jekaran started as the leader of the strangers turned to look straight at him. The man’s knowing smile made him shiver, and he backed away from the window.

  He hurried on, trying to put the men out of his mind by focusing on his indignation in a deliberate attempt to blot out his apprehension.

  There, Ez, he thought, I’ve done what you told me to do. Now you owe me some answers!

  Running made Jekaran’s sore toe protest each time his foot hit the ground, but he ignored it. As hard as Jekaran tried to hold onto his indignation and anger, they slipped away the more he thought about the dangerous looking strangers he had seen come into town. That made him eager to get back and tell Ez, which in turn fueled his sprint. He ran down the road, making the trip in a record twenty minutes, then dashed into his yard, frightening a group of foraging chickens into flight before slowing to a jog. He burst into the log house and looked around. No one. “Uncle?” he called out

  No one answered, and, after a moment’s thought, he rushed to the kitchen to look out the back window. “Ah.” The door to the slaughtering shed was open. Only one reason it wouldn’t be locked.

  Jekaran rushed out the back door and into the small, smelly shack.

  Ez looked up from behind the high wood table, holding the carcass of a rabbit by its ears and a hunting knife in the other. He cocked an eyebrow. “You’re back already?”

  Jekaran stopped, only nodding in response as he worked to catch his breath.

  “You look as if you ran the whole way,” Ez said as he went back to skinning the animal.

  “There are strangers in town,” he heard himself saying, his demands for an explanation now overshadowed by the news of the man with mismatched eyes.

  Ez didn’t look up at him. “That’s not so remarkable.”

  “They look rough, and they’re asking around for a man with a crescent moon tattoo.”

  He abruptly froze. “What did you say?” he asked.

  Jekaran shifted his eyes from the corpse dangling with pink skin laced with crimson streaks of blood to study his uncle’s face. His brows furrowed, had Ez actually gone pale? It was hard to tell in the dimness of the shed. “They’re looking for someone with a tattoo shaped like a crescent.” He tapped the inside of his forearm. “Right here.”

  Ez dropped the rabbit and put the knife down on the table with a clink. He drew in a sharp breath as he reached for a cloth towel hanging from a nearby grimy hook and quickly wiped the blood off his hands.

  “What’s wrong?” Jekaran asked.

  “What did they look like?”

  “They were wearing cloaks, had swords, and one man had different colored eyes.”

  Ez’s face grew even more ashen. “Impossible,” he whispered.

  The last lingering bit of Jekaran’s a
nger faded, snuffed out by a sudden feeling of unease. “Do you know him?”

  Ez rested both palms on the wooden table and bowed his head.

  “Ez, what’s wrong?”

  His uncle didn’t answer. Instead, he raised his head and peered nervously out the shed’s open door. Then he startled Jekaran as he abruptly pushed past him, exiting the slaughter shed and disappearing into the house. Jekaran followed him inside.

  “Ez?”

  He silently waved Jekaran toward the pantry where a trapdoor set in the floor. He wrenched it open and descended a ladder. Jekaran followed him into the cellar, a claustrophobic hole stuffed with wooden crates and barrels covered with cobwebs.

  Ez rummaged around for a moment before locating an old chest. He knelt before it and blew the dust off of a rusty padlock. Jekaran folded his arms and tapped his foot against the dirt floor as his uncle painstakingly cycled through a ring of old keys before finding the one that matched the lock. Ez wrenched open the chest and carefully drew out a long object bundled in a dirty white cloth. He carefully unbundled it.

  Jekaran’s mouth fell open as he gazed upon a stunningly beautiful sword. His eyes widened as they roamed over the large, round amethyst set into the blade’s silver crossbar and its tapered blade inlayed with trailing designs, and were those tiny emeralds? They appeared to pepper the flat of the blade and sparkle green whenever they caught a bit of the light pouring in from above.

  “What is that?” Jekaran reached a hand out to touch it, but Ez batted it away.

  “Never touch it!” he snapped.

  “Where did you get it?” he asked incredulously.

  After a pregnant moment, Ez finally said, “I stole it from a noble’s mansion in a city you don’t know the name of, over thirty years ago.”

  “Stole from a noble? Wait, this is a talis?” Jekaran took a second look at the sword. “Divine Mother, it’s a weapon talis!” He lowered his voice conspiratorially, although he knew that no one was likely to overhear them. “You could go to prison just for having this!”

  Ez nodded. “Hanged is more likely.”