The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  Jekaran pointedly avoided looking at her. “I never get tired of seeing it.”

  “Esk, better when no worm.” Karak hissed a chuckle and then went to work expertly skinning and carving each rabbit up with his sharp claws, tossing the pieces into the cook pot as he went. He then knelt on one scaly knee, poking the flames with a stick.

  Jekaran shot another glance at Kairah; this would make over fifty just in the last few minutes. He had determined that anything more than thirty would’ve been rude, but he couldn’t help it. The woman was so absolutely perfect.

  This time, she caught him.

  She’s gonna think me as big a pervert as Irvis, he thought as he quickly averted his eyes.

  “This talis”—she began as she hooked a strand of amethyst hair behind her ear—“it is not what I expected.”

  Jekaran looked up at her, trying not to let his embarrassment at being caught staring touch his expression. “What do you mean?”

  “Well”—Kairah said as she returned her focus to the sword—“it feels different.”

  “Felt like a sword to me,” Mae said in stiff tone.

  Mae, Jekaran inwardly groaned.

  “I am not talking about the tactile sensation”—she said with a glance at Mae—“but the feel of its psychic communication.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jekaran said.

  Kairah silently stared at him for a moment before thoughtfully dropping her eyes to the side. “It is like this talis speaks a foreign tongue.”

  “I heard it in Aiestali when it spoke to me.”

  “She’s using a metaphor, you dullard,” Mae snapped at him.

  “Oh,” Jekaran said feeling stupid. What was it about Kairah that made him so self-conscious? Sure, she was gorgeous, and he always felt a little nervous around pretty girls, but this was different. This was almost like he felt every single one of his words and actions counted. Counted toward what?

  “So what does that mean?” Jekaran asked hesitantly. She must think I’m some kind of back country simpleton.

  Kairah stared again at the sword and shook her head. “I am uncertain. I have never encountered something like this. It is almost as if this talis was not created by my people.”

  “Then humans did create it!” Mae said, sounding smug for some reason.

  Kairah shook her head again. “Human talises resonate with the same tone as Allosian talises, albeit significantly more inelegant.”

  Out of the corner of his eyes, Jekaran saw Mae stick her tongue out at her. The Allosian woman didn’t even notice.

  “Who else could have created it?” he asked. He turned to look at Karak. “Do the Vorakk make talises?”

  Karak snorted. “Isk Vorakk have spirits.”

  Jekaran expected further explanation, but apparently, that was supposed to have answered his question. “What about the Ursaj in the north?” He heard Karak hiss at his mention of the bear - people.

  Kairah looked up at him, her amethyst eyes intent. “I know of no others who possess the knowledge or ability to craft talises.” She picked up the sword and scrutinized some etchings on the crossguard. “I also do not recognize these symbols. They are not of the Allosian language.”

  “You speak a different language?” Mae asked.

  “Of course,” Kairah said. “All races have their own tongues, often several variations of the same tongue.”

  “But you speak perfect Aiestali.”

  Kairah flashed a small smile. “I spent some time among your people as a child.”

  Before Jekaran could ask any more questions Irvis returned, drawing everyone’s attention by asking somewhat petulantly, “Is it ready yet?”

  “I was just wondering what was stronger”—Jekaran said—“your pride or your stomach. Apparently it’s your stomach.”

  Irvis shot him a scowl, but didn’t say anything.

  Kairah handed the sword back to him and he felt the talis’ relief at their being reunited. It really is like a baby, he thought, sharing the sword’s sentiment. And I really am like its blasted mother. Dinner came a half an hour later, although Jekaran wasn’t sure there had been enough to be considered an official meal. “Those coneys had barely any meat on them,” he complained.

  Irvis nodded, “I suspect it would take at least five just to fill a man’s stomach.”

  “Ten to fill yours,” Jekaran laughed.

  That invoked a half-hearted swat from Irvis, which he easily avoided by ducking the chubby monk’s swing.

  “Esk Karak told human boy that Karak should cook ghern,” the Vorakk shaman said with a toothy grin.

  “No, we’re going to need those to go to Jeryn,” Mae emphatically said.

  The camp suddenly went uncomfortably quiet.

  “Mae,” Jekaran groaned.

  “Don’t ‘Mae’ me, Jek! You know we have to make sure my brother is with Ez!”

  “Mae, I can’t just leave the sword!”

  “Then bring it with you!” she snapped.

  “Maely, you know I require help to accomplish my task,” Kairah said.

  This was the second time Jekaran had heard the Allosian woman make mention of it. “What task?”

  “It’s not our business,” Mae quickly interjected.

  “Mae!” Jekaran snapped at her. Surprisingly, that quieted her.

  Kairah stared at Maely for a long moment before finally turning to look him directly in the eyes. “I must journey to your capital city and meet with your king. He needs to be warned.”

  “Jekaran, please,” he heard Maely plead quietly. He ignored her.

  “Warned of what?”

  Kairah hooked another stray strand of amethyst hair behind her ear as she looked east. Was that where Allose was? “My brother, Jenoc,” she began, “is not like most others of our kind. He is not a pacifistic intellectual dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge for its own ends.” She looked at him. “He longs to restore the greatness of my people’s past, and reclaim our rightful place as rulers of all of Shaelar.”

  “Your people used to rule this land?”

  Kairah nodded. “We were here even before the Vorakk or the Ursaj.”

  Was that another hiss from Karak? Did his people fear the bear-people?

  “So what happened?” Jekaran asked. “Where did all of your people go?”

  “Into hiding,” Irvis chimed in.

  “Hiding from what?” Jekaran hated it when people made him draw out information piecemeal like this.

  “Us,” Irvis said. “It was mankind that drove the Allosians into hiding.”

  Kairah looked at the chubby monk, an expression of surprised approval on her face. “You are an educated man?” she asked.

  Irvis snorted, “I wouldn’t go that far, but—” he seemed to abruptly remember that he was speaking to a woman of pristine physical perfection, one that he no doubt desired to impress or see naked. Irvis cleared his throat and continued in his practiced holy man tone. “Yes, my lady, I am something of a student of history.”

  “Why?” Jekaran deliberately cut in before Irvis had a chance to carry on further. “Why run from us?”

  Kairah looked back at him. “You were trying to destroy my people. Your people declared war against us.”

  “But your magic and power are legendary. How could we be a threat to you?”

  “Mankind breeds faster than Allosians do, and it only took a few generations for your people to vastly outnumber mine. You had also acquired talis-craft, and used the skill to create powerful weapons.”

  Jekaran glanced at the sword in his lap.

  “We betrayed them, Jekaran,” Irvis said solemnly, not in his false sanctimonious tone, but with genuine regret. “They took us in and we destroyed them.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Humans are not natives of Shaelar, as are the Vorakk, Ursaj, or my people. Your people arrived here on ships almost eight hundred years ago.”

  “Where did we sail from?”

  Kairah shook her head. “
No one is really certain.”

  “Nobody asked? Nobody has since gone to look for our homeland?”

  “We were refugees, Jekaran,” Irvis added. “We fled our homeland and no one wanted to return.”

  “The surviving accounts of the humans interviewed by my people are fragmented and inconsistent.” Kairah hooked another strand of her jewel-like hair behind a white ear. “However, they all seem to indicate humans of that era were fleeing their lands for the purpose of finding safety. It is assumed war or a natural disaster of some kind forced them to abandon their homes, and by the time they landed on Shaelar, half of them had succumbed to starvation and disease. Even so, your people arrived in great numbers; accounts estimate close to one million.”

  A million? Jekaran had a hard time wrapping his head around such a large number. Genra had a population of four hundred at most, and the most people he had ever seen in one place were in cities like Rasha, which numbered in the tens of thousands.

  Kairah continued. “At the time, our people were spread all across this land. We took pity on you, and did all we could to rescue the humans from their plight. Food, clothing, and lands for settlement were provided, and so commenced your race’s life in Shaelar. When it was discovered humans had no innate magical ability, our altruistic elders decided to share our knowledge of talis-craft, and we gave mankind many treasures and the means to create objects of great power.”

  “And we made weapons,” Jekaran concluded aloud.

  Kairah nodded. “We, too, created weapons for the purpose of defense, but my people were more interested in other applications of talis-crafting. Your people, however, seemed to have a natural aptitude and drive for devising various ways of causing destruction. We forcefully discouraged the practice, but humans continued their weapon-making in secret. Scarcely seventy years passed from the time humans landed on Shaelar before one human tribe attempted to conquer another, ironically for the purpose of seizing the weapon talises of their neighbors.

  “War quickly spread, which only caused the humans to refine their weapon talises as well as to increase their production, which in turn rapidly compounded the crisis. At first, we tried diplomacy to quell the conflicts, but those attempts universally failed. It was only as a last resort that the Allosians took up arms to try to end your fratricidal wars.”

  “What happened?” Jekaran asked.

  “Our military action against your people did stop their in-fighting, but only because it united them against us. From that time on, my people, greatly outnumbered by yours, began to lose our cities and treasures, which only grew our enemies’ advantage. Eventually, it was decided that the remaining Allosians would go into hiding, with as many of our books and talises as we could preserve. And that is where we have stayed.”

  A solemn lull fell over them.

  “I didn’t know,” Jekaran said.

  “What did our people do when the Allosians disappeared?” he heard Mae ask.

  Kairah flashed a sad smile. “You turned on each other, and another three centuries of total war followed. Forgive me for saying so, but your race seems to become intoxicated with battle the way a man loses his wits with strong drink.”

  “There is that side to us,” Irvis somberly agreed.

  “Humans hunt Vorakk too. Drive them to desert lands where many die ska,” Karak added.

  Though Jekaran knew he had no part in humanity’s crimes against the peoples of the land, the gentle sorrow with which Kairah told the tragic story invoked a pang of guilt. “It sounds like my people have done little more than consume and destroy Shaelar.”

  “That is at the heart of why my brother desires your destruction.” Kairah looked east again, mouth turned down in a frown as though she were concentrating on something.

  “What is it that he’s planning?” Irvis asked.

  That snapped the Allosian woman out of her reverie, and she turned to look at them. “There were several times during the war in which the fighting reached such intensity that it appeared humans would destroy themselves. Jenoc wants to ignite another war of such destructive magnitude that, when it is over, humans will be all but wiped out.”

  Irvis chuckled darkly. “Your brother doesn’t need to do much. The three nations are always on the brink of war.”

  Kairah nodded. “True. However, your social caste system of assigning authority to talis ownership has, over the centuries, resulted in hoarding and secrecy. This has in turn led to the loss of the majority of Shaelar’s weapon talises, and the knowledge you once possessed of talis-craft itself.”

  “Divine Mother!” Irvis exhaled suddenly. “Your brother is going to re-introduce the knowledge of how to create weapon talises, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Kairah said softly.

  “And your people condone this?” he asked.

  “My people do not know. Only I do. That is why it is vital that I reach your capital city and warn your king.”

  The idea of war stirred the sword’s will and Jekaran could feel an eagerness spill across their link. It wanted him to fight, and joining Kairah in her quest would likely afford him the opportunity to do just that. He worked to shut out the talis, but wasn’t entirely successful and the prospect of combat continued to appeal to him. That, compounded by the woman’s unmatched physical allure, pushed him over the edge of indecision.

  “I will help you,” he heard himself saying.

  “As will I,” Irvis said, though Jekaran doubted that the man’s motives were entirely pure.

  “Jekaran!” Mae shouted.

  He looked at her. She was standing, fists clenched into balls at her sides. Even in the dim light of the campfire, he could see her face was red with anger.

  “She needs help, Mae.”

  “Leave the big problems to lords and kings!” she said, her voice trembling.

  “This affects us all, Mae.”

  “Human boy must go so he can lead Karak to Eater aka,” the Vorakk added.

  That drew a questioning glance from Kairah, but before Jekaran could answer the Allosian woman, Maely picked up a fist-sized rock and hurled it at his head. Reflex seized his muscles, and Jekaran swung the sword up in a vertical swing just in time to strike the rock in mid-air, and cleave it in two.

  “Divine Mother,” he whispered as he stared at the sword. He looked up at Maely who stared wide-eyed at him. The brief subsiding of her rage caused by the wonder quickly expired, and her eyes again turned hard. She looked at each of the party in turn, and then turned and stomped off into the darkness.

  Maely found the creek Irvis had described, and fell to her knees on its soft bank. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks as quiet sobs racked her body. “Damn fool of a man,” she whispered.

  She doubted his decision to join Kairah had been entirely made by his head. All men were randy fools. It was if they lost all sense of logic and reason when confronted by an hour-glass figure, long legs, and large breasts. She glanced down her chest. It was no longer wrapped to conceal her femininity, but, even so, she had nowhere near the sexual capital Kairah naturally possessed. How could she compete?

  Why did this have to happen? Why did Ez give him that damned sword? This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. She had planned to go on the well-find with Jek and—and what? What had she been planning to do? She shook her head and scrubbed her eyes with the back of her sleeve. She had never gotten that far.

  She pounded her right fist on the ground, and a soft clod of dirt and roots broke free from the bank and plopped into the creek. Why couldn’t Jek understand he was supposed to be with her? That their entire lives had pointed to it? They were supposed to get married, spend their lives together. She was certain of it. This Allosian woman was an anomaly, a cruel joke of the goddess to punish and torment Maely for her mother’s sins. If Jek didn’t love her back, what would she do? She couldn’t stay with him and Ez anymore. She’d have to make her own way in the world, like her mother.

  I will never be so desperate as to sell my body, she t
hought. Was that part of her obsession with marrying Jekaran? So she could find security and avoid repeating her mother’s mistakes?

  Was it a mistake that she loved you enough to degrade herself in order to feed you?

  Her inner voice asked the question, and Maely clenched her jaw. She simultaneously loved and hated her mother, both sentiments potent with equal intensity. She loved her for her gentle kindness and self-sacrifice, but hated her for what she was. No, that wasn’t it, she realized. It wasn’t the fact that her mother had been a whore that made Maely so angry with her, it was because she died and left her. Maely’s mother had left her alone to care for Mull and fend for herself. If it hadn’t been for Ez, she would’ve ended up a street urchin begging for scraps, and then, when she got older, she would’ve become a prostitute, just like her mother.

  Was that why she was chasing Jekaran? To make sure he wouldn’t leave her too. But that’s exactly what he was doing, wasn’t it? Her mother had married, too. It was only the combination of tragedy and misfortune that led her mother to become a courtesan.

  Confusion and angst twisted Maely’s stomach into knots, and she raked her fingers through the soft earth. Fat tears, like drops of rain, pattered to the ground in a hypnotic rhythm. She did love the fool boy, and she knew her pursuing him wasn’t just about avoiding her mother’s fate. If only she could make him see her the way he saw Kairah.

  A disturbing idea entered her mind as quietly as a whisper on the breeze.

  Her mother’s ring.

  She had used it to help Kairah escape the crystal golem, and to get her a disguise. Could she use it to turn Jek away from his course? Not to enslave him, but to make him see?

  Just to get his attention?

  “No!” she whispered, shaking her head and flinging tears onto the dirt in the process. She wouldn’t compel Jekaran to love her. That wouldn’t be real love. It would be false and she couldn’t live with that.

  “Mae?” Jekaran said from somewhere behind her.

  She quickly scrubbed again at her eyes with the back of her sleeve, sniffing as she wiped away her tears.

  “What do you want?” she said, trying to sound more angry than heartbroken.