Give me control, the sword abruptly said.
What? That’s exactly what Kairah had told him not to do.
“My name is Kaul. Your uncle Ezra knows me,” he chuckled.
Ez! Jekaran’s despair deepened. Had Kaul killed his uncle? Had he killed Mull?
“Your uncle is a very clever man, sending you away with the sword like that, but I’m smarter. I figured it out. So I let him think I was chasing him, when, in fact, I was chasing you.”
He’s alive! That gave Jekaran the tiniest bit of relief.
Kaul’s smile widened. “But, after I take the sword, I am going to hunt him down and kill him with his own weapon. Then I will be the Invincible Shadow!”
Jekaran, the sword called him by name, turn your will over to me.
I can’t!
Kaul let go of his chin and straightened. Jekaran’s frozen muscles kept his neck propping his head up to look at the man. Kaul raised his right hand at Jekaran and lifted it so the palm was inches from his face.
This is the end, he realized. Oddly, the thought brought him a bit of comfort. Not enough to counter the fear, but he did feel a sense of relief that his ordeal would soon be over. Jekaran closed his eyes.
Your will, the sword pled.
Jekaran remembered when he had been fighting the bandits and how he had been completely engrossed in the sword’s power. It was as if he hadn’t needed to do anything but let the sword guide him. There had been no forethought, no fear, just clarity and death to his enemies. It had been much the same when he had fought Hort’s men in the rock lands, as though his mind was shoved to the side to make room for something else.
He hadn’t allowed that state of altered consciousness to take him ever since Maely had called him out of it. Kairah’s warnings that the sword could dominate him had scared him into keeping his mental distance from the talis, but now, facing death, he knew that didn’t matter anymore.
So Jekaran lowered the barriers of resistance in his mind and let the sword have his will.
Kaul took a three-foot step back from Argentus’ nephew. Although his shield bracelet would protect him from the heat of the blast, he didn’t want to waste any more of that talis’ charge as he may need it to help him escape the city. He set his rage free of its already loose constraints and willed an explosion of fire to erupt from his palm, strong enough to take the boy’s head off at the neck. It raced from Kaul’s hand and struck in a flash of flame and a wave of heat he could feel even through his shield. Kaul smiled and took a step toward the clearing smoke.
Then he froze.
Argentus’ nephew was standing, his smoldering sword raised to cover his face. The blast had singed him, as was evidenced by a patch of missing hair at his right temple, but he was otherwise unharmed.
Kaul felt the emotion he thought he had banished long ago. That loathed familiar feeling stabbed at his heart at seeing the boy’s cold, green eyes.
Kaul was afraid.
He instinctively refocused his dread medal on the boy, pouring as much Apeiron into the effort as he could.
Jekaran didn’t react. He didn’t even flinch.
Kaul raised his hand and launched another fireball, but it came too late as the boy leapt into the air, spinning as he performed an aerial somersault. He crashed down on Kaul with the edge of his sword, and Kaul flew backward in a flash of crackling purple light. The shield had protected him, but the blow took an alarming amount of his bracelet’s Apeiron charge.
Kaul rolled to his right just as Jekaran struck at him again, this time leaping to land where he had only a heartbeat ago been lying on the ground. The boy’s sword bit into the cobblestone street as easily as though it were a heated iron and the street were melting snow. Kaul leapt to his feet and managed to throw another fireball, which Jekaran batted out of the air with prescient timing. He began to back away, desperately wishing he had brought his men. Arkell was the best swordsman of the group, but Kaul had shoved him off a cliff. That now proved to have been a poor decision.
I don’t need him! Kaul snarled. He drew his sword and sought the one thing that could counter his fear—rage.
He willed a small amount of Apeiron from his ring to wrap his blade with an aura of fire. The effect was more theatrics than it was to enhance his weapon, and he had often used the trick to intimidate his foes, but Argentus’ nephew looked as though he didn’t even notice. He let that anger him further as he rushed forward to strike.
Kaul whipped his blade in a horizontal cut, but was rebuffed as Jekaran snapped his sword up in time to block. He immediately pivoted and swung in from the other side in a downward slice. Jekaran voided the swing, and Kaul sliced opened air, the fire from his sword fluttering like a torch in the wind. He recovered quickly, spinning and channeling his momentum into a desperate thrust.
When Jekaran knocked his sword aside, he abruptly dropped it and emitted a blast of fire. The feint worked, and Jekaran didn’t have the time or space to block the blast. It struck him in the left shoulder and knocked him back, spinning him to the ground. Kaul hurled another fireball, this time striking him in the back. The sword clattered to the ground. He rushed up, found the sword three feet out of the boy’s reach, and picked it up. The boy still lay motionless.
Kaul’s fear evaporated as his eyes hungrily roved over the blade, glittering with emerald sparkles, and the large amethyst stone set like a keystone in the silver crossguard.
The sword was his!
A full-toothed grin spread wide across his face. He had beaten Argentus.
With this sword, there would be no one Kaul would have to fear; people would fear him, all people. He stepped next to the boy, looming over his grounded form, and kicked him hard where the burn flared by the second fireball. The boy didn’t react. Was he dead? Had Kaul killed him? Best to be sure, he thought.
He leveled the point of the sword at the back of Jekaran’s neck, touched it with the edge. He then raised the sword and brought it down in a furious decapitating slice.
The sword stopped less than an inch from the boy’s neck. The shock of the abrupt recoil had barely subsided when Jekaran rolled over and kicked Kaul straight in the kneecap. He cried out as he dropped the sword and stumbled back, keeping his feet only by the full exertion of his will. He looked up and found the boy standing with the sword already in hand. Had it even touched the ground?
Kaul lunged to his left and scooped up his sword by its handle, having just enough time to bring it up to block Jekaran’s slash. He limped backward, bringing his sword up again to block the follow-up strike. Kaul continued to limp backward, working with all of his might to parry Jekaran’s increasingly ferocious attacks.
Clang, Kaul knocked the sword to the left.
His father was throwing him repeatedly against the garden wall for having snuck a strip of salted pork from the pantry.
Clang, Kaul shoved the thrusting blade to the right.
He was huddled on the ground, his father kicking repeatedly at his ribs, the sharp pain in his side telling him that at least one was broken, probably more.
Clang, Kaul barely managed to parry a rising cut.
His father held his small feet inches off the ground, strangling him for trying to restrain the pummeling his sobbing mother had received.
Argentus’ nephew brought the sword up sharply and swung in a downward slice. Kaul brought his sword up, the two of them so close he would have to catch it just above the hilt. The swords struck each other, but this time Kaul did not rebuff the attack. Instead, Jekaran’s sword sheared through his, leaving the remaining inch of blade above the hilt glowing a cherry red. The sword struck Kaul at the same time that he heard his severed blade clang against the ground. His shield manifested, protecting him from being eviscerated. The follow-up swing came as a horizontal cut, the blade catching as Kaul’s shield crackled just three inches from the left side of his neck. However, it did not stop the blade.
As if time had slowed, Kaul saw the blade of Argentus’ sword sl
owly pushing through the crackling purple barrier protecting his neck. He willed all of the bracelet’s Apeiron into the shield, but it didn’t slow the blade. As if tearing free from something, the sword broke through the shield and bit into his neck. In this, the last of his living moments, Kaul felt absolutely no anger. The only emotion he could feel was fear.
Jekaran watched from some place in the back of his mind as his sword pushed through the barrier of crackling, purple energy guarding Kaul’s neck. The blade slowed for a moment, and then like the last autumn leaf desperately clinging to the branch abruptly torn away by the winter wind, the sword broke through the shield and took Kaul’s head off in a blur.
The emerald shards peppering the blade lit up like tiny stars, and he could feel something rushing into the amethyst stone set in the sword’s crossguard. The sword’s Apeiron charge—which had decreased by a quarter since the start of his fight with Kaul—suddenly refilled, as though Jekaran had been near an Apeira well. Instinctually he had known there was more than enough to charge his sword, and the excess energy began flowing into him. This hadn’t happened when he had killed the bandits in Rasha, no, this was new, and it was frightening.
Panicked, Jekaran tried to wrest control of his body back from the sword but it resisted him. He tried again, but the sword held on. One side effect of his surrendering his will to the sword had been that he could not feel the pain of his wounds or the fatigue of his muscles. In spite of this numbing, Jekaran was still aware of those sensations; they floated at the borders of his consciousness, and he knew that when the sword did return control to him, if it did, that he would experience them in full force. As the energy flowed from the sword into him, he felt his weariness vanish and the pains of his throbbing burns begin to dull. What was happening to him? There was also another feeling, this one not muted by the sword’s bond—exquisite satisfaction. It was as if Jekaran were eating a harvest night feast after having worked in the fields all day without having had so much as a scrap of bread.
The sensation abruptly ceased, and Jekaran felt himself walk a short distance to the left where he stopped and looked at Kaul’s severed head. The mismatched eyes, one blue and one brown, stared glassily at the sky, and there was an expression of unmistakable terror frozen on the man’s pallid face.
“Jekaran?” a nasally voice hesitantly called.
Jekaran felt his head snap up and turn to the right. There he saw Gymal, fine clothes disheveled and his nose leaking blood. He stood next to Hort who, in spite of a serious and painful looking burn on his right cheek, held his sword at the ready, free arm stretched out protectively in front of Gymal. A feeling of eagerness surged from the sword at seeing Gymal, and Jekaran knew it wanted to attack him.
No! Jekaran clawed at the bond in an effort to regain control of his body. The sword rebuffed him with greater ease than before. Was it somehow stronger now? Jekaran felt his body take a step toward Gymal.
Kairah! he mentally shouted at the sword. We have to save Kairah!
The sword paused. Saving Kairah meant fighting the crystal golem. The thought swayed the sword, and Jekaran felt his body turn and sprint down the hill.
Kairah could not remember ever feeling so weak. It wasn’t physical fatigue, though if she didn’t reach a well soon it would become that. No, her weakness was a dangerously low level of Apeiron as reported to her senses in the form of a feeling of vulnerability at her center. Her core, which was usually warm and solid, felt cold and shaky.
She closed her eyes. I am in trouble. But she knew the Spirit Lily couldn’t hear her. She was too far, and too weak, to communicate with Aeva now. If she had stopped spell-casting after creating that spike of stone, she would be fine, she was sure of it. The spell to stop their runaway cart weakened her to this state.
Kairah turned to look at Maely running at her side, and the lines of worry wrinkling her young forehead. For one so given to emotional volatility, the girl’s underlying sense of personal empathy seemed to be a constant—although she tried to hide it.
“Are you—” Maely began.
“I am fine,” Kairah cut her off.
They reached the docks, where several of the ships were a mass of milling activity making her think of a disturbed anthill. The human shipmasters had caught sight of the golem, which was now turning onto the street that ran parallel to the docks. Several ships were casting off, some so recklessly fast that they dropped their gangplanks, and sometimes those walking on them, into the water. The Queen’s Honor was one of those, although it had not yet cast off.
Kairah glanced over her shoulder to see the golem loping toward them. Jekaran had been right to suggest this course of action. If they lured the creature onto one of the piers, it certainly would not be able to support its weight, and would crash into the sea. This close to the shelf the living statue could climb back onto land, but not before they had ample time to escape.
Until it finds me again, she thought.
“Where’s Jek?” Maely’s voice shook.
Kairah didn’t answer. She couldn’t. If Jekaran tried to fight the man with the three powerful talises, then it was very possible that he was dead. That stabbed at Kairah’s heart more than she expected. Had she been growing fond of the boy— of a human? She was fond of Maely in the same way that a child was fond of its pet, but the feelings that Jekaran’s possible death invoked were somehow different, more like the grief for a lost equal—or a friend.
“This way,” Kairah said to Maely, grabbing the girl by the wrist and towing her toward the pier. They reached the pier where the Queen’s Honor was moored and leapt onto the wooden walkway leading to the ship’s gangplank. They ran several yards, and then Kairah stopped and turned to watch the golem. It drew close, but stopped before setting foot onto the pier.
It knows what we are attempting!
“Why is it stopping?” Maely asked, her voice edging on hysteria.
Kairah didn’t know much about the talis, she hadn’t even been aware of their existence until they began to chase her. But what she felt from them did not indicate sentience like Jekaran’s sword. Certainly, they would have some basic reasoning skills, but the hulking creature’s hesitation appeared more like a display of conscious thought.
Sister, Jenoc’s voice inside her head startled her. So, he was personally controlling the crystal golem.
Sister, Jenoc repeated. This is over. Come with me and no more humans will be harmed.
Until you cause them to go to war with one another, she replied. Jenoc was using the golem as a kind of telepathic relay, making her spell-casting to communicate with him easy, and therefore costing her virtually no Apeiron.
They will destroy themselves eventually. I am simply expediting the inevitable. Jenoc couldn’t hide the cold hate from his voice, despite his effort to pretend he followed a logical course of action.
Kairah knew what festered inside of him. We are not their gods, Jenoc! Kairah did nothing to veil her anger.
Are we not? Jenoc thought. Did we not give them lives when they were about to die? Did we not give them shelter, food, and talises?
That does not give us the right to decide their fate!
I will not be denied this, Sister. It has become the very reason for my existence!
“Kairah?” Maely asked, her tone sounding confused. “What’s happening?”
What would our mother and father think of what you are doing? She had asked him that before, but Jenoc had never given her an answer.
They are gone! Jenoc sent in a heated reply, and she could feel that the barriers of strict restraint that contained his rage were weakening, just as she had always known they one day would. One could sooner contain a hurricane in a wooden box than keep such hate pent up for so long.
Their essence remains, you know this. Nothing that is of Apeira can truly be destroyed.
Obsolete tradition and desperate superstition, Sister! That is all your belief is. It is how you have learned to cope with their loss.
And vengeance is a better way?
No reply.
I was there too, Jenoc. I saw it happen the same as you did. Yet, I do not degrade myself by wallowing in grief and hate.
Finally, Jenoc spoke, and Kairah could sense that he regained his self-possession. Come home, Sister.
I will not let you do this, Jenoc!
Please, Kairah. Your strength is nearly gone. It would be unwise for you to cast in such a state.
You leave me little choice, Kairah said.
Please, Sister. See rea—
“Jek!” Maely screamed.
Kairah looked to her right and found Jekaran sprinting toward the golem, sword aloft. Jenoc turned his avatar just as Jekaran leapt an inhuman ten feet into the air, sword swinging down at the golem’s shoulder. The blade tore through its hard, transparent shell, shearing its arm off. Kairah sensed Jenoc’s surprise.
Jekaran landed in a ready crouch, sword held horizontally out to his side. The golem turned to face Jekaran, and the purple light of Apeiron leaked like blood from its assaulted shoulder before it evaporated.
Kairah’s eyes grew wide. The crystal golem’s severed arm liquefied into a shimmering pool flowing of its own accord across the ground and back to the golem. His foot absorbed it, the fluid flowing out from its injured shoulder to shape a new arm. She gasped as it opened and closed its hand, testing the new appendage.
Jekaran leapt at it again, but the golem swung its new arm and swatted him out of the air. Maely screamed as Jekaran flew twenty feet, striking hard against the ground and rolling. He rose, blood running down the side of his head, his free arm bent at an unnatural angle. She saw his shoulders rise and fall, rise and fall, and then he charged the golem a third time.
Does he not feel the pain of his injuries? Kairah wondered. And that’s when she saw his eyes, cold and blank, like the glassy stare of a corpse. The sword is dominating the bond, she realized with a stab of horror. That would mean Jekaran had lost control of his body, and the sword was dictating his movements. If that were so, the sword likely felt no pain and would fight until Jekaran’s body was ruined or he was killed.
The Lure of Fools Page 26
