The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  “Can you help him?” Maely asked, and she had to choke off a sob.

  The Ursaj lifted its head and met her eyes. Maely did as best she could to return the stare, but could feel herself trembling. Finally, the brown Ursaj gave a sharp nod, gently rolled Gryyth onto his back, and then proceeded to lift him from the ground. To Maely’s astonishment, the brown bear-man appeared to have little trouble carrying Gryyth, though he wasn’t much larger than him.

  The brown Ursaj carried Gryyth back in the direction it had come, which–to Maely’s relief–was the opposite direction of Aiested and the dead forest. She took a step to follow and then froze. What was she supposed to do? What if the Ursaj saw her following as unwelcome or offensive? Would it kill her? She looked behind her at the dead trees. What choice did she have? Would the wave of death return? If so, how long before it came back, and would it stop next time?

  The brown Ursaj made a kind of sound that was a mix of a moan and a bark. Maely looked back and found it waiting for her. Relieved, she jogged toward him, and the brown Ursaj resumed walking.

  They traveled until it was dark, Maely losing all sense of direction as she could no longer see Aiested’s broken well through the dark canopy. She made certain to stay close to the brown bear-man so as to not get lost. She even attempted to talk to it, though all her questions were met with short grunts or loud huffs. These things were as difficult to understand as Karak. Well, that wasn’t completely true. Karak could speak more human words than the brown Ursaj. In fact, all this creature could say was “human.” After her fifth attempt at communication, Maely gave up.

  It was cold this far into the north forest, and Maely soon found herself shivering uncontrollably, and her breath misted out in front of her. She’d been cold on her journey from Imaris to Aiested, but that seemed a trifling chill compared to this freezing death. Just when she began to lose feeling in her feet, she caught sight of a soft glow through the trees ahead. She hugged herself, rubbing her shoulders as they drew close to it. The light was pouring out of a large cave, its mouth easily the size of a house.

  Her Ursaj guide made another bark-moan and nodded toward the cave, and then entered. Maely was hesitant to follow, but quickly decided that the cold was more likely to kill her at this point than bear teeth or claws, and so hurried inside. What she found surprised her. It wasn’t the barren rock cavern she’d been anticipating. No, the inside of the cave was every bit as comfortable as any cottage she’d been in. Deer pelts blanketed the floor making a sort of mismatched carpet, glowing paper lanterns hung from wood trusses that bridged the top of the cave, and artfully rendered glyphs were painted on the rock walls.

  A cauldron hung from a tripod over a fire pit near the center of the room, the smoke drifting up and out of the cavern through a hole in the ceiling that didn’t look to be natural, as though it were carved out of the rock for the very purpose of ventilation. If she didn’t know better, this cave could’ve been the winter shelter of a fur trapper.

  “What is a human girl doing alone in my forest with an injured Ursaj warrior?” The voice echoed from the dark that was the back of the cave, and Maely bit off a scream at the sudden breach of quiet.

  A small black bear walked into the light. It had streaks of gray in its fur, and was wearing a tunic made of animal hide. Its eyes were milky white, and it walked with one hand feeling along the cave wall. Was it blind? How then did it know what was happening? Apparently, Maely’s silence begged the question and the black Ursaj tapped its nose with one sharp claw.

  “I caught the scent as soon as you stepped into my den.” This Ursaj was much more articulate than even Gryyth, and its higher pitched voice marked it as female.

  “I-I…” Maely stammered.

  The brown Ursaj grunted and said something in a guttural language to which the black she-bear responded by pointing at a large fur sprawled out near the fire pit. The brown bear-man laid Gryyth gently down on his back.

  The she-bear sniffed the air. “Burns.”

  “He has a fever,” Maely said.

  The she-bear nodded as she felt her way along the cave. The brown Ursaj quickly moved to her side and she grabbed his arm as he led her over to Gryyth. She bent over and sniffed at Gryyth’s blackened chest. Maely started as the she-bear snapped her head up and fixed her milky white eyes on her.

  For someone who’s blind, she sure does act like she can see me.

  “These burns reek of sorcery,” the she-bear growled. “From one of your foul talises, no doubt. What did you do to him?”

  Maely’s icy fear melted as her temper rose. “Me?”

  “Your people,” the she-bear said as she returned her attention to Gryyth’s burns.

  Maely balled her fist. “We didn’t do this to him.”

  The she-bear scoffed. “An accident then? Fools can’t even handle your own evil tools.”

  “He was burned fighting an Allosian!” Maely shouted.

  The she-bear stared at Maely with sightless eyes for a long moment before finally asking, “What’s your name, girl?”

  “Maely!” she answered hotly. It made her sound childish and she inwardly cringed.

  “And his name?”

  “Gryyth.”

  The she-bear nodded. “Maely is a pretty name. I am Sharor and this is my cub’s cub, Kerr.”

  Was she talking down to her? Maely almost preferred the she-bear’s hostility to its patronization and was about to say so when Sharor began speaking to Kerr in their odd language of grunts and guttural moans. Kerr quickly moved to a shelf on the wall, and collected a pestle and mortar made of stone, two small bags, and a clay jar. He laid them all on the ground before Sharor, who sniffed at each. Then she huffed, and Kerr returned to the shelf one more time for a second, smaller clay jar.

  Sharor eased herself to the floor beside Gryyth, and began adding measured amounts of the contents of the bags and jars to her stone bowl. She went to work mixing them and soon had a gray paste that she applied to Gryyth’s burns. Contrary to what Maely expected, the paste actually smelled quite sweet, almost enticingly so. The burns were so extensive that Sharor had to stop and mix more of the paste halfway through her ministrations. Through it all Gryyth didn’t so much as groan. That worried Maely.

  After Gryyth’s burns were covered in the gray paste, Sharor had Kerr fetch more clay jars from her shelf, what looked to be a wine skin, and an empty cup. The black she-bear mixed several liquids into the cup–but nothing from the wine skin Maely noted–and then forced the contents of it down Gryyth’s throat. Then Sharor let out a long breath, and turned to look at Maely.

  “I have done what I can for him. If he lives out the night, then he should make a full recovery.”

  Confused, Maely asked, “What’s the wine skin for?”

  Sharor’s sharp teeth showed in a very disquieting bear-grin, and she took a long pull from the wine skin. She wiped her mouth with the back of her paw and said, “I gained a taste for Aiestali sweet wine when I was younger. Always try to keep a skin or two of it on hand for stressful days.” She proffered the wine skin to Maely.

  Maely laughed, bent down to accept the skin, and took a deep pull. It tasted good, like liquid candy but with the calming effect of alcohol. Not that she’d drank much in her young life–Ez hadn’t believed in imbibing what he called strong drinks–usually only at Harvest Festival.

  Maely handed the wine skin back to Sharor who took another long pull before stopping it. Kerr made a noise that sounded like a petulant child’s whine.

  “No!” Sharor snapped. “Last time you drank the whole damned thing, and then didn’t wake up for weeks.”

  Kerr growled something.

  “Hibernating my furry ass! I’ve seen human cubs who can hold their liquor better than you.”

  Maely couldn’t help but laugh at the exchange, and Sharor shot her a quick smile.

  “How come you can speak Aiestali so well, or know of sweet wine?” Maely asked.

  Sharor’s smile faded and s
he sighed. Coming from a bear, it was a deep, guttural thing that sounded almost like a growl. “I was captured by an Aiestali slaver when I was scarcely more than a cub and lived almost four decades as a servant to a master apothecary.”

  Maely looked at the pestle and mortar and the clay jars of ingredients. “So these aren’t mystical Ursaj healing potions?”

  Sharor bellowed a laugh. “Sheera root, aloe, poppy extract, and Darva powder.”

  Maely was a little disappointed. “And the draft you gave Gryyth?”

  “Gawl herb tea to break his fever.”

  “Oh. So you learned herb craft from your master?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you get back here? How did you escape him?”

  Sharor bowed her head. “My master often tested experimental concoctions on me to ensure their safety. One blinded me. After that, I wasn’t much use to him, and so he set me free. I wandered helpless in these woods until I was nearly starved to death. That’s when Kerr’s grandfather, Garren, found me. He saved my life, nursed me back to health, and gave me five strong cubs before he died.”

  “I’m sorry,” Maely was surprised that she meant it.

  Sharor waved dismissively with one paw, while reaching for the wine skin with the other. “It was years ago.”

  She unstopped it again and took another long pull. When she finished, she was a little out of breath. “Besides, you sound too young to bear the sins of your people.”

  That irritated Maely. “I’m fifteen,” she snapped, and then added sheepishly, “almost.”

  Sharor chuckled. “You have spunk, child. I like that. Can you tell me what happened to Gryyth? And how you came to be alone with him in these woods?”

  That question chased away Maely’s rising mirth and she sank to her knees. She didn’t answer Sharor, but instead stared deeply into the fire pit at the center of the cave. Half a dozen white logs crackled and snapped as the flames devoured them. She let the dancing fire hypnotize her. It was almost as if she could see her entire journey appear before her in the fire; from Genra to Rasha, to the rock lands, the chaos in Imaris, and finally the total destruction of Aiested.

  “You said an Allosian did this?” Sharor gently prodded.

  Maely nodded, gaze still fixed on the fire. “His name is Jenoc. He’s trying to destroy my people.”

  “Your tribe?”

  Maely shook her head. “Humans. All of us.”

  “And you are sure it was a real Allosian? Not just some human with powerful talises?”

  Maely looked up from the fire. She ground her teeth in irritation. She hated it when people didn’t take her seriously.

  “Pale skin, jewel-colored hair, and godlike powers? Yeah, I’m pretty sure.” She immediately regretted using so much sarcasm and continued in a more amicable tone, “I fought him alongside his sister, Kairah. She was trying to stop him from starting a new talis war.”

  “And Gryyth fought with you?”

  Maely nodded, suddenly feeling drained. “He’s Prince Raelen Taris’s bodyguard. The prince was also trying to stop Jenoc. He rode off to try and stop his army from attacking Haeshala and asked me to find Gryyth some help.”

  A lull in the conversation prevailed until broken by Kerr’s guttural moaning. Even though Maely couldn’t understand what the Ursaj was saying, the tone in his voice bespoke fear. Sharor made some quick replies in their language before again fixing her milky white eyes on Maely.

  “Kerr says he saw something just before he found you. I am not quite sure I understand what he means. Something about the forest dying?”

  Maely nodded, suddenly feeling sick. All those refugees she’d escaped Aiested with had died along with the forest, she was more and more certain of it.

  “A green, see-through wave of magic came from the direction of the city. Everything it touched instantly withered and died. We barely outran it before it pulled back. I think it came from Aiested’s broken…” Maely trailed off when she caught sight of Sharor’s countenance. The she-bear’s white eyes were wide, and her muzzle hung open. “What’s wrong?”

  Sharor cocked her head as if listening for something.

  “What is it?”

  Sharor raised a paw indicating she wanted Maely to stop talking. That nettled Maely and she was about to snap at the Ursaj when she heard a voice, not with her ears but inside her head. It reminded her of when Jenoc had brutally invaded her mind and sifted through her memories. Was this what Jekaran experienced when the sword talked to him?

  The voice was very faint like an echoing whisper, and Maely had to concentrate to hear it. Even then she couldn’t make out what it was saying. Then, as fast as it had come, the voice had gone.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  Sharor turned back to Maely. “The Mother calls.”

  Mulladin decided that circumventing Aiested by a mile would be safer than cutting through the ruins of the city. Perhaps he was being paranoid, but he thought it better to stay as far away as he could from the broken Apeira well. He was becoming more and more certain that it was the source of the withering wind that had sucked the meat off the bones of corpses and destroyed the Rikujo’s stolen ship.

  It was night now, and though he was a mile south of the city, the unnatural cloud cover blocked out the moon making it nearly impossible to see. He ought to find a place to rest and sleep, but he doubted he could sleep. He was also haunted by the notion that the Rikujo wench he’d fought off might still be alive and following him. He had nothing to base this on, but when he tried to tell himself he was being foolish, instinct wouldn’t let him completely snuff out the spark of his anxiety.

  He looked at Jek’s sword, now carried in his right hand. Why had it glowed when that withering wind assailed them? Why hadn’t he and the Rikujo woman decayed like everything else? Did it have something to do with the sword? They were both holding onto it when the wind came. Did it protect them? How could it? The talis was drained of an Apeiron charge and had no magic.

  A few times rustling in the bushes on the side of the road, or some other nightly noise startled him, but otherwise his trek through the night was uneventful. When dawn came, Mulladin’s fatigue asserted itself, and he decided to find a safe place to rest. Another few miles of walking brought him into contact with a small band of Aiested refugees.

  They were a motley assemblage of all classes, peasants, merchants, and even some nobleman, many of whom were still in their night clothes. It was almost comical to see lords and ladies in sleeping shirts and gowns acting haughtily and ordering about the others, or at least attempting to. The peasants outnumbered them, and they paid the aristocracy as little deference as they could get away with. The four hundred or so refugees mostly congregated by class, but the children appeared to have less inhibitions about mixing castes and ran between camps laughing and chasing each other.

  It made Mulladin smile, and a sense of his former simplemindedness faintly brushed a cord of a memory.

  He slid the sword back into his belt before approaching a group of men whom he guessed to be merchants as they were dressed better than the majority of the refugees, but not quite so fine as to be noblemen. He hoped they could spare him a bit of bread. They fell silent as he approached, all keeping wary eyes on him and the sword hung at his belt.

  “You are on the road from Aiested?” Mulladin asked.

  One of the merchants gave him a curt nod.

  “As am I,” Mulladin said. He stopped five paces away from the group.

  “That a weapon talis?” a fat merchant asked.

  Mulladin groaned within himself. I should have wrapped the cross guard to cover the well shard. “Yes, but completely drained, I assure you.”

  “You look too young to be one of the king’s generals,” a gray-haired woman said.

  “I’m not,” Mulladin replied.

  “Then how’d ya get―”

  “What is going on here?”

  Mulladin glanced to his left to see a tall man with long bl
ack hair approaching. He was dressed in dark robes that looked to be covered with dried blood, but there was no sign of injury on his pale face.

  The merchants all hastily bobbed bows.

  “My lord Loeadon,” the fat merchant stammered. “This traveler has a weapon talis.”

  Loeadon’s gaze fell to the sword hanging at Mulladin’s hip and his face immediately changed. “Arrest him!”

  Mulladin turned to run, but was grabbed from behind by his collar. He gagged as the front of his shirt pulled tight against his throat. He pulled free with a rip and made to run, but something hit him in the back of the head. Mulladin stumbled forward, vision blurring. He crashed to his knees, and instinctively felt at the back of his head. It was warm and wet. He examined his fingers and found the tips covered in blood. Someone had hit him in the back of the head. With what? He didn’t see the merchants carrying any weapons. As if in answer to his question, a missile flew past his right ear, missing him only by a few inches. It crashed to the ground, and Mulladin realized it was a large rock. They were throwing rocks at him!

  He made to stand, but was tackled from behind. He found himself face down in the dirt, someone vigorously pressing on the back of his head where he’d been hit by the rock. He put his palms flat on the ground and roared as he launched himself backward. The man on his back yelped as he was thrown clear.

  Mulladin staggered to his feet and spun, hand reaching for Jek’s sword. Light flashed across his vision as something hit him square in the face. Another rock. Tears blinded him, and warm blood spilled out of his nose. Mulladin bellowed and charged forward, unable to see but confident he’d have no trouble finding a target. He hoped it would be the man called Loeadon. He crashed into someone, and the man screamed as they both were carried to the ground. Still tear-blind, Mulladin began pounding on his victim with his fists. He felt the satisfying crunch of cartilage that signaled he’d broken the man’s nose.

  Payback in kind. He grinned.

  Something whipped through the air, then there was pain in his head, stars across Mulladin’s vision, and finally, all went dark.