The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  Shivara craned her neck again toward the miniature galaxy hovering ten feet above them. “Did you know that some of the early Allosian theologians believed that the laws of magic could be different on other worlds? And that, although based upon the same core principles, they could be constructed in different ways to achieve different ends?”

  Kairah should’ve been irritated that Shivara was not listening, but the oracle’s words were hypnotic. “I had not heard that.”

  Shivara went on as though Kairah hadn’t spoken. “And one world’s power, if it interacted with the laws of a separate world, could bleed together to form unexpected results and new magic?”

  Kairah’s breath caught. “Are you saying that is what Moriora is? An alien magic?”

  Shivara looked at her and smiled. “Or the child of the magics from two separate worlds.”

  “But where did it come from? How did it get here? How did Jenoc discover how to summon it?”

  “So many questions that even I do not know the answers to. But together, perhaps we can solve this puzzle and discern what we are up against and how to stop it.” Shivara reached out a hand. “Will you help me, Kairah? Will you join your power with mine to pierce this veil of mystery?”

  Kairah reached out her hand to take Shivara’s, but collapsed to her hands and knees when a wave of pain stronger than anything she’d felt before crashed down on her head. Her sight blurred and she vomited. Then she started to scream.

  Raelen sat in an area of the tent partitioned off from the center compartment, effectively making a room for him, or a cell. Although it had no bars, and he could cut the canvas and slip out if he wanted, Raelen was bound by something stronger than metal and stone–Seiro. He was bound by honor to remain in General Vesarr Rahkanas’s custody by his own oath.

  Raelen lay on his cot, arms folded behind his head, unable to sleep. Though bathing, shaving, and wearing a clean pair of trousers and tunic should’ve made him comfortable, he was anything but. Something was wrong, he could feel it.

  At first, he thought the anxiety was over his failure to persuade Vesarr to abandon his father’s orders, but the more he considered it, the more he realized that wasn’t it. He was worried the scouting party wouldn’t report back in time to stop Vesarr from launching his assault on Haeshala, but the general seemed to be dragging his feet, delaying over technicalities and minutia. It was obvious to Raelen that Vesarr was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. That alone was its own victory. No, the foreboding was something else.

  When Raelen was little, he used to wake up screaming from one recurring nightmare. It was a ridiculous thing to him now, but for a five-year-old boy, it’d been terrifying and only Gryyth’s deep, gentle voice could soothe him back to sleep. The dream was of a giant, fire-breathing Vorakk coming to attack Aiested. It never actually arrived to wreak destruction on the city, but the dread was truly awful, the suspense of awaiting death the terror that made him cry out from sleep for his Ursaj protector.

  Raelen remembered feeling the thunderous footfalls of the approaching Titan, hearing the primal roars from miles off, and seeing a fountain of fire erupting from a mountainous silhouette on the horizon. He hadn’t felt such an urgent need to run and hide like that in years, not until now.

  Raelen rolled onto his side and stared at the gray canvas wall. He’d been in Vesarr’s custody for a few days now, waiting for the general’s scout team to send word from Aiested and corroborate his claim that the city was indeed destroyed and the king dead. Had he wanted, Raelen could’ve killed Vesarr and taken command of the army, all in the name of the “greater good,” as his father would’ve expected. But he’d chosen to trust the teachings of Seiro that if he did the honorable thing, his path would be lighted, and he would know what to do. No such enlightenment had come to Raelen yet, but that didn’t make him doubt his choice.

  He’d proven to himself that he would not rule like his father, and that gave him a quiet confidence he’d never possessed. Raelen finally felt like he knew who he was. Granted, his father had spoken truth; there were times when sacrifices indeed had to be made for the greater good, but Gryyth taught him never to act against his conscience. That was the very essence of the Ursaj philosophy of Seiro. Killing Vesarr had seemed wrong, even though legally Raelen had the right, and so he surrendered. In retrospect, it’d been a simple choice.

  Humans always complicate things. That was something the Ursaj was fond of saying.

  Raelen tried his other side, but sleep remained elusive. Thinking of dreams reminded him of the strange vision he’d had of Saranna.

  Vision? What, am I a soothsayer now? He scoffed.

  It was just a dream, he kept trying to persuade himself, but it wasn’t working. Something about seeing Saranna haunted him. Oh, he’d dreamt of his dead sister before, sometimes to the warming of his heart, and at other times to his waking in bitter tears. But there was something singular about this dream, a unique feeling, like Saranna had, in fact, been there.

  Her words wouldn’t stop bouncing around inside his skull: You will face him again… Who was “him?” …but this time he fights with the power of death itself. What could that mean? Did it mean anything? You cannot fight him the way you did before. To touch him is death. His power cannot affect itself, so arm yourself with it, but don’t partake of it.

  Raelen sighed and reached to touch his bicep, but caught himself. His transference band was gone, probably locked away in a footlocker somewhere in Vesarr’s sectioned off room. Its absence led Raelen to realize he had a habit of brushing the talis with his fingertips whenever he was worried or afraid. It made sense. It was a special connection to his mentor and closest friend, one that transcended distance.

  He wished Gryyth were with him right now.

  Shouting, followed by the distinct snapping of crossbow triggers.

  Raelen sat up.

  An unintelligible command evoked the metallic echo of hundreds of swords being drawn at once. But it was the choral battle cry of a hundred Aiestali soldiers that spurred Raelen off his cot and through the partition’s curtain. A soldier shot a wide-eyed glance at Raelen, but didn’t stop him as he left his private section.

  “What’s happening?” he demanded.

  “We’re under attack.” Vesarr emerged from his sleeping quarters. A squire was frantically trying to keep stride with the general in an attempt to buckle on a breastplate.

  “Haeshala?”

  “Or raiders. But I don’t know of any raider chiefs so brazen they’d attack an army, not since the advent of the Invincible Shadow.” Vesarr walked up to stand over his table covered in maps. The squire looked relieved as the general’s stopping made it easy for him to finish buckling on the man’s armor. “It’s hard to be certain. I’ve sent three scouting parties to the east, but none have reported back. We tried to reach them via speaking stone, but the talis behaves like its twin stone is dead.”

  Raelen walked up to the table. While technically a prisoner, Vesarr hadn’t treated him like one. For the most part he was free to move about the main chamber of the tent, and could even walk about camp, though the general insisted he take along an escort. By Vesarr’s hesitancy to attack Haeshala, and his continued show of respect toward Raelen, he suspected the man believed he was actually who he said he was. It was another evidence to Raelen that’d he had done the right thing in not challenging Vesarr for control of the army.

  A young soldier, only two or three years Raelen’s junior, rushed into the tent. His face was red, his eyes wild, and he was panting. “General… Rahkanas…” he gasped, so panicked that he didn’t even remember to salute–a breach of protocol punishable by ten lashings.

  “Who are you?” Vesarr demanded.

  “It’s Captain Nylar’s Mora…” The young man paused to suck in several breaths.

  “What about them?” Vesarr snapped.

  “They’re gone!”

  Earlier, Raelen overheard Vesarr dispensing the nightly watch assignments; Nyl
ar’s six hundred soldiers had been the men charged with guarding the camp’s perimeter.

  “What? Where did they go?” Vesarr’s face was turning red.

  The young soldier shook his head. “They’re dead.”

  A scream punctuated the young man’s words, the cry multiplying into a chaotic chorus of hundreds.

  Whatever Raelen dreaded was coming, had finally arrived.

  Jenoc smiled as two score of his children surged forth, consuming the soldiers as they pushed past their lines. The fighting men of Aiestal hardly had time enough to scream before they withered into desiccated corpses. Jenoc was impressed with the soldier’s discipline. Even in the face of certain death, they held their ground. Only a few ran, and those Jenoc struck down personally with bolts of green lightning. He found the skill to be unique to him among his army of Moriora wielders, a phenomenon he attributed to his centuries-long lifetime of channeling Apeiron and being trained in the Five Disciplines of Allosian spell-casting.

  By way of the ritual he’d learned for calling Moriora, he’d succeeded in transforming a third of the population of Haeshala’s capital city–all the humans with green eyes–into life-leeching demons. The green eyes connection was a fascinating academic mystery the old Jenoc would’ve thrilled to explore. But study and research no longer interested him. The passionate scholar was gone now, replaced by an avenging angel; a general at the head of an army of thousands all wielding a fire that would purge Shaelar of its human infestation. But as formidable as he was, and even with a host of acolytes at his command, it wasn’t enough. Not if he were to truly exterminate the vermin that was humanity.

  It’d taken less than twenty-four hours for Jenoc’s children–some fifteen thousand vessels of Moriora–to completely strip the Haeshalan capital city of all life. Some resisted their new natures at first, even going so far as to try and fight off their fellow Moriorans. Interestingly enough, one Morioran could not drain another of its life force. They could wither flora, fauna, and people, but not each other. It was a curiosity the old Jenoc would’ve sought with a fevered obsession to understand; that man had been beaten to death on the floor of Prince Isara’s throne room. But even those noble souls trying to protect their families and friends eventually succumbed to the hunger, devouring those very dear ones they’d fought to protect.

  By the end, all of Isadara had descended into chaos, and it’d taken a combination of Jenoc’s unique command of the green lightning along with a subtle broadcast of telepathy to convince them to accept him as their new god. For some reason, the ones who’d devoured their own kin were the easiest to dominate.

  After destroying Isadara, Jenoc and his army swept across the countryside, leaving the grasslands rocky and desolate in their wake. How fortunate for him to have intercepted not one, but three scouting parties sent forth from the very army he’d schemed to launch from Aiested. He’d almost forgotten about them, and was even more delighted to learn they camped about an Apeira well. Fate truly had sanctioned his efforts and mission.

  Forcing his children to abstain long enough for him to interrogate the soldiers had been difficult. Even with his promises of unlimited food, displays of power, and psychic manipulation, his hold over the Moriorans was tenuous at best, especially the hungrier they became. That was why Jenoc had only brought forty with him to attack the Aiestali army.

  One of Jenoc’s daughters snapped a translucent green tendril toward a soldier with green eyes, but Jenoc immolated her with a pillar of fire before she could feed on him. Killing a Morioran was extremely difficult, even for him, and used a disproportionate amount of power to accomplish. The trick was to exterminate the vessel by inflicting an overwhelming amount of damage all at once. The attack had to be quick, and leave nothing more than ashes behind. Anything less, and the Morioran could rebuild itself by siphoning energy from the life around it. Unfortunately, this kind of spell-casting cost Jenoc several times the effort and energy it used to, and so he only relied on it as a last resort.

  “I said do not eat the ones with green eyes!” He shouted both with his voice and mind. The others flinched, but didn’t do more than hesitate before they returned to their slaughter.

  They will frenzy when they get close to the camp’s Aeose, and I won’t be able to stop them from destroying it. It’d been nearly impossible for Jenoc himself to resist feasting on the Apeira well back in Isadara even with all of his training and discipline. In the end, he’d only resisted the overwhelming pull by tapping into his hate.

  He had to get to the camp’s Apeira well before any of his children if he was going to succeed.

  Jenoc rushed forward, using three successive bolts of emerald lightning to drain approaching soldiers. He broke the outer perimeter of the camp, ignoring any who ran from him, and only devouring those foolish enough to try and stop him.

  Raelen grabbed Vesarr by his upper arm, stopping the general as he made for the open tent flap. “Let me fight!”

  Vesarr stared at him, green eyes appraising.

  “If I meant to kill you or anyone here, I would’ve already done it.”

  Vesarr gave Raelen a sharp nod. “Get the prince his talis,” he commanded his squire.

  The boy dashed into Vesarr’s sectioned off room, emerging a moment later with Raelen’s transference band. Raelen took the bracelet-like piece of jewelry and snapped it around his right bicep. Immediately he could feel his connection to Gryyth and his chest warmed and loosened with the relief of finding his Ursaj friend still alive.

  Vesarr lifted his full-faced helmet from underneath his arm and fitted it over his head. He drew his sword, a wavy-shaped blade of red steel that began to glow as soon as it was out of its sheath.

  “This is like no flame brand I’ve seen.”

  Vesarr shook his helmeted head. “It is a flare kris. Very dangerous and very rare. Be sure to stay a few extra paces away from me when the melee starts. It produces small explosions when I strike at my foes.”

  Raelen nodded and followed Vesarr out of the tent.

  The camp was a maelstrom of confused shouting and frantic movement. Raelen scanned the scene, trying to locate the attackers. The purple glow of the Apeira well looming twenty-feet above him wasn’t much for lighting more than a dozen or so feet out. Had it been bigger, perhaps it would’ve made seeing in the dark easier.

  Raelen caught a flash of green on his right periphery. He turned just as screaming rang out from that quarter of the camp. “Vesarr!”

  The general glanced to where Raelen was pointing just as two more flashes of green washed over the tents and massing soldiers. He nodded and broke into a jog. Raelen followed, transforming his limbs into perfect copies of Gryyth’s white-furred forearms and claws. Less visible was the expanding of muscle beneath the skin of his arms and legs and across his chest, and even his teeth grew pointy and his hair changed from sunshine blonde to dirty-snow white.

  He outran Vesarr, leaping over soldiers and pounding the ground with clawed feet that tore through his leather boots. He pushed a soldier out of his way a little too hard, sending the man crashing into a group of his fellows, all of whom fell sprawling.

  “Sorry,” Raelen caught himself shouting. Not very princely.

  The screams grew louder in time with the increasing rapidity of emerald flashes. What was happening? Talis craft to be sure, but Raelen hadn’t ever seen a talis that produced the color green in its effects. Soldiers fled, not away from him, but toward him, trying to outrun the danger ahead. When he drew close, Raelen bounded over a mass of fleeing soldiers. He landed right in front of a man he’d come to know and hate. His hair was blonde, and eyes green, but Raelen would know that face until his dying day.

  “Pariel!” Raelen shouted.

  Jenoc glanced at him and smirked. “My Prince. I am surprised to find you here.” He sounded genuinely excited.

  “Why are you attacking my army? I thought you wanted us to go to war.”

  “I am not here to attack your army.” Jenoc laughe
d. “I am here to recruit them.”

  “You’re madder than I thought if you think that any of these brave men would elect to follow you.” Raelen tried to ignore the fact that all of his brave soldiers were currently fleeing the scene.

  Jenoc’s smile widened. It was an unnerving rictus that looked very out of place on the usually stoic man. At least, he’d never smiled much when Raelen had known him as his loyal Navarch, Pariel.

  “They will not have a choice.”

  What did that mean?

  Deciding that further parlay with the monster would be a waste of time, Raelen charged. Although he bore down on the Allosian with an open claw raised to strike, the man didn’t move. Raelen brought his arm down, claws raking Jenoc’s face, bear nails tearing four fleshy runnels down the Allosian’s perfect cheek, but producing no blood.

  Pain exploded in Raelen’s fingers. He bellowed as he aborted his charge. The sudden reversal of momentum caused him to lose his footing, and he crashed to the ground. His four fingers, just a heartbeat ago thick and powerful, were withering right before his eyes into a substance that resembled a prune. Raelen screamed. His skin tightened and shrank, and his fingers crumbled to dust. All he had left were pieces of bone protruding from blackened nubs. The skin around the edge of the nubs had shrunken tightly across the breaks, reducing the flow of blood to a mere trickle.

  Raelen cradled his hand, staring up Jenoc with wide eyes. The Allosian pointed at one of the fleeing soldiers and a bolt of green lightning arced across the distance separating the two. The soldier flashed with a halo of emerald light, and then was gone. The skin of Jenoc’s cheek knit together and smoothed, leaving no evidence of the wound that marred him just seconds before.

  Jenoc smirked. “I want you to see what I am going to do, My Prince.” With that he strode away, wading back into the confused mob of soldiers and recommencing his magical attacks.