The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  “Do not dawdle, child,” Shivara called from the hallway.

  Kairah put the vial down and left the bed chamber. Shivara stood in the hall waiting for her, arms crossed and a lacquered fingernail tapping her painted lips.

  She wears face paint like a human noblewoman.

  “Come,” the oracle ordered.

  They returned to Shivara’s study, and she led Kairah to a chair inside a large alcove. The chair was silver, with ornate designs covering its armrests and legs. It was not plush as most Allosian furniture was wont to be, but smooth and metallic. Above the headrest rose a five-pointed star made of the same silver metal. In the center of the arcane symbol was a diamond-cut Apeira well shard.

  “I have never seen a talis such as this.” Kairah traced the faintly glowing lines trailing along the chair’s silver armrests.

  “That is because it’s unique.” Shivara pointed at the seat. “Sit, child.”

  Kairah eyed the chair.

  “It is quite safe, I assure you.”

  “What does it do?”

  “Opens one’s eyes.” Shivara caressed the silver star above the headrest. She caught herself and glanced back at Kairah. “It will enhance your oracular senses; magnify your psychic sight in much the same way a looking stone enlarges a vista.”

  “Is this how you learned of Moriora?”

  Shivara smirked, an expression that flashed her dimples. “I have used it to see farther than you can imagine, through time and space and beyond.”

  Kairah’s chest tightened. “Beyond?”

  “Sit, Kairah.” Shivara motioned again at the chair.

  Aeva? Kairah called. But the Spirit lily didn’t respond.

  “What about my condition? Will that not interfere with this talis’s function?”

  “It is powerful enough to compensate for your diminished abilities. Trust me. Now sit.”

  Kairah reluctantly obeyed.

  Shivara traced fingers lightly down Kairah’s forehead and across her eyelids, making them close. Again she felt the nearly painful prickle. She tried to open her eyes, but Shivara forced the lids down.

  “Keep your eyes shut, for often we can better see the infinite when our eyes are closed to the world around us.”

  A long moment of silent blackness elapsed before the talis finally awoke to form a connection with Kairah’s mind. That was odd, it ought to have been charged and ready to function, but it was as if it had to draw on the Mother Shard to refill first. Kairah was going to ask about that when another sensation hit her.

  It was the same as what she’d experienced when having her vision of the human’s desolate homeland, right before she woke in Aiested; when her mind was free but still tethered to her faraway body.

  Shivara’s voice sounded distant. “Don’t try to force your expanding sight, just let it take you where it needs to go.”

  Shaelar appeared before Kairah’s disembodied vision, as if she were looking down on the continent from far above, but it was different–bigger. Where the west coast ought to have been there was more land, much more. In fact, the continent extended west almost the entire length of Shaelar’s original size.

  Unless this is the original size and shape of the land.

  Some among her people theorized that Shaelar was once part of a bigger continent, and that the two had split long ago because of some tectonic cataclysm. So it was the past Kairah was seeing, but how long ago? She fell, the land racing up to meet her and Kairah’s faraway stomach flipped. Just before crashing into the ground, she stopped and her vision expanded. She could see in all directions at once. It was very much like scrying, just on a much larger scale.

  The entire land was green, lush, and fertile. Before her rose a magnificent city, glowing white–Allose. But where was the Mother Shard? The towering crystal monolith, like a pillar of the sky itself, was missing. Kairah reached out across the continent with her uninhibited senses, looking for other Apeira wells, but found none. That didn’t make sense. Where did the ancient Allosians get their Apeiron?

  She willed herself into the city, and was immediately in the center where the synod’s council dome should’ve been. Like the Mother Shard, it was gone. In its place was a mountainous staircase topped by a simple flat, circular platform. The platform was large enough to hold hundreds of people, and there were other staircases leading up on all sides to provide access.

  A crowd formed on the platform; men and women dressed in simple robes of white and wearing sandals. But they were not Allosian. They were human, with eyes and hair as varied in color as the humans of today. Where were the Allosians?

  A white light descended from the sky and the humans knelt to the ground as one. When the light reached the platform, it resolved into the most beautiful woman Kairah had ever seen. She had flowing metallic-silver hair that fell below her waist, and was dressed in a sleeveless white tunic similar in design to that worn by her human worshippers.

  Light and power radiated from the woman, an aura of brilliant white outlining her features. One of the humans stood and approached the divine being. She had long blonde hair, and bright blue eyes. She knelt in front of the silver-haired woman, who extended a hand and gently caressed the kneeling woman’s hair.

  The scene shifted to six cloaked figures standing in a circle inside a familiar domed room with star charts and maps of the cosmos laid unrolled on tables. The six held hands and chanted with eyes closed. A column of white light appeared in the center of their circle, and Kairah expected to see the glorious woman reappear. But the figure that resolved from the light was male, and remained translucent as though he were not actually in the room. He had hair like the divine woman, save instead of shimmering silver, his shoulder length locks were glittering a metallic gold. He was the most impressive specimen of manliness Kairah had ever beheld with a chin that was square and cleft, a sharp nose, and eyes that glowed blue.

  The cloaked chanters, save one, fell to their knees. The one still standing drew down her hood and Kairah recognized the same blonde woman from the previous scene. Kairah thought she recognized the face, but the woman fell back to her knees before she could identify her. The blonde woman reached up to the ethereal man with an open hand as if pleading for help. He smiled a wide smile full of perfect white teeth and opened his hand palm up. A small ball of pulsing emerald energy appeared in his hand.

  Green lightning.

  Kairah stood in a familiar location–a white city surrounding an emerald colored Apeira well broken in two. It was the city from her first vision, except instead of being full of bones, thousands of Allosians ran about, pushing past each other to get away from something Kairah couldn’t see. Screams rang out from the direction her people were retreating, and Kairah had to push her way through the panicked mob like a fish swimming upstream.

  Tentacles of green energy lashed up above the crowd, and Kairah knew the horror from which her people fled. It was a creature like the one she’d faced in Aiested. When she fought the Moriora vessel, she’d been able to protect herself by drawing on Aiested’s Apeira well, but the well here was destroyed. The creature lashed out at a family scrambling to duck into an open building. A mother, the purple haired babe she held in her arms, and a man who’d tried to shield them withered and collapsed into dusty piles of bone.

  Kairah took a step toward the monster, preparing to cast a spell, when she froze. Screaming from another direction drew her attention and she turned to find another Moriora vessel feasting on six Allosians all at once. This one was a woman, and she wasn’t alone. Dozens more like her waded through the crowd killing indiscriminately, faces alight with malicious ecstasy.

  The ground shook so violently that buildings fell, and hundreds were granted quick deaths by the crumbling debris–a fate preferable to having the life force sucked out of them. An explosion made Kairah spin about. On the horizon, where there should’ve been ocean, a fissure the size of a canyon formed. It snaked its way across the land, opening a breach hundreds of miles wide an
d thousands deep. Sea water fountained up into the air before crashing down again and filling the breach. Kairah covered her ears to the desperate shrieks that assaulted her from every direction. It became a physical thing, heavy and pressing down on her. She sunk to the ground, her own mouth open in a silent scream.

  Kairah exploded out of the silver chair, took two steps, and collapsed to the ground. She was trembling so badly that she looked like the humans who suffered palsy. Tears flowed down her cheeks, and she shot Shivara a wide-eyed stare. The woman stood to the side of the chair, arms folded across her breasts as she stared down at Kairah. She showed no emotion, but just studied her with an arched painted eyebrow.

  Experimentation?

  “Tell me what you saw,” Shivara finally said.

  Kairah sat up and hugged her bare shoulders. She didn’t know if the chill she felt was physical or imagined, but either way she was very cold.

  “Kairah, what did you see?” Shivara asked a second time.

  “A nightmare.”

  The glass-like barrier continued to crack and shatter as Jove pounded against it with his bolts of green lightning. He’d bored into the translucent sphere so deeply, very little remained separating him from the stunning silver-haired doll. She continued to float in the center of the glass sphere like she was under water, legs drawn up to chest, her arms wrapping around her knees. Her metallic-silver hair billowed about her body, mostly covering her nude form, but occasionally giving Jove glimpses of her alabaster skin. Though disembodied, the fire of lust welled up inside him, demanding to be released in a torrent of passion no doll could survive.

  But he needed his body if he was going to enjoy this; this business of being an amorphous greenish-black ball of energy wouldn’t do. This place was neither death, nor life. The floating islands of rock were definitely physical, as was that doll. Perhaps it was somewhere in between?

  Before Jove had died–no, changed–he’d been able to heal his physical body by using the energy he’d siphoned from other living things, and then from the Apeiron in talises and the Apeira well. Could he do the same thing to regain his physical form?

  He ceased his barrage of emerald bolts and floated upward. Then, sucking in as much Apeiron as he could–and his capacity had grown great–he focused the way he did when he wanted a particular part of his body to heal quicker than the rest of him. Only, this time he focused on the memory of his body itself. The moment stretched, or was it hours? Time was strange in this place. But be it short or long, nothing happened.

  Jove roared with his mind, throwing every bit of rage and lust into a second attempt, drawing the Apeiron all around him to the limit of his capacity. He’d once drank straight from a tube attached to the bottom of a rain barrel his father had placed on the roof. There was so much water pouring into his mouth that he began to choke and sputter and it exploded out of his nose.

  Jove felt like that now, save he could open his “mouth” wider, like a python unhinging its jaw. Jove opened himself more and more until a torrent of Apeiron flowed into him from all directions, making the purple cloud surrounding him shudder.

  Mulladin crept around a bush sculpted into the shape of a bear. The likeness was uncanny, and in the dark, its silhouette might’ve convinced him it was the real thing, until he realized it wasn’t moving.

  Keesa followed behind him, hood of her newly “acquired” cloak drawn up. After arguing about different approaches to infiltrating Trous’s mansion–Mulladin wanted to fight his way in with Jekaran’s sword, something Jekaran favored too–they’d finally agreed on stealth first, and force as their fallback option. Mulladin gritted his teeth. Skulking about the courtyard like this was a waste of time. Why had he given into Keesa’s argument so quickly?

  Because she promised to “fix” your virgin problem when you get to Allose. Jekaran laughed inside his head.

  “That’s not why!” Mulladin said a little too loudly.

  “Quiet!” Keesa hissed. “Talk to that damned thing inside your head.”

  Keesa’s allure may have had something to do with his unusually quick acquiescence. Even when he was dim, he’d been stubborn as Maely so often reminded him. A pang of grief slapped his chest. His sister was dead.

  Don’t be so sure about that.

  Mulladin opened his mouth to answer, but clamped it shut and responded only with his mind. Why do you say that?

  Maely is smart and tough. She would’ve gotten out of the palace before it collapsed.

  Mulladin furrowed his brow. I wish I had your optimism, Jek.

  A crossbow armed guard passed by on the opposite of the bush-bear without even stopping.

  “Now,” Keesa whispered.

  The two of them ran in a half crouch, crossing open courtyard and ducking behind another bush, this one sculpted in the likeness of a gigantic fish. They were close to a door set into the far side of the east wing that served as one of the mansion’s servant entrances. All they had to do was wait for one more patrolling guard to move far enough away and they could make a run for the door.

  Keesa leaned in close so that their faces were nearly touching, and Mulladin couldn’t help but think of her soft mouth pressed against his, the tip of her tongue gently parting his lips. He’d never kissed a woman before, not like that, but it came surprisingly easy. Or at least, if he’d showed any clumsiness, Keesa hadn’t mentioned it. Her promise of fixing his problem came back to his mind, and he flushed.

  His emotions were still potent as old memories took on new color and meaning. Each feeling came with a thousand mnemonic echoes, all compounding into a single emotional response. Fortunately, as a simpleton, he hadn’t had experience with sex, so the feelings were mostly new to him, and not loaded with eighteen years’ worth of memory. He was very glad for that. He wasn’t sure what a surge of amorosity would’ve caused when Keesa had attacked him with passionate kisses.

  A mess, Jekaran said.

  “Stop listening to my thoughts!”

  Keesa slapped his shoulder. “Be quiet!”

  Mulladin glanced in the direction of the approaching guard. “Sorry.”

  Keesa rolled her eyes and then pointed at the single wooden door only ten yards away. “The servant’s entrance usually isn’t locked, but if it is, I want you to…”

  Keesa cut off as the steady purple glow from Erassa’s Apeira well suddenly flickered. “What was that?”

  Again the purple reflecting off the mansion’s white stone walls went dark before returning a heartbeat later.

  It’s coming, Jekaran said.

  “What’s coming?” Mulladin asked aloud, but this time Keesa didn’t chide him.

  “What did the sword say?”

  The ground lurched and the two fell over. A deep rumbling accompanied the quake and the bush-bear behind them tilted over so far that its trunk snapped, and it fell onto its side in an explosion of leaves. Mulladin stared at the sky. The moon was gone, and he couldn’t see any clouds or stars. The horizon was completely black.

  “The hell?”

  A bright bolt of green lightning split the northern sky followed a heartbeat later by a deafening clap of thunder.

  “Shyte!” Mulladin stood, no longer caring if the guards saw him.

  “What are you doing?” Keesa tried to whisper it but failed.

  “No more time for stealth.” Mulladin raised Jekaran’s sword and used it to point at the servant’s door. “We have to get to the slipgate, now!”

  Keesa stood, glancing nervously in the direction of the guard. “Why?”

  The sound of powerful wind picking up howled from the north.

  Keesa’s eyes opened even wider. “That sound―”

  Run! Jekaran shouted.

  The two exploded into a sprint.

  “Hey!” the nearest guard shouted.

  A twang rang out and Mulladin’s arm whipped up of its own accord, Jek’s sword striking a crossbow bolt from the air. Before the guard could fire off a second shot, Keesa cast a bolt of blue li
ghtning that took him in the chest. He flew several feet and crashed into a bush shaped like a giant cat. The sudden explosion of light against the dark of the night left a green after image in Mulladin’s vision which he furiously tried to blink away.

  Keesa next turned her weapon talis on the servant’s entrance, a bolt arcing into the center of the wooden door and exploding into splinters. Some of the wood debris caught fire and landed with their flames guttering on the ground. Another green phantom swam across Mulladin’s vision, replacing the fading one. When he’d used the talis, he always shut his eyes when he cast, and not knowing when Keesa would cast made avoiding the blinding light difficult.

  “Warn me before you fire off lightning like that.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Keesa snapped.

  Mulladin huffed and ran into the mansion first, Jek’s sword held ready. The power of it was intoxicating, and he started to think less harshly of Ezra’s fall into crime so long ago. With a power like this, who wouldn’t succumb to all its promises of fame, fortune, and taking whatever you wanted.

  The sword suddenly shutdown, Jek’s presence vanishing from Mulladin’s mind. It became heavy in his grip and the blade tilted downward, unbalancing Mulladin. Of course, it was at this moment that two Rikujo enforcers rounded a bend further down the carpeted hallway. A boom followed by a rippling in the air followed and the wall on Mulladin’s right exploded into dust and chunks of stone.

  Keesa released a bolt of lightning, but her aim was off, and the arc of blue electricity obliterated a chandelier. They backed up, exchanging weapon talis blasts with the enforcers, the pandemonium of the battle and its destruction of the mansion’s interior making it difficult for both parties to aim.

  A trio of black-clad enforcers appeared behind them, and Mulladin swore. Blessedly, these bore more traditional melee weapons; a sword, a mace, and two long daggers. They began to charge.

  “Take care of the ones behind us!” Keesa shouted.