The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  Strike at the well shard in its face. That’s how I killed the one I fought.

  Mulladin shifted the sword’s point toward the crystal golem’s head. He’d fallen to about five feet from the glass monster when it pivoted and flung up its huge arm. A glass hand crashed into Mulladin, swatting him out of the air and hurling him into the wall. He hit hard and fell another twelve feet to the floor.

  Of course, it was frozen in ice and unable to move at the time.

  “You could’ve mentioned that,” Mulladin groaned as he worked to stand. Sharp pains from his ribs, shoulder, and leg made him fall back to the floor. He looked up to find the twenty-foot tall glass sentinel clomping toward him.

  Something bounced on the floor off to his left, and Mulladin turned to see what it was. A ring clattered to a stop just outside his reach. Mulladin glanced up. Keesa was leaning over the rail, arm still extended. Mulladin lunged for the ring, ignoring the protests of his broken bones. When his hand clasped around it, warmth flowed into him. Pins and needles like when his foot would fall asleep washed over his whole body. He gritted his teeth, and when the uncomfortable sensation past, his pains were gone. He slipped the ring onto his finger, and rolled out of the way just in time to avoid being stomped by a giant crystal foot.

  A bolt of lightning struck down from the third level and connected with the crystal golem’s shoulder, spinning it to one side and forcing it off balance. Mulladin charged the glass automaton, sheering off its right leg as he passed beneath it. The titan fell forward, catching itself with an arm on the wall.

  Mulladin spun and leapt for the crystal golem’s back. He swung the sword in a diagonal arc, the tip of the blade sinking into the translucent surface as easily as though it were water. When he landed, the glass titan fell into two pieces.

  “Ha!” Mulladin shouted, but his elation faded at the sight of the crystal golem’s parts liquefying and flowing back together.

  I said you had to strike at the well shard in its face!

  “Yeah.” Mulladin raised the sword, and charged.

  The golem’s hand hadn’t even reformed when it swung at him. Mulladin leapt over the swing and brought the sword down on the golem’s shoulder. He’d been aiming to decapitate it, but missed. His sword slid through the chest of the glass titan as he came down, but the blade hadn’t gone all the way through, and the crystal golem healed itself before he could strike again.

  A flash of purple at his side resolved into Keesa. She was wearing a diamond tiara with a well shard embedded in its center, and held a gold chain, a silver bracelet, and a medallion in her arms.

  “Give me one of those and let’s get the hell out of here!”

  Keesa shot a lightning bolt at the golem, knocking it back and forcing it to pause and heal a hole left in its chest. “We have a problem.”

  “Just one?” Mulladin twirled the sword and brought it up to a guard position as he faced the congealing golem.

  “Warding stone. We can travel inside this room, but not out of it.”

  “Golden womb of the goddess! What else could go wrong?”

  As though fate were mocking him, the sound of cracking ice resounded through the chamber.

  “Fey soldiers break through, aek!”

  They were trapped between a contingent of trained spell-casting Allosian soldiers in magic armor and a giant living statue that was practically indestructible. Whole once more, the crystal golem stood, its well-shard placed so as to make it look like the creature’s eye.

  “The well-shard!” Mulladin shouted at Keesa.

  She fired off another bolt of lightning, but the golem caught the blast by sacrificing its hand. She fired again, but it blocked the bolt with its other hand. Before Keesa could fire a third shot, the first hand had grown back, and the glass titan was charging them.

  I have an idea, Jek said. But you’ll need to let me take control of your body.

  The scene of Jekaran impaling Ez suddenly replayed in Mulladin’s mind. He shoved the memory down before it could travel across his mental bond to the sword. If he gave up control of his body could the same thing happen to Keesa?

  Come on, Mull!

  The crystal golem shook the ground as it strode toward them.

  Trust me!

  Memories of Mulladin’s life with Jekaran streamed into his head; the time when he was sobbing over a dead dog and Jek was comforting him, another time when they were wrestling and Jek let him win, the time when Loemas and his brothers had him cornered and were pelting him with cow dung and Jekaran got between them. Did he trust Jekaran? Of course he did. But was the sword really Jek?

  “Okay.” Mulladin lowered his mental defenses and invited the sword to take control.

  He charged the crystal golem. Keesa shouted after him, but Mulladin could no more reply than he could stop. He ducked a swing, whirled to the titan’s side and sheared off its left leg. The golem crashed to one knee. Mulladin leapt up an inhuman ten feet toward the chamber wall, pushed off it, and sailed back toward the golem. He landed on the giant’s back, ran up its spine, and sat around the back of its neck so that his legs dangled over its shoulders. Then he rammed the sword into its head.

  To Mulladin’s surprise, the sword stopped a half an inch short of the crystal golem’s well shard. The sword made Mulladin carefully push the sword forward so that the tip touched the shard. Another consciousness crowded into Mulladin’s mind, and he began to lose himself in three different streams of thought.

  The connection formed by the sword touching the crystal golem’s well shard let Mulladin see the creature’s instructions: protect the treasury from thieves. A peacekeeper named Inarin had given the golem those orders using a command word. Mulladin–or was it Jek? He could no longer tell–pressed against the golem’s mind, trying to change its orders. A barrier obstructed him–the command word. It pushed back, trying to drive Mulladin from its mind, but he pressed harder. The barrier shattered, and Mulladin suddenly knew the crystal golem’s command word–Elayse. Using that knowledge, and directed by Jek’s consciousness, Mulladin changed the golem’s allegiance, and its instructions.

  Mulladin slid off the golem’s back and fell into a crouch in front of Keesa. When he stood, Jekaran released him, and his body was his own again. Keesa stared at him, her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide.

  “What did you do?”

  “Got us some help.”

  Mulladin commanded the golem using a mental connection facilitated by the sword, to break through the doors. Startled peacekeepers leapt back as the crystal golem hurled ice encased door debris at them. Two peacekeepers rocketed into the air and flew at the golem, but it just batted them out of the air as it had done Mulladin.

  They ran down the corridor, letting the golem fight off any of the peacekeepers that tried to stop them. Keesa had given each of them a displacement talis, except for Karak. Apparently, the lizard man couldn’t use talises, but he didn’t act concerned. As soon as they’d climbed the stairs out of the amphitheater and were back in the hallway, the lizard man disappeared in a haze of blurry lines.

  The building’s warding stone still prevented them from traveling outside, and so they needed to get outside the building before they could disappear. They ran through the corridors and back toward the enormous room with the tall fountain. The crystal golem followed after them, fending off attacks from pursuing peacekeepers and drawing out a chorus of screams from crowds of unsuspecting Allosian students.

  Because he was feeling particularly spiteful, Mulladin commanded the crystal golem to smash the tall fountain on their way out. He chuckled, but Keesa glowered at him.

  “What?”

  The destruction of the fountain did more to help them than Mulladin expected–not that that had been part of his motivation–causing a convenient dust screen that allowed them to slip out of the College’s front entrance. As soon as they passed the threshold, something changed. It reminded Mulladin of carrying firewood on his back and the relief that followed his d
umping the load into the box by the hearth.

  “Where’s Jek?”

  I’m right here.

  “Kairah’s tower.” Gymal placed a hand on Keesa’s shoulder, and on Mulladin’s back and the world disappeared in a flash of purple light.

  Raelen wept.

  It wasn’t because of the pains from his wounded shoulder, or his maddening thirst, or even his overwhelming desire to go to sleep and die. No, Raelen wept for the tiny skeleton still held tight in the arms of its skeletal mother. Its long pink sleeper marked it as a girl, and looked to have been lovingly made in anticipation of the birth as the cloth was noticeably better quality than the blankets, curtains, or any other cloth in the house. He found no other children in the one room cottage, which likely meant this couple was young and the baby girl was their first child.

  The scattered bones of another adult–likely the father–lay strewn across the dirt floor. A rusted sword lay broken in two pieces in the dirt beside him. Had this man been a soldier? He clearly died trying to protect his wife and baby daughter. Did he even realize he’d never stood a chance?

  Raelen ground his teeth in an effort to quiet his shuddering sobs. He’d been able to keep the sorrow distant, even after he found the skeleton of a small child hiding inside an outbuilding. But this, this was more than he could bear. The utter profaning of precious, new life, and the casual, brutal extinguishing of hope–how could such cruelty exist in the world? What creator would allow such horrors?

  He stumbled out of the cottage, and into the village square. Blackened, dead, ground cluttered with bones extended in all directions. He shuffled over to a small brick well that marked the village’s center. There wouldn’t be any water, but spent half an hour winding the crank and retrieving the bucket on the off chance he could find a drink.

  Nothing.

  Raelen sniffed and scrubbed his grimy forearm over his eyes. If such wanton death and unmitigated suffering were making him question the existence of god, then the same darkness was absolutely validating his belief in a devil. And that devil’s name was Jenoc.

  He’d been following the trail of death for days now, his strength slowly ebbing with each passing hour. He knew now that he didn’t have a chance at catching the monster, but his righteous indignation spurred him on all the same. Without food or water, or medicine, his anger was the only thing keeping him alive.

  Raelen left the little village, a place so insignificant that it likely didn’t appear on any of his father’s maps. But people had lived here. Children had played here. Farmers had grown crops, and those innocents had had their destinies stolen from them.

  It was noon now. The sun stood high in the sky, and without any trees to shade him, or any flora to retain moisture, Raelen was exposed to the full force of the sun’s fury. He wasn’t sweating anymore, and knew that was a bad sign. But that might’ve been the fever baking him from within and not the sun cooking him from above. His shoulder wound festered with infection and had started to stink. He was hallucinating, hearing voices and seeing phantoms. Though he couldn’t be sure if the ghosts he saw were truly products of his mind, not after his encounter with Saranna. He wanted to believe them real, but he doubted very much that ghosts of his loved ones would be telling him to give up and die.

  But then again, perhaps it was good advice. It was inevitable. Why was he even still continuing the chase? He would never catch Jenoc, much less have the strength to kill the Allosian monster.

  Seiro.

  That was why he kept going, not his anger or desire to see justice done. Seiro, honor, was why he couldn’t just lay down and die. He had to keep fighting until the very end. He thought he heard Gryyth’s voice.

  “Do you remember the tale of Keth the courageous, cub?”

  “Tell it to me,” Raelen wheezed through parched lips.

  Gryyth laughed. “Always wanting a story. Even when you already have heard it dozens of times.”

  Raelen stumbled and fell forward, landing on his knees. The bare rock tore his trousers and scraped his exposed knee.

  “Keth had a she-bear and four cubs. He had built a comfortable den inside the lee of a large mountain. One day, while he was hunting, a mighty quake shook the land. Keth ran back to his cave and found the entrance collapsed. The rocks sealing the cave’s one opening were large and made of heavy granite, and not even an Ursaj as mighty as Keth was could move or lift them alone. No other Ursaj lived close, and to go for help would surely mean the death of his mate and cubs.

  “Keth prayed to The Mother for strength and went to work trying to move the boulders. He made little progress, and the task was weakening him, but Keth did not relent. Ten days he pushed, pulled, and strained, but was only able to open up a hole no bigger than a badger. The smell of death wafted out and was so strong that Keth’s strength left him, and he fell to the ground. He roared a roar of such sorrow and anguish that it was said even the goddess wept. Just as he was about to give up and die, Keth heard something.

  “A small paw reached out from within the darkness of the hole. Keth took hold of it and pulled his youngest cub from the rubble. His mate and three other cubs had died, but his littlest cub, Jaror, was alive. Keth lost much, but had he given up trying to free his family, he would’ve lost all.”

  It was a nice story. Raelen had heard it many times. But it did nothing to rouse his spirits. It was too late. He was dying. He had failed to bring justice when it was his express duty to do so. He’d failed to avenge his father, and his people.

  Raelen fell onto his face.

  A shadow fell over him, and something blocked out the sun. It felt good, like the cool shade of a large tree in summer. He remembered Saranna and his other siblings going for picnics with their mother when he was very young. He saw the memory as though it were before him; all of them eating, playing, and laughing beneath a large oak.

  Raelen smiled and then the darkness swallowed him.

  Maely held Raelen under the arms, heaving and pouring all her strength, such as it was, into the effort of dragging the unconscious prince up a slope that fed into the large opening in Empyrean’s belly. Like the door that admitted her, it had just opened out of the solid white material that the Allosian airship was made of. The new opening’s displaced substance then liquefied and stretched eight feet to the ground where it had solidified into a ramp.

  The floor congealed, and reformed the moment Maely pulled Raelen into the ship. She fell to the ground and rolled onto her side panting. “Tell me again why you couldn’t just talis him aboard?”

  “Because I was not crafted with any displacement talises. Those consume a lot of Apeiron, and being designed for spending time away from Apeira wells means that my creators wanted my energy use to be conservati―”

  “Whatever!”

  Empyrean actually sighed. “His condition is critical. You need to get him into one of the restoration chambers.”

  “Teleporting costs too much Apeiron, but healing doesn’t?”

  “One is more necessary than the other, Maely.”

  The south wall opened up revealing a chamber with horizontal glass tubes, the lid of one sliding open. Maely sighed, removed the strange wavy sword from his belt, and then resumed dragging Raelen into the room. It took everything she had to hoist him the four feet up and deposit him into the bed of the tube, and it hadn’t been a gentle process. She winced each time his lulling head struck the edges of the restoration chamber’s glass case.

  He groaned when she accidentally gripped his wounded shoulder. “Sorry, your highness.”

  With one final shove that rolled Raelen onto his back, Maely collapsed to her bottom and rested her head on her knees. Sweat trickled down her back and forehead and it took her over a minute to catch her breath.

  “All that rich food makes you nobles fat.”

  Though, in truth, Maely had only seen lean muscle on the prince’s chest and arms–not that she was looking. Even filthy, feverish, unshaved, and stinky, the prince was handsome. It r
eminded her of Kairah’s impossible beauty and constant perfection.

  “Mistr–I mean, Maely.”

  Maely lay back onto the white floor. “What?”

  “Something is wrong.”

  She sat up, her chest going cold. “Is he…?” She couldn’t bring herself to say dead. What if her clumsy jostling of Raelen had killed him? She didn’t think he’d hit his head that hard.

  “Something is hindering the flow of Apeiron into his body. Consequently, I cannot heal his wounds.”

  Maely scrambled up and leaned over the open tube. “I don’t understand.”

  “It is hard to explain to someone who does not have an advanced understanding of talis craft and spell-casting, and I…”

  Maely growled.

  Empyrean actually stuttered. “R-right. Let me explain it this way. Each time I try to transfer Apeiron from myself into him, I encounter something that accepts and expends the power, but produces no healing effect.”

  “Then use more Apeiron!”

  “I see that my analogy was inadequate. Suffusing him with more Apeiron does not change the result.”

  Maely gritted her teeth, not out of anger, but in an attempt to stave off panic. Aeva had all but told her she needed to rescue Raelen. Was she too late? What would happen if he died? Was he supposed to help stop the withering wind spreading across the world? She wasn’t sure about his fate or the reality of destiny, or even if that is why Aeva had pointed her in this direction. She was sure that she liked the prince. From everything Gryyth had told her, and the way he’d always treated her like a real person and not an inferior, she believed he was a good man. Something that, to her mind, was even more of a miracle than a giant flying airship the size of a castle.

  She touched his forehead and the heat from his fever was nearly painful. Tears welled in her eyes, and she lowered her head to rest it on the side of the healing chamber when something arrested her attention. Something green dimly glowed beneath his dirty tunic. Maely lifted the shirt up and found an emerald-colored shard of crystal resting on Raelen’s chest–dimming until it no longer glowed. It’d come loose of some cloth wrapping and the top part of the jagged chunk was wrapped in a leather thong that looped around the back of Raelen’s neck. The emerald shard reminded Maely of the destroyed Apeira well in Aiested, and was the same exact shade of green as the lightning that fell from the dark skies above the city.