The Lure of Fools

by Jason James King

  He laughed. “Little, lovesick Maely. I see you traded your compulsion ring for that flare talis. I fear it was a poor trade.”

  Three balls of light crashed into Jenoc’s chest, lifting him into the air and hurling him back. Karak appeared in midair, raising a claw as he arced down toward Jenoc’s fallen form. The Vorakk shaman crashed down on him and swiped at Jenoc’s face. An explosion of force rippled the air and launched Karak backward. He flipped and landed in a ready crouch, forked tongue darting in and out as he hissed.

  Jenoc’s burnt skin cracked as he rose. “Vorakk! And how, pray tell, did you filthy lizards find Allose?”

  Karak flashed a toothy grin. “Daka, spirits know. Spirits tell Vorakk to come to fey city, aka. Uska, fight Eaters.”

  Three more orbs appeared around Karak, turned into orange fireballs, and streaked toward Jenoc. The Allosian wizard reacted with three bolts of green lightning which collided with the balls of fire. To Maely’s horror, the orbs exploded, not into flames, but into a thousand tiny specks of light.

  “Tak!” Karak hissed. The usually unflappable lizard man sounded as horrified as Maely felt.

  None of the other life sucking monsters had been able to absorb or counter Vorakk magic. Could Jenoc truly be that much more powerful?

  “Rasheera save us,” Maely whimpered.

  Jove sent bolt after bolt of green lightning at the Ursaj ghosts. They had to be the legendary bear people, for they were larger than any bear Jove had ever seen, and they stood like men. Where had they come from? Why were they trying to stop him? It didn’t matter. After tasting the pure ecstasy that was the silver-haired doll’s essence, he’d gained the power to destroy them. The Ursaj spirits fought ferociously, but they were no match for him. He was a god! He had to be. For only a god could annihilate the otherwise immortal souls of men and beasts.

  He stood on one of the many floating islands of rock that made up this strange place. A large black bear-man landed behind him and gripped him in large furry arms. It lifted him up, squeezing, and although the creature was a ghost, its crushing embrace was plenty real. Jove manifested his power as a green aura-like shield, and the Ursaj bellowed and dropped him. He whirled and finished it off with a shaft of lightning to its head, the spirit flashing white and then exploding into millions of tiny white stars.

  Claws raked his back, and although they didn’t draw blood or cause pain as they might have when he was alive, they were effective in severing his spine. Jove’s body might have been bloodless, but he sustained injuries like any other man, damage that could incapacitate him. He dropped to the ground, snarling, sputtering and desperately trying to rise, but his legs wouldn’t work.

  A white-furred tree trunk of a leg entered his field of vision, and he craned his head up to find the white bear-man who’d originally interrupted his special moment with the silver-haired doll. Its blue eyes narrowed, and it growled as it lifted its foot and positioned it above Jove’s head. The massive leg pounded down like a mechanical piston, and Jove’s head split open. He lost his ability to see and hear with his body but could still perceive his surroundings with his spirit.

  Jove sucked in a torrent of Apeiron, healing his crushed skull. His sight and hearing returned, and his spine aligned and knitted back together. When the white bear’s foot came down for another killing stomp, Jove manifested his green shield, and the foot tore apart like glass upon impact. The white bear turned back into a ball of light and zipped away, but Jove lashed out with more lightning. The white orb deftly dodged the first two emerald bolts but the third struck true. The sphere of white light pulsed and then exploded into a galaxy of tiny star-like embers.

  Jove rose and was pleased to find he had annihilated every single one of the Ursaj ghosts. He looked up to the silver-haired doll hanging in the cloud of Apeiron above him and frowned. Hadn’t she been glowing brighter? Anxiety constricted his chest. No, no. She couldn’t die. Not yet! Not before he’d had his special time with her.

  Jove launched himself upward and stopped to hover just above the floating woman. He studied her chest and found that she was still breathing. Relief washed over Jove, and he wiped tears from his eyes. He hadn’t lost his chance.

  He drew close and gently caressed her cheek. “Shh, it’s all right. I’m back. It’s just you and me now. There isn’t anyone left to disturb us.”

  Tyrus pushed his way through the crowd making a path for Hort, Mulladin, Keesa, Irvis, and Graelle to follow.

  Why are they following me of all people?

  He’d been worried there would be peacekeepers here in the… what had they called it again? Oh, yes, the Tameion Nomoi; the building where the Allosian’s ruling council conducted its business. But all the peacekeepers were engaged trying to turn back the life-sucking invaders, so no one took any real note of the six humans, even though they were armed with talises.

  Tyrus pushed through a crowd huddled in a large archway and entered a massive coliseum. Its domed ceiling was made entirely of glass but had no segmentation or metal frames keeping it together. It was if the entire dome was one convex piece. The white stone of the coliseum was tinted purple by the light of Allose’s massive Apeira well visible through the glass ceiling.

  The concentric rings of seats starting from the speaking floor were filled with frightened Allosians. A small, purple-haired girl eyed Tyrus from the lap of her mother, and he gaped. She was the first Allosian child he’d seen since arriving in the city. There were more, of course, but they were a minority among the thousands of adults.

  A tall Allosian dressed in white robes embroidered with glowing purple runes stood on the speaking floor addressing the crowd. His voice boomed and echoed throughout the chamber, and Tyrus guessed he had some kind of voice amplifying talis or was spellcasting to achieve the effect.

  “The peacekeepers will hold. There is no need to evacuate Allose,” the man called.

  “What are they?” one woman yelled. “Their touch kills, and spell-craft does not stop them!”

  Her question sparked an overlapping din of shouts, and indecipherable chatter. The speaker raised his hands to call for silence but went unheeded until his third admonition. But even then, the crowd was restless, and a low murmur permeated the coliseum.

  “Please, there is no need for disorder. Their numbers are comparatively few, and although they have abilities we cannot explain, they can die. We have already destroyed a third of their numbers.”

  “That was not us!” a man from the lower bowl shouted. “It was Vorakk magic that turned back those monsters long enough for us to escape!”

  The crowd erupted into another deafening roar of confusion.

  “Please,” the speaker patiently begged. “All the details are not yet―”

  “This catastrophe only came upon us after the arrival of those humans!” someone screamed.

  “They led these creatures here!” a woman added.

  Uh oh… Tyrus glanced around wildly. Heads were already turning and a few Allosians pointed at them. Perhaps coming here hadn’t been such a good idea.

  Dozens of Allosians seated in the upper rows stood and shouted at Tyrus and his group, and before they knew it, they were divested of their talises and being shoved toward the floor of the coliseum. Hort had tried to fight back, but didn’t have room enough to swing his void scepter and Keesa had cast one bolt of lightning, but she’d intentionally shot it over the crowd, an act Tyrus suspected had been to intimidate them, and force the mob back. It didn’t work, and they were overpowered.

  Tyrus stumbled and rolled the last six steps to the coliseum floor. Fortunately, he hadn’t fallen hard, and after shaking off a brief wave of vertigo, he climbed to his feet. The Allosians who had apprehended them appeared to wear the same uniform robes as the guards they’d fought in the College of Disciplines. They now held their talises, and one was gaping openly at the black rod she’d taken from Hort.

  “That’s mine!” Hort moved toward the woman but froze in an unnatural half-st
epping pose.

  The speaker in white robes waved a hand and Hort fell to the floor. “We shall have no violence in this place!”

  The thousands of spectators apparently disagreed. They shouted and called for punishment.

  “Peace-loving fey people, my ass,” Mulladin growled.

  The speaker raised his hand, but the crowd did not fall silent. Instead they grew more agitated, and someone even spell-cast a ball of fire at them. It dissipated with a wave of the speaker’s hand, but more attacks came.

  Tyrus had seen a minor lord of the eastern province deposed by his peasants once. The vile bugger deserved it as he had preyed on their young sons for decades. His serfs had surrounded his carriage, and hurled fruit, bottles, and eventually rocks until his guards were overwhelmed. Then they tore open the cab of the carriage and he suffered amateur testicular removal surgery before being stoned to death.

  The same wild anger Tyrus had seen in the faces of the mob that killed Lord Hafston was rife on the faces of the thousands of Allosians surrounding them. But, instead of rotten cabbage, or rocks, they were throwing lightning, and fire.

  “Stop!” the speaker called, his magic making his voice boom through the room.

  But it did no good. The crowd was in a frenzy, frightened and channeling that fear into aggression.

  That’s it, we’re going to die.

  Just as angry Allosians began to descend en masse to the coliseum floor, a blinding flash of white light exploded from the center of the speaking floor. Everyone froze, and the roaring coliseum fell silent.

  The light emanated from a sphere that gradually resolved into two humans; a blonde woman in a sleeveless purple dress, and a young man with messy black hair holding a silver sword.

  Kairah stood. She could spell-cast again, a fact that was as glorious as it was confusing. Casting the shield spell and transporting them away from Shivara’s tower had diminished the burning within her veins, making the pain manageable. Though, like before, Kairah could feel the heat inside her steadily rising again.

  She glanced at the silver ring on her finger and found it a burning ring of white light. Not only could she spell-cast, but Kairah sensed she had full access to all Five Disciplines, something not even Jenoc could boast. And, not only could she cast from all the Disciplines, Kairah’s psychic senses discerned that she was more powerful than she’d ever been even in the First Discipline, Creation, for which she was celebrated as unusually gifted.

  Kairah scanned the thousands of Allosian faces staring down at her with wide eyes. They were motionless, many with mouths agape. What were they so enthralled by? Surely her sudden appearance wouldn’t be surprise enough to silence a crowd of thousands.

  “Lady Kairah?” Kannic eyed her blonde hair.

  Kairah turned to face the white-robed speaker. “Speaker Kannic, assemble the synod. We need to―”

  “You shine like the sun…”

  Kairah looked down at herself. A shining nimbus of light outlined her form. It was like a flare of her Apeiron aura when she cast except white, much brighter, and constant, whereas Apeiron auras only flared when casting. What was the ring doing to her?

  Kairah shoved the question to the back of her mind. “Speaker Kannic, are the members of the synod here?”

  Kannic appeared not to hear her.

  “Lord Kannic!” Kairah snapped. Did she just actually show temperament with the head of the synod?

  The tall man shook himself. “Yes, Lady Kairah. Most of us. Allose is under assault by an army of creatures like unto the description of the one you claimed destroyed Taris.”

  Claimed? Were her people really so willfully blind? Was she ever so foolish? No wonder Shivara had been able to deceive them for centuries. Not only did they not know the truth, they did not want to know it. Her people were zealous about maintaining their complacency even when the end of all things stared them in the face.

  “Oracle Shivara is responsible for the spread of Moriora. She herself is a Moriora vessel.”

  “The oracle brought this calamity down upon us? Those monsters swarming the city are her creation?”

  “Through my brother Jenoc. Shivara is ancient and working at the behest of an alien power to kill the goddess Rasheera.”

  “Goddess?” Kannic put a hand to his head and looked down. The man looked as if he were going to vomit.

  I am not going to be able to rely on him or any of the synod. They are too confused and afraid. Kairah herself would have to act.

  “Kannic, you need to get everyone out of the city now!”

  “We cannot leave Allose! Where will we go?”

  “There are plenty of slipgates to facilitate an evacuation.” Kairah glanced at the transfixed spectators.

  “Lady, Kairah. This is a fantastic claim indeed.”

  Kairah wanted to slap the speaker, and not because of any residual Moriora in her blood, but because he was a fool. All of them were fools. Everything she’d learned about Allosian nobility and superiority to the other forms of life in Shaelar had been folly, perpetuated by a mad deicidal witch.

  Another psychic scream thrilled through Kairah accompanied by the same wave of instability she’d sensed the first time Rasheera screamed, though this time it was underscored by a physical quake that rocked the coliseum. The glass dome filtering in the purple glow of the Mother Shard shattered and rained shards of glass. Screams rang out, followed by shouting and crying.

  Kairah looked up as a particularly large shard of glass fell toward the coliseum floor. But before it could crash down on them, a wave of white fire pulsed from Kairah’s shinning aura and incinerated the falling glass. It hadn’t been a spell, or at least it wasn’t something that Kairah had willed to happen. It was almost like an arcane reflex.

  The broken dome gave Kairah a view of thick, black clouds interspersed with green flashes swirling above the top of the Mother Shard and obscuring it. The darkness was the same as what she’d seen around Aiested, and in her vision of the dead land. The end had come.

  Kairah met Kannic’s eyes. “Go!” Her words rang with the familiar undercurrent of a compulsion spell, though that, too, had been unconscious.

  Kannic bobbed his head and issued orders to other members of the synod.

  Had she just used compulsion on the Speaker? The very idea made her sick. But perhaps if there was ever a time to subvert another’s will, it would be to save their life, and the lives of thousands.

  “Lady Kairah!”

  The scrawny, little balding man named Gymal rushed up to her; Mulladin, Irvis, Graelle, and a young woman with tan skin following.

  “What’s happening?”

  Kairah ignored Gymal’s question. “Where is Karak?”

  “The last I saw him was when we were escaping the College of Disciplines,” Mulladin said.

  That wasn’t good. Kairah needed the Vorakk shaman, and his clairvoyance if she were to have any chance at learning the secret of how to free Rasheera and stop the Eater. That desperate, harrowing scream could only mean that they were out of time. Kairah craned her neck to stare through the broken skylight at the Mother Shard.

  “What is it?” Irvis asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong?” Gymal scoffed. “Are you really asking that?”

  “The Mother Shard is the door to Rasheera’s prison. I need to open it, but do not know how.”

  “The Divine Mother? Imprisoned?” The chubby monk shook his head. “That’s impossible!”

  Kairah didn’t bother arguing with Irvis. Aeva… Mother… Tell me how to free you! She sent the communication out without any of her usual difficulty. The transmission was so clear and powerful that Kairah was surprised it didn’t audibly manifest.

  She waited for several heartbeats but received no response. What was happening to Rasheera? What was Kairah supposed to do now? The Spirit lily, or the subconscious will of the goddess, had set her on this quest, had guided her every step. Now Kairah was left to herself; alone with the fate of all c
reation resting on her shoulders. The sheer magnitude of what she faced overwhelmed her.

  “Here!” The muscled mercenary, Hort, trotted up. He was carrying a black rod, and several smaller talises which he proffered to the others. “I made that snooty Allosian bitch give ‘em back to me.” He laughed. “Guess she was too frightened to think straight. Else she’d’ve just blasted me with that lightning ring. She was a beauty though. Love that purple hair.”

  Kairah drew in a steadying breath, and met Jekaran’s eyes. He stared back and flashed a small smile. To Kairah’s surprise, that simple but familiar expression calmed and reassured her, and her fear receded. She could do this. Rasheera had manipulated fate itself to bring her to this point.

  Another quake rocked the room, and cracks appeared in the glossy marble floor.

  “Come,” she said. “We must access the Mother Shard.”

  Jekaran nodded, and followed Kairah as she jogged to an arched doorway leading off the coliseum floor. Gymal, Hort, Irvis, Graelle, Mulladin, and the tan skin girl followed. For some reason that too, the willingness of these humans to follow, strengthened her. You are human now, she reminded herself. No, that wasn’t true. She’d always been human. Her supposed superiority was a lie. She cringed at the thought that she had been deceived into thinking herself better than the other intelligent beings in Shaelar. How could she have been so foolish?

  They’d just passed into the hall branching off the coliseum when new screams erupted from behind. At first Kairah thought it the response to another tremor as they were coming frequently now, but the screams had a more desperate tone to them.

  “The hell?” Mulladin said.

  Kairah ran back to the doorway and scanned the thousands of Allosians lining the coliseum’s upper tiers. More shouting and screaming drew Kairah’s attention to an entrance at the top of one of the coliseum’s mountainous staircase. A mob of Allosians scrambled away from the arched opening, the thinning mass revealing a dark figure standing just inside the doorway. Kairah’s eyes automatically adjusted so that she could see the figure up close as they did when using a looking stone. Again, she had spell-cast without any conscious thought.