Death of the Immortal King

by Sarah McCarthy

  “And how, pray tell, would you know that?” Gird cut in.

  “Lucky guess.”

  “Yes, well. Nothing fancy, I assure you. I doubt I could beat the lady.”

  “Eh, still,” Paric said, taking a long drink.

  “Instead,” Lilianna said loudly, “I’ll race you. We’ll climb to the top of the main mast.”

  Paric spit out some of his drink in surprise.

  Aron took a sip. “I’m out. I’ll time you.”

  Paric got unsteadily to his feet. “Now you’ve picked the wrong challenge, girl.”

  Lilianna cracked her knuckles.

  Paric continued, stretching his back, “You’re just betting I’m drunk enough. Well, joke’s on you, I’m never drunk enough. The drunker I get the faster I climb. I’m like a gazelle.”

  “A what?”

  “A gazelle! Guess you don’t have those here. They don’t climb, though. A squirrel. Only majestic.” He cracked his back. Coralie laughed.

  Gird took a drink. “I shall help keep time.”

  “All right,” Lilianna said, “Up and back. From the time my foot leaves the deck to the time it touches back down.” She shook out her shoulders and bounced on the balls of her feet.

  “Ready?” She glanced at Aron, who nodded.

  Lilianna was off like a shot. She leapt to the first handhold and heaved herself up, and then she was flying. Her hands and feet blurred, finding holds and thrusting herself upwards effortlessly. Seconds later she was thirty feet up, touching the top, and skimming back down. Barely a moment later she dropped down onto the deck.

  “Forty-two seconds,” Aron said, his eyes wide.

  “My turn,” Paric growled. He kicked his cushion, then leapt for the mast, bodily thrusting himself upwards. He was fast, but he was bulky, slipping and banging into things as he went. He made it to the top a fraction of a second behind Lilianna’s time, but then he simply let go. Coralie gasped as he started to plummet downwards; he held out his arms, grabbing onto the mast and rigging briefly as he went, but he was still picking up speed. He landed with a thump right on the cushion and rolled, coming to a stop a few feet away and nearly knocking the bottle over.

  “Thirty-five seconds.”

  “I said climbing,” Lilianna said.

  “You said you’d climb to the top of the mast. Didn’t say you’d climb down, too,” Paric said.

  “Coralie?” Lilianna asked.

  “I guess, technically, you did say that. Are you all right, Paric?”

  “Course I am.” Paric heaved himself up and downed his drink. Fair’s fair. I won on a technicality, and no one likes those. I’ll drink with you.”

  Grudgingly, Lilianna gulped her drink down, her eyes watching Paric over the rim of the glass.

  “That leaves you, Aron,” Paric said.

  Aron eyed them thoughtfully. “I’m the best at reading and writing.”

  “Pick one,” Paric said.

  “Writing.”

  “How are we supposed to test that?” Coralie asked.

  “One of us says something; the others write it down. Whoever finishes first, correctly, wins.”

  “My spelling is atrocious,” Gird said. “I will speak for you.”

  “Not if you’re going to use words like atrocious,” Paric shot back.

  “I will endeavor to keep my vocabulary simple enough for you.”

  Aron passed around paper and charcoal pencils. Coralie glanced at Lilianna, who was avoiding looking at anyone.

  “Start without me,” Lilianna said, standing up and walking towards the back of the boat, where the plank that extended out over the water, serving as the toilet, was.

  “Don’t fall in!” Paric yelled after her.

  Lilianna ignored him.

  “Very well,” Gird said. “I will begin. They did not know it at the time, but a murderer was among them. A dangerous man with a dark purpose.”

  “Sweet Numenos’ tits,” Paric muttered.

  “Done,” Aron said.

  Coralie was still struggling with the spelling of ‘murderer’. She looked over and saw a neat row of characters on Aron’s page. Paric’s handwriting was just as neat, but he had misspelled ‘among’ and dangerous’.

  “Drink,” Aron said, and Coralie took a swig.

  They played for another hour, getting steadily drunker; Gird balanced eggs on his head and shoulders, Paric bent his fingers back to touch his arm, Lilianna curled her tongue, and Coralie whistled requested tunes, Gird drumming a background rhythm for her. When Aron’s turn came around, Paric had to nudge him several times to get him to stop giggling long enough to speak.

  “It’s your turn,” Paric slurred, taking another drink. “How are we s’posed to drink if you don’t,” he paused to take another swig, “do something.”

  “I’m the best at guessing,” Aron said.

  “Guessing what?” Coralie asked.

  “Things!” Aron said, lifting both arms and throwing his head back. He pointed his drink at Paric. “You will do the opposite of what you plan to do.” He hiccuped. “Twice.”

  “That’s not a prediction,” Paric grumbled. “I do the opposite of what I plan to do all the time.”

  “And you.” He waved a hand at Lilianna and made an attempt at a courtly bow. “Children.”

  Coralie’s face heated, but Lilianna rolled her eyes.

  “What about them? You’d better not mean that you think I’m going to have babies.”

  “The first one’s not yours,” Aron muttered. “The first one will give you everything, the second will take it from you.”

  Lilianna’s eyebrows were raised. “Very mystical.” She looked at Paric. “We supposed to wait until that either happens or doesn’t happen?”

  Paric waved his drink in Aron’s face. “Course not. I’m the best can’t be something that takes years.”

  Aron blinked, then nodded. “Right, of course.” He downed the rest of his drink.

  They moved on. Gird spoke the most languages; Paric could throw a knife with faultless accuracy. It wasn’t long before they forgot they were playing; Paric started singing loudly, and Lilianna danced. Aron lay on his back looking up at the stars and fell asleep, still holding his drink.

  Coralie and Paric got into an argument about knives, and Lilianna stumbled over to sit next to Gird, who was attempting to remain upright as he continued to sip his drink.

  “What’re you doing?” Lilianna asked, leaning back on her elbows, then slipping sideways as she took a drink. “This tastes terrible,” she muttered, then took another sip. “Do you like this?” She looked at him accusingly.

  “I’m—yes—the taste leaves something to be desired,” Gird replied, grimacing as he topped off his glass from a nearly-empty bottle.

  “Where are you from?” Lilianna asked.

  “Originally?” He placed his fist on his chest and gave a small, delicate burp. “Kreiss. And yourself?”

  Lilianna laughed. “You saw where I’m from.”

  Gird looked confused for a moment. “Oh, there? Right, of course. How… thoughtless of me.”

  “You think I moved there for the sea air?” Lilianna waved a hand at the darkness around them. “The ocean views?”

  “Of course, you were born there. Harfoss, is it?” Gird looked as if he’d lost his train of thought for a moment, poking at his cheek. “Of course you didn’t move there. Why would you?”

  “Are you saying my hometown is so terrible no one would want to live there? Or that I’m too poor to move anywhere?”

  “Oh my… I…”

  Lilianna laughed. “Just kidding. Except both of those things are true.”

  “I… see…” Gird looked into his drink. “Yes… it is a dark world out there, and the places we come from can be terrible, and often we cannot choose to go elsewhere. All that is left to us is pride.” He hiccuped. Lilianna giggled.

  They were quiet for several minutes, both contemplating their drinks, the stars, and their hometown
s.

  There was a warm bubble of affection rising in her chest and she turned to Gird.

  “You’re creepy,” she said, taking a drink. “But I like you.”

  “Everyone always says that,” Gird said morosely, staring into his drink. “I don’t understand it.”

  “It’s because everything you say sounds like you’ve murdered someone.”

  “I haven’t murdered anyone, who told you that?”

  “You murdered someone?” Lilianna leaned forward. “Who?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You should tell me,” Lilianna said, leaning back and closing her eyes. Her head swam and she felt as if she was tipping backwards, so she opened them again. The stars kept rotating then snapping back into place when she blinked. “My father murdered my mother.”

  Gird set his drink down and leaned towards her, his eyes heavy.

  Lilianna blinked and took another drink. “I was there. I saw it. I should’ve killed him. And I didn’t. No one killed him.”

  “What happened?”

  Lilianna shook her head and waved her drink, splashing it. “They were arguing like always, just arguing, and she said something, and he hit her. She hit him back, and he picked up a knife and stabbed her with it. She fell. He kept yelling at her for a while, but she didn’t get up. He left, slammed the door.”

  “And you were there the whole time?”

  She shuddered. “I hid in the corner. Usually I left when they fought, but it’d snowed all day.” She looked at him. “He came back three days later. Hid her body in a snowbank until spring. Then he buried it. Her. It.”

  Gird reached out a sallow hand towards her shoulder, then withdrew it. Tears started in his eyes, then he reached out and pulled her into a hug.

  “How old were you?”

  “Twelve, I think.” She pulled away, and he wiped his tears. “I should have killed him. I still have the knife. I pulled it out of her body, tried to save her. I thought someday I’d kill him with it.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Because I’m a coward. “I… couldn’t. And now it’s too late.”

  “Killing him wouldn’t have brought her back. It wouldn’t make it hurt any less, either,” he said softly.

  “Maybe not, but it’d have made him hurt more.”

  They were silent for a while. Gird lay back on the deck, his eyes closed. Lilianna’s head was swimming; she took deep breaths, trying to keep herself steady. Rage and self-hatred mixed with the nausea. She thought about the last seven years since it had happened. Saw again the faces of the people she knew in town, avoiding her eyes. Saw her father sleeping, her knife raised over him. They knew, and they did nothing. And she did nothing.

  “I should’ve killed him,” she whispered. She looked at the cup in her hand and took another drink, then hurled it away.

  “So, who did you kill?” she asked.

  “I did not kill anyone,” Gird mumbled.

  “I told you my story.”

  Gird was silent for a long time. “All right. Yes, I am responsible for a death,” he said at last. “My son’s.”

  Lilianna waited for him to continue.

  “I was not a rich man. I worked for everything I had. I worked constantly, saved everything, just to send him to that school. He was seventeen. And the headmaster…” Gird swallowed. “Everyone loved my son. Everyone. The headmaster was no exception. When my son came to tell me what was happening, I went to the authorities. But he had paid them off. He’d done this before. I went to him. I threatened him, and he laughed in my face.”

  “So, you killed him?”

  “Not then.”

  “What did you do?”

  Lilianna waited, transfixed.

  Gird’s face contorted in pain. “Nothing. I did nothing. My child begged me to help him leave, but he only had a few months left. If he’d just finished his course, he could have done anything he’d wanted. It was a very prestigious program. I told him to finish, to make it through.” All emotion left Gird’s face. His body went still and cold as he stared out across the deck. “Not long after he was found dead in his room, having taken his own life. That was when I strangled the headmaster.”

  Lilianna choked in surprise. “I thought you said you killed your son?”

  “I did.” Gird looked up into the sky. “Of the two deaths, that is the one I consider murder. The other? That was recompense.”

  He turned to stare at her. “And I got away with it. No one ever knew. But it didn’t help. Not in the slightest.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because nothing could bring my son back. What hurt the most wasn’t what the headmaster had done. What hurt was that I had done nothing. It was my fault, not his.”

  “No, it wasn’t your fault.”

  “It was. I wasn’t angry with him. I was angry with myself. And I didn’t realize that until after I’d killed him.”

  Lilianna stared out into the dark, imagining, as she had imagined so many times before, what it would have felt like to kill her father. The familiar terror wrapped its icy claws around her insides, bringing with it the usual self-hatred.

  “Trust me, revenge has not helped at all,” Gird said.

  Lilianna clenched a fist against the deck and looked up through the mast and rigging, past the white sail lashed down for the night, into the vaulted, emotionless sky.

  She awoke sprawled on deck with the sun beating down on her. Her head was pounding, and the light somehow seemed too loud. She moaned and dragged herself into the shade, pulling a cushion over her head.

  “So, you’re alive!” a voice shouted down from above. The deck shook as Paric landed on it.

  Lilianna glared at him, then closed her eyes and pulled herself into a tighter ball.

  “Never had a hangover before?”

  Lilianna shook her head gingerly. She’d seen plenty of them. Usually her father just drank more, though.

  “Well, you’re in for a treat, then. You need water.” He clunked a bucket down in front of her, helped her sit up, and held the bucket up as she took a hesitant sip from it. Immediately her stomach recoiled. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen a face change color that fast,” Paric said as he set the bucket down. “Impressive. That’s enough for now.” He felt her cheek with the back of his hand. “You’re a little warm, though.” He pulled a scrap of cloth from his pocket, dipped it in the water, and handed it to her.

  “Here, dab that around.” Overhead, something in the rigging gave a loud snap. “Oops, I need to get back to the sails. You just hang out here in the shade; don’t worry, it’ll pass. You just vomit loudly if you need anything.” He sprang off before she could say anything.

  The cloth was damp and cool on her forehead and neck. After a few minutes she braved another sip of water. This time it went down all right.

  Aron approached, a cup of coffee in one hand. He looked a little saggy himself. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  She sat up and pushed her sweaty hair out of her face. “I’m fine. Where’s Coralie?”

  “She’s sleeping down below. She tried to carry you downstairs last night, but you were adamant that you wanted to sleep on deck.”

  It was a disturbing feeling, having someone else tell her about what she had done. Aron was smiling sympathetically. “I’m happy you like it. We can put a hammock up here for you if you want.”

  “Oh, really?” Sleeping under the stars, without a single wall in any direction… her heart lifted at the thought.

  “Yeah, of course.” He sat down next to her. “Coffee?”

  Her stomach lurched. “No way.”

  “Sorry about the drinking. We don’t do this often. Paric just wanted to break the ice.”

  “It was fun.”

  “Yeah? Well, great.” He took a sip of his coffee. “We should be in Kreiss late afternoon day after tomorrow. Any idea what you’re going to do when you get there?”

  Why did people keep asking her that? “No.”

  “
Well, if you need anything, just let me know.”

  Lilianna dipped the rag in the bucket again, then moved her hair aside and laid it across the back of her neck. She glanced at him. “Why are you so… I mean, don’t get me wrong, we appreciate all your help… but…”

  Aron laughed and shrugged. “I’m not just being nice. When I was growing up, I used to have these feelings. Like…I felt like I should take this road rather than that road home from the market or buy a certain kind of ink. My parents were very logical people, and they told me I shouldn’t listen. That those kinds of thoughts could come from anywhere. That it’s better, safer, to think things through logically and make the right choice. So, I did, for a long time. And it worked out OK.” He looked out across the bright surface of the ocean. “But I always felt bad. Wrong. Like I was betraying some important part of myself.”

  Lilianna felt her stomach heave and placed a hand on her belly. Was the water coming back up again? It faded. Nope. She was fine. Aron gave her a concerned look.

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah, fine. Go on.”

  “Oh, well. That’s about it. I got older. Eventually, my parents wanted me to marry.”

  “Some noble woman?”

  He looked confused for a moment. “Oh, right. Yes.”

  Lilianna narrowed her eyes, but a fresh wave of nausea hit her, and she decided not to press him.

  “Anyway, I just had a feeling that it was wrong. And… then I… spoke to that priestess about it. And she told me that I should trust that feeling, and that I should come and find you. After that, I decided to give myself a year. Just to try it out. For one year I would follow every thought, feeling, and instinct I had, and see where it would lead me.” He glanced around the ship. “That was three months ago, and… well, I think it’s working out well.”

  Judging by the piles of gold in storage, Lilianna would have to agree. She ventured another sip of the warm water, holding it gingerly in her mouth for a few seconds before swallowing.

  30

  Coralie

  That afternoon, Coralie sat eating with Gird while Paric practiced a sword-fighting routine nearby.

  Coralie’s eye was caught by the flowing script etched into the bright silver of Paric’s weapon. “Is that a Volarian blade?”