“Arrest him.”
Aron lifted his hands smiling. “Is there something I can help you with, sir? I’d really rather not be arrested.”
“How surprising.” Jedren flexed his arm muscles, and the small man got the hint. He moved obligingly out of the way and allowed himself to be handcuffed while Jedren descended into the basement.
“Kara?”
The room was close and smelled terrible. As if several people had spent several days in this one tiny room with no ventilation. How many of them had been here? He put a hand over his mouth and gagged slightly, then shook himself.
“Kara? It’s all right, sweetheart. Your mother told me everything. I’m here to take you home. You’re safe.”
Nothing moved. His heart sank. What lies had her mother been telling?
He crouched down, bending his legs and sitting in a cross-legged position.
“I’m sure you’re scared, sweetheart. But it’s OK. Whatever mommy told you isn’t true. Daddy’s here and it’s going to be all right.”
No response.
“I’m sure you’re scared. Mommy told me about your eyes. It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you.”
A tiny hand emerged from under the sofa, followed by the most precious face in the world to him, after Kallia’s. Her little hands clenched and unclenched nervously. Her clothes were dirty and wrinkled, her black curls greasy and matted. She crouched there, on her hands and knees watching him.
There was something… off about her. Something behind her expression that hadn’t been there before. Another presence, older. Just like that of the other dark-eyed children. He looked fully into those eyes and his heart clenched. He’d hoped it wasn’t true. For a moment, he faltered. They weren’t that dark, maybe it was just a trick of the light. Maybe Kallia had been mistaken. Maybe all this worry had been for nothing.
The little girl bit her lip. He held out his arms. “It’s all right, darling, I’m here. You’re safe.”
She didn’t move.
That other intelligence was there, watching him, from behind his daughter’s eyes, and he shuddered, his hands and feet going cold.
The girl must have seen his change in expression. “Daddy?” she said, and moved forward, holding out her arms. He wrapped her tightly in a hug, smelled the familiar smell of her hair. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to protect his daughter. But he could feel the tension in her. With a cold sinking sensation, he realized what this was. It was an act. This wasn’t his daughter at all.
Gently, he pushed her away, looked down into her face. “Who are you?”
Her eyelids flickered. “I’m Kara, your daughter.” The tone was hard, precise. “I am also… someone who remembers her past life.”
He tried to nod, conflicting emotions warring within him. This perfect, precious face, so familiar. The cheeks he’d dried the tears from a hundred times. Yet, this was not his daughter anymore. Or, not the same one he had last spoken to, last held on his knee.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sure this is hard for you.”
He cringed. “What—what are you and—”
“I’ll explain. As much as I can.”
Jedren listened, his heart twisting, as she described dying, passing through death, seeing Yqtos himself.
“For whatever reason, the god of death does not want us returning with our memories from our previous lives intact.”
Jedren could think of at least one reason. It was horrifying. Heartbreaking. His daughter was… gone. Still here before him, but not at all the child she had been. He could never take this… woman… onto his knee… couldn’t teach her about the plants and animals in the world. There was nothing that she needed from him anymore. She was an old woman in his daughter’s body. But still, he wouldn’t hurt that face. Couldn’t. It went against the deepest parts of himself.
He had to ask Yqtos about this. He would find a way to talk to the god. He needed answers. And maybe… maybe Yqtos could find a way to get him his daughter back.
“I’ll talk to Yqtos,” he said, holding out his hand to the tiny girl. “I’ll ask him why… why he has asked this of me. We will figure something out.”
She nodded, took his hand trustingly. At least that was familiar.
54
Aron
“How about that one?” Aron asked, pointing at an empty cell.
The guard readjusted his grip on Aron’s upper arm. “You don’t get to pick, your highness,” he sneered.
At the back, in a dimly lit corner of the dungeon, was a cell with a single other occupant. The guard shoved Aron in, slammed the door shut behind him, locked it, and left without saying another word.
The man’s eyes were closed; he was bald, but a long, straggly beard hung lank from his face, twitching slightly as he mouthed the words to some silent prayer. Aron stood politely, waiting for him to finish. It took a lot longer than he would have thought. He shifted from foot to foot, but he wasn’t going to interrupt.
The man finished at last, and his eyes flickered open. A deep sense of despair and self recrimination wafted out of him and through Aron.
“Hello,” Aron said, smiling and holding out his hand. “I’m Aron de Tamley.”
The man stared at his hand, then reached up and shook it. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” Aron said, sitting and leaning against the opposite wall.
The man scratched his beard. “De Tamley, huh? Where are you from?”
“Tamloch.”
“Ah right, you said that. I’ve been there. My name’s Alydren.”
“Alydren, that sounds familiar.”
“Yes, you may have heard of me. I caused the deaths of hundreds, led my men to be slaughtered by that monster.”
“Ah, right, yep, that’s what it was. Only, the way I heard it was more like ‘brave captain selflessly makes last stand’.”
Alydren gave a wry smile. “That’s kind of you.” A dark look passed over his face, and he stared down at his hands. “Tamloch…” he said at last. “I believe that’s one of the places still standing.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, I believe they surrendered. Not long after I was there trying to recruit. Looks like they made the right choice.”
“Just because you lost doesn’t mean it was the wrong choice.”
The man shrugged. “I keep running through it in my head. If I’d just attacked earlier, before he had the chance to build up an army… but no, the size of the army didn’t matter. I had him outnumbered. Then I think, if I’d somehow been more persuasive, gotten more people to join me… but again, I had more than enough men. I had all of Kreiss behind me. If only I’d planned better… but my strategy was perfect.” He shook his head, his hands folding into a prayer position in front of his face again. “I think… I think it was just impossible. Maybe there are things I could have done better, but I don’t think it would have mattered. He’s backed by a god.”
“Hence the praying?”
“Hence the praying.” He nodded. “I guess I don’t mind being in here. I can pray just as well from in here as I can from anywhere else, and I think I’m doing just as much good here as I ever did out there.” He looked at Aron wryly. “Sorry. We just met. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I guess I’ve been in here a while, and it’s all I’ve been thinking about.”
“Understandable.”
Aron looked around the dark cell.
“So…” Alydren tried. “What part of Tamloch did you live in?”
“Oh, the… the northern part.”
Alydren looked at him evenly. “You’re a noble and you lived in the slums?”
Aron sighed. “OK. I’ve never actually been to Tamloch.”
Alydren dropped his hands and stared at him.
“I’m not really a noble. I just tell people that.”
Alydren scratched his bare head. “Is this how it usually goes? You lie to them and it’s such a flimsy lie that it falls apart in the first
half a minute of conversation?”
“Surprisingly, no. You’re the first to catch on, actually.”
“Why do you tell people you’re from a place you’ve never been? Why not at least make up something you could back up?”
“I don’t like lying. I’d rather not put any more effort into it than I have to.”
“And you have to because…”
“I am…” Aron glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “A fairly lucky person. I have a lot of money, for no real reason, and a lot of property, again for no real reason. Being a noble explains that well enough to people.”
“Why don’t you tell them the truth?”
“It makes them uncomfortable. It doesn’t make any sense, not really. People assume I’m lying. And, I told you, I hate lying. I also hate people to think I’m lying. It’s terrible to feel so distrusted.”
Alydren scratched the side of his face. Something came away under his fingertips and he flicked it away. “I guess I can understand where you’re coming from. So, if you’re not a noble, who are you and where are you really from?”
“I grew up in Hardwick. My parents were merchants. Very poor and very careful with everything they had. They died and left me everything, which wasn’t much. I could have followed in their footsteps, which is what they wanted. Or I could go out into the world and finally try doing the things I’d always wanted to try.”
“Tough choice.”
“Not really. I had to, or I would have hated myself forever.”
Alydren nodded.
“So you’re just… lucky?”
“Fortunate.”
“What does that mean?”
“Luck is little things… tiny, disconnected things that don’t matter much in the big scheme of things. Fortune on the hand… everything that happens to me seems to be building to something bigger.”
“Hmmm.”
Aron cringed. “This is why I don’t like explaining.”
Alydren readjusted his legs. “Yeah, sorry, no, I get it.”
They were quiet for several seconds.
“How’s the food here?” Aron asked.
“Terrible.”
Aron nodded. “Yeah, I figured.”
“Want to luck us up something better?”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“Damn.”
“No, no, see, the thing about pie is it’s self contained. It’s got that crust around it, so you can take it anywhere.”
“Right, but who wants to eat a pie on the run?” Aron countered. “If I’m going to eat a dessert, I’m going to want to eat it in one location.”
“But it’s a benefit. I mean, let’s say you’re sitting there, eating your cake, and your captain comes in and tells you it’s time to move out. What are you going to do? You’re stuck, is what. Now, if you were eating a pie, you just wrap that baby up in some wax paper, stick it in your pocket, and you’re good to go.”
“Not if it’s half finished. The juices are all going to leak out. Even in that respect—which I don’t agree is a useful benefit—cake is superior. I mean, sure it’s going to get squashed if you wrap it up and put it in your pocket, but it’s not going to totally disintegrate.”
Alydren frowned. “All right, you have a point. I think pie is just way more delicious, though.”
“I mean, you’re entitled to your opinion, but that’s not what this is about.”
“All right, I concede. Cake is the superior dessert.”
Aron nodded. “OK, my turn to pick…”
“Numenos, divine mother of all, come to us in our hour of need, protect us from this demon who would destroy us, destroy your name and the names of your children. Amen.”
Alydren finished his prayer and started in on the half-rotten bowl of what passed for food here.
Aron wasn’t quite hungry enough to try stomaching his yet. His stomach roiled with nausea, and he’d thrown up a few times already that day. He was tired, sick and dehydrated, and his cough was getting worse.
“Why don’t you pray to one of the gods that’s actually here?” Aron asked.
“Who knows if the stories are true?” Alydren said, chewing mechanically, seemingly unruffled by the horrific substance he was eating. “Is Numenos really gone? I’ve never gotten any suggestion that any of the other gods are more present than she is. And… this situation is bad. Yqtos, if that really is who Jedren is working for, is more powerful than the lesser gods and goddesses. I figured I should go right to the top.”
“Fair enough.”
Aron opened his eyes, seeing nothing in the darkness. Something had awoken him. He lay still, listening. A quiet, choked sob came from nearby. Then several seconds of silence, then another, and a gasping breath of air.
“Alydren?” Aron asked quietly. There was no answer, but the crying stopped.
The fits of coughing were getting worse. After another round of hacking into his elbow, Aron looked apologetically at Alydren. “Sorry,” he wheezed. “It’s always been like this, but the air down here isn’t helping.”
Alydren shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.” He eyed Aron’s full food bowl. “You need to eat something, though, if only for the liquid.”
Aron’s stomach swirled at the thought and a wave of nausea washed over him. “Maybe later today.”
“Don’t let your food get cold,” Alydren said, with an attempt at a smile.
Alydren’s eyes were sunken, the dark shadows making him look like a skeleton. Aron had heard him crying most of the night but had said nothing. He’d also said nothing while Alydren went through his morning prayers, and while he ate his breakfast. Aron attempted a few bites, but his stomach threatened to revolt if he had anything more.
“You know,” Aron said finally, clearing his throat and not looking directly at the man. “Just because you didn’t defeat him when you planned to, doesn’t mean your work was all for nothing.”
Alydren didn’t say anything, but Aron continued.
“Maybe you’re right, and nothing you could have done would have helped, and no amount of planning would have taken him down. And maybe an intervention from the gods is all that will save us. But it doesn’t mean that what you did didn’t matter. The gods can’t work with nothing. Maybe what you did laid the foundation for what’s to come.”
“All those men are dead.”
“They aren’t all dead. Not even most of them are dead, according to what I’ve heard. A lot of them surrendered, turned on you, and, because they were good fighters, Jedren kept them, it sounds like. That’s a lot of his men who probably would rather fight for you. A lot of men who care about what’s right, and who don’t fully believe in him.”
“A lot of good that’s doing.”
“It’s hard to see now. And maybe right now it’s not doing any good. But that doesn’t mean it won’t ever do any good. That’s what good fortune is. It’s setting the stage; it’s doing all the preparation work even when it seems completely useless. It’s working and trying and fixing and tweaking and then sometimes, when everything is just right, things work out the way you hoped, or, and this is more usually the case, they work out completely differently than you’d hoped, and much better than you could have planned or imagined.”
Alydren stared fixedly into his bowl. When he looked up, there were tears in his eyes.
“I hope you’re right.”
55
Jedren
In the deepest part of the castle, in a part that Jedren had always kept from Kallia, were the men waiting to be killed. In case of siege, or disaster, Jedren stocked up on many things. There were hundreds of pounds of dried fish, piles of squash and potatoes, barrels of freshwater in addition to the two wells on the property, and three months worth of men for Jedren to kill daily. He never wanted to find himself in a position of having to sacrifice his own men, so he collected spares: those who had committed the worst crimes throughout Mimros. And he kept them here, in the dark, below ground, and once a day h
e came down and killed one of them.
The new ones, the ones who hadn’t been there long, cringed as he passed, but further back, in the darker, danker corners, men simply lay there, unmoved as they heard their death approaching. A few had even tried to antagonize him into taking them earlier than they were scheduled. But it hadn’t worked. Jedren always simply took the one who had been there the longest. The rest would have to wait their turn.
And there were plenty of people who had committed crimes, heinous crimes. Happily, his dungeons were never empty, never running low, in fact sometimes he had to kill two or three, just to keep the population down.
Some of them pleaded with him for their lives. Some said they’d been wrongfully accused. Some said they had been sent here to appease Jedren, but that they hadn’t even done anything at all. He didn’t believe them. Murderers would say that.
At the very back, a man lay in his cell, barely breathing. He shifted slightly as Jedren approached. His expression lightened. Glad to hear his death coming, it seemed.
Jedren unlocked the door. The man didn’t move, waiting for Jedren to come in and kill him. A few had tried to fight him, tried to escape, but it had been a long time since that happened.
“I need you to do something for me,” Jedren said. The man’s eyes, crusted with grime, blinked open. His lips parted.
“Will you let me go?”
Jedren shook his head. “No. I need you to give a message to Yqtos, when you see him.”
The man’s face went grey.
“If you want, I’ll give you a meal, or something, before I kill you.”
The man looked down at his skeletal arms and legs, covered in sores and welts. He shook his head. “I’d rather be on my way, if it’s all the same to you.”
Death of the Immortal King Page 29
