The King, page 17
part #4 of The Jester King Series
“Kill them all, save the Prince of Gwythia. He shall fetch a considerable ransom. Send him back alive with my other trophy.”
“As you say.”
“The battle will be in—”
“Worry not, dark king. I never miss a feast. I shall know when it is time. Until then, I shall gather my power.”
Deimog bowed his head. “All as you say.” He then shrugged, making the fur of his bearskin stand on end. Black feathers protruded through the fur. A strange breeze picked up from behind him, causing his thin shroud to flutter. The breeze grew to a strong gust. A clap resounded, and Deimog transformed into a jumbled, cawing murder of crows that flew past Ergyfel and disappeared into the night.
Ergyfel looked across the cold, dead fire and saw that scattered bones were all that remained of Reiver. He fell back to the ground, exhausted. The energy of dealing with the demon had been more than he’d expected.
***
“My king, my king!” Maeven dropped from her horse and ran to her husband’s side. Tears streamed from her eyes as she examined his body. “My love! My Love!”
Ergyfel lay unmoving on the stony ground.
Now kneeling beside her love, Queen Maeven put her ear to his chest. A moment later, royal guardsmen surrounded the queen and king. Each man eyed the other and the eerie surroundings, with their hands on their weapons.
At last, the queen sat up. “Thank the gods, he still lives!”
At that moment, she noticed the sleeve of Ergyfel’s left arm was soaked in blood and a yellowish fluid. “Bring a light.”
One of the six royal guards grabbed a lamp from his mount and brought it to her. He placed it on the stones, and then turned to the others. “Fan out. Set a perimeter. Protect the king and queen.”
While the guards did as ordered, Maeven tore open the king’s sleeve. She gasped and bit the back of her hand when she saw that the strange wound, once only affecting his hand, now enveloped his entire arm. Tears ran down her trembling cheeks as she reached down to touch the flesh, which now had the bizarre appearance of charred wood. At first, it felt quite firm to her, but then she went to touch another spot farther up the arm and the entire outer shell crumbled like ash to the ground.
The queen stared in shock and horror at the arm beneath. She opened her mouth to scream, and then fainted over her husband’s body.
***
The king awoke, and seeing his wife asleep on his belly, reached up to brush away a lock of hair from her face. But it was a dark, ugly hand with long, black claws that reached towards her face. He stopped and stared at the hideous troghoul hand frozen before him. Of course, he had seen troghoul hands before, dozens of them. He tried to seize it, but it moved as he moved, and he saw that the monstrous hand was his own. He reached up toward the sky and saw that his entire arm had transformed.
Ergyfel shot up to his elbow and examined his other hand, then the rest of his body. He fell back to the ground, reached up with his trembling right hand, and touched his face. He let out a sigh when it felt normal, and then he let his hand into his tunic and felt the smooth skin of his chest. He kept moving left until he came to the wound that circled his shoulder. Beyond the wound’s boundary, coarse, hairy, leathery hide supplanted the smooth skin.
Ergyfel sat up fully, raised his new beastly fist, and shouted at the sky, “A curse on you, faeries!”
“Your Majesty!”
The king looked to his right to see the leader of the royal guard coming towards him. Quickly, he hid his left arm and scanned the area to see the other men standing guard in a large circle around them.
“Stay back! Return to your posts.”
The first guard came to a stop. “Your Majesty?”
“Stay back. The queen has fainted.”
“Then, perhaps, I should—”
“No. I shall attend her.”
“Are you not injured, Your Majesty?”
“No, I’m—I fell from my mount, but I am well. Toss me ...” He scanned the area and saw that they had recovered his horse. “Toss me that large sack and the wineskin from the back of my mount, then return to the line.”
The guard followed his orders. Ergyfel put his left arm inside the sack and tied the drawstrings up to sling around his neck. He took a sip of wine, and then placed the wineskin to Maeven’s lips. He allowed just a few drops to fall into her mouth.
“Wake up, beloved.”
He patted her face. When this had no result, he bent over and kissed her on the forehead, then the nose, and then the lips. At last, she responded, and he sat up.
Maeven’s eyes fluttered open and she looked up at her king. “I had the most horrible dream.”
“I know, my love, but it’s over.”
She sat up, and Ergyfel shifted to hide his left arm from her in the shadows of his robes. He then sat behind her and supported her back.
“It seemed so real.” She smiled, then giggled. “I’m such a silly girl.”
“So, tell me, my silly girl: Why is it you have come all the way up here to find me?”
She spun around onto her knees and faced her husband, then grabbed him by the shoulders and stared into his face. “I thought someone might have killed you.”
“Killed me? What made you think that?”
“Because ...” The queen hesitated and retracted her hands to her lap.
“What is it, beloved? Tell me.”
She dropped her eyes to her hands.
He put a finger under her chin and lifted her face. He kissed her on the lips. “Tell me.”
She swallowed, then turned her teary face away. “Your brother has been killed!”
Ergyfel thought for a moment. “Did you say, ‘my brother has been killed’?”
Maeven managed to nod.
“That can’t be! I still need him!”
“I know, husband.”
“How? When?”
Maeven sniffed. “He was found in his quarters.”
“How was he killed?”
“I. I—I cannot tell you.” Maeven threw herself into her husband’s bosom and sobbed.
Ergyfel caught the eye of the leader of his royal guardsman. “Come here.”
The man approached and bowed at the king’s feet.
“Tell me, has my brother truly been slain?”
“Regrettably, sire, yes.”
“How could this be?”
“The assassin is being sought as we speak, Your Majesty. We do know that Lord Snegaddrick is innocent, as he was under our watch the whole time.”
“He’s anything but innocent. But come, tell me, how was my brother slain?”
The guardsman cleared his throat. “By a knife, sire. The assassin left it in his back.” The guard shifted his weight and glanced about. Then he leaned closer to whisper. “The hilt bore his name, in the old runes.”
“What?”
“The knife bore his—”
“Yes, I heard you the first time!” the king roared. “And where is Sir Feolaghe?”
“He has done as your orders bid him, sire. He has left Orgulous to marshal the warlords and the army.”
Ergyfel fashioned a fist from his right hand. The guard eyed it in anticipation of the strike. A moment passed, and then, very deliberately, the king rapped his shaking fist on the man’s shoulder three times. The strikes were more pushes than punches.
“So he has. So he has. Prompt as ever to his duty; my champion.”
The king looked down at his sobbing wife. “Is this why you thought someone had come to kill me?”
Maeven nodded.
“Because my brother’s name was on the knife that killed him?”
Again, she nodded and continued to sob. “When I heard what happened to Hengest, and heard about the knife, I ran looking for you. The seneschal said you had left Orgulous and were late returning. While I was still speaking with him, your mount returned to the Gleaming Gate. The royal guard immediately began searching. I gathered these men you gave me and searched for you myself.”
“You should have stayed in Orgulous.”
“I could not stay there, dying by grains of sand.”
“How did you find me up here?”
The guard nearest the king bowed. “There was a report earlier of a fire in this direction, sire.”
Maeven pawed at Ergyfel’s chest. “That’s right, my love. The closer we got—I just knew you had to be alive. I simply would not have it otherwise. My heart dragged me to you until I thought it would wrench itself from my chest. And here you are.”
“And here you are.”
“But what happened, my king?”
“I came up here for solitude. To be alone and plan our strategy in the coming battle. It was I who lit the fire, and when I went to leave, my horse was spooked by a wolf, and I fell where you found me.”
“A wolf!”
“Fear not, my love. It has long left the area. Just like the assassin.”
“Your brother’s assassin, Your Majesty?”
Ergyfel looked at the guard. “Aye. My brother’s killer has left Orgulous and will never return.”
“How can we be sure, Majesty?”
“Because I am sure. Because I know he has gone. But come, we are wasting time. Send a man ahead. Tell the castle we are well and on our way. Ready baths and a light meal. Recall all search parties. Summon my tailor, my scribes, the royal messengers and heralds, the ten most senior members of the night watch, and a priest, to the great hall. I want every male in Nyraval old enough to shoot a bow or hold a sword, in the outer ward by mid-day tomorrow.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
One Man’s Demon
Billy swam in a fevered nightmare, floating between the world of men and the world unseen, between life and death. When he lost consciousness, his mind drew lines on the grey blankness that surrounded him. Each was written from a spell that stretched out into a dark, wavy line. He wrote these lines, never finishing one, never completing a spell. Each line begat more lines, crisscrossing one another at various angles and forming patterns. Then objects formed out of this patchwork: bricks and stones that became part of a giant, curved wall.
Then he would wake up. Before his closed eyes, it was the same awake or asleep: lines and more lines. At last, he would gather the energy to open his eyes and see the world of men that had become the inside of a tent, alternating with the inside of a wagon. Quite often, Myrredith was there with a kind word and an offer of cool water or food. The mere mention of food made him wretch, and so his menu promptly reduced to water.
One or two swallows of water and some medicine made from herbs and tree bark, and he would lose consciousness again. Once recaptured by his subconscious, he would return to writing the lines, over and over again. There was no rhyme or reason, only a feeling of desperation. He had to finish the wall before time ran out.
A black cloud surrounded his wall of scrawling words—seeking a way in—and Billy knew why he was building the wall. Soon, the cloud found the opening Billy was desperately trying to close and poured in, filling the void around him. As if it knew no other purpose, Billy’s mind began drawing the arcane web of lines in white against the blackness, but they were different words, different spells, and he realized he was no longer the one writing them. Again, the lines multiplied of their own accord, but now they formed only right angles and only in particular regions. Before long, the pattern of a large rectangle emerged. The lines looked like moonlight reflected off ripples in an inky pond. The rectangle rose out of the pool, which was now like tar. The tar bled off the surface of the rectangle and revealed the black tome Billy had taken from the Witan’s home.
He took hold of the book warily and pulled with all his might until he wrenched it from the tarry surface. The black curtain surrounding him evaporated, leaving Billy standing under a star-littered sky, in a tiny clearing surrounded by dense forest. He felt a sharp pain in his hand and dropped the book.
The iron bindings of the big volume split and fell away from the cover, smoking and glowing red with heat. The faint smell of sulfur burned his nose. Drops of blood stained several of the tiny claws that topped the points on the wavy cover.
Billy absently put the new wound in his mouth as he studied the book. The taste of blood was real enough. Is this a dream?
Then, the book floated up and hovered a few feet above the ground. The tiny claws unhooked from the leathery skin and thrummed the surface like the crawling legs of a centipede. The separate leathery waves then slipped around the book at alarming speeds in opposite directions, rubbing against each other with a dry hissing sound. The leather grew loose, and then snapped open into huge, bat-like wings that widened and curled around Billy in a semispherical shape.
The rest of the book exploded, filling the clearing and bordering trees with loose parchment pages covered with written spells. At first these pages flew chaotically, but then unified until they were swarming like a school of fish. They became aggressive and flew around Billy, forming into a whirlwind that shot across to the dark center of the wings. There, the pages transformed into the bones and flesh of a male humanoid creature with muscular arms and chest, a long face, and six horns circling its brow like a tall crown. Though formed up top, its legs descended into wispy, insubstantial shapes that were difficult to make out, as if distorted by powerful waves of heat. Indeed, all the air around it wrinkled and shimmered, driven by invisible flames.
Finally, the last layers came to rest, finishing the creature in dark, smooth skin and gold jewelry. Its lower half wore loose silk pantaloons. The face, though vaguely goat-like, was pleasing to look at, and sported a short, well-groomed beard of black that circled its mouth. The letters and symbols that formed magic spells on the pages now appeared like tattoos, which migrated across the surface or faded as if submerging beneath the skin to be replaced by new symbols welling up from within.
Then the creature opened his eyes. They were black, with a twinkle that bespoke of timeless wisdom. A thin, sooty smoke seeped from his eyes and mouth as he smiled, showing a mouth full of fine sharp teeth. The delicate smoke then rose from its body and swirled lazily around it in the hazy shimmering cloud.
“Greetings, Prince.” The creature bowed its head.
Billy spit out the blood from his wounded hand. “Who are you?”
“Your humble servant,” it answered, giving Billy another sample of its exotic accent.
“How are you my servant?”
“You rescued me, and now I am yours.”
Billy saw the moment he took the black tome from its shadowy hole in the Witan’s tree. “What are you?”
“You might call me ... a spirit.”
Billy examined the creature before him. It was, in some ways, like the wild irregular and brooding creatures the elves of Tirn Aill called “forest spirits.” A striking and threatening, alluring yet abhorrent creature. But the way it moved, the way it spoke, its physiognomy all felt like a very polite lie. Billy hoped he was wrong, but his gut said this handsome devil, this self-proclaimed spirit, was actually a monster playing at being a civilized man.
Billy crossed his arms. “Spirit ... or demon?”
“One man’s demon is another man’s spirit.”
“But a wise man knows he can never be another man.”
“Oh, you are a cunning one, my prince! Very cunning. Far too cunning for a spirit like me. That is why I have presented myself in my true form.”
“As opposed to what?”
“Well … I usually appear to my masters as something less jarring, like this.” He waved his hand and transformed into a handsome black-eyed man in the robes of a prince.
“Or this.” Again, it waved its hand. This time, it transformed itself into a duplicate of Billy, except for the eyes, which remained wells of black ink.
It returned to its original horned form. “Harmless spirit games, really.”
Billy shook off the creepy feeling at seeing himself. “For the sake of argument, what kind of spirit are you?”
“A guide, teacher, helper, rescuer, builder, king maker, siege breaker, guardian, hunter, storm rider, home finder, dream catcher, wish granter ...”
“Dream catcher?”
“Have you a dream—a wish? I can help you catch it. All is within my reach. I make everything you ever wanted easier to get, most especially magic.”
“What if I don’t want you to make it easier for me?”
The spirit threw back his head and laughed. “Don’t be absurd. If you didn’t want me to make your life easier, you never would have drawn me from my confinement.”
“That’s not why I did it.”
“Of course it is.” The spirit smiled broader than ever. “I whispered to you before you ever saw me. My offer is the same as it ever was; take me, learn from me, and I shall give you your desires. I shall make you what you want to be.
“You want to be rich—powerful? Allow me to help you, and it shall happen. You want to learn magic? Want to get there fast? I can make you a wizard faster and easier than a swift horse coming home. And power! You will have no equal!”
“But that’s not why I drew you out!”
“I know, Prince. I know. You wanted to save your friend, save your kingdom. It’s very noble. But you never would have looked for me. You would never have found me, if you hadn’t first accepted my precept and my offer.”
The spirit held out his hand. Billy stared at it.
“Just because I needed something fast—something easy—doesn’t mean I accepted any offer.”
“No? … Remember when you were on the beach in Tirn Aill? When your quest appeared defeated by that treacherous goblin captain? Who was it that came to you when you filled with frustration, anger, and hopelessness? Who offered to help, when you couldn’t see anything but blind rage?”
Billy allowed his mind to drift with the spirit’s words and saw himself on that perfect beach, on that clear day—without a ship. All of a sudden, the spirit was whispering in Billy’s ear.
“It was I, of course.”
Billy turned his head, but the spirit had already returned to his place in front of him.
“I offered you a way out, a way to solve your dilemma ...” The spirit vanished, and then reappeared, whispering in his other ear. “And you took it.”
