Parasite Soul (4 page)

Her attire was nearly as mesmerizing. Wherever she was from,
her sense of fashion would have brought a landslide of scandal down upon the head
of any local woman. Simon had no name for the fabrics which draped her
body nor the style in which they were cut, but they displayed an alluring
wealth of skin. Thin strips of some unidentifiable gossamer cloth, pinned
by a jewel, criss-crossed her breasts; what Simon could only think to describe
as some form of dress hung low on her hips, slit up one leg to expose a
tantalizing sliver of flesh beneath. The garment bore no resemblance
whatsoever to the modest skirts or bulky bustles of local women. Spiting
every unwritten dress code in Cannevish, her belly was bare, a silver ring
glinting brazenly at its center.

Nor did this strange foreign woman seem as subservient as her local
counterpart. She returned Simon’s stare boldly, lips quirking slightly.
Here, he told himself, was a young woman who was afraid of very
little. She was extraordinarily fascinating, and he found it difficult
disengaging her gaze even when Tiera coughed delicately but pointedly.

“I see my handmaiden is of interest to you,” she said crisply.

Embarrassed, Simon refocused on the glacial snowscape of the
princess’ face. “Forgive me,” he mumbled, flushing. “I haven’t…
seen many people from kingdoms other than our own.” Admitting that, he
had never felt like more a peasant. Studying the buckles on his shoes, he
waited for the inevitable critique of his intelligence.

“I suppose that’s to be expected,” Tiera answered dryly. “I
don’t suppose you get much in the way of culture out in the provinces.”

Simon thought of his own skull mounted on a pole and judged it
better to say nothing.

“Still, I understand your interest,” the princess continued.
She reached out and gripped the foreign handmaiden’s pointed chin with one
hand, roughly twisting her face toward her own and examining it
critically. “Niu here was a gift from the emperor of Jynn. Father
brought her back for me. She’s quite the gifted singer for a
barbarian.” She released Niu’s face dismissively, fading imprints of her
fingers visible on the handmaiden’s flesh. Simon fumed silently, though
he was smart enough to betray no outward sign of irritation.
Refocusing, he tasted the girl’s name,
Niu
, and found it odd
but pleasantly exotic.

“Let us return this conversation to the matter at hand,” King Minus
leaned forward slightly. “I have promised the hand of my daughter to the
man who was able to slay the dragon which plagued the land. You are that
man, and I will keep my word. You will marry the Princess Tiera.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Simon’s mind buzzed furiously. He
thought his trembling legs might give out beneath him. When first he’d
signed up to try his luck with the dragon, the idea of marrying into wealth,
power, and fame had been exceptionally alluring. Inspired by the
discovery of his sword, he would have given anything to leave the drab monotony
of his father’s farm behind. Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure what he’d let
himself in for. He felt no attraction to the cold-blooded harpy whom he
was destined to marry, for starters; he didn’t fit in amongst these courtiers
with their poufy sleeves and powdered wigs, and he never would. Was a
life of privilege truly worth the barbed whispers, the plotting? Worse,
might he not wind up in a ditch with a knife in his back before he could sully
the royal bloodline with peasant blood?

Simon seemed to see the threat of a severely truncated future etched
plainly in the shadows of Minus’ creased face. He glanced again at the
foreign handmaiden and made up his mind.

“Your Majesty,” he said again, hesitantly, fumbling for words which
would not end with him dangling at the end of a hempen rope. “I am of the
most humble stock. I do not know my letters, nor do I have talents
superior to any other common man. I do not believe that I am suited to
marry the Princess Tiera.”

Minus and his daughter simultaneously raised one eyebrow. The
court held its breath collectively. There would be much speculation
later, over tea or wine, as to what the rustic simpleton now known as Simon
Dragonslayer could possibly have been thinking.

“I am grateful to have freed your kingdom from the dragon,” Simon
continued carefully. “I do not desire a reward.”

Minus considered him impassively for a time. Simon felt his
innards shriveling under that raptor’s gaze.

“If that is your decision,” he said at length. Was that a note
of undisguised relief in his voice? “But it will not be said of me that I
am an ungenerous man. What reward would you claim of me instead?”

It was in Simon’s mind to say
Nothing, Your Majesty,
as would
have been prudent. Instead, his treacherous mouth said “Niu’s hand, Your
Majesty. If she is willing.”

A shocked silence blanketed the court. Niu’s hands, far from
donating themselves to marriage, jerked as though in preparation for
self-defense as she studied the princess in alarm. Tiera sprang upright, her
white face taking on crimson hues. For a withering eternity, she stared
unblinking at Simon, her lips set in an O of disbelief. Writhing under
that gaze of molten ice, Simon cursed his traitorous tongue.
What had
come over him?

When at last Tiera spoke, she might have been addressing a slug
who’d refused access to a garden of prize lettuces.

“You have been offered the hand of a
princess
,” she
hissed. Her eyes flooded with poison, and Simon couldn’t meet them.
“You would reject that offer, and ask for the hand of a
servant
?”

“If… if his Majesty accepts,” Simon stammered. “As I said, my
station in life… I dare not…”

“You… ungrateful… provincial… whoreson!” Forgetting all courtly
protocol, Tiera stabbed an arched finger at Simon as though she were about to
incinerate him with a bolt of lightning. Her face now resembled a beetroot.

“Tiera!” Minus said sharply, one hand raised. “Let us consider
this man’s counteroffer.” He leaned forward speculatively. “You say
you would be satisfied with the hand of this handmaiden?”

“If… if she would consent.” If Simon could have crawled into a
ground squirrel’s burrow and curled there in the dirt and darkness, he would
have.

The King leaned back in his throne, fingers steepled, a calculating
smile playing about his lips. “You would be willing to proclaim as much
before the people?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“You will return to your inn while we reflect upon the matter.”

“Father!” Tiera began, incensed. “Niu is
my
handmaiden,
I will not allow…”

“Quiet!” King Minus barked, and Tiera, fuming, subsided. “As I
said, we shall deliberate.” He returned his attention to Simon. “You will
say nothing – not to anyone - until a decision has been made. Is that
plain?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Simon didn’t need to be told what would happen
if he disobeyed this command.

Minus waved his hand. A gauntlet clamped down upon each of
Simon’s shoulders and he was steered firmly from the throne room. He was
glad of his escorts, certain as he was that his legs were ready to give
out. He didn’t dare spare a parting glance for the Princess or the
foreign handmaiden. Had he gone mad? What had possessed him to make
a fool of himself in front of the most powerful people in the land?
To
have offended them
?

Well,
he thought wryly as he fought to
control his churning stomach,
I won’t be getting much in the way of sleep
tonight, unless it’s of the permanent kind
. He imagined his broken
body bleeding into the refuse of the canal where it had been dumped, fodder for
rats, and shivered.

Much of his trip back to the inn was a blur. There were more
people out and about now, but he couldn’t seem to see their faces. All he
could see was a hangman’s noose, or an executioner’s axe, or whatever awaited
him. The insult to the princess had been grave indeed, and he was a
damned fool if he didn’t think there would be repercussions.

He thought his brain might start to boil, so he tried to refocus his
thoughts. Images of the eastern girl, Niu, began to flood his mind, relieving
some of the pressure. Had she bewitched him with some foreign
sorcery? He couldn’t otherwise explain his lapse in judgement.
While he supposed his recent determination to attack a dragon - with nothing
but a rusty old sword that he didn’t know how to wield - hadn’t been the finest
example of rationality either, at least he’d been pursuing a clear goal.
To have achieved that goal, where so many others had failed and then to throw
the reward away on a mad whim…!

You choked
, Simon thought.
You
saw the princess and got frightened. Her otherworldliness, her station in
life; it was all too much for you. You reacted in fear. You were
more afraid of her than that dragon
.

Was that entirely true? He thought of the olive-skinned
handmaiden again. There was something about her, something Simon had
never felt before, neither in the presence of the prettiest girl in his village
nor a princess. Something which had stolen all reason from his mind at the
merest glance. Which bought him full circle, back to
spell
.
The young woman was clearly an enchantress. He’d heard of such things;
women who could bend men’s minds to their whims. Still, as Simon recalled
every detail of her lithe and nubile form with a clarity he’d never before
experienced, he wasn’t entirely sure it was his mind he was thinking with.

The guards accompanied him into the inn for a word with the
innkeeper. They slipped the proprietor a small bag of coins. The man made a
show about being leery of the continuing presence of king’s men hovering around
his establishment, scaring away his ‘honest’ customers, but a few extra serrins
quietened him soon enough. The guards then warned Simon not to leave the
building or to discuss anything said in court with anyone in the establishment,
advising him that both they and the innkeeper would be keeping an eye on his
movements. Simon understood; he was under house arrest until the king
could reach a decision as to how many more dawns he would see.

Much as he wanted to launch into reckless flight from the myriad
curious eyes, he took the stairs to his room carefully. The world around
him seemed to have been engulfed in a dreamlike haze which had slowed his mind
and movements. A long day of ominous introspection awaited him.
He’d gone from peasant to Dragonslayer to pariah in less than twenty-four
hours.

Simon sighed deeply as he reached the third landing, located his
chambers, and wilted onto the straw-stuffed bed without removing his
boots. He stared at the ill-fitted beams above his head and thought it
might be a mercy if they caved in, as they threatened to, and ended it
all. He’d been an imaginative, restless lad, as long as he could
remember; head in the clouds, mind racing off on the kind of adventures most
folk just didn’t seem to have anymore. Never before in his life had he
stopped to consider that his father’s farm just might have been the place for
him after all.

The House of Minus kept Simon waiting. Morning became midday,
midday reddening into evening at a snail’s tortuous speed. Simon spent a
good deal of time pacing, at least until his downstairs neighbor began
vigorously thumping the ceiling of his own chamber. He tried to take
meals, but only picked at them. At intervals he visited the common room,
longing for company and advice, but striking up conversation with the inn’s
patrons proved worthless because he was expressly forbidden to discuss the only
thing that was on his mind.

Give me the noose or cut me loose,
he
thought, thinking of an ancient children’s ballad which glamorized the exploits
of an arrogant highwayman who had taunted the authorities from behind the bars
of his cell. The possibility still existed that his boon would be granted
– if the foreign handmaiden acquiesced – but the longer he was made to sweat
and stew, he felt, the fainter that chance became. He prayed to Vanyon
Afterlord to keep him from his domain; to close the gates to the Realm Beyond
and refuse him access. Upsettingly, he discovered that he’d lost his
prayer stone, likely during his fight with the dragon, so he wasn’t sure if
Vanyon would even hear his prayers. Still, talking to his god leant him
the courage to tolerate the terrifying wait.

Having returned his partially uneaten platter to the kitchens by way
of a grudging maid, Simon threw himself onto the bed and stared at the shutters
as the sky beyond them darkened. Unable to shake the sensation that the
whole city was scrutinizing him – people, animals, buildings, everyone and
everything - he’d kept them closed all day. Somewhere beyond the tangle
of threadbare streets, across the lake and over the mountains, his father
waited anxiously for news of his son. Knowing that made Simon homesick.
His life as a farmer’s son hadn’t been so terrible, after all; not the destiny
of a young man’s dreams, of course, but at least he hadn’t had to worry about
offending the chickens and getting his head cut off.

If only I hadn’t found that stupid sword.

A sudden sharp rap rattled the shutters, startling him out his
reverie. He sat bolt upright, astonished.

“Who… who is it?” he quavered, unable to anticipate the
answer. Anyone aware that he was housed at the inn was hardly likely to
approach him via the window, and besides, his room was on the third
floor.

“Hurry up and open the window, please!” someone hissed. A
woman’s voice, he thought, oddly accented, clipped and precise. His heart
began to thump. Was it possible…?

He rose cautiously and padded across to the shutters, which, in
shielding the unknown, had taken on a sinister aspect. He considered his
traveling bag and the remnants of the ruined sword lying near it. Was
this some sort of trap? Was he to be murdered quietly, to prevent a
public spectacle? Perhaps his death would be made to look like a robbery,
the King would offer his condolences, and he would be remembered as the
dragonslaying hero who nearly managed to marry a princess, a hero for the
common folk without the pesky complication of sullying the royal bloodline.

“Would you
open the window
?” the voice came again, more
urgently. The speaker sounded exasperated. “I can not maintain my
grip here forever, you know. Do you want me to fall?”

Simon’s body seemed to move of its own accord as he threw the
shutters wide. He knew who he hoped to see, and he was not
disappointed. Tiera’s foreign handmaiden, Niu, was clinging to the
windowsill. Her fingers were white with the effort, her athletic legs
braced against the side of the moonlit building. She wasn’t smiling.

Incredulous, Simon took her arm and helped her inside. She
accepted the help but shook his hand away irritably the moment her feet touched
the floor. She was wrapped in a dark traveling cape, and a hefty leather
bag was slung over one slim shoulder. Hands on hips, she studied Simon
with a none-too-friendly expression.

“Close those,” she told him, jerking a thumb toward the shutters,
and he moved numbly to comply as she flung her bag upon the bed and unlatched
it.

“What,” Simon managed breathlessly, “Are you doing here?”

“Well,” Niu said, pretending to consider, “I might this moment be
performing my final duties for the night and retiring to my chambers, but
someone
disrupted my life by suggesting that I marry him in place of the princess.”

“I’m sorry. But why are you
here
?” Simon couldn’t keep
a note of hope from his voice.

Niu pulled a face. “Since my head is now on the chopping
block, I thought maybe, just maybe, the man who got me into this situation - a
Dragonslayer by all accounts – might feel obliged to help me out of it.”

“They’re going to kill you?” Simon’s voice was hushed. “I’m
sorry… I wasn’t thinking clearly…”

“Yes, that is obvious.”

“I don’t know what came over me.” Simon couldn’t look at her
directly. “I thought you put a spell on me.”

Niu blinked incredulously. “How old
are
you?”
She’d retrieved a second dark cloak from her bag, along with a mat of hair
which might have been a wig… or some crawling monstrosity from the Dead Lagoon.

“Sorry,” Simon mumbled again.

“The princess is livid. You have offended her deeply.
She had me dragged off to my chamber and put under guard. I would already
be dead if the King was not concerned that killing me would offend the emperor
of Jynn. There was thankfully some debate as to whether I was a gift or
on loan.” She tossed the cloak and wig across the Simon. The tangle
of hair, it turned out, was a false beard; it had seen better days.
Perhaps it had smelled better then, too. “I am to be whipped
tomorrow, fifty lashes. Afterward I may still be executed depending on
the Princess’ whims. Only I do not plan to be there.” Standing, she
placed her hands on her hips and stared challengingly across at him. “You
are going to help me out of the city and away.”

“I…” Simon cast a glance at the window. “I can’t do what you
did, I can’t scale the building.”

“What do you think the disguise is for?”

“If the guards catch me…”

“If they catch you, if will make no difference to your fate.
You have offended the princess. She has already made plans to have you
eliminated. It will happen in the night. Tonight, most likely.”

Simon nodded soberly. “I knew she would.”

“Then you are a fool, bruising her ego in front of the court.
And for dragging me into it.” Niu slung her bag over her shoulder. “Let’s
go.”

“Where?”

“You know this country. I do not. You will lead the
way.”

“I’m surprised you trust an idiot like me to help you,” Simon said
bitterly, hooking the beard into place. He couldn’t imagine it looked
convincing, but without the presence of a mirror in the room there as little he
could do to correct it, and he was damned if he was going to ask for Niu’s
help.

Thankfully, the handmaiden took initiative. Her sigh deeply
condescending, she stepped up and adjusted the beard. Simon held his
breath; she was unnervingly close to him, her fingers dancing across his face
as she straightened and tidied the disguise. He hadn’t felt so
disoriented since… well, since their first meeting… but prior to that, he’d
never felt such a confusion of feelings. Attempting to make eye-contact
proved impossible, as she was entirely focused on the task at hand, but at
least he could admire her.

“You’re beautiful,” he told her stupidly before his brain could
catch up with his mouth.

Niu’s brow furrowed. “And you are deeply foolish. That
should do, if you do not attract attention to yourself. Walk with
confidence. I will walk at your side, but a little behind. It would
not do for the guards to see my face or hear my voice. I do not blend
with your people. If words are exchanged, it must be you who speaks.”

“The innkeeper will know we’re not one of his guests.”

“The innkeeper has retired for the night. Some woman is
entertaining him. He will not disturb us.”

Simon nodded. “Alright,” he managed, “But I don’t know my way
around Vingate. We’ll have to be careful.”

“Careful is better than dead,” Niu said. “Which is what we
will be if we stay. Lead on, Dragonslayer.”

Simon flinched at the term; the involuntary reaction did not go
unnoticed by Niu. Her lips quirked again, as they had while she’d studied
him back at the palace. Was it a smile or a sneer that she repressed?

“You really are… what do they say here?... a
piece of work
,”
she said. “Come on. Hurry.”

“I
am
a Dragonslayer,” Simon mumbled defensively, in response
to her attitude rather than her words.

“Of course you are. Concentrate on our escape.”

It was important to Simon that she didn’t think him a fraud.
“I can show you my sword.”

Niu burst out laughing, but hushed herself quickly. “Many men
have offered the same. Follow me. Look confident or we are lost.”

Uncertain as to how he’d incurred her mirth, Simon followed her out
of the room, his own traveling bag slung over one shoulder.

“Make no attempt to be silent,” Niu said, closing the door behind
him. “Or we will look suspicious. Lead the way.”

Nodding, Simon thudded downstairs, fighting the urge to tug at his
false beard, which stank and scratched his skin with rough bristles. He
would have to ask Niu where she’d found it and
… oh. I get it. My
sword
. Simon felt his face color. Lately, his feet seemed to
spend more time in his mouth than on the floor.

The common room was largely empty. One old soak snored near
the guttered hearth, his feet resting in the ashes. Two lamps burned low,
thankfully casting insufficient light to expose Simon’s disguise. He
could hear the muffled voices of the King’s guardsmen just beyond the oaken
door which opened onto the street.

A light from the kitchens showed that someone on staff was still up
and about, but no one presented themselves as Simon and Niu crossed the exit.
Simon was very grateful for this fact, as he wasn’t entirely sure he could act
out any kind of intricate deception from behind the ridiculous beard.
Still, he attempted to exude confidence for the sake of appearances, hoping
that Niu might come to see him as the dragonslayer he pretended to be.

As he reached for the handle, he paused. His hand remained
frozen in midair long enough for Niu to nudge him with her elbow. The
adrenaline which had kept him careening from one crisis to the next was all but
spent. Dragons, powerful kings, arrogant princesses, murder plots… it was
all becoming too much for him. Had he not wanted to impress the beautiful
easterner, he might have fled back up to his rooms. As it was, he took a
deep, steadying breath and pushed out into the night.

The two guards who flanked the doorway were not the King’s
elite. With a start, Simon recognized them as Brannock and Rowland.
Apparently Simon wasn’t considered worthy of the continuing attention of the
best trained men in the city. Simon was simultaneously grateful and
worried; both of these soldiers knew his face.

Miraculously, neither man spared him more than a glance. Brannock
was leaning against the ivy-smothered wall of the inn, a cigar in one hand, the
other swishing irritably at a persistent horsefly. Rowland was camped out
beside a crate, playing solitaire. His sheathed sword was propped up on a
barrel nearby. Simon imagined these men coming to wonder, in later years
when they were stationed in some hamlet of less than a hundred people, why they
never seemed to rise through the ranks of their profession.

Emboldened by his success, Simon waved at Rowland as he passed.

“’Evening, guardsman,” he said in a croaky voice, and was about to
comment on the weather when an exasperated exhalation from Niu caused him to
swallow his words. He could almost hear her eyes rolling.

“On your way, citizen,” Rowland responded, with all the curt
pomposity as he could muster.

Simon nodded and hurried off. Niu said nothing to him, even
when they were safely out of sight of the guards, but her silence spoke
volumes. She was wondering what sort of halfwit she’d thrown in her lot
with. Cheeks burning, Simon decided he deserved the silent
judgement. Attracting attention to that ludicrous beard could have been
disastrous.

Vingate seemed to have completely emptied out; for blocks on end
Simon saw no one in the streets, neither beggar nor thief nor guardsman.
The city was dark, but not country-dark. Torches guttered at each
intersection; blazing lamps striped the streets from behind shutters. A
single block of buildings was larger than the hamlet Simon had grown up
in. Even the most nondescript dwellings rose to three or four stories in
height, which would have been unthinkable in Brand where even the headman’s
cottage rose no higher than a single story. Street after street, one home
resembled the next, some in better or worse repair, but all of them, to Simon’s
eyes, depressingly unwelcoming.

“Everything is locked and gated,” he observed as they wound through
the streets in the direction of the lake. “Even some of the windows are
barred.”