The Mad God's Muse (The Eye of the Lion Saga Book 2) (17 page)

“Idiot!”

Ahmed shrugged. He had accepted
the fact that he was dealing with a primitive, superstitious people.
Sandilianus was still learning that. “Bendaro, if what you say
is true, then why would Eleran go willingly?”

Bendaro’s head jerked up
and he stared at Ahmed with wide eyes. “He is a demon like
you! Why would he fear your land?”

Eleran chuckled. “If I
was a demon, I’d set you on fire or something. You deserve way
more than a simple beating for stealing my stuff.”

Bendaro shot him a look of pure
poison, then turned back to Ahmed. “If you was
really
a
man, and not a demon, you'd have mercy! My people
believe
it's true, even if it ain't. Don't you think we knew the risks?”

Ahmed slammed a fist against
the desk. “And what of those you sent there yourself, dog?”
he shouted. “Did you fear for them as well? What right have
you to speak to me of mercy when you have none?”

Bendaro sat straight up in his
seat, shaken and pale. “You know about that, huh?” he
asked in a quavering voice.

“Answer the question!”

Bendaro sighed and nodded. “At
first, it was only prisoners, bad men. But then the captain got
greedy.” He began to shake as he spoke, pleading with his eyes
for understanding. “What could we do? The captain was crazy!
He even hired on a demon man to spy on us! If we didn't do like he
said, he'd send us to the demons, too!”

Sandilianus rolled his eyes at
the tale. “And where is this captain, hmm?”

“Fled! Over the side when
you came.”

Ahmed considered the man’s
tale a moment. It could be true. Perhaps they were not evil men.
Just very, very stupid. He turned to Eleran. “What say you? Is
this true?”

Bendaro shook his head in
resignation. “If it's his to say, we're doomed. Either he is a
demon and he'll screw us for fun, or he's a man and he'll screw us
for revenge.”

Eleran kicked at the back of
Bendaro’s chair in protest. “I may be a lot of things,
but I’m no liar. Well, not unless it saves my skin, anyway.”
He turned to Ahmed. “That’s pretty much how it was. The
captain told them all that demon shit, threatened them with it
pretty regular. All except the part about
me
being a demon.” He scowled at Bendaro again. “That, they
came up with all on their own.”

Ahmed leaned back in his chair
and looked down his nose at Bendaro. “Then you should be
grateful to me for freeing you from a villain, should you not?”

Bendaro stared at the floor
again, his face growing red. “If you ain't a demon, I reckon
we should.”

“Then let us work
together! When our mission is done here, we will want to go home.
You can sail this vessel without us. You will take us home, and then
the ship will be
yours
. We could even pay you wages once we
arrive. It is a simple bargain. Surely it is less wicked than the
one you struck with your captain!”
They are not the real
villains.

Bendaro shook his head slowly
and spoke in a tired, resigned voice. “Even if I believe you,
then men won't never buy it. They're
afraid
.”

Ahmed nodded gravely, saying
nothing. He had expected such. Ilaweh was answering.
I am
listening. Show me the way.

Eleran cleared his throat.
“Actually, I might have an idea.”

Ahmed raised an eyebrow.
“Well?”

Eleran looked around nervously.
“We could find crew in Nihlos. They sell prisoners all the
time there. They would be rowdy, probably, but you guys look like
you’re on top of that sort of thing. They wouldn’t be a
bunch of superstitious fools.”

And there it is. Ilaweh
shows the way.

Sandilianus scowled at this
notion. “Did you not just tell us you would be killed on sight
in Nihlos? So will we. Who will buy these prisoners?”

Eleran took a deep breath.
“They'd have to recognize me for that to matter. I could grow
a good beard, maybe color my hair. We could do it. But we’d
need money.”

Ahmed chuckled sadly and ran a
hand over his head in frustration.
“And
we have none.”

Eleran raised an eyebrow.
“Wrong. We have gold. Lots of it.”

Ahmed’s eyed Eleran
warily, not wanting to get his hopes up. “So you say? And
where is this gold?”

Eleran pointed to the deck
beneath Ahmed’s chair. “Under those boards, in a safe.
I’ve seen it. I even tried to get it once or twice, but I
never could open the box.”

Ahmed leapt to his feet and
hurled the chair aside. He stamped a foot against the boards, and
they did indeed ring hollow beneath. “Show me.”

The Nihlosian walked over to
Ahmed and took a knee. He rapped his knuckles against the wood,
searching. “It’s been a while. Wait…here!”
He pulled at a knot in one of the planks. A small trap door,
cunningly designed from whole planks so as to be invisible from
above, swung back to reveal the safe Eleran had told them about.

Ahmed examined the box and
hauled at it experimentally. It wouldn’t budge. “Let’s
get it on deck and get a better look.”

Sandilianus stepped over and
grabbed hold of the safe, and Eleran did likewise. With a great
heave, the three men managed to lift it on to the deck, then sat
down on the floor against the bulkhead, panting.

Ahmed spoke first. “It
must weigh a ton. How much gold is in there?”

Eleran shrugged. “Uh,
lots? I couldn’t exactly measure it. I wasn’t even
supposed to know it was there.”

“How do we open it?”

“If I knew that, it
wouldn’t be here.”

Sandilianus chuckled at this.
“Aye, true.”

Ahmed studied the safe,
fiddling with several dials and latches, but he could make no sense
of it. “Useless. So we are back where we started.”

Bendaro cleared his throat. The
three had nearly forgotten him in the excitement. “I got a
deal for you.”

Ahmed glared at him, annoyed.
“If your deal doesn’t include how to get into this safe,
you’re going to get a second beating this morning!”

Bendaro nodded. “It does.
I seen him do it lots of times. I was just too scared to take
advantage of it.”

“And what is it you want
in return?”

“We head back right now,
as soon as you open the safe. You can hire men with the gold, and we
can all go home.”

Ahmed considered a moment
before answering. “
If
there is gold. Because if there is none, we cannot hire anyone.”

Bendaro nodded again. “Here's
what you do.”

Ahmed followed his
instructions, twisting dials, flipping switches, and finally,
turning a large bolt. A low, audible click filled the small cabin,
and the safe door opened to a collective gasp.

Ahmed blinked in shock, and
finally managed to stammer, “Ilaweh is great!”

The safe was filled to
overflowing with gold coins. Sandilianus snatched one up to bite it
and verify the metal, but paused with it halfway to his face.
“Ahmed, this is a sword!”

Ahmed saw that it was indeed a
coin from his own land, and rifled through the others. Mixed in the
safe were Gruppenwald crowns, Laurean shields, Xanthian swords, and
a number of vaguely round lumps of gold scarcely worthy of the name
‘coin’.

Eleran reached into the pile
and held up a coin Ahmed did not recognize. “Nihlosian, too.
The captain was a busy man.”

Ahmed grinned at him. “Aye.
Is it enough for a crew?”

Eleran boggled. “Are you
joking? It’s enough for a hundred!” He looked back at
the heap of gold. “Maybe there’s jewels, too!”

Bendaro called out, “So
now we can go home, yes?”

Sandilianus looked at Bendaro
as if the man were mad. “Do you not see we have found a great
treasure here? You might have a share of it, and a ship if you were
not a superstitious fool.”

Bendaro shook his head. “No.
No more work with demons, whatever the pay.”

Sandilianus stared aghast at
him for a moment, then turned back to Ahmed. “Shall we head
back, then?”

Ahmed tore his attention from
the box of gold with some difficulty, but there was business to
attend. “I am a man of my word,” he told Bendaro. “I
will take your people home, but we must acquire our new crew first.
Fair enough?”

Bendaro spat in his palm and
extended his hand to Ahmed. Ahmed took it and shook, sealing the
deal. For the first time since Ahmed had known him, the man smiled,
showing bloody teeth surrounded by swollen lips. “What
course?”

Observing Eleran’s
handiwork, Ahmed thought again that the Nihlosian was a fine
fistsman, perhaps a match for most of his own men. “Do you
know Nihlos?”

Bendaro's face grew sour at the
mention of the name. “A dangerous place, but they have few
ships. We can get close.”

“Then turn us around. And
do not think to play games with me, or our bargain will be broken.”

With a grimace of pain, Bendaro
rose and left the cabin. Ahmed heard him shouting orders to the
crew. The commands he gave were meaningless to Ahmed, but the result
followed quickly: the ship began to turn about.

Ahmed felt a rightness in it,
that he was at long last going where he was meant to be.
Nihlos, to find the sorcerers, just as Yazid planned.
Beyond
that, he still knew little, but he was on his way. After so much
uncertainty and strife, that was enough. Surely when the time came,
if the sorcerers had no knowledge to add, Ilaweh would guide him as
he had done today.

Ahmed turned to the other two,
who were still rifling through the gold coins in shock. “Are
not ships supposed to have a name?” he asked Sandilianus.

“Aye,” said the
soldier. “I do not know this one’s, but we have every
right to rename her. We have captured her well and true.”

Eleran grinned at Ahmed. “How
about ‘Lady Luck’?”

Ahmed shook his head, the smile
on his own face wistful and full of humility. “No, my friend.
Our ship will be named ‘Ilaweh’s Will’.”

Sandilianus grunted his
appreciation of the name. “So you think you know the path now,
eh? What is it?”

Ahmed shrugged and offered a
mischievous grin.
I have waited long for this moment.
“I cannot say. But I will tell you why.”

Sandilianus's
expression was both sour and amused. “Damned prelates, always
with their mysteries and riddles. Don't want to look a fool when it
turns out wrong, eh?”

Ahmed grew somber at this. “It
what I am planning goes badly, I doubt I will be in a position to
feel much shame.”
I have no idea how to fight a sorcerer,
should it come to that. They would likely make short work of me.

He
would just have to hope their their god or gods were as interested
in saving the world as his own.

Waking came as something of a
shock to Caelwen, chiefly in that he had not expected to do so. He
found himself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, lying in an
unfamiliar bed, his head spinning with confusion and dislocation.
Why is everything white? Where am I?

Memory
rushed back as he came fully awake. The encounter with Davron had
not gone as well as he had hoped.
Of course, it seems to
have ended better than I imagined. Assuming I'm not actually dead.

He was quickly disabused of
that notion as he turned his head slowly to see the stern face of
his father, blurry but clear enough to recognize. Polus sat in a
large chair next to the bed, reading a book, and had yet to notice
Caelwen's awakening.

“This is hardly the
afterlife I had expected,” Caelwen rasped through dry lips.

Polus looked up quickly and
rose, his face brightening, his lips not quite forming a genuine
smile.
It's a birth defect, or nerve damage, I swear. His mouth
has been frozen like that as long as I've known him.
Polus's
eyes told the truth, though. Caelwen knew him well enough to
understand his father was practically dancing a jig.

Polus laid a hand on Caelwen's
shoulder and gripped it hard enough to hurt. “It's good to see
you again. You had me worried for a bit, there.” Then, before
Caelwen could even respond, Polus stepped back to make room for
someone else.

Caelwen was fairly certain his
shock was almost literally written on his face as Kariana leaned
over him, her waif-like face broadening in a grin. Her violet eyes
peered down at him from behind her black tresses, twinkling with
mischief.
It must be mischief. It certainly wouldn't be tears for
me.
“It's good to
have you back, Captain,” she said.

Caelwen smiled weakly back at
her. “Not rid of me yet, Empress.”

Kariana giggled at this. “I
thought maybe you had this in mind as your escape from me!”
She swiped at what, for all the world, appeared to be actual
tears
in her eyes
. “But your position is still secure. It
seemed prudent to make sure I actually needed a new bodyguard before
conducting interviews.” She looked at Polus and said, “I'll
leave you two to catch up.”

When the door had closed behind
her, Polus stepped forward and extended a hand to Caelwen. Caelwen
took it and grasped it as firmly as he could, but he felt very woozy
still. “How long?”

Polus reached for a decanter of
water and poured a glass full. “Just the night.” He
handed the glass to his son, careful to make certain Caelwen had a
firm grasp before releasing it. “I hear you died well. Not
many men get the chance to know how they will fall. Davron gave you
quite a gift.”

Caelwen drained the entire
glass, then set it on a small table beside the bed. “You've
seen him since?”

“Aye. He sent you back
slumped over your horse, accompanied by a few of his men, but I had
to go to him to get the story. He's dug in and not coming out
without a fight.”

“I'm surprised to be
alive. I thought certain he meant to kill me.”

Polus waved a hand, dismissing
the thought as foolish. “He dotes on you like you were his
own. If you didn't have my chin, I'd wonder about him and your
mother.” Polus shook his head and almost smiled. “I've
never heard him speak so well of anyone as he did you.”

Caelwen laughed out loud at
this. “You should have heard what he said about me last night.
He was more than a little upset.”

“Well, then, he shouldn't
have taught you to be insufferable. It serves him right.”

They both laughed at this, but
Caelwen's humor was brief as he remembered other details. “What
of Rithard?”

Polus's expression grew grim,
his semi-humor gone as well. “Unknown. Davron won't speak of
it. Personally, I suspect he's dead.”

Caelwen nearly shouted his
dismay. “How can you not know? Davron should be arrested for
this!”

“Mind your tone. I am
still your father, even if it was Davron who most recently whipped
you for insolence.” His mouth was stern, but his eyes still
said otherwise. “Whose army do you propose I use to dig him
out, if it came to that? Shall we ask him to lend us his men?”

Caelwen snickered despite
himself and the seriousness of the situation. “It's unseemly
to do nothing.”

“And it would be stupid
to go off half cocked. Even if we could take him, we'd lose so many
men that we couldn't keep order. Davron has all the cards, and more
to the point, I'm not even convinced he is in the wrong.”

Caelwen sighed and lay his head
back on his pillow. He noticed the pain for the first time. His head
and jaw throbbed with his pulse, though not as badly as he might
have expected.
Ah, they've drugged me, of course. That's why I'm
woozy.
He wondered idly who was
even running the place, with Aiul gone berserk and Rithard dead or
captured.
“You suspect he's murdered Rithard, and you
know for a fact he has kidnapped him. How is that 'not in the
wrong'?”

Polus chuckled at this. “Here
you lie bruised and battered, and you still don't understand what I
have tried to teach you your whole life. The law is what men of
might and will say, nothing more. Davron has the might and the will.
Unless the Meites choose to involve themselves, this is his hand to
play.”

“And the Meites? What say
they?”

Polus was silent for a moment
before answering. “There have been...other developments that
have distracted them.”

Prandil watched as Maranath
sighed and pushed back from the examining table, shaking his head in
disgust.
He's tired. We're all tired.
Whatever dark power had
driven the creature that lay before him, it was departed, and the
thing was merely a corpse again, albeit a very well ventilated one.
What hadn't been exposed to the air by sword had been finished by
scalpel, but they were none the wiser for having done so.
I would
have expected to learn a bit more from opening the thing up and
having a look.

“I've no damned idea
what I am doing here,” Maranath said quietly.

Prandil stabbed his scalpel
into the corpse's face and left it there like a planted flag. “
None
of us expected this. I am uncertain how to proceed.”

Ariano, too, heaved a sigh and
shook her head in defeat. “Cautiously.”

Maranath looked at both of
them, his expression grave like the rest. “Indeed. Of all the
mistakes we could make, underestimating him is the easiest to
avoid.”

“We have
no
information,” Prandil groused. “We can't even begin to
predict what he can throw at us.
That juggernaut that tore
through here was no man.”

“No,” Ariano
agreed. “That was the Dead God himself. I sensed his passing,
even in my sleep.”

“Perhaps he would be like
the Fallen?” Prandil mused.

Maranath scratched at his chin,
considering a moment.“I've never heard of the Fallen raising
undead. They were first and foremost warriors. They had minor
sorcery at best compared to a Meite. Amrath doesn’t even
mention specifics.”

“He mentions brave
soldiers fleeing in fear of them!”

Maranath waved a hand in
dismissal of the notion. “That hardly means they were using
sorcery. They were fearsome warriors. Wouldn’t you flee from
someone who was going to chop off your head with a great hunk of
steel?”

Prandil hunched his shoulders
and leaned in toward the old sorcerer. “I have read it many
times, and I remember being told about it by my father before then.
Amrath said the Fallen wore cloaks of fear.”

“He said they were
‘cloaked in fear’,” Maranath nearly shouted. “It’s
metaphor, you ass!”

Prandil gaped at him a moment.
No one is this ignorant. It must be senility.
“Mei, it
says no such thing!” he shouted. “It says ‘cloaks
of fear’, and Amrath meant it literally! I can show you the
passage right now!” He began casting about the room for a copy
of the Book.

Ariano groaned in frustration
and waved her hands between the two. “This is no time for
trivia! We know
enough
!”
She glared at the two of them briefly, then intoned, “This is
the prophesy of Elgar: one thousand years do the gods grant for the
Sleeper to dream.”

Prandil nodded, taking up the
verse. “One hundred decades does the Eye of the Lion lie
sundered.”

“Ten centuries does
Torium rot and fester.” Maranath said, joining in. In unison,
they spoke the rest from memory, “Then will the Sleeper awake,
the Eye be made whole, and the chancre of Torium burst to spill its
corruption upon the world. The scion of Elgar will rise from the
blood of Tasinal, the Eye about his neck, in the City of Nothing,
and the world shall become as ash. So says the Destroyer.”

“We were such arrogant
fools,” Prandil said softly. “Kariana was never the
scion. She was the catalyst.”

Ariano jabbed a bony finger at
him. “
You
were wrong.”
She shot Maranath a withering look as well. “The both of you.
I've told you since the day he led that raid on her, it was
Aiul
.”

“
So
you did,” Maranath conceded. “I suppose I didn't really
want to believe it, so I chose not to.” He shook his head and
cast his gaze to the ground. “How can you even
think
of this?” he whispered. “The boy – ”

“
Don't!”
Ariano's voice exploded in the
small room like a bomb, complete with a shockwave. Trays full of
surgical tools upended, sending scalpels flying like spears. Glass
jars full of water, alcohol, and other, less identifiable liquids
burst under the assault, scattering their contents about the room.

Prandil
staggered backward from the impact, barely reacting in time to dodge
the scalpels. A jar that might have been a potent acid burst right
next to him. He caught a whiff of the acrid scent only briefly, as
it quickly began to eat at his cloak before he could decide the
vessel had held merely water.
Not soon enough to save the
cloak, though. She's a menace!

Maranath
was unmoved, of course.
He's a pillar of stone
.
He was watching Ariano in silence, his face torn between anger and
misery, his beard twitching. A scalpel, its blade bent in two from
the impact against his forehead, clattered noisily to the floor.

Ariano,
chest heaving, returned his stare, her blazing eyes literally
glowing a soft red, as if backlit. “Don't you dare speak as if
I don't appreciate the gravity of the decision, Maranath. Don't you
dare!
” Her eyes
cycled through the spectrum as she spoke, her voice more controlled,
but in multiple, harmonic tones. Colored lights with no apparent
source danced on the walls in rhythm with her words. When she was
done speaking, she began to hum, or perhaps growl in the back of her
throat, and the lights followed suit.

This is explosive!
Prandil addressed them softly, wary of making himself a target.
“Stop it. Remember what we're here for.”

“She
intends to kill Aiul, you imbecile!” Maranath growled, his
gaze still locked with Ariano's.

“I
am not quite the dolt you imagine,” Prandil retorted in an
acid tone, his caution evaporating in a flash of annoyance. “I
worked that out on my own. “ He raised his hands in a
placatory gesture, struggling to regain his calm. “The problem
I have right now is whether or not she intends to kill the both of
us as well.”

Maranath
grunted at this. “Good question.” He nodded toward
Ariano. “Do you?”

“It
is my decision to make!” she sang. “Not yours!”

“
Then
make it when you
must
!
Don't make it
now
,
when there might be another way!”

Ariano
continued growling for a moment. The room seemed to hum and vibrate
as she considered, the lights growing more chaotic. Then, all at
once, everything faded. Ariano herself seemed to shrink a bit, like
a deflating balloon. “Fine,” she answered, her voice now
sullen and tired. “But when that time comes, you will accept
the decision I make. Are we clear?”

“Agreed,”
Maranath said. “The question is, where do we go from here?”

“We
have nothing to go on,” Prandil noted.

“We
might,” Ariano said. “There are a number of Elgar cults
on Prima. I try to keep track of them, but they are unstable by
nature. I know of one nearby.”

Prandil
waved a hand in dismissal. “What will those fools know? I
doubt Elgar consults with them on his plans.”

“Perhaps
more than you might imagine,” Maranath said. “If we're
looking at the fulfillment of a prophesy, he'll likely want
minions.”

Prandil
raised an eyebrow at this. “I suppose that's true.”

Ariano's
wrinkled faced tightened with a cruel smile. “If they know
anything, we'll pry it from them.”

Alone in her quarters, Kariana
sat on her bed, brooding. She had sent for the Meites as soon as she
had heard the news from her guards. One of their own had been turned
into a mindless zombie, and had come after them. What she had turned
over to Maranath was a fairly poor specimen, but at least she would
not be blamed for hiding anything from them.

They had asked for privacy, and
she had given it to them, in the form of a small examining room
where she often received her own medical treatments. She had waited
long hours before finally concluding that she would only get answers
by demanding them. She hadn't meant to eavesdrop. Not that she was
above such a thing, it was just that she'd had no chance. They had
been screaming at each other loud enough that she might as well have
been in the same room.