The Korellian Odyssey: Requiem Page 3

  Nothing moved for several minutes. Then the captain, who had been observing the scene from an upper balcony encircling the courtyard, began to clap in half-mocking, half-appreciative applause. "You have done well. For no man before you has survived single combat with Thoren. You see, Thoren was the greatest warrior of the Valyrean Realm and rode to victory during the greatest battles of the Duluvial Wars. But now he is the mad and broken wretch you see before you. His son rode into exile and died upon the plain before Mount Sorad, the home of the Prioria, keepers of the prison chambers of Mortun, where the many slave necromeans were made to bring death to prisoners piece by piece and part by part. With his son's death, a witless wandering found Thoren and he was lost for a season. He was found starved and lost near the Soraddan plain and brought back to Westoreth as the being you see now. Since the days of his wanderings, tidings of his son have been ever lost."

  Guards entered the courtyard and led Thoren one way and Korel the other. As they separated, Korel looked back and saw Thoren staring at him. The two shared a look of understanding that only comes to those who have faced one another in mortal combat. And then Thoren was gone.

  A Quenivorian sorceress stood behind the captain within the shadows of a recessed doorway of the courtyard balcony. "He has part of the gift. Thoren reached into his mind and they touched. Rudimentary, but the boy may already have the skill of the second precepture. Have him brought before me."

  Korel suddenly found himself standing before the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was perfect in form, with sharp eyes that seemed to look through him. She wore a short, dark formfitting silk shirt with a small golden breastplate over it and a short dark skirt of the same silk material. Over all she wore a dark cape of lightweight material and a white gold necklace and bracelet marking her Quenivorian. Korel knew the Quenivorian were trusted servants to many kings and held great power and skills few others possessed. Quenivoria had arcane knowledge and arcane motives as well.

  "You are a strange prisoner," said the sorceress. "Not yet a man, but certainly no boy." She studied him intently. "Do you know why the warrior Thoren was never beaten in battle? His mother was Quenivorian. He was a warrior of unequaled fighting skills, very true. But beyond this, he had the gift to bend the minds of others to his own. He did this without physical coercion, but with the gift. No one has ever survived battle with him until you." She took a step closer. "His is the gift of the second level of precepture, and seldom has any gift of the Quenivorian come to a male. Yet here you stand with the gift inside you." She began to walk around him slowly in an appraising fashion, as though she were buying a horse.

  "The precepture contains twelve trials of the gift, and it is the life and devotion of each Quenivorian sorceress to walk the path of the precepture, passing as many trials as she is able. The trials are ancient and are contained within the relics of the council, each relic administering trial, wisdom, power, and the right to seek the trial of the following relic. Many years are spent seeking the knowledge and wisdom necessary to challenge a relic, and most are never challenged. Even those who are worthy often find their challenges broken by the relics. There is no living Quenivorian who has attained greater than the seventh relic, and the greatest in our known history only gained the ninth. A sorceress must gain the precepture step by step, but the gift is rare and unpredictable in men. You exhibit the power of will contained within the second relic, yet you have never endured the trial of the first. By law, any male with the gift must receive trial by relic or be put to death. Thoren is the only man living to have passed a trial by relic. All others have died or been executed."

  "The relics were formed many ages ago by the wisdom and power of the ancients, and some have said that Veritu, the immortal priestess of intelligence, dwelt for a time among the Quenivoria, overseeing their forging. They are ancient and unpredictable, with the fate of those who challenge them unique to each challenger."

  The sorceress then led him to an inner chamber, and there upon a small marble pillar sat a clear blue sphere of glass. "We are fortunate to have obtained this, a priceless original. . . the second relic," she said. Then, with a dramatic flourish of her hand, the sorceress commanded, "Look upon it and live."

  Knowing he had little choice, Korel looked. As he gazed upon the sphere, blue swirls appeared within it, slowly drawing him into a strange vision. He was a soldier in an invading army, running across an open plain toward the city of Westoreth, the capital of the realm Westoreth. His uniform was Argothan, with blue and white colors upon the gauntlets and breastplate. Argothans and Westorians had been feuding for centuries, but an uneasy truce had been in placefor nearly seventy years. What was he doing in Argothan battle armor and attacking his homeland?

  He attempted to slow his pace, but his body would not respond. On he came as part of an enemy vanguard that could not be stopped. Westoreth was calm, completely unaware of the slaughter that swept over its borders. Soldiers on either side entered the first unsuspecting homes as the army reached the city. But Korel continued to run until he reached a house that had been familiar since his earliest youth . . . his very own. He entered the house with his sword drawn and began slaying his family. He shrieked within himself, screaming with all his will to stop the soldier inside whose body and mind he was trapped. Focusing all his mental energy, he seemed to be able to direct his sword thrusts a little to one side or the other or cause a slight pause during a downstroke, but the resulting carnage was little changed. The family had been slain at unawares in the earliest dawn, and despite his father and brothers' excellent fighting skills they were taken first, barely arising from their beds as they and their sword talents slumbered. The others then fell in quick succession.

  Korel was powerless to stop it. He tried over and over again to wrench the will of the soldier, bend it to his own, but was unable to do so. His mind exploded with despair and grief. He had never known pain this exquisite, never knew such pain was even possible. Just as his mind began to clear a little, he found himself running across an open plain as part of an invading army toward the city of Westoreth . . . the attack was starting anew.

  Countless times he saw his family die, and countless times grief washed over him with a repetitive newness. But as Korel relived the horror over and over, he noticed that the soldier ran with his sword in the right hand but was without a shield in his left. The soldier's concentration remained focused upon the run across the broad plain and his lethal sword arm. With a little experimentation Korel found he could move the soldier's left hand with relative ease, the soldier's mind staying focused upon the city ahead. Summoning all his determination, Korel bent his will toward the left hand. In a flash of motion, the left hand took up the dagger at the soldier's hip and plunged the blade into the right upper chest. The soldier crumpled to the ground. As the collapsed lung filled the chest with air and blood, tension grew within the cavity until respirations and blood flow ceased, leaving a motionless body lying prostrate upon the cool grass of the plain.

  Korel stood before the blue sphere, a cold sweat streaming from his now pale, clay features. How long had he lived within that sphere acting out the endless cycle of horror. A day? A month? Years? Yet all remained as it was, and he realized that only the breadth of a few moments had passed.

  "Congratulations. You have survived the second ritual. You are one of few with the gift to understand that will is much more than the concentration upon the obvious." The sorceress walked a slow circuit around the room as though pondering, eventually stopping before him.

  "My name is Syrilla, the high advisor to the king and she who is greatest of the Quenivorian in the gift of the second ritual, the gift of the will. I may have some use for you within the king's court. Perhaps your prison sentence has just been commuted."

  * * *

  Korel drifted back to himself as he crouched behind the rock, bow at the ready, waiting for the follower to appear. A dark figure slowly limped to the edge of the clearing, obscured by the shadows a
nd shifting light thrown by the dancing fire. The figure paused as though searching the clearing, sensing a wrongness in the brightness of the fire as it illuminated the deserted space. It then continued limping forward, now without hesitation, directly toward the brilliance of the open flames. As the shadows drew back from around its features, the follower became clear by firelight. The face was entirely decayed, with small pieces of flesh still clinging to its zygomatic bones, its gray face and stark neck musculature completely exposed, all permeated by the reek of an expelled breath that carried the aroma of dead stomach, bowel, and generalized decay. Exposed bone could be seen within the arms and legs with portions of muscle still clinging to the underlying connective tissue. Internal organs hung within a porous ribcage obscured only slightly by a tattered patchwork of skin tissue covering, the outermost layers of which were scarred by gaping tears, the underlying gut clearly visible through missing portions of the abdominal wall. Its eyes were missing, and in their place was a swirling current of red-hot electricity that filled the orbital depths with an insane intensity of purpose.

  Its electric sockets looked to Korel's hiding place as a crooked, evil grin crept over the follower's decaying face. Suddenly all became still; the breeze ceased its caress, the shadows no longer danced, and the tongues of the fire froze in mid air. In that instant the follower moved with a quick, slick, grace that erased the distance between them. Korel held his bow, his face looking toward the clearing in statuesque stillness. Then the wheels of existence began to grind back into motion, the fire and its shadows dancing frantically as the smells of charred wood swirled along the turbulence that now whipped through the clearing. As Korel dropped his bow to face the follower, a vague shock rippled through him as the piecemeal visage of the follower became strangely familiar, its height and build a grotesque similitude of his own. He stood staring into the electric madness that danced in the follower's sockets as a wave of revulsion burned deep within the depths of his own bowels, as though the glowing coal flared from its smoldering to melt him from within. The burning evolved to become an unreasoned spite that nearly brought him to his knees, his insides raging with turmoil.

  At the moment of this near literal meltdown, the follower lunged at Korel's throat, its cadaverous hands touching him in a caress of pure destruction. He fell back into a roll as his foot landed in the damp fetid swamp that was the other's chest, sending the follower sprawling into the scrub at the margins of the clearing. But the follower recovered instantly, moving with immortal speed, and before Korel gained his footing the other was already upon him, attacking in a wave of visceral malice. Despite being naked (except for the tattered rags that seemed to drip from him), the other somehow produced a wicked knife, ancient and rusted yet incredibly keen. He held the knife aloft with both hands, plunging it along an arc aiming for Korel's heart. Korel caught the follower's wrists in his hands and began to squeeze, a grunt escaping through his clenched teeth. The follower was incredibly strong and summoned the intensity to inch his knife tip ever closer to the thin veneer of flesh covering Korel's ribs. But now the revulsion within Korel sprang anew, a nauseous loathing that roiled up from his gut, allowing him to hold the blade in check. Bones within the follower's wrists began to grind and crack, but still the weapon pressed with a relentless insistence. As the pressure of the jagged blade seemed to lessen, the follower unexpectedly bent his wrists and brought the tip of the knife into contact with Korel's forearm, causing an eruption of white-hot pain that exploded up his arm, racing along it to connect with the fire raging in his gut. Revulsion detonated within Korel's mind as he kicked the follower in the chest, breaking four of its ribs and wrenching the knife from its grasp. Blood flowed from his wounded left forearm. He took up his bow and stood over the follower, who lay in a heap along the edge of the clearing. As he drew the arrow to his ear, intending to plant the shaft squarely in the other's skull, he noticed the follower was sobbing in dry, cracked, dusty croaks, its tone almost infantile. Its whole body heaved as ragged breaths escaped its rattling, paper-thin lungs. Korel's loathing abated as sadness for the pathetic figure rocking before him gradually replaced it. He let the tension on the bow relax.

  The other continued to sob, but more deliberately, with its body relaxing through wet heaves. Near crusting blood and mucous dripped from its index finger. Eventually, the other stopped sobbing for a moment to peer up at Korel with a sheepish, remorseful, half-cracked grin.

  Korel broke the awkward silence. "Who are you and why are you following me?"

  "I am Hurnix," the other rasped. "I follow you because I must."

  "What is the meaning of this attack?"

  "I attacked because I must."

  Korel began to feel uneasy under the vague sense of madness running through the follower's answers. "How long have you been following me?"

  "Always," Hurnix said.

  Korel's disquiet deepened as he could sense no deception in the other's words, a strange truth forming out of the ruins of what seemed verbal nonsense. The back-and-forth continued as Hurnix answered every question with similar vague and obscure meanings, his words forming a tapestry of fragmented reality touched by an earnest insanity.

  Chapter 3

  Slowly, the light of morning crept into the mountain clearing as the embers of the dying fire gave up their angry red glow for the dull gray of lifeless smoke and ash. The clearing where Korel first caught glimpse of Hurnix was quiet, a mute witness to the previous night's struggle, wholly without testimony except for a little scattered dust here or a drop of blood there.

  Korel loosened his bowstring for travel and started once again east along the faint and faded trail as it weaved its way through the tangle of trees and hillocks. Hurnix limped along behind, always just on the edge of sight, simpering and crying unintelligibly. But as the afternoon wore on, the small knife wound on Korel's forearm became a black crater that oozed a human form of crude oil as it dripped in marbled rivulets upon the ground.

  The trail lightly parted the underbrush as it moved out from under the canopy of firs and gently broke onto a high mountain meadow. Korel's arm continued to swell, blackening to the woody shine of an exquisite coffin lid. Pain shot black and hot up toward his shoulder, each step a study in liquid anguish. Midway across the meadow, he faltered as the cold heat of fever washed over him, a continuation of the burning deep within his viscera. As he sat resting, he took the boar tusks from his purse and began grinding them into a poultice. This he applied liberally to his left arm until the black became a dull gray beneath the gleaming white sheen of crushed boar tusk.

  Evening descend upon the meadow, with the stars in their brilliance sending keen opalescence down upon the meadow. Hurnix sat nearby with interchanging expressions of glee and fear playing across his decaying face as Korel faded in and out of consciousness. As his mind wandered from the meadow on the mountain to the meadows of his memory, Korel felt his past pressing closer.

  * * *

  The Quenivorian sorceress compelled Korel to reach out and touch the sphere. Gouts of pain plunged up his arm and into his mind as white stars burst upon his vision. She had summoned him to report on his dealings with Lord Targor, and now he found himself once again in the sphere room, the same room she had shown him the first day he entered the palace. Her voice was mild, almost pleasant, as she spoke to him as though speaking to a cherished stallion or bloodhound.

  "You will not defy me. Do as you are told and we can avoid these boring unpleasantries. This pains me, but it is for your own good. Now do be a good boy and take your medicine."

  Fresh waves of blinding whiteness shot through his mind.

  Three days earlier, Syrilla had sent him to execute and take possession of the lands and throne of a lesser king whose small realm bordered the south eastern edge of Westoreth. Korel had risen among the servants and had become Syrilla's favorite messenger and personal man at arms. And although he had never been given official rank or standing within the army, his authority was now sec
ond only to the captain of the guard himself. Korel's authority, however, was not accompanied by autonomy, and he did nothing nor gave any order except upon the explicit dictate of Syrilla or, on rare occasion, the king himself. He had begun to attend court at Syrilla's request but knew his role consisted of novelty and display, that he and the chained leopards that occasioned the courtyard were kin in their station and purpose. But there were lesser lords and ladies whose scorn did not wholly consume them, and one lady in particular seemed to him quite fair.

  Korel rode on horseback with a small company as he approached the hard, gray stone of Lord Targor's keep. Syrilla's orders had been specific: to behead Targor, announce the sorceress's ascension to the throne, and return to Westoreth with Targor's head on a pike—a spoil of war but also a caution to the infidel. The sorceress was at times capricious and even petulant but had never before commanded such a senseless death. Korel had never until now been charged with the execution of another, and he found himself wondering about the virtues of one so condemned.