Blood Betrayal Page 23

  Instead he looked for Cor, for the Dahken would most assuredly be with her, having stolen her away from him. But again, there was no sign, no sense of Cor’s passing anywhere in Aquis, and certainly the man hadn’t just disappeared. He felt the land for Dahken, anywhere, and he found a few. But they numbered only a few and were scattered, separated by miles, and alone all across Aquis. He found nowhere anywhere in the land where even two Dahken kept company. Surely, they were all together, and somehow, Cor had found a way to continue to hide them, more than likely in plain sight. But, Cor’El wasn’t using plain sight, and he didn’t know where to look.

  After a week, perhaps more for he wasn’t actually counting the days, the uselessness of his position became plainly obvious. He stalked the farm, looking to the horizon as he searched, looking back at the farm and looking at the crater of red mud where a great white city had once stood. The blood had slowly drained away into the Byrver or soaked into the ground. Cor’El may as well be trapped in his palace again but with none of the luxuries associated with that existence, and he knew that his food supplies grew low.

  Martherus was not far to the southwest; he could simply blow there on the prevailing winds. He could declare it the new capital of Aquis, the new seat of his power. Surely, some of the Westerners there would fight him, as they had almost certainly by now heard what he had done in seizing power, but what could they possibly do to him? He would simply do unto them as he had done in Byrverus, and he could rule from there.

  Several times, Cor’El very nearly decided to do so, but even as his resolve built, it would begin to crumble again. He would find himself in exactly the same situation that he did in Byrverus, exactly the same situation as now, and he still wouldn’t know where to look for the wayward love of his life. Also, what if it was the wrong direction? Dahk and Admiral Zheng both promised to help him find his mother, but what if in going to Martherus he separated himself from her further. It would then take that much longer to reunite with her. Intolerable.

  His food stores finally ran out, and Cor’El took to the air currents, blowing around to the nearby farmsteads or quiet hamlets. He searched the ruins and abandoned places like one of the common scavengers he occasionally came across, desperate people in desperate times willing to do desperate things for something as simple as food or water. Those that confronted him didn’t last long, obviously, and he moved from place to place, haunting the countryside like a shade only whispered about to frighten children.

  Every day he sought out his mother, sought out Cor and the Dahken, and every day he found nothing. Weeks passed, and he had neither seen nor heard of Zheng. Even Dahk refused to visit him, even when he called for it. Cor’El had almost given up hope when, as he searched Aquis yet one more time, something unexpected struck him. It was neither Thyss, nor Cor, but rather a calling from some other thing or things – a sword with one single, razor sharp edge that never dulled as it shone purple in the sunlight, a fetish dreamt up from evil incarnate with its skull head and batwings, a suit of black plate armor that had been worn in battle yet showed no signs of it. They wailed in forlorn mourning, a siren song of grief that their master had set them aside perhaps never to see battle and bloodshed again. They begged to be of use, for him to come to them so they could again feel the touch of power; they were uselessly discarded in a corner of a Loszian’s abode. Cor’El recognized the sorcerer with his deep scarlet robes of silk as he sat in the far corner of a great room working with various agents at a wooden workbench.

  He turned himself to mist and headed east towards the Spine, quite a task this time of year as the prevailing winds always blew east to west. Even still, Cor’El traveled twice as fast as a horse at a full gallop, and he could maintain his gaseous form for far longer than a horse could continue at that speed. He could manage from sunrise to sunset, well very nearly, before he had no choice but to regain his corporeal shape. He searched the ground from the skies, often looking for a village with an inn or even a single farmstead at which he would end his day’s travels. Few challenged his request for lodging, as almost no one knew who he was, and he did nothing to dispel the thought that he was nothing more than a travelling young man.

  His mother would sleep for nearly a day after so much exertion, but he did not suffer so. A great hunger, a need to consume any and all food in sight would take him, often shocking whatever benefactor or innkeeper took him in. After the gorging, Cor’El would sleep deeply until morning, not to be awakened by anything save someone actually touching him.

  He made it across Aquis and past the Spine to Menak’s abode on the tenth day after feeling the mournful songs of Cor’s artifacts. The sun shone high in the sky, as it was right at midday, and the day grew hot even this close to the mountains. Cor’El’s mist, seemingly just a wisp of white cloud, descended from the sky slowly, gracefully, but with a purpose that betrayed intelligence. Perhaps a score of Westerners, as well as some of mixed blood, had completely stopped whatever task they were about when the mist floated all the way to the ground, compacting and congealing into Cor’El’s physical body perhaps only twenty paces from the double doors leading to Menak’s private quarters.

  Cor’El turned about to see all of those who stood and stared in awe of his sudden appearance, for while some of them were surely aware of the way Loszians sometimes travelled, he was sure none had before seen someone appear as he, either for the method of it or his gray Dahken skin combined with the hair of his mother. He turned his attention back toward Menak’s doors, and as he began to step in that direction, one of the men flanking the doors already began crossing the short distance. Standing at least a half foot taller than Cor’El with black hair and gray eyes and seemingly stretched joints, the man was obviously of Western blood mixed with Loszian, and he wore black, boiled leather from the half helm covering his head to the boots on his feet. Once he came to stand within about five feet of Cor’El, the guard dropped to one knee with his eyes cast down on the ground.

  “Emperor Cor’El,” he said, and others within earshot also began to kneel at the words, “Lord Menak is pleased by your arrival.”

  “Is he now?” Cor’El asked, rhetorically of course. “I wonder how he knew to expect me.”

  “I could not say,” the man replied, his bland voice so little different from that of almost every guard or soldier Cor’El had ever met, “except that Lord Menak knows much.”

  “And yet, he didn’t think to greet me personally.”

  “I…,” the man stammered for just a moment, “I am certain he meant no slight, Majesty.”

  “I’m certain. Take me to him,” Cor’El demanded.

  Menak’s guard turned and marched back the way he came, and when he reached the oaken double doors leading to the Loszian, he simply pushed it open into the room. Inside, the Loszian stood on the far side of his round table, completely nonplussed by the intrusion as if he had been expecting it at any moment. The guard again knelt and announced, “Emperor Cor’El of Aquis, lord,” to which the Loszian immediately prostrated himself.

  As Cor’El entered the one, great room in which Menak centered his existence, he noted the coolness of it. Either the Loszian stone from which it was built or Menak’s sorcery somehow kept out the heat of the summer, and Cor’El thought it to be the former as he was unsure that Loszians had power over something as elemental as the temperature. On the other hand, their necromancy often touched things with the unnatural icy hand of death… it didn’t matter. He approached the kneeling Loszian and saw the goal of his journey, Cor’s weapons and armor, as it lay in the center of Menak’s round table.

  “Emperor, I am honored and gratified by your presence,” said Menak, his face still pointed at the ground.

  “I’m sure,” he replied dryly. “I see you have something for me.”

  Cor’El came to stand just in front of Menak. He leaned one hand on the table as he stretched and reached the other toward the middle, just barely landing his fingertips on the hilt of Soulmourn, and a great
song of joy burst into his ears, or perhaps his mind, when he touched it. When the Loszian had placed the items in the center of his table, he clearly hadn’t anticipated the difficulty that a non-Loszian would have in retrieving them. Cor’El managed to pinch the hilt between his thumb and forefinger, and he proceeded to drag the weapon toward him. Even once it was close enough that he could simply grasp it, he enjoyed the grimace on Menak’s face as the sword terribly scraped across the surface, marring his once beautiful table. Once he’d pulled it to the table’s edge, he hefted it, realizing that it weighed less than his own rather uninteresting longsword.

  “So, my father was here?”

  “He was, Majesty.”

  “And you didn’t think to contact me?”

  “I couldn’t at first, Majesty, not while he was here.”

  “I imagine not. It’s a wonder he didn’t kill you,” Cor’El replies idly, admiring Soulmourn in the light that illuminated Menak’s abode, but had no apparent source.

  “He very nearly did, Majesty. I think that, in the end, there was no value in my death.”

  “I’m sure you convinced him that there was nothing you could do to stop me.”

  “I did, Ma -”

  “And you probably even offered to help him in some way. It’s such a beautiful blade, isn’t it?” Cor’El asked, and he extended the weapon to bring its point only a few inches from the kneeling Loszian’s eyes.

  “No, Majesty, he did not ask my help, nor did I offer any,” Menak hurriedly replied, focused heavily on ignoring the steel death hovering before his eyes.

  “But you accommodated him, did you not? How long was he here?”

  “One night, Majesty.”

  “And was my mother with him?”

  “Yes, Majesty. I attempted to contact you just after they left, headed south, but I -”

  “But you couldn’t because I destroyed all of Byrverus. Is it not beautiful?” Cor’El asked again of Soulmourn, and he could almost hear the sword preening itself like a young woman brushing her hair before a mirror, yearning for some word from someone about her beauty.

  Like all Loszians, Menak’s skin was a pale white, so pale in fact to appear almost blue with the veins that were so obvious throughout his body, but if he could have lost any more color at Cor’El’s words, he most assuredly would’ve turned pure white. All he managed to say was, “I…”

  Cor’El replaced the sword’s point with his own face and screamed at the Loszian with spittle flying, “Is it not beautiful?!”

  Weeks of lonely frustration finally rose to the surface, bursting through with such fire and fury that Cor’El knew only that he wanted to break things and hurt people. A terrifying cry loosed from his lips as he reared back, Menak cringing before yet another deathblow that he knew was coming, and the young emperor didn’t even recognize the voice as his own. He brought Soulmourn down in a deadly arc, but instead of cleaving the Loszian, he slammed the sword’s razor sharp edge into the tabletop. Splinters and wood chips flew in all directions as he hacked at it over and over, carving large chunks out of the once wonderfully built table as he turned it into kindling over the course of several minutes. Finally, his muscles began to burn with the exertion, sweat rolling off of his brow, and he slowed, even stopped entirely to admire his handiwork. Cor’El nonchalantly tossed Soulmourn back onto the table, onto an intact portion of it anyway, and Menak loosed a nearly silent sigh of relief. The former calmed himself over the course of a minute or so, catching his breath; he considered the still kneeling form of Menak.

  “You thought I was going to kill you,” Cor’El plainly stated.

  “It seemed likely, Sovereign.”

  “Sovereign?”

  “My apologies, Majesty, it was the title by which we knew the Loszian Emperor. It is an old habit,” Menak explained.

  “No, no, I rather like it,” Cor’El replied enthusiastically. “I think I’d like to be called that from now on. I was going to kill you, but then I realized something.”

  “What is that, Sovereign?” Menak asked, and again what little color he had seemed to drain from his face.

  “It doesn’t matter. You don’t matter, but I suppose I do have to enact some punishment so others don’t think they can just stand up to me. Don’t worry, you’ll live through it, but I have one question yet. Why did my father leave his weapons and armor behind?”

  “He said that steel would not serve him in the days ahead.”

  “Interesting, and it certainly seems likely. I wonder about something else. I haven’t been able to find my father’s blood, and I think he knows that. I think he left these behind on purpose,” Cor’El pondered aloud.

  “For what purpose, Sovereign?”

  “So that I might find them, because he is too weak to exact vengeance upon you, but I am not,” Cor’El replied, and his words were the last Menak heard before blood rushed from his ears and his eyes boiled in their sockets.

  Sovereign Cor’El slept well that night, for it was truly the first decent bed he’d been in since he destroyed Byrverus. He awoke well after sunrise, wonderfully refreshed, and he felt out across southern Aquis for his father and mother while he waited on the servants to bring him breakfast. The frustration of failure returned just a bit, but hideous wails from the corner of the room helped him smile and push it away. After he’d taken the Loszian’s hearing, sight and tongue, he removed Menak’s good hand, but that hadn’t been satisfying enough. Using Soulmourn, he’d cut away both arms just below the shoulders, and then hacked off his one real leg. Cor’El took great joy in chaining the grotesque thing by the neck to an old steel ring set into the stone of the wall.

  Cor

  “So, it’s true then,” Lord Karak intoned solemnly, leaning against the back of his chair.

  Cor hadn’t seen the man in over a year, as little had happened in Aquis that his direct thoughts in any matter at Rederick’s Council would have made a difference. Besides, all of the sitting members knew that he would always opine for peace and stability over war and chaos, for those things always brought prosperity. If peace and stability could not be accomplished, then the endeavor had better be extremely profitable. Karak had barely changed in almost fifteen years, the Tigolean’s yellow face showing no signs of age except for one. His moustache, shaved under his nose and grown to hang three or four inches long out of either side of his upper lip had changed from perfectly jet black to stone gray, and Cor wondered if the man stopped shaving his head would that hair be gray as well.

  It had been two weeks hard ride more east than south to reach the lands that Rederick had granted Karak in accordance with his position on the Council. As one of the Seven Lords, Karak controlled much of the wealth in Tigol, but he’d found that managing it all from as far as the former Loszian Empire to be daunting at best. He and Naran had come to some sort of agreement, a business accord that had taken over a year in person to negotiate and settle, that transferred all of Karak’s holdings in Tigol to Naran and all of Naran’s interests in Aquis to Karak. Cor had heard something of it, and even sat in on one of the negotiations. The discussions boggled his mind, causing him to walk away from it and never return after a mere hour as he was completely incapable of understanding all of the nuances of such a deal.

  Lord Karak’s men had ridden to greet Cor, Thyss and the Dahken shortly after crossing into his lands, escorting them, not in an unfriendly manner, all the way to Karak’s castle, a remnant of a Loszian dead at Nadav’s hands. It was unlike most in East Aquis, as it was of a decidedly Western design with the usual defensive trappings – a dried out moat surrounding a curtain wall with a keep inside. Most everything was made of granite and hardwood, except the keep itself which contained a substantial amount of the Loszian stone that gleamed purple in bright light. Karak met with Cor in a familiar fashion in a small dining hall sitting at a blonde stained, pine table only eight feet in length. Karak sat at one end, with Cor immediately occupying the chair to his right.

  “It is,”
Cor confirmed.

  “I had hoped Lord Menak was lying,” Karak admitted, “but I didn’t really think it in his character. Loszian he may be, but he just doesn’t care enough to scheme. Whose side do you think he is on?”

  “Honestly? Menak’s side, but he knows that about himself. Menak has always survived, and you’re right – he doesn’t scheme, at least not in an obvious way. When Nadav was Emperor of Losz, Menak chose to lord over his lands to avoid the constant intrigues of his people. In the end, he knows that he’ll do what he must to survive, which means betraying me if necessary.”

  “Which is why he doesn’t want to know where you’re going,” Karak concluded. “I’ll mourn for King Rederick. He was a just and fair man.”

  “I wish I had time for sorrows,” Cor said more bluntly than he planned, his voice carrying an uncaring connotation.

  Karak’s face hardened a bit before he asked, “So what do you need of me?”

  “My son thinks he will rule the entire world, even other worlds.”

  “Those the Chronicler spoke of.”

  “Yes, I can’t allow him to go any further, harm anyone else,” Cor explained, and yet again, his thoughts went to Thyss. He pushed them away even as he wanted to ball his hands into fists. “He has to be stopped, and I’m the only one who can.”

  “Your own son…” Karak mused, and sympathy flooded the lord’s eyes. Cor had always suspected the man was more than a warrior and a merchant, more than one of the Seven Lords. He had the bearing of a poet, a philosopher and a father, and Cor wished he’d spent more time getting to know this man. Karak spoke after a moment, “I’m so sorry for what you must do. I understand why you have no time to grieve; you cannot afford to take your mind off what you must do to save us all. Again I ask, what do you need from me?”

  “I don’t know how much I should tell you. What if Cor’El appears here?”