Blood Betrayal Read online

  “Then bards will write songs of what Lord Karak did that day.”

  “Suicide,” Cor said.

  “I’ve lived long and well, and there are no more wonders left for me except the last great mystery.”

  “And what if he makes you tell him my plan?” Cor asked.

  “Then I suppose you best not tell me what it is. So, one more time I ask, what do you need from me?”

  “A ship and a crew,” Cor finally answered. “Something small, something fast. I don’t know how long I’ll need it, and I don’t want to know from what port I’ll acquire it.”

  Karak held up one finger, and a servant appeared almost immediately, seemingly from nowhere. “Bring me a scroll, a pen and ink,” he said to the boy, a young Tigolean barely in adolescence. “I’ll also need my seal and some wax.”

  The boy bowed and scurried off in search of the items his master desired, and Karak continued the conversation, “He’s a good boy. His parents work for me in Katan’Nosh. Do you know the place?”

  “I’ve been there once, as a boy.”

  “Interesting,” Karak tilted his head slightly, “that you would’ve been there as a boy. It was an important port to the Loszian Empire at the time, the closest to Tigol.”

  “We didn’t stay long.”

  “In your sailing days with Naran, no doubt,” Karak stated as the boy returned with the requested items.

  Like most northern Tigoleans, he was shorter of stature but solid underneath and had fine, silken black hair. Karak began writing upon the scroll while placing his other hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Anyway, they begged me to take Eita into my home, teach him how to be both a warrior and learned man. He’s a good boy and a joy to have around, and if I’d known that at the time, I mayn’t have indentured them for an additional six years. What parents won’t do for their children -,” Karak stopped himself and avoided meeting Cor’s gaze.

  Suddenly silent, Karak busied himself for a few tense moments, continuing to write on the scroll. He melted a bit of wax onto the parchment towards the bottom and forcefully imprinted his seal into it. He then rolled the scroll up and sealed it again so that one could not read it without breaking the seal.

  Handing the scroll over to Cor, he said, “This will give you the use of any Tigolean ship you can find in Aquis, regardless of whatever matters her captain is busy with at the time and for as long as you need her. If any captain refuses it, I’ll have his ship.”

  “Thank you, Lord Karak.”

  Cor stood from his chair and executed a brief and compact bow. Karak smiled as he pushed back his chair, waiving the bow away, and the Tigolean extended his arm. Cor took it as an old friend.

  “May I impose upon your hospitality for one more thing, Lord Karak?”

  “Of course. Name it!”

  “May we spend the night here, and we’ll be away just after sunrise,” Cor explained.

  “I would expect nothing else, and I’ll be sure your people are well fed before you go.”

  * * *

  Cor found firelight to be most annoying when trying to use it to read a map. It was so inconsistent, changing forms every second with occasional flares, but it was all he had to gauge both how far they’d come and how far yet to go. His sat with his back to it, holding the map up above him so that his body’s shadow didn’t block the light. He sighed, folded the map up tightly and turned to face the flames and the wild pig roasting upon them, droplets of greasy fat sizzling off of it.

  “Perhaps, we should have left most of the Dahken with Karak,” Keth spoke up, sitting across the fire from Cor.

  “I considered it, very seriously,” Cor admitted.

  “Why didn’t we?”

  “In the end, I thought them safer with us.”

  Keth asked, “Why?”

  “Because for some reason, Cor’El hasn’t found us. I don’t know why, but he hasn’t,” Cor explained. He continued with a glance at Thyss, “He can use his blood to find what he wants, just like I can. If I leave them somewhere out of my presence, I’m sure he’ll find them.”

  “What about your sword, your armor?” Keth asked. “You left them with Menak. Don’t you think he’ll find them?”

  Cor didn’t answer, but instead went back to staring at the fire which had become a necessity at night. It had been three weeks since they met Karak, over a month since Menak, which put it at close to two months since they left Byrverus. Summer hadn’t held onto the air firmly, and some of the nights had become cold. They would wake in the morning to find frost on the grass around them, rather than morning dew, and fortunately the days warmed quickly enough to make for fair travel. They struck out across the countryside shortly after leaving the Tigolean lord, for they found the kingdom in shambles.

  Word had spread to every lord, every city and every town and village that King Rederick and his Council were dead. Between fear of the newly self-proclaimed Emperor, of which the legends grew daily, and the general lack of leadership from above the local lords, it seemed that the most basic rules of civilized life were breaking down. They found villages with looted homes and burned out buildings. They passed abandoned farms and merchants on the roads who had hired mercenary help for protection, something almost never needed before. Additionally, Cor knew very little about most of the minor nobles in East Aquis, whether they were Westerner, Loszian or transplant, which simply meant he didn’t know who he could trust. Any given lord or lady could just as easily aid them as attempt to ingratiate him or herself to Cor’El.

  His eyes settled on Thyss next to him, who gazed unblinkingly into the fire, a long tear running down her left cheek as it escaped her eye. For the first time in years, Cor had no idea what she was thinking, for she had said so little over the last few weeks. He glanced around and caught Dahken Keth as he too saw the tear upon her face. Keth realized his Lord Dahken watched him, and he lowered his eyes, either out of guilt or respect. He wasn’t the only one who knew something wasn’t right with the sorceress; Cor was certain he’d walked into hushed conversation more than once among the other Dahken. Cor realized with a start that Thyss had turned her face toward him.

  “He must die,” she said.

  “Yes,” Cor almost whispered, “and I can’t allow anything like this to happen again. I have that power… that responsibility.”

  “This… place we are headed to – even if we can find it, and even if I can get you to it, wherever it is somewhere under the sea – how do we enter it?” Thyss asked, a hint of defeat or perhaps the desire of it in her voice.

  “I,” Cor hesitated, because he thought the answer would anger her for its apparent faith in someone else, “I think the Chronicler will handle that part.”

  But Thyss only nodded her quiet assent and understanding, and she closed her eyes for a moment. She turned her face back to the fire and began to watch the pig, or more specifically the blade of a dagger that Keth used to slice slivers off the roasting animal. She pushed herself to her feet, standing dangerously close to the flames that would likely do her no harm, and held her open hand out toward the Dahken. Without question or hesitation, he handed it to her, placing the short hilt right into her palm. A slight smile touched Cor’s face at the realization that she’d started to regain her appetite, a smile that turned quickly when she backed away from the fire.

  “What are you doing?” Keth asked in confusion.

  Suddenly alarmed, Cor stood and turned to find her holding the dagger low and pointed just below her navel. “Thyss?” was all he could manage.

  “His seed took root,” she replied, as if it was all the explanation anyone needed. Her eyes followed movement behind him as the other Dahken began to stand, watching intently.

  Cor stepped lightly toward her, slowly and patiently, but every step he took, she matched. “Don’t do this. There has to be another way.”

  “Better to do it now than later. I’m not afraid. My Lord Dahken will save me,” she replied, and he saw the old resolve, the old fire in her eyes
.

  “Thyss,” he repeated, words completely escaping him.

  She plunged the dagger into the left side her abdomen just below the belly, and once so impaled, she yanked the weapon to the right, ripping herself open with a horrific surge of blood and other gore. Cor rushed forward and caught her as she began to lose her balance, lowering her to the ground cradled in his arms. He pulled the dagger from her, its short hilt slippery with blood and separated her wool tunic from the canvas breeches to expose the mortal wound. As her eyelids grew heavy, he placed his hands over the gash and mended the flesh and organs beneath it. When it was done, he used the edge of her tunic to wipe away the remaining blood, just to be certain Thyss had healed completely.

  “There isn’t even a scar,” breathed one of the Dahken behind him, he didn’t know which.

  “There’ll always be a scar,” Cor whispered as he lifted the sleeping Thyss into his arms.

  Dahk

  “What are you doing, Chronicler?” Dahk asked from the darkness of his vault.

  The Chronicler, dressed in brown wool robes, stood in a circle of light only a few feet across, peering past it as he responded, “Doctor Brown, I am not talking to you like this.”

  “You will speak to me as I desire!” Dahk raged, and he suddenly lit the entire vault with a reddish glow, appearing in front of the Chronicler as a tiered iron fountain, well over fifty feet tall. Pools of blood filled the various levels as it flowed from a spout at the top.

  “Nope,” the Chronicler petulantly responded.

  “You will -”

  But the Chronicler interrupted with song, “All you need is love!”

  “Stop that!”

  “All you need is love!”

  “I said -”

  “Love! Love is all you need!”

  Dahk faded. His iron fountain disappeared, along with all light in the vault, and Doctor Harold Brown found himself on a beach of white sands, overlooking a bloody sea with bloody waves breaking and reforming. Paul Chen no longer wore robes, standing there in boots and service fatigues. He was no longer the Chronicler of Rumedia but a Commander in the Sino-American Colonization Authority, a man of integrity.

  “I was hoping that would bring you back,” Chen said with a lopsided smile.

  “Bring me back…” Doc muttered, staring off into the distance. “What are you doing, Commander?”

  “Standing here, talking to you.”

  “Don’t gimme that bullshit. You know what I mean.”

  “I’m stopping you and Admiral Zheng,” Chen replied, “from continuing to break more laws, harm more people. I’m stopping you from continuing to use the people of this world. They don’t belong to you, to either of you.”

  “Just quit,” Doc said with a shrug. “You can’t stop any of this anyway.”

  “Maybe I can’t, but Cor will.”

  “What have you done?” Doc asked with a suspicious squint.

  Chen chuckled softly and turned away for just a moment. When he looked back at Doc, his face showed amusement and something darker. He said, “I’m not going to tell you that. Now you’re the one who can’t stop what’s going to happen.”

  “Cor’El will,” Doc stated firmly, but it sounded like wishful thinking even to him. After all, he didn’t even know what Chen’s plan was. How could he even begin to tell the young man how to stop it? He couldn’t even find Cor!

  “Cor’El’s basically powerless,” Chen replied with a hint of condescension. “He can’t find Cor to stop whatever he has planned.”

  “How did you manage that, anyway?”

  With a smile, Chen shook his head in the negative, “I didn’t. I can’t even find him now. Someone’s blocking him, making it as if he doesn’t exist, along with his people. Oh, I know I could use the station to search every square inch of Rumedia in real time, but that would take a while. Plus, I really don’t care to know precisely where he is.”

  “You expect me to believe that?” Doc asked as he looked back over the blood sea.

  “It doesn’t matter, I guess, but it’s the truth.”

  “Go away,” Doc sighed, and the image of Commander Paul Chen vanished from the beach, from his vault. He stared out toward the horizon, almost as if he expected to see something appear on its edge, where the ocean of blood met the sky which he now realized was also red. There was nothing there, of course, and there never would be. He only hoped that Zheng would return soon, would move fast so as to get ahead of whatever Chen had planned.

  Thyss

  She held on tightly to the rail that wrapped the deck of the Tigolean runner, a long and narrow ship built for speed instead of transporting large amounts of cargo. While Cor had apparently regained his “sea legs”, as he called them, almost within minutes, Thyss was not so lucky. She had rarely travelled by sea in her life, only when crossing one of the vast oceans, and she had never found the experience to be particularly enjoyable. At least she wasn’t vomiting, well, yet.

  After her impromptu self-impaling, they had ridden hard into southeast Aquis for some shithole port city whose Loszian name Thyss really didn’t care enough about to pronounce. It was the typical port, full of seedy denizens, wealthily dressed merchants and swords for hire. Despite the Loszian name, she noted the obvious absence of Loszians, likely due to Nadav’s efforts some years ago to nearly exterminate his own people. The filthy place made of sandstone buildings and pine shacks seemed to be nearly half peopled with Tigoleans, the other half apparently a mix of Westerners and half-breed Loszians. There were no palaces, no palatial estates; it was nearly impossible to find an inn without lice ridden bedding and simple water that didn’t stink of piss.

  She could’ve just stayed in Dulkur her whole life – slept and ate in luxury all the time, loved whomever she wanted, done anything she desired whenever the mood so struck her, but no. That life bored her. She wanted adventure, and she found it, all right. She found an adventure that led her straight to getting raped by her own…

  A great wave rolled under the ship, causing Thyss to tighten her grip on the railing.

  “Are you all right?” Cor asked from beside her.

  She spat into the sea as a hint of bile touched the back of her tongue. “Fine. How much further?”

  “I’m not sure,” Cor replied to her increasing ire. He looked back toward the shore and started chewing on a fingernail. “We’ve gone maybe fifteen miles down the coast and about a mile out. I don’t really think we need to go any further.”

  “So, now it’s my time,” Thyss stated, receiving a slight nod in return. “Thank the gods. I’ll be ecstatic to get my feet off this damned boat.”

  “Captain,” Cor called out to a Tigolean that stood almost a half foot shorter than he, “I think we’ll hold here. Please fold up the sails.”

  The man grumbled something under his breath for just a moment as he turned away, but he then called out a number of orders in Tigolean to do as he was asked. The ship was exactly what Cor had wanted, small and fast with minimal crew, but it was captained by a relatively average height northern Tigolean with the most unkempt mid-back length hair and the worst set of rotted teeth Thyss had ever seen. At the port, she’d watched from several dozen paces away as Cor had argued with him about retaining his services, before the Dahken had finally produced the document from Karak. Even then, the captain did not simply acquiesce; he involved his first mate and another ship’s master. Thyss supposed they determined the document to be real enough when the other captain thumped him on the back and said something with a wicked smile as he walked away. Their short, Tigolean friend waived them on board in quiet resignation.

  Keth stayed behind with the rest of the Dahken, Ja’Na and Lurana. Cor and Keth had embraced so long that Thyss was sure they were about to kiss and weep like women. She felt no need to say anything to anyone until she saw Mora’s daughter peeking at her from behind Ja’Na. She kissed the girl goodbye on the cheek, promising to be back soon.

  Ten Tigolean sailors snickered a
nd jeered as she slipped from her tunic and breeches to stand completely nude on the ship’s deck. She didn’t speak their language, nor was it necessary to understand their meaning. Cor watched, a mix of embarrassment and anger plain on his face that she would be so brazen, but she didn’t really care what he thought or did, especially since he was about to leave her forever, leave her alone. The foreign innuendos ceased and turned to hushed awe as she turned herself to mist and blew on the wind up into the clouds.

  Climbing into the sky, she could see for miles and miles into the calm of the day. Past summer, the days had been cooling, but this far south, the sun still warmed the air and the water. It was well known that fisherman of northern Aquis began to suffer this time of year as their quarry travelled down the coastline with the warmer waters. Even now she could see a great fish, a shark maybe twenty feet in length as it quietly patrolled just under the surface of the water less than a mile from their ship.

  She allowed herself to just float with clouds, watch the scene below and feel the warmth of the sun as it penetrated her wispy being. This was what life could be – no worries, no cares and no one to love, with none of the pain that wretched emotion brought to a person. Thyss thought of her younger years and how often she had avoided turning herself or any part of her body to flame for the all-consuming fear that she would never regain herself, that she would join with it forever. For the first time ever, the temptation truly arose, and would she have ever believed that it wasn’t fire that called her but the clouds.

  She could do it. She could leave Cor Pelson and all of Rumedia behind. Leave Cor’El and Lurana and everyone else to whatever fates awaited them. As one with the clouds, why would she care? She’ll just watch… and float… and lose herself among them. It could work. It could keep Cor from pursuing this ridiculous plan of his, and then she would come back to him. They could love again.

  But she knew that wasn’t the case. Even if she abandoned him, he would still continue on thanks to his damnable sense of responsibility, something that she’d helped him find again a few years ago. Cor would keep going, perhaps even getting himself killed in the process, and then who would stop their son? Eventually, he’d find her again, and he’d…