Call of the Colossus: An epic fantasy novel (The Mindstream Chronicles Book 2) (41 page)

“That’s the arrangement I made. You’d rather I plague you with horrible, flesh-rotting illnesses instead, striking young and old indiscriminately? Perhaps flooding or drought would be more to your liking. Let the strong and wealthy survive and the poor and weak succumb?”

She didn’t know how to answer that.

“My way gives people a choice. You can partake or not, but as long as there’s a war, there’ll be people wanting to survive it. End the war, and I’ll have to make up the difference some other way. Tell me, Jora. Which way would you choose?”

Jora wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her forehead on her knees. With her plan to stop the war abandoned and no other in place, what point was there to even try? Her family was dead. There was no use in continuing to fight a battle she couldn’t win. She cried into her bent knees, feeling defeated and utterly alone.

“Dear Jora,” Retar said.

She peeked up for a moment and saw him squatting in front of her, his Sonnis face looking concerned and his green Sonnis eyes full of sympathy.

“Go away, Retar. That’s the face of the one who slayed my family and ruined my life. I don’t want to see you right now.”

“Is this face any better?” he asked in a gentle voice, a voice that had brought comfort all her life.

She looked up again to find her father squatting before her, his face just as she remembered it with the short-cropped hair graying on the sides and gray whiskers speckling the cheeks she’d kissed so many times.
Papa.
The pain of his death speared her heart. It bled in her chest and through her eyes as she sobbed. “No,” she cried. “How cruel can you be?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to renew your grief. I thought only to bring you comfort.”

“With the face of my murdered father? That brings me no comfort. Nor my dead mother or sister or brothers.”

“Jora, listen to me,” Retar said, only now his voice was that of her brother Finn. “Don’t give up now. I need your help now more than ever.”

“Finn?” she asked, her tears pausing as she tried to understand why he would show her Finn’s form. “He’s not dead?” Her voice was small, like that of a lost child.

“No, of course not.”

“But his finger–”

“Is fine. The surgeon Naruud put the bone in place, stitched him up, and splinted both fingers. He’ll never play the flute like his sister, but he’ll be fine.”

Jora burst into tears again but this time from happiness.
Finn
’
s alive. He
’
s alive.

“Yes, he’s alive. Oh,” Retar said, snapping his fingers. “You can’t see him because of the bracelet.” A bracelet of gleaming silver appeared on the false Finn’s left forearm. “Like this. Your friend, the princess, had two brothers, you know. Their bracelets were returned with their shrouded bodies. Finn’s wearing one now.”

Why would they want her to think he was dead?

Retar patted her knee. “Leverage.”

Jora shook her head, struggling to believe but rejecting the notion that the god would lie to her. The bracelet kept her from Observing Finn in the present, but she had no trouble witnessing his past by starting from her own thread, unlike the barring hood. “So he’s a prisoner.”

“Not exactly, but neither is he a guest.”

“King Yaphet knows that hurting Finn would make an enemy of me. Why would he put a bracelet on Finn to make me think him dead?

“Well, think about it. If he can control you, he can use you as a weapon.”

Jora wrinkled her brow, considering his words. That sounded like the king was planning an offensive, but not against her so much as with her.
Using
her. “Is he going to attack one of our enemies?”

The god gave her a tired smile. “That’s not a question I can answer in good conscience.”

She climbed to her feet, now feeling less defeated than excited. “You want my help, but you haven’t said how. What should I do?”

Retar in Finn’s form stood, too, and glanced over at Arc, standing with his thick arms crossed, watching with the wary face of a man who didn’t know how to comfort a distraught woman. Retar leaned close to whisper into her ear. “Sometimes, a different perspective will rattle loose ideas that might be stuck up in the rafters. Go on. Talk to him. Maybe he can help.” He shook a finger at her. “No destroying my tree.”

Jora managed a smile. “All right. The Tree will be safe from me.”

He patted her back. “There we go. I’d appreciate it if you’d also discourage anyone else who gets the lame idea to cut or burn it down, too.” He winked at her. “Now, if you don’t need anything more from me, I’ll be off.”

“Wait,” Arc said. “You said to kill the tree is nie an option. I propound you make the Isle sovereign.”

Sovereign. Jora perked up at the idea, and her thoughts began to whir. She started to pace, the wooden floor creaking under her feet, as a plan began to form in her mind. If the Isle became sovereign, governed by an equal number of diplomats from the four countries, it could sell each an equal lot of godfruit. “It’s a pleasant notion, but what’s to prevent one country from trying to seize the Isle for themselves?”

“Three other countries join forces against them.”

“But that’s what we’re doing right now,” she said, despair seeping back into her heart. “It’s getting us nowhere.” Except that it was Serocia that had tried to keep it for themselves.

“Nay,” Arc said. “The king sells godfruit in quantities small enow to perpetuate the war. That is the problem. That is why peace eludes you.”

“He’s right, you know,” Retar said. “It’s my own fault, and I’m sorry for that, but with effort his solution could work.”

“But you need dead,” Arc said. “That is what you have seyed.”

Retar said, “More people die throughout the peaceful regions of Serocia, Mangend, Arynd Ban, and Barad Selegal than soldiers die on the shores of the Isle. There’s godfruit aplenty. Give everyone access to fruit, and I’ll be fat and happy without a war.”

“Then that is what we’ll do,” Jora said.

“Assuming you can convince the king,” Retar said. “And the dominee. There’s a challenge you might not win.”

Jora gave Arc the choice of which warrior to release first to help with their plan. As she’d expected, he chose the one he’d earlier called his brother, the third statue down from where Arc had been.

He was every bit as tall and broad as Arc, but he wielded a sword rather than a poleaxe. He stood in a battle stance, somewhat crouched, with the blade extended as if he were running through a foe. The fierceness in his expression gave Jora pause.

“He shall nie hurt thee,” Arc said softly. “Let mine be the first face he sees when he awakens.”

Jora stood behind the statue, and Arc stood to one side. On his nod, she pressed her elbow against the cool stone and started to play. Though her hands were wrapped and her wrists stiff from the bandages, she had no trouble playing the Borrowed command on the flute.

“
Free from stone, let blood flow through.
”

This time, she was prepared for the warmth that emanated from the statue and maintained contact with the stone as it warmed and softened until the last note faded into silence. The warrior shifted, drawing his sword back for a swing at Arc.

“Ho!” Arc said, putting his hands up. “’Tis I, bro’er. Stande down.”

The warrior wheeled about, taking a step backward away from Jora at the same time, his pale eyes alight with fury. He glanced about and took another wary step backward, sword at ready.

“Archesilaus,” the warrior said. “What dost thou here? Who is this boy? What is this building? And in what odd manner of raiment art thou clad?”

“She is nie a boy but a girl,” Arc said, his voice thick with amusement. “She is hight Jora. Sheathe thy sword. We have much for to discuss.”

“But the portwatcher,” the warrior said, looking around. “He is nigh.”

“Hark, bro’er,” Arc said with a crooked smile. “Cyprianus is long dead.”

The blond turned to Arc with surprise. “Thou hast kill’d him wythout me?”

Arc laughed. “Nay. Many centuries have pass’d.”

Ludo made a face of disgusted disbelief. “What babblement is this? Art thou besotted?”

“Again I say sheathe thy sword and allow us to explain.”

The warrior looked Jora up and down for a moment, then slid his sword into the scabbard on his back. “Jora,” he said, inclining his head. “I am hight Ludovicus Eliade.”

“Hight him Ludo,” Arc said to Jora. “Jora is now portwatcher, and she allies wyth the King o’Serocia, as do we.”

Ludo laughed loudly, his voice threatening to awaken citizens sleeping nearby.

“Shhh!” Arc said. “Loke about bro’er. Loke at the faces o’these statues.”

Ludo was taken aback by their likeness to the warriors he knew and fought beside.

“Fif hundard yeres they have stood, as thou hast, as I have, encasen’d in stone. Jora hath free’d us.”

“Portwatcher?” Ludo said, eyeing Jora with a skeptical and amused expression. “Thou dost jest. What manner o’lafaard dost thou take me for?”

“I wot well as any thou’rt nie a lafaard,” Arc said. “Jora, show him. Send for the tree.”

Jora summoned Po Teng back. Ludo’s initial reaction was to attack him, but Arc stayed his hand.

“Nay. ’Tis the portwatcher’s ally, and ours as well. Dost thou believe now?”

Wariness crept into Ludo’s eyes, as he glanced back and forth between Jora, Po Teng, and Arc. “Thou’rt a trickor.”

“Nay. ’Tis real. Show him,” Arc told Jora. “Make a statue of me, if you wilt.”

Jora instructed Po Teng to statuize Arc. Ludo cried out in alarm, and then walked around Arc, studying him, poking him, rocking him back and forth.

Ludo bore down on her from his freakish height, muscles tensed. “Return him.”

She did as he asked. “He’s not hurt. See?”

“I am unhurt, bro’er,” Arc said. “As I have seyed, she is the portwatcher now, and she is my freond. Pledge thine obedience to her forthwith, as I have done, or return to stone evermore.”

“Obedience to a girl?” Ludo argued.

“To the portwatcher.”

Ludo eyed her up and down. She felt naked, trembling with fear, and yet heady with the idea of commanding these powerful warriors. With one final glance at Arc, who nodded, Ludovicus went to one knee before her. From this position, he was at her eye level and looked at her squarely. “I pledge to obey thy commands, Jora the Portwatcher, for so long as thine interests art aligned wyth the king o’Serocia.”

“Thank you, Ludo,” she said. A shudder rippled through her, and she wished she’d brought the robe for what little warmth it provided.

“If Cyprianus is dead,” Ludo said, “what are we to do? Who is our enemy now?”

“We are to stop a war,” Arc said, “nie to fight in one.”

“Gar!” Ludo exclaimed.

Jora explained briefly about the Tree of the Fallen God, the godfruit, the smuggling, and Arc’s idea of making the Isle a sovereign nation.

“The Isle o’Shess?” Ludo asked, shaking his head. “It belongeth to Dekonin Kryk.”

“Not anymore,” Jora said. “Dekonin Kryk fell at the end of the Great Reckoning and split into three countries: Mangend, Barad Selegal, and Arynd Ban. The Isle of Shess has been part of Serocia for three hundred seventy-seven years.”

“And now that it has the most valuable resource in all the world, thou wantest to share it?” Ludo asked, his face a mask of disbelief.

“The god Retar hath given the fruit to all the peoples of Aerta, bro’er,” Arc said. “’Tis the right thing to do.”

Chapter 27