The Forgotten King (Korin's Journal) (41 page)

Anyway, I knew there was still more to Max’s story, so I prodded him to continue.  “After you put the barrier on me, what happened to you?  It was years before you showed up on the doorstep.”

“I left to travel Amirand,” Max answered ruefully.  “I went to the Wizard Academy, realizing that revealing my true nature there would get me a one-way ticket to its laboratory as a lifelong research study, as I almost was just days ago.  I gathered what information I could there on my own, but found nothing of use.  After that, I traveled the kingdoms, searching for even the barest hint of how to get back to Paigea.  I even tried to recreate the spell that had brought you here using my own knowledge, but I could not even deduce where to begin.”

A new anger started to bloom within me, its flaring heat masking the snowy cold.  Max had strung me along on a journey that he
knew
wouldn’t lead to my parents.  He’d already traveled the whole of Amirand, yet he still let me pointlessly trudge through the kingdoms in search of something I would never find.  I held my anger back with a deep breath, forcing myself to remain calm enough to allow Max a chance to offer an explanation.  It wasn’t easy.

“After nearly five years of searching, I was no closer to finding a means of returning to Paigea than the day I had started.  I decided to abandon my search and instead dedicate my life to watching over you, to ensure you were always cared for and safe.  You were the closest thing I had to family.”  Max’s voice caught, betraying his typically suppressed emotions.

“I returned to the farm, wanting to tell you everything, but I felt that you were too young.  Even after I revealed my abilities to you five years later, I conviced myself that you still were not ready.”  Max paused and shook his head.  “I kept telling myself the same thing each year.

“I used the name Max to keep my true name secret.  I did not even want the name Jonasir spoken aloud in Amirand for fear it would somehow spread and lead Raijom to you.  I even did away with my Paigean accent.”  Max chuckled dryly.  “Seems silly now, but I did not want to take any chances.

“When you first told me of your dreams, everything changed.  Before then, I had given up hope of ever finding a way home.  Hearing you speak of Galvin and Kailyth, however . . . it reminded me of how much I cared for them.  It also rekindled my fears about Raijom, about why he would have you sent away with the intention of taking your life, as well as why he had taken mine.

“I spent days in thought, trying to puzzle out the whole situation.  My instincts told me that Raijom’s plans had to involve him using your father, somehow taking advantage of the power of his position.  I started to believe that the prophecy was more symbolic than literal, that it actually represented you stripping Raijom of his power by breaking his connection with your father.  Watching you grow up, I could not imagine you ever purposely taking your father’s life.  I still cannot.

“All those years ago, my heart told me that you needed to fulfill the prophecy.  With Raijom so fearful, so certain that the prophecy could not be avoided that he believed killing you the only answer, I knew that there had to be more to it than he let on.  I decided that I would once again search for a way back to Paigea, taking you with me in the hope that you would fulfill the prophecy.”

My lungs started burning, bringing to my attention that I’d been holding my breath.  My thoughts and emotions were twisted and tangled, each individual one demanding attention.  It was more exhausting than hiking up a mountain with only one leg.

“Just because I had found no answers before did not mean that they were not out there.”  Max cringed before speaking his next words.  “Still unable to bring myself to tell you the truth, I used your vision of your parents’ royal stature to convince you that we could travel the kingdoms of Amirand in search for where they ruled.” 

Max paused, his gaze lowering to my trembling fists.  “Korin, I am sorry for the deception.  You were an impetuous child.  If I had told you the truth, you would have insisted on running headlong out into the world, unprepared, undisciplined, and immature in your youthful ways.  There is little chance you would have been successful.”

“Yes, it sure sounds like you were looking out for me, Max,” I spoke through clenched teeth. 

Max seemed almost at a loss for words.  It was a foreign expression on him.  At the time, I didn’t care.   

“Korin,” he began carefully, “during my time with you back on the farm, I grew to love you as if you were my own son, the son I never had.  Yes, I feared to see the pain that the prophecy would bring you.  Yes, I worried how you would feel towards me if I revealed that I had no idea how to find your parents.  I could not see any good coming from the truth, and so I kept it secret.  I convinced myself that it was for your own good, that you were better off not knowing until I could find a way back to Paigea.  I know now it was selfish, and I am sorry.  However, at the same time, I still feel that it was for the best.”

My entire body quivered with heated rage.  I wanted to lash out, to scream at Max, to just grab him and . . .

I knew that being angry would accomplish nothing, but it was so hard to hold it in.  I’d thought that I’d moved beyond the anger, that I’d accepted Max’s years of secrecy.  Through the tangle of my convoluted thoughts, I tried to regain that calm acceptance. 

I tried to envision where I would’ve been if Max had been honest from the beginnning.  Would I have allowed him to convince me to train with Chasus if I’d known about my father and Raijom?  Would I have really allowed four years of my life to be dedicated to training, four years that Raijom would be free to fulfill his plans? 

With those thoughts came a roadmap of how I’d gotten to where I was.  Chasus had been the one to give me the Contract.  Using it to work for Galius had put me in contact with the dragon egg that weakened Max’s barrier over me, allowing Menar to know who I truly was.  That single event eventually led to the Menar divulging that Raijom was involved in Gualain’s war.  If he hadn’t done so, I may have never known.  I probably would’ve given up my search and gone back to my adoptive parents’ farm, stuck with a sense of being incomplete, of having failed my parents.  I would never have met Til’, Briscott, Sal’ . . . Sal’.

Max had told me once that as a wizard, he couldn’t in good conscience reveal the prophecy to me.  He claimed that knowledge of a prophecy could change the way that it would turn out.  I was starting to realize the wisdom of that now, even if Max had shrugged it off as a simple excuse earlier in our conversation. 

“No apology necessary,” I responded, my body relaxing as my anger ebbed “I understand.”

“It was still unfair to you,” Max insisted.  His eyes seemed to follow the snowflakes as they spiraled through the sky.  “There’s not much left to tell you.  I felt that training with your uncle would not only give you the ability to fight and protect yourself, but also to become stronger in body and mind.”

“Chasus did make me a better man,” I agreed, thinking on how much I had learned from him.  His training wasn’t just about growing as a fighter, but as a person.  “Though you only convinced me by taking advantage of my boyish desire for adventure.”  I actually smiled.

Max chuckled.  “Oh yes, the whole fighting monsters, taking guild missions, and camping under the stars thing.  At least I did not lie about those.  Besides, it worked, did it not?”

Max received a snort and a roll of my eyes in reply.

Max stepped over to me then, standing on his haunches with one paw placed on my leg in a comforting gesture.  “You have grown into a wonderful man, Korin, and I could not be more proud of you.  You possess your mother’s compassion.  You have proven to be a more than skilled fighter.  Through your quick thinking on how to destroy eldrhims as they are summoned and your discovery of how to outwit a Contract’s magic, you have also proven to have an intellect that I have only seen matched in your father.”  Max’s mouth turned up into a playful grin.  “Though, you still have nothing on me in the brains department.  You are still a lunkhead.”

Laughter broke through all the emotions bombarding me—the anger, the sadness, the fear.  It clawed its way out of my throat and echoed across the lake.  “And you will always be an insufferable, furry know-it-all,” I countered.  “At least I’ll get a break while you’re hibernating this winter.”

“First of all, that is not funny,” Max scolded.  “Second, I am going to ignore your comment and assume you meant ‘I completely agree.  You are right as always, Max.’” 

We shared that moment of joy, a moment where everything was back to the way it used to be.  For that moment, no catastrophes loomed over us.  We were just two friends exchanging playful banter. 

“Thank you for this, Max,” I said seriously once our laughter receded.  “It feels strange to admit this, but I believe you were right in waiting to tell me all of this.  I can’t say that I don’t still hold
some
resentment for your secrecy, but I think I understand.”

“That means the world to me, Korin.  This has been the hardest thing I have ever had to do.”

“I’m sure finally letting this out couldn’t have been easy,” I agreed, standing up against the cramps in my legs.

“No, I mean going this long without eating!  How about we get some food and get Ithan up for his watch?  My mouth is dry enough to be classified as a desert, and my stomach is empty enough to qualify as an abandoned homestead.”  Max’s deadpan delivery brought another smile to my face.  Only Max could go back to his wisecracking ways not a minute after a conversation that put us both through pretty much the full gamut of emotions. 

“Never a moment without food on the mind, huh?”

“Speaking of which, once we get to the next town, we need to buy some ingredients for spicy vegetable stew and maybe try to make some of those meat rolls ourselves.  What do you think the spread on them was? 
Honey, butter, and . . . sage maybe?” 

I laughed with a shake of my head.  “Were you like this as a human?”

“You have no idea,” Max replied with a grin.  “The kitchen staff hated me.”

“I can’t imagine why,” I shot back with more than a hint of sarcasm. 

“And Korin,” Max began, causing me to pause as I crouched to pick up the lantern,  “I know I have given you more than enough to think about already, but I want to reiterate my belief that Salmaea cares for you.”

“Max, don’t,” I pleaded.  That was a pain I didn’t want to deal with at that moment.

Max spoke his mind despite my plea.  “Just as I have requested that you not jump to conclusions about your father, I ask that you do the same with Salmaea.  Promise me.”  Max spoke with the serious tone that I’d long ago learned to heed. 

“Okay, I won’t jump to conclusions,” I lied, picking up the lantern.  Though I appreciated Max’s assertion, I had no intentions of deluding myself, or of holding on to false hope.  It was better to go ahead and take on the pain of a broken heart so that it would not be a distraction once we were in Gualain. 

“By Milaz’s blood, I can tell when you are lying,” Max reproved, using the god of deceit’s name to add some unnecessary melodrama to his accusation.  “That is fine; do not trust the squirrel.  What would he know?”  He let out an exaggerated huff.

“He’d know how to collect nuts for the winter,” I jibed, starting off towards the camp before he could voice a comeback.  I heard a raspy mutter, and a moment later, Max was climbing up my cloak to perch on my shoulder. 

As we approached the camp, Max’s story kept my mind distracted from the cold.  I felt that my mind was too jumbled to hope for much sleep.  In the end, I was actually up for most of the night, though Max’s words had nothing to do with it.  Instead, it was because of Briscott’s fists. 

Chapter 35

Good Old-Fashioned Fisticuffs

In the soft moonlight, my attention was caught by motion near the tree our horses were tethered to.  The winter-bare tree—one of the few dotting the landscape—curved out from the side of a small, grassy hill.  Though I couldn’t visibly make out much in the darkness, I could hear Briscott’s voice in the form of frustrated grunts and curses. 

Our camp rested on more level ground a couple dozen paces away, not far from the lake’s bank.  Ithan’s shadowed form lay sleeping next to the dying embers of our campfire, thus unaware of Briscott’s frenzied cursing.

“What is Briscott doing?” I asked, confused.

“It looks like he is searching for something, and from the sound of it, unsuccessfully,” Max ventured.  As a squirrel, Max had better night vision than me.

“I think you’re right,” I answered warily.  “Max, would you mind waking up Ithan for his watch?  I want to make sure Briscott’s okay.”

“Are you sure?”  Max tensed on my shoulder as Briscott let out a frustrated, wordless scream.  “He does not sound like he wishes to be disturbed.”

As I watched Briscott’s frantic movements, I assumed that he was once again dealing with the grief of losing his family and had probably just been unable to sleep because of it.  Even though my mind felt as if it couldn’t hold even a single concern more, I had to make sure he was okay. 
Stupid empathy.

“He probably just needs someone to talk to,” I guessed.  “I know him better than anyone here, so I should be the one to do it.  Just wake Ithan, and get some rest.” 

“Suit yourself,” Max answered as he scampered down my arm and leapt to the ground.  “All that honesty wore me out anyway.”

Before Max could make it outside of the
lantern’s light, I called, “Max, wait.”  Max stopped and turned his head.  “Thanks.  For everything.” 

Max gave me a solemn nod and started back towards the camp.  I hoped he understood that my thanks extended far beyond his honesty that night.  He was the sole reason I hadn’t been killed by Raijom.  He’d sacrificed his humanity to stop Raijom from harming me.  I owed him more thanks than could ever be given. 

Snow was now coming down in a flurry, forming a light frost on the ground.  Briscott didn’t seem to notice me closing the distance between us, even when the circle of orange light from my lantern encompassed him and his nameless dappled mare.  Both of his hands were shoved into one of his saddlebags.  He continued to mutter to himself, stringing together various combinations of vitriolic curses.  Even
I
don’t feel comfortable sharing them all in these pages.  I’ll just say that he would’ve made a sailor blush. 

“Briscott,” I called warily.  “Are you okay?”

“Blighted, gods-damned, whore-mongering, hells,” was all I got in reply.  That was one of his less offensive chains of curses.  He didn’t acknowledge that I’d spoken as he continued to dig through the saddlebag.  His cloak was crumpled at his feet, but he showed no signs of being cold. 

“Briscott,” I repeated more loudly, again receiving no acknowledgment.  When I reached him, I put a hand on his shoulder.  “Briscott, what’s—
”  I stopped short as Briscott knocked my arm away.

“Stand back,” Briscott growled before resuming his search of the saddlebag. 

Briscott’s reaction caught me off guard.  Stepping up beside him, I drew in a sharp breath.  His eyes were wide as if he’d just seen an eldrhim riding Rizear’s fabled fiery steed.  Sweat glistened on his paled face, his windswept hair plastered across it.  His tongue repeatedly licked across his lips as loud, rapid breath misted beaneath his nose.

“Briscott, what’s wrong?” I asked, concerned.

“Leave me be,” he grunted in return without meeting my gaze.  His voice held no trace of his usual friendlieness.

Briscott’s gruffness should’ve made me cautious, but as Max loved to point out every other hour or so, I tended to act without thinking.  “Let’s sit down and talk,” I offered, putting a hand on his shoulder again. 

This time, Briscott responded by violently shoving me away.  I staggered back, lucky to keep to my feet.  Pain shot directly from the scar on my chest through my extremities from where his hand had struck it.

“I said, leave me be,” he repeated, this time with his eyes viciously locked on mine.  They held a deep and violent anger, an emotion I’d never seen in them before. 

“Listen, Briscott—”  I hadn’t been prepared for the punch that took me in the jaw, knocking me straight to the ground.  The lantern flew from my hand and snuffed out, plunging the two of us into relative darkness. 

Rotating my jaw to make sure Briscott hadn’t broken
it, I looked up at my unlikely attacker.  He was already back to his search, now just a moving shadow in the dark.  He didn’t seem at all concerned that he’d just laid his friend out flat on the ground.  Well, I’d thought I was his friend, anyway.

As I pushed myself up to a sitting position, something small and cold shattered under my right hand.  I let out a small yelp at the pain of tiny, sharp slivers stabbing into my palm.  Shaking the piercing shards from my right hand, I reached with my left to feel for the injuring object. 

My fingers grasped the remains of a smooth, cylindrical item, the moonlight glinting from its reflective surface.  With a start, I realized I was holding a half-shattered vial similar to the one Kait’ had once given me.  There was a small amount of opaque liquid lining its bottom.  The vial had once held ellifil.

My mind went back to the night we’d spent in the Lost Wizard in Auslin, remembering Briscott’s sudden episode that had sent him fleeing our room, only to come back in high spirits shortly after.  I recalled briefly seeing a glass vial when he’d pulled the leather pouch of blueleaf from his cloak.  I understood now why it had seemed familiar. 

The truth of why Briscott would press ahead or lag behind as we traveled slammed into my consciousness like a battering ram.  He was undoubtedly taking doses of ellifil during those times.  His friendliness, his agreeableness, his amicability—it was all under a haze of ellifil intoxication. 

“Briscott,” I whispered sadly with a shake of my head.  I eased myself up and approached slowly, my hands held out in placation.  “I know what you’ve been through, but this isn’t the answer.  Please, let’s go back to the camp and talk.  Okay?”

Briscott paused in his search and let his chin drop to his chest.  With a sigh of relief, I dropped my arms and took another step closer.  With a little bit of instinct and a lot of luck, I was able to lean back from the sudden lunging punch aimed at my face. 

“What in Rizear’s domain are you doing?” I shouted, ducking under another swing.  I could faintly see Briscott’s face twisted in rage as he continued advancing on me with a flurry of punches. 

Knowing now that Briscott was going through ellifil withdrawal and was therefore not in his right mind, I didn’t want to fight him.  Besides, he was my friend.  Somehow, I needed to talk him down.  Until then, I had to focus on blocking and evading his punches.

“You don’t understand, you blighted bastard,” Briscott screamed.  His tears reflected moonlight as he threw another round of punches at me. 

I knocked his fists away twice before taking a punch to the gut.  My body automatically hunched over from the tightening of my stomach muscles, giving Briscott the perfect opportunity to throw a cross to my temple.  I dropped to one knee and just barely twisted away from taking a kick to the chin. 

“Max!” I called as I jumped up and dropped into a defensive stance.  “I could use a little help here!”

Briscott shouted incoherently as he continued to heave punches at me, making me wonder if Max had even heard me over the noise.  Even if he hadn’t, I hoped that Briscott’s screaming would still draw him to us.  The camp wasn’t far enough away to mask the sounds of our fight. 

Briscott’s attacks were wild and unpredictable, making them hard to anticipate and even harder to dodge.  See, fighting is part skill and part instinct.  If you have a good grasp on how people tend to fight, you can predict their attacks and dodge or counterattack accordingly.  With a trained eye, you can monitor subtle indicators—eye movements, foot placement, or the tensing of certain muscles—to gauge where an attacker’s next strike will come from. 

Skill aside, instinct sometimes takes over, telling your brain what an attacker plans to do next, whether from subconscious recognition of patterns or just some unexplainable, mystical foresight.  However, such factors only apply to fights where the opponent is at least semi-rational.

At the moment, Briscott was the polar opposite of rational.  There was no rhyme or reason to his fighting.  His body was craving ellifil, evicting his mind of logical thought.  Briscott saw me as nothing more than an obstacle to getting his next fix.

Briscott hadn’t shown the signs of a long-term addict, leading me to believe that he’d picked up the habit sometime after the death of his family.  Unfortunately, he’d been taking ellifil long enough for his body to rely on the intoxicating substance.  If I’d only been able to recognize the signs of his addiction sooner, I could’ve avoided our violent confrontation.

Another punch connected with my jaw and sent me staggering backwards several steps.  I nearly lost my footing on the slick slope.  I should’ve stayed where I was, keeping my distance until Max could help me subdue Briscott.  However, in the heat of a fight, you don’t always recognize the smartest plan of action.  All that existed in my mind was keeping Briscott from getting his hands on any more ellifil.

I started back up the hill, my lungs burning and my heart racing.  My booted feet fought for purchase, the grass beneath them slippery from a thin layer of accumulated snow.  I unclasped my cloak and threw it to the ground to prevent it from interfering with my movements. 

Briscott’s hands were back in the saddlebag.  His mare danced nervously, prompting Briscott to land a loud smack to her rump as she tried to pull away.  That did nothing to calm the poor horse and sent Briscott into a further rage, aggressively snatching her bridle and yanking her towards him.  He probably didn’t even realize what he was doing. 

“I know it’s blighting in here,” Briscott growled as he started digging through the saddlebag again.  “Where is the damned thing?”

This time I didn’t announce my arrival; I just took a couple of running steps forward and jumped, wrapping my arms around Briscott’s waist and taking him to the ground with my shoulder and momentum.  My plan was to hold him down until help arrived.  Briscott had other plans.  After landing with a grunt, he lifted an arm and dropped his elbow into my spine.  I screamed but held tight, trying to get over top of him to gain the advantage. 

Yet another punch struck my face, this time on the opposite side, as if to give some balance to my pain.  He’d leaned into the force of his punch, allowing him roll on top of me.  Straddled over my stomach, Briscott started raining punches down on me.  Some I blocked, some I couldn’t. 

“I lost everything. 
Everything!” Briscott screamed as he landed a punch that bloodied my nose. 

With a buck of my hips, I was able to knock Briscott off of me and get back to my feet.  He was up just as quickly, however, and threw another punch before I could react, splitting my upper lip.  My nerves completely frayed, I started to fight back. 

I ducked under Briscott’s next attack, rising with a fist to his chin.  His next punch was a clumsy cross that I easily dodged, returning with a jab to his right eye.  Before I could recover from my attack, Briscott hit me just below my own right eye, shooting pain through the back of my skull. 

Off balance from his attack, I was unprepared for his follow-up strike to my cheek.  I knocked aside his next punch and drove my fist into his stomach.  Briscott doubled over, and I brought my knee into his face, knocking him to his back.  His hand flew to his sheathed dagger, and he quickly drew it, scrambling shakily to his feet and holding it out in warning. 

“Briscott, you don’t want to do this.  Just think about it.  I’m your friend,” I reasoned, holding one hand towards him, the other inching closer to my shortsword.  “I’m your friend,” I repeated, speaking through ragged, gasping breaths.  The blood oozing from my nose and lip felt like ice against my skin in the frigid air.

“Right.
  My friend.”  Briscott let out a dry chuckle, a sinister mockery of his usual jovial laughter.  “Everything is so blighted hard on you, isn’t it?  A blighted father you never met may be evil.  I blighting hope he is.  Maybe then you’ll know true pain.”

“Briscott, what are you talking about?” I asked, his words cutting deep.  He may as well have been stabbing me with his dagger.

“You sit here and blighting whine that someone wants to kill you for some Loranis-forsaken prophecy.  You act as if your world is blighting crumbling because some blighted whore of a sorceress doesn’t love you, because she’s been warming the loins of another blighted wizard instead of your selfish, blighted self.”  His words were laced with malice, intended solely to hurt.  They achieved their intended effect.

Anger burned deep in my chest, warming my extremities as it pumped through me.  My hand found the hilt of my sword.  My fingers curled around its leather-wrapped grip and tightened until my knuckles cracked.