Wrath of Lions (42 page)

“Smart man,” replied Velixar with a smile, though inside he was seething. He knew Captain Wellington’s decision was logical, but Mordeina was close, so close. “Since you are free, I would like for you to stay with me. There is much for you to learn.”

“Yes, High Prophet,” said Boris. The soldier then snapped his heels together, moved to the pavilion’s canvas wall, and stood there, still as a statue.

Velixar turned his attention to the old man seated before him.

“Your name?” he asked.

“Cotter Mildwood,” the old man answered in a strained voice. He leaned forward in his seat, squinting his faded brown eyes to see more clearly. “I know you,” he said. “I know that voice.”

“I assure you, you do not,” said Velixar. He grabbed a blank sheet of parchment, lifted his quill, and wrote down the man’s name and description. “Now tell me, Cotter, why did you bow to Karak when we arrived in your village? Why not leave with Ashhur when he passed through?”

“I have no stomach for strife,” old Cotter replied. “And a hurried march would end me. My body is breaking, and I near the end of my days. My hope was that Karak would forgive an old man and allow him to end his life in peace.”

It made sense, of course, though Velixar’s chest tightened at the thought of the man abandoning his allegiance to his deity so easily, so callously.

“Tell me, Cotter, how old are you?”

The old man smiled, revealing a mouth half-filled with pearly white teeth.

“Ninety-four,” he said with pride.

Velixar hesitated. “Ninety-four, you say?”

“Yes. I’ve been alive for ninety-four years.”

“That cannot be so.”

“It is.”

Cotter clumsily lifted the bottom of his ratty tunic, exposing his wrinkled midsection—a midsection that lacked a bellybutton. Then he dropped his shirt and leaned so far forward his elbow struck the desk. He winced a bit, but it did not break his concentration as his squinting eyes stared at Velixar’s face.

“I knew it,” he said, clapping his misshapen hands together. “I
do
know you. The First Man. Jacob Eveningstar. Still so handsome. You look not a day older than the last time I saw you…had to be at least fifty years ago…though your eyes seem strange.” His expression dropped as a spark of memory flashed in his eyes. “I heard of your exploits in the delta. Ashhur spoke of it when he gathered up the willing and took them from my village.”

Velixar remained silent. He glanced at Boris, but the soldier simply watched, stoic.

“So it’s true,” Cotter said. “But of course it is. Ashhur tells no lies.”

“He does not,” said Velixar.

Cotter nodded. “You were always such a nice man to us. My son was born in my second year, and you brought a bale of hay and twigs to help build his cradle. I don’t remember what you told me that day, but I remember your voice plain as if it were my own.”

“A shame I do not remember you,” said Velixar. “I have met so many over the years. And age has not been kind to you.”

“It is true, it is true.” Cotter’s frown grew deeper. “I have a question for you, Jacob. Why? Why have you turned your back on your god?”

“I am Jacob no longer,” he said, keeping his voice level and his pulse steady. “I am Velixar now, High Prophet of Karak, and I would appreciate it if you would offer me the respect of addressing me as such.” He sighed. “As for my actions, I never turned my back on my god, old man. I am a child of
two
gods, not one, and
I chose Karak. Choosing one god does not mean I turned my back on the other.”

The old man looked confused. “But…that makes no sense. You were Ashhur’s most trusted. Now you seek to destroy him. Though I am not one to talk given that I bended my sore knee to Karak, but it seems like a betrayal to me.”

“My aim is not to destroy,” Velixar said, “but to liberate. Ashhur’s notions are grand, but he is
wrong
, Cotter, wrong about what is best for humanity. I would show Ashhur the error of his ways, but he is not prone to change. If that means killing him, if a god can even
be
killed, then so be it. What I’m doing, what we’re all doing in this army, is fighting for humanity’s future. It is mankind I serve, and what is best for mankind. Karak is the truer deity. He is the god of freedom and prosperity, not chains and sacraments.”

“But Jacob—”

Velixar slammed his fist on the desk, silencing him. “Enough, old man,” he said. “I am the one who asks questions here, not you. And do
not
call me Jacob again.”

“I apologize…Velixar,” the old man said, bowing his head. “I meant no disrespect.”

Breathing deep, Velixar gathered his patience once more. He glanced at Boris and nodded to the soldier, who returned the gesture.

“Let us speak on other matters,” he told Cotter. “You have sworn yourself to Karak, which means you are now a part in our god’s ever growing congregation. And an important one at that.”

“Important? How?”

“You will assist me in the quest for knowledge.”

Cotter’s thin lips twisted in confusion.

“Can you read, old man?” asked Velixar.

“I can.”

Velixar turned to his journal, opened to a page he had inscribed just the night before, when another surge of the demon’s ancient
knowledge dripped into his brain like sweet nectar. He turned the journal to face Cotter and slid it across the desk to him.

“The way the human mind works is a mystery to me, to all of us,” he told him. “There are certain words and images that mean something to one person and something completely different to another.”

“I don’t understand.”

Velixar gestured at the journal. “Please, all I ask is that you read the words written on that page and then study the diagram drawn beneath. After you do so, tell me what it is you see.”

Cotter leaned over the pages, cloudy eyes squinting even more as they traced letters and illustrations drawn in black ink.

“The words make no sense,” he muttered.

“Sound them out best you can,” Velixar said. “They’ll feel natural in time.”

Cotter’s thin lips mouthed unintelligible words, his brow furrowing. Velixar leaned forward, watching with interest as the old man’s mouth slowly sagged, his neck growing taut and his hands clenching and unclenching on the desk. It looked like the beginning of a seizure. Faster and faster he spoke the words, now an audible whisper. Then a moan escaped Cotter’s lips, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. The old man threw himself back in his chair. He forced out laughter between violent coughing fits, spittle and blood flying from his mouth.

Velixar stood, and though Boris looked frightened, the Highest only smiled.

“Fascinating,” he whispered.

Cotter began to shout animalistic bellows and nonsensical phrases. His body rocked in his chair, and then he lurched to a standing position, arms held out to his sides. His ragged tunic was soaked with the blood that seeped from his mouth, nose, and ears. The old man’s eyes bulged, his pupils the size of the tiniest pinprick. He gaped at everything and nothing, his stare as empty as
the dead. His lips continued to move, spewing yet more blood. He stuck out his tongue and in a swift motion his mouth snapped shut, his remaining teeth gnashing the appendage in two. The severed portion flopped to the ground while the mouth in which it once resided continued to speak in soundless chants.

“So fascinating.”

Cotter began slamming his blood-soaked face into one of the pavilion’s heavy support struts. Velixar heard a
crunch
as the man’s nose shattered, and he glanced at Boris. The young soldier was watching the scene with abject horror, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, tiny rivulets of sweat beading on his neck.

Boris stepped forward wordlessly, drawing his sword. He grabbed Cotter by the shoulder and whirled him around. The old man’s hand lashed out, striking the soldier across the cheek. Boris released him, stumbling backward in surprise, and Cotter lunged forward, mouth opened wide, baring his remaining teeth, his gnarled hands bent into claws.

The soldier thrust upward with his sword, the tip piercing the underside of the old man’s chin, then exiting the back of his head with a
pop
. Cotter’s arms went limp, and his body collapsed against Boris, who stepped back, letting him fall. The young soldier looked like he wanted to turn on Velixar, to scream and rant and perhaps drive a blade into him, but he shook it off as if physically shedding his anger. He then calmly reached down, wrenched his sword from Cotter’s head, and wiped it clean before returning it to its sheath.

“You promised you wouldn’t hurt him,” Boris said when he was done. Despite the delay, his voice still quivered a bit.

“And I did not. He hurt himself, and then you ran him through.”

The soldier gaped at him.

Velixar leaned forward, gazing with disappointment at the stilled body on the ground, before sitting down and grabbing the sheet of parchment on which he’d written Cotter’s name and age, and then
he started scribbling with his quill. “A shame,” he said. “There is much I could have learned from this one.”

“Learned?” asked Boris. The tiniest quaver in his voice betrayed the calm he was trying to portray. “What could you possibly learn from
that
? That was…that was…unnatural.”

“No,” Velixar said, lifting his head from his writings. “It might not have appeared so, but it was actually quite natural. It is fascinating the effects certain stimuli have on the human mind. Everything has a cause and consequence. The only failure was on my part, for I did not know what outcome this passage would bring. It could have made the man calmer, or more intelligent, or reduced his mind to that of a child.” He shrugged. “Instead it drove him mad.”

Boris strode up to the desk, grabbed the corner of the journal, and turned it toward himself.

“What kind of witchcraft is this?” he asked, his eyes dipping to the opened page.

Velixar’s arm quickly shot out, slamming the massive tome closed.

“Do
not
read that!” he shouted at the soldier. “Do you wish to die? There are some things the human mind was not meant to comprehend. That passage is obviously one of them.”

Boris slowly backed away.

“I was…I just wanted to see what it said, what it looked like,” he said.

“Then you would have ended up like the man you just ran through,” Velixar said, jutting his chin at Cotter’s corpse.

“Oh. But did you not write it? Why can
you
look on it when others can’t?”

Velixar withdrew his hand, sighing.

“Because I am beyond humanity now. I am the High Prophet of Karak, privy to knowledge that transcends mortality—that transcends the fabric of the universe itself. Do not insult me by insinuating that the sniveling old man’s mind was of equal strength to mine.”

Boris considered the now closed journal. “Is that book full of similar…things?”

Velixar smiled, amused by the soldier’s almost reverence toward his personal writings.

“There are more than a few spells in here that might render a man mad, Boris. It is a chronicle of my life and all I have learned, from ten years before the gods created you until this very day. The history of the elves, the first baby steps of man, Karak helping to erect the city of Veldaren and the commune of Erznia, Ashhur forging the Sanctuary and adopting the cast-out Wardens, countless remedies and spells—all are within these pages.” He patted the tome’s leather cover. “I once wrote this as my gift to the race of man, a legacy of wisdom and knowledge in case of my death.”

The soldier gave him a wry smile.

“Once?” he asked.

“Now I do not know who I write it for,” Velixar said, surprised by how he was revealing himself to the soldier. “Not even the brother gods have seen what is written here. The spells are archaic, many of them dangerous.…Still, I find myself driven to record them, to test the limits of my newfound wisdom. I should destroy the book; part of me knows that, yet I cannot bear the thought. It will no longer be a gift for mankind, though, I do know that. There is danger in too much knowledge. After all, one might accidentally loose a demon on the world.”

Boris frowned, looked at Cotter’s body, and shifted awkwardly on his feet.

“I suppose I should clean up the mess,” he said, bending over and hefting a stiff arm over his shoulder. “I will send a squire to wipe up what is left.”

He began dragging the corpse along the ground, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

“Young man,” Velixar said, halting the soldier in his tracks. Boris turned to him, expectant. Once more Velixar was reminded of
Roland. So much potential. So much desire to learn, consequences be damned.

“There is no need to send a squire,” he told him. “I will handle this mess. And though you may never look within the journal, I would not deny you some of the wisdom inside. Prove yourself, Boris. Dedicate your service to Karak, and show our god the true cleverness of your mind. I have been without a capable steward for some time now. When our Divinity claims Paradise as his own, I may require another one.”

“Yes, High Prophet,” he said, grinning. And then he ducked beneath the flap.

When he was gone, Velixar snatched up an empty inkwell, stood, and circled his desk. He hovered over the trail of blood and raised his free hand. With a few chanted words of magic, the blood began to shimmer and rise up off the ground, the droplets shimmying and swaying like hovering puffs of cotton. The liquid rippled, drawing together the higher it floated, until it became a single massive bubble. Velixar held out the inkwell, and the blood formed into a narrow tube, gliding through the air and entering the open top of the bottle. When the tail of the crimson serpent disappeared inside, he placed a cap on it and set it down.

He slowly shook his head as he stared at the capped container. A shame Cotter had died. To have custody of one of the first humans crafted by Ashhur, his blood pure and unmixed with others, could have been useful. Still, he couldn’t blame Boris for killing him. The boy was only human, prone to fear and doubt. Still, it bothered him, for there were many more pages of mystical transcriptions he longed to experiment with, all written within his journal over the last five days. He shrugged. No matter. They had collected a great many refugees from the towns they’d sacked, all of whom had bent their knee to Karak. There were plenty of other subjects for his experiments. Perhaps even Lanike Crestwell would do. The wife of Clovis was locked in her private wagon on the other end of camp,
likely chomping on her fingernails and crying herself to sleep. All it would take was a word and she would be brought before him, eyes wide and pleading. It was tempting, if not for his need to keep Darakken in line.…