Lucian: Dark God's Homecoming (26 page)

“Not necessarily protection from them,” I said quickly. “The Dark Men, the demons… all sorts of dangers are lurking on the Road, and on all the other byways, these days.”

“Demons. Dark men. I have heard others speak of your claims in this regard. Tell me: Why have I never encountered any of these, aside from the usual low-powered demons of the Below?”

“I… I do not know. But they are out there. Powerful, mindless beings lurking in the shadows. Demons that appear through portals, attacking suddenly and viciously.”

Karilyne waved a dismissive hand.

“Impossible. They are incapable of that.”

“Yet they did it. Or someone helped them.” I recalled the rest of our encounter with the demons and added, “In fact, one group of them attacked Vorthan, and apparently carried him away.”

She frowned at this.

“Vorthan? You have seen him recently?”

I nodded.

“He tried to help us against those very demons.”

I told her of the outcome of that incident. She listened but said nothing afterward. I could see she was taking it all in, though—whether or not she believed it in the least.

“In regard to the guns I had with me,” I said then, “you will note I did not have any ammunition for them with me. Difficult to gun down my fellow gods without anything to actually put in the weapons’ chambers.” I spread my hands out before me, asking, “Did you see any ammunition in your scans?”

She pursed her lips, looked away.

“...No. But that could mean many things.”

“Certainly it could. But one of those things is, ‘Lucian had some empty weapons and no ammo.’ Another of those things is, ‘Lucian has yet to be seen hurting anyone.’”

I thought of Arendal then, but kept that to myself. I refused to feel the least bit of guilt over the outcome of our conflict. He had brought that entirely upon himself. And if he turned up later, recovered and with still more accusations against me, well, what were a few more charges added to the list?

Karilyne appeared to consider my words for a few moments, something I felt good about. Then, she asked, “What of these ‘Dark Men’ to which you keep referring. Assuming, for the moment, they do exist, what do you believe they are? Where did they come from?”

I shook my head.

“I don’t know. But they are powerful. And dangerous. One assaulted me on the Road as I returned to the Golden City, and I have no doubt he would have done me serious bodily harm had I allowed him to catch me.”

I motioned toward Evelyn.

“She was with me when I encountered two more of them later, on the outskirts of Malachek’s domain.”

I described what we had seen, and Evelyn verified it.

“Have you not seen them at all?” I asked.

“No…” She hesitated, as if searching for the right words. “But I have heard stories from some of the others.”

She shrugged.

“Baranak, of course, does not believe it. If they exist at all, he is sure they are something you yourself cooked up, to distract attention from yourself and your activities.”

“Including having one nearly kill me.” I sighed. “Sure.”

Karilyne nodded.

“Yet, if they are as prolific as you say, but the rest of us never see them, what else can we believe?”

I shook my head, having no answer for her. She stared at me for long seconds, clearly thinking through what had been said. I held my tongue. For the most part, she had all the information I had to offer now. The rest would simply come down to how believable she found me. Not the ideal situation, no, but what else could I say?

Evelyn leaned forward then, unexpectedly, and met Karilyne’s gaze.

“I would simply like to say this: A few days ago, I had never met any of you people. I knew nothing about your existence, your powers, or your feuds. In the time I’ve spent in Lucian’s company, he has been an irritant, a nuisance, and an arrogant, boorish jerk.”

My eyes widened at this as she paused for breath, and I wondered just where she was going with this, and how she could possibly think that saying it was a good idea. Even if it happened to be somewhat true.

Karilyne smiled and gestured for her to continue.

“However, he has also saved my life on numerous occasions, protected me to the best of his abilities, and continued to try to find some way to reunite me with my lost crewmen, despite the fact that I know he doesn’t care for either of them.”

Evelyn sat back, arms crossed.

“So you can criticize him and suspect him of all sorts of bad things, based on what you knew of him back in the day. But from what I’ve seen of him up close, hour after hour, day after day, during exceptionally trying circumstances, I can tell you that he’s not what you think. Not anymore. And you would do well to listen to him—to heed his warnings. Because those creatures are out there—I’ve seen them!—and I think one of your people is controlling them. And that’s who you need to be rounding up—not this man, who has done nothing other than try to help some poor, weak mortals, and to clear his own name.”

Karilyne just stared at her, open mouthed, for a long moment. And so did I. No one said a word, until at last the servants stepped forward and removed our plates.

“Well,” the silver goddess said finally, “I believe that is the first time in more than a thousand years I have heard anyone speak well of Lucian. Not since Halaini…”

Still the boot to the gut, with the mere mention of that name. I said nothing.

Karilyne trailed off, looking away; I knew the two of them had been close. She stood then, and we did likewise.

“Thank you for the company and for a most… interesting conversation. We shall continue it on the morrow.”

Thanking her for as fine a meal as I had ever had, I bowed, somewhat unsteadily, and then Evelyn and I followed the servants back up the stairs. Evelyn disappeared into her room, and I followed after her, once the servants had retreated back down the hall.

“Where did all that come from?” I demanded, closing her door behind me.

She sat on the edge of the bed and laughed.

“It needed saying.”

“I suppose it did,” I replied, still somewhat in shock from her words. “The liquor,” I concluded. “It had to be the liquor.”

“It helped, but I was being honest. When we first met, I thought you were an absolutely terrible person. But, after being around some of the others, I have to admit, you’re one of the better ones.”

“Thanks… I think,” I said.

She shrugged.

“I’ve just gotten frustrated, really,” she said. “Here we sit, in the lap of luxury, but unable to do anything to help Cassidy and Kim.” Her face betrayed her deep concern for them. “If they are in a place with no food, no water—they may have been dead for days! It may already be too late to save them.”

“Not necessarily,” I replied, searching for the right thing to say, but utterly lost. Consoling and cheering upset humans had never registered among the many things at which I excelled. Truth be told, during all the time of my exile on Mysentia, I had probably never attempted it once. I had surrounded myself with followers and soldiers and advisors, but never with friends. The women had come and gone, yes, but never had I allowed myself to become emotionally connected with any of them. If Evelyn needed a sympathetic ear and a skilled hand at the art of comforting loved ones, then she had, in me, come to just about the least appropriate person I could imagine.

As if sensing my thoughts, she scooted away, pulling her legs up in front of her.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “You have enough concerns.”

“I—“

Infuriating!
Why could I not engage in a simple conversation with this woman? Was I so far removed from dealing with anyone other than servants and subordinates that I lacked the capacity entirely? Surely it was the Amarec. Surely.

“I suppose it’s bedtime, anyway,” she was saying. “We could use the rest, and I think we’ll probably both sleep pretty well, given that meal.”

Blast it all, I refused to fail at the simple act of expressing compassion for a fellow being. If I chose to do something, I would do the best job I could at it. War? Conquest? Simple! Create an army, an overwhelming force of devoted followers, pull them completely under your sway, and march out. Push forward to absolute victory. Nothing to it. I had done it numerous times as master of Mysentia, during my exile—hence the nickname, “Liberator,” partly for my efforts at overthrowing petty tyrants and bringing their worlds under my own sway. And now, if I chose to be a friend and confidant, surely I would make myself the most effective one the universe had ever seen!

Amarec still flowing through me, my head swimming, my odd rationale making perfect sense to me, I sat on the edge of the bed next to Evelyn and leaned toward her, attempting to summon as much sympathy as I could muster.

But before I could speak, she looked at me and said, “You don’t have to say anything else, Lucian. I appreciate your just being here, talking with me. But we’ll get ’em. We’ll do what we have to do. We’ll get out of here and get back on the trail soon enough. I have no doubts.”

I blinked, taken aback. She was cheering
me
up now?

“Yes,” I said then. “Of course we will.”

She leaned forward then, quickly, and kissed me.

Time froze.

We separated simultaneously, and I stood quickly, part of me as drunk as ever, another part now utterly sober.

“I will—um—time for bed, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

She looked away, reddening, and ran her hand back through her short, blonde hair.

“I’ll talk to you in the morning,” she said, now sounding entirely sober as well.

“Um. Yes. The morning.”

I turned and strode quickly through her door, closing it behind me, my thoughts a blur. To this day, I have no recollection of stumbling back to my room, collapsing on the bed, and passing out instantly. But that is what I did. Strange that those waking memories should be lost, considering what happened next, and what I remember of it.

Sleep descended like a black shroud over my consciousness, and I was dead to the world. And into my head strange thoughts and sensations came, unbidden, to haunt my fevered mind.

Within that blackness, time seemed to pass in sudden surges and random, awkward halts. In some ways I felt I lay there only minutes; in others, the night went on for an eternity. And during that night, within that shroud of black and fitful sleep, images appeared and danced within my mind’s eye, taunting me with just enough familiarity to stir my deeper thought processes, but without the certainty, the clarity, to become anything like understandable to my waking mind. Often, dreams will make perfect sense to the dreamer, only to crumble into absurdity upon reflection in the light of day. These, however, mystified even my sleeping mind, and I somehow knew that they contained shards of some larger truth, long denied to me.

I saw a city. A massive, majestic city of the mortal realm, spread across a vast, rocky prominence. Surely this was the greatest city in existence, the greatest city of its age. The capital of some interstellar empire it must have been. I knew this even as I gazed upon it in mystified wonder.

At the center of the city, a towering dome pierced the sky. Banners fluttered all around it. Down, down, my vision spiraled, until I looked upon broad marble steps leading up to the grand entrance of this facility. On those steps stood a number of figures, all dressed impeccably, all moving with purpose and studious concentration from one point to another, within and without. Closer my perspective drew, until I could make out the individuals standing on the steps. And there, at the top of those steps, stood a man clad in a long, blue coat, insignias of office adorning his lapels. His black hair was long but tied in a ponytail behind his head. He looked about himself, gazing out at this imperial capital, and he smiled a broad, warm smile of utter confidence and contentment. And then he looked at me, and the vision exploded in a shower of fragments that caused me to jerk upright in bed, suddenly wide awake.