The Mad God's Muse (The Eye of the Lion Saga Book 2) (2 page)

Noril
looked as if his head might explode at this, teeth bared and eyes
bulging in fury and confusion. “
Submit?”
he
roared, his shout echoing off the shattered tiles. “It would
be better we all
die
than leave him with that thing!”

Amrath
leapt to his feet, fury burning in his eyes.
The lion was never
asleep, just resting.
“Don't you think I know that?”
he shouted, pounding a fist against the arm of the throne to
punctuate his words. The arm hit the floor with a report like a
whipcrack, and the marble split in a lengthening spiderweb shape
that grew directly at Noril. “Have you talked to Yorn? Do you
understand what that damned thing
is
?”

Noril
slowly lowered his gaze to the crack in the floor at his feet and
scoffed. He looked back at Armath in defiance. “I understand
well enough. Torian black sorcery, mind control!”

Amrath's energy seemed to drain
as quickly as it had come. He sank slowly back into the throne, once
again defeated and miserable. “So your answer is 'no', then.
Because it is much, much worse than you think.”

“How can it be
worse
?”

“It's
not
mind
control,” Amrath spat. “It's a collective. They are
volunteers. They
want
what
is happening to them.”

Noril's
rage fled him in an instant, and his face began to tremble as he
tried and failed to to conceal his horror at such a concept.“You
can't know that,” he muttered.

“I
do
know it.”

“
How
?”

Amrath waved the question aside
with a listless gesture of his hand. “It doesn't matter. What
is important is that we seize that thing from him at all costs.”

“A moment ago, you were
talking surrender. One does not make demands from his knees.”

Amrath nodded slowly, and rose
to his feet. The misery on his face was gone, replaced by grim
purpose. “I don't intend to make any demands. I
intend
to surrender. I also intend to kill a man and take from him
something that should never have existed. They will both happen at
the same time.”

Despite knowing silence was a
better choice, Tasinal could not contain his shock or his words.
“Are you suggesting what I think? Treachery? Under a flag of
truce?”

Amrath gave Tasinal an icy
stare, his eyes hard as emeralds. “I am not confused about
what I propose.”

Noril shouted, “It's a
confession of pure weakness!” He pointed an accusing finger at
Amrath. “To
yourself
!”

Amrath turned his icy gaze to
Noril, frowning. “So it is, and not something I do easily. But
lying to myself is worse. In the face of this abomination, we are
all weak. Will we compound weakness with cowardice and flinch from
what we know must be done?”

For long moments, none of them
spoke. At last, Tasinal asked in a soft voice, “It could
trigger a collapse, yes?”

Amrath nodded, the weariness
once again creeping into his expression. “It's hazardous
terrain, but not insurmountable. We must all keep our reasons for
this well in mind, remember our priorities. As for me, I am
convinced that it is not weakness to use whatever means I must. It
is not death we face. It's being robbed of all we are.”

Noril gave a visible shudder.
“Absorbed into the collective.”

Tasinal shook his head in
vehement denial. “Better to suffer a collapse!”

Amrath nodded back at them.
“Just so. One would still at least have the ability to
disagree, to deny, even if he lacked the power to resist.”

Noril slammed both fists
against the table, hard enough to rattle it. “I cannot believe
it is possible! This thing
cannot
rob us of our very
souls
!
Surely that is only for weaker minds?”

Amrath
grunted at this, his expression sour. “Yorn isn't certain, and
neither am I. It speaks to those dark, bestial parts in men, the
pieces that long to be led, to belong, to follow the herd.”

Noril
grunted at this. “I am not so certain I would call such people
men.”

“Oh,
please,” Amrath sneered. “How many nights have you gone
to bed, alone with your thoughts, feeling beset and misunderstood by
the world, by the people who ought have faith in you? It's the human
condition. Would you not, perhaps, in a moment of weakness, fall
victim to a calm, soothing voice promising you community and
purpose?”

“I
make my
own
purpose, and I need no 'community'.”

“Suppose
we
are
immune!” Amrath shot back, growing more
exasperated by the moment. “What of the rest of the people we
liberated? How many have died to preserve that freedom? Do we leave
them to their fate, and abandon the ideals that motivated us? I see
that as an even greater risk of collapse, a larger confession of
weakness!”

Noril
ran a hand over his head, despair creeping over his features as he
absorbed Amrath's argument. “What do you propose?
Exactly
.”

“A
summit under truce, to offer our surrender. We will slay Alexander
and take the Eye. Once Yorn has destroyed it, we will all surrender
ourselves to Xanthius in truth.”

Tasinal
felt something in him twist at this notion. “If we are rid of
the Eye, we no longer
need
to surrender. Why would you do
such a thing?”

“It's
hard enough to justify what I plan. Going the whole distance, I
think, would be too much on my part. Hypocrisy is, for me, the
deadliest poison I can imagine.”

“It's
not hypocrisy to change one's mind.”

Amrath
began to chuckle at this, then broke into full, honest laughter.
After a moment, he flashed Tasinal a wicked grin, his green eyes
once again filled with merriment and confidence as if it had always
been so. “No. We can always fight another day.”

Noril,
still dour, nodded at this. “They will never agree to such a
thing unless we press them.
We
must fight, Amrath.
All
of us. No more proxy wars, no more half measures. We unleash our
wrath in full, until they beg us to come to the table.
”

Amrath
nodded his agreement. “Yes, brother, I know. It is time once
more to slay tyrants and their minions. Let us begin.”

Xanthius is angry with me
again. He will be angrier when he knows why I summoned him.

Alexander
saw through the hazy lens of his normal eyes his Imperator enter the
command tent and stand to attention. Xanthius's face was creased
even deeper than usual with worry. Alexander held up a hand for
patience. “A moment, Imperator. I would speak to you with my
full attention.”

The Meites had taken the field
after all, and what had once been certain victory was now in doubt.
Alexander's people were pinpricks of green in his vision, tiny and
vulnerable. The Meites were great, crimson searchlights cutting
swathes through the green, leaving only black in their wake.

He was still convinced his side
would win, but at what cost? Thousands of lives, perhaps hundreds of
thousands. The Meites were no mere soldiers. They were demigods!
Even now, he felt a thousand of his people shriek in terror as the
ground shattered beneath their feet, quaking and heaving. Alexander
fell with them into the darkness, over and over. He burned alive,
felt his head collapse under driving hailstones, watched the very
stones in the earth rise up and crush him like a bug, or shoot
through him like arrows. Each of the enemy had his own flavor to his
killing, his own personal style, but all ended the same: black
across his vision.

In less than a week, they
have decimated my forces.
Alexander called out through the mists to the enemy leader, the
green-eyed monster.
“It is not right that you are
here!”

He
could not see inside the man's head, only hear the response.
“Speak
not to me of propriety, Boy King! I might crush their bodies, but
you crush their
souls
!”

“
I bring order to your
chaos.”

“
You bring misery and
evil, just as your father did!”

“
You and your kind
murdered my father.”

“
We executed a
tyrant.”

“
My father was a good
man!”

“
Is that what they
told you?”

Alexander
withdrew a moment, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. The rivers of
blood, this poison whispered in his ear, it was too much.

“
If you would stop it,
do as I demand,”
the
enemy called to him
. “Accept our surrender in
person.”
He shut himself
off then, and would hear no more.

Alexander, too, had heard
enough for the moment.

With a sigh, Alexander shifted
his vision more fully back to his own body, to fight an entirely
different battle. His Imperator understood less and less of what was
happening, and Alexander had no ability to explain. It was not
possible to communicate the vision to someone whose viewpoint was
still so narrow.

“You can't do this,”
Xanthius declared.

“It is done. I have made
my decision.”

“It's a trap!”

Alexander forced his attention
to focus on Xanthius, despite the welling cries of his people.
“I
must accept their surrender in person.”

“Elgar
take such foolish notions!” Xanthius shouted. “I will
go.”

“No,”
Alexander commanded. “It must be me.”

“
They
will
kill
you!”

Alexander
said nothing for long moments, his attention focused on the cries of
his men as the Meites cut through them like scythes through wheat.
“One way or another, this ends.
You will be needed here
in the event I fall.”

Xanthius stared at him, eyes
wide with confusion. “What are you saying?”

Alexander gripped the Eye in
his hand, feeling strength and purpose flow into him as he spoke to
everyone
. “I am saying, Xanthius, that if I fall, then
there can be no surrender. Not of anyone.”

Xanthius's eyes grew so wide it
seemed they would burst from their sockets. “
Mei! Stop it!”
he cried out in horror. “
Do
you not realize what you're doing?”

Curious, that you should
call upon the god of our enemies at such a time as this.
“Civilization is a candle flickering in the wind. On
Cofletere, there is still hope. If I fall, you will leave no one
alive on Prima to threaten it.”

“Alexander! By all that
is holy,
recant
it! Slay an
entire continent? It's madness!”

Perhaps. The whole world has
gone mad, it
seems.

“
You
have your orders, Imperator.”

Narelki eyed the stern,
pock-marked face of the orderly barring her path, making no secret
of her disdain. The man was a commoner with no concept of his
station, or what she could do to make it considerably worse. “You
will stand aside at once.”

Craterface clenched his jaw and
folded his arms across his chest. “I have my orders. Doc said
he’s too violent.”

Narelki felt a twitch beneath
her left eye. The indignity of this place, the
reek
of sickness both physical and mental was unbearable. “What
sane person wouldn’t be?” How her son Aiul had ever
tolerated running the hospital was beyond her. Was it any wonder he
was half-mad, now that he had been confined here?

Maranath,
dressed in his usual drab, brown robe, pulled at his white, tangled
beard and glared down at the orderly with equal measures of shock
and annoyance. “Do you have any idea who you are addressing,
boy?” he asked, his voice gravelly and sure, without a tremor
despite his age.

Craterface shot him a sneer.
“Doesn’t matter. I have orders.”

Narelki could barely contain
her fury. That this pathetic
creature
dared speak to them in such tones was
intolerable
.
She cast a quick look toward Maranath, seeing her thoughts reflected
in his ancient, blazing eyes, before turning back to the orderly.
If
we had just a bit less self restraint, your own mother wouldn't
recognize what we left of you.
When at last she spoke,
her voice was little more than a whisper. “Do you know what
happens if I pull my support from this institution?”

Maranath stepped closer to
Craterface, invading his personal space. “Or what could happen
to your head, say, if I were slightly more annoyed than I am now?”
The old sorcerer clenched his right hand and slammed it into his
left with a smacking sound. A gaping, fist-sized hole suddenly
appeared in the marble wall near Craterface’s head, unleashing
a rain of tiny shrapnel in all directions. One small missile cracked
the glass reservoir of a wall lantern with a sharp, pinging sound,
sending a streamer of oil down the ceramic tiles beneath. The
orderly stared at Maranath in horror, blood welling from multiple
new pinholes on his cheek as he silently mouthed, “
Meites!”

From down the spotless, tiled
hall, an anxious male voice called out, “Matriarch Narelki!
Allow me to assist you!” The sound of his rapid footsteps
echoed from the walls as he approached, a small writing pad clutched
against his chest, his face concerned, save for his eyes. They were
bright, electric blue, cold fires above the marble cliffs of his
high cheekbones and narrow, long face. Those eyes seemed calm as
death.

Narelki regarded the newcomer
with her own, cold stare. He wore the white robe of a physician, but
she couldn’t place him.
He seems familiar at that, though.
“And you are...?”

“Healer Rithard,
Mistress.”

He was young, this one, and
nervous.
As he should be.
She waited a moment for him to continue, then raised an eyebrow in
annoyance.
Why are youths not taught proper manners these
days?
“Surely you are no
commoner?”

The
healer’s eyes widened in surprise. “No, Mistress.”
He hesitated a moment, as if searching for the right words. “I
am Rithard... of House Amrath.”

Maranath
snickered, and Narelki, for all of her concern, found herself
slightly amused as well, though she could not allow it to show. “Ah.
My apologies to you,” she offered with a curt nod.
Of
course he seemed familiar. He might be mistaken for my own son,
except for the black hair. I can’t be expected to remember
everyone, after all.
She
inclined her head toward the still trembling orderly. “You
will explain this, I presume?”

“I
accept full responsibility, Mistress. I gave the order that no one
was to see Master Aiul. I hadn’t meant to apply it to you, of
course, but I should have been more specific.”

Narelki
cast an imperious glare at the trembling orderly for a long moment,
then muttered, “You may go.”

Craterface stepped gingerly to the side, away from the hole in the
wall, gave a deep bow, then fairly bolted down the hallway. Maranath
smiled and waved at the fleeing orderly. “Excellent judgment.
Bravo.”

Rithard
pulled at his robe and sighed as Narelki turned toward the door
again. “Ah, Matriarch, I would very much like to speak with
you about the current situation before you enter. You should be
prepared for what you will see.”

Mei, what’s happened?
“You will speak to me here and now.”

Rithard
glanced toward a door further down the hallway. “Mistress, I
think it best if we discuss things in a more private location.”

Narelki
found herself bristling at this, even though it was a perfectly
reasonable, prudent thing for Rithard to suggest. These were Aiul’s
underlings, after all. It simply wouldn’t do to have his
failings exposed to them.
I’m spending far too much time
with Maranath these last few days. I fall back into old ways, but I
lack the old strength. That is a good way to end up opening my
wrists.
She offered Rithard a smile she hoped seemed genuine,
and nodded. “Of course.”

Rithard’s
office was, in contrast to the rest of the hospital, warm and
inviting. Framed testaments from various elders lined the paneled
walls. Rithard gestured toward two leather-bound chairs that stood
in front of a large desk. “Please, have a seat.”

“We’ll
stand,” Narelki told him. “We don’t intend to be
long, do we?”

Rithard
shook his head vigorously, clearly indicating that he understood she
was giving him a command, not asking a question. “Of course
not, mistress. I’ll get right to the point.” He cleared
his throat and clasped his hands behind his back. His eyes seemed to
wander away from a direct confrontation, preferring the floor or the
walls. “Master Aiul received severe head trauma while
incarcerated. When he arrived here this morning, he was confused and
violent. It took five orderlies to subdue him, and even then he
managed to injure his best assistant. The poor woman needed
stitches.”

Narelki
took a moment to absorb the unexpected news. “And how does he
explain this?”

Rithard’s
expression was a mixture of pity and misery. “He doesn’t
speak at all, Mistress. If he comprehends either spoken or written
word, he shows no sign of it. He is catatonic, or he is savagely
violent.”

Narelki
gasped at this. “Will it pass?”

“It
may.”

“Days?
Weeks?”

“Or
months. Or never. The brain is a foreign land we view from afar.
It’s workings are known only little.”

Narelki
could barely contain a wail of grief. She felt Maranath’s hand
on her shoulder, steadying her, and for once she was grateful to
have him at her side.

“What
caused this?” Maranath growled. “There will be grave
consequences if I find this was from some abuse.”

Rithard
turned up his palms. “I can’t say for certain, but it
doesn’t seem so. Caelwen says Master Aiul knocked himself
unconscious trying to escape his cell. He was unresponsive when they
found him. The injuries I see are consistent with that story.”

Maranath
grunted. “Well, Caelwen is not apt to lie. I’ll trust
his word on it, then.”

Narelki
turned to Maranath, once again so full of rage she could barely
contain it, though this time it was directed at a much more
substantial target. “House Noril had a duty to protect him
from this. I will hold them accountable!”

Maranath
bristled and shot back, “Their man is
dead
. I’d
say he paid for his mistake well enough.”

“Davron
should never have put a fool in such an important position. He is
liable.”

Maranath
fixed her with a stern glare, his blue eyes dancing, vibrant, full
of life and lightning. “This is not the time or the place to
discuss such matters,” he told her, saying each word slowly.
“Compose yourself.”

Fortunately for the both of
us, I’ve had some experience with composing myself, unlike
you.
Narelki held his gaze a
moment, long enough to remind him she was stronger than he might
think, then turned back to Rithard. “That was not for your
ears.”

The
healer seemed to be focusing on a document on his desk. He looked at
Narelki with an innocent expression. “My apologies, Mistress.
I'm afraid I was distracted. What was not for my ears?”

“Very
good. I shall remember you for that.”

Rithard
offered her a knowing smile. “It is good to be remembered.”

“Now
I would see my son.”

“Of
course,” Rithard said, then paused, again looking squeamish.
He raised a hand to his chin and rubbed at it a moment, then
continued. “There is one more thing.”

Narelki
said nothing, merely raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.

Rithard
looked even more uncomfortable. He opened his mouth slightly to
speak, but two full seconds passed before any words came from him.
At last, he stammered, “There has been some damage to his
face.”

Aiul awoke with a start, head
cloudy with the last vestiges of sleep, and breathed a sigh of
relief. “A dream,” he whispered. “Only a dream.”

The pain fell upon him like a
boulder. There was no one source, though each of the hundred or so
violations of his flesh wailed with a slightly different pitch.
Their song, in turn, pulled him from half consciousness into full
awareness, to be crushed anew with an agony of spirit made all the
more excruciating by his brief moment of hope.

He closed his eyes and lay in
silence for what seemed an eternity. The cold, damp stone of the
cell floor against his cheek; the blinding agony in his head; the
sharp tang of blood; the utter emptiness he felt inside at his loss;
all could be dismissed as illusion, if only he refused to open his
eyes and concede his situation. He would will it untrue, believe it
into unbeing, and things would return to how they had once been.

It was futile, he knew. He had
never been the sort of man who could deceive himself, and even here,
with the greatest of incentives, he had no choice but to face
reality in all its jagged, blood streaked glory, to confront the
fact that Lara was gone, and he was responsible. His arrogance, his
pride, his sense of duty, all had brought agony and death to the one
person who mattered to him. He felt his guts twist as he remembered
more.
“Two
people,”
he whispered.

Even as he sobbed quietly,
drowning in guilt and shame, that piece inside him, his own jagged
edge, pricked at his heart and mind, unwilling to accept the full
blame. It was his failure, yes, but not his fault. Kariana's hand
had held the blade that rent Lara’s flesh. Yet even that was
not the whole of it. Kariana was a weakling, a hedonist. She had no
real power but what she was permitted by the elders. It was Nihlos
itself, in all its spiteful apathy, all its adherence to precedent
and ritual, that had allowed a monster like Kariana to thrive, had
made it necessary for him to act, and in the end, had killed his
family.

Between gasps of pain and
grief, his lips, still wet with blood, left trails on the damp stone
beneath him, a strange kiss of agony, as he whispered, “You
will be avenged, my loves.” A bright, jagged thing flashed in
his mind, hot and sharp, tearing at the deep parts of his soul. “All
Nihlos will pay.”

Narelki moved quickly as she
exited the small, padded room.
I need air!
The vision of her
son, broken, a doll tossed against a wall and left shattered on the
floor, still burned at her mind as the reek of excrement and sweat
still burned in her nose.

She felt tears welling in her
eyes.
His face! What have they done to his beautiful face?
In truth, she had no idea. His entire head was swathed in bloody
bandages, and that made it all the worse, somehow. To see him
battered would have been one thing, but to not see him at all?
How
bad must it be that they would need to bandage everything?

Again, Maranath's hand was on
her shoulder, firm and steady, seeming to pour strength into her.
“He’s alive, Narelki. And he’ll heal.”

“Into what?” she
gasped. She covered her face with her hands to hide the shame of her
weakness, but surely anyone nearby would hear her sobbing. “A
monster? And what of his mind? Rithard – ”

Maranath grunted and waved the
question aside. “Pay no attention to that charlatan. Aiul i
s
strong
like
his father
. He always has been. He’ll make a
full recovery, mark my words.”

The grief and fear in her mind
seemed physically hurled to the side as the shock of Maranath's
comment forced its way in.
How could you bring him up at a time
like this?

For a moment, she simply stared
at him, speechless. Maranath's face was still concerned and
fatherly, showing no sign of guilt or malice.
Grandfather. He
meant to say grandfather. Slip of the tongue, slip of the mind. He's
getting old, Meite or no. His mind is failing him.

She
swallowed hard and tried to put the horror of that thought out of
her head, along with all the others vying for dominance. With some
effort, she managed to offer him a tearful smile, hoping he saw
nothing in her expression to give away her realization.
If he
knows, if he feels himself slipping....

“Of
course,” she said with a nod.

Rithard closed the door to his
office behind him and leaned against it, allowing himself a long,
shuddering sigh.
That went well, all things considered.
He stood several seconds, waiting for his breathing to calm, then
crossed to his desk, sat heavily in his chair, and jerked open the
largest drawer. He drank straight from the bottle of liquor he kept
there, taking no real pleasure in it. It was medicinal, not for
entertainment.