Master and Fool (85 page)

Movement came from
the door. Crope's shadow moved out of sight and was instantly replaced by
another.

"Come in and
join the party, Baralis."

Kylock's words
were the last thing Jack heard before he let the drawing out.

Baralis was ready
for Jack's assault. Whilst Crope stood distracting him at the door, Baralis had
taken stock of the situation and formed a drawing ready to be sent.

He stepped into
the room.

Air crackled and
condensed. Baralis saw the thickening, felt the sharp pressure pain in his
eardrums. His own drawing rose up like a mirror image, not even a split second
behind. An instant was stretched to its limits. Directly ahead of him, Baralis
saw Kylock step forward from the shadow. To the right, Jack was hunched against
a wall. Baralis moved toward him. Even as he made himself a target, he fixed
his own sights upon Jack. And he was quicker, better, and craftier than the
baker's boy would ever be.

Baralis unleashed
his power. With mouth open and tongue ringing, he watched in horror as Jack's
drawing flared wide. A sickening sensation rose up from his gut. Jack wasn't
targeting him-he
had
no target. He was blasting everything before him.

Kylock!

Baralis shifted
his drawing in midcast, shaping a barrier to defend the king. Altering the
nature of the sorcery at such an instant was dangerous beyond measure, but he
had no choice. Without Kylock he had nothing. Baralis fashioned the shield,
speeding it toward Kylock, using all his powers of mind and will to force it
ahead of Jack's blast. Something ripped inside his chest. Pain needled close to
his heart.

Baralis cursed
Jack. He was a fool! Only an untrained simpleton would send such a crude and
directionless drawing. He should have targeted it first. He should have aimed
it straight at him!

The first surge of
Jack's drawing hit. Baralis was thrashed by light and air. He was knocked back
and his head smashed into the doorframe. On and on the power came. It was
relentless-a solid block of force. There was not enough power left within him
to shield himself as well as Kylock. What had happened two nights back had left
him too weak. Drugs could only do so much, and he had nothing but the barest
glimmer in reserve.

With the very last
finger of power that was left to him, Baralis secured the shield around Kylock,
protecting his own creation, gritting himself for the blow.

Jack was hardly
aware of what was happening. In the space of two seconds, a world of change had
raced by. The drawing flowed through him, fast and terrible and filled with
light. Kylock was in the center of the room, standing upright against the
blast. Baralis was pinned against the doorframe. Jack could sense him trying to
shield himself. He perceived the lines of power, intertwining cords, like
ligaments, that cut across the room. Somehow Kylock was still protected by
Baralis' power-the mesh was still intact.

In that instant,
Jack realized that he had been wrong about one important thing. He would never
be able to destroy Kylock without destroying Baralis first. The man would not
give up his one chance for glory lightly. It was time to kill the master of the
beast. All that was left-all that Jack had in body and soul-he directed toward
Baralis.

His spine cracked
like a whip as he forced the drawing to bend. Fighting against the broad blade
of power, Jack whittled it down it to an arrow-point of light. And sent it
straight for Baralis.

A sharp schism
ripped through the air. Baralis' body was lifted up and thrown against the
wall. Bones cracked, skull cracked, blood shot from ears and mouth. A terrible
scream sounded. Jack saw the lines of power fade to light traces in the dark
The mesh that had been Kylock's protection was less than an arm's length from
Baralis' chest when it withered into shade.

Air gusted around
the room like a gale. Jack couldn't breathe. A convulsion tore through his
belly-a void that sucked him in. Weakened beyond telling, he capped the power's
flow. The light and air closed in on itself, thinning, fading, and then dying
to nothing. A soft hiss sounded as it went. Baralis slumped to the floor, his
body landing in a heap of unnatural angles, jagged with broken bones.

Jack felt himself
falling, only he was already on the floor. Down and down he went, his body
collapsing around him, pulled under by the void. Pain washed over him, blurring
his vision to darkness and weighing his eyelids down. The last thing he saw was
Baralis raising a shaking hand toward Kylock. His mouth worked for a moment and
then two tortured words came out:

"My
son."

The hand dropped
to the floor as Jack let in the dark.

Jack blinked into
waking. There was no coming round period, no time to take stock before his eyes
were open. Kylock was standing above him, a letter in his hand. "Aah,
awake at last I see. Tell me, were your dreams all you expected?" He
looked calm, but there was a hint of madness in his voice and an artificial
gleam in the corner of his eye. Jack tried to rally his thoughts, tried to
recall all that had happened to bring him here. Baralis. His gaze shot to the
wall by the door. Baralis' body was nowhere to be seen. How much time had
passed? How long had he lain here vulnerable to Kylock's scrutiny?

Kylock made a
short clicking sound in his throat. "So you're Lesketh's bastard,
eh?"

Jack raised his
arm to his tunic. Pain shot from his shoulder to his stomach.

"Is this what
you're looking for?" Kylock curled the letter up in his fist. "Such a
touching little note from mother to son." His voice rose higher as he
spoke. Abruptly he turned on his heel.

Pulling himself
into a sitting position, Jack tested the power inside. There was nothing left:
the drawing that had destroyed Baralis had used up all his strength.
Cautiously, he felt for his knife.

Two noises
distracted him at the same time. The first was a dragging noise, the sound of
something being scraped across the floor. It came from the other room, and Jack
knew without a doubt it was Crope hauling Baralis' body away. The second noise
came from Kylock himself: a low, hacking laugh, almost a cough.

Kylock's shoulders
were shaking. His knuckles were white where he gripped the letter. His
fingertips were raw flesh and blood. "And I--I am Baralis' bastard. Whilst
the king took his pleasures where he found them, my mother whored with his
chancellor." Kylock's laugh was bitter now. He swung around to face Jack,
his eyes very bright. "Baralis. Who would have thought it? Who would have
guessed?"

Jack felt his skin
crawling. Slowly, gradually, power was building within Kylock.

"You have
what is mine!" he cried. "Your father should have been my father.
Your face should have been mine." Spittle flew from his lips. The two
tendons on the side of his neck were raised like cords of rope. "My hands,
my lips, my teeth-all yours."

Jack flinched. He
backed against the wall. His mouth felt as dry as parchment. Kylock was losing
control. Desperate for the knife now, Jack spread out his search. Nothing. He
risked a sideways glance-the knife gleamed to the right of his hand, just
beyond his reach.

Moving in close,
Kylock began shaking his head. "You think you're going to walk out of this
room and take your proof to the world. Show me up for what I am. Well, I swear
to you that's not going to happen. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever."

As Kylock spoke,
Jack became aware of heat building on his cheeks. At first he thought it was a
blood-flush, like the ones that had led him to Kylock, but it didn't stop at
simple warming. It began to burn. Terror bubbled in Jack's throat. His every
instinct warned him to run away, yet he was too terrified to move.

"King's
son." Kylock was a finger-length from his face now. "Mother a common
servant who made her money whoring on the side."

Listening to
Kylock's words, something snapped inside Jack. His mother wasn't a whore--he
knew that now-and this monster before him had no right to say it. Springing up,
Jack went straight for Kylock's throat. A wall of blistering heat knocked him
back. His nose and forehead were scorched; he smelled the quick singeing of his
hair. And his hands. Falling back against the wall, his hands blazed with pain.
Red and throbbing, he brought them to his face. His eyes were aching and he
could barely see the burns on his palms. "Those should have been my
hands," said Kylock.

Anger whipped
through Jack. He was sick of listening to the ravings of a madman. "I
don't care," he cried. "I don't want what you've got. I don't give a
damn about being a king."

Even as he spoke,
Jack felt the linings of his nose and throat drying out. Air scorched his
lungs. The blazing wave of moments earlier had gone, only to be replaced by a
steady buildup of heat. Everything was hot to the touch: the floor, the walls,
his clothes. The chain mail next to his skin was a blistering, scorching
sheath.

Kylock's eyes grew
blank. The air surrounding him rippled. Something sparked in his fist: the
letter. A lick of flame ran up his arm. He didn't even flinch.

Jack felt the
buildup of terrible pressure. The heat was unbearable-the skin on his face was
being seared like a piece of meat. He had to stop Kylock. Raising the palms of
his hands to face him, he cried, "Look, these are a baker's hands, not a
king's."

The terrible
bright blankness left Kylock's eyes for an instant. The heat wavered.

Jack edged to the
side, his sights set on the knife. Kylock began shaking his head. "No,
king's son," he said, speaking very softly. "You'll never have what
is mine." Jack lunged for the knife. Heat blasted against him. His skin
was on fire, the air was sucked from his lungs. Still he went on. His fingers
touched the hilt. Railing against instinct, he clasped the red-hot metal in the
palm of his hands. Pain ripped through his mind. A second, maybe two, was lost
to him as he spiraled down toward a fiery hell. The smell of his own burnt
flesh brought him round.

Flames. He was
surrounded by flames. The silk rug on the floor was ablaze. Wall hangings and
furnishings caught light as he watched. Panicking, terrified, breathing in
smoke, Jack fought to keep his mind intact. Strangely it was the pain throbbing
in his hand that kept him focused. It throbbed in time with his heart. It was
as if Larn was behind each agonizing pulse-slapping him on the cheek to keep
him conscious.

Jack felt himself
growing stronger. He knew he had never been abandoned by his father. He knew
who his mother was and where she had come from, and what she had planned a
decade to do. After a lifetime of lies and evasions, the truth was his at last.
And there had to be power in that. Forcing himself to his feet, he ran through
the flames toward Kylock. The blaze blinded, the smoke choked, the scorching
heat shredded his flesh. A warm breath of air buffeted his body, and then he
came face-to-face with Kylock. Surprise flitted across Kylock's face. A dark
glimmer in his eyes might have been fear, but by the time Jack had blinked away
the smoke-tears it was gone.

Time stretched to
a fine film like oil over water. Flames formed a hissing, crackling ring around
the two men. Jack could feel the fire's heat on his back. Kylock was surrounded
by a halo of golden light; it spilled over his shoulders and down along his
torso. It flickered like candlelight upon his face. Never had he looked more
like Baralis.

Watching him, Jack
felt a hard block of fear rise in his throat. There was no doubting Kylock was
Baralis' son. Baralis. Even now that he had killed the man, Jack could only
guess at the full range of Baralis' powers. Focusing his gaze on Kylock's face,
Jack wondered if the son was capable of more. Kylock's eyes were sharp with
madness-Baralis' brilliance was there, but it had been distorted into something
new and monstrous. As Jack watched, Kylock's lips curved into a smile. Yes, he
could do much worse.

Jack shuddered.

The pain pulsed
hot in his hand. Larn again, pushing, reminding, keeping him on track. The
reflex reaction of the pain caused him to raise his hand. The knife came up
with it.

Kylock's gaze
flicked to the blade. He raised his arm to defend himself. Jack moved ahead of
him. Driven to madness by the pain of his bums, he had developed a madman's
reflexes. The moment Kylock's arm came up to his heart, Jack raised the dagger
to his throat. Blind panic registered on Kylock's face. For the briefest
instant he looked as shocked as a child who had been slapped for no reason.

And then the knife
went in. Kylock's mouth fell open. Jack flinched, expecting sorcery. Quickly,
he worked to turn the blade within the muscle of Kylock's neck, seeking to
sever the windpipe. Kylock fought him all the way.

Jack smelled the
metal tang of sorcery. He saw Kylock's lips move. Within the wet redness of his
mouth, Kylock's tongue began to vibrate.

The pain in Jack's
arm and hand was unbearable. His eyes were stinging with sweat and smoke.
Kylock's body tensed. Panicking, Jack fumbled with the knife for what seemed
like an eternity. Blood gushed over Jack's fist and down Kylock's chest. Jack's
knife hand wouldn't stop shaking. Finally the blade scraped against the elastic
wall of Kylock's windpipe.

In that instant
Kylock's mouth opened wide. The air thickened around his lips. The odor of hot
metal sharpened into a stench.

With one
razor-quick movement, Jack sliced Kylock's windpipe in two.

A soft hiss
escaped from Kylock's lips. He blinked once, his eyes revealing a raw, animal
terror, and then the light disappeared from his face.

Jack couldn't stop
shaking. His grip on the knife was so tight, his knuckles were as white as
bone. He took a deep gulp of air, and as he did so, he breathed in what
remained of Kylock's last breath.