The Mad God's Muse (The Eye of the Lion Saga Book 2) (13 page)

But as he had come to accept,
happiness was, for him, something to be stolen, never owned. All too
soon, the memories returned, and he was once more what he had become
over the last months, a damned thing kept alive merely as a source
of amusement.

As he waited for the slave, he
struggled to make sense of things, desperate to find a sense of
continuity, to fill the obviously missing time. And yet, it wasn‘t
missing
, not
precisely. There were hazy, indistinct memories of blood and
screaming, warm and pleasant rather than fearful. They were not
quite his own, he knew, but somehow, he had been there, was allowed
to share them. And there was a brief glimpse of a concept beyond his
ability to grasp, a hate so intense that his mind could not
appreciate its full dimension. Like a cube drawn on a sheet of
paper, it was reduced in his mind to a mere projection of its true
nature, and even that was enough to overwhelm him if he focused on
it. With some difficulty, Aiul pushed the image aside and tried to
concentrate on his location. He needed concrete facts, not the
conjurations of a fevered brain.

“Slave!” he shouted
again, annoyed now. “Damn you, answer!”

His sick bed was a sturdy,
rough hewn construct that filled most of the small room it occupied.
The room was part of a larger building that was, apparently, made
from whole logs. The technique was unusual to him, but certainly it
seemed to hold the heat well enough. Assuming, he considered, that
the seasons had not changed during his madness.

He was naked, save for a
pendant about his neck. It was unremarkable, a simple marble of
amber on a silver chain, and meant nothing to him. Likely, he
thought, it was some primitive charm meant to help the healing
process. Or, just perhaps, it was a true charm. His recent
experiences had been bizarre enough that he could believe he was in
the hands of a sorcerer, and difficult enough that he decided not to
risk removing it just yet.

He had just begun to look about
for something to clothe himself, when the slave at last bothered to
answer his call.

“So you’ve come
through it,” the man observed, a wry smile on his lips. As the
newcomer leaned casually against the door frame, a bundle of cloth
in his arms, his eyes seeming simultaneously cold and amused, Aiul
suppressed a shudder at the sight of him, memories of nightmares
still fresh enough to surround the slave with an air of malevolence.
He was, in waking sight, an ordinary enough man. Aiul guessed they
were about the same height, six feet three inches, but the slave was
bulkier, hairier, and a shade darker than Aiul considered normal.

“How long must I call
before you attend me?” Aiul growled, glaring at the slave.

The man stared blankly at him a
moment. “No slaves here.”

Aiul’s eyes narrowed and
his lips curled in annoyance and embarrassment, but he nodded,
accepting the truth of what the man was saying. “I meant no
offense,” he said, nodding. “I assumed….”
He trailed off and stared at the hardwood floor.

“Logrus,” the
newcomer told him.

Aiul looked at him again,
confused. “What is a ‘logrus’?”

“Me.”

“Ah.” It seemed to
be a day for humiliation and poor assumption. “I am Aiul.”

Logrus tossed him the bundle.
“Clothes. Food’s in the kitchen. You’ll need it.”
He turned to leave.

“Talkative,” Aiul
observed, but Logrus kept walking without response. With a sigh,
Aiul examined the bundle of clothes, finding a woolen, hooded robe,
along with leather pants, shirt, and boots. All of the garments were
well made, better than Aiul would have expected, and all were black,
hardly Aiul’s favorite color, but it was preferable to being
naked.

The difficult part of the
journey to the kitchen was over once he had managed to stand and
walk without losing his balance or consciousness. From there, it was
a simple matter of hobbling toward the sounds of cooking and the
heavenly aroma of frying meat. He had thought himself slightly sick
to his stomach, but smell awoke within him a ravenous hunger.

The kitchen, like the bedroom,
was small but warm. Logrus was here, eying him with the same curious
stare, and tending a feast of bacon and eggs on a griddle that
seemed to fill the tiny room. He tossed a plate toward Aiul as he
staggered in. Aiul’s reaction, slow and half hearted, was not
sufficient. The plate sailed past him and shattered against the
wall.

“Reflexes a bit slow,
still,” Logrus noted with a shrug. Aiul was not amused.
Silently, he took a seat at the small table, and lay his heads on
his arms. Between the vertigo, the weakness, and the hunger, it was
difficult not to moan, but he had been embarrassed enough this
morning, and, through sheer will, managed to remain quiet.

“It’s like a
hangover,” Logrus explained, as he turned the eggs. “Assuming
you survive to this point, anyway. Many don’t.”

“What are you nattering
about?” Aiul mumbled into his arms.

“Later,” Logrus
told him. “After you eat.” Aiul nodded, but kept his
position, waiting, until at last he heard the thud of a heavy plate
being laid before him. The smell of the food, as close as it was,
drove back the vertigo and nausea, and within moments, he was
gobbling the meal with his bare hands.

Logrus belatedly tossed a fork
to him, and Aiul was clear headed enough to catch it this time.

Logrus followed up the fork
with a pitcher of water. “Drink,” he said. “It
will help the weakness.”

Aiul nodded, and drank deeply
from the pitcher. “Where did you learn your knowledge of
medicine?” he asked. “You have done a fine job with me.
I should know. I am a physician, myself. Are you the local healer?”

Logrus’s eyes showed
little, though Aiul thought he could see confusion deep within them.
“Skill at healing comes from understanding the inner workings
of the body. There is more than one reason to know such things.”

Aiul shrugged, not really
certain what Logrus was getting at, but unwilling to pursue the
sinister implication. “I suppose,” he said. “Explain
to me how I have come here.”

Logrus nodded, his brow
furrowing in thought for a brief moment. “What do you
remember?” he asked.

“Prison. A voice,
terrible, horrific. And a dream.”

“You spoke to someone in
the dream, yes?”

Aiul stared at the table in
discomfort. He knew little of the man that sat before him, and what
he did know gave him pause. There was a strange air about Logrus,
one that Aiul found difficult to contemplate directly. Like a dim
star, it seemed to vanish when he focused upon it, only revealing
itself peripherally, at the edges of his thoughts. It was nothing
visible or tangible, and yet Aiul had the distinct sense that there
was something draped over the man, like a cloak or a shroud,
something that smelled of grave dirt and rotting corpses, tasted
sour and metallic, and radiated a cold that was felt not by flesh,
but by soul.
How am I to share my nightmares with someone who
seems to wear them like clothing?

“Yes,” he said at
last. “I dreamed of the Dead God.”

Logrus nodded, as if he were
simply going over established facts. “And you spoke with him,
yes? Made a bargain?”

“A bargain?” Aiul
allowed himself a bitter chuckle at the memory. “No, no
bargain. He merely expounded on just how little my life was truly
worth. He….” Aiul paused briefly, as his voice began to
tremble, and cleared his throat. “He pointed out how total
defeat was not necessarily a position of impotence. And I agreed.”

Logrus nodded again, scowling
now, obviously confused. He placed his elbows squarely on the table,
his fingers against his forehead in a steeple, as he considered.
“Then you are of the other order,” he said, his words
coming slowly, as if he were trying to convince himself of something
he did not fully believe.

“All that from a dream,
eh?” Aiul sneered. “I am not a member of any ‘order’.
You’re mistaken.”

“It was no dream,”
Logrus said. “It was a vision, a true one. Don’t be
foolish. How do you imagine you are free from your prison? Why do
you think I came for you?”

“I don’t know,”
Aiul answered, sullen. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

Logrus nodded. “Elgar
wore your flesh and left a path of destruction and flame through the
heart of your city when he liberated you. Now you are one of his
knights. Like me.”

“Preposterous,”
Aiul declared, though with less conviction that he would have
preferred.

“Logic is not your strong
suit, it would seem,” Logrus said.

Aiul felt anger rising within
him at Logrus’s barb. He struggled to master himself, but
still, his words were coated in acid and ice as he said, “I
will not be insulted by you! I am House Amrath! I am well familiar
with logic!”

Logrus cocked his head and
regarded Aiul as if he were a bug beneath a magnifying lens. “Why
would I insult you? What purpose would it serve? I need your
cooperation.”

As quickly as the anger had
come, it passed, and Aiul found himself clearheaded once again. “Of
course,” he answered. “I’m sorry, I don’t
feel quite myself.”

Logrus nodded. “It is to
be expected,” he said. “But this is difficult. I do not
know how to proceed. The situation is irregular. I have never heard
of a mentor from one order guiding a newcomer of the other.”

“I told you, I am not a
member of
any
order,” Aiul shot back, irritation rising in him once again.

“Not an order of choice.
An order of
kind
,”
Logrus told him. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, his brow
still furrowed in thought. After a moment, he rose to his feet and
said, “I must seek guidance.”

“You’re leaving?”
Aiul asked. He found Logrus’s presence disconcerting, but the
idea of being left alone in a foreign land was even more
troublesome.

“Yes,” Logrus
replied. He lifted his robe from the table and slipped into it.

“What about me?”
Aiul asked.

“Stay,” Logrus told
him.

“I am not a dog to be
commanded!” Aiul shouted.

Again, Logrus looked at him
with the slightly confused, yet icy stare. “So much energy
wasted on unnecessary things,” he observed. “You must
stay here. It will be another day or two before you are fit for
travel, and I will be back by then.”

Aiul glared daggers at Logrus,
but said nothing. How many times, he thought to himself, had he been
on the other end of the conversation, explaining to an obstinate
patient that he was not yet mended, only to be ignored. There was
little use in being angry about simple truth, and yet, Aiul found,
there was great satisfaction in it.

“There is food and drink
aplenty,” Logrus said as he gathered several things from
drawers and dropped them into a bag. “Stay inside. The
neighbors are ….” He seemed to be searching for the
appropriate term, and at last came up with “Troublesome.”

“Will they attack me?”
Aiul asked, alarmed now. He had not thought to look outside to see
what sort of town they were in.

“No,” Logrus told
him. “They’re terrified of us.” He opened the door
and stepped out. Then, as an afterthought, he peeked his head back
inside and added, “But if they
do
bother you, kill some of them. They are stupid, but they are
cowards.” And then he was gone.

Aiul awoke to an insistent
banging on the door. His first instinct was to dismiss it and
continue sleeping, but Logrus’s warning of troublesome
neighbors was still fresh in his mind. It seemed wiser not to ignore
such people. Surely, that would only excite them further.

It was dark, and as he made his
way, the banging outside growing more intense, he cracked his shin
painfully on a low lying table, and again on what he thought might
be a crate. He cursed himself for not having had the presence of
mind to leave a candle burning, but he had planned on sleeping
through the night.

In the kitchen, he armed
himself with the most wicked-looking knife he could find, then
carefully felt his way toward the front room. He could hear voices
now, beneath the banging. Perhaps, he thought, it was better that he
had no light. It would certainly warn of his approach, and surprise
might be preferable, here. He moved to the window and lifted the
curtain just enough to peek out, uncertain of what to expect.

There were two, dressed in
black robes similar to the one Logrus had given him. One held his
torch high, as the other slammed his fist against the door. At some
other time, they might have been comical, but here in the flickering
torch light, their features twisted with the telltale signs of
inbreeding and malnutrition, their eyes lit with unknown, sinister
purpose, there was nothing humorous about them.

“What is it you want?”
Aiul shouted.

“We seek the Dark Lord!”
one replied.

“He’s gone!”

“Liar! The Dead God
himself says the Dark Lord is here! Open the door and lead us to
him, or you will suffer and die!”

Again, the jagged thing twisted
in Aiul’s mind, rage surging through his heart and veins like
a drug. Never again would
anyone
command him, or threaten him! Ever!

Aiul did not plan what he did,
he simply acted. He jerked the door open. Banger and Torch Holder
stood frozen in place, Banger’s arm halfway to hammering
against Aiul’s chest, blinking in awkward shock and confusion.
Aiul seized Banger’s outstretched arm, snatched him forward,
and brought the knife up and across his neck. Banger went to his
knees with a gurgling, muffled cry, blood spraying from his wound to
cover all three men. Aiul kicked him in the chest and sent him
tumbling over the edge of the small porch.

“What say you now, dog?”
Aiul hissed at Torch, brandishing the blade at him, willing, wanting
even, to use it again.