The Mad God's Muse (The Eye of the Lion Saga Book 2) (3 page)

He noticed with detachment that
his hand was trembling.
How odd. I don't feel this fear very
deeply, but my body, it seems, does.
He
took another mouthful of liquor, swallowed it with a grimace, and
closed his eyes to wait for the effect.

After a while, Rithard raised
his treacherous hand in front of his face, pleased to see the
shaking had passed.
Now, to finish this.
He opened the top desk drawer and removed the sealed envelope he had
placed there. He had been uncertain as to whether he would actually
carry out this plan, and it would not have done to send his missive
until he was committed, but now that he was, the letter was
imperative.

Rithard rose and opened the
door. He waved the letter at the receptionist outside. “Have
this taken to my mother at once. It's vital.”

The girl looked up at him from
her desk, confusion in her crystal blue eyes. “I'm sorry, sir,
but I don’t know your mother,” she said hesitantly, as
if afraid she would be punished for her failure.

Rithard put a palm to his face
and shook his head with a wry smile he didn't actually feel. “I'm
sorry. I was thinking of the other girl.”
The one Aiul put
in hospital this morning with ten stitches and a concussion. I
hadn't fully decided until then.

He
handed her the letter with a flourish.
Better she think
I'm deliriously happy than contemplating the likelihood I won't
survive the week.

“My mother is Teretha
Prosin.”

Ahmed stood once again at the
ship's railing, gripping it lightly to steady himself against the
gentle rolling of the deck. He looked down briefly at his hands,
pleased to see his skin color had returned to a healthy, chocolate
brown. The winter had been hard, and at the height of it, Ahmed had
been shocked to find himself ashen, pale like a dead man. Now, the
sun had returned, and he felt human again.

He looked up and stared out
over the waves, pondering the strangeness of the sea, the small
miracle of the ship floating upon it, marveling at the brilliant
orange glow of the sun slowly setting. It was less alien as time
passed, more familiar. He was still fairly certain he would never
choose the life of a sailor, but he could endure it, if need be. He
had grown stronger in Yazid’s absence, less in spite of it
than because of it. Such was Ilaweh’s way, to harden a man by
taking away the things that propped him up, the things he leaned
upon.

“Grow stronger or die,”
Ahmed said softly. “I miss you, Father.”

It had been a long and often
stressful trip since Yazid had fallen. Brutus had begun preparations
to launch for Xanthia the moment he had returned from Nihlos. Had
Sandilianus been a single day more, Brutus would have left him in
this accursed barbarian land. Sandilianus’s tale of sorcerers
and strife amongst the leadership of the savages simply made the
return to Xanthia even more pressing to the captain.

Ahmed had stood on the bridge
with the two of them, hearing the tale. “It is a mistake,”
he had told them. “Ilaweh has work for us here, yet.”

Brutus's nearly-black face
seemed to grow even darker, his broad nose flaring in anger as he
turned to Ahmed. The captain was clearly in no mood for such talk.
“What do
you
know, boy?” he shouted.

Sandilianus said nothing,
simply stared at Ahmed, almost unrecognizable through the swelling,
bruises, and wounds still in need of stitching. Still, the
expression on his olive-toned face spoke loudly, his sharp features
growing even sharper.
So he does not hear me, either.

Ahmed had no fear of a beating.
Had it been merely that, it would have been so much easier to stand
his ground. But beneath the withering glare of the two veterans, men
of the world, men who knew reality and death like their own bodies,
he felt his conviction shrivel. What he
knew
,
without doubt, shriveled into a mere belief, and then simply, “It’s
just a feeling I have.”

Brutus clenched his jaw and
nodded in triumph. “Just so. And I will not endanger my
mission for a 'feeling'.”

Ahmed felt anger rising in him.
“I am Yazid’s second. His place falls to
me
. It
should be
my
decision.”

Brutus regarded him with
shocked, wide eyes, then burst out laughing. “
You
?
An unblooded boy in charge of me and my men? Preposterous!”

“The prince said –
”

Brutus raised a fist, more
statement than threat. “Do
not
speak of what you do not know, boy! The Prince said I was to serve
Yazid
.”

Ahmed could not contain himself
at this. “And Yazid is dead, while you are not!” he
shouted. “How did you serve him, dog?”

Brutus moved far more quickly
than Ahmed would have expected, though he did not hit nearly so hard
as Yazid. Ahmed barely felt woozy from the blow, and responded with
his own. The two men fell to the floor, hammering at one another,
while Sandilianus banged his fist against his chest with little
enthusiasm.

Ahmed was hardly surprised to
find himself pummeled fairly quickly into incapacitation. In fact,
he had managed to score several telling blows on the captain, and
was damned proud of it. He lay against the bulkhead and laughed,
spraying blood from his lips.

Brutus crouched on a knee
beside him. “You laugh? Truly, I am impressed, boy. You will
not call me a dog again, eh?”

“Don’t call me
boy.”

Brutus chuckled and brushed at
his bloody nose with his hand. “Fair enough.” He stood
and called out, “Tahir, set a course for Xanthia, best speed.”

Tahir poked his head out from
his position in the chart house, his wiry, orange beard trembling
with annoyance. “Aye, captain, but there’s an
interesting wrinkle there.”

Ahmed wiped blood from his face
with the back of his arm, unable to fully suppress his loathing for
the orange-skinned, halfbreed blasphemer. It was best to keep his
mouth shut about it and settle for a contemptuous sneer. Likely,
Brutus and Sandilianus shared his thoughts, but he might still
receive a second beating for speaking out of turn.
One is enough
for the evening.

Sandilianus ground his teeth.
“Then come the hell out with it instead of dangling it like a
damned prize for us to admire, eh?”

Tahir scowled at him with
annoyance, but he was nodding, too. “Aye. The thing is, I
reckon we’re about two thirds around the continent. The best
course is to continue forward and finish our map, assuming we don’t
run into anything crazy.”

Sandilianus, still annoyed,
pursed his swollen lips and grimaced in pain. “We have the old
map. Continents don’t grow arms or legs.”

Tahir looked at Sandilianus in
wide-eyed shock. “They damned well grow reefs, fool!” he
shouted.

Sandilianus raised his eyebrows
and blinked a moment, then grinned sheepishly. “Hmm, well, I
have
been hit in
the head a lot lately.”

Brutus held up a hand for
silence. “What kind of time difference are we talking?”

Tahir squinted and scratched at
the red, wiry hair on his chin, considering. “Hard to say,
figuring in distance and winds. Best guess is damned near two months
difference.” He shrugged. “If the wind stays the same.”

“Will it?”

Tahir shrugged again, this time
adding an exasperated sigh. “It
should
, but it’s
the damned bottom of the world. I never been here. Can you beat a
man you just met? There’s lots of variables.”

Brutus nodded in appreciation
of the problem. “Very well. We move forward, then. Can we save
time if we skip the mapping?”

Tahir shook his head. “Not
much. A week at most, if we cut around the last corner and head
straight for home.” His face grew very serious. “I
reckon the map is worth a week, Brutus. It’s hard military
intelligence, and it’ll cost a lot more if we have to come
back for it later.”

“I know. Finish it, then,
and take us home. If we see any natives who seem weak, we can try
consulting with them. I don’t want to risk any encounters we
won’t definitely win, should it come to blows.”

He pointed to Ahmed. “Give
me your hand.” Ahmed reached upward, and Brutus hauled him to
his feet. “I like you better after fighting you. Let’s
have a drink.”

Things had gone well with them
after that, both finding new respect for one another. Brutus invited
Ahmed to take Yazid’s quarters in the officers’
berthing, a small cabin adjoining Brutus’s own. Ahmed had
expected Brutus to make some advance toward him, and was prepared to
fight, even if he would lose, but the captain had apparently been
serious about his convictions. Ahmed was 'polluted by women's
weakness', and Brutus would not taint himself with such, not even
second hand. Ahmed found himself greatly relieved. He would have
given what was due had it been won fairly, but he had no taste for
men. He would not have enjoyed it, merely endured it, and likely
earned another beating for being sullen.

None of the pursuers Brutus
feared had ever materialized, but their journey had been far from
easy. The weather had been their strongest enemy. The southern edge
of the continent was bitterly cold, despite the fact that it was
high summer. They had been battered by freezing rain as they
struggled past treacherous ice. Snow had been so thick at times that
there was no choice but to anchor and wait for the blinding white to
pass. Ahmed found it all terribly annoying and inconvenient that the
world was this way. It was confusing enough that the seasons should
be reversed in the southern hemisphere, and too much that North and
South be reversed as well, science be damned. North should be cold,
not South. The gods seemed mad at times.

Now, as he stood at the rails
remembering Yazid, it was at last warm again. They were much further
north, their map almost complete. Soon, they would turn the ship for
home, and then what would he do?
We are not supposed to leave!

Yazid
would have had the answers. Had it not always been so? Ahmed could
not remember a time without him, a rock to cling to in any storm,
and the loss cut him deeply. He knew, because Yazid had told him,
that his mother had died shortly after his birth, that Yazid's order
had taken him in, trained him, but he did not remember another
father.
Few children remember even one, though.

Ahmed
tightened his grip on the railing and ground his teeth in
frustration.
I am failing you. They will not listen.

For
a thousand years, the prelates had kept Xanthius's writings,
preserved his warning, passed it down from generation to generation:
Elgar will return. Stand vigilant.

Ahmed
heaved a deep sigh, feeling tears well in his eyes.
I never
imagined it would be me.

He
was unworthy, barely more than a boy, and tasked with swaying men of
substance that they should abandon their every instinct and follow
him, to risk their lives for a prophesy Ahmed himself barely
believed.

And
there was the rub. He knew the words. But he had never truly
believed. He had never placed faith in writing and prophesy beyond
that which would get him past his next lesson. He heard the voice of
Ilaweh directly, sometimes soft, sometimes crashing in his ears, but
it was that, not the prophesy, that had always driven him.

Now they are the same.
Ahmed felt as if his guts would sink through him and the ship,
knowing what he had always imagined a fairy tale was true: the world
would become as ash if strong warriors did not stand and give all
they had.

It falls to me, and I am not
ready.
How could a man cope
with such a burden? And how could he possibly convince a man like
Brutus? That was the most damnable part: in a purely logical world,
Brutus was
right
. But
Ahmed knew with grim certainty that there was more at play here than
cold logic. Ilaweh called them to war.

I don't know what to do!

It was a lie he told himself,
for truly, Yazid’s voice still rang in his ears, even though
Yazid was gone: “
You will do what is right, Ahmed. You will
follow your head and your heart.
”

Ahmed chuckled to himself, and
couldn’t help but speak back to the ghost. “And when
they disagree?”

He was startled from his musing
by Brutus’s voice. “When who disagree?”

Ahmed turned from the rail to
face the captain. Brutus wore no shirt, only a pair of dark
breeches, and his eyes seemed to float, disembodied, in the failing
light, his skin blending seamlessly into the growing shadows. “Head
and heart,” Ahmed answered. “Which to trust?”

Brutus looked at Ahmed with
suspicion, as if he thought the question some sort of military ruse.
“You are the prelate. Do you truly not know the answer, or is
this your way of preaching?”

Ahmed shrugged and picked at
his tunic. It had once been white, but it was now gray and
threadbare.
Like me.
“Yazid
was a prelate. I am confused. You know that. It is why you do not
listen to me.”

“Why should I listen to
you, when you do not listen to Ilaweh?” Ahmed frowned at this,
but Brutus did not retreat. “You know it is so. How else would
a man reconcile such a disagreement?”

Ahmed turned back to the waves,
feeling his heart shrink within his breast. “We are not
supposed to leave, Brutus. Not yet.”

“Ah, this again?”
Brutus heaved a great sigh and joined him at the rail. “I will
not change my mind.”

Ahmed could feel the soldier’s
harsh gaze like the sun on his back, and turned to face him,
returning Brutus’s scowl. “Ilaweh is mighty and his
vision long. We are small to him, and our lives very short.”

Brutus snorted. “You
think this is some great enlightenment to me? I've seen enough blood
to know Ilaweh is hard and ofttimes cruel. ”

Ahmed struggled to contain
himself, to explain rather than grow angry at Brutus’s willful
ignorance. “Most of us are like plants in Ilaweh’s
garden. Sometimes, it is necessary to destroy some of the crops for
the good of the garden. Does the farmer weep for this? Why should
he? The crop would be plowed under at the end of the season anyway.
There is a reason he planted many seeds, and he will do so again in
the spring.”

Brutus looked at him with a
thoughtful expression. “Most of us. But not me, I think. My
brothers and I, we will bear no fruit. What are we in your
allegory?”

Ahmed chuckled. “Perhaps
you are herbs, Brutus, desirable in your own right.”

Brutus’s sudden laughter
echoed out over the waves. Tahir poked his head from the chart
house, glared at both of them, then slammed the door closed again.
Brutus clapped Ahmed on the shoulder and smiled broadly. “You
preach strangely.”

Ahmed felt his heart sink like
the ship in a trough. “You do not hear me.”

“I stand here before you,
do I not? I am not deaf.”

“But you do not take to
heart what I am saying. You still intend to defy Ilaweh.”

Brutus shot him an irritated
look. “So
you
claim.” After a moment, he shrugged and his expression
softened. “And what if you are right? If it is truly Ilaweh’s
will, then he will have his way despite me.”