James West - The God King

Kian seemed to be struggling for breath. He looked this way and that, panicked, almost as much as Ellonlef was herself. Without warning, the blue shimmer dimmed, then winked out, the last of it soaking into Kian. Ellonlef reeled backward and would have toppled, save for Hazad’s strong hand on her shoulder.

Kian still had not drawn a breath, and Azuri slid in front of Ellonlef, stunned, but showing not a little hint of mirth. His gray eyes searched Kian’s face a moment, then he laughed. “As I told you once before, you great oaf, you must breathe if you do not wish to suffocate.”

Kian’s struggles ceased at once and he sucked in a great, gasping breath, followed by an explosive coughing fit. All stared as his breathing rapidly took on a regular rhythm. His hand floundered about until finding Ellonlef’s. His pulse thudded in his now warm grip, but that was a distant thing. As her gaze locked with his, it was as if the world had been swept away, leaving only the two of them looking into each other’s eyes. In that moment, it dawned on her that she knew him as she never had before. In truth, she had never known anyone, save herself, with such intimacy. It was both wonderful and frightening.

Pain and loss were at the center of him, something from his youth-no doubt from the loss of his homelands and his family during the war between Falseth and Izutar. As well, she felt a sense of nobility and dedication so vast in him that it startled her. The carefully guarded kindness in his heart, something she had once believed to be all but nonexistent, was rivaled by an iron core that demanded fairness and justice. Over all of this, she also sensed a secret, something she felt sure even he was unaware of, something of light and life, a living, indefinable thing … a presence .

The powers of creation , she understood with profound astonishment.

He released her hand and relaxed his head against a pile of dusty sacks serving as a pillow. “I must sleep … just a moment,” he whispered, the last word trailing off to a peaceful sigh.

Ellonlef glanced at Hazad and Azuri, and they shared a moment of warmth and joy, savoring that Kian was alive.

Hya cleared her throat, questions in her milky eyes. Whatever she was thinking, she kept to herself in the face of burning urgency. “He cannot sleep long,” she advised. “Hya, Sister of Najihar, is not unknown to the Ivory Throne, nor to any who sit upon it. No doubt word will reach Varis of Kian’s escape, and more importantly,” she added with a pointed look at Ellonlef, “word of those who aided him.”

Ellonlef nodded slowly, the full truth of what had just happened beginning to settle over her. That she had held within her the powers of creation, without ever knowing, was astounding to be sure, but more so was that Kian lay whole before her, and that he would live … but only so long as they escaped Ammathor and, more importantly, Varis.

“What do you suggest?” Ellonlef asked.

“There is one man I trust who will give aid, if the price is right. Come, we must prepare while Kian gets what rest he can.”

“Hazad and I will stand watch outside,” Azuri advised. “If we return with haste, then we must leave with haste.”

After the two men left, Ellonlef busied herself with getting together supplies for a journey, which was little enough, given that they would soon be running for their very lives.

Ruin him, a disembodied voice rasped. Bulging white eyes that should have been blind, yet were not, observed and approved of his pain.

Kian’s eyes flew open, the memory of his riven flesh a searing brand in his consciousness. He remained perfectly still, the dream-pain fading. Those dead white eyes, though, the hatred they expressed, remained etched in his mind. No matter that Varis had changed, to Kian he was still and would always be the skeletal abomination that had come forth from the temple in the Qaharadin. And Varis, he had no doubt, would be coming for him.

Kian frowned, some part of himself urgently revisiting memories better left forgotten. In a sudden rush everything came spilling forth, a black tide of pain and suffering. And yet through that abysmal flood, there shone a spark of light, pure and warm. Ellonlef . She and his friends had come for him, taken him from the darkness, somehow returned him to safety.

He flexed his hands, expecting weakness and pain, but finding strength. His fingers slowly, almost fearfully, investigated his torso, knowing they should encounter absolute physical destruction. Instead, they found taut skin and warm flesh. How…?

The question evaporated and he blinked several times. Aside from the image of Ellonlef gazing down on him with a strange mingling of joy and fear and something else, the last thing he recalled was darkness and rough-hewn stone, and the babble of hungry voices. The longer he considered, the more he remembered.

Hazad, Azuri, and Ellonlef had brought him to this somehow familiar place. It took some moments before he realized he was staring at a ceiling of once white plaster gone to brown with smoke and ages. Kian rolled his head to one side, waiting for the red pain he recalled to fall on him again. Nothing met his movement, save a little stiffness. A glowing brazier stood beside an old table below a shuttered window. On the table sat a low-burning oil lamp and a green vase filled with a long-dead cutting of flowers.

He turned his head in the opposite direction and found an old woman clad in a dense swaddling of gray robes sitting on a stool just beyond the doorway. I know her … Hya, a Sister of Najihar . She did not notice his movements.

He glanced back to the ceiling and saw a lizard, sluggish with cold, peering down at him. A fly lumbered near, then the fly was in the lizard’s mouth. Kian would have sworn the creature smiled in triumph, and he smiled in return. He had never felt so alive.

Stop this! a warning voice raved. Danger is drawing near!

His happiness, doubtless a distraction concocted by his weary mind, began to crack and fall away. How he had come to be healed, he had no answer, but of scourges savaging his flesh, of iron spikes ripping through his arms, the memory of those things was alive in him. He surveyed a faint, puckered scar on his forearm where a wrought iron spike had been driven through by a robed priest, his cowled eyes burning with anger and disgust-not for Kian, but for Varis. He turned his wrist and saw the same scar on the other side. Such a wound should have left him crippled, yet had not. There were other scars, faded and pale, crisscrossing over his skin, as if long healed.

How long would that have taken? He had heard more than one tale of men grievously wounded in battle who had remained senseless and abed for years before coming awake. Years … could it have been so long?

“You are awake then,” Hya said with a dry cackle. “Good. It saves me the effort of rousing your lazy bones.”

“How long have I been here?” Kian asked?

Hya stood with much effort, curiosity lighting her wizened features. “Less than an hour.”

Kian gasped. If he had been given the choice, he would have suggested weeks, if not months, had passed since he was thrown into the Pit, yet less than a full day had passed since Varis had done all he could to destroy him.

“How …” the unasked questioned disintegrated. He had been about to ask how he could have possibly been healed from what should have killed him, but like knowing where he was, he suddenly knew how it had happened. The powers of creation had been used to knit his flesh whole … and those powers had been wielded by Ellonlef .

Hazad burst into the shop with the slam of a door and a soft but urgent cry of warning. A moment later he pushed into the room, looking frantic. Melting snow wetted his wild hair. When his eyes fell on Kian, his features split in a wide grin. Tears shone in the big man’s eyes, and he rushed to Kian’s side. Then, without warning, overcome with joy, he leaned over and kissed his captain on the brow. Smothering under the man’s drenched beard braids, Kian jabbed him in the ribs with a half-hearted curse. Despite the threat of danger, Kian could not shake the sensation of exultation he felt at being alive.