Their ongoing argument with the king had ended, and Colton was aware there had been no real victor. They were led deep into the palace, beneath its foundations and into the tunnels. The dark walls and dank air brought back fleeting memories of madness and hopelessness, but Colton willed those haunting memories from thought and set his mind on their present danger. In such a world as Vellatha one could expect to be in constant danger, but they seemed to have far exceeded even that normality and reached a level of misfortune none of them had foreseen.
Colton’s attempts to memorize their path through the tunnels soon failed, but he did recognize their destination, where the torches offered their eerie glow and the stone table stood still in the center of the room. His hesitation in the doorway to enter that place again did nothing to prevent the guards from pulling him within the interior. He stood silent at the edge of the room while Tyran, still unconscious, was laid upon the table and the fetters fastened in place.
“That will be all, Saravin,” the king said. “Send someone for Mazhura.”
Saravin stood still. “What are you going to do?” he asked.
“You know what happens. Odamir desires his death.”
“You should be sure of that,” Saravin said, his cold gaze lingering on Alastor before he took his leave.
A groan from the table signaled Tyran’s return of consciousness, and the king turned to him with a smug smile of victory.
“Welcome back,” he said, but Tyran was in no mood for games.
“Let Colton go,” he muttered.
“Let him go? I think not. Do you want to know how this will end for him? Quite simply—at the end of a rope. In five days’ time all the lords and wealthy of Vellatha will have gathered to watch the hanging of the criminal and outlaw, your friend. I must add, Tyran, that after well over twenty years you have made few friends. He may be the only one in the kingdom to mourn your death, and even that will be short-lived. By tomorrow he will be worrying only for his own neck.”
“My friends may be few, but they are more numerous than you think, and certainly more powerful.”
Alastor scoffed. “You speak of power now, in such a powerless position that makes you seem a terrible fool. Do not dream that you have any defense, any attack to unleash in a last, fierce, fleeting attempt to live. “Right now you are worthless, a worm, a man who dreamed of greatness and was greeted with the life of scum, the slave of a slave. But you are about to become nothing—a bleeding lifeless body to be thrown in the ground and forgotten forever. Your name will go down into oblivion, your deeds disappearing into the vastness of time with not a single soul to remember them. That is your fate, the final payment for a foolish, feeble rebel: death—as you were always destined for.”
“Every man is destined to die, Alastor.”
Across the room, wood scraped against stone, and Mazhura entered the room. Tyran shuddered as she entered his line of view. Bent, haggard, cloaked, she looked no different from the last time they had met. Her fingers were just as bony, her eyes just as yellow. The old woman’s skeleton was shrunk beneath the wrinkles of her pale skin, but somehow she did not have the appearance of weakness. Perhaps it was the keenness in her eyes, perhaps the sharpness of her teeth, perhaps the crude knife close by her side.
“What is this?” she asked as her eyes fell on Tyran. She had a peculiar, throaty voice, speaking with a rasp that did not lack a touch of femininity even in its harshness. “Why is he here?” she went on. “You told me he was dead.”
“I believed him to be dead,” the king said, his voice losing the superiority he had used over Tyran a moment ago. “But the spirits showed me that he still lived. I have brought him to you that he may die properly, that their wrath may not be kindled.”
“What of the other?” her eyes flicked to Colton.
“He will hang.”
Mazhura seemed to approve, for she spoke no more of him. She walked to Tyran’s side, removing the dagger from her waist.
“Your spirit is that of a great warrior,” she said, readying her knife. “You will join the rest in Odamir’s care, freed from a deluded mind.”
“Wait,” Tyran stopped her, his eyes flashing from the knife to Alastor. “There is one thing I must tell you.”
“I’m listening,” Alastor said shortly, and in his eyes darted fear that appeared suddenly, perhaps a secret terror that no matter what he did, his plans would be overturned. That, in the end, he would lose his crown and be exposed, that even now Tyran would somehow escape. But it was a delusional thought. There was no one that could free him, no one whose first allegiance was not to his king.
“I have a message for you,” Tyran said, pausing, offering a faint smile at his one last task. “The Mechanic sends his greetings.”
The fear in the king’s eyes became much clearer for an instant, but the stronger reaction was Mazhura’s. At Tyran’s words she turned upon Alastor savagely.
“You swore to me that he had died,” she said. “You told me that the spirits had killed him.”
“I—” Mazhura gave the king no chance to defend himself.
“You said you saw him die! That Odamir took his life for treason against the spirits! Don’t you dare tell me he was right all this time, or I will beg the spirits to rain death upon me and all of Vellatha. Don’t tell me—this knife is still sharp. I can use it well. He must be dead. One of you is the liar. Does he still live?”
“It is impossible,” the king said, but he could not keep his voice steady and there was no veil thick enough to hide his fear.
“I assure you,” Colton ventured, speaking with caution, “he is very much alive.”
“Explain this,” Mazhura demanded of the king, all the violence bottled within her coming to bear against him.
“They are criminals!” he protested. “You know they lie. The Mechanic is dead.”
“Do you think I wish to hear that?” Her words were senseless to Colton and Tyran, speaking to an angry sorrow only she knew—and the king had a part of. “They should not even know his name.”
“Calm yourself.” There was a frantic anger in the king’s voice. “Just kill the man, and we will bring clarity to this afterwards.”
“Kill him! Of course! That’s your answer to every problem, is it not? You lie! You’ve been lying these fifty years.”
“You don’t know what you speak of,” the king said. “I have never lied to you. It is the man there that is the liar, the hypocrite. Kill him now, if you desire revenge.”
Mazhura’s lips were curled in wrath. She hurled the knife to the wall, drawing closer to the king and pointing a bony finger in his face.
“I will not kill another man for you. Let Odamir rain his vengeance upon Vellatha, and then turn to me and see if I care! You are the hypocrite, wallowing in deceit every waking and sleeping moment.”
The king swallowed in fury. “You speak as if you have gone mad. The ritual must be—”
“Maybe I have gone mad! Or maybe after fifty years of listening to your lies I’ve finally come to my senses.”
She dropped her arm to her side and turned her back to the king, walking past Tyran without a glance behind.
“You must kill him!” Alastor cried after her. “He must die!”
Mazhura did not speak another word. Alastor fumbled for the knife like a madman and leapt for her, sinking the blade into her back before she ever turned. From her mouth emitted guttural sounds, but she could form no words and crumbled to the floor. The room fell deathly silent. Colton’s gaze was on the woman on the ground, in shock. The king’s guards in black did not move, their expressions unchanging, not one daring to speak against their king. Only Tyran found words to say.
“You would dare lay hands on a woman?” he said, his words coming with rawness and anger. “Kill a person unarmed? Stab them in the back? What kind of man are you—what kind of king—to do such a thing?”
Alastor whirled and his hand closed around Tyran’s neck, the other gripping the knife. Tyran tensed in his shackles, but there was no trace of fear in his eyes.
“Do you think you can speak to me like this? You will die, Tyran!”
“Look around you,” Tyran demanded. “Your men doubt you. You’ve slaughtered an old woman. Do you want to add more death to this list?”
“You take me for a coward. Look at me,” he said, though Tyran’s eyes were already fixed on him. “I have no reluctance to end you.”
Alastor was right. There was no flicker of hesitation in his eyes, no trembling in the hand that clutched the dagger, only anger and conviction. He drew back his arm to deal the final stroke, but suddenly the doors flung open and he froze at the interruption. Every head but Tyran’s turned to the entrance.
“What are you doing here?” the king asked, shock written upon his face.
Make the language a little bit more archaic and this could be like Shakespeare.
This is so great!!