Chapter Four The Cobra and the Traitor #2
Killing took him away from himself. It was pleasant not to be Lord Marius Valerius for a time. When he returned to full consciousness, he found himself alone with bloodied hands and a bone-deep feeling of satisfaction and wellbeing.
The sun was rising, the bright horizon streaked as scarlet as his hands, and he found the others had decided to set up camp in a clearing. Marius would rather have kept going, but Eric and the others needed rest.
Captain Diarmat and his specially trained forces were loaded with military tents and provisions, and the innocents Eric had sheltered in the Golden Brothel had brought whatever they could seize from under that rich roof, but there weren’t anything like enough supplies for orderly camping.
They had managed a bivouac in the clearing – tents were given to families with children – and to get a fire going so people could eat hot food before they slept.
Marius ordered sentries posted, and sent scouts further afield. He didn’t think the kings’ men would be in pursuit yet, but he would take no chances with Eric’s life. He needed to know for sure.
By the campfire, speaking low so the posted sentries couldn’t hear, Eric told Marius tales of another world.
At the end of one such tale Marius concluded, “So these sorcerous crystals tell all the lies and ills of your world. The crystals ensorcel the minds of men until, hopelessly corrupted, men waste away their lives staring into the crystal depths.”
Eric frowned. “I feel like I didn’t explain phones right.”
“Some man of spirit should break those phones, releasing the populace from the enchantment of these scrolls of doom.”
“Couldn’t be me,” Eric said firmly. “I love and miss my phone very much.”
It was like Eric to conceive an affection for an accursed sorcerous crystal box. Eric had the capacity to be fond of almost anything; he was even fond of Marius. For his part, Marius disliked all accursed objects, and almost all people.
Almost.
Eric said he had learned of Marius’s world from a book, and seemed to believe he was now inside that book.
This was charming, but ridiculous: everybody would notice if the world was made of paper. Eric’s world was obviously the place woven from impossibilities to make a fantastical tale.
“Perhaps the book you believe we live within was a history of our world, brought to your world by enchantment,” Marius suggested. “You say people sometimes read books on their… phones.”
Dangerous behaviour, to rely completely for both information and entertainment on a single cursed object.
“Leave the phones out of it!”
Marius obliged. “This might be a case of those adjacent universes you were talking about.”
“Parallel universes.”
“Really?” Marius asked. “Why do people say ‘parallel’? I prefer the idea of adjacent universes. This is like when you told me the name for an intricate connected tapestry of stars and crystals that sing to each other is called the—”
“The internet.”
Marius shook his head. “‘The star chorus’ and ‘the crystal web’ were there for the taking. You say you consult oracles from distant lands, and even times past, while questing through this connection of stars. The internet should have a more dignified name.”
“What I said was I could search on the internet for information,” objected the Cobra, but he was laughing.
Often Marius offended or frightened people without intending to. Eric was difficult to offend and impossible to frighten. He seemed deeply amused by Marius’s disapproval of his entire world. He was on Marius’s side, he said. Marius, he claimed, was his favourite character in the book.
How absurd. Marius had never wished to be understood, as with understanding would come horror, disgust and, inevitably, fear.
But he knew Eric, knew the absurd depths of his compassion and courage.
Eric was misguided about Marius, as about so many things, but since Marius now knew Eric’s great secret, Marius could accept they might understand each other a little better.
Marius could believe Eric was on his side.
When the king’s justice fell on them both, to die beside someone – when Marius had expected to live and die alone – would not be so bad.
Eric stopped laughing, mouth still curled around amusement, to give Marius a puzzled glance. Ever since Marius swore himself to Eric, he received those looks regularly. He couldn’t think why.
“Since I don’t have the internet right now, can I ask you something?”
“For anything in the wide world.”
The searching look intensified, as though Marius was a book, and Eric wished very much to be sure he was reading him correctly.
They were alive for tonight and free, the joy of the kill singing in Marius’s veins, the fire and Eric warm beside him, and dawn dyeing the ink between the lowest branches blue.
If there was a puzzle, Eric would work it out.
The delicate, pale-blue moment was shattered by the sound of hooves thundering into the clearing. One of Marius’s scouts had returned. From the look on the man’s face, Marius could tell he had bad news.
The scout scrambled off his horse, words spilling from his lips like blood from a wound.
“My lord, I reached a village and offered money for tidings, as you instructed. My lord, there are criers out. Word says the Divine Order is summoned to the capital. The Emperor has returned, as prophecy foretold. But my lord, my lord, the king – on all sides, though I could scarcely believe – the king, the people say – every soul I spoke to said, I swear it—”
Was Octavian riding out himself? The prophecy said the Emperor would have power over the living and the dead, that none could stand against him. The Emperor was a god. Nobody could fight a god.
If he was coming, Marius must take Eric and run.
Marius’s voice bit like a wolf. “What do they say?”
He saw the moment that fear of a Valerius came, as it always did, as it always would. Fear set the man’s face in ice, freezing his hands and voice steady.
“My lord,” whispered the scout. “They say the Emperor has come, but he is not the king and never was. They say the king is dead.”
When King Octavian ordered the Golden Cobra’s death, Marius betrayed his sovereign and childhood friend to save Eric. He knew it was villainy, and Marius himself now as guilty as sin.
But Marius believed he would pay the price for his own wickedness with his own blood. There was honour in that. He never thought someone else would pay. He never dreamed he was leaving his king in danger.
What kind of knight would leave his king without protection? What kind of friend would desert him in his hour of desperate need?
Marius turned for help – as though anybody could help him – to Eric.
The world was drowning in shadow and silver, but the Golden Cobra sat limned by firelight. His gaze was luminous. The one thing that stopped the Cobra from putting on a show was the impulse to be kind. Clear as daybreak in the night, the Cobra felt terrible for Marius, and wanted to comfort him.
What the Cobra did not look was surprised.
Much became clear, now it was too late.
The Cobra suggested going to inns, seeming startled when Marius objected.
The Cobra never worried about Octavian coming after them.
In all the years Marius had known them both, the Cobra had never taken Octavian seriously.
Because the Cobra had read the book of their fate.
The Cobra knew Octavian would die. He thought of Octavian as already dead.
Marius had broken every vow he’d ever made, and sworn a sacred oath to serve this man.
The Cobra had not offered Marius even the slightest chance to save his king or his honour.