Chaos Lives in Everything - 45. Chapter 45

Someone was shaking him. Skold opened his eyes and sat up. It was Rebecca.

“What is it?” He looked around, muscles tight, preparing himself for a fight.

“There’s two elves standing at the door,” she said. “They want you.”

He frowned. “What for?”

She shrugged. “Beats me. They won’t say.”

He sighed. “Alright. Tell them I’ll be there in a minute.”

She nodded and left the bedroom, her ponytails bouncing around distractedly.

Skold looked over at Dom. He was still snoring away, sleeping peacefully. Skold touched his back gently, being careful not to wake him and then got out of bed. He dressed himself and went out into the living room to see what was going on. The two elves were standing in the middle of the room, their arms crossed. He could tell from the suits they wore and the blank expressions on their face that they were King Yaldon’s employees.

“King Yaldon seeks your prescence. He wants to speak with you privately.” As if to put further emphasis on the word privately the elf that had spoken glanced at Rebecca, who was watching them nervously from the couch.

So now that I am not on trial and have been found innocent he suddenly has the balls to speak with me in private, Skold thought, amused.

“When Dom gets up will you tell him that I’ll be back?” Skold asked Rebecca.

She nodded again. “Will you be okay?”

He smiled at her encouragingly. “I’ll be fine?” He pulled on his long leather jacket and gestured at the door. To the two elves he said, “Shall we?”

Not quite a half an hour later Skold was being patted down by King Yaldon’s guards. They cleared him and one of them led him up the staircase to King Yaldon’s door. The guard knocked and a weak, reedy voice said, “Let him in.”

The guard opened the door. Beyond the doorway it was almost completely dark except for the weak glow of burning embers in the fire place. Skold stepped through the threshhold. The guard closed the door. The room was dark enough that he could only see King Yaldon’s thin, shadowy outline, the hollow contours of his jaw, the sharp angles of his cheek bones. The fae king now dwelled in neverending darkness.

Serves him right, Skold thought. Let him lay in the bed that he has made.

“Skold, it has been a long time,” King Yaldon croaked.

“An eternity,” Skold said. “What do you want of me? You amaze me with your audacity and your cowardice.”

“I do not want to fight. I have come to ask your help.”

Skold laughed coldy. He moved gracefully through the shadows, approaching the bed. It brought him great pleasure to see the fae king flinch in fear of him. So it’s true; he really is afraid of me. Skold’s grin spread across the width of his face for a moment before disappearing. “You arrogant bastard,” he said, sitting on the edge of Yaldon’s bed. “You have some balls asking me for favors after you tried to frame me for the incidents in Roc City. Instead, you should be begging for your life.”

“Is that a threat?” the king said, trying to sound brave.

“You know I don’t make threats. When I say that I am going to kill you, I just do it. I want to kill you. I could just reach over and snap your neck. Nothing would bring me more pleasure. But I’m trying to turn over a new leaf, be a good law abiding citizen.”

“If you kill me you won’t make it out of this building alive.”

“Are you sure about that? I’ve singlehandedly killed a troll. Your guards would be quite easy to dispatch of in comparison. But I’m not going to kill you. As I said, I’m trying to turn over a new leaf. Trust me, it isn’t easy. What do you want?”

“Samhein must be stopped. His plague cannot be unleashed upon the world.” King Yaldon’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “I beg of you. I’ve put a group of warriors together for you to command just like you used to. After all it’s what your good at. There is no other warrior that possesses your renown. I know where Samhein is.”

“Where is he?”

“Paladin’s castle. He’s rebuilt it. I have satellite pictures of it if you don’t believe me. I can show it to you.”

Skold thought about the village of his dreams. The one beneath the mountain. “I believe you. But it’s not my problem. I’m not a warrior anymore. It’s your problem. Your responsibility.”

“My illness...”

“Fuck your illness. Get off your ass and deal with it or else the whole world is just going to end up like you-worse than you. Everyone will be dead. Have Maeglin lead the charge. He is just as capable.”

“No one is more capable than you,” croaked the king.

Skold stood up and approached the window. The curtains blocking the sunlight were black. “My father took my cock and balls and you took my memory. And now all of these years later, when there is nothing left of me but flesh, bone, and half a soul, you want me to clean up after you, fight for you.”

“I cannot give you your memories back,” King Yaldon croaked. “Not even if I wanted to. Your memories are lost. You will never be whole again. That’s why I didn’t put you death. Because the pain that you’re enduring, right now, as of this moment, is worth than death.”

Skold looked over at King Yaldon from over his shoulder. “And what about the pain that you’re feeling at this moment? Locked away in the dark, haunted by hallucinations of me, of the ghosts of all of the victims that died in Paladin’s War? How does it know that years, perhaps centuries from now, your immortal life is going to come to a certain end? When was the last time that you’ve seen the world outside your window, the cool wind, the warmth of the sun on your face?”

“I can’t...I can’t remember,” King Yaldon said with a mixture of misery and longing. “I miss it. More often than not I wish that the plague would just take me, just end my suffering.”

Skold was surprised by the empathy that King Yaldon’s words evoked in him. He felt pity for him. He felt sorrow. Not long ago he wouldn’t have felt anything. Only cold and numbness. He reached for the curtains.

“What are you doing?” King Yaldon demanded, shrinking back against the wall.

“I’m doing you a favor,” Skold said softly.

“No, don’t-”

Sunlight filtered through the room and fell on King Yaldon. He was blocking his arms with his face. His flesh was blacker than coal. Skold sat at the edge of the bed and took King Yaldon’s hand.

“You’ll get infected.” The fae king jerked his hand away.

Skold took it again. “I will not. That is one of the many stupid paranoias that you have fabricated in your feeble little brain. Put your arm down and look out the window. There are too many beautiful sights in the world to shut yourself away in the darkness. Look. It’s not going to hurt you.”

Slowly, cautiously, the king lifted his head and brought his arm down. After so many years of having no exposure to the sunlight it was blinding. It took several moments for his eyes to adjust. But it when did adjust and he could see the grey sky and the endles horizon of white snow and bare brittle tree branches it took his breath away. He looked at Skold, uncertain of what to say.

Skold stood up again and moved over to the door. “Isn’t that better? The ghosts only haunt you in the dark. They can’t haunt you during the day.”

“Thank you,” King Yaldon said. His voice shook and tears were rolling down his cheeks.

“I will do it.”

“Do what?”

“I will lead your group of warriors as I did against Paladin. But know this: I am not doing it for you, not out of some sentimental sense of duty. I’m doing it for the people that I love. I’m doing it so that children don’t have die before they know what it truly means to be alive. Do you understand?”

The fae king nodded silently.

With that Skold left the room, closing the door behind him. King Yaldon settled his head back against the pillow, looked out the window framed with sunlight, and let his gaze drift.