Sky Lord by Rowan Erlking (that summer book .txt) 📕

“You aren’t a demon!” the magister cried, gasping as he pulled back the other things from his bag of tricks.

Jonis smiled, shaking his head. “Never was. You all assumed I was. But it makes no difference.”

The captain and other men smiled though. To them, that meant they could kill him like any ordinary man.

“Nuh, uh, uh,” Jonis said, taking a step back and drawing his sword. “That was not an invitation to fight.”

“But you can’t stop us from taking your bounty,” the first mate said with a strange glee to his voice. He drew a knife.

Jonis blinked at him. “It can’t? Well then, perhaps this can.”

He then suddenly removed his glove, tucking it into his pocket. Reaching out, Jonis touched the man on his hand that gripped his own knife. The first mate suddenly went pale, falling to his knees.

Jonis smiled. “Just because I am not a demon of this world does not mean I can’t hurt you with a touch.”

He let go, having only taken a bit of energy from the man. “I think you all have forgotten what happened to all the hunters that tried to kill me in Danslik when I started this profession.” Jonis took a bold step forward. “Don’t think you can defeat me if the best hunters of Brein Amon can’t kill me.”

Tia continued to stare at the floor, listening to the challenge. Now she understood why he was so flippant. She knew Jonis’s threat would do the trick. He really was the most dangerous hunter in the land.

The crowd backed off.

Jonis drew a chalk circle on the deck large enough for Tia to lay in for sleep not far from the port stern. He dropped the broken bell onto the ground, handing her his cloak to rest her head on. Touching her hand once, he told her without words to get a good night sleep. They were to fly from the Stilson airport to Danslik. From there they would confront the Patriarch.

He leaned on the boat side, pulling out his sword and laying it on his knees. Barely shutting his eyes, Jonis sat in watch. Tia now understood what was to happen. Her life had been explained that day, and she knew where she wanted to go from there. Smiling to herself at the man that protected her, Tia closed her eyes in a deep sleep.

The capital hall was full of people when their car arrived. Coming from the airport, Tia found her heart thumping very fast. Besides being still nervous from her first plane ride, she was anxious about their visit to the Patriarch. She glanced once at Jonis, seeing only his characteristic calm face that grinned as if he was expecting fun. Jonis led her out of the car, telling her to close her eyes and let him guide her through the blinding whiteness until they were inside the doors. He let her open them when crossed the threshold. When they stood in the entrance, facing soldiers and noblemen and women, a tense feeling gripped both their stomachs. 

The Patriarch gazed down on Jonis with a smug grin. It erased some when he saw Jonis walk into the hall by his own volition, but it had not utterly gone when he noticed Tia led by a demon chain.  “So, you have brought her back. I suppose a reward is in order.”

“No, thank you, sir,” Jonis said at once, taking out his money purse. He spread the jewels out flat in his palm. “I got my reward.” He glanced at Tia. “And then some.”

It was time. He let go of the demon chain.

Tia did not fall to the ground as everyone watching in the hall had expected. She stood erect then removed the chain with her own hands. The people gasped.

“The chain has lost its power, apparently,” Jonis said with a shrug. “Tia came here by her own will.”

The Patriarch glared at him, hearing Jonis’s familiar use of the Sky Child’s name.

“And she has agreed to be my wife,” Jonis added.

The Patriarch leapt to his feet. “Outrageous!”

Jonis only smiled. “Not really. I think we are perfect match.”

“How dare you!” the Patriarch started

But Jonis spoke over his words.

“We only came back here to tell you that if you want the treasure of the Sky Lord, we’d be willing to draw you a map, but you’d have to get past the demons to take it.” Jonis drew his sword and stood it on its tip, resting his hand gently on the handle as if it were a cane. “We also came to set the record straight concerning the origins of Sky Children and Cordrils.”

The entire room hushed.

Jonis took Tia’s hand with a nod to her. “We are from the same people.”

Tia smiled, gaining confidence from his touch. She knew what he wanted her to do and say.

She said, looking the Patriarch in the eye as her shoulders squared, “Several thousands of years ago were two brothers. Camus…”

“…And Cordril,” finished Jonis. “They were twins, born the same day and in the same hour. Cordril was the first born.”

“Camus was the second born,” Tia said. She drew in a breath. “Camus and Cordril competed for everything—attention, love, and success. Camus was ambitious. He wanted more than anything to be better than his brother.”

“Cordril,” Jonis added, “was also competitive, but not as ambitious. Instead he was proud. He wanted more than anything to maintain his first place over his brother.”

“When they grew older,” Tia said, “they entered the interplanetary space academy, vying for the status of ‘Sky Lord’.”

Everyone gasped.

“That is the best pilot in that flies in the area of darkness above our world, what magisters and intellects call ‘space’,” Jonis explained.

Tia grinned at him, nodding. “One day, to prove who was the better pilot, both men flew to a forbidden territory, our world, just above the clouds and air to play a game called ‘chicken’.”

“I’m sure you are familiar with the game. One man flies towards the other one, and whoever veers first is the coward,” Jonis said. He gave an embarrassed blush. “Both ships veered away in the last minute. But their wings nicked each other, and both ships were knocked straight into the atmosphere on a collision course to the planet surface. Cordril crashed in the far west of Greater Gull, in the wild country.”

“Camus’s ship crashed on Demon Island,” Tia said.

Everyone murmured, staring with mouths open. Indeed, now that they looked at the two people standing before them, the islander with dark skin and rounded figure next to the hunter with white skin and angular features, in essence they really were the same. Their eyes had the same intense expression in blue. The Patriarch sat with his hand on his mouth, too intrigued to care that his orders and wishes had been stomped on.

“Cordril was badly wounded,” Jonis said with a rather frank tone. “A simple farmer found him and tried to help, but the wounds in Cordril were fatal. Near death, Cordril grabbed the man’s hand and suddenly found that the farmer’s energy became his, and he was healed. But he now had the farmer’s body with no evidence that he, himself, had even been there. The farmer’s wife found him in the field. And thinking her husband had gone insane she took him home to nurse him back to health. Cordril had tried to tell her the truth. But since when did a demon ever tell its prey that it had killed someone dear to it? She did not believe him. So, giving up his ship for lost and sure he would never leave this world, Cordril made her his wife. And they had children.”

“Camus,” said Tia, “was not much harmed when he had crashed.”

All eyes turned on her, waiting now for the secret of the Sky Lord.

She lowered her eyes simply, and said, “He had a machine to alert his people of his accident, and he set the beacon, waiting for someone to rescue him. However, before anyone could come, a tribe of flesh sucking demons found him.”

The people gasped. Tia was a little surprised that their story had such an effect. She glanced at Jonis and continued on. He squeezed her hand in encouragement.

“The dominant male of the group decided that this human-like creature was his deserved meal,” she said. “He went in to suck out life from Camus but received instead a rebound shock.”

“That’s a shock all skin sensitive creatures give one another so they don’t feast on each other,” Jonis put in.

Tia glanced at him with a snort. “Yes, but this male demon considered it a challenge, and he continued to fight Camus until there was only one man standing. Every one of the demons thought that their head male had won. His body stood there, but he now had blue eyes.”

“It was really Camus,” Jonis said smirking. “And he now had the collection of thoughts and memories that the demon once had. He knew how this demon tribe worked and what the others expected of him.”

Tia cleared her throat. “These demons are like animals. The dominant male has the privilege of mating with all the females. Camus obliged, thinking of it only as a bit of fun.” She frowned with disgust. “By the time he had impregnated all the females of the tribe, Camus found living as a demon rather uncomfortable, though he enjoyed the perks. He was always hungry, but the weaker males always feared him. It appealed to his avarice.”

“But,” Jonis put in, drawing in a breath, “eventually the other demon males found out what he really was.”

Nodding to him, Tia said, “When all the babies born were blue-eyed and more human-like, the other males suspected that it was not their leader that had won the fight. The strongest of the males challenged him. But Camus only absorbed each one, becoming a new dominant male allowed all the privileges of that station.  In the end, after three more failed attempts to unseat him, the males got together and drove Camus out of the camp and into a volcanic cave. By then, most of the tribe’s children were blue-eyed. But despite this, the females would not allow their children to be destroyed.

“Camus waited in the cave until he could find his ship once again and see if he could contact home. But a message was already left for him.” Tia glanced at Jonis.

He said, “He was banished forever, as was his brother, never to return to space because he broke the law and entered forbidden ground.”

“You know the rest of the story,” Tia said. “The Sky Lord passed on his avarice to his children, and they tried to give him the glory he felt he deserved. But trapped on that island, he died the richest, poorest man in all of existence.”

“Alone,” Jonis said.

They stood still, waiting for the Patriarch to speak.

The head of the nation shifted in his chair. He stared at the two figures before him for a long time, his eyes flitting to their fixed blue-eyed stares. His counselors both to the left and right looked at him, passing over to him what they thought