The Lord Tiranis, An Origin, Book 5 (part 4 of 13) (Patreon)

Months and years passed.

Lars kept an eyes on Leo, but his son was careful from the moment he received the warning, and in time, he stopped talking to his father about the water as if it had feelings. This was about the time Leo began paying attention to the boys in the town, and complained about his sister stealing all of them.

Lars did smile at that, as Alaine did have most of them enthralled, but he gave tips on how to attract the attention of those he was interested in, and slowly his son build a group of his own. His sister didn’t seem to mind.

* * * * *

It was evening when the man with the horse and cart stopped by his house. It wasn’t a market day, so Lars was surprised to see anyone with a loaded cart, more so for them to stop here. The man was human, a young adult with a solid, if thin, build.

“Can I help you?” Lars called from the window.

The young man looked in his direction. “I was told I could find the woodcutter here.”

“You can, give me a minute.” He put the plate back in the water, it could soak for a while longer Alaine should be the one washing today, but the town leader’s son had showed up in the middle of the meal clamoring that they needed her help. Leo had rolled his eyes and made kissing noises as Alaine excused herself.

She had been spending most of her time with him recently. Leo had finished eating then asked to be allowed to leave. Lars let him, and he ran off to meet up with a boy of his own. His son of now at the age where he enjoyed as many of them as he could. Soon he’d settle down, or at least Lars hoped so, he was getting tired of parents telling him his son had broken their heart.

One outside he got a better look at the man, his skin was dark from working outside so much and his leanness bordered on malnourishment. His eyes were a pale gray, with a hint of blue that gave the impression they were sun bleached. Even through the wear of a hard life, he still looked young.

The man offered a tired smile and opened his mouth to speak, but instead frowned, searched Lars face and gaped. “It’s you.”

Lars tilted an ear and studied the man. He wasn’t local, and he couldn’t remember seeing him before. Nothing about his body language indicated violence, so the lynx relaxed. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.”

“It is,” the man said in awe. “I was younger. You saved me and my Pa from bandits. You saved our farm.”

Farm? Bandits? His days of hunting bandits were far behind him, something he’d never discussed with the townsfolk, “I think I remember, an old man on a porch, bandits that kept raising his farm. He had a son.”

“That was me, Orbin. I — I joined you in the barn.”

Now he remembered. “We had sex.”

Orbin nodded eagerly and Lars got a bad feeling. “Yes, why did you leave? I woke and you were gone. I wanted to look for you, but Pa said he didn’t where you were. What we did, how you made me feel, it was so…”

Lars shook his head and tried not to sound condescending when he spoke. “It was just sex.”

The look of disbelieve Orbin gave him didn’t bode well for where this was going.

“How can you say that! It was… it was divine!”

Lars looked around, this would be the perfect time for the Keeper to come by and accuse him of promoting blasphemy. For once the jackal was busy elsewhere.

“Sex’s great, but it was just the first time, I’m sure the other times were just as good.”

“I haven’t had more.”

“You haven’t?” Lars tried to recall if there had been any settlements near the farm, but he couldn’t, still there had to be something within a week of travel, he could have, should have found himself something by now. “Why not?”

“I was waiting.”

Lars bit back the groan. “For what?”

“For you.” The way Orbin said it told Lars everything he’d dreaded.

The lynx sighed. He looked at the quad horse. “Is it going to be okay here? Or do you need to tie it to a post?”

“It’ll be fine. It’s dumb, even as quads go. If I’m not pulling on its lead, it doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Then come in.” The expectant look on Orbin’s face made Lars stop. “Just to sit while we talk.” He motioned to the chairs while he put the kettle over the fire. He took two clay mugs and added herbs to them. “It’s a local tea, I hope that’s okay.” Lars looked into the mug and sighed. “I wish I had coffee,” he whispered.

“What’s coffee?” the young man said.

Lars shook his head. “A different kind of drink. As far as I’ve heard, the plants needed to make it were destroyed when the weather went crazy.”

“You mean the early snow, all those years ago?”

“Snow? Right, I’d forgotten about that. A different storm.” Every so often Lars forgot that no one else had his frame of reference. He wrapped a thick towel around the kettle’s handle and poured the water in the mugs. He sat and looked at Orbin while the tea steeped.

Lars sighed. “You need to forget about me.”

“I can’t. You’re all I have thought about in all these years? What we had was special.”

Lars let out another sigh. “Not really. It felt like that to you because I was your first. It’s why I left, I didn’t want this to happen. I figured you’d get yourself a wife, have a lot of sex with her, have kids.”

“Why would I want that when I’ve known you?”

“Because you can’t have me.” He tried to figure out if there was an easy way to make the young man understand.

“Why not?” the tone was demanding, and Lars was going to tell him in no uncertain term he had no right to demand anything, when the door opened and Alaine entered.

“Pa.” She was looking outside. “Why is there a cart in—” she turned to look in. “Oh, hello.”

“For one thing,” Lars said, “Because I have children of my own.” He knew his daughter’s heat patterns enough to be able to read that she’d been up with exactly what he’d expected her to do with the town leader’s son, but he was human, so there were no worries about her becoming pregnant.

Orbin looked from one lynx to the other, his gaze lingering on Alaine long enough she began fidgeting.

“Pa.” She turned for the door. “I’m going to come back later.”

Orbin kept looking at the closed door.

“You even think of touching her,” Lars warned casually, “and I’m going to burn you where you sit.”

Orbin’s head snapped to him. “I wasn’t—”

“Right, because you weren’t looking at me that same way when you were a kid.” He sipped his tea, and the young man did the same, burning his tongue on the hot liquid. Lars tried not to smile. That had been petty of him. “You have seen woman before, right? When you took your wares to market?”

“Pa did that. I stayed at the farm.”

“Why would you do that? Did you even have animals to care for?”

“I had to stay at the farm.” The finality in the man’s voice worried Lars.

“Why?” he asked, but he already knew the answer.

“For when you came back for me.”

“For crying out loud, you need to get laid.” At the man’s confused expression Lars added. “You need to have sex, but not with me,” he hurried to say at he hopeful expression.

“But you’re who I want,” he stated

“Sure I am,” Lars derided, “that’s why you were looking at my daughter that way. You don’t want me, Orbin, you just want to relive a memory because you never created others. I’m not doing that to you, or to me. If you want sex you’re going to have to get it out there, not in here.”

“But what we felt?” the man insisted.

Lars did all he could to remain calm, but some of the exasperation slipped through. “You’re going to feel that again. Sex isn’t that special.”

The man looked at him the way the Keeper did anytime he through Lars had blasphemed. “It was special to me! I thought I meant something to you!”

Lars shook his head. If he’d known this would happen… “I had sex with you because you were curious. And because it had been a while for me by then. I left so you could move on with your life.”

“If you wanted to be away from me, why did you settle here? So close to the farm?”

“It’s not so close you ever came before, even your father never came here. And that storm you mentioned is what forced me here. Then there was winter and I hate traveling when it’s cold. By the time spring was here Alaine was also on the way. If not for her, I’d have left the moment the snow was gone.

“But you were so—”

“No, I wasn’t.  Orbin, find yourself a woman, or a man, I don’t care, but get someone else so you’ll forget about me.”

“I will never forget you.” The defeat in the man’s voice hurt Lars, but he’d already lost a lover. 

To get another one simply meant he’d see him die too. It was a pain he never wanted to feel again. He was going to raise his children, and once they had their own lives, he was going to leave, move on to something else.

“Maybe, but whoever you pick will be special in their own was. You might not believe me, but you’ll see. All you need to do is give them a chance.” He finished his tea. “Now, you came here for business. If you’re still interested in that after this, what do you need?”

Orbin looked in his mug long enough Lars thought he’d refuse to do business, but he nodded, then drank the tea, making a face at it. Lars agreed, it wasn’t the best, he didn’t have much skill had selected the good leaves.

“The farm needs repair. I brought grain to pay for it.”

“Let’s see what you brought. Do you know how much you’ll need?”

Orbin shook his head and told Lars the work that needed to be done. When he was done the lynx had a good idea of what was needed. There was nowhere near enough grain to pay for all of it, but Lars took it. He felt like he owed him for what he’d endured over the years.

When Lard told the young man how long it would take to get the planks ready he hoped the man would go back to his farm, but the longing expression told him he was wrong. He even suggested he should stay with Lars while he waited.

Lars pointed him to one of the families he knew had space, as well as an available daughter of age. Maybe nothing would come of it, but at least he wouldn’t be in Lars’ space.

Or so he thought.

When the human showed up in the wood the next day to make his case why they should be together Lars kicked him out of it. When he showed up the second day Lars made it clear that he had to chose: the wood to repair his far or the lynx.

For an instant Lars feared he’d misread how important the farm was to Orbin, but finally the man relented and stopped bothering him. When Orbin left with his order, he also had a young woman with him.

* * * * *

More years passed

Alaine grew into a beautiful young woman who turned every man’s head, be they human or Furrian, but she no longer chased them. She’d matured and preferred helping her father around the house while waiting for a suitable lynx to find her. She also learned weaving from one of the older widows, who kept trying to convince Alaine to travel to another town for a husband.

She didn’t need to go that far, that summer a merchant’s caravan stopped in the town and one of the guard, a tall and muscular lynx noticed her. For the week the caravan was there, anytime he looked for Alaine, Lars knew he’d find her with the guard. When the caravan had to leave, the lynx promised he’d come back for her, and she pined after him.

Lars did what he could to keep her spirits up while she waited, but didn’t believe he’d come back. He knew the type from his long time in the army. Soldiers who could charm anyone they took a fancy to with promises of eternal love, knowing they’d never be back this way. Lars only concern from that encounter was that the guard might have gotten his daughter pregnant, but it wasn’t the case.

Live went on.

Leo began studying under the Keeper, which led to him fighting with his son. Leo knew better than to believe the stories the jackal told, but Leo sought knowledge the way his sister was back to seeking men. Leo never had enough, and the Keeper was the only one with knowledge that extended beyond their little community.

Lars could have buried the Keeper with the knowledge he had, but telling his son would mean having to explain much he wasn’t ready to. In a few years, when he was closer to leaving he would take his son aside and tell him more, explain why he was leaving, and why they might never see his father again.

Without being able to explain now, the argument kept growing, to the point Leo moved out and in with a man his age. He and Leo rarely spoke after that. Anytime he tried to bridge the growing gap between them he found Leo in the jackal’s company and Lars’ anger surged. He almost let the Keeper have it the day the jackal smirked, but the distant thunder, caused by Lars’ emotions, served as a reminder he had too much to lose. For all that the jackal disliked Lars, he did like Leo and treated him with the respect deserving of a student.

Time passed again, and another caravan came through, with another guard who took fancy to Alaine, but this time, instead of leaving with a promise to return, he asked for Alaine to leave with him. She accepted and Lars found himself alone in the house.

He should leave, he told himself. After all, it’s what he had promised himself he’d do, leave once his children no longer needed him. Go back to traveling, to seeing how the world had changed. But he had so much history in this town he found he was reluctant. So he kept with his work.

With him alone, some of the older women began offering him company again, and now he accepted. None of them moved in with him, but having someone to share his bed again was nice.

The women in the town referred to him as the Grumpy Old Man. Fortunately for Lard Furrian age was almost impossible to tell until very old. Unlike humans, their fur or feathers his most of the visible signs. So while he looked no different than when he’d arrived twenty-five years earlier, no one commented on it, even the Keeper never used that as justification for claiming Lars was a demon sent to corrupt them all.

After a few years without talking to his son, Lars tried to reconnect, but Leo had gone from talking with the Keeper to gain knowledge to believing in the Celeste, and Lars couldn’t deal with that. How Leo could want to be a Keeper, knowing what they did to people like him and Lars was too much. When Lars tried to make his son see reason and the argument nearly brought the house crashing down around the two of them, Lars resigned himself that his son was lost to him.

What was worse, as far as Lars was concerned, was that, since Leo made the decision to become a Keeper, Lars hadn’t felt him use his ability. His son, who had loved water seemed to have turned his back on it. He didn’t even swim anymore.

For the first time since arriving to the town, Lars felt the weight of the centuries pressing down on him, and he focused on his work, so he wouldn’t have to think about Leo.

* * * * *

Time still passed.

The day had been good, the temperature cool and sky cloudless. 

The quality of Lars work was such that word if it reached ever further and a noble had come to see with his own eyes. The town had thrown a celebration in his honor, which the human noble found amusing. Lars had thought so too, Until Leo was given the honor of performing the Blessing, his first official act as an acolyte Keeper. Lars had had to leave then.

The noble was impressed with the work Lars did, and before leaving placed an order that would keep the lynx busy for at least a year and see him make enough money to build a mansion, should he want to.

He didn’t want to, but he took the contract anyway, because not to do so meant he had little to do. And with nothing to do he was left thinking of Leo and the chasm now separating the two of them. He wanted to bridge it, but how did he get his son to understand what he was taking part in something that couldn’t be good, not when one of the core tenants was that to have powers made you evil.

So he worked, and told himself that once Leo left, like any acolyte eventually had to do, to study at one of the temple, then he would leave too. Then he truly wouldn’t have anything holding him here. He wouldn’t have to explain to his son why he’d never see his father again, he already never saw him.

The wind shifted as he walked home after a good day of not thinking about Leo and brought the scent of smoke. Normally it was a smell he looked forward to, a reminder that food would be waiting for him, of time with one of the widows, the this smell wasn’t cooking fires. Looking up he saw the column of dark smoke.

He ran, not caring if anyone noticed how fast he was. If one of the houses was on fire, everyone would be needed to keep it from spreading. He could feel the fire, and if not for the Keeper, he could douse it right now. At least it didn’t feel like it was spreading.

He reach the town in a fraction of the time it normally took him, and slowed to a normal run. The fire had only grown a little, but was staying in place. He didn’t understand why the town hadn’t put it out.

Until he reached the burning pyre.

There had been a fire, two houses were charred and still dripping with wet. But they no longer even smoked. He tried to look away from the pyre, he wanted to asked what had happened, but the shape of a man no longer moving, but still burning held his gaze.

“Rejoice!” The voice was loud over the crackling of the flames, over the roar of the blood in his ears. “Rejoice! For the demon had been cleansed from your lives!”

Lars forced himself to look away, to search the crowd standing around him, watching the Keeper, his arms in the air, his face a mask of elation.

“Rejoice!” the crowd repeated.

Where was Leo? Why wasn’t he at the Keeper’s side, where an acolyte belonged? Lars rushed through the crowd, looking for his son, calling his name, asking his friend, his neighbors, but instead of answering him, the turned away and yelled. “Rejoice!” with the Keeper.

He knew something was wrong. He could feel it, or rather, he couldn’t feel Leo. He knew the feel of his heat, the way the water was distributed within him. He never purposely kept track of him, but he always felt him within the town, but he wasn’t here.

Lars extended his senses. It was possible the jackal had sent his acolyte for help, but he knew that was stupid before Leo didn’t register in the distance. There was no one who could reach them in time to help, a town only had itself to depend on when things turned bad.

He refused to look at the pyre, so instead focused on what he could sense. The two houses, there was too much water around them. Far more water then anyone here would carry to put it out. All they could have done was keep it from spreading, the houses would have burned to the ground, killing….

He found the family who lived in one of them, dripping wet as much as the houses, standing close to the house. He knew them, their mother was one of the widows who kept him company. He ran to them.

“Where is my son!” The desperation made his voice crack.

“Rejoice,” the reply came, “for he is free!” The triumph in the jackal’s voice made Lars blood curdle.”

He turned to face the Keeper. “What did you do?”

The jackal smiled in elation. “I freed him. Freed him from the curse that marred him.”

Lars couldn’t look at the pyre. “How?” the answer was there. The jackal had gone on Ad nauseam about what to do if someone was tainted by a demon. Lars also knew exactly how his son had been found out. “How could you?”

“He was possessed, tainted by—”

“He saved them!”

“Water rose from the barrels,” the jackal continued, not hearing him. “From the lake. Flew over the town and your demon son was orchestrating it. Made it fall on the burning houses.”

Lars shoved the jackal and everyone too enraptured to notice how he flew off his feed to land on his back. “You murdered him!” Lars turned to eh crowd. “How could you let him do that?” No one looked away. He saw it in their face, they knew they had done the right thing. “He was one of us!”

“No, he was tainted.” The jackal stood. “Put here to corrupt us.”

Lars seethed. “He wanted to become a God dammed Keeper!”

“In infiltrate our faith, destroy it from the inside. Rejoice!” The jackal yelled, and the crowd echoed him. The Keeper placed his hands on Lars’ shoulders and this time his tone was gentle. Not comfort, not reassurance, happiness. “You must rejoice, your son is free. He is with the Celeste. Such power was not meant for the good folks.”

Lars looked in the jackal’s eyes, his gaze cold. “You think what Leo had was power?” He pointed to the pyre and the fire went out. The jackal gasped and stepped away, signing himself. Lars say the form still tied to the post but refused to look at it.

“Do you have any idea how much of a miracle Leo was?” Wind picked up around him. “He was my son! Not just my blood, but some of my power.” Lars called the water from the houses so violently that the wood cracked and crumbled in the wind. 

“I couldn’t have children! We were made sterile! We weren’t people to them, we were weapons! Made to fight an die. Do you have any idea what it is like to find you can have children when you’ve believe that for centuries?”

With a laugh Lars sent the water at the jackal and lifted him off his feet. “Those signs are as meaningless as the Celeste of yours.” He faced the crowd again. “I saw others have children, but I never had them. I was too old I thought, I’d been made too long ago. Whatever change that had let the newer ones be fruitful was denied to me! I never wanted kids, I had Vee and he was enough, or so I thought. Then came Alaine, and I couldn’t understand. I couldn’t have children, I had believed it. You want a miracle, there you have it, but it had nothing to do with your Celeste.”

The storm formed a wall around the crowd; him, The Keeper and them in the eye. Some made to run. “No,” Lars said and the ground wrapped around their feet. “You don’t get to leave. None of you do. You murdered my son. All of you.”

He faced the jackal. “Leo was special, beyond his ability. He was a gentle man. He didn’t want riches, someone who can control water could make himself a king, but all he wanted was to help people. To fucking guide them to what you brainwashed him into believing was the right path. Unlike you he didn’t terrify people into giving him respect. He just wanted people to be happy.”

“He wasn’t right!” The jackal yelled. “He was tainted!”

“My son was perfect,” Lars snarled, “before you screwed him up. Before you make him renounce the water he loved. But was still enough of a good man to reveal himself to all of you instead of letting that family die, and you murdered him for it. What kind of man does that?” he looked at the crowd. “What kind of good folk allow that to happen. What kind of monster condemns a hero just because he saved them in a way you disapproved of.”

“He’s the monster! You are!” the jackal yelled. “You see what he does, how long have I told you he was a demon here to corrupt us? I am a good man, I do the Celeste’s work!”

“Who ordered my son’s death. Who stood by and watched happen? If that’s what your Celeste asks of you then you all deserve what’s coming. You wanted power Keeper? You wanted to be important in this little insignificant town? To wanted to be the one to ruled these cowards? Congratulation, you succeeded. You got them to ignore decency for you. You turned each and every one of them into the same kind of monster you are. Now it’s time for you to get your just rewards.”

Lars pointed to the jackal, who tried to pull his feet out of the earth

“What are you doing?” The Keeper grabbed his chest. “Stop it, please!” he panted.

“How does it feel,” Lars snarled. “How do you like the fire building inside you, knowing there’s nothing you can do to stop it. That pain is all you have to look forward to until it consumes you?”

The jackal screamed and smoke lifted off him.

“If the Celeste is so proud of you, how come it isn’t coming to stop me? How can it let me do such a thing to such a good man? Or is your suffering just one more mystery you can’t explain? Do you think I’m being unfair? Don’t your teaching have stories of fathers taking revenge for wrongs done to their child? I can’t hear you Keeper. No? There aren’t? Well maybe there should be. Maybe monsters like you would think twice about killing an innocent child if they were in there.”

“Please,” the jackal gasped. “Have mercy.”

“Mercy? You don’t deserve it. I’m going to make this last. Nowhere as long as you deserve, but long enough for you to regret ever taking my son from me.” He raised the heat and the jackal screamed, then lowered it, leaving him panting. “Fire is mine to command, and I control the fire within you. All those cells burning fuel and oxygen. Did your Celeste tell you about them? About how they burn the food you eat to keep you going? By now I probably burned so much of it that you’d die even if I let you go, but that isn’t going to happen. There might not be anything to keep you going, but there’s plenty for the fire to consume, and by the time it’s done, you’ll know what my son went through because of your bigoted beliefs/

“I was just doing the will of—”

Lars punched the jackal. “Don’t even think of justifying what you did. You know it was wrong, you wouldn’t have to hide behind your faith if you thought it had been right. Or if you actually believe that kill someone, anyone just because they have power is right, then you deserve this even more.

Lars watched the jackal slowly be consumed, patches of fur catching on fire to quickly burn away and leave the skin blacked. Over the hours it took Lars told the Keeper everything, how the world had been before, what he and Vee did to survive those first few years. The battles they fought before and after the world changed. How deeply he loved his bull and how much he hated what he had become. How he’d never have children again, because having one taken from him hurt too damned much.

He kept on talking far beyond the point the jackal stopped making any sounds, or moving, or breathing. He looked down between breaths, and the man was a charred husk. The fire still consumed him, but there was little left. Lars had been to lost in his recounting to keep track of the passage of time.

He straightened and turned to look at the horrified crowd. He smiled at them. “Now, you should consider running.”

They didn’t run far.

Lars brought the winds in until the eyes was only him the pyre and the husk of the Keeper. While he’d talked to the dead, the wind had scoured the town down to the ground. Even if one of the townsfolk had made it out, there was nothing for them to live on. No house, no fields, no animals.

He’d erased the town from existence, and now he’d erased its people. Over a hundred people, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends, lovers, and found he didn’t care. They’d gotten what they deserved.

“I warned you.” Lars finally looked at the man tied to the post. At his son. “I tried to tell you nothing good would come of joining this religion. Why couldn’t you listen to me? How couldn’t you see they are nothing more than bigots wrapping their hate in justifications? Why couldn’t you listen to me, Leo?” He didn’t want to be angry at his son. He loved him more than he could ever express, but rage was all he had left.

“It wasn’t enough they took you from me with their pretty words. They had no right to kill you!” he closed his eyes. “Why did you let them, Leo? The lake’s right there? The water from the fire you put out was enough to drown the pyre. Did they poison your mind so much you believed them? You weren’t a monster, Leo. You are my son! You should have lived!”

He wanted to let his rage loose on this child’s remain, scatter the reminder that he’d died to the end of the world, but he stopped himself. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, treat his child that way. Leo had already been the victim of monsters, he wouldn’t add to that.

“I’m going to avenge you, Leo. I’m going to keep them from ever doing this to someone else’s child. No one like us will ever have to suffer at their hands again. I am going to eradicate them all. It isn’t like I have to worry about how long it’s going to take.”

He lowered his son in the ground, pyre and all. Created a cave where he could hidden, preserved. The remains of the jackal he left where he’d died for the normal wind to scatter, or maybe for a traveler to find and wonder what had happened here.

Let the stories spread Lars thought. No, Lars was dead, He’d died here in the disaster that had consumed the town. He wasn’t even El, who’d died at the hand of Vee’s atrocities.

There was only one person left, if those two were dead. He was LRK again. The soldier, the killer. He had his mission and like every other war he’d fought, he would be victorious.