Blood of Fate Read online

  Esk began to personally address every god with whom he’d aligned himself in his previous lives.

  “Cruel Horvac, Timeless Akatosh, Faceless Veridic, Almighty God, K’Tun the Defiler...”

  He had time to address them all and start from the beginning again before the Wheel stopped. It seemed to Luca as if the line between the sectors was precisely between his eyes, but Esk’Onegut exulted. The difference must have been in microns, but the Wheel had stopped in the purple sector!

  One-time Wheel spin token used.

  Spin outcome: purple sector.

  Rewards: Reminiscent title.

  Esk’Onegut is freed from the effect of the Waning, and shall keep all the accumulated experience of his mortal years, beginning with the current reincarnation;

  Esk’Onegut shall keep all positive talents, superpowers and effects, beginning with the current reincarnation;

  if the purple sector falls again, Esk’Onegut gains the right to choose one lost superpower from a previous reincarnation.

  The noise of the street descended on Luca. He was back in control of his body, and the world came alive. The boy frowned, reading the strange text again and again.

  The traveler burst into laughter through his mouth. The Wheel had settled on the purple sector—the mythical purple sector!—at the very time when none of its rewards could have any effect on him. Even the weakest talent would have been better, even the skill of playing any musical instrument! At least he could have made a living in the inns that way.

  Esk’Onegut found himself in the position of a billionaire whose entire fortune was being kept safe and sound away from him right up until the day the final nail was hammered into his coffin. What was the point of removing his Waning if this was his last life? Among other things, it was impossible to earn back his almost a thousand minus Tsoui points in the body of a beggar boy. In his best reincarnations, Esk had managed to earn several hundred, but never more than five hundred.

  That meant there was no point in even thinking about any new talents that might stay with him in future lives if he got the purple sector again. Because he would have no future lives, and he had no Tsoui points with which to spin the Wheel again. All he needed was ten measly points—the cost of a single spin—and he didn’t have them!

  While Esk was busy going insane, Luca enjoyed scratching the back of his head—not out of habit, but because his dirty hair was greasy—then picked up the bucket, tightened his grip on it and carried it to a nearby drain. Although really, the entire road had turned into a drain. It flowed not only with the recent floods and spring rains, but also the day-to-day refuse of the people of their entire destitute district.

  The boy added the dirty water to the flow, then took his bearings and wandered toward the local well.

  In the meantime, Esk thought over his options, calculated probabilities, decided what to do. Nothing he came up with gave him even the smallest chance. The weight of his sins in the life before his last pulled him down into a chasm. In that life he had burned everything he had and gone into minus points, and in the one following, his idleness only sent his balance deeper into the red.

  He was doomed to eke out an existence in an unfriendly and underdeveloped world, and with no talents or abilities to speak of. At the end of that woeful journey of life, the traveler’s existence would end once and for all. His would. But what about Luca?

  Understanding began to dawn in his consciousness, burning stronger and stronger, giving Esk—no, not hope, but a sense of the right path. The already unfortunate boy wasn’t guilty of his — Esk’Onegut’s! — past sins. And that meant...

  He had to decide now, before it got too scary! And then a particle of his soul would go on to live many, he hoped, new lives. As long as the boy lived up to his expectations and didn’t let him down.

  Esk sighed deeply and reflexively closed his eyes. Through the beating of his heart, he activated the Exodus.

  Esk’Onegut, life ninety nine.

  Reminiscent (immune to effect of the Waning).

  Influence level: 9.

  Tsoui points: -971 (negative value).

  Excarnation selected with subsequent merging with individual Luca Dezisimu (life one), resident of zone Orion Arm, Milky Way, Solar System, Planet Earth. Universe variation: #ES-252210-0273-4707.

  Luca Dezisimu will receive Esk’Onegut’s positive legacy.

  The eyes that Esk had closed led to Luca tripping, losing his balance and falling. He tried to pick himself up, but fell again into the mud. A sharp pain pierced his head, then immediately disappeared, only to reappear in another part of his skull. The flashes of pain bounced around his head for several minutes, and just when Luca finally thought he’d rather die than continue the hellish punishment, it all stopped.

  The boy’s hands dropped from his head. He cringed in anticipation of more pain, but none came. He sat down haltingly and saw a block of text before him. The text repeated in his head in his own clear thoughts, the whisper of his own voice.

  Luca Dezisimu, from this day forth, you are a traveler.

  Live a life worthy of Tsoui, observe the balance and harmony of life, and after death you will revive in another world of the infinite universe.

  Luca’Onegut, life one.

  Reminiscent (immune to effect of the Waning). Successor to Esk’Onegut.

  Influence level: 0.

  Tsoui points: 0.

  Orion Arm, Milky Way, Solar System, Planet Earth.

  Universe variation: #ES-252210-0273-4707.

  Reincarnation: available.

  One-time Wheel spin privilege: available.

  The inheritance from Esk, including the rewards of the purple sector, became Luca’s personal experience and knowledge, so this time he didn’t need to reread the text to understand it.

  Luca smiled. Now he would bring his mother water, then get Kora out of jail, and then...

  Then he would spin the Wheel again.

  Chapter 6. Nemania Kovachar’s Offer

  WHISTLING SOMETHING playful and melodic that floated up from Esk’s memory, Luca returned home with a full bucket of clean water. Nobody had been at the well. Apparently, many still had stocks of rainwater collected during the recent downpours.

  The boy swapped the full bucket of water in his hands more than once as he walked home, but didn’t stop to rest. He took pleasure even in the painful sensations in the muscles of his tired arms, back, and everywhere else; the pain meant that he could feel. He was alive!

  With his inherited knowledge as a traveler, Luca realized that Karim had killed him, had split his skull with a large rock with sharp edges. Esk’Onegut’s inhabitation of his body had allowed him to survive, and the traveler’s boredom, laziness and self-pity had allowed him to keep his individuality. The initial restoration as the traveler had settled into his body had instantly healed all his cuts and bruises. It was a good thing that Luca had thought to wash the blood off his body with water from the barrel in the yard before he went in to see his mother. That water was no good for laundry, but it was fine for day-to-day needs.

  He stopped by the door. He heard a hushed conversation from within. Since his healing, Luca’s hearing had become perfect. He could pick out every word.

  “Admit it, Prisca, you don’t have a chance of paying the wergild,” said an oily male voice in even tones. “Do you want your son sent to the mines?”

  “You speak nonsense, Nemania,” his mother spoke in tired and quiet tones. “Everyone knows Luca has been a cripple since birth. How could he have maimed your son?”

  “You mean to say that Karim is lying to me, woman? My son is no liar! That monster of yours broke his collar bone! You’ll pay for the treatment and compensate for his suffering.”

  “How much?”

  Luca heard the resignation in his mother’s voice. She still hadn’t collected the seventy five silver she needed for Kora...

  “Seven gold. Without delay. Pay today, right now..!” Nemania fell silent, chuckled and
added: “Or come see me after midnight. Pay it off that way!”

  Luca’s mother fell silent, and Karim’s father took on a comforting tone, still just as oily.

  “Prisca, listen to me... If you are diligent and obedient, perhaps I will reduce your debt. What do you say?”

  Luca didn’t hear whether his mother said anything in response, but he knew for certain why the innkeeper had invited her over. He was old enough. He himself had only dreamed of such things in restless and sweaty dreams. But his mother and Nemania in the same bed? It was a shame his father wasn’t here to...

  But he was here! Angry with himself, he rushed into the house just as Prisca was about to agree to the innkeeper’s terms. Nemania’s hand was already snaking its way under her skirt.

  Luca’s eyes widened in fury. Breathing heavily and clenching his fists, he shouted.

  “Get away from my mom, creature! Get your filthy hands off her!”

  “Feisty boy.” The innkeeper chuckled, but removed his hands. “But what does she herself have to say? What do you say, Prisca?”

  “She says: get out of our house! Mom won’t come to you, don’t even think about it! Your son and his friends threw stones at me and nearly killed me! They split my skull!”

  “Wow,” Nemania breathed in shock. “It’s true, he walks. I thought that brat of mine was lying, making it all up. But here it is... Well, where are your bruises? Got anything to back up your words?”

  Luca reached for his temple to move his hair aside and show his wound, but then froze, remembering that it had disappeared.

  “They... healed,” he said falteringly. “I’m telling the truth...”

  “I thought as much.” Nemania’s gaze switched to Prisca. “What have you decided?”

  Prisca cast a sidelong glance at her son, and her tired indifference to the whims of fate, the submissiveness with which she had been ready to accept her impending degradation, her shame at that willingness — it all disappeared, replaced with pride.

  For the first time in her long years, she saw her son’s resemblance to her husband, Severus Dezisimu, saw the same bravery and nobility that he had poured into his sword to achieve standing in society and to capture her heart.

  “My son has answered for me. No!”

  “Well, no means no,” Nemania agreed readily.

  Roughly elbowing his way past the boy, he walked to the door, but then stopped, thought for a moment and turned back.

  “But still... this...” The innkeeper frowned, looked Luca up and down. “How? You just up and started walking? No temples, no healers, just you? All it took to heal a cripple was a good knock on the head? Really? I should patent that idea!” He laughed. “Alright, boy. Live your life. For now. Prisca, if you don’t bring me the money by the evening, I’ll send your bastard to the mines. You know that the word of a Kovachar is stronger than oak!”

  He slammed the door hard as he left.

  At that moment, a line appeared before Luca:

  Tsoui points: +1. Current balance: 1.

  Connecting this information with what had happened up to now, Luca realized that the two events were interlinked. Nodding to himself, he approached his mother and put down the bucket of clean water he’d been holding all this time. He wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of his hand and hugged her. He held her close, realizing that they were the same height His mother sobbed as she spoke.

  “What’s going to happen, son? What now?”

  “Nobody will believe him, mom. Look at my arms; they’re thinner than canes. How could I break his collar bone? Sir Judge is a sensible man, he won’t believe their tales.”

  “Yes, of course, he’s fair...” she agreed with some doubt in her voice.

  Prisca calmed down completely once Luca reminded her about her unfinished laundry and Kora, who was still languishing in jail. She had no fear of ending up in the mines, but if they didn’t pay her bail in time, the girl risked being sent to an orphanage. The deadline was the next day. Stumbling, Prisca rushed to the basin.

  “Mom, let me help you. I’ll hang the laundry.”

  “I can do it, son. We need to boil the pot, bring clean water...”

  The day passed in these labors. Luca carried water back and forth, brought wood from the yard, hung and took down laundry, gave it to his mother to iron, helped to fold it. His muscles burned as if bathed in acid, but the boy bore the pain, remembering that his mother had done all this on her own.

  At dusk, they put the newly clean laundry into baskets, each of which belonged to a separate house for which his mother worked.

  Prisca never tired of praising all the gods for her son, and when Luca got ready to go with her to deliver the laundry, she took it as a given. There was a man of the house again!

  And so she felt her anguish even more harshly when the watchmen forced their way into the hovel, led by a small and angry constable distracted from his dinner.

  “Luca Dezisimu! You are accused of attempting to murder Karim Kovachar! Take him, boys!”

  Chapter 7. Polluted Gene Pool

  THE GUARD GAVE HIM a last kick in the behind. Luca fell over the threshold of the cell and slid on his belly along the slimy floor. The guard closed the door, snapped the lock shut and hurried back to finish off his cold dinner.

  “What’re you in for, sonny?” a low and hoarse voice said from the darkness.

  Luca strained his eyes, trying to make out his surroundings, but he saw nothing. The moonlight shining through the tiny barred window lit up only a small section of the floor.

  The boy considered it best not to ignore the man that called him sonny, and answered.

  “I threw a stone at an innkeeper’s son and broke his collar bone. Or so they say.”

  “What really happened?”

  “I was throwing stones in self-defense. He ran off. I don’t know if I really broke anything. But I hope I did. He’s a scumbag.”

  His unseen interlocutor laughed. His laugh was deep and guttural. It seemed as if the bars of the cell shook from the sound alone. The prisoner calmed down and moved into the light. He lifted Luca’s chin with a finger and looked him in the face. The whites of his eyes shined in the darkness. He spoke softly.

  “What’s your name, little one?”

  “Luca Dezisimu. Yours?”

  “Terant was what they called me in my homeland. Here I have no name, but that’s another story. How old are you, ten?”

  “I’m seventeen.”

  “What? Two-horns take me... Seventeen! Incredible. Gods, how polluted is the gene pool in the Empire?”

  “Mom says it’s bad to curse,” Luca answered simply, to continue a conversation barely above water. “Mentioning the gods in vain is bad. Mentioning Two-horns...”

  “Is bad! I know, boy. But I swear on the perfect genes of the shining Taira, I’ve never seen such an emaciated teenager in all my life! You look weaker than my daughter, and she’s just seven!”

  “You have a daughter?”

  “Have... Had... It doesn’t matter! How do your legs hold you up, Luca Dezisimu? I can see all your bones!”

  “My father said that you have to always stand up, even if your legs are cut off. And I have legs,” the boy answered and collapsed to the floor.

  He could withstand hunger for as long as he wanted, but everyone needed to refuel at least sometimes.

  When Luca came to, it turned out he was lying on some kind of cot, and there was something soft under his head. His cell mate held the back of his head with his large and meaty hand.

  “Hungry?”

  Luca blinked in response, without the strength to even open his mouth.

  “Then hold on.”

  The whites of Terant’s eyes darkened.

  He placed the palm of his free hand on Luca’s forehead. Then he squeezed the boy’s head as if trying to crack it like a nut.

  The boy tried to cry out, but not a single sound emerged from his throat. Terant also was silent. Luca tried to escape, but his
body wouldn’t listen.

  A strong heat came off Terant’s palms in waves. It pulsed, spread into his head and from there throughout his entire body.

  External influence detected!

  Forced energy supplementation recorded. Transformed for further use: 64%... 66%... 68%...

  At eighty percent, Terant fell back and breathed heavily, hoarsely.

  A few heartbeats later, Luca also started gasping greedily for air. He thrilled in every breath of the stuffy, moist gloom of the dungeon.