Lives of Kings by Lucy Leiderman Page B

himself.
    â€œRelax,” the man told him, hiking up his robe to walk through the underbrush. “When you return with your brother, the hero, everyone will thank you.”
    The Godel waited for a few moments and then continued walking. Kian had only seconds to decide. Huffing, he continued to follow.
    â€œYou have yet to tell me how that is done,” he noted.
    â€œYou’re right, I do,” the Godel replied.
    Kian waited, but it became obvious he wasn’t going to get his answer.
    â€œWhat shall I call you?” he asked the man in front of him. “What is your name?”
    The man clicked his tongue from up ahead. “So much power in a name,” he replied. “Why don’t you call me what I am?”
    â€œA Godel?”
    Again, he clicked his tongue. “You say it with such distaste. That won’t do. What else am I?”
    â€œA magician,” Kian replied.
    The man let out a sharp laugh. “You talk of magic with nearly the same disdain as you do your enemies.”
    â€œIt has taken away everyone and everything that I have loved,” Kian said.
    â€œNo.” The man stopped and turned to confront him. “That’s where you are wrong. Be careful of your opinions of magic. It can take away, and it can also grant. People, however, — the Romans, your father — it was their decisions that led you and me to this moment.”
    Kian couldn’t tell if he was being bewitched or not. Magician was making sense. He knew he shouldn’t trust a man who had been living in the woods and who had practically abducted him, but he had to push forward and learn. If it meant getting his family back, getting the tribe’s champions back, he would have to try.
    They walked for several hours until the sun was low. Kian had lost all track of where he was. The fall had disoriented him, and he was still in pain. Also, hunger and the chill of the evening had set in.
    â€œWhy don’t you tell me your real name?” he asked Magician.
    The man answered without turning around. “If you hold a man’s name, and you are the right man, you can control him,” he replied simply. “Didn’t they teach you anything?”
    â€œI don’t have magic,” Kian replied. “How do you control him?”
    â€œThat is not for you to know,” Magician said sharply.
    â€œWhy then?” Kian asked, trying again. “Why can you control someone with their name?”
    â€œBecause we come from the earth,” Magician replied. “From Goram and Eila, the gods who created the first humans.”
    â€œI don’t understand,” Kian said honestly, but Magician had lost his talkative mood.
    By the time they got to Magician’s cabin, all Kian wanted was food and shelter. Answers could wait.
    The cottage was by a small lake, where frogs croaked loudly in the evening light. The forest began to thin as they approached the cottage, and by the time they got there, all the trees had bare branches. No greenery grew around Magician’s house.
    Magician hadn’t said a word in a long while. The desolate cottage made Kian take pause, yet again, about his decision. At the door, Magician turned around.
    â€œReluctant, Prince Kian?” he asked, knowing the answer.
    Kian felt if he left now, and Magician didn’t kill him, he’d die in the woods anyway. “What kind of a man lives in solitude like this?” he asked.
    Magician looked around, as if surprised by the lack of company. “A busy man,” he replied finally. “You will learn to love it.”
    As if to prove his point, Magician led the way into the small cottage, and with a flick of the wrist, a roaring fire was lit. The smoke rose neatly out of a hole in the thatched roof.
    The rest of the place was bare — a few rugs, cooking pots, some logs on which to sit, and two small beds on opposite ends of the room. Hundreds of small items and objects