Exceptional Could Recklessness Be Confused With Courage? THE TRINING Book Three : You Are Very Reckless, Doctrex by Jay Squires

FINAL DIALOGUE OF PREVIOUS CHAPTER           “My military decisions do not concern you.”           Another expressionless nod.           “But I’m going to tell you anyway. Do you know why?”           I shook my head.           “Because it doesn’t matter.” He smiled, presenting both rows of teeth. “Because you don’t matter."           As I watched his smile continue on after what he must have thought was a debilitating insult, I didn’t figure a returned smile would be appropriate. I nodded again and waited for his lips to slide back over his teeth.           He sank into silence a moment. “Supreme Colonel Zarbs,” he finally said, “has been destroyed.”   BOOK III Chapter Twenty-five (Part 2)   “Destroyed?” I thought I’d hear of his demotion. Zarbs, himself, expected a complete stripping of his rank. “But why, Glnot? For capturing the enemy’s general? For that you destroyed him?” At that point, I realized I might have attributed meaning to his words that weren’t intended. Perhaps he meant his career was destroyed. “Glnot?”   “Yes?”   “How ... how did you destroy him?”   “He was executed.” He cocked his head. “You mean you need more description, Doctrex?” He drew the manicured nail of his forefinger across his neck. “Decapitated.”   I studied the floor between my feet.   “Need I remind you, General Doctrex, Zarbs was your enemy?”   I continued to stare at the floor, slowly shaking my head while he chuckled, obviously enjoying my discomfiture.   “Tell me, am I missing something, Doctrex?” he asked, the hard edge of humor still in his voice. “Why shouldn’t you be happy about having one less enemy soldier to contend with?”   “There must be reason for punishment. Any punishment. Especially, a life-ending punishment.”   “And so there was.”   I brought my eyes back to his and waited. He wanted to tell me—every instinct told me that. If I proved correct about it, though, there raised another question, the answer of which I was not as confident: Why? Not just the reason why he had Zarbs executed, but the ‘why’ behind the preferential treatment Zarbs was forced to lavish on me at Rhuether’s command, to dote on me like I was an honored guest. Rhuether’s behavior was so unlike his reputation for having the severed heads of his defeated enemies affixed atop poles, and in full view of his subjects, to solidify his power. Even his brutality, as conqueror, was carefully motivated.   Now I awaited his explanation for executing Zarbs.   Instead, he observed: “You seem to have liked Zarbs.”   Why this diversion? Unless ... I considered—if one of Rhuether’s subjects suddenly paraded into the room with Zarb’s head at the end of a stake, looking every bit like a grizzly lollypop, I’d have no reason, now, to hold back. I’d tell Rhuether truthfully, that Zarbs was an ignorant fool, with an incredible capacity for cruelty, while being a weak commander of his men. The truth was, though, I didn’t have any certainty Zarbs was actually dead. Was Rhuether ‘fishing’?   “I wasn’t in a position to like Zarbs. He was my captor. I’ve only offered my confusion that you would find him guilty of capturing, and turning over to you, the highest ranking officer in your enemy’s army. It seems odd, that’s all. Did you interpret my confusion as a kind of affection for him?”   He crossed his legs under the blanket, grimaced, then artfully recovered, and rested one hand atop the other on his knee. “It will be good to get out of this contraption and on my feet again,” he said, sounding weary, and inflecting it with a sigh.   Once again, the tenor of his words carried the hint that he wanted me to pursue this new statement with an inquiry about why he was in a wheelchair.   “Are you going to tell me the reason you executed Supreme ... Colonel ... Zarbs, Glnot?”   Clearly, my slow pronouncement of Zarb’s formal rank juxtaposed by the informality of Rhuether’s given name blindsided him. He had been hunched over his knees, but with my question, he sat straight as a rod, grasped both wheels and spun his wheelchair toward the door. He progressed no more than three feet when he stopped and whirled it back around toward me. A closed-lipped smile spread under his moustache.   “You are very reckless, Doctrex.”   “I suppose.”   He rolled his chair to within a foot of me; close enough for me to see the pores on his nose. “To the ignorant, your recklessness might be confused with courage. Zarbs was reckless, too, though there was nothing to confuse his with.”   “So you executed him for his recklessness?”   “The execution wasn’t performed, as you must think, on the day he turned you over to me. He was interrogated thoroughly—”   “For capturing me and my men?”   “The soldiers who accompanied him were also interrogated.” He trained an unblinking gaze on mine. “They were executed as well.”   With his words, my body sagged, and I reached for the table to anchor me.   He followed my movements with a look of amused perplexity. “Zarbs,” he said, the last of a smile vacating his lips, “had been under close scrutiny for several months. Capturing you was more of a distraction to him. He had more ambitious plans.”   “You killed all his soldiers.”   “Listen to me, Doctrex. You wanted to know, so listen! For years Zarbs had been planning nothing less than a coup to overthrow me. He had been covertly active in soliciting the support of several of the other military outposts. What stupid, reckless gall! All it would take was one of those whose allegiance he was not able to secure to secrete Zarbs' intentions along the proper channels for it to get back to me.”   His elbows on the armrest of the wheelchair, he tapped the tips of the spread fingers of one hand against the finger tips of the other, looking to me like two spiders engaged in testing each other’s resolve.   “Had he not been executed, but instead been allowed to return to his outpost, within two weeks after turning you over to me, his and perhaps a half-dozen other confederate outposts, a total of not more than a thousand men, would have stormed the palace. Of course we knew of their plans.”   “After you interrogated his soldiers,” I said.   My interruption seemed to throw him off his timing. “No, Doctrex, no!” His chest rose with a fresh intake of air. “No, we already knew about it, and our palace guards, strengthened by a few thousand loyalist soldiers, were in readiness."   He hunched down, comically, to bring his eyes to a position of looking directly over his tapping fingertips at me. I had to force myself not to laugh at what was building to be a melodrama of the highest order.   “Make no doubt about it, Doctrex, it would have been a bloody coup.” He brought his palms together with a resounding crack, then waited, I thought, for my response. In a moment he continued, “Yes, a bloody coup, but all the blood would have been shed in the traitors’ army.”   A long, uncomfortable silence ensued while we stared at each other. At last, he blinked. “Any other questions, Doctrex?”   “One.”   He leaned toward me, his hands on the wheels. “What’s that?”   “When do I get the torches on this wall lit?”   He turned abruptly and wheeled himself toward the door. Before opening it, he turned himself toward me. “What makes you think you’ll be here that long, Doctrex?”     Recognized Author Notes CHARACTER LIST [LISTED ONLY AS PRESENTED] AXTILLA: THUMBNAIL: PROTAGONIST, BANISHED BY HER PEOPLE TO THE CAVES BY THE KYREAN SEA, WHERE SHE FINDS DOCTREX. In the opening of the book, she finds him unconscious on the shore of the Kyrean Sea. She is convinced he is Pondria. Already she has been banished by her people, the Kyreans, for publicly warning them to beware of the insidious deceit of Pondria (the brother of Rhuether), who would come among them with honeyed words, but destructive intentions. The god of Axtilla is the great Kyre. Axtilla had been the only keeper of the sacred Tablets of Kyre, instructed by her father (at that time the leader of the backsliding Kyrean people) to commit the tablets to memory. Once accomplished, she develops the ability to communicate with Kyre through her dreams. So now she makes a pact with Doctrex to fulfill the Kyrean Prophesy by defeating Glnot Rhuether together. She gets separated from Doctrex and, alone, she finds her way to the palace of Rhuether. She is captured, but later Rhuether announces she is to be his bride and empress. DOCTREX: THUMBNAIL: PROTAGONIST, GENERAL OF THE KABEEZAN ARMY, IN LOVE WITH AXTILLA. At the beginning of the book, Axtilla discovers him on the Kyrean shore, unconscious, near death from a wound on his side. She heals him, over time, in her cave. He has no memory. She is convinced he is Pondria, brother of Glnot Rhuether, returned from the sea to fulfill the prophesy of Kyre, and bring about the dreaded Trining. Later, when Axtilla gets bitten by a viper and is near death, Doctrex carves an X in the bite and sucks out the venom. At the moment he is sure she is dying, she wakes from her coma. He is astounded to see her wound is healed. For what he tried to do, she humorously names him Doctor X. He combines the syllables and is known thereafter as Doctrex. She comes to fear him less, and it seems she has feelings for him. They bond together to face and destroy Rhuether, thus fulfilling prophecy. But they get separated. Axtilla goes on alone to the Palace, is captured, then is purported to have become engaged to Rhuether. Meanwhile, Doctrex joins the Kabeezan Military who are travelling to the Far Northern Province to battle the forces of Rhuether. Ultimately is captured and turned over to Rhuether at the Palace of Qarnolt. GLNOT RHUETHER: THUMBNAIL: ANTAGONIST, EMPEROR OF THE FAR NORTHERN PROVINCE WHOSE AMBITION IS RULE OF ALL THE PROVINCES. According to the Tablets of Kyre Glnot Rhuether will bring about the prophecy of the Trining, the destruction of the Kyrean Civilization. The only event that will prevent the Trining will be the destruction of Rhuether at the hands of Axtilla and the brother of Rhuether, Pondria. Rhuether, though, claims Axtilla has agreed to be his wife and empress and the wedding is forthcoming. Doctrex, (who Axtilla believes is Pondria), is on a quest to join with Axtilla to bring about the destruction of Rhuether. ALMIGHTY MASTER: The name by which the subjects of Glnot Rhuether refer to him. To call him by any other name would be considered disrespectful and subject to severe punishment. PALACE OF QARNOLT: The residence of Glnot Rhuether, the focus of the Kabeezan Army attack against Rhuether. It is also where Doctrex is prisoner. SUPREME COLONEL ARKLAN ZARBS: The one-time cruel officer for Glnot Rhuether, later the frightened, bungling pawn of Doctrex, he was the one whose soldiers had captured Doctrex and later turned him over to Rheuther.

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