"I say we turn our combined irritation on this lump," Vara said, locking eyes with Cyrus and tilting her head toward Vaste.
"I have to check on Curatio," Cyrus said, the irritation bleeding out of his voice as he walked the last steps to the healer"s door. He knocked his knuckles solidly against the wood, holding back just a little on the first rap. He waited, and so did the others, listening, and when he heard no movement, he raised his hand to knock again.
"Put some effort into it this time, will you?" Vaste asked, moving over. "Like this-"
He and Cyrus slammed the door at once, Cyrus"s hand open and flat, Vaste"s enormous knuckles bigger than a small melon. Their combined strength pushed hard enough against the door that it opened, squeaking as it did so, to reveal- "G.o.ddess," Vara breathed as she looked inside.
Absolutely nothing.
There was a chair, and a desk, and a bed, and a hearth with no sign of a recent fire. The torches snapped to life as Cyrus crossed the threshold, but there was nary a sign of clothing, nor books, for the shelves and armoire were utterly bare. There was not even a hint that the quarters were lived in, not for days, and as the four of them quietly searched for some sign of life, and the silence stretched into the minutes until they were done, Cyrus"s heart sank lower and lower, until the inescapable conclusion was reached by all, but given voice by J"anda.
"He"s gone," the enchanter said, and the mournful tone in the empty quarters settled upon them as surely as the complete lack of life had settled on this place, where the oldest among them had once lived.
In the wake of Curatio"s departure, the days settled in a hard pattern of council meetings and silence, the slow pull of time dragging them unerringly forward. Cyrus felt each day"s pa.s.sage most acutely. The long days pa.s.sed into months, and autumn turned to winter, and the year they were in departed to be replaced by another, and then spring settled on the Plains of Perdamun. The time he spent with Vara was the easiest, but she busied herself with her duties, taking up some of the considerable responsibilities left by the loss of so many officers.
Cyrus himself found, if anything, less responsibility on his shoulders. Sanctuary was at alert, but not actively at war. The army was on guard but not in the midst of any expeditions which required planning nor deployments other than to the Emerald Fields and the occasional march through the Plains of Perdamun as a show of force for the locals; no threats presented themselves, not even bandits, and thus Cyrus left the business of marching with the armies to Longwell, his newly appointed General.
He had a made a few such appointments with the approval of the Council-Calene Raverle had taken over as informal leader of the rangers, much to her surprise. She had shown some reservations, her tentativeness plain and fears of the sort of job she might do as obvious as the blond hair on Vara"s head. Since taking over, though, Calene had done fine work, carrying on Martaina"s training program with an enthusiastic eye toward aim improvement among the archers.
Scuddar In"shara had reluctantly taken up the post of Castellan and had seen to the defense of Sanctuary itself with an uncompromising eye toward the security of the place. He was quiet as ever, but his orders were crisp and clear when given, and there was no mistaking his ever-present watch on the walls and the foyer, when the portal was open. He stood up front of any guard group he headed, his robes billowing about him, his scimitar always at the ready.
The other appointment taken up by one of the council had been met with nearly as much enthusiasm as the other three; Vaste had been forced into the position of the keeper of the Halls of Healing, something he bitterly complained about on every occasion Cyrus encountered him.
"Is there something about me that would indicate that I might enjoy sitting inside every single day, waiting for idiots who have sprained their ankles whilst walking the grounds, so incompetent that they cannot even manage their footing on flat plains, to come in so that I might heal them?" His belligerence might have met with a more sympathetic audience in that Council meeting had he not stood up and tripped over his chair while exiting the room not five minutes later. There were many guffaws as Erith healed him back into consciousness, but Cyrus could not help but feel that the troll had missed the lesson entirely.
And so Cyrus"s days were spent in the Tower of the Guildmaster or in the Council Chambers, largely alone, reading when he could find it in himself to concentrate and brooding quietly when he could not. Vara was out on some detail, he recalled, taking up the tasks that Curatio had handled as Elder. He had it in his mind to appoint her to the post, and felt the Council would approve as soon as a little more time had elapsed. For his part, Cyrus did not believe that Curatio would return; the healer"s disagreement with the attack on the shrine stuck in Cyrus"s mind like a chicken bone in the throat. If the healer"s quarters only had been cleaned out of all possessions, he might have believed that a return could be in order. However, Curatio"s office in the Halls of Healing, with its thick volumes of journals that the elf had ama.s.sed over his long lifetime of experience, had also been emptied. To Cyrus"s mind an endeavor of the scale required to move those books suggested that Curatio would not be returning soon, if ever.
And so Cyrus sat in the Council Chambers on this day, some six months removed from the Elder"s departure, this one like so many other unremarkable ones that had pa.s.sed in that interval, in his chair, helm on the table at his side, taking his breaths slowly and watching the light slowly fade from the day as he awaited Vara"s eventual return ... Or dinner, perhaps. Whichever comes first.
The smoky aroma of the hearth burning to keep the light spring touch of the plains at bay seeped into his very pores. After a long day spent in the Council Chambers, Cyrus would often find the smell of that faint smoke on his skin. He had never noticed until Vara had pointed it out to him after one of their trysts-the only thing he could seem to find energy for at present. Since then he had scarcely been able to avoid noting it on all occasions, though it did not remind him of home as much as it might once have.
Cyrus took a breath, the taste of his luncheon from hours earlier still on the back of his tongue, the sourdough bread hot from the ovens coupled with sliced beef and fresh vegetables. His eyes traced their way over the deserted chamber until he heard footsteps outside, straightening up just slightly in antic.i.p.ation, hoping they would come his way rather than fade up the stairs to the officer quarters.
He was not disappointed when the door slid open a moment later and Mendicant scampered in, robes trailing against the stone floor with a quiet swish. The goblin shut the door behind him and paused as he caught a glimpse of Cyrus in darkness and shadowed by the light beyond the balcony windows. Mendicant gasped slightly, causing Cyrus to stare at him in curiosity until the wizard let out a sigh of relief. "Oh. Sorry. It"s just you."
"You were expecting someone else?" Cyrus asked. "Sitting in the Guildmaster"s chair, wearing my armor?"
"I didn"t know it was your armor without the helm," Mendicant said, taking a couple steps forward, claws dragging the floor. "You looked like, uh ... well ..."
"You thought I was Alaric?" Cyrus asked with a faint smile.
"For just a second," Mendicant said hastily. "No insult intended-"
"On the contrary," Cyrus said, "I take it as a compliment. What brings you into these deathly quiet chambers in the absence of a meeting, Mendicant? Looking to commune with ... ghosts?" A trace of sadness leaked out as Cyrus spoke.
"No," Mendicant said, shaking his head, "I was bound for the archives." He pointed with a thin, clawed finger to the door on Cyrus"s right, tucked away next to the hearth.
Cyrus frowned at the door; he had seldom been inside, and indeed, often forgot about the room entirely. "Huh. What are you looking for in there?"
"I go in there from time to time to read old pa.s.sages about the formation of the guild," Mendicant said. "To seek the wisdom of the past in reading about the trials they went through in those days."
"There were less than two hundred people in Sanctuary when I joined," Cyrus said, looking at the goblin with a sense of amus.e.m.e.nt, "and now we have more than twenty thousand, even with the recent losses. I"m not sure what wisdom you"d find there about running a guild of this size."
"Oh, there is much to be found in there," Mendicant said, his voice filled with quiet awe. "The notes that were kept on the Council meetings of old were extensive, and I find it interesting to go back and read about the great debates of the day. The names of the founders stick with me, and it"s almost as though I can hear their voices in these walls as I read. Cora, Pradhar, Erkhardt-" Cyrus felt a strange tingle at this name, a p.r.i.c.kling at the back of his neck that he did not entirely know the origin of, "Alaric and Raifa. They founded something that exists to this day, and stronger than when each of them left it." Mendicant rubbed his palms together. "They were the origin of a tradition that has stepped forth to protect Arkaria from so many threats over the years, threats that no one else would have, or could have dealt with."
Cyrus opened his mouth to argue, to balance the scales with their failures in Luukessia and elsewhere, but shut his mouth just as quickly. Why debate? It"s pointless. Let him have his illusions, let him believe that we are some great good instead of a force that occasionally and unwittingly causes harm in the process of doing good. "It"s good to have respect for the traditions, I guess," he said instead.
"These were men and women of integrity," Mendicant said, possibly not even hearing Cyrus at this point, so deep was he in his lionization of the past, "with singular vision. To even meet Lady Cora was such an honor as I cannot describe."
Cyrus felt a twinge in his eyelid. "Yes, she"s quite something, that one. And I can see why she and Alaric got on so famously as to start a guild together."
"I sense sometimes there are things missing from the record," Mendicant went on, "as though there is a gap in the meetings-"
Cyrus frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"There are references to people that are scrawled over in the journals," Mendicant said, making a popping noise in the back of his throat. "Covered with smudges of ink too dense to read, but that fail to bleed through onto the back of the pages."
"Sounds like magic," Cyrus said with an ironic smirk.
"Perhaps," Mendicant said, though he sounded unsure. "Magic is certainly an element I felt I understood well before I arrived here. But since seeing Lord Soulmender"s efforts-"
"Who?" Cyrus asked.
"Oh, uh," Mendicant said, looking greatly abashed, "Lord Soulmender. You know ..."
Cyrus blinked, searching his memory for that name, which did sound vaguely familiar. "I ... uh ..."
"Curatio," Mendicant whispered under his breath.
"Right," Cyrus said, squeezing his eyes tight. "I sometimes forget that he had adopted a surname, he uses it so little."
"Since seeing his magic at work, so expansive," the goblin said hungrily, "so different from what even we wizards, the most powerful offensive spellcasters, can achieve ... it has redefined everything for me. I am afraid I must confess to some feelings of guilt in the wake of his departure ..."
"Lot of that going around," Cyrus said. "But why do you feel guilty?"
"I hounded him," Mendicant said, head bowed. "I asked him many, many questions about the nature of magic, most of which he declined to say anything about save for, "I cannot answer that," but a few which expanded my knowledge in other directions. For every answer he gave or did not give, I felt ten more questions spring up, and thus ..." He paused, and his voice fell, "... I feel I may have led to his departure."
"Pfft," Cyrus said so dismissively that Mendicant"s head snapped up in surprise. "You were no more guilty of driving off Curatio with questions than you are of teaching me a fire spell simply because you mouthed the words in front of me." Mendicant blanched and Cyrus waved a hand to absolve him. "There were other things going on with Curatio, things in his mind and arguments he had with me that weighed on him, I think. Do you recall last year when he resigned as acting Guildmaster, that fit of temper he had in Council?"
"I ... was not an officer then," Mendicant said.
"Right. I forget these things," Cyrus said. "He had a full-on blaze of emotion come burning out of him like a gout of flame off one of you wizards. And he"s looked wearier and wearier over the last few months." Cyrus shook his head. "You ask me, he hit his limit, either with the matters of we child races, or simply with my failure to listen to his good advice." Cyrus felt the burn of shame on his cheeks. "Either way, the fault is not yours, I don"t think. There are far too many other more likely culprits."
"You are kind to say so," Mendicant said, bowing. There was a pause before next he spoke. "What are you doing here in the dark, if I might ask, Lord Davidon?"
Cyrus looked around the room, the torches not yet lit, only the hearth"s faint glow for light. "I think I"m brooding."
"... You think you are? Do you not know?"
"I"m afraid to call it such," Cyrus said. "I don"t know why; perhaps it"s my upbringing in the Society, where they eschewed the idea of pensive reflection entirely in favor of seeking out and killing all that vexes you in the name of Bellarum. Alaric was good at brooding, though, sitting quietly in a dark room and mentally attacking even the impossible problems. Yes, I think I"m brooding," he finished.
"If Lord Garaunt embraced this as a strategy of life," Mendicant said, rather delicately, "then why do you hesitate to embrace it for yourself?"
"Because I"m not Alaric," Cyrus said, and with the words came a weight off of him, a most curious one at that. "I"m not as good as him," he went on, finding each additional statement carried its own relief, "I"m not as virtuous, or honorable-which is why I"m not a paladin, I suppose, leaving aside the lack of magic-I don"t lead nearly as well or wisely, and I contemplate darker solutions to these wars and enemies than Alaric ever would have considered." He stared at the door behind Mendicant as the hearth crackled. "I"m somewhere between where I started and where Alaric would have me, I suspect; too dark to be truly virtuous, too held down by virtue to be a great warrior-or warlord at this point, I suppose is what the doctrine of war would call a man of my position. Too dirty to be called clean, too clean to be properly dirty. It"s a vexing thing, being a man in the middle. Even Terian is now more a.s.sured of his place than I am."
Mendicant"s face was a confused frown, lips all askew. "It is a bad thing to be open to good change?"
Cyrus laughed. "I don"t ... I don"t know, actually. I suppose I"m torn because I look at the problems facing Sanctuary and ... even if I were as n.o.ble and virtuous as Alaric, I don"t see an answer to our current dilemmas down his path, at least not one that wouldn"t result in so many dead as to defy the counting."
"And what do you see down the other path?" Mendicant asked. "Down the path of the warlord?"
"Death," Cyrus said grimly. "Abundant death and war ... but I also see, perhaps, an end somewhere down there."
"It would be ... easy, I think," Mendicant said, "to tell you that an end down that road is a mirage, for perhaps it is not."
"It"s not," Cyrus said darkly. "Wiping out your enemies to the last man is a fairly definitive end, at least to that conflict."
"Those are deeds that would blacken the soul, though, are they not?" Mendicant asked.
"They are," Cyrus said. "Deeds worthy of a warlord, and not a paladin." Which I am not in any case.
"I am but a simple goblin," Mendicant said, and Cyrus detected no falseness in the modesty he presented, "and I come from a place of ... well, you knew Enterra. Low brutality and repressive means ... the Imperium was all darkness, and not just from being underground. When I grew up there, I saw those examples presented-the guards with their unending violence, unwilling to take so much as an ounce of disrespect without answering it with furious reprisal. It gave me an example, which was what they wanted, but of exactly what I did not want to be." His eyes flicked up. "It seems to me, Lord Davidon, there is no shame in leaving behind your raising to embrace what you want to be rather than who you were taught to be."
"There"s no victory there," Cyrus said quietly. "Not down that road." His road.
"Is the other victory-the one down the path of the warlord, the one wherein you slaughter every t.i.tan to the last woman and child ... is this a victory you want?" Mendicant asked. "Because if so ... then I would say your answer is already evident, and your path ... is most a.s.suredly set." He shuddered, his green, scaly skin catching the orange reflection from the hearth. "But I do not think it is a path that even your army would follow willingly ... or that you would, if I may say."
"I certainly had the seeds planted in me," Cyrus said, thinking of moments in the Society when he was told to kill, forced to harm, cheered to it, without guilt or remorse.
"Perhaps, when you were a child," Mendicant said, and now he was easing toward the door to the archive. "But now are you are a man, and have the ability to choose what grows within you-what seeds to plant, as it were." He bowed his head in respect. "Good evening, Lord Davidon." And he went to open the door.
"I think some of that wisdom of the founders might be rubbing off on you, Mendicant," Cyrus called after him.
"I can think of no better reason to immerse myself in these texts, then," Mendicant said and shut the door to do exactly that, leaving Cyrus with slightly lighter thoughts than he"d had when the goblin came in.
Vara found Cyrus in the Tower of the Guildmaster later that night. There was a look of exhaustion upon her face as she came in, already unfastening her armor before the door was closed. She made a face as she slipped out of her boots, and they clanked as they fell over on the stairs, and she did not bother to pick them up.
"Long day?" Cyrus asked.
"As long as any other, I suppose, though it felt longer," she said, dropping her breastplate and backplate on the ground. He eyed her tight-clinging shirt, damp with sweat. "I just marched to Prehorta and back without benefit of a horse."
Cyrus frowned. "I didn"t know you were going on a march. I would have accompanied you."
"I was not intending to," she said, slipping out of her greaves, the chainmail she wore beneath her armor already hanging around her waist, ready to fall to the ground. "But I got a bit caught up in talking with members of a patrol heading out on a routine trip to outlying villages from the next portal north. Soon enough, I found myself marching with them."
"You? Conversing like a normal person?" Cyrus asked. "Did you cast offensive spells at any of them?"
"No, nor even any offensive words," she said, her voice light despite her obvious fatigue. "I did, however, listen to them-their worries, their complaints, their hopes for the future."
Cyrus just stared at her. "I"m waiting for the other boot to drop." He looked past her. "Not yours, not literally, as both of those have clearly toppled over, but figuratively ..."
"I"m doing my best," she said earnestly, the chainmail clattering as it fell around her ankles and she stepped out of it, making her way to the room in the corner where the toiletry was kept, and turning the faucet to unleash a spattering flow of water just out of Cyrus"s sight.
"I know you are," Cyrus said, still a little amazed. "Did you learn anything of note?"
"Most of our guildmates are concerned about the lack of expeditions and how it will affect their purses in the long run," Vara called from just inside the door as her soiled shirt flew out and landed on the floor outside. Her pants followed with her next statement. "But the Luukessians, of course, are concerned about the security of Emerald Fields, and most of the Arkarians are tied enough to our brethren from across the sea to be worried as well. All want a solution to this southern conflict, though, be they goblin, elf, human or dark elf."
"Of course," Cyrus muttered as he heard her step under the running water. She let out a sharp intake of breath at the temperature, and he could hear the subtle change in sound as it began to land on her skin rather than on the stone floor.
He waited quietly for her in his chair, probing at the padding atop the arms, wondering if Alaric had been the one to buy this particular furnishing or if it was too stylish to have been his decision. Vara came out of the door a few minutes later, her hair wrung out and snaking over her shoulder, faint hints of moisture still hanging about her fair skin where the towel had missed its mark. "I was left with quite a bit of time to think on this journey, of course," she said, stark naked.
"And what did you think about?" Cyrus asked, not wanting to move his eyes.
"Us," she said, walking across the floor somewhat daintily for her. She circ.u.mnavigated around the bed and knelt before him, which surprised him more than a little as she placed her elbows on his knees and stared up at him from between his legs. "The future."
He blinked. "And what did you think about, vis-a-vis this future of ours?"
She steadied her gaze, and took a breath. "I think we should marry."
Cyrus could not help but blink again. Then once more. And yet again. "This is an odd thing."
"That I have just proposed marriage?" she asked, c.o.c.king her own eyebrow at him.
"Well, you"ve certainly chosen an interesting way to go about it," he said, glancing once, surrept.i.tiously, down at her nakedness. "Effective, too, I would think-"
"Don"t be an a.r.s.e," she teased.
"I"m sorry," Cyrus said, drumming fingers nervously along the arm of the chair where the wood met padding, "the timing feels strange. I know it"s been over half a year, but it feels like just yesterday we had rather a lot of funerals."
"That"s actually what got me thinking about it," she said, lowering her gaze to somewhere in the vicinity of his breastplate. "We have no family but ourselves, really-"
Cyrus felt the frown crease his forehead again. "You have a sister."