"For all of you," Cyrus said, looking at her then Mendicant. "I considered telling her to go to the Realm of Fire, but ..."
"But your natural tendency to lead us into madness won out, of course," Martaina said with her lips in a thin line.
"It always does," Vara agreed, though she did not seem nearly so angry as she had been a moment before. She sighed and shook her head. "I refuse to let my rather pleasant daydream become a source of irritation." She clamped a hand on Cyrus"s vambrace right on his upper arm. "Come along then, you, and let"s be about this business we came here for."
Cyrus did not protest, and they followed Cora along the darkened corridor. Cyrus let Vara guide him, though he suspected she was not clamping hold of him because she had any idea he could no longer see. This is her way of rea.s.serting her control over a situation after losing it for a time. She tugged on his arm a little harder than was probably necessary, but it only hurt a little, so he accepted it with grace as the price for what he"d done-or failed to do.
They came to a point in the hollow bough where a ladder led upward and Cyrus climbed with the others. He pa.s.sed out into warm, sticky air for a few seconds before the ladder was once again swallowed by a tree branch. All he could see outside was darkness, but for the brief moments he was climbing outside, he could hear the sway of branches, the shifting and rustling of leaves, and the sounds of a jungle at night.
Once off the ladder, he was led forward again to another glowing pinp.r.i.c.k of light in the distance. It grew before his eyes until he could see another hollowed tree ahead. Soon enough they emerged onto another carved spiral, leaving Cyrus to wonder how long it had taken to achieve this particular marvel of carpentry.
"Welcome to Blayy"strodd," Cora said quietly as she gestured for them to ascend the spiral ramp. The air was even wetter in here, and had a pungent yet somehow clean odor to it that wafted up from somewhere far below. He looked over the side of the spiral and caught the shine of a reflection down in the center of the cylindrical s.p.a.ce.
"The wellspring," Vara said, causing Cyrus to frown again. "What?" she asked.
"I, uh ... didn"t quite translate that the same as you did."
"Of course not," Vara said, scoffing as she followed Cora. "I"ve been speaking the human tongue my whole life. When did you start learning elvish?"
"Around the time he realized his heart"s desire was to get you out of your armor," Martaina muttered under her breath.
Vara turned and, rather than the anger he expected to see, there was mischief instead in her eyes, and a smile that curved her lips most curiously. "I like to think I"m worth at least learning another language for. Why, I"m practically a cultural amba.s.sador for my people."
"That"s a t.i.tle I"ve never heard ascribed to you," Mendicant said without irony. "Though I don"t think the others are quite as kind ..."
"This way," Cora said, leading them up two loops of the spiral. Cyrus strained, his legs protesting against the hard climb after the long day"s journey. He suspected it would not be long until the morning sun made its first appearance, and his body was weary. "Not much farther now," she said.
They stopped outside a door that was carved into the wood, just like all the others. Cora did not bother to knock, instead pushing through; there was no handle. The door swung loosely, mounted to its frame by the most curious metal. It gleamed in the light in a very familiar way, but he was left with no time to study it further, as Curatio harrumphed and Cyrus was forced to move into the room to clear the way for the others.
He found himself in what was plainly a council chamber of some sort. It was very much like Sanctuary"s to his eyes, though it was all wood instead of stone, and lacked any hearth. It did, however, have a few torches on wall sconces, already burning. At its center was a small table with only four seats. Three of them were already occupied.
"Cyrus Davidon," Cora said, stepping in to make introductions, "this is our council-"
"Got that," Cyrus said, looking at the elves in the chairs.
They were very distinct individuals, and he took them in with a glance. Two of them were women, one short and hearty, looking at him through weathered eyes and skin, exhibiting what Cyrus knew the Elves called "The Turn," when the first hints of age began to show on their faces. Her hair was faint grey, and she wore pants and a tunic that looked like they"d been dirty more than they"d been clean. "Fredaula," she said when she caught Cyrus looking at her, nodding her head even as she regarded him with skeptically indifferent eyes. "Of Fann"otte."
He turned to look at the next in line. She was certainly younger, with hair the color of dark hay, but far, far more wavy. She wore a smile that looked faint but not forced, and her clothing was also tunic and pants with muddied boots. "Mirasa," she said with a nod of her own. "Of Tierreed."
Cyrus"s eyes fell to the man. He wore a cloak that was green and strangely familiar. His hair was dark and speckled with grey, though his face showed no sign of age as yet. His fingers were covered in dark dirt, and one of his hands hovered next to a bow that leaned against the table. He reminds me of- Cyrus turned to make a remark to Martaina of his observation, but he found her with her mouth agape, hanging open stunned in a way he"d never seen her before. "So ... you know this one, then?"
"His name is Gareth," Martaina said, not taking her eyes off the man, who was watching her in return with something approaching a wistful smile, "and he, like me, was of the last of the Iliarad"ouran woodsmen."
"It is good to see you again, Martaina," Gareth said with a muted smile. Cyrus tried to decide if the man was merely suffering from a severely dampened personality, or if he was trying to keep himself staid in the name of being professional. Or he could just be a d.a.m.ned elf, Cyrus thought. He glanced at Vara, who raised an eyebrow at him.
"It is good to see you, too," Martaina said, apparently adopting the understated approach for her own.
"Please, come sit," Cora said, beckoning them forth. The other members of the Amti council stood, making room at the table. Gareth hurried to the side and began to move roughly carved wooden chairs to sit at the table, his cloak-exactly like Martaina"s in shade and st.i.tching-sweeping behind him silently.
Cyrus started to a.s.sist them in moving chairs when Cora caught his arm with her own, a delicate hand landing on his gauntlet. "Please," she said, meeting his eyes with hers, and he could see ... pain inside them. She guided him to a chair and motioned for him to sit. Gareth slid another next to his and Vara seated herself, her armor clanking against the wood. Cyrus followed her example and the table rearranged itself as everyone sat around it save for Scuddar and Mendicant, both of whom refused chairs of their own, remaining standing behind Cyrus on either side. Martaina, for her part, sat heavily in her own chair, and though her face was staid, he knew by her action that encountering Gareth had affected her in some way.
"So here we are," Vara said, placing her gauntlets on the surface of the table. There was no artisan feel to it, simply a look of utility that Cyrus felt probably encapsulated the difference between Amti and the Kingdom as a whole-no time for fancy things; they"re too busy trying to carve out a living and survive.
"We thank you for coming," Cora said, placing her hands on her lap, prim and proper now. "And for enduring what you had to in order to keep our secret."
"Well, some of us apparently don"t have to keep it," Vara said, giving Cyrus a sidelong look.
"Yes, I"m headed to Kortran right after this to tell them all about it," Cyrus said. "Scuddar and I will have a race to betray the location first, I"m sure. "It"s the eight-hundred-and-fifty-sixth tall tree on your left." That"ll clue those enormous idiots right in."
Cora smiled. "Forgive us for being so cautious. Our threat is great, and we are small in number."
"How many of you are there?" Vara asked.
"A little less than a thousand," Gareth said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. He glanced at Martaina, found her looking at him, and both of them looked away abruptly. Looks like this is an uncomfortable meeting for both of them. I wonder if it"ll spill out onto the rest of us?
"You have grown a little, then," Curatio said, sweeping his head around the council chamber as though there were something new to see other than marginally polished wood surfaces and grains.
"Yes," Cora said quietly. "A little."
"Do people still come here from Pharesia, then?" Martaina asked, suddenly upright in her seat.
"No," Cora said. "That road is closed, and has been for years. No one is fool enough to leave the safety of the Kingdom north of the mountains and venture here. They would find it ill to their liking, in any case-there is a silence here, for the most part, especially in the watches of the night, a desperate urge to keep our voices quiet at all hours for fear of discovery. We have little food, only what we can grow ourselves in Tierreed or have hunted for us by those in Narr"omn, especially now that our caravans have halted travel entirely. We have no spices but those we can grow, no outside pleasures or goods save for what can be brought in by a small group like ours, and nothing but fear to inhabit our days." She looked tired at the end of the p.r.o.nouncement, her auburn hair hanging limp after the day"s travel in the heavy heat. "We need help. We need the yolk of the t.i.tans off our back, or we will starve into nothingness."
"I want to help you," Cyrus said, letting his first reaction lead. "But I want to help everyone, so this is not exactly a new phenomenon with me."
Cora gave him a smile, but it looked as hollow as the tree in which they sat. "As the Guildmaster of Sanctuary, I would expect no less from you." She cast a look sideways at Fredaula, who remained inscrutable. "From where does your reticence spring, seeing as-to the point of your guildmate back at your council-you are already at war with the t.i.tans?"
"My reticence springs from the fact that we"ve been at war in one form or another for years," Cyrus said, and he kept the weight of it out of his voice as he talked, even though it felt like tons upon his shoulders. "We"ve been blockaded inside our guildhall, seen an entire land overrun with death, faced down two different G.o.ds, and been in more battles than most people have even heard of. And we"ve lost ... people. People dear to us." Cyrus interlaced his fingers, the black gauntlets squealing as the metal crossed. "Perhaps we are at war again, and I"m a fool not to want to immediately leap in and begin planning a campaign against the largest, most dangerous enemies we"ve faced-"
"You don"t consider Mortus or Yartraak to be the most dangerous enemies you"ve faced?" Mirasa asked, her dark yellow hair falling over her shoulder. For the first time, Cyrus noticed a small smudge of dirt on her brow. I suppose she works to grow the crops here as well as runs her tree. "They were G.o.ds."
"There was only one each of them," Cyrus said, "and their armies were of normal-sized creatures, for the most part, largely lacking in magic. These t.i.tans were a pox of trouble before they knew spellcraft, and now-speaking from experience-they just gave me one of the hardest sh.e.l.lackings I can recall ever having perpetrated upon me." He undid his chinstrap and rubbed at his face carefully, avoiding pinching himself with the gauntlet"s joints. "I don"t relish the thought of trying to defeat their entire nation in battle. How many of them are there?"
"They have a fearsome army," Cora said carefully, drawing an irritated look from Fredaula at her frank a.s.sessment. "Tens of thousands, I think."
"d.a.m.n," Vara whispered.
"We may even be outnumbered," Cyrus said, settling his gauntleted fingers back on the table with a rap. "And who knows how many spellcasters they have at their disposal?" He let out a slow breath. "I have charged into war many a time, some would say stupidly-"
"Only those who know you best," Vara said. "Or at all, really."
He gave her a weak look of annoyance and received a supportive smile in return. "I simply don"t wish to commit to a war that I don"t know if we can win, especially when I"m not sure if it"s even necessary." Cyrus looked around the room. "I mean, really ... why do you stay here? The Kingdom has s.p.a.ce to grow, and if you pulled north of the mountains, you could-"
"This is our home," Gareth said firmly.
"The Iliarad"ouran woods were once our home as well," Martaina said, and made it sound like she was reading an indictment from atop a platform in some town square, "but when the time came, you left as easily as if they were not."
"I made a mistake," Gareth said, the sting evident in his high voice. "When I came back, you were-"
"Gone, yes," Martaina said, and her eyes were slightly narrowed. "Because-"
"As much fun as it is for the rest of us to witness this very dramatic, very personal moment," Cyrus said, watching the red spread over Martaina"s cheeks as Gareth fidgeted in his chair, "please settle this later." He stared at Gareth then looked to Cora. "You could leave. Back in the Kingdom, you could surely establish a new town somewhere in-"
"No, we couldn"t," Cora said sadly. "We"re not wanted there, and we don"t really believe in Danay"s great kingdom in any case."
"Danay"s great kingdom," Gareth said with a snort, and Martaina nodded along. "The greatest place in Arkaria to bleed yourself dry for your ambitions while they take every bite of food out of your mouth and reapportion it wherever the king and his advisors desire. Where the lands are all taken by the n.o.bility, and if you want to carve out your own homestead, good luck getting a land grant. For those of us who eschew city life, there is no place in the Elven Kingdom but tending some lord"s plantation." He bowed his head and the disgust was plain. "Most of us tried that life and grew tired of it. Better to live free and die here on our own, mostly outside his grasping fingers than be suffocated by his heavy-handed "benevolence.""
"Well, that"s certainly your choice," Cyrus said, taking it all in. Fredaula and Mirasa were nodding along with every word of Gareth"s tirade while Cora had watched Cyrus for his reaction. "But there are other lands in the north-the Plains of Perdamun, for example-"
"Ah yes, the Warden of the Southern Plains offers us a slice of his kingdom," Cora said. "It"s generous of you ... but again, it is not our home."
"Your home," Cyrus said, reaching the end of his ability to humor them, "is in the middle of the most hostile habitable land in all Arkaria. You might have better luck settling Luukessia once the t.i.tans," he gestured vaguely toward the outer wall of the tree, "have found your place here, because I get the sense that you"ll have an extremely short fight once they know where to find you." He lowered his head like a bull on a charge. "The smartest move I can make against an army this superior is to post my own in defense of the Heia Pa.s.s and around the portals nearest our settlements to deal with the t.i.tans the next time they reach their hand forth to-"
"How long will you be able to do that?" Cora asked sadly. "If they are at war with you, they will come. They will come, yes, to your portals at first, and then, if you turn them aside, which is hardly a given with the size of the forces they could send against you-to portals slightly farther away. They could a.s.semble an army a day"s march from Sanctuary for them, and sweep down upon you, climbing your walls with no more effort than you take to scale a stone wall around a goat pen." She stared him down, fierce, eyes awake with anger and pa.s.sion. "You know what you are facing. You looked Talikartin in the eye, did you not? They are followers of Bellarum, and you should know what that entails-"
"I d.a.m.ned well know what it entails," Cyrus said abruptly, dark and menacing. "I know."
Cora"s visage softened, and she looked away. "The hour is late, and the day is gone. You should rest, and tomorrow-or rather later today-we will show you Amti as it is when it is awake." She looked up. "We will show you what we would have you fight for, and you may determine for yourself whether it is, indeed, worth the price we reckon it will cost." She stood and started to usher them from the room. Cyrus let himself be led away, but his head was aswirl all the while as Mirasa and Fredaula led them down the sloping ramp deeper into the tree.
"What is it?" Vara murmured in his ear. Cyrus caught Curatio looking over his shoulder at them, but only a glance.
"We"ll talk about it later," Cyrus said, trudging along behind their guides. "In private," he said, though he suspected he need not explain that to her.
They"re in a h.e.l.l of a mess, he thought, trying to keep his boots from echoing loudly in the quiet interior of the hollow tree. He watched Fredaula as she walked ahead of him, head bowed, the perfect image of the silent, steadfast elf. This is not like the quiet parties of Pharesia or even the subtle noise of Termina. This is a town in silence, enforced and frightened. And Cora was right; they face a relentless enemy, intent on hunting them down. I"m surprised the t.i.tans haven"t burned the entire jungle down yet just to be finished with the thing ...
He felt a trickle of cold sweat roll down the back of his neck, and it chilled him almost as much as his next thought. That day is coming, though, surely. The t.i.tans won"t stay distracted by the dragons forever-or by us, apparently. They"ll come for these people, and it will be a mad slaughter one way or another, just as the G.o.d of War would will it ...
... and when it comes time for the t.i.tans to deal with Sanctuary ... he realized rather grimly, ... they won"t even hesitate to do exactly the same.
"This is our greatest export," Fredaula said stiffly, almost reluctantly, handing over a chunk of ore. It was a heavy piece, and she laid it in Cyrus"s hand with a little extra force, telling him in perfectly clear terms that she was not happy to have to disclose this to him. They stood in a mine several hundred feet beneath the surface of Fann"otte, in a cool, dark cave with rock walls that were occasionally broken by the edges of especially large roots.
He felt the weight and the subtle pressure of it as he stared, puzzled, at the unrefined, shining metal hiding entwined in rock. "Steel? Iron?" He shrugged. "I"m not a smith, so I don"t-"
"You should," Curatio said with a smug smile. "You"re wearing nearly your weight in it."
Cyrus looked down at the metal again. "This ... this is quartal?"
"Yes," Fredaula said with a hiss of breath, clearly no happier about telling him now than before she"d slapped the ore into his hand. She took it back a little roughly, and it pa.s.sed under Vara"s nose as the paladin followed it with her gaze. "We have the only veins currently mining this most rare metal-"
"What?" Cyrus blinked. "That can"t be right. A few years ago I was instructed to seek out quartal, and then the only place it was available was in the Realm of Darkness."
Fredaula shrugged impatiently. "Well, I don"t know where you heard that, but it"s clear that they were not aware of our secret, for we"ve been shipping it in small quant.i.ties to the Kingdom for almost a century now."
"Where do you think your chain mail came from?" Curatio asked, once again smiling.
"I guess I never asked," Cyrus said stiffly, a bit annoyed. If Bellarum knew they were mining quartal here, why would he send me to the Realm of Darkness to retrieve the ore from Yartraak"s treasure room? He fingered Praelior"s hilt idly. Unless he wanted me to test my mettle against the G.o.d of Darkness"s minions rather than simply barter for a chunk of it. It certainly wouldn"t take me gathering an army to come here and barter for it ... no conquest, no prize.
"We had been sending quite a bit to King Danay as our payment for taxes," Fredaula said, still stiff as a tree trunk, "though obviously we are in arrears now."
"I don"t expect he"ll be rushing to send a tax collector down to make good on your debt," Vara said with a trace of irony. "Would they even know where to look?"
"No," Fredaula said, "but we all have family still in the Kingdom, and the elven law makes clear that family obligations pa.s.s in succession, including debts." She cradled the quartal to her side. "None of us wish to be a burden simply because we don"t like the king, and we certainly ... reserve a share more for ourselves than we might otherwise have given."
"In other words, you"re tax cheats," Cyrus said.
Fredaula"s lined face reddened. "It"s criminal, what Danay does to the kingdom."
"I"m not going to report you," Cyrus said with a shrug, "merely calling it as I see it. King Danay and I have no love for one another." He started back toward the entry to the tunnel.
"You ..." Fredaula scurried to keep up, "... you"ve met the king?"
"Met him," Cyrus said, "defended his kingdom, got into a rather heated argument with him. All of those, actually."
Fredaula seemed to soften slightly, her wrinkled face relaxing. "Oh. Well. I didn"t expect such a steadfast defender of the kingdom to be ..."
"I defend the people," Cyrus said, boots crunching in the tunnel grit. "The Kingdom and its current monarch can go spit for all I care."
"A n.o.ble calling," Fredaula said.
"Yes, it fills him up all the way to his eyeb.a.l.l.s," Vara said, and Cyrus caught the hint of a smile at her lips in the way she said.
"We will, of course," Curatio said, sending a darting glance to Cyrus suggesting he had caught all of Vara"s meaning and perhaps was suppressing a comment of his own, "be consulting with our council before making any decisions." Cyrus eyed the healer and received a look in return that suggested he was perhaps stating this as a reminder for all in the tunnel, a small group that only included the three Sanctuary officers and Fredaula. Mendicant, Martaina and Scuddar had drifted down a secondary spur with Cora a few hundred feet back. Miners worked carefully, tapping at the walls with pickaxes. They made way as Cyrus and his party brushed past, bowing their heads slightly and hiding smiles as he pa.s.sed. Probably hoping we"re their salvation.
I guess we"ll have to wait and see on that one.
Fredaula led them back out of the tunnels and into the pit at the bottom of the tree. Fann"otte did not open directly into the mines; it was hollowed near the bottom, the ramp clear all the way into the roots, and a series of doors on the ramp allowed for carts to be pulled up into the tree proper with their precious ore. Cyrus listened as they opened one of the doors and he emerged into the quiet air of the tree, absent the tinking sound of pickaxes working in time. To his ears it was another maddeningly careful security precaution.
But to these elves, it"s perhaps the difference between life and death.
Mendicant, Martaina, Scuddar and Cora waited ahead on the ramp, pausing in the middle of some quiet conversation upon their approach. This whole place is steeped in silence, Cyrus thought. It is the deadest town I"ve ever seen, perhaps even more bereft of life than the Realms of Darkness or Death.
Mendicant watched Cyrus"s approach and scampered toward him slightly, robes dragging the ground. "Did you see what they mine?"