“No. Forgive me.”
“I’ll forgive you when we’ve reached Bahamut and you serve me in the battle,” she said. “You and the rest of you, creatures of Iblis, are what can save the world from the legend of Bahamut. You will not save the world by becoming distracted by meaningless tasks. Right now, we’re heading to Caia to wrangle some pawns first and demonstrate our power. Then we head to Mathos, and then north. None of that entails disobeying me or going off on your own. Do you understand?”
“Yes, master,” the voices all said in unison, a choir of hellish and demonic voices that sounded like a throaty gargle.
Artemia snickered, and then yelled to move out. The beasts moved with renewed vigor, their movements producing noises like that of an army of demons marching and screeching so that their enemy might hear them from the other side of the world.
It was not until they had not only gone silent but gone all but out of view—seen only by the occasional flare of fire or lightning—that Abe took his hand off of Zelda’s mouth and Zelda gasped.
“I guess they defeated Ragnor,” Abe said, followed by a prolonged sigh in which his head buried into the ground for a moment before it shook. “Well, that’s terrible. If that’s the case… and Eric isn’t with her…”
She killed him, then. Eric… I’m sorry someone else had to die. I’m sorry it had to be you. I’ve seen too much death recently.
“I’m so foolish,” Abe said. “Because of my attraction to her in my more youthful days, I looked past her flaws, her dark side. Had I known better, I would have acted sooner to prevent something terrible. But all I’ve done is seen the rest of the guild perish because of her lust for power and placement in history.”
Zelda struggled to find a way to comfort Abe. Could she relate to him with Tetra? Tetra had a dark side, too. But Zelda hadn’t “looked past” it so much as she had accepted it. And she was only fourteen. Abe was at least, by her best guess, thirty or forty years older than her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, but it felt insufficient. She had all the power a mage could ever want, and she couldn’t relate to this older man. Maybe there’s a reason magi and humans fight. How can we understand each other?
She tried to reassure herself it was just an issue of age, not magic abilities, but the thought gripped her mind and dug its claws in.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Abe said, sitting on his knees as he slowly found strength to rise. “I will just have to make this right. I always told Eric fighting for vengeance wasn’t enough, but perhaps for a single mission, it is. Maybe I’ll find strength in that.”
Again, Zelda didn’t know what to say. She had always fought for Mama’s words to use magic for good. But was that just a cover for vengeance against the empire?
“We should at least camp here for the night,” Abe said. “There’s no reason to continue further south unless you believe that there’s reason as a mage.”
“No,” Zelda quickly said. “Just Ragnor. But if Artemia has those monsters, she probably defeated the dragon.”
“More dangerous than we ever thought,” Abe mused.
Abe, instead of continuing to rise, instead remained crouched on his knees, shaking his head. Zelda had only known him for a few days, but she had always taken him as the wise, steady hunter who stared death in the jaws daily. She didn’t imagine him capable of being flustered until that very moment.
“Let’s just rest,” he said after a few moments of silence. “I need the sleep, anyways. I’m sure that boar is still there if we want it.”
***
Zelda kept a watch for as long as Abe slept, which went well into the night. It was at least a generous night with the sky, for no clouds prevented the stars of the evening from shining their distant light upon her.
But the kind blessings did not extend to Zelda’s mind, which understood sometime around when Abe started snoring what Artemia had accomplished.
She remembered that Roland had told her tales of Ragnor having the magic to summon great beasts, but that most magi considered it a tall tale, much how a human born into a world without magic would consider such skills a thing of legend.
Well, unless someone could demonstrate to her quite quickly that the monsters she’d seen and heard with Artemia were known from the history of Hydor, the only logical conclusion she could reach was that Artemia had gathered the ability to summon monsters through the essence of Ragnor.
If so, then the empire wasn’t a threat anymore. It might scream and shout and declare war on the magi, but it would become a puppet next to the singular power that summoning an entire army could give one person.
One person with that much power. It reminded Zelda of the conflict she’d struggled with after destroying the guards in Dabira. She had thought long and hard about how she would have to democratize her power, or at least minimize the damage she could do.
And now here was someone who had none of that self-consciousness and none of that sense of responsibility. Artemia, by Abe’s account, would have no sense of morals. She would do what served Artemia best, even if the ledger meant Artemia gained something and literally everyone and everything else lost something.
The need for more power wasn’t just a goal. It wasn’t just a necessity. It was a ticking clock, and every day that Artemia rode her horse north and with her army of monsters was a day closer to the end of it all.
She became so desperate, in fact, that she didn’t bother to go to sleep that night. She waited until the sky shifted to just a dark shade of blue, perhaps barely a hue over from black, before she woke Abe.
“Let’s go,” she said. “I’m scared. We have to stop Artemia.”
Abe grumbled something about how he thought he’d quit the early wake-up calls after exiting the guild but righted himself quickly.
Then Zelda looked south and saw something under the late night sky. No, someone. Two people.
The two figures were men walking, exhausted and hunched over, their bodies beaten down from the journey. Who in the name of Chrystos would come from the south and make their way north?
“What has your attention, Zelda?” Abe said. But then his eyes lit up.
“My eyes have to be deceiving me this early in the morning,” Abe said as he smacked himself on the cheek. “Eric Garland? Eric!”
He shouted and waved. The man closest to them perked up. He turned his saunter into a fast walk and then a sprint. Abe ran to him and embraced him. Eric laughed, and finally, Zelda recognized him as the hunter from Hydor who had helped her defeat Indica. He would make for a great ally in their assault against the empire—or Artemia.
Zelda followed closely behind, making sure to give space for the two as Abe patted Eric on the back, their laughter like two best friends who hadn’t seen each other in years.
“Nice to see you lived,” Abe said.
“I wouldn’t quite put it like that, but I’m happy to be alive,” Eric said with a smile. He looked to Zelda and an inquisitive look came on his face. “I know you from somewhere. Indica?”
Zelda nodded.
“Yes. You were one of the hunters, right?”
“I was,” he said. “Still am, I suppose. But I don’t think Artemia is keeping me in the guild. Also, you all should meet Romarus. He’s a big—”
“Romarus?” Zelda said, shocked that the mage had actually gone on a journey.
He looked exactly as Zelda had remembered him—tired and old, an elder, but with just enough spark to tell tales that captivated the youth of Hydor.
And, apparently, now go on adventures.
“Yes, Zelda, it is I, the one who spoke to you before your journey with Yeva and Norius. How are they? Are they waiting for us in Dabira?”
“Well… Yeva is fine, she went with Tetra back to Caia,” Zelda said. Then her thoughts turned not just to Norius, but to how his departure had affected Yeva—would that make her a future Kara? “Norius died in the battle against Indica.”
Romarus briefly grimaced, but
he showed surprisingly little reaction otherwise. Before she could get to what had happened to Dabira, Romarus spoke.
“There is no more dangerous a group than young men and no group more at risk of an untimely death than young men,” he said with what almost looked like a wry, guilty grin. “I am saddened to hear the news of Norius, if not a bit unsurprised.”
“It gets worse, though, because—”
“Hey, listen,” Eric said, clearing his throat. Zelda looked at him, noticing how he stood taller than she had remembered. His shoulders arched back a little bit further, his voice carried less bitterness to it, and the way he made eye contact spoke of a more confident person. “We’ve got an issue right now and we can’t spend time reminiscing. Artemia has the power of Ragnor. She and I, we killed it. Or whatever it was.”
“What do you mean?” Abe inquired.
“It wasn’t nearly as big as I thought it’d be, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Artemia has its power. I fell into a crevice to avoid falling to her. She took the crystal and has, well, some sort of power.”
“Summoning power,” Zelda interjected. “The ability to call forth monsters to do her work.”
“Regardless of what it can do, we need to return to Dabira and gather all the magi we can. We have to stop her, or else we—what?”
Zelda’s face didn’t hide at all her reaction. She saw Abe sucking in a breath of air, preparing to explain what had happened. She needed to speak. She was the mage. Abe could describe what had happened, but Zelda could impart the experience of having lived through it.
“The empire destroyed Dabira,” Zelda said. “They massacred everyone in the city. And when they did so… they didn’t just kill us. They tried to erase us. They killed men and women and children indiscriminately. I’m never going to forget what happened. Aside from who you see here, all that’s left is Tetra and Yeva.”
Silence fell across the four survivors. Abe bowed his head. Romarus mumbled something incomprehensible. Eric sucked in a breath before speaking.
“I am sorry, Zelda, had I known or been present, I would have helped,” he said. “We will defeat the empire. But if I may ask, who are Tetra and Yeva?”
“Yeva was a girl my age. Tetra, you might’ve known as Kara.”
Understanding Eric’s reaction was difficult. For one second, he looked relieved that she lived. Then he looked annoyed. Then he just didn’t know what to make of it and shrugged it off.
“I knew her, you could say that,” Eric said, a seemingly deliberate understatement. “Where are they going?”
“To Caia,” Zelda said. “They want revenge on the empire. They’re going to kill the emperor.”
Eric seemed to not care one bit about that.
“Might do some good,” he said. “And I can’t blame them after what happened in Dabira. But we have to put that fight to the side, as much as it pains me to say it. Artemia’s the biggest threat. If Kara—Tetra? Kara?”
“Her real name is Tetra, went by Kara to protect her identity.”
“I’m not going to be used to that at all. Anyways, if she and Yeva are alive, we need them. We need all the firepower we can get to stop Artemia. She’s going for Bahamut, and I don’t want to know what happens if she acquires that level of power.”
“Bad, bad things,” Romarus said. “One thing I have come to realize is how well Hydor was set up before the events of the last few months. Dragons rarely attacked humans. But we have undone the balance of the world and now we are paying the price. When you remove the guardian of nature himself—so great he might as well be Hydor itself—what happens, I do not dare to think about.”
Zelda had heard enough tales about Bahamut that she didn’t know what was truth and what stretched the truth to its limits. The one agreed upon point, though, was it would create chaos.
“And even if it doesn’t, Artemia is so cold she will bring forth years of wintry discontent and death among the people,” Abe added. “Eric. You are right. We have to return to Mathos. She’ll have to go through there to get to Bahamut. Zelda, I know what I said, but—”
But if I help Tetra take down the empire and let Artemia run free, we all die. If I kill the empire, but Artemia rises to power, we’ll have an even worse existence. If I choose to fight the empire over Artemia, I will have not used my magic for good, but revenge.
“I’m going with you,” she said. “But Eric is right. We should get Tetra and Yeva. I don’t think we can fight Artemia with just Romarus and I. And you two wouldn’t have the capability of defeating those monsters. But with someone as powerful as Tetra and Yeva, we might have a chance.”
Eric, though, smiled, a grin that told Zelda he knew something that she didn’t.
“Under normal circumstances, perhaps the old man and I wouldn’t be able to fight,” he said.
He shocked her every belief when his sword caught fire and he brandished it. Only then did he reveal the turquoise crystal—a slice of the essence of Indica—around his neck, hidden beneath his clothing.
“But Hydor seems to have found favor with me. We might yet have a chance.”
That meant that only Abe did not have the power of magic, but he arguably had something better—the power of wisdom, the ability to stay grounded in the moment, and a level of calculation which would set her, Romarus, and Eric up in the best way possible.
Perhaps we may yet have a chance.
“I don’t think we have any reason to wait, then,” Zelda said. “To Caia we go.”
“To Caia we go,” the rest of the band of fighters stated.
“And then what?” Abe said. “How are we going to get to Mathos? I don’t think the empire is just going to loan us a boat.”
I didn’t think of that. We might have to steal one. I guess—
“We’ll ‘borrow’ one,” Eric said. “I don’t think the emperor is going to thank us after we beat Artemia, but that’s fine. He’ll know the truth.”
There’s the answer. Thank you, Eric, for taking charge of that.
“Eric, my boy,” Abe said with a laugh. “You speak the truth. You’ll make a great leader someday.”
Eric said nothing more as the four of them—two magi, two hunters, one hope—began marching north in the hopes of ending Artemia’s slow quest to destroy the world.
CHAPTER 6: ARTEMIA
Within just a couple of days, Artemia had come to the shore of the sea.
This presented a major problem. She should have come across Dabira by now. Had she gone mad? Where was it? Where was it?!?
She ordered Valigarmanda and the phoenix to scout the area. To the east, she saw the mountain ranges that separated Dabira from Caia, so she knew she had not crossed over that in her sleep or by mistake. To the west, she saw a small river.
“I do not see any town, master,” Valigarmanda said when it returned.
“You call yourself a scout, and yet you fail to find a boy and a town that I have seen with my own eyes.”
“I apologize, master.”
Artemia left Valigarmanda in her frustration, ordering Odin’s horse across the riverbank. Now she remembered. She had to swim across a river to get from the city. She must have simply moved too far east to have seen the city.
When the horse reached the river, it ran across, moving on the water as if it were grass. She smiled at this sight, wondering if she might ride it across the entire sea to Mathos. No. The empire must suffer humiliation. I’ll use some of its ships. There is no real rush, not with Bahamut unsuspecting.
She reached the other side of the river, her monsters trailing by her side.
Dabira, though, had vanished. Instead, she saw rows upon rows of rocks carefully laid out. Nothing remained of the city. Not even a stray plank, a wayward statue, or a destroyed piece of furniture.
“Do towns just vanish overnight?” she said.
Perhaps Abe had gone mad, having lost his only job, and burned the town down. It would seem so unlike the fool, but then again, she had just reje
cted his greatest desire—her. She had seen men kill for a woman, so who was to say a man couldn’t kill over and over again and then destroy in the name of love?
But even as she sought to accuse and pin this act on Abe, she knew the truth. The empire had taken out Dabira before her, its task of eradicating the magi perhaps finally complete.
I would have enjoyed seeing Roland’s face. Very well then. I will see to it that Rufus wears the same expression. I will parade my monsters through his city and into his palace so that he knows what would have destroyed Dabira had he not.
“I still smell the remains of fire,” Ifrit said. “A massacre took place here.”
“A shame. I had hoped to let you monsters demonstrate your powers once more. No matter. To Caia we go!”
Still, Artemia felt her rage encompassing her. The world had become hers to conquer, not the empire’s. It would take a great deal of self-control for her not to kill the emperor and any guards she saw upon first sight.
With the monsters, she covered land that would’ve taken hours in minutes. Aside from galloping across water, Odin’s horse could also scale mountains with an ease that defied its body. It moved up the mountainside at the same pace as it did on flat lands, and Artemia wasn’t about to question such a benefit.
At the peak of the mountain, she turned to face down the hill and saw a scarred and bruised behemoth staring her down. The behemoth bellowed, as if seeking a fight. She laughed. What was a behemoth in a moment like this? What could anything in the empire do in this moment? What could anything in the world do with this?
Nothing. She had gained the power of a god by controlling the closest things to it. She ruled the skies. She ruled the land. And if she had to, she would rule the seas. And they said I would never become anything. Observe me, Auron. Behold what I control, all of you!
The behemoth bellowed once more. Ifrit snorted and roared back with such a battle cry that even Artemia, as unflappable as she was, felt a slight chill go down her spine. She barely acknowledged the feeling. She could not give credence to any level of fear as the omnipotent ruler of Hydor.
Legends of the War (War of the Magi Book 3) Page 7
