The young hunter and mage found themselves at a loss for words. After some stammering, Yeva eventually said she would head to bed. Eric watched her the whole way down. She stopped just before disappearing from view. She smiled with such warmth it made Eric feel like it’d become a summer’s midnight, not a fall’s.
He turned back to the ocean, far less fearful of what laid beneath and far more hopeful about what laid ahead.
***
On the morning of the fifth day, Eric could not have breathed a larger sigh of relief for what came into view.
Land. Sweet, green, soft land. Whatever monsters came to him, he’d see as they attacked. No surprises would come from beneath his feet as he struggled in terrain he didn’t live on or in. He’d fight monsters he knew. He’d fight beasts he’d fought before. He’d fight creatures that he had a chance against.
And, for the first time since he’d decided to return to Mathos, it hit him what this meant.
He’d come home.
No matter how much he tried to spin it by saying Dabira would’ve been his future home or that Caia made for a better residence, he called Mathos home. His mother gave birth to him there. His family’s home, shared with Abe, was there. His job’s headquarters was there.
His mother’s and sister’s graves were here.
Mathos was home. It brought a smile and a nervous potpourri of emotions. Even with all the darkness of the past, he couldn’t help but feel gratitude at returning to Mathos.
Abe walked onto the deck with Eric.
“Have you slept at all in the past few days?” he said, patting his back, indicating it more of a joking starter than a serious question.
“Actually, yes,” Eric replied. “That one night when I couldn’t sleep, I had a good conversation with someone else. I—”
“Yeva, I take it.”
Eric blushed.
“Don’t worry about hiding your feelings to her from us. Just don’t flaunt them,” Abe said. “We support this, if anything, as long as you treat her well. But anyways, she made you sleep better from the sounds of it.”
“Just the conversation, nothing more,” Eric quickly added. “She’s not ready. Her previous boyfriend died in the battle against Indica.”
“And under normal circumstances, she’d probably still be grieving. But just as love blossoms on the battlefield, lots of other emotions tend to wither quickly, or at least go into hiding. And in this case, grief seems to have taken a back seat.”
Eric understood that all too well. He mourned his family’s deaths frequently, visiting their graves before every hunt in Mathos. But as soon as he left that graveyard, he did not let himself feel anything until the dragon had fallen and the danger had passed. To indulge in such feelings would have meant his life would’ve ended years ago.
“In any case, though, I’m sure it’s good to see land. We’ll probably get there within, what, the hour?”
“That would be an accurate guess to me,” Eric said. “To think, we—”
He stopped when he thought he saw something breaching the surface behind the ship. A large wave had come, one that did not flood the ship but had certainly felt noticeable underneath. Eric jogged to the rear and looked. He didn’t see anything.
“Mind’s playing tricks on you just before we get there, huh?” Abe said.
“I know you felt that wave,” Eric said.
Abe’s laughter faded. He had certainly felt it.
“Get everyone up here,” Eric said. “There’s no reason anyone should still be sleeping at this point. If something is going to happen, I want the magi here.”
Abe didn’t waste time giving Eric a response. He quickly descended into the quarters while Eric nervously looked around the area. He thought he saw what looked like long arms, but that didn’t make any sense. Nothing of the deep had a humanoid body. The hydra, perhaps, looked like a long arm.
If that was the case, Eric reached for the crystal around his neck, preparing to do battle. No matter what emerged in the following seconds, he would be ready.
He steeled himself as something began to breach the surface. At first, it started as a giant head, and Eric prepared to deal with a hydra.
But only one head emerged—a head so massive it looked like it was the size of the ground floor of the guild. In place of its mouth, tentacles wriggled and writhed. Its red eyes gazed and narrowed upon Eric. It continued to rise out of the water, spreading its dragon-like wings. Then its arms emerged, the limb Eric had seen. It still rose, and Eric now had to crane his neck upward to see the entirety of the monster.
“Whatever this is, you’re not going to fight it,” Abe said over the noise of the monster rising. “Just look at it! The fact that it still rises…”
By the time the creature no longer moved, it must have towered as high as mountains. The hydra looked like a dog in comparison to this monstrosity. Eric imagined this great monster would rule Indica, not the other way around.
“We have to move,” Eric said, still gazing at the beast. He turned and saw everyone on the ship present. He looked to Zelda. “Can you teleport us out? To land. Just as close as you can get.”
“To land?” Zelda said, doubting herself. “We might wind up several hundred feet away. I can’t swim well.”
“I know, Zelda, but this monster—”
It emitted a massive roar as it raised its arms to the sky in preparation to crush them.
“No time! Now!”
He left Zelda no choice. The group gathered in a circle, holding hands as Zelda’s breathing got heavier. Eric closed his eyes as he felt his body levitating. She’s doing it. Come on!
Suddenly, his feet got wet. Water crashed into the back of his knees. He opened his eyes, fully prepared to have to swim for hours to shore.
Instead, Zelda had succeeded. They hadn’t made it all the way to shore, but they could stand in the shallow depths.
Eric glanced back, the monster still visible, as it smashed the water and the boat. Waves came, but by the time they reached land several minutes later, they did not rise any higher than a few feet. It knocked the hunters and magi down, but it did not flood the city or the beach they had come to.
Eric coughed up sea water from the waves as he helped the rest of the crew to the beaches. Zelda looked lightheaded, so Eric put her arm around his shoulders as he carried her further away from the sea.
“Too close,” Eric said. “Now you know why I fear the ocean, Abe.”
“And now you know why I’m never swimming again,” Zelda said.
“I think you had plenty of reason before this,” Abe said. “But now I’m convinced that there’s no reason for us to ever set sail across. Whatever happens here, I don’t foresee us crossing that sea again.”
We’re stuck here. We permanently destroyed the waters by destroying Indica. Now we’re bound to this continent because of the empire’s—and our—lust for power and control.
But at least we’re safe.
And I’m home.
Eric sat on the sandy beaches, watching as the great monster—which looked like an ugly cross between a human, a dragon, and a squid—settled back into the waters. He prayed that the monster would never venture onto lands, but given the presence of Bahamut, he imagined that wouldn’t happen anytime soon. Well, as long as Artemia doesn’t succeed.
He wanted to press forward, especially with the light of day still providing them a chance to cover great distance, but he knew what had happened to Zelda. He planned on giving her about an hour before moving forth.
Fortunately, not only did Zelda not need an hour, she didn’t even need ten minutes. He wanted to know how the young girl had gone from struggling to teleport all of them from Dabira to Caia to now getting up like it was nothing, but he didn’t need to concern himself with that yet. Not unless Zelda mysteriously became his enemy.
“Before we go,” Abe said. “I have one request. I’d like for us to stop by first the guild. And then by our home. We needn’t spend more than
a few minutes in each, but I’d like to see those places once more. After all, we may not get another chance.”
“Does this town have horses? We can get them,” Romarus said as Eric and Abe nodded in agreement. “It will make for a faster journey to wherever Artemia is.”
“Just be polite when you ask,” Eric said. “This is a trusting, small town.”
Romarus said he would, and the group agreed to meet on the east side of the town. Eric and Abe wandered toward the guild, which looked just as they had left it months before from the outside, while the magi headed into town. In fact, Eric could still see the blood stains of the dragon he had killed before leaving Mathos, although he did notice the blood looked weirdly scrubbed in some spots, as if someone had to do it as fast but not as well as they could.
“Interesting how much has changed since,” he mumbled to himself. For all that he’d gone through, this town had probably not had any idea of what had happened across the sea. Unfortunately, that would change very soon if Artemia got her way.
They came to the doors and swung them open. Eric stepped inside first, noticing that an unlit candle had fallen to the ground just a few feet away from the entrance.
“Someone’s got here before us, and I’m sure it was Artemia,” Eric said.
They walked into the main atrium and glanced up. It looked just as they had left it. But when Abe had requested to come here, Eric knew he didn’t want to see the atrium. He wanted to see what Artemia’s room looked like. It might yet provide some clues.
The two hunters carefully stepped down the spiral staircase. They stopped at the first door, the one leading to her lab. Eric pushed the door opened and held his hand up.
“I wonder if Artemia went mad,” he said sarcastically.
Shattered glass, dried blood, and a rancid stench comprised the scene before him. He could not see a single vial before him untouched. Just taking a single step in, even with his boots, would lead to crunching on so much glass, some of it would get through and cut him.
“It’s like she’s trying to erase her mistakes from before,” Abe said. “But this degree of destruction… you don’t think someone in the town—”
“Not a chance,” Eric said. “If Artemia hadn’t done this and she came back to this, she would have burned all of Mathos down. Even without her loss of sanity. She doesn’t suffer insults or attacks well.”
“I’m quite aware.”
Eric snorted a gentle laugh. He didn’t see anything else worth exploring in the room, so he shut the door.
“Maybe someday that room will have a real use,” he said. “Not one based on conjecture and madness.”
“We’ll count on you to do that,” Abe said.
They continued downstairs to Artemia’s room. When Eric got to the door, he paused. He knew it incredibly unlikely that Artemia would be inside. Bahamut didn’t reside in her room, and she’d clearly gotten here before them.
But still. The notion that she would wait for them, rise, and attack them seemed possible in his mind. Likely? No. Possible? Barely. But not impossible.
“Just hold your sword at the ready,” Eric said. “Indulge me.”
“I was going to even before you asked,” Abe said.
Slowly, Eric reached for the door. With a gulp, he swung it open, quickly getting back into position to strike.
But the room was empty. It was disorganized as well, with the usual painting of the three legendary dragons not on the wall and the chairs pushed back, but it had a little more order than the lab.
“Look.”
Eric turned as Abe pointed at the painting of the three dragons, propped up against one of the chairs. Except two holes with jagged edges, as if someone had punched the painting, covered the faces of Indica and Ragnor. Only the body and face of Bahamut remained untouched.
“She’s marked her conquests,” Eric said. “Well, if there was any doubt before, I’d say this removes it.”
“Also look at this,” Abe said. “She has notes on Bahamut.”
Eric went over to her desk and read the first one.
“Legend says that Bahamut once resided in a valley near a mountain that rose higher than anything in Hydor. However, this is pure legend at this point, as no one has witnessed this except one man who has since perished and who refused to ever cooperate with us.”
“Garo,” Eric muttered.
But even if the note had no evidence for it, it made sense. The hunters had also received stern warnings not to go too far north, that doing so might lead to awakening a monster as deadly as Bahamut. Eric hadn’t believed those stories before, but now he had no choice but to—because Artemia acted as if she fully believed them.
“A mountain that rose higher than anything in Hydor,” Eric repeated. “There is no such mountain on the maps of the world.”
“Because,” Abe said with a smile. “The authorities never created a map that extended out that far. A man won’t go to a place he doesn’t know exists. But do you really think the world just ends at the edge? Oh no. It circles back around. But what you see isn’t all that there is.”
It made sense, but it still surprised Eric. He would’ve figured as hunters, they might actually get the full map. If not that, then perhaps at the imperial palace, he would’ve seen a full map.
“We’re literally going to explore unchartered territory,” Abe said. “We’ll be pioneers in addition to saviors.”
“Delightful,” Eric said.
Eric put the note down.
“We’ll have to save the travel stories for later, though. Let’s go to the house. I don’t think we need to find anything else here.”
Abe agreed, and the two left the guild as they had found it. They made the short, five-minute walk to their home under the noon sky, a feeling that Eric had not had in a long, long time. He’d always left the guild in the evening when dusk had fallen—to make this walk with the sun overhead felt like some symbolic moment, but he didn’t spend too much time contemplating the matter.
He came to the door of his house and paused. He tried thinking of how much time had passed since he’d last slept in his own bed or eaten in his own house. Two, three months? Too much time. He could barely consider it his own home with how long he’d left it untouched.
“Feels weird,” Eric said with a smile. “Let’s enjoy it and make it quick, though. Artemia doesn’t indulge in nostalgia, so we can’t afford to either for too long.”
Abe nodded in agreement. Eric swung the door open, and a feeling of pleasant familiarity rushed over him.
He saw the stairs leading to his small loft, the one where he rested, his few possessions in that area barely large enough for one person. Amusingly, he imagined Yeva joining him up there. He smiled at the thought.
He looked at the kitchen, remembering the last meal Abe had cooked in that house. Sausage, bacon, and toast. He had woken up miserable from his hunt the night before, having come no closer to finding out the killer of his family. But today, he just felt pleased to have returned.
“I’m going upstairs,” he said.
He left Abe, whose bedroom was on that first floor, behind as he ascended the stairs. When he came to the loft, he found his bed, a little dusty but untouched otherwise. He patted the dust off and lay back down.
He hadn’t felt so comfortable in so long. The feeling of calling this place home, sleeping in it, eating in it, perhaps even someday having a wife in it gave him immense satisfaction. He’d lived so long outside or in beds not his own that he forgot the personal pride he took in having his own place and his own home.
As he lay down, he pictured Yeva by his side. It didn’t take much to imagine her there. She was so beautiful, so kind, so sweet…
“Eric,” Abe said, interrupting the brief fantasy. “We have to get going. Romarus and Tetra have returned with some horses for us.”
Eric sighed. He had a mission to fulfill, and he looked forward to it.
But for just a few more moments, he wanted the respite t
hat home gave him.
It felt funny, thinking about how he used to hate home. It used to remind him of how he didn’t have his mother or his sister anymore. It told him how he had grown up too fast, too soon. And now he relished the bed.
Ten more seconds.
He counted the time down, moving slower than ten actual seconds, relishing every second of warmth the soft bed provided him. He imagined Yeva with him, but he also thought of a life without Artemia, without the empire, without hostilities, and without life-threatening hunts. For as dangerous a mission as he was about to embark on, he could see the true finish line much more clearly than at any point in his previous six years.
He came downstairs, nodded to Abe with a sheepish grin, and met up with Tetra and Romarus. Zelda and Yeva galloped up a couple of seconds later, and Eric did not bother to hide his amorous smile when he saw Yeva.
“We’ve had our time to reminisce,” Eric said, and he meant it. He’d enjoyed it all and felt glad to have gotten it. Now, though, the focus had changed. “Let’s go end this bloodbath. Let’s go end the reign of Artemia.”
CHAPTER 16: ARTEMIA
As the days progressed and the town of Mathos became a distant memory, so too did Artemia’s last moments of rational sanity.
She became enraged every time a soldier slowed his pace down, demanding that they keep up. Even when she ultimately gave in, choosing to taunt the remaining five men rather than leave them behind, she did not receive as much of a boost to her narcissism as she had hoped.
Whenever she thought that she had gotten closer to Bahamut, she remembered that she had not yet come to a valley that would bear a resemblance of any kinds to the stories she heard. Frustrated at the lack of apparent progress, she would often scream and kick her horse in aggravated frustration.
But in the darkest recesses of her mind, the place she had begun to visit with more frequency in recent days, she remembered how Auron would taunt her for moving too slowly. How she could never keep up with him. Every time a soldier could not continue, she saw herself in him.
And to see herself in a man as weak as the emperor’s soldiers provided the ultimate shame.
Legends of the War (War of the Magi Book 3) Page 20
