Within minutes, though, someone began snoring. Yeva and Tetra laughed when they saw Romarus had dozed off already, his snoring filling the air as his head leaned back over a thick log his back rested against.
“We may need to use a spell to silence him,” Tetra said. “I used to do the same with Garo.”
Zelda felt unsure if she should laugh at the mention of his name, but Tetra’s laughter allowed it.
“You have the spell to silence people?” Eric asked. “You should have used that on the emperor!”
“If only,” Tetra said as she chuckled. “A spell like that, you have to be close to keep in effect. Sadly, my relationship with the emperor wasn’t as intimate as it was with Garo. Although for as often as we argued, it sure seemed like a marriage.”
More jokes got exchanged as Zelda mostly felt like an outsider. She wanted to partake, but she just didn’t have much she could laugh about. Maybe that spoke to her sense of humor more than it did her past—after all, everyone in that circle had had some unspeakable tragedies happen to them, especially Eric and Yeva, who’d also lost their parents.
Still, in that moment, Zelda began to believe what she’d started to comprehend earlier. Whether because of her sheer power or her personality or anything else, she would never fit in with normal society—or any society, period. She could do so much that no one else could, but that in turn meant no one else could join her in anything she did. She had done so much that no one else did, but that meant no one else could relate to her.
For at least the next few days, whatever unfolded, she’d feel tied to the other five people around her. The triumph or the failure of the mission was something the survivors would share together forever, and in that regard, she became determined to hold onto what would happen forever.
But when it ended? If they lived? What in the name of Chrystos would happen? Yeva and Eric seemed destined to become a couple, a fact that, Zelda hated to admit, made her jealous. She didn’t mind that Yeva had gotten Eric so much as she felt bothered that she hadn’t gotten anything at all. Abe and Romarus would go to their respective homes to live out their remaining lives. Tetra almost certainly wouldn’t live past this battle, if not by Artemia and her monsters then by her own decision to let go of life.
Perhaps she would take on the role Garo left behind. Perhaps she could return to Caia and protect the teachings, ensure that even in the absence of chaos and hatred, the words of Garo would live on forever.
Except when we left Caia, the remains of the empire still tried to kill us. That doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. And I didn’t kill Arthur… that may have been a mistake.
“I need to go for a walk,” Yeva said, interrupting Zelda’s thoughts. “Can someone go with me?”
Everyone knew that she hadn’t asked that question for anyone but one person to volunteer. Eric sheepishly smiled as he raised his hand, saying he would accompany her through the woods. Zelda smiled at the sight, but as they walked away, laughing over something, Zelda still felt a tinge of sadness and envy.
“What did you learn, Zelda?”
Zelda shook her head and looked left. Tetra had surprised her by speaking up. Zelda had gone so long without engaging with anyone she was surprised anyone noticed her there.
“About what?” Zelda said.
“The teachings of Garo,” Tetra said. “I want to know what you took away from them.”
Zelda shrugged. She hadn’t given it much thought, not with the threat of Artemia too real and too present to allow for a period of reflection.
“I think it speaks volumes about what kind of man Garo is,” Zelda said. She thought to correct herself and say “was” but decided against it. “How did he learn to meditate so well? Did you ever get to do that?”
Tetra shook her head.
“He would disappear for days at a time. He had to be alone. The first time he left, I thought that something had happened to him and began to despair. When he returned, I cried tears of joy, but he asked to be left alone for about an hour while he wrote what he had experienced. Only then, when he emerged, did he explain what had happened.”
“And did you think him crazy?”
Tetra shrugged.
“He always had a bit of a quirky side that was hard to define. I saw a lot of him, though I didn’t know his entire life, obviously. Even a spouse will never know everything about their significant other. But what I saw convinced me of the power that he had. I didn’t think he was crazy. I don’t think he knew everything. He wasn’t a god. He wasn’t on Chrystos’ level. No one is. No one can be. But he learned quite a bit.”
“Did he try and teach you?”
“Oh, I had no interest in that,” Tetra said with a polite laugh. “To disappear from society for days at a time to meditate and learn about the spiritual realm and Chrystos’ intentions or past? I valued magi society too much to do that. I could have, but then I would’ve hated it.”
I may have no choice but to do that. If things go as they are now, I can’t see any future but one as an outsider.
“Nevertheless, I think all of us, to some degree, have a feeling inside us that stirs when we read something of the truth. And while Garo wouldn’t let me read his journals for the longest time, fearful that we would think him crazy, when I read what he said about Bahamut, I knew it to be true.”
“You mean how Bahamut is the living embodiment of Chrystos?”
“Yes. And how Ragnor is the living embodiment of Iblis.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
Eric surprised everyone by coming back from his walk after what seemed only a couple of minutes. Zelda had just assumed that he would’ve disappeared with Yeva into the woods for… well, something, but it seemed she really had only needed to go for the briefest of walks.
But the concern on his face left Zelda feeling uneasy.
“Can you repeat what you said, Tetra?”
“How Bahamut is the embodiment of Chrystos, and Ragnor is the embodiment of Iblis?”
“That.”
Eric looked deep in thought. The concern on his face had Zelda on the edge of her seat, while Tetra, too, leaned forward in curiosity. She couldn’t imagine what a hunter would know about magi lore, but he’d fought Indica and Ragnor. He may not have known the meaning behind the dragons, but he knew the dragons better than she did.
“When I fought Ragnor, I remember feeling almost disappointment, certainly surprise, at its size,” he said. “Ragnor, the legends in the guild went, had the size to change the face of the planet. It could split continents apart, destroy cities, and flood entire plains if it wanted to.”
“That aligns with what I know of it, yes,” Tetra said. “Legend, however, does have a tendency to exaggerate.”
“Maybe so, but you said something about Garo and his journals, right? What was that?”
Patiently—perhaps knowing Eric was on the verge of revealing a crucial insight—Tetra explained what she knew about Garo from his journals, his meditations, and his connection to the spiritual world of Chrystos and Iblis. Zelda had heard it all, so she focused mostly on the reactions of Eric.
He obviously had not heard most of this from before, but his level of surprise or confusion didn’t match up with how little he knew.
“And in any of the journals, did you see anything about Ragnor?”
“Aside from it being a creation of Iblis and a way to try and ravage the world made in Chrystos’ image? No.”
“So he never said Ragnor was exactly like this, shaped a certain way, with certain powers, or anything like that.”
“No. He may have, but I did not see anything of that nature.”
Zelda couldn’t recall anything either, and she had read quite a bit.
“I don’t think the legend is exaggerated to the degree that you’re suggesting,” Eric said. He sat down on a log, his head down, his hands folded. He did not look comfortable in any sense of the word. “When I killed Ragnor, everything that happened after that felt entir
ely supernatural. First of all, I drove my sword through its head, but its eyes changed color. It went from yellow to a red darker than blood. It kept flickering back and forth. Then the body shook violently, as if on strings. Its movement had no order, no natural direction. It levitated, but its wings didn’t flap.”
Zelda hoped that what he described was just the last acts of magic of the legendary dragon gone haywire. But she recalled the defeat of Indica, and how that dragon had shown none of those behaviors. Its death played out in a natural manner. Even with its last gasps of magical power, it didn’t defy its bodily limitations or mechanics.
“Then I heard this demonic voice in my head. I’ll never forget it. It said ‘Not yet.’ Artemia was with me and I asked her if she heard the voice, but then this deep, deep laughter echoed in my head. It taunted me, telling me she couldn’t hear me, and repeated ‘Not yet.’”
Eric shuddered as he told the story. In the deepest part of her gut, it sounded to Zelda like Iblis had spoken directly to Eric. That made no sense—the gods didn’t communicate with humans without magic until their day of judgment following their death or an intense period of magic opened the connection.
But then again, nothing had really made sense for months now. Her mother sacrificing herself, Dabira burning, legendary dragons falling… she just gave up trying to understand it and sought only to see things as they actually happened.
“At first, I thought that my mind had gone insane. For six long years, everything I did revolved around learning the killer of my family. Once Artemia told me Ragnor had done it, I became obsessed. Abe will tell you. It drove me to the point of separating him from me.”
“A decision I would have made in my youthful days,” Abe said, but he remained unusually silent otherwise. Eric continued.
“I would dream about Ragnor taking my family away. Horrible dreams. I would wake up and curse its name. All of this built up to the downfall of Ragnor. But then, when I killed it… when I saw its body dissolve and leave behind its essence, I felt betrayed. Or maybe that’s not the right word. Disappointed. No matter how you want to spin it, I felt unfulfilled, and I thought that I’d lost my mind as a result of the discrepancy in the emotions.”
He started to speak but paused, as if unsure how the crowd before him would react to his next words. But Zelda already believed everything he said. Nothing he’d say at this point would cause her to disbelieve him. Or, at least, it wouldn’t make her discredit him.
“I felt that enough was enough. I didn’t want anything to do with the Dragon Hunter’s Guild. Artemia took the essence of Ragnor, and I didn’t care. I just wanted to go home. But in the fight, to defeat Ragnor, I’d taken a small part of the essence of Indica from a necklace she wore.”
Maybe that’s why Iblis spoke to him. He used magic in the fight. Maybe it opened a line of communication with the spiritual realm, but only one that allowed Iblis to speak briefly.
“She demanded it back. I tried to walk away, but she threatened me. I tried to fight her, but she had too much skill and I wasn’t in a position to fight. Rather than let her kill me, I fell into a crevice. I should have died. In fact, I probably did. What happens next… you’ll think I’m crazy. But I have to tell it as I experienced it. Maybe as magi, you’ll understand.”
He swallowed. Zelda felt she had not paid this close attention to a conversation since her mother’s last words.
“I had this… vision. I don’t know how to describe it. Your god, Chrystos, he appeared to me as my sister. I think I’ve told you some of this before, but I’ll just tell it all. He showed me my past. My family. My killer. Everything.”
He continued on for a few more minutes, rehashing what Zelda had already known from previous conversation.
“I mention all of this to say that I think I understand your system of gods and the dragons now. And to say that I’ve come to a terrible conclusion that I fear is true no matter what.”
He gulped. Zelda found her mouth dry. No one in the circle focused on anything but Eric himself.
“I don’t think I killed Ragnor. At least, I don’t think I killed the Ragnor from the legends. I don’t know what I killed—I know I beat something since a red crystal appeared. Perhaps I killed a weaker version of Ragnor. Perhaps this god, Iblis, he took its strength and weakened it. But whatever I defeated, I don’t think it was the true beast of the myths. It didn’t feel like it.”
He leaned back and sighed, as if he had to refocus himself to carry a heavy weight. No one said a word.
If this was true, if they had not killed Ragnor, then…
“You are sure about this, Eric?” Tetra said. She didn’t sound convinced there was room for debate, though.
“I’m sure enough that it’s kept me up the past couple of nights since we left Mathos,” Eric said. “Actually, I remember feeling unsure as soon as I killed it, but so much else grabbed my attention that I didn’t much care. When you said what you did about Iblis and Chrystos, I became sure of it. Iblis or Ragnor spoke to me in that room. I don’t know what not yet means, but—”
Zelda could speculate, and it didn’t take a giant leap of faith to come to her conclusions.
Iblis needed Bahamut to fall before he could take over the world. The true Ragnor sat dormant somewhere or just didn’t exist, but Iblis had given just enough of his power to Eric and Artemia, thinking they might be able to defeat Bahamut. With the monsters by their side, they would stand a better chance of defacing the world.
“It means our mission has become even more important,” Tetra said. “Bahamut and Ragnor balance each other out, much as Chrystos and Iblis keep a check on each other. Artemia thinks she’s about to kill the third legendary dragon, when in reality all she’s going to do is create a world in which Iblis controls everything.”
“Is it that likely, though?” Romarus said.
All eyes turned to him. Zelda remembered his doubts about the validity of gods, the atheist of the magi.
“Is it likely?” Tetra repeated, shocked at his words.
Zelda could feel the tension returning, the fire that had marked her as Kara. It actually brought a smile to her face, though Zelda did her best to hide it.
“Is it likely? What does it matter, Romarus? You saw Artemia with your own eyes as she exited the cave, did you not?”
“I did.”
“And you saw how her monsters, as you explained to me, how they wiped out all of the dragons guarding the cave of Ragnor, correct?”
Romarus said nothing. Tetra didn’t need his support to continue.
“Frankly, I don’t care what you believe as far as the spiritual realm goes. But I do care that you believe in your own eyes. And if what you saw doesn’t make you want to fight—”
“It does, it does,” Romarus said.
Zelda couldn’t ever remember him sounding so defensive. But she could remember plenty of times the feisty side of Tetra came out, and it made her relieved to see it emerge once more.
“I’m sorry I didn’t realize this or say anything earlier,” Eric said. “Had it occurred to me what an Artemia victory would lead to, I would’ve increased our haste.”
“This isn’t just about stopping Artemia anymore,” Abe said. “It’s about saving Bahamut.”
To Zelda’s surprise, Abe gave a tension-breaking laugh, one that felt awkward given the seriousness of the situation.
“I will stop at nothing to accomplish this,” Abe said. “Let me make that clear. But understand, Eric and I have hunted dragons for basically our entire lives. And now we have to save one. The role reversal this late in my life feels nothing short of perplexing.”
“Well, that’s because the real dragon isn’t a dragon, it’s a deranged human,” Eric said. “We’re not hunting for gold or glory. We’re hunting for the preservation of mankind.”
Abe still laughed, but it died quickly as Eric brought gravitas back to the conversation.
“We should rise early tomorrow,” Eric said. “The horses will c
ross the river, it doesn’t feel too deep, and even if so, magi, can you get them across?”
The four of them nodded. Somehow, they’d pull it off. Ice, physical spells, whatever it took.
“We eat only once per day and sleep only when we have to,” Eric said. “However long it takes to catch up to Artemia, we do so. No matter what. I don’t know the legends from the religion, but I know what I heard. I don’t want to see whatever or whoever spoke to me rise up because of Artemia.”
***
The next day, as promised, Eric awoke everyone. The sun had not even broken the horizon yet, though at least the dark sky had gained some light. Zelda, remembering the conversation of the night before, quickly rubbed her eyes, stretched, and found her horse.
Put simply, the fate of the world and Chrystos’ peaceful control over it depended on her and the other five fighters’ movement.
They came to the river. She, Tetra, Yeva, and Romarus froze the river, a task that required a tremendous amount of focus but one that got the horses across. The horses did not enjoy the slippery surface, but all made it to the grass on the other side.
“Wait.”
When everyone had crossed, Abe paused. He moved down the river about fifty feet and knelt over something. He mumbled as he returned.
“Don’t go over there if you want to preserve your most recent meal,” he said. “But it does provide some disturbing but good news.”
He shook his head, as if trying to erase what he saw.
“Artemia killed one of her soldiers. She did not give him a merciful death. But we can’t be more than a day or two behind her.”
“Then it makes it all the more imperative that we march north without a moment’s delay,” Eric said, spending no time mourning the dead.
And so they did. The six magi and hunters who sought to save the world before the actions of one would upend it without realizing her consequences hurried on.
Legends of the War (War of the Magi Book 3) Page 22
