“Yes,” he said, voice hollow.
“But it didn’t go well.”
“No,” he said without further explanation.
“How long ago?” she asked, now fully clad in her robes, standing behind him.
He struggled as he pulled the wet chainmail over his head. “She and I parted ways over two years ago.” He did not meet the elf’s eyes.
She whistled, a low tone that seemed completely out of place coming from her. “So now I know from whence your desperation is born.” She knelt beside him, carefully adjusting her robes to avoid the mud. “I suppose I would not be wrong in suspecting you have not felt the touch of a woman since then?” She kept her hands away from him, folded in her lap.
All trace of shyness removed, he shook his head. “I see,” she said, eyes downcast. “I fear that I may have provoked you to action without knowing the facts.”
He turned his head toward her sullenly. “It seems like you knew all the facts already; perhaps someone told you; perhaps you’re just exceptionally discerning. No matter what, you’ve guessed accurately.”
The elf looked embarrassed for a change. “I did not know or suspect any of those things until the last few minutes; the only thing I guessed at before was your desire for Vara, but that was obvious to anyone who had watched the two of you for more than a few moments. I did not see the depth of it before I read it in your eyes just now; I thought it might have been a passing fancy.”
She blushed. “I am a relentless tease, of course I joke, and as you are a handsome man — yes, I said it — with all the desire inherent, I thought it would be fun to enjoy ourselves to the fullest in our time together. But I cannot,” she said, crestfallen, “now that I know about your feelings for Vara.” She held up a hand to forestall his protest. “I do apologize, especially in light of the facts of your case. Two years is a long term to serve, but I would be doing you no favors if I were to ‘give in’ to your desires.”
She stood up and looked down at him and he could see wisdom in her expression; it permeated her being. “You are in love with Vara,” she said. Though there was no accusation in her tone, it felt like it to Cyrus, who had thought of almost nothing else since his night by the campfire with J’anda.
“Yes,” he whispered, hoping for it not to be heard.
“It wasn’t a question,” she said. “You must resolve these feelings, one way or another — it is unhealthy to be in such a state as they would demand.”
He looked down, still seated on the muddy ground. “Can’t you just… I think it would be better if we…”
She shook her head. “That way lies madness.” She extended her hand and with a surprising amount of strength helped draw him to his feet, armor and all. “You think,” she said, looking at him with intensity, “that in all my years I have not tried that? Burying myself in the arms of another willing partner to avoid feelings I prayed to Vidara would pass?”
She shook her head again. “No, I’m afraid until you resolve this one way or another, my answer will remain ‘no’.” Her hand found his cheek, and brought his mind back to the day, two weeks earlier, when she had awakened him at the inn. She favored him with a sad smile and after he helped her back up on her horse, they rode on in a silence that did not lift until the next day.
30
In the days after, the rain stopped as they entered the Gnomish Dominions and Nyad was much more restrained in her topics of conversation. Any time Cyrus steered their talk in a direction that could potentially lead to anything sexual, Nyad would change the subject to another matter. Toward the end of their journey, Cyrus finally brought up the one subject that he knew would be of interest to her. “Fine,” he said in response to a diverted inquiry into her time in Termina. “Why don’t we talk about Vara?”
Riding ahead of him, he could see Nyad smile. “You know I’m not at all reluctant to talk about others,” she laughed. “Although I have to confess, I don’t know Vara terribly well; we aren’t the closest of confidantes — not that anyone is with her,” she added with another laugh.
“What do you know about her?” he asked. “Why does she have such an attitude?”
“Well,” Nyad began, “I think that comes from her age.”
“Her age?” the warrior said with a furrowed brow. “Do you know how old she is?”
“Everyone — at least every elf — knows Vara’s birthday and age,” Nyad said. “She’s only twenty-eight.”
“Twenty-eight?” Cyrus said in shock. “I thought maybe you’d say one hundred and twenty-eight.” He paused in thought. “Why would every elf know Vara’s birthday and age?” The warrior looked alarmed. “Is she royalty?”
Nyad’s face turned dark. “No,” she answered in a voice that did not invite further inquiry, something uncharacteristic of the usually bright and cheerful wizard.
They did not speak about Vara again for the rest of the day. Sunset found them south of the Gnomish Dominions, which they had fully explored, stopping at a great many villages. Without sufficient-sized places to meet, Cyrus had taken to addressing their crowds in the streets of the gnomish towns, which got him yelled at on more than a few occasions for disturbing the peace and he had been kicked out of one village.
“Ornery enclave of necromancers in that village, if you ask me,” Nyad had said, rather nonplussed.
On the last day of their journey they climbed into the foothills of the Mountains of Nartanis, stopping in a human settlement called Montis along the northern edge of the mountain range. After meeting with people throughout the day, Nyad followed him to the inn that night. “Successful endeavor all the way around, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yeah, that was pretty successful,” Cyrus said, yawning. “It would appear we’re going to swell the gnomish population of Sanctuary by a considerable margin.”
“That’s good,” Nyad said. “Gnomes don’t get a great deal of respect in the world at large; if you picked any race that’s likely to be a slave, it’d be gnomes. There are as many gnomish slaves as there are free gnomes.”
“I’ve heard that somewhere before,” Cyrus said without much enthusiasm. He looked around the inn. “I suppose this is where we say our farewells.”
Her face was locked a grimace. “No hard feelings.” Her eyes widened in alarm as she realized what she had said. “I mean…” she paused, calming herself. “You know what I mean.”
He grinned. “I know what you mean.” He waited a beat. “And for what it’s worth, thank you. For… almost everything.”
She smiled, and once more her wisdom shone through. “I suspect,” she said with a mysterious smile, “that at some point you’ll be glad that things did not play out here as they could have. I suspect I’ll be sorry that they didn’t.” Without another word, she summoned the energies of teleportation and vanished in a burst of green energy.
A moment after she vanished, the inn door swung open and a red-haired elf strode in. A flash of recognition crossed her face and Cyrus smiled at her. “Hello, Niamh. You just missed Nyad.”
“I wouldn’t say I missed her,” the druid said. “Ready to go?”
“Not really,” Cyrus replied. “I usually get at least one night to recover before the next leg of our mission. Which is fortuitous, because I haven’t had more than three hours of sleep per night in a month.”
“I’m sure you haven’t,” she said, “But tonight is not your night. We’re assembling an army, remember? Grave threat hanging over our head and all that?”
“It is uppermost on my mind, when I’m not too tired to think.” He shrugged. “Any news?”
“No news is good news,” Niamh said with a smile. “The weapons are still in place in Reikonos and Pharesia, and we’ve sent a detachment of our people to both cities to keep an eye on things. Now.” She clapped. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and the terrain between here and Taymor is very rugged; lots of mountain paths and then hundreds of miles of near-desert.” Niamh brightened. “Which is actually why they sent
me to you now — my spell to imbue you with the essence of the falcon should come in handy.”
Cyrus nodded. “That is fortunate, but I’m still concerned about falling asleep and falling down a mountain.”
“No need to worry about that, silly ass, I’ll guide you. Come on,” she said. “We’re already running behind.”
Grumbling, Cyrus climbed back into the saddle of his horse and tried to keep his eyes open as the lulling of the spell that allowed them to float rocked him to sleep. Niamh had the reins of his horse gripped in her hand as she led the way out of town down a rocky path. So tired was he that Cyrus did not remember arriving at the next village, but was awakened by a shock of cold water on his face and sat up to realize he was laying on a bed of straw.
“You’re really heavy,” Niamh said in annoyance, standing at his feet with an empty bucket.
“What?” he spluttered.
“You fell asleep on your horse and I couldn’t get you in to the inn we were staying at so I just let you drift to the ground in the barn.”
“Couldn’t you have found some… more pleasant way to wake me up?” he asked, wiping the water from his face.
“Bah,” she said. “This was much more amusing. Besides,” she blinked her eyes innocently. “I tried shaking you, but like I said, you’re heavy, and I couldn’t get you to move much with all that armor.”
He pulled himself to his feet. “What’s on the agenda for today?”
“Well,” she said, unfolding a piece of parchment and handing it to him, “we’ve got early meetings in this town, and then around midday we’ll be out of here and into the next town by evening for another meeting.”
“If I survive the next two months,” Cyrus said, “I will not leave Sanctuary again for a very, very long time.”
“Right,” Niamh said. “Well, let’s get on that surviving business.”
The next few days passed in a blur. They crossed the mountainous terrain for a day or two at a time, then spent a half day in a small village or town, Cyrus speaking as usual, and then left as quickly as they had arrived, with a time and a list of names of people who would meet their druid or wizard later for passage to Sanctuary.
At some point, after about two weeks of travel, Cyrus and Niamh had entered into an easy rapport. Back and forth, and able to venture into the realm of personal inquiries.
“You’re in love with Alaric?” Cyrus said with just a hint of skepticism after the druid’s admission.
“Yeah,” Niamh said after a moment. “I don’t really know what to do about it, though.”
Cyrus blinked in confusion. “I thought you and Curatio were together?”
“Oh, heavens no. He’s a lot older than me. And an elf.”
Cy’s eyes narrowed. “You’re an elf.” She sputtered for a moment, unable to respond. “If it makes you feel any better,” he said with a sigh, “I found out a few months ago that I’m in love with Vara.”
“Wow,” Niamh said with a laugh. “You might be the only person in Sanctuary with less of a chance at love than me.”
“I’m glad you find this so amusing,” he said in a sour tone.
“Misery loves company. Or at least a sympathetic ear.”
“I’ve got a question for you. Are you older or younger than Nyad — if you don’t mind my asking.”
“I don’t mind. I’m six hundred and twenty-three. So, yes,” she said with a smile, “I’m older than Nyad by a bit.”
“Nyad said that every elf knows Vara’s age and birthday, and when I asked her if Vara was royalty, she said no but got tense and wouldn’t speak any more.”
“Vara’s not royalty,” Niamh said. “Nyad, on the other hand, is — which might be why she got so testy about it. She’s a princess of the royal family; the King’s youngest daughter. Not only a part of the massive royal family, but a Princess, no less — one of fifty or so, and being the youngest, she’s more honored than the older ones.”
“They respect youth more than age in the Elven Kingdom? Interesting,” Cyrus said with surprise. “Never heard of a race that does that before. But that also leads me to the next question I have — which is, if Vara isn’t royalty, why does everyone know her birthday and age? Nyad made it seem like she was famous throughout the elven world.”
“She is,” Niamh said. “But… I can’t really talk about it, I’m sorry,” she said. “Vara’s history is tied up in a pretty sensitive topic to elves, one we don’t discuss with outsiders.”
“Not at all?”
“No,” she said, red hair whipping in the wind.
The next two weeks passed more quickly than the first, and Cyrus felt progressively worse as they went. This was compounded by Niamh’s steadfast refusal to discuss the topic of Vara’s mysterious history with him. “I’ll tell you anything you want about Vara since she joined Sanctuary,” the red-haired elf told him. “But don’t ask me about anything before that, because I’ll give you the same answer: it’s a sensitive matter, one we don’t talk about among outsiders.”
As the days passed, the Mountains of Nartanis gave way to flat land on the edge of the Inculta desert: sparse, desolate terrain broken up by small villages at least a day’s ride from each other. When they reached the village of Taymor at the far edge of the desert and on the shores of the Bay of Lost Souls, they stopped for the night.
The next day, Niamh transported them to a portal on the edge of the oasis, a lake in the middle of the desert. They spent the next five days traveling to seven villages that ringed the body of water. Each of the villages belonged to a different tribe of desert dwelling humans. Wild men and vicious fighters, the tribes of the south catered to travelers passing through as well as a few mining operations but were feuding with each other. The heat of the desert gave Cyrus a feeling of perpetual feverishness and even when they reached the end of their time in the desert and left, the feeling did not depart.
On their final day together, Niamh teleported them to a town in the Elven Kingdom, on the other side of Arkaria. They appeared at a portal not far from a village called Nalikh’akur close to the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp.
“Nalikh’akur,” Niamh explained with the knowing voice of someone who had lived through more history than most humans had read about, “is an elven military outpost on the frontier of troll territory. During the war it was first to fall to their invasion but once they were defeated the Elven Kingdom rebuilt it, complete with a garrison to watch troll activity. Nalikh’akur means ‘Last Bastion’ in the human tongue.”
“Hmh,” Cyrus said, still feeling warm and flushed from their time in the desert.
“You don’t look well,” Niamh said. “I can’t believe you’ve done this for the last five months.”
“Neither can I,” Cyrus said without energy. He pulled tighter on Windrider’s reins. His arms felt heavy, as did his helm. “But ‘time is of the essence’,” he parroted Alaric for the umpteenth time.
“Getting close,” she breathed. “We’re meeting in the tavern.” She guided her horse to a stop. Dismounting, she walked through the door.
Cyrus did not notice; he nearly fell off his horse in his dismount attempt. Struggling to put one foot in front of another, he made his way through the door to the elven tavern, and discovered a sight that under normal circumstances might have shocked him: Vara, sitting at a table with Niamh, drinking an ale and waiting with an air of impatience.
“Took you long enough,” she harrumphed as he walked through the door.
“I made it as fast as I could,” he said as forcefully as he could muster — which wasn’t very forceful at all.
“We’ll be leaving this town at midday tomorrow” Vara began, “after a meeting tomorrow morning. We’ll ride south and west, to the Emerald Coast, and visit three villages there before we cross to the east and start meeting with some of the elves of the woods. From there we’ll head south, wending our way toward the capital, Pharesia, where we’ll conclude our business and teleport to Reikonos for a last meeting
.”
“I thought…” Cyrus said, fighting to squeeze every word out, “…Reikonos had already been picked clean by every other guild in Arkaria.”
“They have. But Alaric believes that you may in fact be able to offer the last few unguilded souls in Reikonos something that no other guild can offer.”
“What’s that?” Cyrus said.
“A sense of honor and purpose,” Vara answered in annoyance. “You know, these basic principles upon which we stand, that you are supposed to be emphasizing as you go across the land bringing word of our efforts?”
“He’s telling everyone, trust me,” Niamh said before Cyrus could try and formulate an answer. “He’s doing a magnificent job of it. We managed to find another 165 potential recruits in the last four weeks.”
Vara straightened. “Not bad. That’s almost five hundred since you left, outside of our other efforts.”
“Other efforts?” Cyrus’s words sounded slow and distorted. Everything that was being said sounded as though he was listening to the conversation under water.
“Yes, we’ve not made you our only hope. Is there some reason,” she nearly spat at him, “that your head is laying on the table?”
“I’m tired.”
“Could you, for once in your time with Sanctuary, at least try to represent us with a spirit of dignity?” she snapped.
Cyrus was beyond caring. A moment after she spoke he slid from his chair and landed on the floor. There were interruptions in what he saw after that — Niamh and Vara, both looking concerned over him, talking quickly.
“He’s burning up and my healing spells aren’t doing anything,” Niamh said, breathless.
“Some sort of natural fever then,” Vara said from above him, looking down. “How long has he been ill?”
“I don’t know; he hasn’t complained about feeling ill — only about being tired.”
“Can you hear us?” Vara asked, turning her attention back to him. Cyrus saw but did not feel her slap his face. He heard the impact echo in his brain. She was there, hair shining in the dim lamplight.
Magic, Myth & Majesty: 7 Fantasy Novels Page 22
