“I think… I should tell you,” he said, focusing every last bit of his concentration on Vara, “I think you… need to know…” Gods, she looks beautiful, he thought. Even a bit concerned — a new expression to him.
“What?” came the elf’s reply, distorted, slow.
Blackness claimed him.
31
“I don’t care!” Vara nearly shouted.
Cyrus awoke to the sound of an argument, still feverish. He clutched at the blankets that surrounded him, trying to pull them closer to his damp skin.
Niamh was standing in the corner, very near to a door, and Vara was facing her, back turned to Cyrus. The paladin was not wearing her armor. She was clad in a simple cotton shirt and pants, which was unusual for a woman — even an elf.
“Alaric wants it done now,” Niamh said. “He sent me to tell you.”
“If Alaric wants it done, then tell him to get off his etherial arse and do it himself!” Vara said, voice crackling with rage.
“I will tell him that,” Niamh said with a trace of a smile. “If for no other reason than it will bring him a laugh.” The druid brought her hands together and disappeared in a blast of wind.
Vara faced away for a moment, still looking at the spot where Niamh had teleported. He heard a sound come from her, something that sounded almost like a choked sob, and she turned to face him. His eyes were blurry as he stared at her.
“Ah,” she said with a sniff. “There you are.”
“Here I am,” he whispered, straining to string words together.
“How are you feeling? I only ask,” she said, “because Alaric is concerned that we are falling far behind on our mission.”
“I’ve felt better.”
“I should think so.” Vara stepped to the foot of the bed and adjusted the blankets around his feet. “You are still feverish. Healing spells will not improve your condition, which means that if you die of whatever illness you seem to have contracted, we will be unable to resurrect you.”
“Thanks,” Cyrus said without emotion. “That’s reassuring.”
“I am merely trying to be honest,” she said, eyes flaring in anger and — he might have been imagining it — fear?
“I see,” he murmured and passed out again. When he woke, she was beside him in a chair. She had changed into something that looked like a nightgown, and she was sleeping. The only light in the room came from the lanterns and candles. He watched her for a while, then drifted off again.
When next he awoke, he felt something cool and damp on his forehead. His eyes opened to a vision of Vara, cloth in hand, dripping cold water onto his head. “I’m trying to bring down your fever,” she said when her eyes met his.
He coughed and motioned for water, which she brought to his lips in a small dish.
“It’s been very difficult to get you to take water,” she said as he was drinking. “I’m glad you’re awake, because trying to get you to drink when you’re semi-conscious has been no mean feat. Niamh left a few days ago to let them know at Sanctuary that we wouldn’t be making our scheduled appointments. I’m told they have managed to cover for our absence.”
“It’s a shame,” Cyrus said. “I was looking forward to seeing the green elven country after the last weeks in the desert.”
“Oh, really?” she said without turning back to him. “And here I thought you had decided upon seeing me that night in the tavern that you would rather collapse and lie in bed for the next four weeks instead of tour the Elven Kingdom with me as your companion.”
“I’ll admit,” Cyrus said, shifting in the bed, “upon seeing you, I did have a momentary concern about working together. It felt as though as very big object was rushing at me, very quickly. But just moments later, it was replaced by the actual sensation of the tavern floor rushing up at me very quickly.”
She laughed, a genuine, hearty laugh that turned into a somewhat girlish giggle partway through before she managed to choke it off. She turned her head; by the look in her eyes it was clear she hoped he hadn’t heard her slip. A hand covered her mouth in semi-shock.
“Hah.” Cyrus laughed at her. “You actually found humor in something I said — and we’ve exchanged a few sentences without bickering.”
“I often find humor in what you say.” She turned away from him again. “Unfortunately for you, it’s rarely from things you intended to be humorous.”
“Ah,” Cyrus said with a little disappointment. “There you are again.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” he said with a trace of sadness. “I’m tired. I think I’m going to rest now…” He felt a sudden pressure from his head hitting the pillow as his neck muscles gave out, and he was unconscious again.
He awakened again at night, but something was different. The world around him was blurred, and lights seemed to streak in his vision. Urgent voices filled the air around him.
“My spells are still ineffective,” came the voice of a man that seemed very familiar. “He’s getting worse.”
“No doubt,” came Vara’s reply. “The fever is going to kill him if we don’t do something.”
“I’m not sure what else we can do, here. If this were Sanctuary—” the man’s voice came back.
“You’re a healer, for gods’ sakes!” Vara exploded. A moment passed with nothing said. “Fine,” she continued, and Cyrus felt he might have imagined her gritting her teeth. “Help me get him out of bed.”
“A walk would be nice,” Cyrus said, but what came out was completely unintelligible. He felt strong hands grasp him under each arm and lift him out of the bed. The cloth nightshirt he wore was soaked, clinging to his skin and chest hair. He heard and felt the door to the room open as Vara and the man carried him between them, one arm on each of their shoulders and dragging his flailing legs behind him.
“Stop trying to help us,” she snapped at him. “You’re making this much more difficult.”
“Okaaay,” Cyrus said again, once more making a complete hash of his words. He turned his head to look back at what he could have sworn was Narstron, waving at him from the side of the street, but a flash of insight revealed that it was, in fact, a shrub.
“I had assumed,” Vara said, voice strained, “that relieving him of his armor would make him considerably lighter but in fact I cannot tell a difference.”
“Heh,” came the man’s voice next to him. Cyrus’s head swung around, feeling a bit loose on his shoulders. He realized with a start from the carefully groomed hair that it was Curatio.
“Curatio!” he shouted, barely sensate.
“Sounds like he’s at least conscious enough to recognize me,” came a grunt from the elf.
“Marvelous,” Vara said with sarcasm. “If only he were conscious enough to assist us in transporting his considerable bulk.”
“I tried to help,” Cyrus said, once again squeezing the words out, “but you told me to stop, and I did as you said.”
“Why does it take being feverish to the point of near death and being dragged around to get you to listen and act on reasonable suggestions? All right, we’re here. Curatio, wait on the shore; there’s no reason for both of us to get completely soaked.”
Cyrus felt water splashing around his feet, then ankles and knees, felt muddy dirt between his toes as their pace slowed and Vara took up more of his weight on her shoulder as Curatio relinquished his grip on the warrior. After a half dozen more watery paces, Cyrus could feel water up to his waist. Adjusting her grip on him with a hand across his chest and back, Vara kicked his legs from beneath him and dropped him onto his backside in the water, submerging him up to his neck. The water was cold and his teeth began to chatter immediately.
“Don’t thrash about like a gutted fish,” she said, voice stern.
“But it’s really cold!”
“It’s not cold. It is summer and this pond is warm. You are feverish.” She clutched him tighter to her.
He felt her warmth — the only warmth he cou
ld feel in the freezing water and pulled nearer to her as well. His teeth knocked together and he hugged her so tightly that he feared for a moment he would crush her. When he went to loosen his grip, she pulled him closer. His face lingered over her shoulder, and he could feel her wet hair, hanging in tangles on the left side of his face. In spite of the chill, it felt good being this close.
“I always suspected you were trying to kill me,” he said, “but I assumed it would be swordplay, not drowning, that you would do the deed with.”
“If I were to truly try and kill you,” she said with fake annoyance, “I would certainly use a sword, if for no other reason than it would not involve me having to carry your overmuscled arse across a village to ‘do the deed’, as you so eloquently put it.”
“Overmuscled?” he said, drawing back to look at her eyes. They were such a bright blue, catching a glimmer of the lamps hanging on the streets of Nalikh’akur. “You noticed.”
She flushed and her face softened. “It would be impossible not to notice, being pressed against you like… like…” He could tell, even in his weakened state that she was searching for an appropriately insulting analogy. “…like this.”
He felt her hand slapping him on the face and realized his head had lolled back and disorientation had taken him. “Please…please…wake up!”
“You can stop slapping me now.” His voice was a whisper. He lifted his head and steadied himself, looking once again into her eyes and found concern within them.
“Just… don’t do that.”
“I promise I’m not trying to.”
Another giggle escaped her, then a slightly deeper laugh. She wrapped both arms around his neck to hold him upright and drew him close, keeping his head above water until dawn.
32
After the sun came up, Curatio helped them out of the water. “Your fever is broken,” the healer pronounced with a smile. Cyrus could barely stand under his own power. “You should be fine for now.”
“I’m hungry,” Cyrus said.
“Let’s get back to the inn and I think we can settle that problem,” Curatio said as he assumed a carrying position on Cyrus’s left. Vara moved to his right and grabbed his arm, more gently this time. He looked at her, and she looked back at him, but there was no venom in her eyes. She blinked at his gaze and looked away first. They walked back to the inn in silence but for the groans of the two elves, who were still carrying most of the warrior’s weight.
“You could at least help us!” Vara’s tone was all irritation, the moment of calm gone.
“I’m trying,” Cyrus said.
They deposited him in a chair at the tavern, where the owner proceeded to bring him platefuls of fresh eggs, beef, pork and chicken as he dripped on the floor.
Vara looked at him with a cocked eyebrow as he finished his fourth plate. “I don’t wonder anymore why you were so heavy to lift,” she said shortly after Curatio had left them to retire to his room upstairs.
The warrior looked back at her with a sly smile. “I bet you couldn’t go five minutes without throwing a verbal barb my way.”
“I could and I have, in fact, over the last few days — largely during times when you were sleeping.” She smiled. “But I usually don’t wish to defer such excellent ripostes to your often deserving statements.”
“I rest my case — I don’t think you could go a day without throwing some sort of jab my way.” He grinned.
She feigned shock. “You assume because you lack the self-discipline to control your tongue that I do as well. I could easily go a year without verbally abusing you for being an incompetent oaf with poor habits in your swordsmanship and hygiene.”
“Perhaps you could start with a week,” he said with a raised eyebrow.
“I think…” she said, slowing the pace of her words, “a month would do nicely for a test, don’t you?”
“A month it is. But if I win, I want something from you.”
“What’s that?” Her brow furrowed, curiosity in her eyes.
“I don’t know yet. But traditionally, when you bet, there’s something to wager.” He sat back in his chair. “We’ll have to agree on something later; I’m too tired to come up with something creatively punitive right now.”
The next days passed in an agonizing mixture of quick moments and slow recovery. The fever lingered for two more days, hampering Cyrus’s ability to move about. As soon as Curatio had pronounced him healthy, he jumped from the bed, eager to go anywhere else.
“You probably won’t feel like yourself for a week or two,” Curatio beamed at him. “Glad to see you’re feeling better, brother.”
“Thank you. It can’t have been easy to leave Sanctuary right now, especially with everything that’s going on.” The warrior looked at Vara, who was reserved, but the ice normally present in her eyes had melted somewhat. Turning his gaze back to Curatio, he asked, “So, where do we go from here? I’d like to finish my mission in the Elven Kingdom.”
Curatio raised an eyebrow. “For the last couple weeks J’anda and Niamh have been covering your absence. If you’re feeling that much better, you could take over for them.”
“I’m not opposed to you killing yourself in principle, but we just nursed you back to health.” The fire was back in Vara’s eyes now. “You could at least do us the courtesy of waiting a few weeks before undoing all the good we just did.”
Cyrus laughed. “There’s only two weeks left. I could handle two more weeks of that schedule, given what’s at stake.”
“You’re mad,” Vara said, pointing a finger at him. “Barking mad. Howling at the moon mad!”
“I need to finish this,” Cyrus said, urgency permeating his voice.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I feel this need to complete a task once I’ve started it. And before you answer,” he said, interrupting her already forming reply, “remember that you just wagered me that you could go a full month without insulting me. Calling me crazy was close to the line.” He wagged his finger at her.
She looked at him through half-lidded eyes, considering her response. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then shut it. Finally, she said, “Very well. But I want a lighter schedule that will allow you to take your time.”
Curatio chuckled. “We can work something out. In any case, I’m needed back at Sanctuary to deal with the influx of new blood. Can I do anything for you before I go?”
“Yeah,” Cyrus said. “What’s the word on the weapons in Reikonos, Pharesia and Hewat?”
“No idea about Hewat.” Curatio shrugged. “No one has contact with the dragons. We have a few people lingering outside the Citadel in Reikonos and the Museum of Arms in Pharesia.”
“They keep the Scimitar of Air in a Museum?” Cyrus shook his head. “Elves are bizarre.”
Curatio cast his return spell and disappeared into the burst of light that accompanied it, leaving Cyrus alone with Vara. “Back to bed with you,” she said in a voice that left no doubt that it was not a suggestion.
“I’ve been in bed for days,” he said, irritable.
“And you’ll be in bed for a few more if you want to be able to travel in good order. Take a nap,” she said, “and later we’ll work on getting your strength back up by going for a walk. We leave the day after tomorrow, and we have a long ride ahead of us.”
They left the inn two days later, setting out on horseback at a pace Cyrus would have found more appropriate for walking alongside an elderly grandmother. “We’re not going to push you to your limit,” Vara said. “I want you to be in good condition to talk to these potential recruits, else we might as well go back to Sanctuary.”
“Fair enough,” the warrior grumbled.
They settled into a silence that was only broken when Cyrus asked Vara a question. “I’ve heard about how busy things are back at Sanctuary but I haven’t heard much about Alaric lately. How is he?”
“Alaric is fine,” she said. “He was here, in Nalikh’akur. He came to check on you the
day after Niamh left. We had…” her jaw tensed, “…a marvelous conversation, he and I.” She did not elaborate further.
Three days journey south placed them in a town called Traegon. Filled with exquisite elven architecture, the city had towers and minarets on almost every building. They ventured into a local inn and found Niamh sitting next to J’anda, who was wearing an elven illusion. After exchanging pleasantries over drinks (“Ale for us, water for him,” Vara had told the innkeeper, pointing at Cyrus), J’anda and Niamh departed.
They met with many elves that day, and Cyrus could feel his vitality return as he spoke, telling them of the direction Sanctuary was headed, and of the opportunity they had to be a part of that movement. He shook a great many hands while Vara stood back with her arms crossed. A few looked as though they wanted to ask her something, but none ever said what was on their minds. They left Traegon the next morning, southbound once more, this time heading for a smaller village only a half day’s ride away.
“When did you first start learning to cast spells?” Cyrus asked her in the midst of one of their increasingly common civil conversations.
“All holy warriors learn to use basic magics early in their training with the Holy Brethren,” she answered. “I suppose it was somewhere in the first year or so after I began my studies.”
“Holy Brethren?”
“It’s the paladin’s version of your ‘Society of Arms’. They train us in the Crusader’s path from an early age.”
“Hm,” Cyrus said aloud. “I wonder if I could learn any spellcasting ability. It’d certainly come in handy from time to time.”
“You have all the magical talent of a silkworm. If you’d had any, it would have been identified by one of the magic-using Leagues and cultivated from childhood.”
He regarded her with suspicion. “Sounded like an insult.”
“No… ah…” she fumbled, “silkworms create a silk thread, you know. Spin it into fabric — it’s really quite… magical.”
Magic, Myth & Majesty: 7 Fantasy Novels Page 23
