Quest SMASH

by Joseph Lallo

  In village after village Cyrus made his plea for people to join them, always closing his argument with the same words: “Some of you have wanted adventure from a young age, have wanted to live life on your terms and not reliant on what the soils would give you or the nobles would hand you or what money would come in. Many of us believed that that life was not possible, that we had not the skill nor the ability to live in such a way.”

  His eyes scoured the crowd, trying to make contact with every person in whatever place they were meeting. “I know this because I have felt the same – that perhaps life had passed me by, that I was always destined to be poor and stuck in a life I cared nothing for. I tell you now,” he said, fire in his eyes, trying to pass it on to the others in the crowd, “that this is lies. Adventure still awaits!

  “You can have whatever it is you desire, but we must fight for that life. I can train anyone who wishes to learn to be an adventurer, who wants to learn to live for themselves instead of their lords, their masters. I can train them to live a life of adventure, with a purpose greater than living just for themselves.”

  By the time he got to that point, he had already talked for several minutes about Sanctuary – who they were and what they did, where they wanted to go. His call to action got responses from his audiences. By the time he and Curatio reached Fertiss, they had actually outdone what he and J'anda had achieved in the first thirty days.

  Cyrus and Curatio said their farewells in the halls of Fertiss, a city built into the mountains, combining dwarven love of cave architecture with the tacit acknowledgment that many outsiders did business in the dwarven city, and as such, half the town was located outside.

  As Curatio disappeared in the light of his return spell, Cyrus reflected that although a genuinely decent elf, the healer was not much for conversation. Cyrus had only successfully engaged the healer about Sanctuary and their efforts. Whenever asked a personal question, Curatio would simply smile, shrug, and move on to another topic; usually an evaluation of one of their potential recruits, leaving the warrior frustrated. Curatio also refused to discuss members of Sanctuary, greatly curtailing their ability to find common ground. “It's not my place to say,” was the elf's response when asked about anyone, from Vara (most commonly) to Alaric.

  Cyrus settled down for the night in an inn nestled in Fertiss's foreign quarter, where the next person from Sanctuary to accompany him was to meet him on the morrow. He enjoyed a long soak in the inn's hot springs, and it was five o'clock in the evening when he fell asleep in the extra large (to dwarves) bed. He did not wake up until he felt a gentle caress on his cheek at ten o'clock the next morning.

  Chapter 29

  Cyrus awoke to find Nyad smiling down at him from the edge of his bed, hand gently stroking his face. He blinked three times in surprise before he sat up. “How did you get in here?” he asked in shock. “I locked the door!”

  The elf smiled back. “Locks are no great difficulty for a wizard.”

  “Especially when the innkeeper opens it for you,” said a dwarf from the door. “You know this elf? She said she was to meet you.”

  Cyrus looked down at the dwarf. “Yes, thank you.” The innkeeper nodded and shut the door behind him. Cyrus turned back to Nyad in surprise. “I thought they were sending an officer?”

  She shook her head. “There are only so many of you to go around, you know. They sent me instead; the Council is busy making preparations for war and training the candidates you've sent.”

  He yawned. “Sorry, I'm a bit tired; was just trying to catch up on my sleep.”

  “You'll need it. Alaric has set an aggressive schedule for us,” she said, handing him a piece of parchment with dates and times written on it.

  Cyrus studied the parchment with a frown. “This is worse than the last two parts of the journey.” He looked up at Nyad. “Curatio told me he was going to get Alaric to loosen up the schedule.”

  Nyad looked back at him. “Yes, Alaric said you might demur. He said to remind you that time is not our ally.”

  “I suppose,” the warrior said. The sleep he had gotten had not cured his chronic sense of fatigue and malaise, but it had helped somewhat.

  “Very well then,” Nyad said, jumping to her feet. “Let's make a start on our mission.” She clapped her hands together like a child and looked at him expectantly, still wrapped up in the covers.

  He looked back at her. “I'll be needing to get dressed before we can go.”

  “All right then,” she said, still staring at him. “Get to it! We have not a moment to waste!”

  He blinked at her. “Nyad, I'm not wearing anything under the covers. I'd like you to leave so that I can dress.”

  “Feh!” She brushed him off. “I'm two hundred and eighty-five years old, and spent more than fifty years of my life in Termina. I promise you,” she said with a smile, “there's nothing you have that I haven't seen before, many, many times.”

  “You haven't seen mine,” he said and refused to move.

  Calling him a prude, Nyad finally acceded to his wishes and left, slamming the door behind her. Once he was dressed, they mounted their horses and rode out the front gate of Fertiss, making their way down the mountain paths.

  “So you were... uh... with humans in Termina?” Cyrus said, uncertain how to broach the subject.

  “With? You mean in bed with?” she said with a cackle. “Oh, certainly. Humans, dwarves,” she said, voice turned wistful. “A gnome one time – that was very unsatisfying. Even a dark elf or possibly five – that was a strange night,” the wizard said, lost in thought. “Termina is a very different place from – well, from where I was raised, which was in Pharesia, of course, but... even more so from the environment in which I was raised.”

  “How so?” Cy's grip tightened on Windrider's reigns.

  “Not that people don't have sex in Pharesia, they do – what's the point of living for thousands of years if you can't enjoy yourself, right?” she said with a sly grin that made him remember that she was older than any human woman he'd ever met by almost two centuries. “In the Elven Kingdom relations are governed by caste. There are promiscuous elves in Pharesia, but if you wish to retain face, you must stay within the boundaries of the proper social behavior and not associate with someone in a lower caste than yourself. In Termina,” she smiled at the memory, “anything goes.”

  Cyrus's eyes were wide, having learned more in the last few minutes about elves than he had ever really wanted to know. Nyad, catching sight of the look on his face, cackled. “Prude,” she called out again, louder this time, echoing across the snowy road and through the mountain peaks beyond, mocking him.

  “I am... not,” he said without feeling.

  “You are,” she said with another laugh. “Your whole society is.” She turned her clear blue eyes on him. “It's not as though everyone doesn't do it. But humans get so caught up in talking about it, as though there's some righteousness to ignoring such a fun practice. And when you do talk about it, it's gossip. So-and-so slept with such-and-such.” She snorted. “And don't get me started on the delicate practice of saying 'slept with' instead of –”

  “That's enough,” Cyrus interrupted, uncomfortable. “I get the point.”

  She laughed again. “I doubt it, but we've reached the edge of your comfort zone.” She looked back at him, eyes dancing. “We'll keep working on that. I've got thirty days to despoil you.”

  They followed the mountains south to the river Mussa, leaving the frozen tundra and turning inland to follow the river south-west, stopping in the fishing villages by its edge. It was a wet country, with many streams feeding into the river, and a near-constant rain. They met with a succession of farmers and fishermen until they reached the shores of Lake Magnus, the largest lake in Arkaria. Taking a ferry across at the mouth of the river, they headed southeast into the Gnomish Dominions.

  Along the way, Nyad would chatter for hours about a variety of topics, most of which seemed t
o lead back to sexual matters. He could safely say that compared to her, he was a prude. She spoke at great length of her ‘conquests’ and would not hesitate to throw aside her robes at a moment's notice with nary a consideration to propriety, fording streams in the nude with her robes carried safe and dry above her head.

  The third time in a morning that it had happened, Cyrus was fighting against the current in his heavy armor, teeth chattering from the cold, and the elf shook her head like a mother, already on the other side of the stream, redressed and mounting her horse. “Now your prudishness is going to cause you to catch a chill,” she clucked at him. Fortunately he did not catch a chill, but when they reached the fourth stream, he at least removed his armor before they crossed.

  “Better,” she said as he strapped the metal coverings on his wet body. “But you're still going to be cold for a while.”

  His eyes lingered on her body when she undressed at the next crossing. As a human, she would have looked to be no more than thirty years old, and pretty enough, he thought. He reflected a bit too long, and she caught him looking. With another loud laugh, she pronounced with undisguised pleasure that he was beginning to come around to her way of thinking. Cy blushed but did not argue with her assessment.

  He stripped his armor off, and his underthings as well, and crossed in the same manner as she. Upon reaching the other side of the stream, he did not shy away from her eyes as she looked him up and down in appraisal. She moved closer, still in the nude, rain falling down, and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close in a strangely comfortable manner, and put her hands on his face, drawing it to hers.

  She met the heat of his gaze, and did not break off. Her look was sly, though, and there was something else to it. “Let's be completely open with each other before I completely open to you,” she said, pressing her naked flesh against him. “If I were to give you the relief you seek...” her eyes studied him, “would you be thinking of me? Or of another blond-haired elf of our mutual acquaintance?” He looked away and her face fell. “I feared as much,” she said as she pulled away from him and began to redress.

  His cheeks burned with embarrassment and he began to dress, slowly, frustrated. He heard Nyad's voice behind him, formal in spite of the fact that they had just been pressed naked against one another. “You were married, yes?”

  “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.

  Chapter 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?”

  “Y
eah, 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?”