“You don’t consider Mortus or Yartraak to be the most dangerous enemies you’ve faced?” Mirasa asked, her dark yellow hair falling over her shoulder. For the first time, Cyrus noticed a small smudge of dirt on her brow. I suppose she works to grow the crops here as well as runs her tree. “They were gods.”
“There was only one each of them,” Cyrus said, “and their armies were of normal-sized creatures, for the most part, largely lacking in magic. These titans were a pox of trouble before they knew spellcraft, and now—speaking from experience—they just gave me one of the hardest shellackings I can recall ever having perpetrated upon me.” He undid his chinstrap and rubbed at his face carefully, avoiding pinching himself with the gauntlet’s joints. “I don’t relish the thought of trying to defeat their entire nation in battle. How many of them are there?”
“They have a fearsome army,” Cora said carefully, drawing an irritated look from Fredaula at her frank assessment. “Tens of thousands, I think.”
“Damn,” Vara whispered.
“We may even be outnumbered,” Cyrus said, settling his gauntleted fingers back on the table with a rap. “And who knows how many spellcasters they have at their disposal?” He let out a slow breath. “I have charged into war many a time, some would say stupidly—”
“Only those who know you best,” Vara said. “Or at all, really.”
He gave her a weak look of annoyance and received a supportive smile in return. “I simply don’t wish to commit to a war that I don’t know if we can win, especially when I’m not sure if it’s even necessary.” Cyrus looked around the room. “I mean, really … why do you stay here? The Kingdom has space to grow, and if you pulled north of the mountains, you could—”
“This is our home,” Gareth said firmly.
“The Iliarad’ouran woods were once our home as well,” Martaina said, and made it sound like she was reading an indictment from atop a platform in some town square, “but when the time came, you left as easily as if they were not.”
“I made a mistake,” Gareth said, the sting evident in his high voice. “When I came back, you were—”
“Gone, yes,” Martaina said, and her eyes were slightly narrowed. “Because—”
“As much fun as it is for the rest of us to witness this very dramatic, very personal moment,” Cyrus said, watching the red spread over Martaina’s cheeks as Gareth fidgeted in his chair, “please settle this later.” He stared at Gareth then looked to Cora. “You could leave. Back in the Kingdom, you could surely establish a new town somewhere in—”
“No, we couldn’t,” Cora said sadly. “We’re not wanted there, and we don’t really believe in Danay’s great kingdom in any case.”
“Danay’s great kingdom,” Gareth said with a snort, and Martaina nodded along. “The greatest place in Arkaria to bleed yourself dry for your ambitions while they take every bite of food out of your mouth and reapportion it wherever the king and his advisors desire. Where the lands are all taken by the nobility, and if you want to carve out your own homestead, good luck getting a land grant. For those of us who eschew city life, there is no place in the Elven Kingdom but tending some lord’s plantation.” He bowed his head and the disgust was plain. “Most of us tried that life and grew tired of it. Better to live free and die here on our own, mostly outside his grasping fingers than be suffocated by his heavy-handed ‘benevolence.’”
“Well, that’s certainly your choice,” Cyrus said, taking it all in. Fredaula and Mirasa were nodding along with every word of Gareth’s tirade while Cora had watched Cyrus for his reaction. “But there are other lands in the north—the Plains of Perdamun, for example—”
“Ah yes, the Warden of the Southern Plains offers us a slice of his kingdom,” Cora said. “It’s generous of you … but again, it is not our home.”
“Your home,” Cyrus said, reaching the end of his ability to humor them, “is in the middle of the most hostile habitable land in all Arkaria. You might have better luck settling Luukessia once the titans,” he gestured vaguely toward the outer wall of the tree, “have found your place here, because I get the sense that you’ll have an extremely short fight once they know where to find you.” He lowered his head like a bull on a charge. “The smartest move I can make against an army this superior is to post my own in defense of the Heia Pass and around the portals nearest our settlements to deal with the titans the next time they reach their hand forth to—”
“How long will you be able to do that?” Cora asked sadly. “If they are at war with you, they will come. They will come, yes, to your portals at first, and then, if you turn them aside, which is hardly a given with the size of the forces they could send against you—to portals slightly farther away. They could assemble an army a day’s march from Sanctuary for them, and sweep down upon you, climbing your walls with no more effort than you take to scale a stone wall around a goat pen.” She stared him down, fierce, eyes awake with anger and passion. “You know what you are facing. You looked Talikartin in the eye, did you not? They are followers of Bellarum, and you should know what that entails—”
“I damned well know what it entails,” Cyrus said abruptly, dark and menacing. “I know.”
Cora’s visage softened, and she looked away. “The hour is late, and the day is gone. You should rest, and tomorrow—or rather later today—we will show you Amti as it is when it is awake.” She looked up. “We will show you what we would have you fight for, and you may determine for yourself whether it is, indeed, worth the price we reckon it will cost.” She stood and started to usher them from the room. Cyrus let himself be led away, but his head was aswirl all the while as Mirasa and Fredaula led them down the sloping ramp deeper into the tree.
“What is it?” Vara murmured in his ear. Cyrus caught Curatio looking over his shoulder at them, but only a glance.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Cyrus said, trudging along behind their guides. “In private,” he said, though he suspected he need not explain that to her.
They’re in a hell of a mess, he thought, trying to keep his boots from echoing loudly in the quiet interior of the hollow tree. He watched Fredaula as she walked ahead of him, head bowed, the perfect image of the silent, steadfast elf. This is not like the quiet parties of Pharesia or even the subtle noise of Termina. This is a town in silence, enforced and frightened. And Cora was right; they face a relentless enemy, intent on hunting them down. I’m surprised the titans haven’t burned the entire jungle down yet just to be finished with the thing …
He felt a trickle of cold sweat roll down the back of his neck, and it chilled him almost as much as his next thought. That day is coming, though, surely. The titans won’t stay distracted by the dragons forever—or by us, apparently. They’ll come for these people, and it will be a mad slaughter one way or another, just as the God of War would will it …
… and when it comes time for the titans to deal with Sanctuary … he realized rather grimly, … they won’t even hesitate to do exactly the same.
16.
“This is our greatest export,” Fredaula said stiffly, almost reluctantly, handing over a chunk of ore. It was a heavy piece, and she laid it in Cyrus’s hand with a little extra force, telling him in perfectly clear terms that she was not happy to have to disclose this to him. They stood in a mine several hundred feet beneath the surface of Fann’otte, in a cool, dark cave with rock walls that were occasionally broken by the edges of especially large roots.
He felt the weight and the subtle pressure of it as he stared, puzzled, at the unrefined, shining metal hiding entwined in rock. “Steel? Iron?” He shrugged. “I’m not a smith, so I don’t—”
“You should,” Curatio said with a smug smile. “You’re wearing nearly your weight in it.”
Cyrus looked down at the metal again. “This … this is quartal?”
“Yes,” Fredaula said with a hiss of breath, clearly no happier about telling him now than before she’d slapped the ore into his hand. She took it back a litt
le roughly, and it passed under Vara’s nose as the paladin followed it with her gaze. “We have the only veins currently mining this most rare metal—”
“What?” Cyrus blinked. “That can’t be right. A few years ago I was instructed to seek out quartal, and then the only place it was available was in the Realm of Darkness.”
Fredaula shrugged impatiently. “Well, I don’t know where you heard that, but it’s clear that they were not aware of our secret, for we’ve been shipping it in small quantities to the Kingdom for almost a century now.”
“Where do you think your chain mail came from?” Curatio asked, once again smiling.
“I guess I never asked,” Cyrus said stiffly, a bit annoyed. If Bellarum knew they were mining quartal here, why would he send me to the Realm of Darkness to retrieve the ore from Yartraak’s treasure room? He fingered Praelior’s hilt idly. Unless he wanted me to test my mettle against the God of Darkness’s minions rather than simply barter for a chunk of it. It certainly wouldn’t take me gathering an army to come here and barter for it … no conquest, no prize.
“We had been sending quite a bit to King Danay as our payment for taxes,” Fredaula said, still stiff as a tree trunk, “though obviously we are in arrears now.”
“I don’t expect he’ll be rushing to send a tax collector down to make good on your debt,” Vara said with a trace of irony. “Would they even know where to look?”
“No,” Fredaula said, “but we all have family still in the Kingdom, and the elven law makes clear that family obligations pass in succession, including debts.” She cradled the quartal to her side. “None of us wish to be a burden simply because we don’t like the king, and we certainly … reserve a share more for ourselves than we might otherwise have given.”
“In other words, you’re tax cheats,” Cyrus said.
Fredaula’s lined face reddened. “It’s criminal, what Danay does to the kingdom.”
“I’m not going to report you,” Cyrus said with a shrug, “merely calling it as I see it. King Danay and I have no love for one another.” He started back toward the entry to the tunnel.
“You …” Fredaula scurried to keep up, “… you’ve met the king?”
“Met him,” Cyrus said, “defended his kingdom, got into a rather heated argument with him. All of those, actually.”
Fredaula seemed to soften slightly, her wrinkled face relaxing. “Oh. Well. I didn’t expect such a steadfast defender of the kingdom to be …”
“I defend the people,” Cyrus said, boots crunching in the tunnel grit. “The Kingdom and its current monarch can go spit for all I care.”
“A noble calling,” Fredaula said.
“Yes, it fills him up all the way to his eyeballs,” Vara said, and Cyrus caught the hint of a smile at her lips in the way she said.
“We will, of course,” Curatio said, sending a darting glance to Cyrus suggesting he had caught all of Vara’s meaning and perhaps was suppressing a comment of his own, “be consulting with our council before making any decisions.” Cyrus eyed the healer and received a look in return that suggested he was perhaps stating this as a reminder for all in the tunnel, a small group that only included the three Sanctuary officers and Fredaula. Mendicant, Martaina and Scuddar had drifted down a secondary spur with Cora a few hundred feet back. Miners worked carefully, tapping at the walls with pickaxes. They made way as Cyrus and his party brushed past, bowing their heads slightly and hiding smiles as he passed. Probably hoping we’re their salvation.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see on that one.
Fredaula led them back out of the tunnels and into the pit at the bottom of the tree. Fann’otte did not open directly into the mines; it was hollowed near the bottom, the ramp clear all the way into the roots, and a series of doors on the ramp allowed for carts to be pulled up into the tree proper with their precious ore. Cyrus listened as they opened one of the doors and he emerged into the quiet air of the tree, absent the tinking sound of pickaxes working in time. To his ears it was another maddeningly careful security precaution.
But to these elves, it’s perhaps the difference between life and death.
Mendicant, Martaina, Scuddar and Cora waited ahead on the ramp, pausing in the middle of some quiet conversation upon their approach. This whole place is steeped in silence, Cyrus thought. It is the deadest town I’ve ever seen, perhaps even more bereft of life than the Realms of Darkness or Death.
Mendicant watched Cyrus’s approach and scampered toward him slightly, robes dragging the ground. “Did you see what they mine?”
“I saw it,” Cyrus said, slipping into the impromptu circle as Cora moved to allow it to widen to accommodate the new arrivals. “And it is certainly impressive.”
“We can come to some accord if you were to deal with this giant problem,” Cora said, perhaps a little too coy behind her smile.
“Cora,” Vara said, shaking her head, “you should know better than to try and influence us in so crass a manner.”
“I doubt it will have much bearing,” she said, slightly chastened, though not much given the gleam of her eyes as she looked at Cyrus, “but still … should you rid us of this problem, our gratitude will be made manifest in the form of a ten percent commission to Sanctuary in perpetuity.”
“I doubt we’ll take it,” Cyrus said, looking around the circle.
“It is yours whether you want it or not,” Cora said. “We make no demands save for that one—that you will not do this thing without recompense.”
Cyrus sighed, and caught a cocked head from Curatio that suggested easy resignation to the riches offered. “Fine,” Cyrus said. “I’ll put it into consideration with everything els—”
An explosion of sound came from a nearby door, causing Cyrus and the others to jerk their heads around to seek the source. The door slammed open and a peal of laughter filled the air as a child, no more than three in Cyrus’s estimation, came bounding out on unsteady legs. An elven man with youthful features emerged from the door and caught the tyke a moment later, scooping the child up and lifting them against his chest. He was flushed and red, and when he saw Cora and Fredaula, he blushed an even deeper scarlet. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Fredaula’s countenance was dark. “You know better, Arisson. You need to keep the children in that room, safely in the quiet space beneath the earth, at all times.”
“I know,” Arisson said, in rough resignation. “It’s just a—it’s tiresome for them, you know, not getting to play outdoors or—”
“These are our laws, Arisson.” Fredaula had folded her arms and made an imperious wave back toward the door that the child had sprung through. Cyrus fixated on the fat little face, whose bright eyes were searching over the small group assembled before them. The child’s hair was of a length and the features so indistinct he could not tell whether it was a boy or a girl.
“Sweet Vidara,” Vara muttered in a low gasp. She broke from the small assemblage and moved toward Arisson and the child, stopping before them as though she were afraid they would turn into vapor if she drew any closer. She stared for a long moment and then, haltingly, started to reach out. She looked to Arisson for permission, and received a nod in return. With that, she pulled free of her gauntlet and reached a bare hand out to stroke the child’s ear, which was pointed all the way to the top.
“That’s a full-blooded elf baby,” Cyrus said as another chill ran through him. “A full elven child.” He hesitated. “Unless … are they like … eight hundred or something?”
Vara cast him a withering look. “Don’t be an oaf, we mature like you when it comes to childhood and adolescence.”
“Right,” Cyrus said, nodding. “Because you’re thirty-three, not two thousand, and you’re,” he gestured vaguely at her, drawing another exasperated roll of the eyes from the paladin, “well, you know. Mature and developed and lovely and … all that.” He looked to Cora, who wore a tight smile. “How?”
“We don’t know,” she said, now showing the same
sort of reserve that Fredaula had exhibited when showing Cyrus the quartal. “We only know that … well, that it happens now. That here … the curse of the elves has not applied since we were founded.” She hesitated, as though admitting something particularly painful. “It is … the other reason we cannot bring ourselves to leave.”
“And you hide this fact from the kingdom?” Vara asked, turning furious eyes on Cora. “You keep this to yourselves? You selfish—”
“Why should we tell them?” Fredaula snapped. “Do you know how often the King of the Elves has rendered military aid to us? Humanitarian aid? Any aid? The next time will be the first. We pay our obligations—”
“And cheat,” Cyrus muttered.
“—and nothing else,” Fredaula said, giving Cyrus a hot glare at his interruption. “They deserve nothing else from us, those infinite pillars of a dying kingdom.” She spat, a blob that splattered on the wooden ramp. “Let them die, I say.”
“Seems they say the same about you,” Cyrus observed.
“They said it about us first,” Fredaula said, sullen. “Let their feet twist and jerk with their neck in the noose the same way they would have us hang, that’s how we feel about it down here.”
“And what if I felt the same way about you as them?” Cyrus asked, catching another deathly glare from Fredaula.
“Then for all I care, you can go hang with your problems, too,” she said, her aged skin affecting a darker tint.
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