She watched him with disinterest, but she watched him nonetheless. “How long ago were you married?”
Cyrus grunted as he scooped up her bracers. “Five years ago we got divorced. We were married for about two years.”
“Divorce is not common for humans, is it?” He found her looking back with a curiosity that did not match her languid posture.
“No. It’s rare and requires consent of both parties and the court. But she asked for it, I granted it, and the court agreed.” He turned away, facing the shattered windows, and looked out to the street. He saw a faint hint of distortion in the air, as though a mirage were outside the window; the magical evidence of J’anda’s illusion, visible only from this side.
“And what,” Vara continued, “were her grounds for wanting to part ways with such a distinguished warrior as yourself?” She said a moment later, more quietly, “If you don’t mind my asking.”
“I don’t mind.” He did not turn to face her. “We got married shortly after I left the Society of Arms, at a time when I was trying to be a guild warrior. I applied to several smaller guilds in Reikonos, and I was traveling constantly.” He eased himself onto the bed, still facing away. “She got tired of the lifestyle—of me wandering the world, always seeking battle. She wanted me to give up my aspirations and move to a small town where we could start a family and I could be a guard.”
“I have a hard time imagining you as a town guard, standing at a post for hours on end, every day for the rest of your life.”
He laughed. “I couldn’t see it myself. We argued constantly. She was a flower vendor, and was done every day by sundown. Whenever I got home, on the days I did get home, she didn’t know when she’d see me next, or...” He hesitated. “...if she’d see me. Smaller guilds don’t have as many healers as the larger ones, so permanent death is more commonplace. She got tired of the worrying, of arguing with me about it—tired of the fight, I guess you’d say.”
“Tired of the fight,” Vara said. “Yes, I can see that. You, though—you live for the fight, do you not?”
“I like fighting in battles,” he said. “But I didn’t enjoy arguing with her.”
“I meant battle,” she said, still draped across the chair. “You worship the God of War, after all. I could tell from the way you acted in the Chancel—outside of the moments when your jawbone was wedded to the floor, drool running freely from your mouth—that you were uncomfortable with the thought of being in a place where another deity was being worshipped.”
He shrugged, stung over her mention once more of his gawking. “It’s your idea of worship in general that confounds me. Have you ever heard of a Temple to Bellarum?”
Her face went blank. “I can’t recall ever seeing one in my travels.”
“That’s because worshipping Bellarum is done in battle; with a sword in your hand and the blood of your enemies sanctifying you.”
Vara rolled her eyes and let her head loll to stare at the ceiling. “Sometimes you really are quite barbaric.”
Cyrus leaned over his shoulder to look at her. “If you don’t like to fight, I would suggest you picked the wrong career.”
Unmoving, she waited a long moment before she spoke, and when she did, it came out in a small voice. “An excellent point.”
He spoke hesitantly, as if afraid to break the quiet. “Do you remember when we staged an invasion of the Realm of Darkness last year?” He cursed under his breath. “You weren’t there, never mind.”
She did not move when she replied. “As I recall, it came toward the end of summer, right about the time that the convoys began to be destroyed. What of it?”
“There was a moment when we were outmatched. These octopuses were killing us in the dark, and we couldn’t see, couldn’t fight them. There came a light from the back of our formation, filling the sky, paralyzing our enemies.” He chewed his lip, lost in remembrance. “I’d never seen anything quite like it until last night. It was what I saw your sister cast when she stunned that assassin.”
Vara lay still on the chair, then nodded her head. “I heard about it at the time—rather a gift horse as I understand it. The spell Isabelle cast is called ‘Nessalima’s Light’ and is every magic user’s first spell.”
“Named for the Goddess of Light, I presume.”
“Aye. But there is no one powerful enough to cast a light of the size you have described. Nessalima’s Light can help you find your way in a cave, or allow you to see a few feet in front of you on the blackest night, or blind an enemy for a few precious seconds; but not even the most practiced and experienced spellcasters could bring forth a luminescence powerful enough to brighten the Realm of Darkness. I would suspect something else.”
He thought about it for a turn. “So magic users’ spells become more powerful as they become more experienced?”
She lifted her head almost lazily. “Yes, but the amount of magical energy it would take to cast and sustain that light would be prohibitive; the spellcaster would be burning life energy to cast that monstrous of a spell.”
“How do you...burn life energy?”
She let out a great sigh of impatience. “Magical energy, that which we spellcasters use to craft a spell, is finite; once exhausted, one needs time to replenish that power before casting another spell. However,” she said, not raising her head, “if in dire straits and depleted of magical energy, one can continue to cast spells, but it leeches away your life.”
“That sounds...” Cyrus caught himself before finishing.
“Ridiculous?” Vara’s face was twisted in amusement. “Once, in battle with the Siren of Fire, I watched a young human wizard, fresh from his training in the Commonwealth of Arcanists—the wizard league—cast himself dry trying to extinguish her flames with ice. Once he was out of magical energy, he began drawing on his life. Before the end of the battle, he looked as old as any withered beggar you would run across on the streets of Reikonos.” She stopped and her voice turned sober. “He died a month later, still in the care of Amarath’s Raiders. He was twenty-five—and looked eighty years older.”
She lapsed into a silence again until Cyrus broke it. “The scar on your back,” he said. She lifted her head to look up at him. “Is that from Archenous?”
Her head flopped back against the chair. “Yes. A lovely reminder every time I look in the mirror of the value of trust.”
He thought about it. “Do you...look at your back in the mirror often?”
“What?” She looked up at him. “No, there’s a matching one on my stomach.”
“But still,” he said after another moment’s consideration, “that means you look at yourself in the mirror—”
“Oh, yes,” she said, voice cross, “I stare at myself naked all the time. Rather like you at the Chancel, I can’t keep my eyes off the female form.”
“I thought so,” he agreed with a nod. “It’s what I’d do if I was a woman.”
“Yes, you’ve proven that well enough already.” She lay back again. After a moment, a small laugh escaped her. “You were teasing me just now, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I absolutely missed it.” She stared at the ceiling.
“What’s on your mind?” He moved along the side of the bed until he faced her.
“What’s on my mind...” She let the words dribble out, slow and soft and completely in line with how she looked. “I’m tired.”
“So sleep.”
This time she only let out a sound of weakest amusement. “Not that kind of tired. Bone weary. Worried. Worn down by the incessant vicissitudes of my life.” She raised her head to look at him. “Vicissitudes means—”
“I know what it means.”
She arched her eyebrow. “Define it.”
He shrugged, uncaring. “It means bad things that happen to you.”
She snorted. “Pithy. But near enough to illustrate the point.” She fell back once more. “I’m sick of this—of running, of my father being ill, of my family and gu
ildmates being threatened. I’m well and truly fed up of this whole sordid adventure.”
He stared back at her, catching the note of pleading desperation in her voice. “And me?” He said it with a smile, trying to defuse the tension, the raw emotion that was coming off her in waves despite her weary posture. “Are you tired of me yet?”
Her head did not move off the chair, but her eyes found his, and he could see the barest gratitude. “No. I’m not weary of you, Cyrus Davidon, though that may change if you continue to follow me into my bedroom and stare at me when I change clothes.” She sighed, the sound of a tired soul. “I am drained and wish for nothing more than an end to these countless troubles. I want peace. Rather like your wife, I suspect, I’m sick of fighting.”
When he did not answer, she went on. “When I was young, I fought because I had something to prove. Whether it was in the Holy Brethren or as a recruit for Amarath’s Raiders or as an officer for that guild, it mattered not. I had a chip on my shoulder, ambition for greatness, desire and a hunger to conquer and convince everyone of my strength and the rightness of my cause. Archenous’s betrayal burned that out of me as I watched my friends and guildmates slaughtered by their own, all because one man’s desire for power and riches had grown beyond any level conceivable by those who had trusted him.
“When I joined Sanctuary, I fought to protect instead of increase my riches and power—to defend my friends, my guildmates, and even the people of Arkaria. I channeled my tireless aggression, my irascible, irritable nature into the idea that I was doing some good.” She paused to breathe in. “I have fought more battles than I can count, and have even seen guildmates die—but never because of me. Never because of my ideas or decisions or efforts.
“Now I have seen people die because of me. Niamh.” Her words came with a mournful certainty. “My sister’s guildmates died to protect me and my family. All because someone, somewhere, wants me dead—for what reason I know not.” Her expression hardened. “I will root out this Hand of Fear like the vermin they are.” She sighed, then her body relaxed, her fury spent, and she lay her head back on the chair. “But after that, I honestly have no idea what I’m fighting for—or why.”
She paused, her hands gripping the chair as Cyrus watched her, the most determined, lively, caustic and powerful woman he had ever known, reduced to a moment of supreme weakness. She breathed in and out again, as though gaining strength from the air itself, and then spoke, her words coming as though they were the last proclamation of a soul in utter surrender.
“When this is all over...I believe I am done.”
Chapter 21
Cyrus did not speak after her words were delivered; he waited in silence with her for a few more minutes. He started to say something but stopped himself several times, unsure that anything he could offer would assuage her anguish. He listened to her breathing, watched her chest rise and fall with each breath, and thought.
I know how she feels because I’ve felt that way myself. I don’t think she’ll believe me...not without telling her about... He sighed softly. What the hells, why not? he thought.
He cleared his throat and started to speak, but stopped. At some point, Vara’s breathing had changed to something deeper. Her eyes were closed. She had fallen asleep, her arms hanging off the sides of the chair.
Cyrus rose from the bed and shuffled over to her, kneeling at her side. She did not move or acknowledge him in any way. As gently as he could, he placed his arms beneath her and lifted her up, as though he were cradling a child, and carried her to the bed, lying her down. He pulled a blanket from the foot of the bed and covered her, walking as quietly as possible to the door before shutting it with only the hint of a squeak.
Two warriors from Sanctuary stood guard in the living room, greeting him with crisp salutes. Had they been there before? he wondered. “Keep an eye out,” he cautioned them as he descended back to the cellar and crossed into the other house.
He found Vaste still engaged in a game of cards with the Endeavor warriors as he emerged from the cellar. Friendly banter filled the front room of the house. “He’s a cheater,” one of the warriors, a dwarf, proclaimed in jest, throwing his cards on the table.
“Never seen anything like it,” another said, this one human. “How do you do it?”
Vaste looked up at Cyrus as he entered the room and nodded, scooping a handful of gold coins off the table and placing them in the coinpurse that hung at his side. “It’s a game of odds, boys—and you are the oddest I’ve ever seen.”
Jeering laughter filled the room as Vaste followed Cyrus onto the front steps. Cyrus waited until they were halfway across the street before he spoke, and only then in a low whisper. “They don’t know you can count cards?”
Vaste laughed, a deep, rumbling sound that came from within his overlarge belly. “No one ever thinks the troll capable of such memory-intensive and mathematical feats.” He rattled the coinpurse. “It’s made me a lot of money over the years.”
They entered the house that Sanctuary had commandeered to find J’anda standing with his hands extended at the front window, eyes closed in concentration. He opened them and looked sidelong at the two of them, but did not speak.
“He says it’s taking more and more concentration to maintain the illusion as the day goes on.” Andren nodded from a couch in the living room, Thad and Martaina seated opposite him. Just behind J’anda was a human in armor that was bluish in color, covered by a surcoat of purest white. Resting against the wall was a lance that was taller than Vaste, and the human’s hand hovered next to it. His eyes looked out the window, searching for any sign of trouble, save for the moment it took him to look to Cyrus and sketch a rough salute.
“Sir Samwen Longwell,” Cyrus said in genuine pleasure. “I’m glad to see you here.”
“Yes, sir,” Longwell replied, his odd accent even more evident to Cyrus after days of listening to the elves speak in their lyrical, singsong language. “Alaric added some more forces to the garrison after the attack last night.”
Cyrus nodded. “How are things back at Sanctuary?”
“Tense,” the human answered. When they met, Cyrus had asked the man what kind of fighter he was and Longwell had answered with a single word—dragoon. Longwell had proven himself a fierce fighter in numerous battles; a natural leader and a loyal soldier. “We’ve had more attacks from these Hand of Fear blighters.”
A jolt ran through Cyrus. “Any deaths?”
Longwell chewed his lip. “One. A ranger was on guard in the officer quarters and an assassin infiltrated disguised as an applicant—took out our man as the fires and torches were exploding, but not before the ranger let out a shout of alarm.” The dragoon lowered his head. “Curatio and Terian captured the assassin—but of course, he wouldn’t say a word. However many we’ve got in the dungeons now, it’s a quiet lot. Fortin keeps threatening to eat them, but they won’t say a word.”
Cyrus shook his head—the safety of Sanctuary members was his responsibility as general. “What was the ranger’s name?”
“Doubt you’d know him; he was a new one,” Longwell said, “but it was Rin Leviston. Human, from the Riverlands.”
“I’ve seen the name on guard reports,” Cyrus said, a flash of the weariness that Vara had described running through him. “Another attack is imminent here and I want to make sure we’re ready.” He looked to J’anda. “Any idea how long he can maintain that illusion?”
“Indefinitely,” J’anda replied, turning to face him, letting his hands drop to his sides. The enchanter strolled to a chair in the corner and flopped down, eyes bright and a smile on his lips.
Cyrus frowned. “I thought you had to sit there and keep casting to maintain the illusions.”
J’anda shook his head, a smile creasing his blue face. “No. A lesser enchanter, perhaps. I need only go to the window, cast once every few hours, and stay alive, and my spell will remain in place.”
“So why didn’t you say anything when we came in?”
Cyrus looked back at him, confused.
J’anda held out his hands, palm up, as though he were saying the most obvious thing. “Because I was casting the spell then, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” Cyrus replied. “Obvious to anyone—except us non-magic users. You know, the overwhelming majority of the population.”
“Yes,” J’anda said with a hint of wistfulness. “It must be difficult to be so...” His voice trailed off and his hand moved in front of his face, changing his features into those of an elf. “...ordinary.”
Cyrus turned back to the rest of the assembled. “I want to bring Fortin here and keep him in the cellar in case the next Hand of Fear attack is worse.”
Thad leaned forward and his armor squeaked at the joints. “Uh...boss, you think that this assassin group is going to come at us with more than the forty or so people they hit us with last night?”
“I don’t know,” said, “but I’d like to be overprepared rather than underprepared if they do.”
“I doubt Alaric will have much problem with that,” Longwell said, looking back at them from his place by the window. “Fortin spends most of his days stuck in the dungeon since they closed the wall.” The dragoon frowned. “He seems tense.”
Andren interrupted before Cyrus could respond. “He’s a ten foot tall pile of walking rock. How exactly can he ‘seem tense’?”
Longwell shrugged and Cyrus went on. “Get him here, if Alaric will part with him. A few more druids, healers and wizards wouldn’t go amiss if they can spare them.” He halted as the others nodded around him. “I need to go to the government center and meet Endrenshan Odellan—he has a lead on the Hand of Fear.”
“Want some company?” Longwell reached out for his lance.
“Yes,” Cyrus said. “Andren, Thad, Martaina, Longwell...you’re with me.” He turned and passed Vaste on his way out.
The Sanctuary Series: Volume 03 - Champion Page 16
