Legend

by Robert J. Crane

  “Who was the man who spoke to me?” I asked. “He called you kinsman.”

  Rin barely pursed his lips this time. “He is the—” another Protanian word spat forth, but this one I remembered. “The defense minister. And yes, he is of my House, though kin is a strong word, one I suspect he does not know the full meaning of.” He glanced down the table, which was now listening to another impassioned speech, this one from a woman in full robes on the right side of the table, just a couple seats down from Rin’s house-kin.

  “Will they be arguing this … question of language for some time?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rin said stiffly. “I have never been to a cabinet meeting before.” He surveyed the table. “It’s all somewhat new to me.” He nodded to the man who had just stood up on the right side of the table, a gaunt, insect-like fellow who was moving slowly and speaking slower. “That is the—” this word was sharper, “—the minister of prisoners. You passed through his territory when first you came here from your own land.”

  I remembered that place with the towering scaffolding in the distance where we had left behind at least half my father’s army, the place where the sun hung low and red and angry in the sky. The prison minister was almost croaking in his speech. “What … are they saying?” I asked.

  He stared straight ahead, listening, as the prison minister sat and a woman who was the darkest shade of midnight I’d yet seen, almost ebony, came to her feet, her eyes hawklike as she surveyed the room. “Now the—” another word issued forth, smooth, easier to catch this time, though the meaning was still unclear until he said it, “—the minister of education is speaking about the abomination of slavery in our culture.”

  “What does this—education minister think should be done about it?”

  He looked right at me. “This is where your education begins. Say it in our tongue.”

  I tried, and failed, mangling the second half. “I—”

  “That was not even close,” Rin said under his breath, as the speeches switched to the other side of the table, to Jena’s father, who somehow looked even angrier now than he had a moment ago, his face a still darker shade of midnight blue. He locked eyes on me and started to speak, loudly, which gave me another opportunity to speak to Rin.

  “What is his title?” I asked. “Something to do with mining?”

  “Yes,” Rin said. “All the mining for the empire runs through him.” He pronounced a word, harsh and guttural after a smooth first syllable. “Now you try.”

  I tried and failed. “Was that any—”

  “Better?” Rin shook his head subtly. “No. Try his title.” He raised one finger subtly to point to his kinsman the defense minister.

  “I don’t remember it.”

  He said it again. I tried, and Rin shook his head. “Abominable,” he pronounced.

  “Your kinsman—”

  “His name is Timmas,” Rin said tightly. “Try his title again.”

  I tried, and Rin’s dark eyebrows shifted subtly upward. “Better,” he said, higher praise than he had ever given when teaching me swords. “Now try this one …” And he shifted as a woman stood up to speak next to Timmas. She was straight-backed and serious, without a hint of the welcoming manner I had picked up from the defense minister when he introduced himself. “Her title is—” It was smoother still than the others. “Now try to say it without sounding like your mouth is full of river stones.”

  I said it, and he nodded. “Was that … right?” I asked, watching him for reaction.

  “It was close enough not to cause insult,” Rin said. “Now, try again, the ones we’ve just gone over. List them for me, and point—carefully, not obvious and rude like a pig.”

  I raised my hand and pointed to Rin’s kinsman, Timmas, first. “The Drettanden.” He nodded, and I pointed next across to the left side of the table, to Jena’s father. “The Yartraak.” I moved my hand to the minister of prisons, a thin, ungainly man who was shaped like a weathered branch. “The Mortus.” I pointed to the man clad entirely in green. “The Vidara.” I switched back to the right side of the table, to the straight-backed, serious woman who’d just spoken. “The Lexirea.”

  “Good,” Rin said, staring straight ahead. “Go on.”

  I moved my finger to indicate the woman in full robes. “The Nessalima,” the minister of magic. “And … the Eruditia,” I said, finally getting to the dark-skinned woman with the hawklike eyes.

  “Not bad,” Rin said. “Perhaps you can be taught.” And he settled into a silence to listen.

  I did as well, trying to stare into those faces. I didn’t know at the time who they would become—what they would become. But I felt small in the presence of their power as they talked about me, right in front of me—a gnat being discussed in a room full of gods.

  37.

  Cyrus

  The skies were dark as night, rain hammering down in chilling waves. Cyrus shuddered as the liquid found every chink in his armor and seeped through, soaking his underclothes with a frigid chill.

  “This is just lovely,” Terian said as the wooden deck pitched beneath them. The planks were wider than two men, and up above Cyrus could see a central mast towering into the sky like Aurous’s home, a solid wood pillar of wood, like a tree culled from the forests around Pharesia and sculpted smooth.

  “You don’t expect calm when you cross into the Realm of Storms,” Aisling said. “Unless you’re an idiot.”

  “Insulting the Sovereign is treason, you know,” Terian said, a little crossly. “It’s a law. Made by my predecessor, but still technically in effect.”

  “I guess we’re all traitors, then,” Longwell said. “Even those of us who haven’t sworn their loyalty to you, eh?”

  “Oh, please,” Terian said, “no one has sworn any loyalty to me.”

  “I have,” Grinnd said, the massive dark elf stepping up with his dual swords, clenched like meat cleavers in each hand.

  “No one but Grinnd, then,” Terian said, “which is why I have to take this treason about as seriously as I take gnomish anger over our buildings being too big.”

  “So … is that very seriously, or not seriously at all?” Calene asked, her hair soaked and clinging to the sides of her face, water dripping down her tanned cheeks. “Because I can’t always tell when it comes to you.”

  “I’m seldom serious,” Terian said, shivering as another wave splashed the side of the ship and the deck pitched to the right hard enough that Cyrus thought he might fall over.

  “This is actually a relatively calm night,” Isabelle said, her white robes darkened by the drenching downpour. She stood a few feet from Cyrus, her eyes squinted against the hammering rain. “I have seen the deck go nearly upright, people sliding over the edges and being tossed over by waves.”

  “Well, let’s nullify that threat as best we can,” Cyrus said, and waved his hand. The glow of magic reflected off the thousand drops of rain coming down nearly sideways as his feet left the deck of the ship. “Where are we, anyway? The Torrid Sea?”

  “Certainly seems like it,” J’anda said. “This looks very much like the barrier storms that churn the waters twenty or so miles off the coast.”

  “The Torrid Sea was not always a near-impassable boundary of storms,” Quinneria said, her purple robes soaked to near black. “I have read passages from the ancients referring to it as ‘The Placid Sea.’”

  “I read that!” Mendicant crowed excitedly. “I—”

  Cyrus held up a hand to stay him as he caught motion in front of them. He looked back before turning forward; a portal was mounted on a wooden wall behind them, hanging with a large door right in the middle of it. He looked ahead again and saw that what was moving was small, almost the shape of a ball, but with rougher edges. He saw it in silhouette, waddling across the deck on invisible feet. A subtle rise at the top suggested a head, and it had wing-like protrusions instead of arms. It was a little taller than he, and beyond it he saw another, then another, as a flash o
f lightning lit the sky and the rumble of thunder cracked across them seconds later, rattling in his helm.

  The pitch of the deck to one side rang against Cyrus’s boots as the wood rose up to meet him where he hovered, stabilized by the Falcon’s Essence spell. He adjusted himself to try to match the swells, still taking stock of everything he saw. He turned his head to the side as he moved with the ship, and cold water sluiced down and back into his helm, washing into his ear.

  “The places you take me, Davidon,” Terian said, blanching, one eye partially closed, water dripping down his exposed chin. “I swear—”

  A loud hiss cut through the night and Cyrus spun. Above them, on the wall with the portal on it, stood one of those ball-like creatures, save it did not look like a sphere at this angle. It looked like a bug crossed with a tortoise, the shell on its back and hanging from its arms creating a three-part defense against attacks. But as it looked down upon them, black as a shadow, Cyrus thought it looked almost as though it had wings.

  “Mystical steel has a hard time with their shells!” Isabelle shouted over a crack of thunder as the hissing cry carried over the deck and was taken up by others. “This will not be an easy fight!”

  “Everyone move back into the shadow of the portal!” Quinneria shouted, brushing against Cyrus as she pushed him lightly toward the wall behind them. He complied, even as he drew Praelior. The others followed along with them, Terian and Longwell next to him keeping a weather eye on the shelled creature that leered down at them while Cyrus stared out at the ones crossing the deck, running through the storm to attack.

  “Backs to the wall?” Longwell asked, pointing his lance at the thing watching them.

  “That only works if they don’t come jumping down from above,” Aisling said.

  Longwell nodded up at the creature peering down at them. “And if that thing lands on us, I expect it’s going to hurt quite a bit.” Cyrus gave it a glance; the creature did not look small or light.

  “Just stay here for a moment,” Quinneria muttered. The wind howled, the mast creaked overhead, and a wash of frigid seawater ran over the side. The ship rocked, the dark clouds in the sky lit by flashes of lightning, illuminating the uneven clouds above. Quinneria had her eyes closed now, concentrating, and then she raised her hands as they glowed with a fervent white—

  The thunder overhead rang like an explosion, and the sky lit bright as day. A hundred, a thousand bolts of lightning swept out of the sky and struck the ship, bright beams coruscating as though the world had slowed to an incredible degree around them. Cyrus squinted against the suddenly bright light, instinctively holding up an arm as though it would defend him from the currents of lightning descending from above.

  The shelled creatures closest to them were leaping and jumping, jerking spasmodically like popping corn in an iron skillet. Cyrus could see others doing the same dance beyond, and when he looked up, the one that had been watching them was caught of the thrall of the lightning as well.

  The flashes stopped, and the ship and sky went dark. The faint afterimage of the lightning faded, turning bright colors in Cyrus’s vision against the blackness of the stormy night. He blinked to clear the sharp colors, and something smashed into the deck next to him, breaking the boards.

  It was the creature that had been staring down at them, smoking as the rain soaked its burnt flesh and glowing shell.

  “Oh, wow,” Calene said as Quinneria slumped against the wall. “That was impressive.”

  “I’m glad you liked it,” Quinneria mumbled, breathless, barely audible over the swelling storm, “because I shan’t be able to do it again for a while, if ever.” The dark wet hair that framed her face now had a white streak down one side, and Cyrus suspected he knew where she’d gotten the raw power she’d used to conjure such magic.

  “That’s a shame,” Isabelle said dryly, “because this is hardly the last of Tempestus’s minions.”

  Cyrus came off the wall, ignoring the water that dripped onto his nose as he stepped out of cover once more. “What else is there?” He looked at Isabelle, who remained in the shadow of the unlit portal.

  “More,” she said simply, with unmistakable dread. “So much more. And … worse.”

  “When you’re describing terrible, life-threatening evil,” Terian said, “I find it’s best to be specific. Like, ‘Out of the winds above shall swoop a beast with terrible claws and awful, gnashing teeth and troll breath.’” He hefted his axe over his shoulder. “For example.”

  “There will come sharks leaping out of the water,” Isabelle said. “From belowdecks will come more of these things,” she indicated the dead, shelled creature, “and creatures like fish with gnashing teeth, to use your words, but also legs wide enough to choke a titan. And once we have fought our way through all that—which required my entire army—then we face Tempestus himself.” She looked right at Cyrus. “Now would be the best time for you to unveil your brilliant strategy.”

  Cyrus stood there, the rain pouring down around him, the ship pitching once more hard to the side. “All right. Let’s sink the ship.”

  “Sink the—” Isabelle’s eyes grew wide. “I thought you said that was a bad idea!”

  “It’s not my best,” Cyrus admitted with a shrug.

  “It’s worthless!” she shouted, and in the distance Cyrus could hear a hissing. “As you said, he probably swims—”

  “Probably,” Cyrus agreed, stepping out further into the storm, and looking up to the ledge above. He broke into a run, stepping up with the aid of the Falcon’s Essence. Above was a deck with a wheel so large Fortin might have strained to work it. Too bad Fortin’s dead, he thought ruefully. “Zarnn, I need you up here.”

  The troll was next to him in a moment, Rodanthar in hand. “What you need me do?”

  “I’ve never steered a ship before,” Cyrus said, a particularly violent wave splashing hard and drenching him again with drowning force as it washed over the side. Once it cleared, he kept speaking as though he hadn’t just been covered in frigid water. “I’m wondering if we can overturn it like a wagon taking a corner too fast.”

  Isabelle was at his elbow, still steaming. “There is no switchback or tight turn here, Cyrus.”

  Cyrus looked over the side, seas visible in the flashes of lightning now that he was high above the wooden railings that had camouflaged it before. “No, there’s not. But the waves …”

  Isabelle stared out over the water. “Gods.”

  A swell lifted the ship at that moment, rolling it from side to side a little more gently than others had before. Cyrus saw the great rise, as though they had just climbed the crest of a valley, and then sluiced their way back down again before the next wave arrived. “If you managed to turn the … rudder, I think? At the crest of one of those waves—”

  “Yarp,” Zarnn said, and leapt forward without waiting. He positioned himself behind the wheel, looking a bit like a child, reaching only halfway up the spoked, wooden monstrosity.

  “Do you hear that?” Isabelle asked, and Cyrus paused. The sounds of something running on wood below was obvious.

  “Cessation spell?” he asked the healer, and she shook her head.

  “No. The minions are not strong with magic, though Tempestus is.”

  “J’anda!” Cyrus called, and the enchanter rose to the top deck. “How do you feel about mesmerizing sea creatures?”

  “The same way I feel about mesmerizing any animal,” J’anda said with a little sniff, drenched to his skin and shivering. “That I will be very, very good at it, and probably save all of your lives. Again.”

  “Right, well, get on that, then,” Cyrus said and rose up higher, running to stand above the wheel as Zarnn began to turn it in earnest. They were still in a valley between waves, and with another flash of lightning Cyrus could see a tall peak of water in the distance, moving toward them. Two minutes away? Maybe one? Either way, it’s coming.

  The others came to the top deck, Longwell stationing himself at one of
the stairs to either side, Grinnd beside him. There was another mast in the middle of this deck, but smaller than the one below, as though it weren’t a full-grown tree from the titan lands but rather something larger than a sapling. Terian ran to the opposite side of Longwell, manning the other staircase with Aisling, shaded by her dagger, the rain spattering off her. She crouched in the shade next to a carved wooden railing support, looking most displeased at the soaking she was receiving.

  Martaina and Calene stationed themselves on either side of J’anda, standing near the edge of the deck above the portal. They had their bows drawn back, and Cyrus saw Martaina let fly the first arrow. Calene followed a moment later, and a scream cut the stormy night. The elven ranger weathered the hard rain as though it were nothing; Calene struggled more, her pace of drawing and releasing her shots considerably slowed by shaking fingers, as though she were chilled all the way to the bone. Bowe waited behind them along with Quinneria, as though hanging back in reserve.

  Mendicant scampered to the edge, balancing there, a few inches above the deck, surveying the goings-on below as Cyrus grasped at one of the wheel’s pegs, clutching tight in a hug that let his arms surround it, ready to push at the necessary moment. He watched the fighting begin to unfold, wondering when J’anda would involve himself, as he still stood at the edge, his weapon in hand, glowing faint purple like a lantern in the dark.

  “Let me know how I can help,” Cora said, easing up behind the dark elven enchanter, her cloak saturated and dragging heavily behind her.

  “If you see something get past me,” J’anda said, raising his voice so Cyrus could hear it, “do try and contain it so that poor Longwell and Terian and Aisling and Grinnd don’t have to do too much work.”