Legend

by Robert J. Crane

  “As you wish, Mistress,” he said with a swooping bow. I saw his loyalty now, bought with the ease of whoever gave him comfort.

  “Rin,” I said, pulling my friend aside, my thoughts raging in my head from all that we’d just heard. “You don’t need to do this, to make yourself the villain for these people. Come with me. Leave this place.” I pleaded with him, the baby held close by my side. “You don’t need them. You don’t need to be the object of their ire.”

  “No,” Rin said, and he drew himself up, keeping his voice low, where they could not hear him. “Someone will need to, for I know their kind as none of your people here do.” He looked at the freed slaves, still pouring out of the Citadel. “These new gods, or whatever they style themselves … they wish to rise, which means they will set themselves above others, above your people and the greenskins and goblins and dwarves and all others … let them unite against me, make me the face of evil. In spite of it all, I will gather to me the tools I need to try and help the people. This war, all war … they will hang it like a noose around my neck so none will ever forget what I have wrought here … and I will let them.” A gleam of triumph glowed in his red eyes. “I will be the symbol they need me to be. Chaos. War. I will continue to protect the people against their predations wherever possible, and when the day comes that I have my chance … I will turn the tools of their domination against them and end their empire the way it should have fallen today, with the rest of our people.” Rin pulled himself up, resolved, eyes almost aglow with scarlet, the rage coursed through them so. “I will make it so.”

  “That will be a lonely road,” I said, cradling the baby. “With all others turned against you.”

  “I will bear the weight,” Rin said, proud, a slight smile escaping his lips. “My rage with what they have done here will carry me through.”

  “Here come the others,” the Rotan said, “heeding our call.”

  I could see some of the anti-slavers - what was left of them—sidling out of the darkness, watching the emptying of the Citadel with a curious ravening, as though thinking about what they could accomplish if they had but a few more souls to rip asunder with their spellcraft. I saw the Nessalima, the Aurous, the Tempestus, the Levembre, the Lexirea and others, all make their way carefully forward. I wondered if they expected an ambush, but none came.

  “Where will you go?” I asked, tugging Rin’s shoulder as he started to step forward to face them. I could see the anti-slavers staring at him—at us, really—with looks of loathing. I had seen kinder expressions on the face of a crowd about to witness a raper hanged for his crime.

  Rin thought about it for a long moment. “I will take Chavoron’s realm as my own. Caraleen and I are the only ones that know the spell to get there. It will be a good place to hide and plan and consider …” he looked at the approaching deities with a calm belying the rage I knew lay beneath, “… what needs to be done.” He looked at me once more. “Good luck in your return to your homeland, Alaric.” His expression softened, and I saw the regret trace through him. “I hope you’ve changed your words.”

  With a sad smile, he turned, head held high, to face the fire that was coming for him. He stepped toward his enemies, keenly aware of what was to happen next, their jeers already falling upon our ears. Mathurin walked into their midst without care for the appalling things they said to him, or the disgusting things they threw at him. I only watched for a few minutes, my stomach churning in disgust, before I had to turn away from the spectacle of a brave man made an outcast by the last of his people.

  105.

  Cyrus

  The Realm of War had gone solemnly quiet, the armies departed, the stores of the fortress picked clean. The dragons had long since quit circling, Ehrgraz speaking to Cyrus only briefly at the top of the tower to warn him, “Do not seek us again, lest you find our wrath instead as your greeting.”

  “It’s nice to know that if we ever meet a common foe again, you’ll be wanting to stay out of the fight rather than settling accounts,” Cyrus had answered drily.

  “Be wary, lest we settle our own account,” Ehrgraz had said, and then he’d flapped off on his mighty, scaled wings, leaving the tower behind and disappearing moments later with all of his brood that he’d brought with him.

  Cyrus could hear the others keeping a polite distance behind him, waiting, shuffling, as he watched the army of gnomes depart, leaving the fields below clear and taking their outsized chunk of treasure along with them. Silence reigned over the fields of battle, a wind creeping through and rustling Cyrus’s hair beneath his helm.

  “Cyrus?” Terian asked, and Cyrus turned. The Sovereign was standing back, Vaste a few steps behind him, holding Quinneria’s body. “The hour is late. The battle is over,” Terian said. “Shouldn’t we leave?”

  Cyrus blinked at the fallen form of his mother, tiny in Vaste’s arms. “Of course we should,” Cyrus said, nodding. He’d walked around the entire perimeter of the tower, gazed inside the small building in the center of the pavilion before it had been raided for nearly every object contained therein, and had even seen Bellarum’s bed, along with the curiously familiar garden that lay behind the keep, complete with a pond and a bridge crossing over it. He’d kept any observation about its similarity to himself, though, for he had no answers to share and did not wish to break his silent rumination in order to speculate with the others.

  “Uh, good,” Terian said, giving a nod of his own, seemingly less sure. He gave an uncertain glance to Vaste, who was still carrying Quinneria’s body in his arms. “We’ll just head back to Saekaj togeth—”

  “I’ll take her,” Cyrus said, gliding over to Vaste and offering up his arms. The troll hesitated. “Vaste,” Cyrus said, “she’s my mother.”

  “And also the greatest pie maker to ever live,” Vaste said forlornly. “We shouldn’t forget that.”

  “She was also every bit the Sorceress that legend painted her,” Mendicant said mournfully.

  “She was that and more,” Terian agreed. “We’ll all rally at Saekaj and—”

  “I’m not going back to Saekaj,” Cyrus said quietly, and silence fell over the small group that remained.

  “Cyrus, maybe it would be best, if for now—” Vaste started.

  “I’m not going back to Saekaj,” Cyrus said. “I’ve spent too much time of late under the earth, and I’m through with that. Bellarum is dead. Let him inhabit the ground.”

  “Well, we burned his body, so that won’t be easy, scrounging up the ashes in order to bury them,” Vaste said, “but sure, why not start a quest at this hour? We all need something to do for the next few decades anyhow.”

  “Where are you going, then?” Calene asked gently. “If not to Saekaj?”

  “Anywhere he damned well pleases,” Aisling muttered.

  “And may the gods strike down any who get in his way,” Longwell added. “HAH! Joking. Gods, schmods, he’ll strike ’em down himself.”

  Cyrus raised an eyebrow at Longwell. “You should go back to Emerald Fields. They need you there.”

  Longwell’s levity left him in an instant. “I always intended to,” he said after a pause, “but … I figured we’d have … more to accomplish first.”

  “There’s nothing left to accomplish,” Cyrus said, looking at them one by one. “It’s over, now. You can all go home—wherever you think of as home.”

  There was a long silence, broken by Ryin. “So this is it, then?” The druid looked ’round, the scepter clutched in his hand. “We’re … done?”

  “We killed the gods,” Calene said, staring off into the distance. “What would we do for an encore?”

  “I can think of some vicious squirrels, hedgehogs and chipmunks that need to be exterminated, now that they’re no longer protected by the Goddess of Life, that traitorous wench,” Vaste said. “Trust me when I tell you, in spite of however innocent they may sound, they are indeed worthy foes.”

  “I could probably spear a few of them for you,” Longwell s
aid, brandishing Amnis, “now that I’ve got a worthy weapon. Not that I’m complaining about the old lance, but have you seen this thing?” He made several quick thrusts forward, the spear tip moving so fast that it looked like a blur of attacks against the empty air.

  “I have doubts about my ability to hit anything,” Calene said, her head dipping a little low, “but I reckon they’re bigger than a god’s eyehole, so maybe I could put a few on the point of an arrow.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Vaste said. “Who else wants to help me slaughter these little bastards?”

  “Couldn’t you just cast a fire spell and burn them out of their wooded grove?” Ryin asked. “You know, quick and simple, be done with it already?”

  “I want them to suffer more than that,” Vaste said.

  Cyrus listened to the back and forth, and felt a stinging reminder of countless meetings held around the table in the Sanctuary tower. The easy repartee, Calene’s dour expression disappearing as she laughed, eyes dancing and mouth open in pure joy, tugged at Cyrus’s heart and reminded him of other days. How many have we lost, from the day I joined Sanctuary ’til now?

  Narstron.

  Niamh.

  Belkan.

  Odellan.

  Nyad.

  Thad.

  Andren.

  Fortin.

  Martaina.

  Cora.

  Grinnd.

  Mother.

  Vara.

  Cyrus was suddenly aware once again of the tug of a chain around his neck, the medallion of the Guildmaster, and it was matched by the weight of his mother’s body draped over his arms. Everything was a weight upon him, threatening to drag him down. It was suffocating and oppressive, the tower suddenly suddenly thick around him, and he could not catch his breath. He looked toward the open spaces beyond, but they didn’t seem nearly open enough.

  I have to get out of here.

  “—almost as nasty as a feral gnome,” Terian said.

  “I have to go,” Cyrus said. He took a step back, boots clanking, removing himself from the ring of his fellows. Everyone in the small circle around him paused, and took notice of him. He was an outsider now, in where he stood, in how he felt. He blinked, and looked at them all, and before any of them could recover their wits about them, he said, “I’ll see you all again—someday,” and cast the return spell.

  He couldn’t hear the words they said as the spell pulled him away from them all, but he could see their lips move, got the hints of the hurriedly said farewells, the sharp suggestions to wait, but they all faded in seconds, as the spell’s white glow rose and then died, leaving him in the darkness of the Kings of Reikonos’s old guildhall, where he’d bound himself to return before they’d left for the Realm of War.

  Cyrus could hear the sounds of the city outside the wooden walls, a shout of laughter in the distance, and he listened for a time as he stooped to deposit his mother’s body upon Andren’s old bunk. He’d find a place to bury her on the morrow; he already had an idea or two.

  For now, though, his legs sagged with the weariness of the day gone by—all the days gone by—and he sank to his own bunk, listening to the sounds of Reikonos at night, still alive and teeming with life outside these walls—something which could not be said for him, with that dead feeling in his own chest, as though his appointed tasks were now finished, and he had nothing left to do in this world.

  106.

  Alaric

  For a time, I held the sleeping baby in my arms, watching the abuse and nastiness hurled at Rin by his new peers, until I could take it no more and turned away. The four great rulers who had saved us had moved off with their new servants, and I was left alone with the child in my arms and Curatio, who was still standing close by me, unspeaking.

  “So you will be leaving this land?” Curatio asked, somewhat suddenly. He had been quiet for so long I had almost forgotten him being there. “Will you go home?”

  “I … don’t know,” I said, convoluted feelings and fears rushing over me. I looked down at the baby in my arms, his face so innocent, so relaxed. He had no idea he had lost his mother, the one who had loved him and protected and sheltered him through this long night of destruction. I didn’t know much about babies, but one thing I felt sure I remembered was that they needed to eat, and I had no source of nutrition for a child anywhere on my person. “I—”

  “Look,” Curatio said and nodded into the distance across the sun-strewn rubble. I followed his gaze and saw the Mortus and the Yartraak making their way toward us from the still-standing portal to the south, with another figure in tow, female, and clad in green robes. As she got closer, I realized it was Caraleen, dressed as I’d never seen her, but resembling the Vidara in her garb; I wondered if she’d received a promotion after all, into this new order. They were followed by a handful of guards, no more than a dozen, and it made me wonder how many other Protanians might have been sheltered in Saekajaren Sovaren.

  “Alaric!” the Yartraak said as he came into earshot. He was running slightly ahead of the others, his head swiveling to and fro as he searched for signs of Jena. “Where is—”

  “She died,” Curatio said, devastatingly blunt, and I knew by the conciliatory glance he sent my way that he was sparing me the trouble of saying it, and all the pain that would have followed on from it. “She defended the Citadel to the last.”

  “The Cita-what?” Yartraak asked, staring as Curatio pointed at the tower behind us. “That’s not its na—never mind.” His voice cracked and faded as he seemed to recede within himself. “How did she …?”

  “She drained her life into a spell to protect us from the Mortus’s lich magic,” I said, and brought up the bundle at my side. “This was her last act … she held out long enough to give birth.”

  The Yartraak stared at the child, and then reached out with his long fingers. “I … did not know she was with child.” His fingers brushed the baby’s face. It jerked away from him at the tickling sensation, making a face that made me think he might cry even though the boy’s eyes were closed.

  “The child will need nursing,” I said, doing my best to sound dignified rather than pleading.

  The Yartraak met my gaze with his own, and I felt there was an understanding between us, though his expression turned pained after a moment of eye contact. “You have not raised a child before?”

  “Have you?” I asked, throwing his challenge right back in his face.

  “No,” he said without any reservation. “Jena’s mother … she and the nurses, the servants … I was always busy with work but for brief times …” He looked away, as if a little ashamed and trying to hide it. “It is not an easy thing, raising a child. I could find help for you if you stayed with me in Saekajaren for a ti—”

  “I cannot stay in the ground any longer,” I said, feeling an involuntary shudder run down my spine that threatened to shake the child with the violence of the sensation.

  The Yartraak looked at me, his long jaw hanging open slightly. “You cannot expect a wet nurse who makes her home in Saekajaren Sovaren to simply follow you around wherever you go, Alaric. These women have families, children of their own.” He glared at me. He was not, by nature, a compassionate man, and I was doubtful that his righteous indignation on behalf of the non-existent wet nurse was sincere.

  “A baby is ill-suited to making a long journey overland,” Curatio said, with considerably more tact than the Yartraak. The Mortus and Caraleen were lingering behind the Yartraak with their knot of guards, at a respectful distance, but Caraleen’s eyes were fixed on the baby, and I saw tinges of regret and envy in her eyes.

  “You mean to travel some considerable distance with a newly born babe?” the Yartraak asked. I had a feeling he was grasping a bit in his knowledge of children. “That is—that is not wise at all! For the health of the child, Alaric!”

  I caught Caraleen’s eye, and she gave me her counsel unasked with a shake of a head. Its meaning felt plain to me—do not take this child on a long jou
rney—but I derived a second meaning from it, something more personal, a feeling that settled on my heart in an instant.

  In my moment in the top of the tower, when I’d envisioned a whole life with Jena, I’d seen us raising the baby together. Without her, I was as helpless as the baby currently cradled in my arms. He stirred in his sleep, trying to get comfortable against my armored side, and I knew in that moment that there was no way I could raise this child without significant amounts of help—help that I could not get anywhere but Enrant Monge, if somehow I could make the journey of months to reach it with the child in my keeping. That seemed impossible, which left the only alternative as Saekajaren Sovaren, a place I was unwilling to stay for even a moment longer than I had to. Painful memories of my captivity there, ones of my time spent with Jena, threatened to make me ill at the mere thought of crossing back under the cavernous entry to that dark realm.

  My mind rumbled down the same track; this was a child suited to that world, and I was not. This child would need a parent, someone responsible and loving, with care and hope and a future, and I …

  All I could see in my days ahead was a journey, of leaving this land after taking care of one final thing.

  This baby would need food, and soon, and I had nothing to give, nothing to offer. Whatever hope I had for a future had died in the ruins of Sennshann, and it was in that moment my decision was made.

  “I cannot raise this child,” I said to the Yartraak and held out the babe to him.

  The Yartraak hesitated only a moment before taking the child in his thin arms awkwardly. He cradled the boy in a manner that felt very forced, and looked down into the child’s face with fear plainly peeking through his usual reserve. “I will—I will find help. This babe shall be raised in a good family, with the best nurses.” He blinked, clear-eyed, and turned his head to call to one of his retinue of guards. “Lepos! Lepos, come here!”

  A guard emerged from his fellows, moving forward uncertainly to come to his master’s side, where he halted and bowed his head respectfully. He was flat-faced, but his eyes showed signs of creases at the eyes that suggested to me that he smiled, and often, and not in a cruel way. “Yes, my master?”