Legend

by Robert J. Crane

  “Yes,” Cyrus said, “but—”

  “They are fine,” Scuddar said, as though that settled everything.

  “Scuddar,” Cyrus said, trying to keep his tone gentle, “you can’t know that everyone in our entire guild is fine without—”

  “They are fine,” Scuddar said. “It will bring you no happiness to see them all.”

  “J’anda’s dead,” Cyrus said, his temper flaring like a lit wick. “Is he ‘fine’ under your definition?”

  “Yes,” Scuddar said simply. “I was not there—”

  “I was.”

  “—but I suspect he went peacefully, did he not?”

  Cyrus’s jaw clenched involuntarily. “He did.”

  “Of course he did,” Scuddar said, perhaps more firmly and expansively than he had ever said anything in Cyrus’s presence. “We are all fine. Some of us perhaps more fine than others, but Sanctuary—Sanctuary was destroyed a year ago, Cyrus. We mourned. We took our revenge. We lost, we wept, we suffered—”

  “Did you?” Cyrus asked, looking around. “Because it suddenly seems to me that you had less to lose—”

  “Do not say that,” Scuddar said, his tone suddenly clipped. “Do not presume that simply because I had my family life apart from my life with our army that I was any less attached to our compatriots than any other loyal member that joined you in battle.”

  Cyrus’s cheeks burned with scarlet shame. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

  Scuddar grew silent for a moment, his yellow eyes suddenly sorrowful. “We all lost people in the years before Sanctuary’s fall, Cyrus. But none of us lost the way you did, and thus none of us are as … hobbled by it. We were wounded; you were shattered. If you seek your friends, you will see them as they are now—moved on, their pain behind them, brought out only in the quiet watches of the night when they cannot sleep, or in the solemn moment after the recounting of a tale of adventure and harrowing danger of the sort we have by the hundreds.” His eyes gleamed for a second, and then he grew solemn. “Do not seek the others, for you will only sadden yourself further. They are moving on, and by seeking them out now, as you are, you fail to do the same.”

  Cyrus stood, almost overturning the tray of food. He hadn’t taken a single bite, and in spite of a gnawing hunger, knew he wouldn’t. Not now. “I’m glad you’re doing well, Scuddar. I should—”

  Scuddar rose as well, but now there was sadness in his eyes and his voice as he spoke. “Please. Do not seek the others and despair at the hope in their eyes. Their view is clear; they can see their futures. Seek your own hope, do not drown yourself in sorrow at the thought of your past.”

  Cyrus locked eyes with him, and thought over his response before he finally said. “I just don’t know how to do that.” He did not wait for Scuddar’s response, instead going for the door.

  “You just keep going,” Scuddar said softly, almost so quietly Cyrus did not hear him. He paused only a moment before opening the door, and, nearly blinded by the blazing sun, stepped out of the shade of the house and into the heat, where he untethered Windrider and cast the spell to get him the hell out of the desert without further ado.

  114.

  Cyrus

  The mountain air in Fertiss’s outdoor quarter still smelled of thick, rich pine trees as Cyrus waited by the portal. Snow was still present on the high peaks, but then, Cyrus wasn’t sure if that ever went away, even in the longest days of summer. The city itself was a pleasant reprieve from the heat of the Inculta desert, and even from the warm streets of Reikonos, where the heat of the summer sun was producing a distinctly unsavory aroma.

  Cyrus had ridden from Reikonos to Fertiss rather than pay a wizard to teleport him. It had been a pleasant if slightly meandering excursion, a lonely ride through country that still bore the scars of the war. He had seen the differences in how it looked now and how it had looked seven years earlier when he’d passed through on his great recruitment drive for Sanctuary.

  He’d heard rumors that the dwarves still barricaded the great byways into Fertiss, but he hadn’t found that to be so. The grand roads tunneled under the mountains had been clear for him, no guards or checkpoints to slow his passage after the long weeks of ride. He had found the entire journey refreshing, and had never once considered simply hiring a wizard to cut it short.

  “I should travel this way more often,” he said, standing off from the portal a short distance, holding Windrider’s reins. It was an ovoid rock with a hollowed center, empty so that he could see the shops on the other side of the small square in which it rested. The horse whinnied in what Cyrus perceived as agreement, and then a light blazed before the portal as a train of three wagons appeared at its center, all grouped around a cloaked figure in the middle.

  Cyrus watched the happenings at the portal unfold; the wagon train’s boss leapt down and paid the spellcaster who had teleported them here, putting thick pieces of gold into the outstretched hand. Cyrus could barely see the man who had cast the spell, his cowl was down over his eyes to guard against the high summer sun. But he caught the man’s gaze, nonetheless, and the spellcaster nearly dropped his fistful of gold as the wagon train’s master finished paying him.

  Cyrus waited as the wagon train loaded up and started forward, rolling in a line toward one of the great causeways under the mountain into Fertiss, taking the road south. Cyrus wondered idly if they were bound for some destination in the capital or perhaps one of the under-mountain towns within a few days' ride. Portals were harder to come by in the Dwarven Alliance, Cyrus knew. His curiosity was short lived, his attention reverting to the spellcaster who, his work now done, sidled over to Cyrus in no great hurry.

  “Is this pure coincidence, finding you here when I arrived?” Ryin Ayend asked. “Or is this a planned meeting?”

  “Why?” Cyrus asked in wry amusement. “Did you plan it?”

  Ryin snorted. “Hardly.” He looked sidelong at Cyrus; they stood each facing a different direction, side by side. “How are you, Cyrus?”

  “I’m still alive,” Cyrus said. “You?”

  “I’m well,” Ryin said. “Though that should hardly come as a surprise to you, since if you knew I’d be here, you know what I do.”

  “You’re a transport wizard,” Cyrus said. “For a cargo consortium. Moving wagons and people around Arkaria. Like your sister.”

  “Less dangerous than transporting armies into battle and then remaining there to fight it out with gods and monsters,” Ryin said, “as we used to.”

  “Being a fat gnome covered in spices in a room full of a starving trolls is less dangerous than what we used to do.”

  “Too true.” Ryin hesitated again. “What brings you here to me?”

  “Fond longing, clearly.” Cyrus smirked.

  “Have you gone too long without someone to bring up an oppositional viewpoint?” Ryin returned the smirk.

  “No, my arse remains comfortably unpained absent you,” Cyrus responded.

  “If still somewhat long.” Ryin chuckled, then grew serious. “It’s natural, you know.”

  Cyrus looked at him in puzzlement. “My long arse?”

  “That feeling of responsibility.” Ryin turned his head to look at Cyrus, concern in his eyes. “You were the Guildmaster for years. It makes sense that you’d check up on us. Make certain we’re settling all right.”

  “Right,” Cyrus said, nodding, moving quickly to that explanation. It was simpler than the truth, after all. “You happy with the new job?”

  “I get long breaks to think, to regenerate my magical energy.” He brandished Torris with a slight flourish. “I don’t really need them, thanks to this, but … their other wizards and druids do, so I take them as well.” He looked around carefully. “They all still hew to the old League guidelines, sticking to their respective spell classes. It’s almost as though they still fear a declaration of heresy from an order now swept away.”

  “Change is difficult.” Cyrus forced a smile. “I’m told.”

&n
bsp; “Yes, I’m sure you’ve never experienced any change firsthand.”

  “Are you happy?” Cyrus asked. “With your job? You never really answered before.”

  “I suppose I am,” Ryin said, pursing his lips to think before answering. “I won’t do it forever, but it pays well. That thinking time comes in handy as well, plenty of space to contemplate … the future. I live here with my sister presently, but I’ve considered buying a tract of land somewhere, maybe in the Southern Reaches, just to live out there. I suppose I could take a portal from somewhere else in the world and drag it there on a wagon or two, make it my own.”

  “I doubt anyone will be using the one in Zanbellish,” Cyrus said.

  “I don’t even want to use that one for long enough to—what would you do? You think you can teleport a portal?” Ryin’s eyes narrowed in concentration. “I suppose it’s smaller than some of the cargos I teleport now …” He shook off the thought. “In any case, I have possibilities. And you?”

  Cyrus forced a smile once more. “I have possibilities, too. I just wanted to … check up on everyone else before I … move forward.”

  “Well, I wish you the best of luck with that,” Ryin said as a large wagon came rattling along the road from the opposite direction toward the portal. “If I’m not much mistaken, that’s my next job coming now.” He extended his hand for Cyrus to shake.

  “Thank you, Ryin,” Cyrus said, taking the druid’s hand firmly in his own and shaking it. “For everything.”

  “You’re welcome,” Ryin said. “And thank you. I doubt I’d have lasted nearly as long in any other guild. Thank you for putting up with me.”

  “You’re worth it,” Cyrus said, and they broke the handshake. “Take care of yourself.” He took up Windrider’s reins in his other hand.

  “Do you need a teleport somewhere?” Ryin asked as Cyrus started off, the sun’s rays coming over a nearby mountain peak and reflecting off the icy top, magnifying the brightness.

  “No,” Cyrus said, guiding his horse toward the southern road. “I’ve got time, so I’m going to ride.”

  “Good for you,” Ryin said, walking backward as the wagon he was joining came to a creaking stop behind him. “Slow down. Live your life. Find yourself.” He waved once, and then cast the teleport spell. It was a wizard one that glowed bright, and then was gone, taking the druid and his patrons with him.

  “I’m not looking for me,” Cyrus said, but there was no one there to hear him. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, he reflected as he mounted Windrider and started off down the causeway that led through the mountain, ready for a long ride south.

  115.

  Cyrus

  The ride south took Cyrus through the Riverlands as summer broke true, green grasses and sunny days reaching new lengths, and leaving rainy spring fully behind. He took a wending path, unworried about time, unworried about progress. He snaked his way out of the north following the road he’d taken on the recruiting drive years earlier, remembering the names of people he’d met in the villages along the way, seeing a few familiar faces. He was greeted warmly in all cases, offered limitless ales when he was recognized in roadside inns, though he almost always declined in favor of his own water.

  He stopped for more than a day to rest in the plank and boardwalk city of Deriviereville, knowing what was ahead. The town was still recovering from the sack almost three years earlier, and it showed in the new carpentry and masonry being done. He had met the stern lady in charge of the territory and its capital, and he did not wish to make his presence known to Governor Waterman for fear she might want to fête him or otherwise hold up his progress.

  The next day he rode to the field of Leaugarden, where Sanctuary had suffered its most crushing defeat in battle. The fields smelled like blood to him even though he could not truly scent any such thing. The air seemed to hang uneasy about him, the skies overcast, grey to reflect his mood, and he lingered longer than he needed to, feeling the pangs of guilt and unworthiness for his failings on the field that day.

  When he finished torturing himself with past mistakes, he rode south out of the Riverlands and through the winding paths of the Mountains of Nartanis. By chance, the road took him beside the crater of Ashan’agar’s Den with only a small detour; when last he’d been here to collect the weapons, he had not bothered to truly stop and appreciate what lay beneath the rocky ground. He stood there, the dwarven encampment gone but for a few things left behind on the ashy soil of the mountains, looking over the edge into the excavated den below. He could see hints of boiling lava within, steam rising from the depths.

  He stared down for a long while, and then he drew Praelior. Staring at the hilt, the Serpent’s Bane, the answer to a question he had long since stopped asking himself became plain—Who had brought the hilt of the sword to him after it had fallen beneath the rubble of the den?

  “Only a ghost could have crawled through the wreckage of this place and pulled this out,” Cyrus decided, sliding the weapon back into its scabbard with a satisfying clink. He mounted Windrider again and rode south, not once looking back at the crater.

  Only a few hours later he found himself guided through dark tunnels into another stone room built into caverns, standing before another throne, recalling another battle he had fought. He felt sick as he looked around the old throne room in Enterra; even absent the markings and wall hangings proclaiming the Imperium, it was still the same place, with the same thrones, and though he knew the former occupants of those seats were long dead, it did not put him at ease at all.

  He waited in quiet, remembering the spot where Vara had died in this very room. He could almost see her golden hair against the floor as if with his waking eyes. He closed them and opened them again, and the afterimage was gone.

  “Lord Mendicant will be with you in a moment,” came a scratchy voice from behind Cyrus, causing him to whirl on the spot. A small goblin bowed his way out of the room, reminding Cyrus of Mendicant himself, when he’d first been introduced to Sanctuary. Before Cyrus could reply, or thank the goblin, he was gone.

  Cyrus frowned at the vanished goblin. He had detected a strangeness in the air on his way down to the throne room, a slouched posture in the goblins he’d passed. It felt as though there were a weight upon them, bearing down on all those whom he met, and Cyrus did not care for the sense of it pushing upon him. There was an anxiety in the air that was almost palpable.

  “Find myself standing before a lot of thrones lately,” Cyrus mumbled, and then the sound of a door opening loudly behind him caused him to turn.

  “Lord Davidon,” came the jubilant voice of Mendicant as the goblin entered the throne room. He was clad in raiment not unlike the rainbow cloth Cyrus had seen upon the King of the Elves before Danay had been overthrown. “How kind of you to grace our halls.”

  Cyrus watched the goblin as he entered, the Hammer of Earth in his hand, the grasping claws wrapped around the hammer’s haft as though ready to swing it upon a foe. He did not slow as he came in, hurrying up to the throne at the far end of the room and taking his seat quickly, settling the hammer’s broad head upon a steel stand resting next to the throne. He kept the haft in his hand, however, and Cyrus let his gaze linger upon the weapon perhaps a moment too long. “It’s a pleasure to be here again,” Cyrus said, trying to keep any insincerity out of his voice. “It’s been … too long since I’ve looked in on the progress of your people.”

  Mendicant laughed, a rough, braying sort of sound. “Until these last months, there was little progress to be seen. After the fall of the Imperium, things changed—but only a little. Now,” the goblin’s eyes gleamed, “things are starting to move in the right direction, yes.”

  Cyrus’s uncomfortable sensation had gone from a tingle along the back of his neck to a feeling like claws raking themselves down his flesh. “Mendicant …”

  “Yes?” the goblin asked before Cyrus had barely gotten his name out.

  “Who … rules the …”

  “Who rul
es the goblins?” Mendicant interrupted again, fingers stretched long across the hammer’s haft. “I was wondering when you would ask, Lord Davidon. I do.” He leaned forward in his seat. “At last, we can make the changes that are necessary.”

  Cyrus held in his first reaction, and even the second. The third, more diplomatic than the previous two, slipped out, however. “Who elected you to rule?”

  Mendicant’s expression changed subtly, and he stiffened—but only for a moment and then it passed. “No one elected me, for no one had to. Injustice was rampant, things were left undone. I seized the reins of power, Lord Davidon, in order to build a better tomorrow for Enterra, and build it we are!” He was practically crowing. “Productivity is up by more than half, there is a new cadre of spellcasters learning even now—Enterra will be strong.” He leaned forward, excitement flowing. “The goblins will be strong. We are ready to take our place in Arkaria. We’ve begun to expand into nearby hillsides, mountains—why, we’re exporting more ore to the humans, the elves and the dark elves than ever before. Gold flows down the tunnels of Enterra.” He puffed up. “Our food supply is stronger than it has ever been, and we are poised for great growth in a way the Imperium never could have, nor the feeble republic of these last years.”

  Cyrus closed his eyes, just for a moment, and felt a chill quite unrelated to the climate of the cave. “Mendicant …”

  “Yes?” Once more, the answer came swiftly.

  Has he become what we fought against so many times, in so many places—Enterra, Saekaj, Kortran … Cyrus opened his eyes again, and saw the goblin sitting the throne. He looked … small against its polished surfaces, and the hammer loomed large in his hand. Mendicant had always been so humble, so worried about doing what was right. Cyrus shook his head and dismissed the dark thoughts swirling beneath his mind’s surface. “I’m glad your people are doing well,” Cyrus said, forcing a smile. “I’m glad you’re doing well.”