For in this last task appointed me, I would not fail.
And now it sat before me here, the wooden top sealed against the windswept steppes. I knelt on the dusty ground, whorls of dirt spinning up around me as I stared at the carved lid. I leaned down with my metal-clad fingers and placed them on the edges, gingerly opening it.
White light spilled out from within like magic set loose, uncontained. It swirled around me like the dust in the wind, glaring and bright, covering me in its embrace. I felt instinctively for the medallion that Chavoron had told me to take from his desk with it—“They are paired,” he had told me. The light covered me, blinding me like a bright sun, but without the harshness or the desire to flinch away. I didn’t shrug from it like a flame spell; it captured me, bathing my hands in white light, creeping into my very skin, setting me aglow.
And there, in the heart of the light, I saw something else entirely … something that gave me purpose … gave me direction …
Something that gave me hope.
I felt it creep through me, imbue me, and then it tugged, gently, for the very first time. It was pulling me away—away from that flat place on the steppes, where the wind was howling through. Away from the sun-bleached dirt, away from the world. Everything turned white, glorious and bright, and I closed my eyes as peace descended upon me—like being a child in his mother’s arms once more, or a man in the embrace of his first love—it filled me, wrapped me up in its warmth, and soothed me in a way that war and distance and the fates had made me think I would never feel again.
129.
Cyrus
“So … it changed you, then?” Vaste asked. “Made you … what you are? Made you … the Ghost?”
The sun was rising, casting its light through the archive’s broken windows. Cyrus looked out on the darkened plain, still shadowed with the sun below the horizon, the red disc’s edge hinting at its eventual appearance. Cyrus was weary; Alaric’s description of peace sounded pleasant enough to his jaded heart, though the skeptic within him dismissed it immediately.
“It did,” Alaric said.
“Why the Ghost?” Vaste asked. “I mean … you know, as far as things you could become goes, there are better, I would argue.”
“Such as?” Cyrus asked.
“He could have turned himself into a titan, obviously,” Vaste said.
“Or a ghost titan?” Cyrus asked.
“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” Vaste said with a frown. “What’s the point of being huge and partially transparent? You’re not sneaking past anyone as a titan … though I suppose he can go invisible …”
“I chose to become a ghost—the Ghost,” Alaric said. “Mostly because … of who I was. I lived my life before coming to Arkaria as the worst sort of attention-seeker. I sought to create power for myself by my position. After what happened here in the War of the Gods, I sought not attention, nor the stroking of my ego, nor power … in short, none of the things I would have looked for before. I wanted to escape notice, to … disappear. To do whatever good I could, wherever I could and then after … fade away.”
“So you became the Ghost,” Cyrus said dully. “Wandering the land until … what? You grew sick of hiding and decided to found a guild to carry out your glorious purpose?”
“Not exactly,” Alaric said. “I was summoned forth from time to time, though rarely. And then … one day … I was brought forth here—”
“In this place?” Vaste asked.
“By my mother?” Cyrus asked.
“By Quinneria, yes,” Alaric said. “She invoked the Plea of the Dying, and—”
“Wait,” Cyrus said, frowning, “the Plea of the Dying?”
Alaric smiled. “Yes.”
Cyrus stared at him, the threads spinning in his mind until he had a tapestry, albeit an incomplete one. “But … when I used the plea … it brought forth Sanctuary, not you.”
“Wait, that’s how it came back?” Vaste asked.
“Yes,” Cyrus said, looking at him as though he were a moron. “What did you think happened?”
“I don’t know,” Vaste said, swinging his arms expansively wide. “There was a crater here before, and now Sanctuary is back. I guess, after everything I’ve seen, I just sort of assumed that … I dunno, magic was the answer.”
“Magic is the answer,” Alaric said, “but not of the sort you’re used to.”
“Yes, yes,” Cyrus said impatiently, “ark magic. You said that. But I thought the ark was—absorbed into you, or something.”
Alaric raised his eyebrow. “It is.”
“Then the box is … gone?” Vaste asked, looking at Alaric as though he expected it to come popping out from somewhere. “You’re not … carrying it up your arse or something?”
Alaric’s lip curled up at the corner. “Most assuredly not. I am not carrying the ark at all, in fact.” He let that sink in for but a moment, then said, “We’re standing in it.”
“The hells?” Cyrus felt as though the earth had shaken beneath him, though he knew he was still firmly upon the steady stone floor. “You mean—?”
“Yes,” Alaric said. “Sanctuary is the ark. And it has been all along.”
130.
Cyrus
“Well that’s a kick in the groin,” Vaste said. “A sunshiney kick right to the old plums.” He looked at Cyrus. “This is why you couldn’t find hope. It was all misty and hidden.”
Cyrus stared at the Ghost of Sanctuary, still reeling from Alaric’s statement. “That doesn’t make any sense. The ark was … was small.”
“Let me ask you something,” Alaric said. “When you first arrived at Sanctuary, how many members did we have?”
“Around two hundred,” Cyrus said, remembering the sight of the Great Hall on the first night’s dinner, the chatter between old friends and new echoing in his ears.
“Did they fit snugly into the Great Hall at mealtimes?” Alaric asked. “Or did they rattle about like a shellbug in a wooden chest?”
Cyrus looked at the knight, then to Vaste before answering. The troll shrugged, and Cyrus said, “Snugly enough, I suppose. It wasn’t cavernous by any means—”
“And when your numbers swelled to nearly twenty thousand,” Alaric said, “did you not question how you could house all those people in the same space without knocking down the walls? Without expanding quarters and forcing people to live tightly together?”
Cyrus blinked. “I … never considered it.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Alaric said. “Nor did you consider in much detail how the rooms realigned, the curtain walls heightened in times when we were under siege, the charms at the battlements stripped enchantments, the towers mysteriously reconstructed themselves after the siege or that there was—somehow—an ability for Sanctuary itself to warn us in the event of an ill-intentioned intruder in our midst.” He spoke like a particularly soothing teacher. “You would not consider any of these points unless they were raised, because so long as you were here in Sanctuary, you were part of it, part of the magic, and the change passed before your eyes as though hidden by a cloud, or an enchanter’s spell. Because, you see … Sanctuary is alive, after a fashion.” Alaric smiled, looking down in consideration as he spoke. “It is a living thing, possessed of some rudimentary intelligence, able to adapt to our needs, able to see what comes and warn, and help … it watches out for us. It provides … refuge.”
“If Sanctuary was the ark all along,” Cyrus said, mind racing along, “then … Bellarum never knew—”
“Oh, he knew,” Alaric said. “I expect he discovered the truth of it quite late, though—most probably after he had killed Vara and attempted to destroy this place. Tell me—did he undergo a sudden … change of attitude toward you after attacking Sanctuary?”
“Yes,” Cyrus said. “He—he wanted to kill me before, and then suddenly … he wanted me to serve again. To join him. As if out of nowhere.” He looked over his shoulder at the wreckage of the Council Chambers, as if it might have
righted itself by mere thought.
“He saw Sanctuary for what it was in the moment he ‘destroyed’ it,” Alaric said. “It was not destroyed, however, but merely returned to the ether beyond our world, the place where I go when I become ghostly. He could not reach it there, and surely was maddened by the object he so coveted escaping his grasp.” Alaric nodded at the medallion on Cyrus’s chest. “He would have realized afterward that you were the one that held the key—and changed his plans accordingly.”
“So … did you design Sanctuary, then?” Vaste asked.
“Based on what is now the Realm of War, yes,” Alaric said, “for it was the home of my mentor in the old Protanian Empire. The top of the tower—”
“Was from the Citadel,” Cyrus said, the answer coming to him in a flash of inspiration. “And the garden—”
“From Caraleen’s—Vidara’s—own,” Alaric agreed. “That came later, though, after your mother brought me back to the world following … a long absence.”
“Did you ever consider,” Vaste said, brow furrowed in serious thought, “putting the Council Chambers and quarters on the bottom floor? Because that walk, it just kills—”
“No,” Alaric said with some amusement, and he turned his head to look out the archive’s window to the plains beyond. The sun was rising, shining down on the green plains with orange light. “I thought the view rather made up for the climb.”
Cyrus stared down at the medallion with its twisting writing, and it glinted gold as the sunlight hit it. He took off his gauntlets and let his fingers play over the chain, lifting it off his neck and holding the cold circle in his hand, letting a finger trace the ancient writing. “Here,” he said, extending it to Alaric, chain spilling over the edges of his hand. “You’re the rightful Master of Sanctuary. Take it.”
Alaric shook his head without even a pause. “You are no less worthy of it than I was on the day it came to me.”
The despair swelled in Cyrus, and he shook his head. “It’s not that, Alaric.” He waved the medallion around, trying to encapsulate the feeling permeating him, the despair pouring in now that the last secret had been revealed—and it changes nothing, he thought. “I get it now. This is the place that gave you purpose. Gave you hope. A reason to carry on when you’d lost it all. But …” He took a deep breath and let it out, speaking quietly and grimly. “… I already told Vaste, I don’t want to begin again, to rebuild Sanctuary. I appreciate your purpose … but I don’t want it.” He felt as though he’d reached, at last, the end of the road, and he thought of the vial in Windrider’s saddlebag.
I think I could drink it now, he thought, and a blessed wave of reassurance gave him hope that, perhaps, at last, he could.
“What do you want most, Cyrus?” Alaric asked, face inscrutable.
“Peace,” Cyrus said.
Alaric shook his head, watching the warrior with his lone, cold, grey eye. “No. That’s not true.”
Cyrus stared at him dully. “You think you know what I want better than I do?”
“Yes,” Alaric said. “Because you might want peace, but it’s not what you want most.”
Cyrus felt a flicker of anger rouse up toward the old knight. “You’re right. It’s not what I want most. But I can’t have what I want most.”
“Why not?” Alaric’s expression was still careful, impassive. He stood in the middle of the archive, the sun shining in through the window on his armor now.
“Because she’s dead, Alaric,” Cyrus said, and now the hatred burned out, snuffed as easily as a burning blade of grass. “Because I held her in my arms and felt her die, and so I can’t have her any more.” He looked around the wrecked room. “Unless, by some miracle, the ark can bring people back to life?”
“No,” Alaric said. “It cannot do that.”
“I didn’t think so,” Cyrus said, looking away, a last ember of hope burning out. “I—”
“But it can,” Alaric said, cutting right over him, “absorb someone who is dying … before their soul departs … and reform the body …” Cyrus looked up at him, and met Alaric’s gaze. “Given enough time,” the knight said softly.
“Wait,” Cyrus said, and he stepped forward, standing before the old knight, looking down on him, sudden urgency rising up within. “Wait. But she was dead. I watched her die—”
“How long does it take for us to die?” Alaric asked. “Permanently?”
“An hour,” Vaste answered. “But she was destroyed, Alaric. I tried to heal her myself and—”
“She was beyond the reach of any magic you could cast or understand,” Alaric said. “But not beyond all reach.” He looked at Cyrus. “In the moments after she died, Bellarum attacked Sanctuary, and Sanctuary—the ark—defended itself the only way it could. By withdrawing into the ether, where he could not harm it.” His eye glittered, just slightly. “But it did not go alone, when it went—”
“Where is she?” Cyrus asked. He did not wait for the answer, stalking out of the archive, breaking into a jog. He burst through into the Council Chambers, looking at the place on the floor where last he’d seen her, expecting to find—
There was nothing there. Blood stains marked her passage, wine-colored and long ago seeped into the stone.
Cyrus sagged, catching himself before he fell down amidst the debris that was strewn all over the Council Chambers. He spun on Alaric, legs unsteady. “I thought you said—”
“Cyrus,” Alaric said calmly, raising a hand as if to catch him, “you need to understand—”
“You just gave me hope and now you’re taking—”
“Cyrus,” Alaric said, cutting him off. “What do you think happened to Curatio?”
“He ran off,” Cyrus said, trying to push this new distraction aside, trying to cut to the heart of the matter. “When things got bad, after the dragons, he—”
“No,” Alaric said. “You knew him. He would never have left you in times of such hardship.” He put his palms up and indicated the room. “He’s here. Right now. He is … becoming … what I became. It doesn’t happen instantly, and … what happened to Vara … it can’t be healed easily … or without consequence.”
“What are you trying to say?” Cyrus asked, stepping closer to the old knight.
“She’s going to become like you, isn’t she?” Vaste asked. The troll loomed in the door to the archive, his lips flat, hints of emotion threatening to burst forth.
“Eventually,” Alaric said. “It takes a long time. It begins slowly, and over the millennia …” He lifted a hand, and it turned to mist, then solidified once again. “But … she is here. In the ether, in the space beyond your sight—”
“Which is why I couldn’t see her in death,” Vaste said, nodding slowly. “She didn’t go on.” He shot a look at Cyrus. “I wonder if that’s why Bellarum couldn’t pull her out of the chamber in Purgatory?”
“Most assuredly,” Alaric said, standing like a statue in his armor, imposing in the middle of the Council like the figure he had been when Cyrus had first met him, delivering wisdom unto all of them. “Because she is not dead. Not really. She’s here, with us. And,” he said, smiling at Cyrus. “She can hear you … right now.”
Cyrus felt his hand come to his mouth, covering it. His breath caught in his throat as his eyes searched the stone around him for any sign of blond hair, blue eyes, red lips. There was nothing, though, only the orange of the burning torches and the grey of the stone. “Where …? How do I …?”
“Soon, Cyrus,” Alaric whispered. “But I must warn you … she won’t be able to emerge for a very long time. Beyond … beyond the days of your life, I’m afraid.”
Cyrus felt his heart plummet as though it had leapt over the balcony without him. “No. She—I can’t—not without her, Alaric—”
“Then I have a modest suggestion for you,” Alaric said. Cyrus held his breath, waiting for the promised suggestion. “Join us,” the Ghost said at last.
Cyrus stared at him. He took a breath, then another,
trying to decide if he’d heard the paladin correctly. “Join you? As in—”
“As in, instead of drinking that poison you’ve been considering,” Alaric said, “you stay here with me—with her—as Sanctuary fades into the ether, as it is soon to do to repair the damage Bellarum has done to these halls.” He raised his hands to indicate the damage all around them. “As soon as that happens … you’ll be able to see her again. You’ll be able to be with her again—”
“Yes,” Cyrus said without a moment’s pause. “I’ll do it.”
“That was awfully fast,” Vaste said. “In the choice between poison and being absorbed and digested by our living guildhall, you leapt right to the being absorbed and digested?” The troll stood there for but a moment, silence punctuating his query. “Fine,” he said after a short interval, “I choose to be eaten, too.”
“Vaste,” Alaric said soothingly, “you might wish to reconsider. This process … it will take you away from here and return you in a time when all you know and love might be washed away. There is no guarantee that we will even return at all.”
“Oh, yes, of course, I forgot,” Vaste said. “I live with the elves, and have a very active social life. Why, I play cards every week, and I just joined a knitting circle … oh, wait!” He smirked in false consideration, and when he spoke again, it was laden with sarcasm. “I live in an empty mansion in a city of people who don’t really like me all that much. I think I’ll chance the unknown future with you misfits.”
“You will become like me,” Alaric said, his words ringing like a warning. “A ghost. A memory, at best. You will pass into the realm of things forgotten—”
“I don’t care,” Cyrus said, and now his skin tingled once more, but warmly this time. “If she’s with me … if she’s waiting there … I don’t care. People have called me many things in my life. I don’t care about any of them—none!” His voice cracked as he spoke the last desire of his heart. “I only want to hear her … call me husband again.”
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