Heretic (The Sanctuary Series Book 7) (13 page)

“You’re faster than you were without it,” she said, though she sounded almost pained to admit it. “Let’s hope you don’t find yourself in need of it, however.”

“Yeah, against Rhane Ermoc and my own sword,” Cyrus said, letting loose of the handle, “it’s not going to be as much use. But I might be able to take on a small army with its aid.”

“Very small,” she said, and he started past her toward the stairs, not wanting to address the sickened look on her face. He knew all too well that the mere sight of the weapon he was now forced to hang around his body for added strength and speed was a terrible memory for Vara.
Too many unpleasant associations with that night.

Cyrus was halfway down to the door when a gentle knock sounded. “Who is it?” he called, Vara a few steps behind him.

“’Tis I, as bid,” J’anda called through the door, and Cyrus opened it to find the enchanter standing there, looking much more awake than he or Vara. “Are you ready to go?”

Cyrus looked back to find Vara a study in glumness. “This is mad, isn’t it?” he asked, not sure whether he was speaking to the enchanter before him or his wife behind him.

“No madder than sitting here and waiting for the axe to fall,” J’anda said with a very slight smile that, Cyrus thought, perfectly represented the enchanter—wry and encouraging, with none of the desperation that he and Vara were exhibiting. “There is much to be done, my friends,” J’anda said with a twinkling of his eyes, “come—let us begin.”

The foyer of Sanctuary was quiet, the new troll applicants standing around near the lounge with a few other solitary souls, the quiet morning light streaming in through the circular stained glass window above the doors. Cyrus nodded to Zarrn, who nodded back. One of the other troll applicants gazed unabashedly at him as Cyrus came down the stairs, watching him as he crossed to the great seal. Cyrus stared back, meeting the troll’s eyes, and saw a probing intensity there. This particular troll wore a beard as black as the caves of Enterra, and after a long look, he seemed satisfied and nodded at Cyrus, who returned the courtesy.

“Our portal is still shut,” Vara said, which Cyrus already knew, having ordered Mendicant to close it months ago, as a precaution when Sanctuary had begun hemorrhaging wizards who knew the spell to carry them and any who wished to come with them right into their hallowed halls. “We’ll need to use return to get back.”

“Or come in at the northern portal and walk,” Cyrus said, peering into the lounge in hopes of seeing a wizard or druid within. Alas, no luck there; three rangers and a warrior in mystical armor were sitting in isolated seats, reading or merely staring off into space, in their own thoughts. “Hmm. We should, perhaps, learn some wizard teleportation spells of our own, I suppose.”

“That would make it considerably easier,” Vara said. “Though casting fire is one thing; I am not sure I trust myself not to accidentally carry us somewhere beyond the ether if forced to cast a teleport.”

“Perhaps we should start by teaching you some illusions,” J’anda said with a raised eyebrow. “Those cannot go so wrong. At worst, you might become a gnome instead of a dark elf.”

“As though that’s not a catastrophe of its own.” A half-smile cracked Vara’s tired facade, but she abruptly turned serious, her gaze fixed on the doors to the Great Hall. Cyrus looked to see what had stopped her and saw Larana there, her matted brown hair falling frizzed upon the shoulders of her muted brown robes. The vestments of the druid that she habitually wore hidden beneath her hair were cast off, now, and he caught a glimpse of her green eyes looking up at him from beneath worried brows as she shuffled toward him shyly.

“Larana,” Cyrus said, greeting her with a nod. She had not, that he could remember, ever approached him of her own accord. She always trailed behind, looking at him with those fearful green eyes, as though he might strike at her any moment. She looked ready to recoil, and even seeing that in her gaze made him want to shy away himself, uncomfortable at what it might indicate. “How goes it this morn?”

She stopped, seemingly taken aback by his simple query. “Very well, my Lord Davidon.”

“Glad you’re having a better morning than the rest of us,” Cyrus said with a sly smile.
At least someone isn’t in darkest despair around here, though you wouldn’t know it by looking at her.

“M’lord,” she said, bowing her head even further, so that he could no longer see her eyes at all, “I—I am loyal to you. To Sanctuary.” Now she looked up, just barely, enough that he caught a glimpse of smoldering sincerity beneath her tangled hair. “Please … let me help you. Any way I can.”

Cyrus regarded her carefully, feeling a tightness within his chest.
This is a woman who, on her own accord, and with her own resources, acquired enough quartal to smith my chainmail.
Even if she were dearest friends with the Elves of Amti, that can’t have come cheaply.
A question occurred to him presently. “How loyal are you, Larana?” he asked, peering down at her, noting the pinched look on her face as he asked. “Are you willing to do heresy for me?”

The answer came without hesitation. “Anything,” she said, nodding sharply.

Cyrus felt the stab of a breath stuck in his chest, and he looked back at Vara, who nodded. “Very well, then,” he said, nodding. “Why don’t we start with something simple?” And he indicated the doors to the guildhall and led the way out into the day, sunny sky shining down upon them without a single cloud in view. The air was cold and crisp, and they made their way across the quiet grounds to the stable, the only sound muted conversations in the distance being held by the sentries atop the wall.

When Cyrus reached the stables, the doors were already open, and the stableboy Dieron Buchau was waiting, his red hair nearly glowing in the sun. “Lord Davidon!” Buchau called, “I didn’t know you were coming. Windrider didn’t raise any sort of ruckus—”

Cyrus raised an eyebrow at that. “I won’t be needing Windrider today.” When the stableboy met his statement with a confused look, Cyrus elaborated. “I need something nondescript. Too many people know Windrider. I need very plain horses for this errand.”

Dieron Buchau looked around, staring at the horses around him. “By all means, M’lord. Pick anything you wish.”

Cyrus chose a very plain, old brown mare, and the others selected exceedingly ordinary horses as well. Cyrus paused by Windrider’s stall and offered quiet words of encouragement. The horse whickered at him in a friendly way, seemingly not at all jealous of Cyrus’s choice of a different horse.

With that task done and the horses saddled, Cyrus rode out of the stables and into the day, leading his small party of four to the side of the guildhall, into the shade of a wide-trunked yew tree. When they had all gathered around him, he looked straight at J’anda. “We’re going to Termina via Santir. What would you suggest for a disguise?”

“Why are you asking him?” Vara asked with a sniff of annoyance. “Why don’t you ask the person who lived in Termina much of her life?”

“All right,” Cyrus said, trying to mask a smile. “What would you recommend, my dear?”

“That you ask me next time, and not try to gallop past your failure of intellect by simply sprinkling a ‘my dear’ upon your error.” She gave him an acrid look and turned her attention to J’anda. “Dark elven merchants. They are doing a booming trade with Termina once more, and I think it is not uncommon to see the more well-to-do ones teleporting in from elsewhere to spare a journey of weeks across the Southern Reaches of the Confederation. They would also, perhaps, have cause to treat with the Oliaryn of Termina, if they were sufficiently well-placed.”

“Dark elven merchants,” J’anda said with a nod. “This, I can arrange. But then, I can arrange much more than that.” He twisted his fingers around his long staff, and the purple crystal glowed bright before releasing a spell. It snaked around them and Cyrus found himself looking at three dark elves surrounding him, all in cloth shirts and pants, though two of them were women. Their clothes were much cleaner and of higher quality than any dark elven merchant Cyrus could recall seeing in Reikonos, and they also wore metal bindings that held their cloaks together at the neck. The binding had a logo of some sort upon it, but though it was familiar, Cyrus was unsure where he might have seen it before.

“It is the Seal of Grimrath Tordor,” J’anda said when he caught Cyrus looking. “One of Saekaj’s highest noble houses, and one that has fared fairly well in the aftermath of the … shall we say … revolution.” He wore a smile perched upon his lips that looked somehow impudent even in spite of his illusion, and Cyrus wondered what was going on in the enchanter’s thoughts.

“Larana,” Cyrus said, looking to the nearest dark elf to him, “We need—”

“I’m not Larana,” came Vara’s voice from the dark elf he had fixed his gaze upon, mock-offended. “Apparently you can’t even recognize your own wife. For shame. This is, perhaps, not your day when it comes to pleasing me.”

“I question whether it’s ever my day in that regard,” he returned, eliciting a snort. He turned to the other dark elven woman. “Larana … please take us to Santir.”

The druid, hidden well under her dark elven guise, nodded once, and then raised her hand in the air, twisting the forces of magic to her command. The air swirled in a storm of hard wind, a tornado of magic gathered around them, and with the rise of the force of air, swept them away from under the shaded yew tree on the Sanctuary grounds, hundreds of miles away and to a different land.

Santir was smelly and crowded, and not at all how Cyrus had remembered it. But then, Cyrus’s memory of the town had come in the days before it had been sacked and burned completely to the ground by the dark elves, so this was not unexpected. What had sprung up in the ruins was something entirely different, a bustling new city that had taken root around the portal. His horse led the way for their small party of dark elves, his eyes searching the streets for hints of danger.

The streets were dirt, not a cobblestone in sight. The sound of the horse hooves thumping steadily against the ground was soft in Cyrus’s ears. On either side of them, new wooden buildings, constructed in the last few years, were already showing signs of weathering, the wood streaked and darkened from the ashen rains. The skies here were clouded, as though the burnt remnants of the original town still lingered in the atmosphere, waiting to be returned with the next downpour.

There were gaps between some of the buildings, vacant lots covered over with weeds or the occasional small garden, with its earth left empty for the winter, tilled and fallow. There was no sign of the snow that blanketed Reikonos, just a bitter chill in the air, much harsher than that around Sanctuary.

Cyrus could see the scars of the war everywhere. The road ahead led through the spare and struggling town, hints of industry springing up here and there. A massive building just ahead echoed with the sound of sawing wood, a lumber mill brought to life, probably charged with taking wood floated down the River Perda and turning it into boards for new buildings.

The residents in the streets seemed to have little life to them. They watched Cyrus and his party with undisguised suspicion. Eyes followed them even as they made their way toward the Grand Span, the massive bridge in the center of the river that led to Termina.

At the bank of the river, the stolid atmosphere of Santir suddenly changed. The river was practically a living thing, so thick with small boats, barges, and other craft that Cyrus wondered if he would even have needed the bridge to cross. It seemed to writhe with activity, vessels navigating past their moored fellows, all trying to squeeze up to docks that were already occupied on both sides of the river. Santir certainly seemed to be getting the lesser traffic of the two, with Termina and the western bank stacked up with barges filled with elves and humans and dark elves and even dwarves and gnomes yelling at each other to clear the channel, each with their own objective for their boat, aiming to deliver cargo or receive it.

“That’s more like it,” J’anda breathed as they started up the Grand Span, their horses’ hooves clicking against the cobblestones.

When they reached the apex of the bridge, the city of Termina lay spread out before them, still a shade of its pre-war glory. Cyrus took in the spectacle, trying to focus on it rather than the uncomfortable memories of where he was presently riding. The bridge was scarred, the cobblestones black in some places from rampant, raging fire spells that had scoured their surface. Cyrus caught his bride looking down at them, forlorn even through her illusion, and he felt his breath catch in his throat.
How could she not be thinking of Chirenya?

Soon enough, though, all their eyes were on the city. The traffic on the bridge was light, but elven sentries stood in the middle, watching the parties come through, gazes fixed on the horizon.
Watching for sign of a dark elven army
, Cyrus realized with numb surprise.
They’ll be watching that way for a thousand years or more after being caught so flat-footed last time.

Innumerable burned and blackened structures were still dotted around Termina, the wreckage of war obvious in the landscape. Other portions of the city appeared completely demolished, either by fire or intentional razing. As Cyrus watched, an explosion went off to his right, a booming that echoed across the river, and a whole block of houses disappeared in a cloud of dust.

“No cause for worry,” one of the elven guards standing atop a makeshift wooden platform at the side of the span called out to the traffic blow. “It is a controlled detonation of damaged housing.” He waved a hand, beckoning the suddenly stopped traffic to be on about their way. “Move along.”

“I imagine they’re having to do quite a bit of that,” J’anda said, once they were a hundred meters past the guard post. Another stood ahead of them, more elves waiting atop it, staring at their brethren ahead, the clear start of a chain of relays, where word of any potential invasion could be shouted back into the city within minutes.

“The dark elves held portions of the city for quite some time,” Vara said stiffly. “They fought street by street when King Danay ordered his troops in to reclaim it, and they did not yield easily. Var’eton—the lowers—where that house was destroyed—it was the site of some of the most pitched fighting, as I understand it. As was Ilanar Hill.”