Call of the Hero

by Robert J. Crane

  “Why?” Guy asked, keeping pace, but only just. A few days of beard growth made the man seem even more disreputable and dirty than when he'd come to them.

  “In case the workers decide not to show up, we need to be able to run the docks with our people,” Alaric said. “Feeding the city depends on it.”

  “Ah,” Guy said. “Where are we going, then?”

  “You'll see,” Alaric said, gesturing for guards to open the small gate that they might pass out of it. “Do you know why I asked you along?”

  Here, Guy's face became so sour Alaric might have thought he had drunk the squeezings of a lemon. “Because everyone else is sick of watching me. Because you're doing something that requires lifting heavy things and figured you might make that use of me.” He shrugged. “That's my guess, anyway.”

  “No,” Alaric said, casting a wary eye over the man as he waited for guards to finish opening the small, man-sized door in the gate. The clank of keys, squeak of hinges, all of them bore into the silence he offered, giving Guy a moment to anticipate his answer. “That's not it at all.” And he moved to step through, out into the street beyond.

  “Well, what is it, then?” Guy asked, surly, so certain the motives were impure. Alaric could understand that, having been on the receiving end of such suspicions once or twice.

  “When I was a young man–” Alaric began.

  “Oh, 'ere we go,” Guy muttered under his breath.

  “I was a cad, to say the least,” Alaric said. “I cared only for the corruptible pleasures of the flesh. For power. For steely strength, to be used to pulverize my enemies and show them their wrongs.”

  “You sound like a real barrel of laughs.”

  “You probably would have liked me then,” Alaric said, a small smile escaping him. “I was royal – and a royal pain in the arse. My friends ate and drank and lived wildly upon the drippings of my largesse. None in my land could deny me anything. I took full advantage of that privilege.”

  “On second thought, you sound like a right turd.”

  “I was,” Alaric said. “I was indeed.” He anchored Guy with a look. “As were you, it would seem.”

  Guy's ruddy face went bright red. “I was just a man, okay? Not royal. No power to speak of. Born in the gutter, but didn't want to stay there. All I did was get on the track that anyone with a brain gets on in this city. You either join the Machine and live a little better and a little freer than most, or you stay in the gutter and your every meal is a struggle.” He shrugged. “I did what I had to. I don't regret it.”

  “Was that all you wanted?” Alaric asked, stopping in the middle of the quiet cobblestone street. “To live 'a little freer'? To breathe a little easier?”

  “It's the best you can do here,” Guy said.

  “I don't believe that.”

  “Believe whatever you want,” Guy said with a snort. “Unless you're born in one of the cliffside manors, you're not getting any more than what the Machine could offer.” He shook his head. “And whatever you think of what my life was, it looks a fair sight better from here than what you've got at this point.”

  “So you'd go back?” Alaric asked. “Knowing what you know now?”

  Guy let out a high-pitched laugh. “What do I know now that I didn't know then?”

  “That the Machine hurts people,” Alaric said. “That they possess all the loyalty of a starving animal.”

  “I knew all that,” Guy said, and a little of the light left his eyes. “You don't join the Machine because it's going to be blood-free climbing your way up, or because you think they'll stand by you no matter what. You do it because you either ride the angry tiger or you're subject to the bloody teeth, aren't you?”

  “What a terrible, fearful way to go through life,” Alaric said, and he resumed his walk.

  Guy followed. “Beats the alternative, mate. I don't know how much you've noticed about peoples' lives round these parts in your short time here, but they're not exactly living high. A fair few starve every day. There's not nearly enough to go around, and we're all crammed in here like those little fish they've started squeezing into cans.”

  A click from somewhere nearby made Alaric stop again, looking around furiously. He'd heard something, hadn't he? Where–

  “What?” Guy asked, frozen in place, suspicioun coating his own features.

  “I don't know,” Alaric said, glancing down the alley. Sanctuary was ahead there, but still a short distance off. “I thought I heard–”

  A child burst out from behind the corner to their rear, thumping roughly into a drain spout with a hard rattle and a laugh. Taking no notice of Alaric nor Guy, he picked himself up, scruffy rags and all, and ran back the way he came, giggles echoing down the alley from whence he'd entered their little scene.

  “Yeah, that happens around here,” Guy said, relaxing a bit. “Kids got nowhere else to play but the streets.”

  Alaric nodded slowly. “There are many things I dislike about this city and what it has become.” He looked up. Nearby, a smokestack belched out thick, choking clouds. A sheen of ash lay upon his armor, and he shifted ethereal for a moment. It all puffed off, leaving behind an Alaric-shaped cloud for a moment after he'd reformed.

  Guy watched him with muted alarm. “How do you do that?”

  “Magic,” Alaric said, beckoning him forward. “There is more to life than feeding yourself and living high, you know. Greater purposes.”

  “Yeah, well, you try having a greater purpose with an empty stomach and no place to sleep, nor a fire on a cold night,” Guy said. “See how far you get on that purpose business then.”

  “But you have none of those problems now,” Alaric said. “You are with us, and you have food, you have a place to sleep, and a fire if you need it.”

  “Yeah, all that,” Guy said, “but not my life here shortly. If that corpse that talked to me was as serious as you lot say he is.”

  “He is quite serious,” Alaric said. “But we have beaten him before, many times.”

  “So you're saying he's due for a win, then?” Guy asked.

  “That's not how it works.”

  “How does it work, please?” Guy asked. “Because he's been sitting on top of this city for a lot longer than I've been alive.”

  “Then by your own logic...he's due,” Alaric said with a smile.

  Guy sagged. “I don't want to be in the middle of all this. You asking me what I want? Yeah, I want to go back to how things were. When I didn't have worry about being in the thick of a clash of armies. Because I'm not a soldier. I'm just a–”

  “Man,” Alaric said.

  “Beg pardon?” Guy asked. “Of course I'm a man. Your one eye going a bit screwy? Because most people suss that one out right off.”

  “You misunderstand,” Alaric said. “Being a man is not merely a matter of physical things. It's deeper than that. It's a matter of responsibilities. Of choices. You can meet many people. You pass them on the street every day, like cattle driven to market, they go to their jobs, back to their homes. They are a prisoner of their lives, as you were. Captive to the base things they want, they sleep and eat and talk and die a little inside every day.”

  Alaric had stopped short beneath the steps that led up to Sanctuary's door. Here, he commanded Guy's attention. “This is Sanctuary. Have you any idea what that means?”

  Guy cast a lazy, jaded eye over the facade, then back to the short wall that surrounded it. The wagon with horses waited, empty just to the side of the path. “Wasn't this place across the city when last I saw it?”

  “Yes,” Alaric said, smiling.

  Guy paused, thinking. “So...you got two of them, then?”

  “No.”

  Now Guy became even more jaded, letting a sigh. “Magic?”

  “Magic indeed,” Alaric said. “For this place is ancient magic, in fact. Formed in primordial days, meant to be a vessel to hold hope within it, it has become our refuge, one that has warded us through some several thousand years of hist
ory's passing.”

  “Uh huh,” Guy said, unimpressed. “I suppose you'll tell me that's how Cyrus Davidon came to be in this age.”

  “Do you have a better explanation?”

  Guy made a sour face. “Trickery. I mean, I know magic is a thing for you lot, but...I've lived my life without seeing much evidence of it, other than maybe that black-armored fartwat of an impersonator falling out of the sky and surviving. But for me, magic's a thing that could maybe be real. I wouldn't care to stake my life on it, though.”

  “You wouldn't care to stake your life on much at all, Guy,” Alaric said with thinly-pursed lips.

  “That's true.” Guy smiled. “Because my life means something.”

  “This place means something,” Alaric said. “You drag yourself through life, crawling on your belly like a beast, seeking no more than bread and water and a place to lay your head, caring not for who you harm in the process and you think that makes you a man? It doesn't. It makes you a slug.” Guy started to recoil, but Alaric grabbed him by the arm. “You don't have to be, though. This place means something because people who once lived like you learned the difference and rallied together. We forged ideals. We used the magic in this place to take care of the basics so that we could focus on doing more, on lifting man out of the traps that you find yourself in. To give them freedom, so that they need not prey on one another and live a hollow life, of service to no one but yourself.”

  “Yeah, well,” Guy said hoarsely, “it's a shame you missed out on the last...thousand years or whatever. Because I ain't seen nuffing like what you're describing there.” He jerked his hand away from Alaric. “People don't stick their necks out for one another here. They keep their heads down to keep 'em from getting lopped off or stretched in a noose. They keep to themselves in order to keep from losing their lives. They fill their own mouths because there's no guessing when you might lose the chance to do so and end up with an empty belly for a week or a month.”

  “I do not deny your life has been hard,” Alaric said. “But that could be over now – if you will it. You could choose to change this day. To look at your circumstances and say, yes, it would have perhaps been easier if the Machine had not been brought down on you. But I tell you, Guy, that crawling on your belly is easier than standing and walking like a man. That looking someone like Malpravus in the eye and spitting defiance could be frightening, may lead to your death. But the satisfaction of putting aside yourself and helping another for one moment is worth ten lifetimes of cowering in fear to live moment to moment. I hope you will see that, before the end.” Alaric nodded, once. “That you will realize that ignoring the cries and calls of those around you, putting your head down and covering your ears so that you may live your empty life...it will cost you your soul.”

  Guy's eyes stared back at him, a little moist. Alaric had hit him, perhaps too hard, but the Machine man had taken it. Taken it and was now saying nothing, merely staring back at Alaric, unsure for the first time since they'd met.

  With nothing more to say, Alaric began to walk away. There was a task yet to do here, after all. Gold needed to be gathered into the wagon for more grain shipments, so that the captains could be paid.

  “Why did you tell me that?” Guy called after Alaric, voice scratchy. “Why would you tell me...any of that?” He brought a sleeve to his eye.

  “You have made choices in your life that you justified by saying, 'There was no choice but this',” Alaric said, looking back down at him from the entry. “Because no one ever looked you in the eye, as a child, as a man, and said, 'Guy, you could be more'. There was no hope in Reikonos then, no one to sow it. So you did as you did. But we are here now. You have a chance, Guy, to put aside all that. To leave it in the past. Walk away from the man you were, as surely as you ran from that coal yard. Stand up. Become more. It is your choice – and entirely in your hands.”

  With that, Alaric went inside the foyer of Sanctuary, business yet to fulfill. He heard the small sniffle from Guy, and then the slow tap of his footsteps as he ascended the stairs to follow. Alaric could only hope that he would follow in other ways, as well, though that was much less certain even now.

  Chapter 81

  Vaste

  “Do you think we're going to win this fight?” Birissa asked, somewhat out of the blue.

  Vaste froze, midway through re-dressing himself beneath the shadows of one of the airship docks. They'd found a quiet spot and made it...well not as quiet. Now that the deed was done and the clothing was being put back on, she hit him with this. It took a moment to summon his thoughts and answer. “Well...we generally win these fights, so...I think so, yes. Cyrus and Alaric are very good at these sort of things.”

  Birissa sat there quietly, strapping on her armor, leather bindings making noise in the quiet under the airship where they'd taken shelter. “They have experience in madness such as this. That's what you're saying. You trust them because they've done madder things.”

  “That's about the size of it, yes,” Vaste said, pulling his robe tight...ish. He didn't like wearing any clothing too restrictive.

  “I can taste the despair in this city,” Birissa said. “People are worried about where their next meal is going to come from.” She looked over at Vaste, and he was struck by the gleam of her eyes, even in the dark. “When they say there's no hope in Reikonos...they mean it.”

  “It was always bound to get worse before it got better,” Vaste said, suddenly unsure of himself. And why should he not be? They'd fought gods, guilds, cities, nations – but a thousand years in the past. There were no guns or airships then, and certainly no city mad enough to put Malpravus at its head while worshipping Cyrus. He forced a smile. “I bet you're sorry you came here now.”

  “No,” Birissa said. “If ever there was a time and place that needed...us...” She bowed her head, strangely mournful. Very unlike the Birissa he'd come to know these last days. “...This is it.”

  “You'll see,” Vaste said, cupping a hand under her chin. “Alaric knows what he's doing. So does Curatio. Even Cyrus, for all the sport I make of him. They are no fools. And Malpravus, for all his fearsome evil, has never beaten us yet.”

  Birissa looked over at him, and a smile broke through her melancholy, like clouds pierced by sunbeams. “You have brought some hope here. Not nearly enough, yet. But some. Including to me.”

  Vaste didn't know what to say to that, so he let it go with a smile. “What was it like where you come from?”

  She was quiet for a moment, then placed a hand on his wrist. “I'll tell you all about it...after.”

  Vaste hesitated. “After...?”

  “The fight is through,” Birissa said, stroking his wrist.

  “Oh, whew,” Vaste said, shoulders sagging. “I thought maybe you were going to suggest another round, and I just don't think I could do that right now. Maybe again later, but – I'm just tired. What a day.”

  She chuckled, then patted him again. “Later,” she said, with sweet reassurance, and then they left the darkness behind.

  Chapter 82

  Cyrus

  “Report,” Cyrus said, cresting the stairs to the exterior wall to find McCoie waiting. They were steep, each step satisfying as he pushed through, armor making the faintest squeaks and clanks as he rose to the top. The sun shining down beneath those smoky clouds presented him with a view beyond the crenellations of a bleak, grey landscape – and a thousand, a million writhing scourge.

  “The walls are barricaded well to either side,” McCoie said stiffly, hands locked behind him. Indeed, there was a firm barricade between the crenellations on either side, here where the dockyard wall met the great one that ringed Reikonos in. Wood barrels and desks and various other debris had been piled higher than Cyrus's head, and guards stood on small stations to keep watch over its top.

  “Fast work done well,” Cyrus said, examining the barrier. It wouldn't stop a dedicated attack, but it would certainly slow it. Even Qualleron would have difficulty clearing th
at much mess before he was riddled with too many bullets to survive. Muskets and spears were piled in weapons racks lining the crenellations, ready to be seized the moment an attack was sounded. Scanning behind him, Cyrus could see the cannons pointed in that direction from the nearest tower, ready to be fired should the enemy break through.

  “We tried, sir,” McCoie said, unable to hide the trace of pleasure in his voice at the praise.

  “You succeeded,” Cyrus said, trying to think how he would have handled this in his days as Guildmaster, as general. A thousand years in the ether had clouded some of those memories, but more praise seemed warranted. “I've been impressed with your efforts and your disposition, McCoie. You've done extremely well in the face of circumstances I can't imagine.”

  McCoie bowed his head. “I've known – many of us have known – that things were amiss in this city for a long while. But I wouldn't have had the faith to move forward if you hadn't appeared, my lord.”

  Cyrus felt the flush of his cheeks. This was it, then, wasn't it? He'd never felt comfortable with the hero worship, though he'd certainly seen it as general and Guildmaster. Not quite to this fervor, but then, everything seemed so much more extreme in these days. Louder, really. Everything was louder, even the hero worship. “Perhaps,” he allowed, afraid to say much more.

  “We have kept faith a long time,” McCoie said quietly. “Though, for my part, I confess I had days when I wavered. When my faith was–”

  “It's normal to doubt,” Cyrus said, feeling his belly squirm. “The course of time takes its own path. Events go the way they go.”

  McCoie's head snapped up. “All is going in accordance with your plan.”

  Now it was as though someone had taken a spear and twisted it in Cyrus's guts, but with the pain turned off to leave only this curious discomfort. “I don't see all, McCoie.”

  McCoie made a slight huffing noise. “Of – of course not.” He bowed his head again. “I merely meant to say–”