But as he lay dying, he could hear his father’s taunts one more time. How he’d never succeed.
He hadn’t eradicated the magi. All his life, he’d fought to eliminate an outside threat.
And all it had done was make him enemies of his own kind, a despised emperor, and a man who would go down in history as the worst of his kind.
With one final gasp, Rufus closed his eyes, never to open them again.
CHAPTER 9: ZELDA
Zelda, Romarus, Eric, and Abe moved through the southern lands and back to the rubble of Dabira, the four castoffs of society, struggling to give that very society a hope and a chance for the future.
The young homeless girl, without Mama for months now and her father for as long as she could remember. The elder wizard, a man seen as crazy by his kin—all whom had perished in the attack by the empire. The young dragon hunter, a boy who had become a man through his encounter with Chrystos. And the elder dragon hunter, a man whom Artemia had left as a coward and unfit for her guild.
Together, they trudged through the land. When Zelda had first met up with them as she and Abe had moved south, she felt a challenge, but she also felt her spirits lifted. They all had focus, they all had purpose, and they all had their peak strength in their realm of expertise.
But motivation wore off quickly when other basic factors took off. Hunger. Warmth. Sleep. Fatigue. Exhaustion.
And they hadn’t even yet made it over the mountains separating Dabira and Caia.
At the request of Romarus, Zelda used her teleportation spell whenever she could to advance them further. Much to her surprise, she could teleport far greater distances than before and with much less exertion than her previous escape from Caia. But that didn’t make her invulnerable to the effects of weariness. After every teleportation, she found herself in need of at least a quick nap off her feet.
She felt guilt whenever she did so. After her third time, which brought them to the riverbank just outside Dabira, she apologized profusely, having to fight off tears. She felt like she was failing to live up to the example Garo had set, and even said as much. Eric and Abe looked on with sympathy in their eyes, but nothing they said could provide any measure of help. They just couldn’t use magic, and that very fact, unfortunately, made them unable to help.
When she saw them in that light, it didn’t make her want to join the empire’s desire to separate humanity and magi, not even close. But it did make her realize a divide would always exist between the two types of people, and that left her both sad and resentful.
“Child,” Romarus said. “Come with me. Do not cry.”
After they’d walked out of earshot of the two hunters, Romarus put a gentle hand on Zelda’s shoulder.
“Sit. Lie down.”
“What if I fall asleep?”
“It would make for a better alternative than us talking,” Romarus said.
“But, but, I can’t,” Zelda said. Her voice was becoming edgier, less sad and upset and more annoyed and aggrieved. “Artemia is going to get away and the empire is going to get away and—”
“And there will always be evil which gets away in some fashion. Sometimes that evil is within us, and sometimes that evil is outside us,” Romarus said. “The important thing is that as a person fighting for good, you are rested, because when evil comes face to face with you, it is not something that you can persuade or avoid fighting. Evil is evil in part because you must fight it on its terms, not on yours. Evil will force you to decide who should live and who should die. Evil will force you to make changes to who you are as a person, often damaging you in the process. Evil will force you into isolation, if not literally then within your own mind. It will distance you from normalcy, cold to love, and with far too much ennui.”
When he started speaking, it sounded like the endless prattle of an elder who just wanted to give his voice an audience. Her guilt forced her to listen, but she did not exactly do so willingly.
But as he spoke, she thought about what he said as it related to the empire. He had a point. Zelda swore she’d never use her magic for anything but good, fulfilling her Mama’s wishes, but she’d already killed guards. She’d killed a dragon when such a move had seemed to cause nothing but further trouble. To a lesser degree, she’d defied the orders of Roland and others, and that had only created more chaos.
Evil had changed who she was. It had also morphed her understanding of what good was and if purity was a utopian ideal or an actual possibility. She didn’t know. She didn’t know if she ever could know.
“With all of this in mind, good will only prevail if you have rested enough and understand what you will face,” Romarus said. “Do not believe that in the battle between good and evil, good will always prevail because it is just. This is a lie. Garo himself knew this.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that whenever I heard Garo speak, all those decades ago, when I felt I would live forever and I had youth as you do now, he always spoke about the need to walk into battle prepared. No one, not even Chrystos—should such a being exist, a fact I admittedly consider more strongly by the day—can just show up to battle and declare victory. We all need preparation and a settled mind.”
It said something to Zelda that for as important as Garo’s words seemed, she could not keep up with the group’s pace. Days had passed since the initial meeting, but she only allowed herself sleep when the rest of the group requested it. She had never requested it on her own.
That had to change.
“If it is OK, Romarus…” she said. It still felt unnatural to ask. Like doing so defied not just the wishes of Mama but of all the magi.
“We rest here tonight,” he said. “We have escaped the reaches of the most dangerous monsters of the south. Our biggest threat, at this moment, comes from the sadness in our minds at the absence of our hometown. Night will help with that, of course. The darkness will provide a blanket over our eyes which will shield us from that which we cannot handle.”
He asked her to stay there, and he moved to the hunters to ask them to gather around her. She collapsed to the ground, her eyes closing. Exhaustion seemed to take her all at once as she surrendered to her craving for rest.
Within minutes, she went into a slumber so deep she did not even dream when she did so.
***
Dawn awoke her, a surprising sight. Had she truly slept that long? When had she last seen such sleep? With the Shadows? For a brief spell in Dabira?
No matter how long, the answer was too long. The immediate previous days brought nothing but movement, grief, and fear. Fear of the monsters of Hydor; fear of the monsters of Artemia; fear of Artemia herself and the empire. It was a relief, at least, to finally have an evening, surrounded by a mage and two magnificent dragon hunters, in which she felt so secure that she could fall asleep so easily.
She wondered how much of the lack of pacifism in the group helped that. Roland’s refusal to fight, as noble a cause as it seemed, also left the city vulnerable. The three men around her would not hesitate to kill. So long as their blades did not turn on her, she feared little in terms of what Hydor might bring her.
She looked around. Romarus sat meditating away from her. Abe and Eric, however, remained in deep slumber. Romarus did not seem to notice her having woken, so Zelda did something she could not ever remember doing.
She went back to sleep, garnering a couple of extra hours of rest before the bright sun woke her for good, making a return to a dream state all but impossible.
Fortunately, Eric and Abe had awoken too. Romarus had brought back a boar, and with his magic, he cooked the beast and shared it with them.
Zelda cleared her throat after finishing her food.
“I can teleport us to the waterfall ahead,” she said. “But I do not want to risk trying to teleport across terrain such as a mountain. I haven’t done it, and, well, I—”
“That’s fine,” Abe said. “We didn’t practice in the mountains of Mathos for nothing all
these years.”
Zelda smiled at the relief.
“I’ve never been that far, to Mathos,” she said. “I wonder what awaits.”
“It’s not much,” Eric said. “It’s a small town that mostly catered to the Dragon Hunter’s Guild. Now that we’ve left and haven’t returned for a couple of months, I wonder what it looks like now. Probably…”
He didn’t fill his thoughts out, probably just over a lack of words. Zelda, though, could fill in the blanks. What Dabira did for magi, Mathos did for humans. It served as a quiet refuge from the main chaos of the empire, a chance to live out one’s life without fear of what would come on the other side.
Maybe after she had stopped Artemia, she could find a new life in Mathos. It would make for a lot better experience than Caia, even if the empire fell.
“You shouldn’t feel so eager for Mathos,” Abe said. “Perhaps after we stop Artemia, we can enjoy a meal and the sights of the sea out one window and the mountains out the other. But whenever you see it, it will mark the fact that we have crossed the sea for perhaps the last time.”
“I understand,” Zelda said. “Maybe we can at least see the guild.”
“Maybe,” Abe said, although the words seemed to spark a thought in him.
After they finished eating, Zelda gathered the three men around her. They held hands. Zelda closed her eyes and envisioned that space just in front of the waterfall. She saw the trees, felt the gentle wind, heard the constant splashing of water into the lake below.
Then she opened her eyes. She had done it.
A wave of exhaustion hit her, but it did not come even as hard as the first teleportation she’d done when she and Abe had found Romarus and Eric. Perhaps her body had developed a resistance to the fatigue. Perhaps she was gaining strength. Or perhaps she really had needed rest that badly.
“Let’s go,” she said before anyone could ask her if she needed a chance to rest. “Artemia won’t wait for us.”
“You heard her,” Eric said, following her first.
She led the journey up the slick rocks. She took her time, but whenever she moved, she did so with a brisk walk, making sure no moment went by any slower than it had to.
She reached the cave and felt a slight shiver. She had no dagger this time, nor did she have magi as powerful as Garo and Tetra behind her. If the behemoth appeared, she’d have to kill it.
“Careful,” she said, though she mumbled the word so quietly it sounded more like a self-warning than a heads up to the rest of the group.
They moved through the cave, Eric using the essence of Indica to embed his sword with fire to light the way. Rodents scattered about, creating obnoxious squeaks and scuttling sounds more than actual danger.
Then Zelda turned the corner where she would come across the exit. She saw the exit, sure enough, but then she saw a sight that seemed almost too unreal.
The behemoth stood there, the darkness shrouding its features but the light behind it providing an ominous outline. It did not yet move toward them, and in fact did not move at all, but Zelda could tell it was very much alive and very much waiting for them.
She had never seen any creature other than a human make a move like this. It seemed like the behemoth had waited for their arrival for some time, and now that they had come, it would wait for them to come close enough for battle. Its intimidating presence seemed too deliberate. Something had happened. It must have craved them so badly to do something like this.
“No way around this, is there?” Abe said.
“No,” Zelda said. “Only by sea, and we don’t have any boats. The empire has them all.”
Romarus shook his head.
“This creature almost seems possessed. Zelda, you and I must work to kill this creature. Eric, Abe, wait until we’ve disabled it in some fashion. These are not like dragons.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Eric said with a snort.
“Use your arrows,” Zelda said. “I will use fire.”
“Then I will use fire as well,” Romarus said. “Burn what stands in our way.”
As they got closer so Romarus had better aim, Zelda could hear the beast’s growls increase in volume until it sounded on the verge of barking at them. Just when it raised its voice, Zelda unleashed an inferno toward it with Romarus supplying complementary fire.
Once more, time seemed to slow as she cast her spells. She could see the arrow rotating through the air, the behemoth slowly bending in the spots it got hit, and her fire enhancing the arrows. Time slowed so much that Romarus looked frozen in place as his arrow soared.
Then time returned to its normal pace as the beast roared in pain before rushing outside.
“It’s not done with us,” Zelda said. “Quick, let’s move forward before it tries to ambush us.”
Her words served the group well, because when she got to the light, she saw the behemoth running to the side of the mountain, trying to get to the cave’s top to jump them. Had it succeeded, Zelda knew whoever it picked would’ve died a gruesome death.
She fired more fire spells, catching the beast and producing some pitiful howls. It turned and ran toward the magic, trying to take the source out through the pain. She glanced behind her and noticed Eric had gone missing.
“Ready!” Abe yelled.
In her field of vision, just as the behemoth came within one bound of her, Eric flew from above, landing on the beast’s back. His sword drove into the neck of the monster. The technique looked remarkably familiar—Indica, that’s where she’d seen him execute it. He knows what he’s doing. I shouldn’t have told him to wait.
The behemoth fought still, and the only thing keeping Eric from flying down the mountainside was his grip on the hilt of his sword. But the great beast’s strength left it. Soon, it could only give one final furious groan.
Eric removed his sword and plunged it once more, giving the beast a certain death at that point.
“We can help too, you know,” Eric said with a knowing smile.
Zelda returned the favor, her heart rate still so high she could hear it and feel its pulsing.
“You have no idea how much fear that thing put in me,” Zelda said, surprised that she did not feel much grief for the monster. Even the death of soldiers had brought a level of empathy for her.
Did this mark her losing herself? Did all of this death and carnage remove a hopeful side of her?
Or did she still have it and she just knew who to use it for? Had she gotten better at saving her emotions for those who deserved it?
It’s just a monster. A beast that tried to kill you. You fought for your survival.
But the thoughts wouldn’t go away so easily.
“Behemoths put plenty of fear into Artemia and I as we moved forward,” Eric said. “Not even Artemia attacked it when we moved south. Although I believe that was more of an act of self-preservation than it was an intelligent maneuver.”
“It’s what anyone would have done, Eric,” Abe said.
Eric shot him a disapproving look that more resolutely said better what he was thinking than any words would have.
“Let’s keep going,” Zelda said, trying to refocus the group. “I can teleport us again when we reach more even ground.”
“Smart,” Eric said, trying to recapture his focus.
She took one last glance at the corpse of the behemoth, shuddered, and moved forward. She knew in the days to come she’d witness far more death than she had up to this point—and she could only hope that she would have the mental fortitude to withstand it when she did.
Once they reached even ground, the group again came together as Zelda closed her eyes. Due to the vast distance she’d have to cover, she knew it would take several teleportations and more than a few days to reach Caia. They’d already taken nearly three days just to get to their current spot. I wonder if Tetra will have burned Caia down just as the empire burned down Dabira. It’s not out of the question.
It would seem rather likely, in fact.
When the night came, after dinner, Romarus, perhaps feeling more tired than he had let on, fell asleep quickly. Zelda closed her eyes, but when she heard Eric ask a question related to Artemia, she stayed awake.
“Abe, did you know Artemia’s brother, Auron?”
“Of course I did,” Abe said. “Auron always kept an eye on me. He always said I was at risk for trouble more than anyone.”
He chuckled.
“I thought at the time he was keeping me away from Artemia. I wasn’t wrong. But I think I was wrong for why.”
“Did you know he was my father?”
The silence that came lasted so long that Zelda wondered if the dragon hunters had figured out she wasn’t actually asleep.
“I suspected it,” Abe said after some time. “The only reason why was because Auron treated your mother with such care, but in general, he was not that caring a person. We all wondered who you and Rey’s father was since Reah never got married. No one ever asked her, but when I put the pieces together after the fact, well, there’s a reason retrospection provides the clearest perspective. I wish I’d known better. But—”
“It’s nothing to concern yourself with,” Eric said. “I just was curious. When I was at the bottom of the pit, when Artemia left me for dead, I had this… experience. I’m not even sure that’s an accurate word. But I saw my mom. I saw Rey. A god spoke to me as her. He showed me Auron, my father. And that Artemia is my aunt. We are family.”
The exasperated sigh that followed from Abe was one that Zelda echoed, albeit silently. She could not imagine finding out her worst enemy was also family. The only thing she could imagine for her would be to find out her father was Rufus Syrast.
It didn’t seem like that made life any more difficult for Eric, but still, it could not be ignored. Surely, she thought, it had to play some factor.
Legends of the War (War of the Magi Book 3) Page 12