Heretic (The Sanctuary Series Book 7)

by Robert J. Crane

  Terian sat to Cyrus’s immediate left, followed by Calene, Scuddar, Vaste, Longwell, Quinneria down that side of the table. The end opposite him was unoccupied, but Aisling sat across from Cyrus's mother, Cattrine Tiernan to her left, followed in turn by Mendicant, Ryin, J’anda, and finally Vara at Cyrus’s right, his wife more serious than he could recall ever seeing her. She too was staring resentfully at the new table and the scorched ceiling in turn. Malpravus's fire had consumed the chairs save for Cyrus's, and now the rest of the officers sat in heavily padded seats.

  “Speaking from experience,” Terian said, rubbing his own gauntlet over the new table, “while change is seldom comfortable, it is almost always preferable to the still peace of death.” He looked around the room. “And I think the new faces are a nice touch – speaking as one of them, of course.”

  “And this is more representative of who’s been making the decisions around here of late,” Scuddar said in his low voice.

  Cyrus shifted in his tall chair, feeling not for the first time that he was utterly out of place. “We’ve been in a very … tight space this last few months. Seeking outside help was advisable, and we wouldn’t have made it through in even the poor shape we’re in if not for Terian, Aisling, Cattrine and …” he cleared his throat, “… Quinneria.”

  “Yes, so very nice to meet you for the first time, truly,” Vaste said, overly loudly. “I can’t thank you enough for all those pies … that had no poison in them.”

  “That you know of,” Quinneria said, pointedly not looking at him.

  Vaste’s lips puckered. “Oh. Dear.”

  “Yes, very nice to meet you,” Cattrine said, adjusting herself in her seat. “Who is this again?”

  “I’m Cyrus’s mother,” Quinneria said, leaning across the table to offer a hand.

  Cattrine and Aisling both snapped their heads around to look at Cyrus. “You told me your mother was dead,” they said in unison.

  “This is why I stuck to whorehouses,” Terian said under his breath, so low that only Cyrus and Vara could hear him.

  “I thought she was,” Cyrus said. A night of restless turning had left him without much in the way of clarity, nor anything, truly, save for heavy eyelids. I can't decide which of these developments I'm most disturbed by; the return of my mother, the betrayal of Erith and Menlos, the invasion of Sanctuary by Goliath, or…the damned table. He looked down once more at the rectangle of wood in the center of the room. Perhaps this is simply the most obvious reminder of all the other changes.

  “And all along you’ve been here,” J’anda said, staring at Quinneria. “If I might … you look so very young. Younger than he does—” he pointed at Cyrus.

  “This seat ages you, I’m just going to say it right now,” Cyrus said, thumping his arm rest a little mournfully. “There’s a reason Alaric was all grey, and I’m not convinced it was his age. He was probably like twenty-five before he took this chair—”

  “Alaric Garaunt was older than you think,” Quinneria said, interlacing her fingers in front of her. She looked back at J’anda. “And you’re too kind. Yes, I’m older now, for a human. Over sixty.”

  “But it’s not an illusion,” J’anda watched her carefully. “I would be able to see—”

  “It’s not an illusion,” Quinneria said with a shake of the head. “It is magic, though. It’s—it’s tied to … well, to what Malpravus is doing now, to some extent—”

  “Which, coincidentally, is the reason I asked you to speak to the Council,” Cyrus said, interrupting her, “so perhaps you could just slide past the explanation for why you look so young and launch right into how you went nose-to-nose with Malpravus last night with spellcraft of the like I’ve never seen outside of what Curatio did last time he faced Malpravus.”

  Quinneria nodded slowly. “Why don’t I start at the beginning and work my way up because there are things you need to know,” she looked very pointedly at Cyrus, “in order to understand what Malpravus has become … and what he’s doing now.” She sat almost as far away from him as she could without taking the seat at the other end of the table. Intentional? Cyrus wondered. Perhaps she's played the role of Larana for so long she still feels the need to hide…

  “Things it might have been useful to know months or years ago, but that you didn’t want to tell us,” Vaste said. When Quinneria looked across Longwell at him, he held up his hands. “For very, very good reasons I’m sure.”

  “Because Alaric didn’t want anyone to know,” Quinneria said. “So good or bad, the reasons were his, and I have been here in Sanctuary as his guest, thus it was not my place to say, nor to expose any secrets he wished me to keep.” Once more she looked at Cyrus, but he kept his gaze pointed at the table in front of her.

  “But now that Alaric is out of the picture, shall we say …?” Vara asked.

  Quinneria shifted in her chair once more. “Now that Malpravus is moving, and Curatio is no longer here … there are things you need to know. So. The beginning …”

  “I wish I had something to eat while listening to this story,” Vaste muttered. “It just feels like it’s going to be a long one, as though she’s about to make up for not speaking all these years.”

  With a spin of her fingers, magic danced out of Quinneria’s hand and a pie appeared in front of Vaste. He peered at it suspiciously. “I can’t poison a conjured pie, Vaste,” she said with mild annoyance, “and if had any objections to you as a troll, I would have killed you long, long ago.” She paused. “I like you. You’re … funny, and warm, and kind. Nothing at all like what I ever thought a troll would be, based on my … limited experience with them.”

  “Your son had similar notions I had to disabuse him of,” Vaste said, digging into the pie with his bare hands. “I see it runs in the family.”

  “When I married Rusyl Davidon,” Quinneria said, speaking into the room, which was quiet except for the sound of Vaste slurping and chewing, “he was a young warrior and I was a new graduate of the Commonwealth of Arcanists. We set up our homestead in Reikonos, and I stayed there with Cyrus after he was born, reading obscure texts from the library in the city in my spare time and improving my skills while my husband worked at various points as an instructor at the Society of Arms, as a guardsman for Reikonos, and finally, when the troll war broke out, as a soldier in the army.”

  “Those damned trolls,” Vaste muttered, his mouth full of pie.

  “I often have that same thought,” Vara said crossly.

  “Rusyl left to go to war,” Quinneria went on a little sadly, “but Cyrus was growing brighter every day. I started to teach him the fundamentals of magic, the building blocks that you all learn in the early days at your various Leagues; all the simple things—”

  “Such as …?” Longwell asked, peering intently at her.

  She took a breath. “If you’d like, I could teach you. It would make you a heretic, but you could learn—”

  “Whoa, whoa,” Calene said, her lips froze in an O. “I thought it wasn’t possible for folk with no magic to learn magic.”

  “Yeah,” Terian said, “that’s another League lie.”

  Cyrus blinked, looking sideways at Terian. “You knew this?”

  Terian looked right back at Cyrus. “I thought you knew it, too, given that with no prior magical experience you threw a fire spell in Talikartin the Guardian’s face a year ago.”

  “But she just said she trained me before,” Cyrus said, pointing at Quinneria. “And I found out she was my mother right after it happened, so I just assumed—”

  “Knowing the building blocks I taught you allowed you to use the fire spell Mendicant gave you the words for,” Quinneria said, looking right at him. “It saved your life. Without that training, the words are just empty words. You have to know how to discipline your mind to bring the effect into being, and that takes practice. There are also different aptitudes.” She looked nervously around the table. “Some people start better at magic than others. Natural talent. Almost everyo
ne can learn at least some with practice, but like anything else, some people start out ahead.”

  “This is all very interesting,” Vaste said, still munching, red berry juice spilling down his chin like blood. “If that’s the case, why don’t more people use magic?”

  “Because the Leagues don’t want them to,” Quinneria said. “Or more accurately—”

  “The gods don’t want them to,” Terian said darkly.

  “Because using multiple disciplines makes us more powerful as spellcasters?” Ryin asked, seemingly genuinely curious.

  “Because magic taught along League lines not only sterilizes and eliminates the more dangerous, frightening elements and spells,” Quinneria said, “but also because the Leagues are utterly under the control of the gods. They are part and parcel of the gods’ efforts to hold back the study of magic in Arkaria. Magic of the sort Curatio used, the kind he called his ‘heresy,’ was an absolute threat to the gods. He, Alaric, and I used it in the Realm of Purgatory on the day we rescued you.” She turned her gaze to Vara.

  Vara met her eyes and stared back, blinking. “You were there, too, then.”

  “I was,” Quinneria said. “They needed my help; my spellcraft was not as refined as Curatio’s, because I haven’t lived as long, but I was a stronger spellcaster.”

  “So fascinating,” Mendicant said in quiet awe. “The spell you used at Thurren Hill …”

  “Yes, let’s bring up the dead trolls again,” Vaste said, “so fun … and while I’m eating, no less.”

  “Shove the rest of the pie in your mouth and be done already,” Vara snapped at him.

  “I can’t,” Vaste said, slipping a piece of crust in his mouth. “It’s so moist! So succulent! It’s jubilation given fruit and dough form, and I can’t believe it’s been conjured out of air!”

  Cyrus looked at Scuddar. “You knew magic wasn’t a thing limited just to the chosen of the Leagues, didn’t you?”

  The desert man nodded slowly. “My people … dabble. And I have heard the way your League members talk about magic.” He shook his head, chuckling. “So very … limited.”

  “I learned similar truths in Gren a few years ago,” Vaste said, indicating faded scars on his forehead. “Shamanic magics taught by the elder trolls are a far cry from the League dribblings. The shaman I learned from suggested things like curses that could be placed on, uh … entire cities.” He looked nervously at Quinneria, who smiled benignly back at him.

  “Like the scourge?” Cattrine asked, looking lost.

  “Like Aloakna,” Aisling said next to her, rolling her head back against the seat.

  “What happened in Aloakna,” Quinneria said, “ties very closely with what I think Malpravus is after. The … the ancients, as you call them,” she looked a little embarrassed, “they didn’t use magic with League constraints. That’s why they were destroyed, that’s why the gods put forth the Leagues, to keep what happened ten thousand years ago from happening again.”

  “What happened ten thousand years ago?” Cattrine asked, putting a hand to her head. “Other than the breaking of the three kingdoms of Luukessia when Lord Garrick failed to claim the throne of Enrant Monge?” Her eyes flashed in triumph. “See? I can refer to things none of you have any idea about.”

  “I knew what you were talking about,” Longwell said with a touch of pride.

  “As did I, for I knew Lord Ulric Garrick,” Quinneria said, staring sadly at Cattrine.

  “I thought you said you were only sixty?” J’anda asked tentatively.

  “I am,” Quinneria said, “but you all knew Garrick as well; you just didn’t know him by that name.” Her eyes were downcast, her manner grim. “You knew him as Alaric Garaunt.”

  84.

  Cyrus slammed his palm against the new table with a thump that stunned the whole room. “Dammit,” he said mildly, cracking his knuckles. “Forgot I didn’t have my gauntlet on.”

  “What is it?” Vara asked, voice rising in alarm.

  “What?” Cyrus looked over at her. “Oh. It’s … Dieron Buchau—”

  “The stableboy?” Ryin asked. “What does he have to do with this?”

  “He told me about Lord Garrick when we were at Enrant Monge,” Cyrus said, staring at the table, shaking his head in disappointment. “He told me about … about a prophecy, I guess … that Lord Garrick would save the Luukessians at their darkest hour.”

  “Oh, wow,” Vaste said into the shocked silence. “I guess whoever predicted that one missed big. I mean, really big, since the whole damned land went down to—”

  “Idiot!” Vara hissed, “Alaric saved those people on the bridge by sacrificing himself.” Her cheeks burned red. “He fulfilled the bloody prophecy.”

  “I’m still stuck on Alaric living ten thousand years,” Longwell said through narrowed eyes. “I realize I tend to be the skeptic on these … uhrm … mystical godly things that you people go right for, but … uhrm … he’s not a man, then, is he? I mean, a human being would die after a hundred years. Right?” He looked around the table for support and his eyes landed on Cyrus.

  “I always thought so,” Cyrus said and glanced sideways at Vara. “In fact, it’s been the source of a few arguments in my life.”

  “Well, Alaric was human, but he had some other things going on that made him less than normal,” Quinneria said. “Again, this ties to the ancients in a very significant way—the ancients were obsessed with immortality, with power—”

  “I bet the gods didn’t like that,” Vara muttered under her breath.

  “Nobody likes it when you take the things they want,” Aisling said, and, upon getting a heat glare from Vara, amended, “or so I’ve been told.”

  “These ancients are starting to sound an awful lot like Malpravus,” Cyrus said, drumming his fingers on the table.

  “And so they were,” Quinneria said, nodding. “Which brings us to him. The spell I used against the trolls … it wasn’t a simple curse.” She glanced at Vaste, then looked away, seemingly ashamed. “I didn’t just … hex their lives away.”

  “But they all bloody well died, didn’t they?” Vara asked. “All ten thousand of them?”

  “That’s a number that keeps coming up today,” Vaste said.

  “It’s very round,” J’anda said. “Like you, if you keep eating whole pies.”

  Vaste rested his hands on his ample belly. “It would be worth it for these pies.”

  “For those trolls … I … stole their lives away,” Quinneria said.

  “WITH PIE?!” Vaste sat up.

  “With a branch of magic that was long ago forbidden by the Leagues,” Quinneria said as Vaste relaxed. “For I discovered a very old book in my studies, one that … well, one that I wasn’t meant to see.” She scratched the base of her neck. “It … there were things in there that set me upon my path to heresy, that had me experimenting with magics I wasn’t supposed to know. And when Rusyl died …” she looked right at Cyrus, and once more he turned away, “… I picked up his sword and went right to the war, fighting with Rodanthar the way he’d taught me in our home—just as he taught Cyrus—and wielding my spells, the ones I’d worked on secretly, when no one but Cyrus was watching.”

  “This branch of magic you played with,” Terian said, chewing on one corner of his mouth, “was it tied to the dark knight spells that steal vitality?”

  “Yes,” Quinneria said.

  “I would have assumed necromancy,” Mendicant said, bubbling with excitement, “something in the realm of a Soul Sacrifice.”

  “They’re one and the same,” Quinneria said. “The line between them is artificial, drawn by the Leagues to keep people from delving as deep as I did—for reasons that should be obvious. It’s the same magic, the same effect. The only difference is … I didn’t stop where they drew the line. I didn’t use a Soul Ruby,” she swallowed heavily, “I didn’t bother using a blade to inflict harm first, I just reached out with the spell … and ripped the souls of ten thousand trolls righ
t out of their bodies across the field of battle.” Silence fell over the room.

  “Well, isn’t that a lovely bit of history,” Vaste said, brushing the crumbs from his hands uncomfortably.

  “It’s not just history,” Quinneria said, straightening up in her seat, “that’s—it’s essentially what Yartraak did in Aloakna.” She looked at Cyrus again, and this time he could not help but look back. “It’s the power Malpravus is seeking.”

  “And it’s the reason why you haven’t aged since you did it,” Terian said, staring at her, “it’s because you stole those souls, those lives—their vitality.”

  “Yes,” Quinneria said with a nod, “and it’s clearly what Malpravus is aiming to do. What he will do, if left alone long enough. By what he showed us in the tower … he’s close. He’s where I was just before I broke through, and if he’s in an old city of the ancients … they were experimenting with these spells, drawing energy. It’s how they powered their empire. If he’s down there in Zanbellish, it’s entirely possible he has access to a book or an archive of the sort that I found, that taught me how to become …” she put her hands out before her, “… what I am now.”

  Terian gritted his teeth and turned to Cyrus. “What do we do? Carrack told us that the portal in Zanbellish was guarded, that anyone who steps through is going to die.”

  “Not anyone,” Vara said quietly, looking sideways at Cyrus, who looked back at her. “He seemed to be quite willing to welcome you.”

  “This is the thing that puzzles me,” J’anda said, shaking his head. “Why does he endeavor so hard to curry your favor, Cyrus?”

  “Because when Cyrus came to Sanctuary,” Vaste said quietly, “he wasn’t looking for bonds of fellowship.” The troll stared straight at Cyrus, a sad smile on his face, “he was looking for better armor, better weapons, to move up in the world. He had the same motives as Malpravus, and Malpravus thinks …” He shrugged.

  “That I can be swayed back to that same view again, given the right opportunity,” Cyrus said. “That I would forsake all the bonds of fellowship I’ve found here and give it all up … to be stronger.”