Warlord

by Robert J. Crane

  “I know this is going to come as a surprise to all of you, given it’s me speaking,” Ryin started, “but … am I the only one who wonders how we can simply … end this?” Now he looked almost as tired as Curatio. “I am frankly to the point where wiping out every man, woman and child in Kortran is an idea I’d entertain, in the style of the conquerors of old.” He paused, as though the words he spoke reached his own ears. “Though not an idea I’d condone.”

  “We’ll make a wild, savage pillager of you yet,” Vaste said. “And I admit, the druid speaks reason. I am of the opinion that the titans will not be stopping without very, very good cause, and while I certainly think, as I stated earlier, that we’ve inflicted some considerable damage on them, we haven’t drawn the sort of blood that will make them stop.”

  “What next, indeed?” Curatio asked, and now it was almost as though a competition was going on between him and Ryin to see who could sound the most tired. “They strike at our people, we strike back at theirs. We invade their lands, they invade ours. This is poised to go on forever, with blow and counterblow. One almost wonders if Ryin’s unthinkable solution is the only one.”

  “But we’re not actually going to do it, right?” Vaste asked. An uncomfortable silence filled the air. “Right? I mean, we didn’t even do that to the trolls—”

  “The trolls stopped when we scared them,” Cyrus said, unable to pull his eyes off the table. “When we hurt them bad enough. Much like Vaste and Ryin, I find myself wondering what it will take to make them let go of this particular bone of contention.” He looked at Curatio. “When the titans attacked Sanctuary before, Alaric didn’t go after them, did he?”

  “No,” Curatio said. “He was rather more preoccupied with mourning and … other details.”

  “Oh, a mystery!” Vaste said. “I heard a mystery. It’s been a while, but I just heard one, dumped out unceremoniously upon this table like a naked elf!” He caught a hard look from Vara. “I didn’t say a female elf, yeesh, don’t be so presumptive and quick to take offense.”

  “There’s not that much mystery to it,” Vara said, the anger subsiding. “And it was a little like what you suggest, Vaste, in that Alaric brought me into Sanctuary within a day of Raifa dying. I believe he and the small complement of remaining members were somewhat busied in the time that followed seeing to my health.”

  “Oooh,” Vaste said, “all right. Not quite as exciting of a mystery as I thought it’d be, but I’ll bite. Where did Alaric find you?”

  She stared at him flatly. “Where Archenous Derregnault and Amarath’s Raiders left me to die.”

  “I heard that happened in the Trials of Purgatory,” Thad said, frowning.

  Vara froze, looking somewhat caught. “It did.”

  “Lucky Alaric just happened to be wandering through, then,” Cyrus said, noting the peculiarity of her reaction. “Especially since Sanctuary wasn’t able to beat the trials until years later.”

  “I told you I sensed a mystery,” Vaste said, “and here it is, meat on this bone that everyone else thought was bare. I can smell them, I tell you—”

  “That’s your upper lip and possibly your underarms,” Vara said.

  “How did Alaric get into the Trials of Purgatory?” Erith asked, wrinkling her nose like she could smell, if not a mystery, then something.

  “I presume he had a wizard take him there,” Vara said archly, but the effort she was putting into holding back her feelings was obvious to Cyrus.

  “To what purpose?” Andren asked. “Why would you go there unless you were trying to do the Trials? I can’t imagine it’d be to have a friendly chat with the Gatekeeper, charming fellow that he is—”

  “Alaric and the Gatekeeper seemed to know each other,” Thad said.

  “Alaric seemed to know everyone,” Andren said, scratching his head.

  “As Alaric is dead, I suppose we have no one to ask,” Ryin said.

  “Unless our resident paladin knows more than she’s telling us,” Erith said.

  “There are quite a few things I’m not telling you at the moment,” Vara said, “including my opinion of your intellectual capabilities, which is—”

  “Vara,” Cyrus said gently. “You can tell us.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Can I? Very well, then. What secret have you been holding back, Cyrus? Surely you can share it with everyone here.” She paused then pressed again. “I know you’ve got a secret. Something you’re holding back even from me. Something you don’t want to say aloud, even. It’s on your face even now, how your chin is wavering just the slightest bit.” She nodded at him in a challenging manner. “You tell your secret, I’ll tell mine.”

  “Hold—” Curatio started, lifting a hand.

  Cyrus felt her provocation and was strangely moved by it. It wasn’t pride that spilled over him, but a sudden desire to simply let it out and be done, to not have to worry about hiding it anymore. “When Yartraak was about to strike me down, I saw a vision of Alaric in the Tower of the Guildmaster.” Cyrus drew a long breath in the silence and let it out. “It was so real … I think he’s still alive.” He locked eyes with her.

  “If Alaric is alive,” Ryin said quietly, “why isn’t he here?”

  “I don’t know,” Cyrus said.

  “And why’s he appearing in visions only to you?” Andren asked, looking a bit miffed. “I’ve got questions for him, you know. Like you’re some kind of favorite son—”

  “Perhaps Cyrus was simply delusional from being battered around by a god,” Vaste said, a little too quickly for Cyrus’s taste.

  “Perhaps he was simply delusional from being Cyrus,” Nyad muttered. When everyone looked at her, she reddened. “Well, I mean, all this can’t be good for his ego.”

  “That’s exactly what I’ve been saying,” Vara spoke under her breath.

  “So what is it? Your truth?” Vaste asked, pinning Vara with his own look. “He spilled his secret. Now time for you to spill yours.”

  Vara looked at Cyrus, and he got the impression of a woman trapped. Still, she did answer. “I once asked Alaric what he was doing in Purgatory, and his answer was very much in line with him. He swore he would tell me some of it right then, and the rest at another time later.”

  “Come on, come on,” Vaste said, “what’s the part he told you?”

  She hesitated. “Do you recall the sequence of portals in Purgatory that the Gatekeeper has told us any number of times not to walk through? The ones at the very end?”

  “Yessssssss?” Vaste said, voice rising expectantly.

  “One of them is a gateway to a place,” Vara said slowly, “where for a short time after permanent death, one can reclaim a lost soul.”

  It was so quiet in the Council Chambers that Cyrus would have sworn that even the popping of the absent fire would have sounded like barrels of Dragon’s Breath going off in the Heia Pass.

  “Excuse me?” Nyad asked, a look of horror stitched on her face.

  “That’s … troubling,” Vaste said, and his expression reflected it and more.

  “You’re telling me that behind the Trials of Purgatory, which we can beat at a will,” Thad said, “there’s a gateway to a place where we could reclaim our lost—our dead.” His eyebrows were low, mouth open at a furious angle. “The dead we’ve been losing over the last few weeks—months—years? Those we lost before that, even?” He poured a little hope into the last question.

  “There is some cost,” Vara said quietly, now looking more cornered than ever, “that he did not explain to me. It is not a simple thing, this … this task, however it happens.”

  “Can we also just reflect on the fact that Alaric apparently beat the Trials of Purgatory himself in order to get to this back gate?” Erith asked, blinking. “Unless you were stabbed at the entry?” Vara shook her head. “Wow. By himself.”

  “He was not by himself,” Curatio said, stirring to life after a long silence. “I was with him.”

  “The two of you?” J’and
a asked, eyes widening. He had remained silent throughout the entirety of the meeting thus far. “Alone? Against the entirety of the Trials? The golems? The eel? The Siren of Fire? The—”

  “Yes,” Curatio said, “I am aware of the Trials, having bested them myself.” He looked stiff, rigid, as though he had become rooted in the chair. “And Vara is quite right. There is a price associated with that particular portal. It does not lead anywhere … good.”

  “We’ve been in the Realm of the God of Death,” Vaste said, “when a whole mess of trapped souls burst loose and came screaming down upon us. You’re intimating that this is something worse?”

  “You have heard of the God of Evil, yes?” Curatio asked, the fatigue infusing his voice.

  “Hard not to,” Vaste said. “His work is so very widespread.”

  “Well, this is his work as well,” Curatio said. “There is legend of a last gift to mortals from the God of Good, something handed to them to give them hope—”

  “The ark,” Cyrus said, drawing a flash of surprise from the healer. “Scuddar told the story over in Luukessia,” he explained. “It made an impression.”

  “Well, the legend goes that the God of Evil made a similar contribution, and that the other gods were so … put off by his efforts,” Curatio said, “that they made every attempt to contain it. Where the ark supposedly brought hope to people, this gift stole it away under false guise. So, yes, you can supposedly retrieve your loved and lost dead for a period of time after the resurrection spell does not work, but at some considerable cost.”

  “Like … as bad as a soul ruby cost?” Cyrus asked.

  “Arguably worse,” Curatio said. “Where a resurrection spell steals some small memories as its exacted price, this … process … shall we say … steals them all. The person you bring back has no memory of you at all, no memory of their life before, and is essentially a blank canvas.” His head sagged as he bowed it. “We set off that day to retrieve Raifa from that place, but came across someone else in dire need.” He nodded very slightly at Vara. “She, too, was past the hour of healing for her wounds, and cursed with a dark knight spell that would have prevented her from healing herself. Faced with the choice of abandoning Vara, this stranger we had stumbled across, in order to bring Raifa back, Alaric …” Curatio sighed. “He did not hesitate. Not even in the face of the Gatekeeper’s taunting, not even against counsel telling him that we had come this far, to not be foolish and sacrifice his cherished love helping some poor soul who didn’t appear to stand any chance of survival.” His eyes darted around the table. “Some of you saw my … my moment of doubt before we left for Luukessia. Where I doubted Alaric, doubted his intentions. I feel a fool for forgetting that moment in Purgatory, and a thousand others like it, when he held true to the mission of Sanctuary above all else.” He looked solemn. “That is how you know who a man is—not in his decisions in the best of times, but in his decisions under greatest strain, when the things he cares for most are ripped from his grasp without mercy.”

  Curatio sighed, loud and long. “By the time Vara was well, Alaric did not pursue a vendetta with the titans, and they did not come through the pass and challenge the elven defenses again. The fear of the dragons set in on the titans, I think …” He waved a hand. “A fear they don’t seem to have any longer.”

  “Wow,” Vaste said, leaning back in his chair, ample belly looking like it would strain out of his robes. “That was like a buffet of secrets. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much in the way of secrets come out at this table before, except maybe that time when Alaric threw his sword down after we killed Mortus. I almost feel too full for lunch.” He rubbed his stomach while the others sat in silence. “Come on! Alaric, may be alive, or else our Guildmaster delusional! The realization that Alaric and Curatio were a team of badasses so powerful that they could take apart the Gatekeeper’s little pet labyrinth like it was nothing?” He made a pfffft! sound. “They didn’t even need us when we started going through there a few years ago. Chew on that for a minute. The rest of us are struggling to survive, and they’re out there doing what it takes hundreds of us to do by themselves.” He looked at Curatio and saw a hint of something else there. “Right?”

  “Close enough,” Curatio said, waving a hand at him. “I think … it best I retire.” He slid his chair back from the table. “If anything else is decided, be kind enough to inform me in the morning.”

  “Curatio,” Erith said, “it’s the middle of the afternoon.”

  “I am old,” Curatio said, weaving toward the door, looking as if he meant it, “and I require a nap.” He opened and closed the door in near silence.

  “Is Alaric really alive?” J’anda asked, leaning across Curatio’s empty chair to look at Cyrus.

  “I don’t know,” Cyrus said, now feeling slightly pinned himself. “It was awfully real, what I saw that night in Saekaj, as the Sovereign—Yartraak—was choking the life out of me. More vivid than any daydream or delusion I’ve ever had.”

  Vaste nodded at him. “So you’re saying you’ve had a lot of delusions, then? Enough that you feel you can tell the difference between those and … uh, this?”

  “I’m not prepared to gamble my life on it,” Cyrus said, “but yes. I think he’s alive, somewhere.” He saw a furtive glance from Vara, watched it slide off of him and back to the table, and mustered up a near-finish to his thought, one that was steeped in doubt and guilt. “But I don’t know why he’s not here.”

  51.

  The Council broke, and even Vara prepared to leave the chambers in advance of Cyrus. He stopped her with a word. “Vara.”

  She looked back into the darkened Council Chambers as Erith passed her by. “Can we talk later?” she asked. “I find myself … perhaps in the mood for a nap of my own.”

  “Sure,” Cyrus said, and watched her go, the slump of her shoulders obvious even through her shining armor.

  “Cheer up,” Andren said, making his way to the door. “We can go on a walk to Reikonos if it’ll make you feel better?” He paused at the door. “Maybe look for your mysterious house again? Eh?”

  Cyrus started to say no, but something about the thought of Andren’s proposal held him up. “Maybe,” Cyrus said. “Yes. I think … yeah, that sounds like a—”

  The door next to Andren thundered open, slamming wood against stone as its hinges reached full extension and started to spring back from the force. For a moment, Cyrus thought perhaps the alarm spells of Sanctuary had gone off, warning of foul deeds afoot somewhere in the keep, but he saw the dark-armored figure with the lance tucked over his shoulder a moment later, and relaxed almost imperceptibly until he saw the look on Samwen Longwell’s face.

  It was dark as the Council Chambers; darker even, perhaps, thunderclouds on the broad brow of the last King of Luukessia. He stalked into the room with a furious purpose, every motion relaying obvious anger. “How could you?” Longwell asked, thumping the haft of his lance against the floor with every step like a walking cane. He did not appear to need its support, but it channeled his fury into the stone and echoed through the Council Chamber with all his anger.

  “Watch your tongue with your Guildmaster,” Andren said, coming back into the room and slamming the doors behind him. “Perhaps show a bit of courtesy, too, to the man who’s done more for your people than anyone els—”

  “I am here,” Longwell said, so harshly he cut the healer off with his fierceness, “because of my people. Because of what just reached my ears about the Heia Pass.” He snapped his head around. “How many Luukessians died in the defense of that place?”

  Cyrus regarded him coolly, trying to think his way through the situation before him. He’s plainly agitated. There’s a burr deep under his saddle; best not ride him too hard right now. “I didn’t break down the list of casualties by their place of origin, Samwen.”

  Longwell’s eyes flashed at the use of his familiar name. “Well, I had a glance at it when it came through at my station in Emerald Fields. I
counted forty-five.” He edged up to the table, butting his chest out. “Forty-five men of Syloreas, Actaluere and Galbadien—”

  “Of Sanctuary, I think you mean,” Cyrus said, trying to remain calm, channeling Alaric to the best of his ability.

  “Of Luukessia!” Longwell practically shouted. “And you threw them into death!”

  “Come on,” Andren said, scoffing, “half the damned guild is Luukessians, Longwell. You can’t expect them not to die when we have losses—”

  “What I expect,” Longwell said, his own voice dropping into icy ranges Cyrus associated with wizard spells, “is that my people aren’t going to be the shield vanguard for every stupid fight we get into.”

  Cyrus raised an eyebrow. “Defending the pass against the titans—defending the new Luukessian homeland against them— that’s a stupid fight?”

  Longwell flushed scarlet. “Did you have to put them up front?”

  “I had to put the best fighters up front, yes,” Cyrus said, giving him a steady, even stare, but trying to put some compassion into his voice as well. “Just the same as at Leaugarden, when I had to use the cavalry dragoons to—”

  Longwell exploded before he had a chance to finish. “And that’s another thing! Using us as your spear to do your dirty work, the hard work, even when—”

  “Hey!” Andren shouted, silencing Longwell for once. “I didn’t see any of ‘your’ men flinching away from doing their asked duty. I didn’t see your dragoons hesitate to charge when ordered—when you ordered them, by the way, because I recall you being right at the fore in that fight.” Longwell jerked his head as if struck. “This is a guild where we fight, and right now we’re holding the line to defend your Emerald Fields, man! You were bucking for battle not that long ago, in fact, looking like you’d enjoy tearing a piece or two off titan flank with your teeth. What happened to that bloke?”