Legend

by Robert J. Crane

  Legend

  The Sanctuary Series

  Volume Eight

  Robert J. Crane

  Legend

  The Sanctuary Series, Volume Eight

  Robert J. Crane

  Copyright © 2016 Revelen Press

  All Rights Reserved.

  1st Edition

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, please email cyrusdavidon@gmail.com.

  This one is dedicated to the GC Alumni, without whom none of this would ever have happened.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15.

  16.

  17.

  18.

  19.

  20.

  21.

  22.

  23.

  24.

  25.

  26.

  27.

  28.

  29.

  30.

  31.

  32.

  33.

  34.

  35.

  36.

  37.

  38.

  39.

  40.

  41.

  42.

  43.

  44.

  45.

  46.

  47.

  48.

  49.

  50.

  51.

  52.

  53.

  54.

  55.

  56.

  57.

  58.

  59.

  60.

  61.

  62.

  63.

  64.

  65.

  66.

  67.

  68.

  69.

  70.

  71.

  72.

  73.

  74.

  75.

  76.

  77.

  78.

  79.

  80.

  81.

  82.

  83.

  84.

  85.

  86.

  87.

  88.

  89.

  90.

  91.

  92.

  93.

  94.

  95.

  96.

  97.

  98.

  99.

  100.

  101.

  102.

  103.

  104.

  105.

  106.

  107.

  108.

  109.

  110.

  111.

  112.

  113.

  114.

  115.

  116.

  117.

  118.

  119.

  120.

  121.

  122.

  123.

  124.

  125.

  126.

  127.

  128.

  129.

  130.

  Coda

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Other Works by Robert J. Crane

  NOW

  Prologue

  Cyrus Davidon stared across the fire-lit archive. The flames cast their light in a wavering glow across the sand-colored stones while shadows moved subtly between the three men in the room. Silence reigned. Cyrus stood by the window, the cool autumn air prickling at his skin beneath his armor as he stared at the newest arrival. The fire crackled in the hearth with a loud pop, but none of them stirred.

  Cyrus’s eyes fell upon Vaste the troll, who held his tongue in the corner nearest the fire, seated upon an old chair salvaged from the wreckage of the Council Chambers next door. The troll’s back and shoulders moved up and down in time with his breath, the only sign that he was alive, his green skin tinted orange by the reflection of the flames. The faint smell of sweet smoke hung in the air as Cyrus worked his gaze back to the last man in the room, the one he’d been looking at only a moment before, the one who stood next to a battered bookshelf, armor creaking faintly as he shifted position. This man was breathing audibly, long, slow breaths that seemed to mist in front of his lips. He was missing an eye beneath a black patch that covered his socket, and he carried his helm beneath his arm, his cloak rolling off his shoulders to reveal his old armor returned to him, covering him beneath the dull grey cloth that fastened at his neck.

  “Alaric,” Cyrus said. His face burned in the cool air, hot and flushed, as though the heat of it were lighting up the night lurking beyond the window at his back.

  “It is still I,” Alaric said, though he did not smile. He looked carefully at Cyrus. “But you sound surprised, as though you did not know I was coming.”

  “I suppose I didn’t fully trust that you’d show up,” Cyrus said quietly. He’d felt hope kindled within him only moments earlier, when the knight had appeared in the archive. It had sparked a warm sense of familiarity, the like of which he could not recall feeling for over a year—a sense that things might actually get better, for once, instead of worse.

  That hope had already begun to fade.

  Alaric stared back at Cyrus with his lone eye. “Were I in your position, perhaps I might feel the same.” He fumbled beneath his cloak, removing his gauntlets from his hands one by one, the metal creaking as he did so.

  “Might you?” Cyrus asked, hushed yet bitter.

  Alaric’s grey eye found his then flicked away, as if in guilt or shame. “If I recall correctly … I believe, yes, I did react much the same when I was in your position.”

  “When were you in my position?” Cyrus asked, not taking his eyes off the old knight. “I followed you to … I lost …” The muscles of his face writhed as he fought to stay composed. “I lost … everything, Alaric. Everything.”

  Alaric looked up at him, meeting his gaze once more, his sorrow unmistakable. “I know.”

  “Do you?” Cyrus threw back at him.

  “Cyrus, that’s not fair,” Vaste said, rising to his feet, standing head and shoulder above even Cyrus. “You know damned well Alaric has lost—”

  “I don’t know what he’s lost,” Cyrus said, letting the spite poke out like spines from a bonefish. “I know what I’ve lost from following him.” He stood in silent anger for a beat. “I know he lied to me.” He stared at Alaric, who did not move. “You lied to me, Alaric. About so much. You kept the truth carefully hidden, didn’t you? Any truth that didn’t suit you, you just … pretended didn’t exist?”

  “But now you know,” Alaric said quietly, not meeting Cyrus’s gaze with his own. His breathing had faltered, and he was still as carved stone.

  “Yes, now I know,” Cyrus said, “though not from you.” He stalked over to Vaste and took the book from the troll’s hand. “Some of it I learned from my mother, in the last year. And some of it—” he brandished the diary in front of
his own face, “I learned from your own hand. Truth taken, not given freely.” He flipped open the diary and read the first line: “Here begins the account of Alaric Garaunt, Guildmaster of these halls and the first of my name …” He slammed it shut again. “But that wasn’t even your real name, was it? You didn’t begin your life as Alaric Garaunt; you were Lord Ulric Garrick before you even came to these shores … some ten thousand years ago.” Cyrus slammed the diary against the mantle above the hearth, making a sound like a slap that echoed around dark the room. “Like you said in the book—it’s all right here, your confession.”

  “I left it here,” Alaric said, his back turned to Cyrus. “I expected someone would find it, sooner or later. And I told you on the day you faced Yartraak that I failed you. That I wished I had trusted you more—”

  “Yet still you held back the truth,” Cyrus said, coldly accusing. “You kept it from me. From us. But if you’d told us—”

  “Sometimes,” Alaric said, “when you’ve been digging your own grave for so long, it becomes impossible to stop and put down the shovel.”

  “Alaric,” Vaste said, “the secrets you kept … they were … well, I have to believe they were for our own good—”

  “They were not,” Cyrus said, grinding the words out. “You read the diary. They were for his own good. To keep secret his guilt, his complicity—”

  “That’s not fair, Cyrus,” Vaste said.

  “The truth is not a fair thing at all, Vaste,” Cyrus said. “It’s quite ugly, in fact.”

  Alaric half-turned, swinging around far enough to show Cyrus his one good eye. “Aye. The truth is ugly, and I often hid it from you—from all of you. Some of it out of concern for your lives, some of it out of … shame. My past was not honorable, and I wished to be thought of as decent, so for this I beg your forgiveness—”

  “Well, you can’t have it!” Cyrus shouted into the stillness of the archive. “I followed you,” he said, voice returning to a hushed whisper beneath the pops of the fire. “I believed in your purpose for us. When no one else would stride forward with you on the Endless Bridge, I stepped out in faith. I believed in you.” He reached a hand beneath his chainmail and breastplate, rummaging for the chain that hung around his neck, and dragged out the medallion that rested near to his heart. It was a plain, imperfect circle, and at its center was a scrawl of ancient writing that spiraled to the center. He held it up in front of Alaric. “I believed in you … I followed you … and I lost everything.”

  Alaric did not look at him, and his shoulders held utterly still beneath his armor. “I know.”

  Cyrus stared at him. “Is that all you have to say?” His voice quavered with emotion. “After all this time? After all I …” Cyrus looked to Vaste, who still stood beside the fire, rooted to the spot. “Only a minute ago you told me there was hope. But how can there be hope, Alaric? She’s gone … so many of them … we lost …” Cyrus felt the tug at his face again, the hot fire burning in his eyes. “How can you possibly consider … how can you think there’s hope?” He took a step toward the paladin. “How … how do you go on … when you know your best days are behind you? When every morning tastes of ashes and dust, and all that you knew and loved is gone?” He took another step toward the old knight, his voice pleading. “What do you do, Alaric? Because I know what I want to do, and it’s to not go on any longer. It’s to be done, to end it for all time—”

  “That is not the way,” Alaric said softly, unmoving.

  “Maybe it’s not your way,” Cyrus said, his words simmering with resentment, “but I don’t think I have any faith left in your way, given all that it’s brought me.” He tossed a look at Vaste. “Go ahead. Tell me I’m being unfair again.”

  Vaste stared back at him. “Would it make you stop?”

  “No.”

  “Then what’s the point?” the troll asked, the life gone from his once-vibrant voice.

  “What do you do, Alaric?” Cyrus asked, turning to look back at the paladin. “What am I supposed to do? I came here, I waited …” He let the chain droop around his neck, and the pendant clattered against his armor. “How can you expect me … to go on … without her?” His voice cracked, but he held it all together by the thinnest thread.

  Alaric stood, still, his eye downcast, and when he finally answered, his own voice was as quiet as Cyrus had ever heard it. “I don’t expect you to.” He looked up to meet Cyrus’s gaze, and there was a faint glimmer of liquid in the corner of his eye. He looked up, right into Cyrus’s eyes, and in that moment, Cyrus knew that the Ghost of Sanctuary was fully aware of why he’d come back to this place.

  “I want it to end, Alaric,” Cyrus said. Vaste blanched, looking away. “I came here to end it all. To die here, where I belong.” He closed his eyes, embracing the darkness. “Help me end my torment, this aimless walking through Arkaria empty, Alaric. Bring me the peace of death.”

  “Cyrus …” Vaste began, a pleading tone in his voice.

  Cyrus opened his eyes again, and Alaric’s hand fell slowly, smoothing back the edges of his cloak, pushing it to rest behind the scabbard that he wore upon his belt. His fingers played along the pattern on the hilt until they reached the skull-shaped pommel. He grasped the hilt firmly in his hand and drew his sword.

  It came out smoothly, the blade named Aterum. The runes along the blade glowed faintly orange in the firelight, and it seemed to sing as he brought it up. “I have failed you, Cyrus,” Alaric said, and a tear streaked slowly down his cheek. “Failed you as a leader, failed you as a mentor, and failed you as a sworn brother …” He brought the blade around and held it up, the fire shining on the blackened steel, as the old knight spoke in a voice of unrelenting sadness. “And now I come to you at last, in order to make it right. To soothe your pain, to bring you peace, the only way remaining that I can … by giving you what you seek.”

  ONE YEAR EARLIER

  1.

  “Are you ready to go home?” Vara asked.

  The soft words faded and Cyrus snapped awake in the darkness to the sound of a dog baying in the distance. He could still hear words, low and sweet, like a drink of water on a scorching day. They were familiar words, spoken by a familiar voice, but they seemed to fade like a mirage in the desert as Cyrus woke up, mentally grasping for them, trying to hold on to the dream as he woke. He knew that voice, could see sunlight, feel warmth in the course of the dream he’d left behind, but it was gone now, along with the speaker. He was alone in the dark, in an unfamiliar place …

  And Vara was not here.

  The air around him was still, but there were other sounds just beyond his hearing, like whispered words too soft to be grasped. He jerked, his armor rattling as he sat up. His mouth was dry and his lips were cracked and chapped. He blinked, trying to see, but he could not. Faint lines in the distance hinted at something, but his eyes could not break through the shroud of the darkness that covered him.

  He brought his bare palm to a brow slick with sweat and rubbed at his face. He could almost taste the salty sweat. He took a breath, then another. The sound of the dog faded in the distance.

  Cyrus whispered the words for Nessalima’s light under his breath, and a glimmering brilliance appeared suddenly at the tip of his bare finger, forcing him to blink away in the sudden blinding intensity. He opened his eyes again cautiously, staring to his side.

  Uneven planks made up the wall next to him, gaps between the weathered boards. He was covered in a worn blanket of coarse wool that was rough beneath his other hand. He wiped a wet palm upon it and scanned the room. He was lying on a bed, and above him he could see familiar slats holding up another thin mattress. As he turned his head to look out at the room on his other side, the reason for its familiarity became obvious, as obvious as the faces staring back at him in the darkness.

  “You’re awake,” Quinneria said, her green eyes shining, reflecting his spell back at him. Her concern was written plain upon her face, her forehead heavily creased. Cyrus heard her sigh
as she leaned back on the old wooden chair across the room.

  “Finally,” Vaste said quietly, lacking all his usual sarcasm. Cyrus stared at the troll, who was leaning against the wall nearest the door, his staff fashioned into a spear with a makeshift tip that extended around the crystal at its center like bowed legs that met at the point of the toes.

  Cyrus looked around the old horsebarn-turned-barracks-turned-guildhall. “How long was I out?” He pressed his damp hand against his head again, pushing sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes. The world seemed cloudy around the corners of his mind, even as the setting became clear around him. I should know this place, he thought. I did live here for quite some time, after all.

  “Hours and hours,” Quinneria said, coming off the chair lightly, her staff, Philos, clutched in her long fingertips. She wore purple robes, the disguise she had carried all these longs years clearly cast away for good. “It’s past midnight now.”

  “How did we …?” Cyrus blinked into the dark. His head ached, and he brought up his other hand and conjured water in a skin. He pressed it to his lips and let the cool liquid pour down his dry throat.

  “You don’t remember?” Vaste asked, not stirring in his place by the door. “You don’t remember coming to your old home?”

  “Are you ready to go home now?” His wife’s voice tinkled through his mind like crystal windchimes on a breezy day, so vivid he could almost hear her in the darkness. But she was not there, he was sure of it.

  “Well, I know we’re in Reikonos,” Cyrus said, pulling the skin away from his dry lips, beads of water slipping into the stubble around his mouth. He glanced around. “We’re in the old guildhall of the Kings of Reikonos. In the slums.”

  Quinneria eased over to the side of the bed. “Do you recall why we came here?”

  Cyrus frowned. Something prickled at the back of his memory, some faint memory past the ache in his skull. “I …” There were flashes of the midday sun overhead, the sound of the water tinkling in the fountain in Reikonos Square, daring to break through at him. They hit him like a flurry of taps to the side of his head, distracting but not painful. “I don’t …”