Legend

by Robert J. Crane

  “It’s a little more serious than that,” she said, her eyes as aflame as he’d ever seen them.

  “Clearly she’s never experienced a shortage of outhouses at a crucial moment,” Terian muttered loud enough for all to hear.

  “Elves have indoor plumbing,” Mendicant said. “It’s one of the things I like best about them.”

  Isabelle ignored the crosstalk, focusing in on Cyrus with blazing anger. In that moment, she reminded him of Vara; it was a side of her he could not recall seeing before. “You may have defeated Levembre, Nessalima, and Lexirea outside Pharesia,” she said, “but it will be a different story if you challenge Tempestus or Aurous in their own realms. Different even than when you struck down Mortus, for as I understand it he had just returned—”

  “All true,” Cyrus said, “and you are right to be concerned.” He nodded to her once. “If there’s anything you’d like to share that might help us before we go …?”

  Isabelle’s cheeks reddened so deeply that he feared they might have started bleeding. “I have told you that we attack these realms with thousands at our command, entire armies, and when the gods are absent, and you think it wise to go now, when they are present … with fifteen?”

  “Either become number sixteen, inform me of the most important things I need to know, or just leave, Isabelle,” Cyrus said. “Because I am walking through that portal to Winter or Storm in less than five minutes, so …” He shrugged. “Decide quickly.”

  Her mouth fell open, her eyes bulging. “I have seen you do ill-advised things before, but this—this is madness.”

  He looked past her, not daring to look her in the eyes for fear they might seem all too familiar. “What can I say? I’m mad. And my rage is looking for a place to spend itself. Couple that with the sudden decision the gods have made to start smiting, and … well, off I go.”

  “I will tell you,” she said, her anger fading suddenly to be replaced with concern. “Not because I want to, but because—damn you, Cyrus Davidon—”

  “That's a shockingly common sentiment from the women of your family.”

  “The Realm of Storms,” she said, “is a ship on a black-skied, lightning-swept sea. It is larger than any ship you have ever seen, like a castle upon the waves. Your very feet will betray you on its deck as it tosses you from side to side, and the minions of Tempestus prowl like shipwrecked, rotting dead. The God of Storms’s chamber is below, at the back of the ship, and it is guarded by more of these turtledilloes—as we call them—than you can properly count.”

  “You know, they taught me how to count in the Society of Arms. Pretty high, actually, at least to ten without taking off my boots—”

  “The Realm of Winter,” she went on, ignoring the interruption, “is a frosty tundra leading up to a tower of ice as large as the Citadel. It is composed of pure frost hewn into mighty blocks, and the minions of Aurous wait inside silently, prepared to ambush anyone who walks through the door. The first time Burnt Offerings entered that realm, after the seal broke on the upper realms, they nearly died to the last. It required the assistance of Amarath’s Raiders and ourselves to rescue their corpses—again, this was when Aurous was not in the realm.” Her burning ire faded slightly. “There are, of course, more than just little minions along the way up the tower. You will fight up every single floor until you are exhausted, you and your fifteen.”

  “Not sixteen, then?” The lightness was spreading over him, and he had a smile on his face now, considering with amusement something she’d said.

  She opened her mouth to say something, probably something unkind judging from her expression, but she stayed herself. “I think you are about to die. That if you wish to go on, to remove yourself from Arkaria now that Vara is … passed … then this is the path for you.” She looked past him. “Though I suspect my sister would be most affronted that you take these poor souls with you.”

  “Why don’t you …” Cyrus reached back into the neck of his chainmail and scratched an itch there, rattling the mail and disturbing the medallion as he did so, “… wait here for about an hour? I think we’ll be back from the Realm of Winter by then.”

  She cocked an eye at him. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh, I’m quite serious.” He beckoned Quinneria forward, and she eased up to him. He whispered something in her ear, saw her peer off in concentration, and then she nodded once. He looked back to Isabelle and smirked. “Quite serious indeed.”

  “You are properly out of your mind,” she said, lips parted in quiet awe. “Cyrus, I beg you, in Vara’s name—”

  “This isn’t about her anymore,” Cyrus said, turning away.

  “You are blindly self-deceptive if you think that—”

  “Or it’s not all about her, anyway,” Cyrus turned his head. “Wait an hour, if you don’t mind. I will be back.”

  “No, you won’t,” she whispered.

  “Then I guess you’ll have the exquisite joy of being right to comfort you,” he said, moving his other fourteen forward with a wave of his hand as he walked toward the glowing portal. Quinneria whispered words beneath her breath and the ovoid structure’s light changed to a fierce, glowing blue.

  “Damn you,” Isabelle whispered, staring after him. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, I do,” Cyrus said, striding past Terian, who already had axe in hand, and Zarnn, who was clutching Rodanthar tight, his cat stalking impatiently around the far end of the room, about to be left behind. “I would have done this even if your sister was still with me.” He didn’t even cast a look back as he led the way into the portal, just tossed off one last rejoinder. “And if you don’t think so, then you never really knew me—or Sanctuary—or your sister at all.”

  30.

  Alaric

  I awoke some time after Chavoron’s departure—an hour, a day, I couldn’t be sure how long it had been. All I knew was that it had been a long while, or at least that it had felt so. I could sense another presence in the dark room with me, soft breath that was familiar to me from long nights of listening to it in the small quarters at the back of the prison camp.

  “Jena,” I said quietly. With a wave of her hand, the torches around the long room lit, revealing her face, which was shrouded with a kind of weariness I hadn’t seen from her yet.

  “Hello, Alaric,” she said, mangling my name once more. “I am pleased to see you.”

  “I am pleased to see you as well,” I said, making a gesture to my remaining eye. “At least, as well as I can.” I might have put a hint of ingratitude in it.

  “It was unfortunate that the Butcher took your eye,” she said, looking down. “The curse he used, it is forbidden magic for the Coliseum. But then … he uses quite a bit of that against humans.”

  “I’d imagine he’s rather upset with me at this point,” I said, moving slightly on the soft mattress. I ached considerably less than the last time I’d been awake, when I’d spoken with Chavoron.

  “He fought again since then,” she said ruefully. “He killed every human with even less mercy than usual.”

  “I wouldn’t care to cross his path right now, then,” I said, finding I was able to sit up. The splitting pain behind my eye was somehow lessened, and I brushed the place where my socket had been covered over to find a much less hearty obstacle that flexed slightly as I pressed against it. It hadn’t been there last time, and the bandages felt different as well. “How long have I been sleeping?”

  “Two weeks,” Jena said. Her lips were a thin-pressed line when she wasn’t speaking. “Two very long weeks.”

  “And I’ve been unconscious all that time?”

  “Spell-induced, but yes,” she said. “The healers did it in hope of giving you time to heal without pain.”

  “It appears to be working,” I muttered, sitting up in bed. I looked at her. “What brings you to my bedside?”

  “I came to tell you,” she said, a bit primly, “that I don’t blame you for telling Chavoron that I taught you t
he spell.” There was a flash of something as she spoke, some hint that deeper inside, she was more conflicted than she let on.

  For my part, I felt a twinge of relief at her appearance. “I’m pleased you’re not in trouble for your part in this.”

  Her lips twitched. “I have not escaped without consequence. My father is furious. He was never pleased at the idea of me taking a human lover, and certainly not about me traveling to Sennshann for the purpose when there were so many others closer to home, but this …” She bowed her head. “He is not pleased.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, meaning most of it. I could not have denied my relief at not dying at the hands of the Butcher, though, and indeed, at that point would have happily traded her life for my own.

  “I’m glad I did it,” she said, raising her chin up to look at me. “I wanted to upset the system, the empire … and it has become clear to me in the last two weeks that I am not alone in that desire.”

  “So I’ve heard,” I said, watching her carefully, “but the others … they’re sympathetic because they’ve taken human lovers, aren’t they?”

  “Not only,” she said. “Some have longstanding human servants that they’ve grown attached to. Others have no contact with humans at all; they just see the yoking of your people and the others as a grave injustice, one we should not be party to. And, yes, some have human lovers. Chavoron’s own daughter took a man from your land as her consort. He has a grandson—his only—of mixed human blood.” She looked away. “He was sent to be raised in the mines, of course.”

  “What?” My voice betrayed my shock.

  “Humans are slaves,” she said, staring at the wall and not at me. “Mixing your blood with that of a slave does not elevate theirs; it merely lowers yours.” She looked at me. “Not my words. It is law. Consorting with a slave and producing offspring merely guarantees the offspring a place in servitude.”

  I didn’t know quite how to feel about that, and I was too tied up in my own worries at the moment in any case. “You truly hate your empire, don’t you?”

  She blinked, and a tear ran down her blue cheek. “I didn’t always. I do now.”

  “What changed your mind?” I stared at her, quiet in the darkness, and she stood abruptly, not looking at me.

  “I have to leave,” she said.

  “Why?” I sounded ruder and more blunt than I’d intended.

  She paused, her arm dangling by the edge of my bed, and it looked to me as though she wanted to reach out. “I need to go home. I was to come here for only a short while, and I spent most of my allotted time traveling and passing into this place and waiting for your sleep effect to be reversed.” She turned and started off the same direction I’d seen Chavoron go when he’d made his exit before.

  But this was different somehow. Chavoron had left quietly, calmly, with full confidence.

  When I watched Jena go, her head was slumped, her hand covering her mouth for some reason. She walked with the other hand cradled close to her stomach, her dress hem dragging along the floor behind her. It had all the hallmarks of a retreat—from my questions, from my room, and from me. I watched her go, wondering what it was that had driven her out.

  31.

  Cyrus

  The Realm of Winter hit Cyrus in the face with full force, an icy slap to his cheeks that left them tingling. He felt the absence of a cloak acutely. When he’d fled Sanctuary, there had been no need for any sort of winter garb. Not that I’d have had time to retrieve any before Bellarum destroyed the very walls.

  “Brisk,” Terian observed. The white drifts were piled high, but frozen, and Cyrus’s boots crunched only an inch or so into the field as he stepped. The ground was lit by a dark sky backed with a bright green aurora that writhed among a sea of stars. It stretched overhead from one side of the sky to the other, reminding Cyrus of a time he’d spent with Terian on the bulwarks of Enrant Monge.

  “Gah!” Mendicant let out a shout, and Cyrus looked back to see him buried up to the top of his clawed feet. “This is not—I would prefer not to be here.”

  “Join the guild on that one,” Longwell muttered, the dragoon stamping his way through the snow, clearly feeling the icy chill.

  Cyrus turned his eyes to the horizon. The tower of ice was not difficult to see, nor was it terribly far. It stuck out of the ground like a titan. A strange spiral ran along the outside of its structure, as if someone had run along it with a sword around the outside in a perfectly placed ring that rolled upward around its surface like an apple peel.

  “So, we have to climb that?” Calene asked, a hint of worry breaking through. “Fight our way to the top, the lady said?”

  “No,” Cyrus said.

  “Uh, Cyrus,” Terian said, frowning, “when one of the top leaders of Endeavor tells you how this realm works, you should probably listen. Unless you think she’s wrong, or lying.”

  Cyrus turned to regard Terian with amusement. “I don’t think Isabelle is wrong or a liar.”

  “So we climb, then,” Terian said, and started forward.

  “No,” Cyrus said again.

  “This really is going to be a long night,” Longwell muttered.

  “Full of dramatics and mystery,” Aisling said.

  “Drama fun,” Zarnn said. “Like play you no dress for, and get to kill people during.” He brandished Rodanthar, swinging it experimentally as Mendicant hurried between his legs to escape.

  “Just follow me,” Cyrus said, moving forward, boots crunching down the fresh snowfall.

  He walked for almost ten minutes, the ice tower growing ever closer. He settled into a steady rhythm, shortening his usually long strides to shorten to accommodate Mendicant and the others, making his way closer to the shadow of the tower.

  Points of darkness leered out of the sides of the icy structure, dark holes he could not see through. Cyrus could feel that they were being watched from within, but the only sound was the gust of the icy wind.

  “Should we … worry?” Cora asked, so low she might have been talking to herself.

  “I’ve found that when the General walks with a purpose like this,” J’anda said from somewhere behind him, “that he has a plan, and that he’s waiting to spring it when it will achieve fullest dramatic effect.”

  Aisling snorted. “Like I said, drama.”

  “He is a bit of a drama queen in that regard,” Terian said. “Like he’s showing off for us.”

  “But it certainly l-livens things u-up,” Mendicant said, teeth chattering against the cold.

  “Yeah, I hear there are guilds where the leadership just tells you what’s going to happen before it does,” Calene said. “I imagine that’s somewhat dull, if perhaps a bit more reassuring. Especially given … um … circumstances.”

  Cyrus listened and took it all in. “It’s all right, Calene,” he said. “Whatever you may think, I do have a plan.” He allowed himself a grim smile that none of them could see. “And it’s a doozy.”

  “They always are,” Terian said. “Care to share—”

  “In the fullness of a minute,” Cyrus said, drawing to a halt. He spun, looking at the little party behind him, no formation to them at all. “I need spellcasters over there,” he pointed to his left, “and anyone who wants to brawl with weapons to stand up front with me.”

  Terian made a great show of looking around, scanning the flat, snow-swept tundra around them. Save for the tower looming before them, there was nothing to be seen but snowdrifts as far as the horizon. “Hm.”

  Cyrus eyed him. “Yes?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Terian said, giving him a wary eye. “I was just expecting a bridge or something to fight on, you know. Something to funnel the enemies toward us, reduce their numbers … make this onslaught survivable.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Cyrus said, feeling a twinge of mirth.

  “Surviving?” Terian asked. “Oh, I worry about that. I have plans for my life, Davidon, and dying in some frigid hellscape is not among them.”
>
  “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Cyrus said, but there was no more mirth as he said it. It had been on his mind, edging in and out since he’d seen Fortin die in the earlier battle. Not everyone will survive what is yet to come. Not if Bellarum means to continue to pit us against the gods until we fall.

  Vara and Fortin may be just the first to go.

  “Mother,” Cyrus said, and made a wave of his hand, “if you’d please.”

  She stepped up beside him, quiet as she ever had been when she was Larana, and closed her eyes, her robes wrapped tightly around her and Philos clutched in her hands. She remained still and silent only a few seconds, and then her eyes sprang open and she raised her staff.

  With her shout, a burning flame shot from the tip of Philos. Brighter than any torch, it spurted forth in a ball that grew and expanded, swelling as it flew. It reached an apex, like one of the projectiles launched from Sanctuary’s catapults and trebuchets.

  The blazing ball of flame reached a height and swirled in the sky like a sun. Then it sank, dropping back to the snowy ground, landing at the base of the tower in front of them, and hitting the ice with a sizzle and a flash—

  Cyrus closed his eyes until the blinding brightness passed, and then he opened them once more. The tower still stood, the bottom obscured by a cloud of white steam. A light rain fell from the cloud, melted water turned to vapor and now chilled back to liquid by the realm’s frigid environs. The steam dissipated, and for a brief moment Cyrus saw the tower standing with a gaping hole, a hundred feet high, in its base.

  The cracking sound of ice breaking under the strain turned into a crescendo of destruction. Half its support gone, the top of the tower teetered, then fell, like a tree in a forest brought low by a woodsman’s axe. It landed on its side and shattered, smashing to pieces like an ice sculpture dropped from great height.

  Cyrus stood back and watched as the tower disintegrated, tons of ice falling in and crushing the occupants. Here and there, bodies fell out along with furnishings smashed to splinters. A book went sliding across the snow and came to rest, open, its spine stuck in a drift.