In the silence, an idea began to dawn, and he felt a slow smile slide across his face.
68.
Alaric
I spent the weeks following Stepan’s visit vacillating between hope and fear—hope that Stepan’s message would be delivered, and fear that I would remain stuck in the darkness of these mines forever.
I could hear the sound of picks clinking in the distance some days, as slaves tunneled new corridors in the Yartraak’s ever-expanding palace. It was faint yet maddening.
When my door opened one morning, I was expecting Jena to enter the room. I had journeyed through the palace a few times to break the monotony, but the whole place was dark, gloomy, and depressing, so I rarely ventured beyond my room.
But when the door opened, it was not Jena who stepped in, ushered by guards, but Rin, his face tired and drawn. He wore his armor, but there were stains here and there, as though things had been thrown at him. He wore his sword at his side, but his skin was paler blue than I recalled it being.
“Rin,” I said, stunned. He was a ghostly sight, shoulders slumped and the vitality gone from him in a way I had never seen in the usually irrepressible guardsman. I met his eyes, and he glanced away. “Forgive me for saying so but … you don’t look well.”
He forced a wan smile that lasted barely a second. “I am the most hated and yet beloved man in the Protanian Empire. I find myself praised and toasted by those I would have considered reprehensible only weeks ago, and am pilloried by those whose respect I might have wanted.” He let out a long breath. “It’s no secret why I do not look my best.”
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“Very little,” Rin said, stepping into the room further. “As I suspect has been the case with you.” He gestured to the stains on his armor, and I noted a smell I hadn’t detected before. “I walked in the streets this morning for the first time in quite a while.” He sniffed and made a face. “That was a poor decision.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said sincerely. “We were in a difficult position, and I don’t see how we could have done things any differently.”
“We could have died,” he answered matter-of-factly. “In the place of the Eruditia. That would have at least quelled the fury of those currently angry at me. I suspect nothing less would satiate them at this point.”
“Stepan came a few weeks ago,” I said. “He mentioned that there might have been murders.”
Rin’s eyes flicked to the door. “Do they tell you anything here?”
“Little enough as not to matter.”
“Yes, there have been murders,” he said, watching my reaction. “Slaves have killed Protanians. Protanians have killed slaves. And though it’s not confirmed, for the suspects do not show their hands, I suspect at least a hundred Protanians have slain each other. Only one instance can be proven, because they were found with the knives in each other’s hands, driven into one another’s breasts.” He shook his head. “The empire is going mad, Alaric. I did not expect I would live to see such a day … nor that I would be in such shame when it came.”
“At least we’re alive,” I said, not feeling entirely relieved.
“Aye, but I’ve been cast out,” he said. “Of House Gronvey,” he added when I looked at him, perplexed. “Timmas—the Drettanden—he found my actions distasteful, called them coarse and dishonorable, against the code expected of our house.”
“Surely … surely Chavoron would take you into—”
Rin shook his head. “Chavoron will not have me in his house, nor I would ask him to, at present. He has quite enough to deal with in allowing your men to find shelter under his roof.”
I stared at him. “Where will you go?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He clenched a hand. “The empire—that matters more to me than my own life, and yet … the thing I thought we could do to protect it, to protect Chavoron, has uncorked madness beyond what I could ever have foreseen.” He smiled ruefully, but it vanished in an instant. “The Justice Minister—”
“The Terrgenden?” I asked.
“You’re getting better,” Rin said slyly. “Yes, him. He made what I considered to be a clearheaded decision, against his side of the table, and declined to order our prosecution. His office is under an onslaught rivaling that which Chavoron and I have received. The Nessalima told him that his justice was a joke and he was no more than a base trickster, such is the volume of anger at this turn of events.”
“Is there any good news?” I asked quietly.
“Little that I can see,” Rin said with a shake of the head. “I am going to leave and seek asylum in the northwest, beyond the banks of the river that divides us from the elven lands. We have a small outpost out there on the coast, beyond the swamps, where slavers capture the greenskins—I’m sorry,” he said, looking contrite, “I mean the trolls.”
“You’re going to be a slaver?” I asked, somewhat stunned.
“I’m going to go fight the slavers,” he said, giving me a look of irritation. “No one else has dared before, even though slaving in what is technically elven lands is against the law.” He looked discomfited. “I don’t know what else to do, and now that we’ve opened up this unfortunate opportunity … or cask of rotten meat … I feel like I should try and do some good, somewhere. Stemming the slave trade feels like my best chance of doing that.”
“You’re going alone?” I asked.
“Unless you want to come with me,” he said with a quicksilver smile. “For I doubt there are very many others in these lands who would welcome our company at the moment.”
I studied him carefully and caught the hopeful look in his eyes as he watched me in return. The mess upon his armor was fresh, a mark of his outcast status. I could sympathize with that; Rin was repelled by people like the Yartraak who suddenly hoisted their glasses to his good health, but was cast out by those whose aims he respected. What else was there to do when you were shut out of good company and disgusted by all other?
In my case, the choice was to go north as ordered on a march I never wanted, in an attempt to bend an army to my selfish aims. His was to strike out and do some good, to stop slavers from preying in an area where there was little to stop them.
In that moment, I saw Rin as he was—a man beaten down by life, his hard edges always on display, but the vulnerability beneath the surface showing in his quiet hope that I would accompany him. He had been on the fringe of his house all his life, a man of talent who existed at the sufferance of others—here, under the Yartraak’s command until he met me, and then under Chavoron’s. His own self-loathing showed itself in the most peculiar times, undermining the confidence I would have thought he’d have as an able fighter, spellcaster, and speaker of multiple languages. I had seen his fierce intelligence and knew him capable of much, his admitted aims much closer to pure than my own.
“We can leave right now,” Rin said, offering his hand. “You and I. We’re useless here, ruined. We’ll never see the inside of the council chambers again. Any meeting with us at Chavoron’s shoulders would go down in fury and possibly fighting.” He stepped closer, and I heard his plea. “Come with me. Let us step beyond the walls and do some good for someone—out there.”
In that moment, as he stood before me, hoping that I would accompany him on his worthy quest, I felt the quelling hand of fear settle over my heart, shutting down my desire to go anywhere. Fear that Chavoron would call for me, fear that the Yartraak would be displeased, fear that I would lose my chance to go home if I acted disobedient.
“I can’t,” I said, and there was nothing more than a faint flutter from Rin before he followed on with a nod. “I wait at the sufferance of Chavoron—”
“I understand,” Rin said, nodding once. “You’re loyal. Were I in your shoes, with a homeland to go back to … I would likely do the same.”
“You still have a home, Rin,” I said.
“They don’t want me here anymore,” he said. He looked stricken, his mouth a thin line
that quivered with emotion. He sniffed, regaining his composure, and stepped back, stiffening to military posture. “You will come through this, Alaric. I have faith in your future. You have shown them something that they would not have opened their eyes to on their own, and the course of this empire will be changed by your courage and your actions.”
He saluted me, fist banging off his breastplate with a clang, and he disappeared into the light of a spell before I could tell him to wait, to stop, just for a moment, just so I could think. But before a word could leave my lips, Rin was gone.
69.
Cyrus
“Scuddar, where is the ark?” Cyrus asked. He was staring across the table in the meeting room in Saekaj, the remaining officers of Sanctuary lined up in their seats around him, with Terian and his people opposite.
“The … what?” Terian asked, first to respond. “Are you serious?”
“The ark,” Cyrus said, not letting his eyes leave the desert man who sat down the row of chairs. He met Cyrus’s gaze with a flicker of interest. “It’s the legend of what the God of Good sent mortals as a final gift, sort of the other side of the coin to the chamber of … revival or whatever it is in the Realm of Purgatory.”
Terian pondered that for only a moment and then spoke again. “So … you were serious about Bellarum breaking through to the God of Evil and killing him?” He paused as a dozen glances shifted his way. “Oh, as though it didn’t sound incredible to the rest of you. We finally had a concrete explanation for how the gods came to be, and whoomp! Now there’s another layer to the onion that we can’t explain. Gods beyond.” He pursed his lips in a frown. “And like an onion, it all stinks.”
“I find the idea of gods beyond rather comforting,” Ryin said, catching a few glances himself. “Not that anyone cares about my opinion.”
“Yes, we need more godly enemies at this point,” Vaste said. “Even if they’re just tasty snacks for our current enemies to help them achieve the next plateau of power so they can crush us at will.”
“It sounded to me as though we wouldn’t necessarily be crushed,” J’anda said. “Provided our humble leader decided to bend the knee to the God of … well, soon to be everything, I suppose.”
“I think we all know that’s not going to happen,” Calene said. “When was the last time Cyrus bowed to anyone other than Va—” She glanced down the table at him, blushing and clearing her throat. “Besides, now he’s here, inquiring about hope. Maybe we’ve turned a corner—”
“I don’t give a gnome’s anus about hope,” Cyrus snapped, straightening his armor. It felt good to have it back on, including Praelior on his belt and the medallion around his neck. There was a familiarity about its weight that he’d grown accustomed to. “I want a weapon to fight Bellarum with.”
“Oh, so you’re seeking this ark for the right reasons, then,” Vaste said. “Good. I was worried you just wanted to feel better about the stunning twists that have sent your life off the causeway and into a ditch below.”
“How I feel is immaterial,” Cyrus said with steely resolve, eyes narrowing. He was keeping careful watch on Scuddar, who had yet to answer him. “How I win is what’s important.”
“You mean how we win, right?” Aisling asked, cocking her head at him.
“I would like to win, too, yes,” Mendicant said. “Please include us.”
“No one’s going to win if Scuddar doesn’t get a chance to answer my damn question,” Cyrus snapped. “So let the man speak.”
“I’m afraid I cannot help you in this,” Scuddar said, not looking away from Cyrus’s gaze. “The ark is legend and has passed into that place beyond knowing. No answers will be forthcoming, for there are no longer any answers to be had from the world of men.”
“That is the cagiest damned answer I’ve ever heard,” Terian said after a long moment of silence. “He’s hiding something.”
Scuddar looked at the Sovereign. “I hide nothing. The ark is a tale, something my people share between us in story. But I can no more tell you where it exists—or if it is even in this world—than I could prove it is a real thing right here, right now. It is an article of faith, a story for the ages, and those things do not lend themselves well to demands for proof.”
“Well, I need a weapon,” Cyrus said evenly, still looking at the desert man, “and it seems Bellarum has decided to rip open the heavens and steal the God of Evil’s power, so I could really use an avenue to his counterpart on the side of good.”
“Have you tried praying for help?” Vaste asked with something approaching a smirk. “I mean, really doing the thing right, maybe sacrificing a few goats, or a leprous dwarf or something—”
“I save all the goats for you and the leprous dwarves for Ryin,” Cyrus snapped.
“I– I—what did I do to deserve this?” Ryin asked.
“Target of opportunity,” Cyrus said before drawing a deep breath and looking to Longwell, who had watched the whole meeting in silence. “We need a way forward, and this—this is the only idea I have.”
“To answer a myth that the God of War told you with another myth that Scuddar told you,” Terian said dryly. “I know we lived in a world of gods until very recently, but I find the lack of empirical evidence in this plan alarming.”
“How do you feel about Bellarum stuffing his mailed fist up your ass and removing your lungs rectally?” Cyrus asked.
“More alarming,” Terian said, his voice straining somewhat. “I’ll have my, uh, scholars search the archives for references to an ark.”
“Helpful,” Cyrus said, and looked at his mother. “Do you know anything about this?”
Quinneria’s chin rested on her fist, her brow furrowed as she listened intently. “I’ve heard the legends, but I don’t know if you should spend much time searching in a vain hope that this ark exists.”
“Did anyone else think that sounded suspiciously like his mother just told him to go outside and play?” Vaste asked.
“I wish you’d go play in a vek’tag pit,” Terian said.
“Are those the filthy, giant spiders you people ride like horses?” Vaste asked. “Because, no, I’m not going anywhere near those terrifying things, and I have to ask, what sort of mad, dirt-digging people are you to ride spiders? I mean, really. Spiders? Why don’t you try taming dragons?”
“Because vek’tag,” Terian said with exaggerated patience, “are simplistic creatures that can be trained. Like trolls.”
“Oh, you think you can train me—”
“I doubt it, but maybe with a few solid whacks to the head we can impart some improved judgment. I’m certainly up for giving it a try, seeing as nothing else has worked—”
“This is pointless!” Cyrus shouted, his voice echoing off the walls of the subterranean room. “We need a course, and I’m trying to set one. What are you trying to do?”
“Use humor to mitigate the rising hopelessness stemming from the fact your plan is going nowhere with the speed of a legless gnome,” Vaste said.
“As we do,” Terian said. “Always.”
“Get out,” Cyrus said, his neck going slack, muscles aching. “All of you. Just … get out.”
“Cyrus—” Vaste said.
“Get out, Vaste,” Cyrus said, turning his head to stare at the bare stretch of wall next to him. “The meeting is over.”
A quiet murmur ran through them, and they started to move. The exodus was swift, and Cyrus kept his head down for all of it, listening to the scuff and squeak of leather and metal boots working across the stone floor. The door closed quietly and finally he raised his head, knowing there were still others in the room.
“I expressly told you to leave,” Cyrus said, looking at Vaste crossly.
“When have I ever listened to you?” the troll asked.
“When I told you to run from the Avatar of the God of Death.”
“Yes, but you were running with me. Here, you’re not leaving, so I’m following your example again.”
“Cyrus,
” Terian said, “we know you’ve been battered—”
“I don’t think that quite covers it,” Cyrus said, getting to his feet. He stood at an angle, the pain in his leg forcing him to tilt to the right. Quinneria lingered behind the other two, watching quietly, and he spoke to her next: “Something on your mind, Mother?”
“Just worried to see you lashing out in all directions,” she said, “both grasping for a plan and striking out at your friends.”
“We’ve gone from mopey Cyrus to angry Cyrus,” Vaste said, nodding sagely. When Cyrus gave him a flaming look, he sighed. “We’re concerned about you. If there’s anything that Bellarum could have done to you that was worse than what he already did, it’s breaking your body in addition to taking away almost all you care about. Now if you don’t go along with him, he’s going to kill us all—”
“Not all,” Cyrus said, calmer now. He looked up and caught the three of them studying him with the question in their eyes. “He told me he doesn’t want to kill you.”
“All of us?” Terian asked, perplexed.
“Vaste,” Cyrus said.
The troll’s eyes widened. “Me? But why?”
“Because he finds your arse so plump and pleasing, tempting in a goatly manner,” Cyrus said, finding a surprising amount of malicious glee in his crafted answer.
Vaste’s surprise turned to horror, his mouth falling open and his hands going self-consciously to the tail of his robes. “No—oh—no—oh, no—oh—no, no, no—”
“Kidding,” Cyrus said, and watched the troll sag in relief. “He finds you amusing.”
“Oh, well. That makes sense,” Vaste nodded. “I am adorable, after all. I mean, who doesn’t find me amusing?”
“Almost everyone else in Arkaria,” Terian supplied the answer.
“All the other gods,” Cyrus said.
Legend Page 47