Master (Book 5)

by Robert J. Crane

  “I am not … grim,” Ryin said, sputtering.

  “Not as grim as Vara, it’s true,” Vaste said, “but we’ve all given up hope that she will ever get laid and lighten up. You still have some potential.”

  “Oh, gods,” Cyrus muttered under his breath.

  Vara said nothing. Gradually every head turned to her. Her face remained expressionless, but her eyes turned to take in every looker. “I have nothing to say in this matter.”

  Cyrus looked over at Vaste, who mouthed the words No hope before Curatio cleared his throat in the silence.

  “If we might come back to the matters at hand,” the healer said, his voice a little thin and raspy, “and steer clear of the personal?”

  “Sure, give it a go,” Vaste said.

  “We need more officers because we now have somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen thousand members,” J’anda spoke up, looking over at Ryin and keeping his voice smooth while he spoke. “When we had sixty-eight members just three and a half years ago, we had seven officers. Now we have nine officers and fifteen thousand members, with more applicants flooding in all the time. The Halls of Healing are in disarray because Curatio—as acting Guildmaster—no longer has time to run them with his focus on keeping the guild going day to day.” The enchanter leaned forward and placed his hands onto the table. “We need more help. All of us are feeling the pinch.”

  “I just don’t know that we need to expand the Council just yet—” Ryin said.

  “Almost all of us are feeling the pinch,” Vaste corrected. “The lazy are apparently quite fine, doing nothing as always.”

  “I am not lazy,” Ryin said, reddening again. “I, too, have more work to be done than time to do it, but I am hesitant to grow the numbers in Council before we are ready, because it is a potentially dangerous exercise that could eventually cost us control of the guild. Does anyone recall only a few short years ago when Goliath nearly manipulated us into a merger? Only the Council’s united will kept us from a momentous mistake.”

  “Ah, yes, I remember your strong leadership in that matter,” Vaste said, stroking his chin. “Oh, wait, weren’t you the one leading the charge for Goliath?”

  Ryin glared at him. “I don’t mind using my mistakes to make a point. The Council was right and I was wrong, but the only reason you were successful in thwarting their intentions was because the Council was small enough to avoid fragmentation while they held us together.”

  “He has a point,” Erith said, and everyone looked to the dark elven woman, who stared back with smoky eyes. “Double the size of the Council, and you potentially lose our identity. There are some ten thousand fighting Luukessians in Sanctuary now; I’m sure they’d love to have a proportional say in how things are run.” She looked at Longwell. “Why, they could dominate the elections and pack the Council with their own people.”

  “No, they can’t,” Longwell said, shaking his head. “The charter states that one can only become an officer of Sanctuary after a minimum of one year’s membership.”

  “Not that they’ve thought of it, clearly,” Vaste said.

  “Not that it matters,” Longwell said, giving the troll a look of near-indifference. “The Luukessians are as fragmented as anyone else in this land. The cavalrymen are largely from Galbadien, it’s true, but we have others that are from Actaluere and Syloreas, and they have no loyalty to me any more than to any of you. Most of our discipline problems remain internecine quarrels between soldiers of the old kingdoms. I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you; in the short term, they’re simply a voting bloc, and in the long term, they’ll be true members of Sanctuary.”

  “Said the hawk to the fieldmouse,” Vaste said.

  “You are more than a bit hectoring today,” Ryin said with a frown.

  “It’s my job,” Vaste said, “much as yours is to make randomly contrarian pronouncements like, ‘Instead of swords, I think we should arm our warriors with garden snails’!”

  “Some of them would do more damage with the snails,” Vara said. A hush fell over the Council, and every eye turned to her. She merely shrugged, as expressionless as ever. That was a hint of the old Vara. But only a hint.

  “Anything else before we adjourn?” Curatio said, after the silence had been steady in place for a few more moments.

  “I have something I’d like to bring up again,” Vaste said. “Can we please talk about—”

  “No,” Vara said, her voice steely, the silence falling afterwards as complete as if she’d pulled out her sword and driven it into the Council table.

  Vaste hesitated, and after a moment he spoke up again. “It’s been six months—”

  “No,” Vara said again, and this time she stood, the first hint of thunderclouds gathering over her brow, which was stitched in a downward line.

  She stood there, unmoving, staring down the troll, who looked back at her, unblinking. “When can we finally discuss it?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” Cyrus breathed, and Vaste looked left at him. Vara looked at him, too, but in the same way she would have glanced at a wall in order to avoid walking into it.

  “Some other day, perhaps,” Curatio said with a faint smile, clearly forced. “I think that’ll be all for now.”

  “So says the interim Guildmaster,” Vaste said then looked at Vara again. “If only we could talk about electing a permanent one without breaking down into emotional hysterics.”

  Vara stared back at him, and the storm breaking across her face expanded, turning her cheeks red with fury. “Not … today.”

  “Fine,” Vaste said, unintimidated by her rising fury. “Pick a date and let’s schedule it. I’ll get a calendar.”

  Vara’s hard expression did not break. After directing her furious stare at him for a moment more, she turned and walked out of the Council Chambers, her metal boots clanking against the stone with each step. She slammed the door behind her, rocking it on its hinges and causing Erith to flinch next to Cyrus.

  “Perhaps it was something I said.” Vaste’s tone was light. “Still, now that she’s gone, perhaps we can finally at least discuss—”

  “You heard her,” Cyrus said quietly, looking at the door. He stood and adjusted his armor, placing his helm back on his head from where it had rested on the table during the meeting. “Not today.” Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked out the door, taking care not to slam it behind him.

  Chapter 7

  The halls of stone echoed with his steps, and Cyrus paused at the door to his chamber, listening for any noise down the hall. He wondered if Vara had returned to her chambers, but he heard no sign of her. Not that I had heard much sign of her before.

  His hand rested on the doorknob, and he gave it a slow turn, eyes still watching the door two down from his, wishing almost unconsciously that it would squeak, that its hinges would announce its motion as it opened. He sighed, filling his ears with a sound like regret. He stepped into his chambers and shut the door behind him with a click.

  “How did the Council meeting go?” The voice came from the bed, shrouded in the darkness cast by the curtains blocking the sun from the room. The hearth was dark as well, the torches unlit, and he struggled to place the voice for a moment.

  “Arydni?” Cyrus asked.

  “Hardly,” the smooth voice returned, and he saw a shadowed figure slide from the bed, navy skin catching the sheen of the barely-there sunlight peeking in through the edges of the curtains.

  “Aisling,” Cyrus said, a little more tautly than he might have under other circumstances. “I didn’t expect to see you now.”

  She crept up to him, her white hair catching a thin shaft of sunlight and sparkling as Cyrus’s eyes struggled to adjust to the room’s dimness. “You should know I always show up sooner or later.” Her hands found his face, and he realized she was nude. Her hands fell down his breastplate, skin squeaking as she rubbed the dark metal.

  “You’ve been absent for a few days.”

  “You were being te
nded to by an elven priestess.” Aisling’s eyes flashed at him, he could see it even in the dark. Her hand went to his belt, loosening it until it clattered to the ground.

  “Is that a hint of jealousy?” Cyrus asked.

  “No,” Aisling said. “A statement of fact. You were in no condition to accept my … ministrations … while you were under hers.”

  “That makes it sound a little untoward,” Cyrus said.

  “I don’t assume she did anything untoward,” Aisling said, unfastening his breastplate and backplate. “That’s my job.”

  Cyrus felt a curious stirring within. “Right now?”

  “I’d wait, but it’s hard to find a time when you’re idle nowadays.” She unfastened his gorget and let it clink to the ground as she leaned up and into his neck. She kissed him, and then the pressure increased as she leaned in, her tongue working against his skin. He’d dispensed with the beard when he’d returned from Luukessia, and since then she’d left him with enough bruises on his neck that he pondered growing it back again. It feels good, though, I can’t deny that.

  “Not in the mood?” Aisling said, taking her mouth away from his neck for just a heartbeat. “Give me a minute and you will be.”

  She took his plate armor off with practiced ease, and he let her lead this dance, as he so often had of late. She took him to the bed and ministered to him there. He kept eyes tightly closed save for once, when he saw a flash of her astride him, her deep blue skin even more shadowed in the dark. Her white hair moved as she gyrated, and then he closed his eyes again, and envisioned himself somewhere else—only two doors down.

  Chapter 8

  “So …” Cyrus asked the assemblage before him, “how do we find a missing goddess?”

  His words were followed by a rough sort of quiet punctuated by the sound of pots and pans slamming together somewhere in the distance. Cyrus sat in a wooden chair in a room behind the Great Hall, staring at a small group he’d summoned together to consider the problem at hand. Since many of them were not officers, he’d opted to hold the meeting in a different place than the Council Chambers, deciding on an unused conference room at the back of the first floor of Sanctuary. The smell of dinner filled the air, the aroma of fresh meat wafting down the hall and causing Cyrus’s stomach to rumble.

  “I’m sorry,” Vaste said, “I couldn’t hear you over the sound of my belly screaming for Larana’s cooking.”

  “This is quite a serious matter—and disheartening, I might add,” Odellan said, leaning forward in his chair, elbows upon his knees and face in his hands.

  “It does seem bad,” J’anda said, a goblet of wine in his hand, his appearance that of a dark elven longshoreman of the sort Cyrus had seen in Reikonos. “I’m a bit unsure of why you’ve asked for my aid in this, though.”

  “Or mine,” Mendicant spoke up, his green, scaly skin pulled back to reveal his fearsome teeth. Cyrus tried to decide if the goblin was smiling, then realized it was probably more of a grimace. “Not that I don’t appreciate being called in to strategize with the great Lord Davidon—”

  “Oh, there went my appetite,” Vaste said.

  “—but I don’t think I can be of much help to you in this matter,” Mendicant finished, his grimace now faded. He looks almost … regretful, Cyrus decided.

  “I asked all of you here for a specific reason,” Cyrus said, turning to the last member of the group, Martaina Proelius. She had said nothing thus far, preferring to stand near the door, tall and lithe, surveying the meeting with a watchful eye as though something—or someone—were about to burst through the door at any moment. Her green cloak covered her hands and arms as well as her body, and she stood stiff and still, taking it all in. Or napping with her eyes open, for all I know. “You are some of the smartest and most experienced people in Sanctuary—”

  “Where’s Curatio?” J’anda asked, shifting in his chair and letting the wine slosh around in his goblet.

  “Supremely busy,” Cyrus said.

  “It seems to me that Lady Vara would be a good choice for this sort of discussion,” Mendicant said, speaking softly. “She is named for the Goddess of Life, after all, is she not?”

  “Ahhh …” Cyrus felt a grimace of his own appear. “I don’t want to bother Lady Vara until we have something more … uh … substantial … to share.” He knew the eyes of the others were either upon him or averted politely, and he cleared his throat. “The question still remains—when a goddess goes missing, where does a mortal begin looking for her?”

  “I don’t know,” J’anda said, rolling his eyes. “Why don’t you ask an immortal?”

  “I’ll try and catch up with Curatio later tonight,” Cyrus said, holding up a hand as though he could ward the enchanter off. “But before then, I’d like to at least have some ideas.”

  “You could try visiting her home,” Martaina said from her place near the door. She maintained her icy demeanor as everyone turned to look at her. “It seems the logical place to start a search.”

  “The only problem being that apparently the guardians of her realm are a little touchy at the moment,” Cyrus said. “But you’re quite right, we should visit the Realm of Life, see if we can find out anything there.” He paused. “Maybe bring a little army with us to be sure we don’t get overwhelmed in case we have to stage a sudden retreat.” He looked around the small group. “Any other ideas?”

  There was a pause before Vaste broke the silence. “We’re probably a little stalled in our thinking because none of us has ever had to find a god before. Usually they’re quite good about staying where you leave them.”

  Cyrus saw a few smiles break around the room, taking special note of J’anda’s. The dark elf, even in his illusionary state, maintained a distinctive air about him, his dark skin looking shadowed in the light of the torches that burned from sconces on the wall.

  “Fair enough,” Cyrus said. “If you come up with any other ideas, though—”

  “Who would kidnap a god?” Mendicant asked, muttering under his breath.

  Cyrus turned his head to focus on the goblin. “I’m sorry, Mendicant, what was that?”

  “Oh,” Mendicant said, suddenly flustered. “I didn’t realize I was speaking aloud.”

  “Well, you were,” Cyrus said, honing in on the green-skinned wizard, “and it sounded like a good thought. Say that again.”

  The goblin sat back, long fingers with the claws on the ends fingering his blue robe. “I was just speculating—pointlessly, really—about who would have the power to kidnap a god. Not a guild, or an army, in all probability—”

  “Unless they beat her to within an inch of her life the way we did to Mortus,” J’anda said. “He was begging for mercy by the end, after all.”

  “No, Mendicant has a point,” Cyrus said. “Mortus was still trying to flee when he died. And for all the trouble it caused us, we were able to do what we did to him because his servants were dead first. Try and imagine fighting an army at the same time we were facing him.”

  “Scary thought,” J’anda said.

  “Whatever happened to her,” Cyrus said, letting his fingers drum on the metal plate protecting his thigh, “she either went willingly, or it happened so quietly and quickly that her guardians didn’t hear it. That would take … power.”

  “Unless her guardians were somehow complicit in it,” J’anda said, raising the goblet to his mouth with a wide smile.

  “Thank you for reminding me why I never became a constable in a city guard,” Cyrus said with a sigh.

  “You really don’t have the disposition for it,” Vaste said. “You’d ask three questions and then disembowel them right there for annoying you.”

  “I would not,” Cyrus said, shaking his head. “I’m not Va …” He let his voice trail off. “That’s good enough for now. Keep thinking. I’ll schedule an expedition to the Realm of Life to take a cursory look around. Until then, just keep trying to come up with other angles to think this thing through.”

  He nod
ded and smiled tightly as the meeting broke. Martaina was first out the door, without so much as a look back. Mendicant bowed to Cyrus, then J’anda, and finally Vaste, who waved him off with dismissive shake of his massive green hand. With only a nod to Odellan, the goblin skittered toward the door, claws clicking a fast pace until he was out in the hallway. Cyrus listened as the clicking slowed, the goblin’s nerves presumably subsiding.

  “It is quite the conundrum,” Odellan said, pausing by the door. He carried his silver-winged helm from his days in the Termina Guard under his arm. “Having presided over more than a few investigations myself, I can honestly say I do not envy you this task.”

  “That’s all right,” Cyrus said, smiling at the elf. “I’m putting you in charge of the investigation anyway.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Odellan’s question was spoken with the politest air, as though he’d simply misheard a conversation at a dinner party and was asking for clarification.

  “You’re running the investigation,” Cyrus said. “You’ll be asking the questions, should we find someone to ask them of.” Cyrus sat back, letting his muscles relax against the wooden back of the chair. “You’ve done this before. I never have. I’ll be right there with you, ready to ask anything that comes to my mind, but you’ll be the lead investigator on this.”

  “Ah, I … ah …” Odellan’s face flushed scarlet. “This is a bit … larger than any previous investigation I might have undertaken.”

  “Nonsense,” Cyrus said, clapping his gauntleted hands together. “You investigated on the occasion that the God of Death sent assassins after your citizens in Termina. This seems right up your alley.”

  “I failed in that investigation,” Odellan said. “I believe you were the one who made all the determinations in that case. I merely … uncovered perhaps a fact or two of note—”

  “Which is exactly what I need now,” Cyrus said, “an investigator with some experience in these matters.” He stood, nodding firmly to signal that the topic was closed. “I know this is a little out of your purview. It’s out of all of our purviews, but you’re as qualified as anyone else to ask questions. Did you ever have to deal with missing persons in Termina?”