“Apparently she crossed the lines,” Curatio said without expression. His white robes nearly glowed in the sunlight. “She saw you fall and was fighting her way over to help. She was unable to reach you in time and thus rendered what service she could. She covered the retreat until the last possible second, firing arrow after arrow into that …” Curatio’s voice fell and his lips pursed, “… that godsdamned undead army.”
“What happened there, Curatio?” Cyrus asked, squinting at the healer. “How could have they have managed to raise their dead?” He waited for a response, but the healer’s lips remained firmly pressed together. “Those soldiers weren’t freshly resurrected; some of them had been dead for weeks or months—”
“Have you ever heard of a soul ruby?” Curatio asked, and Cyrus caught a hint of weariness at the corners of his eyes.
Cyrus felt a sick sense of nausea descend upon his belly, twisting it. “Yes.”
“This is the product of that dark magic,” Curatio said, staring straight ahead. A cloud crossed the sun and a shade fell upon them as the breeze stirred the hangings once more. “A soul ruby applied to a dead body produces a creature between death and life; all the skill and memory and ability of the deceased, but with a will that is easily subverted.” Curatio was stiff in his seat. “Easily bent to the control of one who is master of the dead.”
“Malpravus,” Cyrus said.
“A general for the dead,” Curatio agreed. “There are others, of course, necromancers who can command just such a legion. But such a legion has never been seen before, because soul rubies are impossible to produce without the sacrifice of another’s soul. The power inherent in that essence allows a spell caster such as Malpravus to fuel such powerful, dark magic.”
“How did they come up with so many soul rubies?” Cyrus asked, staring at the dark ceiling beams overhead. They looked like a masterwork of carved wood, impressively done, smooth and glossy, varnished to gleam in even the reflections of sunlight that were hitting them. “Who did they sacrifice?”
“Every soul in Aloakna, perhaps?” Curatio shook his head. “I do not know. It would be a ridiculous task, raising an army of that size. No one with any decency would do such a thing.”
“Which is why Malpravus and Yartraak are directly involved,” Cyrus said. “How did you know about all of this?”
“Terian told the Council the same story that he gave to you and Vara upon the field of Leaugarden,” Curatio said, once again impassive. Cyrus looked in his eyes, but could derive no sense of the healer’s feelings about the dark knight. “Once he had said his part, I was able to fill in a few of the things he did not know through my own rather considerable knowledge.” He sighed. “Though it is knowledge I wish I did not have.”
Cyrus looked past him, out over the plains. He could see green grass in the distance, stretching out the north, uninterrupted. “How do we even fight something like that?”
Curatio’s silence was rather damning in and of itself. “The Council conferred while you were invalided and came to the determination to do nothing immediately save for close the portal both here and at Emerald Fields. Those orders have already been carried out.” Cyrus started to sit up in bed, but Curatio stopped him with a heavy hand upon his chest. “We still have constant communication between the two places; two spell casters, with their return spells linked both there and here, carry messages back and forth as needed. They are fine there, and we are fine here. The Sovereign has … other concerns at the moment.” The menacing way he said it made Cyrus shiver slightly.
“And the rest of Arkaria?” Cyrus asked. “What of them?”
Curatio turned his head to look away from Cyrus. “Our failure at Leaugarden has resulted in a rather spectacular forward attack of the dark elven army upon the Riverlands.” He made a sipping sound with his tongue. “Their crops are being spared, but little else is.”
Cyrus felt a desire to smash something, to slap something, and tensed his back. A wave of pain crested and ran over him, tearing a grunt out of his throat. “Son of a bitch.”
“The Sovereign is son of no one,” Curatio said wryly. “You should rest. In the coming days we can confer about this; there is little to be done now, though.” He stood and gestured to the balcony doors with a hand. They closed slowly with a click.
Cyrus looked at him in surprise. “What magic is that?”
“Not the same as that used on the field of Leaugarden, that much is sure,” Curatio said, more than a little dour. He started down the stairs and Cyrus heard his footsteps halt. “Hope is not lost, you know.”
Cyrus could not see the healer, but he could sense his presence. “Sanctuary just watched their General and Guildmaster brought low just before the dark elves fielded a seemingly unstoppable army that beat us with tactics I would have found hard to counter even if I’d been able to command the battle.” Cyrus stared at the swirls in the wood beams above him. “We may not be hopeless, but our hope has certainly been dealt a rough blow, Curatio.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Cyrus heard the feet upon the stairs again, followed by the whisper of hinges opening a door. “And yet it remains, so long as the Guildmaster says it does and acts as though it does. Remember that.” The door closed.
Cyrus lay there, staring at the ceiling. It only came to him later that Curatio had said something that had sounded almost as if it had come directly from Alaric.
Chapter 63
“I’ve scraped more lively looking turds off my boot,” Terian said, staring down at Cyrus with Vara standing watch over the dark knight. Two other guards stood nearby as well, both paladins; all three were watching the dark elf with a level of scrutiny and suspicion Cyrus had rarely seen outside of the Reikonos market when the suspected pederast wandered past.
“Thanks to you, I’m alive to be scraped,” Cyrus said. He was still flat on his back a week after awakening. Two of the balconies were sealed at the head and foot of his bed due to a heavy crosswind this morning, but the breath of the autumn day still made it through the room in spite of the best efforts of the hearth to keep the chill out.
“I’m just sorry I couldn’t tell you who the traitor was before she nearly gutted you from behind,” Terian said, rattling the chains wrapped around his wrists.
“That’s all right,” Cyrus said, and cast a look at Vara, who was staring at Terian impassively. “I ignored the warnings of the only person who did.” She gave him little other than a prim look that held no emotion. “You mentioned when last we met that you had people in Saekaj that needed assistance …”
“I had them moved out before the battle,” Terian said. “Saekaj was turning into a prison camp; I couldn’t wait any longer to act on it.”
“Is not Saekaj always a prison camp?” Vara said with a healthy dose of sarcasm.
“Not Saekaj, no,” Terian said seriously. “Sovar, yes. Sovar is where the underclass live; Saekaj is where the wealthy are. Even they are currently feeling the squeeze of the Sovereign’s war. Travel restrictions, diversion of crop land formerly devoted to luxury foods such as corn turned to wheat for the army instead, the expensive threads and imports market drying up completely …” He smiled viciously. “Yes, the wealthy are feeling the pinch of war this time, and the griping that’s following is so loud I wouldn’t be surprised if even the Sovereign can’t ignore it.”
“He’s the Sovereign,” Cyrus said, “and the God of Darkness. Does it matter how much people complain to him?”
“Oh, they wouldn’t have the balls to complain to him,” Terian said, “because that’s a sure path to losing those balls. Yartraak may be many things, but merciful is rarely one of them.”
“‘Rarely’?” Vara asked, eyes jaded. “I am surprised if he is capable of so petty a thing as mercy; it seems beneath him.”
“He’s capable of it,” Terian said, almost impassive, his chains and manacles a dark steel against his even darker skin. He wore faded cotton clothes, clean but weathered, something that looked
like it had been in a trunk for a long stay. “He’s capable of many things, as well you now know.”
“How’s he doing it?” Cyrus asked.
Terian turned to look at Cyrus out of the corner of his eye. “Powering his army? That is an excellent question, one to which J’anda and I have been searching for an answer without much success.”
“So you were not exactly deep in the enemy’s confidence, then,” Vara said.
Terian’s eyes lit fire, catching the morning sun. “Oh, no, we both were firmly ensconced in his inner circle, which should give you some idea of exactly how secret this must be.”
Vara stared flatly at the dark knight. “I find it hard to believe that the Sovereign is foolish enough to trust two men who have essentially betrayed him before with his deepest secrets.” Her hand was on her sword hilt the entire time, Cyrus realized, but she emphasized this by sliding it slightly out of the scabbard, exposing an inch or two of blade before letting it click back into place. “At least, not without some assurance of their loyalty.”
Terian’s face was covered in a dark grin that Cyrus saw no humor in; he wondered if the dark knight felt any. Somehow he doubted it. “We provided assurances, trust me. We both left Saekaj in the past under … unpleasant circumstances, but were at best considered to have committed affronts against the Sovereign—personal betrayals, not treason.” He shuddered slightly, holding his wrists together. “There is no going back from treason.”
“Which is why you are quite content to sit in our dungeon,” Vara said.
“Which is why I’m positively overjoyed to sit in your dungeon for now,” Terian said. “I won’t be quite so enthused on the day that the Sovereign finishes his business with the Confederation, because he’ll be turning all his attention to you before he mounts an invasion of the Elven Kingdom.”
“And he’ll just leave the dwarves, the goblins, the gnomes, the desert men and the bandit lands at his back?” Cyrus asked.
Terian made a scoffing noise. “Do you realize what he has at his disposal? An insanely difficult to kill army—because they’re already dead—that he can regenerate at will. They’re fearless, they’re skilled, and every dead body left on the field against him becomes fodder for him to replace the few in every battle that are fallen to so many pieces he can’t stitch them back together again.” He shook his head as though he were in disbelief. “Do you know what this means to the war? It’s over, unless you can find some way to stop him. You might as well take the portal right to the Ashen Wastelands and start hiking south in hopes of finding something past the dragons, or get on a ship and brave the Torrid Sea, because as of right now, he will conquer Arkaria. It is destiny, unavoidable.”
“Unless someone stands against him,” Vara said.
“No one’s standing against him,” Terian said, looking darkness at her. “No one can. Toe to toe, he destroys every army because he had a bigger one starting out and it’s only growing—save for that time you cost him nearly a hundred thousand soldiers and burned the bodies afterward.”
“That’s why he’s been sending envoys to retrieve the dead,” Cyrus said.
“Yes,” Terian said, “and kindhearted idiots that you all are, everyone’s been giving them back to him rather than destroying them the way he would have done for any of you.”
“This is a new thing, then,” Cyrus said, chewing his lower lip.
Terian paused. “What?”
“It’s new,” Cyrus said. “Them asking for the bodies back. They didn’t send an envoy after the battle of Sanctuary. They sent their first after Livlosdald. They didn’t even do it after we kicked them out of Prehorta.”
“And so?” Terian asked, eyes wide, pulling his hands apart as far as the chain keeping him bound would allow.
“What changed?” Cyrus asked.
“What do you mean, ‘what changed’? You’re getting your asses kicked!” Terian said.
“Why was he suddenly able to do this only a few months ago?” Vara asked slowly.
“Get Curatio,” Cyrus said to one of the guards. The guard resisted, holding his position until he caught a nod from Vara, then stormed down the steps at a run.
“I guess this is my opportunity to escape,” Terian said with exaggerated humor.
“Try it and I will send you out of the tower on a blast of air without more than a thought,” Vara said.
“All right, then, I guess I’ll stay here,” Terian said. “Not like I have anywhere else to go.”
They waited in silence, until finally there was noise of footfalls upon the stairs and Curatio appeared at the side of the bed, his white robes looking slightly dirtied. “You know, I do occasionally have other duties to attend to besides—”
“Could Yartraak be powering his army by soul rubies ripped out of one soul over and over?” Cyrus asked without preamble, cutting him off.
Curatio’s frown was instant. “You do understand that a soul ruby is produced when the subject of the soul sacrifice dies, yes?”
“What if they couldn’t die?” Vara asked.
“Everyone dies,” Curatio said, clearly a little put out.
“You haven’t,” Cyrus said.
Curatio sighed. “Every mortal dies, then.” His expression changed, mouth falling slightly open. “Oh.” His eyes darted backward and forward quickly, calculating the possibility. “Yes. Yes, that would—oh, you soulless bastard—”
“He did it,” Cyrus said, shaking his head. He caught the stricken look from Vara, the cold flush of white up and down her neck, followed by the red mottling that always appeared when she was in a fury. “He damned well did it.”
“Did what?” Terian asked, standing with his arms as wide in front of him as he could get them to go without removing the chains. “Anyone care to take a moment and explain to your poor, tortured prisoner what you all seem to know …?”
“He was the one,” Cyrus said, shaking his head. “All along, we’ve been looking for the answer, and it … was right there.” He turned his eyes to Terian, who looked near apoplectic, ready to explode with frustration. “Yartraak is powering an infinite supply of soul rubies by draining one person, one person with power—a soul—far beyond that of a mortal.
“He’s draining Vidara. He kidnapped the Goddess of Life … and now he’s using her to destroy the whole damned world.”
Chapter 64
Cyrus left the bed without help several days later. The pain stuck with him, fits of it that seemed to shoot through him without warning when he moved in certain ways. Curatio pronounced him “fit enough” when forced to render an opinion, but also suggested he avoid battle for at least another month. “Give yourself time to heal from such a brutal injury.”
Cyrus did not hold his tongue. “Which part, the physical stabbing or the emotional one?”
Curatio gave him a pained look as they stared at each other, the Halls of Healing silent around them. “Both.”
Cyrus walked with the aid of a staff that had appeared at his bedside one morning, hobbling along with one hand on the top of it for support and the other on Praelior to give him strength to endure the still significant aches. He caught the glances as he worked his way down the stairs all the way to the foyer for the first time in a month.
There were greetings and glad tidings hurled at him from many a well-wisher, hushed voices commending his motion, telling him how good it was to see him about again. He took them all with the grace of a smile, one that he had worked on forging to hide that bubbling pool of rage and disappointment that had taken up residence in his belly. He could feel it when he thought of Aisling, imagined her face. For years she played me. Years she watched me, looking for her opening. And then she opened me.
This never would have happened to Alaric.
Cyrus made his way out the front door, feeling the burn inside his chest and along his back and craving air fresher than even his open tower could provide. He forced his way through the front doors with a hard shove, down onto the lawn and found
his gait straightening as he went. The pain was still there, but his care for it diminished. It was here and there, stitched through his muscles in the place where the black lace had gone untouched by the remedy Curatio had used. He’d felt this peculiar agony once before, though it had been lighter then, the healing more complete.
He tossed the staff aside somewhere around the middle of Sanctuary. The stone wall of the building loomed high to his right, and he hobbled along without support, hand clutching Praelior, his pace slow but the pain entirely manageable.
He could see the garden ahead, the bridge extending over the water. He longed for the peace of the stream. He had seen it run past off the balcony that looked south, but he wanted to see it run beneath his feet. Wanted to see it ripple and reflect, wanted to see the wind stir the surface.
I want to feel alive, not locked in my own high dungeon the way Terian is trapped in his low one.
He made it to the bridge, the grey stone stretched over dark waters, the greenery framing the whole setting. He saw her a bit late from atop the crest of the bridge, standing in the corner of the garden at the monument. He ignored her at first, looking down into the waters below, placing a bare palm on the stone guardrail that was there to keep him from toppling in.
“You are surprisingly mobile,” came Vara’s voice from behind him. He did not turn. “At least, for a man who was nearly dead a month ago.”
“Couldn’t stay in bed forever,” Cyrus said, looking down. There was a ripple, and he watched it intently. “Couldn’t keep pacing my tower; I was wearing holes in the stone.”
“You look … very different without your armor,” she said. She took a step nearer; he could see it in the reflection of the water, which had grown still once more. “I see you still have your sword, though.”
He did not turn to face her, merely stared at her reflection. He could not recall if her eyes were always that blue or if it was a reflection of the sky and water lightening them. “Seems like I have need of it. I should keep it by my side lest someone else try and betray me.”
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