Master (Book 5)

by Robert J. Crane

  “Probably,” Cyrus agreed. “So, we both had difficult childhoods … Now what?”

  “So now you have a homeland, albeit battered,” Vaste snapped, “and I don’t. Poor me. I win.”

  Cyrus shook his head. “You win. Is that what you want?”

  “Will you stop asking me questions and give me a chance to get around to pouring my heart out to you?” Vaste shook his head, neck rubbing against the stone step. “Honestly, it’s so difficult to work my way around to a tearful admission with you being so busy being sympathetic and understanding.”

  Cyrus chuckled then stifled it swiftly. “Sorry. Go on.”

  “Do you know what gets me the worst?” Vaste spun his head around. “It’s not the lack of homeland; Sanctuary fills that. It’s not the … pitiful lack of romance, there are books to fill the void.” He snuffed his statement and sunk into another stubborn silence.

  “What is it, then?” Cyrus asked.

  “I’m glad you asked,” Vaste said, launching right into it. “It’s Goliath. It’s Malpravus.” He turned his head to Cyrus, and the yellow eyes glowed with feral anger. “You know I’ve been … different … since I learned from that shaman outside of Gren several years ago. He opened my eyes to things. Gave me an … attunement … with the dead.”

  Cyrus found himself wanting to say something but stopped just in time.

  “Nothing to say to that, eh?” Vaste kept his eyes on Cyrus. “I know what you wanted to ask, though—does it make me like Malpravus?”

  Cyrus cleared his throat. “You’re nothing like Malpravus.”

  “No, I’m not like Malpravus,” Vaste agreed. “No one is like Malpravus. A necromancer is supposed to speak for the dead. To use the power of the deceased with their cooperation. Malpravus … abuses their power like it’s his own. It’s not. It’s not even in the same city as his power, and he runs roughshod along with it like he worked for it himself.” Vaste made a disgusted noise. “And he got away, again.”

  Cyrus felt himself nodding. “There will be a reckoning. Between us and Goliath. You may bet on that.”

  “They’re not honest fighters, Cyrus,” Vaste said, and he sounded quiet. “They’re liars and cheats, and they would do to you a thousand times what Aisling did given only a half of her opportunity.” He looked up at Cyrus, and the anger was gone. “I fear the day we are forced to go up against them, because even if we outmatch them ten to one, it will not be a fair fight in our favor.”

  Cyrus stared across the lawn at the sky, white clouds drifting overhead. For a moment, he imagined he saw them exactly as Vaste did, and there was some small measure of peace there amid the dangerous skies far in the distance. “I guess we’ll just have to be ready for anything we can imagine they’ll pull.”

  “It’s not the things I know they’ll do that scare me,” Vaste said, and his voice was a hushed whisper. “It’s the ones I can’t imagine that wake me up in the night and don’t let me return to sleep again.”

  Cyrus could not find it in himself to disagree.

  Chapter 83

  A meeting that Cyrus had long anticipated came two weeks after his conversation with Vaste under the blue skies. This was to be quite a different conversation, he imagined, and he had prepared himself by summoning the full Council and awaiting the arrival of their guest in the silence of the chamber. The blue sky was still visible out the window, and Cyrus sat at his place at the head of the table, adjusting himself in his seat. The chain that bound the medallion he had received from Alaric had begun to chafe, just slightly. He wondered what it would take to adjust to it, that oddly shaped, circular thing, and sighed when he had to concede that he had no idea.

  The door to the Council Chamber opened onto the silent gathering. Everyone was in their seats save one—J’anda’s chair was still empty, nearly three months after Saekaj.

  “The Sanctuary Council,” Pretnam Urides said in abrupt greeting as he entered. His staff thumped the ground in time with each step and he strode to the edge of the table without preamble then fixed his spectacled eyes upon Cyrus. “Lord Davidon.”

  “Sir Councilor,” Cyrus said with a nod. “What can we do for you?”

  Urides did not show a single ounce of amusement on his weighty face. “I have come for the gold you owe me.”

  Vaste made a loud, scoffing sound. “Gold we owe you? We saved your damned kingdom!”

  “Confederation,” Urides snapped before anyone else could issue the correction.

  “Whatever it was, I didn’t see you atop the Citadel when we threw out Goliath’s chief death-whisperer,” Vaste said. “I don’t recall seeing your people in Saekaj when Vara made the Sovereign her personal object of anger relief.” Vara frowned at him but did not say anything.

  “Nor would you,” Urides said, “for we were not there.”

  “But you acknowledge that our actions caused the dark elves to pull their armies out of your capital and the Riverlands?” This question came from Odellan and sounded significantly more polite than any of Vaste’s inquiries.

  “I acknowledge that we had a contract for you to defend Leaugarden for seven days,” Urides said, unflinching, “and that you failed in this regard.”

  “Someone send the dark elves back to Reikonos,” Vaste said. He looked to Erith. “You, go get dark elves. Send them to Reikonos.” She gave him a look, and he made a hand motion as if to speed her up. “Now, Erith, we don’t have all day.”

  “Your troll is oh so very amusing, Lord Davidon,” Urides said without humor.

  “I find his wit keen,” Cyrus agreed.

  “Thank you,” Vaste said brightly.

  “Are you going to pay us our due or not?” Urides asked.

  “You know I am,” Cyrus said, giving Urides a slight shrug of the shoulders.

  “Yes, you tell him—what?” Vaste’s voice changed pitch to a shriek midsentence.

  Urides showed the first hint of satisfaction. “I had hoped you would be a man of honor about this.”

  “I am a man of honor,” Cyrus said. “But …”

  “There is no but,” Urides snapped.

  “There’s a small but,” Cyrus said, keeping his tone even. “Your Confederation is in a mess. I’m sure your gold is of immediate use to you, and I will make sure it is returned to you this very day, but I require one thing.”

  “Let it be something valuable,” Vaste said, “like all the property those mansions on the heights were on before they got burned and sacked.”

  “That is not mine to give,” Urides snapped without looking at Vaste.

  “This is something you can easily part with,” Cyrus said. “You recall of course, a couple years ago, right after you made that unfounded accusation that we were plundering those caravans—”

  “I vaguely recall something of that,” Urides said, as though it were nothing.

  “Very faintly, I’m sure,” Vaste said. “Probably hidden under a mountain of other memories in which you slandered and blackmailed innocent people.”

  “Vaste,” Curatio said from his place at Cyrus’s right, “you really should wait until after the Councilor issues a more staunch denial to thrust the truth of events upon him.”

  “In the wake of that,” Cyrus said, drawing to his feet, leaning his knuckles on the table, “you made Alaric the steward of the Plains of Perdamun. Do you recall?”

  “But of course,” Urides said, and now his suspicions were raised. “Why—?”

  “I want you to renounce all claim to the Plains of Perdamun south of the line comprising Santir, Idiarna and Prehorta,” Cyrus said. “Sign a treaty to that effect, right now, today, in front of witnesses in your own capital, and you will have your gold back in your vaults by tonight.”

  “And if I do not?” Urides cheeks were now purpled with umbrage.

  “You’ll get your gold back when I get around to delivering it,” Cyrus said.

  Urides stared at him through the spectacles. “This is how a man of honor comports himself?”

>   Cyrus leaned forward, and he could feel his brows stitching a heavy line across his forehead. “Two years ago, you raced willingly and happily into a war here in the plains that ended up damned near costing you your entire Confederation.” Urides took his words in silence. “Two years. You filled the plains with soldiers so you could provoke a war you felt certain you’d win. Now you’re looking out at the wreckage, and I wonder if you have enough soldiers to even protect what you’ve got left.” Cyrus stared him down. “Scratch that. I know the answer. You don’t.”

  Urides made a sniffing noise. “And you do?”

  “I’ll do a fair sight better protecting the Plains of Perdamun once you’ve ceded your claim than you did during the time when they were supposedly under your auspices,” Cyrus said flatly. “Because, in case you missed it, Sanctuary was there every single time that the dark elves were beaten back—Termina, here, Livlosdald.”

  “But not Leaugarden,” Urides said with some satisfaction.

  “That’s your own territory, man,” Curatio said with disgust. “Try not to look quite so gleeful celebrating our defeat.”

  “I can afford your defeat easier than I could have afforded your victory,” Urides said with a sense of haughty triumph. “Very well. I’ll sign your treaty; as you say, we are unable to defend such holdings at this time in any case.”

  “Great,” Cyrus said without feeling. Everything that had been said by the Councilor had left him with unease, and he had a sudden suspicion that this bargain might have been offered in advance. “In the interest of time, might you have such a document upon your person at this moment?”

  Urides’ eyes flashed behind the spectacles, and one eyebrow crept up. “This is all that you want for the gold? Nothing else?”

  “Ooh, I want a pony!” Vaste said.

  “That will be sufficient, I think,” Cyrus said.

  Urides reached within his cloth jacket and withdrew a roll of parchment tied around the center. “I believe you will find this agreeable.”

  Ryin reached out and seized the paper upon the table before Andren or Erith could quite manage. He unthreaded the string that bound it and shook it open. He gave it a glance and then slid it to Cyrus. “It does cede the Plains of Perdamun to you as the Guildmaster of Sanctuary. It also lists you as Lord Davidon.”

  “A fancy title for a fancy man,” Vaste said.

  “Your gold will be returned to you immediately,” Cyrus said to Urides.

  “What else might you have offered if we’d asked for it?” Vaste asked, prompting Urides to turn back to him.

  The light caught his spectacles. “My forgiveness of your demands,” Urides said. Cyrus got the distinct impression he was not joking.

  “Damn,” Vaste said, snapping his fingers. “Should have asked for that. And a pony. Always need a pony for something around here.”

  “I thought it was goats with you people,” Ryin murmured.

  “Good day, Lord Davidon,” Pretnam Urides said. He disappeared into a twinkle of spell light.

  “Anyone else think that whole ‘my forgiveness’ thing sounds a bit ominous?” Vaste asked. “Bodes a bit ill? Anyone?”

  “I think … that Pretnam Urides is a dangerous man to have as an enemy,” Curatio said, choosing his words with care.

  Cyrus just stared at the space that the councilor had inhabited, waiting for the flare of the spell to disappear from his vision. It did not do so quickly, remaining in his sight like a dark cloud in an otherwise spotless sky. “So am I,” Cyrus said. “So are we all.”

  Chapter 84

  It was only three days later that Cyrus received the summons to the Halls of Healing. He wondered at the nature of the invitation, unable to recall a single time that Curatio had bid him to do anything without good cause, and so he came immediately.

  The halls of Sanctuary were abuzz with life; the fires burned in the hearths even though spring was beginning to give way to the breaths of southern summer and its warmth. The grass across the fields was darkening in its turn, and Cyrus wondered if a walk might not be in the offing, or perhaps even a ride on horseback.

  He entered the Halls of Healing and found Vara waiting for him, her arms folded neatly behind her as though she were ill at ease and knew not where to put them. She looked stern but smiled ever so slightly as he entered, a concession she had made from time to time of late. “Guildmaster,” she said crisply.

  “Lady Vara,” Cyrus replied. He saw the lightness in her eyes; it had been this way since the return from Saekaj, a sort of gentle swordplay between the two of them that carried none of the sting of her old insults. It was refreshing, and yet still he felt … at arm’s length with her. An invitation to dine with him in his quarters had been turned aside with a faded smile, and he had caught the gist. They were not adversaries, but they were back to the distance. Though he felt pain at the thought, it was not so bad as it could have been, he conceded.

  “Were you summoned to these halls as well?” Vara asked, looking out upon the empty room.

  “Indeed I was,” Cyrus said.

  “Curious, that the Elder would summon the Guildmaster,” Vara said.

  “Curiosity is why I came,” Cyrus said. “That and politeness. I assume Curatio would not have asked if he did not have good reason.”

  “Indeed, Curatio had good reason,” Curatio said as he entered from behind Cyrus. His white robes traced the floor as he walked, hair back enough for his pointed ears to be displayed. “One of our guests is still perhaps a bit weak, and I would prefer not to have her trudge all the way up to the Council Chambers.”

  “Or my rather substantial quarters?” Cyrus said with a smile.

  “Yes, well, that carries a curse of a different sort,” Vara said, “what with the discarded undergarments that undoubtedly teem with life of their own.”

  “Is that why you turned down my dinner invitation?” Cyrus asked with a reckless smile. Hers vanished instantly, and he was sorry he had brought it up.

  “I believe you recall Arydni?” Curatio said, and stepped aside for the Priestess of Life. She was not clad in her full ceremonial garb, Cyrus was relieved to see. She looked just a tad weathered, noticeably, and he wondered if this was the beginning of what the elves called “the turn.”

  “It would be impossible to forget her,” Cyrus said with a smile as she brushed his cheek with a kiss as light and delicate as if she’d touched him with a rose petal while passing. “Though I am surprised to see you.”

  “You completed your contract,” Arydni said, not greeting Vara in the same manner.

  “Oh,” Cyrus said, blinking. “I, uh … forgot, honestly. There were a few other things going on around that time …” He started to wave her off.

  “Do not make of this something that it is not,” Arydni said, smiling at him with her full, lively cheeks. “You have done a good job, and you will be paid. The priestesses are even now transporting our payment into your foyer.”

  “Well, thank you,” Cyrus said and happened to catch a look at Vara, who stood absolutely still, her hands still behind her. “Vara?”

  “It’s you,” she whispered, fixed upon the second cloaked priestess.

  “It’s wh—” Cyrus jerked his head to look at the other woman, but realized halfway through the turn who he was looking at. Her hair was dark and glossy and shining in sunlight gleaming in from the window. Her cheeks were full where before they had been sunken like Malpravus’s. Her skin was supple and new, as though a few weeks ago it had not been so wrinkled as to make crumpled parchment look smooth by comparison.

  She carried with her the scent of spring as Cyrus imagined it, the smell of new life blooming from every flower, sprouting from every bough and shoot. He took a breath of it and was intoxicated by its power. He looked into her warm, green eyes and saw the liveliest plains grass waving in the wind. “Vidara,” he whispered, and the name was sweet upon his lips.

  “Master of Sanctuary,” she said in a low, throaty voice that almost made his ear
s purr at the sound of it. “Cyrus Davidon.”

  “Why can’t everyone say it like that?” Cyrus asked, unthinking.

  He turned his head to see Vara glaring at him in warning. “I will smite you,” she said.

  “I think I’m already smitten,” Cyrus said, but it was as low and complimentary as he could make it sound.

  “I came to offer you my thanks,” Vidara said, letting her cowl back to show her full hair. A green vine was wrapped across the top of her head like a tiara, holding back the flowing brown locks, yellow and white flowers blooming from it like honeysuckle jewels to crown her. “For saving me from the Sovereign.”

  “You mean Yartraak?” Cyrus asked, and saw the sudden blanch from Curatio and Vidara. “Something I said?”

  Vidara looked at him with those green eyes, and Cyrus saw pain in them, and not the pain that was born of ordinary life wending its course but a dark, horrible pain that went deeper. “What he did … was unspeakable among our kind.”

  “Kidnapping is not looked upon fondly by any of our peoples,” Cyrus said.

  “She doesn’t just mean the kidnapping,” Curatio said. “She means running a city. Interfering in mortal business. Starting wars of conquest with mortals.”

  Cyrus glanced at her and saw something of significance in the way she looked at him. Something she was trying to tell him, perhaps? “But don’t the gods regularly interfere in Arkaria?”

  “We have rules,” Vidara said softly. “Proscriptions for the conduct of our business with mortals. They are strict. They are serious.” Something flashed in her eyes. “They are being … ignored … in some ways, and yet … enforced in others.”

  Cyrus searched for a question, tried to find a way to ask what was nagging in the back of his head. “What rules?”

  Vidara crossed her hands in front of her. “I cannot say.”

  “Because of rules,” Cyrus said, and watched her nod. He nodded toward Vara. “Did you interfere with her?”

  “Cyrus,” Curatio said, one step shy of a snap. It was a warning, pure and simple.