“And Alaric hasn’t returned?” Vara asked, settling into her own chair.
Curatio shook his head. “Nor do I believe we should wait for him. He will find us in his own time, and his exploration could take … many hours. Days, perhaps even.”
Cyrus frowned. “I thought Alaric was back. I guess I forgot how often he tended to disappear.”
“As you should know by now, being in the ether is no simple matter,” Curatio said. “There is certainly more to it than ever I realized.”
“Indeed not,” Vara said. “I would have a hard time commanding myself to disappear for more than a fragment of a second, as yet.”
“It is much the same for me,” the healer said, “though of course I only preceded you into Sanctuary’s embrace by a year. It took Alaric some ten thousand years to become the Ghost; we had but a tenth of that time before this moment came.”
“I can do this,” Cyrus said, and his hand turned ephemeral, for just a second, then solidified again. “But that’s about the limit of it.”
“It might be handy should you find yourself unable to dodge a sword or thrown object,” Curatio said with a thin smile, “but I think you’ll find it insufficient to the task of, say, dodging an entire army and their swords.”
“What do you think we should do first when we get out there?” Cyrus asked, the desire to charge out the front doors and see … everything chafing at him. He felt as dazzled as a child in a toymaker’s shop, unsure where to look first.
“Perhaps a simple tour of the town would be in order,” Curatio said. “A chance to acquaint ourselves with the changes to Reikonos—and maybe reacquaint ourselves with the few things that have not changed.”
“I should like to inquire about the state of things beyond Reikonos, personally,” Vara said, sounding a little preoccupied. “After all, quite a bit more of my life was spent outside the city gates than within them.”
“Indeed,” Curatio said. “Perhaps the day will come soon where we will be able to return this hall to its place in the Plains of Perdamun.”
Cyrus blinked. “I … hadn’t even though about that. I wonder how those lands are doing?”
Vara started to answer, but cocked her head. “Do you hear that?”
“N—” Cyrus started to say.
“Yes,” Curatio said, his own attention on something beyond. “It’s at the gate.”
“What is it?” Cyrus asked.
“A knocking,” Vara said, already in motion. She hurried to the doors and then opened the rightmost, silently upon its hinges. She stuck her head into the night, paused, then turned back. “It’s the girl. The one who summoned us.”
“Let us be wary,” Curatio said, caution falling over his features. “She might be captive to the enemies pursuing her. It is possible they are looking for vengeance for their lost army.”
Cyrus snorted; it tickled his throat in a way he hadn’t felt in a thousand years, and he enjoyed it so he immediately did it again, prompting Curatio and Vara to stare at him. “Sorry. But I’ve fought armies, and these people—they’re street thugs, back alley muggers that turn immediately soft when confronted with a real soldier.”
“They did not immediately retreat when faced with us,” Curatio said.
“They did once they realized their numbers counted for nothing,” Cyrus said. “Bullies and cowards. They attack with overwhelming force or not at all.”
“Come,” Vara said, disappearing through the doors. Cyrus followed, slipping out into the night behind her. Once out of the warmth of the foyer and its crackling hearth, he felt the chill of night slip through the cracks of his armor like he’d been dipped in a mountain spring. He suppressed a shiver as he stared up, the sulphuric aroma of smoke once more worming its way into his nose, so thick he could taste it on the back of his tongue.
“Shall we open our gates?” Vara asked with a whisper, crossing the short distance to the heavy gate. A weak thumping was coming from the other side, like someone striking the metal with a palm.
“Just a moment,” Cyrus said, and drew the pistol from his belt. He’d placed the curious scabbard for it upon his left hip, where Ferocis had rested until Vara had appropriated it—and now the scabbard—for herself. He clicked the small lever back, finger hovering over the trigger as he pointed it at the crack where the gates met. “Now I’m ready.”
Vara sighed, reaching for the bar holding it all closed. “How do you suppose Vaste made it through here without unbarring the gate?”
“He is of Sanctuary,” Curatio said. “It would not be difficult.”
“He could climb over the damned wall,” Cyrus said, not looking away from the gates.
“Witness the egalitarianism of my husband,” Vara said, taking the bar in both hands and lifting it. “I submit to your ministrations, and you leave me to do the heavy lifting. It is as though we’re in bed all over again.”
“You do the work while I protect you,” Cyrus said with a smile. “Does that not seem reasonable?”
“Perhaps I should take that little toy while you lift the bar,” she said, setting it to the side. She returned presently, and paused at the gate as another knock sounded.
“You don’t know how to use it,” Cyrus said.
“You point in the direction you wish to fire and click that little thing your pointer finger rests upon,” Vara said.
“And after that?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. Click that lever and then point and shoot again, I suppose.”
“It has to be reloaded first,” Cyrus said with a slightly patronizing air. “Which takes time and knowledge.”
Vara sighed. “Very well. Show me later, and I’ll take up the burden.”
“It’s a terribly dishonorable weapon for a paladin,” Cyrus said, bringing the pistol in closer to him. “You should just leave this to me.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You are only saying that so I do not take away your new toy.”
“Well, you already took one of my toys away today,” Cyrus said, nodding at Ferocis, which she now drew, hand poised on the gate door. “Forgive me for not wishing to share absolutely everything of mine with you.”
She smiled faintly. “Have you not heard the truth of marriage, husband? What is mine is mine, and what is yours is also mine.”
Cyrus’s brow wrinkled. “I don’t like that truth of marriage. It sounds one-sided.”
“Much like every argument you’ll ever have with your wife, my dear Cyrus,” Curatio said with a smirk. Cyrus looked over to find him with his mace at the ready, spikes deployed. “I, too, am ready, in case you forgot I was here.”
“You are awfully quiet sometimes,” Cyrus said.
“I think it’s more that you two are so loud that anyone with a less forceful personality fades into the background,” Curatio said.
“Yes, I’m certain you’ve always been such a wallflower in life,” Vara said, letting the door creak open slightly. “That must be how you became the gladiatorial champion of the Protanians.”
Curatio grimaced. “I do so miss the days when you lot were ignorant of my failings.”
“Yeah, because it left us unable to bust your ass when you’d point out our failings,” Cyrus said with a careful smirk.
“So very true,” Curatio said as the gate swung open and Shirri Gadden stumbled in, hand raised as though to pound the metal door once more. “It does not appear to be a trap,” he pronounced as she regained her footing.
Vara started to close the door behind her but stopped, mid-swing. “Mother of Life, look at that.”
“What?” Cyrus peered through the gates. “Oh. Well. That’s … unexpected.”
Curatio shifted position to look out, and his eyebrow rose as he caught a glimpse. “Hm. Indeed.”
The alleyway was clear, the cobblestones clean of all the blood that had been left in the wake of their battle. Not a corpse was in sight, either, every last one vanished as though no fight had ever taken place there.
“No one could have washed away what we’d done here,” Vara said, leaning forward and looking to either side. “Blood does come up that easily nor quickly.”
“Maybe some sort of new invention …?” Cyrus asked, staring out into the alley. “Some way to easily remove blood from every surface?”
“Don’t be ludicrous,” Vara said, “surely there is no such thing.” But she looked at Shirri, nonetheless.
“Uhm … not that I know of,” Shirri said, looking as though she’d been caught quite by surprise by the question.
“It’s not ludicrous to think they might have come up with a way to remove blood from cobblestones or clothes or—whatever,” Cyrus said. “It is a problem. I can’t tell you how many perfectly good tunics I’ve ruined by cutting someone to slivers while wearing something I’d rather not have gotten bloody. Because once you get it on your sleeves, it’s over. That tunic is forever relegated to the battle pile, you know? And it’s not as though it’s all that farfetched—they have ships that fly here. Something that removes bloodstains doesn’t seem like all that much to ask.”
“I would think the bloodstain removal would have somewhat limited practical applications for any but you,” Curatio said with some humor.
“Not so,” Cyrus said, holding up a finger. “Think of what your natural healers could do with it. Why, Arydni told me of—”
“We have a guest,” Vara said, impatience in her voice. “Could we perhaps save the wonderful talk about the innovations of tomorrow for another time, perhaps when we don’t have company?”
“I still want to know where those bodies and bloodstains wen—oh,” Cyrus said. “Sanctuary.”
“Indeed,” Vara said. “For when you want something to disappear without a trace, you should consult the thing that made us disappear for a thousand years.”
Cyrus frowned. “Does this mean that the key to bloodstain removal was here in my grasp all this time? Because if so, I have to wonder why Sanctuary never revealed it could clean my tunics before—”
“I apologize for our failure to greet you in the manner which you deserve,” Curatio said, stepping forward to Shirri. “We are ill prepared for a guest, and have been so long out of polite company that our manners have faded in the interim.” He bowed, low, before Shirri. “I am Curatio Soulmender.” He raised back up, and smiled. “At your service.”
“Yes, uhm, well, okay,” she said, regarding him with a curious—and wary—expression. She took in his robes—which, Cyrus noted with some amusement, were spotted with blood—and then turned to favor Vara and Cyrus with a short examination.
“What brings you back our way, Shirri Gadden?” Vara asked, holding her head high, in that slightly imperious way she had. “More trouble?”
Shirri hesitated. “Yes,” she said, seeming to decide forward was the only way. “I—my mother has been taken by the Machine.”
“Scoundrels,” Cyrus pronounced. “Where is she? We’ll get her back.”
“General,” Curatio said, a note of warning ringing out, “recall you have no army at your immediate disposal.”
“We are an army,” Cyrus said, “we five.”
“A somewhat diminished one,” Curatio said. “Perhaps we might get our inquiries answered while we wait for the other two of our number … and offer our guest some refreshment?”
Cyrus prepared to argue, but a small rumble from his stomach brought to mind that while he’d indulged one appetite recently, he had not eaten in a thousand years. And now he thought on it … he certainly felt it. “Maybe we should, uh …”
“I believe there is a feast upon the table in the Great Hall,” Curatio said, stepping over to the stairs and opening the door to the foyer. “Perhaps we might retire there and sup and converse until Vaste and Alaric have returned.”
“An excellent idea,” Cyrus said, stepping up to the entry, putting out a hand to invite Shirri onward. “Shall we?”
“Uhm … sure,” Shirri said, delicately making her way forward with some uncertainty, as though she were being led into the lion’s den.
“And I’ll just bar this gate myself, then shall I?” Vara asked, sarcasm strong enough to wilt the grass around her.
“You’re a strong, capable woman, dear,” Cyrus said, favoring her with a smile as he returned his pistol to its place on his belt. “Did you say a feast, Curatio? Because I’m sure our guest is hungry.”
“I’m … not hungry, but … all right,” Shirri said, trailing in Curatio’s wake as they made their way across the foyer to the Great Hall—less great now that it was smaller. She looked around curiously. “Where … are your other two friends?” The door closed behind them, and Vara, still wearing a deep frown and muttering under her breath, began to make her way toward them.
Cyrus stopped on the Great Seal, following Curatio’s lead. “They’ll be back shortly,” he said, beating the healer to the punch. “They’re just … taking a look around, I expect.” He forced a smile, eyes darting toward the food waiting upon the table visible through the doors in the hall. “I’m sure they’ll be along any time … once they’ve gotten a little better idea of what to expect here in this new world …”
10.
Vaste
“I take it you weren’t expecting this?”
The Ghost’s voice punctuated the silence of the night, and Vaste turned, tearing his eyes from the pedestal base of the immense Cyrus Davidon statue, copper, smelly—of course and nearing eight stories in height. Vaste’s stomach rumbled; he could not decide whether he was ill or hungry, and wondered if he should find it in himself to eat were a meal presented to him right now.
“Even Cyrus, with his ego as large as this statue, would not expect … this,” Vaste said, pronouncing the last word with great distaste. “Did you know about this? Before we arrived, I mean?”
“No,” Alaric said. He had come out of the ether now, the last traces of mist and smoke wafting off his cloak, his battered armor hidden beneath it and his helm missing. He looked like an old traveler covered against the weather, though his bulk suggested strength, or perhaps armor. Vaste knew it contained both. “I was as trapped within the ark as you were, unable to look out until the moment we were summoned. Everything you see here is almost as surprising to me as it is to you.”
Vaste raised an eyebrow at him. “‘Almost’? You had some inkling that Cyrus was to become a deity?”
Alaric flashed a quicksilver smile. “I was there during the ascent of the Gods of Arkaria. I saw them rise before I entered the ark the first time, and so, when I emerged in your era … finding them to have elevated themselves up as they had … that was a surprise. Going under as we did, giving the legend of Cyrus Davidon some thousand years to propagate, to seep into the minds of the people of this land? No, I don’t find it curious that they would build an immense statue to him, or take his name in a gasp the way you would have Bellarum or Mortus …” The smile faded, and the Ghost stared at the pedestal base, where Cyrus’s name was carved along with a litany of other titles. “No, for me it does not come as much of a surprise.”
“This is, perhaps, the most unfavorable view I’ve ever held of humanity,” Vaste said. “And I’ve hated your people on many occasions before. Thought of you in the trollish way—as little less than skittering bugs upon Arkaria, there to serve my race. Sure, I mostly gave up those beliefs when I left Gren, but now—now, in this moment, finding that your species have decided to deify my friend the lunkhead—I think I may be heading back around to an even dimmer view of your kind.”
“Cyrus did amazing things,” Alaric said.
“I know,” Vaste snapped. “I was there for them. But he also did many, many harebrained things, things which I assume have been forgotten to the ravages of time, or that perhaps were carefully culled from the historical record by someone who realized that if they disclosed that he was once seduced by a dark elven spy who stabbed him in the back and left him for dead mid-freaking-battle, people might not quite have the same respect for hi
m. For the sake of—Alaric, he doesn’t even remember to close the door before—”
“Yes, I heard before I left,” Alaric said, turning away. “But in fairness to him, that’s at least as much on Vara as Cyrus.”
“I suppose,” Vaste said, shuffling uncomfortably, drawing his cloak closer to him to hide him. It was chilly, though. “Are there monuments to her as well?”
“Smaller ones, and usually with him, but … yes,” Alaric said.
“What is it she says? ‘Bloody hell.’” Vaste let out a low breath. “I mean, really, Alaric. The delusion, putting him on the pedestal—it’s almost like Gren of old. Next there’ll be a goat parade.”
Alaric let out a little chuckle, then quieted. Soberly, he asked, “What really bothers you about this? Is it truly that there is a gargantuan statue to your old friend here—”
“It is gaudy. I mean, stylistically, it resembles his arse—too tall, too hideous—”
“—or is it that you fear that while he is remembered,” Alaric said, studying Vaste in a way that made the troll most uncomfortable, “you might perhaps be forgotten?”
Vaste just stood there for a moment. “I’d forgotten how annoying it is when you pierce my heart with your keen insights. And to think I had missed you while you were imprisoned.”
“I missed being ambulatory,” Alaric said, flinching ever so slightly, “and not in immense pain.”
“Very well,” Vaste said. “Yes … I find it irritating that he might be so well remembered and I might be utterly forgotten.” He threw a hand back the way he’d come. “Did you hear them in that alley? They didn’t even know what I am, let alone who I am. They picked out Cyrus Davidon right away—and no wonder, with this statue of him blotting out the very sky—but Vaste the troll, wise, true, brilliant, firm and supple of arse—no, we not only don’t remember him …” His voice dropped to a hush. “Alaric … they didn’t seem to know what a troll was at all.”
“This worries you, then?”
“We’re not a quiet people,” Vaste said. “And there are ships flying through the air, to and fro, and I imagine not just from the other side of the city based on the speed at which they’re traveling. They’re coming from far-flung lands. Can you imagine how closely that would help knit the world together? With teleport spells, we could travel from Termina to Reikonos in seconds. Commerce and trade and travel was near instantaneous for those who could afford to hire a wizard to carry them and a small amount of goods. But this—” He gestured to an airship in the distance, moving across the sky as though it had sails that were catching a strong breeze. “Cargo. Masses of people. No reliance on wizardry—people could be coming from all over. Massive transport, not just teleport. The implications are staggering—”
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