“I don’t have the answers to all your questions,” she said, tightening a clasp and finishing the job of putting her armor back on.
“So you don’t have an answer for me about the meaning of life?” Vaste asked, with a sheepish smile, keeping the covers close to his chest.
“The meaning of life is that you live it,” Birissa said. “That’s all.”
“I don’t know that I believe that,” Vaste said, rising up, still keeping the covers wrapped around himself. “I once heard that only a fool focused on his own navel would fail to ask examining questions of his life.”
“Clearly not said by a person concerned with their immediate survival.”
“It does seem the sort of thing someone wouldn’t ask unless they had most of their basic needs met,” Vaste agreed. “But nonetheless—what we just did here—”
Birissa strode over to him, seized him by both cheeks, and gave him a passionate—if somewhat biting—kiss. When she was done, she pulled her lips from his and said, “You are a thinker, and that is a laudable quality. But at some point, you should stop, just a bit, and act.” She rose, casting a look over her shoulder. “Because if I’d left it up to you to do this … it wouldn’t have happened, would it?”
Vaste’s jaw dropped. “Well, I mean … it’s true, I let you seduce me—”
“You didn’t even try,” she said, standing at the door. “You wanted this. You don’t know me, but you wanted this. And when it came your way … you didn’t even act. Get your head on straight, Vaste. Your larger questions are just that—questions. Seems to me you keep looking around at everyone else—your friends, me, maybe—seeking something outside of you that’s going to make you happy.” She took a hand and put it on her chest. “Did this make you happy?”
“Well, it certainly made parts of me happy—”
“Do you feel fulfilled?” she asked, staring at him. “Was this everything you dreamed of?”
“Obviously, I …” his voice trailed off. “No. I mean, you were wonderful but …” He looked away. “I don’t really know you.”
“I had fun, too,” she said, “but it lacked much feeling, all said and done, didn’t it?” She was looking at him, almost biting her lower lip. “That’s not to say we couldn’t get there, given time, but …” She shook her head. “Ask your larger questions. But you might want to act on getting the answers. You might want to figure out what you really want … because some woman who looks like you and acts like you wish you were—like your friend out there in the black armor—she’s not going to solve your problems for you.” Her face settled into a neutral expression. “I can’t. I don’t even know what they are.”
“I think you might have just hit upon a few of them,” Vaste said, not daring to meet her eyes.
“Only the obvious ones, dearie,” she said, and shut the door gently behind her as she left. “Only the obvious ones.”
38.
Cyrus
“Do you think they’re done yet?” Cyrus asked, staring at the dark stone corners of the dungeon ceiling.
“One would hope,” Vara said, sitting beside him in the tiny cell, the door firmly closed but not locked. She moved her shoulder experimentally. “Thank goodness I cast that last healing spell. I think I managed to seal up the worst of it. Now the wound only stings a little.”
“It’s as though the whole world drank black lace while we were in the ether,” Cyrus said, massaging a couple of his own hurts. He, too, had sealed the worst of the wounds before the time had run out on them, but angry red welts remained where they’d been, nice little reminders of what Tirner Gaull had done to him. “Say, you don’t think—”
“I don’t think the world can collectively drink black lace,” Vara said. “I think it would have to have been us that drank it for this to happen.”
“Right. True enough,” Cyrus said, staring into the darkness of the cell again. “Well, I don’t remember saying bottoms up while chugging any, so unless Sanctuary slipped it to us in our waking feast …”
“Our magic wasn’t working before the feast,” Vara said. “We tried it in the alley fight, when we first came out, remember? It was already nonfunctional.”
“Right. So it’s not that.”
“Well, I wasn’t being serious to begin with,” she said with a trace of amusement, “but no … safe to say it’s not that.”
“Another theory ruined,” Cyrus said. “This lack of magic may end up being the worst thing that has happened since we got here.” He cringed, and pointed at the ceiling. “Other than this, I mean.”
“Obviously.”
A seeping mist crept into the room just then, and Cyrus turned his attention to the corner, where Alaric emerged a moment later. Cyrus leapt to his feet, armor rattling, and said, “We weren’t doing anything.”
Alaric froze, staring at him, eyebrow raised beneath his helm, and then the corner of his mouth quirked up. “I knew that.”
“He can see through walls, fool,” Vara said, looking at Cyrus as though he were an idiot.
“I cannot, actually,” Alaric said. “I can only see where I am present. But I did not hear any bloodcurdling wails coming from here, and thus I knew it was safe for me to appear.” His mouth quirked, just slightly. “Unlike other spots … in the guildhall.”
“Oh, gods,” Cyrus said. “You saw …?” And here he pointed at the ceiling once more.
“I was told by Sanctuary,” Alaric said. “Warned, I suppose you might say. It informs me of your presences, in much the same way it tracks danger. I have become more attuned to it in the last thousand years, specifically focusing my mind to be able to better hear what it says, at least while here in these halls.”
“Sanctuary is spying on us?” Cyrus asked, frowning. “I shudder to think what it must say.”
“Very little,” Alaric said wryly, “though when you leave your door open, no spying is truly necessary.”
Cyrus looked down, and felt Vara do the same beside him. “So …” Cyrus asked, after an appropriate moment of shame had passed, “is it safe to come out now?”
Alaric closed his eye for but a second. “Birissa is looking around, and Vaste is putting his clothes back on. It is probably safe to move about the guildhall now, but I sense you had reason to retreat down here.”
“If you’d heard them, you would have retreated too,” Cyrus said. “It was like the roof was coming down—”
Alaric cleared his throat. “I meant that you have a strategy in mind, something you came down here to plan, away from the rumblings of … whatever you want to call that.”
“I call it the worst noise I’ve ever heard,” Cyrus said. “And I’m including my own screams from a variety of battle wounds in that.”
Vara smacked his arm, causing his armor to rattle. “The plan.”
“We wanted to try and visit Longwell,” Cyrus said. “We owe him at least the courtesy of a visit to explain what’s going on and—who’s kidding who here—we sure could use his help, especially given the circumstances. Can you … ghost us up into the top of the Citadel?”
Alaric shook his head. “The Citadel, probably because of its advanced construction, is somehow impervious to Sanctuary’s magics. My guess is that Chavoron, being both the master of that place as well as Sanctuary, managed to find some way to counteract and conceal himself from these powers while within those walls. It has remained, and I have never been able to appear within its bounds via the ether. In days of old, I had to resort to spies within the Council of Twelve in order to find out anything going on in there.”
“So we can’t just pop in on Longwell, then,” Vara said. “That leaves us two roads—go in through the basement like Curatio showed us—”
“An idea not without its own perils,” Cyrus said. “The exit comes out on the first floor. Longwell’s chambers as Lord Protector are probably up top. That leaves us—I don’t even know how many floors to fight our way through to get to him. Unless you’re proposing disguises?”
&
nbsp; “I wasn’t much of an enchanter,” Vara said, “even before this bleeding out of our magics.”
“I would not trust an illusion now,” Alaric said, shaking his head. “It would most certainly fail in the climb, even if J’anda himself were to cast it.”
Cyrus felt a small pang at the mention of the enchanter’s name. “That Shirri seems to have found a way around this problem. Shame she wouldn’t tell us.”
“Indeed,” Alaric said. “I don’t believe that door—although closed to us now—is to be closed forever. She will cross paths with us again, before this is over.”
“What makes you say that, Alaric?” Vara asked. “She seemed firmly determined to get the hell away from us, secrets intact, when last we saw her striding out the door.”
“Just a feeling,” Alaric said with a faint smile. “Something I’ve learned to trust in the nature of humanity, I expect.”
“That’s a wonderful sentiment,” Vara said, “but Shirri isn’t fully human.”
Cyrus blinked. “What?”
Alaric frowned. “Beg pardon?”
“She’s part elf,” Vara said with a smile, looking between them. “Surely you saw it.”
“… Beg pardon?” Cyrus asked.
“What?” Alaric stood still.
“She is a quarter elf, at least,” Vara said, running fingers over the points of her ears. “How did you miss it?”
“Because her ears were under her hair?” Cyrus asked, trying to think back to Shirri. He hadn’t paid her much mind.
“I don’t even recall seeing them,” Alaric said in concentration, finger on his chin and staring into space.
Vara shook her head. “Pay closer attention, boys.”
“I married you so I wouldn’t have to pay closer attention to any woman but you,” Cyrus said.
She opened her mouth in what looked like preparation to issue a rebuke, but she stopped herself before a word came out. “That … was surprisingly wise, my husband.”
“Clearly a little elvish wisdom has rubbed off on me,” Cyrus said. “I wouldn’t mind if a little more d—”
“And there it went,” Vara said.
“Interesting, her being part elf,” Alaric said, “but it hardly changes things. You are an elf. Curatio is even more elf than you. Neither of you can use magic, so I do not see how this has any bearing on the current situation, other than as a chance to point out that neither Cyrus nor I seem to pay much attention to the ears of waifs that we’re helping.”
“As a married man, I’m really not supposed to notice those sorts of things,” Cyrus said.
“Okay, now you’re just sucking up,” Vara said. “I don’t know that it’s important—I was merely mentioning it. She may be older than you think, and thus more versed in using magic under these … conditions. In much the same way as Curatio’s spells, or that of the elder spellcasters of my race, she might have wrung power out that would seem impossible to those of us newly under this magical affliction.”
“A fascinating theory,” Alaric said, “And worthy of talking to Curatio about. But for now, I think, we should take action on the other thing.”
“You mean the Longwell mission?” Cyrus asked.
“Indeed,” Alaric said. “I see only one course of action—to go to the gates of the Citadel and announce ourselves.”
“That’ll go over well,” Cyrus muttered.
“We don’t have much in the way of other choices,” Vara said. “As we’ve already established.”
“I know,” Cyrus said, “but I have to admit, I think we’re going to encounter about as much success doing it this way as …” He searched for an appropriate analogy.
“As Terian would giving up whoring and being a dark soul?” Vara asked.
“Maybe worse odds even than I would have given that, back in the old days,” Cyrus said. “Though I suppose it was pretty touch and go there for a while when he was trying to kill me.”
“Come, my friends,” Alaric said, and he began to mist, taking hold of Cyrus’s upper arm and Vara’s as he stepped between them. “Let us go and make our attempts, and after we have exhausted these possibilities, we will exhaust more still—until either the problem has been thoroughly destroyed …” And the trace of a wry smile crept upon his lips, “… or we have.”
And before Cyrus could make reply to that, the endless white light of the ether took them into its embrace, and they were away.
39.
The area around the Citadel had changed the most of any Cyrus could recall seeing since arriving in Reikonos. Gone were the wooden buildings that had been so prevalent; replacing them were glorious marble and stone edifices that lined the streets around the towering capital like glory spilling out from a central cup. The largesse of the Lord Protector’s government had either draped the streets nearest the Citadel in spilled-over glory, or else this area had become something of a lodestone for wealth.
The nearest building, for instance, was a glorious marbled masterwork of the sort that Cyrus had frequently seen in Termina and Pharesia. Colonnades spanned the entire front of it, and a great rooftop held up by those columns rose hundreds of feet above them, looking down from its awning above as though it were a mighty mountaintop.
“I sense the work of elven craftsmen here,” Vara said.
“Really? Because I just see it,” Cyrus said. “How do you ‘sense’ it?”
“Why, I can smell the dust of wisdom and experience in the air, of course,” she said with a little more sarcasm. “It has the look of people who know well what they are doing. Competence, you see, is mostly lost among humans, and thus when you find it in a place such as this, it is all the more obvious.”
Alaric let out a low chuckle. “I could not have predicted before you two ran across one another that the Shelas’akur and the son of the Sorceress would find such connection. But it is a pleasant discovery, one of the more enjoyable in my life. And certainly among the most entertaining. Probably the second most, I would say.”
“What was the first most?” Cyrus asked with a frown.
“Your mother could juggle,” Alaric said, “and she would occasionally put on performances for Curatio and I that would last for hours. When she would pull out the knives, our breaths would catch in our throat, and I could see Curatio lean forward, ready to leap in should she miss and wound herself. It was quite impressive.”
“Well … that is not something I would have ever known otherwise,” Cyrus said. “That’s fascinating.”
“It does make a certain amount of sense, though, when you think about it,” Vara said. “She learned nearly every trade, didn’t she? Seems reasonable she might have also picked up a few other skills.”
“Come,” Alaric said, and led them forward.
Along the cobbled streets they trod, toward the mighty doors to the Citadel. Here stood a small wall; it was nothing like the one that ringed Reikonos, but it was new—or at least new to Cyrus. It was a good twenty feet high and stood between them and the base of the tower.
“This looks more like the sort of thing the Council of Twelve would have erected to keep the riffraff out,” Alaric murmured as they approached. A set of wary guards had already picked them out of the small crowd and were watching their approach.
Only a very few people were in line for the gate entry; the rest of the crowd seemed to be simply passing by. Cyrus watched as some followed the road toward Reikonos Square, and craned his neck to try and see it. Alas, he could not; it was just a little too far, and there were a few too many people in the way. On a clear day, perhaps, he might have been able to pick out the fountain, to see what buildings had been built around its empty space.
Shaking his head, he turned back around to focus on where he was walking—
And nearly ran into a stranger, shorter version of himself.
“Hullo,” said a man in black armor. The fellow wore a beard, had bright eyes, and a smile that hinted at cleverness.
“Hello,” Cyrus said, momentarily dum
bstruck as he stared down at this fellow. He had two swords upon his belt, neither of which looked worth a damn. Everything else was black-painted plating and chainmail that looked as though the links were already peeling.
After a brief, apprising look, the man shook his head at Cyrus. “You’ve got it all wrong.”
Cyrus blinked, trying to figure out what he meant by that. “Beg pardon?”
“Your costuming is entirely amateur,” the man said. He pointed at the cloak that was strapped around Cyrus’s neck. “Look at this. It’s like you’re trying to hide yourself, but doing a poor job of it. As though the great Lord Davidon would ever have cause to hide himself.”
Cyrus’s mouth fell open, and words began to come out almost of their own accord. “Actually—”
“Indeed,” Alaric said, stepping in with a look of wry amusement, and taking Cyrus’s heated look in stride, “why would he ever find need to hide his bold face and endless courage?”
“Exactly,” the man said, pointing at Alaric. “We’re talking about the mightiest of men, the most fearless. Hiding your armor under a cloak?” He scoffed. “You should be proud to be one of the brotherhood who has chosen this path. You shame us all by trying to hide your light.”
“My … light?” Cyrus asked.
“Aye, it’s all we have in these dark times,” the man said. “You wear that armor, you’re a beacon of hope to all these people.”
“Or a nutter in black armor,” Vara murmured under her breath.
“You have a responsibility to get the details right,” the man said, poking a finger into the center of Cyrus’s breastplate. “Look at these marks. Sloppy.”
Cyrus looked down and noted there were indeed very faint scuff marks in the middle of his armor, ones he’d noticed countless times. “That was where Mortus and Yartraak and Bellarum all struck—”
“Oh, very good, you’ve got a canonical explanation for it,” the man said. “But still, it’s a flaw. It doesn’t take much extra effort to get it right, lad.” He shook his head sadly at Cyrus. “You’re a disgrace to us all. And where’s your second sword?”
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