EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (264 page)

“That wasn’t for you to decide.”

“Yes, it was. Sometimes the only person capable of such a decision is someone who stands on the outside, someone who has nothing left to lose, nothing to gain, by the outcome.”

“Nothing to gain?” Sicarius asked. “You could have had your life back, your lands.” The faintest hint of longing entered his voice. “You could have been a hero again.”

Tikaya lowered the bow as it dawned on her that Sicarius had yet to point the dagger at Rias. Not here and not at any point since he had shown up.

“That’s never been a goal of mine,” Rias said. “The definition of a hero changes depending on the needs of the person with the dictionary. And of late I’ve become more aware how much being a hero to the empire means being a war criminal to the rest of the world.” Rias smiled sadly at Tikaya before turning back to Sicarius. “For twenty years, I served Turgonia. I think it’s time now to see if I can serve the world.”

“I see,” Sicarius said, and Tikaya had a hard time telling if he truly did or not.

Rias unsheathed a dagger, flipped it in his hand, and held it hilt-first toward Sicarius. It was utterly black, one of the tools they had gathered for working on the cubes. The keen edge would probably never dull.

Sicarius considered it for a long moment before accepting it. Peace offering, Tikaya guessed.

“Are you returning with Bocrest and the others?” Rias asked.

“Yes,” Sicarius said.

“Parkonis is no threat to the empire. Will you see to it that he escapes when the ship docks in Port Sakrent?”

Tikaya’s eyes widened, not in surprise that Rias would care enough to make the request, but that he was asking Sicarius for a favor. After they had defeated him.

“If that is your wish,” Sicarius said, stunning Tikaya even more.

The kid was going to be in trouble already for not completing his mission, for letting Rias go. Earlier, she had been thinking of shooting him, but now she found herself hoping the emperor had invested too much in his education to dispose of him over a failure.

“Thank you,” Rias said. “And one last request: will you relay a message to the emperor for me?”

Sicarius tilted his head.

“Though I may never see them again, I have family and friends in Turgonia. It is not my intention to make trouble for the empire. But I want him to know that if he bothers them or—” Rias angled toward Tikaya, directing Sicarius’s eyes to her, “—if he sends anyone after her or her family, I
will
become trouble.”

Tikaya thought she detected bleakness in the assassin’s usual mask. Yes, all Fleet Admiral Starcrest would have to do to make the emperor’s life unpleasant would be to show up on the Nurian Chief’s threshold, offering to help war against his former nation.

“I will tell him,” Sicarius said.

“Thank you,” Rias said again, and he put a hand on Sicarius’s shoulder. “You would have made a good officer.”

“Not the road fate paved for me,” Sicarius said, but something in the soft exhale that followed his words made Tikaya wonder if he wished things were different.

Epilogue

A
S
THE
LIGHT
FADED
FROM
the mountains, Rias placed the last block of snow on the top of the igloo. There was no wood to make a fire, though a kerosene lantern provided a pool of light.

He stepped back, brushed off his gloves, and quirked an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

It had taken two days to find a “back door” out of the tunnels, and it had brought them out above the tree line with only a couple hours of daylight remaining. Icy wind gusted along the ridge, and the first stars glittered in the clear sky. The night would be long and cold, very cold. Though she had helped build it, Tikaya eyed the igloo dubiously.

“You’re sure we won’t freeze to death?” she asked.

They had enough gear, Rias assured her, to make it out of the mountains and to the nearest town. Still, the lack of firewood and the plummeting temperature made her nervous for this first night.

Rias flattened his hand on his chest. “Are you questioning my engineering skills?”

“No, I’m sure it’s structurally stable. I’m questioning the wisdom of sleeping inside a box of snow.”

He chuckled, ambled over, and kissed her on the forehead. “Snow is insulating, my dear. Once our body heat warms up the igloo, you’ll be able to sleep naked if you want.”

“Sleep naked, huh?”

His eyes twinkled. “The sleeping part is optional.”

A distant boom echoed through the mountains. The marines had apparently found a different way out and were following their orders to seal the tunnels. She hoped they were treating Parkonis well. Leaving him felt like a betrayal, but the reality was he would probably make it home sooner and less eventfully than she. And though Sicarius ranked at the top of her list of People She Never Wanted to Meet Again, Rias trusted him to keep his word, and she trusted Rias.

She wished she had been able to keep her word to Agarik. Leaving him there to be incinerated by that machine... Another betrayal. She wondered what the marines would tell his family. If he even had family. It shamed her that a man had given his life to save hers and she knew so little about him.

Rias shoved their weapons and gear through the igloo’s low entrance, then belly-crawled after. Tikaya grabbed the lantern and managed to get snow down her pants following him. She hissed in frustration as she dug it out in the tiny confines. She could not wait to walk again on a tropical beach.

Inside, there was room enough to lie down if one did not straighten too many limbs. Rias shoved a rucksack in front of the tunnel, leaving them entombed with only a few air holes. The snowy walls gleamed next to the lantern. The single flame brightened the space surprisingly well.

Tikaya lay down, head propped against her pack. “Not bad.”

“Easy,” Rias said, “your lavish praise will inflate my ego.”

Tikaya pulled him down beside her, hoping to shake the gloomy mood that shrouded her. “I’d rather inflate other things.”

“I’m always amenable to that.”

She slid her arms inside his parka. If body heat was the way to warm up an igloo, then she was all for hastening that process along.

Sometime later, and with fewer clothes on, she asked, “How did you know Sicarius would let us go?”

“That was always my plan,” Rias murmured, his lips brushing her ear.

Tikaya chuckled. She lay snuggled in his arms. “And how did you know he would go along with your plan? Especially after we betrayed him and destroyed the weapons before his eyes.”

“I read him.”

“You
read
him? The kid emoted less than a rock.”

For a moment, Rias did not answer, and she wondered if she had offended him. But, as she formed an apology, he spoke, his tone somewhere between amusement and bemusement.

“What do you think a military strategist does?”

An image filled her mind: Rias, leaning over a map-filled table surrounded by his officers. They pushed miniature battleships back and forth while debating numbers of troops, cannons, practitioners, and the like. Then she realized those battleships and troops were commanded by people. People he had never met face-to-face but that he had to analyze and outthink. She thought of the time Rias had spent working with Sicarius on the trebuchet, talking to him when no one else did, treating him like a promising young officer. As worldly and educated as the assassin seemed, he was still a seventeen-year-old boy, one who had doubtlessly grown up hearing of Rias’s exploits. Whether he showed it or not, Sicarius must have felt a little hero worship for the distinguished veteran. Tikaya smirked. All that time, she had thought Rias was succumbing to his fate. He must have seen Sicarius as the one person he could not escape or physically force his way past, and the one person he needed to befriend.

“I see now,” Tikaya said. “I was being obtuse. Military strategist isn’t a career option where I grew up.”

“Sounds like a lovely place.”

“Yes...about that.” She had told Rias she would follow him anywhere, and she would, but—

“You need to go home and let your family know you’re safe,” he said.

“Just for a week or two. Do you want to come or...” When she had learned his name, she told him he would never be welcome on her island, and she suspected that true, at least not until people’s memories of the war faded, but if he had saved the president from assassination, surely Rias could finagle visitation rights. The president owed her too. He had said as much after her decryption work proved so valuable. But maybe she was being presumptuous. “Or do you need to visit your own family? Let them know you’re alive?”

“I’ll write them a letter from some distant port. The emperor will be irked when he finds out about this, and I don’t think it’d be auspicious for my life expectancy to linger on imperial soil.”

Yes, the Turgonian emperor had never come across as the magnanimous type in the orders she decrypted.

“Besides...” Rias found her hand and linked his fingers with hers. “I have little interest in going home. I seem to have fallen in love with an exotic foreigner, and I have the urge to follow her wherever she wants to go.”

Flutters stirred in her belly. She had hoped that would be his response. “Well, we’ll have the sphere to work on, and as far as places to go, I know of all sorts of ruins around the world with unsolved puzzles and mathematical oddities. Of course, many of them are surrounded by dangerous aborigines, crocodile-filled swamps, and pistol-toting relic raiders, all ready to end your life if you let your guard down for an instant.”

“My dear,” Rias breathed, “if you’re trying to seduce me...it’s working.”

THE END

Afterword

L
INDSAY
IS
A
FULL
-
TIME
independent fantasy author who loves travel, hiking, tennis, and vizslas. She grew up in the Seattle area but moved to Arizona when she realized she was solar-powered. 

If you would like a note when she has a new book out, please sign up for her newsletter at 
http://www.lindsayburoker.com/book-news/
. If you enjoyed Encrypted, please check out sequel, Decrypted. The first chapter is up at 
http://www.lindsayburoker.com/my-ebooks/decrypted-cover-art-and-chapter-1-preview/
.

L
AND
OF
S
HADOWS

Jeff Gunzel

Geography and Culture of Tarmerria: An Introduction

T
HE
LAND
OF
T
ARMERRIA
IS
rather beautiful, if not wild and mostly unexplored. Oh, there are many different societies indeed, cultures that differ greatly from one town to the next.
 

The business-oriented folk in Denark are always willing to sell goods or trade with anyone as long as fair compensation can be produced. These people are always on the lookout for outsiders that might not be as business-savvy, and thus easily taken advantage of.
 

The rainy season in Denark is always quite violent, and has built a bit of a reputation for the town due to the extreme weather. Smoldering hot summers and bitter, cold winters are nothing new here. Throw in the occasional monsoon, and that is Denark as a whole. Not that many people call the average-sized town home. Sure, there are some locals, but it is mostly a trade town where folk come and go. You can get anything you need here as long as you have plenty of coin or something of value to trade.
 

This is also one of the few towns in Tarmerria that does not have a large staff of militia on hand despite the large quantity of goods that could be gained by raiding the trade town. The main reason why Denark has little to worry about raiders is mostly due to its place in the delicate balance of Tarmerria’s economy. It would serve no purpose to sack Denark, since almost all the local towns and even some not-so-local cities benefit from having the supply town nearby. For one, they have no political allegiance to any of the larger cities. They have no friends or enemies on any side, and will trade with any government who can offer proper compensation. Cities often send couriers many miles with one or more wagons to stock up on goods that are hard to come by during the winter months, or even common goods that are simply cheaper to buy in large quantities from the trade town.
 

Denark is not known for the high-quality goods that can be found in Athsmin, but you can usually get a better price, and the quality is fair enough. It is also a better town to buy grains and other food items, although most of those are imported from Bryer.
 

The other reason has little to do with business. Denark is one of the only towns that finds criminals to be an inconvenience instead of a source of revenue, and disposes of them as fast as possible. Any individual caught stealing—or committing any crime, for that matter—is simply executed the same day. For small crimes, like petty theft or vandalism, the perpetrator will usually be strung up in front of the town and whipped by one of the guards. This seems to be an effective deterrent against crime.
 

The tall barbarians from Dronin hail from way off to the west in the Apili Mountains, where it is cold more often than not and it is commonplace to wear thick furs as opposed to stylish clothing. The city itself is backed by the great mountain peak called Steris. There is only one major road that leads up to Dronin, but it is quite large, enough for ten wagons to ride side by side up until you get within a mile or so of the city. Then the road narrows significantly, again for defense purposes, so Dronin archers can pick off oncoming enemies.
 

Despite their military preparedness, the Dronin people are not especially hateful, or even aggressive. Instead, they believe that preparing for war all the time means it will never happen.
 

To the north of Tarmerria lies the city of Taron. It spreads for miles in all directions and has plenty of political influence to go along with its sheer size and highly educated people.