Heretic (The Sanctuary Series Book 7) (25 page)

“Truly, no one has suffered as you have,” Vara said with a little acid of her own. “Except the people caught in the war that your guild helped start. Famine, sackings, countless murdered and killed in the war … yes, you precious little soul, you have truly been handed adversity that no one else could possibly understand.”

“I don’t see you starving,” she said, “shelas’akur.” She said it as a curse, and her eyes fell upon the small band of gold upon Vara’s fingers where she’d removed her gauntlets and hung them upon her belt. “It would appear even your cold heart has found room for love.” She looked at Cyrus. “Are you the lucky man who finally melted that heart of frost?”

“Some days I’m the lucky man,” Cyrus said, drawing an annoyed look from his wife, “some days … not so lucky.”

“Count on today to be one of the latter,” Vara said matter-of-factly. “Selene …” She stood, looking down on the healer. “I hope you enjoy your stay here, and I hope it lasts the rest of your long life.”

“I think we can count on that,” Terian said with a nod. “I know the guy in charge, see, and he’s got something of a grudge against Selene here.” He smirked down at her as he stood. “Something about … oh, I’ll let you remember, but it’s to do with that one day where you and Orion got into a squall that blew half of Sanctuary out the doors. Including me,” Terian said, tapping his breastplate with his finger.

“I see you’re wearing the armor of Alaric now,” Selene said sullenly. “I suppose it’d be too much to ask for you to adopt his forgiving nature.”

“Alaric was very forgiving,” Terian said, nodding. “I could be forgiving, too, but not if you’re going to continue to be a shit and tell me nothing useful about Goliath.”

“What do you want?” Selene screeched, her patience clearly at its end. She folded in on herself as if she were besieged on all sides by enemies. “I have nothing to give you. I didn’t even sleep with Orion for a year before I left the guild.”

“Why was he so keen to stay?” Terian asked.

“Because he hates Cyrus,” Selene said, looking at Cyrus with utter loathing. “Malpravus is perpetually egging Orion on with talk of revenge, even though it’s obvious he doesn’t really mean it. I couldn’t handle being around my husband any longer. He’s totally consumed by his hatred, his anger. I didn’t bed him, we didn’t trade confidences, and Goliath moved, and moved, and moved constantly, Malpravus driving us forward until we could barely walk.” Her voice cracked with self-pity. “I don’t even know where they ended up, they kept going deeper and deeper into the jungle, and I couldn’t take it anymore. Others left, too, obviously, and they never even sent anyone to look for us. I didn’t know the guild even came back, that they were welcome here.” She was speaking in choking sobs, tears rolling down her black cheeks and exposing pale flesh beneath them as they washed away the coal residue.

“Surely you must know something,” Cyrus said, rising to his own feet to join Terian and Vara. “Why were they plunging into the jungle? No one would have come for them if they’d just traveled a few days south of the last portal in the southeast.”

“It’s not the last portal,” Selene said miserably. “The one north of the old bridge? It’s not the last.” She let this revelation out painfully, as a crackling sob. “There’s another one, in the jungle. I heard Malpravus talking about it once when I was resting near Carrack.”

“Where is it? This other portal?” Cyrus asked.

“I don’t know,” Selene said, shaking her head. “I have no idea, just that it’s—it’s in the Bandit Lands somewhere, and that he was trying to get us to it. He didn’t tell us why. He didn’t exactly share his plans, if he had any, with the members. It’s why so many of us left, because we didn’t know what we were doing.” Vara gave Cyrus a look of significance.
Leadership
, Cyrus thought, trying to interpret her look.
Looks like it’s a plague that affects us all in desperate times.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Vara asked softly.

“I don’t know,” Selene said numbly, now looking as though she were going to collapse on the table. “Nothing you don’t already know except … perhaps …” She looked up. “Malpravus … he hates you.”

“Tell us something we don’t know,” Terian said.

“Not you,” she said, shaking her head at Terian.

“I know he hates me,” Cyrus said.

She shook her head weakly again. “Not you, either. He always hoped you could be swayed to his side. That’s why I was sure he was lying to Orion with his talk about getting his revenge; Malpravus spoke out of both sides of his mouth constantly. I heard him talking about you when Orion wasn’t around, and … he seemed certain you’d fall to his way of thinking sooner or later.” She turned her eyes to Vara, and they were filled with a loathing all her own. “No, it was
you
. Malpravus hated you. You and Alaric, he couldn’t shut up about how much he despised you both.”

“The feeling was mutual, I assure you,” Vara said, sounding a bit affronted. “But I must, I’m curious … what did he say in reference to this hatred? What was its source?”

“I don’t know,” Selene said, collapsing, her head falling onto the table lightly as the elf seemed to give up. “All I know,” her voice came, muffled, “was that he wanted you dead … and I presume, given exactly how much his lifeless eyes lit up when he talked about your death … that it has not changed since I left their fold.”

“Well, this is all very interesting,” Vaste said as they all stood around the Tower of the Guildmaster—Vaste, J’anda, Cyrus, Vara and Terian, hashing over both the meetings. “And here I thought you two had just decided not to come back at all, or that you’d bound your souls elsewhere, or that you’d been ambushed and captured by Lord Merrish in some ill-advised, possibly brilliant scheme, but no! No, you’ve been to the dark elven prison and spoken with former idiot members of Goliath being held captive.” His onyx eyes flicked to Terian. “And you, Terian … you’re imprisoning people now?”

“I run a nation, Vaste,” Terian said, giving the troll a pitying look. “Yes, I imprison people, it’s practically a requirement for a functioning society. And in case you’ve already forgotten, it was less than two years ago that you people imprisoned me in the dungeons here in Sanctuary.”

“Oh, yes,” Vaste said, staring off into the distance. “I recall that now. The time really does speed along, doesn’t it?”

“What do you make of this portal beyond the last?” J’anda asked, thinking carefully over what they’d covered.

“Sounds as though it’s a perfect place to set up your secret and evil base,” Vaste said. “Especially if no one knows how to cast the spell that gets you there.”

Terian nodded slowly. “True. I’m still trying to get my wizards and druids to figure out the spell to the portal Yartraak had secreted away in the Grand Palace of Saekaj. They seem to think it’s written in the runes, but unfortunately, someone—Yartraak—killed a great many of our scholars, including the people who might be able to read the language of the ancients that it’s all written in.” He shrugged. “Turns out the elves would finally be useful for something. Too bad they’re allied against me right now.”

“We have many uses,” Vara said archly, “scholarly works and intelligence being but one of the boons of our society.”

“The other being Pharesian brandy, I think,” Terian said with his usual smirk.

“Oh!” Cyrus said, blurting out as he looked at Vaste with an amused smile of his own. “I almost forgot! Selene said that Goliath lost a hundred people exploring an ancient temple in the Bandit Lands when they ran across the Avatar of the God of Death.”

Vaste’s eyes widened as he broke into a smile of his own. “HAH!”

“I know!” Cyrus doubled over, beset with laughter. “I honestly never thought …” he cackled, “… any good would come out of our little mishap there, but … haha …”

Vaste slapped his knee, eyes closed as he guffawed. “Couldn’t happen to a more worthy guild. Oh, my, that does my heart some good.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Cyrus said, the laughter finally fading. “Shame Malpravus didn’t get eaten by that thing.”

“Too bony,” Vaste said with a shake of the head. “Not nearly enough ‘blood of sacrifices’ for the Avatar of the God of Death to find sustenance.”

Vara wore a look that showed her patience clearly worn thin. “I assume that was referring to the two of you and your ill-fated expedition with the gnome who-must-not-be-given-name into the jungles down there?”

“Annoying as he might be, Brevis is not quite as terrible as I used to believe,” Terian said.

“Yeah,” Cyrus said, sighing. “It was a frightening time, but the things we’ve seen, that we’ve dealt with since—including the actual God of Death, not just his physical manifestation on Arkaria—well, the fear I felt then pales in comparison.” A sober look crept across his face. “That temple down there, though … I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more like it. I mean, what with the Endless Bridge being built in that area, who knows what other remnants of … the ancients, presumably … well, who knows what else is down there? I could easily believe Malpravus found another portal beyond the remembrance of anyone else and has been using it to keep himself well out of striking distance of Arkaria’s armies.”

“It is a clever solution, really,” J’anda said. “Anyone who wishes to reach you must undertake a journey of months, but you may reach anyone else in a matter of seconds.”

“I’d like to yank that feeling of safety away from him,” Terian said, wrinkling his long nose. “Just tear it right out of his skeletal fingers.”

“I understand that.” Cyrus nodded and cast his gaze off the balcony. “In fact … it makes me think about your warning about the portal just north of us.”

“Are you thinking of trying to close it as well?” Vara asked, stiffening.

“I’m more than thinking about it,” Cyrus said. “We need to do it.”

Terian made a face. “That’s going to make it really hard for me to get here, Davidon, which means our little meetings are going to get a lot more complicated.”

“Not that hard,” Cyrus said. “You can just bind your soul here.”

“I have to go home sometimes, too,” Terian said. “And as much fun as it is to barge into your bedroom uninvited, I like to be able to approach from the balconies so that I don’t accidentally wander in when you two newlyweds are intimate.”

“I, too, enjoy that privacy,” Vara said acidly. “Let us keep that.”

“I don’t think we’re going to have a choice much longer,” Cyrus said. “That portal is five minutes from our door. The next nearest gives us at least a couple days of warning. Plus, we get it shut, we can clear out Malpravus’s little army of dead without worrying about him sending in immediate reinforcements to kill our people. It’s going to have to happen.”

“And our meetings?” Terian asked sourly.

“We’ll have to find another way,” Cyrus said. “We’ll have to find someone whose soul can be bound in the garderobe over there, or something—”

“Marvelous,” Terian said, unimpressed. “Some poor soul is going to have to show up in your toilet every time they cast the return spell?” His eyes moved swiftly as he thought. “Perhaps I’ll save that honor for Mrs. Lepos …”

Vara rubbed her hand against her forehead. “Or we could just have them bind outside the door …”

“No good,” Vaste said, shaking his head, “what happens when Mendicant hears hammering and comes wandering up?” He grinned, his underbite showing those enormous lower teeth. “Might as well just cast the binding spell right in your bed. They can slip in in the middle of the night and nudge you awake.”

“I am not slipping into anyone’s bed in the middle of the night save my own,” Terian said. “But I will talk to my wife about coming here to bind before you shut the portal. At least then we’ll have a direct conduit easily available to reach you without being seen. She mostly spends her time in Saekaj and Sovar in any case, so she’s really ideal for it.”

“Perfect,” Vara said in a tone that indicated she thought it was clearly anything but, “and now our bedroom will be a sanctum which you can enter at any time, regardless of whether we have the doors shut or not. Beautiful.”

“Hey, it’s not exactly my idea of a good time, either, seeing the warrior in black’s elongated arse—” Terian said.

“I do not have an elongated arse!” Cyrus said.

J’anda peered at Cyrus, eyes creeping down. “It does look rather long in those greaves … I don’t think I ever noticed that before …”

“I have,” Vaste said. When he had drawn every eye in the room, he explained, “I’ve often compared it to my own and found it … lacking. Not nearly as full or luscious.”

“Which is exactly the comparison I make between your wits and those of a gnomish child,” Vara said, giving him an evil glare. “In any case, drawing back to the point and away from our upcoming security precautions, unless we wish to mount an expedition in the far jungles of the Bandit Lands, I do not see how knowing this detail about Malpravus’s secret portal is any advantage for us.”

“It’s not,” Terian said, “unless we can find someone who knows the spell.”

“That’s likely to be highly guarded information,” Vaste said. “After all, the moment anyone else knows it, it ceases being a secret base. Recall how badly we were compromised when the dark elves figured out how to send war parties directly into our foyer during the war.”

Terian’s brow furrowed. “Hmm. I wonder how Yartraak did that?” He puckered his lips in thought. “That bears some investigation.”

“Yes, you go investigate that,” Vaste said, flicking his fingers at the dark elf. “Meanwhile, we’ve got—what? A meeting with a human governor?”

“In two weeks,” Cyrus said, turning his head to look for the piece of parchment Lord Merrish had given them at the end of their interview. “I guess ‘immediately’ would be too much to ask.”

“It’s not as if we’re in an urgent hurry, under dire threat or anything,” Vaste said, shrugging broadly. “Why, we’re practically on holiday out here, without a worry in the world—”

“Just give me some warning before you seal that portal out there,” Terian said, standing upright. “And about that meeting with Frost … I think I should send Aisling with you. In disguise, of course.”