Heretic (The Sanctuary Series Book 7) (27 page)

Cyrus and Vara shared a look. “Tolada seemed like he was enjoying himself,” Cyrus said, prompting Keearyn’s eyes to seem to grow wider than his stubby fists. “Anyhow,” he went on, explaining to Vara, “I met Keearyn when I went to … uh … fight with Fortin. He’s the foreman at the mines up on Rockridge.”

“Ever at their service, yes,” Keearyn said, stooping again, quickly. “And yours, if you need me for something.”

“As it happens,” Cyrus said, smiling weakly, “I do.”

Keearyn stared up at Cyrus with wide eyes, struck with awe. “You have … need of a humble miner?”

“I have need of an excellent miner,” Cyrus said, “which I have heard you are. I have a task for you, one which must be carried out in absolute secret, and which I can pay you and whoever else you need a significant sum of gold to undertake.”

“I … I … no gold is necessary—” Keearyn began.

“I think it is,” Cyrus said. “It’s likely to be an extended bit of work. You’ll need workers you can implicitly trust, and from what I’ve heard … they’ll need great skill.”

Keearyn nodded. “Whatever you require and request, I shall make happen. Many of my workers are members of my own family, and I trust them with my life. Whatever you need, we can accomplish.”

Cyrus let out a long breath. “You might want to hear the task I’m setting forth before you agree so readily.” He took another breath, and then told the dwarf exactly what he wanted of him. The fire crackled in the hearth, shading the dwarf’s astonished face in orange tones, highlighting the braided beard that hung down below his belt. After Cyrus had outlined in broad strokes what he needed, he asked, “Can you do that?”

“You weren’t making a jest at all,” Keearyn said, rocking back on his haunches. “I—I’ll have to see it to be sure, but yes. It could take quite some time, though. And you’re right … I’ll need gold. To do something of that scale … I couldn’t fund it out of my own accounts.”

“We’ve got some time,” Cyrus said. “And I’ve managed to accumulate a reasonable fortune as Guildmaster of Sanctuary.” He pursed his lips. “Some of it is here, and you’ll have it before you leave. Some of it’s in banks in Reikonos and Pharesia, and getting to that will be a bit more difficult under present circumstances. For now, though, I’ll make sure you have plenty enough to get started.”

“If it’s as you say, this could be the work of years,” Keearyn said, his rugged face struck with worry.

“As I said before,” Cyrus said, smiling lightly at Vara, who met his with a much more concerned look, “we’ve got some time …”

The day of the arranged meeting with Governor Frost seemed to come more swiftly than other events Cyrus had waited for of late. The spring air had turned warm, the skies had cleared and any trace of winter had been left far behind. In the distance, from the top of the tower, Cyrus could see the fields of the nearest farmers to the north going about their labors, if he chose to spend his time watching. Sometimes he did, for lack of anything else to do, leaning against the stone rail that lined the edge of the balcony, staring hard out at the far distance, watching a small spot on the horizon tread across the fields. He knew it was a beast of burden of some sort, its master an imperceptible speck, gradually turning the ground a deeper shade of brown as he tilled the way that Lord Merrish had been doing in his own fields.

“Only an hour to go,” Vara said, easing up on him. They were both already in their armor, waiting for nothing more than the appointed time to arrive. There was quiet below, the silence of Sanctuary a difficult thing for Cyrus to get used to. Time was, there would have been peals of laughter from the lawns, activity on the archery range, people wandering about the gardens or taking horses out for a ride from the stables. Now the lawn was empty, though he’d been across it enough of late to know that it was getting saturated from some of the recent torrential rains.

“Not that we’re counting,” Cyrus said, turning his head to glance at her.

“It has been a long, difficult few months,” Vara said, staring past him. “Perhaps now that spring is here—”

“Perhaps if we can get what we have set out to accomplish done,” he corrected, and she nodded. “Because the simple change of seasons is unlikely to reduce the pressure upon us. If anything, the steady atrophy of our numbers will only make it worse.”

“Are you still obsessed with our numbers, then?” Vara asked, quirking an eyebrow at him.

“I haven’t asked and no one has told me,” Cyrus said, turning to look back at the horizon. “That seems the wiser course, since we’re already reduced to the barest minimum to allow defense of the wall.”

She nodded once and did not press the point. “Do you think—?” she began, but a hard knock from the door down the stair halted her in the middle.

“Come in,” Cyrus said, looking back as he called out. He waited, Vara at his side, the gentle breeze blowing between them as footsteps sounded. Calene appeared a moment later, an envelope in hand, and went straight to Vara, offering it to the paladin without a word.

“Thank you,” Vara said, taking it, staring at it with a frown. She opened it and began to read.

“How goes it among the rangers, Calene?” Cyrus asked as he waited for Vara to finish.

“It goes,” she answered. “We’re scheduled for an archery practice later today, just to sharpen our skills. Seems leaving hands idle too long causes problems, and since a stealth march practice would require us to leave, and that seems unfeasible at the moment ….”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself in relation to the idleness,” Cyrus said. “Are you ready for your first council meeting?”

“Aye,” Calene said, reddening. “I’m ready. Not sure what I can possibly contribute, but I’m ready as I can be.”

“Thank you for this, Calene,” Vara said with a nod, her face as blank. Cyrus gave her a frown at a glance; there was a burgeoning excitement behind her eyes, though she was clearly trying to contain it.

“You’re welcome,” Calene said, nodding. “If there’s nothing else …?”

“That’ll do it,” Cyrus said, giving her the nod of dismissal. The ranger gave a small salute and walked back toward the door. Cyrus followed her with his eyes and did not stop watching her until she’d closed the door behind her. He turned to face Vara. “What is it?”

“I have to go,” Vara said, her face suddenly split between hope and agony. “Right now. The meeting we’ve been waiting for has been arranged, but it’s now.”

“Damn,” Cyrus said, leaning back against the balcony rail, the metal of his greaves scraping against the stone. “How are you going to get there?”

She gave a shrug. “I need someone to teleport me.”

“You should take J’anda,” Cyrus said seriously.

“J’anda is to take you to Isselhelm to meet with Frost.”

“I can have Larana do that,” Cyrus said.

“That’s daft,” Vara said, rising up, cheeks heated. “We can’t have anyone knowing about the Frost meeting.”

“We can’t have anyone knowing about yours, either,” Cyrus said. “That’d be a more definite guarantee to set tongues wagging than me taking a meeting with the governor of the Northlands.”

Vara sighed, turning to look out over the balcony. “Weeks of pointless waiting and then once again it all breaks loose at once. Do you get the feeling sometimes that we’re meant to be divided?”

“Only insofar as us divided is the easiest way to take us apart,” Cyrus said, facing in toward the tower, staring into the shadowed interior. “If we were at the strength we had even a year ago, before the battle in the jungle with the Avatar of the God of War—”

“But we aren’t,” Vara said quietly. “You might as well wish for us to be back in the time before we had to suspect half the members of our own council of betraying us to Goliath and the others. The sundial’s shadow does not move back, dear husband, it only goes forward. We remain trapped in these unyielding circumstances until we wriggle free of them by our own ingenuity or until our enemies foist death upon us.”

Cyrus felt a small smile take root on his face. “Which one would you bet on right now, if forced?”

“I would always bet upon us,” Vara said, leaning up to kiss his cheek. “Are you sure about taking Larana to Isselhelm?”

“No, but she wouldn’t be the only one coming with me,” Cyrus said, and he saw the flicker of distaste across his wife’s face as she recalled.

“Ugh,” Vara said. “The harlot. You should take Vaste with you.”

“No. Someone should remain here, just in case,” Cyrus said, shaking his head. “Aisling … she’s saved our lives more recently than she tried to take mine. And if she kills me …” His smile turned rueful. “Well, she’ll be beating out a long line of people for the privilege.”

“I don’t like this,” Vara said, staring out over the plains. “I don’t like this at all. The line between enemy and ally has become far too muddled for my taste. All of the people we face now … they were all friends at one point in time.” A flicker of emotion ran over her features. “In some cases, much more than that.”

“Things change,” Cyrus said, nodding. “It seems to me that it’s these times, these … trying times … that you find out who really matters most. Who you can count on. It’s not when your tide is rising that you can test the loyalties of those around you; it’s when the tide has gone out and left you stranded in a long waste of empty sand … that’s when you find out who’ll stand with you.”

“There aren’t nearly as many people standing with us as I would have thought given everything we’ve been through,” Vara said quietly as the wind whipped stray strands of her hair around her.

“Aye,” Cyrus said, a slight choking feeling crawling into the back of his throat. “I thought we’d bought more loyalty by our service, too. But apparently we haven’t, and so this is the price we pay. Once again, odds against us, backs to the wall.” He nodded at the note in her hand. “But if things could change …”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she said and kissed him on the cheek. “You should consider taking Vaste. At the least, take Larana along with you for the meeting? She’s trustworthy. She adores you, after all.”

“I’ll consider it,” Cyrus said, ignoring the last bit, “if Terian doesn’t provide us with a wizard or druid for transport.”

Vara sighed as she walked back toward the tower entrance, leaving him behind on the balcony. “You know, I feel as though I am growing immensely as a person right now. To let you go off into a hostile realm with her by your side and without launching into a rather hearty fit …”

“It’s good that you’re growing,” Cyrus said, afraid to look back. When he did, he tried to put as much humor into his expression as he could. “We need to be bigger, after all, in order to face these problems …”

“Not one of your best,” she observed, and with the scrape of boot on stone, she began to turn away. “If I were a lesser, more grudging person, I would tell you to watch your back, as the likelihood that anyone else with you will is lower than I would care for.”

“I will,” Cyrus whispered, confident that she would hear it, even as he listened to her steps fade down the stairs and the door shut softly behind her. “Believe me, I will.”

When the knock sounded at Cyrus’s door a few minutes later, he half expected it to be another messenger. His ears pricked up, and he realized that the heavy thudding was coming from within the tower, not without.

“Come up,” Cyrus said quietly, tearing his attention away from the far horizon, from the sun hanging lazily overhead in the sky and shining down with just enough warmth to make him want to stay outside, on the balcony, for a time longer.

Footsteps sounded, soft and gentle, as Kahlee Lepos, her hair now a stunning scarlet color, led Aisling and the druid Bowe up the stairs. Cyrus watched the dark elven triad with a strange sense of resignation.
Curious bedfellows
, he thought, and then mentally slapped himself.
Vara would not be pleased to hear that verbalized.

“Greetings, Lord Davidon,” Kahlee said with a faint smile and a respectful bow of her newly colored head.

Cyrus stared at the bright hair, then bowed his own. “Lady Lepos,” he said, realizing he still didn’t know her title, even as he made to pay his respects.

“Good enough,” she said, her smile widening just a touch. “You know Bowe and Aisling, I believe?”

“I’ve made their acquaintance,” Cyrus said with a trace of irony.

“Where is your lady wife?” Aisling asked, a little stiffly, as if expecting ambush from behind. She was strangely still, unmoving just below the top step.

“Called away to a last minute meeting that, well, that she needed to attend,” he said, arching his eyebrows. He could see that at the least the women got his message. Bowe, for his part, remained inscrutable, his long white hair queued over his shoulder, his posture relaxed yet somehow attentive.

“And J’anda?” Aisling asked, biting at her lip, not relaxing one whit.

“I sent him with her,” Cyrus said. “He’s learned the teleport spells.” He took a sharp intake of breath. “I assume Bowe can provide transport?”

“Yes,” Bowe said simply.

“But not illusions,” Aisling said.

“I can handle that,” Cyrus said, drawing himself up to his full height.

Aisling managed her surprise well. “Truly?”

“I’ve been practicing,” Cyrus said with a smile. He lifted his hand, visualizing the results desired in his own mind as he said the words under his breath. He closed his eyes in concentration, and when he opened them, Aisling bore the very image of a Northlands woman, clad in furs and leather rather than her finely crafted armor. Bowe looked like a dark-haired human with a facial tattoo, and Cyrus glanced down to see his black metal armor transformed into a bloodstained tunic of the sort a butcher might wear.

“Impressive,” Aisling said in a neutral tone of voice. “I admit, even knowing you’re an outcast heretic, I find your abilities … surprising.”

“I find them surprising as well,” Cyrus said, coming in off the balcony only with great reluctance. It was as though he could feel the warmth of the sun fading with every step he took, crossing back into the dark shade of the tower. “Since only a year ago, I couldn’t have cast a spell if my life depended on it.” He frowned as his own words sunk in. “Or perhaps until my life depended on it, given how things unfolded.”