Heretic (The Sanctuary Series Book 7) (58 page)

“Why, she joined Sanctuary at my behest,” Malpravus said. “She came to Goliath first, wanting to leave the Daring behind, but I persuaded her that she could do so much more good by watching you lot here, making certain that you never got yourselves into too much trouble without me knowing about it.” He glanced at Menlos, who stood with his wolves arrayed tightly around him, all faced toward Vara. “Of course, Orion recruited our other friend here to come join you, keep a watch of his own. He came to join us but we sent him back to you after he told us he’d met you during your little trip through the north, and hasn’t he been just invaluable in keeping us apprised of everything?” Malpravus waved behind him, and Sareea Scyros emerged from the stairs with another figure—Mathyas Tarreau. “And this one, of course, has earned his due from Goliath. He is an officer now as well, having served us truly and faithfully.”

“You’ve done a marvelous job undercutting my every action these last few years,” Cyrus said, unable to take his eyes off the horror unfolding before him. Lightning flashed outside, illuminating the shadowed trenches in Malpravus’s skull-like face.

“I have undercut very few of your actions, in fact,” Malpravus said with the air of a lecturer patiently correcting a student. “It was not I who got you declared heretic, who turned the King of the Elves or the Council of Twelve against you. You did all that on your very own, without any of my assistance. Only when absolutely necessary to my goals have I brought you low, and you have done the same to me, I might add. Except that I have actually tried to help you on several occasions—why, I even had Orion extend an offer to you to join us, and you should have taken us up on that generous overture, or the one I made after it. This rift between us is quite senseless. You are powerful, there is no doubt of that. There is no need for constant clashes betwixt us.”

“I’ve never sent an assassin after you, Malpravus,” Cyrus said, staring the necromancer down. “I can’t say the same for you.”

“Surely you understand that was not my doing, not truly,” Malpravus said, sounding offended. “The Council of Twelve sanctioned your death; I sent only the barest minimum I could get away with and look convincing. If I’d intended you to die I would have sent far, far more than I did, I assure you.” His eyes glinted as he smiled like snaked. “If I wanted you dead … you would be dead.”

Cyrus started to turn his head to look at Vara, but the necromancer spoke again, drawing his attention back. “Ah ah ah!” Malpravus said. “Don’t get any terrible ideas for heroic maneuvers. Your bravery is already well known to all, and I have no interest in hurting either one of you. I haven’t hurt your last wife, after all. She’s been my honored guest these last several months.”

“Where is Imina?” Cyrus asked, staring back at Malpravus’s smug face.

“Safe, of course,” Malpravus said. “Under guard, naturally, at my home.” Cyrus debated throwing the name out, but Malpravus beat him to it. “Of course by now,” the necromancer said, “you know how to get to Zanbellish … but you haven’t come to visit.” He smiled thinly. “I think I know why, but I can assure you, you would be met with a warm welcome.”

“That’s why I don’t visit,” Cyrus said. “I’ve enjoyed enough of your hospitality.”

“Such an unpleasant sentiment,” Malpravus said, walking to the wall and running his hand over the wet stones. “I only wish to educate you, to give you a chance to live up to your … potential.” He appraised Cyrus carefully as his thin hand slid over the wet surface of the stone wall. “You don’t even realize what you have at your own fingertips. But I could help you. Aid you. Be the counsel that you have lacked these last years, stagnant, barely stumbling toward the greatness you once sought—”

“I doubt I’d find much greatness at your side,” Cyrus said, fixed on the necromancer.

“You need all the help you can get,” Malpravus said, almost sadly, “and I have studied the paths of power and advanced greatly since last we met, when your compatriot, Curatio, awakened me to possibilities, some of which I had not previously considered—power you sorely need, for I know you know,” he nearly whispered, “in your heart of hearts … that Bellarum is hardly done with you.”

The chill in Cyrus’s bones became a hard freeze that spread to his skin, cold all over him as he stood there. “What do you know?”

“It is not about what I know,” Malpravus said, “at least, not all that I alone know. If you have spoken to Carrack, you will know the power that I seek.” His bony face remained intent upon Cyrus. “The power you should be seeking.”

“The power to destroy a city?” Cyrus asked, barely controlling his face, his fury. He longed to look at Vara, to seek her counsel, but she was just out of his view. He could still feel her touch upon his lips and wondered at her silence. “The power to level Aloakna, for instance?”

Malpravus breathed, almost silently in the storm, his nostrils flaring slightly. “Your dear mother understood that power. She left you behind to seek it, to exercise it …”

Cyrus’s right hand clenched, still so far from Rodanthar’s hilt that the sword might as well have been in Fertiss. Menlos, Mathyas, Rhane and Sareea all stood before him, their weapons already drawn, and Erith stood a step ahead, as withdrawn as Larana had ever been.
I need help
, Cyrus realized at last.
This is too much, too much for Vara and I.
The power …

He blinked.
Perhaps … perhaps Malpravus has a point about power …

“Together we can take our first steps to ensuring your triumph in your next meeting with the God of War,” Malpravus said, stepping back over to him, eminently reasonable, an island of calm in the middle of the storm. “We can take them right here, in this place, today …” He stood before Cyrus, backed by his small army, the rest of his force surging through the halls of Sanctuary, drowning every floor in the blood of the last defenders. “Put aside the maudlin sentimentality,” Malpravus said, taking another step toward him, smoothly and slowly, “this weak and craven desire to seek out a home and a family to make up for the one that you never knew as a child … Walk in your mother’s footsteps, as you were always meant to, the way she wanted you—”

The spell-blast hit Malpravus from behind and knocked him forward as though a barrel of Dragon’s Breath had exploded behind him. The necromancer flew into the gap between Cyrus and Vara as Cyrus whipped around to see him rolling to a halt on the soaking balcony, his robes drenched within an instant of being hurled into the storm. Cyrus snapped his head back around in time to see—

Larana floating with Philos in hand, just above the stairs, officers of Sanctuary flooding up behind her—Vaste, blood running from his forehead; Ryin, hands aglow with lightning and fire; J’anda, his furious face lit by the purple glow of his staff’s orb; Scuddar In’shara with his scimitar at the ready; and Mendicant scampering up at the last, looking more furious and feral, teeth bared, than Cyrus could ever recall seeing him.

“You strike hard, witch,” Malpravus said, coming back to his feet, his robes smoking beneath him, “but my army will see you finished—”

“Your army is gone,” Larana said, all trace of meekness gone, “and I have sealed the portal on them. Some, as they were coming through, in fact—” Her cheeks quivered with fury, alight with the glow of her hands, one burning a furious crimson and the other blue. “They didn’t quite make it, at least—not all the pieces of them did. Those that made it before them are dead to the very last.”

Cyrus turned his head back to look at Malpravus, whose own lips were quivering now, though whether in disappointment or fury, Cyrus could not say. “Very good, then,” the necromancer said, drawing himself. “You always escaped my notice before—the cook, the smith, the tailor—always trifling with silly things … but now I see you plain, the last secret that Alaric Garaunt hid in open sight.” The necromancer laughed, but it was dry and sounded sick. “I cannot believe I missed it. I should have known … he was far too soft-hearted to have done the thing …”

“Done what thing?” Cyrus asked, the Tower of the Guildmaster turned as still and silent as if there were no storm, the sound of wind and thunder replaced by the crackle of the magics convulsing upon Larana’s hands.

Malpravus lifted off the ground, gliding, his own hands springing to life in a mirror image of Larana’s, golden-green coruscating on one, glowing black crackling around the other. “A brilliant deception, really. I never would have guessed him capable of it, but that was another of his little games, I suppose. To think that
he
did not know that you were hiding before him all the while …”

“Oh, Goddess,” Vara murmured, breaking her silence at last, transfixed upon Larana, her eyes wide with awe. “It’s you. It’s … it’s really …
you
.”

“It is me,” Larana said, but as Cyrus stared at her, the Larana that he had known since he had come to this place seemed to fade before his eyes; not an illusion, but something else. There was more of what he had seen from her earlier, in Aloakna—the confidence, the straightness in her bearing, the strength that he had thought endowed by Philos, still gripped in her hands, spell-light burning around it stronger than anything he’d seen from anyone other than Curatio. Her eyes, though, were locked on him, a dazzling green and pained, watching him in fear. Even through her youthful appearance—so much younger than she should have been—now it was obvious, and he recognized her at last, as he had known her … as he had last seen her, before she had left him, some twenty-odd years earlier.

“It is you, indeed,” Malpravus spat, hatred lining his words.

“Quinneria.”

The fight had begun before Cyrus even realized it, and without him even knowing what had started it. Before he even had a full accounting of what was happening, Menlos Irontooth’s wolves set upon Vara and she met one of them with a sword stroke that cleaved one cleanly in half, the top portion flung out the nearest balcony and over the edge while the other two snarled and snapped their teeth, dragging at her arm and her leg. Menlos himself screamed in fury and came at her with his short sword while she was distracted with his animals.

Vaste now joined the fray, his spear held aloft as he plunged toward Menlos from behind, but still several feet away; J’anda had his staff in the air and it glowed, purple light streaking toward Erith, who stood staring, her eyes aglow with magic. Scuddar was attacking Sareea Scyros and she was attacking back, her hand glowing black as she cast a spell and Scuddar’s scimitar and hand alight with some magic of their own as he struck Sareea’s sword, seemingly unmoved by whatever she had cast.

The fight in the middle of the room had divided Cyrus from Vara, the spellcraft of his mother—whom he could scarcely believe was there, standing in front of him—matched against Malpravus. It was a blur of color, a glow of horrible magical power, their spells clashing and forcing Cyrus back from the pure energy blasting between them. His mother looked like a fury unleashed, more power pouring off her than he could ever recall seeing from Curatio, and Malpravus matching it, his lips drawn back in an angry rictus, his dark magics surging forward as Cyrus moved aside—

He nearly had his head struck from his shoulders as Rhane Ermoc surged toward him, Praelior in hand. The warrior came at him hard, but the hearth exploded in a timely blast of fire, distracting Ermoc just enough to send him charging past Cyrus, the heat bellowing out of the fireplace strong enough that Cyrus could feel it on his cheeks as he grasped for Rodanthar and drew his sword at last.

He saw Ryin surging forward, spell-light in his own hands, fire burning forth and consuming Mathyas Tarreau, the human completely enveloped by the druid’s blossoming fire spell. Tarreau was gone in an instant, but the flames lingered, casting shadows in the chaotic tower as the air was rent by the frenzied heretical magics being flung about around them. The whole tower shook, and Cyrus saw the contest between his mother and Malpravus explode skyward, ripping an immense hole in the ceiling—

“You can’t evade me!” Ermoc screamed over the magical release behind him. He came back again at Cyrus, who was dazed by the sheer overload of activity around them. Cyrus offered a half-hearted defense against Ermoc, barely turning him aside, but Ermoc’s own anger and overzealous attack cost him far more than Cyrus’s defense. He stumbled, but Cyrus was in no position to exploit the mistake; his stance was weak, and he had been caught off balance in his last-ditch attempt to defend himself.

J’anda stepped forth and turned loose a blast of magic all his own toward Malpravus, who was still standing out on the balcony, strangely untouched by the rain hammering down around him. It was as though the magic being flung from his bony fingers was evaporating all the liquid before it touched the ground. Magic streamed from his spell-lit hands like smoke from a fire, colored faintly in the same green-gold and near black as his spells, still pouring out at Quinneria, who continued to match him with her own, their powers pooling and wrestling with each other in a miasma of colors in the center of the room.

Cyrus caught a glimpse of Vara cutting another wolf down, stabbing with her sword while Vaste was sparring with Menlos, barely keeping the Northman, his face red with anger, at bay with his staff-turned-spear. Vaste’s own face was a deep shade of green, Cyrus saw between the flashes of the magical bout occurring in the center of the room.

Ryin stepped up next to J’anda and poured a fire spell in next to J’anda’s casting; they seemed to run together, twisting with Quinneria’s own contribution to the fight, and pushing the magical maelstrom closer to Malpravus. Cyrus blinked away from it, scarcely believing what he was seeing.
That’s … that’s not how magic works, is it?

Well … it’s how Curatio did it in the Citadel …

Ermoc’s scream of rage brought Cyrus back to himself in time for the warrior’s next attack. Cyrus was staggering, so rattled about by the fighting around him, by the thoughts in his head that he could not get a full grasp of what he was doing nor what he was supposed to be doing. Ermoc came in low with his attack and Praelior clanged against the lower part of Cyrus’s breastplate, making him grunt from the impact, like a weak punch to the stomach. It caught him by surprise, but by pure reflex he reached out with a riposte of his own, catching Ermoc squarely in the mouth with the tip of his sword.