Master (Book 5) (57 page)

Cyrus started to question him further about that, but they reached the apex of the staircase just as he opened his mouth. They came to a sharp halt just before a door to his left.

“Not a single visible dark elf on the floors below,” Terian murmured, low. “I guess they’ve finished their business there.”

“Likely not many people there to torment and terrorize,” Curatio said. “This siege has been going on long enough that the government had probably suspended most of their functions.”

“Be ready for anything,” Cyrus said and paused before the door.

“Anything, you say?” Vaste asked. “How about—”

“Not now,” Vara and Terian chorused.

“No fun,” Vaste said.

Cyrus came around the corner of the room with his sword drawn. He saw dark elven armor before him and struck both of his foes down with little in the way of thought or mercy. Bones cracked at the swing of his sword, bodies flew to either side, and Cyrus was left staring into a room where he had been on several occasions before.

It was almost peaceful within the chamber holding the Council of Twelve’s meeting room. There was a surprising lack of damage, and the dark elven forces within were—

Not so dark elven. At least, not all of them.

“Cyrus Davidon,” came the voice of the man who sat in the center chair behind the Council of Twelve’s seat. He was flanked by a few others, each of which Cyrus knew a little too well. But he hung his gaze on that one in the center, stared him down, ignoring the half a hundred soldiers that were scattered throughout the room. “It is a true pleasure to run into you—though of a bit of a surprise to see you in this place, I must admit.” A thin smile stretched over blue lips. “Still, a pleasure.”

“I wish I could say the same,” Cyrus said, staring at the dark elf playing at being king of Reikonos, “but I can’t … Malpravus.”

“I cannot tell you how much it pleases me to see you again, dear boy,” Malpravus said, thin fingers pressed one against the other just below his skeletal chin. “I was worried that the spy the Sovereign sent to your bed would be the end of you.”

“It takes more than some snake with a little knife to put the end to me,” Cyrus said, sweeping his gaze over the mighty desk at which Malpravus sat. “As your friends there should know.”

Cyrus looked at each of them in turn; Orion stood to one side, the ranger still garbed in green, his metal helm covering all but his eyes. Carrack, the wizard, stood directly to Malpravus’s left, gaunt and attired in something that looked like sackcloth. His eyes were sunken, his tattooed chest was displayed through a slit in his clothing, and Cyrus suspected he had been pulled out of prison just moments earlier. Then, to the other side—

“I knew you were lying sack of shit, Rhane Ermoc,” Cyrus said, looking at the human warrior who stood at Malpravus’s side looking much like a loyal dog sitting at the hand of its master, “but I didn’t go so far as to assume you were treacherous enough to betray the entire Confederation.”

“Why, dear Rhane here is the reason we sit before you,” Malpravus said, not bothering to conceal his malevolent grin. “He opened one of the gates for us himself.”

“Bloodlessly, I’m sure,” Cyrus said with a full measure of sarcasm.

“On our side, yes,” Malpravus said. “I can’t say the same for the poor humans he was forced to gut in the guardroom.”

“This is a staggering level of treachery,” Vara said.

“Oh, not to worry,” Malpravus said, “we had other help as well.” He gestured to Terian, forcing Cyrus to look at the dark knight. “For example, your good friend there was responsible for an idea that allowed us to send forth some two thousand armored knights over the wall riding vek’tag.”

“Is this true?” Vara’s pitch was too high, and Cyrus started to move toward her, albeit slowly.

“It was my idea,” Terian said neutrally. “I can’t say I knew it would be used in this way, but I certainly bear the blame.”

Cyrus took a few steps forward, allowing more room for his army to file in behind him. By his reckoning, they had Malpravus’s small group overmatched, but only in numbers. “So now you have the city of Reikonos at your feet.”

“Dear boy,” Malpravus said, “now we have all of Arkaria at our feet.”

“You should have joined us, Cyrus,” Orion said. The ranger sounded strangely choked with a glee of his own, muffled beneath the helm. Cyrus cast a withering glare at his armored visage but could not even see a hint of humanity beneath the mask.

“It is not too late,” Malpravus offered. “Surely you see the direction in which the wind is blowing—”

“And smell it, too,” Vaste said, “because of all the corpses you’ve just left rotting.”

“—there is no hope for those who stand against us,” Malpravus said. “The Confederation is all but vanquished. With our full armies turned loose, every keep that still stands in the north and the Riverlands will fall within weeks. Soon, the Kingdom of Elves will follow, then one by one the smaller principalities, until all of Arkaria knows but one master.”

“This has a familiar ring to it,” Cyrus said, shaking his head at Orion. “Sounds like the same line of bullshit he tried to fill my ear with when he sold his soul to the Dragonlord.” Cyrus pointed a finger at Malpravus. “The same line you tried to push on me when you wanted me to betray Sanctuary. ‘Give up all hope; you have no chance.’”

“You truly don’t,” Malpravus said, and he seemed almost … sad. “There is no possible way to thwart the army that stands before you. You will die trying.”

Cyrus stared at the necromancer’s dull eyes. “Then I will die trying. I will die as a free man, with a blade in my hand, the master of own damned fate and not some simpering dog that licks the boots of another in hopes he’ll be spared.”

“It is a poor choice that you make,” Malpravus said, drawing himself up to stand. “Poorer for the fact that your friends shall have to suffer death with you for it.”

“Oh, let’s face it, we’ve suffered death for worse reasons,” Vaste said.

“Why would you assume that we would die, Malpravus?” Curatio asked. He was smiling enigmatically.

“You cannot stand against our power,” Malpravus said. “I hold control over death itself.” He made a motion with his hand and the enemies within the chamber champed their jaws together with a loud clack. Cyrus’s eyes were drawn to the nearest of them; the face was familiar, that of a young lad of Luukessia that had introduced himself to Cyrus on the day of election. What had been his name?
Rainey McIlven
, Cyrus remembered with a flash of rage.
Lost at Leaugarden.

He turned his eyes on Malpravus.

Lost to him.

“Do you?” Curatio asked. “Do you indeed?” The healer stood tall and brushed past Cyrus, his mace in hand. “I know more about death that you could possibly even imagine, Malpravus.” The elf’s voice was low and deadly, heavy with menace of a like Cyrus had rarely heard.

“Your power is limited, healer,” Malpravus said.

“Actually,” Curatio said, and Cyrus could hear the smile in the way he said it, “it’s yours that’s limited.” He raised the mace high above his head and a blinding flash of white light blasted through the chamber. A shrieking whine deafened Cyrus, leaving a hissing in his ears even as the light faded before him, forcing him to blink the flashes away.

The dead bodies at Malpravus’s command stood motionless, and then, one by one, began to tumble to floor, lifeless. Cyrus watched them crumple, puppets with their strings cut loose, until the only ones still standing were those behind the Council of Twelve’s desk.

“Intriguing,” Malpravus said. Cyrus could see the tendrils of hate behind the necromancer’s impassive expression. “It seems that I am not the only master of death within this chamber.”

“To the contrary,” Curatio said, “I am much more versed in the power of life and am well studied in guaranteeing its end.” He made another motion, tossing a ball of purest spell energy of a sort Cyrus had never even seen. It cascaded with living will across the chamber, like a bolt of lightning covered in glowing red water, forking and flowing toward their foes. The desk in front of Malpravus exploded in a shower of splinters even as a light swallowed him whole into a return spell. Carrack followed into a green light of his own as Rhane Ermoc and Orion both lunged for the man, disappearing along with him.

Cyrus watched them go with a barely contained fury, the smoke from Curatio’s attack settling in the fore of the room even as splinters of wood fell before them like rain.

“What … the hell was that?” Vaste asked. Curatio did not answer; he slumped slightly as though he were feeling suddenly weak, bent at the waist. The troll waited a moment. “Oh. Let me guess. More heresy.”

“Have you ever seen a healer do anything like that before?” Terian asked Vaste, in a voice that plainly accorded him the respect due an idiot. “No? Probably heresy, then.”

“I have never seen such a thing from any caster of spells,” Mendicant said, voice squeaking in awe. “That was … wondrous.”

“Wondrous, yes,” Vaste said, “and also carries a death sentence.”

“They can only kill you once, fool,” Terian said. “Stop whinging.”

“Perhaps you don’t know this, being a dark knight,” Vaste said, “but there’s this spell called resurrection, and with it they can kill you over and over. I know, because I can cast it.”

“Where did you learn that spell?” Curatio asked, speaking at last, sounding more than a little drawn. “I hope it wasn’t anywhere that would get you in trouble for heresy.”

“Touché,” Vaste said. “So … what now?”

Cyrus walked a slow, steady path to the back of the chamber, to an exit he had seen when last he had been here. He walked across the rich carpeting, pushing his way through the wooden doors that led to the rope-pulled box that transported guests of the Council from the bottom of the tower to the top. To his right stood an open balcony. He steeled himself and swept out upon it.

Reikonos was burning.

Black smoke stretched in heavy clouds across the horizon, pillars puffing blackness into the sky. The wood and brick construction of his city lay before Cyrus’s eyes. Dark armies ran through the streets, visible to his eye even from here, like little globules of blood running whichever way gravity pulled them. The screams were one cacophonous horror all melded together, the volume muffled by his distance from the fray.

“My gods,” Vaste said from his side, staring at the spectacle.

The smell of burning flesh was upon the wind, and burning other things, too. The wind whipped and the ash was falling. Snow was on the ground, on the rooftops, but the soot of the fires was turning it dark already. He could almost taste it on his tongue. Cyrus put a hand upon the railing of the balcony and stared upon his city, burned, ruined, ravaged.

“Cyrus,” Vara said gently from beside him. He had not noticed her arrival. “It will do you no good to look upon this. There is nothing to be done here.”

“Nothing?” Cyrus’s voice was a harsh whisper, a deathly one, and fury filled it to brimming.

“That’s not entirely true, is it?” Terian asked, easing into place at his other ear. “You know it. You can’t defend this city now, that’s sure; there’s no wall you can put up, no bridge you can guard and let them run against you, match their power against yours in a futile, foolish grind to their death. They are inside, they are everywhere, and wild with the taste of blood and slaughter, these dead.”

“Because of you,” Cyrus said, and his head turned slowly to take in the dark knight who spoke into his ear.

“Not only because of me,” Terian said quietly.

“They like the taste of blood and slaughter?” Cyrus asked, and he could feel the craze of rage force his lips wide into a smile that was near-madness. “I’ll drown them in it.”

“For once,” Terian said, eyes a little wild, “don’t be the fool warrior who thinks with his gonads that I always—falsely, I might add—accused you of being.”

“It wasn’t that falsely,” Vara murmured.

“Use your shrewd mind,” Terian said, ignoring her, “calculate the odds against you in this fight.”

“And let my city burn?” Cyrus finished the natural extension of the thought, watching the black smoke of the fires drift just ahead of him.

“You can end this,” Terian said. “But you won’t end it here, and not by throwing yourself into a battle you can’t hope to win. If you want to turn this army around, you need to provide them with a reason to walk away so compelling, they cannot possibly stay for another moment of pillage.”

“You magnificent bastard,” Vara whispered.

“Pretend for once I need you to do my thinking for me,” Cyrus said, leveling his gaze on Terian. “What would you have me do?”

“We go to Saekaj,” Terian whispered, and Cyrus caught a hint of fear in him from the mere statement. “You have a dagger matched against a sword. Saekaj is the exposed neck. Open it and watch the sword lose its menace.”

“You want me to invade your own home,” Cyrus said quietly. “To stomp down your doors, settle your scores—”

“I want you kill the God of Darkness!” It burst out of Terian in a fury. “I want you—you wielder of that,” he pointed at Praelior, still clutched in Cyrus’s hand, “I want you to free my damned people, because no one else can. I want you to turn loose your rage and set us all free in one stroke of the sword.”

“Killing Yartraak will take more than one stroke of a sword,” Curatio said from behind them, his voice still drawn. Cyrus looked to his face and found lines there, age that he had not shown moments earlier.

“I want you to save my home,” Terian said, and there was weight behind the words that forced Cyrus to look upon the dark knight. His expression was soft within the helm, a quivering lip visible, buried in all the spikes and steel. “I want you to save us, Cyrus Davidon … to save
our
people. Mine and yours.”

Cyrus looked out across the horizon, across the fires, across the burning, the killing and the war. The stench of death was with him, hung in his nostrils, the smoke lidded his eyes and made him want to blink them clear.
But there is no blinking them clear, is there? No washing them clean of what I’ve seen, no swing of the sword I can make anywhere in this city that will end this, stop the killing.