Master (Book 5) (18 page)

“I cannot,” Curatio said, and his hands came up to cover his face. “I cannot any longer. I have troubles on my mind, worries of my own.” His hands came away, but the face remained the same—weary and tired, though the anger was gone. “It is not for me to fall into this role unelected. The charter forbids it. I am no longer capable of bearing the burdens that this puts upon me, and no longer willing to accept the strain. Not now.” He spoke quietly, and to Cyrus’s ears his words were nearly a plea. “Find someone else.”

After brief seconds looking around the Council’s table, he moved to Alaric’s chair, holding his hand against it, then stepped toward Vara and clasped her on the shoulder. He leaned down to whisper something in her ear that caused her to close her eyes. When finished, he straightened and began to thread a steady path around the table edge toward the door. He did not stop until he had reached it, and then only long enough to open and shut it quietly.

Cyrus looked across the table to Vara, where she sat next to Alaric’s old chair, still empty. Her eyes were closed, and a single tear was working its way down her pale cheek.

When it was obvious that the Council meeting was ended, Cyrus was one of the first to leave. He did not care to sit and stare at Vara, who still sat in her chair, unmoving.

He left the door to the Council Chambers open behind him, passing torches burning on the wall. Darkness was visible outside the windows, and he could feel the pull of fatigue as he approached the stone stairwell. Somewhere below he could hear talking, laughing—as though there were no cares of any sort in Arkaria.

“Walk with me,” Vaste said, putting a strong hand upon his shoulder and steering toward the stairs going down, rather than the passage leading up. Cyrus found himself dragged along for a step until he caught his footing and fell in beside the troll. Someone else appeared at his right side but with a much gentler touch. It took him a moment to realize it was J’anda, hurrying along to keep up with Vaste’s long steps.

“What the hells is this about?” Cyrus asked as they descended.

“Your future,” Vaste said.

“My future involves a long wrestling match with my pillow,” Cyrus said with more than a little annoyance. It had been a day that he’d begun waking under the stars, that had continued with a journey into the frigid, fearsome Realm of Life and ended with him picking over the site of a slaver ambush before entering another dispiriting, revelation-filled meeting of the Sanctuary Council.

“And a feisty dark elven thief, I’m sure,” Vaste said.

“I am not so sure,” Cyrus replied. “I don’t think I have the energy for that at present.”

“Whatever the case,” Vaste went on, his heavy arm still draped across Cyrus’s shoulders, “we’re not talking about your immediate future. I need you to look a little longer-term than that.”

“I can imagine my breakfast tomorrow,” Cyrus said, “which, by the way, is only about three hours from now.”

Vaste let out an airy sigh. “You’re a dense one.” He turned and looked down at Cyrus. “We want you to run for Guildmaster.”

Cyrus heard himself groan. “I have a lot on my plate right now.”

“I don’t see a plate,” Vaste said. “All I see is a long drop in front of you, which, by the way, is sort of a threat.”

Cyrus looked at the long, central shaft of the circular stairwell. It was quite a ways down. “You’re not exactly motivating me, here.”

“I was mostly kidding,” Vaste said, his irises glittering yellow in the torchlight. “Mostly.”

“You are the natural candidate,” J’anda said from Cyrus’s left. “You are the General of Sanctuary. We already follow where you lead, and your record as a commander in military situations is impeccable.”

Cyrus let that one hang in the air a moment before responding. “You do remember that under my leadership we lost the entire land of Luukessia, right?”

Vaste waved a hand at him. “A trifling concern. Nobody cares about that.”

Cyrus felt a frown crease his face. “I think the ten thousand Luukessians we have in our ranks might care at least a little.”

“You have been leading since the day you got here,” J’anda said, shooting a glare at Vaste. “You have led us on many successful campaigns, and whenever you have made an error, trifling or no, you go out of your way to try and make it right.”

“You were the chosen of Alaric,” Vaste said. “His right hand.”

“I think you’re thinking of Curatio,” Cyrus said. “Alaric was quite displeased with me the last time I had a full conversation with him.”

J’anda smiled. “Oh, he was angry with you on the bridge?”

“Not on the bridge,” Cyrus said. “The last time I had a full conversation with him was the night before we left for Luukessia.”

“That was over a year and a half ago,” Vaste said. “I suspect he found time to consider you his favorite again after that. He did come to save your ass on the bridge, after all.”

Cyrus found himself begin to respond, then stopped. He never could think of the phrase ‘save your ass’ without remembering Niamh.
Another death
. “He did. But this is irrelevant. Curatio was his chosen second, he was the Elder.”

“And now Curatio is out of the way,” Vaste said, lifting his hand off of Cyrus’s shoulder and into the sky as if mimicking a bird taking off, “so who is left?”

“I don’t know,” Cyrus said with a shake of the head. “You—”

“I’m not running,” Vaste said. “I don’t have the disposition for it.”

“J’anda—”

“No. I have another task,” J’anda said, quelling Cyrus with a raised hand, “which we will discuss soon.

“Fine,” Cyrus said. “Pick one: Vara, Longwell, Erith—”

“No, no, no,” Vaste said.

“—Ryin or Nyad—”

“Basically the same person, and no,” Vaste went on.

“—all right, enough!” Cyrus said. “Why none of them?”

“Because you are the General,” J’anda said quietly.

“We are not a mercenary guild,” Cyrus said, feeling a deep sense of shame. “Well, we were never supposed to be one. That, in my mind, is argument enough why I shouldn’t be Guildmaster.”

“It is easy to talk about what you should or shouldn’t do,” J’anda said with a slow nod. “For example, there is a subset of the wealthy in Pharesia which only eats vegetation. No meats, only vegetables. They do this because it is supposed to be a healthier diet and obviously kinder to animals.”

“I find that unconscionable,” Vaste said, deadpan. “My day is incomplete without a helping of the flank torn off some suffering beast.”

“My point is this,” J’anda went on. “Were they starving, they would be forced to eat anything that came their way, meat included, or else they would die. Those in a position of peace and splendor are allowed different choices than those in war and famine. It is fine to pontificate on the morality of Sanctuary’s recent decisions, but when you have tens of thousands of mouths to feed and a land in upheaval, the time to pontificate is over. In the time of war, choices are a luxury we no longer have.”

“That doesn’t really sway me,” Cyrus said. He could tell they were reaching the bottom of the stairwell. “If you don’t hold to what you believe in times of difficulty, then you don’t truly believe in it. It’s easy to say you believe in something when it’s untested. It’s only when you’re put through the fire that the truth of the blade comes out.” He lowered his voice. “And we failed the test.
I
failed the test. Alaric believed in a guild that was to serve the greater good and not be mercenaries, and however we want to honey-coat it, on the purest level, we failed. We took a job for money.”

“That we might have taken anyway,” Vaste said. “This is not some lily-white pure league, Cyrus. We kill beasts, armies, enemies. We fight for a living.”

“We’re supposed to adventure,” Cyrus said dryly.

“And if the world were a perfect place filled with no danger, we might not have to do those things,” Vaste replied as they drew near to the end of the steps. There were voices echoing through the foyer, the guards on duty still raucous in the night. “But it is not. We live in a world where powers are at war, where nature itself would turn on you and send chipmunks after your genitalia.”

Cyrus stared up at Vaste with his mouth slightly open. “I don’t think that was nature.”

“Who says that today is the first time angry chipmunks have attacked me in such a manner?” Vaste replied. “You cannot tell me that a lion of the Gradsden Savanna would pass on eating you if given a choice.”

“I have been told they do eat people if given a chance,” Cyrus conceded. “Your point is taken. We live in an unsafe world. But we were to be an example, to stand above the rest.”

“It’s really hard to help the people who are down on their knees,” J’anda said quietly, “when you’re busy standing above them in example.”

“I’m not a leader,” Cyrus said. He took the last few steps, boots clinking all the way. “Not for this guild, not for—”

They entered the foyer, and the raucousness ceased. There were men and women standing around the center crest, warriors and rangers. Farther back he could see a few spell casters clad in robes. They went silent when they saw him, a hush that spread over the room quickly as every face turned to look at him. The warriors in their plate and leather armors straightened, snapping almost to attention. The rangers, woodsmen and women, usually a rabble at best, stood stiff with their bows at their sides. Cyrus could see the spell casters in their robes in the corners, fewer than their counterparts that battled with steel and wood but still in some approximation of military attention.

“As you were,” Cyrus said, and he could feel the tension in the room release, though it did not become as loud as before he had entered.

“I can see why you think you’re not a leader,” Vaste said, nodding his head subtly and slowly. “Obviously no one respects or listens to you.”

“I don’t—” Cyrus stopped as he heard the clank of plate boots on the stairs behind him. Vara emerged from the stairwell, a navy cloak wrapped around her shoulders. “Vara?”

“I’m going out for a bit,” she said, shouldering her way past Vaste.

“The gates are closed for the night,” Cyrus said.

“They will open for me,” Vara replied without looking back. She walked across the crest, through the partition and down the middle of the guard force as she made for the front doors.

“Will they open for her?” Vaste asked.

“Probably,” Cyrus said, watching her go. “I hear tales of her wrath and wroth among the newer members. I doubt any of them are true, but they spread like fireboils among troll whores in any case—”

“Hey,” Vaste said, “I’ll have you know that fireboils don’t just spread among troll whores. They’re perfectly happy to foist themselves upon normal folk, too.”

“You would know,” J’anda said.

“I don’t want to be Guildmaster,” Cyrus said, spinning to look at the two of them, now standing between him and the stairwell.

“No one who actually wants to run for the office should by any means ever be elected to it,” Vaste said. “We want you because you don’t want to run.”

“Is this that famed troll logic I’ve heard about?” Cyrus asked. “Because it is not exactly winning me over.”

“Bear with me,” Vaste said. “Whether you want to admit it or not, the Guildmaster of Sanctuary is a powerful role. They would hold immense sway over the single largest guild in Arkaria, and one of the most powerful armies in the land. Whoever sits at the chair at the head of our table has the power to help decide the outcome of wars, assist lands in grip of famine, and help make wealthy the members of this guild. It is an awesome responsibility.”

“I keep waiting for you to stop sounding serious,” Cyrus said.

“You’ll be waiting a while,” Vaste said. “This is the single most important event in our guild’s recent history, because whoever sits in that chair will help steer our course. Anyone who desires the power inherent in that role is immediately suspect in my mind. The officers we have now are largely the same ones we have had since before the days when we had that much power. They remain—for the most part—uncorrupted by the influence at hand.

“Anyone who steps forward to claim that role will have a motive,” Vaste said. “And the motive stated by them to go after the Guildmaster’s seat may not be the one that sits within their heart. That scares me. I dwell on it and have for months now, since the day I realized we would have to elect a new Guildmaster. Much as I might want to postpone it, we cannot wait any longer. So now we need a leader uncorrupted by the power at hand, someone who will make the right decisions, someone for whom the job is an unwelcome task rather than an opportunity to expand their reach.”

“We need someone like you,” J’anda said. “Someone who would do it for the right reasons—even if they didn’t want to be in the chair.”

Cyrus let out a slow breath, felt it drain out of him. “I don’t want to. Truly, I don’t.”

“Then ask yourself,” Vaste said. “Who do you trust with the most powerful independent army in the land?”

“I already said—”

“Nyad could deploy Sanctuary’s armies to aid her father in unpleasant and dangerous battles,” Vaste said. “Ryin is a contrarian who would intervene in nothing, even when sorely needed. Erith is a self-indulgent and somewhat spoiled woman whose personal vanity occasionally eclipses her better judgment. Longwell is a man in the clutches of a depression over the loss of his land, which is still fresh in his heart—and which he might do anything to reclaim. J’anda is—”

“J’anda is … unavailable,” the enchanter said. “For reasons of health—and other duties.”

Cyrus stared flatly at him. “How much longer do you have left?”

J’anda smiled at him. “I am not entirely sure. A few years, I think. Less if I push myself too much. Which is why I pass on this opportunity to put more strain on my body.”

Cyrus looked to Vaste. “And you?”

Vaste stared back at him, but Cyrus could see the troll’s eyes cloud. “Even if I were to win—which is not certain, because I am a troll among you people who rightly fear my kind,” he held up a hand as though he could ward away Cyrus’s protests to the contrary, “I cannot trust myself with this power, either.” His face darkened. “My first instinct after what we’ve seen and heard today would be to deploy our army into the heart of Gren, to sack and burn the town and slaughter every slaver we came across. And as satisfying as that would be, the cost would be … great.” He seemed to come back to himself, his face going slack in the torchlight, shadows covering his eyes. “I am something of a self-hating troll, I think. It would be best if I were to not be in command of an army, especially if my own people continue to do … what I think they’re doing. The day we deal with them, it will require a more judicious approach than I am capable of.”