Heretic (The Sanctuary Series Book 7) (23 page)

Cyrus, for his part, glanced at his wife but held his tongue as he cast the spell for himself and the chilly field disappeared, replaced by the stone walls and open doors of the Tower of the Guildmaster.

“That was unbelievably rude,” Vara said before she’d even finished appearing from the spell. “Merrish consents to meet with us after untold waiting—”

“About three months, really,” Cyrus grumbled.

“And you go and make a fool of yourself by butting heads with the man—”

“I saw you looking at his chest, I don’t think I’m the one who made a fool of myself—”

“Well, it would have been hard not to notice, and it’s not as though I sat there with drool dripping out of my mouth as you once did in the Temple of Vidara over a group of bare-chested priestesses several thousand years your senior—”

“Excuse me,” came a soft voice, drawing both of them out of their spat. Terian stood in front of the west-facing balcony, undisguised amusement stretching his lips into a broad smile. “Ahhh. Marriage. Isn’t it grand?”

“What the bloody hell are you doing here?” Vara snapped at him, pivoting as she folded her arms over her chest, making a fortress of herself.

“I,” Terian said, very slowly, very dramatically, “have most excellent news … and something to show you.”

“Marvelous,” Vara said acidly, “show us, then.”

“Can’t do it here,” Terian said, smirking. “You have to come with me to Saekaj.” His eyes danced with unfathomable excitement. “I would tell you what it is, but really … it’s the sort of thing you need to see in order to believe it.”

They huddled awkwardly closely to Terian for his return spell (“I never wished to be this near to you,” Vara said. “I know,” Terian agreed with a knowing smile, “that’s why it’s so marvelous.”), carrying them back to the Grand Palace of Saekaj. Cyrus cast the spell of Eagle Eye upon his vision, the fine wood appointments to the palace becoming visible under the light of his spellcraft.

“Kind of a relief to be able to do this for myself now,” Cyrus said as they strode out through the main doors under a large portico. The sound of rushing water heralded the two enormous waterfalls that emerged from either side of the palace’s facade. A small moat ran in front of them, underneath a bridge that led to immense, wide-open gates. Cyrus could see movement beyond as a carriage rattled to a stop in front of them.

They boarded the carriage wordlessly and it rattled along the dirt and rock path of the cave. The seats were padded but the interior was dark. Cyrus sat next to Vara, both of them staring at Terian, who lazed in Alaric’s old armor against the backrest as though he were ready for a nap, smile of satisfaction draped across his face like he himself was draped across the seat.

“When are you going to tell us what we’re here to see?” Vara asked, more than a little snappishly.

“I’m not,” Terian said with a grin. “I want to see the look on your faces when you lay eyes on my surprise.”

“Hmph,” Vara said, making a snorting noise as she once more folded her arms against her chest. “Months of inaction and now suddenly we have two meetings in one day. Why do you suppose things happen like that?”

“Who else did you meet with?” Terian asked, sitting up straight in his seat.

“Lord Merrish,” Cyrus said, a frown suddenly upon his face. “My wife thinks he’s a tasty morsel.”

Vara focused her eyes on the ceiling of the carriage. “I think your brain would be a tasty morsel for some hungry troll, and your senses have become inflamed by not only your outsized ego but also your raging insecurity.”

“What did he want?” Terian asked.

“For Vara to gawk at his physique, apparently,” Cyrus said.

Vara let out a grunt of distinct impatience. “Goddess, husband, this is not an attractive side of you.”

“Much like your arse,” Terian said, nodding at Cyrus. “Sorry. Maybe it’s just me, but it just doesn’t seem proportioned properly. Too long? I don’t know, maybe it’s the armor—”

Cyrus looked at Vara. “Is it my arse?”

Vara turned her head to stare at him incredulously. “Yes. Yes, it’s your arse. That’s the reason I was looking at a very fit man with his doublet off. But by ‘your arse,’ I mean it as Niamh meant it, that it is the entirety of you, not a singular part of your anatomy which I normally find to be a wonderful handle with which to grasp you—”

“Ooh, I think this carriage ride is suddenly making me queasy,” Terian murmured. “No. No, wait, it was that little revelation, not the ride.”

Cyrus looked out the window as the carriage came to the end of an avenue lined by enormous manors walled off from the street and rattled past smaller row homes all built together. A market lay off to the other side, filled with immense numbers of haggling people and a raucous crowd. “So this is Saekaj. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever really had much chance to look around here. Last time we just sort of marched through, army behind us …”

“And you won’t get much of a look right now, either, except as we pass,” Terian said, seemingly eager to turn the discussion away from Cyrus and Vara’s little spat. “But I will tell you, the markets now are the busiest I’ve ever seen them in my life. Now that we’ve got regularly commerce between Saekaj and Sovar—”

“You didn’t before?” Vara asked, her face pinched.

“Long story, but no,” Terian said, shaking his head. “Anyway, things have changed. They’re better, more stable, less violent and oppressive. The lower chamber, Sovar, is finally starting to prosper after thousands of years of the Sovereign smashing them down. And,” he said brightly, “we’ve begun to open up surface settlements again, reclaiming some of the open territory above and farming it with our own people rather than the slave labor of before. People are establishing homesteads up there, and we’ve got five towns growing under the sky.” He puffed with pride. “Give us a few years and we won’t just be sustaining ourselves on root vegetables, mushrooms, and spiders.”

Cyrus exchanged a tempered look with Vara, whose face was now squeezed with disgust. “Uh … that’s good,” he said, as delicately as he could.

Their reaction did not escape Terian. “I know,” he said. “It sounds bad. Hell, it was bad. But it’s getting better. We’re finally coming out of the dark.”

The carriage rattled as it took a turn and suddenly ran down a steep slope, as though traveling down a mountain. Cyrus braced himself against the sudden force of gravity at his back, threatening to push him toward Terian, who looked quite relaxed. “What the …?” Cyrus muttered.

“Oh, right,” Terian said with a grin visible in the thin slit of his helm. “I knew there was a reason I picked this side of the carriage.” He smiled at Cyrus and Vara’s obvious discomfiture. “So … what did Lord Shirtless want? Surely not just to inflame Vara’s loins?”

“My loins are quite cold at the moment, I assure you,” she said in a tone that left them in no doubt that it was the truth.

“He wants us to dissolve the elven caste system,” Cyrus said, pushing aside the bitterness that he’d felt toward Merrish throughout their discussion. “Also, he knew we were angling for meetings with Lady Voryn and Governor Frost—”

“Whoa,” Terian said in sudden alarm, bending to lean forward even against the weight of gravity, “how’d he know that?”

“I’m not sure, but it worries me,” Cyrus said tightly.

Terian leaned back against the carriage. “That is worrying. Our plans are supposed to be secret.”

Vara sighed. “Did it not occur to you both that he might simply have been led in that direction by Oliaryn Iraid, who in fact pointed us toward the Confederation territories specifically?”

“It occurred to me,” Cyrus said with a nod that Terian matched, “and then I rejected it because worrying about the other ways he—and who knows who else—might have heard about it is so much more ulcerating.”

“Cyrus speaks the truth,” Terian agreed, looking unsettled. “If you’re right, Vara, it presumably costs us nothing that Iraid might have hinted at our plans to a kindred spirit. But imagine for a moment he wasn’t talking to a kindred but someone who would sell us out in a heartbeat to the Leagues. All our planning, all our scheming would come to naught. Goliath and the rest would have ample time to counter us.”

“There seems little we can do about it at present, save for send a message to Iraid asking him if he divulged these details, and requesting he keep his tongue still in the future,” Vara said, “though that might deprive of us of further allies which we sorely need.”

“And might reach the ears of spies, which we sorely do not,” Terian said, settling back in the carriage once more. “So, this thing Merrish wants …”

“Dissolving the elven caste system,” Cyrus said, shaking his head. “Seems the lord is a bit of an egalitarian.”

“It seems the lord is a bit of a fool,” Vara said. “Dismantling the caste system is well nigh impossible.”

Terian smirked in the dim light. “So was the thought of killing a god only just a few short years ago.”

“Not so,” Vara said. “Requiem’s Guildmaster did that very thing, if you recall, some ten thousand years ago, and apparently others did as well, if Alaric and Curatio were to be believed.”

Cyrus frowned. “But that guildmaster used a godly weapon to do so—Ferocis, the Warblade of Bellarum.” Something prickled in the back of his head at that thought.

“Yes, well, there were quite a few of them lying around Arkaria until just a few years ago,” Vara said with a helping of sarcasm as they rattled over a particularly hard bump. “We’re not even traveling past houses anymore. Where are you taking us, exactly?” Her voice rose in mild concern.

“Oh, stop with the suspicion already,” Terian said, shaking his head. He thumped his axe’s haft against the seat behind him. “I’m taking you to our prison, the Depths.”

“And you think that will allay our suspicions?” Cyrus asked him.

Terian shrugged. “Do you need my axe again to feel safe, Davidon? Where’s the trust?”

“I must have left it on the surface,” Cyrus said dryly as the carriage took a turn and Vara bumped against him at the sudden change in direction.

The carriage came to a halt as words were exchanged between the driver and some other party ahead. Cyrus could hear the shouts but could not discern what was being said. After a minute, he heard heavy gates creaking open and the carriage began to move forward again.

“There’s a cessation field over this area,” Terian said, sniffing. “We have some magical prisoners. Using magic in this area would be a bad idea in any case. Guards tend to frown on it because, well, they think it might be an escape attempt, naturally.”

“Naturally,” Vara said without amusement. “Tell us again that you’re not leading us down to our deaths or imprisonment?”

Terian snorted. “If I wanted to do that, I’m pretty sure I could come up with an easier way to go about it.” He pushed the door open as the carriage rattled to a stop. “Assassinate you naked in your bed, perhaps. Call you to a meeting and have warriors sneak invisibly up behind you to cut off your heads before you could draw weapons.” Terian frowned. “Actually, that reminds me—we should start casting cessation spells around us before our meetings in the future. Break invisibility of whoever might be lurking nearby.”

“Clever,” Vara said, giving Cyrus a sidelong glance as she stepped out of the carriage ignoring Terian’s proffered hand. The Sovereign of Saekaj grinned and offered Cyrus a hand down as well. He ignored it as he stepped out of the carriage.

“This way,” Terian said, taking a lantern from one of the guards standing nearby just as Cyrus’s Eagle Eye spell faded and left him straining against the darkness.

Terian led them through exceedingly dark passages, the only light cast by his lantern. They passed guards in light armor who stood to attention as Terian passed. The Sovereign of Saekaj returned their salutes with nods and walked on, boots clanking against hard, tunneled stone.

“This is the mining section of the Depths,” Terian said, leading them forward. “They have a farming section as well, for mushrooms and bitterroot, but this is the place where we put those we loathe most.” He paused, seeming to think it over. “On the other hand, the dung smell in the farming area is … overpowering, at best. Maybe the miners get the better end of the deal, come to think of it.”

“Such a charming nation you lead,” Vara sniffed. “So civilized.”

“How do they punish criminals in elfland?” Terian fired back. “Make them join the unicorn mounted patrol where they’re forced to ride all around your magnificent and bounteous kingdom without a saddle?” He mimed grasping at his hindparts. “‘My overly long arse aches after a hard day’s ride upon the bare back of that ivory beast’!” He grinned at Cyrus. “That’s my impression of you if the elves capture you before the Leagues.”

“We have a prison of our own, you know,” Vara shot back a little hotly. “It is at sea, an island off the coast, and is very isolated, I am told.”

“Yes, I can imagine a temperate island of you mild-souled elves being a real hell,” Terian said. “Probably has a gaming room and everything.” He paused at a crossroads. “Ah, here we are.” He knocked upon a wooden door that Cyrus had not even seen.

The knocking resonated through the passage, much farther than the light cast by the dim lantern. Cyrus squinted, feeling as if there were things just beyond the failing light that were moving in the dark. He could hear the trickle of water and other faint sounds; footsteps in the dark, Vara’s steady breathing. The smell of musty air was ever present in this prison, and it threatened to choke him.

The door rattled open and Terian started to move in. Light filtered out from the open portal as the Sovereign stepped inside. Vara followed cautiously, and Cyrus, annoyed at being last, came in after she had cleared the door. It was shut immediately behind them by a grim-looking guard and locked with a loud click before the guard pocketed the key.

They were in an immense courtyard-like area, probably half the size of the Sanctuary foyer. Tunnels were plowed into the walls around them, mining tunnels held up by wooden supports that ranged from looking very aged to very new. They stood upon a high shelf of rock and looked down upon faces that stared up at them. He saw innumerable dark elves squinting at him, the faint light of three lanterns mounted on the walls shining down on them. Every single one of them was dirty, dirty as if they’d been scrubbed in black over every bit of their faces. There were tables laid out on the floor of the room and steps cut into the rock that descended to them.