Heretic (The Sanctuary Series Book 7) (53 page)

Cyrus looked around the room. “This really is quite similar to—”

There was little sound from the stairs below now, and a clatter of feet on the steps came loud a second later, as Terian came up. “Well, that was no easy thing,” the paladin said, brandishing his sword. “How did you f—” His eyes fell on the chainmail and the scorch mark. “I hope like hell that’s Urides.”

“It’s what’s left of him,” Vaste said. “We thought about saving you some, but figured it was just best to be done with it.”

“We did a similar thing to the rest of the Council of Twelve,” Terian said, nodding at the scorch. He frowned at the chainmail. “Is that quartal?”

“I assume so,” Cyrus said, “since it resisted all our efforts to burn it to ash.”

Terian looked at it for a moment and then pointed. “Is anybody going to take that? Because if not, I could use—”

“I doubt it would fit me,” Vara said, turning away.

“I doubt it will fit him,” Vaste said, waving at Terian. “Did you see the paunch on Urides? Better start eating more if you want it to fit comfortably, Lepos.”

“We should leave,” Larana whispered, still turning over the staff in her fingers. She spoke normally, though still hushed.

“Good advice,” Terian said, scooping up the chainmail under his arm. He looked right at Cyrus. “Unless you can think of any reason to stay?”

Cyrus’s mind was muddled, his eyes drawn back to the blackened place where Pretnam Urides had met his end, a thousand thoughts warring for his attention at once. One won out over the others. “I think we’ve done enough for today,” he said at last, nodding. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“You have a lovely home,” Isabelle said after appearing with Vara in the Tower of the Guildmaster a few days later. Vara had left with a heavy escort, under illusion, meeting Isabelle with an escort of her own at the portal outside Pharesia. Cyrus had been waiting nervously for them to return together, and now that they were here, both sisters standing before him, he felt relief wash over him after hours of tension.

“You didn’t see the tower when you were here for the wedding?” Vara asked, taking a step away from her sister, her boots echoing against the floor. A placid breeze swept through with the breath of summer, as lovely a day as Cyrus could have envisioned, from across plains clear of so much as a convoy.

“I did not,” Isabelle said with the trace of a smile. “I think we were rather busy, you recall, with the wedding and all the festivities it entailed.”

“Well, here you are now,” Cyrus said, sweeping a hand around to encompass the four open balconies around them. “If you ever get to the top of the Citadel in Reikonos, you’ll find a very similar bit of architecture.”

“Will I?” Isabelle arched an eyebrow. “I suppose there’s a story behind that?”

“Not one that I know,” Cyrus said, feeling like he was standing as an island in the middle of the room. He took a short walk over to the sitting area and lowered himself onto the seat. “Would you like to sit down?”

Isabelle smiled gracefully. “I wouldn’t mind at all.” She threaded her way over and took the seat opposite him, lowering herself into the chair as she smoothed her robes and vestments.

Vara followed her and seemed to hesitate, torn between the choice of sitting on the couch next to her husband or in the chair next to her sister. Finally, she moved to squeeze in next to Cyrus.

Isabelle watched them with amusement. “I recall a time in a carriage when you would not sit next to him, and so I had to.”

Vara made a noise of impatience. “It wasn’t that I wouldn’t sit next to him, it was that squeezing two people in armor next to each other in a confined space is unpleasant. Better you than me, at the time.”

“And now?” Cyrus asked, looking askance at her.

“Well, now I’m married to you, so I can no longer foist that responsibility off on others,” Vara said with a straight face and a twinkle in her eye.

“I see the honeymoon is not yet over,” Isabelle said, adjusting her robes again.

“If you can call being declared heretic and set upon by the largest armies in Arkaria a honeymoon, then no, hopefully it is over,” Cyrus said dryly.

“It seems to be drawing to a close,” Isabelle said lightly. “I have been listening as you asked in your last letter, and I have many things to report from Reikonos.”

“Oh, good,” Vara said, “and I was worried that you would have nothing more than idle gossip of washerwomen in the fountain at the square.”

“I have that as well,” Isabelle said, tapping her long ears idly. “But more than that … Amarath’s Raiders is done. Their guildhall is nearly emptied, and almost all their number have come to us or Burnt Offerings.”

“Oh, good, treachery divided,” Vara said.

“There are no surviving officers save one,” Isabelle said, plowing onward, “and it was a warrior of my acquaintance that came to us only two days ago. He seems genuinely repentant, or at least his ambition hides his feelings on the matter—”

“You didn’t accept him as an applicant,” Vara said.

“We did,” Isabelle said with a shrug. “It would be foolish not to; it’s not as though Amarath’s Raiders remains anything approaching a cohesive whole any longer. They have no goals, no purpose. They’re utterly incapable of causing further trouble for you, like a headless man.” She smiled once more. “But they have very well-equipped people.”

“Now I see your own ambitions laid plain,” Vara said.

“I didn’t turn away Sanctuary members who have applied to us in past months, either,” Isabelle said, without a hint of shame. “Endeavor needs all the help it can get.”

“For what?” Cyrus asked, watching his sister-in-law carefully.

“We still mean to return to the upper realms, of course,” she said. “While the war and our part in the defense of Reikonos may have distracted us, we are still one of the top guilds, and our reason for being is … well, is obviously not so altruistic as yours.” Vara rolled her eyes, and Isabelle caught her. “Sister mine,” Isabelle said, gently chiding, “recall that before you ran across the virtuous halls of Sanctuary, you pursued the same purpose as I do.”

“Indeed,” Vara said, “and now I do not.” She stiffened in her seat. “So Amarath’s Raiders is done, then. What of—”

“The Confederation?” Isabelle asked. “The outlying districts have announced their withdrawal and the army is essentially gone from where it had been camped outside Reikonos. What remains is barely enough to defend the city were it invaded, which, fortunately, seems unlikely.”

“I’d heard Frost, Waterman and Coulton were living up to their part of the bargain,” Cyrus said, nodding. He’d spoken with the governors when he’d returned from Reikonos after killing the Council of Twelve. Their relief had been obvious, save for Karrin Waterman’s, whose reaction was hidden under her steely veneer. “That they broke the Confederation army is also welcome news.”

“Not for the Mayor of Reikonos, I daresay,” Isabelle replied with a smirk. “The poor chap is trying to hold the Confederation together through diplomacy.”

“How goes that?” Vara asked, tensing in her unease.

“Better than I would have expected,” Isabelle said. “He is approaching it from a considerably weakened position, after all, pledging to considerably loosen the hold the capital had been exercising, returning power to the Governors, remaking the Council of Twelve in a much more egalitarian fashion, as they were started, rather than as the tyrannical oligarchs they had become under Pretnam Urides.”

“What’s the likelihood he succeeds?” Cyrus asked, leaning down, elbow clinking against his greaves.

“I don’t rightly know,” Isabelle said with a light shrug. “The Confederation is tied together tightly through trade, interdependent, so I can’t see the districts making war upon each other even if they broke apart. I expect we won’t see that matter settled for some time, but one thing I can tell you is that the Leagues,” she smiled delivering this news, “seem to have forgotten about you for the moment. I have friends in the Healers’ Union, and you have gone from top priority to … well, no priority. Whatever drive there was to apprehend you seems gone, and I doubt you would find yourself in peril even were you to set foot in Reikonos right now.”

“I don’t intend to test that assumption presently,” Cyrus said, letting out a breath as he leaned back in his seat. “Not that I have much reason to go there at the moment.”

“Plus,” Vara said grimly, “there is still the matter of Goliath, and let us not forget they have returned to their guildhall in the city.”

“Oh, but they haven’t,” Isabelle said, raising an eyebrow.

“Beg pardon?” Cyrus asked, straightening in his seat.

“They haven’t returned at all,” Isabelle said, “in fact, they’ve withdrawn; their guildhall in Reikonos sits empty once more.” She looked at them both, her features stiff. “Goliath has disappeared.”

The rest of their visit with Isabelle had been awkward, made so by Cyrus and Vara’s hesitant glances at each other. Cyrus, for his part, knew what was in his mind as Isabelle tried to make pleasant conversation for over an hour with little response from either.

Goliath is still out there
, he thought.
They’re out there in the weeds, hiding, waiting to come back at us like the snakes they are.

When Isabelle finally disappeared in her return spell, presumably having had enough of their terse, unsociable conversation, Cyrus stalked off to the northern balcony, Vara just behind him.

“Dammit,” Cyrus said under his breath as Vara drew up beside him, taking position next to him at the rail.

“My sentiments exactly,” Vara said, leaning over on the rail. “This leaves us in something of a bind.”

“Twenty thousand troops, and their leaders filled with nothing but enmity for us,” Cyrus said, shaking his head.

“We outnumber them now, though,” Vara said. “And apparently Malpravus hates only me.”

“Rhane Ermoc despises me,” Cyrus said, shaking his head. “And I’m not fond of him, either.” He put his hand on Rodanthar’s hilt. “Praelior belongs to me, and I mean to have it back.” He stood there for a moment, staring over the deep green plains, summer taking hold of the lovely grasses with its wind. “I wonder why Malpravus hates only you?”

“Perhaps he finds in you a kindred spirit,” Vara said, a smile crooking the corner of her mouth as she stared out across the Plains of Perdamun. “Regardless, it seems like they have retreated beyond the bounds of the map to their jungle hideaway.”

“Scuddar knows where they are,” Cyrus said, looking down at the wall far below. He could see the red robes of the desert man against the grey stone barrier between Sanctuary and the plains. “He told me so on the night we were waiting for you under the Citadel,” Cyrus said in response to Vara’s curious look. “I meant to have him draw out a map as best he could remember it, but in the wake of those events—well, there’s simply been too much else on my mind.”

“Such as?” Vara asked. They hadn’t had a proper talk in the days since everything had broken loose, having been too busy watching the wall and holding meetings of the Sanctuary Council, most of which seemed to hinge on Ryin still being upset at being uninformed about the course of their plans.

“When I was in the ambush in Idiarna,” Cyrus said, nodding absently to the north, “that dark knight of Goliath’s—Sareea—she used the return spell.” He flashed a look at her. “I think we can expect heresy from Malpravus when next we meet as well.”

“That’s … concerning,” Vara said. “Or at least it concerns me.”

“It should concern anyone who worries about Goliath,” Cyrus said. “I haven’t mentioned it in Council because … well …”

“We’ve been busy hashing over other matters and bearing the brunt of Ryin’s ire,” Vara said with a nod.

“I was going to say, ‘Because I’m not looking forward to Vaste launching out of his seat as if he had a water spell cast out of his arse,’” Cyrus said, shaking his head. “They’re not short of spellcasters. If they’ve taught theirs as we’ve taught ours, it’ll be a fearsome battle when next we meet.”

“Aye,” Vara said. “And here I thought you were merely worried over what Pretnam Urides had goaded you with on the night we confronted him.”

Cyrus frowned. “You heard that?”

“Dimly,” she said, her hand coming up to feel the side of her head where Urides had bashed in her skull. “It was all very dreamlike, as though I were in a stupor, nothing but black before my eyes.”

“What did you catch?” Cyrus asked.

“Some uncharitable taunting about your father and mother, and how he ultimately claimed no small amount of credit for their deeds before turning the entirety of Arkaria against Quinneria,” Vara said, looking down. “Something about a long life, as well.”

“Yes, I wondered what he meant by that,” Cyrus said, frowning.

“But not about the taunting?” she probed, and he noticed.

“You think I let him—” he looked around, as if to reassure himself that Vaste was not present, “—get my goat?”

Vara smirked. “Urides presented himself to us as both friend and foe at various points in our acquaintance. And yet at the end, he made no more pretense—he had used us until we no longer suited any purpose, and then discarded us—”

“Except that doesn’t make sense,” Cyrus said, reaching under his helm to scratch his forehead. “We weren’t a threat to Reikonos just because I could suddenly cast spells—because the rest of us could suddenly cast spells—”

“You don’t have to be an actual threat or have ill intent for someone to assume such.”

“I suppose,” Cyrus said, not quite mollified by that. “But he didn’t even try to use us. I mean, we didn’t leave on terribly bad terms when last he parted; he might have had need of Sanctuary once more in the future, but he called us enemies and turned loose everything on us.”

“Danay was against us,” Vara said, ticking off her fingers one by one, “Goliath and Amarath’s Raiders were easily swayed in that direction as well, and by the time they all made their lurching declaration of hostilities against you, we were down to some two thousand active guildmates—”

“But we still had Emerald Fields and the Luukessians in our pocket,” Cyrus said, shaking his head. “And Terian. I just can’t see it from Urides’s position why he would have opposed us, even with the wind shifting against us from the Kingdom and those other two guilds. He was the lion’s share of their force; without him, they would have had a much harder time opposing us, and it’s clear now that Urides had internal political turmoil to deal with in his own borders.” Cyrus frowned. “I just can’t understand why, as head of the Council of Twelve, he’d go out of his way to make an enemy of us.”