The Sanctuary: Warlord Part 5

"And you're mad, are you?" Cyrus asked, taking the invitation proffered to ask the question.

"Spend enough time in Sanctuary and you will be, too, Cyrus Davidon," Cora said, her smile faded, and she scarcely met his eyes as she turned to continue leading them along the way to her home.

When they had been under the trees for hours and hours, Cora came to a sudden stop and turned in the path, cloak swis.h.i.+ng behind her. If not for the frost stone she had pa.s.sed him in the waning hours of twilight, he would not have been able to see under the thick canopy of the jungle.

"This is where we stop," Cora said, looking at each of them in turn.

"Stop for what?" Vara asked. There was a gasping sound from Mendicant, who seemed to be struggling to breathe. The air was close in the jungle, heavy with the humidity and heat, even this long after sundown, as though it were kept in by the ceiling created by the boughs and vines far above them.

"For this," Cora said, and her fingers glowed purple as she cast a spell. Cyrus watched her eyes and not the light as it danced from her fingers to stretch over to Mendicant, who stopped panting and stood up straight as it rolled over him, then to Martaina, whose head rocked back gently when the purple light surged out.

"What the h.e.l.l was that?" Cyrus asked, blinking furiously. He felt as though some strange tiredness had fallen over him for a moment, something beyond the fatigue from the journey. He turned his head to look at Vara but found her frozen like she'd been cast in wax, eyes unfocused and staring straight ahead like there was something ahead in the darkness that had caught her attention.

"I wondered if it would work on you," Cora mused quietly. She glanced at Curatio. "You remain unaffected, I trust?"

"As ever," Curatio said, adjusting the hem of his robes. "You could have made some further mention of it before taking the action, though."

"What action?" Cyrus asked, reaching out to shake Vara's arm. She remained unresponsive, staring off into the distance. "What did you do to us-to them?"

"What she tried to do to us," Scuddar said quietly in the low, menacing voice of a man whose ire had been raised. "was to take our will."

"A man of the desert," Cora said brusquely as though she were gathering her wits about her. "I should have known."

"What did you do?" Cyrus asked, stepping closer to her, cold anger turning the sweaty night cool as goose pimples made their way over the top of his head under his helm.

"She cast a mesmerization spell," Curatio said, holding up a hand to stay Cyrus from any ill-considered action. "In preparation to take all of us under her control with a charm."

"You would have made us your pets?" Cyrus could hear his own voice rise in fury, and his hand fell to Praelior automatically. He heard Scuddar's blade slide out of its scabbard and did not stop him.

"It is necessary," Cora said, still cool as a Northlands night, "in order to preserve the secret path to Amti. Almost no one goes there but with an enchanter guiding them in this way. When the spell is broken, they are left with no memory of how they got to the city. It has kept our people safe thus far from traitors and captives-"

"I don't surrender my will easily," Cyrus said, just barely keeping himself from a poor reaction.

"I have heard that about you," Cora said. "Still, I hope you see our reason for it."

Scuddar's scimitar slid slowly back into its sheath, making a slight screeching noise of blade rubbed against hard leather as it did so. "I do," Cyrus said, letting the sound of the singing sword diffuse a little of his anger. "But I don't have to like it." He chucked a thumb at Vara. "And when she comes out of it, she might well kill you, and I might not stop her."

"I'll deal with Vara's irritation myself," Cora murmured.

"Good," Cyrus said, straightening up as a sizable bead of sweat rolled down his neck, tickling him. "Though I doubt she'll be too pleased with me for letting it happen."

"I can tell her you were ensnared along with her, if you'd like," Cora said airily.

"I'm not lying to her," Cyrus said, folding his arms as his vambraces clanked. He shook his head, breathing out of his nose. "Lead on."

"As you will," Cora said and raised her hand once more, the light of a spell diffusing out of her fingers into the night. "I don't have any blindfolds-"

"I'm not Martaina," Cyrus said, glancing back at Scuddar, whose expression was masked, but his eyes were still narrowed. "I don't know one tree from another."

"Then on we shall go," Cora said, though there was no mistaking the tension in her voice as she started forward again. She walked with a slowness that had not been present before, and Cyrus wondered if she thought she was betraying her homeland by bringing them along unblinded.

"You must understand the threat they exist under here," Curatio said, lagging back to walk with Cyrus. Scuddar's soft footsteps were only a few feet back, and Cyrus knew that the desert man was listening to their conversation.

"I understand the threat," Cyrus said stiffly. "I even understand the means they're using to disguise their presence. But she could have said something before-" He cut himself off.

"I expect they're good and desperate now," Curatio said, lowering his voice even further. "That gambit of paying bounties for the dead t.i.tans a few years ago? It plainly failed."

"Plainly."

"Now their enemy has grown in strength," Curatio said. "Not unlike the Sovereign had these last few years, until you killed him."

"Vara killed him," Cyrus said absently, thinking it through. How do you fight an enemy this large when you're so small, so weak ... "I respect the fact that they're in a corner, but stealing wills is a trick of villains, not the virtuous. There's a reason the Dragonlord didn't hesitate before employing that means on his enemies."

"And you've ordered J'anda to do the same thing on yours," Curatio said with a little sting infused. "In time of war, you do what you need to."

Cyrus digested that for a beat. "She didn't seem too torn up that you couldn't be mesmerized. In fact, she seemed prepared for it."

"Indeed," Curatio said, casting a glance back at Scuddar walking quietly behind them. "It's something of a skill I've developed."

"I haven't developed it as a skill," Cyrus said, watching the healer carefully. "But I can still do it sometimes."

"I've heard that," Curatio said, nodding once, as though that were the end of the conversation.

"How do I do it, Curatio?" Cyrus asked, not taking his gaze off the elf.

"Shouldn't you know that?" Curatio was smiling in the dark, Cyrus was sure of it. "You are the one doing it, after all."

"How did you do it, Scuddar?" Cyrus turned.

The desert man regarded him with careful eyes. "The theft of will is a thing closely guarded against among my people. Great care is exercised in preparing our warriors against being used by a foe in such a way."

"I'd be careful with that one," Curatio said, still smirking, "he's got the bearing of a future Guildmaster already in the way he answers questions."

"Cute," Cyrus said. "No one ever wants to spill the secrets, do they?"

"You're keeping at least one of your own, I suspect," Curatio said slyly, glancing at Cyrus and meeting his eyes for just a flash. "I warned you they would begin to acc.u.mulate."

They walked in silence for a while longer, Cyrus's legs beginning to protest the treatment of the day. Wish I could have brought Windrider. His mind dragged, the fatigue settled in like an army behind defensive preparations. Am I much mistaken, or has today been an unusually heavy one for both heat and questions? The only thing I haven't sweated out is the countless little beads of information prompting me to ask inquiries of Curatio and Cora that they'll doubtless pa.s.s on even answering.

"We're here," Cora announced in a greatly subdued voice as she stopped under a tree trunk the size of a large house. Its roots swept around them in all directions, sticking out of the earth by a good twelve feet in some places.

"Really?" Cyrus tried to look around, but the trunk and roots of the tree stymied his attempt. "Right here?"

"Right here," Cora said and rapped her knuckles against the bark. It sounded ... hollow?

There was a low sound of footsteps, m.u.f.fled, that Cyrus could not determine the origin of, and then a door opened beneath them under the layer of foliage, disturbing the ferns and leaves as it came up. Within the square-shaped opening was an elf with fair skin and dark hair, face muddied and marked with dirt.

"Cora!" he said, dropping out of sight with a thump. "We were wondering when you'd come back; I thought for sure you'd be days yet."

"I am here," Cora said, gesturing for Cyrus to enter the darkened trap door. He eyed her for a moment in consideration before he did so, long enough for Scuddar to brush past him and hold up a hand to halt him. The desert man slid smoothly down the ladder, disappearing into the ground.

"All clear," Scuddar's voice came a few seconds later, louder than Cyrus could recall ever hearing it before.

Cyrus followed Scuddar down a crudely made ladder that was tied with strong twine at every step. The craftsmans.h.i.+p was haphazard even for someone used to the shoddy nature of the construction in Emerald Fields. It was certainly a far cry from the beautiful artisa.n.a.l works of the Elven Kingdom, where even the desks used for the bureaucracy bore carvings on their sides. As he descended, the spare blade he kept under his backplate dug into his spine as the narrow entry tunnel pushed against his back. After a few steps down, the tight s.p.a.ce widened, and Cyrus's armor stopped squeezing him.

When he reached the bottom, Cyrus found himself in a simple room with dirt walls. The elf who had opened the door to them stood waiting, wearing an expression of barely contained enthusiasm. Cyrus looked at him and was looked at in return, the elf dancing back and forth on boots made of some sort of animal skin. "What's your name?" Cyrus asked him.

"Partender," the elf said, and Cyrus stopped himself before asking for a surname only through long practice.

"My name is-" Cyrus began.

"I know who you are," Partender said with barely contained glee, and he pushed a dirty hand forward to be shaken, palm angled slightly upward. "You're the Guildmaster of Sanctuary." He took a sharp breath. "You are legend."

"I don't think I'd go that far." Cyrus regarded Partender's angled hand carefully for a moment before seizing it gently with his gauntlet. He gave it a shake and noted the lad twisted Cyrus's hand to match his own angle. Cyrus went along with it, wondering at the slight change.

"It's how they do it here," Curatio said, feet thumping on the ground as he came off the ladder behind Cyrus. "You might want to clear a s.p.a.ce for the others."

Cyrus moved back as each of his mesmerized guildmates climbed down the ladder in the same dazed fas.h.i.+on that he'd watched them do everything since the spell had fallen over them. He chafed with anger and felt it tug at his lips, threatening to reveal a furious grimace as Vara wordlessly climbed down the ladder to join them, stepping silently off to the side and standing there, immobile and still in a way he had never seen her before.

He shook his head in disgust as Cora followed them down the ladder, pulling the hatch shut behind them. Cyrus could see that it was made of planks of wood, but that the outside had been covered over in some sort of sewn mesh and decorated with flora to disguise it from even the closest observer. "Can you let them loose yet?" Cyrus asked, chafing at the thought of any of them under the control of another person.

"I don't invade their minds," Cora said, brus.h.i.+ng her sleeves off as a small cascade of dirt fell down from the trap door. "I only spin their heart's desire and keep them dwelling in it-"

"That's an invasion of the mind," Cyrus snapped then calmed himself. "Just ... take us where we can be rid of it."

"Very well," Cora said a little roughly, as though she were taking his criticism straight to heart. "This way." She nodded at Partender and led them past him into a dark pa.s.sage at the end of the underground room.

Cyrus followed, heart still full at the sight of Vara struck dumb. He followed along behind her, as though merely keeping in her proximity could somehow help him atone for allowing Cora to abuse her in this way.

They walked down a long and dark pa.s.sage of dirt packed tight around them. It smelled earthy, reminding Cyrus of Fertiss, of Enterra, of a cave in Luukessia where he'd found a portal, and of Fortin's lair up on Rockridge-places he'd walked under the earth and felt it around him. The air turned subtly cooler than it had been out in the jungle, and less heavy with moisture. He did not care for it, though, and was not sorry to see a light ahead.

They came out in a most enormous cylindrical room at the bottom of a spiraling ramp. It took Cyrus a moment to realize the scale of what he was seeing when he came out of the tunnel. The ramp was carved out of the wood of the tree that they stood within, he realized, and it corkscrewed up inside the tree some several hundred feet, with closed doors all along the spiral.

"My G.o.ds," Cyrus said, looking up in awe, torchlight blazing, lighting the place as though it were some keep made entirely of wood. "This is Amti?"

"This is part of Amti," Cora said with a trace of a smile. "Come along." She beckoned him forward and he followed, Vara still beside him, as they climbed the ramp up the inside of the ma.s.sive tree. He wondered at what was behind the doors they pa.s.sed every hundred feet or so. Living quarters, perhaps? If this was a castle tower, that would be them ...

They climbed nearly to the top of the thing where the interior started to taper, and there one of the doors was already open. Cyrus peered into the dark beyond and saw a pa.s.sage akin to the one they'd gone through in the ground. He squinted, the magic aiding his eyes fading after a s.p.a.ce of hours. He thought he could see wood all around in the pa.s.sage.

"This is one of the boughs of this tree," Cora said with a sense of pride. "And this tree is called 'Narr'omn.'"

Cyrus frowned, trying to translate it in his head from elvish. "The hunter's hearth?"

"The hunter's home would be closer to accurate," Curatio said, sweeping his robes close around him as he stared into the pa.s.sage. "Have you added more since last I was here?"

"We have four now," Cora said, smiling. "We added 'Blayy'strodd' and 'Tierreed.'"

Cyrus tried again to make those words make sense in his head. "The water ... uh, bucket? And the grower's basket?"

"Not quite, but near enough," Curatio said with a smile that felt condescending. His skin looked sallow in the torchlight, very different from how he looked under Sanctuary's torches. "The last is called ... Fann'otte, yes?" He looked at Cyrus. "The mining tower, if you will."

"Save me the trouble of attempting to improve my elvish," Cyrus said with a shrug. He looked at Vara again. "Now can we ...?"

"Oh," Cora said and snapped her fingers. "Certainly."

Vara lurched only slightly, as though her footing had suddenly gone uneven, although she hadn't taken so much as a step. Cyrus moved to catch her and grasped her elbow as she recovered her balance. She looked up at him, nearly doubled over, and blinked a few times as her cool blue eyes looked into his. "Oh. There you are."

"Here I am," Cyrus said, concern causing his lips to press closer together than they might normally have. "How do you feel?"

"Quite well," Vara said with a smile, "thanks to you." She blinked and looked at their surroundings, a hint of confusion blossoming on her sculpted features. "Wait ... where are we?"

"Amti," Cyrus said as he relinquished her elbow.

She pulled upright again, and her brows knitted together. "How did ...?" She cast her eyes about until they settled on Cora. "You ..." she said, sounding more than a little irritated.

"I had to mesmerize you," Cora said neutrally. "It is a requirement."

"You could have asked," Vara said, sounding more than a little put out.

"What happened?" Martaina said, brus.h.i.+ng brown hair out of her eyes with a calloused hand. She peered through her fingers. "That was a mesmerization spell?" Her voice sounded far away, encrusted in sleep like eyes after a long rest. "I wouldn't mind going back in for another round of that."

"That was the strangest thing," Mendicant said, quietly, dropping a hand to his chest and scratching his claws against his scales, m.u.f.fled slightly by his robes. "I was ... I felt so ..."

"Happy, yes," Vara said, not sounding remotely in the realm of that particular emotion. "That's the trick of the spell, isn't it?"

"You don't seem quite as ... drowsy as we are," Martaina said, looking at Cyrus and then Curatio in turn.

"Her spell didn't work on me," Cyrus said tautly.

Vara wheeled on him and he saw the fury in her eyes. She looked ready to say something, danger flas.h.i.+ng, but it disappeared almost as abruptly, receding like thunderclouds rolling away under the skies above the plains.

"We're going to talk about this later, aren't we?" Cyrus asked, feeling the tension tighten up his insides.

Vara blew air noiselessly between her lips. "Did you ask her to stop it on my behalf?"

"Many times," Cyrus said.

"He was most concerned for you," Cora affirmed.

"But not for us?" Martaina asked, more than a little sour.