Part 5 (1/2)
”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.