Legends of the War (War of the Magi Book 3) Page 18

  She had to kill Bahamut. She had to do it alone. Or at least without other humans.

  She stormed out of the room, trying to shake the self-hatred from her mind. She stomped out the carpet and shoved the doors open. The guards stood at attention, having barely cleaned a single brick along the wall. Fear crept over their faces. Good.

  These guards would not play a role in battle. But they would bring the dragon out. She would use them as bait. And when that happened, she would get what she craved.

  “Take that armor off,” she snapped. “You don’t work for the empire anymore. You work for me.”

  The men removed their armor with some delay, wondering if this would result in their deaths. When Artemia screeched in frustration, her anger still readily apparent, they did so much quicker.

  “You will find some Dragon Hunter’s Guild equipment in a storage room to the left when you walk into the guild. You have two minutes. Go!”

  The guards hurried, somehow finding the ability to run once more, and disappeared from sight.

  God, how Artemia hated that she had suppressed that side of her for so long. How she despised that even after all this time, she had not gotten rid of her low self-confidence. She hated that the mask she wore had not merged with her true self to become her actual face.

  It’s all your fault, Auron. You made me this way. You lied to me, made me feel worthless, and said I had no future. You turned me into this!

  Nothing had changed. Her lies, her actions, and her aura might have fooled other people, but they had not fooled her. I must kill Bahamut. Kill Bahamut. Kill Bahamut. Kill. That. Dragon.

  The guards returned hastily, some of them putting their clothes on as they walked forward. They all had swords at the hip, quivers on their back, and small shields.

  “Discard the shields,” Artemia snapped, her tone revealing her inner psyche’s state. “We never use them on hunts and they burn after one breath of fire. Better to have full control of your weapons in this fashion.”

  The guards didn’t so much as grunt when they tossed their shields to the ground.

  “Now, go into town and find me a horse. I want one within ten minutes.”

  The guards again rediscovered the ability to run and hurried into town, about a five minute walk from the guild. She exhaled heavily upon their departure. She glanced at Ifrit, Shiva, and Odin, all maintaining some distance. The phoenix soared over Mathos, also keeping a safe amount of space.

  She knew she could never talk to them about what went on in her mind. Actually, she couldn’t talk to anyone about what went on inside her. To do so would reveal weakness that others would exploit. Right now, all that mattered was retaining the power she had. Exposing vulnerability would mean exposing an opportunity for the guards to overthrow her or the monsters to remove her as their leader.

  But, perhaps for the first time since she had killed her brother, she realized that all of her actions had led to her having no allies. She had soldiers and she had mercenary monsters, but she did not have allies.

  Well, so be it. The battle for supreme power usually didn’t require friendships or truces. It didn’t make for a very democratic process. Supreme power could only come to one person, and it had to be her.

  She would indulge in her worst impulses to get that power. If she remained alone and isolated as a result, fine. She hadn’t spend her adult life murdering her closest threats just to make peace when she’d come so close to accomplishing her goals. I spent my childhood alone. I’ve spent my adult life alone. I can spend my time as ruler of all alone.

  The guards returned with a large black steed, clearly not as large as Odin’s horse but one that fulfilled her purpose in sending the guards into town. She’d ride the horse just to mock the soldiers, and when it or the men fell, she’d ride Odin’s horse.

  “We depart Mathos now,” Artemia said. “Keep up. If you fall behind, I will not turn around to help you. One of the monsters will execute you immediately. Understand?”

  The soldiers nodded. Artemia jerked the reins of the horse and had it move at a slow trot to the north. As eager as she was, she also wanted to delight in making the soldiers work some to keep up, letting them believe it was possible.

  She looked at the city of Mathos as she departed. Before she’d entered the guild, she figured she would just leave it be. Now, though, she wanted to see it burn. She wanted to see everything burn.

  She didn’t want to see anything stand. She could only have power if nothing threatened to overthrow her. Better that nothing should remain of anything with power or organizational skills than for her to claim authority over it. If that meant destroying every city and town in the world, leaving every human a homeless mess, so be it.

  She wanted the city to burn. She wanted the empire to burn. She wanted the world to burn.

  She wanted her past to burn. She wanted her brother to burn in the afterlife. Burn, burn, burn.

  Artemia snickered. It would make for a delightful scene and opera, a chorus of screaming, dying voices begging for mercy.

  Just before leaving town, she stopped, looking at the men. She had forgotten one minor detail.

  “Grab enough food for me for five days and you all for two days,” she said. “And don’t you dare try and smuggle some for yourselves. That will result in an instant death. Rob a house if you have to. Ten minutes, go!”

  The men scattered as quickly as Artemia had given the order. One of them just barged straight into the nearest house. A scream from a woman came, and the soldier emerged with what looked like several pounds of meat right after. Artemia wanted him to go back and kill the woman, for her screams aggravated her, but to do so would waste time.

  The remaining soldiers returned from their looting just a couple minutes later. Artemia had what she wanted.

  “Good,” she said. “Now, let’s move.”

  Whatever their future was, she couldn’t say. Probably a painful, slow death at the hand of fatigue. Yes, that’s better than death by my monsters. The same could go for Mathos.

  Artemia suspected her mind might be a little too hungry of the power she might have, but the more she thought on it, the more delight it gave her. Fires dancing across a city. A symphony of screams. The dance of the dying. Oh, how she couldn’t wait to see it all. Her rule would be a monument to non-existence and destruction.

  And, most of all, to her supreme power as a shaper of worlds.

  CHAPTER 15: ERIC

  In the morning, Eric rose with Abe. He did not even wait for breakfast to come, for he had more pressing issues—getting Zelda and Yeva out without detection. Tetra, he imagined, would not pose a problem despite her status as the most wanted person in all of Hydor. She looked so different than she did as Kara that she could easily pass as a magi rounded up, so long as she did not speak and reveal the similarities between her voice from before to now.

  But Yeva had warned Eric the night before that she and Zelda had become too well-known in the empire for their escape of a brutal ceremony designed to wipe out the Shadows of the Empire. Zelda, especially, had cast an unbelievably deadly fire spell that wiped out a significant portion of the guards. Every guard would not just know what they looked like, but the individual details of their faces that distinguished them.

  Eric would do whatever it took to take care of those two. He sympathized with Zelda and Yeva—he’d never met anyone else who had their mother murdered. He promised that they would get whatever they wanted.

  Yeva… she was a particularly interesting one. He knew how she felt about him. He knew she was attracted to him. But after Kara, and given the current mission at hand, he didn’t want to go too far into anything.

  But he remembered what Abe had said about love blossoming during war. He wouldn’t actively pursue anything, not as long as Artemia lived and Eric would have to fight. But he also wouldn’t resist any moments of love, knowing that he could die at any moment if Artemia sent one of her monsters back, and he didn’t want to die not having had
a genuine romance before.

  Those thoughts could wait, however, once they got on the docks. Right now, they had one final hurdle to clear in Caia.

  “We should head straight for the docks,” Eric said. “I spoke with Yeva before the end of the night. To go into the library will only draw attention. She passed on the word to the magi to meet us by the ships.”

  “And you do not think having four magi show up who have not been rounded up by the soldiers will not draw attention?”

  “Of course it will. But if we meet at the docks, we will have less of a problem than we would trying to get from the library to the docks.”

  “That is a fair point. But we are still fighting between two unfortunate options.”

  Eric knew the truth of that statement. But really, the last few months had just felt like one giant exercise in deciding between two terrible options and picking the less painful one.

  “If we wanted a good option, we would’ve never left Mathos in the first place.”

  He nodded to guards as he walked, moving at an elegant pace that maximized his speed. He did not want to walk fast or run for fear of drawing suspicion, but his walk did not exalt in the praise and adulation he received. In some ways, he tried to mirror his walk when he had last left Caia on a boat. Except last time, Abe had to pry me away from some attractive women. Now, such a woman will join us on the boat.

  But focus, Eric, focus. Worry about that later.

  They made their way past the library. Eric tried to watch out of his peripheral vision for any of the magi to acknowledge him, but no one appeared, not even in the shadows. Eric chose to see that as a positive sign that they had already gone ahead to the docks.

  Eric and Abe came to the docks, deserted for all but one medium-sized ship. Mercifully—perhaps because Emperor Syrast no longer lived—they had a far better ship than the one the empire had provided on his journey a month or so ago to Dabira. The stability of this ship looked much sturdier, guards cleaned it as he approached, and it looked to have enough size to fit all of them.

  “Eric, Abe.”

  Eric turned. He did his best not to hide his troubled expression at seeing Arthur, the general from the day before. Getting the magi on board would make for a much more difficult task than if anyone else came to greet him. Arthur alone would probably present some problems as it was.

  “Welcome. I am glad that we can provide you with such a ship.”

  “It is my pleasure,” Eric said, shaking his hand. He noticed that Arthur seemed to have a tighter grip than yesterday. He tried not to think anything of it, but the smile on the general’s face didn’t exactly come across as friendly. “It will be a greater pleasure if we are able to stop Artemia and end this madness once and for all.”

  “I could not agree more,” the general said as he crossed his arms. “Before you go, I do need to outline a few things.”

  “Of course,” Eric said.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Yeva and Zelda peering from around a corner of a street perhaps a dozen feet away. He could not acknowledge them, but he felt sure they had seen him. The general’s robes made him easy to spot, and Eric made sure he stood just barely enough away that someone in Yeva’s position could see him.

  “One, remember you are handling imperial property on this journey. Though our great Emperor Syrast has fallen, the army has made sure to maintain order until we can implement a more permanent plan going forward. I would suggest not treating this vessel as your personal toy.”

  “It would be in all of our interests to keep this ship in fine condition,” Eric said. “You need not worry about that.”

  He mentally prepared himself for a confrontation. Everything Arthur said sounded like a preamble to harsh words that might present a problem. Eric just hoped if it got bad enough, the magi would respond quickly.

  “Good, you are as wise as I thought despite your youthful age.”

  Eric chose not to see that as an insult.

  “Next. Unfortunately, our guards could not find any magi last night. We scoured the city, but everyone ably demonstrated that they did not have that cursed blood.”

  You didn’t find them? Or you didn’t bother searching? I know you didn’t search one place, at least. And how would they even demonstrate such a thing?

  “It is a testament to the departed Emperor Syrast’s reign that he has wiped out the magi.”

  “You found Kara?”

  Those did not seem like wise words, because Arthur’s sinister smile faded in favor of something more aggrieved. Eric wished he’d chosen that topic in a more tactful manner.

  “No,” Arthur said. “But if she is not in the open, even with our search party, then she is not inflicting further harm. Eventually, we will find her. But if we do not, then we will accept her being unable to render an assault upon our great city. Perhaps you have her, and if so, remember my words from yesterday, though I do not see how you would have her. Nevertheless, ignoring this tangent, I tell you this so you and Abraham understood the situation. If you need magi, you will need to find them in Mathos.”

  Eric tried to understand what the general’s words meant. Had they truly searched and found no one? Had they searched, found some, and then killed those magi? Or had they not even searched at all, preferring to remain in the “safe grounds” of the palace?

  Or perhaps they had some other middle ground.

  “I understand.”

  “Now, that covers all of the known statements. However, Eric, I do have some questions about last night before you depart.”

  Eric, rather unconsciously, moved his hand closer to his sword. He did not grip it, but he also would have an extra half-second to defend himself if need be—perhaps a necessary move in this spot.

  “I am ready to answer them,” Eric said. He would not let the general force him into a position of weakness. He would remain strong, no matter what.

  “We noticed that you and Abe disappeared into the library some time shortly after dinner. While this would seem a bit perplexing, we figured perhaps you wanted to find a good book to relax to over the course of the evening. However, you did not emerge from the library for several hours. Abe, at least, came back after an hour, although even that drew some suspicion from us.”

  Eric did his best not to swallow, shift his weight, or fidget. He hoped that Zelda or Yeva would notice his situation, although he figured as soon as swords came out, they would too. You called it, Abe. But I think they’re in a position to do something.

  “We want to know, Eric, why were you in there for so long?”

  Eric had not felt sure what to say at first, but the length of Arthur’s ramble gave him a chance to speak.

  “The palace is chaotic, justifiably so, with the death of the emperor. It has happened too recently, and the pall over the entire building is one that can bring the soul down into the depths of its own personal hell. I did not wish to surround myself with that atmosphere, at least temporarily. So I chose to read in there as best as I could.”

  Arthur’s smug smile had returned. He crossed his arms, looked at him, looked at Abe, and muttered, “I see.”

  “Curious that you would want to read in a darkened library with no torches or anything of that nature,” Arthur said.

  Eric refused to let the believability of his story drag him down. He stood firm. He would drive this story into the ground until Arthur left or he had dispatched the general. The latter was a possibility he girded himself for more and more.

  “What were you reading?”

  Eric let out an “uh” and immediately knew he’d blown his cover. He kept going, but he now had his hand all but on the hilt of his sword.

  “The history of the empire,” Eric said.

  “That was the title of the book?”

  “Yes,” Eric said.

  Arthur snorted. He made a motion with his hand. Suddenly, ten guards showed up behind Abe and Eric. Eric turned and casually shrugged, as if he knew this would happen, but he now hope
d that wherever the magi were, they saw what was happening. He’d need them soon.

  “You don’t believe me,” Eric said, more of a statement than a question.

  “Call it validating your story,” Arthur said. “While you are a hero and you have done much to help this city, I also know that you are, shall we say, at least not profoundly disturbed by what the magi are capable of. Your failure to see them as an enemy is something that I must take into consideration when deliberating the veracity of what you say.”

  He nodded to one of the ten guards, who stepped forward to the general’s side.

  “Private, what did you find?”

  “Sir, we found no books on any of the tables.”

  Eric thought of fighting the words with his counters, but decided now he should just shut up and focus on an escape plan.

  “I see,” Arthur said. “Perhaps we can give Eric the benefit of the doubt and say he returned the books he read to their respective shelves. He does seem like the kind of boy who would have his stories in order.”

  Eric took a deep breath through his nose as he flexed his fingers. He hated the title of “boy.” He knew what the general sought to do.

  “Anything else which you discovered?”

  “No sir,” the soldier said. “We saw the entrance to the former Shadows’ base, but the smell of smoke and fire still defines it. No one could have gone there.”

  “Could have?” Arthur said. “Could have? Or did? Did you confirm that no one was down there?”

  “I… no, no sir, I apologize.”

  “I see.”

  Then, in one swift motion, Arthur yanked his sword out and stabbed his own guard through the throat. Eric took a step back, going near Abe, just as Arthur pointed his sword at Eric.

  “You may have saved this town, but you will not doom it by working in cohort with the magi,” Arthur said. “I had my suspicions of you the day you set foot in here from Mathos, boy. The only reason I never acted on it was because the emperor wanted to hold you up as the paragon of victory over the magi. Well, the emperor is no longer here.”