Heroes Die

by Matthew Woodring Stover

  I say into the blank silence, “And here I thought I’d get through the whole day without killing anyone.”

  With a shout the friars’ paralysis breaks. They spring toward me, staves raised—and stop before the dully gleaming pyramidal heads of the Eyes’ crossbow quarrels that are suddenly pointed at them, rather than me.

  Duke Toa-Sytell says, “This man is my prisoner, and I am pledged to deliver him to Ma’elKoth.” His colorless voice leaves no doubt that he’d give the order to fire. “Stand back. A cocked crossbow is a delicate mechanism; if my men become nervy, one may fire by accident.”

  One of the friars, older than the others, maybe even my age, extends his staff horizontally, like a barrier. “Let us waste no time. You, go to the Healing Brother. The Khryllian may be able to save the Ambassador’s life.”

  The younger friar bolts through the hall door, and his footfalls fade away.

  I say, “He won’t make it.”

  The older friar meets my eyes, and shrugs.

  We all stand there for a minute or two and watch Creele die.

  In some of my old books, I’ve read about certain blows that are supposed to cause instant death—especially one to the nose that’s supposed to drive bone splinters from the fragile sinus into the brain through one of the strongest bones in the human body, the frontal bone of the skull. This is a puerile fantasy, but sometimes I wish it were true.

  In reality there’s no such thing as instant death; different parts of the body shut down at different rates, in different ways, shuddering and jittering, spasming, or simply relaxing into lifelessness. If you’re unfortunate enough to be conscious, it’s got to be a pretty hideous experience.

  Creele is conscious.

  He can’t speak, because his larynx shattered when I broke his neck and his lungs are filling with blood, but he’s looking up at me. There’s raw terror in his eyes; he’s begging me to tell him this isn’t happening, not to him, not now, as he feels himself bounce and shudder, smells his bowels and bladder releasing. But it’s too late, and I wouldn’t take it back if I could.

  Sometimes dying men ask, either with words or only with their eyes: Why? Why me? Creele doesn’t ask; he knows the answer.

  It’s because I’m an old-fashioned guy.

  Toa-Sytell says musingly, “You are an extraordinarily lethal man. Don’t bother to hope that you’ll catch me within arm’s length.”

  I meet his eyes, and we measure each other.

  His lips show the barest ghost of a smile, and he glances down at Creele’s stilling body. “It’s so rare as to be almost unique, to meet a man who lives up to his reputation. Which do you think is more dangerous: the intellectual—” His gaze flicks up to match mine once again. “—or the idealist?”

  “Don’t insult me. Or him.”

  “Mm.” He nods. “We’ll be going, then.”

  One of the younger friars speaks, his voice level and inplacable. “You’ll never be safe, Caine of Garthan Hold. There is nowhere you can hide from Monastic vengeance.”

  I meet the eyes of the older friar. “He violated Sanctuary. You saw.”

  He nods.

  “And you’ll speak truth.”

  He nods again. “I would not dishonor myself by lying for such a man.”

  Toa-Sytell drops the black velvet purse on the floor beside Creele’s body. One gold royal bounces jingling from the purse’s neck and rolls in a slow and lazy circle around Creele’s head to pass the feet of the friars. All eyes follow it expressionlessly, and for a moment no one moves as it chimes to rest.

  Toa-Sytell says in that colorless voice of his, “At least he can afford a sumptuous wake . . .”

  He gestures, and the King’s Eyes swing their crossbows to point just above my head, where they won’t kill me if one triggers by accident, and as we leave I can hear the growing clatter of the approach of the Healing Brother and the Khryllian priest, far too late.

  With Creele dead, no one has the authority to order that a Duke of the Empire and his men be detained, and so we walk right out of the front gate of the embassy without incident.

  Just outside, they very professionally lay me down in the street to put shackles on my arms and a pair of bilboes on my ankles. The cobblestones are cold and shining wet. I don’t bother to resist. It’s pretty clear that none of them would mind putting a quarrel into my knee if I try anything foolish. Toa-Sytell himself helps me to my feet, and we set off.

  We walk slowly along Gods’ Way toward the Colhari Palace. The moon is rising, casting an oyster-shell glow over the misty drizzle that nightfall has brought to the streets, polishing the cobblestones and painting cool moisture across my brow. It’s awkward, walking with the bar of the bilboes scraping between my ankles, and Toa-Sytell holds the chain attached to their end tight in his fist. Nobody seems to have anything to say.

  I figure it’s about fifty-fifty, whether the Council of Brothers will order my death in retaliation for Creele’s. Shit, they should give me a medal. The oaths of Sanctuary are among the most sacred vows a friar ever takes, and the penalties for violating them usually include death.

  But I’m only rationalizing, inventing defenses before an imaginary Monastic judge.

  The truth is, I would have killed him anyway: for betraying me, for keeping me from Shanna, for letting the headsman’s axe swing closer to her neck.

  No one, no one will do that and live.

  And the glittering arch of the Dil-Phinnarthin Gate looms, gleaming silver through the mist, the awesome tower of the Colhari Palace rising behind it. Toa-Sytell gives the recognition to an expectant captain. The gate swings wide, and we walk toward the arch.

  Huh. Well, at least I don’t have to spend a lot of time figuring out how to get myself into the Palace. Maybe I can take this—

  19

  “ ’STRATOR? MM, ’STRATOR Kollberg?” The voice of Arturo Kollberg’s personal Secretary came over the screenlink as a hushed, almost reverent whisper.

  Kollberg swallowed—he well knew what that tone probably meant. He swiftly swept his desk clear of the crumbs of his supper, rubbed a napkin furiously across his mouth, and wiped his hands as thoroughly as he could. He took a deep breath, trying to slow his stuttering heart. “Yes, Gayle?”

  “ ’Strator, on line one, it’s Geneva.”

  When Caine had entered the palace grounds and his transfer link had been severed, Kollberg had had a thousand things to do at once—from ordering adjustments in nutrient drip for the first-handers to editing decisions on the clip release to Adventure Update. When the cutoff had occurred, the first-handers all over the world had gone into an automatic sendep cycle, and the Studio comm nexus had flooded with calls ranging from curious to outright panicky from the technical directors of the linked Studios around the globe. In the midst of chaos and confusion, Kollberg had forcefully resisted the urge to handle every problem at once.

  The very first thing he’d done was put in a call to the Studio Board of Governors in Geneva.

  He’d turned to other business while waiting for his call to be returned; it had taken only a bit more than an hour to mollify the other Studios, get the Caine first-handers into peaceful induced-sleep cycles, order his own supper, and catch up on some other work—some marketing decisions on two of San Francisco’s lesser stars, and a judgment call on scheduling for an up-and-coming Actress. This was mostly his way of pretending that For Love of Pallas Ril hadn’t consumed his entire attention.

  But now his supper curdled in his belly and he tried to shake the tension out of his shoulders. All for Caine, all for Caine’s success. If only Michaelson knew how hard Kollberg worked, what Kollberg put himself through to take care of him!

  He keyed line one, and his screen lit with the Adventures Unlimited logo, an armored knight brandishing a sword, mounted on the back of a rearing winged horse. The screen didn’t clear to visual; when the Board of Governors called, it never did.

  The modulated, artificially neutral voice of the Board star
ted in without preamble. “We are reviewing your application for emergency transfer authority. There are some concerns that you should clear up for us.”

  The Board of Governors had a shifting membership of seven to fifteen high-ranking Leisurefolk who were charged with the responsibility of setting policy for the Studio system as a whole. There was no appeal of the Board’s decisions, and there was no politicking or playing one member off against another when no one outside the Board really knew who was on the Board at any given time; the blank screen and artificial voice prevented Kollberg from even knowing whom he was talking to. Kollberg was fairly sure that there was a Saud on the Board right now, as well as a Walton and a Windsor, but that was useless knowledge: it did nothing to moisten his lips or level his voice.

  He rapidly, almost breathlessly, reeled out his prepared speech. “Based on Caine’s experience on the previous occasion that he entered the Colhari Palace on a mission, I believe that emergency transfer authority is a reasonable precaution, to protect the life and profitability of a major star. In fact, due to the severance of his transfer link and loss of transmission, we wouldn’t even get the usual death surge in sales of this Adventure—”

  “We have little interest in this Actor’s life or profitability. Our concerns are of matters far more grave.”

  Kollberg blinked.

  “I, ah, I’m not sure that I—”

  “We were assured by you personally, Administrator, that the termination of this Ankhanan Emperor would be nonpolitical.”

  He swallowed and said cautiously, “Nonpolitical . . . ?”

  “We’ve questioned your judgment from the beginning regarding these recent Adventures of Pallas Ril. Do you understand the danger involved in allowing a heroine to be shown subverting civil authority? The danger involved in encouraging her fans to cheer her on as she defies the lawfully constituted government?”

  “But, but she’s, well, saving innocent lives. . . Surely, that’s acceptable subject matter—”

  “Guilt or innocence is irrelevant, Administrator. These natives were condemned according to the laws of their society, and the government that Pallas Ril defies is legally constituted. Do you wish to be responsible for the actions of her Earthly imitators?”

  “But, but but, I hardly think—”

  “Precisely. You hardly think. It’s been ten years since the Caste Riots, Administrator. Have you learned nothing? Have you forgotten how fragile our social fabric can be?”

  Kollberg hadn’t forgotten—he’d lived though those terrifying days huddled in his Gibraltar Homes condominium.

  A charismatic Top Ten Actor named Kiel Burchardt had inadvertently triggered the Caste Riots while preaching on Overworld; he played a priest of Tyshalle Deathgod, and the gospel of radical liberty and personal responsibility he’d preached to foment a peasant rebellion against the robber barons of Jheled-Kaarn had become the rallying slogans of spontaneous riots in cities across Earth. Disaffected Laborers turned on the upper castes, the mid-castes, and eventually themselves.

  Fortunately, Burchardt was killed by one of those robber barons while leading an assault on his keep, and the Social Police rapid-response squads had eventually crushed the rioters, but the Caste Riots remained a chilling reminder of the mesmeric influence Actors could exert over their audiences.

  “But,” Kollberg said, wiping with the back of his hand at the perspiration that bubbled out across his upper lip, “but she’s failed, you see? And she needs Caine—the completely nonpolitical Caine—to either rescue her or avenge her death.”

  “That was our understanding. But how, then, do you explain this?”

  The Studio logo vanished from the screen, replaced by the face of the Monastic Ambassador seen from Caine’s POV, and Caine’s recorded voice came over the speaker. “ ‘Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.’ ”

  Kollberg thought, Oh, Christ. Oh my god.

  The logo came back on. “That is decidedly political, not to say subversive, even treasonous. Do you know whom he was quoting?”

  He shook his head hastily. “No no no, not at all.”

  “Good.”

  Kollberg looked down; dark patches of sweat stained his pants where his trembling hands had rested. He laced his fingers together and squeezed until they hurt. “I, ah, I first-handed that scene, you know, and I don’t believe that Caine meant this as a political—”

  “You do understand the pernicious effects of allowing an Actor of Caine’s popularity and influence to turn to politically motivated violence against an authoritarian government? Allowing him in Soliloquy to self-justify overturning a police state? This has echoes of the Burchardt business; Earthly parallels of this attitude would be explosive.”

  “But, but really—”

  “Caine often swears by Tyshalle, the god whose gospel Burchardt preached.”

  Kollberg said nothing; there was no possible reply.

  “Caine has begun to undertake subversive social criticism.”

  “What?”

  Once again the screen changed, this time to the scene before Caine’s eyes as he walked through the burned-out borderland of the Kingdom of Cant. Caine’s Soliloquy: *Our Workers are worse, really; with the zombies, you can’t see the buried spark of life—intelligence, will, whatever—that makes Workers so tragically creepy.*

  The logo returned. “Workers are convicted felons, Administrator, who are cyborged to repay society for their crimes. This could be interpreted as a plea for sympathy, that death is preferable to life as a Worker.”

  “But the Soliloquy—”

  “Death may be better for them; their death is not better for us. Workers support a substantial fraction of the world economy.”

  “The Soliloquy,” Kollberg said more forcefully, belly quivering at his own boldness, “is purely stream-of-consciousness; it’s part of what makes Caine such a powerful and effective Actor. It reflects his emotional and preconscious instinctive reactions as well as his rational thought processes—if he must stop and consider the political implications of his every thought, it will cripple his performance!”

  “His performance is not our concern. Perhaps Actors should be found whose emotional and preconscious reactions are more socially responsible.”

  There came a pause, and then the neutral voice continued more slowly. “Do you know that Duncan Michaelson, Caine’s father, has been interred in the Mute Facility in the Buchanan Social Camp for more than ten years? That his crime was sedition? The seed does not fall far from the tree, Administrator.”

  Kollberg’s dusty tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and a single drop of sweat rolled stinging into his left eye. He looked down, squinting against the tear the sweat brought, and bit his tongue hard to moisten his mouth so he could speak again. “What do you want me to do?”

  “We authorize the emergency transfer. You will find that the emergency key in your Cavea techbooth is already active. We had considered ordering Caine’s immediate recall, but we are not unmindful of the potential profitability of this Adventure.”

  The voice hardened. “There will be no more suggestion of subversion in this Adventure, do you understand? We direct you to personally monitor every second; delegate all other responsibility. You will be held personally responsible for the political and social content of this Adventure. When Caine kills Ma’elKoth or dies in the attempt, it will be the result of a personal vendetta, do you understand? There will be no further discussion of political motivations whatsoever. And there will be no discussion of Caine’s contract; the Studio is not in the business of sponsoring assassination. We provide entertainment, nothing more nor less. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “It is not only your career that’s on the line, Administrator. Any serious breach of this directive will be turned over to the Social Police for investigation.”

  The spreading coldness in his chest felt like someone had slipped an ice dagger into his heart
. “I understand.”

  The screen went blank.

  Kollberg sat staring at the flat grey darkness of the screen for a long, long time. Then suddenly he twitched like a man jolting awake from a nightmare—Caine might have come back out of the palace already, might already be on-line, might already be doing or saying or thinking something that would destroy Kollberg’s life.

  He jerked to his feet and brushed crumbs from his blouse; he slicked over his pale hair with the sweat from his palms and heaved himself toward the door of his private box.

  Michaelson had threatened him yesterday; today the threat came from Caine. It was time, Kollberg decided, to smack that little bastard’s hand.

  Just give me a reason that’ll stand up for the Board, he thought. Just one excuse. You’ll see what you get. You’ll see.

  DAY THREE

  “Sometimes I wonder if you really respect anything besides power.”

  “What else is there?”

  “You see? That’s what I mean, that’s a flip, glib, toss-off answer. It’s because you don’t care about what I care about. The things that are important, that are really important—”

  “Like what? Justice? Give me a break. Honor? Those are abstractions we’ve invented, to make the reality of power easier to face, to con people into voluntarily limiting themselves.”

  “What about love? Is that any less abstract than justice?”

  “Shanna, for Pete’s sake—”

  “Isn’t it funny how we always end up fighting about the abstractions?”

  “We’re not fighting.”

  “Yes, we are. Maybe we’re not fighting about justice and love, but we’re sure as hell fighting.”

  1

  RING UPON RING of crumbling stone benches and walkways rose step-built above the bull’s-eye of rain-damp sand in the center; the whole titanic structure might have been a target offered for a game between gods. The inner wall that separated the sand from the seating had once been three times the height of a man. Though it was crumbling now with age and the decay wrought by the corrosive coal smoke from the steelworks in the nearby Industrial Park, on its raddled face could still be seen curved parallel scars left by the diamondine claws of draconymphs, ameboid chemical burns 161 from the acidic venom of wyverns’ tailstings, and pockmarks left by crossbow quarrels that had struck through the flesh of fleeing gladiators.