Heroes Die

by Matthew Woodring Stover

  The Emperor had led him to the Arms Gallery on the second floor and ushered him into a bedchamber-sized room whose walls and floor were filled with rack after rack of every conceivable style of knife, from bent-blades like khukris to fan-hilted mains gauche, katar-like punching daggers, tanto-style chisel blades, even a few with the foot-long isosceles blade of an Arkansas Toothpick. “Please,” Ma’elKoth had said. “Help yourself.”

  Caine had picked up a rippled-blade dress dagger similar to a Florentine flame stiletto and turned it in his fingers. They were alone, together, in a small room with a thick door, and the place was full of knives.

  “You know,” he’d said, “Creele believed that someone had hired me to kill you. You might be well advised to keep me unarmed.”

  Deep amusement had sparkled within the Emperor’s brilliant green eyes. “Am I a fool? You, Caine, are never unarmed. I could cut your arms from your shoulders, and you would still kill with your feet. Please, accept My hospitality. It is My Wish that you be completely at ease.”

  At ease? In the presence of Ma’elKoth?

  “That’s a joke, right?”

  “Of course.”

  And so Caine had sat down to breakfast with every sheath full of fresh steel.

  Caine had been waiting all morning for Ma’elKoth to get down to business. Now, finally, he could wait no more.

  “Duke Toa-Sytell explained what you want of me. I’m willing. I only want to know what resources I can use, and what you’ll pay me.”

  He knew he was overplaying, showing too much eagerness, but he couldn’t help it and he no longer cared: that sharp need was there, in his guts, pulling him along. He had to get out of this place, had to get onto the streets and onto Shanna’s trail.

  “Caine, please,” Ma’elKoth said languidly from his couch. “It’s vulgar to discuss business during a meal, and bad for the digestion.”

  “You’re not eating,” Caine pointed out.

  “I no longer eat,” Ma’elKoth said with a heavy shrug. “Nor do I sleep. In small, peripheral ways like these, power such as Mine can be a burden.”

  So much for catching him napping, or slipping a couple drops of arsenic into his stew, Caine thought. He let a little of his impatience creep into his voice. “Well, if we’re not going to talk business, why are we wasting our time?”

  “This time is not wasted, Caine. I am using it to study you.”

  Caine carefully set down his goblet; he didn’t want to slop coffee onto the linen tablecloth if his hand should start to shake.

  “Oh?”

  “Indeed. It was a Power, Caine, that drew your name and image from My mind, a Power from Outside that answered My query: Who shall bring this pestiferous Simon Jester into My grasp? Initially, I was inclined to trust this happy accident, that the Power showed me a face I knew so well that Drawing you here required less than two full days.”

  “Drawing me?” Caine said, frowning. “You think I’m here because of some kind of—”

  “Let’s not quibble, dear boy. I desired your presence, and here you are. These are facts; the mechanism behind them is irrelevant. Furthermore, while I am gratified that you now feel enough at your ease to interrupt Me, it is discourteous to do so. Even rude.”

  The surface of Ma’elKoth’s tone remained light, but subterranean echoes beneath his contrabasso rumble hinted that some large and hungry creature slept fitfully, down within his chest. He waited, outwardly calm, staring at Caine with limpid hazel eyes—

  Hey, Caine thought, weren’t his eyes blue, before? Or green? Momentarily distracted, Caine let the silence stretch to a painful length before coming back to himself. He met the Emperor’s gaze somewhat sheepishly. “Apologies, Imperial Maj—”

  “Accepted,” Ma’elKoth said briskly. “I do not stand much on ceremony here, as you may have noticed. Ceremony is for insignificant men who lick others’pretended awe like spittle from their chins. As I was saying, My original intention of simply allowing you to undertake this task has fallen by the wayside because I, Caine, am a man cursed with curiosity. I asked the fatal question: Why you?”

  Caine spread his hands. “I’m wondering the same thing myself.”

  “My quest for the answer to this question led Me to consider your career.” Ma’elKoth suddenly sat upright and laid his palms upon the table between them. His eyes burned. “Do you have any conception of how extraordinary a man you are, Caine?”

  “Stop, you’ll make me blush.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Of the six crucial turning points of the history in this Empire over this past turbulent decade, you were a central participant in four of them. The only tangible links between the four are their magnitude, and the fact that you, personally, affected the outcome.”

  “Really?”

  Ma’elKoth ticked them off on his fingers. “One, the assassination of Prince-Regent Toa-Phelathon—” He held up a hand. “—do not bore Me with protestations of innocence—that triggered the Succession War, which ended in the destruction of the Menelethid Dynasty and My accession to the Throne. Two, you led the small party of adventurers who, at great personal risk, came out of the Boedecken Waste with news of the rise of Khulan G’Thar, and his unification of the ogrilloi, in time for Ankhana to fortify its border cities and raise two armies against his onslaught.”

  “That was kind of by accident,” Caine said. He and his partners had been looking for artifacts and treasure among the ruins of an age-old primal metropolis—from the days thousands of years before when the elves still built and lived in cities—when they’d been captured by a nomadic ogrillo tribe. The bloody games the ogrilloi had played with them, and Caine’s bloodier escape with his two surviving companions, made Retreat from the Boedecken still a popular rental, after nearly a decade.

  “Nonetheless. More than a year later, as incompetence among the Ankhanan generals allowed the Khulan Horde to threaten the very existence of humanity on this continent, it was you, Caine, who infiltrated Khulan G’thar’s personal guard. Not only did you furnish the Ankhanan army with G’thar’s complete order of battle in time for our armies to link with the Monastic Expeditionary Force and meet the Khulan Horde at Ceraeno, but you reentered the Horde, engaged the Khulan himself in single combat, and killed him.”

  “Single combat,” Caine said with a slow smile, “is a little bit of an overstatement. I snuck up behind him during the battle and stabbed him in the back. The old bastard was tougher than I thought—he broke my arm with that morningstar he carried for a scepter. I can still feel it every time it rains.” The warm pride that snuck into his tone was only peripherally related to Ma’elKoth’s praise; Last Stand at Ceraeno was popularly considered Caine’s greatest Adventure.

  Ma’elKoth shrugged. “Details are only trivia. On that particular occasion, you certainly saved the Empire single-handedly. In fact, as I glean stories and rumors from across the continent, you are involved almost constantly in great doings of one sort or another . . .”

  His voice went deadly soft, a silken garrote sliding across a soft throat. “And I wonder how it is that one man can be so relentlessly important. Curious, isn’t it?”

  It’s because the Studio sends me where the action is, he thought, and he didn’t have a better explanation. He was painfully aware of how treacherous had become the ground on which this conversation walked; it had suddenly shifted from dry and pleasant flattery to hungry quicksand.

  How much did Ma’elKoth really know about these Aktiri he hunted so ruthlessly?

  “Now a Power has told Me that you are the only man who can catch Simon Jester. I spent all of last night attempting to determine why that is so. While you slept, I subjected you to every test at My command.”

  Caine’s mouth went entirely dry. “And?”

  “And I found nothing. Whatever power it is that drives you to the center of these events, it is not magickal. The only peculiarity I found was the color of your Shell—it’s black, you know, and quite unreadable. This perhaps expl
ains some of your success against thaumaturges—I know you’ve killed quite a number of adepts, in your day—and other magick-using creatures. Must be a substantial advantage, when your emotions and intentions cannot be read.”

  “Sometimes,” Caine said, letting out a long, slow breath.

  “But this is hardly unique; it is only rare. Lacking the resources to satisfy My curiosity by Myself, I have come to another course of action: to ask you.”

  “Because you assume I know.”

  Ma’elKoth nodded ponderously. “Indeed. I hope you do; frustration I find intolerable. In My frustration of last night, I nearly killed you.”

  Caine blinked. “Oh?” he said thinly.

  “A spell. A power. I closely considered taking your life so that I could absorb some of the memories of your departing spirit.”

  “That, ah,” Caine said carefully, “seems a little extreme . . .”

  “Well, yes,” Ma’elKoth said with a dry chuckle. “Understanding how you can catch Simon Jester might have done Me little good without having you here to perform the task.”

  “I guess I still don’t understand why you can’t find, uh, this guy yourself,” Caine said.

  “It is a spell of concealment that Simon Jester has done, that is still in action. I have been able to analyze its effects, but I cannot counteract it—not yet, perhaps not ever. The Power from Outside told Me that this spell is easily broken once I lay hands upon its caster. It operates directly on the mind, splintering off the bits and pieces of knowledge I have about him; it prevents Me from connecting one to another, or even noticing that a connection is possible. It is infuriating to think that I may already know who Simon Jester is, and that I’m simply prevented from putting a face to the name.”

  Oh boy, Caine thought. Oh, holy shit. It wasn’t a flash of inspiration, rather it was more of a slow dawning: he came to realize that the answer to this question was the same as the answer to the previous one.

  It’s because I’m an Actor.

  Everyone here, the way their eyes would go vague whenever he mentioned Simon Jester, or Pallas Ril—the reason this didn’t happen to him was that in his heart, in his mind, in his cherished dreams of happiness, there was no Simon Jester. There was no Pallas Ril. There was only Shanna. He didn’t love the abstraction, the Scarlet Pimpernel game she’d been playing; he didn’t love the character, the persona of Pallas Ril. It was Shanna, had always been Shanna.

  Would always be Shanna, forever.

  There was no answer that could be made, even if he’d wanted to. If she’d been his worst enemy alive, the Studio’s conditioning would strangle his voice, even kill him, before the truth of her could pass his lips. And the closer Ma’elKoth came to the answer of his questions, the closer he came to the truth of Caine.

  Truth that was, in this case, lethal.

  I’m going to die, here, Caine thought. Eventually, he’s going to realize what’s going on, what I am, and then he’s going to kill me.

  And even if he doesn’t, I’ve contracted to take him down. When I try, he’ll snuff me like a candle.

  Death, like the sun, was something that not even Caine could stare at too steadily; he wondered fleetingly if Creele and Toa-Phelathon and his countless other victims would be waiting for him, then he put it out of his mind.

  The best I can hope for is to get Shanna back to Earth alive. Win or lose, live or die, I don’t give a shit so long as she’s all right.

  “What is it?” Ma’elKoth asked, leaning forward and studying Caine’s face. “You’ve come to some realization, I can see it. Tell me. Now.”

  “I have,” Caine said, “come to the realization that I don’t really need to be polite to you anymore.”

  “Oh?” Ma’elKoth looked more amused than offended.

  He shrugged, and gave the Emperor a cynical half smile. “If you didn’t need me to catch Simon Jester for you, I’d be dead already. You said so yourself. So maybe I’m thinking it’s stupid to worry about staying on your good side.”

  Some of the amusement in the Emperor’s eyes began to fade, and his rumble sounded faintly dangerous.

  “Stupid?”

  “Be reasonable: accept the facts, and let me get on with it.”

  “Reasonable, indeed,” Ma’elKoth purred. He rested his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers before his face. “ ‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Thus all progress depends on the unreasonable man.’ ”

  That’s Shaw! Caine thought, thunderstruck. That particular quote was a favorite of Duncan’s—where would Ma’elKoth have come across a quote from an Earth author? And a banned one, at that . . .

  “You know,” he said carefully, “my father used to say that to me.”

  “I know.” Ma’elKoth’s smile broke like the dawn. “You quoted him to Me once before, and I never forget.”

  This shit has gone far enough, he thought, and said, “All right, I give up.”

  “Eh?”

  Caine shook his head irritably. “I’ve been trying to figure out where I know you from. I mean, I know your reputation, from the Plains War and the Succession War, and I’ve seen what you’ve done here in Ankhana, but I keep getting the feeling that we’ve met, that I know you. Your manner—the way you talk, especially, the way every other sentence is some sweeping statement about the Nature of Reality or something—I know we’ve met before, somewhere, but I’m damned if I remember. And I’m damned if I can understand how I could forget meeting a seven-foot, three-hundred-forty-pound adept who looks like a sculptor’s wet dream.”

  “Mm, flattery.” Caine could feel Ma’elKoth’s answering laugh vibrate against his chest. “We do know each other, Caine. You might say that you met Me in My former life. Once before, I hired you to do a job of work.”

  “Really?”

  “Indeed. And We worked rather closely together for a time. It was, oh, seven years ago, I’d say, shortly before the Plains War. I hired you to retrieve the crown which once belonged to Dal’kannith of the Thousand Hands.”

  Caine stared, openmouthed. “You’re kidding.”

  The Emperor shook his head smugly. “I am not. You knew Me as Hannto of Ptreia, and I believe by My rather uncomplimentary nickname ‘the Scythe.’ ”

  “Hannto . . .” Caine breathed, unbelieving. “You’re Hannto the Scythe?”

  The man who’d hired Caine to steal Dal’kannith’s crown had been a thaumaturge, all right; he’d been a rat-faced little weasel with bad skin, maybe ten years Caine’s senior. Hannto was fairly adept, but not spectacular; he specialized in necromancy to support his hobby, which was collecting relics of various historical figures. The crown was the only surviving relic of the legendary Lipkan warlord Dal’kannith, who later came to personify their god of war; it had been missing since Jhereth’s Revolt, more than three hundred years before, when Hannto had gotten a lead on its whereabouts. But Hannto . . . He was nothing, really; Caine could have broken him in half with one hand—he was known as the Scythe for his physique, his sunken chest and crooked back.

  And Ma’elKoth was, well . . .

  He was Ma’elKoth.

  “I am not,” the Emperor said, “Hannto the Scythe. I was Hannto the Scythe, some years ago. Now, I am Ma’elKoth. Emperor of Ankhana, Shield of Prorithun, Lion of the White Waste, and so forth and so on.”

  “I can’t believe it . . .”

  The Emperor grinned, obviously enjoying Caine’s awe. “What is so difficult to believe? With the power of the crown—and some few other bits and pieces I’d acquired over the years—I transformed Myself.” He stretched like a sleepy lion. “I made Myself into the man I had always wished to be. Is this so very odd? Have you, Caine, not done the same?”

  “Maybe,” Caine allowed slowly, “but for me the results weren’t so, ahh, spectacular. . .”

  “You’re too modest. Your acquisition of the crown, by the way, that’s the fourth of those crucial turni
ng points of the history of the Empire of which I spoke. And the most important, if I do say so Myself.”

  Caine continued to squint at Ma’elKoth, still trying to glimpse the whiny, neurotic little necromancer he’d known, somewhere within this mountain of granite assurance.

  “What are you? I mean what are you, really?”

  Ma’elKoth spread his hands. “What you see before you. I have no secrets, Caine. Can you say the same?”

  There was no safe answer for this; Caine only continued to stare. After a moment Ma’elKoth sighed and pressed himself up onto his feet.

  “You’re done eating?”

  The plate before him had barely been touched. Caine shrugged. “I guess I don’t have much appetite.”

  “Fine. Follow me.”

  Ma’elKoth made for the door. Caine quickly mopped the corners of his mouth, and then surreptitiously swiped the napkin over the cold sweat that had moistened his forehead. At least I managed to change the subject.

  He wadded the napkin and tossed it onto his plate. He rose and followed in the Emperor’s wake.

  4

  THE GREAT HALL of the Colhari Palace was vast, a titanic echoing space floored with marble and walled with travertine. Caine remembered walking that floor as he’d paced up to the Oaken Throne almost a decade ago.

  Tel-Alcontaur, the elder brother of Toa-Phelathon, had offered Caine a barony for his heroism against the Khulan Horde at Ceraeno. The Studio had had no interest in their fastest-rising young star settling down to run a backwater holding on Overworld, and furthermore it was traditional for Monastic citizens to refuse titles and decorations offered by temporal monarchs, and so Caine had come to respectfully turn down the old King’s offer, a ceremonial formal refusal.

  He remembered how empty the Hall had felt, despite that it had been packed nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with nobles and dignitaries and officers and prominent citizens of all descriptions. The towering opalescent arches of the ceiling shot back hollow echoes of every sound and made the place feel empty no matter how crowded it might be.