Heroes Die

by Matthew Woodring Stover

  And then it was too late: Caine surged up his throat and took possession of his brain, and he leaned forward onto the desk and bared his teeth.

  “Kollberg,” Caine said, “I’m not gonna kill you. I’m not gonna kill you, because that won’t hurt enough—”

  He would have gone on to list the ways that he would inflict pain, to demonstrate them one by one by one, but Kollberg suddenly dove below his desk, shrieking, “Shoot him shoot him shoot him!” and the whine of the power rifles in the hands of the forgotten secmen behind gave him only a quarter second’s warning before gelslugs poured from their muzzles like water from a firehose and pounded him into scarlet unconsciousness.

  27

  TALANN HAD A way of blushing that began with a tiny kiss of rose high on her arched cheekbones, then spread like the dawn around her eyes and down her neck. Her uncharacteristically shy smile, and the way she almost-but-not-quite pulled her hand from Majesty’s grasp, and her artfully artless answers to his questions, soon had the King of Cant wondering just who was seducing whom, here.

  He was only killing time, passing the night in idle byplay, but the longer he wheedled Talann the more interested he became—and more suspicious that she was playing his game better than he was. An enchanting woman, taken all in all, and by all accounts a devastating fighter, nearly equal to Caine—some said better than Caine. The longer they spoke, the more Majesty found his attention drifting off into daydreams of what his life might be like with a Queen of Cant by his side, a Warrior Queen, feared by his enemies but beloved by his Subjects . . .

  Fine as she was, though, she was, of course, no Pallas Ril.

  He caught himself drifting off again. No question about it, he was losing—and, after all, wasn’t this no-longer-casual byplay between them a kind of infighting in itself? And this was a fight where losing might be more fun than winning.

  His idle fantasies of family life scattered abruptly when Pallas came back alone. She appeared at the top of the stairs, backlit by Tommie’s campfire.

  “Majesty—can you get a couple of your boys up here to help Lamorak?”

  “Sure,” Majesty said reflexively, then he frowned up at her. “Where’s Caine?”

  Silhouetted by the firelight, the expression on her darkened face could not be read, but in her voice was a troubled, uncertain note. “He’s gone.”

  Majesty and Talann said together, in almost identical tones of dismay, “Gone?”

  “He just left?” Majesty said, rising, disentangling his hands from Talann’s. “You let him go?”

  Talann also rose beside him, taking on a look of bruised disbelief. “What happened? What did you say to him?”

  “Nothing.” Days of exhaustion leached all the color from her voice. “I didn’t say anything. He came to deliver a message. He did it; then he left. I couldn’t have stopped him.”

  “I thought—” Talann began. “I thought . . .”

  Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head silently; she sank back down to her seat on the stairs and rested her chin on the heels of her hands. Talann looked blankly out over the tokali and the Subjects on their crate-built nests.

  Majesty barely spared her a glance—that was fun and all, but this was business. He came up the stairs, took Pallas’ arm just above the elbow with a firm hand, and gently pushed her away from the stairwell.

  Over at the campfire, Tommie and another Subject still warmed their hands. Majesty said, “Didn’t you hear the lady? Go get Lamorak. Now.”

  With under-the-breath muttered protests at the unfairness of life, the two rose. Pallas pointed them in the right direction, and they slipped off into the darkness. As soon as they were gone, Majesty turned fiercely to Pallas.

  “For fuck’s sake, Pallas!” he hissed. “Have you lost your sense? How could you let him walk out of here? I told you what Toa-Sytell said—!”

  Pallas’ eyes had a distant, almost haunted look, lines of deep thought etched around them, as though it was a great effort to pay attention to what Majesty said to her, as though he was only a distraction, an irritation.

  “Toa-Sytell was wrong.”

  “How do you know? How do you know Caine isn’t running to the King’s Eyes right fucking now?”

  “I know.”

  The calm of her utter certainty slowed him, but it didn’t stop him.

  “How do you know? I mean, I know it’s not like him, but you and Lamorak . . . Jealousy can make a man do funny things, Pallas. We’d better move the tokali, y’know, just to be sure.”

  Her attention seemed to return from very far away, and she looked deeply into his eyes. “We don’t have to move them. Caine won’t betray us; he can’t.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s all very fine for you to have that kind of trust in him, but this is my butt, too—”

  She shook her head and gave a soft, bitter laugh, as though at a private joke that was more painful than it was funny.

  “Trust has nothing to do with it. Besides, he left an hour ago. If he were going to the Eyes or the Cats, they’d be here by now.”

  “Shit, I’d never have brought him here in the first place if I thought you’d really be here. You can’t take that kind of chance.”

  She placed a comradely hand on his shoulder. “Majesty, you did right, believe me. In fact, you saved my life tonight. Tomorrow at dawn, I’ll ferry the tokali out of here, and all will be well.”

  She let her hand fall and drifted away from him, down the stairs, deep in her private thoughts.

  Maybe all will be well, Majesty thought as he watched her back sway tiredly down the steps.

  Maybe it will. But if it isn’t, Caine had better have some fucking convincing answers. Some things are too low to stand for, even from a friend.

  DAY FIVE

  “What’s so wrong with wanting to help people?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with it; there’s just no point. You risk your life for a wet-eyed thank-you and a hug. It’s stupid.”

  “It’s my life.”

  “No, Shanna. It’s our life, remember? That’s why we got married.”

  “Oh, right—I knew there was a reason, I just forgot what it was.”

  “Shanna, dammit—”

  “No, Hari. No. Marriage is supposed to make you more than you are. It’s supposed to add something to your life, not take it away. You want me to be less, you want me to be more like . . .”

  “Go on, say it. Go on.”

  “All right, I will: more like you.”

  “That shit flows both ways, Shanna.”

  “Maybe it does. Maybe that was my mistake from the very beginning. I should have known better.”

  1

  AS DAWN LAYERED the Ankhanan sky with crimson and pale rose, the low-lying mist that rises from the Great Chambaygen every morning began slowly to recede, traces dissolving in the warming air.

  Most of the workmen, the stablehands and the copy clerks, all those who were employed in Old Town but could not afford to live there, walked through the swirling mist toward Fools’ Bridge with breeches tied tight at the calf and trouser legs laced closed at the ankle.

  This was a fashion dictated by necessity, for also through that 319 swirling mist scampered other inhabitants of the capital city, nocturnal citizens returning to their dens for the day, far more numerous than the human inhabitants. And anyone who’d done the Rat Dance as a panicked rodent clawed and bit its way up the inside of one’s pants leg had no desire to repeat the experience.

  One particularly large and lean rat with patches of grey at the sides of its muzzle crouched by the notch where the single-leaf bascule of Fools’ Bridge would descend. It watched the dawn ceremonies with glittering eyes that held more than rodent intelligence.

  This was far out on the arc of the span over the river, over the slow-rolling oily water, glossy black in the growing light. The rat watched the bridge captain stride out alone behind the reinforced crenels atop the Old Town gatehouse, diaphanous robes of translucent aqua flowing over
his uniform.

  The bridge captain wore these robes twice a day, at dawn and sunset, when he made ritual obsequies to the legendary river god Chambaraya. At dawn, he poured out oil from a golden cup to ask the river god’s permission to lower the bridge; at dusk, the cup held wine, in thanks for permitting the day’s traffic.

  The bridge came down; the rat twitched back from its path, but as soon as the bridge settled into place, the rat streaked for Old Town. Its movements were somewhat hampered by two thin leather thongs like bootlaces that strapped a small packet of oiled paper to its back; the rat nearly perished beneath the boot of a startled soldier who stomped at it as it passed, but it escaped and vanished into the alley behind a nearby stable.

  There it paused, as though uncertain of how to proceed; that eerie look of unnatural intelligence was enhanced by the way it sat up on its haunches and rubbed at its face with its front claws, the way some men do when deep in indecisive thought. The rat, however, was neither indecisive nor, actually, thinking; what little intelligence the rat had currently snarled in the back of its brain stem and lusted to chew through the leather thongs that strapped the packet to its back.

  The thought, and the indecision, belonged entirely to Lamorak.

  2

  JUST BEFORE DAWN, she’d kissed him good-bye. She planned to ferry the tokali to the river barge in groups of four or five, the largest that she felt she could safely Cloak and still move swiftly through the streets. She’d nodded and stroked his cheek when he told her how he wished he could be with her, how he felt his place was on the street to help protect them, protect her, if only it wasn’t for this damned leg . . .

  And when she turned away from him, when she climbed the stairs toward the street, that troubled, half-haunted expression had stolen over her face, the same one she’d worn in unguarded moments ever since Caine’s disappearance the night before.

  It stung him, that look; he knew he was losing her. She’d seen him in the same room with Caine, side by side, sized them up, and somehow he’d come up short. Again. He didn’t understand it, couldn’t understand it. Why would a woman—or anyone, for that matter—prefer a sullen, scowling murderer like Caine to his own sparkling eye and heroic dash? But there it was: it was happening again like a recurring nightmare.

  Somehow, even now, everyone in his life was conspiring to make him feel second-rate.

  Stupid bitch.

  He’d seen trouble coming last night when she’d made him stay in that dripping frigging room aboveground and waste a good hour trying to figure out why Caine had been suddenly pulled. And she particularly pricked away at what Caine had been about to say—she simply refused to leave it alone. What was he about to say? What was he about to do? What, what, what, why, why, which—on and on until Lamorak was ready to slap her.

  Some women, the only way to shut their mouths is to put your dick in them.

  He knew damn well what Caine had been about to say, and he knew even better what Caine had been about to do. And he knew that, unarmed and with his leg busted, all he could have done right then was roll over and wait to die. He knew better than to think Caine would have mercy on him just because he couldn’t defend himself.

  It was galling, too, that everything had been so carefully planned, so well thought out, well concealed, and Caine had jumped right to the truth without any evidence at all. He’d never be able to prove a fucking thing. There’d be no court on either world that would accept his unfounded hunch as evidence. Crap, forget court; it wasn’t even, strictly, illegal. But none of that mattered; Caine wouldn’t trifle with any sort of legal authority, with any sort of official procedure at all beyond a swift flurry of his slaughtering fists.

  This had been much on Lamorak’s mind overnight as he’d sat high up above the waterlogged floor in a nest of empty crates that several of the grateful tokali had constructed for him. He’d spent the night working on his leg, pulling Flow and visualizing carefully the layering of calcium across the break, knitting the splintered ends together. He hoped that by the time Caine made his next entrance, his thigh might be strong enough to bear his weight and give him a fighting chance.

  Not that he had any intention of fighting.

  It came to him, in one of his frequent periods of rest, that exactly as he was using his once-despised magick to heal his broken leg, he was also using this same ability to heal his broken life. He’d never quite understood how he could have gotten to be thirty-four without becoming a major star; he’d been so sure, as a boy, as a student at the Conservatory, as a novice Actor on freemod, that he’d someday be recognized as one of the legendary greats, that his name would be entered on that tiny list alongside Raymond Story, Lin Zhian, Kiel Burchardt, Jonathan Mkembe . . .

  Hari Michaelson’s name was on that list, or so people said. Lamorak couldn’t see it, couldn’t understand how Caine’s career continued to soar while his own languished; Lamorak had found himself at thirty-four, when most Actors begin to make plans for retirement, without ever having cracked the Top One Hundred. Caine was what, thirty-nine? Forty? But Caine would never retire, not so long as his every Adventure landed in the Top Ten as though it grew there. His career had become self-sustaining, feeding on his past successes, to where it no longer mattered if his Adventures were any good or not. People paid and paid and paid, just to be Caine one last time—who knew how long he could keep it up? Who knew what Adventure would be his last?

  Who, Lamorak often wondered, really gave a shit?

  Just when another man might have become oppressed by a growing sense of failure and inadequacy, Lamorak had instead become aware that the reason behind his continuing disappointment was marketing—or rather, lack of marketing.

  Caine got the best Adventures because the Studio executives expected him to have the best Adventures, and so they were willing to put out more effort, more money, more promotion to keep him up in his lofty position. All Lamorak needed was a break, one big shot, one opportunity to show the Studio and the public his real star qualities.

  He was angling for precisely that: his shot. His big break.

  Although as an Entertainer he was nominally a Professional, this was only a provisional recaste; on the day he retired, gave up being Lamorak and became, finally and for all time, merely Karl Shanks, he would reassume his true caste, his birth caste of Business. He could retire tomorrow and take a position with the family business, SynTech, the electronic chemicals giant, and make five times more money than any Actor, even Caine.

  But that would mean leaving show business.

  That would mean admitting that his father, the spineless flatterer, was right. That his brothers were right, and his mother. They’d all said he’d never make it as an Actor. It would mean going on his knees to his grandfather, the old bastard who still perched on SynTech like a senile dragon on his mound of gold, to beg for a chance to prove himself a real Shanks.

  However much he might despise his family, it didn’t stop him from using their powerful upcaste connections to pressure the Scheduling Board. He had the Board thoroughly cowed; they were only a pack of butt-covering Administrators, after all. But even with bigger, more frequent Adventures, he still didn’t command the kind of promotional budget—and, hence, public following—that Caine did.

  Ironically, it was the one man most responsible for Caine’s success who’d come to Lamorak with a plan and an offer: Arturo Kollberg.

  “Do this one little thing for me,” he’d asked. “Spice up Pallas Ril’s Ankhanan operations enough to get Caine involved, and I’ll take you under my wing the way I did him. I made Caine what he is, but he’s become increasingly sullen and troublesome. I can make you what Caine is, and you won’t treat me and the Studio with disrespect and attitude. You’ll know how to repay me: with loyalty, with courage and honor . . .”

  And if Caine ever understood what Lamorak was really up to, down deep, that what he was really doing was helping Pallas’ career—and at great personal risk, I mean, look at this leg, look at how
he’d been nearly tortured to death because he’d been doing his part to turn a mundane, run-of-the-mill Adventure into something exciting and memorable—why, Caine would thank him. They’d both thank him. But no, instead of gratitude, Pallas was running off with her damned tokali and fantasizing about her husband, and Caine wanted to kill him and eat raw bloody chunks of his flesh. It was all so fucking unfair. . .

  But he knew how to get back at them, he knew how to pay them out for making him a loser: magick. That’s what was making the difference now; that’s how he could make them regret their disrespect. He was more adept than either of them suspected, and he was going to use this hidden skill to make sure, once and for all, that everyone concerned got exactly what was coming to them—especially himself.

  Once this was over and he was back on Earth, his career would really kick into high gear.

  He couldn’t think about this too much, the images and the fantasies of finally getting the respect he deserved: they were too potent, they intruded too much into his minute-to-minute consciousness. So he held them tenderly at the rear of his mind, carefully foggy and unformed. They lurked behind everything he thought or did and whispered heart-swelling endearments to him—faint and ghostly mumblings that Lamorak never analyzed, because he wouldn’t let himself listen hard enough to really understand them.

  They murmured that Caine’s time was past, that it was right Lamorak should step up to take over for him. They murmured that Pallas had been only using him, after all, and that even the love she had pretended to feel for him would vanish without a trace as soon as they transferred back and she audited Caine’s Adventure. They whispered that Caine had been lying in the first place: Pallas wasn’t off-line. That was ridiculous. He was only jealous, because his star was fading while hers was on the rise. Caine was trying to destroy Pallas’ Adventure, even as Lamorak worked so hard to make it brilliant.