The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn

by Tyler Whitesides

  But Elbrig didn’t even look up from where he stared at the stage. Her life wasn’t worth his reputation or his disguise. And with Ard and Raek securing the regalia, Quarrah would be totally alone against whatever fate awaited her in that carriage.

  She descended the steps, a line of Reggie’s holding back the crowd that had now risen to its feet. They were reaching for her, calling her name, applauding again.

  The king’s private carriage was incredibly nice. Easily spacious enough to carry four passengers, it had a door on either side with a small glass viewing window and embroidered curtains that could pull shut for privacy. The door on her side was already open, a red-uniformed Reggie holding it for her.

  Quarrah paused in front of the carriage’s fold-out steps. She glanced over the crowd one last time in a silent plea for help. Then she moved up the little steps and ducked into the carriage.

  The seats were made of leather, padded like no other carriage Quarrah had sat in. A tiny Light Grit detonation was burning in a miniature lantern that had been mounted into the wall of the carriage above her backrest.

  She settled in as best she could while one of the servants folded away the steps and shut the door. Then Quarrah heard the driver give a shout, and the carriage lurched forward.

  Well, Quarrah thought, here I go. Off to my certain doom.

  Peeling back the curtain, Quarrah peered out the window at the faces in the crowd. The carriage was trudging through the densely populated square, and some admirers were pushing through the throng in an attempt to keep pace with the carriage.

  She let the curtain fall shut, leaning back and closing her eyes. For the first time, she felt some comfort knowing that she was the center of the crowd’s attention. Pethredote wouldn’t try anything so public. Surely, Azania’s fame was some insurance against his plans.

  More likely, this carriage was headed to the shoreline where she’d be thrown off the cliff with a block of stone tied around her ankles. Or maybe there would there be goons waiting to dispatch her in the Avedon apartment.

  The trick, then, would be to get out of this carriage before it reached its intended destination. But for her escape to go unnoticed, she’d have to wait until they moved onto an open road outside the Char. Jumping out of a moving carriage wasn’t going to be pleasant, but Quarrah figured it was a much better alternative than whatever the king was planning for her.

  Assuming she survived such a stunt, Quarrah would need to dispose of her wig and dress and slip quietly back to the Bakery on Humont Street. Ard and Raek would be anxious to make plans for the next phase of the job.

  An excursion to Pekal was going to require a crew, but after what Ard had told her on the palace roof, who could they trust? A traitor had sold them out—on more than one occasion. Going forward would demand a hard, honest look at everyone who had been involved. Even Raek.

  Quarrah’s eye snapped open. Was that smoke? She sniffed sharply. The smell was not the pure wood smoke of a campfire, but she recognized the distinct, somewhat chemical odor.

  A fuse was burning.

  Her body went rigid, eyes scanning. She’d been a fool to close them. Now she could see a smoky haze filling the carriage, thickest at her feet. This certainly meant explosives. Probably a keg of Blast Grit strapped to the underside of the carriage.

  Grabbing the curtain, she whipped it back to check out the small window. Still in the Char, but outside Oriar’s Square. Here, it was so dark that she couldn’t see how many onlookers still surrounded.

  No matter. It was time to get the blazes out of here, regardless of how many people witnessed her escape. Quarrah grabbed the carriage door and gave it a push.

  Locked!

  So that was what those servants were doing when they checked the doors. Pressing her forehead against the thick glass and peering through the little window, she could see a simple pin lock rattling against the exterior of the carriage. But she couldn’t pick a lock that she couldn’t reach.

  None of this would pose a real problem if she only had her Grit belts. A mere pinch of Blast Grit would have blown the small lock to smithereens. But Azania Fyse had a terrible habit of walking around completely defenseless.

  She reached across the carriage and gave the other door a shake, but it was obviously locked, too. Quarrah coughed as the smoke continued gathering, her heart pounding. It was impossible to know how long the fuse would burn. Pethredote probably wanted it lengthy enough to see the carriage out of Oriar’s Square. She may only have minutes left. Possibly seconds.

  Quarrah slammed her shoulder into the locked door. The whole carriage jostled, but the lock wouldn’t give. She wondered what the driver of this doomed vehicle was thinking. Maybe if she made enough ruckus, the driver would realize something was wrong.

  She shouted, slapping her gloved hand against the driver-side wall. Twice more, she heaved against the carriage doors, but it didn’t even slow.

  Desperately, Quarrah turned all of her attention on the small window. Over and over, she punched the glass until her knuckles were throbbing and bleeding. She needed something stronger to break through, but a quick scan of the carriage revealed nothing useful.

  Sliding off the edge of the padded seat, Quarrah dropped onto her knees to check the carriage floor. She knelt back on her heels, feeling the point of her uncomfortable shoe dig into her backside. How about that?

  Quarrah reached behind, tugging one of her impractical shoes free from her foot. Wielding the thing like a hammer, she slammed the point of the heel into the glass. The first blow resulted in a spiderweb crack, and the second completely shattered the window. She tossed aside the shoe and kicked off the other as she rose to her bare feet. Hunched in the carriage, she considered her next step.

  She could probably reach the lock, but she didn’t have any tools to pick it. Not to mention the risk of slicing her arm to shreds on the jagged edge of the window. Quarrah considered her resources. Maybe there were additional useful aspects of Azania’s frivolous attire.

  In less than a minute, Quarrah had slipped out of the silver gown and gloves. After all, Cinza had designed this outfit for a hasty costume change. Bunching the excessive fabric, Quarrah shoved it partway through the shattered window frame.

  Now for the lock-picking tools.

  She reached up and plucked the two slender wig pins from her red curls. It felt good to shake that hairpiece loose, like bidding farewell to the most obnoxious part of Azania Fyse.

  With the hairpins in one hand, Quarrah reached through the padding of fabric, her hand groping down the side of the door until she felt the lock. One-handed, out of sight, on a bumpy road … not to mention a sinister length of fuse burning unseen beneath her feet.

  This one would have to be opened completely by feel, since the subtle clicks of the lock’s inner workings would obviously be drowned out by the moving carriage. Quarrah knew the lock wasn’t complicated. It had no reason to be. While King Pethredote obviously didn’t trust Azania, he had no reason to believe that she was an expert lock pick.

  The hairpins were frustrating tools, a bit too long to hold comfortably in one hand. The pointy tips kept slipping inside the lock, but Quarrah remained steady and determined.

  After a moment, the lock popped open. At the same time, the door swung open, Quarrah barely catching herself on the jamb so she didn’t spill face-first onto the road. She clung there like a reluctant hatchling bird trying to work up the courage to leap from the nest.

  The hard ground whirred past, the carriage gaining speed as it made its way along the final road leading from the Char. The trees were still dense here, with people making their way home along footpaths. But ahead, Quarrah could see a line of buildings at the Char’s edge.

  “Lady Azania!” shouted the carriage driver.

  Quarrah jumped, treating the landing the same way she had when exiting that Compounded Void cloud. She struck the road, rolling. Rolling until she launched headlong into a pruned hedge.

  Sparks! She’d
done more than enough tumbling for one night! Quarrah pushed herself up, barely reorienting herself in time to see the carriage explode.

  It lit up the night like one of Lorstan Grale’s aerial detonations. Fire belched outward, and burning scraps of carriage were hurtled in every direction. From her spot at the base of the hedge, Quarrah saw pedestrians running, screaming.

  An exploding carriage was enough to draw everyone’s attention, and that was surely the king’s plan. It was really the perfect way to dispose of Azania Fyse. Pethredote had publicly given up his own carriage to take her home. If the thing exploded en route, it would look like someone had been attempting to assassinate the king. Azania would be an unfortunate casualty, but the people would silently be relieved that it hadn’t been their good king.

  Quarrah rose on shaky bare feet and ducked into the wooded grounds of the Char, bidding a silent farewell to Azania Fyse. If the Regulator Inspectors took the time to pick through the remains of the smoldering wreck, they’d hopefully find a bit of red hair, or a scrap of silver gown. Everyone would think her dead, and, in a way, Azania truly was.

  No more costumes and invented pasts. No more singing and posing. She was just Quarrah Khai now. And nothing felt better.

  I often feel as if this island is out to get me.

  PART IV

  Keep the fury at bay. Let not your eyes darken and your tongue become stiff. It is not requisite for the Holy Torch to cure, but to make safe these islands with its own brilliance.

  —Wayfarist Voyage, Vol. 2

  Slintah was made sick in the red of night. A trespasser on land aflame.

  —Ancient Agrodite song

  CHAPTER

  25

  I think things are going rather well,” Ard said, walking alongside Quarrah. It was dawn, the morning’s purplish hues more vibrant after the red night of the Moon Passing.

  Rather well? Was Ard talking about the ruse? “I have a different way of describing this job,” Quarrah mentioned.

  “Sure, we have a traitor in our midst,” Ard continued, “I got imprisoned in a Reggie Stockade, and you nearly got blown up in a carriage. But isn’t that what makes it all interesting? Keeps us on our toes. Despite all those setbacks, we still managed to steal the Royal Regalia.”

  Ard shifted his large backpack. Like the one Quarrah carried, Ard’s pack was laden with enough personal supplies to last a week. But unlike Quarrah’s load, Ard also carried the shards of dragon shell tucked in the bottom of his pack, wrapped in leather and brushed clean of the soot from Grotenisk’s bonfire.

  That was the most either of them had said about the king’s informant since that night on top of the palace. But Quarrah felt the threat of a traitor like a constant undercurrent pushing against them. She had decided, like Ard, that it couldn’t be Raek. The man was just too invested in Ardor Benn to turn on him. But if not Raek, then who?

  “I mean, I’m just going to say it,” Ard went on. “We are pretty blazing good at what we do.”

  Quarrah couldn’t fully agree. She wanted to celebrate every small victory along the way, but there was still so much of the ruse to unfold. They were headed to Pekal now. The island of the dragons. Quarrah was afraid that all her expertise and accomplishments would mean very little when she found herself staring at a fire-breathing sow.

  Ard dug in the pocket of his long coat, the cold springtime wind whipping his lapels as he withdrew identification papers for him and Quarrah. The man in the booth yawned as Ard approached, the breaking daylight and a mug of coffee clearly not enough to fully rouse him from the long night of the Moon Passing.

  “Androt Pen,” Ard introduced, passing the papers to the man in the booth. “And this is Floria Migg. We have spots reserved on the first carriage to Talumon.”

  The tired worker glanced at the papers, checking for whatever signatures he seemed to need. He nodded his approval and slid the papers back with a mumbled “Forty Ashings.”

  Ard apparently knew the steep cost and already had the coins counted. He dumped the payment on the counter, and the man handed Ard the tickets.

  “Funny things, official papers,” Ard told Quarrah, tucking them back into his coat as they strode toward the launching area. “The more people need them to get around, the better people get at forging them. The better people get at forging them, the less value they have.”

  Quarrah knew that Tarnath Aimes had done this particular batch of papers. After creating the counterfeit regalia and lifelike wax figure of Ard, Quarrah assumed that Tarnath had no trouble calligraphing the needed signatures.

  Quarrah had been back to her old self for almost a full cycle, sitting around waiting for Ard and Raek to finish their preparations for the expedition to Pekal. It wasn’t long after her escape from the king’s carriage that Quarrah caught word around town—Azania Fyse was dead. The people mourned for a few days. Quarrah heard the king even released an official statement expressing some remorse that it “should have been him in that carriage.” What a blazing load of nonsense.

  A tiny part of Quarrah was sorry to be done with Azania Fyse. She’d always found the character flat and uninteresting, but she knew what her purpose was. She didn’t get to decide where to go, what to wear, what to say. That was all predetermined by Cinza Ortemion. But as long as Quarrah stuck to the instructions and coaching from the disguise managers, she would properly fulfill her role in the ruse.

  What was her role now? As a thief, she’d accomplished what Ardor Benn had hired her to do. They had the Royal Regalia, so what was Quarrah’s purpose on the team now? Honestly, she was starting to feel a little like extra baggage. Like she was just along for the ride until they finished the ruse so she could collect her two hundred thousand Ashings.

  The sun was just beginning to crest the eastern horizon. It would take some time to get situated, but theirs would be the first carriage to depart in the Second Cycle. And as innocent as their travel plans seemed at the booth, Quarrah knew that the timing was essential.

  Ard and Quarrah followed the paved path toward the edge of the bluff overlooking the InterIsland Waters. Aside from the palace hill, this was one of the higher points along the coast. Several miles outside of Beripent, it made for the perfect launching station for the Trans-Island Carriage waiting there.

  Quarrah spotted the carriage immediately. She had seen drawings of them, seen them in flight. But this was the closest Quarrah had actually been to one.

  It was an oblong balloon of sorts—thick flax sailcloth draped around a lightweight wooden framework. She thought it looked sort of like an airborne loaf of bread, with a more aerodynamic nose. The actual carriage sat below the balloon, lashed to it with some intricate webbing. The whole contraption was tethered to the bluff by a series of stout chains.

  Large sails hung limp on both sides of the wooden carriage. In the faint morning light, Quarrah could just make out the propellers. They extended on sturdy arms behind the side sails, each propeller blade longer than she was tall.

  Quarrah saw only a handful of Reggies, though the station was bustling with employees, checking balloons and overseeing other operations. There were several carriages getting prepped for later departures, but only one was straining against its tethers, ready for liftoff.

  Traveling this way was expensive, and the paperwork alone had always prompted Quarrah to finagle her way onto a safer, albeit slower, ship when moving between islands.

  Thanks to Pethredote’s funding for developing inventions, Trans-Island Carriages had been in operation for nearly fifteen years now, each cycle bringing some new addition for safety or efficiency. Not even the swiftest sailboat could match the speed of the carriages. But Quarrah knew there were still many people like her that would rather keep their feet on the ground with a traditional ferry.

  Raek claimed he didn’t like the system, though Quarrah had a sneaking suspicion that he was actually fascinated by the carriages. His professed dislike probably stemmed from the fact that someone else had done the math. So
meone else had planned the detonations and measured the Grit. But not this morning. Raek could finally have it his way, strapped into the pilot’s station.

  Quarrah knew that it was partly the danger of the carriages that had enticed Ard to use one for their passage to Pekal. This wasn’t a boat that could be boarded or sabotaged, allowing a traitor to slip away while the rest of the crew perished. Once this thing launched with everyone on board, it meant they would all make it to Pekal. Or, as Quarrah pointed out, they would all crash and burn.

  Quarrah and Ard approached the wooden carriage, massive balloon lurching against its chains. Now that Quarrah saw the thing up close, she was pretty sure she didn’t want to get inside. The carriage looked frightfully flimsy, hardly suitable to bear anything into the sky. Sparks, it looked like the bottom might fall right out!

  “It’s built to be lightweight,” Ard said, probably noticing her uneasiness. “It’s just like a giant Drift crate. Once the pilot detonates the Drift Grit, everything inside the carriage will become weightless.” He gestured upward. “That way, the balloon only has to lift the weight of the carriage, not its contents.”

  Quarrah knew the theory behind the Trans-Island Carriage System. They’d talked it over and studied plenty of diagrams in the bakery. From here, Quarrah could see the intake at the bottom of the large balloon where the pilot would detonate the Compounded Heat Grit. Hot air was supposed to make this thing fly?

  Quarrah shook her head. Raek got overly excited about the science, but it was all rather puzzling to her. It was indeed a bold bit of technology and engineering. And it was a perfect example of the type of progress and forward thinking seen under Pethredote’s rule.

  “All aboard,” Raek’s voice sounded at the carriage entrance. Quarrah and Ard stepped around the workers who were adjusting the side sails and found Raek looming in a small doorway. He was wearing a pilot’s jacket and hat, though both looked a little small for his large frame.