The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn

by Tyler Whitesides

  All this time traversing the mountain, assuring Nemery that their escape would come, but Ard didn’t truly believe it until right now. Raek had arranged things with the pirates, and Ard wondered for the hundredth time what his partner’s final goal was. The best ruses took time and patience. But at some point, Raek would have to try and turn the tables.

  “How long until they get here?” Ard handed the spyglass back to Raek.

  “I’d say we have about two hours.” Raek glanced back along the peninsula to the trees where Nemery slept. “She’s not going to make the jump, Ard. You know that, right?”

  Ard looked down the steep cliff to where the waves smashed against the rocks with a steady cadence. They wouldn’t jump from here. Ard had scouted a spot closer to where Nemery was resting. There, the cliff was almost perfectly vertical with no rocks at the bottom to conflict with landing. But the jump would still be over sixty feet. And once they hit the water, there would be a fair swim to reach the ship.

  Raek was right. There was no way Nemery would survive the jump.

  “We’ll figure something out,” said Ard.

  “In the next two hours?” Raek replied. “And what about the Slagstone? You claim to have some brilliant idea to get it off the island, but you won’t tell me a word about it! Is that going to be ready in time? Or do we just leave the digested shell and forget all about this ruse?”

  “I’m working on it!” Ard shouted, clenching his fists. The tension was tangible. Raek was pressuring him. Trying to get him to break down. “There are a few complicated calculations that—”

  “Then tell me!” Raek bellowed. “Homeland knows that your mathematical skills will be the death of us all. That’s my expertise, Ard.”

  Ard glanced back toward the Drift crate. Raek was absolutely right. Ard’s experiments had never even been successful on a miniature scale. What hope did he have of executing them properly at full size?

  “I had a real fancy drink at one of the orchestra receptions,” said Ard. He had to tell Raek if he wanted his plan to succeed. That was all there was to it.

  Raek looked puzzled at first, and then muttered, “Well, that’s more like the Ard I used to know.”

  “The bartender used Compounded Cold Grit to make a sphere of ice,” Ard continued. “As the reception went on, the drinks got more elaborate. The last one I ordered had a grape frozen in the center of it.”

  “Why are you telling me this, Ard?” Raek’s tone was slightly annoyed as he rubbed a hand over his bald head.

  “The grape floated,” Ard said. “A grape usually sinks. But when it was surrounded by a sphere of ice, the grape floated to the top of the glass.” He paused to see if Raek would figure it out. Met with a blank stare, Ard went on.

  “If we mix enough Compounded Cold Grit and strap it to the Slagstone mound, we could throw the whole thing off the cliff,” he explained. “The Grit will detonate on impact and should freeze a sphere of water around the Slagstone. It’ll float.”

  Raek stared at him unblinking for several moments. Now that Ard had finally divulged the plan, he actually felt quite desperate to hear Raek’s opinion.

  “I don’t know if that’ll work,” Raek finally said.

  “It has to,” Ard pointed out. “We don’t really have another option.”

  “There are a lot of variables.” Raek shook his head. “Size, weight, density of the Slagstone. External air temperature. Water temperature. Mixing ratios between Grit types.”

  “I’ve done a few calculations already,” said Ard. “I ran some tests while I was chasing the dragon …”

  “Freshwater,” Raek interrupted. “You ran your tests in freshwater, Ard. We have to drop the Slagstone into the ocean. The rate at which salt water freezes is significantly different than freshwater. Your calculations are useless.”

  “Then I’m glad I decided to tell you.” Ard knew his work was subpar, but he didn’t know he’d been so far off. “You can figure this out.”

  “I could have,” said Raek, “a week ago. You’re asking me to do this in two hours, with the few materials we happen to have left? What if we don’t have enough Grit?”

  “I’ve got nearly a full panweight of Cold Grit in my pack. And twice that in Compounding Grit,” said Ard. “I came prepared for this.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Raek turned back to the open sea, shutting one eye and peering through the spyglass at the approaching ship. “Even if I figure this out and we get the Slagstone off Pekal …” He took a deep breath as if debating whether or not he should say what he was thinking. “What about Quarrah?”

  “I’ve sent Moroy to look for Quarrah,” Ard answered without a pause. The Tracer should have been back with a report by now.

  “But I see that you didn’t go yourself.”

  Raek’s words were like a gunshot to the heart. Ard wanted to go after Quarrah. He hated the fact that he’d bribed Moroy to investigate for him. Ard told himself that it was because he couldn’t leave Nemery. Because he couldn’t leave the Slagstone under Raek’s suspicious care. But those were hardly reasons to keep him from chasing Quarrah.

  It was Tanalin.

  They were so close to escaping Pekal. Mere hours away. If he went looking for Quarrah, he’d risk meeting Tanalin. And Ard didn’t know what he would do if he came face-to-face with that ghost.

  Raek shook his head. “The Ardor Benn I know would do anything for the people he trusts.”

  Ard’s eyes locked on to his companion’s face. The game was up, then. Raek had sniffed out his suspicions.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” If this were a common ruse, Ard would identify this moment as the Final Distrust. A last opportunity for both parties to turn away and pretend like nothing was afoul between them.

  “You think I’m the king’s informant,” Raek said. Ard felt his stomach drop. “Why else wouldn’t you tell me your plan for moving the Slagstone off the island? And the way you changed the crew’s command structure to distance yourself from me … I didn’t let myself believe it. I couldn’t allow myself to think that you’d accuse me. Me! Turned against you. Like I could be bought. A traitor!”

  “Well, are you?” Ard shouted, unable to hold the question back any longer.

  Raek stared down at him, scarred face shadowed. Ard had seen the man shot, sliced, and battered, but here on the peninsula of this Homeland-forsaken island, the pain in Raek’s dark eyes was beyond anything Ard had witnessed.

  “I’m not going to answer that, old friend.” Raek took a steadying breath. “That’s a question you shouldn’t have to ask.”

  It was Ard’s job to read people. He didn’t have proof, but the look in his friend’s eyes was enough.

  “I’m sorry, Raek.” Ard was surprised at the emotion in his own voice. “I don’t know what I was thinking. All the evidence led me to believe it was you. I didn’t want it to be true—”

  “It’s not,” Raek snapped, his expression steely once more.

  “I know.” Ard rubbed a hand across his forehead. It was as though a costume had been dropped, exposing an old friend he hoped was still beneath. But it was a costume that Ard alone had put on Raek. How could he ever have suspected Raekon Dorrel?

  “It’s this blazing ruse. Halavend’s hidden motives,” Ard muttered. “It’s all been playing tricks with my mind. Sometimes I feel as if the Homeland itself is running a ruse on me.” He looked up at his big friend. “I trust you, Raek.” Flames, it felt good to say those words and mean them. “But if not you, then who?”

  Raek shook his head in confusion. “There were only three of us that ever knew all the plans.”

  “Not Quarrah,” Ard whispered.

  “There’s no way. We would have seen through her by now,” Raek said. “Maybe it’s Isle Halavend. Or what about the Agrodite priestess working with him?”

  Ard shut his eyes, listening to the waves roll against the cliffs so far below. For a moment, he didn’t care who the king’s informant was. He knew i
t wasn’t Raek, and that was all that mattered.

  Ard’s reverie was interrupted by the sounds of someone approaching across the peninsula’s rocks. He opened his eyes and spun to see Moroy, his angular face dirty and weary.

  “One of my snares just caught a deer,” he reported. “If we get a fire going, we could have something decent to eat.”

  Ard raised his hands in frustration. “Did you do what I asked?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I found Quarrah. The Harvesters have her. She was alive when I saw her. Looks like the woman Tracer has taken over as captain. She was questioning Quarrah. Don’t know if she got any useful information against us.”

  Tanalin.

  Tanalin Phor was now captain of the king’s Harvesting crew.

  Ard felt Raek’s eyes boring into him. This inevitable moment, which had been slowly brewing for seven years, had just reached a full boil. The only way to reach Quarrah was to face Tanalin.

  He was going to have to choose. Tanalin Phor or Quarrah Khai.

  One was a long-lost relationship. A dream that Ard held on to with all his might. The idea that he could, one day, under the perfect circumstances, make Tanalin understand why he’d done the things he’d done. They could be together, with more Ashings than they knew how to spend.

  The other was something much more real. Not a dream but a growing, developing organism. What Ard and Quarrah shared was flawed, and at times difficult. He had come to know Quarrah well over the last eight cycles, and whether or not he wanted to admit it, he had come to love her.

  What did the Homeland want him to do? Ard tried to focus on the Urgings—those feelings of the heart that he had learned about from his mother. But even without the Urgings, Ard knew which was the right choice.

  Wayfarism taught that its followers should ever be progressing, advancing. Settling was a sin. Quarrah represented one doctrine in his mind, and Tanalin the other. And when he thought of it that way, the choice was obvious.

  Homeland help me, Ard thought. “Where are they?”

  Moroy pointed southward along the shoreline. “They’ve got a camp about a half hour’s jog along the coast. They’re keeping Quarrah in shackles.”

  Ard stepped past Moroy, making his way down the craggy peninsula. “Where are you going?” Raek asked.

  “You know what I have to do, Raek. You’ve been telling me for cycles, but I’ve been too stubborn to trust you.” For the first time in years, Ard felt a distinct and undeniable Urging from the Homeland. It was a powerful twist of his insides that couldn’t be ignored. “I’m going to get Quarrah.”

  “They’ve got a lot of men,” Moroy said. “A lot of weapons. You’ll never fight your way to her.”

  “I’m not going to fight.”

  “What are you going to do?” Moroy asked. “Ask them nicely to release her?”

  “Something like that,” replied Ard. “I have an advantage with this particular Harvesting captain. She won’t kill me.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Moroy asked.

  Ard glanced at Raek. “Because everyone thinks she already did.”

  I am not above doubt. But I believe that facing it will show me the truth.

  CHAPTER

  32

  Ardor Benn sat in the captain’s map tent, awaiting the moment he had dreamed of for years. But now those dreams had turned to nightmares, and the prospect of the coming conversation caused him to tremble.

  He was seated on a low wooden stool, his back to the tent’s entrance flap. Ard leaned forward on his knees, head downcast, trying to keep his emotions under control. Two big Harvesters stood on either side of him, Rollers drawn as though they might shoot him point-blank if he so much as breathed funny.

  It was dim inside the tent, with only the first rays of sunshine stretching through the trees and dappling across the walls. The trees dripped steadily from the night’s rain, giving the illusion that the storm had not yet passed.

  Ard was prepared—as prepared as he could be. As much as he wanted to pretend that things would go smoothly, he couldn’t ignore the facts. He was a wanted man, and Tanalin was the captain of a crew sent to find him. The situation would be problematic, even if the two of them didn’t have a history. But Ard was counting on that history to prevent Tanalin from killing him on the spot. Of course, there was also a chance that it would backfire …

  Behind him, Ard heard the sodden canvas tent flap pull open. A plume of smoke from a dying campfire wafted in. Oh, flames. He wasn’t ready for this!

  “My crew said you wanted to see me?”

  Her voice! That was Tanalin’s voice! It made Ard’s heart race and his breath come short.

  “Yes,” he whispered. “I’ve wanted to see you for many years, Tanalin Phor.” He stood, slowly turning to look at her.

  Tanalin gasped, a sound akin to a drowning woman sucking in her final breath. She took a step backward, and her legs gave out. The man next to her—a new face that had entered the tent with Tanalin—caught her, muscular arms wrapping around her for stability.

  “Tanalin and I would like a moment alone,” Ard said to the three men in the tent. He needed to be alone with her. They needed to speak freely—not just of his plans to rescue Quarrah, but of their past.

  “You’re insane!” spat the man supporting Tanalin. Who was he, anyway? What right did he have to hold her like that?

  “The poacher is right, Omith,” Tanalin finally spoke. She was standing on her own now, but her hand lingered on his arm. “You must leave us.”

  “What?” Omith whispered. “Tana …”

  Tana. Just like Ard used to call her. She had always been Tanalin. To everyone else.

  “Go,” said Tanalin. “I don’t want to have to make it an order.”

  Awkwardly, Omith moved backward, ducking through the tent flap with the two big Harvesters right behind. The subtle sound of water droplets splattering on the tent’s canvas roof was like gunfire in Ard’s ears. His own breathing was a hurricane.

  “Who are you?” she whispered. Ard saw that he wasn’t the only one shaking.

  “It’s me.” Didn’t she recognize him? Had she not thought of his face as often as he had pictured hers? Still, there was no substitute for seeing the real thing. The years had been good to her. And Tanalin’s shocked expression only enhanced her natural beauty.

  Her stark black hair had been cut shorter than Ard had ever seen it. Her face looked browner, tanned by years of Harvesting expeditions. But her eyes were the same. Pale blue and sparkling, like the midday summer sun reflected in a calm mountain pool.

  “But how are you here?” Tanalin’s speech was slurred. “Illusion Grit? What kind of trick is this?”

  “No trick,” he said. “It’s really me. It’s Ardor.”

  Tanalin was shaking her head. “No. No. You died. Raek shot you. The cliff …”

  Ard took a deep breath. Part of him wanted to lie. He even had a story prepared about how he had miraculously survived the fall. But that wouldn’t settle anything between them, and any measure of acceptance he received from Tanalin would only be based on deceit.

  No. It was time to come clean.

  “I didn’t die that night,” he started. “I didn’t even get shot.”

  “But the Roller … I saw—”

  “It wasn’t real,” he interrupted. “I had to stage the whole thing to protect you. I had to make sure no one in the crew would suspect your involvement in stealing the husk.”

  “No,” she whispered. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m afraid not,” he said. “Raek helped me pull it off. There were blanks in the Roller. I claimed the Fourth Decree and got off the island with the last ship to depart that cycle.”

  Ard saw the truth working in her. He saw Tanalin’s face go flat with the numbness of disbelief. But she couldn’t deny the man standing before her very eyes.

  “Where have you been?” she asked. Ard saw the tears starting, running silently down her beautiful face.

&n
bsp; “I wanted to find you sooner,” he said. “I didn’t want us to meet under these circumstances—”

  “Sparks, Ard!” Tanalin stepped forward and punched him squarely in the chest.

  Okay, so she was angry. Ard understood that. He held up his arms in case she wanted to punch again.

  “You wanted me to think you were dead!” she shouted. “How were we supposed to meet again? What circumstances were you hoping for?”

  “I’ve been working hard,” Ard tried to explain, lowering his hands. “I’ve been saving Ashings. All these years! It’s always been my plan to come back for you!”

  Tanalin punched him again, this time in the jaw. He grunted, dropping to one knee from the blow. Tanalin always had been a spitfire. Ard supposed he should have expected this.

  “Do you have any idea what you put me through?” Tanalin continued. “I was blamed for your death! And Raekon … Oh, if I could get my hands on him …”

  She clenched her fists, and Ard brought his hands up in defense once more. But Tanalin seemed to resist striking him again.

  “I can explain.” Ard rose slowly. “My parents, Tanalin. You remember? They were in a terrible debt.”

  “I cared about them, too,” she said. “I was willing to help you. Why, Ard? Why?”

  “I protected you, Tana,” he answered. Now that he called her that, it felt odd on his tongue. Like saying a word in Trothian, even though he didn’t know its meaning.

  “I couldn’t allow my bad decisions to get you in trouble,” Ard continued. “I had to make you believe I was dead. It was the only way to prove your innocence. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “Didn’t have a choice?” she fumed. “You lost everything for an empty husk. Did you know that? There wasn’t a usable scale on it.”

  Ard dropped his eyes to the damp dirt floor. For a moment, he considered telling her the truth about that first ruse. But Ard could tell that tales of his success as a ruse artist would only drive Tanalin into a deeper rage.

  “I understand how upset you must be …” Ard tried.

  “You don’t understand anything!” Tanalin yelled. “If you did, you wouldn’t be here now.” She drew a step closer to him, and Ard could see that her whole body was trembling. “I had to watch you die,” Tanalin whispered. “I loved you, Ard.” Those words stirred up memories powerful enough that Ardor Benn nearly broke. “I loved the memory of you.”