The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn

by Tyler Whitesides

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Halavend clenched his fists at his sides.

  “You can’t escape this,” Chauster said. “I have suspected foul play from you for cycles now. Our source has finally confirmed that you are the founder of Ardor Benn’s entire ruse. And she hasn’t been wrong yet.”

  “She …” Halavend muttered.

  Quarrah Khai? Could that thief have been trading secrets behind Ardor’s back all this time?

  “Yes,” said Chauster. “The Trothian woman.”

  Halavend felt a sickness wash over him. Lyndel! His stomach cramped, and he thought he might vomit. He tried to reconcile the thought that his only friend had betrayed everything they had worked toward. It was beyond unexpected. Not once had Lyndel shown reluctance in his plotting and planning. She had expressed many questions, yes. But those were the questions of an eager mind. Questions that had guided all his research.

  “No,” Halavend whispered.

  “The woman’s name is Mearet,” said the king. “A Trothian baker.”

  “What?” Halavend felt the skin on his entire body prickle like gooseflesh. “What?” he stammered a second time, his eyes trained on the king.

  “She has a bakery on Humont Street,” the king continued. “She came to us shortly after Ardor Benn purchased the establishment and set up his space in the upper room. Mearet was concerned that she’d heard disparaging remarks about my kingship. She is a loyal subject, grateful for the opportunity my rule has given her people. So Mearet installed a listening device through one of the chimneys. It kept her useful by eavesdropping on Ardor’s meetings.”

  Halavend exhaled sharply. Lyndel was clean after all! Homeland be praised, since Halavend wasn’t likely to escape this night unscathed. Lyndel would have to finish his work. She knew what needed to be done, though she might never know that Halavend had decided she should be the one to detonate the Visitant Grit.

  “Our source led us through every stage of the ruse,” said the king. “The tip to the Regulators that Ardor would be at the concert. Dale Hizror’s first attempt to steal my regalia at the reception. An unauthorized Harvesting crew running an expedition on Pekal. But the baker began to grow self-important toward the end, demanding increasing monetary compensation for her information. Threatening to expose my involvement if we didn’t pander to her every demand. Confirming your involvement was the final bargaining chip she stubbornly held on to. But my people were able to beat that out of her. See, we knew about everything.”

  Halavend’s lip quivered into something resembling a grin. “And yet, despite such useful information, Ardor Benn still managed to succeed.”

  King Pethredote’s hands suddenly unclasped, drawing his sword in a fluid motion. Halavend staggered backward and the tip of the thin blade hovered just inches from his neck.

  “Ardor Benn is dead,” the king declared.

  Halavend’s brow furrowed. That wasn’t possible. He’d received a message from the ruse artist just hours ago.

  “My Harvesting crew shot him dead on Pekal just last night,” Pethredote continued. “But it would seem that Ardor’s associates are still at large. A citizen fishing vessel reported seeing a ship in the InterIsland Waters using cargo nets to bring a mound of Slagstone on board. They will no doubt sail to Strind. In the next few days, they will attempt to access a factory so they can grind the shell to Visitant Grit.”

  In the next few days. Ha! Pethredote was a fool! “Perhaps they have already succeeded,” ventured Halavend. “Perhaps you are too late.”

  The king’s jaw tightened in anger. “We will catch Ardor Benn’s partner when he returns to the bakery, but you could help speed that process. Withholding information does not make you valuable. The Visitant Grit is useless in the hands of your criminal associates. What makes you think you could ever choose a hero worthy of summoning a Holy Paladin?”

  “What makes any of us worthy?” Halavend asked. “The heroes chosen by the Prime Isles of old have been failures, more often than not.”

  “How dare you speak against this holy station!” Chauster shouted. “Those heroes, which you are so quick to call failures, have each served a very specific purpose.”

  Halavend’s head began to spin. What was he saying? The Prime Isles of old had intentionally chosen unworthy heroes?

  “What is it, then?” Halavend’s scholarly mind began digging for answers despite his current danger. “What makes a worthy hero?”

  “None are worthy,” said Chauster. “The king and I know things about Visitant Grit that your feeble mind could never comprehend.”

  “Tell us where the Slagstone is,” said the king.

  “What will you do if I don’t speak?” Halavend dared. “You said it yourself. We are quite alone in here. How will you explain the murdered body of an old Isle when the two of you were the only ones in the Mooring tonight?”

  “Quite easily,” said Prime Isle Chauster. “We found the poor man dead when we came in. It’s understandable for a feeble old Isle to slip on the wet planks of the dock.”

  With one swift movement, Chauster kicked the side of Halavend’s knee. The old Isle felt something pop, followed by an excruciating pain. He toppled, Chauster’s hands striking him in the chest.

  Cold water enveloped Halavend in a drowning embrace. His mouth was full before he could even take a breath. The terror paralyzed his mind, but his arms thrashed through the water until his fingers felt the edge of the dock. His feet touched the bottom of the waterway, and at last he was able to pull his head above the surface.

  He sputtered and coughed, opening his eyes just in time to see Chauster crouched at the edge of the dock. The Prime Isle reached down, gripping a fistful of soaking silver hair atop Halavend’s head.

  Before Halavend could react, Chauster was forcing him under the water, yet again without time for a proper breath. Halavend should have been able to hold himself up. But his knee! It throbbed, collapsing uselessly beneath him. He released his grip on the dock to claw at his oppressor, but Chauster had every advantage.

  A sharp tug on the top of his head, and Halavend was brought above the surface once again, choking, frantic.

  “Our records indicate its been over a hundred years since an Isle has drowned in the Mooring,” said the Prime Isle. “Tell us where to find the Slagstone, and we won’t have to start the count anew.”

  Halavend drew a shaky breath, water streaming off his chin. He would face his death with honor. It was something he had resigned to the moment he embarked on this dangerous quest. He would not beg and grovel. He would not give them the information they were seeking. Halavend was an old man. If death had arrived, he would stand up to it bravely. As Isless Malla had done.

  Prime Isle Chauster pushed him down again, the force snapping his head back sharply. His eyes were open wide in the clear water, staring panic stricken at his murderer. Halavend waited for Chauster to pull him up again, but each second passed like a knife in his chest.

  His lungs felt as if they would burst. Helpless, submerged, his old body wracked with pain. This was what it felt like to die. This was death. In the place where he had spent most of his life. Under the hand of the man he had served for decades.

  Suddenly, Chauster was pulling his head out of the water again. Halavend sucked in deep breaths, gagging, and vomiting into the water around him. His sight seemed to clarify a bit more with each gasp. He hadn’t noticed it was going black under the water. Pinpricks of light danced across his vision, and his heartbeat seemed to pound in his temples like a striking hammer.

  “This will be your final opportunity, Isle Halavend,” said Chauster. At the end of the dock, Halavend noticed that King Pethredote had stepped onto the raft, the tether released, anchoring the vessel with the long pole in his hands.

  “You will tell us where to find—” Chauster’s threat was suddenly cut short as the door behind him swung open. A figure leapt from Cove 23, blue-skinned, with arms wrapped in the religious red cloth of her
people. Halavend tried to shout her name, warn her to get as far away as she could.

  But Lyndel did not seem frightened. The king cried out from his raft, and the Prime Isle turned abruptly to face the unexpected arrival. Chauster’s hand released Halavend’s head, and the old man caught the edge of the dock for support.

  There was a flash of steel in Lyndel’s hand, and Halavend recognized the Trothian Assassin Blade she had given him. The priestess shouted a cry in her native tongue, brought the dagger around, and thrust it into Chauster’s stomach.

  The two halves of the blade grated against each other as they cut into his flesh. The Slagstone threw unseeable sparks into the groove, instantly igniting the Void Grit that Lyndel had loaded.

  Prime Isle Chauster exploded.

  The blast might have only been a foot or so, but the Void Grit worked with tremendous force, creating a clear space that originated inside Chauster’s torso.

  Blood and gore spattered like spilled paint. Lyndel’s hand was pushed backward, the blade thrown from her grasp. The weapon clattered against the doorway to the cove as the mangled corpse of the Prime Isle fell from the dock.

  He hit the water beside Isle Halavend, staining the Mooring a deep crimson. Chauster’s shredded body floated—a buoy of death in sacred waters. Halavend looked up at Lyndel, crouching on the dock in front of the cove door. She was unrecognizable—a canvas entirely painted in carnage.

  Lyndel retrieved the fallen dagger. Its explosive Grit properties were spent, but it was still a fine blade. She turned her bloodstained face across the Mooring to find King Pethredote on his raft, a short distance up the waterway. He looked frightened, stunned, making a hasty retreat to the guards waiting outside. Halavend understood the king’s panic. Lyndel had come seemingly from nowhere and butchered the second most powerful man in the Greater Chain.

  And she was not finished.

  Lyndel sprinted three long-legged steps across the dock, building momentum as she pulled her arm back, the dagger gripped loosely in her fingers. She hurled the weapon hilt over blade at the fleeing king.

  In the dimness of the Mooring’s Light Grit torches, Halavend could not see if the blade struck. The king dropped to a crouch, the long rafting pole still held in one hand.

  Halavend’s numb fingers groped along the edge of the dock until he found the short ladder. The water was so red, opaque. Bracing with his arms, he planted the foot of his uninjured leg on one of the submerged rungs and tried to hoist himself. He teetered, too weak to rise, fighting against his crippled balance so he wouldn’t fall back into the pool of blood.

  A hand reached down, seizing the sodden shoulder of his robe and pulling him partway out of the water. It was Lyndel, turned back to help him. She was a visage of death, the whites of her jittery eyes contrastingly bright against the crimson blood on her navy face.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” muttered Halavend. “They know about everything. Ardor must not go to Humont … The Trothian baker—she was the spy. They’re looking for the Visitant Grit.”

  “I will find Ardor,” Lyndel promised. “But we have to get you out of here.” She managed to hoist him until he was sitting sideways on the stained planks, his broken leg trailing back into the water.

  “Lyndel,” he whispered. “There is something more. The Prime Isle said no one is worthy to detonate the Visitant Grit. Only he and the king know the truth about its success. But I have decided that you should be—”

  Halavend’s sentence was cut short as the deafening crack of a gunshot echoed down the Mooring’s spacious tunnel. Lyndel went rigid beside him, falling back to brace herself against the stone wall of the cove. He locked eyes with her.

  “Halavend,” she whispered, dropping to her knees. “No.”

  Then he felt it. The intense burning pain in his chest. Halavend looked down to see his own blood seeping from a hole below his rib cage.

  In the distance, King Pethredote was standing on his raft once more. Halavend’s vision was darkening, and he could not see the Singler in the king’s hand. But Pethredote’s posture identified him as the shooter, his arm still extended toward the dock, and a puff of smoke above his head.

  Lyndel reached for Halavend, her wide eyes frantic. But the old man’s strength was gone. He slipped silently from the edge of the dock, his own shade of red mingling with that already swirling in the water.

  It was cold. Isle Halavend was far from the Homeland, adrift without a vessel to bear him. Pain gave way to a benumbed reverie, and the old man finally closed his eyes.

  The sacred waters of the Mooring wrapped around him.

  I must believe that my soul will find the Homeland. My faith must carry me into death.

  PART V

  Hear, O islands, and hearken yonder seas. The Homeland will forever Urge to keep that Holy Torch alight. Beside this, there is no greater duty.

  —Wayfarist Voyage, Vol. 3

  Death is painted with the Moon’s red fire. But none are burned by the highest torch.

  —Ancient Agrodite song

  CHAPTER

  35

  Beripent was in a state of disarray like Ard had never seen before. Rioting. Looting. Sparks, there were dead bodies in the streets! And this wasn’t even the sketchy part of town.

  The harbor had been a mess of confusion, crawling with Regulators. In the disorder, Raek had managed to moor the Double Take without paying so much as a docking fee. Now they navigated the streets, Quarrah at his side, with Raek trailing a few steps behind.

  These were hardly the conditions Ard expected, coming back from Strind with a keg full of Visitant Grit. Part of him feared that it was no coincidence. That the sudden, unexplained riotousness was the result of his return. Isle Halavend had warned him numerous times that chaos and anarchy would ensue, should the true motives behind the ruse be discovered.

  Well, wouldn’t that be painfully ironic, Ard thought, if the rest of the citizens knew why I was doing what I was doing before I did.

  Perhaps Tanalin had something to do with this. The king’s Harvesting crew would be back from Pekal by now, and Ard hoped that Nemery Baggish was getting the treatment she needed. Ard didn’t know what kind of report Tanalin would make to King Pethredote. The only way to preserve her innocence would be in claiming to have shot the poacher, Ardor Benn. Which, in a way, she had.

  Ard kept one hand on his satchel, feeling the bulky Grit keg. His other hand was tucked under the flap of his coat, resting on the handle of his holstered Roller.

  It seemed risky to take a public carriage, so Ard and his companions went by foot, maneuvering their way quietly toward the Bakery on Humont Street. Once they arrived, Raek would fix the Visitant Grit into a secure detonation pot.

  It was almost time to make the delivery to Isle Halavend.

  Ard gathered bits of information as they made their way. Conflicting stories, but the Trothians appeared to have made some sort of hostile attack on the Mooring. Some said the king was dead. Others said it was the Prime Isle.

  Now there were bodies in the streets. Most of them Trothians.

  “We need to get out of sight,” Quarrah muttered as something smashed through a high window. She’d probably prefer slinking through back alleyways.

  “We’re almost to the bakery,” Ard replied.

  He didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, patchy as the stories on the street were. But why would the Trothians attack? King Pethredote had been a wonderful king for them, extending more fairness and opportunity than any ruler in recent history.

  The rumors seemed to agree that the assault had taken place at the Mooring. Maybe this was an attack on Wayfarism, since the Prime Isle wouldn’t allow conversion for Trothians due to their intrinsic ties with Agrodite ritual. Ard worried about Isle Halavend. But the old man was wise enough to stay out of trouble—at least the kind that didn’t involve him.

  “How do we know the bakery will be safe?” Quarrah asked.

  “We don’t have much choice,” Raek
said. “All my materials for mixing Grit are in the upper room.”

  “Besides,” Ard added, “what kind of secret meeting would it be without Mearet’s cinnamon scones? We have standards, Quarrah.”

  They rounded the corner to Humont Street, and the bakery storefront came into view. It was quiet here, and Ard wasn’t sure if he should be grateful or fearful.

  “Quarrah.” Ard handed her the satchel. “Raek and I will make sure the bakery is secure. If something goes wrong, it’ll be up to you to get the Visitant Grit to Isle Halavend.”

  Quarrah was the perfect fail-safe. Ard had no doubt she could navigate the streets of Beripent and enter the Mooring without detection.

  Raek moved toward the shopfront, Ard jogging to catch up. He quietly slipped his Roller free of its holster, keeping it concealed beneath the flap of his coat as he opened the bakery door. The bell chimed, but otherwise, all was still inside. The counter displayed a picked-over selection of baked goods, and Ard could tell they were at least a day old.

  The ovens hadn’t been lit this morning. Ard could always smell the baking as soon as he entered the shop. He stopped before the counter, Raek moving around to approach the false oven leading to the upper room. Ard saw movement, his ears training on a shuffling step coming from the hallway that led to the back of the shop.

  Ard whipped out his Roller, but he holstered the weapon the moment he saw who it was.

  “Flames, Mearet!” Ard stepped toward her. “What happened to you?”

  The short Trothian baker looked terrible. One of her eyes was completely swollen shut, her lip was split, and there was a cut across her cheek. Her arms hung limply by her side, as though any strength to lift them had been beaten out of her.

  “The streets are a dangerous place for a Trothian today,” muttered the baker.

  Ard leaned across the counter, shaking his head upon closer inspection of the wounds. “We need to get you to a healer,” he said. “You need stitches …”