The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn

by Tyler Whitesides

  “Quarrah, look. I’m …”

  She held up her hands to cut him off. “Don’t apologize, Ard. It doesn’t become you.” Life was a ruse to him. Quarrah was tired of playing Ard’s games. “All that talk about correcting your mistakes, following the Homeland’s Urgings so you’d be worthy of a Paladin Visitant … It was a load of slag! You sent me to check on Nemery because you didn’t want me near you.”

  “Let me explain …” he tried again.

  “Some things shouldn’t need explaining,” Quarrah retorted. “I’ve listened to your explanations for cycles. I did everything you asked. Played my part. And you cut me out when it really mattered. Went behind my back. Traveled through time and made everything okay again.” She took a deep breath. “But not this. You can’t make this okay.”

  She stepped back from him, Ard’s countenance seeming to diminish a bit. Quarrah had bottled this up, but it felt good to finally let loose. She only regretted waiting this long, and that her feelings were cast on a night when the city itself seemed to be spiraling into war. Perhaps it was this very atmosphere that Quarrah needed to express herself. A night like tonight, when the air was tainted with recklessness. Why not throw her heart into the mix?

  “What do I have to do, Quarrah?” Ard said. “I’ve been at your side all this time. I’ve listened to you. I’ve protected you. Sparks, I faced Tanalin for you!”

  Quarrah felt her blood boil. Oh, Ard was so proud of that. Like all of his other decisions were excusable because he’d “faced Tanalin Phor.”

  “I escaped!” Quarrah spat. “You didn’t save me from Tanalin. I picked my own lock. I got myself to North Pointe.”

  “But …” She reveled in the look of confusion on his face. “I arranged for Tanalin to give you the tool—”

  “No,” Quarrah cut him off. “You don’t do everything, Ard. Sometimes people succeed without your help. I know that’s hard for you to comprehend.”

  She watched the realization sink in. If Quarrah had escaped on her own, then Ard’s visit to Tanalin hadn’t truly been necessary after all. She watched Ard wrangle with the thought that he could have kept the fantasy going.

  “I’m giving the egg to the Regulators.” Ard distracted himself by checking the latch on the Drift crate. “I picked a well-patrolled neighborhood because I know they’ll find it soon.”

  “What?” Quarrah’s head reeled. After all her efforts to procure the egg, Ard was just going to give it up?

  Ard turned to face her, his brown eyes glistening in the darkness. “Quarrah,” he whispered. “Raek is still alive. Elbrig saw him in the palace dungeon.”

  She didn’t know what to say. Was this another trick, like the time she’d seen Ard shoot Elbrig with a blank Roller? Like the time Tanalin shot Ard?

  “Is this a thing with you ruse artists?” Quarrah finally asked. “You like to make people think you’re dead?”

  “I didn’t know! Sparks!” Ard ran a hand through his hair. “He was still alive when I left the reception hall. Barely. Pethredote must have got to him with Health Grit just in time. We have to get Raek out of there.”

  “We will,” Quarrah said. Raek was her friend, too. The news of his survival was both shocking and thrilling, if she could let herself believe that it was actually true. “We’ll make a plan. I can get into the palace within the next few days and—”

  “No!” Ard cried. “I have the plan. She’s the plan.” He pointed skyward. “This is the final step of the ruse, Quarrah. It’s the answer to everything. Don’t you see? If I give the egg over to the Regulators, they’ll take it to the palace. The sow will bring justice to King Pethredote, and in the chaos, I’ll be able to get Raek out of there.”

  Quarrah couldn’t help but let out a bitter laugh as she pieced it all together. “Ard,” she whispered. “You’re insane.”

  “Does that mean you like the plan?” His stony expression softened a little.

  “Sparks, no!” cried Quarrah. “It means I can’t let you do it. The hope of all life rests inside that egg. What if Pethredote cracks it open?” This was madness, even for Ardor Benn. There were other, more sensible ways to rescue Raek.

  “Oh, come on!” Ard moaned. “The shell is nearly indestructible. You know that. The only chance he’d have of cracking it would be to move the egg to a Grit processing factory. And there isn’t one within sixty miles of the palace.”

  “Then what if he decides to sail it out to sea and drop it overboard?” Quarrah went on.

  “That would take resources and time,” rebutted Ard. “The dragon will be here by then.”

  “What if she doesn’t come?” Quarrah cried. “What if the mother’s sense doesn’t engage? What if she decides it’s too far from Pekal? We don’t know enough about this, Ard. We need to hide the egg and arrange safe transport for it back to Pekal.”

  Ard grunted. His hand flashed to his side and Quarrah saw a Roller in his grasp. She wasn’t afraid that Ard would hurt her. She had never been afraid of that. Quarrah actually believed that somewhere in his manipulative heart, Ardor Benn truly did care for her. The question was how much?

  “What are you going to do, Ard?” She whispered the words. They stood so close, his gun pointed at the street, his eyes pockets of shadow. “Stop. Please,” Quarrah breathed. “We will find another way to save Raek. I’ll help you. But you have to stop this, Ard.”

  Tanalin’s words echoed in Quarrah’s head. Ard doesn’t know when to stop. He gave me up for a husk of dragon scales. What’s he chasing now?

  “It’s almost over, Quarrah,” he muttered. “I have to do this. I know it’ll work. It’s the answer to everything we’ve been fighting for. The sow will get her egg. Pethredote will get justice. And I will get Raek back.”

  “Is that what we’ve been fighting for?” Quarrah asked. “You said Isle Halavend didn’t want violence. He wouldn’t want this.”

  “I’m doing this for him. For Halavend. For that Isless that died on Pekal.” Ard was breathing heavy. “I chose not to reset the timeline because doing so would erase the meaning of their deaths. In another timeline, Pethredote would get away, and I can’t let that happen. I had to save what we have here, Quarrah. What we have now.”

  “What do we have?” she asked. “The Trothians have been driven out of the Greater Chain. Lyndel is leading those who remain to war. The leader of Wayfarism is dead, and the king has lost control of the peaceful reign he worked so hard to establish. We did that. We did all of that!”

  “Pethredote is a liar!” Ard lifted the Roller, pointing it skyward.

  “So are you.” Quarrah regretted the words as soon as they passed her lips.

  Ard stood stunned as Quarrah’s heartbeat hammered in her ears. She saw the hurt in his eyes, but it didn’t last long. Ard’s expression slowly morphed. From stunned disbelief at Quarrah’s words to resolute hardness.

  He fired the gun into the air. Four consecutive shots that caused Quarrah’s ears to ring from the proximity to the firearm. Smoke from the Blast cartridges drifted between them. That screen of smoke suddenly made Ard seem farther away than ever before.

  Quarrah knew she had lost him then. Lost him to the zeal that bespoke his very name. She had never met a man more driven than Ardor Benn. He was fueled by a power. An ardor. Nothing could come between him and his goals.

  Quarrah suddenly felt strangely safe. A man so possessed would not fail. His risks in using the egg would play out just as he planned. Pethredote would be brought down, and Raek would be saved.

  But Ard had to do it alone. His ambitions allowed for no measure of distraction. He’d lost Tanalin once, over a husk of dragon scales. And with those four shots in this darkened street, he’d just lost Quarrah Khai.

  “The Reggies will be here any moment.” Ard lowered his Roller, fitting it into his holster. “We should slip away.”

  “I think we already have.” Quarrah turned and ran, darting through a narrow alley between two brick buildings. There were tears on her face, th
ough she hadn’t felt them coming. Each step that bore her farther from Ard, grounded her into a new reality.

  She was alone again, though not like before. Once, she had thrived on solitude, balking at the notion of their working alongside another. Ardor Benn had changed that. He had changed so much in her. And now, as Quarrah sprinted back into her old life, it felt much like a coat she had outgrown.

  Quarrah didn’t stop running until she reached the shoreline. Drawing to a halt among a few leaned-up shanties beyond a wealthy Beripent neighborhood, she cast her eyes over the great black expanse of the InterIsland Waters.

  Pekal was out there, somewhere in the midnight dark. Quarrah cried out in frustration, falling to her knees at the top of the cliff-like shoreline. She felt a wild sense of freedom, having finally parted ways with Ardor Benn. But there was a sorrow, too. And a fear that their paths would never cross again.

  Quarrah crumpled forward on the clifftop, giving in to the night. She was still there when the sow dragon appeared like a ribbon of fire on the horizon.

  I cannot speak, but it matters not. Anything I would say has been recorded here. My determination has seen me to the shoreline, but I cannot rest until I reach the harbor.

  CHAPTER

  44

  Ardor Benn crouched outside the low wall of the palace grounds, awaiting the dragon. News of her arrival traveled faster than she did, which was remarkable, considering.

  She had come from the southwest, a straight shot from Pekal. The harbor watchmen spotted her from afar, the dragon’s massive airborne form like some luminescent cloud on first glance.

  The sight of a dragon flying at night was something to behold. Ard had only seen it once on Pekal. The exertion of propelling such a massive body through the air created a furnace within the beasts. Cracks between scales glowed with a reddish fire, stoked by the mighty wings. In the dead of night, after such a long flight, Ard imagined that this particular sow must have looked like a soaring ember.

  Once her identity was confirmed, the watchmen sent a rider inland. On the shoreline, the approaching threat was met with a wartime signal, sending Regulators scrambling to tactical positions which, before tonight, had never been more than a rehearsed station.

  Pethredote’s reign of peace meant the coastal defenses were rusty at best. The Reggies were trained to fire the cannons, but it was more a principle of tradition than actual military training.

  Nevertheless, the shoreline Regulation seemed to be putting up some kind of fight against the sow. Even from here, Ard had heard a few resounding cannon shots. His money was on the dragon, though, circling in irritation to decimate the threats that prodded harmlessly at her. The shoreline defenses would be sorely inadequate in a skyward strike from a fire-breathing dragon.

  Never in recorded history had a dragon flown from Pekal. There was Grotenisk, yes. But he had been hatched in captivity on Espar, the mother sow killed in the skirmish to steal Grotenisk’s egg.

  But tonight, a dragon egg had been fertilized here. And the fast-approaching mother would stop at nothing to reunite with her lost egg.

  Ard thought that her desperation must have been greater than ever before. The sows had to know that their race was heading for extinction, despite the number of eggs they laid. But tonight, after years of barren sorrow, one mother’s sense had awakened.

  Busy night. Every Reggie in Beripent must have been in uniform. Between the Trothian rebellion in the Char, and the incoming sow dragon, the Regulators would be pulled in a dozen directions.

  Ard knew the feeling. One half of his broken heart demanded that he follow the egg, making sure the Regulators reached the palace in time for all his plans to come together. In time to save Raekon Dorrel. But the other half wanted to chase Quarrah Khai down that black alley, not stopping until he caught her.

  But alas, he was here now, having followed the Reggies back to the palace, once they recognized the precious cargo inside the wagon’s Drift crate. Ard hated himself for making that choice, but he wasn’t surprised by his decision. This was the final stage of a ruse that had taken everything he had. But it wasn’t going to take his best friend.

  Ard was obsessed. He knew it. For a time, he’d thought a future with Quarrah might have been possible. He honestly loved her, but in the end, the ruse had left him alone again, reminding Ard of one huge difference between himself and Quarrah Khai.

  She was a thief. Quarrah stole whatever she needed in the quiet moments. The moments when no one was watching or listening. The very opposite was true for Ard. He was his best, and his worst, whenever the spotlight was upon him.

  Simply put, Quarrah was Quarrah when she wasn’t thieving. But Ardor Benn was always a ruse artist.

  Ard bit back the flood of emotions. He needed to steel himself now. He could find Quarrah in the aftermath, once Raek was freed and the dragon had brought down Pethredote and carried her egg safely to Pekal.

  A group of Lander civilians was gathering at the front gate of the palace grounds, clamoring for the king. These would be concerned Wayfarists, possibly even some nobility, demanding answers about the Trothian uprising in the Char and the rumors of a coming dragon.

  Regulators in uniforms of red and blue stood against the growing throng with guns and crossbows, sashes laden with Grit. Some were on horseback, riding to keep back the crowd, which was already bordering a righteous frenzy. Good. Elbrig and Cinza would have no trouble manipulating the crowd’s emotions.

  Ard had met up with Elbrig just moments ago, the man having prepared a Grit belt with all the supplies Ard would need to carry out his risky plan. The disguise managers were happy to help. Working a crowd like this was enough fun that they hadn’t even asked for payment.

  Ard glanced toward the distant Char, where the Trothian fight had escalated. Somehow, in the struggle, a blaze had broken out among the trees. Ard could see bright flames and smoke raging through the monument that was supposed to represent regrowth.

  The Trothians and their sympathizers were stronger than Ard had anticipated. Lyndel had estimated her numbers, but tonight’s battle had brought more fighters out of the woodwork.

  Quarrah had been right. Lyndel was trying to start a war. A real war. The first Ard had known in his lifetime. It was frightening, to be sure. He hadn’t wanted this. Isle Halavend certainly hadn’t wanted this.

  Maybe he should have reset the timeline. Maybe Ard should have allowed himself to be seen during his Paladin transfiguration. If he had done so, none of this would be happening. But who was he to decide that these events should not transpire? War was a terrible thing, but it had a way of bringing about change. And wasn’t that what this was all about? Shaping each day in an effort to bring to pass that perfect, Homeland future?

  The dragon arrived.

  She came so suddenly that Ard fell back, clutching the smooth handle of his Roller, though such a tiny weapon was insignificant against a monster her size.

  With a rush of leathery wings, the dragon landed atop the palace roof, wrapping her forelegs around one of the tall corner turrets. The sow’s torso was glowing from her long flight from Pekal. Ard had never seen an internal blaze so bright, as though liquid fire wanted to burst through every seam between her deep green scales.

  The dragon’s fiery bulk settled across the rooftop, causing timbers to crack and stone to chip. Her immense tail draped over the side of the elaborate building, the tip twitching just yards from the ground.

  Her silent arrival threw the Regulators into a frantic scramble. Dozens of shots rang out, long-range Fielders spitting lead balls at the perched beast.

  In response, the dragon craned her long neck upward and bellowed. From his hiding place, Ard felt the rumble of her cry. The sound was like shattering glass and stones dragged across a chalkboard. Several of the Reggie horses bolted.

  The dragon’s side twitched as a crossbow bolt of Void Grit struck its mark. The beast turned, her eyes seeking the minuscule aggravators below.

  Those massive ja
ws opened and fire rolled out as easily as a man could spit. The column of flame and smoke peeled down the front of the palace, scattering or consuming the closest Reggies. When the fiery breath subsided, the earth was charred black, and vegetation was aflame.

  With a groan, the sow swung her head around, blunt forehead smashing into the pointed roof of the turret. The impact sent shingles and beams flying, sufficiently weakening the turret so the dragon could crush the rounded walls with her muscled forelegs.

  Debris rained down on the burning palace grounds as the dragon brought her long tail up like a whip. It came down again, fast as a striking snake. The action cracked mortar and stone as she plunged her forelegs through the roof.

  Sparks! She was burrowing into the palace from the very top! Well, it wasn’t like Ard expected her to enter through the front doors. But still, this level of devastation hadn’t touched Beripent since Grotenisk.

  It was chilling to think that Ard had witnessed both events in the same night. Though separated by more than two centuries, the Visitant Grit had spanned the years. There was something cyclical about seeing the new palace burn. It was proof that the city’s dated victory over Grotenisk was merely provisional. That another Grotenisk could humble them at any moment.

  Yet the nature of the two beasts could not have been more different. The legendary Grotenisk had been afflicted with Moonsickness, growing manic and deranged. He had killed and burned with no apparent purpose. Ard had seen his bloodred blind eyes and mute throat. Estranged from the rays of the Crimson Moon, Grotenisk had truly become a monster of man’s own creation.

  In contrast, the sow’s destruction was a means to a very significant end. She didn’t hesitate to crush or kill anything that presented itself as an obstacle to her objective. She was a mother beast, and by nature’s instincts, she would save her unborn son, regardless of death or collateral damage.