by Brent Weeks
Commander Hurin Gher shifted in his saddle, stupidly looking at the empty pike. “We haven’t found prince’s—I mean, the pretender’s—um, Logan Gyre’s body yet, sire. We, we do know that he’s dead. We have three reports confirming his death, but in all the fighting…. We’re, we’re working on it.”
“Indeed.” Godking Ursuul didn’t look at Hurin Gher. He was studying the faces of the royal family above him. “And this Shadow that killed my son? He’s dead, too?”
Neph felt a chill at the quiet menace in the Godking’s query. When the Khalidorans had first gone into the throne room, they thought some elite unit must have wiped out all the Khalidorans in the room, but Neph had been able to revive a man who’d had his feet cut off. He swore he’d seen most of the fight before he passed out. It was one man. A shadow. The Night Angel, he called him. The story was already getting out among the men.
A man who walked unseen, who could kill thirty highlanders and five meisters and one of the Godking’s own aethelings. A man impervious to steel and to magic. It was nonsense, of course. With all the blood they’d found, the man must be dead. But without a body….
“Someone dragged his body away, sir. We followed the blood trail through the hidden passages. It was a lot of blood, sire. If it really was just one man, he’s dead.”
“It seems we have a lot of dead people without bodies, Commander. Find them. In the meantime, put up another head. Preferably one that looks like Logan Gyre’s.”
It wasn’t fair. Ferl Khalius had been among the first highlanders on Cenarian soil. He’d been one of the few to get off the burning, sinking barge, and that only because he’d had the wits to throw off his armor before jumping in, so he didn’t drown like so many others had. He’d joined another unit and fought barehanded until he could arm himself from the highlanders who died in the first assault on the courtyard. He’d personally killed six Cenarian soldiers and two nobles, six nobles if you counted children, which he didn’t.
And what had he been given to recognize his heroism, his cunning? The shit duty. Certain units were being given looting privileges—the good units on the west side, what the barbarians called the Warrens, and the best units looting the remains of the east side with the officers. Ferl’s unit was all dead, so he got assigned with clearing the rubble on the east bridge.
It wasn’t only dirty—it was dangerous. The wytches had extinguished the fire, but many of the planks were weak, some of them cracking or breaking if you stood on them. The pilings were fine: sheathed in iron, they were impervious to the fire, but you couldn’t stand on the pilings, so a fat lot of good that did.
The worst part of the job was the bodies. Some of them were like seared steak, crusted black on the outside, but cracked and oozing inside. And the stench of burnt flesh and burnt hair! He was picking through the bodies, taking whatever looked promising and dumping the bodies over the side of the bridge. Some of the units would be glad to have their dead back for proper burial, but Ferl wasn’t going to carry the damned stinking things across this bridge. To the abyss with them.
Then he saw a sword. It must have been under one of the bodies when the fire had started, because it was untouched. There wasn’t even smoke damage on the hilt. It was a beautiful blade, the hilt carved with dragons. It was the kind of sword that befitted the leader of a warband. Or a warlord. With such a sword, Ferl’s clan would hold him in awe. Awe he deserved. He was supposed to bring anything unusual he found to one of the Vürdmeisters. Sure, after how well they’ve treated me.
Looking at the other men working on the bridge and seeing that none were watching, he drew his sword, set it aside, and slid his prize into its sheath. Not a perfect fit, but good enough for the moment. The hilt was a problem, what with those dragons, but he’d wrap leather bindings around it soon enough. He was good with his hands. Give him a few hours, and this sword would look like any other.
The sword brightened his outlook considerably. It wasn’t really enough to repay his valor, but it was a start.
The meister walked down the last corridor to what the Southron barbarians called Hell’s Asshole. The nauseating-intoxicating wash of torment engulfed her. She missed a step and stumbled against the wall. The soldier accompanying her turned. He looked scared.
“It’s nothing,” she said. She walked to the grate covering the hole. A few words and red light burned in front of her.
The creatures in the Hole squinted and shrank back. She spoke again and the light descended into the Hole. She examined each prisoner. Ten men, one woman, and one simpleton with filed teeth. None of them could be the usurper.
She turned, slightly dizzy, and walked out, trying not to flee.
A minute later, a big man rolled out from an overhang carved in the stone.
The woman looked at him and shook her head. “You’re a fool. Nothing they could do to you would be as bad as staying here. Look at you. You’re soft. The Hole will break you, Thirteen.”
Logan stared at her flatly, a grimy woman with gaping holes in her dress, short a few teeth. The look on her face was the only thing approaching human kindness that was to be found in this hole. “Though all the detritus of humanity pass through this hole and all the fires of perdition rise from it, I will not be broken,” Logan said.
“He use a lotta big words, don’t he?” the big man named Fin said. He smiled a smile full of bloody gums, one of the first symptoms of scurvy, and wrapped his sinew rope back around his body. “Lotta meat on that big fucker. We’ll eat real good.”
Scurvy meant food deficiencies. Food deficiencies meant Fin had lived long enough to get sick from food deficiencies. Fin was a survivor. Logan turned his eyes to him and pulled out his knife—literally his only edge against these animals. “Let me make this real simple,” he said, having to stifle the impulse to say “really” instead of “real.” “You will not break me. The hole will not break me. I will not break. I. Will. Not. Be. Broken.”
“What’s your name, love?” the woman asked.
Logan found himself grinning. Something fierce and primal was rising inside him. Something inside him said, where others have failed, have faltered, have fallen, I will be triumphant; I am different; I am cut of a new cloth; I will rise. “Call me King,” he said, and he smiled a fuck-you through the angst and the sorrow, and he was potent.
That was it. That was survival. That was the secret. That was the living flame hidden in the ashes of his burned-out heart. If only he could hold it.
Epilogue
Elene knocked on the door of the cooper’s shop, her hair covered, back bent, and foot twisted sideways in the dust. The Khalidoran army had arrived yesterday and King Garoth Ursuul was rewarding his troops for their valor by allowing selected soldiers to take what they desired. It wasn’t a good day to be a pretty woman on the streets of Cenaria.
It had taken her two harrowing days to find this place. The cooper unbolted the door and signaled her in, gesturing to the back of the shop. Jarl was at a table covered with papers, fat sacks of money at his feet. “I’ve found your way out,” he said. “A Khalidoran caravan master has agreed to take you. You’ll have to lie in a compartment used to smuggle barush tea and worse things until you get outside the gates, but it’s big enough to hold you and the girl. You leave at nightfall.”
“You can trust this smuggler?” Elene asked.
“I can’t trust anyone,” Jarl said, exhausted. “He’s Khalidoran and you’re beautiful. But because he’s Khalidoran, he has the best chance of getting through the gates. And he’s worked with us for twenty years. I’ve made it in his best interest to take you safely.”
“You must have paid him a fortune,” Elene said.
“Only half of one,” Jarl said, the shadow of a smile coming to his lips. “The other half he gets when you send me word that you’ve made it safely.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s the least I could do for Kylar.” Jarl looked down, ashamed. “It’s also the most I can do.”
&
nbsp; Elene hugged him. “It’s more than enough. Thank you.”
“The girl’s downstairs. She won’t leave his bo—she won’t leave him.”
He recognized this place. The white-gold warmth suffused him; his flesh gloried in the light. He moved through the tunnel with sure and easy steps. Eagerness without hurry.
Gentle fingers closed his eyes.
A child shrieked. Regrets. Sorrow. Darkness. Cold.
He blinked away the nightmare. Breathed. Let the white-gold light hold him again.
“Grab his arm, Uly. Help me.”
Cold stones slid under his back. Discomfort. Pain. Hopelessness.
Then even the cold and the jostling faded.
He walked forward unsteadily in the tunnel. Broke into a jog. This was where he belonged now. Here, without pain.
A tear splashed on his face. A woman spoke, but he couldn’t make out the words.
He stumbled and fell. He lay there, terrified, but the nightmare didn’t come back. He got up to his knees, stood. At the next step he smacked up against …nothing.
He put his hands out and felt the invisible barrier. It was as cool as iron and as smooth as glass. Beyond it, the warmth increased, the white-gold light beckoned him. Were those people up ahead?
Something was pulling him aside, away. He felt twisted, and slowly a chamber came into focus—not the chamber, for the chamber itself remained indistinct, it seemed full of people intensely curious to see him, but he couldn’t make them out. All that was truly in focus was a man seated before him on a low throne, and two doors. The door at his right hand was of beaten gold. Light leaked around every edge, the same warm white-gold light Kylar had just been in. The door to his left hand was plain wood with a simple iron latch. The man’s face was dominated by lambent, lupine yellow eyes. He wasn’t tall, but he exuded authority, potency.
“What is this place?” Kylar asked.
A toothy smile. “Neither heaven nor hell. This, if you will, is the Antechamber of the Mystery. This is my realm.”
“Who are you?”
“It pleased Acaelus to call me The Wolf.”
“Acaelus? You mean Durzo?” Kylar asked.
“Before you, there is a choice. You may proceed through one door or the other. Choose the gold, and I will release you back to where you just were, and you will have my apology for interrupting your journey.”
“My journey?”
“Your journey to heaven or hell or oblivion or reincarnation or whatever it is that death holds.”
“Do you know?” Kylar asked.
“This is the Antechamber of the Mystery, Azoth. You will find no answers here, just choices.” The Wolf grinned, and it was a joyless grin, a predatory grin. “Through the wood door, you will go back to your life, your body, your time—or nearly so. It will take a few days for your body to heal. You will be the Night Angel in truth, as Acaelus was before you. Your body will be immune to the scourge of time as Acaelus’ was—something that perhaps one must become old to appreciate. You will also heal at a rate beyond that of mortal men. What you call your Talent will grow. You can still be killed; the difference is, you will come back. You will be a living legend.”
It sounded wonderful. Too good, even. I’d be like Acaelus Thorne. I’d be like Durzo. The latter thought gave him pause. The burden of immortality—however it worked—or the power of it or sheer press of so much time was what had turned Acaelus Thorne, the prince, the hero, into Durzo Blint, the hopeless, bitter murderer. He remembered his snide remark to Durzo:
“Here I thought the Night Angels were invincible.”
“They’re immortal. It’s not the same.”
“Why would you do this for me?” Kylar asked.
“Perhaps I don’t do anything at all. Perhaps it is the ka’kari’s work.”
“What’s the price?”
“Ah, Durzo has taught you well, hasn’t he?” The Wolf looked almost mournful. “The truth is, I don’t know. I can only tell you what I have heard from those more enlightened than I. They believed that coming back from death as you would was such a violation of the natural order of things that this unnatural life cost the afterlife. That for his seven centuries of life, Acaelus traded all eternity. But they might be wrong. It might have no influence on eternity whatsoever—or there may be no eternity to influence. I’m the wrong …man …to ask, for I have chosen this life myself.”
Kylar walked toward the golden door. It was so beautiful there. He’d had such peace. What fool would trade the eternal peace and happiness in that gold light for the blood and gore and dishonor and despair and duplicity of the life he’d led?
As he stepped closer to it, the door changed. The gold melted, puddled to the ground in an instant and a raging inferno leapt up, eager to devour Kylar. Then it was gone, and the gold door was back. Kylar shot a look at the Wolf.
“Eternity,” the Wolf said, “might not be a pleasant place for you.”
“You did that?”
“A simple illusion. But if you sat in judgment of Kylar Stern, would you give him eternal paradise?”
“You’re not exactly disinterested in my choice, are you?”
“You’ve become a player, Night Angel. No one is disinterested in your choice.”
How long Kylar stood there, he didn’t know. All he knew was that if he made the wrong choice, he might have a very very long time to regret it. The mathematical formulae were no help; they were full of infinities and zeroes, with no way of knowing on which side of the equation they landed. There was no hedged bet when you might be throwing away eternity in paradise or avoiding eternity in hell or taking an eternal existence on earth with all its flaws, weighed against merciful oblivion. Kylar didn’t have Count Drake’s faith in a loving God or Durzo’s faith that there was no such God. He knew that he had done a lot of evil, by anyone’s definition. He knew that he had done some good. He’d given his life for Elene.
Elene. She filled his mind and his heart so utterly that it ached. If he chose life, even if she accepted him, she would grow old and die in the smallest fraction of his life. The odds were that she never would accept him, never could.
All the ifs and maybes rose and fell in great towers of foundationless suppositions, but Elene remained. Kylar loved her. He had always loved her.
Elene was the risk he would take every time.
He made his choice and ran toward the plain door. He screamed—
—and jerked upright.
Elene screamed. Uly screamed.
Taking huge, gasping breaths, Kylar ripped open his blood-encrusted tunic.
His chest was smooth, the skin perfect. He touched his demolished shoulder. It was whole, as healthy as the fingers of his right hand. There wasn’t a scar on his body.
He sat there blinking, not even glancing at Uly or Elene, who were frozen, staring at him.
“I’m alive. I’m alive?”
“Yes, Kylar,” Momma K said, coming into the room. Her calm was surreal.
Kylar sat stupidly for a moment. It had all been real. He said, “Unbelievable. Kylar: one who kills and is killed. Durzo knew all along.”
Uly, seeming to take her cue from the calm Kylar and Momma K were showing, seemed to be fine with Kylar sitting up and talking when he’d been dead a moment before. Elene was not doing as well. She stood up abruptly and walked out the door.
“Elene, wait,” Kylar said. “Wait, just tell me one thing.” She stopped and looked at him, confused, terrified and hopeful at the same time, her eyes full of tears. “Who was it who gave you those scars? It wasn’t Durzo, was it? It was Rat, right?”
“You come back from the dead to ask me that? Of course it was Rat!” She fled.
“Wait! Elene, I’m sorry!” He tried to move, but it seemed he’d used up all his strength to sit up. She was gone. “Wait, what the hell am I sorry about?”
Uly looked at Kylar accusingly. “You aren’t going to let her go, are you?”
Kylar held onto the edge of the bed
like a lifeline. He looked at Uly, and raised a hand helplessly—and had to quickly put it down to keep from falling over. “How can I stop her?”
Uly stomped her foot and stormed out of the room.
Momma K was laughing, but it was a different laughter than he’d heard from her before, deeper, fuller, truly happy, as if with the same act of will that had made her choose life, she’d set aside her cynicism. “I know what you’re thinking, Kylar. Durzo lied to you when he told you he’d hurt Elene. Of course he did. It was the only way he could save you. You had to kill him to succeed him. The ka’kari couldn’t complete the bond until its former master died.”
They sat there in silence, Kylar thinking of how Durzo’s death cast his life in a completely different light. It was disconcerting to think how wrong he’d been about his master, thinking him so hateful—actually believing Durzo was capable of mutilating Doll Girl—but Kylar liked the picture that was emerging. Durzo Blint, the legend, had been Acaelus Thorne, the hero. Kylar wondered how many other heroes’ names his master had worn. He felt a stabbing pain, an emptiness in his stomach, a surge toward tears that he suppressed. “I’m going to miss him,” he said, his throat tight.
Momma K’s eyes mirrored his. “Me too. But it’s going to be all right. I don’t know why, but I really believe that.”
Kylar nodded. “So you decided to live,” he said, blinking tears away. He didn’t want to break down in front of Momma K.
“And so did you.” She arched an eyebrow at him, somehow holding both grief and happiness and amusement in her eyes all at once. “She loves you, Kylar. Whether she realizes it or not. She dragged you out of the castle by herself. She refused to leave you. Jarl’s men found her. It was only when they got you here that Uly saw your wounds were healing.”
“She’s furious with me,” Kylar said.
“Furious the way a woman in love gets. I know.”
“Have you told Uly who her mother is?” Kylar asked.
“No, and I never will. I won’t raise her into this.”
