Dead But Once

by Auston Habershaw

  Artus looked around at them all. “Are we seriously talking about this? This is why you interrupted us?”

  Elora blushed. This caused Artus to blush, too. Then Michelle blushed for some reason. Ethick and Valen laughed.

  “Okay . . .” Valen held up his hands. “. . . okay, okay—first question: how many duels have you been in?”

  Artus blinked. “Duels?” He wondered what he should say. None? Would that look bad? Artus decided to be vague. “Oh, well, a couple. I guess.”

  “Really?” Elora asked, eyes lighting up. “Did you win?”

  Artus frowned. All of them were examining him like some kind of bug in a jar. Again, what to say? If he was counting the number of times he’d been in a fight for his life, well . . . “Uh, yeah. I won. I’m still here, aren’t I?”

  Michelle gasped and put a hand to her mouth. “They were to the death?”

  Artus forced a laugh. “Well, yeah, obviously. Uhhh . . . that’s just how they do it in Eddon.”

  Michelle cocked her head like a bird. “What’s Eddon like, anyway? I hear the most awful stories.”

  Artus shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not that bad.”

  “I hear gnolls steal children in the night,” Michelle said.

  Elora giggled. “Oh, that sounds dreadful.”

  Artus did his best not to frown. “Nope. They don’t do that.”

  Ethick snorted. Valen also looked like he was trying not to laugh.

  “What?” Artus asked.

  “I’ve heard your Uncle Waymar’s had to dodge assassins before,” Valen said. “That true?”

  Artus snorted a laugh. “That’s for sure. I’d say at least . . .” He counted in his head. It took longer than he thought. “I can’t even count the number of times somebody’s tried to kill him, honestly.”

  Valen laughed. “No, seriously.”

  Artus shrugged, pleased he didn’t even have to lie. “Seriously. A lot of people don’t like him.”

  Ethick frowned. “And he’s survived every time?”

  Michelle rolled her eyes. “Obviously. Dunce.”

  Valen rubbed Artus’s shoulder. “So . . . what’s his secret?”

  Artus met Valen’s eye. He noticed it was clear, sharp. This guy’s not half as drunk as he looks. “It’s a secret.”

  Ethick hooted with laughter. The young ladies’ mouths formed perfect O’s. Valen clapped him on the shoulder again and then whistled for the brewer’s boy. “Another round!”

  Artus frowned. They’re gonna get me more drunk, and they’re gonna pump me for more information. Tyvian was right. This is just a setup.

  Even Elora . . .

  The beer came around again. Artus looked at Elora as he drank it. Did she know, or was she just a pawn? Bait for a trap. She’d kissed him, hadn’t she? A girl didn’t stick her tongue in a boy’s mouth unless she meant it, right?

  The conversation went on, but Artus steered it away from Tyvian and himself. He found himself talking about t’suul. “So you’ve played it in Illin?” Elora asked.

  “Not in Illin, just with some Illini . . . people.” They had been pirates Tyvian knew, but Artus didn’t think that was especially pertinent.

  Ethick frowned. “Were they any good?”

  Artus shook his head. “In Illin, you don’t play t’suul to be clever. You play it to be brave.”

  Valen nodded. “Dailiki. Like the other night, right?”

  Ethick gulped his beer. “I don’t get it. Why don’t you play to win?”

  Artus shrugged, trying to remember how the Illinis—dark, brooding people with thick moustaches and scarred hands—had put it. “Because nobody wins in life. T’suul is like life, you know? You don’t control what tiles you have in your clutch, you can’t control what the sakkidio contains. You just have dailiki—bravado, courage—and that’s it. You against fate.”

  Valen grunted. “They must lose a lot of money that way.”

  Artus smirked. “In Illin, they don’t play t’suul for money. They play for blood.”

  Silence. The three young peers looked at him as though expecting a joke. Artus merely smiled and sipped his beer. “Or so I’ve heard.”

  Valen laughed and slapped Artus on the back again, but too hard. “You’re all right, Artus of Eddon.”

  Artus smiled. “Thanks.”

  Brana suddenly popped up from under the table where he had been dozing. “Artus! Myreon!”

  “What? Where?” Artus blinked and staggered to his feet (maybe he had had a bit too much).

  Brana pointed. Squinting into the darkness, Artus thought he might have seen a tall woman with a staff turning down an alley. Then again, it could have been anything. Tyvian’s request that he follow her came trickling back into his mind, but he stayed rooted in the spot. “Was that her?”

  Elora looked in the same direction. “Was it who? Is something wrong?”

  Something big passed in front of the moon—like a huge bird of prey—that made all of them look up. A griffon. And where there were griffons riders in Eretheria, there were Defenders of the Balance.

  Artus looked up into the clear night sky and saw a second griffon glide past, the man on its back wearing armor that gleamed like mirrors in the moonlight—they were looking for something. “Yeah. Something’s wrong.” He looked at Brana. “We should get home.”

  Elora caught his face in her hands and gave him a little peck on the nose. “Don’t worry about that, Artus. It doesn’t concern us.”

  Brana’s ears were alert. “Gotta go. Gotta go now.”

  Elora slipped her arms around his waist. “Let him go. Stay with me.”

  Artus looked at Brana and then back into Elora’s warm, amber eyes. Then back at Brana, who was on the balls of his feet, ready to run. He knew something was going on, now. A troop of mirror-men marched by, the sergeant holding a seekwand outstretched. They were tracking somebody—definitely trouble.

  “Artus?” Brana whined.

  But it wasn’t his trouble, was it? They weren’t tracking him or they’d have already found him. Hell, he didn’t even know for sure that was Myreon they were after. He waved Brana off. “Go on home, Brana. It’s probably nothing. Tell Waymar what happened. I’ll be . . . I’ll be back later.”

  Laughing, Valen and Ethick slapped him on the back, said he was a good fellow, but he wasn’t paying attention to that. He was looking at Elora, feeling her hands around his neck, and letting the warm glow of the beer overtake him.

  It was too good a night to ruin with Tyvian’s stupid plans.

  Chapter 12

  The Cost of Conspiracy

  That evening’s meeting was arranged for another deserted cistern in another corner of the city. Myreon got there early this time, before anyone else. She needed to get out of the house anyway—away from Tyvian. She kept trying to not be angry about the whole thing; Tyvian was who he was. The ring hadn’t made him any different, really. He was still the same old rakish smuggler, the same old self-absorbed duelist. Why should she be surprised he wasn’t faithful to her? Why should she get angry at him for not using his power or wealth to help others? He was no different than any of a thousand selfish men of means. Why did she expect more of him?

  Because he could be different.

  She grimaced at this thought as she laid a few wards against eavesdropping and seekwands around the entrances to the cistern. She’d believed that. She’d believed it when he came back to rescue her in Saldor—she, disgraced and petrified in a penitentiary garden. Tyvian and she had been sworn enemies, then—she’d been his nemesis, hunting him across the West as a Mage Defender. Still, he’d come, saved her, brought her away. She’d believed in Tyvian when he risked his life to save those girls in the Cauldron—a dirty whorehouse being torn apart by Tyvian’s old friend-turned-madman. She’d believed it when Tyvian had tried to stop his brother, Xahlven, from crashing the Saldorian Markets and failed. She even believed it today, when he’d given all that money to those poor farmers.

&nb
sp; But that was the ring. That wasn’t Tyvian. Sometimes Tyvian had trouble telling the difference these days—a side effect, perhaps, of wearing it all the time—but Myreon knew. She remembered the old him, back when he was a notorious smuggler and criminal. The viciousness in his eyes, the callousness of his words, the cruelty of his actions. That was Tyvian. She had to remember that, otherwise she’d get too angry to think, and anger was a distraction from her work—from this, her true calling.

  Stirring up insurrection? Is that all I’m good for, now?

  And why not? She wasn’t a Defender anymore. She wasn’t even a law-abiding citizen—what other good could she hope to create in the world, if not this? She’d tried living Tyvian’s way, at first—indulging in all the luxuries Hool’s vast wealth could afford. But there was little pleasure in it, in the end. Myreon needed a higher purpose. This, she had decided, was it.

  The rumors on the street that evening let her know her work was appreciated. She, the Gray Lady, was everywhere, apparently. Chickens taken as tax had magically been returned. A tax man had been unable to find the address of a poor widow. A press-gang’s wagon had broken an axle out of nowhere, allowing some of the levied men to slip away in the confusion. The Gray Lady, they said, answers your prayers.

  Her apprentices began to trickle in, arriving in twos and threes, as few of them liked to wander the sewers alone. She greeted them warmly, smiling all the while, and heard their reports. Another evening, another little bit of solace offered these people. Her people.

  She heard the commotion coming from one of the tunnels before she saw who was making it. She froze, as did the rest of the class, their heads coming up like deer in a meadow. Not the Defenders, surely, and not the necromancer—both would be quieter than this. Then who?

  “Ramper!” she breathed as his wiry, ragged figure hopped down from the tunnel and put his hands up. Gil was there, with someone in his arms—Bree!

  Ramper took her from Gil and ran her over to the simple plank table. “Hurry, Magus! She’s hurt real bad!”

  Bree had blood caked around her lips, her breathing coming in ragged gasps. One eye was swollen shut with a horrid purple bruise. She looked frail and tiny, her hair plastered to her sweat-soaked forehead.

  Myreon looked at her class. All of them were still and alert, like startled rabbits. “Class dismissed. Scatter, all of you.”

  The apprentices began to leave, but not quickly. Some gathered around, offering to help. Myreon ignored them for the time being—priorities. “What the hell happened to her?”

  Ramper grimaced. “Tried to boost the same tax man twice—thought mayhap we might lose the man his post, eh?”

  “Please, Magus! You’ve got to help her!” Gilvey cupped Bree’s face. “It’s all right, Bree—we’re here. The Gray Lady has you. It’ll be all right.”

  Ramper shook his head. “Bloody bastard was sneaky this time. Caught Bree here lifting the bag. Hit her with that mace a’ his a few times—ribs, face. Woulda killed her.”

  Myreon gently touched Bree’s chest. Even that light pressure made Bree choke with pain. Her ribs were shattered. “What do you mean would have killed her? What stopped him?”

  Ramper looked up at Gil. Gil looked down at his hands. “Well . . .”

  Myreon felt a spike of panic strike her lower back and spread outward. “No. Tell me you didn’t.”

  “It weren’t the boy’s fault,” Ramper said, shifting his weight. “That tax man, he was . . . he was a right bastard. Striking a girl like that . . .”

  “Gil, did you use a wand?”

  Bree moaned.

  Gil pointed at the battered girl on the table. “Just save her, Magus! Please!”

  Myreon shook her head. This needed answering right now. “Ramper! Did you give Gilvey a wand? Did he use it to kill a tax man?”

  Gil flinched at the word kill. “I don’t know he’s dead. I just zapped him a few times. Just a few.”

  Myreon could scarcely believe she was hearing this. “Sweet Hann’s mercy! How long ago?”

  Ramper shrugged. “Before sunset. Spent the last few hours lying low, dodging the mirror-men, making sure we weren’t followed.”

  Myreon turned to face what few of her apprentices remained. “Everybody needs to clean up any sign we have ever been here—every candle, every spot of wax, every mark of chalk, every splinter of wood—go. Now.”

  Ramper chuckled. “But Magus, we lost—”

  “Every stool, every candle, every scrap of wax—we leave so much as a floor stain behind and the mirror-men will be on us all by tomorrow afternoon!”

  “But . . .” Gil frowned. “We weren’t followed!”

  Myreon snapped her fingers. “Go, now! This is why I’m the mage and you are the apprentices! Go!” Around her she heard a flurry of activity. She glanced over to see a serving girl snatching up candlesticks and putting them in her apron. A stable hand—a kindly man with big, warm hands—scraped wax drippings off the floor with a pocket knife.

  Myreon reached into her robe for some healing ointment. It wouldn’t work well here, thanks to the Etheric ley, but with just the right infusion of the Lumen, she thought she might be able to heal many of Bree’s injuries. She had to focus, though, and there was no time to lose. She counted back the hours since sundown—one hour to learn of the murder, one hour to track down either Gil or Bree or Ramper’s home, and then the seekwands came out and they were on the trail. The Defenders could be here at any moment . . .

  She managed to turn her attention back to Bree. She forced a smile for the girl. “Does it hurt?”

  Bree nodded. Her eyes were red with tears. “Are . . . are we going to be okay?”

  Myreon stroked Bree’s hair. “I’m going to channel the Lumen now. I need you to think of happy thoughts—good things. Sunlight. Laughter. Can you do that?”

  “Laughter?” Bree tried to smile. Half her teeth were gone on one side. “What I got to l-laugh about?”

  Myreon kept her face serene. “Close your eyes. Talk it through. What do you see?”

  Bree was quiet for a moment and then, with a shallow, painful breath, she began to whisper. “Gil, last summer. Before any of this happened. He’s chopping wood in his yard, his arms like tree branches themselves. He’s smiling at me and I’m watching him. Then he picks this dandelion. I’m thinking he’s going to give it to me—a sweet little gift. I stand up all straight and fix my particulars, and push back my hair, and . . .”

  Myreon was working the augury to precisely identify her injuries—she found them. They were extensive. She began to rub the healing ointment under Bree’s bodice and on her face. “And then what?”

  “He . . . he ate it! All in one bite.” Bree gave a giggle, and then coughed with pain.

  There! The little bloom of Lumenal energy was there, if only for a fleeting moment. Myreon pressed both her hands to Bree’s chest and chanted beneath her breath. The concentrated energy lit the little table. She and the girl were floating in a sea of sunlight, the smell of daffodils and fresh grass in their nostrils. The healing ointment burned away, doing its work. And then, as quickly as the light had come, it faded. Myreon let out a long breath, feeling the fatigue creep into her arms.

  The color was back in Bree’s cheeks. Her eye was just a bruise now, her face restored to its proper shape. Her teeth hadn’t returned, but one couldn’t hope for miracles. The peasant girl sat up with Myreon’s help. She began to relace her bodice. “I . . . I can breathe. Still hurts, but—”

  Myreon nodded. “I’m . . . I’m sorry, Bree. Not very much Lumen here—not great for a true healing spell.”

  Around them, most of the apprentices had already fled. Only Ramper and Gil were left, still scraping up bits of chalk from the evening’s lesson. Good, Myreon thought, I can protect three, if it comes to it.

  “Magus!” Gilvey shouted, pointing.

  Myreon looked. She was looking down a drain pipe that led into the cistern—one at exactly eye level. And from deep, deep inside
it, white light was dancing, throwing shadows on some distant wall. It was getting closer.

  Tattlers.

  “Get behind me!” Myreon shouted, planting her staff and facing the pipe.

  Ramper, Bree, and Gilvey, wands drawn, clustered behind her.

  Tattlers came in from the grating above. There, in the moonlight, Myreon saw mirrored helms and the flickering tips of firepikes closing in.

  Ramper made a sour face. “They’re coming from everywhere.”

  Myreon performed an Ether-bloom spell, flooding the area with Etheric energy that caused the first wave of tattlers to wink out of existence.

  Without hesitating, she turned around and pushed Bree and Gilvey into the closest water main and waited for Ramper to enter even as mirror-men emerged into the cistern, their pikes blazing. “Stop in the name of the Balance!” they roared.

  Not likely.

  Myreon hit them with a sunblast that caused the lead few to stumble back, temporarily blinded, but their mageglass armor protected them from the worst of the burns. This was intentional—she wasn’t trying to necessarily hurt them, just create enough time to escape.

  She turned her back and dove into the pipe after Ramper. She sketched a quick guard on the wall of the pipe as she crawled in—a nasty surprise for their first follower—and then hurried after the dim shadow of Ramper’s backside as it wriggled through the small space.

  Fortunately, the pipe soon opened onto a larger passage, where Bree and Gilvey were waiting—this, in itself, made Myreon angry. “Go, you idiots! Run! Now!”

  “We want to help!” Gilvey said, his voice cracking.

  Myreon caught him by his collar and shook him. “Listen to me: You. Cannot. Help.” She pushed him. “Run, boy! You’ll make an ugly statue.”

  A firepike bolt sizzled out of the pipe and struck the wall between Myreon and Gil. The boy jumped like a rabbit and he and Bree shot down a side passage. Ramper was next to her, returning fire down the pipe with his sparkwand, screaming obscenities.

  “Idiot!” Myreon pushed him aside just before a firepike bolt would have caught him in the chest. “You think wizard hunters care about your toy wand?”