Dead But Once

by Auston Habershaw

Brana’s ears shot up. Tyvian heard it, too—a rough, shrill screech, like that of a falcon only much bigger.

  Griffons.

  Chance in his teeth, Tyvian climbed onto the roof of the carriage.

  He caught a glimpse of something large and black about two hundred feet up and wheeling in their direction. Yanking the reins from Brana, he pulled hard on one side, enough to get the coach turned around and headed back toward the city. They even managed to stop rolling through farmyards and found themselves on a proper road. Ahead of them, people out early leapt aside and flocks of geese and chickens squawked in panic. One oxcart was run straight off the road and into a ditch.

  Brana grabbed Tyvian and pushed him down just as something huge swooped low. Tyvian got the barest impression of six-inch talons barely missing his back and then a big gust of wind. Another griffon—a barely missed dive. That rider was a cocky one—lucky he didn’t crash.

  Tyvian gave the reins to Brana. “Keep them running. Aim for narrow streets. Don’t crash.”

  Brana grinned. “Wheeee!”

  Tyvian got up and, keeping one hand on the roof of the coach, crab walked toward the back. He conjured Chance’s blade and looked up. The griffon riders were there, a hundred feet above, the creatures’ massive wings beating hard to catch up to the speeding coach. He could see the riders had crossbows—probably with enchanted bolts—but there were too many people and houses nearby for them to start firing. If they wanted to stop them, the riders were going to have to get close. Tyvian just needed to narrow down their possible angles of attack.

  He caught a glimpse of a signpost. “Brana, turn left!”

  Brana pulled on the reins, and they careened to the left, nearly throwing Tyvian off. The tail end of the coach bashed into a rain barrel, breaking it apart in a shower of tepid water. Tyvian held on by wrapping his fingers around the toprail. They were now driving downhill—a broad boulevard called Monument Avenue, so named for the ten-foot statues of Eretherian heroes and Counts that were evenly spaced down the center of the road. It was a straight shot to Lake Elren from here, and in the distance ahead the palace gleamed above the deep blue water.

  The statues in the center of the road, the trees on either side, and the high roofs of the manor houses here meant the griffons only had one angle of attack—a dive, straight at them from behind—which was exactly what Tyvian wanted. He got up on two feet, eyes fixed on the flying beasts and saluted the riders with Chance. “Come then, gentlemen! Let’s see what you’re made of.”

  Tyvian saw one stow his crossbow and take up the lance strapped to his saddle, its purple pennant snapping in the wind. Then, he pressed his guide pole down, forcing the griffon to dive. It tucked its wings and came straight for them.

  Tyvian was shocked at how fast the beast moved—it covered the two hundred yards between them in the blink of an eye. Tyvian could see details now—the creature’s bright yellow beak, curved and wicked, its sharp orange eyes, the mageglass gauntlets of its rider. Gods, it was almost there . . .

  Now!

  Tyvian slashed up with Chance at the thick, stone arm of a statue of Perwynnon. His whole body shook with the impact, but the mageglass blade proved true, cutting the arm free. The sixty-pound block of stone tumbled into the griffon at the last possible moment, knocking it off-kilter and causing it to tumble and crash into the cobblestones with a shriek of pain.

  “Turn again!” Tyvian yelled.

  Brana did, again almost tipping the coach.

  Tyvian regained his balance and looked up again. The second griffon rider was nowhere to be seen—he was landing. To help his partner. Tyvian grinned. “Good man.”

  They’d made it.

  Chapter 23

  Loss of Allies

  Tyvian’s safe house in Davram Heights was known as the Halfling. It was a solidly built gaming house run by a man whose undying loyalty Tyvian had purchased when he stole back his daughter from Verisi pirates. The fact that Tyvian had been the one to arrange her kidnapping in the first place had, fortunately, not come up. He had every suspicion the ring would have made that encounter . . . awkward.

  Gaming houses were quiet affairs during the day, which was exceedingly fortunate, given that Tyvian appeared on the doorstep completely nude and with half his torso blistering from a firepike wound. Myreon was too exhausted from the ordeal to do much tending to it, so he relied upon the generosity of his host, who had a surprisingly large array of high-quality medical supplies. People in his gaming house had a tendency to get stabbed, as it happened.

  Of greater concern to Tyvian was not his physical injuries, however. He was getting the full report on the salon the day before—it was worse than he suspected. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Artus, when I said ‘no duels,’ how exactly did you interpret that as all the duels possible?”

  A cool fog had rolled in as the morning progressed, and Artus had stoked the wide fireplace of the private room. Hool and Brana sat at one end of a green-upholstered table used to play chasers—Brana with his shroud, Hool without hers. Myreon sat to Tyvian’s right, looking almost as terrible as he did.

  Artus looked at his hands. “Sorry.”

  Tyvian took a deep breath. “Sorry is insufficient.”

  Hool’s ears went back. “You should have been there. This is all your fault!”

  Tyvian held up three fingers. “I gave you three rules—no hitting, no duels, no sniffing the air. Were those hard rules? Is there some kind of challenge inherent in being a civilized person I’m not aware of? How many of those rules did you break, eh? How quickly?”

  Hool drew herself up to her full height. “Those were terrible people.”

  Artus nodded. “That’s for sure.”

  Tyvian pounded the armrest of his chair. “Which is why we needed not to offend them to the point where two of them are going to try to kill Artus now. On the same day, no less.”

  Artus blinked. “Wait . . . what? The same day?”

  Tyvian nodded. “Eretherian duels are fought four days following the challenge. Since you got in two fights in one day, you have to fight both duels on the same day.”

  Artus swallowed hard and looked into the fire. He looked worried, as well he might. Tyvian decided to let him stew.

  “I assume this changes your plans,” Myreon said, sipping a cup of tea with both hands.

  Tyvian closed his eyes—his entire body felt heavy. “This . . . complicates matters. The Hesswyns attended in bad faith—an audacious move, honestly. They couldn’t have counted on me not being there.” He paused and took another deep breath. “There is just about no way we can expect a respectable invitation to the Blue Party now.”

  “It isn’t complicated,” Hool said. “We just leave now.”

  “We can’t just leave,” Myreon shot back. “This heir business will chase Tyvian for the rest of his life.”

  Hool snorted and pointed a fuzzy finger at Tyvian. “He is being chased by lots of people scarier than these nasty rich people. Who cares?”

  “We obviously can’t remain here long-term. Not now.” Tyvian sighed. “But the fundamentals of the plan remain the same. I renounce tomorrow night at the Blue Party, and then we disappear.”

  “That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard you say,” Hool snarled.

  Tyvian rubbed his temples—he really didn’t need this right now. “Hool, be reasonable.”

  Hool stood up, her hackles raised. Tyvian distinctly got the sense she was not going to be reasonable. “Brana was almost killed today. The night before last, he was drinking poison with Artus. He was sick all the next morning!” She pointed at Artus. “You were supposed to take care of him!”

  Artus shrugged. “Hool, he was just hung over—that’s it. It’s not a big deal. Tell her, Brana.”

  Brana looked up at his mother, but she stared him into silence. Hool advanced on Artus. “You are bad for my Brana. All of you are bad for my Brana.”

  Artus blinked. “Hool . . . it was . . . it was just beer. He�
�ll be fine. He wanted to drink it. Right, Brana?”

  Brana said nothing. He only stared at the floor, his shoulders slumped.

  “Brana is only a puppy!” Hool roared. “And you have him pretending to be a man! You have him fighting wizards! You have him giving flowers to human girls! You have him driving coaches and fleeing griffons and who knows what else!”

  “To be fair, Hool,” Tyvian said, “he does seem to enjoy it.”

  Hool took a deep breath and held it for a moment, as though physically girding herself for what came next. “We are leaving.”

  Tyvian shook his head. “You can’t go back to the House of Eddon now, Hool. There will still be Defenders going over that place. Best to—”

  “No!” Hool faced him. “Not back there. We are leaving. We are going home—real home. No more assassins. No more poison. No more humans.”

  Artus’s mouth dropped open. “Wh . . . what? The Taqar? You can’t be serious!”

  Hool looked at Artus and, just for a moment, her face drooped a little. “You are a man grown, Artus. You don’t need me.” Then to Tyvian, she said, “You are only going to get us killed, and you know it. I can see it in how you talk to us. Admit it!”

  Tyvian sagged back into his chair. There was a lot of truth to what she said. Too damned much. He licked his lips, took a deep breath. “Go then.”

  Myreon gasped; Artus stood up, crying, “What?”

  “This isn’t their world, Artus. We’ve no right to keep them.”

  “But what about Brana?” Artus shouted. “Don’t he get to decide? What about him?”

  “Brana is only a baby,” Hool grunted. “He belongs with his mother. And this place is too crazy for us.”

  Artus scarcely seemed to find the words. “It . . . it was only one night drinking! That’s it! It’s just a bloody hangover, Hool!”

  “How much does my baby need to be hurt because of you humans? An axe to his chest? Does he need to be drowned in a lake?” Hool showed her teeth. “I am tired of pretending to be a human. I am tired of dealing with humans. I am tired of humans trying to kill me all the time. I have had enough!”

  Tyvian shook his head. “I can’t believe you’d leave us now . . . in my—our—hour of need. After all we’ve been through.”

  “Maybe you should have thought about that before pretending to be king just so you can surprise everybody by not being king or whatever stupid nonsense you are doing this time—I can’t keep track of it all.” Hool threw a heavy iron key—the key to her vault beneath the House of Eddon—at him, only barely missing some rather sensitive organs. “You needed me when you lived in the wilderness. You needed me when you were all alone. You needed me when you were poor and had no place to go and no one to watch your back except Artus and he was too young. Now you have Myreon and Artus is smarter and you have lots of money. You don’t need me. And you don’t need Brana either.”

  Tyvian picked up the key and turned it over in his hands. He could argue with her, he knew. He could tell her some story about how essential she was to his plans or his life or whatever. He didn’t, though. He owed her too much for that. “How long before you go?”

  “We leave right now.”

  “No!” Artus pointed an accusing finger at her. “No, it’s not fair!”

  “I’m sorry, Artus,” Hool said, quietly. She enveloped him in a big hug, which the teenager did not return. “I am not your mother, but I love you anyway.”

  Artus quivered for a moment, his eyes glassy. Then he fled the room.

  Tyvian looked up at her. “I’ll miss you, Hool.”

  Hool gave him the same big, furry hug and licked the side of his face. “You are the best human I know. Which is still pretty awful.”

  Tyvian kissed her on the furry back of her hand. Then the gnoll nodded in the direction of Myreon. “You are in charge of making sense now.”

  Myreon smiled briefly. “I know.”

  Hool nodded again and grumbled something toward Brana in gnoll-speak. Glum, the puppy trotted to his mother’s side and they left with no further ceremony.

  Tyvian and Myreon were alone. She looked at him with a faint smile growing on her face. “Look how far you’ve come. And in only a few years.”

  Tyvian scowled. “What are you going on about?”

  “You could have lied to her. Tricked her. Manipulated her—you’ve done it before.” The smile remained affixed to Myreon’s face. “But you didn’t.”

  “My plans are already going to hell—there seemed little point to dragging Hool and Brana down with me,” Tyvian said.

  “And that, my dear Tyvian, is my exact point.”

  Tyvian looked at her. He was too damned tired for this. “Stop trying to make me into something I’m not.”

  “How could I possibly? You still plan on going to the Blue Party, don’t you?”

  Tyvian nodded. “It’s our last chance. Our very last.”

  “Only if you maintain the same goal,” Myreon said, frowning. “If you were to change objectives . . .”

  “And what—pretend to actually be king? That’s insane, Myreon. What possible ‘good’ could I do as a dead man?”

  “What choice do you have, now? If you go to the Blue Party, the Defenders will be everywhere, waiting for you. The only way to keep them from arresting you is to become a head of state—then they can’t.”

  Tyvian blinked as the pieces fell into place. “Gods, you set us up, didn’t you? You led them straight to us on purpose! That Defender raid was your bloody idea!”

  Myreon held up her hands. “I did it under controlled circumstances.”

  Tyvian stood up. “Controlled bloody circumstances? Me having a sword fight with a Krothing griffon on the back of a moving coach is controlled circumstances?”

  Myreon shrugged. “I had complete faith in you. Now you know what it’s like being the victim of one of your ridiculous schemes.”

  Tyvian pointed to the door through which Hool and Brana had just left. “You’re aware that your little plot just cost me one of my . . .” He paused—was he going to say this? Yes, Hann be damned. “One of my best friends just walked out because of you. And why? Because you want the world to be a better place? Are you kidding me?”

  “Always about yourself, isn’t it?” Myreon stood up. “I’ve got news for you, Reldamar—not everything’s about you! I did what I had to do, and now you’re boxed in a corner: you can either become king or run away.”

  “No. I can renounce. I will renounce, and then Artus and I will find somewhere else!”

  Myreon shook her head. “Until Sahand or the Kalsaaris or the Sorcerous League or the Mute Prophets find you, and then what? You keep running for the rest of your life?”

  “My life is my business!” Tyvian shouted. “I’ll not be your pawn or my mother’s pawn or Xahlven’s pawn or anyone else’s. I want peace!”

  “And you can have it,” Myreon said. “On the throne.”

  “You’re insane.” Tyvian threw up his hands. “You’ve lost your mind—you’re some kind of radical lunatic. Last night? That was just a ploy, wasn’t it? A plot to get us to this moment, where you’d hoped the memory of your favors would be enough to tip me over to your side. Admit it!”

  Myreon stiffened. “It wasn’t like that. I did what I had to.”

  “Most whores say much the same.”

  Myreon slapped him, hard. Tyvian’s face glowed with pain and he stumbled back into his chair.

  “We’re both whores,” Myreon hissed. “You know that, right? We both sell parts of ourselves—our pride, our conscience, our better impulses. But you know what the difference is between me and you? I do it for a cause. You do it for yourself.”

  Tyvian’s lips curled back. “And I suppose you’re going to tell me that this—your adoption of this hopeless cause—has nothing to do with your father dying in some slum while you were off in the Arcanostrum, drinking tea with Lyrelle? Hmmm? That your whole damned life isn’t just some haphazard series of events that m
ade you into whoever it is hissing venom at me in my bloody safe house?”

  Myreon nodded slowly. “We’re all of us our fathers’ children, Tyvian.” She stood up and went to the door. “I only hope you learn who yours is before it’s too late.”

  She went out.

  Tyvian sat in the chair, watching the door for a long time.

  She did not come back.

  Chapter 24

  Deals for the Desperate

  Myreon slipped out of the Halfling just after midnight, when the place was busiest and somebody in a shroud wouldn’t be easily noticed. She took care to ward herself against seekwands and to keep wary.

  The streets were quiet. Granted, Eretheria wasn’t like Saldor or Freegate—it was a city that slept, more or less—but even still, there was a strange hush over the grand, tree-lined avenues and tangled side streets. A troop of mercenaries was on the streets, patrolling in armor, their halberds at their shoulders. This sight gave Myreon pause—for all the prevalence of internecine warfare in this convoluted country, armed soldiers on the streets of the capital city was unusual. The Defenders were there, certainly, but that was different—they were an independent force, owing fealty to no individual house. Even the press-gangs and tax men tended to be small and lightly armed parties of men-at-arms who owed fealty to any number of lesser peers. This group was a world apart from that—these were heavily armed sell-swords in the direct employ of House Davram. They weren’t peacekeepers. These men were hired killers.

  Myreon stayed well out of their sight.

  She turned her steps toward the Ayventry District. She hoped she could find Bree there, or maybe even find a way to link up with her apprentices again. She was going to need their help. Rifling through her satchel, she pulled out some of the most recent items they had given her—things that the Law of Possession might still connect them to. She found the little sewer demon talisman Bree had once hung around her neck. She produced her own seekwand and looped the item around its slender shaft. Then, she let the enchanted tool do its work.

  The signs of growing unrest were thick, if one knew where to look. Every pillory was full of offenders. Myreon saw wagons tipped over in the side streets—barricades against intrusion—and out of windows and hanging on doors were flags of royal blue, emblazoned with the white device of a peregrine falcon in a dive. The sigil of Perwyn, the ancient banner of Eretherian royalty—the only Eretherian banner that could fly above those of the five Great Houses.