Dead But Once

by Auston Habershaw

  Artus searched for another bolt—there was one more, but only one. They reloaded and waited. They waited longer this time, though. Much longer. The lightning arced over the palace, striking the Empty Tower. The rain pooled around their feet on the balcony. “What’s taking so long?” Artus yelled up to Hool.

  Hool didn’t answer. In a flash of lightning, he could see her ears up and rigid, her posture crouched. She was looking the opposite way.

  “What is it?” Artus yelled up.

  Hool leapt behind a chimney. “HE’S COMING THE OTHER WAY! HE SAW US—”

  Before Artus could react, the roof disintegrated above him in an ear-splitting explosion of fire and red lightning. Artus was blown over the balcony railing—he barely caught the edge, his poison-weakened fingers slipping on the slick surface. He realized he couldn’t hear—the world buzzed and moved slowly, as though moments had become minutes.

  The wyvern skimmed low over the rooftop. He saw its huge talons lash out at something and then it was gone. Artus was losing his grip. He was going to fall.

  The world snapped back into focus as Sir Damon grabbed him by the wrist and hauled him up. The first sound that came back was the echoed shouts of the knight. “Are you all right? Artus! Artus, can you hear me?”

  Then came the sound of wailing—Michelle, terrified beyond all measure.

  Then came the sound of Brana, whining softly . . . but nowhere in sight.

  Artus pushed Sir Damon out of his way and dove into a pile of rubble. He pulled heavy stones aside, tearing his fingers and burning his skin against the hot and jagged edges, but he didn’t feel the pain. “Brana! Brana!”

  Hool was next to him in a second, throwing stones the size of her head aside. Digging with all her feet faster than Artus thought possible. And there was Brana.

  His fur smoked from the heat of Sahand’s spell. His face was broken, one eye lost. Blood poured from his mouth and nostrils. His arm was crumpled into a bloody mash. His breathing was labored. Weak.

  Artus trembled as he laid a hand on his friend . . . his brother’s fur. His eyes were blinded by tears. “Brana? No . . . no . . . you can’t . . .”

  “Mama?” Brana whined in gnoll-speak, barely audible.

  Hool pulled her pup from the rubble and took him into her arms, cradling his long body, resting her head against his face. She howled a soft, haunting melody. “Shhh . . . shhhh . . . all is well,” she purred in gnoll-speak. “All is well, my love.”

  Artus, Sir Damon, even Michelle cleared out of her way as Hool laid Brana’s broken body on the bed. No one spoke. No scrabble of the undead disturbed them. Even the thunder fell quiet.

  Hool leaned down and licked Brana on the nose.

  He had stopped breathing.

  When Hool stood up, when she turned around, Artus staggered back from the look on her face. The mother gnoll he had come to love was gone. What he saw was a monster from the darkest tales of his youth.

  She reached up and drew the Fist of Veroth from its sheath. Saying nothing, she leapt off the balcony and into the storm. Artus rushed to the railing to see where she had gone. In a flash of lightning, he saw her, climbing a turret, coming to stand atop its flat head. The enchanted mace burned with a bright orange fire—Artus swore he could feel the heat from here. And then Hool roared. One word:

  “SAHAND!”

  “Merciful Hann,” Sir Damon breathed. “He’ll kill her.”

  The black wyvern of Sahand swooped once more over their now-ruined perch and glided toward Hool, its talons outstretched.

  “The ballista!” Artus shouted . . . but the machine was destroyed. They had to stand there and watch. They could do nothing else.

  Hool held her weapon high, howling into the gale. Sahand cast bolts of fiery energy at her, but the Fist of Veroth absorbed them, growing brighter and hotter with every blast. The wyvern was almost upon her—it would snatch her from the battlements like a bird on a branch. She’d never get close enough to use the mighty mace. Never, unless she . . .

  Hool leapt into the void, a suicidal jump—twenty feet into nothingness, an abyss of two hundred feet beneath her. It was madness.

  But Sahand hadn’t expected it. Who could have expected it?

  She landed atop the wyvern’s right wing. Artus could barely see Sahand twist in his saddle before the Fist of Veroth struck down. Not on him.

  The wyvern exploded in a fireball of black scales and yellow-black viscera. One wing was blown off, the other caught fire. All of them—beast, gnoll, and Mad Prince—plummeted from the sky.

  Sahand’s soldiers were breaching the palace even as their Prince fell. Blocks of disciplined pikemen, blooded in a dozen battles against the barbarians of the harsh wilderness of Dellor, moved through the mismatched ranks of mercenaries and peasants like a scythe through stalks of grass. The palace’s human defenders broke and ran or tried to surrender . . . and were killed where they knelt.

  Then the pikemen met the golems.

  Five of the armored constructs, moving with inhuman coordination, struck one flank of Sahand’s army, crushing men beneath their five-ton feet and slaughtering them on the edges of seven-foot blades. For a moment, the battle seemed to turn.

  Even golems, however, have their weaknesses. Myreon never knew what exactly had happened, but she imagined someone somewhere inside the palace had found the Guardian and realized what he was. And then they slipped a knife between his ribs.

  The golems froze in place, one with its sword raised. The Dellorans, falling back, rallied and, when the sorcerous constructs didn’t advance any farther, resumed their attack.

  This is when Myreon struck. Using the storm, she called lightning down on the Delloran flank—the longbowmen, held in reserve, who were making a sport of shooting down anybody fleeing the palace on foot. Each blast killed two or three men and knocked another dozen sprawling; she followed it up with fireballs thrown as far as she could manage, lighting supply wagons ablaze, killing the skirmishers.

  It didn’t take them long to figure out where Myreon was—deep in the winding neighborhoods of Ayventry District, standing on a church steeple, making a nuisance of herself. A brigade of Sahand’s troops were recalled from the palace assault—two hundred men in ranks, pikes ready—to make a foray and put the troublesome mage to the sword. The drums called the advance, and in they came.

  Just where Myreon wanted them.

  Pikes were a fine weapon for the open battlefield—deadly to cavalry and infantry alike, lightweight and durable, able to be used with minimal training. In the claustrophobic streets of an Eretherian peasant neighborhood, however, they were a liability. As the pikemen marched in columns down the narrow lanes, Myreon’s hastily mustered peasant militia struck from the alleys and houses on either side. Men with hatchets and barrel-top shields struck the flanks of Delloran formations. Men with hunting bows shot from rooftops, picking off officers (a task they referred to as “pulling a Cadogan”).

  And there was Myreon, bolstering the attack—blade-warding this peasant here, blasting apart that Delloran there. She seemed everywhere, running on adrenaline so heady that she lost track of time.

  They didn’t exactly win the battle—the Dellorans quickly ditched their pikes and resorted to arming sword and shield, which, combined with their mail and their battle experience, made them potent enemies—but neither could the Dellorans advance. They had to withdraw and muster in a small square. They had to call for reinforcements.

  Which is when Myreon did the same. Leaping to other neighborhoods, working her magic on other downtrodden commoners. She needed only to invoke Perwynnon’s name and the name of his son, Tyvian Reldamar, and they came.

  They came by the hundreds. By the thousands, perhaps. Even as the palace burned, even as the peerage of Eretheria fled or died upon Delloran pikes.

  The peasantry might not be able to drive Sahand out of the city entirely, but Myreon knew, by the time the palace clock tower struck midnight, that Eretheria would never be Sahand’s
to burn.

  Chapter 42

  A Good Death

  It took some time getting the doors to the mausoleum open—Tyvian had to resort to swinging a golem’s gigantic sword until, eventually, he’d hacked enough of it away to pry it open with Chance. He entered just as there was a massive explosion of frigid air that froze the walls and coated the floor in ice. Xahlven floated in the air above Lyrelle, who crumpled to the ground, her body smoking from the energies she had channeled. Xahlven raised his hands, calling together a black orb of foul-smelling energy—pure Ether, the stuff of death itself.

  “Xahlven!” Tyvian shouted.

  Xahlven pivoted and threw the orb of oblivion at him.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid . . .

  Tyvian rolled out of the way as it splashed against the mighty doors and disintegrated them into dust. He caught up his boot knife and threw it underhand, just trying to nick Xahlven in the leg enough to interrupt his concentration. It sailed wide, but only barely.

  Xahlven laughed. “So, little brother. It’s come to this at last, has it?”

  “Is this your primary occupation, now? Toppling governments? Sowing misery?” Tyvian slid carefully along the icy ground toward the edge of the room, where a slender staircase wound up the bole of the huge tower.

  “Don’t presume to lecture me, Tyvian—you haven’t the slightest idea what my plans are. Besides, not more than three years ago, you would have toppled governments and sown misery as recreation.” Xahlven continued to float in place, his black robes flowing and crackling with visible energy. That was, itself, unusual—only poorly made or damaged enchantments manifested themselves so visibly. Lyrelle, it seemed, had given her son as good as she got.

  Tyvian started up the stairs, Chance pointing up at Xahlven. “So, what now? You kill Mother and then me, too? Seems cold-blooded, and that’s coming from me.”

  “I take little pleasure in it,” Xahlven said with a shrug, “but sacrifices must be made.” He cast a spell at Tyvian—something devious, no doubt. He didn’t take time to identify it—he merely dove for cover. The black lightning, though, arced as it came and sought him out, striking him all over his body. Tyvian braced for the pain.

  It didn’t come. The spell winked out with a whupp of rushing air.

  Both Tyvian and Xahlven blinked at one another for a moment. Then Tyvian noticed Chance, dark with absorbed energy. Of course. He smiled. This is what she meant!

  Tyvian thrust Chance in Xahlven’s direction and released the spell back at him. His brother vanished and reappeared on the stairs above him. “Interesting. Mother’s design, I presume? I’d recognize her handiwork anywhere.” He looked over his shoulder at the unconscious Lyrelle. “The old bitch is defeated and still she interferes.”

  Tyvian charged up the stairs and lunged at Xahlven, but he was suddenly four steps higher up. Chance dug itself into the stone of the stairs and was stuck there. “Kroth!”

  Xahlven tapped his staff and the stairs beneath Tyvian’s feet collapsed into dust. He wound up dangling from the hilt of his own sword, fifteen feet over the hard marble floor. Xahlven came to stand over him. “Even if I can’t blast you directly, what exactly do you hope to accomplish, here?” He pressed his staff down on Tyvian’s hands, putting all his weight on it. Tyvian’s knuckles screamed beneath the pressure.

  Xahlven shook his head. “Pity. All those wasted years studying swordplay, and look where it’s gotten you.”

  Tyvian grinned. “It’s gotten me awfully close to you, I’d say.”

  “Wha—”

  Tyvian reached up with his ring hand and grabbed Xahlven’s staff. The ring’s power bloomed inside him and with the barest pull of his sword arm, he leapt up into Xahlven’s chest, knocking his brother sprawling. Still with his hand on the staff, he ripped it away and broke it in half over his knee.

  Xahlven scrambled backward to get back to his feet and Tyvian took the moment to rip Chance free from its stone prison. Tyvian’s shoulder screamed with pain, but he felt alive, glowing with energy. He came en garde. “I hope that’s not your best trick.”

  Xahlven rolled his eyes. With a snap of his fingers, a long rapier of blackened mageglass appeared in his hand. Another snap of his fingers and a simulacrum of Xahlven appeared behind Tyvian with the same mageglass rapier. “Adequate enough for you?”

  Tyvian grinned and turned sideways so he could see both of them. From a sleeve he drew a dagger and flicked a switch to extend a pair of spring-mounted parrying tines. “You know me—I’m never satisfied.”

  Both Xahlvens came at him at once. Tyvian bound one blade with the dagger and beat the second blade out of line and followed up with a quick thrust aimed at the upper arm. But Xahlven wasn’t there—he was five inches to his right, his displaced image vanishing as Tyvian cut through it. Then the Xahlven on his dagger side pressed him hard, but Tyvian had the higher step and he kicked the simulacrum in the face, knocking it back.

  Xahlven was back at him again, sending a flurry of fast thrusts and cuts his way that Tyvian could barely parry—Xahlven had never been this good, not before. He was boosting his reflexes with Astral energy, slowing down time for himself while things remained the same for Tyvian.

  The simulacrum stabbed Tyvian through the back of his thigh in a suicidal lunge that earned it the parrying dagger in the eye. It vanished in a puff of Ether, but the damage had been done. Tyvian crumpled backward.

  Xahlven pursued his advantage, trying to drive his blade down through Tyvian’s shoulder and into his heart. Tyvian brought both his weapons in an X over his head and diverted the thrust, then locked the blade and twisted it from Xahlven’s hand.

  But Xahlven already had another one, appearing in his offhand with a flash. Tyvian thrust at his brother’s stomach, but Xahlven parried. He was on the defensive, though—it was Tyvian’s turn to press the advantage, staggering to his feet and driving his brother back with the years of fighting experience no Astral enchantment could match. He used his two weapons to Xahlven’s one to draw his brother into feints and binds that would have ended him, but for his brother’s unnatural speed.

  So they went up and up and up, each man fighting for his life as they wound higher and higher up the Empty Tower. For all his skill, Tyvian could not score a touch on Xahlven, whose illusions and enchantments were almost impossible to see through. He, however, was struck several times—a cut across his left arm, a slash across the cheek, a shallow thrust into his chest that wedged in a rib.

  Finally they locked blades and Tyvian dropped the dagger to catch Xahlven’s wrist. He then pivoted and, using his body as a fulcrum, catapulted Xahlven out one of the narrow windows of the tower. Tyvian followed him, not so foolish as to think a throw from a window would be enough to do in an archmage.

  It hadn’t been. Xahlven floated down to the ridge of the highest roof in the palace—that of the palace chapel. Powering through the pain in his leg and relying on the ring to propel him, Tyvian followed, leaping across the void and landing with a crash right in front of his brother.

  Xahlven was out of breath, which Tyvian took as a great compliment. “What do you hope to gain here, brother?” The archmage spread his arms. “You court your death only! Look!”

  Around the palace, Tyvian could see the ranks of Dellorans assaulting the palace. Fire leapt from the towers and belched from broken windows. In a flash of lighting, he could see how the bodies of peasants and noblemen alike littered the gardens, staining the puddles crimson. Further still, he caught glimpses of fire and mayhem in the streets beyond—fighting in the alleys, in the neighborhoods, house to house.

  “You’ve lost!” Xahlven yelled over the boom of thunder. “Eretheria will be plunged into civil war. Myreon Alafarr will lead a rebel army that will plague the five counties for decades! Sahand will invade! There is nothing you can do to stop it now!”

  Five more Xahlvens, each with his deadly blade of mageglass, came into being around Tyvian. He ran his options—none of them looked good. He w
asn’t making it off this roof alive.

  Tyvian shook his head. “Why? Dammit, Xahlven—why do this?”

  “I do not reveal my plans to my enemies,” Xahlven said.

  “I’m your brother, not your enemy! Dammit, Xahlven—I spent my whole childhood trying to convince you of that! What the hell did I ever do to you?”

  Xahlven blinked—for the first time in Tyvian’s memory, he had said something to his brother that he hadn’t expected. Finally he said, “It wasn’t something you ever did, Tyvian. It was who you were.” He pointed back at the tower. “You were hers—so clearly, so obviously her favorite, her protégé. The little boy she had abandoned my father to make and, when he grew angry about it, you were the boy that my mother murdered my father to protect.” Xahlven spat. “My brother? Ha! I was never your brother, Tyvian, just as I never was her son. I was never anything more than a political convenience—a child borne to snare my father into loving a treasonous, hateful witch.”

  As Xahlven talked, Tyvian palmed the poison ring he’d gotten from Voth. “So you decided to destroy the world out of revenge?”

  Xahlven laughed and his simulacra closed in, their blades raised. “This is not about destroying the world, Tyvian. It’s about saving it—it always has been!”

  “You’re about to kill me anyway—just tell me. I know you’re dying to!” Tyvian put his free hand to his leg wound and made a show of rubbing it, but he was actually pressing the ring’s needle into his thigh. It burned like white fire and then got deathly cold. Tyvian’s heart began to race even faster than before.

  Xahlven laughed. “You’re just wasting time, but fine—if it means so much to you, I’ll tell you. The Balance—the forces that hold our universe together—is becoming more and more volatile. It has been ever since the Illini Wars. I know this—I studied it underneath Master Vodran in the Arcanostrum. If we continue as we have been, we will trigger a cataclysm that will wipe out everything—all life will end.”