The Last Lies of Ardor Benn

by Tyler Whitesides

  She glanced down at the special arrowhead, grooves carefully chiseled into the Slagstone so it could be tied onto the shaft. The impact would make a huge spark, definitely enough to ignite the pouch of Blast Grit she had marked with a cairn of stones.

  Making sure Mohdek had moved out of the way, Nemery nocked the arrow on her bowstring, heart pounding. She drew, sighting down the shaft toward her mark.

  She heard Mohdek’s words in her mind. “There’s no undoing this, Salafan.”

  Salafan. Salafan. Salafan.

  She had heard it so many times, it was easy to forget its meaning. Then she thought of the first time Mohdek had spoken it, standing over the grave of his brother, Namsum.

  “He used to call you little Salafan behind your back,” he had said.

  “What does it mean?” she’d asked.

  “It is the name of a bird that digs in the sand of the Trothian islets,” he had explained. “To hear one sing is a good omen. It means that your enemy can look you in the eye and you’ll feel no remorse about the way you treated them.”

  Nemery screamed in frustration, loosing the arrow straight into the sky. How could she do something like this and ever hope to look Mohdek in the eye again? How could she betray the very land that had given her purpose and strength? How could she stoop to the level of Ardor Benn, so wrapped up in her own ideas that she was blind to the way they affected those around her?

  There was always another way.

  Nemery Baggish set down her bow. She scooted off the rock, slipping down the steep slope as Mohdek moved toward her.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She lowered her head in shame, but he reached out, stroking her cheek.

  “We will do what we can to stop them,” he continued. “And we will do it without sacrificing what we love.”

  Nemery nodded, brushing away tears with the back of her hand. “We need to go back to New Vantage,” she said. “Find new ways to sabotage them.”

  Mohdek grinned. “Let the cultists fear the mountain.”

  “We need to target their Grit supply,” Nemery went on. “Without Drift Grit, they won’t be able to carry the crates.”

  “And without the crates, they’ll have no gear. No rations.”

  “We need to pay extra attention to any vials of liquid Grit they might be carrying,” said Nemery. “Take away their Transformation Grit, and the worst we’ll be dealing with will be a horde of Moonsick Bloodeyes.”

  “If we run them ragged enough,” said Mohdek, “I’m betting more than half of them will turn back before they reach Three-Quarter Circle.”

  “No,” said Nemery. “We can’t follow them that high.” Mohdek gave her a puzzled glance, so she explained herself. “Garifus Floc. If he and the other Glassminds return to Pekal, we have to be ready for them.”

  Mohdek nodded in understanding. “We’ll stay within a day’s hike of New Vantage. That will give us more than enough room to make those cultists miserable as their groups set out.”

  “Thank you.” Now it was Nemery’s turn to say it. “Thank you, Moh.”

  She felt a freedom and a power in having done what was right. And she was proud to have earned the name Salafan.

  There always comes a breaking point. I try to bend around it, but I’m splintering inside.

  CHAPTER

  22

  Ard couldn’t help but feel like Isle Halavend—albeit a younger, handsomer Isle Halavend—as he sat in Cove 23, waiting for an unsanctioned visitor to climb through the trapdoor at his feet. Although, today it was more of a gaping hole than a trapdoor.

  Ard had done his part, prying off the wooden planks that the Islehood had nailed over the forbidden entrance. It was a poor attempt to seal it up, but nature had done a better job, collapsing portions of the tunnel years ago. Still, Ard wasn’t worried. A half mile of fallen rock and timbers would be no obstacle for Prime Isless Gloristar.

  Ard double-checked his piles of notes. Organization had never been one of his strong suits, but he was proud of what he’d done. One stack of papers regarding the Sphere. One for the Great Egress. And one for his questions on the topic of Wayfarist gods. He had another stack of scribblings, but those were more of a personal matter.

  Ard wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and stood up. It was hot in this small room, and his heavy Islehood robe wasn’t helping. He could risk cracking the door for some fresh air as long as he stayed close so he could pull it shut the moment his transformed visitor arrived.

  Ah. That felt better, a little cool draft coming off the Mooring waterway…

  “Sorry I am later than expected.”

  Ard jumped so high, he nearly whacked his head on the Cove ceiling. He slammed the door shut with a bang that must have echoed through the whole Mooring. Whirling, he saw Gloristar standing with elegant poise beside the hole in the floor.

  “Sparks, Gloristar.” He took deep breaths to calm his racing heart. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Silence Grit,” she said, a spark bouncing across her fingertips and fizzling out. “I thought it best to approach in stealth.”

  “Yeah, well… good job.” He’d only had his back to the secret entrance for mere seconds. “Thanks for meeting me here.”

  Ard had seen her at Tofar’s Salts that morning, but sailing through the night had left him too tired for a conversation of this depth. Besides, he couldn’t talk about his scriptural studies in front of Raek and Quarrah. A good long nap, a late lunch, and a couple of hours alone in the Cove to collect his thoughts… Now Ardor Benn felt impatient to get started.

  “It is surreal to be back,” she said, glancing around. “Everything seems… smaller.”

  Indeed, at her enhanced height, she had only inches of clearance above her cracked glass scalp.

  “What is it you wanted to discuss?” She reached out, splaying a stack of papers as if she could read multiple pages at once.

  “Nothing there.” He quickly collected the papers out of her hands. Why did she have to look at that stack? It was almost embarrassing.

  “With fervent ardor go thy way, walking paths of increasing progress.” Gloristar quoted one of the verses he had copied on those pages.

  “That’s just a random note,” Ard tried.

  “A study into your name as it appears in scripture,” said Gloristar.

  Sparks, she was good.

  “It’s not really important.” He rolled up the pages.

  “To whom?” she asked. “You are the one who gets to decide what is important to you. Are you aware that the word ardor appears fifty-nine times throughout all volumes of Wayfarist Voyage?”

  Fifty-nine! Ard had been jotting them down as he’d encountered them, but so far he’d found only fourteen. “Well, I guess there’s a reason why it’s one of the most popular Wayfarist names.”

  “Your name,” she said.

  “Not that it means anything to me.” Ard’s words brought back a conversation he’d once had on the dock outside this very Cove. Isle Halavend had asked him why he’d kept the name Ardor, despite changing his last name and living the lifestyle of a Settled criminal. He’d dismissed it then, but the fact that he was now holding a full sheaf of papers on the topic told him that he still might be searching for the answer to Halavend’s question.

  “Do not be so quick to discredit the appearance of your name in holy text,” continued Gloristar. “I speak from a place of solemn experience.”

  Ard cleared his throat, setting the notes on the corner of the desk and gesturing to a different stack. “I wondered if we could talk for a moment about the mention of gods in Wayfarism.”

  “You mean in Agroditism?” she clarified. “The Homeland is the only deity worshiped by the Wayfarists.”

  “I know,” said Ard. “But there has to be more to it than that. The testament spire on the seabed…”

  “The gods grew angry at our progress and they smote us with a plague of mind and body,” Gloristar began to quote. “But we were
many in number, and we rose up against our encroaching madness, taking salvation out of the open mouths of the dragons. From their teeth we rose to higher heights, granted new sight and power beyond our imaginings.”

  Ard remembered that passage, although maybe not word-perfect. It was what had led Portsend to understand Metamorphosis Grit and transform Gloristar.

  “Did you memorize the entire testament?” Ard asked.

  “With my perfected recall, it took only a single reading,” she replied. “Though I certainly had enough time down there to memorize any length of text—my mind perfected or not.”

  “Then you know the way they talked about the gods,” said Ard.

  She nodded. “But that testament was left by the Trothian ancestral race. It is no surprise that a notion of gods lingers in Agroditism. And the worshiping of the Moon.”

  “Yes, but if the testament is to be believed, then there really were gods,” Ard pressed. “And they lived with ancestral Landers, too.”

  “The unchanged stood with the gods,” Gloristar continued her helpful recitation.

  “And it said something about how the gods brought us up to live on these islands,” Ard continued.

  “In the still of night, the gods made preparations, building towers of stone and soil reaching almost to the Red Moon itself. Then, taking the last remaining unchanged, they whisked them high up out of our reach.”

  “Good,” said Ard. “But what happened after that? Where did they go?”

  “The testament continues,” said Gloristar. “The gods were spent from such expenditure of their power. Already, we saw them begin to decay. They had sacrificed themselves for the unchanged, and given us nothing but scorn. They loved what they could control, and they despised us when we ascended to be like them. With their final measure of power, the gods filled our kingdom with the depths of the sea.”

  “So as far as I understand it, the gods are more powerful than the Glassminds,” Ard analyzed. “And the Glassminds—you—claim to be the Homeland, correct?”

  “Not a mere claim,” she said. “It is the truth.”

  “Then what is more powerful than the Homeland?”

  “Is there any greater than the Homeland?” Gloristar began quoting a verse from Wayfarist Voyage. It was one Ard had written down in his stack of notes, but by the time he’d riffled through them, she’d finished the scripture. “Any who could rise above perfection? Nay. For if it were so, the blessed Homeland would be vanquished.”

  “Exactly!” Ard felt validation that she’d cited a verse he’d studied. “Whoever the gods were, they must have had the power to vanquish the Glassminds.”

  “That is a lofty claim,” said Gloristar. “I think you underestimate the power of the Othians. If these gods could defeat them, why did they flee all those centuries ago?”

  “I don’t know,” Ard shrugged. It was a discouraging thought. One that admitted to the Glassminds having no equal.

  “And as powerful as I may seem to you now,” continued Gloristar, “Centrum claimed that the strength of the Othians would only increase if the Sphere is completed.”

  “Okay. The Sphere…” Ard moved to the next pile of papers. “Though we struggle in a line,” he read, “the circle saves, and the sphere governs all.” He looked up at her. “That’s because Time will be able to move sideways into alternate realities that might have been?”

  Sparks, maybe that’s how Hedge Marsool was doing it. Maybe his Grit created Spherical Time and he could see countless possible outcomes to any given scenario. Ard tapped his chin in thought. “We’re sure this isn’t happening right now?”

  “It cannot come to pass until Centrum completes the Sphere,” said Gloristar. “And that’s not something he can do on his own.”

  Ard felt a chill pass through his body, head to toe, but lingering in his heart. “He’s not on his own anymore. Garifus Floc and the other Glassminds. If Centrum contacts them—”

  “He surely already has,” answered Gloristar. “He spoke directly into my mind mere moments after my transformation.”

  Ard brought a hand to his forehead. “I’ve been a fool,” he muttered. “I should have gone to Winter Barracks the minute I disembarked this morning.”

  “What would you have done?” she asked.

  Ard grunted in frustration. “Watched them. Followed Garifus. See what he’s up to. Blazing Raek… Why didn’t he keep any eye on them?”

  “I believe Raekon was sufficiently busy carrying out your other, more discreet, orders,” said Gloristar.

  “Quarrah, then!” Ard shouted. “What’s she been doing all last week?” He immediately regretted blaming her for inactivity. Ard knew the answer to his accusation. Before she’d met him in Helizon, Quarrah had been seeing to the security of poor San Green.

  “I’m sorry.” Ard quietly bowed his head. “I should have done something to stop it sooner. Centrum will obviously try to use Garifus and his followers.” He started piling up his papers. “I should go to Winter Barracks right now.”

  “That may not be necessary.” Gloristar canted her head just slightly in a pose of active listening.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I believe Garifus Floc is here.”

  Ard dropped his notes, the papers scattering across the Cove floor. “Here?” he whispered. “As in here?”

  “The voices of the Othians resonate at a different frequency than those of Landers or Trothians,” Gloristar said quietly. “I hear the voice of one who has transformed entering the Mooring at this very moment.”

  “What’s he saying?” Ard asked. “Sparks, we’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “I can’t understand his words at this distance,” she said. “But he has surely heard me as well.”

  “Then stop talking!” Ard hissed. A man’s scream echoed through the Mooring. Ard didn’t need enhanced ears to hear that. It wasn’t a scream of fear at seeing a figure so starkly different than any other human. It was an unequivocal scream of pain.

  Ard moved to the other side of the desk, yanking open the bottom drawer and pulling out a pair of Rollers. He’d started packing them in and out lately, but he tried to have the decency not to wear them inside the Coves.

  “Have you still got some Grit in you?” he asked.

  “My reserves are—”

  “Quiet!” Ard screeched. “I asked you a yes-or-no question on purpose. I’m assuming Garifus can’t hear you nod.”

  She nodded.

  “He can?” Ard cried.

  “Of course not,” she whispered. “That was in answer to your question about Grit.”

  Right. Ard crossed the room, pausing beside the closed door. “I’ve got a raft tethered at my dock,” he whispered, hiking up his robes and tucking both guns in the waist of his pants. “I’m going to go out there and draw them down this way. If you stay quiet, maybe they’ll think you’ve fled. Once they’re in position, I’ll shout your name. You burst out of here and start smashing glass heads.”

  Another scream sounded outside the Cove door. This time closer. A woman. It was promptly answered by the jarring crack of gunshots.

  “If you don’t approve of this plan,” Ard said, “then spin around three times, touch your toes, and pat your head.”

  “I’m not doing that,” Gloristar rebutted.

  “Then you approve,” said Ard.

  Gloristar reached out and grabbed Ard by the back of his neck, stopping him from opening the door.

  “Perhaps there is a better way.” She dragged him several feet back and released him. “One that will not come to violence.”

  Ard looked at her skeptically. “You heard Quarrah’s report. These guys killed Lomaya.”

  “But they did not kill San,” Gloristar pointed out. “And Quarrah said Garifus was planning to spare their lives as well.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Perhaps they can be reasoned with.”

  “Are you nuts?” Ard said. “These people are insane cultists
dedicated to…” He trailed off, realizing the good fortune of their situation. “Oh, oh, oh!”

  “What?” Gloristar asked.

  “Dedicated to you,” Ard finished. “The entire Glassmind cult was founded on your transformation. According to Nemery, they basically worship you!” He smiled. “I think it’s time for Garifus Floc to meet his idol.”

  Without waiting for her thoughts on the matter, Ard swung open the Cove door and moved onto the dock.

  The first thing he noticed was the temperature—much too cold for a late summer afternoon like this. Then he saw why.

  The Mooring waterway was frozen solid.

  Walking down the icy path were three Glassminds. They looked quite similar to one another, all of them standing at exactly the same height, with the same coloration on their glistening bluish skin and red scalp. They wore sleeveless, hoodless cloaks of black that had clearly been tailored to their enhanced figures. All three moved with grace, their bare feet finding sure purchase even on the slippery surface.

  On the distant stairs that led from the waterway to the foyer, Ard spotted two broken bodies in Regulation uniforms. More Reggies had gathered, but they were pounding against a Barrier wall in a futile attempt to break through. Ard wasn’t the only Holy Isle who had emerged onto the docks in curiosity, but he was one of the few not ducking back inside the moment they saw what was coming.

  The trio of Glassminds continued on an undeviating route down the waterway toward the Holy Torch, exuding a power and authority that went unquestioned.

  Gloristar emerged from the Cove, stepping past Ard with one giant stride. The opposing Glassminds stopped the moment they saw her striding across the frozen waterway. They didn’t speak a word, but somehow, Ard thought they seemed to be communicating. Gloristar slowed her pace, the wrought iron brazier of the Holy Torch rising from the ice between them.