The Last Lies of Ardor Benn

by Tyler Whitesides

  The young man cut into the padded arm of the couch, withdrawing a paper roll of Compounded Health Grit. Ard wanted to feel shocked that his friend had kept a stash right under his nose, but it wasn’t the first time this had happened. And Ard was in no position to be judgmental. He was just grateful to have them back alive for the moment. Three days since the Moon Passing meant they’d made excellent time coming down from the summit. He’d been expecting them in another day or two… but not like this!

  “What happened up there, San?” Ard asked. But the scholar ignored him, holding the paper roll out to Raek. The big man squinted at it, his eyesight obviously failing. Then he reached out and pushed San’s offering aside. He looked back at Ard and nodded resolutely.

  “What’s going on, Raek? What are you…” Ard trailed off as he saw the glass vial in his friend’s hand. He stepped forward, taking it for his own inspection. “Metamorphosis Grit? But if you had it up there, why didn’t you—”

  “He wouldn’t let me,” San explained. “I tried to detonate it for him, but he said he had an Urging not to.”

  “Raek?” Ard said. “Raekon Dorrel said he had an Urging? Oh, he must be farther along in Moonsickness than I thought. Already gone insane.” He turned to look at the sick man. Raek flipped him an offensive hand gesture.

  “He felt really strongly that we needed to bring the vial back to you,” San went on. “What happened here?”

  The motivation behind Raek’s supposed Urging suddenly struck Ard like a Void detonation. There was only one vial of Metamorphosis and two Moonsick creatures that needed it. Luckily, the Mixing experts had returned. They could make more.

  “Hedge went off-script,” Ard explained. “He followed us to Motherwatch, but she finished him off.”

  “She’s awake?” San cried.

  “Only for a moment,” replied Ard. “Quarrah’s with her now, keeping her in Stasis. But we haven’t been able to try to transform her yet because we were waiting for the two people that know how to make more Metamorphosis Grit.”

  “We gave Quarrah the formula—” San began.

  Ard cut him off with a wide swipe of his hand across the trashed room. “We need the experts to identify the source material.”

  San rubbed his chin, an overwhelmed look on his face as he turned to examine the littered space. “How would we even—”

  “Just figure it out, San!” Ard snapped, tucking the vial into his pocket. He took a deep breath. There was a lot riding on this. Too much. “Let me get more light.” He crossed to a rack on the wall by the door, picking out eight pots and detonating them at various spots across the room. In moments, the inside of the Be’Igoth matched the bright morning sunlight that slanted through the half-open door.

  By the time Ard finished, San had located the empty canister of processed dragon tooth and was trying to trace its path from the overturned table. Judging by the look on his face, he didn’t have much confidence in what he was discovering.

  Raek stood by awkwardly, a silent monolith that occasionally squinted his bleary eyes at the messy floor.

  “Well, you did it, Raek,” Ard said to him. He waited, willing his friend to reply, but knowing that he couldn’t. The first phase of Moonsickness had stolen his voice, and with it, any chance they might have had for a redeeming conversation. But at least this way, Ard could say his peace without Raek interrupting.

  “It took me a while to come around, but I understand why you went,” Ard said. “I guess I owe you a thanks.”

  Looking at him now, Ard was grateful he wasn’t the Moonsick one. Although he probably wouldn’t have let it progress so far. He would have transformed on the summit, like Garifus and the cultists. The fact that Raek hadn’t done that made Ard feel even more responsible.

  “This is going to work.” Ard pointed at the three books on the desk. “I wrote up everything you’ll need to know. The big one has all the information we need to convey to Hedge. I’ve got notes for Baroness Lavfa, too. And Moroy Peng. Oh, and there are a couple of miscellaneous folks who might need some coaxing. It’s hard to know what things people did naturally, and what we inspired them to do…”

  Ard trailed off. His rambling was falling on deaf ears. Not literally. In fact, Moonsickness sharpened hearing and smell. But Raek didn’t care about what Ard had written in the books right now. He was going blind! There was probably only one question on his mind…

  What are you going to do with that single vial of Grit?

  Ard felt a pang of guilt at the unasked question. They’d go through with the transformation soon enough. He just needed to make sure they had the ability to make more Metamorphosis Grit first.

  “This is…” San grunted in frustration. “This is impossible. Even if I could tell which pile was the dragon tooth, it would be so contaminated—”

  “It has to be there.” Ard dropped to his knees, scouring the piles of loose Grit as if his untrained eye would be of any assistance. “I didn’t touch a thing in here since Hedge trashed the place. We need to find it.”

  “There’s enough in the vial for Raek,” San said.

  “And for Motherwatch?” Ard didn’t want to talk about it so openly in front of Raek. But the big man was so silent, it almost seemed as if someone else were in the room. “What if we divide what we’ve got?”

  “I don’t know.” San sat back on his knees. “That wouldn’t be a very big detonation.”

  “But it would be enough to cover his head, right?” said Ard. “That’s how Stasis Grit works…”

  “We’ve never tested Transformation Grit like that,” said San. “It would be better to make sure he’s completely enveloped.”

  “Maybe they could share the space.” Ard glanced nervously at Raek. “We can be at the Pale Tors by early afternoon. Raek can stand right next to Motherwatch. We catch them in the same Transformation cloud.”

  San looked skeptical. “I wouldn’t risk exposing Motherwatch to the Grit while she’s in Stasis.”

  “You’re saying we have to wake her up for the transformation?” Ard exhaled. San was right, but the risks were woefully apparent. Motherwatch had eaten Hedge the moment she’d awakened. He couldn’t expect Raek to share a cloud with her. “Can’t you just start making the Transformation solution using every pile you find on the floor?”

  “That’s a possibility,” said San skeptically. “But it would take days to sift through all of this. Maybe weeks.”

  So it was down to that awful question Ard had been avoiding. One detonation of Transformation Grit. Two Moonsick beings.

  Save Raek. Or save Motherwatch.

  Ard wouldn’t voice his options aloud. Putting the choice into words sounded so cold and heartless. Raek was practically family, but Ard needed to remain purely objective about this.

  What could Raek provide them that Motherwatch couldn’t? He needed to become a Glassmind to travel back in time and make sure their plans came to fruition.

  But Motherwatch had the potential to become a god. If she became something greater than a Glassmind—something beyond Perfection—couldn’t she travel back in time to plant the clues? She was the final hope. Possibly the only thing that could save the world from its impending doom.

  Slowly, Ard drew the vial from his pocket. He stared at it for a moment, his heart hammering. So much depended on this little drib of liquid, and no matter how difficult the choice, Ardor Benn knew what he had to do.

  He moved toward the exit. Raek’s reddening eyes were boring into him, but his friend made no move to stop him in a silent test of their brotherhood.

  Ard reached out and pushed the door shut.

  Behind him, San sighed in obvious relief. “Oh… I thought you were going to—”

  “What?” Ard swiveled around to face the young man. “Thought I was going to leave? What do you think you know about me? Yeah, I make the hard calls that other people won’t even look at. I’ll sell out my friends if my ambitions direct it. Sparks, I’ll even gamble with the fate of the world i
f I think I have a better plan. But when it comes to Raekon Dorrel…” He swallowed against the sudden emotion in his throat. “Well, I’d let all of time and space burn out of existence before turning my back on him.”

  Ard looked at his friend. Raek’s pink eyes shimmered in the bright Light Grit. His blanched face looked especially haggard, moistened with the sweat from his withdrawals. A lifetime of memories passed between their gaze—joys and sorrows, laughs and squabbles, elaborate plans, harebrained escapes…

  Ard held up the vial of Transformation Grit. “Are you ready?”

  Raek nodded solemnly, moving into the center of the room.

  “Okay,” Ard said. “We’ll need to act fast. Give Garifus less of a chance to connect you to his hive mind.” If he didn’t link up immediately. “How do you think I should do it?”

  “We were going to use a rock on the summit,” San suggested.

  “Sparks! We need to crack it, not shatter it.” Ard felt strange that he was talking about his best friend’s head. “San. Go ask Geppel for a hammer.”

  “A hammer?” said San. “You’re just going to take a blazing swing at his skull with a hammer?”

  Ard shrugged. “Better than a rock, isn’t it?” Raek didn’t look overly worried. There was an inherent trust between them. Trust to get the job done right, even when it was Raek’s own head on the line.

  San grumbled as he pulled open the door to the Be’Igoth and disappeared outside.

  “Maybe you should sit,” Ard said after a moment of silence between him and Raek. “I’ll want to make sure I can reach the top of your head, and the Glassminds we’ve seen have all been on the tall side.”

  Raek picked up a wooden chair that had toppled to its side in Hedge’s raid. Placing it squarely on the floor, he dropped into it, his breathing laborious. Through his dirty gray shirt, Ard could see the distinct outline of the metal pipe forming a circle on his chest. If this worked, his friend would soon be free of it.

  Ard remembered the night of that wound with vivid clarity. Raek, aflame in a sunflare cloak, trying to pass himself off as a glorious Paladin Visitant. It had been Ard’s plan within an overly complicated ruse. Ard’s fault that Raek had ended up with King Pethredote’s sword in his chest. Ard’s fault that the subsequent years had come with such a terrible cost for his friend.

  That night, Ard had only been able to disguise his partner as a pretended Paladin Visitant, but today he could transform him into something real. Something even more powerful than a fiery Paladin. Mortal aches and pains would be little more than unpleasant memories for Raek. He would be able to absorb and manipulate Grit. To move though time itself.

  This was a life-altering transformation for Raek. But for Ardor Benn, it felt like redemption.

  San stepped back into the Be’Igoth holding the small hammer that Ard had seen Geppel using to pound loose nails in the boardwalks.

  “Will this do?” San handed the tool to Ard. Gesturing for the young man to stand back, Ard moved into position behind Raek’s chair. Ceremoniously, he passed the vial of Transformation Grit over his partner’s shoulder.

  “I’ll let you do the honors,” Ard said as Raek took the small item in his trembling hand. Without a moment’s delay, he brought it down, smashing the glass against the floor between his feet.

  The detonation cloud looked just like any other, slightly hazy, even vaporous as it surrounded Ard and Raek. The former felt nothing, his grip tightening around the handle of the hammer, waiting for the change.

  In front of him, Raek looked frozen in his chair. So still, that even his shaking had ceased. Then there was a wet ripping sound, like the tearing of soggy fabric.

  Something red and shiny was emerging through Raek’s scalp—a new head that rose up as his skin shed away like the husk of dragon.

  The emergence of Raek’s new form seemed to deny possibility. He stretched upward, shoulders and arms ripping free, the new ones pale blue and even more muscular than before.

  In a way, it looked as if this grander form had always been inside him, cooped up in a substandard shell. Raek couldn’t remain seated, rising to his new height as he stepped out of his old legs. A few shreds of cloth clung to him, but he was mostly naked, towering almost to the ceiling.

  The first sound he made was a low moan of satisfaction, as if he had just awoken from a great slumber and stood to stretch. Then he turned sharply and Ard caught the first glimpse of his face.

  It was still unmistakably Raekon Dorrel, though his crooked nose was straight and his abundance of old scars was gone. But his eyes were completely unrecognizable. They looked like detonations of Light Grit in his head, but they glowed with an intense crimson like the Red Moon.

  As Ard stared in a blend of awe and dread, his friend raised a blue hand to his chest, feeling the smoothness of his new sternum. A smile crossed his face at the assurance that the awful pipe was gone. But Raek’s moment of celebration was short lived.

  He gasped, fiery eyes squinting shut as his hand flew to the side of his head.

  “They’ve found me,” he whispered, his new voice filling the Be’Igoth with its multi-resonant timbre. He fell to his knees in front of Ard, head lowered as if in worshipful reverence.

  “Hang in there, Raek.” Ard stepped forward, raising the hammer. He brought it down with a tentative blow directly on the crown of Raek’s new skull. The tool glanced off without so much as a mark.

  “Hit me!” Raek bellowed. Ard thought he saw a flicker of light beneath the red glass where his brain should be. Ard raised the hammer again for a more deliberate strike, but Raek suddenly lurched forward, his large body spasming in pain. He knocked into Ard, sending him staggering backward to collide with the wooden chair.

  The hammer slipped from Ard’s grasp, clattering to the floor as he tried to keep his footing. Sparks shot from Raek’s fingertips, but not in the controlled way that he’d seen from Gloristar and Garifus. In fact, sparks were sizzling across his entire body as he convulsed like a person struck by lightning from above.

  As Ard turned for the hammer, one of Raek’s involuntary sparks found a loose pile of Grit on the Be’Igoth floor. A small Barrier cloud detonated around them, Ard jamming his fingers against the impenetrable shell as he reached for the fallen tool.

  No! This couldn’t be happening. He spun to find something else he could use. An inch or two of the chair leg stuck into the Barrier cloud, but it wasn’t enough to break off. Raek was only partially contained inside the dome, the perimeter passing right around his middle.

  “San!” Ard screamed. “Get Null Grit!” The shocked young man sprang into action, sprinting across the room and practically pulling a cabinet door off its hinges. But Ard knew he wouldn’t find anything in there. Hedge Marsool’s raid had been too thorough.

  “Ard…” Raek groaned.

  Ard turned to his friend, who was lying facedown, one arm outstretched into the pile of old skin he had just shed. His blue hand lifted through the heap of cloth and discarded flesh.

  Raek was holding a length of metal pipe.

  Ard snatched it by one end and brought it down on the back of Raek’s head with a merciless blow. He saw a scuff on the smooth glass where it had struck. He swung again, landing it in the exact same place.

  It cracked. A single hairline fracture that Ard could barely see in his panic. A third blow split it longer, and a forth sent a spiderweb of cracks from ear to ear. Ard was bringing his arm down for another blow when Raek’s hand shot out, catching him by the wrist. He raised his face from the Be’Igoth floor, glowing eyes fixing on Ard.

  “Let’s not overdo it,” Raek said.

  Ard managed to sigh and laugh at the same time. His grip went limp and the metal pipe clattered to the floor between them.

  “That could have gone better.” Ard rocked back on his knees. “What was all that sparking?”

  “Glassminds can do that,” Raek said defensively.

  “Not like that,” said Ard. “Looked like you lost a
ll control of your bodily functions.”

  “Oh, forgive me for trying to figure out my new abilities while fifty-six Glassminds tried to blow up my brain with their mind powers.”

  “What were you trying to do?” Ard asked.

  Raek held up his hand. Suddenly, the Barrier dome and the Metamorphosis detonation began to dissipate, the clouds absorbing into Raek’s palm until the air in the Be’Igoth was clear and calm.

  “I thought you were big before,” San muttered as Raek and Ard rose to their feet. The lad’s back was against the wall, still empty-handed from his search.

  “Do you still hear their thoughts?” Ard asked.

  Raek shook his head, gingerly reaching up to touch his cracked scalp. “I’d say you did the trick.”

  “Does Garifus know you transformed?” Ard followed up.

  Raek shrugged. “I’m guessing so.”

  It was strange to talk to him. Raek was so much the same in speech and personality, but his body was impossibly different and alien.

  “We better prepare ourselves, then,” said Ard. “In case the other Glassminds come after you.”

  “I don’t think they will,” said Raek. “They’re all on Pekal, killing the dragons. I didn’t share my location with the hive mind, which was probably the first thing that tipped them off.”

  “Good work,” Ard said. “I wouldn’t want people poking around in my thoughts, either. Makes a fellow feel downright violated.”

  “They could only see what I showed them,” Raek said.

  “Which was…?” questioned Ard.

  “Nothing,” he replied. “But they weren’t so stingy with their thoughts. They told me all of their plans. Probably as a test to see how I’d respond.”

  “Perfect.” Ard rubbed his hands together. “You know their plans.”

  “I mean, it wasn’t anything new or groundbreaking,” said Raek. “Kill all the dragons. Then wait for the next Moon Passing to get everyone in the Greater Chain good and sick. They’ll transform anyone willing to share their ideals.”

  “Did they provide some more clarification on what those ideals are?”