The Far Far Better Thing

by Auston Habershaw

  Lyrelle smiled at him. She sifted through all the possible things that could have come to pass since her capture—which could it be? The use of “they” indicated a group, and the reference to a trap implied that Sahand was reluctant to face “them” directly. There really was only one logical surmise. “You can’t defeat them, Sahand—they are people defending their homes and their children. No number of mercenaries can stop their anger.”

  Sahand dropped her to the ground. When she landed on all fours, he kicked her in the ribs so hard she gasped with pain and rolled onto her back. He planted a knee in her shoulder and drew his dagger, placing it at Lyrelle’s throat. She focused all her will on keeping her gaze steady, unblinking. This only made the Mad Prince angrier. She felt the blade begin to bite. “Give me one good reason not to kill you now!”

  “Easy enough, Banric: because you haven’t killed me yet. Because you need me for something, or suspect you do. And until you are sure I am no help to you whatsoever, you are going to keep me alive.” Lyrelle watched his face carefully. Sahand’s eyebrows rose and told her everything she needed to know—she was right. “Just like the old days, isn’t it, Ban?”

  The Mad Prince withdrew his blade. Then, without warning, he struck her in the face with a closed fist. The blow made her whole head rattle; spots danced in her vision. Lyrelle groaned with pain and clutched her face.

  But Sahand wasn’t finished.

  Straddling her, he struck her again. And again. And again. Each strike crushing bones in her face, knocking teeth loose. Her world shuddered with pain and blood. Between each strike, he growled at her. “You! Are! Not! My! Equal!”

  She lost consciousness, but came to again before the beating had ended. Now he was kicking her—in the stomach, in the ribs. Hard enough, again, to break bones. Lyrelle could not move—she felt as though she were filled with shattered glass. Sahand stood over her, his eyes wild as a rabid dog. “I told you! I told you it would end this way for you! Didn’t I? Did you think Banric Sahand was not as good as his word, bitch?” He swung his arms wide, as though gesturing to some grand vista. “Look what I have become! Look what I have built! Look where I am! And look at where you are.”

  Lyrelle could see through one eye. Her voice was there, but weak. She whispered the words, but Sahand didn’t hear. He had to lean down to hear her.

  “Ban . . .” she breathed, “we are in the same place.”

  He stood up, as though bitten. His mouth was agape. He tried to say something, but failed. Instead, he only smiled—a forced, rakish grin that had once won him the hearts of many ladies in a time very long ago, but was now hopelessly ruined by the ravaged mess of his face and the permanent furrows of anger that creased his brow.

  Eventually, he collected himself. “If I suspect you of aiding my enemies again, I shall spill more of you on the floor than a little blood.” He pointed a finger at her good eye. “Remember the pain, witch.”

  Lyrelle said nothing, lying limp. He left, slamming the door and locking it behind him. Only after he had gone did she permit herself to smile. He leaned down to hear what I said. He needed to know.

  Perhaps there was some reason to live, after all.

  She let herself drift to sleep.

  When she awoke, she was lying on a cot. Still her cell, but in a cot, not on the ground. A blanket lay over her. Sitting on her stool, wiping her face with a warm, damp rag, was Arkald the Strange.

  “Arkald . . .” She smiled at him.

  He flinched. “Oh . . . oh gods . . . oh gods . . .”

  “What is it?” she asked, her voice so weak she could barely hear it herself.

  Arkald blinked. Lyrelle thought she saw a sparkle of tears. “What did you say to him? What did you say to make him . . . do this?”

  “Why Arkald, I didn’t know you cared.”

  The necromancer shook his head. “Don’t joke. You are badly hurt—badly hurt. You . . . you could die. If there is internal bleeding, if one of your bones is too badly broken . . .”

  “You speak like a doctor.”

  Arkald shrugged. “All necromancers are doctors. Well . . . pretty much all. How do you think we get into it?” He shook his head as he wrung out the rag, dripping pink water into a bucket at his feet. “They think we love death—nonsense. We hate it. We’re the only ones who try to . . . try to undo what it’s done. That’s what you damned magi never understand. Never.”

  There were a lot of things Lyrelle might have said to this—that perhaps focusing one’s efforts on those already dead rather than those currently alive was a waste of time. That necromancy’s attempt to “reverse” death merely parodied it and always had. That she’d known a great many necromancers who were hardly doctors. But that wasn’t the play here. That wasn’t the angle. “Tell me about it, Arkald. I know . . . I know so little of necromancy.”

  “First tell me what you said.”

  Lyrelle smiled, making Arkald flinch again. Gods—what did he do to my face? “I reminded him of the man he once was. Proud men hate that.”

  Arkald gently touched the inside of her wrist, reading her pulse. “And who was he?”

  Lyrelle thought back—gods, it had to be over forty years now. Her, not yet married, just earned her staff. And Sahand—the big, barrel-chested Northron with the big voice and the big laugh and the big dreams. Always a lady on his arm. Always a tale of daring to share and a cup of good drink and a slap on the back. And that smile, so long gone. The memory ached—oh gods, how it ached.

  Lyrelle sighed. “He was nobody special.” Then, she paused. “Except to me.”

  Chapter 17

  Children of a Schemer

  Glamourvine on a spring evening had a certain scent—of fresh flowers and rich soil, of evening mist clinging to vines. The scent threatened to throw Myreon back in time—she was a teenager, struggling with the weight of her training. She could always come here for comfort, for safety. The thought of Lyrelle Reldamar not being here—of the house standing empty—made her want to cry.

  The Chairman—Xahlven—had not accompanied her. He had merely shown her the way to open the doorway from the Black Hall to Glamourvine’s grounds. “What about the wards on the property?” she had asked. “How did you get through those?”

  Xahlven, his shroud never slipping, gestured toward the yawning black portal. “It has taken the combined effort of many of our best magi to pierce the Archmagus Lyrelle’s defenses. It took weeks to get this far, and is only possible because she is not at home. The other defenses we believe you will be able to pierce, but you must go quickly.”

  So she had. But now, as she walked across the lush lawn toward the front door of that grand old manse, she felt like a thief. No, like an ink-thrall come in the night to rob her own kin of their money just to get what she needed.

  The sorcerous defenses of Glamourvine were subtle—Myreon could detect nothing on the doors or windows. No alarm was raised, no fearsome golem or other construct came forth to challenge her. After some hesitation, she put her hand on the doorknob.

  Nothing happened.

  She turned it and went in; the door wasn’t even locked. Like she was expecting me.

  When she was an initiate in the Arcanostrum, it always seemed as if Lyrelle was expecting her. She would get away from her classes and skip morning exercises and flee here, quite sure the great archmage would be appalled at her arriving unannounced. But the door was always open, the tea was always hot, and a bed was made up. Once Myreon had come while Lyrelle was out, but found a note instead: I left some books out for you in the library. Please enjoy them and I shall return soon.

  The books left out had changed her life. They had been histories of Saldor, and they had driven her to become a Defender and pledge herself to the Gray Tower when she achieved her first mark. She knew all along, Myreon thought as she wandered through darkened halls. She has always known me better than myself.

  Myreon couldn’t fool herself into thinking this moment was any different. Lyrelle must h
ave expected this, too. Myreon just couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  The halls were familiar to her. Myreon couldn’t help lingering in certain rooms as she passed, remembering conversations and arguments with Tyvian’s mother over this and that. It was strange—for all the years she came here, she never once crossed paths with Tyvian or Xahlven. Tyvian, of course, had run off by that time—living as a pirate with the infamous Carlo diCarlo, it was said—but Xahlven was a master mage in the Black College. Somehow, though, they’d never met. It occurred to Myreon that she had felt more like Lyrelle’s daughter than anything else. This house, with all its understated opulence, felt like her home.

  And yet it never was that for Tyvian. So strange.

  Xahlven had told Myreon where to find what she was looking for. In the Treasure Hall, where the ancient heirlooms of the Reldamars were kept, Myreon passed by relics and artifacts on pedestals and racks—a crown, a sword, the skull of some fearsome beast, a stand where once might have rested the Fist of Veroth. Myreon counted the artifacts until she arrived at the number thirteen.

  She was standing before a small ebony jewelry box on a stone pedestal. Its lid was carved into a leering, demonic mouth, ringed with fangs. It looked so much like what she had expected to find, Myreon almost reached out to touch it by reflex. She stopped herself, though. Touch it, Xahlven had warned, and your death will be extremely swift.

  Myreon conjured a light into the tip of her staff and held it before the pedestal, casting a sharp shadow on the wall behind. Securing her staff in place with a simple telekinetic binding, Myreon slipped around the deadly pedestal and moved to inspect the shadow instead. With a trembling hand, she reached forward toward the shadow of the jewelry box . . .

  Her hand alighted on something solid, though wholly invisible and undetectable by any means Myreon possessed. Even still, once she had found it, it was a simple matter of feeling for its edges and picking it up. When her hands emerged from the shadow cast by her staff, she was holding a cube of black, battered iron—some kind of heavy chest or coffer. It was sealed closed as though by intense heat—something had welded the edges of the lid into the rest of it. It was cold to the touch—so cold it burned her hands. Myreon could sense its incredible, terrible age. She wanted very much to get away from it. To put it down and run and never look back.

  Which meant this was definitely what she was looking for.

  “You do not need to use it, Myreon.”

  Myreon yelped in surprise and dropped the blackened chest. Lyrelle was standing right there, dressed in green velvet. But no, it couldn’t be Lyrelle—velvet wasn’t in season. Even Myreon knew that. It had to be a simulacrum. Myreon forced herself to stop trembling. “I’m doing what I need to do.”

  Lyrelle—or the simulacrum of her—pointed at the chest. “That is a thing best left unopened. Spidrahk’s Coffer contains no solutions to any problem you wish to solve, my dear. All it contains is death.”

  “Death is a kind of solution.”

  “No,” Lyrelle said, smiling, “death is merely representative of a transferal of responsibility. The problems that led to the desire to cause death—my death, for instance—are not solved by my absence, merely deferred and postponed. It is an attractive proposition to suggest that death settles all conflict, but in point of fact it merely transforms or otherwise changes the nature of that conflict.”

  Lyrelle didn’t feel like arguing with a shade, so she let Lyrelle’s simulacrum declare what it wanted. She never took Lyrelle Reldamar for a pacifist, though. One thing in the exchange stood out, of course: “You aren’t dead, you know.”

  The simulacrum’s manicured eyebrows arched upward. “Am I not? How very unexpected. Xahlven ought to have been more thorough.”

  “You are a prisoner of Sahand,” Myreon said. “You mean you didn’t predict this?”

  “I am an imperfect and impermanent copy of Lyrelle Reldamar, my dear—I am not privy to all of her machinations. I can tell you emphatically, however, that I expected myself to be deceased by this point.” The simulacrum sighed. “Given that I’m in Sahand’s custody, I suppose we can write that off as a kind of rounding error. I doubt my death is too far in the future.”

  Myreon closed her eyes. The thought of such a painful death burned, even if her opinions of Lyrelle had shifted of late. “What was your purpose here?”

  The false Lyrelle smiled. “To make of you one last entreaty. And to say good-bye.”

  Myreon picked up Spidrahk’s Coffer. “You don’t want me to use the ancient superweapon—noted. This is the good-bye part, I suppose.”

  Lyrelle took Myreon’s hand. “You always do the right thing, Myreon. I always believed that. I always have trusted that about you. So did Tyvian.”

  Myreon felt tears welling in the corners of her eyes. She wiped them away—a ridiculous ploy, playing upon her emotions like that. Utterly predictable for a Reldamar. “Is that all?”

  “I’m sorry for everything I put you through. I was not some heartless spider. I loved you like a daughter. That was never an act, never a ploy. You are a good girl, Myreon, and I’m very proud of you.”

  Myreon drew back from the illusion. “I’m going now.”

  Lyrelle’s simulacrum bowed. “Good-bye, my dear. Good-bye forever.” Her image, so perfect, so serene, seemed to fade away into mist and then was gone.

  Myreon hefted the black iron coffer and left without looking back. It was hard to see her way out—she was blinded by tears.

  Xahlven watched in his scrying pool as Myreon departed Glamourvine. She had the coffer—good. As usual, the woman was incredibly predictable. No wonder his mother had made her into such a tool; no wonder his brother had enjoyed having her around. She was almost like a trained animal in a maze, doing whatever you wished so long as the proper reward was dangled. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the vision.

  The offices of the Archmage of the Ether were a literal labyrinth of folding nonspaces and deep shadows. They were, themselves, hidden within the broader maze of the Black College itself. Those who achieved their First Mark in the Chamber of Testing and wished to apprentice to a mage of the Black College had to first learn how to enter it. In some cases, it took people years to figure out. It had taken Xahlven three days. He had been fifteen.

  Now he held the secrets to not only the Black College and the Archmage’s Labyrinth, but to the Arcanostrum as a whole. He knew as much—no, more—than even Lyrelle had gleaned in her tenure here. He knew as much as the Keeper of the Balance himself except, unlike the Keeper, he retained most of his sanity.

  He stood and stretched, his black robe billowing behind him from a sharp draft—someone was coming. Though he was reasonably certain of who—or rather what—it was, he brushed his fingers over a few of his rings, activating a variety of defensive wards. The demon, when it appeared, was little more than a dark silhouette with a pair of pale yellow eyes. He knew it delighted in causing terror, so he took care to show no outward sign of unease, though being in the same room with the entity was hardly calming.

  “I see you, wizard.” Its voice seemed to emerge from several different corners of the room at once, a hoarse whisper dripping with malice.

  “I trust you have eaten well?”

  “The woman in the tower has given me some sustenance, yes, but her guardian is much more succulent. His terror is deep and broad.”

  Xahlven nodded. This demon enjoyed bragging about its conquests—a further attempt to unnerve others—so he suspected it was telling the truth. Or a close facsimile thereof. “The astral wards still hold?”

  “Most unfortunately. The woman is beyond my reach . . . my touch. Her dreams . . . how they would be to feed upon . . .” The demon burbled to itself for a moment. The eyes vanished and reappeared in various shadowy corners of the room.

  “Tell me what she has said to her captor,” Xahvlen said, holding up a shadowy vial of Black Cloud, “and I will give you this.”

  Xahlven
felt an invisible caress as the demon smelled the vial of concentrated Etheric ink. It made his hair stand on end. “Very fragrant, but what is it to me?”

  “Slip this in the food of any child—the merest drop—and they will have nightmares to feed you well for a year.”

  The demon giggled, the laughs coming at Xahlven from all sides and with all different voices. “And if I use it all at once, I shall feast indeed!”

  The corner of Xahlven’s mouth tightened. “Yes. That too.”

  “We are in agreement,” the demon announced. “Give it to me.”

  Xahlven held tightly to the vial. “Report first.”

  The eyes vanished for a moment and then returned, this time at Xahlven’s eye level. “The woman has said little. She merely bleats pleasantries to her guardian, who only grows more afraid. She taunted another just today—a man who plants fear in all who see him. He beat her for her insolence. Beyond this, she has said nothing of consequence.”

  Xahlven pulled the vial inside his cloak. “You are certain?”

  “I tell you she has said nothing! Nothing! Give me my prize! Give it!” The demon’s eyes grew larger, as if it were getting closer. Despite himself, Xahlven shuddered.

  Xahlven extended his hand. “Very well—take it.” The vial vanished into the dark. “There is more, of course. In exchange for more information.”

  The laughter echoed again, from all directions. “As you wish.” And then it was gone.

  Somewhat spent, Xahlven sank into a chair of bone and ran a hand through his golden hair. With one hand, he attempted to conjure demonfire—it worked, a pyre of green flame sprouting from his palm—but he couldn’t sustain it. He could feel his control slipping almost immediately—embarrassing, really, as this was something he learned to do over twenty years ago. He let it flicker out of existence and cursed his mother for the ten-thousandth time.

  He cursed her for living. He cursed her for the wheedling little hex she had placed on him. He cursed her, now, for not giving any clue for how to remove it. Having the damned thing leeching off him was like trying to dance in iron manacles. Were it not for his mother’s hex, he could have taken Spidrahk’s Coffer himself. Were it not for his mother’s hex, his plans would be nearing completion, instead of having to founder about as Myreon Alafarr blundered her way through an unwinnable war.