The Far Far Better Thing

by Auston Habershaw

  He saw the black-armored legions of Dellor mustering in the great courtyard of the Citadel, their swords raised up to salute their prince. Then he saw Banric Sahand, arms raised in victory. At his feet? A broken Artus, chained and battered, awaiting his doom as the mob cheered.

  “He’s alive!” Tyvian gasped, but it was a foolish exclamation—he wouldn’t be soon enough. Perhaps the Yldd intended for him to watch.

  The scene changed again. Hool in a burning village, limping from great wounds, Sir Damon at her side, his sword drawn. And again—Myreon in the darkness, Xahlven’s black throne looming over her, a cruel smile on his lips. Tyvian watched as his brother raised his hand, some terrible force building in his palm.

  Tyvian looked away. “Enough! Gods, enough . . . I . . . I get the idea.” He wiped sweat from his brow. “Tell me—are these visions happening now, or are they about to happen? Can they be prevented?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “How?”

  The leader of the Yldd floated closer to Tyvian—close enough now that he could make out more details of what lay beneath the hood. He caught a glimpse of the bleached jawbone of a human skull. “Now . . . now we shall bargain.”

  Tyvian nodded. He grinned, despite himself. Of course—what he had just been shown, the horrors he had witnessed, the fate of his friends—this was not prophesy.

  It was a sales pitch.

  “I wish to have the iron ring removed with no ill effects. Can you do it?”

  “It can be removed. There will be consequences—they are unavoidable.”

  Tyvian thought back to Voth and how she had changed once she cut off the ring. The malice in her eyes, not tempered by any sense of who she had been—the whole woman he had partly come to know. “What are the consequences?”

  “The ring is part of you. When it is removed, part of you will be gone.”

  Tyvian felt his heart sink into his stomach. He had come this far, sacrificed this much, only to be told the same thing his mother had told him in her solarium. “What is the cost?”

  “We would keep the ring. You will give it to us.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you want?” Tyvian asked, looking around at them all.

  “Yes. Yes—a good bargain, is it not? Will you agree?”

  Tyvian frowned—something didn’t add up here. “Who else has visited you in, say, the last fifty years?”

  Silence fell for a moment. An invisible breeze rustled the tattered edges of the Yldd’s cloaks. Tyvian guessed they were conferring somehow.

  “Why do you wish to know?”

  “I’m the one asking the questions here, remember?”

  The leader of the Yldd waved its claw-like hand and the pool showed him three scenes, each displaying the ordeal of one supplicant. The first was a woman about his age wrapped in furs, leaning on a magestaff. When she pulled away her scarf, it took him a moment to recognize her, but when she grinned into the pool, he knew exactly who it was—his mother.

  “She came and, like you, saw through our ruse.”

  “What did she want?”

  “For us to lie to the next man who came,” the creature pointed.

  Tyvian looked at the next scene. Another man, also about his age, with broad shoulders and a soldier’s posture, his black eyes wide. It took Tyvian longer to recognize him, as this was a man not yet twisted by bitterness and anger, but one of swaggering confidence and a winning smile. Banric Sahand.

  “Did you lie to him?”

  “We do not lie.”

  Tyvian snorted. “Did you selectively omit truths to produce my mother’s desired outcome?”

  “Your mother paid well.” The image in the pool showed Lyrelle placing a featureless box of black iron at the feet of the Yldd. Tyvian didn’t know what it was, but decided he didn’t want to know.

  The third image was of Xahlven. “Of course it was him. What did he want?”

  “What your mother paid us.” The image changed to show Xahlven receiving the black box from the waters of the pool, a look of stern concentration on his face.

  “Did he see through your little ruse, too?”

  “No,” the Yldd responded. “He only sees what he wishes to. Like most fanatics.”

  Tyvian looked up from the pool as the images faded. “Well . . . that certainly answers my question.”

  The Yldd extended its hand. “Will you strike the bargain?”

  Tyvian knew his answer now—he knew it in his bones. Still, that didn’t mean he was done haggling. “Show me the courtyard of the Citadel of Dellor again.”

  They did as he asked. Artus was being hoisted up by his broken arms, his ruined legs flopping about at unnatural angles. The scene made Tyvian wince.

  The leader of the Yldd drew closer, almost leaning over him. Its voice was a hoarse whisper. “Without the ring to stop you, you could exact mighty revenge on your enemies. You could avenge your friends! You would be restored to your former self, dangerous and unpredictable.”

  Tyvian nodded. “Show me the gates of the Citadel.”

  Again, they did as asked. Tyvian saw them—huge things, studded in iron, twenty feet tall. A team of horses was needed to close them, and the portcullis looked to weigh as much as a treasure galleon. In the image, though, they stood open.

  “Without the ring, all this pain you see, all this suffering—it will be as nothing to you. You will be free of it, to act or not act as intelligence dictates. There is no greater reward, no better thing than that.”

  Tyvian nodded. “I’ve seen enough.”

  “Then we are agreed?”

  Tyvian laughed. “The hell we are. Kiss my arse, you cut-rate con artists!”

  The leader of the Yldd floated back a full pace. “WHAT?”

  “What kind of fool do you take me for, anyway? All you want is the ring? And why would that be, eh? Could it be because you’ve never gotten your hands on one before?”

  The Yldd, ancient cursed seers from time immemorial, sputtered in their raspy dead voices.

  Tyvian kept rolling. “You know everything? Nonsense! If you did, you would have made me a better deal than the one you were offering. You think getting rid of this ring and exacting revenge is all I want? I’ve done that already, and you know what it cost me? A premium flat in Freegate and a significant quantity of my blood, and you know what the kicker was? I wasn’t even the man to kill old Zazlar. Sahand did that. He might have done that for bloody free if I’d just stayed out of the way!”

  “Begone!” the Yldd snarled at him, their voices echoing all around him. “Begone and never return!”

  Tyvian turned away from them. “I’m going, believe me. You aren’t the ones I need to talk to, anyway. Turns out the old man was right—he’s the one I’m looking for.”

  The dark grotto seethed with the Yldd’s frustration, but they did nothing to Tyvian but curse his name as he left. Tyvian ignored them—what had once seemed so terrifying, so powerful, now seemed vaguely pathetic. The way of the world, he supposed.

  He pointed himself up the mountain and began to climb. He had one more ancient being to speak with.

  And this time he intended to get some straight answers.

  Chapter 33

  The Lord of the Rings

  Tyvian kicked in the door to the cabin. Abrahann was sitting before the fire, his back to him. He did not turn around.

  “I can’t believe I was that dense,” Tyvian said, panting from his ascent. “Abra-hann? That’s the best you could come up with as an alias? Kroth take me, and you’re even wearing boots.”

  The old man looked down at his feet. “I’ve always liked boots—very comfortable, very functional.”

  Tyvian stomped across the cabin to come stand between Abrahann and the fire, snow shaking from his feet as he did. “You mean to tell me that you are Hann Longstrider? The God of Men? You?”

  The old man looked up at Tyvian, and once again Tyvian felt swallowed by his fathomless gaze. “I am Hann Longstrider, the God of Men, who led
your ancestors across the trackless Taqar to this Promised Land, when this new world was still young.”

  “You . . . you son of a bitch.”

  Abrahann—no, Hann Himself—laughed. “That’s not the reaction I was expecting.”

  Tyvian pointed at Hann’s ring. “You made it, didn’t you? The iron ring was your creation. This . . . this thing on my hand and everything it’s put me through—your fault!”

  “Yes. It is.”

  “I should kill you.”

  “And how would you propose to do that?” Hann asked. “Don’t bother with the threats, Tyvian. I’m a god and you’re a man—you are out of your depth.”

  Tyvian snorted. “You’re no god. You’re just another sorcerer—a powerful one, maybe, and perhaps an immortal—but you’re just another wizard trying to rule the world.”

  The God of Men gestured to his cabin. “Does it look as though I am trying to rule the world to you?”

  Tyvian thrust his ring hand beneath Hann’s beard. “Take it off. Now.”

  Hann enveloped Tyvian’s hands in his own—they were thick and muscular, powerful beyond reckoning. Tyvian felt that Hann could rip off his arm as easily as plucking a daisy. A moment of fear welled up inside him—a sense of mortality, or insignificance. He glared at the so-called “god” and waited for the sensation to pass.

  It did.

  “Why didn’t you have the Yldd take it off? They could have.”

  “No,” Tyvian said. “Not like that. I saw what that did to Adath . . . to Voth. It drove her mad.”

  “It freed her of her moral obligations, you mean. It excised her conscience.” Hann kept hold of Tyvian’s hand, his grip warm and firm. “Isn’t that what you’re really asking me? You want me to remove your conscience so that you can do as you like, is that it?”

  Tyvian tried to tug his hand back—it didn’t budge. He might as well have stuck his hand in some kind of fleshy vise. “It’s not like that and you know it. The ring prevents me from doing what must be done. You made it—you know what it does.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about what ‘must’ be done, then. Let’s begin there.” Hann smiled at him—a paternalistic kind of grin, saved for toddlers and idiots. Tyvian wanted to slap him.

  “Are you kidding me? Are you trying to tell me you don’t know what is happening down there, back in the world? People—your people—are dying. Sahand is marshaling his armies, war is raging through Eretheria. Starvation, disease, despair . . .” Tyvian trailed off. “Don’t you care? What kind of god are you, anyway?”

  “And you think it is your duty to stop all that?”

  “No,” Tyvian said. “I think it is your bloody duty to stop it, but in your absence, someone has to save the world!”

  Hann shook his head. “The world isn’t about to end, Tyvian. I can see how you might feel that way—you have always hated bullies, even when you became one yourself. Right now, Banric Sahand, the greatest bully of them all, is about to march his army of cowards and brutes over the broken backs of the three northern crowns of the West. It stings to think about. But the world has not ended, Tyvian. Nor will it. The world is merely changing.”

  “Give me back my goddamned hand,” Tyvian snarled. Hann released him. The ring was still there.

  “I could take off that ring, and then what? You charge down the mountainside to save Artus? You enact some elaborate plan to destroy Banric Sahand? You swoop in to Hool’s defense or rescue Myreon from your brother’s clutches? Even assuming that were possible—and it isn’t—people will still die. The wars will rage on. Dellor’s new prince will be much the same as the last one—violent, brooding, ruthlessly practical. History will march onward, ignorant of your efforts.”

  “So what am I supposed to do, then? Stay here with you? Become a hermit somewhere else? Just shrug and say ‘oh well, guess everything is terrible’ and give up?” Tyvian paced in front of the fire. “Aren’t you supposed to give actual guidance? Isn’t that why millions of idiots flock to those ridiculous churches with those ridiculously massive thrones at the front—so that you will listen to them and guide them and help them? Kroth, if only they knew their so-called ‘god’ just sits on top of a mountain, eats sausage, and moans about the inevitability of history.”

  Hann smiled at him. “Is that you talking, or is that the ring?”

  Tyvian stopped up short, scowling. He didn’t say anything.

  “I only ask because this fellow lecturing me does not sound like the young man who swore off helping people because they were too stupid to help themselves. It doesn’t sound like the fellow who wants to cast off his conscience so he can enact wicked plots upon his enemies. It definitely doesn’t sound like the man who was willing to risk his own life and the lives of his friends to spare the life of an unrepentant killer.”

  “I spared Voth for the sex. She was good in bed.”

  “You used to be a better liar than that, too,” Hann said.

  Tyvian said nothing, but he felt queasy. Exhausted past all reason. He sank into the other chair before the fire, head in his hands.

  “It isn’t your fate to save the world, Tyvian—Myreon is born to do that. It isn’t your fate to smite the wicked—that is Hool. It isn’t your fate to lead men to a better future—that is Artus.”

  “What good am I, then?”

  The God of Men’s voice seemed to envelop Tyvian as he spoke. “You, Tyvian Reldamar, are born to be generous. To be noble and wise. To be a good person and good friend.”

  “I have never been any of those things in my life.”

  “The world has a way of turning us away from our inner selves. Life is hard and it forces us to make hard choices to defend ourselves. We may be unhappy, but we survive. Unhappiness can be borne, sometimes so well we forget we are unhappy and instead find pleasure in other, darker places. You are the bastard child of an imperfect woman who hoped against hope that you would be the means by which her sins might be forgiven. You grew up in a cold world and saw much pain and it hardened you. The thing you are struggling with is not me and it is not the ring. You are simply struggling with yourself.”

  Tyvian looked up from his hands. “You could have made the world different. You could have guided us better. This is your fault.”

  “I did not make the world, Tyvian—that was my father. I guided you as best I could, but my brother was right to drive me away from you.”

  “Ulor the Deceiver? The devil himself? He was right?”

  “Ulor is not the devil. He’s just an arse.” Hann’s eyes grew distant. “‘You cannot rule them,’ he said to me. ‘If you do, they will never learn.’ He was right.”

  “We still haven’t learned. We never will!”

  Hann reached over and laid a heavy hand on Tyvian’s shoulder. “You, my friend, are a living example of why you are wrong.”

  Tyvian tried to meet his gaze. He failed again. “If you won’t take off the ring and if you won’t stop what is about to happen, can you at least get me out of these damned mountains and show me the way to the Citadel of Dellor?”

  Hann waved his hand and the door to the cabin. It swung open. “The way down is shorter than you think from my mountain. You will find that I am never very far away from anywhere. You may take from here whatever you wish, but you will never find your way back.”

  “Good, because I sure as hell am never coming back.” Tyvian got up, looking out the door at the snowy slopes beyond.

  Hann laughed. “Farewell, then, Tyvian Reldamar. I bless your journey.”

  Tyvian adjusted his borrowed fur cloak—the cloak of Hann Longstrider Himself—and strode to the door. “Blow it out your arse, Hann. Just stay out of my way.”

  He went down from the mountain, leaving the cabin behind and never looking back. It occurred to him that he felt stronger now than he ever had before. He pulled the hood of the cloak up around his haggard, bearded face.

  He went down into Dellor.

  Chapter 34

  The Beast of Dunnm
ayre

  Harleck, to Hool’s surprise, was a competent doctor. He knew how to remove a crossbow bolt without making the damage worse, he knew how to clean a wound, and he knew what herbs to rub into the torn flesh to keep infection at bay. He even was a fair hand at a needle, not that this had ever been a concern of hers—scarring wasn’t all that worrying when you were covered in fur. Besides, a few more scars might have made Hool look scarier, and she considered that an advantage.

  For all this, though, Hool suffered for days following Harleck’s attentions. The herbs spared her from the worst of it, but she took ill with fever anyway, her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth as the walls sang with delirium. She was so weak she could scarcely move, and the stuffy storeroom in the back of the Dragon seemed hot as a furnace. She could taste death.

  Hool lost track of time. She lost track of space, too. At times, she felt as though she were back in the House of Eddon, at others she was on the Taqar with her old pack, at others she was on the road with Tyvian and Artus. She tried talking to them, but her words echoed into an empty void. They spoke, too, but she could not understand.

  She saw her pups. Api picking wildflowers. Brana jumping at butterflies. Their blood pooling at Hool’s feet. Their skulls calling out to her.

  The scent of Api’s pelt, thick and heavy like tar. It would not leave her nostrils. She howled.

  Revenge! Revenge! Revenge for my pups! For all the children Sahand has murdered! Revenge! Revenge!

  She raved into a dark room.

  The door opened once, and there was Damon. Damon wiping a cool cloth across her snout. Damon gently stroking her arm, her head, her ears as she whimpered into the dark. “It’s all right, milady. You’re safe. It’s all right.”

  But it wasn’t all right. Why couldn’t he understand that? Why couldn’t he see that nothing was all right? That nothing would ever be all right again? Who was this stupid man, to follow her here? Who was he to interfere with her . . .