Myreon flipped across a few pages. “Do you also howl at the moon?”
“Why would we do that?”
Myreon read a short passage. “It says here because you think it’s a god.”
“It’s not a god. It’s the moon.” Hool put her head on the table. “Stop asking stupid questions.”
She shrugged. “I’ve just never had the opportunity to read one of these with an actual gnoll present, is all.”
Hool snarled something rude in gnoll-speak and left. Myreon kept reading. Tyvian said nothing. “Well?” she asked at length.
Tyvian felt a stab in his guts; he knew what was coming. “Well what?”
“Is this how you usually celebrate a stunning victory? Moping and staring off into space?”
“I’m still not convinced we won.”
Myreon shook her head. “It’s been two days—nobody is following us. We’ve made it.”
“Escaping with your life isn’t the same as winning,” Tyvian said. He looked at her—the salt air and sunshine had washed away the pallor petrification had left in her cheeks. She was radiant, frankly. He could scarcely believe she was trying to cheer him up. Him, of all people.
Myreon reached out and grabbed his hand. “You couldn’t have prevented the crash. None of us could. I see that now. At least we stopped Xahlven—we did that much.”
Tyvian gave her a thin smile and kissed the back of her hand. “You’re the best person I know.”
Myreon’s eyes sparkled. “And you’re the worst.”
He withdrew, climbing up on deck. He found Artus staring out to sea on the quarter deck, the wind tousling his mop of hair. Gods, Tyvian thought, eyeing the boy’s attire, he’s already grown out of those damned pants.
Artus nodded to him. “Hey.”
“Artus.” Tyvian said, standing next to him.
They said nothing for a moment. Then Artus cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”
“What?”
Artus looked at him. “How’d you know I’d throw that sparkstone at you?”
Tyvian shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Artus nodded and looked off at the sea. “Thought you’d say that. Me? I think it means you trust me. Don’t you?”
Tyvian nodded. “I suppose so.”
Artus grinned. “So, what’s the plan now?”
Tyvian rubbed the ring and looked out at the sunset. “Artus, for once, let’s have no plans at all.”
Artus nodded, breathing deeply of the salt air. “Sounds good, partner.”
Tyvian put his arm around Artus and held him there for a moment, but no longer. Then they stood together awhile, staring deep into the green swirl of the summer ocean.
EPILOGUE
Lyrelle Reldamar knew, within a quarter of an hour, when Xahlven would come to see her. She wore a gown of cornflower lace and pearls and waited for him in the solarium at Glamourvine. Outside, a thunderstorm brewed, rumbling on the horizon and flashing over the cypress trees.
Xahlven came in as a specter might—no sound, his midnight robes trailing behind him like smoke. “I suppose you think you’re terribly clever, Mother.”
Lyrelle made a show of stirring cream into her karfan. “Don’t be obtuse, Xahlven—I spent too much on tutors for you to be this slow.”
Xahlven’s eyes flashed with anger—insulting his intelligence never failed to get him riled. “He has no idea what you’ve shown him, old woman. He never will. Tyvian cares only about his next fine meal and his next suit of clothes.”
Lyrelle smiled at her eldest son and sipped her karfan—it was still too hot. She channeled some of the Dweomer and cooled it to her tastes. “He knows, Xahlven, or suspects at any rate. You underestimate him, as you always do.” She pointed to the chair across from her. “Won’t you sit down? You look tired.”
Xahlven scowled. “I am never tired. I am too busy.”
“Trying to destroy the world?”
“Trying to save it.” Xahlven shook his head. “And there’s nothing you can do about it either. I won mother. I now have control of both the Secret and the Mundane Exchanges—I’m the savior of the West’s economy, snatching it from the jaws of oblivion.”
Lyrelle raised an eyebrow. “But, I note, with just enough oblivion present to make them think they still need you as overseer of both markets. Bravo, my boy. I’m very proud, of course.”
Xahlven took a deep breath. “I came to give you one final warning—stay out of my business.”
“My children’s business is my business by default,” Lyrelle countered, sipping her karfan—ah, there it was: the perfect temperature.
“Why do you persist in this ‘caring mother’ fiction? You never cared about me—you only wanted a tool by which to bind father to your will, and so here I am. Must we continue the charade now that he is thirty years dead?” Xahlven came to stand over her, Etheric energy pulsing around him in black waves that Lyrelle could more smell than see.
She set her karfan down—that much Ether had likely turned the cream now. Such an inconvenience. “Xahlven, darling, I love you despite your faults, not the least of which is a complete inability to believe yourself lovable.”
“If you interfere with me again, I will kill you.”
Lyrelle laughed. “I should like to see that! You, the boy who was afraid of wisteria vines, threatening my life? Quite amusing.”
The sunlight vanished behind a black cloud, and Xahlven seemed to loom larger in the room. His eyes glowed red with power as he channeled more and more of the Ether. Outside, the flowering vines that grew up along the outside of the solarium began to wither and die. “This is your final warning,” he hissed, his voice reduced to a scratching sound.
Lyrelle looked up at her son and patted him on the cheek, her own Lumenal wards easily nullifying his Etheric transmutation of himself. “Oh, Xahlven—you don’t need to warn me, my midnight child. You needn’t concern yourself with me either—I’ve already defeated you. It’s only a matter of time.”
Xahlven scowled. “You mean Tyvian? Even if he does understand his recent defeat, he doesn’t threaten my plans at all. He is not my equal, Mother.”
Lyrelle laughed lightly. “Of course not, Xahlven—you’re a monster. Tyvian, on the other hand, is a hero.”
Xahlven rolled his eyes.
Lyrelle nodded at him. “Oh, of course he is—he just doesn’t realize it yet.”
“I see I’m wasting my breath,” Xahlven said, stepping back. “You’ve been warned.”
Lyrelle nodded. “As have you.”
The young archmage withdrew, leaving his mother to her karfan. After calling for a new cup and fresh cream, she summoned Eddereon to the room.
The big Northron bowed to her. “Yes, milady?”
Lyrelle pointed to the vines outside the solarium, now all but dead. “Be a dear and see about replanting those vines for next season, will you? Xahlven has ruined them in a fit of pique, it seems.”
Eddereon rubbed where his beard used to be. “Of course—I’ll do it right away.”
Lyrelle looked out the solarium toward the approaching clouds. “Oh, I’d wait on it, if I were you. Seems a storm is rolling in.”
On the horizon, the lightning began to flash.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A special thanks goes out to my friends, John Serpico, John Fraley, and John Perich, who, sometimes without their knowledge, helped me understand financial markets enough to write this book. I have every confidence that I screwed it up anyway, but am immensely grateful, nevertheless. I also wish to extend a heartfelt thanks to Rebecca Lucash, for stepping in as editor when needed and doing an absolutely wonderful job. Finally, I wish to thank all those who read this continuation of Tyvian’s adventures. It is my grand prediction that we will all get to see some more of him, but time will tel
l. Auguries, as Tyvian is so fond of saying, are not destinies. Until then . . .
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
On the day AUSTON HABERSHAW was born, Skylab fell from the heavens. This foretold two possible fates: supervillain or scifi/fantasy author. Fortunately he chose the latter, and spends his time imagining the could-be and the never-was rather than disintegrating the moon with his volcano laser. Auston is a winner of the Writers of the Future Contest and has had work published in Analog and Escape Pod, among other places. He lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts.
Find him online at www.aahabershaw.wordpress.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/aahabershaw, or follow him on Twitter @AustonHab.
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BY AUSTON HABERSHAW
The Saga of the Redeemed
The Oldest Trick
Consisting of: The Iron Ring
Iron and Blood
No Good Deed
COPYRIGHT
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
NO GOOD DEED. Copyright © 2016 by Auston Habershaw. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
EPub Edition JUNE 2016 ISBN: 9780062369192
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062369208
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