Heroes Die

by Matthew Woodring Stover

  The chill glass of the window had grown warm with the heat from Hari’s forehead. “They’ve really got me this time, Dad,” he said softly. “They have really got me by the balls.”

  Duncan’s mumbling had faded away; the only sound Hari could hear above his own breathing was the pittering raindrops on the window.

  “They’re making me kill another Ankhanan king. I barely survived Toa-Phelathon—I shouldn’t have, really. I should have died in that alley. If Kollberg hadn’t pushed through the emergency transfer . . . And this guy, this Ma’elKoth, he’s . . . he’s so . . . I don’t know. I have a bad feeling about this. I don’t think I’m gonna make it, this time.”

  It was easier to say when he knew no one was listening. “I think they’re finally gonna get me.”

  Hari pressed his palms against the glass and stared out at the smoldering embers of the tree. “It’s not like I didn’t know what I was getting into. I mean, even at the Conservatory they tell you straight: Your function in society is to risk your life in interesting ways. But the Adventures, they just keep getting worse and worse; they’re trying to kill me, Dad—each one is a little tougher, the stakes a little higher, the odds a little worse. From their point of view . . . I don’t know, I guess they have to; I mean, who’d bother first-handing an Adventure they think’ll be easy for me?”

  “Quit, then. Retire.” The voice was ragged and thin but unquestionably present; at least for the moment, Duncan’s mind was here. Hari turned from the window and met his father’s milky stare.

  He coughed into his hand, suddenly embarrassed. “I, ah, didn’t know you were awake.”

  “At least you’ll be alive, Hari.” Duncan’s voice was barely above a whisper. “That counts for something.”

  “I, ah . . . I can’t do it, Dad. I’ve already contracted.”

  “Forfeit.”

  Hari shook his head. “I can’t. It’s, ah, it’s Shanna, Dad. My wife.”

  “I remember . . . I see her with you on the nets, sometimes. Been married . . . what, a year?”

  “Three.”

  “Kids?”

  Hari shook his head silently and examined his knotted fingers.

  He said, “She’s there, in Ankhana.” His breath caught in his throat—why was this so hard to talk about? “They, ah . . .” He coughed harshly, turning his face back toward the window. “She’s lost on Overworld, and they’re gonna let her die there if I don’t try for Ma’elKoth.”

  For a moment, the only sound was the thin whistle of Duncan trying to inhale.

  “I get it. I caught some of . . . DragonTales. . .” Duncan seemed to struggle for breath, for the strength to put conviction into his voice. “Bread and circuses, Hari. Bread and circuses.”

  It was one of Duncan’s catchphrases; Hari understood it only abstractly, but he nodded.

  “Your problem,” Duncan went on with difficulty, “isn’t Overworld, or this Emperor. Your problem . . . you’re a slave.”

  Hari shrugged irritably; he’d heard this many times before. To Duncan’s hazy eyes, everybody looked like a slave. “I’ve got just about as much freedom as I can handle.”

  “Hah. You’ve . . . more than you think. You’ll win.” Duncan sank back into his pillow, exhausted.

  “Sure I will, Dad.”

  “Don’t . . . humor me, Hari, dammit . . .” He spent a few seconds only breathing. “Listen. Tell you how you beat ’em . . . Tell you?”

  “All right, Dad.” Hari came close to the bed and bent over his father. “All right, I’m listening. You tell me how I can beat them.”

  “Forget . . . Forget rules. . .”

  Hari fought to keep his rising exasperation off his face and out of his voice. “What do you mean?”

  “Listen . . . they think, they think they own you. They think they own all of you, and you have to do what they say.”

  “They’re damn close to right.”

  “No . . . no, listen. . . your wife, you love her. You love her.”

  Hari couldn’t answer, couldn’t push words past the constriction in his throat.

  “That’s their hold . . . their grip. But it’s their only one . . . and they don’t know it . . . they think they’re safe . . .”

  Hari stiffened and scowled, but said nothing.

  “Hari, listen,” Duncan whispered, his eyes fluttering closed. “The smartest . . . the smartest man in the world once said, ‘Anything that is done out of love takes place beyond good and evil.’ You get that? You understand? Beyond.”

  Hari sighed. What had he been thinking? That his crazy father might really have advice for him? He shook his head disgustedly and said, “Sure, Dad. Beyond. I got it.”

  “Tired now. Hrr, sleepy. Mm, Hari?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You ever . . . you ever tell her . . . about me?”

  The truth is the truth, Hari thought. Look the world in the eye. He said, “No. I’ve never told her about you.”

  Duncan nodded, eyes closed, his freed hands blindly seeking their usual tie-down positions. “I wish . . . I’d like to, after you save her, I’d like to meet her. Just once. On the nets, she seems so nice.”

  “Yeah,” Hari said, suddenly hoarse. “Yeah, she is.”

  10

  THE DIAMOND BALLROOM on the Studio’s twentieth floor glittered and shone with scintillant color, flashing prismatic splinters of light across the faces of Caine’s subscribers. Most of them were Leisure faces, some here with their loyal Investors; few in Business could wield either the cash or the clout to walk among the elect. Caine commanded the highest subscription rate of any Actor in North America: one thousand upcaste subscribers paid a round hundred thousand marks each for a year’s rental of a luxury box, with seven Adventures guaranteed—barring the unexpected death or maiming of the star, of course.

  This was an elite club; the Studio collected a thousand marks per year from ten thousand hopefuls, merely for the privilege of staying on the waiting list. One of the privileges of subscribing was meeting the star at pre-Adventure receptions like this one.

  This reception, like so many of them, was done up as a costume ball; the theme this time was “The Enemies of Caine.”

  Hari circulated through the crowd wearing a costume mock-up of Caine’s black leathers, playing at being Caine, growling hard-assed responses to the wet-eyed well-wishers and backslapping advice offerers.

  Playing at being Caine made this almost tolerable; at least he didn’t have to smile.

  Kollberg bustled up to him and took his arm. The Administrator wore the maroon and gold of Ankhanan royal livery; it took Hari a moment to realize that Kollberg was supposed to be Jemson Thal, Toa-Phelathon’s master steward. Hari had a fleeting impulse to kick him in the throat.

  “You have your speech?” Kollberg asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you look it over? It’s not quite the, ah, usual.” Kollberg sweated with his night-before nerves; something about being among all these upcasters always made him edgy. Hari figured it was because Kollberg was the only Administrator present; no Administrator would ever be privileged to rent a box for a Caine Adventure. Everyone in the place was upcaste of him, far upcaste.

  Everyone but Hari.

  Hari looked down at the Administrator’s hand, which still held his elbow. If only he really were Caine right now—Caine would break this fat fuck’s arm. He said, “Yes, Administrator. I have it, all right?” He looked pointedly down at Kollberg’s moist hand. “No offense, Administrator—but people are staring.”

  Kollberg let go of Hari’s arm like he’d been stung. He licked his lips as he straightened his tunic. “Well, we’re going to be sitting down to eat in about fifteen minutes, and you’ve barely been on the north side of the room at all.”

  Hari shrugged. “On my way.”

  He threaded through a clot of Investors all dressed like the Bear Guard of the Khulan Horde; the two Leisuremen to whom they were attached both wore the skins and winged helmet of Khulan G�
��thar himself. He accepted a handshake from some Leisureman under about five kilos of putty; this idiot had spent probably sixty marks to look like an ogrillo chieftain Caine had killed in the Adventure called Retreat from the Boedecken—more money than most Labor families get in a week. Hari dodged around any number of pudgy, slack-muscled Bernes, ducked one creative soul who’d costumed himself as one of the mantislike Krrx warriors from Race for the Crown of Dal’kannith, and found himself face-to-face with Marc Vilo.

  The little Businessman had done better than most: He wore gleaming platemail modeled of lightweight plastic, lacking only the helmet. He’d sprayed his hair platinum blond. He had a gruesomely realistic prosthetic that made him look as though his left cheekbone and eye socket were freshly shattered: bone splinters stuck through the skin and dripped gleaming blood; a half-deflated eye dangled by the optic nerve.

  Hari admired it with a low whistle. “Marc, that’s beautiful. Purthin Khlaylock, right?”

  “Bet your ass, son,” Vilo said with a broad grin. “Picked him because he’s about the only one who’s still alive, and I don’t have the figure for Berne. Not that it stopped any of them.” He snorted as he gave a nod that included the entire room. “What’s the matter, kid? You look like you’re not having a good time.”

  “I, ah, guess I’m a little tense, Marc.”

  He nodded, absently understanding. “Listen, I got a special guest here I want you to meet. Come on and . . . Wait, listen, before we go—that little talk you and I had the other week, about you getting back together with Shanna?”

  “Yeah . . . ?” Hari said warily.

  “Well, I just wanted to say that this is great. This is better than I hoped for.”

  A knot tied itself into Hari’s stomach. “It’s not like I planned it this way.”

  “Oh, shit, I know, I know. But this is absofreakinglutely spectacular—I can’t lose, y’know?”

  Hari understood exactly what he meant: he’d heroically save Shanna, heroically avenge her death, or heroically die in either attempt. No matter what the outcome, it would reflect admirably on his Patron. “Yeah,” he said thickly, “I guess things look pretty good for you.”

  “Bet your ass. Here, come on.”

  Vilo led him over to where a fiftyish, fleshy Leisurewoman stood amidst a gaggle of admirers. She wore brown suede chest armor over her steel grey tunic and breeches, and a flowing cape of blue completed the costume: she was dressed as Pallas Ril.

  Vilo cleared his throat importantly. “Caine, I’d like to introduce you to Shermaya Dole. Leisurema’am Dole, this is Caine.”

  Her eyes lit as she turned, though of course she didn’t offer her hand. “Oh, yes, Marc. We’ve met.”

  “The Leisurema’am,” Hari said with a slightly stiff bow, “honored Shanna and myself by attending our wedding.”

  “Yes indeed,” she said. “If you’d been there, Marc, you’d remember.” Vilo’s ears turned red. Dole went on, “Entertainer Michaelson, how are you?”

  “As well as can be expected, ma’am, thank you. And yourself?”

  “Oh, well, you know, I’m terribly distressed about Shanna,” she said, one palm pressed against her ample chest. “Marc was so kind, to invite me to share his box. I so hope that you can find her.”

  “I intend to, ma’am.”

  “And please, Entertainer, please forgive my choice of costume. Marc told me the theme this evening, and I know,” she said, leaning close with a self-conscious giggle, “that Pallas Ril isn’t Caine’s enemy; please, how well I know that! But I want to remind everyone what’s really important here—what’s really at stake. You’re not upset?”

  Hari was astonished at the sudden rush of warmth he felt toward this woman. “Leisurema’am Dole,” he said seriously, “you are maybe the most gracious person I’ve ever met; it’s impossible that your concern would upset me. I couldn’t agree with you more.”

  “I only wish that I could do something to actually help you,” she sighed. “Please know that I’ll be with you the whole time; I’ll be first-handing in Marc’s box, and my prayers will be with you and Shanna. God be with you, Entertainer.”

  She turned away, dismissing him, and spoke over her shoulder to Vilo. “He’s so polite, Marc. I can’t thank you enough. Really, very well behaved.”

  Vilo allowed her to take his arm and lead him away. As he went, he shot a look back to Hari, his eyes alight and his lips silently forming the words I’m in.

  Hari forced a smile and a nod, and then the crowd closed in around him again.

  In only minutes it was time for his speech, a brief predinner address. After dinner would come the nearly endless speeches from Marc Vilo, as his Patron; Arturo Kollberg, as Studio Chairman; and whatever broken-down retired Actor they’d roped in for this. Hari pulled his notepad out of his front pocket and tapped open the cover. Its screen lit up with the text of his speech. He made his way to the west end of the ballroom, where the huge curving staircase provided the dais.

  He mounted the steps and turned to face the ballroom. The lighting subtly changed to get everyone’s attention and to bring a golden glow around him, and concealed shotgun mikes aimed at his face from across the room. He coughed, and the cough’s amplified reproduction sounded like distant thunder.

  A thousand faces and more turned toward him in anticipation. Hari looked out over them, his stomach roiling: more than a thousand men and women dressed as his enemies. There was only one missing: among them all, no one had costumed himself as Ma’elKoth. Hari gave his head a little shake. The Ankhanan Emperor was too recent; no one thought of him as an enemy yet.

  He cleared his throat again, and began.

  “They tell me this evening’s theme is ‘The Enemies of Caine.’ I’m looking out at you now, though, and I’m thinking that a better name would have been ‘The Victims of Caine.’ I don’t think there’s ever been a room with so many dead people in it outside of Hell.”

  As called for in the script, he paused for his audience’s appreciative laughter and scattered applause.

  They think they own you.

  Hari felt sweat trickle from his hairline down the back of his neck.

  “I know that some of you have first-handed Pallas Ril’s Adventures, that some of you feel like it might even be you over there, lost and frightened in Ankhana . . .”

  Shanna, lost and frightened? Who writes this crap? His heart began to boil within his rib cage.

  “. . . but I swear to you, I’ll find her. I’ll find you. And I’ll bring you both safely back to Earth.”

  They think they’re safe.

  The words on the screen blurred. Hari pretended to cough, and he wiped his eyes, squinting at the screen. “Y’see, these guys in Ankhana, they don’t really know what they’re messing with. They don’t really know what kind of trouble they’re in . . .”

  Singing wires stretched themselves tight up the back of his neck.

  I’ve got just about as much freedom as I can handle.

  Something took over Hari’s hands: they snapped shut the cover of his notepad and dropped it to the stairs. His feet got into the act: before he completely understood what he was doing, his heel came sharply down on the notepad and cracked the cover.

  “Fuck this,” he said harshly.

  A ripple of murmurs passed over the surface of the crowd.

  He said, “All night long, I’ve been pretending to be Caine. You know, walk around, give you the eye, give you a line or two, a little thrill. It’s all a fucking act.”

  He let a little of Caine’s blood-hunger leak into his flat-eyed grin. “You want to know what Caine would really be saying to you, here tonight? You want to?”

  Hari picked out Kollberg’s face, pasty and goggle-eyed with panic, shaking frantic negatives. He saw Vilo, looking dubious, and Dole, squinting as though she couldn’t quite see him. Most of the rest of the faces wore looks of anticipation so intense they might have been lust.

  “He’d say: She’s my woman and this
is my fight. He’d say: You flock of shit-eating vultures should get lives of your fucking own.”

  He walked down off the stairs and stopped at the edge of the crowd—a mob of the most powerful men and women on Earth. “Get out of my way.”

  They slowly parted for him.

  He walked to the door, and left.

  His boot heels clicked on the marble of the anteroom, and before he could reach the outer door, applause began within the Diamond Ballroom like the surf of an incoming tide.

  He kept walking.

  Kollberg slammed through the outer doors while Hari waited for the elevator. “Michaelson!” he barked, a little thinly from shortness of breath. “Don’t you move!”

  Hari didn’t look at him. He just watched the baroque indicator arrow of filigreed bronze creep toward the number of the floor.

  “That was not acceptable!” Kollberg said. His eyes bulged, and his face shone with sweat over strawberry mottling. “I covered you—just barely!—and most of them think this was part of the schtick. But you’re going to march your butt right back in there and pretend it was all a joke, you understand me?”

  “You know what?” Hari said softly, still looking up at the arrow. “We’re alone here, Artie. No guards, no security cameras. No witnesses.”

  “What? What did you call me?”

  He now met Kollberg’s gaze, and Caine looked out from behind his eyes. “I said we’re alone here, you fat fuck, and I know three different ways to kill you that won’t leave a mark.”

  Kollberg’s mouth opened, and a sound came out like air escaping from a balloon. He took a step back, then another. “You can’t speak to me this way!”

  The elevator doors opened, and Hari stepped on board. “Tell you what,” he said flatly. “If I live through this, I’ll apologize.”

  Kollberg gaped, his hands trembling from the adrenaline that makes rage and terror so much alike. The doors closed between them, and the elevator carried Hari down to ground level.

  I’ll pay for that tomorrow, Hari thought as he paced toward the outside door. He put a hand on the armorglass, and looked up at the storm clouds that glowed sickly orange from the streetlights below.