Heroes Die

by Matthew Woodring Stover

  “Sure, whatever.”

  I limp through the infirmary, enduring glares from the sick and broken people who line the bare wooden benches waiting their turns; their resentment stings my flesh nearly as much as, oh, say, the pittering raindrops of a summer shower.

  I pause at the candlerest near the mouth of the corridor and pick out a fresh one, fitting it into a brass holder with an adjustable oval breeze-shield. The lamp nearby provides flame, and I move off into the unlit corridor.

  The halls and cells of the Monasteries across the world have no lamps of their own, and often not even windows. A friar must carry his own illumination, you see, never depend on the efforts of others to push back the darkness. Symbols, always symbols, to remind us of our Sacred Mission.

  Horseshit.

  There may be, I guess, a few idealists and other gullible types who still believe that the Monasteries are devoted to the Future of Mankind; the rest of us know that their true function is to acquire and wield power: naked force, political and otherwise.

  Down through the years, the otherwise has been, occasionally, me. And I’m far from the only one, nor am I the best or most successful—I’m only the most famous.

  Cell three is a rectangular box, two meters by three and maybe two and a half high. I shut the door behind me and lean against the wall, slowly sliding down it to lower myself to the chill limestone flags of the floor without having my leg buckle under me. I set the candle on the floor next to me and look up at the beautifully detailed low relief that’s carved into the cell’s end wall.

  Brought to life by the slowly wavering flame of the candle, the limestone eyes of Jhantho, Our Founder, gaze sadly down at me. His cupped hands cradle the world between them like a thin-shelled egg of a dragon—something infinitely precious and astonishingly fragile.

  “There was a time you had me suckered, too, you sonofabitch,” I say softly. “I remember what it felt like to believe.”

  And in the corner of the cell stands a small bronze of an impressively muscled man with flowing hair and piercing eyes; the statue’s feet are surrounded by offering plates and stubs of candles. Another shrine to Ma’elKoth, just like Kierendal’s, but this one’s seen some use.

  This shrine shit is starting to creep me out.

  It’s not long before the priest of Khryl shows up. He’s probably having a slow day; Khryllian healing works only on wounds sustained in battle. He clanks in through the door in his full armor—I think they even sleep that way—and the steel of his breastplate is so incredibly polished that it reflects the candle flame like chrome. We exchange only enough words for him to understand the wound. Although I detect a brightening of his eyes when I tell him it came from an ogre’s tusk, this brightening darkens again when he learns the ogre survived the encounter.

  He stands tall and stretches his arms wide to pray; the last time a priest of Khryl ever kneels is when he receives his Order of Knighthood. His chant rings in the tiny cell, on and on.

  It would be easy to envy him his faith, but I don’t; that’d be a prejudice left over from my other life. He doesn’t have faith, he has certain knowledge: he feels the power of his god every time he prays. I hold the torn leather of my breeches wide, for him to lay hands upon my wound.

  The ragged flaps of skin, lipped with yellow globules of fat and strung through with torn muscle, slowly draw together. Khryl is a god of war, and his healing is intended for use on the battlefield; it is fast and certain, but savagely uncomfortable. A wound this deep would take a couple of months to heal fully, and in the meantime it would throb, and itch, and shoot the occasional stinging stitch up the leg. Khryl’s healing takes every scrap of the discomfort of those months and compresses it into five eternal minutes of agony.

  My vision fades under the onslaught. My ears ring, and I taste blood; it feels like he’s poured sulphuric acid down my crotch and it’s eating the flesh through to the bone.

  I probably pass out at least once, maybe twice; it’s hard to tell—it never seems to end—I’m greying in and out, and every time I come back it’s still going on.

  When I get back full consciousness, I’m alone in the cell, and I have hazy memories of the priest taking his leave. There’s a jagged V-shape of new pink and puckered scar tissue on the inside of my thigh. A deep ache in the muscle sharpens instantly when I try to put weight on it, but I get up anyway and start to stretch it out.

  Fatigue sinks steel hooks into every muscle and drags them toward the floor. I feel like I’ve been lost in the desert without food or water for a year or so. What I really need is a side of beef, a gallon of whiskey, and a bed for about three days; but I lost the whole afternoon dodging the damned constables and Shanna has maybe five days left to live.

  The constables might have already presented themselves at the gate and been turned back—I can’t have been difficult to track. They’ll be watching, but there are ways out of this embassy that the Constabulary doesn’t know about. If I move fast, I should be able to be off the island and back in the Warrens before the bridges go up at curfew.

  I push on the door, and it barely rattles.

  I push harder. It shifts just enough to let me know it’s barred from the outside.

  “Hey!” I shout, hammering on the door with both fists. “Open this fucking thing!”

  “Er, Caine?” The boy outside sounds a little nervous, with good reason. If I could somehow get into the corridor right now I’d beat him to death on my way out. “I have to keep you here, for just a few minutes. The Ambassador wants to see you—he, uh, he wanted to make sure you don’t leave before he has a chance to talk with you.”

  And there’s no point in arguing. The word Ambassador doesn’t suggest the full range of his powers; in matters concerning Ankhana, he’s kind of a minor pope. This kid out there could no more disobey the Ambassador than fly to the frigging moon. The cell is now a cell in the other sense as well.

  I sigh and lean my forehead into the cool oak of the door. “He could have asked . . .”

  “Uh, well . . . I’m sorry . . .”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  What would Dartheln want with me? It’s not likely to be a friendly chat—we weren’t on the best of terms, last time we met. He’d opposed the Council of Brothers’decision on Toa-Phelathon; the Prince-Regent had been something of a personal friend.

  Dartheln’s a man of principle, though. Despite his personal feelings and principled objections, his Oath of Obedience had taken precedence: he’d bowed to the Council’s orders and given me the full support of the embassy’s resources. I couldn’t have succeeded without him. I have a great deal of respect for him, even though he’s never bothered to conceal that the feeling isn’t mutual.

  They don’t keep me waiting long. When the door swings out, four friars stand outside, and they’re all armed. The short, shoulder-high staves they carry are ideal close-combat weapons, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that each of these guys is my equal in a fight, or close to it. They relieve me of my last two knives—the thrower from my back and the little leafblade from my boot. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

  They lead me along the corridor away from the light, so that we won’t pass through the common room of the infirmary. We go up a couple twisting flights of stairs and along another hallway so underused that we leave footprints behind us in the dust—but only briefly, as the nervous and bemused novice trails us with a broom.

  They open a small service door for me and bracket me into the room: two ahead and two behind. The novice closes the door behind us, and before him—he stays out in the hallway.

  I recognize the room, even though the decor has changed: this is the private office, just off the Ambassador’s chambers. Instead of the massive dark wood furniture of the sort produced by the friars at Jhanthogen Bluff, this room’s full of the light, curving, graceful sort of thing produced by the best Ankhanan craftsmen; every piece gleams, rich veneer layered with transparent varnish.

  And in one cor
ner, candle flames wavering at its ankles and offering plates piled high, is another shrine to Ma’elKoth.

  The only piece of furniture I recognize is the bulky, scarred old writing table of the sort Exoterics use for drafting and copying manuscripts. And the man sitting at it with his back to the five of us, though he’s wearing the Ambassadorial robes, isn’t Dartheln—Dartheln is a hefty man who’d be nearing seventy, and is as bald as an egg. This guy’s skinny enough that he’d blow away in a high wind, and his head’s full of curly brown hair. He glances back over his shoulder, nods to himself, and lays down his pen.

  “Caine. I’ve been hoping you’d come here first.” His face is familiar—those cheekbones that look sharp enough to cut cheese—but it’s the voice that triggers my memory, even though I haven’t heard it in maybe eighteen years.

  I squint. “Creele?”

  He nods and flicks his wrist toward one of the chairs. “Good to see you. Sit.”

  I take the offered chair, more than a little amazed. Creele was a couple years behind me at Garthan Hold. I tutored him in Applied Legendry and Small-Group Tactics. Now he’s the Ambassador to the Empire.

  Shit, am I that old?

  “How in the name of Jhantho’s Fist did you get a post like this at your age?”

  He smiles thinly. “The Council appoints by merit, not age.”

  That doesn’t answer the question—or maybe it does. The Creele I recall from school was a natural politician, a master of telling you what you wanted to hear, even then. A manipulative little skunk, but good company, intelligent and witty; I can remember many hours spent laughing over wine filched from the hold’s cellars.

  It’s hard to look at him; my brain keeps trying to see him the way he looked at eighteen. We don’t spend much time in small talk. He knows most of my career already, and I don’t have much interest in his—the unspoken details would be depressingly familiar, the kind of backstabbing politics that drove me away from the Vows in the first place. And the four staff-armed friars are still here; they’re standing at parade rest in a short arc behind me, which puts a damper on chatty conversation.

  Shortly he gets to the nub. He twists the ring with the Seal of Mastery around his finger to its proper place, and he puts on his Important Business voice.

  “I don’t know by whom you’ve been hired, and I don’t need to know. But you should know that the Council of Brothers won’t tolerate any action against Ma’elKoth, or against the Empire generally.”

  “Against Ma’elKoth?” I say, frowning. How does he know? “I’m not working. This is personal business.”

  “Caine, you might remember I’m not an idiot. We know that Ma’elKoth is not popular with some rogue elements within the nobility. I know that the Eyes have been anticipating that you’ll surface in Ankhana, and they’ve issued a warrant for your arrest on unspecified charges. This reads like your employer is compromised, and they know what you’re up to. And here you are. Don’t bother to pretend.”

  I shrug. “All right.”

  He looks like he’s expecting me to continue. I stare at him blandly. He gives his head an irritated little shake and works his lips like there’s a bad taste in his mouth.

  “You should understand that we support Ma’elKoth; we couldn’t have handpicked a better successor to Toa-Phelathon. He’s brought the common folk together like no ruler since Dil-Phinnarthin himself, and he’s solidified the Empire into a stable nation. He’s holding the subs at bay on the borders and controlling the ones within; he’s reached an understanding with Lipke that may bring the two empires together within our lifetime.”

  As he speaks, his eyes keep flicking past me toward the shrine in the corner, his gaze drawn there like a moth to a candle. “Ma’elKoth may be the most important man alive—he may be the man who will ensure the ultimate survival of our species, can you understand that? He may be able to bring together all the human lands; if we can stop fighting among ourselves, the subs will never stand against us. We think he can do it. He’s the horse we’re riding, and we won’t let you cut him out from under us.”

  “We?”

  “The Council of Brothers. The whole Council.”

  I give him a derisive snort. The Council of Brothers, as a whole, can’t decide what day it is. “I tell you again. My business in Ankhana is personal.”

  “If you could only meet the man, you’d understand,” he says. His eyes spark with messianic fire—he’s a believer. He pushes his hands toward the shrine as though offering worship. “His presence alone is overwhelming, and the power of his intellect—! The way he’s taken the entire Empire into his hand—”

  “By murdering his political enemies,” I murmur, and an expression of fleeting satisfaction crosses his face, as though I’ve confessed to something.

  Maybe I have.

  Or maybe I’m just contrary, but I can’t help it. His tone of uncritical awe makes needling him irresistible.

  “Enemies of Ma’elKoth are enemies of the Empire,” he insists. “They’re enemies of humanity. Should he deal gently with traitors? Would that make him a better Emperor, or worse?”

  I give him a thin smile and quote, “ ‘Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.’ ”

  He rocks back in his chair. “I thought that might be your attitude. Dartheln said almost the same thing, only in different words.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s pretty smart,” I tell him. “And he’s a better man than you’ll ever be.”

  Creele waves a weary hand. “He’s a fossil. He doesn’t see that Ma’elKoth is our chance at the bold stroke, the final success. He thought we should stick with our tried-and-true methods; now he’s applying his tried-and-true methods to growing corn at Jhanthogen Bluff.”

  I’m becoming acutely conscious of how much time this is wasting. I lean forward and put my elbows on my knees and give him a pretty fair Earnest Look.

  “Creele, listen. I’m happy for you, getting this post, and I understand your concerns for Ma’elKoth. But, really, if everything I hear about him is true, he wouldn’t be in much danger even if he were my target. The truth is, I’ve heard that my old girl is in town here, and she’s in trouble, and I’m trying to find her. That’s my real interest here.”

  “You’ll give me your word that you will take no action against Ma’elKoth, nor against anyone in his government?”

  “Creele—”

  “Your word.” He’s learned the command voice well; his tone makes it clear there’s no room to wiggle.

  You have my word—it’s a simple phrase, and easy on the lips; my word is nothing more than what I am, and it’s broken as easily as men are.

  But it’s also nothing less than what I am, and it has the same lust for survival that I do. I spread my hands in a disparaging shrug. “What would my word mean?” A rhetorical question. “It would place no chains upon my arms that could prevent the raising of my fist.”

  “I suppose that’s true.” He looks tired, as though the Ambassadorial robes drag on his shoulders like anchors on his spirit. The zealotry that smoldered in his eyes has faded, and his mouth takes on a cynical twist. “I suppose I would have had to do this, anyway. You’re only making it a little easier.”

  He rises like an old man, and goes to the chamber door; with a brief glance of something like regret over his shoulder at me, he shoots the bolt and swings the door open. “Thank you for waiting, Your Grace. Caine is here.”

  Six men in the blue and gold tunics of the King’s Eyes’ dress-livery file into the room, shortswords slung at their waists along with identical daggers. As they come in, they crank back the crowsfoot mechanism on small, compact crossbows and load steel quarrels into the bolts. The seventh is an ordinary-looking man with mouse-brown hair who wears a stylish burgundy velvet blouse with a baldric of gleaming white silk. He offers the corner shrine a cursory nod as he clears the door. The slim jeweled sword that depends from his baldric appears purely ceremonial, and from his hand dang
les a bulging drawstring purse of black velvet—my head-price, no doubt.

  “Creele,” I say, “I’ve said some bad things about you in my time, and thought worse, but I’d have never believed you’d give me up.”

  He doesn’t even have the grace to be embarrassed. “I told you,” he says, “we’re going to help Ma’elKoth every way we can.”

  The man in velvet steps forward. “I am Toa-Sytell, the Duke of Public Order, and you, Caine, are my prisoner.”

  I get out of my chair quickly enough to make the friars behind me heft their staves, and the King’s Eyes close into a defensive screen before their Duke.

  “I don’t have time for this.”

  Toa-Sytell says blandly, “Your time is mine. I’m pledged to deliver you to Ma’elKoth, and I will do it.”

  I spare him not so much as a glance; my eyes are only for Creele. I step over to him, close enough to see the soot-clogged pores of his nose, to see the black squid ink caked in the Seal of Mastery.

  “Y’know, there’s nothing more dangerous than an intellectual with power,” I say in a light and conversational tone, as though we were back arguing over a jug of wine at Garthan Hold. “He can rationalize any crime, and he’s certainly not going to let abstractions like justice, loyalty, or honor get in his way.”

  Creele flushes, just a little. “Oh, grow up, will you? You knew this could happen; we can’t let you endanger Ma’elKoth.”

  “Fuck Ma’elKoth,” I say mildly, quoting Berne with a tiny disbelieving smile. “This is between you and me.”

  “Caine—”

  “You have violated Sanctuary, Creele. I am Sanctuaried here, and you have delivered me into the hands of my enemies. You know the penalty. Did you really think I wouldn’t kill you for this?”

  He sighs, almost contemptuously, his eyes flicking toward the four friars and the six King’s Eyes. “I hardly think I’m in much danger, Caine, if you know what I—”

  The edge of my hand cuts off the rest of his sentence, a forehand chop across the bridge of his nose. The sudden stunning shock unstrings his limbs and slackens the muscles in his neck. I get my hands on his head, a sharp twist: his cervical vertebrae separate with a wet driftwood squelch and slice into his spinal cord. Before anyone else in the room can move, he flops kicking and convulsing to the floor.