Heroes Die

by Matthew Woodring Stover

  “The shitfight?”

  “Yeah, Baron, sorry, thought you knew.”

  And he tells a pithy tale of Pallas taking on the entire Grey Cats in the Industrial Park; he makes it sound like she blew half the place up in the process of leading them toward the Warrens, and he proudly recounts how he himself had been there, had answered the call, and had personally thrown a wet clod of shit that splashed the face of Count Berne himself.

  I can’t help but laugh as the kid mimes Berne’s astonished outrage at this maltreatment; the story kindles an unexpectedly warm feeling toward this kid—my god, my god, how I wish I’d been there to see it. He plays up to my reaction, doing the take over and over again, broadening it each time, until finally I wave him to stop. Even the idea of Berne taking a fistful of shit in the face stops being funny eventually . . . well, after the hundredth time or so . . .

  And there’s maybe a little twinge here, a thumb in my ribs beneath my laughter, a ghost of a stab that she’s handling everything so well without me. Maybe I’ve been nursing an ignoble hope that she can’t make it without my help, that she needs me more than she’s ever admitted. Maybe it stings a little, that she’s put herself up against Berne, who nearly killed me, and Ma’elKoth, who could crush me like a housefly in his fist, and she’s holding her own. She’s free and effective, and the refugees she’s hiding are still out there somewhere. If it wasn’t for this unexpected side effect, I’d have no reason to be here at all.

  “You have any idea how she ended up taking on Berne and the Cats?” I ask. “I mean, how it started? Why she was there in the Industrial Park?”

  He shrugs. “I dunno. I think somebody told me something . . . nah, I don’t remember. Not important, is it?”

  “I guess not. Thanks, kid. Do me a favor: Get back downstairs and keep an eye open for Majesty.”

  The kid thumps his mailed chest in that silly-ass salute the Subjects favor, then coughs and rattles the hilt of his shortsword, checking that the blade’s loose in its scabbard; then finally, having thought of no further excuse to remain in my presence, he turns on his heel in a sloppy imitation of a military about-face and hustles out of the room. I listen to his boots clomp away on the soft and sagging dryrotted floor, and try to remember what it was like to be that young.

  It’s hopeless: that was too many lives ago. I go back to looking out the window.

  Over by the stadium a regular army platoon of heavy infantry fans out, sweating under their cuirasses, looking pissed and mean. They’re arresting passersby at random, questioning them, sometimes slapping them around. Heavy clouds move toward the sun, up from the western coast: it’s going to rain, again, which should do wonders for the soldiers’ moods. Go from sweat-boiling miserable to drenched and chilled and miserable, and have an endless supply of commoners to take it out on—it’s a soldier’s dream.

  “There is one thing I remember,” Talann says slowly, after a while and in a tone so excruciatingly casual that it makes me think she’s been working on exactly how to say this for a couple of hours at least.

  “About Pallas. In spite of this whatever-it-is spell. I remember how close she’d become with all of us. How much she cared for us—especially Lamorak.”

  I’ve been gut-punched by experts, y’know, once even by Jerzy Kupczin, who was, at that time, heavyweight champion of the world. This doesn’t hurt much more than that did.

  Is there anyone who doesn’t already know about them?

  I take a long time answering, a long time to look down at Lamorak’s face, still surfer-perfect even under the swellings and the bruises. His face is all I can really see of him; it pokes out of the blankets he’s wrapped in, eyeballs twitching spastically behind closed lids; he bubbles a moan and twists within his dream, and I wonder if he’s dreaming about the Theater of Truth.

  I hope so.

  “Yeah,” I say. “She’s real caring, that way.”

  “I know she’ll be really, really grateful for what you’ve done.” She’s drifting toward me. “Especially for Lamorak.”

  Now I spend another long minute or two staring at Talann, now only an arm’s length away. Cleaned up and dressed in the same style of loose cotton tunic and breeches that she wore when I saw her secondhand, she’s one of the most spectacular women it’s ever been my pleasure to meet.

  Even if the cotton of her clothing were heavy enough to leave much of anything to the imagination—which it isn’t—I had plenty of time back in the Donjon to appreciate the smooth curves of her form, the play of muscle in her legs and ass. Her platinum hair shines now, stripped of grease and filth, and forms an aureole of sunlight that perfectly frames the gentle curve of her cheeks and her jaw, lightly frosted with down. She’s so beautiful, and so courageous, with the singing dash of a real hero, and so impossibly skilled that she must have a dedication to her arts of fighting that far surpasses my own. I could reach out and touch her now, brush along her jaw with my fingertips, and draw her to me.

  Her violet eyes are deep enough to swim in. As I watch her, she takes a slow breath, gently arching her back in a motion that’s almost imperceptible, to bring her nipples rubbing gently across the shirtfront and draw my eyes.

  I’ve seen it done better—but right now I can’t seem to remember when.

  She’s fishing, just tossing out a line to see if anything rises to nibble. That’s what this shit about Lamorak is, too, slapping the water to beat a fish toward her nets, and I guess I’m an idiot.

  I must be an idiot, because I don’t want to be caught.

  “Drop it,” I tell her. “I know all about it.”

  Her eyes go wide. “About—?”

  “Lamorak and Pallas. I know what’s between them.”

  She looks stunned. “You know? Then why did you—how could you . . . I mean, Lamorak and Pallas, and what you’ve done . . .”

  A very, very strong man who is somehow small enough to fit inside my skull begins to pound on something behind my eyes. He’s using a morningstar.

  “Can we not talk about this, please?”

  “Is it . . . ? I mean, Caine, please, I’m sorry to pry, but—are you and Pallas done, then? Is that past?”

  The guy in my head trades in the morningstar for a chainsaw, and it snarls in my ears. “She thinks so.”

  “Caine . . .” The hand she lays on my shoulder, alongside the bandage strapped crosswise over my trapezius, is warm and strong, and the squeeze she gives seems to reach down into the muscle and start to loosen its knots. I meet those violet eyes of hers and . . . She’s not making a pass at me, that’s not what this is. This is something far more seductive and lethal than a subtle offer of sex. She’s offering me understanding.

  “It must hurt.”

  I deliberately mistake her meaning. “No, the river washed it clean. I don’t think it’ll infect.”

  This doesn’t fool her at all. She settles back into a Warrior’s Seat, legs doubled beneath her, and watches me with otherworldly calm.

  I shrug, and pain stabs through my wounded shoulder—it hurts a lot more than I was pretending. I spend a couple of breaths summoning the Monastic version of mindview, the control disciplines. The guy with the chainsaw in my head wanders slowly away—even though I can still feel him in there, off in the distance but still inside my skull—and the pain ebbs from my shoulder. I spend most of my attention on massaging my swollen knee and wishing for an ice pack. By concentrating on that wound, I can talk about my other, more serious one.

  “What’s between Lamorak and Pallas, that’s their business,” I say, low. “It’s got nothing to do with me.”

  Talann manages to look skeptical without altering her expression.

  “No, it’s true,” I insist. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Her voice is as warm as an arm around my shoulders. “But, Caine, it does matter. It’s eating you up. Anyone could see that.”

  “It’s their business,” I repeat. “How I feel about Pallas, that’s my business.”

  “
Then, for you—” The curves of her face seem to sag, just a little. “—for you, it’s not past.”

  My head feels as heavy as a wrecking ball. “No, it’s not past. It’ll never be past. I’ve made promises, Talann, and I keep my word. Till death do us part.”

  She doesn’t know the reference, of course—marriage in the Empire is more a business deal than a sacrament—but she gets the message, nonetheless, and she shakes her head in wonder and disappointment.

  “What kind of man will go so far—nearly get himself killed again and again—to save the life of his rival?”

  A fucking idiot, that’s what kind.

  “It’s sort of difficult to explain.”

  She places her hands on mine, covering them there on my injured knee, and waits until I have no choice but to meet her eyes. Deep inside them something is dying, like the last fading scraps of a dream you can’t quite remember when you wake up, and she says, “I hope Pallas Ril understands what an extraordinary man she is throwing away.”

  Now I have to laugh; it’s the only reaction possible, short of outright tears. I feel the laugh inside, but I have to force it a little to get it to come out—a bitter chuckle.

  “Oh, she understands well enough, I think. That’s part of the problem: she understands too well.”

  I guess there’s not much she can say to that, because she doesn’t say anything, just sits beside me on the floor and silently watches me work on my knee.

  Time passes swiftly in meditation: the angle of the sunbeam through the open window deepens perceptibly. After a while, I’m convinced that the swelling is receding—the pain certainly has—and I swim back up to the surface of my consciousness to find that Lamorak is awake and eating some solid food.

  He looks at me from under his brows, oddly shy. “You, ah, washed out my leg, I guess. I can see in mindview that the, uh, the eggs are gone. Thanks.” He looks deeply, inexpressibly uncomfortable. I hope it’s from guilt.

  “Ah, and, ah, thanks for saving my life. I owe you.”

  Yeah? I snarl within my head. Pay me back by staying the fuck away from my wife! But instead I say aloud, “You owe me shit. If it wasn’t for that last surge on the Pit balcony, I’d be rotting down the sump right now. We’ll call it even.”

  He looks away. “We’ll never be even.”

  There’s some sort of harsh self-loathing in his voice, and a large, petty part of my soul grins wide to hear it.

  “Have it your way, then.”

  Thunder rumbles, not so distant; I wince. It reminds me of Ma’elKoth’s voice. The first swollen raindrops beat staccato time on the windowsill, and I close the shutters. I can feel the impact of the rain through the wood, a tiny fractal drumroll like the footsteps of scattering rats.

  Within half an hour Majesty arrives. He slips in through the door, alone and strangely furtive, shedding his wet cloak as he comes. Talann rises, smoothly uncoiling into a fighting crouch—she, of course, has no idea who he is, and she’s not taking any chances. I slow her with a hand on her arm and nod to him.

  He looks us over, breaking into that wiseass half grin of his, and shakes his head. “Hot staggering fuck, Caine, you sure know how to stir the shitpot.”

  “It’s a talent. Talann, meet the King of Cant. Majesty, this is Talann, a warrior and companion to Pallas Ril.”

  He looks her over with naked appraisal before extending his hand in greeting—his appreciation of feminine musculature is every bit as developed as my own. When I introduce him to Lamorak, Majesty’s wiseass grin returns.

  “Aren’t you the guy that used to carry Kosall? You know Berne’s got your sword?”

  Lamorak winces, nodding, and Majesty goes on with a low whistle of mock sympathy. “Boy, that must sting. Kinda like gettin’ your dick pulled out by the root, huh?”

  We make small talk about the manhunt and the general uproar in the city, and of course he’s got to hear the story of our escape from the Imperial Donjon. I have a really hard time keeping my impatience under control; wasting time on jibberjabber, when I’m this close to finding Pallas, is just about more than I can take.

  Besides, hearing the story of my heroic rescue reminds me exactly how I got into the Donjon in the first place, the metaphoric woods through which my backtrail leads, and I can’t think about that too much. If either one of them finds out I’ve been hired by Ma’elKoth—

  I’m not sure I’d live long enough to explain.

  And I wouldn’t worry about this so much if Majesty would quit sliding me those significant looks, like he knows something I don’t.

  Finally, as Talann drags out the fight on the Pit balcony, I can’t take it anymore. “Listen, is this important?” I ask. My tone leaves no doubt about my opinion on this question. “I have to find Pallas. Today. Now.”

  “This is a problem,” Majesty says. “I’d like to find her myself, but I can’t put the Kingdom on it.”

  “You can’t? Majesty, we’ve been friends how long—?”

  He waves off my rhetoric wearily. “It’s not that, Caine. When the Cats hit her yesterday, they were waiting for her outside the spot in the Industrial Park where she had the tokali hidden—”

  “They—she’s—” I sputter. “You know?”

  “About Simon Jester and this Eternal Forgetting?” He gives me a patronizing What am I, an idiot? look. “Of course. Am I not the King of Cant? Though, y’know, I am curious about how you don’t seem to be affected . . .”

  “It’s a mystery,” I tell him flatly. “All right, go on. The Cats were waiting for her outside the tokali’s bolt-hole.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. I figure the way they found her there is the same way they found her here, three-four days ago. Somebody gave her up.”

  My heart thumps once, heavily, within my chest. “A Subject?”

  He nods. “Gotta be. Nobody else could have known. My source in the Eyes has no fucking clue—whoever it is deals straight to Berne and the Cats. Paslava, Deofad, one of the Barons, I don’t know. None of the rank and file would have the knowledge to sell, y’know? No stooges at the bolt-hole; she doesn’t trust ’em anymore.”

  “That’s why you’re walking alone.”

  “Better believe it. We’re gonna have to move you, and I’ll need the names of every Subject who knows you’re here. If the Cats come here looking for you, that’ll narrow the field a little.”

  “When you find him,” I say thickly, “you make sure he lives until I get my hands on him. Will you do that for me?”

  He lifts his shoulders. “No promises. I’m a little irked my own self, you might imagine. Giving her up like that . . . If I get my hands on that cockknocker—”

  His fingers flex expressively, and blood surges into his face, pushing out veins twisting around his eyes. I squint at him. Something has changed since I talked with him day before yesterday. Then, this business was just a little jab in Ma’elKoth’s ass. Now it’s deadly serious, and more; he looks like he’s ready to spit lava.

  “Just get me to her, Majesty. That’s what’s important right now.”

  His clouded eyes turn on me with knife-edged suspicion. “Important why?”

  I never really noticed before how small and piggy his eyes are. The veins around his eyes swell more, as though rage is pushing them closed. “Hey, Majesty, this is me, huh? Get a grip.”

  “Yeah—” he says slowly, color slowly leaking out of his face. “Yeah. I know. I’m sorry. But she don’t need your help, Caine; shit, I’m pretty sure she invaded the Miracle the other night and got away with it.”

  “Really?”

  “Mm. Some kind of Cloak—and then a Cloak that cloaks the Cloak, know what I mean?”

  I spent almost a year and a half in Battle Magick at the Conservatory before my transfer to Combat, and I understand immediately. Not even an adept can find her, because he can’t track her pull—probably an effect of the Eternal Forgetting.

  My first honestly happy smile in days grows across my face.

&nb
sp; Everyone stares at me. Majesty says, “What? What is it?”

  “I,” I say cheerfully, “know exactly where she is.”

  17

  “ ’STRATOR, IT’S THAT Entertainer Clearlake, from Adventure Update. He wants to put a live feed on the net—of the reunion.”

  “Tell him, ah . . . no, tell him no. The answer is no.”

  Arturo Kollberg gnawed the corner of his thumbnail as he watched. Caine, ever the professional, ever conscious of dramatic necessity, insisted that Lamorak and Talann accompany Majesty and himself, despite the increased danger of discovery and capture. Arrangements took some minutes—a horse had to be brought for Lamorak, as well as heavy cloaks and hats for all against the rain that sluiced the alleys of the Warrens. They couldn’t risk the caverns, for security reasons; too many Subjects would be down there taking shelter from the rain.

  A team of strikers was assembled, twelve Subjects of Cant whose job it would be to fan out ahead of and behind the party, to distract and otherwise interfere with any soldiers who showed interest in the group. They’d be sticking closer than such teams usually do, because the rain had become so heavy that visibility was little more than ten or fifteen meters, but that would also limit the activity of the searching soldiers; in all, the rain was a substantial advantage.

  Kollberg had alerted the Update staff, of course, only seconds after Caine announced he now knew where Pallas was. This Clear-lake boy, he had good instincts; the scene unspooled in Kollberg’s mind: the anticipation, the approach, the first look, the meeting of their eyes, a line of dialogue—and cut.

  Cut before the kiss, just before the first touch—it would play absolutely nuclear. It could double the advance orders for secondhand cubes . . .

  Risky—it’d be damned risky, with Caine acting up, with the Board of Governors’ hot breath on the back of his neck. It’d take the kind of personal initiative rarely seen in Administration, the kind of daring, the boldness that bespeaks—even in his mind, Kollberg could only whisper the word—a Businessman.

  The speed sang in his veins, whispering reassurance: Go for it, take the plunge, get it all . . .