The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn

by Tyler Whitesides

  She waved her hand, drawing in steady breaths to regulate her exertion. “That was so last night.” She hummed a little bit.

  “It’s just a catchy tune?” Ard asked.

  She held up a finger. “I’m trying to keep track of where they are in the music, so I know how much time we have.”

  “Ah,” said Ard. “Hence, the whole ‘fire and death’ thing.”

  She nodded, humming again. “Don’t mind my muttering.”

  Raek appeared between the horses. “I’ve loaded Ard with enough Grit to take on an army,” he explained. “You get him up to the roof. He’ll get you both inside.”

  “You’re not coming in with us?” Quarrah asked.

  “Three’s company for an operation like this,” he answered. “I’ll keep my eye on these two.” He patted the animals. “Lots of folks wandering the Char tonight. Opportunistic thieves would leave us without a getaway.”

  Ard and Raek would need a quick escape if the theft was successful. Quarrah would make a separate retreat on foot. Back to the stage to fill Azania’s high-heeled shoes and take her bows.

  “Besides.” Ard strapped a Reggie crossbow through a harness on his back. “Raek isn’t the sneaky type. Just look at him.”

  “Hey,” replied Raek. “You’ve been spending too much time with Elbrig and Cinza. I’m plenty sneaky. Why, just this morning I was able to sneak half a dozen of Mearet’s doughnuts right down my throat.”

  “That’s the end of the cantata’s first movement,” Quarrah cut in. “We should get moving.”

  Luckily, the second movement was a long one. She’d need most of the fourth movement to get back to the stage, so that left only about thirty minutes for her and Ard to get in, find the missing regalia, and get out.

  “Have fun! Don’t break your legs!” Raek called, waving them off.

  Ard moved down the path, Quarrah jogging a few steps to catch up. Don’t break your legs? What kind of good-luck wish was that?

  Quarrah hummed a line. “We’ll hop the wall and make our way across the grounds,” she explained. “We need to get to the roof?”

  Ard nodded. “We’ll access the throne room from the balcony this time.”

  The outer wall was more of a formality, a necessary boundary to ensure the preservation of the palace’s surrounding grounds and gardens. Any lowlife criminal could jump it. They wouldn’t encounter the real security until they were inside the grounds.

  Ard beat Quarrah over the wall, hoisting himself and landing behind a bush. Quarrah dropped beside him, crouching side by side in the shadows, studying the illuminated palace.

  The balcony was positioned directly above the grand entrance, but making a direct attempt at the front of the palace would be madness. Too brightly lit. Even from a distance, Quarrah saw six red-coat Regulators standing on the balcony, with another six on the steps below.

  “We’ll climb up over there.” Quarrah pointed to a shadowed nook where two turrets met.

  “Climb?” Ard whispered. “Why don’t we Drift Jump to the roof?”

  “That’s too much Grit,” Quarrah answered. “The detonation would have to be massive.”

  “We did a big one at the Royal Concert Hall,” said Ard. “That didn’t seem like a problem, and we shot through a skylight.”

  “I’m not saying the jump’s impossible. I’m saying it’s not smart. A Drift cloud that large is bound to get noticed. There are at least four Reggies on a rotating sentry at any given hour of the night. We’ll have to slip between them as they circle the palace. If they walk into a giant Drift cloud, I think that’ll raise some concerns.”

  “I might raise some concerns about climbing,” he said. “What if I get a blister on my trigger finger?”

  Quarrah ignored him. Where was she? The middle of the boring second movement. Long shall their fates be remembered. Valiant, brave, and strong. Was that the right line? Sparks. It was hard enough to remember all the lyrics when she was standing still and focused.

  Quarrah led the way, keeping her figure low as she dashed from one ornamental bush to the next. What was it with wealthy people and their highly decorated grounds? Didn’t they realize that they were providing ideal coverage for stealthy intruders?

  The rotating guard had just passed when Quarrah and Ard reached the dark nook. They pressed against the wall, blending into the shadows.

  Quarrah paused her humming to give some instruction. “There should be enough handholds.” She ran her fingers over the cool palace wall. “This is limestone. Judging by the size of the blocks, these were positioned with Drift Grit. The best place to grip will be between the blocks, where the mortar has started to erode.”

  “I’ll follow you.” Ard’s voice was uncharacteristically shallow. Quarrah was surprised to see an expression that she’d never seen on Ardor Benn before. Sparks, was he scared?

  Quarrah glanced back up the wall. She had to admit, it was a frightening height. Or it would be to someone unaccustomed to scaling walls.

  For a brief moment, Quarrah wanted to draw attention to it. What a rare opportunity to feel comfortable about something that seemed to terrify Ardor Benn. But then she remembered that night in the performers’ lounge before Farasse’s concert. Ard had only said and done things to calm her nerves.

  There was a time to poke fun, and a time to bolster. Part of Ard’s success was knowing that balance. Nothing would be served by ruffling Ardor Benn’s feathers now. She might tease him later, but at the moment, Quarrah needed to instill in Ard the same confidence he so frequently gave her.

  “Tie a small pot of Drift Grit to the back of your hand,” Quarrah suggested. “An old climbing trick. More often than not, you’ll feel yourself slipping. If you know you’re going to fall, smash the pot against the wall. Could save you from a broken neck.”

  Quarrah hadn’t employed that trick in years, but it had helped her deal with heights when she was beginning. By detonating a cloud of Drift Grit, the climber would hang suspended just as she began to fall, giving her time to find new holds and continue climbing.

  Ard didn’t say anything, but Quarrah could tell that he liked the idea. However, tying something onto the back of one’s hand was tricky. That was largely what had prompted Quarrah to design her special Grit-filled gloves.

  In a moment, Quarrah had done it for him, using two wide strips of leather, some string, and the smallest pots of Drift Grit from her belt. All the while, she hummed the music or mumbled lyrics about those who had died under Grotenisk’s fury.

  “What about you?” Ard asked.

  “You’ll be climbing below me. I expect you to catch me if I slip.”

  Without waiting to hear his reaction, Quarrah gripped a lip of stone where the mortar was chipping, and hoisted herself up.

  She climbed quickly, though probably not as fast as she would have, had she been alone. Quarrah was aware of Ard beneath her, and set a pace that wouldn’t outdistance him.

  It was about time the tables had turned. Quarrah had been playing by Ardor’s rules for cycles now. But tonight, he was doing things her way. Ardor Benn would never have agreed to such a thing when they first met. But maybe Quarrah wasn’t the only one who had changed.

  And their faith. Their faith will carry them in death. Will carry them to the Homeland.

  With lyrics running through her head, Quarrah reached the gable and boosted herself onto the pitched rooftop, offering a hand to Ard. He hadn’t used the Drift Grit pots she’d lashed on. That was a good sign.

  They were both breathing heavily, seated side by side at the edge of the gable, nearly fifty feet above the dark palace grounds. Most of the tactical climbing was behind them now, but their ascent wasn’t close to finished yet.

  Some fifteen feet across from their perch was a ledge. That was the best route, but it was too far to jump without the assistance of Drift Grit.

  Quarrah withdrew a Grit pot from her belt and threw it at a stone block halfway across the gap. The clay shattered, sparks igniting
the loose Grit.

  A detonation cloud appeared, hovering between their gable and the ledge. They would need to spring from their perch with enough momentum to enter the Drift cloud at the proper trajectory. Once within the blast area, their bodies would speed weightlessly along that same route until they exited the cloud. On the other side, gravity would return, and they would land on the ledge with natural weight.

  Quarrah had performed countless jumps like this one, both in practice, and in thefts. Inexperienced Drift Jumpers tended to flail or spin during the weightless extension of the jump, creating a very obvious problem when exiting the other side of the cloud.

  Ard suddenly pitched something into the darkness. On the far side, just above the intended ledge, Quarrah saw a second cloud form, overlapping the one she had detonated.

  “What was that?” Quarrah asked, interrupting the music in her mind.

  “Drift Grit,” answered Ard. “Looked like your blast wasn’t big enough.”

  “That was intentional,” Quarrah said. “The landing point needs to be outside the detonation cloud. It’s much easier to get your feet down under natural gravity.”

  “Oh, Quarrah.” Ard readied himself for the jump. “Haven’t you learned my philosophy by now? Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.”

  He leapt. Pushing off the gable, his momentum easily bore him into the overlapping Drift clouds. Ard did exactly as Quarrah had feared, his arms and legs kicking as though he were swimming. He drifted headfirst, then upside down, finally striking the wall above the ledge with his back.

  Quarrah rolled her eyes. For as precise as that man was with words, he was rather haphazard with physical stunts. She leapt from the steep gable, entering the clouds with her body at a perfect angle. She sped upward and across the gap, striking the far wall with all the momentum she had started with. Her shoulder took the brunt of the impact, and her palms would have been terribly scuffed if not for her fingerless gloves. See, that was why she preferred a natural landing.

  Ard had managed to right himself, using the stone wall to move weightlessly along the ledge. When he cleared the blast radius of the second Drift cloud, his weight returned, planting him securely on the ledge. Quarrah was right behind him, and they moved in silence until they reached an arching windowsill providing access to the actual roof.

  Humming softly to herself, Quarrah cupped her hands and gestured for Ard to step up. He slipped his boot into her hands and she boosted him. Getting a second foothold on the top of the window frame, Ard was able to grip the edge of the roof and hoist himself up. By the time he had steadied himself and turned to offer a hand, Quarrah was beside him.

  They moved across the roof, making for the front of the palace. The rooftop wasn’t steep like the small gabled end they had perched on. In fact, several flat landings had been built onto the roof, to allow royalty to come up and enjoy the sprawling view of the island landscape. Honestly, up here, Quarrah was much more afraid of coming across a Regulator guard with a Fielder than she was of falling.

  At last, they were in position, crouching just above the balcony that led into the throne room. Some twenty feet below, Quarrah could see that the balcony was still in disrepair from the staged assassination attempt against Pethredote two cycles ago. Stone masons had begun bricking in the damage, but there were still wooden planks secured over the hole that Raek had blown out beneath the Barrier dome that had surrounded Ard and the king.

  Quarrah wasn’t sure what Ard’s plan was. She’d been so isolated in the Avedon apartment that there hadn’t been a chance to talk to Raek. But Elbrig had filled her in on the throne room’s new security features. It was probably a good idea to pass on the knowledge to Ard before he tried anything brazen.

  “Let me catch you up,” she said. “Both sides of the doors are barred. That means they can only be opened with mutual approbation from within and without.”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “Raek’s original plan was to detonate Silence Grit and then blow the doors off their hinges with Blast Grit, but that’s not going to work.”

  “Why not?”

  “Pethredote said there were veins of Barrier Grit embedded into the doors,” whispered Ard. “A single spark will detonate the Grit and seal off the entrance.” He reached into one of the hardened leather pouches of his belt and produced a sizable Grit pot.

  “What’s that?”

  “A little cocktail Raek mixed up,” answered Ard. “We stopped at the bakery and he slapped it together in remarkable time. The primary Grit is Void, and the blast radius ought to be the width of the balcony.”

  “We’re going to blow open the doors with Void Grit?” Quarrah hissed. “There’s no way it’s strong enough.”

  “Raek added Compounding Grit. Should give it the extra push we need to snap the bars and knock in the doors. And the whole thing should happen without excessive sparks, so we won’t risk igniting the Barrier Grit.”

  “What about the Reggies on the balcony?” Quarrah counted four of them in palace red.

  “I’ll drop the pot between them,” Ard said. “With the detonation originating there, it’ll deliver the biggest punch to the doors. If I time it right, the Reggies will be on both sides of the blast center, so the Void Grit will throw them to the sides of the balcony and keep them pinned where they can’t get a clear shot into the throne room.”

  “Won’t that crack their heads against the railing?” Quarrah asked.

  “That’s why they’re wearing helmets,” answered Ard. “And for the record, this was all Raek’s idea.”

  “What do we do once the Void Grit has blown open the doors?” Quarrah asked. “That’s sure to get some attention.”

  “Then we jump.”

  “Jump?” Quarrah’s voice was a bit more forceful than she intended.

  “Raek did the math,” Ard assured her. “He knows how much we both weigh. He mixed the Grit to our specifications.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Raek knew how much she weighed? She didn’t recall telling him her size. Was nothing sacred to these people?

  “If we step off the roof and fall into the Void Grit detonation, we should be aerodynamic enough to penetrate a good distance into the cloud before it throws us out.”

  “It’s the ‘throwing us out’ part that has me worried,” said Quarrah.

  “As long as we penetrate deep enough, Raek said the Void cloud will spit us out through the open doors and into the throne room. We have to make sure we come down on the door side of the detonation’s center, otherwise we’ll get pitched off the front of the balcony. And he wanted me to tell you that we’d be exiting fast. So … tuck and roll.”

  Quarrah lifted a hand to her face. Only a moment ago, hadn’t she been the one full of confidence? Maybe this was how a good duo worked—both partners strengthening each other through the swells of crazy ideas.

  “If the Grit has enough strength to snap the wooden door bars, don’t you worry that it’ll snap our bones the second we enter the cloud?” Quarrah asked. She’d experimented a little with Void Jumping. It was extremely dangerous.

  “That’s why Raek said ‘don’t break your legs,’” Ard replied. “If we do it right, he said we’ll be fine. Think of Void Grit as an intensely powerful wind, pushing everything outward from the center, where the ignition spark occurs. If a strong wind hits you broadside, it can throw you back a step. But if you lie down in the windstorm, it blows over you with less resistance.”

  Quarrah raised an eyebrow, still not sold on the haphazard plan. “You trust Raek’s calculations?”

  “Absolutely,” answered Ard. “He’s the best Mixer I’ve ever known. If the plan doesn’t work it’ll be because we jumped the wrong way.” He looked at Quarrah. “Ready?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. But there was no sense in waiting until she would be. Quarrah nodded.

  “Here we go.” Ard hefted the Grit pot. Below, the four Regulators were momentarily positioned two on either side of the door.
>
  Ard judged the distance and tossed the Grit pot in a gentle underhand arc. Quarrah tensed, drawing a deep breath as the clay pot struck the floor of the balcony. Sparks danced as the Slagstone reacted to the impact, and Quarrah heard the sound of rushing wind as the Grit detonated.

  The four Reggies, who had stood with bored posture only seconds ago, were suddenly hurtled to both sides. They skidded across the wide balcony, slamming into the stone railings like leaves in a hurricane.

  At the same moment, there was a crack of splintering wood. From her angle, Quarrah could barely see that the Compounding Void Grit had done its damage, the doors pinned open on their hinges.

  Ard sidled forward, dropping his legs over the edge of the roof. “You saw where the pot broke?” He didn’t bother to whisper anymore.

  There was no sign of the broken pot now. Those shards had been promptly expelled by the Void Grit, exiting the cloud like balls from a Roller. But Quarrah had paid close attention to where it struck.

  This was a precision jump. If she and Ard didn’t leap into exactly the right spot, or if Raek’s calculations were slightly off, the Void Grit would repel them forcefully into the night sky. Or into the palace wall. Or smashing into the door frame.

  “You’ll probably want to point your toes.” Ard gave her a rakish smile. “See you inside.” He slipped off the edge of the palace roof.

  Oh, sparks. Now she’d completely lost her spot in the cantata. She’d just assume that the second movement had ended. That gave them about fourteen minutes to search the throne room during the third movement. Quarrah started humming the opening measures as she eased herself carefully over the edge of the roof.

  Ard dropped into the cloud of Void Grit, careful to keep his legs together. His descent slowed immediately, like falling into water. No, like falling into a windstorm. It was a painful torrent, reminiscent of that time Ard got dragged behind Lord Fewler’s horse. Not fun. And quite disorienting.

  His ability to breathe was completely stolen away, but the entire unpleasant experience lasted less than a second. Ard was ejected from the Void cloud with the force of two dozen men punching him in the abdomen. He hurtled through darkness, wondering if he was being launched skyward off the front of the balcony.