The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn

by Tyler Whitesides

  Then he was tumbling, skidding across a hard stone floor. Ard rolled upright, scrambling for the crossbow on his back. His eyes adjusted to the flickering firelight from the burning dragon skull, casting long shadows across the throne room.

  There was no time to check for Quarrah. No time to soothe the aches and scrapes from his wild entrance. There was another way into the throne room, and it had to be blocked. The thunderous opening of the balcony doors would have alerted the Regulators in the hallway. Even now, as the ringing from Ard’s tumble faded from his ears, he could hear someone jostling the hallway lock.

  Ard had successfully blocked that door on his first venture into the throne room. His plan was to employ the same technique now. A bolt of Barrier Grit from his crossbow would seal the entrance, giving him and Quarrah a little bit of time to search the room.

  Ah, flames. The crossbow! His breakneck entrance had snapped one of the crossbow’s arms clean off. Well, that explained the throbbing pain below his left shoulder blade. It was a miracle none of his Grit pots had accidentally detonated.

  Ard cast the crossbow aside and drew the Grit bolt he had intended to shoot. He sprinted toward the opening hallway doors, vaguely aware of Quarrah flying into the throne room behind him.

  The big doors had only swung inward about a foot, when Ard heard a Roller crack. He saw flames as the Blast Grit cartridge ignited, hurling a lead ball in his direction. Ard flinched, hearing the projectile whiz overhead. Then he threw the Grit bolt as hard as he could.

  It struck the left door, shattering the clay tip and throwing a hazy cloud of Barrier Grit. The detonation spilled through the opening between doors, encompassing two of the Regulators who were pressing through the gap.

  It wasn’t an ideal closure, but it would certainly do the trick. Unfortunately, the trapped hallway Regulators would now be able to observe Ard’s actions in the throne room. But the Grit would prevent the doors from opening for about ten minutes, which was all the time Quarrah could afford anyway.

  Quarrah appeared at Ard’s side, her nose bleeding and her cheek scraped from the painful tumble into the room. The Void Grit must have ejected her face-first.

  “Trapped,” Quarrah muttered.

  “I know.” Ard gestured at the Reggies. “I’d say I’m a decent shot even without a crossbow.”

  “I was talking about us.” Quarrah pointed back toward the balcony exit. “There’s no way we’re getting back through that Void cloud.”

  She had a good point, but Ard had already thought it through. “Raek mixed Prolonging Grit into that crossbow bolt. It’ll hold a lot longer than the Void Grit. We can escape back out the balcony and Drift fall down to the stairs like I did with Pethredote.”

  “What about the Reggies on the balcony?”

  “They took a pretty nasty tumble against the railings,” Ard said. “We can hope they won’t get up for a while.”

  “‘Seeds of a nation rising through ash,’” Quarrah muttered rhythmically.

  “Third movement?” Ard asked. She nodded, continuing with the next line.

  They were finally in the throne room, and the clock was ticking. It was time to find what they had come for. Ard strode past Quarrah to examine the alcove that she had intended to rob two nights ago. It was empty now, save for a naked wooden mannequin behind an unlocked gate.

  “It wasn’t like that when I came before.” Quarrah wiped her bleeding nose. “They’d replaced that gate with a wooden door. And they’d made an improvement to the lock.”

  “According to Elbrig, this is where they found Chief Aufald in the aftermath,” said Ard. “We must have hidden him in here while he was unconscious.”

  “So I could walk out wearing his coat and helmet,” finished Quarrah.

  Ard cocked his head, staring at the display alcove. It was maddening not to know what they had done under the influence of Memory Grit. In a way, Ard felt like he was running a ruse on himself.

  “Let’s re-create the scene,” Ard suggested. “Before I detonated the Memory Grit, you were there”—he pointed—“confined in a Barrier dome.” Quarrah moved to the indicated spot and dropped into a crouch, humming. “I was back here when I turned on Aufald.” He jogged across the long room.

  “King Pethredote fired on me,” narrated Ard, “so I took cover behind the skull.” He moved into position, dropping to one knee behind the elevated throne. “Where was the bag with the replica regalia at this point?”

  “I had set it there while I worked on the lock,” answered Quarrah. “I think it was just outside the Barrier dome.”

  “How long had you been trapped before I arrived?” asked Ard.

  “It seemed like forever,” replied Quarrah. “But I’d say about eight minutes.”

  “That means your Barrier cloud prison was about to burn out,” said Ard. “We know Pethredote was standing between us. Your sudden freedom from the dome would have given us the surprise we needed to subdue the king.”

  Ard stepped out from behind the fiery dragon skull throne as Quarrah rose and moved from her position. They met each other halfway, Ard holding out his hands to indicate an imaginary Pethredote.

  “I think we made the switch,” Quarrah said, beating Ard to the same statement. Sparks, this woman was fascinating. A climber, a thief, a thinker. She had played a convincing lady of the courts, yet as she stood before him clad in tight-fitting black garb, he knew he was seeing Quarrah in her greatest role.

  A gunshot caused them both to drop instinctively. There was a crack overhead, and a puff of dust and splinters as the lead ball struck the ceiling rafters. What the blazes? Ard didn’t understand math like Raek, but he knew the trajectory of that shot was impossible.

  Retreating to the far wall, a second gunshot rang out. This time the ball pinged off the Barrier cloud that Ard had detonated around the hallway doors. Who was firing at them? And from where?

  “I thought they weren’t going to be getting up for a while.” Quarrah made a frantic gesture toward the balcony.

  Ard squinted through the haze of the Void Grit cloud. There were Regulators out there, but not the four guards that had been pushed aside in the detonation. Tall ladders had been propped against the balcony railing. It was hard to see in the dark, but Ard counted three Reggies bracing the long barrels of their Fielders and firing into the throne room.

  The incongruent trajectories of the lead balls could be explained by the fact that the shots were being made through the cloud of Compounded Void Grit. While the balls were small and moving incredibly fast, the pushing force of the Void Grit was still enough to skew the shots.

  A muzzle flashed, and another ball tore into the throne room, going wide and chipping into one of the alcove displays on the opposing wall. So much for history. King Pethredote must have authorized any conceivable action against a second intrusion, even at the cost of damaging the one-of-a-kind items on display.

  The displays!

  “The regalia has to be concealed in one of these alcoves,” Ard said, his back to the wall next to Quarrah. “We can rule out the displays that would be too small to hide the coat and crown.”

  Quarrah nodded in agreement. “I’ll check the ones in this direction. You move that way and I’ll meet you on the other side.” She slipped away without another word, staying close to the wall as another Fielder spit a ball into the room.

  They’d have to search fast. Ard approached the first alcove on his route. It was a bejeweled dagger, mounted directly to the stone wall. Nothing behind which he could have hidden a coat and crown of dragon shell. He moved on without pausing to read the plaque explaining the dagger’s historical significance.

  The second alcove was equally fruitless, displaying a husk of uncut dragon scales. Not an entire husk, of course. That never would have fit. This was a portion about the size of Ard’s torso, hanging by decorative chains.

  The scales were deep green—almost black. Each was roughly the size of his palm, with a stone-like ridge running the length. Ard
knew from his previous visit that the plaque said these scales belonged to none other than the great Grotenisk himself. Ard found it odd that so many relics of the Destroying Dragon were proudly displayed in the king’s throne room. Proof of death, he supposed. A reminder that they had slain the powerful beast against all odds.

  Ard dropped to his knees and peered behind the hanging husk. In the flickering firelight he saw nothing but vacant space.

  The next alcove presented the same frustration. It was a leather duffel bag supposedly used to transport Teriget’s pot of Visitant Grit. The bag was certainly large enough to contain the regalia, but Ard could see that it was empty by the way it hung limply from a peg on the wall.

  Two more Fielder balls were announced with a crack from the balcony sharpshooters. One struck the back of the throne, but the other actually came unsettlingly close to where Ard was standing.

  He made a break across the room to examine the alcoves on the far side. As he passed the ajar hallway doors, he turned, sticking out his tongue and making a rude face at the two Reggies trapped inside the Barrier cloud. Just because he and Quarrah were under pressure didn’t mean he couldn’t have a little fun.

  On this side of the room, Ard remembered a few of the displays. He had examined them on his first invitation into the throne room—how many cycles ago? The nearest was the spear of King Kerith. As useless a hiding place as a dagger. The next was a piece of wood, claiming to be part of the mast from the First Voyagers.

  Ard only paused at Millguin’s alcove long enough to see if the big lizard was there. She was spread lazily across a rock on the floor, big glassy eyes watching him.

  “Where did we hide it?” Ard whispered to the Karvan lizard. “Come on. You must have been watching us that night.” But even if Millguin could speak, the king’s pet would have been caught in the same Memory Grit detonation as the rest of the throne room. “Useless lizard.”

  Ard didn’t find anything hopeful until he reached the eighth alcove. It was a wooden barrel, the top missing, and a few of the planks broken. The plaque on the wall said it was the barrel in which Prince Raliph survived seven days aboard a pirate ship outside the InterIsland Waters.

  Ard rose onto his toes, peering through the bars of the locked gate. But the darkness inside the barrel was impenetrable in the dim lighting. Producing a pot of Light Grit from his belt, Ard reached through the gate and tossed it into the open barrel. Light sprang up, and Ard had to turn away, momentarily blinded by the brilliance. In a moment, his eyes adjusted and he rose onto his toes once more.

  The barrel was empty. He could see the bottom, perfectly illuminated by the blast of Light Grit. Cursing, Ard moved to the next alcove.

  Quarrah was waiting for him there, her expression matching the despondent way Ard felt. This final alcove held a white gown. The wedding dress of Queen Melsioba from 1060. It was set upon a mannequin frame, much like the one that was supposed to display the regalia. Ard studied at the dress, taking sudden note of the way it bustled outward below the waist.

  “Under the dress …” he began. But Quarrah shook her head, showing him the open lock in her hand.

  “I already checked.”

  “Now, now.” Ard couldn’t resist. “In the future, you leave the checking under ladies’ dresses to me.”

  Quarrah sang a line from the third movement, and Ard turned his attention back across the room. Time was running short, but they would have to examine each other’s work. Maybe one of them would see something that the other had missed.

  But what was there to see? Just a bunch of useless displays.

  Perhaps Ard had detonated a blast of Shadow Grit around the regalia and left it in one of the alcoves. But a Shadow cloud would look strange during the daylight hours. And there was no way it would still be burning after two days. Prolonging Grit only went so far.

  Were they on a fool’s search? Had the hidden regalia already been discovered by the king’s men and moved to a safer location? Aside from the alcoves, what else was in this large room? Just an empty throne and the ever-burning skull of a dragon.

  Sparks, that’s it!

  It was suddenly so obvious! Ard raced forward, heedless of the periodic Fielder balls piercing the room.

  “It’s here,” Ard whispered.

  “The throne is solid stone.”

  “Not the throne.” He smiled, his face lit by the bonfire flames. “The skull.”

  “But the fire …” Quarrah started.

  “If we succeeded in taking the real regalia from Pethredote, then we’re talking about fertilized dragon shell,” said Ard. “It’s unbreakable, impenetrable, and impervious to decay.”

  “And fire,” Quarrah muttered. “We put the regalia in the fire.” She chuckled in disbelief. “That’s so …”

  “Me,” Ard said.

  “I was going to say insane,” replied Quarrah. “But I’m beginning to think the two are synonymous.”

  Stashing the regalia in Grotenisk’s fiery mouth was absolutely something Ardor Benn would do. The bonfire was an ideal place for hiding such a treasure. Ard was proud of his past self for thinking of it so quickly.

  “So, if it is in there,” Quarrah said, “how do we get it out?”

  It was a good question. One that Ard doubted his past self had asked when hastily making the deposit in the flames. Even if they managed to fish it out, the fragments of shell would be red hot. By they time they cooled enough to handle, the Reggies would be swarming the room, repeating the arrest from two nights ago.

  “Cold Grit,” Ard suddenly realized. “The king told me that detonations of Cold Grit are used to cool down his throne. We can use the same principle to cool down the skull.”

  “‘Saplings of hope stretch skyward, skyward. Saplings of hope stretch high,’” sang Quarrah tunelessly.

  “I get the point. We’re running out of time.” Ard turned to his Grit belts. Labels. Well, that was an improvement. Maybe Raek was listening to his requests.

  He found two pots labeled COLD GRIT. Quarrah probably had some, too, but his would be enough to envelop the inside of the skull. Using more Cold Grit wouldn’t make the detonation any colder. A higher quantity of the Grit would only expand the blast radius. Compounding Grit was the only way to intensify the effect.

  Drawing a small knife, Ard turned over the clay pots and gouged out the wax plugs on the bottom. “You have any unmixed Compounding Grit?” Ard asked. “We’ll need it to drop the temperature low enough.”

  Quarrah reached into a pouch on her thigh and produced a small cloth bag. There was no sense in keeping unmixed Compounding Grit in a clay pot. As a secondary Grit, it would only create an effect if detonated with a primary Grit. Ignited on its own, it would merely burn out in a single burst with no effect.

  Ard slipped the knife away and accepted the little cloth sack, pulling open the drawstrings.

  “How much are you going to use?” Quarrah asked.

  “Raek would have some mathematical equation for this. And those blazing little scales. Have you noticed how much mixing equipment that guy has?” Ard upended the clay pot and dumped the Cold Grit into the bag.

  “You’re going to use it all?” Quarrah observed.

  Ard shrugged. “The colder the better. I don’t want to get burned.”

  He emptied the second pot of Cold Grit. Both powders were of a shimmery substance. If he remembered correctly, Cold Grit was processed from digested chunks of nickel, and Compounding Grit was derived from quartzite. The sack was brimming now, fine powder spilling out the top as Ard attempted to cinch the drawstrings.

  “What about the Slagstone ignitor?” Quarrah asked.

  “Won’t need one.” Ard gestured to the bonfire in Grotenisk’s gaping maw. “The second this pouch hits fire it’s gonna blow.”

  Another Fielder sounded from the balcony, but Ard didn’t pause to see where the ball struck. Getting out of this throne room was going to be a real problem. That seemed to be a trend.

  Ard shoo
k his head. He couldn’t distract himself with thoughts of escape right now. One issue at a time. That was a motto to live by, and a big reason why Ard was so successful.

  Turning to face the dragon skull, Ard pitched the little satchel of Compounded Cold Grit directly between the jagged front tusks. A cloud billowed from the dragon’s mouth like ethereal fog. The temperature dropped instantly, the fire’s warmth disappearing from Ard’s face as though someone had suddenly extinguished the blaze. But the fire burned on, its dancing patterns of light and shadows unfazed by the sudden plunge in temperature.

  Ard stepped forward, his hand reaching out as a vagabond might do to warm himself on a winter’s street fire. But there simply was no warmth.

  His confidence growing, Ard stooped to look into the fire, his head passing between the two front tusks, a row of smaller teeth just overhead. The fire was bright, the skull full of burning logs, cinders, and ash.

  There! Homeland be praised! There was the regalia, in a heap toward the back of the skull, a scattering of black charcoal dusted across its glittery amber surface.

  Ard withdrew his head, a daring look on his face. “It’s in there, Quarrah. The regalia’s in the fire, but it’s out of reach. I’m going to climb in and get it.”

  “You’re going to climb into the dragon’s mouth?” Quarrah asked. “That’s just fodder for bragging.”

  “No one has to know that the dragon was over two hundred years dead.”

  Ard was going to need a few historical relics to pull off his harebrained plan. He raced back to the alcove with the leather duffel bag, reaching through the bars and pulling it from its peg. From there, he made his way to the first alcove. With a sharp tug, King Kerith’s old spear came free of its display fastenings and Ard extracted it through the bars.

  “All right, Grotenisk,” Ard muttered, moving back to the throne. “Remember this old spear?” The plaque said that Kerith had used the weapon to smite the final blow against the raging dragon. Now, some two hundred and fifty years later, Ard reintroduced the two relics by shoving the spear into the coals.