The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn

by Tyler Whitesides

  Ard knelt, scanning the room. Pethredote was attempting some sort of crawl, his eyes shut, and his hands clamped over his ears. The reception hall had nearly cleared. The combusting Regulators had either exploded, fallen to their burns, or managed to flee into the hallway.

  Ard saw six more Reggies mounting another attempt in the hallway, their determined faces already sweating from the mere proximity to the sweltering room. Their loyalty was an admirable quality, even if it was placed in a man unworthy of it. What would it take to convince them to back down?

  “Seal the room!” Ard barked the command, altering his voice to carry the authoritative tone of a Regulator chief. “The king is dead! Seal the room and retreat!”

  His voice mixed with the chaos, and no one questioned the order. The final burning Regulator passed into the hallway, the men in the threshold disbanding. The doors to the reception hall groaned on their hinges, a resonating boom echoing through the spacious room as the area was closed and secured.

  Ard stood slowly, not daring to face Raek in case Pethredote was watching him. Overhead, the chandelier Light clouds suddenly extinguished. It was no matter, though. There were three or four Light Grit detonations glowing at random throughout the reception hall—the results of the exploding Reggie Grit sashes. And the sudden dimming of the large room only enhanced the flickering, fiery blaze of Raek’s elaborate costume.

  Ard strode forward and kicked Pethredote in the ribs. The old man didn’t move, his hands clasped securely over his ears, a muttering hum passing his lips in an attempt to block any sound that the Paladin Visitant might make.

  Ard stooped, grasped the king’s right arm, and tugged it away from Pethredote’s head. He cried out in fear, trying to turn away.

  “My Paladin stands back,” Ard said. “Since speaking would kill us both, he will not open his mouth.”

  Pethredote’s eyes snapped open, wide and blue, full of panic. “You fool! You cannot control him like some pet! He is here to bring change.”

  “He’s here because I summoned him,” Ard said. “And I didn’t need your Prime Isle to say I was worthy.”

  Pethredote shook his head wildly. “You aren’t worthy! Your detonation failed once. Your victory today is a rewriting of history. Not for your good, but for the good of the future as someone else sees it. But my reign will forever remain intact. Time will not rewrite the good I’ve done!”

  “What the blazes are you talking about, old man?” Ard muttered.

  He reached down and hoisted Pethredote into a sitting position. Both men turned their faces slightly aside as the fiery glow of Raek’s Paladin Visitant flickered ominously in the dim chamber.

  “I want answers.” Ard crouched before the pitiful king. “What do you mean, my detonation failed once? My Paladin Visitant is here, and I will command him to snuff out your life if you do not answer my questions.”

  Ard had to get him talking. Pethredote would only expect the Visitant Grit to burn for ten minutes or so. Raek had said that the Thrast oil on his sunflare cloak wouldn’t be good for much longer than that anyway. Precious time had been spent establishing the veracity of Raek’s image and clearing the Regulators from the room.

  “I will say nothing to you, Settled warmonger.” Pethredote closed his eyes tightly in defiance.

  Ard stood, keeping his face tilted away from Raek’s burning figure. He didn’t have time for this kind of righteous indignation. He snapped his fingers. “Mighty Paladin,” Ard said. “Touch this man with your holy fist.”

  He didn’t dare glance at Raek, but Ard imagined that the big man was smiling behind the fireproof mask. Holy fist? Ard would never hear the end of that.

  Ard felt Raek drawing closer, the brightness of his blaze coming upon Pethredote. The heat of the room was exhausting, and Ard sucked in a few breaths.

  They needed the king to cave. If Pethredote had decided to meet death, he was going to be sorely disappointed to find that Raek’s touch would merely scald him.

  From the corner of his eye, Ard risked a glance. The massive burning form of Raek loomed above the spot where Pethredote sat. The burning figure reached out, his movements incredibly slow, allowing King Pethredote every opportunity to yield.

  Raek’s gloved hand was mere inches from Pethredote’s face when the king finally cried out, “What do you want?”

  Raek paused, and Ard got the impression he was awaiting a command. “Holy Paladin. Withdraw.” Raek stepped back, and Ard took his place hovering over the king.

  Pethredote still refused to open his eyes. Sweat streamed down his face as he trembled.

  “Why did you say I failed?” Ard pressed. “I am obviously worthy—”

  “It has nothing to do with worthiness,” said the king. “Everyone fails. The Prime Isle told me the truth! The Paladin Visitants. They are not who you think they are.”

  “Immortal warriors.” Ard recited the common Wayfarist doctrine. “Sent by the Homeland.”

  “The Homeland is a lie!” Pethredote’s face twisted at the confession. “It is a lie that every Prime Isle has maintained under sacred obligation.”

  Ard felt his hopes begin to fall right there. Isle Halavend had believed that the Paladin Visitant would somehow save mankind from the coming Moonsickness. If the Homeland was a lie, if the Paladins were not who everyone thought they were, then what hope remained?

  “The Homeland doesn’t exist?” Ard had long suspected it. But if that were true, then what power had been Urging him through the past few cycles?

  “The Homeland exists,” muttered Pethredote. “But it is not a place.”

  What kind of nonsense was this old fool jabbering? “Explain!” Ard shook the king roughly.

  Pethredote cracked his eyes open to peer at Ard’s face with frantic intensity. “The Homeland is the future,” he whispered. “Our perfect future.”

  “That’s a blazing lie!” And a downright confusing one.

  “Think about it,” Pethredote answered. “What does Wayfarism teach of the Homeland? It is a place of peace and prosperity. The Homeland Urges every faithful man and woman to grow, to change, to progress and move forward. What are we moving to? A better future. A Homeland that we ourselves can create through righteous living.”

  “You’re out of your mind.” But Ard felt the truth of the king’s words sinking in. In a way, what Pethredote explained made more sense than the Wayfarist doctrine. It would certainly explain why the Wayfarist Voyages never found land. They were adrift in the distant sea, out of range of the dragons’ protection. Sickened by the Moon rays while searching for a land that didn’t exist.

  “If the Homeland is the future,” Ard mused, “then what about the Paladin Visitants? Where do they come from? Who are they?”

  “The Paladin Visitants are the Prime Isles of the future,” said Pethredote, “who have traveled backward through time.”

  “Through time?” Ard muttered. He half expected Raek to burst out laughing, an error that would have completely destroyed their trick. But laughing was what Ard felt like doing. Time traveling? That was a thing of fiction and idle speculation.

  It was one thing to describe the Homeland as an idyllic future. That was an abstract concept Ard could eventually wrap his mind around. But now the king was saying that the Holy Paladins, actual, physical beings, were visitors from that future?

  “‘Behold, the Homeland sendeth those fiery figures. Those Paladin Visitants, who alone can save mankind from its own annihilation.’” The king quoted the familiar Wayfarist verse. He looked squarely at Ard. “‘In the day of their coming, mankind is transported as one. As a flock of birds upon the wind, drawing ever closer to that Homeland blessed.’”

  That was the verse that Isle Halavend had been counting on. Now the king was quoting it as if these new revelations didn’t disprove its veracity? “The Paladins will take us to the Homeland?” Ard mused. “Into a perfect version of the future?”

  “They help us create it,” corrected the king. “Man is weak
. We bring about our own destruction.”

  Ha! Pethredote was one to talk, since his own greedy ambitions were leading to an imminent epidemic of Moonsickness.

  “It is the sacred duty of the Prime Isle to assess the world in which we live,” said Pethredote. “He must identify significant points with potential to change the course of the future. When such a moment arises, he authorizes a hero to detonate Visitant Grit.”

  “And the worthy heroes succeed,” Ard said. “But what makes them worthy?”

  This was the very question that held everything stationary. Halavend had fruitlessly sought the answer until the moment his life was taken.

  “No one succeeds,” replied the king. “The first attempt is always deemed a failure.”

  “What does that mean?” Ard shook his head. First attempt. Pethredote kept saying that. As though any failed hero had been given a chance to try again. “But you,” Ard said to the king. “You succeeded in using a Paladin Visitant to take the throne from King Barrid.”

  “In this timeline, yes,” replied Pethredote. “But in another timeline, my detonation of Visitant Grit failed.”

  “I don’t understand.” Sparks, this was a lot more complicated than he anticipated. Ard hoped Raek was paying close attention. They’d have a lot to talk about when they got back to the butcher shop. “How did you fail?”

  “We can’t possibly know what happened in that other timeline,” the king rambled. “I was given Visitant Grit and set against King Barrid. I detonated the Grit, but failed to make a Paladin appear. Perhaps I was executed. Perhaps I was jailed. Time passed and history acknowledged me a failure. Then, at some point in the future, maybe a hundred years from now, the Prime Isle considered the islands to be in distress—physical distress, or spiritual decay. Whatever it may be, the Prime Isle determined that life on the islands needed to be reset. Wiped clean and given a fresh start.

  “This future Prime Isle would have taken a pot of Visitant Grit to the very place where I had used mine, some hundred years before. He would ignite the Grit, and the two detonation clouds would link across the span of years.”

  “Like Illusion Grit,” Ard said.

  “But instead of merely recording an image and displaying it, Visitant Grit physically delivers the person in the second detonation cloud backward through time.”

  “Why the fire?” Ard asked. “Why the death?” If the Paladin Visitants were simply some Prime Isle from the future, why did they appear so radiant?

  “People from the past cannot behold someone from their future. They will burn up, as time cannot allow the interaction. The very Grit cloud from the first detonation burns upon the skin of the Paladin, giving him an appearance of flame.”

  “What happens next?” Ard asked. “This future Prime Isle, he linked his detonation with yours and traveled back through time. To what end?”

  “To change things,” answered the king. “From the moment of his arrival, a new timeline begins. In this timeline, I am a successful king, uniting the people in peace and prosperity. Bringing everyone closer to that perfect Homeland.”

  Pethredote sure had an inflated view of himself. Sure, he’d done a lot of good, but he was leaving out the part where he’d murdered a bunch of people and selfishly brought about the extinction of the dragons.

  “And what of that future Prime Isle who was your Paladin Visitant?” Ard asked. “He returns to his time when the Grit burns out?”

  “No.” Pethredote’s blue eyes were fierce. “He has nowhere to return. There can be only one timeline. By going back, the Prime Isle knows that he is erasing all that has happened since. He is giving the world a new beginning at the cost of his own existence.”

  “But time always moves forward,” Ard said. “That Prime Isle will exist again someday. What’s to stop him from making the same choice and going back in time once more?”

  “A time loop,” whispered Pethredote. “If he were continually allowed to make the same choice, time would only progress a finite number of years before repeating itself.”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” spat Ard. “None of this makes sense!”

  “Time will never repeat itself the same way,” said Pethredote. “The Urgings of the Homeland prevent it.”

  “What are the Urgings?” So the feelings were something transcendental.

  “An Urge to change. Repeating one’s actions is Settled.” It was a familiar Wayfarist phrase. “The Homeland Urges us to make significant changes, so as time unfolds, the future from which the Paladin Visitant came will never exist. In one timeline I was a failure. In this timeline I am a hero. I have followed the Urgings and shaped the future differently with the power I’ve been given. Chances are, that the future Prime Isle who visited me will never come into that Holy position. He may never exist. Or he may be nothing more than a vile criminal in our future.”

  “So by going back in time, he destroyed his own life and surroundings?” Ard asked. “How many have done this?”

  “Every Paladin Visitant through recorded history. Most Prime Isles do not need to make the journey through time,” said Pethredote. “They assign Visitant Grit to a number of heroes, all of which will fail initially. But the Prime Isles are responsible for creating these checkpoints through history. Each failed detonation is a potential moment to which time could be reset. They give us another chance at shaping the future differently.”

  “Did Chauster go back in time?” Ard asked.

  “No, Homeland be praised,” said the king. “Had he gone back, none of us would be here today. It is a terrible price to pay. Everything is erased, and the future is forced to unravel differently the second time. Why do you think this knowledge is limited to our spiritual leader?”

  “And yet you learned the secret,” Ard pointed out. “How?”

  “Chauster told me,” said the king. “Shortly after he became Prime Isle, he revealed the knowledge to me.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Chauster knew that in the future, someone could return to a time before ours and appear as a Paladin Visitant. Doing so would reset the timeline. The future would shape itself differently, and we may never have a chance to do the good that we’ve done.”

  “That sounds pretty altruistic to me,” Ard said.

  “Chauster and I considered the future. We couldn’t trust the next generation. As the crusader monarch, I have no heir. The kingship would be decided upon by a group of nobles who would bicker for the right to take my place. Chauster would depart on a Wayfarist Voyage, and the new ruler of the Greater Chain would appoint whomever he pleased to fill the vacancy of Prime Isle. The Homeland would reveal the truth to this new Prime Isle. Someone we don’t even know. How could we trust a future lineage of strangers not to erase our accomplishments? Chauster had to tell me the truth so we could take action.”

  “By eliminating the dragon shell,” said Ard.

  “Aside from the Prime Isles, I was the first man to be trusted with this holy information,” said Pethredote. “It was my responsibility to do something about it.”

  Ard made a skeptical expression. “Twelve hundred years, and not a single Prime Isle has been loose-lipped about this holy secret?” He shook his head. “Don’t flatter yourself into thinking that you’re the first to know, Pethredote.”

  “But I am! A secret so large could not be contained. If someone had learned about the Paladin Visitants before me, the knowledge would have become common.”

  Ard nodded. “There’s the problem with erasing history. Chances are, others have learned the truth about the Paladin Visitants. And just as you said, a leak of such information would have gone public. Someone would detonate the Visitant Grit and travel back in time. They’d reset the timeline and erase any knowledge that the truth had ever been revealed.” Ard finally let go of the king, shoving him backward to the tile floor. “You’re not an exception, Pethredote. More likely you are the information leak, doing the very thing that caused the timelines to get reset in the p
ast.”

  “But the damage is already done,” Pethredote said. “Your final detonation begins history anew from this day on. But you haven’t erased my reign. My legacy will live on. Don’t you understand? Chauster and I had to destroy the dragon shell to preserve ourselves. Every man, woman, and child. We had to preserve this timeline—the only one that really matters.”

  Ard stared at the old king, the secrecy behind those blue eyes draining out, leaving a pitiful husk of a man crumpled in the dim room. Pethredote actually believed that he had done the right thing—that eliminating every piece of dragon shell was a noble act.

  Ard didn’t know what to think. Preserving their current timeline seemed important, but if the Prime Isles of the future were coming back to change the past, didn’t it mean that the future was in even worse shape?

  What about the man who had appeared as Pethredote’s Paladin Visitant some forty years ago? Why had he traveled through time to make Pethredote into a hero? Had the islands been on the brink of destruction? If so, that visitor from the future had done no good. The islands were facing destruction now, with the imminent Moonsickness. By resetting the timeline and giving Pethredote power, that Paladin Visitant hadn’t spared the people from mass destruction. He had accelerated it.

  Ard understood now. He understood how the Visitant Grit must be used, but he hated the idea of it. The only way to save mankind from Moonsickness was to reset the timeline. Ard would ignite this final blast of Visitant Grit in the very spot where someone in history had failed their detonation, transporting himself back in time to turn that failure into a success.

  Ard himself would become the Paladin Visitant. Any who looked upon him would burn out of existence. Ard would have the power to destroy anyone with a single utterance.

  The timeline would reset. The Homeland would Urge people to behave differently so that history would write itself in a new way. If Ard went back far enough, Pethredote may never be born. The man certainly wouldn’t take the throne. The Bull Dragon Patriarchy would be spared of Pethredote’s poison, and mankind would live on, never knowing that the winged beasts upon Pekal absorbed the sickening rays of the Red Moon.