Dead But Once

by Auston Habershaw

  . . . only to discover Lyrelle Reldamar, his mother, sitting at the foot of his bed. She was dressed in a riding dress of maroon and gold, a cream silk scarf wrapped around her neck, her hair pulled up. She was reading a book, her gloves still on.

  Tyvian’s head thunked back onto his pillow, striking the headboard. His voice croaked like a rusty hinge. “What in hell are you doing here?”

  Invisible specters stuffed feather pillows under the small of Tyvian’s back and under his arms to prop him into a sitting position. Tyvian desperately hoped he was scowling.

  It was then that Lyrelle Reldamar deigned to recognize him. She closed the book and slipped it . . . somewhere. She looked him over. “Good morning, Tyvian. How is Myreon?”

  “Seriously?” Tyvian rolled his eyes. “Let’s dispense with the niceties, Mother—get to the point. Why are you sitting in my bedroom at the break of dawn? Surely not to check up on my romantic escapades.”

  Lyrelle’s steel-blue glare sharpened. “Is that what Myreon is? An escapade?”

  Tyvian knew he was scowling now—he didn’t need to feel it. He remained silent.

  Lyrelle reached over to the half-finished bottle of wine Tyvian and Voth had been sharing the night before and poured some into a mageglass goblet she conjured with a gesture. “And what about this Adatha Voth? I must say, your behavior with her is disappointing.”

  “Voth seduced me, Mother. I . . . It didn’t mean anything.” Tyvian felt like he was babbling, so he stopped. “It was only a kiss.”

  Lyrelle shrugged and took a sniff of the wine. The corners of her mouth tugged, though the expression was too vague to read. “Hmmm . . . I rather doubt Myreon will see it that way, don’t you?”

  “Stop it! Just . . . just stop it! This is excruciating! Are you aware, Mother, of how perverse this whole thing is? You break into my home, unannounced, and sit there drinking my wine and interrogating me about my love life while I lie here paralyzed from the neck down!”

  Lyrelle chuckled. “Always so dramatic.”

  “Says the woman who manipulated half the people in the West just so she could get a magic ring stuck on her son’s finger.” Tyvian was sliding lower in the bed. At this point, he wasn’t so much looking at Lyrelle as at the ceiling just above her head. “Will you please just present me with whatever lie you’ve crafted to make me dance like a puppet and then be gone? I’m having a very bad morning.”

  Lyrelle grinned. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever told you how much you remind me of your father.”

  The observation was like a thunderclap in Tyvian’s heart. He felt, for a moment, that he had forgotten how to breathe. “Wh . . . What?”

  Lyrelle nodded. “He would have liked you, I suspect. Yes, very much so.”

  Tyvian nailed a tight lid on the monstrous swell of emotions seeking to crowd out his rational thought. “No.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Lyrelle blinked at him.

  Tyvian snarled through clenched teeth. “No. No you don’t. You may not have this conversation with me, do you understand?” He slid down all the way—now he was looking up at the ceiling.

  The invisible hands of specters dragged him back to an upright position. Lyrelle sighed. “I didn’t think you’d be emotionally prepared for this conversation, and I see that I was right.”

  “You think I care?” Tyvian forced a snorting laugh. “All those years when I was a boy, when I would ask you every Ozdai’s Eve who my father was, when I would write the man Krothing letters that you said you’d send to him—that was the time to have this conversation. Now? Kill me, stab out my eyes, slash my face—I couldn’t give a rat’s coffin over my father.” Tyvian was surprised to find that there was a tear building in the corner of his eye. Had he functional hands, he might have wiped it away. Instead, the lousy little traitor rolled down one cheek. Its presence only made Tyvian angrier. “As far as I’m concerned, the man never existed. He’s a phantom. A childhood dream. I’ve moved past him.”

  Lyrelle frowned at him and, for a fleeting moment, Tyvian thought he saw genuine empathy there—perhaps even guilt. Not for long, though. “That may be, Tyvian. But pretending your father never existed is a luxury that you will not have for long.” She stood up and, with a single finger, wiped his tear away. Tyvian considered trying to bite her. But her words drew him up short.

  “What are you talking about?” Tyvian found all the fingers on his left hand were able to twitch, but with no coordination.

  “The rumor is that you, Waymar of Eddon, are the lost heir to the Falcon Throne.”

  Tyvian blinked, but refused to let the shock set in. “That is the stupidest rumor I’ve ever heard! Nobody will believe it. Even if they did, nobody would dare act upon it—Eretheria’s nobility want no kings pushing them around. That’s why Perwynnon died.”

  Lyrelle shrugged. “You have been ensconced in your little hideaway too long, Tyvian. Times are difficult in Eretheria. Thanks to your brother crashing the Saldorian Markets—which you failed to stop, I might add—a significant portion of the Eretherian peerage have too much debt and not enough ways to pay it off. They are frightened. The future looks uncertain. If the harvest isn’t a good one—and things don’t look especially promising at the moment, given how many farmers they had to levy before planting season—well, they’ll be doomed. They need money and to get money they need influence—more influence than they can garner with coalition building.” Lyrelle set her goblet down. “They need unilateral influence.”

  “What? Like a king?”

  Lyrelle shrugged. “Or Sahand.”

  If Tyvian could have leapt to his feet, he would have. “What?”

  “Sahand may no longer be a major military player, but the Crash has worked very much to his advantage. Sitting as he is atop a pile of gold in a private treasury, he’s started to bail out various lords of their debts. Of course—”

  “The Mad Prince’s money comes with strings attached.” Tyvian groaned. “Sweet merciful Hann, woman—what is Saldor even doing, anyway? Can’t they . . . can’t you do something about that? Sahand owning Eretherian fiefs is exactly how he managed to conquer Galaspin last time!”

  Lyrelle smiled. “But Tyvian, I am doing something about it—I’m talking to you.”

  Tyvian froze, midscowl. “What? What could you possibly mean by that?”

  Lyrelle kept smiling at him.

  “No. No no no!” Tyvian tried shaking his head, but nothing much happened.

  “I’ve made certain the rumors about your parentage are widespread, but nobody was going to give them much credence. At first.” Lyrelle shrugged. “But now a top-quality assassin—the kind a Great House like Camis or Hadda would likely employ—has poisoned you in front of a host of gossipy nobles. Now, who would do that for some nobody, hmmm?”

  “You’re mad, woman!” Tyvian gaped at his mother. “Are you saying you sent Voth? Are you trying to get me killed?”

  Lyrelle rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so angry! I didn’t send Voth—I swear, that was someone else’s doing. But I didn’t try to prevent it, mostly because I knewVoth’s attempts to poison you would fail.”

  Tyvian snorted. “How could you possibly have known that? I almost bloody died!”

  Lyrelle pointed at his ring hand. “An act of kindness is no mere trifle to that ‘trinket,’ as you so dismissively term it. An act of compassion led you to be poisoned, and therefore the ring was powerful enough to reverse the effects of the poison. I’ve learned this through my studies of Eddereon.”

  Tyvian swiveled his eyeballs to look at the ring. Interesting. “You’re trying to change the subject now. Why the hell would you let on that I might actually be heir?”

  Lyrelle folded her hands in her lap, the picture of graceful poise. “I’m doing you a favor. You’re miserable, cooped up in this luxurious little prison you’ve designed for yourself—you just can’t admit it. Do you really intend to spend the rest of your life sipping wine and playing t’suul with empty-headed Eret
herian nobles? Do you really think Hool can take much more of this life? Or Myreon? Don’t make me laugh.”

  “I have an idea,” Tyvian said, snarling. “Why don’t you, for once, let other people make their own choices in their lives? Eh? Ever tried that?”

  Lyrelle smiled then, but her eyes were distant for a moment. “Yes, I did. Once.”

  “Really? With who?”

  “Your father.”

  The question Who is he? threatened to spring to his lips, but Tyvian pushed it away with a string of colorful profanity.

  Lyrelle tsked him and ticked off her fingers. “You are the right age, you have the right breeding, you have the right kind of money. Gods, you even look a bit like the man. Everyone, my son, is going to think you are the long-lost heir apparent to the Falcon Throne.”

  “That . . . this is madness! What do you expect me to do? Rule bloody Eretheria? They’ll never let me.” Tyvian scowled, “No—I won’t let me! I won’t do it! It could never work!”

  Lyrelle shrugged. “Who said it needed to work? You would make a terrible king, Tyvian. All you need to do is make everybody think you’d be a good one. Give everybody an alternative to Sahand. Rally the Congress of Peers, as it were.”

  “In other words, be king.” Tyvian rolled his eyes. “And if they ask for proof? What happens if I sit in the throne and the wards burn me to ash because I’m not the blood of the Falco . . .” Tyvian trailed off. Something—something horrible—just occurred to him. “Wait—I’m not, am I?”

  Lyrelle pretended she hadn’t been listening. “Not what, dear?”

  Tyvian glared at her. “Is Perwynnon my father? Am I the heir?”

  His mother seemed to consider the question in the same spirit one tried to remember the birthday of a distant cousin. “Hmmm . . . you know, I’d prefer not to say.”

  “You . . . you Kroth-spawned bitch!”

  “Language, young man.” Lyrelle’s eyes flashed. “I might not be your favorite person, but I’m still your mother.”

  “Who has no problem manipulating and browbeating her own son into near-suicidal political ventures for her own gain.”

  Lyrelle shrugged once more. “Be that as it may, there is no reason to tell you your father’s identity at this juncture. Besides, I thought he was a phantom. I thought you had moved on.” She sighed at the flash of anger that heated Tyvian’s face. “If I tell you, and Perwynnon is not your father, you won’t be effective in the role I’m setting for you. If I tell you, and he is your father, you’ll flee the country rather than wind up as king.”

  “Wind up dead, you mean—that’s where this all ends, you know.”

  Lyrelle nodded. “Yes. I know.”

  Tyvian gasped. “Really? That’s all you have to say?”

  “I’m sure it will be a very spectacular death, Tyvian. Not everybody gets one of those—you should feel blessed.”

  Tyvian was sliding down in the bed again. “You’ll pardon me if I don’t jump for joy. Bloodroot poisoning, you know.”

  Lyrelle rose. “Well, that about settles things for me. I must take my leave.” She caught up a silk shawl from the back of the chair and wrapped it around her shoulders. “If my auguries are accurate, Myreon should be on her way back very soon. You may want to brush up on your groveling and excuses and such.”

  “Always a pleasure to see you, Mother.” Tyvian snarled as he began to slide sideways on the bed. “Give my regards to brother Xahlven.”

  Lyrelle smiled at him and patted his cheek. “Oh! I almost forgot.” With a flourish of her hand, she produced a very familiar rapier hilt with a single crystal at one end, its mageglass blade not, as yet, conjured into being—Chance, Tyvian’s sword, lost when he had been arrested in Saldor. “You’ll be needing this. For your brother, I expect. Remember: in the end, this is a battle between him and me. And you, Tyvian, are my champion. Don’t fail me.”

  Tyvian looked at the hilt as she laid it in his lap. It looked . . . different somehow, though he couldn’t put his finger on it. “What did you do . . .” But he didn’t finish his sentence.

  Lyrelle was gone. Indeed, he realized he might never have been speaking to her at all. His mother had more simulacra than she had pairs of shoes. As he was thinking about this, he finally slid off the bed entirely and hit the floor with a thump. “Dammit all.”

  He supposed, in the end, it was good news that the fall hurt—the numbness and the paralysis had faded a little bit. The bad news was he was stuck on the floor until Brana came in with breakfast.

  Chapter 4

  A Sewer of Wisdom

  The main advantage of Eretheria’s extensive sewer network was, of course, that Eretheria had a reputation for being one of the cleanest cities in the West. The secondary advantage, and the one most relevant to Myreon’s purposes, was that the Defenders of the Balance—the “mirror-men,” the militant order of Saldor’s Arcanostrum—could not easily scry into them, as the Etheric ley provided for many false readings and dead ends. This meant that the sewers made for an excellent place to conduct illegal activities. Especially the kind of illegal activities Myreon had been engaged in for the last year.

  As she pried up a sewer grate in an alley off Lake Street and slipped into the impenetrable darkness, she wondered for the hundredth time what Tyvian, the career criminal and scofflaw, would think if he knew Myreon Alafarr, faultless champion of justice, was slipping into dark corners to do mischief. She grunted to herself as she pulled a shard of illumite from her cloak and made her way down a narrow, low-ceilinged passage to the main storm drain, where she’d be able to stand upright. Tyvian would probably assume I’m trying to make a quick copper.

  But she wasn’t. Not at all.

  Myreon was training sorcerers.

  The little globular shadows of the sewer demons scurried out of the light as she headed toward that day’s meeting place. The little creatures—though the term barely applied to the formless blobs—were part of the reason the Etheric ley here was so prominent. The sorcerers who had constructed these sewers had conjured the demons to eat the trash and refuse dumped in them and, at night the things would even wriggle out of drains and venture into the unlit corners of the city streets to eat whatever garbage was left lying around. They weren’t dangerous, but they were disgusting, and superstitions surrounding them were numerous—they were bad omens, punishers of the unrighteous, and bearers of pestilence. None of it was true, but it was sufficient to keep all but the stoutest souls from nosing around the sewers. For all her intrinsic distaste for the things, she had come to think of them as another security feature.

  The third security feature was the fact that the “classroom” moved day by day, and Myreon took care not to hold lessons in the same place twice. Today, they were working in a large, cylindrical chamber—a cistern where four water mains would empty in the case of a hurricane. Starlight trickled from a large grate fifteen feet above, looking up at a part of the city neither Myreon nor her students were aware of. The place smelled of faintly rotten eggs and rust, but unlike most of the sewers, the ley was a bit more even here, meaning all the energies would be easier to draw.

  There were a few stools, carried in by some of her students, and a table made from an old door laid across two sawhorses. Tonight, there were almost thirty people crowded into the tight, dank space, each holding a candle and waiting for her to appear. They were mostly young and all of common birth, hailing from a dozen different professions. There were farmers’ daughters and thick-necked porters, there were an array of shy house servants, an apprentice smith, two grooms, a girl who sold flowers in the Border Street Market, another girl or two who sold less legal goods, and so on and so forth. Myreon tried to know them all—it was another important security protocol, actually—but the faces kept changing each and every class. Some would come just once—just to see what it was like—and never return. Some others had been coming every day for a year. And practicing on their own, besides, despite Myreon’s warnings.

  She h
eard their whispers echoing up the tunnels long before she saw them, and she was among them long before they saw her—a legacy of her training as a field operative more than a sorceress. To their eyes, however, she appeared in their midst as if by magic. A sense of theatrics, Lyrelle Reldamar had once told her, is a sorceress’s best defense.

  It didn’t hurt that it was a bit fun, too.

  “Apprentices!” Myreon announced holding her arms up. She wore a dark green cloak, smeared with sewer grime, and beneath it a bodice of burgundy with gold embroidery, men’s breeches, and knee-high riding boots. She worked a little glamour into her hair and person, so she looked taller and her hair more golden than it was in truth. It had the desired effect. Her students fell silent and drew back from her. A few of them knelt.

  “The Gray Lady,” they whispered.

  She waved them up. “An apprentice does not kneel, save when begging forgiveness. How have you offended me?”

  One girl who knelt—one of the servants—shook her head. “In no way, Magus.”

  “Then get up, and let’s have the report.” She smiled—the smiling, she had found, worked wonders. It was as if nobody ever smiled at these people or, at least, nobody of her station.

  The apprentices began to talk, timidly at first, and then with more and more energy as they got worked up.

  “Used that eavesdropping spell you taught, Magus. Heard the Earl of Menthay’s sister saying His Grace needs another levy. Folk in Laketown best keep a top eye open.”

  “That camouflage spell saved my da. He’s worried the mirror-men will come down on us, but every time the press-gang comes round, they can’t find him, and off they go again!”

  “Got my hands on a tax man’s ledger and changed the figures all around with the scribble spell. Won’t he be surprised!”

  There was some money, too—boosted from the backs of supply wagons or from the saddlebags of tax collectors. Myreon always had them dump the money quickly and then incinerated the containers. Scrying might not work down here, but seekwands definitely did, and it paid to be careful. If the soldiers in the service to the nobility ever realized they were being duped by sorcery, the Defenders would come down on them like thunder.