Sir Damon frowned. “I . . . I beg your pardon?”
“What do you need to take down a wyvern, huh?”
Sir Damon laughed. “You need your own wyvern, or sorcery, or . . . siege equipment.”
Artus pointed at the ballista. “Courtesy of Tyvian Reldamar.”
They all exchanged glances. Hool looked grim, Sir Damon was incredulous, Brana was terrified. Artus put out his hand. “Let’s be heroes tonight, huh?”
Sir Damon was the first to put his hand atop his. “If I have gone mad, let it never be said that I did it halfway.”
Brana was next. “Let’s get him.”
Hool was last. “This is a bad idea. You’ll see.”
Michelle’s face was streaked with tears. “Wh . . . what can I do?”
Artus nodded to the door. “Just make sure the dead don’t get in, okay?”
Brana snorted. “She gets the easy job. Hmph.”
Artus scowled at him. “Just help me get it into position, dog boy. He should be making another pass soon.”
Chapter 40
The Battle of the Empty Tower
Lyrelle Reldamar stood over the body of Perwynnon, forever in stasis, in a room too quiet for all the chaos taking place around it. Part of her wanted desperately to touch the cheek of the dead king, but the stasis spell there prevented it. She could only look at him, forever young, forever the man she knew and nothing else.
Her simulacra around the palace gave her the same reports—blood in the halls, battle in the gardens, the dead rising. The vicious, violent climax of a social trend she had struggled and failed to control. In her heart, she wept for the people of Eretheria. She wept for the people Perwynnon had loved so fiercely.
But she was not done yet. There were still a few more plots in process. A few more things Xahlven could not predict.
“Magus Reldamar,” a thin, raspy voice hissed from the door. Lyrelle didn’t bother looking—she knew what she’d see. A gaunt, storybook necromancer—rotting teeth and blind eyes and all—there to draw attention. She considered dispelling the ruse, but then she would give away that she knew it to be a ruse. She gathered her power instead, and waited. The world trembled with her effort, as though reality itself might crack beneath her displeasure.
“Ahhh . . .” the “necromancer” laughed, “I feel that I am in the presence of true power. At last.”
Lyrelle still didn’t look at him—she didn’t need to. In this room, at the juncture of the Trondor and Saldor ley lines, space and time were concepts she could grasp in the palm of her hand. “Must you be escorted by those?”
The necromancer nodded to the two undead stewards who flanked him. “Wait outside. Let no one disturb us, understand?”
The undead hobbled to the great doors and vanished through them. They closed with a heavy boom, and then Lyrelle was alone.
With Xahlven.
The necromancer image faded away at once, and there he was—the sitting Archmage of the Ether, staff in hand, robes intact. His golden face was fixed into a hard frown. “I warned you the price of interfering with me again would be severe.”
Lyrelle faced him and let a bit of the Lumen leak into her voice, giving it strength and vitality she did not actually possess. “I am your mother, Xahlven, and I will meddle with you as I see fit.”
“Something Tyvian and I have in common, then.” Xahlven began to circle her. His own wards and guards shimmered with power, seamless and absolute. Breaking through them was impossible—Xahlven knew this, too, since he walked without care, looking down at Perwynnon and sneering. “I can see how he was a tempting prize, Mother. Shame he betrayed you as he did, but he never was very smart, was he?”
“You have become terribly free with your speech in my presence, young man. Continue and you will face my displeasure.”
“Ha!” Xahlven shook his head. “We are far beyond the day where your displeasure gives me pause, Lyrelle. My presence here should be evidence enough of that.”
“You always were a good student, Xahlven.” Lyrelle moved her left hand just enough to prod at the edges of Xahlven’s defenses—strong, smooth, the work of a master. But even the greatest fortress was not immune to certain vermin. She laid a soft, barely perceptible enchantment upon the edge of her son’s wards—an Etheric curse that would slowly nibble away at the structure of those defenses, so that they would eventually shatter.
Xahlven smirked. “I see what you’re doing—stalling for time? Hoping for rescue? Surely you have scryed this battle a hundred times by now. What does it tell you of its outcome?”
Lyrelle said nothing. There was no point in feeding Xahlven his own answers. Xahlven was entirely the image of his father—haughty, delighted at his own intellect. Blind to his own failures.
“No matter. Tonight, I become an orphan,” Xahlven said at last, and lashed out with a series of death-bolts that crackled across the circular chamber like black lightning.
Lyrelle conjured a shield of mageglass that dispersed the attack and then she hurled the razor-sharp disc at him. She struck only smoke, though—Xahlven had displaced across the room, this time launching a barrage of lode-bolts at her.
Lyrelle caught them in midair—drawing them all to her hand like moths to a flame—and then fashioned them into one gigantic globe of deep cold. When she threw it at Xahlven, his wards took the hit. He staggered backward. Then he grinned. “How much more of that do you have in you, Mother?”
Lyrelle said nothing, answering instead by summoning up a host of fiery fey-sprites and setting them after Xahlven. He responded by forming a colossus of mageglass armor around himself and stomping on the little things, one after another, while he reached out for her with giant, three-fingered talons.
Lyrelle made herself insubstantial and levitated right inside the colossus. One burst of force and the giant war construct shattered, spilling Xahlven onto his back on the floor. Lyrelle remained airborne, floating above her son, invisible winds of power loosening her golden hair and making it dance. “You will find, boy, that there are few replacements for experience.”
This time it was Xahlven who said nothing, striking back with the Fey—a wave of crackling energy, oven hot. Lyrelle reflected it back. He blanketed the room in shadow; Lyrelle called down the light. Explosions of the raw energies of creation rocked the tower to its foundations, and Lyrelle remained a half step ahead of her eldest son, her mastery of the arcane arts just barely enough to keep the younger man at bay.
But she knew it couldn’t last.
With every spell, Lyrelle felt her body grow weaker. Xahlven was a clever opponent, forcing Lyrelle to use the Fey to defend herself and forcing her to channel the Dweomer when attacking, more often than not. For a woman of her advanced age, her endurance for those physically taxing energies was limited. Her body ached, her hands trembled. Still, she fought on.
Xahlven appeared as thirteen simulacra of himself, each of them throwing bolts of pure Dweomer at her—bolts that would paralyze or transform or even imprison. Lyrelle’s wards flashed with fiery Fey energy as the Dweomer was dispersed, but the toll was becoming noticeable. She was sweating, staggering beneath the onslaught.
“You were once mighty, Mother, but your time is past, and your plans are of a bygone era.” Xahlven’s simulacra grinned as they pressed their attack. “Surrender—you cannot kill me. Even if I were at your mercy, you would spare my life. Why put yourself through such pain?”
Lyrelle bent her knees and, with them, bent space and time for the barest instant. When she rose, the fabric of the world snapped back, sending a ripple of invisible force that obliterated Xahlven’s simulacra and knocked the true one on his backside. “This is not pain, Xahlven. You took nineteen hours to be born—that was pain. To that, this is but exercise.”
Xahlven rolled to his feet. “You cannot win. You must know this.”
Lyrelle smiled at him, noting that her curse had eaten away almost half of Xahlven’s wards by now. Ah, she thought, but I do not have
to win to have my victory.
Xahlven, face red, called down all the fires of heaven upon his mother. Lyrelle, still and serene, raised the choirs of hell to hold it back. And so the battle continued.
Once the undead entered the equation, things began to click for Tyvian. He watched as they terrorized peasant and noble alike and knew that this wasn’t Myreon’s work alone—not at all.
It was Xahlven’s. It had always been Xahlven.
It wasn’t difficult to find his brother—Tyvian now knew with a kind of chemical certainty what Xahlven’s endgame was. He had to admit that he’d basically known it since his brother slipped into his room that night and tried to enlist him in his little game. This wasn’t about Tyvian and never had been. Xahlven had always looked at Tyvian as a pawn, anyway—he couldn’t imagine a circumstance where Tyvian would manage even a minor disruption to his plans. In Xahlven’s eyes, Tyvian had never been a threat. No, this whole thing—this massive, chaotic bloodbath—was designed to destroy the one person who Xahlven actively feared: Their mother.
So, Tyvian just dodged the packs of people trying to kill him and followed the sound of apocalyptic sorcerous battle until, at length, he arrived in the Congress of Peers. The great doors behind the throne boomed and buckled as rainbow light flashed behind them.
Myreon was standing on the dais beside the throne, flanked by a half dozen animated corpses, still dusty from the grave. She looked up—her face was pale, her eyes bloodshot. “Tyvian. You shouldn’t be here.”
Tyvian advanced on her. “Have you lost your Kroth-spawned mind?”
Myreon threw a buffet of force at him that knocked him off his feet. “I am not here to debate with you, Tyvian! This is happening! For all your and your mother’s attempts to prevent it, this is happening!”
Tyvian scrambled to his feet. “Innocent people are dying! Those things . . .” Tyvian gestured toward the undead. “. . . are murdering people as we speak! This is your justice?”
Myreon scowled. “We are doing the best we can—the undead are proving harder to manage than we thought. It wasn’t my idea to fill the palace with innocent commoners!”
“The nobility are innocent, too!” Tyvian shook his head. “You can’t believe that because somebody was born with a title, that makes them deserving of death, can you?”
Myreon’s lips curled back. “That’s a comforting thing to say if you’re born with a title.”
Tyvian shook his head again. He had an urge to pace, but the room was too damned big and the gesture would get swallowed by the architecture. “You were a Defender, Myreon! You’re working with the League? Am I going mad?”
“Calm down. You’ve worked with less savory persons, and you know it.” Myreon folded her arms. “This is for a cause, Tyvian. It’s still me you’re talking to.”
“Yes, but who is that, exactly?” Tyvian threw up his hands. “First you’re teaching peasants to rebel, now you’re leading an army of the dead to . . . to . . . to what? I don’t even know what you hope to accomplish here!”
Myreon’s tone was cold. “It’s very simple, Tyvian—I’m ending the peerage, here and now. This system must be destroyed and, unlike you, I’m actually doing something about it.”
“It’s war, Myreon. It’s dead bodies and burned homes and weeping children.” Tyvian sighed. “I can’t ever justify that.”
“Why? Because there’s no profit in it?” Myreon’s voice was hard.
Tyvian frowned and turned to face her. “This . . . this isn’t about that. You’re right, you know—this isn’t about me. It’s about you. About what you’ve become.”
“And what exactly is that?”
Tyvian searched for the words, but couldn’t find any but the simplest ones. “A madwoman. A fanatic.”
Myreon nodded slowly. “Fine. If I’m a fanatic for justice, I gladly bear that title.”
In that moment, he marveled at what a perfect tool Xahlven had made of her. He could have told her, maybe—told her that whoever she thought was fighting Lyrelle on the other side of that door, it was, in fact, the person she loathed more than any other. But he couldn’t. Not only because she wouldn’t believe him, but because, even if she did, it would wound her more than any dagger. Besides, there was another way to get her to step aside.
Tyvian pointed at the doors behind the throne. “I’m going in that room, Myreon. I won’t let you stop me.”
Myreon moved to bar his path. “How do you propose to get past me?”
Tyvian took a deep breath. “By pointing out that, at this moment, Banric Sahand has an army of Delloran soldiers ready to put this city to the torch and there is no one—absolutely no one—there to stop him.”
Myreon paused. She worked a quick spell, and then her eyes went wide. “Oh gods!”
“I might have been able to do something about it myself—might have.” Tyvian motioned to the ruins of the Congress, its benches knocked over in panic, the sounds of battle echoing up the corridors. “But you made sure I couldn’t. It’s up to you now.”
Myreon nodded. “This conversation isn’t over.”
Tyvian looked at her, trying to see the woman he admired. She was still there. It was still her. Just on a different path. A path he couldn’t follow. “Yes . . . it is.”
Myreon stepped out of his way, wary. “Take care of yourself, Reldamar.”
“Good-bye, Myreon. I wish . . .”
But she was gone.
“. . . I wish it could have been different.”
Tyvian took a long, slow breath, dusted off his doublet, and headed for the doors. It was time for a family reunion.
Chapter 41
A Blow Too Far
Sahand’s tactical plan seemed to work on the justifiable assumption that the peasants that lived within the tangled neighborhoods of Eretheria’s districts wouldn’t stick their necks out to have them chopped off by Delloran steel. From what Myreon could observe with her sorcery, Sahand had tasked a brigade of heavily armored troops with besieging Eretheria Tower and keeping the Defenders bottled up inside, but otherwise had only light skirmishers protecting his flanks and rear—men on horseback with sabers, riding back and forth, setting fire to houses and cutting down any person who crossed their path. It was certainly a sufficient deterrent for any rabble. Myreon could see families huddled in their homes, hiding under haystacks in barns, and hugging each other close in root cellars.
Once the palace was secured, however, Myreon knew Sahand would put the city to the torch. That was how Sahand operated—sheer terror was his best defense. Though not an accomplished military tactician, even Myreon could tell Sahand was overextended. Getting his army here had to have been a logistical nightmare, and retreating back to Dellor now that their presence was known was risky. Reducing the capital city to ash with minimal casualties would act as a good deterrent against any army of conscripts that might wish to confront him. He was counting on the audacity of the horror he was creating to give him time.
He was not, however, counting on Myreon.
She aimed for the largest collections of peasants she could—people huddling in churches, in guild halls, in taverns. Feyleaping from roof to roof, block to block, she presented herself glamoured to appear taller, more imposing, more inspiring than she knew she could look. The people of the Ayventry District saw the Gray Lady, golden hair streaming, her gray cloak flowing like gossamer, her eyes alight with power. Her message was simple and her plan easy. “Be not afraid!” she called to them, working just a little bit of Compulsion into the words. “Together, we can save the city from Sahand. Spread the word.”
When there was resistance—and at times there was—Myreon thought back to that evening on the bench with those commoners, the way their eyes glowed at the memory of Perwynnon. “You served the Falcon King, did you not? Now, I ask you to serve his son, through me. Gather what weapons you can, muster what able-bodied men are willing to die to save their children. Bring them here.” With one hand, she formed a globe of pure Lumen
, bright as the sun and warm as daylight. She smiled. “I have a plan that no one will be expecting.”
In under an hour they had assembled a few hundred men. It would have to be enough.
Rain was coming down in sheets now—it spattered against Artus’s face hard, like little slaps. In the distance, thunder boomed. “Get ready!” he yelled, sighting along the ballista bolt.
Sir Damon and Brana cranked the arms back at lightning speed. The wind gusted hard, blowing the doors half closed. Artus struggled to push them open again—they couldn’t afford to miss their shot. He looked up at Hool, perched on the ridge of the roof like a bird of prey. “See him yet?”
“Almost!” Hool shouted down. “Get ready!”
Artus stared hard into the darkness. The rain obscured almost all visibility—he only got impressions of shadows against the swirling water and wind. He licked his lips as water poured off the end of his nose.
“Here he comes!” Hool shouted. “Off to your left, a bit low!”
From somewhere in the room behind him, Artus heard Michelle weeping as she dragged the armoire in front of the door—the dead were still out there, clawing to get in. He clenched his teeth, trying to block out all distractions.
“There!” Sir Damon yelled, right next to Artus’s ear, pointing. “There!”
Artus followed the gesture—yes! A serpentine shadow, slicing through the windy sky. Artus moved to position the ballista, but Brana was already there. He swung it to point at Sahand. “Got him!”
“Brana, wait!” Artus yelled, but the gnoll pulled the trigger. The bolt rocketed through the night, lost immediately in the rain.
Sahand swooped past, unhurt.
Artus punched Brana in the arm. “Dammit, you idiot! We missed him!”
“You came close!” Hool said. “Wait longer next time—it went in front of the monster’s face!”
Brana punched Artus back—it hurt more. His tongue lolled out. “Almost, see? Next time!”
“If there is a next time.” His stomach felt cold. He remembered being Sahand’s prisoner in Dellor, remembered the man’s utter, callous ruthlessness. His sadism. Part of him wanted to hide and wait for it all to blow over. But that wouldn’t solve anything. He took a deep breath. Tyvian had been right about that much.
Dead But Once Page 36