The Last Lies of Ardor Benn

by Tyler Whitesides

  “We shall speak again soon,” Garifus called. “And perhaps I will convince you of the Homeland’s perfection.” Then he angled his body and sped toward the front gate.

  In the silence that followed, Quarrah reached out and placed a hand on San’s back. He shrugged it off with a moan of despair.

  “You really think he’d leave us unattended like this?” Raek asked. The clouds of Containment Grit around his fists had gone out and he was sliding his hands out of the leather gauntlets.

  “I’m guessing another Glassmind is on the way,” she replied quietly. “And we’ve got at least five more minutes before this thing burns out.” Quarrah reached up and knocked on the Barrier dome.

  “That’s what I’m counting on,” said Raek. “For all his talk about having a perfect mind, there’s one thing Garifus Floc doesn’t know about us.”

  “What’s that?” Quarrah asked, in no mood for Raek to be clever.

  “We were friends with the guy who invented Null Grit.” He held up his hand and Quarrah saw a little vial pinched between his fingers. He dashed it against the Barrier cloud, which was immediately snuffed out.

  “Come on…” Quarrah pulled a numb San Green to his feet. “This is our best chance of getting out of here, but I need you to run.”

  He wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt—blood, tears, snot. Then he nodded resolutely and the three of them sprinted for the crumbled wall.

  Quarrah climbed over the chunks of rubble, coughing at the smoke and dust that lingered from the explosion. She paused only once, reaching down to close the eyes of Lomaya Vans. Quarrah’s stomach turned, and her heart ached in unison with San’s grief-stricken wail.

  Then she was running again. Running through the night.

  It’s strange to think that everything hinges on trading one life for another. Stranger still that I feel no remorse about it.

  CHAPTER

  19

  We make camp here,” Nemery called. With less than an hour of daylight remaining, they weren’t likely to find a better spot. The steep cut to the east would block wind. There was a freshwater stream not thirty yards south, and plenty of well-spaced trees for hanging their hammocks. The soil here was a deep red that stained their boots and the hems of their pants.

  “Good work today, everyone,” Nemery added as heavy backpacks and tiresome Drift crates were lowered to the ground. Captain Dodset had provided ten people for this expedition, which felt like an army to her and Mohdek.

  “We found tracks today,” she continued her morale-boosting speech. “That means we might actually see her tomorrow.” And I might finally get to do some Calling on my new instrument.

  “Ha!” cried Senso. “Tracks don’t mean trail.”

  Nemery took a deep breath. Senso had been bothering her since the minute they’d left the harbor. For the first five days it was, “She don’t know where she’s going. Where are the tracks?” And now that they’d finally found some, he was griping about that.

  “Can’t have a trail without tracks,” Nemery said to him. She knew she shouldn’t engage. It never ended well. But he was just so stupid.

  “Look around, girly,” Senso said. “These trees gotta be no more than ten feet apart. The dragons I’ve seen are at least double that in girth. You expect us to believe that one passed through here?”

  “She didn’t pass through here,” Nemery said. “She passed through over there.” She pointed down toward the stream where the trees were slightly denser. “And your logic doesn’t hold water. Rats can squeeze through spaces less than half their size. Same with foxes.”

  “Yeah, but we’re talking about dragons,” said Senso, in case she’d forgotten.

  “We’re tracking a creature whose dung has magical properties,” Nemery snapped. “You don’t think it’s possible for them to fit between two trees without knocking them over?”

  She and Mohdek had seen it plenty of times. The dragons could manipulate their great bulk in a surprising way, stretching, elongating, even flattening themselves to fit. It was almost as if their bones could collapse. She’d read a book on that in her younger years, though there was no hard evidence to support it.

  “We’re on her trail,” Nemery promised. She glanced across the developing campsite. Dargen and Phel were pulling together some kindling for a cooking fire. Most everyone else was stringing hammocks or readying rations.

  Several yards away, Ardor Benn and Prime Isless Gloristar were conversing in quiet tones. Nemery was finally getting used to the large woman’s appearance. At least now she didn’t think it was Garifus and his Glassminds every time she glanced behind her on the trail.

  “You don’t need to prove anything to them,” Mohdek said in Trothian. He swung his pack off his shoulders and began untying the hammock he had wadded at the top.

  “Well, not all of us can pretend like we don’t speak their language,” she replied, looping a rope around a suitable tree.

  Mohdek looked up, his vibrating gaze serious. “This is probably our last chance to lead them astray. If we keep following her tracks, we’ll be close enough that even a half-witted muckmus like Senso will be able to find her.”

  “I know.” Nemery tugged on the knot. “But we have to remember, as much as we may dislike this crew, we’re not giving up the dragon for them.”

  “Right.” Mohdek shook out the hammock. “We’re giving her up for a madman ex-poacher who is threatening to create more Glassminds.”

  Nemery swallowed. “I was thinking Ardor Benn. But yeah. I guess you’re right. From what we’ve heard, this Hedge Marsool guy sounds a lot worse than Senso.”

  “Which is why we head south in the morning,” said Mohdek. “Move out of Red Banks. They’ll never know. We can lead them along until they tire of the chase and beg us to take them back to the harbor.”

  Nemery stepped past him and began fixing the second rope. “I can’t do that, Moh. Ardor is… He’s counting on me. And I can’t let him down.”

  He took a slow breath, fraught with annoyance. “Then, are we sure this is the right dragon? Why not give up one of the yearlings? Smaller, less dangerous, easier to transport…”

  “But not what Ardor is looking for,” she said. “It has to be a mature sow. You know she’s the best fit.”

  “But…” he stammered. “It’s Motherwatch.”

  Motherwatch.

  Nemery and Mohdek had decided on that name. The Trothian translation sounded even more elegant, as he spoke it in reverence.

  As far as Nemery was aware, the people of the Greater Chain had never named the sow that had killed King Pethredote. Perhaps in time, someone else would give her a name—maybe even celebrate her as they did Grotenisk. But for now, she was Motherwatch to them.

  Of all the dragons on Pekal, Nemery Baggish was most fascinated by her. Cochorin’s mother. The sow that had flown so many miles to Beripent to retrieve her egg, remaining ever vigilant for fertilization, despite the fact that there were no more bull dragons to do the job.

  “She’s getting old, Nem,” pressed Mohdek.

  “Exactly,” said Nemery. “She hasn’t produced an egg in nearly a year. All the other sows have dependents, but Motherwatch isn’t as vital to the reproduction of her race anymore. Not to downplay her role, since she hatched Cochorin…”

  “What if she’s not strong enough for the flight back to Pekal?”

  “She is,” said Nemery. “That’s another reason why it should be her. She’s the only dragon that has left Pekal. We know she can find her way home. And she’s smelled people before.”

  She’s smelled Ardor Benn.

  All these years, Nemery had believed it was him on the palace steps, facing off with Motherwatch. And in the last few days she had finally confirmed the story with Ardor, though he’d been dodgy when it came to telling her exactly how Cochorin’s egg had been fertilized.

  “Motherwatch will be frightened,” Mohdek continued. “She still bears scars from her first visit to the Greater Chain.
”

  “I know,” said Nemery, “and I have my fears about this, too. But Ardor is confident in Gloristar’s abilities. She’ll keep Motherwatch in Stasis until it’s time for her to break out and come home.”

  “It is hard for me to see you swept up like this, Salafan,” Mohdek said, moving past her to tie one end of the hammock to the rope.

  “Swept up?” she asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Him,” Mohdek said. “He has great influence over you, whether you realize it or not.”

  Was he jealous? “It’s not like that, Moh.” She reached out and squeezed his arm. “Namsum used to say he’d do anything for us, remember? You know why?”

  “Because he was my brother,” said Mohdek.

  “Because we saved his life,” she added. “I feel the same way about Ardor Benn. That’s all there is to it.”

  He nodded his head. “I suppose it was easier for me to be grateful to him when he was just a name in a story.”

  “I love you, Moh,” she said in Landerian. “And nothing’s going to change that.” Nemery stepped away from him as he moved to tie up the other side of the hammock.

  “We’re losing daylight fast,” she said. “I’m going to run down to the stream. I’ll fill our waters.” She snatched the skin off his pack as she passed, moving through the camp and into the trees.

  The sound of the tumbling water drowned out the voices behind her as she dropped to her knees, making two little depressions in the soft red earth. She plunged her hands into the cold water, feeling it wash away the grime of the day. Stooping forward, she splashed her face.

  Behind her, a twig snapped and she heard a conspicuous cough announcing his approach.

  “I’m tired of these people, Moh,” she said in his language. “Can’t wait until it’s just us again.”

  “Sorry,” came the reply in Landerian. “But I’ve got no idea what you’re saying.”

  Nemery turned in surprise. It was Ardor Benn.

  “I thought you were Mohdek,” she admitted.

  Ardor chuckled. “Not nearly so muscular. Or wise.” He took a seat on a moss-covered rock just downstream from her, dipping his fingertips into the passing water. The stream looked black in the waning light.

  “You’re doing a great job,” he said. “I know I’m technically the leader of this group, but we’re not fooling anyone. Without you, this expedition would be doomed. Half of us would’ve probably been eaten by a dragon already.”

  She smiled at his compliments, even though he was demonizing dragons again.

  “Sometimes it seems like just yesterday that the two of us were out here,” he said wistfully, “chasing that confounded sow with the Royal Regalia in her belly, trying to stay ahead of our group. You didn’t like that crew. At least that much has stayed the same.” He dried his fingers on the leg of his pants. “Is Mohdek okay with this?”

  “With us talking?” she replied quickly.

  “I meant stealing Motherwatch,” said Ardor.

  “Oh, of course.” She turned her head, hoping he didn’t see her blush in the fading light. “He’s warming up to it.”

  “I know that’s all thanks to you,” Ardor said. “So… thank you.”

  Nemery shrugged. “He can be stubborn. But he’s got a good heart.”

  “The two of you make a good pair,” Ardor said. “An ambitious pair, living out here in the wilds like this.”

  “It’s home,” she said.

  “But it wasn’t,” said Ardor. “The home I asked Tanalin to deliver you to was in Beripent.” He leaned forward, forearms resting across his knees. “What happened to Nemery Baggish?”

  She looked up at the treetops above. Two-dimensional black leaves were silhouetted against a dusky sky that already winked with a handful of stars.

  Was she ready to tell her story? She’d been avoiding it since the first time he’d asked in New Vantage. She was Salafan now, and part of her feared that explaining how she got there would make her miss bits of her former life.

  “Everything changed when you took me to Pekal the first time,” she began. “You know that? Take a little girl with a dream, and make that dream come true…”

  “Sure,” Ardor said. “Because seeing your companions get eaten alive and getting sent home with a hole in your leg is every little girl’s dream.”

  She shrugged. “Things weren’t good with my parents, even before I joined your crew.”

  “I remember,” he said. “Your mum wanted you to stick with the orchestra, but your pops got you lined up to learn from a Master Caller.”

  She smiled. After all these years, he remembered those details about her unimportant little life?

  “That changed when I got home,” Nemery said. “My father never wanted me to come back to Pekal, and my mother was against it from the beginning. But their anger only made me want it more. Soon as my leg healed up, I struck out. The war was on, so it wasn’t hard to get hired as a Harvester for the Archkingdom.”

  “You were a Harvester?” Ardor exclaimed. “Hard to imagine you lugging a Drift crate.”

  “I pulled my weight,” she said defensively. “I was on track to become a Tracer, too.”

  “Not a Caller?”

  “Nobody knew I could Call,” she said. “And I never had a chance to show them. On my second expedition, we ran into trouble over by Leafy Reach.” Nemery glanced at the dark water. “My crew was attacked by a group of Sovereign Harvesters. Our captain was killed, and the rest of us were taken captive.”

  “Homeland, Nemery,” Ardor whispered. “You were a prisoner of war?”

  “At the ripe age of fourteen,” she said.

  “Did they… Did they treat you okay?”

  She looked up at him. “It was Mohdek. He and his older brother were part of the Sovereign crew. They marched us down to their harbor and loaded us onto a ship. The plan was to take us over to Dronodan and keep us in Leigh with all the other prisoners. The Sovs thought they might get King Termain to care if they amassed a large enough group.”

  “Clearly, they didn’t know him,” Ardor said.

  Nemery picked up a short stick on the bank beside her and jabbed the tip into the red soil, thinking about what had happened next.

  “We didn’t make it to Leigh,” she said quietly. “Naval blockades pushed our ship farther and farther south until an Archie fleet finally opened fire on us. Didn’t matter that some of their own were aboard. They shot us to scraps. Everyone was drowning… people shot to bits…”

  The stick broke in her hand and she tossed the piece she was holding into the little stream.

  “I was trying to swim for Dronodan when I heard someone screaming for help,” she continued. “It was Mohdek. His brother was unconscious and he’d managed to pull him onto some of the floating wreckage. We worked together. Got Namsum to Dronodan, but we still had a cliff to deal with.”

  Despite the fear that came with remembering, she smiled at the thought of those first experiences with Mohdek. It should have been obvious to them then, what an effective pair they’d make. But neither had considered it for a moment.

  “Believe it or not, we made it to the top.” She felt smug about it, even so long after.

  “And Namsum?” Ardor asked.

  “He was tied to Mohdek’s back,” she said. “And when he didn’t think he could go any farther… he was tied to mine.”

  That came across as a slight exaggeration, but she let it stand. Namsum had been far too heavy for her to carry. But she had lashed him on, waiting on a narrow cliff shelf until Mohdek could recover his strength to go on.

  “It took a couple of days, but Namsum recovered,” Nemery continued. “The three of us found ourselves in the southernmost reaches of Dronodan. You ever been down that way?”

  “Never been south of Marow,” Ardor replied.

  “Mostly all wilderness,” she explained, “and much drier than here. Luckily, Namsum knew everything it took to survive. He taught us to read the land, track
animals. He taught us how to identify poisonous plants—although, I must say, some of the leafy greens that Namsum called delicious sat like sand in my gut.”

  “I know a thing or two about the superiority of the Trothian constitution,” Ard said.

  Nemery laughed. It was fun to tell someone about Namsum. Painful, yes. But there was a joy to it that she hadn’t expected. She knew Mohdek didn’t feel ready to remember his brother that way, but maybe it would be helpful.

  “After a couple of cycles, Namsum felt strong enough to undertake a longer journey. He and Mohdek decided it was time to head north so they could check in with the Trothian warriors and report that they’d survived the attack on their ship. The first town we came to was a backward little place called Sprigton. Namsum decided to stop in to check on the state of the war.”

  She stopped talking, thinking through her next sentences so she could say them as painlessly as possible.

  “Folks in Sprigton were confused, I guess,” she whispered. “Apparently, the Trothian forces had gone against Sovereign orders and attacked the Archkingdom harbors on Pekal. The way word trickled down to southern Dronodan, the Trothians were now the enemy.”

  She swallowed a lump that threatened to end the story.

  “They killed Namsum. Thought he was a spy, or an enemy… I don’t know.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Ardor said, his voice soft.

  “Mohdek and I got away. We went back into the Dronodanian wilderness and only came out of the trees when it was time for Moh’s fajumar. We must have lived a year like that before we crossed paths with a Trothian hunting guide, who told us that the war had been over for cycles. And since the queen had reinstated the Trothian Inclusionary Act, we were free to go wherever we wanted.”

  She picked up her waterskin and pulled out the cork. Now that she was through the hardest part of the story, she suddenly remembered the original reason for coming to the stream.

  “Here.” Nemery dipped the skin into the cold water. “We came here. Of course, we couldn’t stay, because the Redeye line had stretched too far with the dragon population on the decline. But we spent every available hour on this island, sailing to one of the Trothian Ras during the Moon Passing. After about a year of that, Cochorin became of age and the Redeye line started retracting. Seemed to happen really quick, pulling farther up the mountainside each time a new dragon hatched. By the time they started building New Vantage, Moh and I were already living here full time.”