The Last Lies of Ardor Benn

by Tyler Whitesides

  She corked her waterskin and began to fill Mohdek’s.

  “Guess that gets me up to speed,” said Ardor. “All except one thing… Why did Hedge Marsool tell me to find the Terror of Wilder Far?”

  Nemery shrugged innocently. “I don’t know the man, honest to Homeland.”

  “He’s obviously heard of you,” Ardor said. “And it sounds like he’s not the only one who calls you that. Why does—”

  She held up a hand. “Please. Can we talk about something else?” Her heart was tender enough right now without going into that. And she didn’t want to admit to Ardor that she had borrowed Tanalin Phor’s most brutal tactic.

  “That’s fine,” he said, rocking back and sliding his heels together through the red mud. “We’ve all got secrets, Nemery. Doesn’t make us bad people.”

  She scoffed. “We’ve done other things for that.”

  “Hey, now. Go easy on yourself. You’ve been through more than most people see in a lifetime.” He plucked a leaf off a low-hanging branch. “What about your parents?”

  “What about them?” she retorted.

  “Do they know you’re here?”

  “I’m guessing the last thing they heard was that I died as a prisoner of war when that Sovereign ship was sunk.”

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  She corked Mohdek’s waterskin. “Look at me, Ardor. Do I look like someone my parents would be proud of?”

  “I’m proud of you,” he said. “To hear what you’ve been through… You were a brilliant kid when I knew you. But you lacked experience. Now you have more of it than anyone I know. The way you handle yourself on these slopes… I think that would make anyone proud to say they knew you when.”

  She smiled. “Thanks.”

  “I died once, you know,” Ardor said unexpectedly. “My parents are still alive out there, but they think I’ve been gone over ten years now. Still hurts to think about them. So I try not to. I try to tell myself that I’m a completely different person. That they wouldn’t like this version of me.”

  “Would they?” she asked.

  He took a deep, uncertain breath. “I don’t think there’s any version of me that my mother and father wouldn’t love. But I have to keep telling myself lies. Have to keep rusing.”

  He looked at her, his face a dark shadow in the night that had fallen around them. Perhaps they were more alike than Nemery had ever supposed. In a way, it was comforting to see that even someone as strong and confident as Ardor Benn harbored quiet doubts and insecurities about who he had become.

  “And I guess I should come clean with you about something,” he said. “You asked me about Quarrah yesterday. We… we aren’t together. Not sure we ever really were, actually.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “No, it’s fine. Really.” He exhaled very deliberately. “I understand her hesitation. I mean, I know I’m not an easygoing person. I keep telling myself that I’ll change, or I have changed, or even that I could change. But I know I’m still the same. And I know… I always will be.”

  Nemery suddenly felt an intense gratitude for Mohdek. He didn’t want her to change. And if she did, fine… he’d probably love her still. He was constant and unwavering. She didn’t know who she’d be without him. Certainly not Salafan.

  Ardor stood abruptly. “Well, tomorrow’s the day, you think?”

  “To see her, at least,” answered Nemery. “These dragons are important to me, Ardor. You think we’re doing the right thing, taking her to Talumon?”

  Ardor pursed his lips in thought. “Honestly, I’m not so sure. And that isn’t something I like to say very often. The whole point of this job was to stop Hedge Marsool from creating Glassminds. But Garifus Floc already beat him to it. I can’t help but think that they’re connected somehow. I know Hedge is keeping a lot of secrets. And until I can get some answers, following his rules is the best play.”

  Nemery nodded. “I trust you.”

  She stood still, holding the plump waterskins as he strode away into the darkened trees. The sound of the gurgling brook filled her ears and her mind swam with thoughts of who she’d been and who she was now.

  And of who she wanted to be tomorrow.

  The moment we stop regretting our past mistakes, we lose a portion of our humanity and find one more thing in common with the beasts of Pekal.

  CHAPTER

  20

  It was windy on the campus green of Beripent’s Southern College. Quarrah sat on a wooden bench, silently observing the flow of students as the bell tolled the midday hour.

  The academic setting was strange to her. As a little girl, Quarrah remembered climbing a stout tree in the Porter District of Leigh. Perched on one of the lower limbs, she’d had a perfect view through a classroom window. Her “school tree” had taught her the letters of the alphabet, but the streets had taught her to read.

  Ah, there was San Green moving toward her, clutching a book satchel as though he were a regular student. The young man didn’t move like the others, though. There was a furtiveness to his gait and an uneasiness in the way he turned his head. The look of a person who felt like death was always closing in.

  San reached her, but didn’t sit down. “Where’s Raekon?” he asked.

  “He only saw me as far as the college gate,” Quarrah answered. “Said he had some personal business south of the city.”

  “What do you think he’s doing?”

  Quarrah shrugged. “He’s got some demons, San.” Raek was probably meeting a contact to purchase some Heg. Ard would have tried to stop him, but Quarrah wasn’t one to meddle. She had talked to Raek about it once. With his condition, she honestly didn’t know if he could survive without the Compounded Health Grit in his chest.

  “Did you do it?” she asked.

  San seated himself on the bench beside Quarrah, flipping open his satchel. “It took longer than I thought because Professor Baruss kept hanging around. You’re not going to like what I discovered anyway.” San pulled the thin glass vial from his satchel. “Sugar water.” He held it out for her examination.

  “What?” She rolled it between her fingers, utterly confused.

  “Raekon was right,” San said. “There’s no source material at all. It’s not even technically a Grit solution. Just plain sugar water.”

  “He must have switched them back,” Quarrah muttered.

  “Hedge Marsool?”

  “No, Ard,” said Quarrah. “He stole a vial from Hedge and we were examining it in the Be’Igoth. I was too afraid Ard was going to try to use it without understanding it, so I stole the vial and replaced it with one filled with plain sugar water.”

  “You think he realized it?” San asked. “When would he have switched them back?”

  “He couldn’t have,” Quarrah said, mind racing over the last few weeks. “I’ve had this vial locked in a safe box in an apartment that Ard doesn’t even know about.”

  “Huh…” San scratched his head. “Maybe you made a mistake and never actually switched them. That’s a possibility if they looked identical, right?”

  “A small possibility,” said Quarrah. “Very small.” But if the vials had been switched back, then that meant Ard really had shattered their only sample on the deck of the Shiverswift. Quarrah had seen the sparks, but there had been no detonation.

  “I don’t understand what this means,” she admitted.

  “Let’s consider the options,” said San. There were definite perks to keeping a scientist brain around. “First. You didn’t switch the vials. The one you’re holding is the sugar water you made. Second. Ardor caught on and switched the vials back. The one you’re holding is your own sugar water again. Third. The switch was successful.”

  “But the third option would mean that Hedge Marsool had sugar water in his vial all along,” finished Quarrah. Highly improbable. Unless the King Poacher truly was predicting the future somehow. Unless he knew Ard was going to steal a vial. Unless he knew she was going to swap it w
ith sugar water.

  Sparks, this was all so confusing! She knew she hadn’t made a mistake. Sleight of hand was her area of expertise, which ruled out option number one. And the only way she could rule out the second option was by confronting Ard about what she’d done. That wasn’t going to go over well…

  Quarrah tucked the glass vial into her pocket. Sugar water. Bah. At this point, she might as well use its contents to sweeten her tea.

  “You think he’s really going to do it?” San asked. He lowered his voice even though nobody was around. “Get a dragon?”

  Quarrah sighed. “It’ll be that or the dragon getting him. Ardor Benn doesn’t stop once he’s put his mind to something.”

  “You heard any updates?”

  “Any day now,” she replied.

  “What are you going to tell him about that vial?”

  “Don’t know yet,” she said. “For now, let’s keep this between us and Raek.”

  He nodded, gaze distant as he stared across the campus green. “I don’t like being back here…” He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Quarrah knew he meant without her. The lad was actually handling himself quite well. Still, she didn’t know what to say to someone hurting like this.

  “We used to study over there.” He pointed to a pair of trees to the west. “On summer evenings the cicadas would buzz so loud we could barely hear each other…” San leaned forward, elbows on knees, face in his hands.

  Do I clap him on the back? Say something comforting? She was lost enough in her own frustrations over this sugar water puzzle.

  Quarrah decided on standing up. “Let’s get you back to Tofar’s Salts.” So much for comforting. The young man wiped at his tears and rose with a weary sigh.

  “Thanks,” Quarrah added. “Lomaya was right. You had the equipment and the contacts to use it.”

  “Wish it gave us answers,” San replied.

  “Maybe it will yet.”

  In all his life, Ardor Benn had never expected to see this dragon again. Motherwatch was curled up at the top of a long draw, wings folded over her back, head tucked down. Her position was relaxed, making no real effort to conceal herself. Ard supposed that was one of the benefits of having no known predators.

  His memory of the dragon was burned deep into his mind, but every time he thought of her, she was on the palace steps, the building ablaze behind her and the blood of King Pethredote on her chin. She looked different in her natural habitat. More peaceful, and yet somehow wilder still.

  Ard and the crew were on a rise above the draw, their camp established in a tangle of dead trees. Strips of limp bark drooped and swung in the breeze like miniature corpses from a gallows, catching Ard’s eye and making him start.

  “Why isn’t she moving?” he whispered to Nemery.

  “I don’t know,” the girl replied.

  She was kneeling behind her new Caller instrument, the wide brass bell covered with a leafy fern so it wouldn’t glint in the midmorning sunlight.

  Ard didn’t know much about the dragon Calling devices, but this one looked nicer than the one Nemery had used on their first journey to Pekal. The girl was proud of her purchase, he could tell. And happier still to have the crew lug it up the mountainside for her.

  Ard wasn’t sure how often she’d been able to practice the Calls, living wild on this island for so long. But based on the rich sound she’d just made through the instrument, he still considered her an expert.

  “Let’s give it a minute,” Nemery whispered. “She’s clearly on edge, which means she recognized the Call.”

  “I thought she looked relaxed,” he said.

  Nemery chuckled. “They don’t flex their tails like that when they’re relaxed.”

  “If she recognized that Call,” Ard said, “won’t she realize that the only one who could make it is Cochorin? Maybe Motherwatch just isn’t afraid of her son.”

  Nemery shook her head. “Territorial Bull should work anyway. The Call simulates a bull dragon looking to… well, let’s just say he wants the place alone so he can search the area for any unfertilized eggs.”

  Over their shoulder, Senso chuckled. “Well, that explains it. Takes a man to make that Call.”

  Ard glared in disgust at the annoying man.

  “Maybe you ought to head down and provide some backup for Gloristar,” Nemery retorted.

  That got him to back off. Nobody wanted to join Gloristar, stationed like an army of one at the bottom of the draw. There, the sides of the canyon steepened into a narrow chute. If all went according to plan, Gloristar would soon be facing off with this dragon one on one.

  In the clearing below, Motherwatch bobbed her head up and down like a bird searching for predators.

  “This whole thing is a bad idea,” said Shenya. Ard was growing tired of the crew’s dissolving attitude. “We should have approached her in the night,” the smuggler continued. “Dragons sleep with their eyes closed, don’t they?”

  “Not tonight, she wouldn’t,” said Nemery. “Motherwatch smelled us this morning, well before we saw her for the first time. If she doesn’t consider the area safe by sundown, she’ll take flight and it’ll be days before we can locate her again.”

  “Funneling her down to Gloristar is our best option,” Ard said. “And since our transformed Prime Isless has no detectable scent, she should be able to take Motherwatch by surprise.”

  “And what makes you think she’ll go the direction we want her to?” Shenya asked. “If I had wings like that, I’d definitely fly.”

  “Motherwatch wouldn’t dare,” Nemery explained. “Taking flight would provoke the male into giving chase. When a bull makes this Call, he wants the sows in the area to quietly slink away.”

  “Sounds like a man.” Shenya slugged Senso in the arm.

  “Let me try the Call again,” Nemery said. “I think we can risk once more. Then we’ll need to hold off until dark.”

  “And then we lose her,” Ard said, discouraged.

  Nemery gave him a helpless little shrug and turned back to her instrument. She made a few adjustments, primed it, and then pressed her lips to the brass mouthpiece.

  Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!

  Ard felt the vibrations of the Call rattling his rib cage. He peered through the white, dead limbs of the trees to see Motherwatch spread her huge green wings in response. For a moment, Ard thought she might take flight. But she stayed low to the grass, puffing up her torso, drawing deep breaths until Ard could see glowing lines appear between her scales.

  Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!

  Nemery’s Call faded, the reverberations echoing down the wide draw. Ard tensed, holding on to hope until Motherwatch folded in her wings and burrowed down again.

  “Sparks,” Ard whispered. “We may have to switch to our backup plan.”

  “No,” Mohdek snapped. He’d been seated silently on the ground beside Nemery all this time. Sometimes it was hard to even know if he was listening. “We can’t risk frightening her. A scared dragon can injure herself when trying to flee.”

  “Flames, Mohdek,” said Ard. “You talk about her like she’s some delicate mountain deer. For a minute, I thought you were worried about what might happen to the people involved in the backup plan.”

  Nemery’s boyfriend was certainly hardheaded. He’d made it clear that he didn’t care much for Ard or the purpose of this expedition, despite Ard’s plentiful attempts to butter him up over the last week.

  But Ard was past that now. He’d resigned himself to a moderately cordial, if not slightly discordant, relationship with the Trothian. On the other hand, Ard was grateful, realizing that Mohdek’s no-nonsense, bullheaded characteristics were likely part of what had kept Nemery Baggish alive over the last few years. He was a good man, just not one Ard would want to grab a coffee with.

  “It’s our only option,” Ard said about the backup plan. He turned and waved to Cadlon and Popin. They were the crew members to talk to if you wanted to get something done. Not nosy layabouts like Senso
and Shenya.

  “We’re going to flush her out,” Ard explained as the crew began to gather around. “We’ll have five of you drop in from the top of the draw. I want you firing guns, making noise… But don’t get closer than fifty yards or she could hit you before you have a chance to scream. I want everyone else in pairs, positioned on both sides. If she comes your way, you make a racket. We don’t want her taking flight. She has to get down to Gloristar.”

  Nemery suddenly gripped Ard’s arm with such intensity that he fell instantly silent. His attention turned back to the area below, and he leaned forward, not believing his eyes.

  Another dragon was emerging from the trees on the far side of the slope. A small dragon. A hatchling.

  The creature was a similar deep green shade to Motherwatch, though it had stripes of black running down both sides. It measured only a quarter of the length of the mature sow, with wings that looked too small for its body. Its muzzle was rounded, lacking the intimidating hook-jaw distinctive to the adults of its species.

  The little dragon was carrying a dead boar in its mouth with little difficulty, like a cat with a prize mouse. It dropped the carcass in front of Motherwatch and pranced a few steps, thwacking its tail against the ground, its underdeveloped, nub-like spikes laying down the grasses and tilling up red soil.

  Nemery and Mohdek were speaking in hushed tones, their conversation exclusive in his language. But Ard heard them say Motherwatch’s Trothian name. He’d picked up on that much over the last few days.

  “What’s that hatchling doing here?” Ard finally whispered, watching Motherwatch nudge the dead boar back toward the little dragon. “Is Motherwatch going to fight her?”

  “The little one’s a male,” corrected Nemery. “And I’d say that his mother has been teaching him to hunt.”