Breath caught in her throat, she ripped open the door. Nothing but more stairs—the anygate connection had been broken. Xahlven had already escaped.
She had failed.
Saldor. All those people. Everyone she had ever known. The Arcanostrum itself . . . doomed.
She sank to her knees, weeping. “No . . . no . . . no no no . . .”
When the castle began to come down, Myreon did not notice at first. She only assumed it was her heart breaking and the sky falling upon her, as it justly should.
The Fist of Veroth, blazing with Hool’s righteous anger, struck the next support like a meteor. Masonry flew everywhere and great cracks ran up the huge column. Hool struck again. And again. Into each blow she poured every ounce of her anger, her misery, and her will. This castle would not stand so long as her pups were dead. Each strike was cathartic—as the stone blasted apart, she felt as though some part of her were free again.
Hool wrecked another column. And another. And another. The men down here had long ago stopped trying to kill her—they were running for their lives. They had winched up the great river gate and were paddling off in small boats—canoes and sailboats and small barges. Hool grunted her approval—at least these fools would not die for Banric Sahand.
“Hool!” Damon was at the quay, standing in a longboat, waving her over. “You’ve done enough! It’s falling down! Come on!”
She looked up at the domed roof. Cracks had run almost all the way to the capstone at the top. The whole citadel seemed to be trembling with her wrath.
But it hadn’t crumbled yet.
Hool reared back with her enchanted mace and struck another blow. Another thunderous boom, another shower of stones, and more cracks.
“Hool!”
She didn’t listen. She was back in that old place, that place she had been for so long—he hadn’t lost them, hadn’t lost everything. He was just a man—a stupid, simple man. She struck another blow. A whole edge of the dome above collapsed, dropping tons of material into the artificial harbor. A huge wave washed up on the quay. Damon clung to the boat, nearly tipping over.
“That’s enough, Hool! It’s coming down! Do you want to die?”
Hadn’t he listened to her? Why shouldn’t she die? What else was there? A gnoll without a pack. A mother with no children.
Her body shuddered. She realized that she was howling. That she had been howling this whole time. She dropped the Fist of Veroth and sank to her knees, hands on her face. “My Brana . . . my Api . . . gone . . . gone . . .”
Damon was there, though, putting himself under her shoulder. Lifting her up. “You damnably stubborn woman,” he grumbled. “How many times must I explain that I love you? Get in the goddamned boat.”
Hool was too distraught, too weak from her rage and grief to care that she was being pushed into a boat. A piece of stone the size of a house fell into the water just beside them, showering them with spray.
Damon began to row, his eyes wide, fixed on the crumbling castle above.
And the sky began to fall.
Tyvian couldn’t see—dust in his eyes. He couldn’t move much, either—the strength had gone out of him. The ring had at last given up. Someone grabbed him by the wrists and started pulling him out of the rubble.
“C’mon, Tyvian—stay with me! Not like this, you hear me?”
Tyvian blinked a few times and made out Artus standing over him, pulling. Behind him, a shaft of light shot through what looked like a door . . . or a window . . . or who knew what. The castle was falling down. Defeat the evil wizard and his castle falls down—just like in the stories. It was almost funny.
Artus slapped him. “Snap out of it! You’re acting like you’ve never been stabbed before!”
The boy had a point. But then the castle shuddered again. Somewhere close, a huge amount of stone was collapsing into the earth. Tyvian tried to wriggle his wrists loose. “Just go, Artus. No sense in all of us dying.”
Artus grabbed Tyvian by the beard and yanked. “You listen to me, Tyvian Reldamar—I ain’t got no father, as he died when I was little, so you’re the closest goddamn thing I got, and if you think I’m going to let you die again, you’re out of your Kroth-spawned mind. Now snap out of it!”
Tyvian blinked up at the boy. The boy he’d picked at random in the alleys of Ayventry all those years ago. The boy who seemed to have driven him all this time. Who had, just by existing, made him a better man.
He snapped out of it. Together, they worked their way clear of the rubble in time for the next blow to shake the castle to its foundations. They stumbled off together.
Whereas the first part of Tyvian’s loose plan—get back Artus—had not gone to plan at all, the second part—jump into the river and hope for the best—went pretty much exactly as predicted.
Artus carried him to the curtain wall as the world seemed to be coming apart at the seams. The great towers of the Citadel fell like stacks of children’s blocks. The keep seemed to swallow itself—the noise was deafening, louder even than the pounding of Tyvian’s heart.
He would have liked to say they jumped together. Instead, Artus threw him off the side like a dead body and then dove in after him. As he was half-dead, he was a bit unclear on what followed—a little drowning took place, he believed.
But someone pulled him out. Someone bandaged his chest. Someone was holding his head in her lap.
It was Hool.
“I should have known it would be this crazy. Nothing crazy ever happens without you.”
Tyvian smiled. “Sweet heavens, Hool—are you in a boat?”
Hool put her ears back. “Don’t remind me.”
Tyvian lifted his head a little to see that Damon had stowed the oars and was reaching over the side of the boat, helped by Artus. They dragged someone in.
Myreon.
She was injured, but not badly. But she looked worse than Tyvian did. She coughed the water out of her lungs and stared up at the sky.
“Whatever is the matter with you?” Tyvian asked, his voice weak. “Did Sahand run you through, too?”
“Saldor,” she said, her voice equally fragile. “It’s gone, Tyvian. I couldn’t stop him. He got away.”
“Who?”
“Xahlven!” Her eyes were red with tears. “He had this weapon—an ancient, terrible weapon—the one that killed Ayventry.”
“Gods—that can be used twice?”
“No, no—he had another one. An iron box, enchanted—once he opens it . . .” Myreon trailed off, hugging her knees. “I failed.”
Hool grunted. “Sounds like it.”
Something tickled at Tyvian’s memory. “Was the box about this big?” He made the shape with his hands. “Black metal, looks like iron. Very plain, a bit battered around the edges?”
Myreon nodded, unable to speak.
Tyvian started laughing. It hurt so much, but there he was, doing it anyway.
“What?” Myreon asked, scowling at him. “What could possibly be so funny?”
Artus looked grim. “Yeah, this isn’t funny, Tyv.”
Tyvian shook his head. “Saldor is fine.”
“I saw him with it!” Myreon countered. “You don’t understand!”
“Trust me, Myreon—Saldor is fine.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
Tyvian let his head fall back into Hool’s lap. “Because a con man can always spot a con a mile away.”
Hool sniffed the air. Her ears went back. “Damon, row me to shore. Back to the city.”
“What? Why?”
“Yeah, Hool,” Artus said, “that sounds crazy.”
“Do it,” the gnoll said. “I’m not done.”
Damon met her gaze. Something passed between them—Tyvian couldn’t tell what. Something that needed no words. “As you wish, milady.”
Sahand held the magic cloak tightly to his body as he stumbled through the muddy streets of Dellor-town. The dust from his collapsed Citadel dulled the sun and rained down over
the city like a light snow. The people were lining the streets—filthy, dressed in rags, their eyes wide with terror.
“Help!” Sahand barked. His hands were slick with blood. The cloak had healed the boy—why wasn’t it doing the same for him? Where were his men? Why were there no soldiers here? “Bring me a healer!”
Everyone watched. Nobody moved.
“Bring me a damned healer or I’ll eat your eyeballs!” Sahand roared, stumbling and falling in the muck. “I am your prince! Obey!”
The people, though, drew back from him. They retreated inside their houses. They closed their shutters and barred their doors.
Sahand struggled to his feet. “I made this country! You would all have nothing without me! Nothing, you hear?”
He’d lost a lot of blood—too much. The world was somehow gray; his heart pounded in his ears. “Traitors! Fools!” He lunged toward a ragged bunch of peasant children, watching from the top of a fence. They screamed and fled. But not from him.
There was someone behind him.
Sahand knew who it was. Knew it before turning. He could feel her growl in the soles of his feet, rumbling like distant thunder.
He turned to face her.
The gnoll stood unarmed, clad only in her golden fur. She towered over the Mad Prince, her teeth bared. “It is time, Sahand.”
Sahand forced himself to his full height. He threw off the worthless cloak. “Come then, dog. I am in need of another pelt.”
She came, her jaws flashing.
It was over quickly.
As Sahand lay in the mud, his life’s blood pouring out of his ravaged throat, his last sight was that of the gnoll leaning down and picking up his iron circlet—his mark of dominion over Dellor—and of her setting it upon her golden brow.
“This land is mine now,” she said.
They were the last words Banric Sahand ever heard.
Epilogue
Xahlven strode into the Chamber of Stars with a spring in his step, Spidrahk’s Coffer under one arm. He had been called to report to the Keeper of the Balance himself on the massacre at Dunnmayre, and so he had gladly acquiesced.
All the archmagi were to be there, after all. And their council of masters. And the halls beyond the chamber? Filled with staff-bearing magi. All the most prestigious, most powerful, most knowledgeable magi in all the world, all gathered in close proximity.
It was perfect.
As he arrived to take his throne, a troop of Defenders came to attention. These would probably be the last true Defenders of the Balance the world would ever know. In a few moments, they would be naught but dust and bones. Xahlven tried to assume a sense of solemnity for the event—a solemnity that warranted the end of the old world and the start of a new—but he couldn’t. He was beaming.
Delkatar, the Archmage of the Dweomer, glowered at him over his four-foot-long white beard. “You seem cheery for a man who has failed so colossally.”
At the center of the room, seated upon a high dais that overlooked all the other thrones, the Keeper of the Balance, Polimeux II, steepled his bejeweled fingers beneath his hook nose, his rheumy eyes distant. “There will be no banter, please. This is a matter of much gravity.”
Hugarth, Archmage of the Fey, laughed and put his feet up on the armrest of his throne. His bare feet were muddy. Xahlven hoped he died first.
“Of course, Keeper.” Talian, the Archmage of the Lumen—across the room from Xahlven—looked severe as always in her white robes and rose-colored spectacles. Like a schoolteacher. “In the regrettable absence of Trevard, we shall forgo some of the pageantry—let us have the report, Xahlven. You were at the battle, correct?”
“In point of fact, I was not.”
A rumble among the Masters present. They hadn’t known—which means they didn’t know what came next.
“Xahlven,” Polimeux said gently. “Explain.” The Keeper, mad as a rabbit, did not even look at him, his attention somewhere far away.
Xahlven held up Spidrahk’s Coffer. “Gladly.”
He raised his other hand over it and, with a dramatic gesture, disintegrated the box. “BEHOLD!”
Nothing happened.
In Xahlven’s hands was just . . . dust.
“We’re beholding,” Delkatar sneered. “Well?”
Xahlven spun around—had it slipped away? Where was it? What had happened? “I . . . I don’t . . . how is this possible?”
Hugarth started laughing. His masters joined in, slapping each other on the back, stomping their feet.
Talian stood up. “Gentlemen, if you please!”
Xahlven looked at his hands, his mouth hanging open in shock. There was . . . nothing. It was empty. The Oracle had lied to him!
The Keeper of the Balance raised one hand, and the commotion died. He looked down at Xahlven, his eyes suddenly clear and sharp. He had a knowing expression, as though various pieces of various puzzles had only just then fallen into place.
Xahlven’s whole body experienced a kind of terror that made it seem as though he were in free fall. He knew. Polimeux had known all along.
The Keeper had been feigning his own senility. And Xahlven had fallen for it.
“Now, young Xahlven—I believe we were on the topic of your failure at Dunnmayre and your dereliction of duty.” The Keeper smiled, eyes twinkling. “Please—do elaborate.”
The foothills of the Dragonspine appeared no more inviting than they had from Freegate, but Tyvian found himself looking forward to them. After a month recovering from his injuries in a small cabin, staring at nothing but fur pelts and smoke-stained rafters, the fresh mountain air and stunning vistas were a nice change of pace.
Artus finished checking the harnesses on the pack mules and dusted off his hands. “We’re all set.”
“This is it, then,” Myreon said, leaning on her staff. “This is good-bye.”
Tyvian hadn’t fully realized how much he missed Myreon until this past month, when she was there every day, talking to him, rolling her eyes at his jokes, arguing with him about . . . well, everything. “It needn’t be,” he said, but regretted it immediately.
“No, Tyvian—our paths are different ones. Xahlven is still alive. With your mother gone, someone has to stay to stop him. That someone is me.”
“I know. I’m just . . . just glad—”
Myreon hugged him. “I’m glad, too—I’m glad we’re friends again. I’m glad you’re alive. I’m glad about so many things. But I can’t leave.”
Tyvian released her. They held hands for a moment, but then parted. “Perhaps we’ll be back. The North is unlikely to hold my interest forever.”
Artus snorted. “Says you. Wait until you taste my Ma’s cooking.”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
Both Artus and Myreon exchanged glances, and then Myreon hugged Artus as well. “Are you sure about this? Michelle is still alive, Artus. We could use you.”
Artus shook his head. “I’m not a figurehead anymore.”
“I didn’t mean it like—”
“No, I know. But . . . it ain’t my fight, you know? Never really was.”
Myreon opened her mouth, ready to argue, but she stopped herself. “Try not to get in too much trouble.”
“Same to you,” Artus said. They said their last good-byes, and then Myreon retreated into the cabin. She was already hard at work on a series of sorcerous rituals, the purpose of which Tyvian could only guess at.
He hadn’t asked.
Artus shouldered his pack and took the mule’s reins. “Ready?”
Tyvian slapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, Artus. Let’s get you home.”
Acknowledgments
Here, at the end of Tyvian’s journey, there are so many people to thank. I shall begin with my wife, Deirdre, whose patience is without limit and whose indulgence I scarcely deserve. Also my agent, Joshua, without whom this book would have likely never existed. And also David, my editor, without whose advice this book might have been a much shabbier a
ffair.
I again would like to thank Jason, Brandon, and Katie for all their help and good advice over several books and for assuring me that I am not, in fact, insane.
Here, at the end, I’d like to thank Christine, DJ, Josh, Perich, Serpico, and Will for helping build a foundation for Tyvian’s world and for bringing that world to life with me for a time.
Finally, a big thanks to my parents, whose encouragement and trust in me as a young man allowed me to take this precarious path leading to publication. May all children have parents who believe in them as much as mine did.
About the Author
On the day AUSTON HABERSHAW was born, Skylab fell from the heavens. This foretold two possible fates: supervillain or sci-fi/fantasy author. Fortunately, he chose the latter, and spends his time imagining the could-be and the never-was rather than disintegrating the moon with his volcano laser. Auston is a winner of the Writers of the Future Contest and has had work published in Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Galaxy’s Edge, among other places. He lives and works in Boston, MA.
Find him online at aahabershaw.com and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/aahabershaw, or follow him on Twitter @AustonHab.
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By Auston Habershaw
Saga of the Redeemed
The Oldest Trick
No Good Deed
Dead But Once
The Far Far Better Thing
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
the far far better thing. Copyright © 2019 by Auston Habershaw. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
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