Blade of Tyshalle

by Matthew Woodring Stover

  "The Blade of Tyshalle," Hari had answered heavily, "is a goddamn marketing gimmick. Some Studio flack thought it sounded cool, that's all. It's a good hook for an assassin. It doesn't mean anything; they just made it up."

  "Shiva's Dance," Deliann had said, conjuring another name. He'd felt his line of reasoning slipping through his fingers as more and more connections tied themselves within his brain. "Your mother was Hindu, wasn't she?"

  "Bengali."

  "And your name: Hari. An alias for Vishnu, right? Did she ever talk about any of the other old gods?"

  "Maybe some," Hari had said warily. "She died when I was, what, eight? I'm not sure I'd remember."

  "Did she ever talk about Shiva?"

  "The Destroyer. You don't have to be Hindu to know who Shiva was." "Is," Deliann had corrected. "Is in the sense that the force for which Shiva was a metaphor is entirely real, and still with us. Shiva is power in its purest sense. Absolute motion. Destruction, creation: the same energy informs both. Destructive creation, creative destruction. This isn't a paradox. It isn't. It's a breakdown of language. Destruction and creation are not opposites. They are both opposites of stasis."

  He had started to talk faster and faster, trying to get all the words out; his chain of logic smoked under his acid fever. "The old name—the best name—is Shiva: the Dancer on the Void. The power that shatters order into primordial chaos is the same power that patterns chaos into a new structure of order—because pure chaos is also a kind of stasis, don't you see? Shiva is the enemy of everything that does not change. Shiva's Dance is the play of energy in the cosmos; it's not good, it's not evil, it simply is. It's change itself, and it touches everything. Power. Life. Mind."

  Hari had squinted. "Life?"

  "Power and Life are the same thing. Both of them together are Mind. Mind is a patterning of energy, nothing more, nothing less. The elemental particles that make up this stone, right here—" He had rapped his knuckles on the bench above the spillpipe. "—electrons, the quarks that build the protons and the neutrons, are exactly that: patterns of energy. The same energy, Hari. At its most fundamental level, energy is energy. That's why, say, a stonebender rockmagus can shape this stone with her bare hands—she's trained her mind to resonate harmonically with the inherent Mind of the rock. Stonebenders have a saying: `When you work the rock, the rock also works you: "

  "You're saying everything has a mind."

  "No: I'm saying everything is Mind."

  "Metaphysics," Hari had said, waving a hand disgustedly. "A guy name of Pirsig once wrote that `Metaphysics is a restaurant with a thirty-thousand-page menu—and no food: "

  Deliann had responded with a faintly whimsical smile. "Chew on this, then. I think the same elemental force of change that an ancient Hindu would have named Shiva is what I've been calling black Flow. It's what a Lipkan priest would call the Breath of Tyshalle. It's the power behind his Blade." He'd said gently, "That's you, Hari."

  "You think so?"

  "They say that destruction follows Caine the way crows follow an army."

  "Yeah, yeah. You know why they say that?"

  "Because it's true."

  "Because another guy from Marketing came up with a good line. I met him once; he told me they had every Actor out of the whole North American system repeat it every time somebody mentioned my name until it caught on. This is all just coincidence, Kris. It doesn't mean anything."

  "Everything is coincidence, Hari. It means whatever you decide it means."

  "Just coincidence," he'd repeated stubbornly.

  "The entire universe is just coincidence, Hari. The existence of these particular planets around these particular stars in this particular galaxy, the appearance of life, the interplay of chance that brought you and me together here, now, having done what we've done, and become who we are: coincidence. The universe is a structure of coincidence."

  "I thought you said the universe is a structure of mind."

  "Yes," he'd said. "Yes, I did."

  And he'd been about to go on and explain why these two statements were not contradictory, but he'd lost Hari again to a sudden scuffle between an ogrillo and two primals, and after that was settled Hari had managed to find business more important than returning to a conversation that hadn't interested him in the first place. Deliann had gone too far afield with this; it was too abstract. Hari was a nuts-and-guts man. No conversation would hold his attention that wasn't about something he could bite, or that could bite him.

  Now Deliann watched the dancing game, within its shifting ring of hooting, clapping prisoners. He recognized some of what the dancers were learning from his old HTH classes at the Conservatory, and still more from Hari's own tutorials: the small movements, shifts of weight to alter the point of impact of a blow that cannot be dodged, the sliding footwork that gracefully flanks one's opponent with deceptive speed, the focus on joint destruction—especially of the elbow and knee—and the use of headlocks for more than just control. These headlocks were for throws, for cracking the skull and breaking the neck.

  For killing.

  Deliann saw clearly what Hari planned. He had always had good eyes. Maybe that was his only real talent: to see, and understand.

  All right, time to get up, he thought. Last chance to save the world.

  6

  Toa-Sytell had begun to suspect that the whole world had a fever very much like his own.

  From the window of his bedchamber, on the ninth floor of the west wing of the Colhari Palace, the soldiers on the walls of Old Town looked like dolls. They seemed to walk with an unnatural, artificial gait as though they were some badly shapeshifted creatures impersonating men.

  Across the river, in the splay of ruins that still smoldered where Alientown had once stood, the antisprite netting that draped over the command posts was clearly designed as an arcane code: Toa-Sytell couldn't read it, but the troops down there were definitely sending some kind of signal. Something to be read by griffins, or dragons passing overhead, or some invisible spirit of the air.

  Perhaps the same spirit of the air that had crept in through his nostrils while he slept, and given him this awful fever. How lucky he was to have awakened before the spirit had consumed him entirely! though he knew the spirit still lurked about, just out of the corners of his vision, slipping into shadows behind his bedcurtains before he could quite make out its shape.

  He could defeat it easily: it only had power when he slept.

  So he did not sleep.

  Behind him, the Eye of God droned on with his interminable report. Exactly as the Patriarch had predicted, Caine had crushed every threat against him—and had finally given Toa-Sytell the proof he required.

  Far, far below, figures moved among the troop tents pitched on what once had been the streets of Alientown. One of them was Toa-M'Jest himself. That one, in the scarlet doublet. Or was he the one in the dark cape? Perhaps he was the slimmer, smaller man nearby; as the Patriarch watched, that tiny figure called others to him. They gathered in a knot and whispered together, thinking that they could conceal their treason from him with lowered voices. They didn't know how much he could hear.

  He could hear everything.

  All across the city—across the Empire—his subjects whispered against him. They all thought he didn't know. They all thought they were safe. "Ar­rest him."

  "Your Radiance?"

  "Toa-M'Jest. The Duke of Public Order. Draft a warrant. He is hereby relieved of his duties and placed under arrest."

  "Your Radiance?" the officer repeated blankly. "On what charge?" "It doesn't matter. Conspiracy with the Enemies of Humanity."

  "But, but, Your Radiance—he's prosecuting the Caverns War with great success against the subs—"

  "That's part of his plan." Toa-Sytell sighed, exasperated. How could this man have risen to his rank in the Eyes of God, when he was so thick he could not comprehend the plain truth? "He does not conspire with the elves and the dwarfs and the ogrilloi. He conspires with Caine."<
br />
  "I, er, with Your Radiance's pardon, I find that difficult to accept," the officer said. "The Duke had Caine put in the Pit."

  Toa-Sytell slicked back his thinning hair with the sweat from his palms. "That's exactly where Caine wanted to be, don't you understand?" "No, Holiness. I don't."

  Toa-Sytell waved an irritable hand. He could not be troubled to explain the bleedingly obvious.

  The officer ventured, "I'm certain the Duke is loyal, Holiness." Toa-Sytell turned from the window. His eyes burned, but they were so scratchy that blinking hurt. So he no longer blinked.

  The Eye of God looked distinctly uncomfortable.

  "Are you?" Toa-Sytell asked. "Certain?"

  "I ... I believe ..."

  "Do you?"

  The Eye of God swallowed and did not answer.

  "Arrest the Duke," Toa-Sytell said, and this time the officer did not argue.

  "The, ah," the officer said hesitantly, "the official charge, Your Radiance?" Toa-Sytell shrugged. "Cainism, I suppose."

  Far, far below, the river itself seemed to writhe and boil, as though it had a fever, too.

  The officer turned to leave. Toa-Sytell extended a hand. "No, wait. Not yet. We don't know yet what Toa-M'Jest is planning. Watch him. Discover his confederates. Just watch them all, and be ready. When he makes his move, take him."

  The officer nodded, clearly relieved. "Yes, Your Radiance."

  "But Caine ..." the Patriarch said. "Caine. He is one traitor we know already. Our coddling of the Enemy of God is at an end." '

  His teeth showed yellow and savage, and his stare was filled with blood. "Put him in the Shaft."

  7

  I don't even see Deliann coming until he stumbles and almost goes down. One of the prisoners nearby catches him and tries to steady him on his feet, but Deliann shoves the guy off and keeps moving. "Orbek," I say quietly. "Get up close on him. He looks like he needs some help."

  That's massively understated: he looks like he needs a couple weeks in a hospital with an IV drip of broad-spectrum antibiotics. He manages to stagger along one of the walkways the boys keep clear, and he stops in front of me, swaying. "I know what you're doing," he says.

  I give Orbek a look, and he nods. He pushes himself to his feet and works his way around behind Deliann, to where he might be able to catch him if the poor bastard collapses. If Deliann sees him move, he doesn't show it.

  He's so shiny with sweat that his skin Iooks like wet porcelain, and his eyes are red-rimmed pools of bruise. His hand shakes when he goes to slick back his hair, and he says, "You're teaching them to kill Donjon guards."

  "You think you could say that a little fucking louder?" I ask him. "For shit's sake, Kris."

  "I've seen it before," he insists drunkenly. "You angle in under the club; you take the middle of the club on your shoulder instead of the end of the club on your head. Break his arm, because chainmail doesn't have any joint support. I've seen it. I know what you're doing."

  "Kris, man, sit down." I pat the stone ledge beside me. "Come on. Sit down before you fall down."

  He shakes his head. "No. No, this is hard enough. Standing up helps me think." He clenches his teeth, and makes a fist, and says tightly, "This is a mistake. What you're doing is all wrong. It's all backward."

  "I don't need your approval," I remind him.

  "It's wrong—"

  "My whole life has been somebody's entertainment," I say through my teeth. "My death won't be. Neither will theirs."

  He flinches like he's too close to a fire that scorches his face. "Hari—but—"

  "No. We're gonna make them earn it. When those bastards come for us, they are gonna get the surprise of their fucking lives."

  Orbek folds his arms so that his splinted fighting claw rests in the crook of his other elbow, and I can read stolid approval in his yellow eyes. We splinted his broken claw in full extension. It must hurt like hell, but he'll be able to fight. He doesn't follow the entertainment crap, but the rest makes perfect sense to him: May you die fighting is how ogrilloi wish each other luck

  "No no no," Deliann insists. He squeezes his eyes shut like he's afraid they'll pop out of his head, and speaks very slowly and clearly. "You're preparing to lose, don't you understand? You're preparing to lose. All this?" He waves a hand over his shoulder, eyes still shut, indicating the whole Pit and my fighters and dismissing them all at the same time. "All you're doing is practicing dying."

  "Maybe I need the practice," I tell him. "I haven't had a lot of luck with it so far."

  Orbek snickers—that's his kind of line—but Deliann's concentrating too hard on what he's trying to say even to acknowledge it. "Ask t'Passe," he says. "My will or I won't: you've got the I won't, but you're leaving out the my will. Half right is all wrong, Hari."

  From where I sit, I've got a clear view of the wide bronze-bound door on the balcony that seals the stairshaft down from the Courthouse. The door swings open; armored men file through from above. They carry crossbows at full cock, and they start to fan out around the balcony. They're looking at me.

  I guess half right is all I'm gonna have time for.

  "Should've had this talk yesterday, Kris." I meet Orbek's grim stare. "You ready for this?"

  Orbek shows me his fighting claws. "Born ready, boss."

  "Go get t'Passe."

  He nods, and when he swings around to walk away there's a hardrubber bounce in his step; he prickles fierce anticipation like an electric charge. Prisoners fall silent as he passes. Everybody starts by looking up at the crossbows; after that, they just look at me.

  "What do you want, Hari? What do you want?" Kris says. "Ask for more, Hari. You don't aim high enough."

  "I live a little closer to the ground, these days."

  The floor detail forms up on the balcony: six full-armored guards bearing only clubs. Nobody with a bow or an edged weapon ever leaves the balcony. The floor detail guys wear plate mail, instead of the chain hauberks the rest of the guards have on. The crossbows the others carry are underpowered, designed specifically for Donjon work; their X-head quarrels won't penetrate steel.

  They made this change after the last time I came through here. I and a dead girl named Talann showed these fuckers what happens when prisoners get their hands on full-powered crossbows.

  Deliann weaves close and takes me by the wrist. "What if you could live?"

  "Why would I want to?"

  Orbek comes back with t'Passe. She looks as grim as I feel.

  "It seems early. I thought we had more time," she says. "I could use another two or three days."

  "Pretty much everybody feels that way on the steps of the gallows, huh?"

  She nods.

  "When I give the word, mob the floor detail. Three on one or better," I tell her. "Use your weakest guys all they have to do is draw a flight of quarrels."

  The guards overhead won't have to be shy about shooting, that's why the crossbows are underpowered. Those X-heads won't punch through armor, but they'll chop up flesh and bone like an industrial meat grinder. "That's where I need the extra days," t'Passe says. "They're just not ready. If one or two break, the rest might fold as well."

  "Then pick some that won't break. You know who they are, t'Passe: the ones who don't want to live long enough to be executed."

  "None of us want to live long enough to be executed, Caine."

  "Yeah, no shit. Don't even think about jumping in yourself. I need you for floor marshal. Keep people organized once the shit starts flying. Keep them moving up the stairs." Crossbows take time to reload. I've never seen a guy recock and reset a fresh quarrel in under five seconds in perfect conditions; the stress of combat should at least double that time.

  The stairbridge is only a gnat's ass over forty meters long.

  "Orbek, you take Dinnie, Fletcher, Arken, and Gropaz—" Two of the youngest, meanest ex-Serpents, and two cheerfully savage ogrilloi. "—and hit the stairs as soon as the bowmen let loose on our mobbers. You are third up the stair
s, you hear me? Third. Serpents in front; we can spare Dinnie and Fletcher easier than your boys. We gotta take that winch—if those stairs go back up, the party's over. You're topside marshal. Don't waste time killing the guys on the winch. Just toss 'em over the rail; we'll take care of them down here."

  "Like you say, boss."

  "T'Passe, we'll need another screen of mobbers right behind Gropaz; the next flight of quarrels will go toward the winch. After that, it's hand to hand."

  "Hari, stop," Deliann says. "Think for a minute—think You can do better than this."

  Orbek answers for me, through a wide grin around his tusks. "There is nothing better than this."

  The guards on the winch start cranking down the bridge. It drops in arrhythmic clanking jerks. I nod at Orbek. "Get your boys together and get close to the foot of the bridge."

  "Like you say, boss." He jogs off.

  "T'Passe—" Deliann begins, but the empty focus in her eyes stops him. She's ready to die.

  "I'll stall as long as I can," I tell her. "Get your mobbers ready, t'Passe. We don't have much time."

  She nods and starts to turn away, but she changes her mind and gives me a level look, her mouth a hard flat line. "It's an honor," she says. I mirror her. "The honor's mine."

  She actually cracks a smile, and then she's gone, moving through the prisoners, taking one and then another by the shoulder and leading them away.

  Deliann turns back to me desperately and takes me by the wrist; his hand is blazing hot and slick with sweat. "Hari, you have to aim higher. You have to try for more. Dying is easy! You've said it yourself. Since when does Caine take the easy way out?"

  The foot of the stairbridge is only a couple of meters from the floor, and I just don't have time for this shit. I yank my hand away from him and snarl, "Caine is just a character, goddammit. I made him up. He's fictional. I'm not the Blade of goddamn Tyshalle, I'm just Hari fucking Michaelson. I used to be a pretty good Actor, and now I'm a middle-aged paraplegic with a few minutes to live."

  "If Hari! What

  "What if what?"

  "What if everyone's right about you? What if the stories about you are true? What if you are the Blade of Tyshalle?" Deliann asks. "What if you are the Enemy of God?"