Iron and Blood (25 page)

 

T
hrough death and smoke, through hellfire itself, Sahand crawled. The runes that coated his body burned like coals, each a unique pain shaped by the chaotic power of the Fey. He had visions—­Tyvian Reldamar laughing in triumph, the howl of that gnoll beneath a summer moon. Beings of pure Fey—­fiends and gremlins and fire-­sprites—­danced around him, reveling in the mayhem he had created. There was no light but the fires of creation and destruction, a primordial magma of heat and flame.

Sahand kept crawling, arm over arm, for what seemed hours. He had no sense of direction nor of place, only that the heat was fading in the face of the cold—­good. Cold wind assailed him on a black night. He tasted snow. The feeling of snowmelt upon his parched tongue was like rain upon the desert. He smelled the clear air and rolled onto his back, content at last to rest. Sleep took him.

His eyes snapped open to see the cold, clear light of a winter's dawn. His body was caked in ice; he shivered. “Kroth.”

“Well, well, well—­here we are again.” A woman's voice. A voice he'd not heard for ages, but that he'd never truly forgotten.

Sahand sat up, stiff and sore. “Reldamar!”

Lyrelle Reldamar—­or her wraith, more accurately—­sat upon a boulder ten feet away. She wore a gown of deepest violet and white brocade, her hair tucked beneath a hat of bleached mink fur, her hands inside a matching muff. She looked older, but not by much.

Sahand roared and tried to stand, but his legs were too numb and he tumbled back into the snow. He sought to call the Fey to him, to burn Lyrelle or the image of her from existence, but it did not come.

Lyrelle chuckled from her perch, swinging her feet beneath her dress. “Oh, that won't work, Banric. You've done a terribly efficient job of siphoning off all the excess Fey in the area, so you won't be so much as lighting a candle without some doing. If only you had studied more broadly, alas.”

Sahand could scarcely form words—­how could
she
be here? How was this . . .
why
would she . . .

Lyrelle surveyed the slopes of the mountainside as they gleamed in the rising sun. “I must say, you do seem to select the nicest vistas upon which to hit rock bottom. Very pretty indeed.”

“This was your doing.” Sahand managed at last.

Lyrelle's blue eyes widened. “
Me?
Oh, no no no, Banric—­your defeat was not my doing. Not this time.” She smiled. “Well, not really.”

“Why?” Sahand snarled, teetering to his feet. “
WHY
do you torment me, witch?” He drew a shuddering breath, his body quaking in the freezing air.

Lyrelle pursed her lips in mock concern. “Oh my—­poor Banric Sahand, Mad Prince of Dellor. Why ever would the cruel world cheat him of his psychotic whims? Why should a heartless old sorceress interfere with his genocidal plots? It hardly seems fair, does it? Poor man. If you live to escape this mountainside a second time, I really
am
going to have to knit you something to keep warm. A fellow who tends to wind up half-­dead on mountainsides could really use a nice scarf.”

“BEGONE!” Sahand cast a lode-­bolt at her, but the blue-­white sphere ceased to exist a foot away from her. He roared at her, barely coherent.

Lyrelle's grin was the cruelest thing Sahand had ever seen. “I'll be on my way shortly—­no need to overstay my welcome. I did, however, feel I owed you a thank you in person.”

“For what? For failing to burn you and your whole stinking city into ashes? For being unable to crush the life from your bony old skull?” Sahand lunged at the image of Lyrelle, and succeeded only in hugging the boulder.

Lyrelle's wraith re-­formed behind him. “The last time we met here, I gave you a means to membership in the Sorcerous League. You didn't have to take it, you know, but I knew you would. I gave you what you wanted—­a way at revenge.” Sahand began to growl, but Lyrelle cut him off. “Oh, I know you thought you were playing a trick on me—­you think you're very clever, after all—­but no, Banric. You have been doing exactly what I've wanted you to for the past twenty-­seven years.” She gave him a shallow curtsey. “Thank you.”

Sahand felt the chill in his bones deepen somehow. “No. No, I don't believe you. I was mere moments away from
destroying
you.
Moments!”

Lyrelle rolled her eyes. “And I suppose it's entirely by chance that one of my former assistants just
happened
to be there to throw a snowball at you at the precise moment? Come now, Sahand—­I thought you knew me better than that.”

“No!”

“You have wasted twenty-­seven years of your life arguing with miserable, cantankerous sorcerers and hedge wizards instead of rebuilding your armies. You have poured your treasury into a long-­shot sorcerous ritual that even the Warlock Kings knew enough not to try. Do you know what the best part of it is, too? You, Banric Sahand, have single-­handedly done more damage to the Sorcerous League than I or my agents ever have.”

Sahand's fist clenched, but there was nothing to strike, nothing to destroy—­only Lyrelle Reldamar's smile, delivered to him from the safety of her home, hundreds of miles away. “NO!”

Lyrelle laughed. “You want to know whose doing this all was? That's the beauty of it:
yours
, Banric. It was, all of it, your own idea. I merely had to push you in the right direction, and you basically did the rest. You have, at long last, thoroughly and completely defeated
yourself.
”

“I'll kill you. Even if I die in the process, woman, I will drink your blood, understand? You've tricked me twice, but not again. Never again!”

Lyrelle's image began to fade. “My dear Banric, haven't you been listening? There won't
be
an ‘again.' These words of mine are the last nail in your coffin, you miserable, harmless old man.” She laughed just before vanishing, and the echoes of the illusory laughter rebounded off the mountain slopes, making it seem as though the whole world was, yet again, mocking his folly.

T
yvian Reldamar woke up in his own bed. He knew it was his own bed because the sheets were slashed in the same places Artus slashed them when he had his little temper tantrum. Even in tatters, the sheets on his bed were divine.

He heard somebody bustling in his kitchen and heard voices—­his specters didn't bustle and they certainly didn't talk. He tried to sit up but couldn't move. His body was like dead weight. “Hello?” he said. His voice was like the creaking of an unoiled hinge.

The first face he saw was Artus's, bandaged and haggard, as though the lad had just gone ten rounds with a razorboar. “You're awake!” he said in a half cheer.

“Astute, as always, Artus.”

Artus was joined by the tall, imposing figure of Myreon Alafarr in full Defender regalia, staff, mageglass armor, and all. Tyvian grimaced at her, and she stared down at him over her statuesque nose. “Tyvian Reldamar.”

“Magus Alafarr. I trust that I am in your custody?”

“I am led to believe that I was recently found dead. Is this true?”

Tyvian looked at Artus. The boy was grinning like an idiot. “Truth be told, Magus, my memory is a little hazy from the events leading up to . . . say, what happened, anyway?”

“The whole place exploded,”Artus said, “and then Myreon saved me, and Hool saved you, and . . .”

Myreon glared at him. “Artus, bring Master Reldamar some broth.”

Artus frowned. “But you said the broth weren't done yet!”

“
Wasn't
done yet,” Myreon corrected, and jerked her head toward the door, “and get out.”

When the boy had left, Myreon closed the door. “You
kissed
me.”

Tyvian groaned. “It . . . it seemed prudent at the time. It is no reflection upon my opinion of you, I assure you.”

“You saved my life when you could have saved your own, and you
kissed
me. Explain yourself.”

Tyvian opened his mouth to reply and then slammed it shut. “No. I don't owe you any such thing.”

Myreon nodded and took up Tyvian's right hand. There the ring continued to rest, quietly comfortable on his fourth finger. “This is a really very
interesting
piece of magecraft. Saldor would simply
love
to get its hands on it, I'm sure.”

“I have no doubt they are preparing you a heroine's welcome as we speak,” Tyvian grumbled, trying to tug his hand back but lacking the strength to do so.

“Hmmm . . .” Myreon placed his hand back on his stomach. “It's a real shame you will have escaped long before then.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Myreon shrugged. “Your elusiveness is well known, of course. No doubt you are already preparing an elaborate plot to dupe me yet again. I'd hardly be the first and certainly not the last. I doubt it would even hurt my career much, given how I single-­handedly stopped Banric Sahand from blowing up tens of thousands of ­people. Don't you think so?”

“You're . . . letting me go? Why? What's the catch?”

Myreon smiled at him for the first time in . . . well, the first time ever. It seemed to make her entire face glow. “Because, Tyvian Reldamar, that ring on your finger is a better prison guard than any penitentiary garden could ever hope to be.”

Tyvian found himself smiling, inexplicably, and he immediately masked it with a scowl. “You're just leaving, then?”

Her eyes flashed. “
Just
leaving? What, you expect me to stay for tea, after you
kidnapped
me, sold me to the bloody Kalsaaris and . . .”

“Fine, fine!” Tyvian sighed. “I surrender. Begone with you, then—­no tea for you. I merely thought, after all we've been through, it would have been
polite
to offer tea, you understand.”

Myreon snorted. “Polite?”

“Look, Myreon, either you're going to sit down and have some tea or you're going to get the hell out. Whatever you do, stop tarrying in my doorway.”

Myreon visibly composed herself before speaking again. Her voice was placid, officious. “I sincerely doubt we will cross paths again, sir.” She nodded politely. “Good day.”

Tyvian cocked an eyebrow. “What, no good-­bye kiss?”

The old familiar scowl settled onto Myreon's face like a comfortable hat. “Good-­
bye
, Tyvian.”

She left—­Artus later said she left on the spirit engine for Galaspin that same hour. Part of him cheered at her departure—­a weight off his chest, to be sure. Another part, well . . . he kept that part well locked away. It wasn't sensible.

Artus was staying. Like it or not, the boy insisted they were now partners, and Tyvian, seeing how he could scarcely move, was in no position to object. He set the boy about securing them passage on the next spirit engine—­unlisted, of course. He had no doubt Theliara's spies were still out there, ready to get vengeance. Then there was the League, and it was possible Sahand survived the explosion . . . gods, a lot of enemies

T
hat night, Hool came in the dark, sneaking in through the still-­broken window, Brana at her side. Tyvian woke up with a start, seeing her eyes glowing in the dark above him. “Kroth! Hool, can't you knock?”

“The mountain is still on fire,” she stated simply. Brana growled in support. “Sahand is still alive.”

Tyvian sighed. “I'm sorry, Hool, but he's beyond my reach now—­probably back in Dellor, cooking up some new atrocity to inflict on the world. You could chase him there, but I doubt—­”

“We are going with you now.”

“Hool, I've got problems of my own, all right? I can't take responsibility for yours.”

Hool crouched down and eyed his ring hand, sitting on top of the sheets. Tyvian pulled it out of sight. She sat herself on the bed across from him, her copper eyes flitting from his face to his hand. “That's the ring that Artus talks about. The one that makes you good.”

“It does nothing of the kind,” Tyvian said, his teeth clenching. “It . . . it just controls me.”

“That's stupid,” Hool said firmly. “Rings don't control ­people, not even magic ones. Everybody knows that.”

A squeaky howl issued mournfully from Brana, and Hool answered it with a shorter howl of her own. “Brana wants to know if you are okay.”

“What does Brana care?”

Hool blinked. “I told him that you saved him. He loves you.” She said those last three words as though they were common as the grass.

Tyvian glared at her. “You're learning how to mock, Hool. Good for you.”

One of Hool's arms shot out and pressed Tyvian against the headboard as easily as one might topple an empty chair. She loomed over the smuggler, the faint moonlight illuminating only her vast, furry silhouette. “I don't lie to my pups, and I don't lie to you. You think you're a bad person, but you aren't. Bad ­people break their promises, but you have kept yours to me and Brana. Bad ­people let other bad ­people get away with things because they are afraid, but you don't, because you are not afraid. I would tell you stories sung in the Taqar by my ­people about the heroes of old and the things that they did, but you would laugh at me. I will tell you, though, that if you cut off your paw because you hate this ring, you will be a coward and a bad person, and Brana will not love you anymore.”

Hool let him go, and added, “Neither will I.”

Tyvian looked up at Hool for a long, cold moment. He began half a dozen clever rejoinders but stopped before he got halfway. “You really will stick by me, won't you?”

Hool grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him to a sitting position. “As long as you are a good person, I will be your friend. Both of us will. Artus, too.”