All That Glitters (19 page)

L
ike everything else in Glamourvine, the kitchen was a work of architectural elegance unrivaled by anything Hool had seen with her own two eyes. With its low stone arches and fat brick ovens, it was a strange combination of fancy and cozy—­like a warm den, but cleaner and prettier. Maybe it was the scent of the garden drifting in through the open top half of the Eddon split-­door, or maybe it was the taste of centuries of cookfire ash embedded in the cool stone floor, or even just the quiet of the summer evening, and that certain magic that fell over the world between the time the sun set and the bugs came out—­whatever it was, Hool dozed contentedly before one of the wide brick hearths, calm and at peace for the first time in months.

The cook—­one of the few humans Hool had seen since arriving—­had surrendered her dominion over the kitchen to Hool, and she had taken advantage of it. The ham that had been intended for dinner existed now as only as a faint aroma and a polished bone left on a broad, sticky tray. She had then looted the stasis chamber of a great array of red meat and wolfed it down raw, grunting her approval—­it was fresh, as though just slaughtered. Hool knew it was sorcery, but for once she didn't care.

Eating in the human world was a difficult thing for a grown gnoll. In the Taqar, a pack of gnolls would take down a few bison and eat their fill in one grand feast. It would take hours—­after the initial drinking of the hot blood (a distinction reserved for the hunting party), the animal would then be butchered into meaty hunks and gulped down with great enthusiasm. The bits that escaped the initial feast would be roasted and then savored by the pack leaders and elders—­cooked meat was a delicacy—­while the young and the meek licked and cracked the bones. The inedible portions (the bowels, mostly) would be left for the jackals or the birds, and then everyone would sleep for the rest of the day. All told, Hool typically would ingest around twenty pounds of fresh meat per kill, and then would be able to go without food for several days. It was an efficient and enjoyable way to live.

Humans, Hool had concluded, ate like bison—­they grazed, a little at a time,
all
the time. They ate several meals a day of very small portions, which meant they basically spent all of their waking hours either eating, preparing to eat, or cleaning up after having eaten. Hool had spent the better part of the last few years being in a perpetual state of mild hunger thanks to this nonsense. Now, for the first time in a very, very long time, she had been permitted to eat her fill. Her stomach shuddering in gluttonous joy, she lay listening to the crickets' lullaby and imagined she was sleeping under the million stars of the Taqar sky with nary a human being in sight.

Tyvian stormed in and slammed the door behind him. “Bitch! Kroth take her!”

Hool sat up, her ears erect. “What happened?”

Tyvian looked her in the eye, and Hool was fairly certain she had never seen Tyvian angrier in her life. His face looked like it was going to split at the seams and run around screaming. “Don't trust her, Hool! Don't buy into the act, you understand?”

“Who?” Hool cocked her head. “Your mother?”

Tyvian threw up his hands, pacing the kitchen. “Who
else
would I be raging about?”

“Why are you mad at her for lying?” Hool snorted. “You lie and cheat ­people all the time. You like doing it.”

“This is
not
the same. I do what I do to be free, and she does what she does to clap ­people in chains, Hool—­she'll do the same to you, if you let her, understand? She isn't a mother, she's a
slave mistress,
dark-­hearted as the blackest Kalsaari fleshmonger!”

Hool laid her ears back. “Don't talk about your mother that way!” she barked. “She loves you!”

This made Tyvian's face turn practically purple.
“That,”
he snarled, jabbing a finger in Hool's direction, “is
complete
bullshit! Pernicious,
fatuous
nonsense!” He then stormed out the Eddon door and into the garden.

Hool watched him go and shook her head. “If he were my pup, I would beat him. Stupid humans,” she muttered in gnoll-­speak. She lay back down, turning herself around a few times to get the position just right, and put her head on her hands.

But she couldn't sleep. Hool knew it instantly—­sleep would not come. It would not come because Tyvian was about to do something very stupid, and she was the only one who could possibly prevent it. Worse still, if she didn't prevent it, she would wind up alone here, in this hostile land full of sorcery and hordes of smelly humans, and have no way of getting Brana and Artus back from whatever foolish trouble they had gotten
themselves
into. Hool sighed—­being the voice of reason was never a rewarding job.

She got up and took the door into the garden. Outside, the dusk dulled the wondrous flora into submission, letting fireflies take the stage as they drifted lazily on a humid breeze. She caught Tyvian's scent among the riotous array of smells wafting from the garden and set about following it.

Tracking him, she soon found herself in a hedge maze lit by strange, phosphorescent flowers sprouting from the hedges themselves. Abruptly she realized Tyvian's scent had vanished—­sorcery. She might have called out, but that would only reveal where she was—­that was a stupid, human thing to do. She was a gnoll; she was a hunter. She put her ears back, crouched low in the manicured grass and stalked her way forward.

There were no human sounds in the maze—­just the sound of the crickets and, farther away, an orchestra of swamp frogs seeking a mate. A minute later, taking a few turns on instinct, Hool found herself in a wide-­open space at the center of the maze. It was dominated by a broad, perfectly circular pond in which floated hundreds of lily pads and water blossoms. Fireflies buzzed around the pond's placid surface, granting the whole place an eerie starlight glow.

There, sitting on a stone bench at the edge of the pond and glittering like the moon, was a beautiful woman who smelled so strongly of magic it made Hool's eyes water—­it had to be Lyrelle Reldamar. The sorceress looked at her with Tyvian's eyes. “Finally I meet the mighty Hool—­I've been waiting for you.”

Hool didn't know how to react—­she had never seen a human so unconcerned by her presence before. It was unnerving. “What do you want?”

Lyrelle motioned for Hool to sit on the bench next to her. “To talk, that's all. One mother to another. It is so very rare that I am hostess to a great gnoll of the Taqar.”

Hool approached slowly, a few steps at a time, her hackles raised. “You are a sorceress—­I don't like that.”

If Lyrelle heard her, she gave no sign. “How would you describe your experience as a human female? I understand you've been going about in a shroud for some time now, correct?”

Hool's eyes narrowed. “How would you know that?”

Lyrelle shrugged and smiled sweetly. “Sorceress, remember?”

Hool settled on her haunches about three paces from Lyrelle. “Human men are idiots. They have no discipline. They are spoiled. I don't know how you let them boss you all around.”

Lyrelle laughed; her voice was like music. “Oh, but not all of us do, dear Hool.” She passed her hand, palm downward, over the pool of water and gazed into it. “Of course, those of us who do not obey draw the ire of the men who seek to dominate us. They call us names—­witch, temptress, liar . . .”

“I know. Does this have a point? I am looking for Tyvian.” Hool edged closer, trying to see what Lyrelle was looking at in the pool, but from her perspective it just looked like still water.

Lyrelle fell silent for a moment, then took a deep breath. “Your son—­your pup—­what is his name?”

“Brana. Why?”

“You are upset with him, aren't you?”

Hool didn't like where this was going; her body tensed. “How do you know that? Can you read my mind? Stop it.”

Lyrelle sighed. “All creatures desire one thing above all other things—­freedom. They wish to be free to determine their own path, to shape their own fate. This is true, yes—­you've felt it, I've felt it. All of us. It's very sad, really.”

“Why? What do you mean?” Hool shook her head. “You are trying to confuse me.”

Lyrelle stood up and stepped to the edge of the pond. She looked Hool in the eye. “When was the last time you were truly free?”

Hool thought, despite herself. She thought back to life on the Taqar, running with the pack, the breeze through her fur. Was that freedom? Maybe not—­she was bound by various obligations to the pack even then. “You are trying to trick me.”

Lyrelle smiled. “Your son, my son, you, me—­all of us want to be independent of the world around us. We all buy into the fiction that we make our own decisions, but we do not.” She touched a finger to the surface of the water, sending ripples out in every direction. “As mothers, we understand this, don't we? As soon as you look into the eyes of that screaming little thing and it looks back at you . . .” Lyrelle closed her eyes, breathing deeply. “ . . . you know your choices are no longer your own. You are bound, more keenly than any sorcerer ever bound any demon.”

“You're saying that Brana doesn't understand this. Neither does Tyvian.” Hool nodded. “What does that have to do with me? Why are you bothering me with it?”

Lyrelle opened her eyes. “Do you think I'm a monster, Hool?”

Hool snorted—­that was some question to be asked by a
human.
“No. There are no monsters.”

Lyrelle laughed again. “Oh, there are—­there very much are, my friend, let me assure you. But I am not one. I have simply recognized my place in the world—­I am not free, not any more than you are. I am bound to the things that make me who I am. Those who call me witch simply misunderstand my guile for cruelty.”

Hool frowned. The woman was talking like a lunatic. “Why are you telling me all this?”

Lyrelle laughed. “I'm distracting you, Hool.”

Hool stiffened. “What?”

Lyrelle nodded. “I need to keep you out of the way long enough so that the Defenders don't encounter any surprises while arresting my son.”

Hool stood.
“WHAT?”

Lyrelle, though dwarfed by the size of the gnoll before her, seemed entirely at ease. “Why yes—­haven't you noticed the maze has changed?”

Hool lunged for Lyrelle but passed through where the sorceress ought to be. There was nothing there—­only the fading shadow of the great sorceress's simulacrum. Her voice floated on the wind. “
It is for the best, Hool. It is best for our sons, too.”

Hool spun around, looking for an exit to the clearing—­there was none, or none easily seen. “No!” She rushed to the hedge, trying to force her way through, but the enchanted plants pushed her back out. “NO!”

Above, in the distance, Hool heard the cry of griffons on the wind.

 

T
yvian knew who the gardener he had seen through the window was. He knew it in his bones.

He stormed past the perfectly coiffed flower beds and the artfully arranged wisteria vines; he pushed his way through a hedge (a childhood shortcut, now overgrown), skipped across the stepping-­stones in a reflecting pool, and found himself at the gardener's shed. There was a fire burning inside, throwing a cheery light through the single, vine-­wreathed window. Tyvian didn't bother knocking. “
Eddereon!
Come out here! Face me!”

The door opened and there stood Eddereon, but not the hairy mountain-­dweller Tyvian had first met. He had shaved and cut his hair; he wore a simple white shirt and blue canvas trousers, but they were clean and well-­kept, as though regularly laundered. But for his size and the wild, black chest hair curling out from beneath his collar, Tyvian might never have recognized him. Eddereon smiled his toothy smile. “Well met, Tyvian Reldamar.”

Tyvian resisted the urge to slug him in the guts. “Don't give me that storybook bullocks, Eddereon. How did you know I would be here? How long have you been waiting for me?”

Eddereon rubbed where his beard used to be. “Well, it's been almost a year since your mother hired me. Ever since that stunt in Galaspin with the ballista and the schooner—­lost track of you there, so I came here.”

Tyvian scowled. “Thick as thieves, you and Lyrelle, eh?”

Eddereon closed his eyes and nodded, sighing. “She told you. Please—­won't you come in?”

Tyvian eyed the shed—­it barely looked large enough to contain Eddereon, let alone both of them. “Astrally expanded?”

Eddereon shook his head and went inside. “I'm just a simple man with simple needs.”

Tyvian scowled but followed him. There was a small hearth with a clutch of small logs, cheerfully aflame. Beyond that, there were two chairs, a trunk, and a hammock hung out of the way but clearly intended to be strung from one corner of the shed to the other. On the walls there was an array of hoes, shears, spades, rakes, and saws hung neatly between precisely placed wooden pegs. Eddereon sat down to face the fire; when Tyvian sat down across from him, their knees were touching. Tyvian tried crossing his legs, but that would mean roasting either a foot or a knee over the fire. He resigned himself to pressing his knees together, like a virgin at church.

“Do not be too angry with Lady Lyrelle, Tyvian,” Eddereon said, poking at the fire with a stick. “She did what was best for you—­she did what was best for all of us.”

Tyvian had almost forgotten how aggravating it was having a conversation with this man—­his “Initiator.” He steeled himself against unneeded profanity. “Tell me how to get this Kroth-­spawned bastard off my bloody hand, you hairy pit-­spawned barbarian.”

Eddereon smiled. “I've already told you—­you must become Redeemed.”

Tyvian punched the wall, which made a rake fall from its place and nearly hit him in the head. “Kroth!” He ducked, wrestled with the thing, and then tossed it into a corner. “What does that
mean
? What the hell does ‘Redeemed' mean—­stop telling me riddles, you moron! Out with it!”

Eddereon raised his hands. “Please, please—­calm yourself. I am not being unclear because I'm trying to mislead you. I was told by
my
Initiator that joining the ranks of the Redeemed was the only path to removing the ring. He did not say what that meant—­I do not think he knew, and he died before he found out, Hann bless him. What I tell you is merely what I have been told and have reasoned out for myself.”

Tyvian frowned. “And you have no contact with other members of this . . . this Iron Order?”

Eddereon shrugged. “I've met a few over the years, adventured with a ­couple for a time, but never for long. None of them knew any more than I, even those who gained the ability to bestow the ring on others.”

“Why do it? Why shackle others to this fate? Surely the ring hasn't addled your brain so much that you forget who you were before it tortured you into . . . into whatever you think you are now.”

Eddereon smiled. “Do you still think you would be better off without the ring in your life, Tyvian?”

“I do not think—­I know with certainty.” Tyvian looked at the ring—­
his
ring—­in the firelight. It glittered darkly, a pool of shadow on his right hand. “This object is the stupidest way for someone to improve their character I can think of. It doesn't make you better, it makes you a naive idiot.”

Eddereon considered this, sitting back in his chair so his shoulders almost touched the wall. “The Thembra of the Eastern Sea have a saying: ‘Only the innocent can save the world.' I think on it often. I think that, perhaps, becoming more naive is the only way to make us better men.”

“You mean
deader
men. The world doesn't need innocence and guileless platitudes, Eddereon—­it needs wisdom and intelligence, neither of which the ring considers when it doles out its judgment. Everything has context—­try and save the world, and you wind up dooming it in a hundred ways you never considered.”

Eddereon frowned. “Was that the case with Sahand? If you had not acted, he would have destroyed three cities worth of ­people and then invaded the rest. You saved millions of lives.”

“That was dumb luck.” Tyvian snorted. “Besides, I didn't defeat Sahand at all—­Myreon Alafarr did. The wages for her victory? She gets framed for a crime she didn't commit and is a statue in some penitentiary garden somewhere, and all because my mother wants to play head games with me. Believe me, Eddereon—­no good deed goes unpunished.”

Eddereon stared into the fire, as though trying to witness the moment of combustion itself. “You mustn't believe that, Tyvian. We can't believe that.”

Tyvian sighed—­what was the point of this conversation anyway? The idiot knew nothing. It was almost pitiful. Still, he kept talking. “My mother implied that the ring was some kind of filter for our better selves—­it collected our ‘goodness,' so to speak, and we could later draw upon it. That was the gist of it, anyway.”

Eddereon nodded, his eyes still far away. “Much of what I know I have learned from your mother and, before that, from the Sorcerous League and Tarlyth. I sought them out to try and unlock the ring's mysteries, but I only wound up with more questions.”

Tyvian looked at his fellow victim of the ring as if seeing him with fresh eyes. He noted that, without the beard, he could actually place Eddereon's age—­in his mid-­forties, most likely. “How long have you had the ring?”

“A decade, perhaps a bit longer.” Eddereon shrugged, “When I was first bestowed with it, I did my best to forget my pains. I drank and whored for a long, long time, deadening my senses with booze and ink and tooka.”

“I've learned there's a way to get it off, you know,” Tyvian said quietly. “Cleanly. Without undue side-­effects, or so I was told.”

Eddereon stiffened. “If that were true, you would have done it.”

Tyvian shrugged. “I can't find them. I scoured every book of history and mythology I could get my hands on, and I don't even know where to start looking. An Artificer told me about them—­they are called the Yldd. He claimed he had done me some disser­vice—­they sound like unpleasant fellows, whoever or whatever they are.”

Eddereon shuddered. “You must put it out of your mind, Tyvian. The ring seems a burden at first—­this I know—­but it changes you for the better. I know I am a better man, but I needed to learn to cast off the man I once was. You must do this, too. You cannot live the same life you led before.”

“Not a chance.” Tyvian smirked. “That reminds me—­do you have any lamp oil in here?”

Eddereon looked away from the fire. “I've got a whole jug—­why?”

“I would be most appreciative if you would pour the whole jug all over me—­focus on the doublet and shirt, if you wouldn't mind.”

“Why?”

Tyvian smiled, “I'm about to be arrested.”

T
he initial stages of Tyvian's arrest had involved somewhere between ten and a dozen different mirror men kicking him in the stomach over and over again as he lay on the ground in the fetal position. Following that, everything was smooth and orderly. Within twelve hours he had been returned to the city via griffon-­back, charged, processed, and installed in the dungeons beneath Keeper's Court—­an ancient castle at the center of the Old City in which the legal machinery of Saldor was now housed.

As dungeons went, this one was downright comfortable. There was a canvas cot in good working order, a small stool, a chamber pot, and fresh straw. There was even a little barred ventilation shaft that admitted the sunlight from above. Too small to squeeze through, but just large enough to admit a little bit of a breeze and the scent of street vendors selling fried fish. Tyvian lounged on the cot, hands behind his head, and smiled. So far, things were going smoothly.

The Defenders had thoroughly searched him, but of course had not found anything of interest other than the fact that he reeked of lamp oil. When they asked him about it, he just said he had spilled some on himself in his effort to escape. The ring had given him a bit of a squeeze for that, but the momentary pain had been worth it: everything was proceeding according to plan.

A Defender rapped on the door. “Hey! Someone here to see you!”

Tyvian brushed some garden turf off his clothes and sat up in time for the door to swing open. Xahlven was clad in the black robes of his office but had been compelled to leave his magestaff outside. His fingers, though, were bedecked with a half-­dozen rings featuring amethysts, emeralds, and garnets—­every one of them, no doubt, contained a potent enchantment. It was always important, Tyvian knew, to remember that no one who had achieved the rank of archmage could ever be anything other than extremely dangerous.

He smiled at his brother. “Xahlven! Pull up a stool!” He kicked the tiny, three-­legged thing across the floor.

Xahlven rolled his eyes. “Gallows humor?”

Tyvian shrugged. “You never know—­I might get off. They're charging me with a murder I didn't commit.”

Xahlven nodded. “And several murders you very likely did commit.”

“I deny them all,” Tyvian said, wincing as the ring clamped down on his hand. “I can be very persuasive.”

Xahlven shook his head and pointed at Tyvian's hand. “Not with that you can't.” He sighed. “Would you like help with your defense? I can testify for you.”

Tyvian looked up at his older brother, all dashing with his dimpled chin and golden locks. Yes, he bet Xahlven
could
testify for him—­probably even give him a fighting chance at acquittal. “No thank you. Very kind of you—­most brotherly—­but no.”

Xahlven scowled. “Tyvian, don't let your idiotic pride get in the way of—­”

“My pride?
My
pride?” Tyvian laughed. “You're enjoying this, aren't you? You've been waiting for this to happen for years—­
years
! Now here it is, your moment of glory: step into your brother's cell, make him an offer, watch him swell with gratitude. Big brother to the rescue and, by the way, ‘I told you so.' ”

Xahlven's sunny face darkened. “Unlike you, Tyvian, I have concerns and beliefs that deal with matters larger than
myself
. You have always taken exception to that—­you have never understood.”

“Oh, I understand.” Tyvian shook his head. “I understand that you are so far under mother's influence that you don't even realize how she's shaped you. You're a mini-­Lyrelle, do you know that?” He sighed. “You
must
know that—­how could you not? That was why you condescended to me all those years. You were jealous.”

Xahlven laughed. “Jealous? Why?”

Tyvian stood up and got in his brother's face. “Because, unlike you, I
escaped
her. I went off and lived my life on my own bloody terms, and you had your whole life planned out—­the tutors, the schooling, the Arcanostrum, the Black College, even the bloody office of archmage! Tell, me, Xahlven—­have you ever, even
once
, made a decision for yourself? Hmm?”

Xahlven didn't even blink. “I am not here to dig up old feuds, Tyvian. I'm here to help you. I take it you know Andolon's plot?”

Tyvian stepped back, trying to calm his pulse. “What—­the market crash he thinks he can pull off? Yes, obviously. He tried to hire me. I assume you have a counterstroke.”

Xahlven nodded. “As a matter of fact, I do—­you.”

Tyvian sat on the cot and leaned back against the wall. A little tingle wafted through his body—­a tingle of triumph. “Ahhhh—­so
that's
it. You want me to offer the court Gethrey in exchange for leniency. Even if they don't go for it, I will draw their attention toward him—­he's only lasted this long because nobody besides you and mother have noticed him.”

Xahlven nodded. “Just so. Well?”

“Why should I?”

“Because you don't wish to be turned to stone and left in a garden to molder for the better part of two decades.”

Tyvian smiled at his brother, reveling in the fact that, for once, he knew something that Xahlven didn't. “No thank you.”

“Tyvian, the entire Western economy could collapse! The damage it could do . . .”

Tyvian shrugged. “You forget, brother—­I'm a smuggler. Financial chaos is good for me. Sounds fun.”

“You would bankrupt our family out of spite?” Xahlven shook his head.

Tyvian glared at him. “Spare me! Don't pretend you and Mother haven't moved to sidestep this little crash already—­hell, you could warn the investors in the Secret Exchange yourself, if you wanted to, but you'd rather it be done like this, since if you said something it would become immediately obvious you were withholding information that could destroy the very banking system that keeps the magi and the sorcerous families on top of the world. And then,” Tyvian motioned to his cell, “and then you would get to experience this cell for yourself.”