All That Glitters (30 page)

Selecting the widest of the gaps between the mageglass plates—­the fissure between the breastplates and back plates that ran along the top of the construct—­Tyvian raised his iron bar and drove the end of it into the opening as far as it would go. He managed a ­couple inches of depth, which he hoped would be enough.

“What in blazes are you doing? Stop that!”
Gethrey shook his torso around, running farther down the street as he did.

Tyvian clung to his bar for dear life, staring daggers through the mageglass at his former friend. “I used to like you, Gethrey.”

“You'
re the one who changed, Tyvian
.
”
Gethrey dropped a shoulder and charged through a low-­hanging footbridge, hoping to smash Tyvian flat, but Tyvian was too quick and adjusted his handholds to shift position and hang from the crystal-­plated back again. Stone and mortar exploded, showering the street below. Tyvian could hear ­people screaming. Bells were ringing. He smelled smoke.

Gethrey looked back and forth until he spotted Tyvian again, crawling back to his shoulders.
“You used to understand the relationship we had with these commoners—­reveled in it, even. We didn't slum it at the Cauldron all those years because we liked the ­people, we slummed it because we had power over these ­people—­we were free of all the restrictions of polite society because nobody could stop us!”

Tyvian grimaced at the words—­Gethrey was right, in a sense. It had started that way. He honestly couldn't say when that had changed. He gripped the iron bar and began to pull, trying to pry the plates apart. Even with his ring-­altered strength, nothing budged.

Gethrey laughed.
“Who do you think you are? Landar the Holy? Saint Handras? Don't be ridiculous.”
He put both shoulders down and this time charged headfirst into a slender Hannite chapel. The stone belltower shuddered from the impact, and the force of it caused Tyvian to lose his grip. He flew off the colossus's shoulders and wound up skidding across the chapel's steeply angled roof. His head spun as he flailed around for some purchase on the lead shingles. He managed to grab a gargoyle before he plummeted into the alley below.

“I really don't understand why you turned down my offer, you know
.
”
Gethrey moved into the alley so he was just beneath Tyvian and rolled his shoulders, preparing for the kill.
“Who cares what happens to these pointless little ­people? I'm sure they'll survive somehow. Gods, Tyvian—­the only thing they
do
is survive. They survive to leech off of the rich, and we pay them to amuse us.”

Tyvian climbed to his feet on the roof of the chapel, looking down at his former friend. He broke a heavy stone gargoyle off from its perch and hefted it like he meant to throw. “You make them all sound like whores.”

Gethrey smiled and nodded.
“
They are whores, Tyv. Every commoner who takes a copper for my custom is my whore, to do with as I please
.
It's the way of the world
.
You, of all ­people, should understand
.
”
He shook his head.
“But seeing as you don't . . .”

Gethrey raised both colossal mageglass hands above his head and formed a huge fist, intending to drop it and crush Tyvian in one titanic blow. Tyvian waited for it to fall and, at the last moment, put all the power the ring had into one last leap. He sailed over and past the colossus's fists and came hurtling down on Gethrey's head.

Or, more accurately, on the iron bar he had placed as a wedge. The gargoyle—­which had to weigh at least a hundred pounds—­hit the bar square, with all the momentum of gravity and Tyvian's own bodyweight behind it. The mageglass plates themselves might have been impenetrable, but the telekinetic force holding them all together couldn't be—­not if the thing was able to move. All it took was the right amount of force in the right spot.

Tyvian split open the top of Gethrey's colossus like an oyster. Another pry, and Gethrey—­wide-­eyed, caught in mid-­laugh—­was clearly visible in the flesh. Another second and Tyvian knew that Gethrey would beg for his life, weep for forgiveness, and the rest of it—­and the ring wouldn't let him kill him. With Hendrieux, he had waited and lived to regret it. Some ­people deserved to die, no matter what the ring thought about it. He pulled the iron bar loose from the opened colossus and raised it over his head.

“Tyv, I—­” Gethrey began.

Tyvian plunged the blunt end of the weapon down with all his strength, crushing Gethrey's skull in a grisly demonstration of mass and inertia. The colossus stumbled forward with Gethrey's last convulsions, throwing Tyvian atop the church hard and knocking his head against a stone buttress. Then the colossus faded from existence, vanishing into the alley below along with the murder weapon and the body of Tyvian's former friend.

The ring's power abandoned him then, leaving Tyvian weak and injured, on his back. He stared up at the stars and wondered by what destiny had he been born that forced him to kill so many of his friends.

There was a white glow from somewhere. Myreon was standing over him, light pouring from a tattler at her shoulder. He smiled at her, “M-­Myreon? Thank the gods . . . I . . . I thought I was dead!”

Myreon's eyes were hard as stone. “You're going to wish you were, you son of a bitch.”

 

H
ool reached the outskirts of Saldor well after dark, but she did not slow her pace. She blazed down the cobbled streets, making no effort to disguise her passing. Those who got in her way were bowled over—­it wasn't her fault that the humans were too slow and too stupid to move, and she wasn't about to let up just to spare them some bruises.

She had counted the moments from when Lyrelle told her Artus was going to die but had no idea if she was too late or not. She had never quite gotten the hang of human timekeeping, especially at night, where the moon was a traitor and did not tell you how late in the evening it was. Her every heartbeat was a wish for her feet to go faster, for her journey to end, for her to be
in time.

Artus did not think so, but Hool knew she was responsible for him. He thought he was very grown up, of course—­human pups all did at that age, just like gnoll pups when they reached six or seven and were almost full grown—­but Artus had a lot to learn about the world. Like most males, Tyvian was useless for this kind of task. Artus needed a mother, and Hool was it.

And she would
not
lose another pup. Never again. Not even if she needed to kill every single human between here and the Taqar to prevent it. In the front of her mind, visions of Api's tanned hide mingled with the sight of Artus's blood in the Reldamar witch's premonition. They were so horrifying they nearly made her blind with anguish, and she howled into the night to release the pain. The pain, though, would not go. It stayed with her, a knot just above her heart that only having Artus and Brana safe in her arms could untie.

She reached the first squad of Defenders along the banks of the Narrow Mouth as she was about to cross the bridge into Crosstown. They had heard her coming and they thought her a monster. They bustled themselves into rows, their magic spears pointing out at her, squinting into the gloom of the summer evening.

Hool paused atop a roof, looking down at them. They blocked the bridge—­there was no other way across without going another mile down the river. She could not jump over—­their spears were long and she might be stabbed. Fine then. She would go through.

She drew the mace that Lyrelle Reldamar had called the Fist of Veroth. The iron head was fashioned in a complex, swirling pattern, like that of flames frozen in black metal. She could feel its weight as a kind of destiny, ready to fall. It wanted to be struck; it craved battle. The smell of sorcery made her nostrils flare—­this weapon had an evil feel. But then, she supposed all weapons did. This one would do.

The Defenders stood, waiting, eyeing every shadow. Their leader—­their
sergeant—­
stood at the edge of the column, holding his sword aloft, ready to give the signal. Hool resolved to kill him first.

She charged them from their left, leaping from a rooftop, the Fist of Veroth above her head, roaring for all her worth. From beneath, she imagined they could see the outline of her body and the glitter of her eyes in the dim light but nothing more. The effect was as she had hoped—­they froze, if only for an instant.

An instant was all it took to kill the sergeant. She brought the Fist of Veroth down on his head, crushing him all at once, as though he had been hit by a boulder. There was a flash of orange light—­like flame, only angrier—­and the ground shuddered beneath her feet. Many of the Defenders fell down, the others staggered back. Hool raised the enchanted mace again, and a fiery light bloomed from its heavy head—­the iron was no longer iron, but molten fire, burning and stirring like a piece of the sun itself. The Defenders, their eyes wide, fled before her weapon and her wrath. This suited her fine—­she darted over the bridge.

Three more times was she forced to confront the Defenders, and each time the Fist of Veroth crushed their bodies and scattered their defenses. What its head touched was destroyed utterly. A Defender roadblock of two overturned wagons was reduced to flinders with one blow, its guardians scattered to the ground like bowling pins. Hool was an unstoppable juggernaut—­humans fled before her wrath. Warning bells rang.

At last she caught scent of Artus. It was mixed with the smell of ash and fire, and she wondered if it was the fist throwing off her senses, but no—­there was fire and ash ahead, too. She put all her strength into covering those last few blocks.

The Defenders had Artus tied, hand and foot, and were carrying him between two of them. A mage with a staff stood at the head of a column of seven or eight men in mirrored armor stained with dust and cinders. Her heart seized—­was he alive or dead? Was she too late?

Then she heard the most blessed thing: Artus cursing. “Kroth take you stinking mirror men! I can walk, dammit! You didn't need to bind my bloody ankles, you pack of filthy arses!”

Hool emerged from her hiding place, growling, “Let the boy go.”

The Defenders took up their weapons. The mage raised his staff. “Stand back, beast!” he said in a clear voice. “You are no match for me!”

Hool brandished her enchanted mace. “If you do not let him go, I will kill you all.”

The mage's dark eyes widened at the swirling, molten head of the weapon. “My arts are quite powerful! I warn you!”

Hool got closer and the Defenders backed up, along with the mage. Then she noticed something—­the flames at the tips of the magic spears were mere flickers, barely alive. The mage's eyes were ringed with dark circles, his every step a labor, and his joints were stiff. These men were exhausted, their weapons nearly spent. The mage, if he could have worked a spell to hold her, would have done so already. They were no match for her, especially not with her weapon.

She found herself raising the fist, ready to strike, her legs tensing to charge and crush them all in one mighty blow—­she had barely thought of it, moving as though by instinct. It would be the easiest thing in the world. What's more, she wanted to feel the heavy thrum of the fist's power as it was expended. She wanted to watch the shockwave of force as it destroyed them. She craved these things as she craved a good slab of antelope meat. She took a step forward.

“Hool?” Artus said. “Hool! Don't do it, okay?”

“What?” Hool asked, advancing forward, swinging her weapon to and fro.

The mage invoked some kind of blast of white light, but Hool felt it rebuffed by the aura of the mace. Two Defenders charged, their pikes out. Hool knocked the first weapon aside and, spinning, brought her weapon into contact with the man's shoulder. He disintegrated into a shower of charred gore and bone with a meaty
THROOM!
The second man was knocked sprawling by the shock wave. Hool kept advancing.

Artus's voice seemed far away.
“Hoool!”

Firepikes discharged, but their flaming bolts were drawn in by the swirling heat of the Fist of Veroth and it seemed to grow angrier in Hool's hands. More restless. She struck another blow, and three men died for it, their bodies pulped beneath their shields. Hool snarled in satisfaction. Good—­they deserved to die. She just didn't remember quite why.

Men fled before her, and soon there was only a boy, bound hand and foot, cowering before her. The Fist of Veroth impelled itself aloft, ready to strike the final blow. Ready to secure her ultimate victory.

The boy was yelling at her.
“Hool! Snap out of it!”

Hool's nostrils flared—­how dare he make demands of her? Some lowly human who smelled of—­

“Artus!”

Memory came flooding back, and with it self-­control. Hool dropped the enchanted mace onto the street; it landed with a heavy thump, embedded in the stone. Hool looked around her—­she stood at the center of a blackened expanse of street, the buildings around her all sporting broken windows. The twisted, misshapen remains of several Defenders lay about the ground, unmoving.

“Dammit, Hool—­what the hell got into you there? Kroth, I thought I was dead! You were gonna . . .”

Artus's complaints were muffled by Hool's fur as she picked him up and hugged him. After a time, she let him go. “I thought you might die.”

Artus nodded, incredulous. “Yeah, me too! Are you okay?”

Hool glared at the Fist of Veroth, which stood cooling in the center of the street, awaiting a wielder. “She lied to me,” she said at last. “This was what she wanted. She wanted me to be a monster. But I'm not. She is wrong.”

“Who?”

Hool's lips curled back. “Tyvian's mother.”

M
yreon grabbed Tyvian by the shirt and dragged his torso out over the edge of the roof. She stood over him, shaking him up and down. “You son of a bitch! You lied to me! I should . . . I should
kill you
! Tell me what the plan is! Tell me, or so help me Hann, I will drop you to your death, you scum!”

Tyvian, strangely, seemed unmoved. His initial surprise degraded into that same damned infuriating smile. “Been talking to Xahlven, have you?”

Myreon spat in his face. Her arms trembled from exhaustion. “Don't smile at me, Reldamar—­your brother explained everything to me. You've been behind this the entire time, haven't you? You even arranged to have me framed—­you had me
turned to stone
just so you could swoop in and rescue me! And to think . . .” Myreon found tears welling in her eyes. She blinked them away—­they only made her angrier. “I ought to kill you right now!”

Tyvian spoke carefully and slowly. “Myreon, I want you to think about this. I didn't do this. I am not behind this plot. I have not been lying to you.” He held up the ring for her to see. “See this? I couldn't do that to you if I
wanted
to.”

“All these years—­all these
years
of your vicious little plots!” Myreon was full-­on crying now. She wasn't sure how much longer she could hold Tyvian like this. She felt her fingers slipping from his bloody shirt lapels. “I am so
tired
of your lies, you miserable spoiled rich boy bastard!”

Tyvian nodded. “You're right. I'm a liar and I'm spoiled and, yes, I am, quite literally, a bastard. But Myreon, this is how my brother works—­he uses ­people, and he's even better at it than I am. You stormed in there and confronted him, and he told you the absolute most effective thing to get you off his back—­
he
played you, not me.”

“How do I know?” Myreon blinked her eyes, trying to see Tyvian's face clearly. “How can I possibly know?”

Tyvian heaved a heavy sigh, even though he was slipping ever closer to falling off a church roof. “Because . . . well . . .”

“Tell me!”
Myreon roared at him. She was barely holding him by his fingertips.

A tear leaked from Tyvian's eye—­from
Tyvian Reldamar's
eye—­and when he spoke, his voice sounded wooden, as though he could scarcely make it obey him. “When I found you beneath Daer Trondor—­”

“Don't you
dare
!” Myreon spat. “No!”

Tyvian grabbed her by the wrists. “You were
dead,
Myreon! Dead, you understand? It nearly killed me to know that! I didn't think so then, maybe—­I was too caught up in things—­but it's bloody true! I . . .” He paused, his voice nearly cracking, “I couldn't live with myself to know you had died. I
couldn't
.”

Myreon barely found her voice. “Why?”

Tyvian looked her in the eye. “Because . . . because you are the best person I know.”

Their hands, slick with sweat and blood, slipped from one another. Tyvian slid off the roof with a shocked grunt. Myreon leapt to her feet. “No! Nooo!” She dove to the roof's edge and reached out with all of her Art. On the fly, she inverted a feyleap and thrust it at Tyvian, stopping him mid-­fall and propelling him
up
at her.

He arced, ungainly, up through the air, and then fell into her arms. His weight pushed both of them onto their backs on the tile roof of the church. She found herself staring down into his eyes and found him staring up into hers. He gave her a shy smile. “Don't look so horrified. This is hardly the first roof I've been thrown off today.”

Myreon grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him close. “You goddamned idiot!”

This time, for the first time, they kissed each other.