The Last Lies of Ardor Benn Read online

  “Oh, I’m not going to soak,” Ard said.

  “No,” she replied, still beckoning. “You are not.”

  Ard nodded, digging into his Grit belt for his money pouch. He hadn’t brought his Rollers as a show of good faith, but he had a loaded Singler tucked into his vest.

  He plucked out five metal Ashlits and dropped them into the waiting blue hand. The woman rubbed her fingers over the coins to feel for the marks and then plunged them into a pocket on her loose, flowing smock. Ard followed her closely into the soakhouse, wisely keeping his mouth shut so he wouldn’t accidentally say something offensive.

  A nice summer breeze kept the pavilion fresh, passing over the exterior fence and the interior maze-like dividers. The woman led Ard down a narrow wooden walkway in the middle of the floor alongside a deep central canal, where Ard saw several Trothians swimming.

  From time to time, Ard caught a glimpse of one of the pools behind a partition. They were large enough to comfortably accommodate a dozen people. The baths were maybe four feet deep, recessed directly into the ground with canals running under the walkways to connect them.

  Ard saw Trothian men, women, and children—many of them lying completely underwater. The noise wasn’t yelling, Ard discovered. Rather, certain groups would burst out in chant-like singing. Cupping their hands, they would strike the water’s surface in complex overlapping percussive patterns.

  Walking the damp planks, Ard was suddenly struck by the depth of the Trothian culture. Their bright noise was a far cry from the silent reverence of the Mooring, but both were supposedly religious sites of worship. And despite the difference in behavior, Ard suddenly saw some startling similarities.

  The soakhouse, with its interconnected pools, was not unlike the waterway of the Mooring. There, Landers took rafts across the waters, seeking dry Coves for spiritual healing and guidance. Here, the Trothians swam the central canal, ducking into shallower pools for their restoration.

  It’s because we all came from the same place, Ard thought. Isle Halavend had seen it, even if he hadn’t understood. When Lyndel and the old Isle had embarked on their joint study, they had found a shocking number of correlations between their seemingly contrastive religions.

  “The presence of your kind during fajumar makes many of my people uncomfortable,” the woman explained.

  “Fajumar?”

  “It is our word for the saltwater soak,” she said. Ard noticed a Trothian woman and child dive under the water’s surface at the sight of him. “Your queen was right to open all borders to us again, but Lander offenses against Trothians in Beripent are not easily forgotten.”

  Ard nodded. “I just want to make it clear that I’ve always been on your side. What Pethredote did to your people was terrible. And Termain was no better. Queen Abeth is doing her best to set things right.”

  “That is what happens when you let a woman rule.”

  The narrow boardwalk reached its end near the back of the pavilion, where a genuine stone building rose to join the roof, unlike the wooden fence on the other three sides. In a way, it looked like this was a home, and the rest of the pavilion was some kind of extended covered patio.

  “The Be’Igoth,” the woman said, gesturing to the closed wooden door. The word sounded a lot smoother coming out of her mouth. “Or in your language, the hot bath.”

  Ah. He suddenly understood how foolish he must have sounded, insisting that he had an appointment with the hot bath.

  The woman reached out her thin arm and knocked a quick rhythm on the door. It was answered almost immediately by a large Trothian man wearing nothing but a tight pair of shorts. The black hair on his chest was thick and curly, half concealing the pendant that dangled at the end of his gold necklace.

  The man and the woman conversed briefly in Trothian before the big fellow stepped aside and gestured for Ard to enter.

  “Thanks,” Ard said to the woman.

  “Geppel,” she said by way of introduction. “I assume we’ll be seeing more of each other in the near future.” She winked one blurry eye in a distinctly Landerian gesture, then turned and walked away, leaving Ard to puzzle over her comment in the doorway.

  “Come in, come in!” beckoned a gruff voice from inside the dark building. Ard casually checked to make sure his Singler was accessible, then stepped inside.

  It felt like walking into a cave, the midday sun completely blotted out inside the windowless structure. Hot, heavy steam filled the expansive room, making Ard feel instantly sticky as he squinted.

  The conditions wouldn’t be a problem for the unique Trothian vision, but Ard felt half blind. At least someone had detonated a few orbs of Light Grit. They hovered in the steam like stars in a midnight fog.

  The vapor in the room was rising from the pool at its center. It looked deeper than any of the ones he’d seen outside, but it took up only about half of the room. The rest of the floor was open, the high ceiling supported by stone pillars roughly hewn with square corners. A rack of Heat Grit pots lined the back wall and on both sides were individual stalls with privacy curtains for disrobing.

  Ard startled at movement through the mist. The person had likely been there all along, visibility was so poor in here. Ard took a step closer, hand close to the Singler in his vest. There was something familiar about the hunkering mound of man crouched at the edge of the bath. The figure raised an ugly face, and Ard saw him clearly in the glimmer of the Light Grit.

  “Hedge Marsool.” Ard whispered the name. The King Poacher himself. He felt a chill, at odds with the sticky humidity.

  “And here I thought you’d forgotten about me.”

  The man was an alarming sight, the left side of his face terribly disfigured with thick scars that looked like thin crisscrossing ropes of red and white. A leather patch concealed his eye on that side, and sparse brown hair grew only on the right half of his head, hanging almost to his shoulder.

  His left arm was missing from the elbow down, and in its place he wore a metal spike, its length dewy from the steam, catching a shine in the soft light. Crouched at the edge of the pool, his good hand was plunged forward into the warm water and it looked like he was holding…

  “Sparks.” Ard shuddered. “Is that a cat?”

  “Just a scrappy little Tom,” Hedge Marsool said. He released his grip and the small animal’s lifeless form bobbed to the surface, dark fur matted. “Mousing around the wrong soakhouse. You gotta hold them mewlers down a long time before the bubbles stop.”

  Ard took a step back, horrified by the barbarity. Yeah. This was the Hedge Marsool he remembered.

  “Keeps me sharp, though,” Hedge continued, rising from his crouch with a groan and an audible crack of his battered bones. “Good to feel the scales tip from life to death. Makes a man know what he’s got. And what he could lose.”

  “Can’t imagine the soaking Trothians appreciate that, though.” Ard gestured at the drowned carcass.

  “The Be’Igoth isn’t a traditional Agrodite practice,” Hedge said. His voice was somewhat strained, like his vocal cords might slip out of his throat at any moment. “You take a hearty dip in the InterIsland Waters during the winter cycles and you’ll feel it cold enough to perk the titties of a dead man. But the cold don’t bother the Trothians like it does us. That’s why I find the hot bath so curious.”

  As he spoke, he moved toward Ard with his trademark jolting gait, a battered shell of a thin man draped in a damp cloak, a leather courier’s bag over one shoulder. Nothing about his unfortunate appearance was too shocking to Ard. The man had looked this way the last time Ard had seen him—which was the only time. After that job, he and Raek had put the name Hedge Marsool on their personal blacklist, deeming him far too dangerous to be worth their while.

  This was the man who had left the note in the wall of the ruins? The man who had predicted Ard’s unpredictable escape? Deep inside, Ard had hoped it would be an old ally—or at least some enigmatic stranger. Hedge Marsool was neither.

&nbs
p; “When the first inland soakhouses were set up during Pethredote’s reign, their construction required the oversight of a Lander landlord,” Hedge continued. “They were the ones who demanded a building where the salt water could be kept hot. Made sense to them, and many of the Trothians found the experience more soothing on the blues. Good Agrodites would never debase themselves in the Be’Igoth, but the less religious Trothians are willing to pay extra for the novelty of soaking in hot water. I think that’s why I like it. The room we’re standing in is a rare hybrid of cultures. An illegitimate child, born of Trothian necessity and the overexertion of Lander control.”

  “Look, if this is about the gem cutter job…” Ard began. “I swear to you… that goat got a hold of the bag and shook those diamonds everywhere. We recovered what we could, but—”

  Hedge held up his spike hand. “I didn’t bring you here to shake you down for Ashings. I’m making plenty from Tofar’s Salts.”

  “Wait. You’re running this place?” Ard asked.

  “One of my many enterprises,” the crippled man said. “It’s Ashlits to Ashings what I’ve done with this tub. The soak brings them in to Tofar’s Salts, but I like to think they stay for the drinks.”

  “Drinks?” Ard said.

  “Oh, yes. The Trothians can order food and drink from the comfort of their piss-water pools,” said Hedge. “Like a genuine tavern.”

  “But with drowned cats.” Ard glanced once more at the animal carcass.

  “Oh, my people refresh the water every other day.” Hedge’s face cracked into a crooked smile. “Or at least, that’s what I advertise.”

  Ard cast a glance at the large Trothian man beside him. Hedge’s comment didn’t seem to faze him, his blue face staring impassively into the mist.

  “Don’t worry about Eggat.” Hedge pointed to the Trothian. “He doesn’t speak a word of Landerian. But he and his brother are a fine piece of muscle.”

  Without so much as a hiccup, Hedge Marsool switched into Trothian, speaking to Eggat in long fluid sentences. That was the trouble with Hedge Marsool. He was terribly smart, but his brains were backed by a measure of ruthlessness that Ard found quite distasteful.

  When Hedge had finished speaking, the Trothian nodded, sunlight flashing into the room like a beacon from a lighthouse as he opened and shut the door behind him.

  “Eggat will stand guard outside,” Hedge explained. “We wouldn’t want anyone pressing an ear to our conversation.”

  “What conversation would that be?” Ard asked.

  “The one where I hire you to steal me a dragon,” Hedge Marsool declared.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “Draaaaagon.” The man strung out the word patronizingly. “Mature sow. Alive and healthy. You’ll bring her to me.”

  “Here?” Ard cried, not bothering to hide the incredulity in his voice. “Live dragon… Does the name Grotenisk the Destroyer ring any bells?”

  Hedge chuckled slowly, as if the action pained him. “You’re not going to bring her to Beripent, you wet goom,” he said. “There’s no place for her here. She’ll be lodging in Helizon until I’m ready for her.”

  “Ready for her to do what, exactly?” he pressed. “You planning to raze the university? Destroy Talumon’s prize city?” Ard scoffed. “Besides, why would the King Poacher need me?”

  “Look at my body, Ardor.” He held out his arms. “Pekal is a healthy man’s game.”

  “From what I understand, you still have the contacts,” Ard said. “Experienced poachers. Why do you need a ruse artist?”

  “My poaching contacts do fine work,” Hedge agreed. “On Pekal.”

  “And your smuggling ring gets the goods into the Greater Chain without difficulty,” Ard added, shrugging.

  Hedge coughed something up and spit it onto the floor of the Be’Igoth. “I need you because I think it will be… amusing.”

  “Forget it.” Ard turned to leave. This was some kind of vengeance hiring for the way Ard had cheated him out of those diamonds. “I’m not helping you with anything.”

  “Why haven’t you asked me yet?” Hedge’s question stopped Ard in his tracks. “Why haven’t you asked me how I knew you’d be bashing your way out the back of that historic building in the Char last week?”

  Ard swallowed. He’d come here with that sole question eating away at him. But his need to know had dried up the moment he saw it was Hedge Marsool. This man was as clever and conniving as they came.

  “How many thugs did you have watching me?” Ard asked.

  “None,” he replied.

  “Then how did you learn my escape plans?” Ard replied.

  “Didn’t,” Hedge said. “We both know that ducking shelter in the Char ruins fell far outside your plans.”

  Ard narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t come here to discuss what a clever note-dropper you are. I assumed there’d be a job, and now that I’ve heard it, I’m not interested.”

  “Oh, but you are interested.” Hedge used his spike arm to make a reprimanding gesture. “That is, if you’d like to stay alive.”

  Ard breathed out in disbelief. “Are you threatening me, Hedge? You, of all people, should know I don’t respond well to that.”

  “I’ll admit my threats were insufficient last time,” said the scarred man. “But things have changed.”

  “Nothing’s changed,” Ard said. “From your pungent stench to my superior intellect.” He turned once more, this time determined to follow through with his exit.

  “Be careful,” Hedge said as Ard yanked open the door. “The steps are as slick as a toad’s back from all that Trothian splashing.”

  Ard ignored the comment, pushing past Eggat, who seemed to be waiting for a command to pounce. The air outside felt fresh, a wake of steam following him down the stone stairs.

  When Ard’s boot hit the third step, he went down, slipping like a clumsy fool and taking a painful knee on the wooden boardwalk. But his heart seemed to fall farther, beating twice as fast when he heard the pained chortle of Hedge Marsool from within the Be’Igoth.

  Ard righted himself, tugging self-consciously at his vest. What the burning blazes? Subtly, Ard inspected the slick step. It looked ordinary enough, with a touch of green algae adorning the ever-wet stone. Slippery, to be sure, but Ard had been watching his step.

  Sucking in a deep breath, he skipped back into the room, avoiding the slickest step as he passed Eggat.

  “How’d you do that?” Ard asked flatly, in no mood for games.

  Hedge Marsool had moved to the far wall of the Be’Igoth, his back to Ard as he plucked a pot of Heat Grit from the rack. “I didn’t do nothing,” he replied. “You were the hobbledehoy who slipped. I knew you would, just like I knew you’d retreat into the Char ruins.”

  “What are you saying?” Ard whispered, not even sure if his voice was cutting through the steamy air.

  Hedge Marsool tinkered with a long pole hanging on the wall beside the rack. A thin rope ran its length, tied to a small metal basket on one end. Hedge loaded the clay pot into the basket, and then removed the pole.

  “I told you things have changed,” he said, resting the pole against the shaft of his arm spike. Guiding it this way, he carefully lowered the end with the clay pot into the hot water. “I need a dragon, and you will get her for me.”

  Hedge tugged sharply on the rope and Ard saw the pot shatter underwater, the metal basket containing the shards as a fresh cloud of Heat Grit stoked the bath.

  “And if I refuse?”

  He shrugged, pulling the pole from the pool. “I know where you’ll be. Ha. Even before you do. Haven’t I proven that?”

  “You’ve proven nothing,” Ard said, agitated. His history with Hedge Marsool was enough to keep him on edge, but this latest turn of events was putting him over. “All you’ve done is left a note and told me to watch my step. In case you’ve forgotten, before I was a Holy Isle, I was a ruse artist—and a blazing good one. Rule number one: When you want to control someone, show them t
hat you can predict their every move.”

  “I can do more than predict your move,” Hedge said. “I can see your future, Ardor Benn.”

  “That would be something.” But Ard didn’t dismiss the comment as quickly as he would have liked. He knew firsthand that time travel was possible. But the lies and trickery of Hedge Marsool seemed even more so. “Why don’t we put your claims to the test?”

  Hedge leaned the pole against the rack. “What do you propose?”

  “Something you couldn’t possibly orchestrate,” said Ard, digging in his pocket. “The flip of an Ashing.” He produced a circular dragon scale—a three-mark.

  Hedge tilted his scarred head. “What will this accomplish?” He casually reached his hand into his courier’s bag. “You’ll just whimper foul play when I predict each flip.”

  “The Ashing’s mine.” Ard hefted it in his open hand. “I’ll be doing the flipping. I see no way you could cheat.”

  Hedge pulled his hand from the bag and Ard thought he saw something glint. He tensed, but the crippled man merely coughed. “Yep. Go on.”

  Flicking the Ashing with the edge of his thumb, Ard sent it spinning through the thick air. He caught it, glancing down at his palm to see the outcome.

  “Marks up,” Hedge declared.

  Ard swallowed. It had indeed landed with the three indentations upward. Without a word, Ard flipped it again.

  “Marks up,” repeated Hedge. Again, he was right. Ard sent the scale spinning once more.

  “Marks down,” said Hedge. And the Ashing in Ard’s palm had landed just as the man had said.

  “Wrong,” Ard lied, using a bit of sleight of hand to turn the Ashing over as he displayed it to Hedge. But Ard’s own heartbeat told the truth he feared. Fifty-fifty chance to guess it right once. But three times in a row?

  “What a rascal,” Hedge said, squinting his good eye. “You know I was right. How else could I predict chance?”

  “Chance.” Ard stuffed the three-mark Ashing into his pocket. “I would never take a job based on the fact that you guessed right three times in a row.”