Heroes Die

Heroes Die

Acts of Caine – Book 1

Matthew Woodring Stover

For Charles,
for being Caine’s best friend;
and for Robyn,
for making it all possible

ONCE AN HOUR, worldwide:

The hair, of course, is perfect, and the chiseled cheekbones have a
Leisureman’s tan—but there is a hint of cold desperation
in the delicate, semivisible tracery of lines around the glycerine
eyes, and the lips that part over the polished teeth have a faint,
barely half-detectable twist of bitter self-contempt.

“Hello, I’m Bronson Underwood. For the past ten years,
I’ve brought you the best of Studio action from all over the
world, as the host of
Adventure Update
. Today, and for a
short time only, I’m proud to bring you this special offer,
direct from where it all began, the San Francisco Studio of
Adventures Unlimited:

“
For Love of Pallas Ril,
the Limited Edition Boxed
Set.â€

THERE ARE MANY, many people whose support made this novel possible,
stretching back over more years than I am willing to admit.

I can only hit the high points:

Charles L. Wright, without whom there would be no Caine.

Robyn Fielder, who told me I had to write this book, and supported me
both emotionally and financially while I did.

The above, Paul Kroll, H. Gene McFadden, Eric Coleman, Ken Bricker,
and Perry Glasser, each of whom generously read at least one early
draft of this story, and offered opinions and advice.

Clive A. Church, for technical advice and inexhaustible patience with
my bitching.

My agent, Howard Morhaim, for tireless enthusiasm.

My indefatigable editor, Amy Stout, for making me do it over until I
got it right.

And my mother, Barbara Stover, for one particular kindness among a
lifetime of such.

Thank you, one and all.

1

WITH MY HAND on the doorjamb, some buried-alive instinct thumps
within my chest: this is going to hurt.

I take a deep breath and step inside.

The bedchamber of Prince-Regent Toa-Phelathon is really pretty
restrained, when you consider that the guy in the bed there rules the
second-largest empire on Overworld. The bed itself is a modest
eight-poster, only half an acre or so; the extra four posts—each
an overcarved slab of rose-veined thierril thicker than my
thigh—support lamps of gleaming brass. Long yellow flames like
blades of spears waver gently in the breeze from the concealed
service door. I close the door soundlessly behind me, and its brocade
paper–covered surface blends seamlessly into the pattern of the
wall.

I wade through the billowing carpet of silken cushions, a knee-high
cloud of vividly shimmering primary colors. A flash of maroon and
gold to my left, and my heart suddenly hammers—but it’s
only my own livery, my servant’s dress, captured briefly in the
spun-silver mirror atop the Prince-Regent’s commode of
lacquered Lipkan krim. The reflection shows me the spell, the
enchanted face I present: smooth, rounded cheeks, sandy hair, a trace
of peach fuzz. I tip myself a blurry wink and smile with my sandpaper
lips, ease out a silent sigh, and keep moving.

The Prince-Regent lies propped on pillows larger than my whole bed
and snores happily, the silver hairs of his mustache puffing in and
out with each wheeze. A book lies facedown across his ample chest:
one of Kimlarthen’s series of Korish romances. This draws
another smile out of my dry mouth; who would have figured the Lion of
Prorithun for a sentimentalist? Fairy tales—simple stories for
simple minds, a breath of air to cool brows overheated by the
complexities of real life.

I set the golden tray down softly on the table beside his bed. He
stirs, shifting comfortably in his sleep—and freezing my blood.
His movement sends a puff of lavender scent up from the pillows. My
fingers tingle. His hair, unbound for napping, falls in a
steel-colored spray around his face. That noble brow, those flashing
eyes, that ruggedly carved chin exposed by careful shaving within his
otherwise full beard—he’s everybody’s perfect image
of the great king. The statue of him on his rearing charger—the
one that stands in the Court of the Gods near the Fountain of
Prorithun—will make a fine, inspiring memorial.

His eyes pop open when he feels my hand grip his throat: I’m
far too professional to try to stifle his shout with a hand over the
mouth, and only a squeak gets past my grip. Further struggle is
discouraged by his close-up view of my knife, its thick, double-edged
point an inch from his right eye.

I bite my tongue, and saliva gushes into my mouth to moisten my
throat. My voice is steady: very low and very flat.

“It’s customary, at times like this, to say a few words.
A man shouldn’t die with no understanding of why he’s
been murdered. I do not pride myself on my eloquence, and so I will
keep this simple.â€

“
Hey, I’m not the only guy who kills people.â€

“
What’s wrong with you? You never even get angry!
Even a shout would be better than this, than this, this calm . . .
nothingness.â€

“
Sometimes I wonder if you really respect anything
besides power.â€

“
You have no principles at all.â€

I spring out onto the balcony—I’d shoot that cocksucker
if I could be sure of missing Lamorak—and level my bows on the
guards across the Pit. They have no such reservations; even as I’m
bringing my bows into line, eight of them fire. Some miss, but about
five quarrels slam into Rushall’s chest and drive him spinning
back against the wall. He slides to the floor with Lamorak beneath
him.

I fire both bows from the hip. One quarrel strikes fire from the
balcony wall as it glances upward, and the other takes a guard in the
ribs. At this range, chainmail is no protection: the quarrel chops in
till it’s stopped by its vanes, and the guard sags against the
bronze doors—
which are opening!
—and now even
more guards press through—

I duck behind the balcony wall to recock and reload, and one of the
guards blows some kind of brief tattoo on a bugle that echoes through
the Donjon.

This is about to get kind of hairy.

I have to run the opposite way, draw the guards off, but even as I’m
uncoiling to stand, something snaps past my head and something else
hammers my shoulder from behind. I roll with the impact, and a
red-smeared crossbow quarrel clinks to the floor at my feet, even as
I spin and see for the first time the four guards pounding up the
corridor I was just in.

Fuck going the other way—I’m not feeling heroic enough to
get pincered on this balcony just to provide a five-second diversion.

Two of the guards sprint toward me along the corridor walls; the
other two stop in the middle of the corridor and take aim on my head.

I drop my bows and shoulder-roll to my feet, simultaneously drawing
the little leafblades from my ankle sheaths and flipping them both
backhand down the corridor. There’s no force behind the throw,
but it’s enough to make them flinch and duck and spoil their
shots.

I sweep up my bows and toss them over the balcony rail and follow
them with the quivers. A bloodthirsty roar goes up from the Pit as a
couple of prisoners find themselves unexpectedly armed. Then without
hesitation I skip forward to meet one of the charging guards and grab
his armor at the collarbone. I fall to my back and plant a foot in
the pit of his stomach, kick him into the air, and he sails right
over the rail and falls wailing into the Pit.

I continue the roll and let it bring me to my feet. The other
charging guard has skidded to a stop out on the balcony, and now he
looks like he’s not at all sure he wants to deal with me by
himself. He says, “Hey, wait—â€

“
What’s so wrong with wanting to help people?â€

“
Hari? Hari, wake up.â€

“
Do you, Professional Hari Khapur Michaelson, take this
woman, Professional Shanna Theresa Leighton, to be your lawfully
wedded wife, to have and to hold, to love, honor, and cherish
forever, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to cleave
to her only all the days of your life, until death alone doth part
you?â€

THERE CAME A day when Hari woke up and found Shanna sitting at his
bedside.

He lay on his gelpack pillow and gazed at her through half-opened
eyes while awareness leaked into his brain with the morning light.

She sat staring idly out the window, toward the clouds, toward the
ocean, high over the shantytown of media vans that invested the
hospital like the siege engines of an Overworld army. She was thin,
her cheeks still hollowed and her eyes dark, and she still carried
her left arm stiffly at her side—and Hari thought he’d
never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

He didn’t speak, for fear that the sound of his voice might
dispel the dream.

She coughed a little, with wet discomfort, when she felt his gaze on
her. She smiled and touched her ribs where the quarrel had smashed
through them into her lung. “Pneumonia,â€

Matthew Woodring Stover lives in Chicago, Illinois, where he works
as a bartender at a private club in the United Center, home of the
Bulls and the Blackhawks. In previous incarnations he’s been an
actor, a theatrical producer, a playwright, a waiter, a barista
(okay, what the heck is a barista?), a short-order cook, a
telemarketer of fine wines, and a door-to-door vacuum cleaner
salesman. With his partner, noted painter and up-and-coming fantasy
author Robyn Fielder, he was cofounder and codirector of the Iff
Theater. In addition to being a recreational marathon runner and
amateur kickboxer, Stover has studied a variety of martial arts,
including the Degerberg Blend, tae kwon do, aikido, English boxing,
English quarterstaff, the Filipino sword arts (kali/escrima/arnis),
savate, and muay thai (reviewers, take note!). Somehow amid all this
exhausting activity he finds time to write fantasy novels—three
to date—with more on the way.

Q: Tell us a little about how you became a writer . . . and why an
SF writer.

A: Two words: Robert Heinlein. I read
Have Space Suit—Will
Travel
when I was about twelve, then got ahold of
Glory Road
, and my fate was sealed. From Heinlein to early Zelazny to Fritz
Leiber to Evangeline Walton; they got me started, and I’ve
never stopped. Much of my life has been an obsessive inquiry into
philosophy, mythology, magic, religion, and the concept of the Hero
(in the Joseph Campbell sense). SF—fantasy—is the only
branch of literature that lets you look at all of those at once. As
to “how I became a writer,â€

Published by The Random House Publishing Group:

HEROES DIE
BLADE OF TYSHALLE
STAR WARS: THE NEWJEDI ORDER:
TRAITOR
STAR WARS: SHATTERPOINT
STAR WARS: REVENGE OF THE
SITH

ALL ACTORS HAVE A PRECISELY DEFINED ROLE—

to risk their lives on Overworld in interesting ways. It's not
personal; it's just market share.

Caine has long been the best of the best. A generation grew up
watching the superstar's every adventure. Now he's chairman of the
world's largest studio and he's making changes.

Higher powers of Overworld and Earth don't approve. It's just
business.

But for Caine, it's his wife, their daughter, his invalid father,
his status, his home.

And it's
always
personal.