River of Thieves

by Clayton Snyder

Better, the scribe thought. Filter out the frippery. He thought back to the beginning, thinking he would need to revise. He kept writing, the quill a small blur. He raised his free hand and spun his fingers, insisting the king go on, insisting on the continuance of story, the uninterrupted flow of idea.

  "My childhood?" The king harrumphed, a sound of discontent. "What of yours?"

  The scribe looked up, blinked. "I spent the majority of my early days weeding plots and cutting thatch. Sometimes, when the harvest finished, grain stacked and milled, and it was too soon to hang meat to dry, I played with the farm dogs. Sometimes I ran to the market and spent what few coins I had on paper and charcoal. My father nearly took my head off when he found them. He'd taught us letters, but not that they were much use beyond knowing how to read the proclamations and keep our heads down. He was determined that we would be thatchers, herds, row workers. I was not."

  The king nodded, the great white mane of his hair bobbing. "I played. In caves and trees, in stone labyrinth and mossed battlefield. It wasn't for lack of work, but lack of guidance. It was there I learned my first scraps of sorcery - how to bleed a man from his pores, how to twist his bones so he looked like a dog when viewed in the right light. How to chase the small dragonflies when they came near, and the way their thoraxes crunched under your molars."

  He leaned closer, the hilt of his blade tipping to one side, coming to rest against his thigh. "Do you wonder, dear man, how you and I diverged so?"

  The scribe shrugged. "The fae are what they are."

  The king waved it away. "A useless tautology. I assumed a man of words would know better. We diverged because we wished it so. Would you have the strength to survive in my world? A wildling even among wild things? I would have withered in your world. Survived, yes, but never lived. You make your own reality, scribe."

  "You're suggesting I wanted to be... normal?"

  The king shrugged. "I'm suggesting you survived. Whether you lived or not is of your own mind to make up."

  "Interesting." The scribe took a breath and frowned at the words he'd written. Clearer, cleaner. The king's words stuck with him. Had he lived? Would he have touched magic and brought it into his breast in lieu of meat or love? He shrugged, muscle playing with its own landscape, and put quill to parchment.

  "How did you become king?"

  "How does anyone become king? Deceit, divine right, and inbreeding."

  The scribe raised an eyebrow, giving the king a look that said perhaps you've shared too much. The king moved on, head tilted toward the sun. Perhaps he gauged the hour, perhaps trying to remember something once important, now relegated to insignificance in the face of time.

  "We have little time left. You may ask me one more," he said.

  The look in his eyes was predatory, the glint of light in the pupils like that of a hawk ready to strike, anticipation a hooked talon. The scribe screwed up his face, chewed on the tip of the quill. It had to be good. Lachlan's press would pay by the word for the account of the stranger who laid waste to Renfen's entire army.

  The scribe looked around, at bodies bloating in the sun, fat toadstools of flesh putrefying, ready to spill red and glistening spoor. His gorge rose, a thick tide of boiled oats and greasy sausage, and he choked it back, looking away. How does someone do this? He glanced again, just from the corner of his eye, the look of a man who has seen a dangerous thought, and wonders if he looks at it full, would it cut his mind? Would it hollow his thoughts and lay him out in the sun with all these others, gibbering, until the gravediggers came and found him playing with himself in the blood-dewed grass?

  His eyes flicked back to the king, to the perfectly coiffed hair, the perfect vest and leggings, the codpiece that exaggerated more than just words. The king quirked a smile at the scribe as he caught him looking, and the scribe blushed. How?

  No, the voice in his head answered, that part that when looking over the words later, corrected the incorrect, no. Why?

  "Why?" The scribe echoed the word, letting it tumble from his lips in place of the vomit, and the king smiled this time.

  "Finally, the heart of the matter. The marrow of the bone. Why." He sat back, and the blade slipped to the ground, unnoticed. "Because. Because I can."

  "Surely there's more?"

  "Does there have to be?"

  "For a sane man, for a man who wants to make sense of the words written here, of the world he describes, yes."

  "Then write this: there was a girl. Or maybe a boy. A promise. A lie. There was a death, and vengeance. There was a love unrequited. There was a dragon, and a sorcerer, and a crone. There was a fairy and a goblin, one pure, one corrupt. There was a labyrinth and a child. There was a battle. A kingdom lost, and an empire found. I was a king. I am a king. And I will do what I gods. Damn. Well. Please."

  While he spoke, dread wormed its way into the scribe's heart, moving deeper and deeper until it sat entrenched like a barbed arrow. His eyes darted to the goblin king's blade, and as every dismissal dripped from his lips, he forgot to write, forgot to put down the truth he saw. These were the words of a tyrant. He leaned forward, the king seemingly forgetting him in his rant. His fingers trembled, his arm ached, and then, the sword was in his hand, the grip both cool and gritty with dried blood and sand.

  He raised the blade, intending to stab it into the king's heart, to end the coming horror. Words tumbled from his lips, a short squall in the blazing heat of the king's conviction.

  "You're mad. Madder than any who came before. A coming terror."

  And then the king stood above him, hand outstretched, and he saw the truth. Reality is what you make it, and the king made his own. No simple warrior stood before the scribe, but a being that encompassed all things and rejected his. Neither and both. Terrible and frightening, powerful and irresistible. The scribe trembled, and the tip of the blade faltered, dipped, dipped... and ended in the dirt. The king took the blade from him, not ungently. He knelt next to the scribe, whose eyes filled with tears. He spoke soft, his voice honeyed mead in the scribe's ears.

  "You can call me mad, a terror. I suppose those are true things in a way. Mercy for those who need it may seem like madness from the outside to those who do not desire succor. But I have sat to the side for so, so many years while men ground others to dirt, while they subjugated others at a whim, for money, for the color of their skin, for the way they speak, or the things they worship. You have letters and fine food and the strength of conviction. You have absolute conviction that what you do in the now is right, and yet cannot see past the horizon.

  "And yes, I provide mercy. I feel the question trembling on your lips. I relieve you of your burdens, of your convictions. I bring you the clarity of freedom.

  "You can write this, then, if it eases your heart: I do this for love. Love drives us all, and even love led these men to this field. Love led you here, did it not?"

  The scribe, turning the words over in his head, nodded in agreement. He loved few things as he loved words. It led him down paths both bright and dim, from under his family's sheltering arms, from the beds of others who would have him as his own. He wandered still, searching for a specific love, and in wandering, found it - a country where rivers of ink flowed across a vellum landscape.

  He picked up the scribe's quill and pressed it into his hand. "Love will make or break a man. Love may shatter hearts and mend souls. Love can raise a people up or cast them into the gutter. Nothing worth doing is worth doing without it. I do this because I love."

  He leaned in and kissed the scribe just behind the ear, his lips soft and warm, and his breath smelling of sweet clover. Then he straightened and sauntered away, leaving the scribe alone. He listened to the buzz of flies on the dead, a symphony of one-string violins. He crumpled the paper, tossing it to the side, where it came to rest in a pool of clotting blood. The parchment pulled in the red until it blossomed like carnations across the rumpled surface. He watched it bloom, and then pulled a new sheet from his case, dipped his quill, and w
rote:

  The goblin king sat atop an outcrop of stone perched on a hill, his heart full of love.

  ***

  The vision faded, and I stood with the handle in my hand. I blinked, and turned back.

  "What the hells was that?" I asked.

  Cord and Rek still stood there, though now a box appeared on the pedestal. Cord’s hand hovered it. He leaned in, looking at it closely, then glanced up.

  "A story. Maybe a lesson. Maybe just a glimpse at history. Be glad. Had the saint decided you were anything but worthy, the things you might have seen would have torn your mind to shreds."

  "And you thought it was okay to send me through there?"

  Cord shrugged. "I was never really worried. You're good people, Nenn. Now Rek, he probably would have had to ride a horse. If you know what I mean."

  Rek muttered something and turned to keep an eye on the entrance. I swallowed and looked at the door, then backed away a little. I turned my attention to the box.

  "Is this it?" I asked. "Seems small."

  Cord lifted the lid of the box, revealing a jewel the size of Rek's fist. It was the color of summer grass, carved in the shape of a heart, and when he held it to the meager light, it hummed softly. I smelled ocean air and heard the call of gulls, and thought I spied summer glades in its depths.

  "What is that?" Rek asked.

  "The heart of Crux," Cord said.

  "I thought the wealth of a kingdom would be more... golden?" I said.

  Cord nodded, and slipped the stone into a bag at his side. A little of the light in the room seemed to dim.

  "The heart is worth a kingdom's fortune," he said. "We can get gold anywhere, but this—Anaxos has abused his power and no longer deserves it. Let some other kingdom have their endless summer."

  We left the tower, trotting down the forest path. As we went, I caught glimpses of shadows in the trees, stalking our movements. Rek said nothing, but freed his blade, and I pulled my knives from their sheathes. The exit loomed ahead, the threshold closer with each step. Cord picked up the pace, and we were soon sprinting as the trees shook with the force of the things following us.

  A cry from in front, and I skidded to a halt beside the others as three of the things following burst from the tree line. They were tall and thin, pale with red eyes. Their faces were bone masks from which all manner of horns protruded. Long black claws sprouted from ice-white hands. The lead swiped at Cord, and came up short two hands as Rek's blade split them from its wrists. A quick backswing severed it in two, and its halves toppled. I spun around Cord and planted both my blades in another wraith's eyes. It tumbled back, and Cord slipped between the legs of another, thick hands grasping its skull and twisting with a satisfying snap.

  As soon as the body hit the ground, we resumed running. One of the monsters pulled Rek down, and he cried out, a great bellow of rage and pain. I moved back, driving my knives into the wraith's spine. Rek shot me a look of gratitude, and we moved again. We burst into the vault room, the wraiths on our heels, and Rek spun to face them, blade in hand.

  "Shut the door!" I shouted.

  "No time," Cord said, and pointed out the door facing the street. Guards marched in single file, boots ringing on the stone.

  Rek set his shoulders. "Go. I'll hold them off."

  I shook my head and set myself. Cord grabbed my arm, whispering fiercely into my ear.

  "If we all die here, there was no point to this."

  He pulled me to the door and pushed the bag into my arms, then pulled a knife from my hip.

  "Run. I'll catch up," he said, and set himself to meet the guards coming from the other direction.

  I hesitated, fear and guilt warring within me. An arrow embedded itself into the doorframe. I unfroze and ran down the street at a sprint, disappearing into alley after alley. I found the first of the planks, scrambling upward and moving across the rooftops again, until the sounds of battle faded with each building I crossed.

  When I felt I was a safe distance, I slowed, trying to avoid alerting the patrols that crept below. Fires blazed in the city, and mobs of citizens still clashed with guards. Finally, the moon high in the night sky, I found the apartment and slipped in under cover of darkness. I hid the jewel under the couch, and when an hour passed, let myself cry until I fell asleep.

  That Guy's Not Gonna Shit Right for a Week

  I spent three days in a haze, a bottle of Juarin whiskey and a tin of slipweed helping to numb the pain. A part of me knew Cord couldn't die, that there was always the possibility he'd walk through the door. But he could be captured, thrown in chains, dropped at the bottom of the Lethe, clubbed, dismembered, or set on fire. Functional immortality didn't mean freedom from suffering.

  I wondered what the gods were thinking. If they were thinking. What kind of deity allows the kind of suffering I'd seen in the Veldt? What kind of deity allows beings like the Harrowers to exist, for creatures like Mane to exist? I thought about what Cord would say. He'd probably tell me the gods were disinterested, that they'd made the world for themselves, and that we were the intruders here. He'd probably say that Camor was the only one who really cared about us, and that was because we amused them.

  If that was the case, I had no use for any of them. They let the living suffer and from what I'd seen, even the dead had no peace. Maybe beyond the deadlands there was a hallowed hall of peace and contentment, but no sage wrote of it, no wizard spoke of it. That left us to fend for ourselves. I could do that. I'd been doing that since my parents sold me, since the women at the orphanage turned me out onto the street at sixteen, and I had to cut my way through the alleys to survive.

  I missed my friends. I missed Cord. He'd become a part of my life, like an old dog that hangs around. I realized that wasn't fair though. I busted his balls, but it was because I knew deep down that Cord was the big brother I'd never had. Self-pity wasn't going to bring him back. In the meantime, I had to shake my torpor.

  I rolled from the couch and into the street. It was quiet but for the destitute and sick, clotting the alleys and resting sore feet on street corners. Others, dealers and prostitute, were just trying to survive. I took a little time to explore the alleys and warrens of Lowtown. We'd not spent much time doing just that since we'd arrived, and now I walked among the tumbledown buildings and dirty streets.

  Most of it was in disrepair, and even the merchants that set up shop here looked to be nearly as destitute as its denizens were. Shops carried threadbare clothing, food on the verge of rotting, and medicine as likely to kill as cure. For every chirugeon with a bloody floor and dirty instruments there was an apothecary willing to sell you things that would take the pain away, and a pawn broker willing to take your possessions so you could afford either.

  No posters of Anaxos hung here, no guards patrolled the area. Instead, gangs of tough-looking teens with curved blades skulked in the shadows, and men with gapped teeth and scars lounged in bars and pubs, looking for the next piece of work to wet their blades. If Anaxos wanted the whole of Lowtown to sink into the Lethe, ignoring it couldn't have been a better plan.

  I found a prostitute and her brother on a corner by a rundown pub. They were both pretty, maybe too much so for Lowtown, and I wondered how long until the city stole that from them also. We negotiated, and I brought them back to the apartment, soothing their worried looks by leaving my blades on the table. I wanted to honor Cord one last time before I left this stinking city for good, and if Cord would have done anything, it was fuck his way through the local stable.

  The girl had high breasts with dark nipples, her brother a pretty cock. We spent the night with one another, with slipweed, and with the sounds of our moans keeping us company. When we were done, I kissed each, slipped them five crowns apiece, and the sack holding the heart. I didn't need it. I gave them advice. It was simple. Get out. Don't look back. And don't open the sack until you're a world away. When the door closed, I slipped into a blissful sleep, too tired to worry for a time.

  ***
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  The sound of hammering brought me around, and I slipped from bed. I gathered my things and crept out the door, knives in their sheathes. I thought I could hire a crew at the docks, get them to sail the Bough Mount out of the shantytown. I passed a workman with a hammer and paused to see where the sound that woke me came from.

  The poster he'd hung laid me on my ass as sure as if someone told me they wanted me to have their children, or that everyone was expected, without delay, to fuck a duck. The headline screamed from the one-sheet, bold as brass:

  NOTORIOUS THIEF FOUND

  BODY TO BE DISPLAYED

  That was the thing with Mane. Whenever someone pissed in his gruel, he liked to put them up front and center, dead or alive, to show the little people the consequences of screwing with His Royal Personage. I read on. Turned out, the places we'd hit hit in the past couple years hadn’t been small-time. Or rather, they had, but on purpose. Misdirection by the elite. Hide a lot of money in a lot of little places, so no one notices you’ve got half the economy tied up. Cord somehow knew and took every single one of the king’s bookmakers to the wash. Combine that with the theft of Crux’s heart, and he’d really pissed off Mane. The paper said he’d enraged the bastard to the point the old miser planned on showing up personally to judge the corpse as the head of the criminal organization that plagued the kingdom for so long.

  I wasn’t sure what that meant. They’d hang the body? Quarter it? Feed it to a manticore? The first wasn’t so bad. Cord would come back; we’d take a break and do it all over again somewhere else. Or maybe we’d just retire. The other two options, though – I didn’t know much about magic and resurrection, but I’m pretty sure once you’re manticore shit, that’s it.

  I had to do something. I checked my things, and made my way to the square. Maybe I could convince them I was his poor sister. Maybe I could convince them to spare the body and punish him in spirit. Maybe they’d spit-roast me, too. Either way, I had to try. I left the apartment behind and went to town.