Thief Who Knocked on Sorrow's Gate

by Michael McClung

  “I do not. I want only the Stone.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it is mine, and was taken from me when this city boasted four mud huts and this harbor sheltered nothing greater than copperbark boats rowed by headhunting savages.”

  “I sense a story there.”

  “You do, I’m sure.” But she said nothing more, and I didn’t press.

  After a short silence, I pushed myself off the wall and said, “Well then. If I happen to stumble across the Founder’s Stone on one of my walks, I’ll be sure to pocket it and bring it to you.”

  “Yes, do that if you don’t mind. And Amra, you should be aware that I will require both your memories and the Stone to secure my assistance once the spirits of the slain speak to you.”

  I frowned. It was a sad state of affairs that I had come to a point in my life where cryptic statements from mysterious and powerful people were almost expected.

  “I have no idea what that means,” I replied.

  She nodded. “You do not, yet. Good day, Doma Thetys.”

  “A pleasure, I suppose. Good day.” I pulled the tarp aside and stepped out into the bright, morning light. I’d just have to try and find Theiner the hard way. There’s a reason shortcuts are generally not well-traveled.

  The kid was still where I’d left him, squatting on the rocks above the galley and flicking chips of stone into the restless wash below. He saw me and half-raised his good hand.

  “Still got your mind?” he asked. Only half-joking, I think.

  “As much of it as I went in with at any rate,” I replied as I crossed the plank and joined him. We started back towards Hardside

  “Did you get what you wanted?”

  “I did not.”

  “What did you want, anyway?”

  “I’m looking for somebody. The Hag was the quickest way to find him. Now, I have to put my ear to the ground and knock on doors.”

  “Hopefully not at the same time.”

  I laughed. I was starting to like this kid.

  When we got back to the madmen’s camp, there was someone waiting.

  Chapter Six

  He was squatting over the meager fire, warming his hands. The normal residents had vanished completely. Dressed in a particolored cloak and wearing a frockcoat and leggings at least a decade out of fashion, he was shaven-headed with tattoos covering the shiny dome. His face was long, his eyes dark, his skin pale. Magic poured off him in a cold, unseen river, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand.

  I’d met someone else with tattoos something like that. The Sorcerer King. He hadn’t been a nice person for all that he’d helped me. I was instantly wary. One hand slipped to a knife hilt. The other shot out to check Keel’s forward progress.

  The mage stood and executed a shallow bow. He was a tall one.

  “Amra Thetys, greetings.”

  “That’s two people this morning who’ve had me at a disadvantage,” I said, tense but polite.

  “Your reputation is such that it precedes you,” he replied, ignoring my polite request for his name.

  “What reputation is that?”

  “Master thief. God-touched. Blade breaker.”

  “That’s a lot to unpack,” I replied. “Let’s start with the last one.”

  “As you wish.”

  “I’ve broken many blades in my life. I’m hard on cutlery.”

  “You broke a Blade forged by a goddess, powerful enough, perhaps, to cleave the world in twain. I would very much like to know how you managed such a feat.”

  “I expressed my dislike for it using harsh language.”

  “Amusing.”

  “And true.”

  He waved a long-fingered hand. “This is getting us nowhere.”

  “With all respect, Magus, I don’t even know your name. I’m not asking for flowers and a nice dinner, but if you want something from me, you’re being a bit brusque about the getting of it.”

  He smiled as insincere a smile as I’ve ever seen and bowed again. “My apologies. I am long removed from polite courtesies. My name is Fallon Greytooth. I am indeed a magus.”

  “And how did you know my name, Master Greytooth? Or where to find me?”

  “I have been waiting for you to come. It was inevitable. I felt you step on that dock yesterday. And so did…others.”

  “I’m not really fond of cryptic comments, Master Greytooth, and I’ve already had one this morning.”

  “Then let me be direct: tell me how you broke the Blade that Whispers Hate.”

  “I did tell you. You weren’t listening.”

  “I am listening. Attentively and patiently, which is something that I am not terribly good at if I am honest. Tell me, Mistress Thetys, how you destroyed the Blade. And I will give you information you require in return.” He glanced at the penteconter. “A much more reasonable price than others have demanded, no?”

  “Do you know where Theiner is?” I asked.

  “No. I’ve no idea where, or who, this Theiner you seek might be. But I have other information that, I assure you, is of far greater import.”

  “Will you swear by your name and power that what you tell me is true?” Holgren had told me about that one. It was old-fashioned and formal and wouldn’t stop any mage who wanted to lie. But this Greytooth seemed like an old-fashioned, formal kind of fellow. I figured it couldn’t hurt. And I also figured if I didn’t tell him what he wanted to know, things might get ugly. Mostly for me.

  “I will so swear. If you will do the same.”

  I blinked. “I can swear by my name, sure. But I don’t have any power to swear by.”

  He stared at me for a moment, disbelief etched on his long, thin face. Then, he uttered a quick bark of a laugh.

  “Do you understand yourself so little, then? I can’t decide if that makes you less dangerous, or more.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I believe you,” he replied then stood a little straighter. “I swear by my name and on my power that what I say to you is true and that I harbor no intention to deceive. I told you that I felt you step on the dock yesterday. So did the Knife.”

  “What Knife?” I asked, a feeling of dread welling up from my gut.

  “The Knife that Parts the Night, sister weapon to the Blade that Whispers Hate, which you destroyed.” He frowned and shook his head in a parody of distress. “I think it is unhappy with you for that.”

  “Kalara’s Knife is here? In Bellarius?” I asked. The sick dread I felt started to choke me. I never wanted anything to do with the Eightfold Goddess again as long as I lived. Which wouldn’t likely be long if one of her sentient weapons was looking for me.

  “Kalara’s Knife is here,” he affirmed.

  “Do you know where?”

  In answer, he pointed back to the bulk of Mount Tarvus.

  “In the Girdle?”

  “Higher.”

  “Among the Gentry? In the Riail?”

  “Higher.”

  The Citadel. The Kerf-damned Citadel. Where the Telemarch, probably the greatest living mage in the world, kept his comfy chair.

  The Eightfold Goddess had eight aspects, each of which wielded a weapon, a Blade.

  The Blades were eight intelligent, powerful magical weapons She’d left lying around in the world when She died. Or pretended to die. Or split into eight separate goddesses. Whatever. So I had been told by the most knowledgeable and most insulting man in Lucernis.

  The Blades had been fashioned from the bones and fangs and scales and talons of Her demon lord husband, whom She’d slaughtered, and suffused with Her will and Her madness. And Her power.

  It had not, apparently, been the happiest of marriages.

  The one I’d encountered, the Blade that Whispers Hate, had been crazier than a sack of rats and had essentially pounded my mind into hate-filled pudding until Bath, the God of Secrets, had intervened.

 
Oh, he hadn’t saved me. He was all for putting me away in a small, dark room for the rest of eternity as a catatonic human sheath for the Blade to keep it—and me—from running amok. But he did give me the smallest of nudges toward wrestling with the Blade’s will and winning.

  It had worked. But it had been a close, close thing. If I’d tried to do what others before me had done—use it or contain it—it would have eaten me up and spat out an Amra-shaped marionette to do its bidding. Or worse.

  Instead, I’d turned its power against itself. And it had crumbled to ash and bone chips in my hand. The same hand that was now itching and burning like I’d stuck it into an ant hill.

  I very much doubted such a trick would work a second time against another Blade. I didn’t even know what power this Blade used. The Blade that Whispers Hate had lived up to its name. It had done exactly as advertised—unceasingly, corrosively. Maddeningly.

  But the Knife that Parts the Night? What did that even mean? The best I could come up with was that it could see in the dark, which was a decidedly underwhelming power for one of the Eightfold’s toys. Kalara’s Knife was a mystery except for being bad, bad news.

  Anyway, it didn't matter. I was not going to get involved. I was here for one reason only: to find Theiner and help him however I could. Once I’d done that, I was on the first ship, boat, or floating log out of here.

  “You seem to be disturbed by my tidings,” Greytooth said.

  “That’s because I’m sane. What do you want from me, Magus?”

  “I’ve already told you. Repeatedly. I wish to know how you destroyed the Blade that Whispers Hate.”

  “It won’t help you.”

  “How could you possibly know what would help me?”

  “You are a mage. Almost every mage I’ve ever met craved power like a drunkard craves a bottle. Unless every ounce of your will is determined to destroy that Knife, it will take you and twist you and make you into its tool.” I took a step forward. “Listen to me, Master Greytooth. You can’t reason with it, bargain with it, or threaten it if it is anything like the Blade I encountered. If you try, it will have you. All you can do is fight until you or it is destroyed.”

  “And how exactly did you do that with the Blade that Whispers Hate?” he replied, ignoring everything I’d said but the last bit. I sighed. Handing out sound advice is generally a thankless task even with rational people. Try it with a mage sometime.

  “I destroyed the Blade that Whispers Hate by using its own power against it,” I told him. “It offered to destroy whatever I hated. I hated it with every fiber of my soul and unleashed that hate on it, and it crumbled in my hand. I swear it.”

  His cold, hard eyes searched mine for a few seconds. Then, he nodded. “I thank you, Mistress Thetys. Good day.” He turned and walked a few steps toward Hardside, and then, he just disappeared.

  I stood there for a moment, staring at the empty space where he had been. I’d seen that trick once before. It wasn’t magic, apparently. It was, according to a boy who was now dead, philosophy. Master Greytooth wasn’t just a mage. He was one of the famed, and generally hated, Philosophers.

  The group of gentlemen that had set off the Cataclysm a thousand years before.

  “Uh, Amra?”

  “Yes, Keel?”

  “Is your life always like this?”

  “Is my life always like what?”

  He waved his good arm toward where Greytooth had disappeared. “Um. That. Powerful and mysterious people appearing and disappearing, talking to you like you were a barrel full of gunpowder sitting next to a bonfire.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Nobody talks to barrels. That would be crazy.”

  “Ha. Ha ha.”

  “Come on. Let’s go get some breakfast. Your sense of humor might improve once you’ve got some food in you.”

  Chapter Seven

  I was, by all the dead gods, not going to eat at a slop house in Hardside or even wharfside if I could help it. And I could. So we walked around the edges of Hardside proper and fetched up against South Gate in about half an hour. The gate guard took one look at us and stuck out a hand. Palm up. I flipped a silver mark into it, and he went back to doing what he did best, which was as little as possible. He couldn’t even be bothered to keep kids from painting graffiti on the wall, it seemed. Within a dozen yards of the guard post, I saw two penises, a pair of improbably large breasts, a suggestion that the Syndic do something anatomically impossible, and the Hardic rune for “trap.”

  The last made me hesitate. After my experience with Borold’s gourd, I was a little sensitive where Hardic runes were concerned. It was the closest thing there was to a thieves’ language, and it wasn’t uncommon in many cities on the Dragonsea. But out in public as graffiti? No, I’d never seen it used in that fashion. To my mind, it was a message or a warning. But to whom? And about what exactly?

  The guard was giving me the eye, looking like he might want to take an interest in me loitering after I’d paid him. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to any Blacksleeve, lazy or otherwise, so I moved along, a few steps behind Keel.

  There was some invisible line. I crossed it as we walked through the gate. I felt it, a repeat of the sudden dizziness and the momentary inability to breathe I’d experienced when I’d disembarked from the Delight. It was accompanied this time by an almost indefinable mental pressure; an instantaneous sense of entrapment that settled on my mind like a spider web with a million fine, sticky strands.

  What I had shrugged off on the dock as a bad reaction to returning to land after days at sea was, I was now certain, me sensing very bad magic aimed squarely at me. I grabbed the kid by the arm—the broken one as it turned out as it was closest—and started running. He cried out in pain.

  “Move!” I shouted.

  It wasn’t fire this time.

  The Girdle side of South Gate is all narrow, cobbled lanes and narrow graystone shop-houses three and four floors high. They weren’t in the best shape because South Gate wasn’t the best of neighborhoods, but they weren’t slums either. There weren’t any slums in the Girdle. That’s what Hardside is for.

  There were people out on the street: a knot of workmen with sawdust in their hair, a butcher’s boy delivering a dripping packet, a knife sharpener trundling his grinder down the street. When the bilious, green fog started seeping up from between the cobbles in the street, nobody seemed to notice for a moment. Then, the butcher’s boy tripped and fell.

  The fog coalesced and rushed toward him. In an instant, it enveloped him completely. He was invisible inside but not inaudible. He screamed. And then, the scream was choked off. The fog drifted away from him seconds later, and what was left was wet bones in an untidy pile of clothes.

  The fog had gotten thicker.

  “We need to get off the street and up high,” I told Keel and abruptly changed directions, heading for the nearest door. It was a tailor’s shop. Behind me, I heard the knife sharpener curse and then his shorn-off scream. People were popping out of the buildings all around to see what was going on.

  “Get back inside!” I screamed, hoping it would do some good. But knowing human nature, I doubted it. I risked a glance behind. It looked as though my shouting had attracted the fog’s attention. It was forking in two directions above the remains of the knife sharpener, half of it floating toward us rapidly, the other half spreading out along the street.

  It was moving fast.

  We reached the tailor’s shop. I shoved Keel in ahead of me and slammed the door.

  I caught a quick glimpse of the interior. Dusty and disheveled. The tailor looked much like his shop and was gabbling something; I’ve no idea what. Bolts of cloth were stacked on a low table near the door. I grabbed one, took a handful of the ragged edge, and flung the rest down to the floor, unwinding it. I whipped out my knife and started cutting.

  The fog had eaten the butcher’s boy, but it hadn’t touched his clothes.

  The
tailor and the gate guard were screeching now. I felt a hand on my shoulder, then Keel snarled at him, and the hand went away.

  Good kid.

  There were more screams coming from the street now. A lot more.

  I started stuffing the cloth into the space between the door and the frame, starting at the floor, hoping I’d be quick enough.

  I wasn’t.

  “Amra!” came Keel’s warning cry, and I looked up to see the fog boiling in all around the sides and top of the door.

  “Go!” I cried and flung myself backward, but it was too late.

  A tendril of the fog struck out at me, viper quick, and latched on to my right hand.

  The first touch was fire. Then, it burrowed in under my skin, and I screamed.

  You, said a voice in my head. Then, Yes.

  The fog suddenly hardened, became something slick, rubbery. Dazed, I watched the transformation. It started at my hand and rapidly traveled back up the tendril. When it reached the door, it flexed, and the door shattered into splinters. It started pulling me outside.

  My hand was in agony. It felt as if the tendril had wrapped itself around the bones in there. It was solid now. It took me a dazed moment to realize that meant I could do something about it—or at least try.

  I pulled out my other knife and cut the tendril. Or at least I tried to. But the blade passed through it as if it were still just so much fog. Kerf-damned magic.

  Suddenly, I felt an arm around my waist, pulling me back or trying. Keel. Brave kid. But the pain in my hand became pure agony. I screamed.

  Interference, said the voice in my head. Then, Kill it. Another tendril snaked through the door.

  “No!” I screamed and felt the mountain tremble somewhere down beneath my feet.

  The fog paused.

  It talks, it said. It hears.

  I talk, I said to it in my mind. I hear.

  Do not resist. No more interference.

  “Let go of me,” I said both to it and Keel.

  And both of them said, “No.”

  “Back off, Keel,” I grunted. “It’ll kill you or pop my hand right off if you don’t. Maybe both.”