Thief Who Knocked on Sorrow's Gate

by Michael McClung

  He gave me a long, flat stare. Finally, he spoke, and his voice was deadly serious.

  “I don’t know if I can give you that long. There are internal pressures in the crew that you know nothing about. I can give you few hours. Then, I’m going to have to come for Keel. How you respond at that time is up to you, but think on this: I could have put a dagger in your back at any time over the last dozen hours, whatever freakish powers you seem to have now. I didn’t out of respect for the friendship we once had despite the fact that you killed two of my crew.

  “You owe me, Amra. Without me, you’d never have got on that ship, not on your own, and like as not, you’d have died in the Purge. I didn’t help you to put you in my debt, gods witness, but you’re there nonetheless.”

  “Are you really going to let this come to bloodshed, Theiner?” Fifteen years was a long time, but we had been close back then. Too close for the nonsense I was hearing now.

  “I got no choice, Amra. Do you see many former crew leaders puttering around?”

  I looked down, picked at my nail. He was right about that. Being the boss of a street crew was dangerous. Being the ex-boss of a street crew meant you were a corpse, one way or the other. Whoever took your place wouldn’t just let you spend time with your knitting. You’d always be there, a whisper, a shadow falling over every unpopular decision the new fellow made.

  He let the silence stretch a bit then said, “You can pay the debt on your own, or I can make you pay. That’s something I’ve got good at over the last few years. That’s not patter. It’s the cold, hard truth. Just ask Keel. And remember who taught you knife-work in the first place.”

  With that, he stood and walked toward the door of the suite.

  “Theiner,” I called.

  He paused. “What?”

  “Did you ever meet my uncle?”

  “You have an uncle?” he replied, obviously annoyed. I’d stepped on his parting speech.

  “I have somebody who claims to be my uncle. Says you punched him in the face when he went looking for me ten years ago.”

  “I remember. Some fellow came around asking after you, yes. There was some family resemblance, sure, but I didn’t like him. He got a little too insistent. I popped him in the nose. He made himself scarce.”

  “That was it?”

  “That was it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “A day, Amra, at the most,” he reminded me. Then, he turned to Keel.

  “I’ll be seeing you again soon, kid,” he said in a mild voice. Keel played at being a statue. Then, Theiner was gone.

  I closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair. Let out a sigh. For all the bad, very bad, and stunningly bad news that had come my way since I’d gotten back to Bellarius, the conversation I’d just had made me feel the worst. Powerful entities trying to kill me? Sadly, nothing new. The threat of horrific destruction looming? Somehow, I’d become almost inured to the concept.

  Choosing between giving up the kid to be, at best, maimed for life or fighting my oldest living friend to the death? That put some serious cracks in the shell of numbness I’d grown since my return.

  “If you want me to get lost, I understand,” Keel said quietly.

  “What I want is for you to take a bath,” I replied, forcing myself out of my funk. “I thought you smelled bad before you got a big hug from Rubbish Man. Kerf, was I wrong. Oh, that reminds me. Did you manage to see the Hag before you got swallowed?”

  “Isin’s love, you’re just full of compassion, aren't you?”

  “I’ll work on that. Just as soon as I’m someplace that isn’t about to be ripped apart by fell magics. Well?”

  “I saw her. She said, and I quote, ‘The Stone is indestructible. It will survive the city’s death, should you fail. As will I.’”

  I grunted. No wonder she’d laughed when I said we were all screwed. But it was good news. It meant my plan had a chance of success.

  A few minutes later, the innkeeper arrived, servants trailing him with pails of hot water. Keel complained that he couldn’t get his clothes off with one arm.

  “Use your teeth,” I said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Marza came through on the first item I’d asked for not long after Keel had finally managed to get undressed. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to accommodate me on the others.

  Keel was splashing around in the tub in the bathroom, complaining that he couldn’t reach half his body what with one arm broken.

  “If you think I’m coming in there to help, you’re out of your very tiny, teenaged mind,” I shouted back from the couch.

  There was a knock on the door. I went over and opened it, free hand on a knife hilt.

  The man was very large, very tanned, and very scarred. The sword slung from his hip was nearly as long as I was tall.

  “Mistress Thetys?” he rumbled.

  “Maybe. Who’s asking?”

  “Hoddy Marza sends his regards and the address you requested.”

  “That was fast.”

  “Hoddy Marza also regrets to inform you that he cannot secure the other information you requested within your specified time frame.”

  I blinked. “You talk real good for a sword-swinger,” I said.

  The armsman said nothing to that, just regarded me levelly with mild, competent eyes.

  “So what’s the address, big man?”

  “The Trise. Seventh house on the left, coming from wharfside. Gray stone; weathered, yellow shutters. Your item of interest is at home now.”

  “Thanks. And my thanks to Marza.” I dug a silver mark out and offered it to him. He ignored it.

  “I’m to go with you,” he said, “and I’m not on your payroll.”

  “I don’t need a guard.”

  “I’m not guarding you. I’m to collect whatever is left when you’re done and deliver it to some other people.”

  “Ah. Well then. I suppose we should go.”

  I shouted to Keel that I was going out, got a muffled acknowledgment, and then we were on our way to the Trise to have a chat with Affonse Yarrow: old man, suspected child murderer.

  #

  The house was just a house. A little run down, peeling paint on the shutters. A little grime around the door’s handle. But it was just a house. I couldn’t help the irrational thought that evil people shouldn’t live in innocuous-looking places.

  The armsman’s name was Springsweet. That didn’t fit either, not that I was going to tell him that. He didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor anyway. I did tell him to wait a short distance away, out of sight. I didn’t want old man Yarrow spooked when he answered the door.

  Once Springsweet had moved off an appreciable distance, I knocked. There was no answer. I knocked again and waited some more. So I pulled out a knife and started banging on the wood with the pommel. Finally, it was yanked open.

  “Isin’s thighs, what the hells do you want!”

  He didn’t look evil at first glance. He just looked old and grumpy. Stick-thin, yellow-white hair in disarray, wearing an oft-mended nightshirt in the early afternoon. I knew without having to think about it this old bastard lived alone. The only thing that put me off about him were his eyes. They were still sharp. And cold.

  “You’re Affonse Yarrow.” It wasn’t a question. Marza wouldn’t have made a mistake about that. “I want to come in and talk to you.

  “What makes you think I want to talk to you?”

  “Because I’ll pay you for the conversation,” I lied. “I don’t imagine a Blacksleeve’s pension is so generous that you couldn’t do with a little more coin. Or a lot more coin, depending on what you have to say.”

  “What’s it about?”

  I shook my head. “Not on the street.”

  He thought about it a moment. Looked around the street. Opened the door wider.

  I went inside.

  He sat down on a sagging, greasy couch there in his front room. I sa
t across from him in a chair whose stuffing was slowly bleeding out onto a diseased-looking carpet. The whole interior of the house that I could see looked dim, dingy, and unhealthy. More like a lair than a home. That’s more like it, I thought.

  “What do you want to know?” he asked, his voice casual. His face was mild, but his eyes were devoid of emotion if not calculation. His gaze traveled up and down my body, but there was nothing sexual about it. Something told me this man didn’t have much of an interest in sex, maybe never had. He was just taking in details.

  “I want to know the name of the mage who helped the Blacksleeves track down street rats during the Purge.”

  “And you’ll give me money for that name?”

  “Sure. How much do you want? I’ve got lots. Name your price.” My mouth was saying the right words, but my heart wasn’t in it. I kept seeing an untidy pile of bones stuffed under a desk.

  “I think you’re lying,” he replied. “In fact, I know you’re lying.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s not a very nice thing to say to someone you just met.”

  “I’m not a very nice person,” he replied.

  “That makes two of us. Look, Yarrow, I’ve got a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it. I could go into a big, emotional monologue about all your wicked deeds and how you should pay for your crimes, but Kerf’s balls, we both know it would be just so much wasted breath. Just give me the name, and I’ll be on my way. Or don’t give it to me, and let things get ugly. I’m fine with either option.”

  “You interest me,” he replied, his expression of mild interest never changing.

  “I’m thrilled,” I replied, but he continued on as if he hadn’t heard.

  “Your accent, for example. Ostensibly Lucernan, but down at the roots, it still carries the grimy residue of Hardside. Your vocabulary—in the same sentence you use the word ‘monologue,’ you swear by Kerf’s testicles. And your clothing as well. Beyond the fact that you dress as a man, every item you’re wearing is perfectly fitted and of the highest quality, and yet you display not a single stitch of ornament or adornment.”

  “So?”

  “So you interest me.” And then he sat there and stared at me with his old man’s watery blue eyes, his stone killer’s eyes. I put up with it until it got old. Which was about three seconds.

  “Right then,” I said, getting up to stick a knife to his throat.

  “Who are your parents?” he asked me suddenly before I made it to my feet.

  “My parents are dead.”

  “Ah. Were you a war orphan or a plague orphan?”

  This old turd hadn’t earned the right to be nosy about my past. “I’m a dead parents orphan,” I snapped.

  “If you tell me what happened to your parents, I’ll tell you what you want to know,” he smiled. “I will tell you the name you want so badly to hear.”

  I didn’t believe him for a moment. I knew, without knowing how, I would have to drag the mage’s name from him, syllable by bloody syllable. And I was fine with that because this old child murderer was a dead man, whatever happened. Springsweet was waiting outside to make sure of it.

  “Well?” he asked, and I smiled back at him.

  “My mother was a clerk’s daughter from Ink Street. My father was a caravan guard when he was sober. I was born in Hardside. One evening when I was almost ten, my father beat my mother unconscious, then kept beating her. I stuck a knife in him to make him stop. He stopped. My mother never woke up.”

  I found myself suddenly standing over him where he sat on his dusty, faded couch, my hands itching for my knives.

  “So what kind of orphan am I? Not war. Not plague. I suppose you might call me an orphan of poverty. Or just plain, unadorned, shitty luck.”

  He sniffed, and his lip curled. It was the first honest emotion that had touched his face the whole time I’d been talking to him. “You’re still a street rat.” He placed a casual hand on the back of the couch.

  “Oh, I’m much more than that. Now, tell me the name.”

  “It’s—”

  For an old man, he was still fast. The casual hand on the back of the couch sprouted a stiletto, and he drove it at my midsection with a speed and force that seemed impossible considering his age and frailty.

  I’d been waiting for it. Once a cold-blooded killer, always a cold-blooded killer.

  I arched my abdomen out of the way of the stiletto’s wicked point, grabbed his bony wrist with my left hand, and brought my right elbow down on his thin forearm.

  The sound of bones breaking is unmistakable.

  I dragged him down to his filthy carpet, on his belly. Sat on his back. Pulled the stiletto from his loose fist. Ignored his moans.

  “I believe you were about to tell me a name,” I murmured in his hairy ear.

  “You c—”

  I slammed a fist down on the broken bone. He screamed.

  “The name.”

  “Piss on you,” he panted. “Filthy street rat.”

  “I’m only going to ask once more. Then, I’m going to break the other arm. Then, I’m going to tie you to a chair and go see some fellows I know down in Hardside,” I lied. It wouldn’t do to tell him the truth and leave him no hope. He’d clam up as like as not.

  “I’m going to tell them there’s an old man named Yarrow tied to a chair in his house on the Trise, who used to be a Blacksleeve back during the Purge. Maybe they’ll remember you. Even if they don’t, they will consider it their duty to send you on to whichever hell you’ve earned in as slow and painful a way as possible. They just aren’t civilized like me. Never having left Hardside, their vocabularies are sadly lacking.

  “Now, did my little monologue bore you? Or are you ready, by Kerf’s hairy balls, to give me the name?”

  He was silent for a little while except for some panting. Then he spoke in a broken, quavering old man’s voice.

  “Aither. The Telemarch. Much good it will do you,” he panted.

  “You’re lying. The Telemarch got his hands dirty hunting down street rats? Come on, Affonse. You can do better than that.” I put a knee his broken arm and ground down on it until he writhed and screamed.

  “The Telemarch ordered it! Aither ordered the Purge, I swear to Gorm!”

  “All right, Affonse. All right. I believe you.” Kerf’s dirty beard, I did believe him. I wished I didn’t.

  I got off his back, kicked the stiletto into a corner. Wiped my hands on my thighs. I left him moaning on his filthy carpet, walked out the door, and nodded to Springsweet, who was waiting at the foot of the steps.

  “He’s all yours,” I said and walked away. I didn’t look back. I had no interest in whatever was going to happen to Affonse Yarrow. He was a twisted little monster of a man who would soon meet a fitting end, and I didn’t need or want the details.

  I felt unclean. Like I’d just wallowed in a pool of filth. I very badly wanted a bath.

  No time. I had a much scarier monster than Yarrow to deal with, and I still didn’t know how I could possibly do it.

  Chapter Twenty

  I wasn’t getting the layouts of the Riail or the Citadel from Marza. That was a problem, but not an insurmountable one. I was pretty sure there was one person who could give me what I needed. So I climbed higher up into the Girdle to have another chat with the God of Sparrows.

  On the way, I had a good think about the Telemarch. Everything, it seemed, was pointing me to him, from Greytooth to the God of Sparrows, from Ansen and his false note to my dear, mysterious, lying, vanishing “Uncle” Ives. Everything since before I arrived in Bellarius, actually; Borold didn’t chop his own head off and send it to me for a laugh.

  About the only person who didn’t seem to be involved in any way was Theiner. He might well do his best to knife me in a few hours, but at least he wasn’t trying to run a game on me. It’s good to be able to count on old friends. Did I wish Theiner and I had had a happier reunion? Of course.
But the thing was, anyone who hadn't been through what we'd been through would almost certainly see him as a cold, murderous bastard. I'd escaped; he'd stayed in this hell-hole. By his own lights, by the standards that we'd both grown up with, Theiner was a fucking paragon of virtue. He wasn't lying or cheating, and he wasn't giving me cold steel in the back. No, I had no hard feelings towards Theiner, strange as it might seem. He was giving me the most important thing a street rat could give to another: respect. And it was costing him with his crew.

  Pushing thoughts of Theiner aside, I went back to picking at the whole sordid mess surrounding the Telemarch. Manipulated into it or not, I had a stack of reasons as high as my head to want to go and make the Telemarch dead. From the fact that, according to Yarrow, he was responsible for the Purge to the fact that, according to everybody in a position to know, he was inadvertently about to destroy the city and me with it, it seemed like a good idea for the Telemarch to stop breathing. It seemed simple. Not easy, by any stretch of the imagination, but simple.

  Too simple. Someone wanted very, very badly for me to kill the Telemarch. Or at least attempt it. And that just didn’t make much sense on its face. Sure, I’d survived my share of scrapes, but at the end of the day, I was not on the same level as Aither. Not even close. He was an archmage, for Kerf’s sake, while I was a thief. Maybe I had powers. All right, three destroyed buildings said I had access to some real, deadly power. But those three destroyed buildings, and all the people inside them who’d suddenly disintegrated, also said I had no idea what I was doing with it. Being able to tap that power didn’t make me a mage. It made me a disaster waiting to happen.

  A disaster—

  I stopped still in the street. People moved around and past me, muttering.

  Maybe I didn’t need plans for the Citadel after all. Maybe I didn’t need to break in and confront the Telemarch.

  Maybe all I needed was to call up that power again, flick my fingers, and watch the Citadel and everything in it transform to dust, drifting away on the wind.