Thief Who Knocked on Sorrow's Gate

by Michael McClung

  It couldn’t be that easy, could it?

  Could it?

  I started walking again, faster.

  #

  The sparrows were in a frenzy. They swirled this way and that in the courtyard, no longer silent, a storm of wings and piercing, distressed cries. Kitten girl—Cherise—was nowhere to be seen.

  “Something’s wrong, huh?” I asked them. They didn’t answer. So I went to talk to their boss.

  I walked up to the tree and put a hand on a root, not bothering to sit. Immediately, I was in the God’s throne room, or mind, or whatever.

  He was agitated. Pacing up and down, making fists. His brutal face wasn’t in the least mellow now. He looked exactly what I would imagine a blood god should look like.

  He didn’t bother waiting until I’d walked up to him. He sent me a picture almost immediately.

  The kid. Cherise. Being dragged away from the tree by Blacksleeves, screaming and crying.

  “Where?” I asked, walking up to Him. “Where did they take her?”

  Another picture.

  The Citadel.

  “Kerf’s crooked staff,” I cursed. I wasn’t going to be disintegrating the Citadel with a child inside it. Which I suspected was the point of her being taken. Someone knew far too much about how my mind worked. “When?”

  He showed me a picture of myself leaving Yarrow’s house.

  Somebody knew what I was likely to think of before I even thought of it? Shit.

  “All right. I’ll try to help. I’m going to kill Aither anyway. Or at least try. But first, I have to take the Founder’s Stone from the Syndic.”

  He showed me a picture of Cherise again, her screaming, tear-streaked face. His message was plain enough.

  “Listen. This is about more than her. You told me so Yourself. If I walk into the Citadel now and somehow succeed in killing the Telemarch, that girl will die anyway along with everyone else in the city. You must know the spirits of those murdered in the Purge have turned Bellarius into a prison. They’ve sentenced everyone in it to death. If the city doesn’t explode, they’ll just kill everyone themselves. In order to stop that from happening, I need the Founder’s Stone. So first, I get the Stone, then the girl. I don’t like it any more than You, I swear to Kerf.”

  He kept making fists. Big, brutal fists. His lantern jaw was clenching and unclenching, the muscles on either side working, bulging out. Finally, He nodded.

  “I need to know the layout of the Riail, specifically the throne room and everything between it and the wall closest to the Bay. I also need to know the layout of the Citadel. I’m sure You’ve seen both.”

  He showed me the Citadel from the outside. A sparrow tried to fly into one of the windows. It just disappeared in a puff of feathers before it broke the plane of the opening. Its tiny body, what was left of it, drifted to the ground.

  “Not the Citadel then. Damn. What about the Riail?”

  This time I was, apparently, perched on the stone railing of a long balcony. To my right was the Bay of Bellarius, sparkling in the sun. To my left, graceful, stone arches and beyond them a big room. In the room was a big, white block of stone. Glowing runes chased each other across its surface. Sitting atop the stone was a gilt chair. Sitting in the chair was a heavy man, chin on his fist, surrounded by men in armor.

  Finally, some good news. If the Founder’s Stone was that close to the outer wall of the Riail, it made the first part of my plan much more likely to succeed.

  “Is there anything else You know or can do to help me?” I asked him.

  He shook His head, frustration, rage, and desperation all evident there. Then, He was suddenly still, as if a thought had occurred to Him, or perhaps He’d made some important decision. He reached up above His head and, from thin air, pulled down a green, heart-shaped leaf. Carefully, slowly, He opened up the top of my waistcoat with one massive finger. With the other hand, He tucked the leaf into the inner pocket where I kept Holgren’s pendant and my mother’s locket.

  “Um, thanks? What am I supposed to do with it though?”

  He shook His head and smiled a little sadly. Shooed me away.

  “I guess I’d better go, then,” I told Him. “Time is running out.”

  He nodded, and I was back at the tree. The sparrows, while still agitated, weren’t quite so frantic.

  I had very little time and a lot left to do.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Fallon Greytooth was still recuperating in his cave. He didn’t look like he was up for what I needed him to do, but he assured me he’d be ready by evening. Yes, time was running short. Yes, I was going to break into the Riail and steal the Founder’s Stone. But I wasn’t going to do it in broad daylight. I was desperate, not insane. That and there was still one small part of my plan that I didn’t quite have worked out. A detail, really.

  For all that I’d mocked Greytooth for his “careful” planning in assaulting the Citadel, my own plan to relieve the Syndic of the Founder’s Stone wasn’t all that different. Seeing Greytooth rip out that window grate, along with a goodly portion of the wall it was attached to, and fling it out into the Bay had given me the idea. Lyta had confirmed that the Founder’s Stone wouldn’t be damaged, whatever we did. The Sparrow God had shown me enough of the layout of the Riail to reassure me we wouldn’t have to blunder around the Syndic’s palace trying to find it, probably fighting Council guards all the while and blasting holes in walls to get the Stone outside. In a very real sense, this wasn’t going to be a burglary; it was a simple smash and grab.

  It was just that the scale of it was so much bigger than shattering some display case and bolting with the loot before a guard could nab you. Or stab you.

  That and making sure the Stone landed where we needed it to.

  “Can you guide the Stone’s flight?” I asked Greytooth.

  “To a degree.”

  “How fine a degree though? Could you land it on the deck of a ship, say?”

  “I don’t say I couldn’t hit a moving target, but I do say that I would be very surprised if I managed it.”

  “How about a ship that that hadn’t moved in, oh, a millennium or so?”

  “Still doubtful. Such a target is very small, Mistress Thetys. Unless…”

  “Unless?”

  “Well. I would need a magical lodestone of sorts. Something to call to the Stone in its flight. It would take some preparation.”

  “How much? How long?”

  “What time is it now?”

  “Mid-afternoon. Which you would know if you didn’t live in a cave.”

  “Give me until midnight then. I’ll also need something from the location where you want the stone to land.”

  I thought about that. I didn’t see how I could even scratch Lyta’s penteconter much less break a piece off and bring it to Greytooth. A thousand years being assaulted by the sea hadn’t put a mark on it.

  “Would sea water be good enough?”

  He gave me a look that said, “Don’t be daft.” “Does sea water stay in one place?”

  “All right, how about a scrap of tarp?”

  “Has the tarp been in the same place for an appreciable amount of time?”

  “Years, probably.”

  “Then yes. That will suffice.”

  We talked over my sorry excuse for a plan a little more, searching for anything that would increase its chance of success. Basically, it boiled down to “get to the Founder’s Stone without getting killed, launch it out across the city and make it fetch up in Lyta’s lap without getting killed, and then run away before we got killed.”

  The scariest part was the fact that Greytooth would be very busy during almost the entire job, leaving me to keep the Council guards from sticking lots of holes in us. I said as much to Greytooth.

  “They’re trained warriors, and there are likely dozens of them. I’m a burglar, and last I checked, there was only one of me. They’ll hack us to pieces. Is
n’t there any sort of edge you can give me of the magical variety?”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to hire some blades of our own?” he said.

  “No, actually, for two reasons. First, as soon as you told any mercenary what the plan was, they’d laugh their heads off, leave, and report us for the reward they’d be certain to get. Second, it would be almost impossible to sneak enough people in to make a difference. So. Magic?”

  He blew out a weary breath. “I’ll think of something. But I’m no battle mage.”

  “Do your best,” I told him. “I’ll be back. I’ve got to go get you your target.”

  Another thing about living underground is the fact that you have no idea what the weather is up to. When I opened Greytooth’s door, I discovered it was now pissing down rain: a cold, pitiless rain from a slate-gray sky. I drew the hood of my cloak up over my head and waded out into the deluged streets. This far up the Mount, the streets were more vertical than horizontal, making them the next best thing to waterfalls.

  “Gods, I hate this city,” I muttered.

  #

  It was dark by the time I arrived at the Wreck. As furious as the rain had been when I set out, it had died down to a miserable drizzle by then. I was thoroughly soaked and in a foul mood.

  Lyta was, surprise, at home.

  “Once again, welcome, Doma Thetys,” she called out as I reached the tarp that served as her door. I pushed it aside and entered.

  “Don’t suppose you’ve got a fire hidden somewhere,” I asked, keeping my eyes from her glowing ones.

  “Alas, no. I don’t really feel the cold.”

  “Lucky for you.”

  “To what do I owe this visit?”

  “I’ll be doing my damnedest to deliver the Stone to you. Tonight. I need a piece of your front door to do so.”

  “You are welcome to it,” she replied without any perceptible change in her tone. I might have been asking to borrow an egg or a cup of flour for all the emotion she showed.

  “I’d have thought you’d be a little more excited at the prospect of getting the Stone and getting free,” I told her, cutting a corner away from the tarp and pocketing it.

  “I find it doesn’t suit to become excited by prospects, Doma Thetys, only realities.”

  “In other words, you’ll believe it when you see it.”

  “Precisely.”

  “I suppose I can understand that,” I replied, rising. “Well, if all goes well, you’ll be seeing something believable sometime after midnight.” I pushed the tarp back, preparing to leave.

  “Amra.”

  “Yes?”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  My memories. She still wanted them.

  “I was kind of hoping you would forget, actually.”

  She shook her head. “Mour is insistent.”

  “Mour is dead.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  I sighed. “All right. Now’s as good a time as any, and later might be too late. Let’s get this over with. What do I do?”

  “Give me your hand,” she replied, stretching out her own in the gloom. I crossed the short space between us, leaned down a little, and put my right hand in hers.

  As soon as our hands touched, there was a spark, a shock, the kind you might get from a door knob after walking across a carpet on a cold, dry winter’s day. I pulled back instinctively, or tried to, but her grip was suddenly vise-like and painful. She was far stronger than her old lady body had any right to be.

  “I thought you said this wouldn’t hurt a bit, Lyta.”

  She didn’t reply. Her eyes grew brighter. Her long, white hair began to billow about her head. Her grip on my hand was getting painful. Bones started grinding against each other. And the stain left by the Blade that Whispers Hate began to glow.

  “Abanon? What do you here? What fool let slip your chains?” The words were coming out of Lyta’s mouth, but it wasn’t Lyta’s voice.

  “Lyta? Better let go now. I’ll be needing that hand later to get you the Founder’s Stone.” I was starting to sweat despite the chill.

  “Mad shard of a mad sister, I will not let you free. You are a stain, a poison, and one I will not countenance.” And then she started strangling me with her other hand.

  I couldn’t knife her. I needed her. But if I didn’t do something quickly, she was going to crush my windpipe. So I punched her dead between the eyes with my free hand and with a strength born of not a little desperation. And maybe something more. Certainly I’d never hit anybody else that hard in my life.

  She flew back, chair and all, breaking both her hold on my hand and my neck. Her head smacked hard against the stone deck with a very serious sounding thud. Her lights went out. Literally. The room was very dark. I backed off until I was just inside the doorway and pulled the tarp open to let in a little more light.

  After a few seconds, she began to move. She opened her eyes, and they glowed faintly once more, opalescent. She made it to her knees and leaned against her overturned chair. Her long hair covered most of her face.

  “Are you going to try and kill me again?” I asked her.

  “No. I apologize. That was Mour, not me. I think it best we do not touch again.”

  “Sounds very reasonable to me. Mind telling me what just happened?”

  “You did not destroy the Blade that Whispers Hate, Doma Thetys.”

  “The hells I didn’t.”

  “No. Listen to me. You used your will to disintegrate it. A very unlikely achievement and the only thing you could have done to keep from becoming its pawn. But you did not destroy the Blade. You overpowered and overwhelmed it. You took from it its physical form, its ability to act on and in the world as an independent agency.”

  “So what’s the Kerf-damned problem?”

  “In doing so, you became Abanon’s avatar.” She stood, righted her chair, and sat down in it once more. As if nothing had happened, she pulled her hair away from her face and tucked it back over her shoulders.

  “That’s impossible,” I told her flatly.

  “Do you not think I know something of being an avatar of a goddess?”

  “Do you know the things I’ve been through since I destroyed the Blade? If I’d had access to some sort of power, anything like the power that the Blade had, then everything to do with Thagoth would have been child’s play instead of the worst half-year of my life.”

  “You, Amra Thetys, are the living vessel of Abanon, Goddess of Hate, and one of the eight shadows of the Eightfold Goddess. I swear it.”

  I shook my head. “You’re either lying or crazy. Either way, you’re wrong.”

  She had nothing to say to that. The silence stretched. I realized I was angry, so angry my hands were trembling. There was no time for this.

  “Can you actually save the city from the spirits,” I spat at her, “or was that just crazy talk as well?”

  “I can and will if you get me the Stone.”

  “So we’re done here?”

  “We are. For now.”

  “For good, you mean. As long as you follow through on your end of the bargain. And you’d damned well better.”

  I walked out without another word.

  I walked through Hardside toward the Girdle, wet, cold, and shaking with rage, unaware of my surroundings. I didn’t know what sort of game the Hag was playing or what she hoped to accomplish. But by all the dead gods, she had to be lying. There was nothing to lend credence to her story. I’d had the Blade pouring its bile straight into my mind. I knew the sound of its voice, the feel of its awful, corrosive power better than anyone except the young Arhat, who had guarded it for years until Corbin had stolen it.

  Better than anyone living, in other words.

  If it was still inside me, somehow, I would know it.

  Wouldn’t I?

  The only answer was a damnable itching on the palm of my hand, which was no comfort at all.

 
; The rage had left me by the time I got to the Girdle, leaving in its wake a sick feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.

  That rage would flare again once I got back to Greytooth’s.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  This time, Greytooth wasn’t alone.

  He’d finally started a fire in the grate, which helped with the light and didn’t with the smoke. When I walked in, he was cross-legged on the floor, bent over a very big, very fat book. At the far end of the room was a man with his back turned to me, studying a dusty, broken, gilded clock.

  “Master Greytooth,” I said in greeting. “Who in hells is that you’ve got with you?” Entertaining visitors right before breaking into the palace of a country’s ruler seemed somewhat inappropriate.

  “Amra,” replied Greytooth, not looking up from his book. “You suggested we would require magical aid in our endeavor. I procured it.” He gestured to the man. “May I present to you the Just Man, Ansen.”

  The man turned around to face me.

  “Hello, Uncle Ives,” I said, and then I was across the small room and pounding his face with my fist. I got in three good blows before Greytooth pulled me off.

  “Amra! Have you gone mad?” he said, pinning my arms. Which left my legs free. I managed a good kick to Ansen’s privates, which doubled him over in a very satisfying fashion. I’d like to say that even though I was furious, I still had enough sense not to stick him with a knife. I’d like to say it, but it would be a lie. The truth is, I wanted to hurt this man who had pretended to be my family, who had, through his deceit, caused me to cry over my mother. I wanted to cause him pain, and a knife was just too impersonal.

  I only stopped because Greytooth made me. I felt his magic run cold fingers down my spine in the instant before it took hold, locking every muscle of my body rigid. It was not a comfortable feeling.

  “You assault a guest in my home?” Greytooth growled, staring down at me where he’d dropped me on the floor—and not gently. “How dare you? By what right?”

  “She has the right,” wheezed Ansen from out of my view. “I deceived and manipulated her in a very personal manner. Let her up, Magus.”