Thief Who Knocked on Sorrow's Gate

by Michael McClung

  Greytooth glanced at Ansen then looked back at me. “No more melees, Mistress Thetys. I warn you, this is not a tavern.” And then my muscles were my own to move once again. I climbed to my feet, ignoring Ansen and Greytooth. Went over to the cabinet where the wine was kept, pulled out the first one that came to hand, and uncorked it with a knife and an expert twist. Took a long swallow, didn’t taste it. Stared at the wall for a while.

  “I’m not working with that piece of filth,” I finally declared.

  Greytooth sighed. “I’ve no idea what has passed between you two, nor do I find myself caring. We need assistance in order to meet our objective. Ansen can provide it. His interests are aligned with ours, time is desperately short, and the consequences of failure, need I remind you, are dire in the extreme.”

  “So what’s your point?” I asked, turning to face him. He looked like he was about to kill me, so I put up my hand and said, “I hear you. You’re making perfect sense. But I can’t trust him, Fallon, and what’s more, you shouldn’t trust him either. He’ll use us both to get what he wants and leave us twisting in the wind once he’s got it.”

  “Do you even know what I want?” Ansen asked.

  “I’m guessing you want me to punch you in the face some more, or else you wouldn’t be talking.”

  “I want the Syndic and the Council of Three thrown down. I want the whole damned Riail pulled down. I want just rule for Bellarius and all of Bellaria, an end of the depredations of the—”

  “Tell him to shut his mouth, Greytooth, or I swear by all the dead gods, I’ll shut it for him.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” replied Greytooth. “Ansen,” he continued, “please be quiet.”

  “Look, Fallon. This is very simple. You can’t trust him. Deceit is what he’s all about apparently. What we are about to do, it’s too damned important to risk bringing this liar and fake in on it.”

  Greytooth stared at me, his long face gloomy, the tattoos on his bald head shifting restlessly.

  “There is a simple way to resolve this,” he finally said. “Master Ansen, will you consent to a Compulsion?”

  “What kind?” Ansen asked in return.

  “Truth.”

  Ansen didn’t look pleased at the prospect. “If I must,” he replied.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked Greytooth.

  “Simple magic. A Compulsion of truth, imagine it, compels the subject to speak only truth for the duration of the spell. It must, however, be agreed to voluntarily. I cannot force the spell upon him.”

  “Are you sure it will work?”

  Greytooth didn’t bother to reply to that.

  “Fine, fine. Can I also ask him questions?”

  “You may. It would be up to him whether he chose to reply. He will be compelled to tell the truth. He will not be compelled to talk if he doesn’t wish to.”

  “I don’t like it,” I said, and sat down on the couch with my bottle.

  Greytooth had Ansen sit in a chair, put the first two fingers of his right hand on Ansen’s lips, and muttered a few liquid syllables. I felt the chill of active magics brush the nape of my neck. Then, Greytooth sat down next to me.

  “Do you intend to betray us or otherwise see our plans to take the Founder’s Stone fail?” he asked Ansen.

  “No,” Ansen answered.

  “Do you intend to aid us in that endeavor to the best of your ability?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are you helping us?” I asked him, and Greytooth gave me a glare.

  “Because taking the Founder’s Stone will help to weaken the Syndic’s grip on power and hearten the masses, making them more likely to rebel. And because I am assured that if we don’t steal it, we are all going to die.”

  “Are you satisfied now, Mistress Thetys?” Greytooth asked me.

  “Nowhere near,” I told him, looking him straight in the eye. Then, I turned back to Ansen.

  “Why did you pretend to be my uncle?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I am your uncle. Your mother’s brother, just as I told you. That was not a lie then or now. Nothing I told you about our family was a lie.”

  “But you certainly did lie about knowing Theiner.”

  He smiled. “That’s not a question.”

  “Why did you lie to me about Theiner and his list?”

  “Would you have liked it better if I’d said, ‘Hello niece, I’m your long-lost uncle. By the way, I’m also a revolutionary leader, a middling mage, and I’ve got a sideline in hunting those responsible for the Purge. You know, on my idle days?’”

  “You didn’t answer my question. Why did you lie to me?”

  “Because I didn’t want you to think me mad. I wanted you to have the list of murderers I’d compiled over the years. I wanted it to be your choice what you would do with it. Burn it or cross each name off in their own blood, whatever would serve you best. It’s a grisly sort of present, I know. But then we are grisly sorts of people, Amra, aren’t we?”

  They say nobody knows you like family. I shook the thought away.

  “I went back to Ink Street after I found out you’d lied about Theiner. The place is deserted and has been for a long time. Why all the illusion? Why pretend you lived there, that the business was a going concern, employees and all?”

  “I shut it all down once my father died. A factor’s business is a dirty one, Amra. You buy over debts from businesses in distress, and then you squeeze those who owe. Your grandfather made a lot of money from it because he was ruthless. Having a conscience is a liability.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  He sighed. “What can I say? Illusion is my specialty. Caution and subterfuge keep me alive. It’s second nature. And maybe I wanted you to get a sense of normality or constancy about some part of your family history. I’m not really clear on my own motives, Amra, and unfortunately, Master Greytooth’s spell can’t make me tell a truth that I don’t actually know.”

  I frowned. It wasn’t a satisfying answer, but apparently, it was all I was going to get. I moved on.

  “You had a letter waiting for me before I ever reached Bellarius. How did you know I was coming?”

  “I’m a mage, and you are a blood relative. It wasn’t that difficult.”

  “Why did you kill Borold?”

  “Who?”

  “Borold. The man whose head you shoved in a box and sent to me in Lucernis. Did that somehow slip your mind?”

  “I’ve never, to my knowledge, killed anyone named Borold. And I definitely never sent you anyone’s head. That I would remember.”

  “Is your spell still working?” I asked Greytooth.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Don’t be insulting,” he replied.

  “Shit.” I’d pinned most of what had happened to me on Ansen, or rather Ives, once I’d found out he’d lied to me about Theiner. It wasn’t that simple. I admitted to myself that I had been ignoring evidence that had pointed in other directions. There was still an unseen player out there trying to run a game on me. Someone who had started the whole ball rolling with Borold’s decapitation. The brand on Borold’s forehead pointed to the spirits of the victims of the Purge, as did the runes I’d found wharfside and in the Girdle. And the big one in the sky over the Citadel.

  They had pulled me to Bellarius just to witness and experience its demise. Which seemed more than a little insane. What good would it do for me to witness the death of the city if I was going to be killed along with everyone else? What good was a dead witness? Wasn’t the point of a witness to tell what she had seen?

  “Are there any more questions?” my uncle asked. “This spell is beginning to make my brain itch.”

  “Mistress Thetys?” Greytooth asked.

  “I can’t think of anything else right now,” I admitted. Grudgingly.

  “Then le
t us get to work. Time is in short supply, and this has been an unwelcome distraction.”

  #

  Less than an hour later, we were standing at the foot of the Riail, out of sight of the main gate. I’d suggested Greytooth fly us all up as he had done at the Citadel, but he’d disabused me of that desire. First, he couldn’t carry another person while he levitated. Second, he and Ives could not cast any magic whatsoever before they set foot inside the Riail. Every external wall of the entire building was warded, and using magic would set those wards off. None of us would survive that, or so he said. I had no reason not to believe him.

  So. It was up to me to climb the dozen yards to the balcony of the throne room, tie a rope around something, drop the other end of said rope down to my accomplices, and keep any guards distracted while Ives and Greytooth climbed.

  What could possibly go wrong? said the voice in my head.

  I couldn’t risk throwing a grappling hook and didn’t have one in any case, so I had the joy of free-climbing the ridiculously smooth wall, coiled rope slung over a shoulder, bandolier-style. I also didn’t have any resin. I also hadn’t really been keeping in shape. I was supposed to be retired, for Kerf’s sake.

  The wall was marble-faced, polished smooth and made slick by the miserable drizzle that had started up yet again. Each rectangular block was about a yard wide and two feet tall. The space between each block was just enough to stick a knife in; not nearly enough for a finger hold. The only thing in my favor was the fact that the wall wasn’t completely vertical; there was roughly a ten-degree slope to it in my favor likely because it served as a retaining wall as well as a keep-intruders-out wall.

  “Sorry, Holgren,” I muttered, drew my knives, and wedged the blade of the first lengthwise into the highest join I could reach. I hated to think what I was doing to the edge of the blade. And I hoped to hells the knives were strong enough to take the punishment I was about to mete out to them. If the tang broke, I’d be holding a very nice hilt as I fell, feeling like an idiot. Until I hit the cobbles. Then, I’d be lucky to feel anything.

  Slow and easy, I pulled myself up, careful not to shift my center of gravity. My boots were soft-soled enough that I got a little purchase in a lower join. It helped some. It helped much more that I was small and didn’t weigh much.

  Slowly, carefully, I reached up and wedged the next blade in sidewise. Set myself. Wiggled the first blade out. My arms were already starting to complain.

  “Not bad,” I heard my uncle murmur. I blocked him and everything else out. One slip of attention and I’d be coming right back down. I did not want to have to start over again. My whole world was balanced on two knife edges.

  It went remarkably well until suddenly, it didn’t.

  I was more than halfway up the wall and had just wedged the left-hand blade when I heard a crack.

  It wasn’t Holgren's gift knife. It was a tile of the marble facing of the wall, the upper one where I’d wedged the right-hand blade. The torque I was forcing on the mortar that attached it to the brick wall behind it made that mortar fail.

  The marble tile fell away, and all my weight suddenly hung from the left-hand knife. I had to force myself not to flail around. My left arm burned with muscle exhaustion and the sudden strain, and my hand was slick with sweat. I found a toehold on the area of now exposed brick and as quickly as I could got the right-hand knife wedged.

  “Kerf’s crusty beard,” I whispered, suddenly drenched in sweat. I realized I’d never heard the marble tile hit the ground but didn’t waste time or concentration investigating. Greytooth or Ives must have dealt with it. If the gods were kind, Ives had broken the tile’s fall with his face.

  The rest of the climb was torture, but uneventful torture. I rose to eye level with the balcony floor, did a quick scan, saw no one, placed one knife carefully and quietly on the floor, got an arm around a stone railing, sheathed the other, and slipped over onto the balcony, muscles burning.

  I knelt down on the shadowed balcony for a few seconds, scanning the dim, candle-lit interior of the throne room. What I could see of it from my position. I saw no movement. It appeared empty. Of course, there would almost certainly be roving guards, and I had no idea what sort of rotation they’d be on. I hastily got the rope secured to the railing and dropped it over the side.

  Ives came up first. He wasn’t nearly quiet enough for my taste, and by the time he made it over the railing, he was panting like a bellows.

  “Quiet,” I hissed.

  Too late.

  They must have been stationed around the corner; I hadn’t risked putting my head into the throne room proper. I heard them a scant second before they stepped onto the balcony, fully helmeted and wearing breastplate, gorget, greave, and vambrace. Their swords were drawn. It was a mystery to me how they moved so silently in all that metal; magic must have been involved.

  They were Council guards, not Blacksleeves. They weren’t down in it every day, extorting and blackmailing, bullying and, yes, murdering. But they were part of the vast machine that kept the Syndic and the Council of Three in power, and that made them guilty enough in my book. Besides, I didn’t have a choice.

  I rammed one knife into the eye-slit of one guard’s visor to the hilt. It hit no bone, so it went into the eye and then the brain. The guard just sort of froze in place. The other raised his sword for an overhead strike. Stupid. I slammed my other knife into his now-exposed, unarmored armpit. The sword tumbled from his grasp, clanging down onto the stone floor, and he screamed.

  So much for the quiet part of quick and quiet.

  The first one started to jerk violently and toppled backward. I snatched my knife back, whirled back around to the second, pushed his visor up, and planted both my knives into both his eyes.

  His second scream withered away.

  I ran back to the railing, ignoring Ives, who was just now getting to his feet. Greytooth was still hanging onto the rope. He was almost at the top, but he looked worn out.

  “Hurry up,” I told him, reaching down to help him over. “We don’t have much time now.”

  Once Greytooth had cleared the wall and the wards were laced into it, he stood up straighter, and much of the pain evident on his face vanished as he uncloaked his abilities. I felt the chill rush of magic pouring off of him once more. But it was Ives who had the next dance.

  “Stand aside,” he panted as more Council guards came pouring in from three separate entrances.

  Ives stepped forward to meet them. I felt him call up his magic. He made short, low, chopping gestures with his hands and the leading Council guards went sprawling, as if something had tripped them. Those behind just leapt over them, swords out.

  “That’s all you’ve got?” I asked my uncle.

  “No,” he replied and made a circling gesture with his right hand followed by a thrust to the right.

  The swords of those guards to the right of him ripped themselves out of their owners’ hands and flew off to the far end of the room, tumbling and clanging and then just disappearing.

  “Master Greytooth?” he said, voice strained, while he repeated the performance with his left hand and to the guards to the left.

  “They’re still coming,” I noted.

  “But now they don’t have sharp things. And they’ll be somewhat distracted momentarily.

  “How?”

  “They’ll see what I want them to see. Just get Greytooth to the Stone.”

  We rushed forward toward the Stone, I on Greytooth’s left, Ives on his right, and the Council guards met us halfway.

  After that, it was pure melee, a dozen unarmed but armored Council guards against us three. Ives called up a blade made out of light, much like I’d seen Holgren do. He was muttering arcanities all the while. I had my own more mundane knives. Greytooth didn’t seem to have anything in the way of a weapon and didn’t seem concerned.

  The Council guards were professional and brave enough, I’ll give them th
at. Knowing they were facing a mage who had just disarmed them, they didn’t hesitate. They waded in, determined, it seemed, to bring us down by force of numbers and gauntleted fists. But they were attacking each other as much as they were attacking us. I wondered briefly what Ives was making them see, but then I had no time for anything except not dying.

  It wasn’t the best time I’d ever had. Most of it was a blur of fists and feet, me slashing and dodging and planting a knife in any exposed, unarmored area I could find. A gauntleted fist clipped my ear; a steel-capped knee rammed itself into the small of my back. I snarled and slashed. There was no rationality, no cold planning. I just fought for my life like a wild animal.

  I caught a glimpse of Greytooth paralyzing a guard much as he had done to me. Ives’ knife was a radiant blur in the corner of my eye, cutting and burning. There were grunts and screams, some of them coming from me.

  And then, suddenly, it was over.

  We were surrounded by guards. We were standing, more or less. They weren’t. They were sprawled across the marble floor, some dead, some paralyzed, some squirming and moaning. My left ear felt wet, and at the same time, it burned. I reached a hand up and discovered it had been torn somehow. Lovely.

  “The target, Amra,” said Greytooth, and I reached into a pocket, pulled out the scrap of tarp, and passed it to him. He stepped over an unmoving guard and slapped the scrap onto the Stone. Muttered something. The scrap of canvas attached itself as securely as if it had been glued in place. Then, almost as an afterthought, Greytooth heaved the Syndic’s gilded throne off the top of the Stone. It clattered on the marble. I heard some part of it crack.

  “That was a satisfying sight,” Ives said.

  “Stand aside,” Greytooth said, and Ives and I moved out of the way in opposite directions.

  Greytooth stood in front of the stone and called up his power. He gestured, uttering liquid syllables, and the Founder’s stone rose, slowly, into the air. He walked backward, toward the balcony, somehow never missing his footing amidst the sprawled Council guards, and the Stone followed him as obediently as a pet.

  He gestured again, and it rose slightly higher. He stepped under it, turned to face the Bay, put his hands on its lower surface. Stood that way for a moment.