“Really?”
“Really.”
“I did not know that. Is that why you spend so much time at your madhouse, I mean warehouse? To get away from me?”
“Absolutely.”
“Considering your delicate health at the moment, I’m not going to punch you in the stomach the way I want to.”
“You are the very soul of compassion, Amra Thetys. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“I just don’t want to get any vomit on my boots. They cost me dear.”
In such a fashion, we walked through the Girdle and into the territory of the gentry, skirting riots and whole blocks of burning buildings. Dawn, and the city’s destruction, were about three hours away.
#
“Hello, Amra.”
He was good. One moment we were walking up a deserted street, and the next, Theiner was just there, leaning against the granite wall of the next Gentry house up from us. I stopped. Holgren looked at me.
“Theiner,” I said, both in greeting to Theiner and by way of introduction to Holgren. Two birds and all that.
“Time’s up, Amra.” The rest of Theiner’s crew appeared out of the shadows, about twenty of them, blocking every exit. He had a surprisingly large crew. Which meant he was doing very well.
“You couldn’t wait three more hours?”
“I’m afraid not. Moron Fisher over there called it to a vote as was his moron right.” He pointed a thumb at an oily, fat-faced crewman, who in turn crossed his arms and gave his best stubborn look. I noticed the rest of the crew gave the guy a wide berth. The majority might have voted with him, but they weren’t fond of him, looked like.
Theiner sighed. “Now, you either hand over the kid or we get to get physical.”
I patted my pockets, shrugged. “I don’t happen to have Keel on me just at the moment.”
“Yeah. He’s at the mage’s house. I know.”
“So why bother talking to me about it? You know where he is; why not just go and fetch him?”
“Because Keel isn’t really the problem any more, now is he? When I said, ‘Hand over the kid,’ I meant it more in a metaphorical sense. As in, stop fucking about in my crew’s business, and let me deal with my crewman’s transgressions.”
“No.”
He peeled himself off the wall and stretched his neck. “All right then, old friend, let’s get down to business.” He pulled out two slim blades and went into the aquila position, the guard stance he himself had taught me so many years ago, feet sidewise, one knife high and circling above his head, the other out and ready to engage.
I felt the chill of active magics on my neck.
“I’ll burn you all down where you stand,” Holgren declared, but his face was ghastly pale, and he was shaking. I put a hand on his shoulder.
“No, Holgren. This I have to deal with in my own way. It has to be like this. I owe him.”
“You owe him your life?”
“Yes.”
He looked grim as death. Finally, he let go of his magic, slumped a little. “If he kills you, I will kill him, Amra.”
“I expect nothing less,” I told him and gave him a kiss. Then, I pulled out my own knife and went to duel my oldest living friend.
With only one knife, I took a crouching, head-on stance, the blade’s cutting edge facing him and parallel to the ground.
“Where’s your other knife, Amra?”
“Lost it in the Riail earlier.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” He cast his upper knife, and it stuck in the oaken gate of the house to my right, passing dangerously close to Moron Fishhead along the way. For his part, Moron flinched then blushed. Then looked furious.
Theiner changed his stance to mirror my own. He had the reach of me, and he was stronger than me. The first counted for a lot and the second not much in a knife duel. But what counted most of all was quickness.
I didn’t know if I was quicker than he was. But I thought it likely.
“Are you sure you want this dance?” I asked him.
“I’m sure I don’t. But here we are.” And he lashed out viper-quick at my abdomen. I felt the tip of his knife rip the fabric of my waistcoat as I sprang back. He pressed me immediately, all one continuous, sinuous motion. The knife dove toward my abdomen again, a third time, which turned out to be a feint, flying up toward my throat. I twisted my head out of the way struck his forearm with my own, knocking his knife arm off the line of attack and opening up his side. He spun away before I could make the thrust. Before I could make myself make the thrust.
I couldn’t do it, I realized. Even if I was faster, even if I got the opportunity, I could not take Theiner’s life. Even with all the doom rumbling down on us, I couldn’t make myself climb over Theiner’s body to try and save the city.
I owed him.
“Maybe you really are getting old,” he said. “You used to be quicker.”
“I never had to stick anybody I called a friend back then.”
“You do what you have to do, Amra. You let emotions get in the way, you hesitate, you’re dead. I taught you that a long time ago. Did you forget?”
“No. I just don’t agree with that bit of wisdom any more.”
“Then you’re going to lose this fight.”
“No way I can win it, no matter who bleeds,” I said, lowering my blade.
He’d been impassive the entire time; now, he looked angry. “Get your knife up, Amra.”
“You’d kill me just because somebody named Moron Fishhead didn’t like your leadership style? Really?”
“My name’s Maron,” seethed the bulgy-eyed, blubbery-lipped crewman, “an’ it ain’t Fishhead!”
“Raise your blade, Amra. I’m not going to say it again.”
“How about this? Banishment for Keel. He never comes back to Bellarius. I’ll see to it. And I’ll make reparations to the crew for the inconvenience he and I have caused.” I deliberately turned my back on Theiner and looked over the crew surrounding us.
“Well? How about it, gentlemen? Is that fair enough? If Theiner kills me, which he almost certainly will, you get nothing except dead by dawn at the latest, and probably much sooner when my partner here does ugly, unfixable things to your bodies with his magic. If you accept my proposal, on the other hand, you get rid of a troublemaker, and coin in the bargain.”
They were an ugly, hard, not-very-nice lot, but they were not, on the whole, stupid. Well, except for Moron.
“We had a vote already,” he said.
“You can have another. Everyone who wants to listen to Moron over there, get your hands up.”
There were no takers. Except for Moron.
“Everybody who wants to make some coin, keep Moc Mien as your crew leader, and see the backside of that insufferable twit Keel for the last time, say, ‘Aye.’”
There were a few responses, but most of them were waiting to see how Theiner would react.
“Take Fishhead along with you, and you’ve got my vote,” said one fellow with a wine stain birthmark across half his face. That got more than one grunt of agreement and a murderous look from Fisher. He’d just got two unflattering nicknames in one night, and they were the kind that stuck. I worried briefly that I’d pushed him too far but then dismissed it. He had to be torn down so that the crew would be more likely to vote for Keel’s banishment. Nobody wants to be associated with an idiot.
I turned back to Theiner. Pulled out my purse. Held it out to him.
“Looks a bit small,” he said, still holding his knife. “You sure that will split a dozen ways?”
“There are some choice gems in there; don’t worry.”
He put his knife away and picked the purse up off my palm. He leaned in close.
“You always were quicker than me,” he whispered in my ear.
“Was, am, always will be,” I murmured and took a step back.
I heard the rush of feet behind me, saw the alarm in Theine
r’s eyes. Spun sideways just as Fisher came upon me, a knife already plunging down at my face.
And then Holgren made him explode. When Fisher reached me, it was as bloody mist and gobbets of flesh. His knife flashed by my ear and clattered harmlessly on the cobbles. The rest of him splattered against me and Theiner.
“Thanks, I guess,” I said to Holgren while wiping blood out of my eyes.
“Don’t mention it,” he replied, but his face was frighteningly pale, and he was trembling. I was afraid he was going to collapse.
“He doesn’t look so good,” Theiner said to me, ignoring his own fresh coat of blood.
“He’ll be fine. Goodbye, Moc Mien. Fare well.”
“You really going to try and off the Telemarch?”
“Not much choice.”
“Then I wish you all the luck.”
“Care to tag along?”
I’ll give him this much, he actually looked like he wanted to. Or at least was considering it. But he shook his head.
“My authority has been tested enough for one night. If I asked them to storm the Citadel, they’d laugh me down to the Bay. And if I leave them alone and go with you, they’re like as not to change their minds and go and stick Keel for the sport of it.”
He stuck out a hand, and I shook it. The way he looked at me was the way you might look at a friend about to be executed. False bravado masking sadness and a little relief that it wasn’t you mounting the block.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I had to support Holgren for a portion of the way, but by the time we were standing in front of the Citadel, he was doing it by himself.
“Greytooth thinks I can just walk into the Citadel unmolested because the Knife wants me,” I said to him.
“I suppose we’re about to find out if he’s correct,” Holgren replied.
“Me. Not you, lover.”
“So I am supposed to just wait for you here while you run your errands inside? Come now.”
“Can you do anything more, magic-wise, without fetching up your dinner?”
“Only one way to find out,” he said, smiling, but his face was pale as whey, and he was covered in a cold sweat. I couldn’t make him stay, though, as much as I wanted to. And I needed any edge I could possibly get. Holgren, even virtually incapacitated, counted.
“On your head then,” I said, and pushed on the massive, iron-banded, oaken door. It swung open without even an ominous creak.
We went inside. Nothing struck us down. It was a good start.
The interior was gloomy with only the dim light of the overcast night stealing in through barred windows. But the layout wasn’t all that complicated. The first floor was one big room, empty except for a set of stairs smack in the middle of it. We entered and began to climb.
The second floor was exactly the same except for a few dusty, empty crates and a painting on an easel covered by a dingy cloth. I elected not to uncover it.
The third floor was also the second-to-last by my estimation. It looked like a library. Dust covered everything, even with several large, shutterless windows to circulate the air. I knew Holgren was out of sorts when he didn’t give the titles on the shelves even a cursory inspection.
There was one more staircase in a corner.
“Ready?” I asked him.
He raised a hand, waggled it in a so-so gesture.
“Guess that’ll have to do.”
I started up the stair, knife out, Holgren behind me.
I saw Cherise as soon as my head was above the level of the floor. She was sitting in a corner, knees to her chest, eyes closed. She was obviously frightened out of her wits, but I didn’t see anything that was immediately doing the frightening.
“Cherise,” I whispered.
She opened her eyes, saw me.
“Don’t come in here,” she whispered back, raggedly.
I took a look around the room again. Nothing except an ugly, tasteless, wooden door shaped like a giant skull.
“I’m going to have to if we’re going to rescue you, now aren’t I? What’s the problem?”
She shook her head. Her eyes were huge. “It will get you,” she whispered in a tiny, almost inaudible voice.
“There’s nothing here right now,” I said and climbed the rest of the stairs.
Come calling at last, said the voice in my head that I was sure, by this point, was Chuckles. I ignored it.
I walked over to Cherise and put out a hand. “Come on then. Your tree friend is very worried about you.”
Slowly, eyes darting everywhere, she raised her hand toward mine as Holgren came up behind me.
As soon as he left the stairs, it attacked.
It coalesced out of thin air in the center of the room: huge, nasty, ugly. Its thin, long face was not human, nor were the mismatched eyes and gaping mouth, the hair like long, black wires, the skin the color of a rotting corpse. It was eight feet tall or more. Impossible to tell what sex it was. If it even had a sex.
“Told you to NOT TO MOVE!” it shrieked at the girl and raised a ragged-taloned hand to strike her.
I thrust my dagger through its throat. The dagger went through it, as did my arm. As if the thing wasn’t really there at all. Or as if I didn’t exist as far as it was concerned.
It slapped the girl, leaving bloody lines across her cheek.
I thrust again. Got the same results.
I felt Holgren call up his magic. Turned, saw him scream and collapse to his knees, the palms of his hands against the floor, arms shaking. He vomited up a thin, bloody bile. I felt him let go of his magic. He kept hacking, retching, and heaving.
“Another one? Get in the corner!” the thing shrieked at Holgren then threw him next to Cherise. He hit the wall hard. Cherise screamed.
“Be quiet!” it screamed in her face, and she covered her mouth with her hands. The thing slapped her again anyway. Dazed, Holgren reached out and pulled Cherise to his chest, covering the girl with his own body.
“Both you stay there! Both you don’t move! Both you be QUIET!” The thing started raging around the room, tearing at its own hair, pulling it out in chunks. What fell to the floor disappeared like smoke.
“What the hells are you, and how do I end you?” I said out loud.
It is the greater portion of the Telemarch’s insanity, Chuckles said to me. As for ending it, you could try summoning the power of the rift.
Chuckles was right. I could have. But I might well have ended up killing Holgren and Cherise. I just didn’t have the control I needed to risk it. Standing above a sea of power that was mine to summon with a thought, I was helpless. The knowledge made me sick with impotent rage.
It boiled inside me, the rage I kept locked up, afraid of letting it loose and destroying the world. Afraid of becoming my father, destroying whatever was within reach because the true target of my anger was unreachable, unknowable, impossible to admit. It was another kind of sea, just as powerful in its own way as all that chaos down in the rift. Just as dangerous.
So I had locked it up long ago, that rage, and buried it deep. Most days nowadays, I forgot it was even there. But I never pretended it had gone away.
It would never go away.
Every second I spent in Bellarius rattled the chains I’d wound around it, chains that were very close to snapping. And with the near-limitless power buried beneath my feet, waiting for me to tap it—damn near begging me to tap it—
I took a shuddering breath and took a mental step back from the precipice.
“That’s what you want,” I told it. “And if you want it, then by Kerf’s crooked staff, you won’t get it from me, Chuckles.”
Then this portion of the Telemarch will torture your friends until they expire or, in approximately two hours, Bellarius ceases to be, replied the Knife.
“I’ll make you a deal. Let them go, and I’ll do what you want.”
I do not control it. Nor, at this point, does Aither. It
will certainly not let them leave. If they are quiet and still, it won’t molest them overmuch. Ultimately, there is only one route to salvation, and it lies in wresting from Aither the power contained in the rift. It will wither, albeit slowly, without that connection. Up to you. I will continue, come what may.
“You know me very well, don’t you?”
Intimately. Though I confess I do not know why you insist on calling me Chuckles.
“You know what I’m likely to do before I do it, sometimes before I decide to do it. You know what I will resist doing and what sort of pressure to apply to make me do it anyway.”
I am a very intelligent Knife.
But you’re not a mind reader, I thought. Not really. And that gives me a chance.
Its silence gave me all the answer I was likely to get.
“Well then, Chuckles, I guess we’ll do it your way,” I lied. “Holgren, Cherise, just hang on. Don’t move; don’t talk. I’ll be right back.”
I put my last knife in Holgren’s hand and pushed open the door.
#
The Telemarch’s audience chamber, or throne room, or whatever you wanted to call it, was dismal. Almost as depressing as the cell I’d inhabited at Havelock prison. The floor wasn’t strewn with feces, but it was a windowless stone cell, dank with mold and filled with stale air and not much else. It was a sight bigger than my cell, and the Telemarch had a big, ugly slab of a stone chair where I’d had nothing, but at the end of the day, the greatest mage on the Dragonsea lived like a prisoner. Which, I suppose, was exactly what he was. His jailer floated over his head, point down, providing the only light in the room. I walked toward him slowly.
“They named me the Telemarch. Do you know why? Do you know what it means?” He sounded old and colorless and very tired.
He was sitting on the big, ugly stone chair. It was throne-like but only because of its size. Everything else about it was distinctly un-grand; it was very big and brutally ugly. He almost looked like a child sitting in an adult’s chair. His robe was ragged, his short, white hair ragged, his face very pale, very wrinkled. Cataracts blighted both eyes.
Thief Who Knocked on Sorrow's Gate Page 20
