Thief Who Knocked on Sorrow's Gate

by Michael McClung

  “Enlighten me, why don’t you.” If he wanted to gabble, I was fine with that. It would afford me the chance to get close to him before things became deadly.

  “It means I am unsurpassed at measuring things from afar.”

  “That’s distinctly underwhelming, if you don’t mind me being honest.”

  He shrugged. “You underestimate such a power. Most do because they misapprehend what it is I can measure.”

  “All right, I’ll bite. What can you measure?”

  “Anything. Anything at all.”

  “Would you like me to clap?”

  “For example, do you know what your soul is like, Amra Thetys? Would you like me to measure it for you?”

  “Not really, no. But I’m guessing you’re going to anyway.”

  “Please understand that some measurements are of the metaphysical sort. Let me have a look at you then.”

  “I don’t see how you can have a look at anything, honestly, with those cataracts.”

  “At the top, a layer of detritus and thorns. Below that, a fertile layer of soil, surprisingly fecund and surprisingly thin.

  “Below that, broken glass: jagged, sharp, and blood spattered. That layer goes down deep, yes it does.

  “Below that, oh, below that, you have horrors chained up, the likes of which I have rarely seen. I am more than a little surprised that their howls haven’t yet driven you mad.”

  “I learned how to make them behave a long time ago.”

  “Really? That is something I would like to know more of.”

  “Sure. If they get too loud, they don’t get any dessert.” I was two arms-lengths away from him now. Close enough.

  “I am unsurpassed at measuring things from afar, not only in space but also in time.”

  “Oh Kerf, I thought you were done.”

  “I saw a danger to me amongst the street children sixteen years ago. But even I could not tell, at such a temporal distance, who among you would eventually present a mortal threat.”

  “So you ordered the Purge.”

  “I did.”

  “How’d that work out?”

  “It remains to be seen.”

  “I’ll give you a clue. If it hadn’t been for you instigating the Purge, I wouldn’t be here right now, ready to burn you down to grease and ashes. You provided me the motivation to do what you wanted to prevent by having hundreds of children murdered. Congratulations.”

  “Yes, well. Ready and able are two separate things. You will never wrest control of the Rift from me. You will try, and you will die.” He shifted on his stone throne, looking small, withered, and wretched. The Knife turned slowly above his head, silent now, its slowly pulsing light the only illumination in that barren room.

  Outside, I heard two muffled screams. The first must have been the creature’s. The second was definitely Holgren’s. Enough wasting time.

  “Right then,” I said. “Let’s get down to it, shall we?”

  “As you wish.

  I felt him summoning up the power in the rift. It was an incredible amount; more than I could ever dream of calling or controlling. Where Holgren’s magic was a chill on the nape of my neck and Greytooth’s had sent chills down my spine, Aither’s summoning of power actually sent shudders through my body. I was glad I’d gotten as close to him as I had.

  I pulled out Holgren’s flintlock pistol, pulled back the hammer, and shot him in one of his milky eyes.

  His head whipped backward and cracked against the stone back of his throne. Powder burns stippled and blackened his face. He slid slowly downward, body limp, leaving a red smear on the chair’s backrest. The power he’d summoned dissipated. The Knife fell from the air and lodged itself in his unmoving chest. Smoke from the pistol’s discharge slowly spread out across the room.

  Well. That was unexpected.

  “I bet it was.”

  You do not believe in the efficacy of firearms.

  “But I do believe in the efficacy of Holgren-fucking-Angrado. Implicitly. And nothing magical was even going to scratch the Telemarch, now was it?”

  Pick me up, Amra.

  “Why the hells would I do that?”

  If you do not, then the rift will collapse, and Bellarius will die. The Telemarch could not contain the power in the rift, not indefinitely. You, who are definitely not the Telemarch, will be annihilated if you try.

  “You’re absolutely right, Chuckles. Good thing I’m not going to try and contain it then, now isn’t it?”

  What do you intend to try instead?

  “Oh, wouldn’t you like to know.”

  Whatever it is, it will fail. Anything you might have thought of, I thought of first. I know you, Amra. In a very real sense, I created you.

  “Oh, really?”

  Yes. Did you think Aither decided to instigate the Purge all on his own?

  “Are you saying you gave him the idea?”

  Yes. Not that he was aware of my influence.

  “Now why would you go and do a thing like that?”

  To create the conditions that would, in turn, create someone exactly like you.

  “I suppose you also started the wars between Helstrum and Elam, then, to flood the streets of Bellarius with raw materials, so to speak.”

  Yes.

  “Really? I was being sarcastic.”

  Really. I was being factual.

  “And the spirits of the dead street rats? Did you call them up as well?”

  They were already here but impotent. Leakage from the rift gave them power. I gave them…direction. I couldn’t have you running off, as sensible as that might have been.

  “So you caused hundreds of children to be murdered, and then you used their shades to further your own plans.”

  Waste not, want not.

  “You are without a doubt the worst person I’ve ever met, and you’re not even a person.”

  I am as I was created to be. Just as you are.

  “And just what was I created to be?”

  The ultimate survivor.

  I smiled. I knew then that my plan was going to work. Too bad I wouldn’t be around to gloat about it.

  “You know, I should have died fifteen years ago,” I told the Knife. “In a way, every day since I stowed away on that ship has been something of a gift. Unearned. I always wondered why Bellarius was so consistently cruel to us street rats. I’ve been to many places since I left and seen cruelty in a lot of different colors but nothing so consistent as what this city dished out to the street kids. It made me hate Bellarius, truly hate it. I just couldn’t understand it. It didn’t make any sense. Until now.”

  Indeed. I suppressed every natural impulse towards pity or compassion when it came to the street children. It was imperative that they, that you, learn to rely solely on your own abilities.

  “Why?”

  I am the perfect tool. I require a hand perfected to wield me.

  “You’re lying. By omission if nothing else.”

  Perhaps. It doesn’t matter. Either you pick me up or you and the city are destroyed, and I start again. I do not know impatience.

  “I thought you’d say something like that. Thank you. It makes it even easier to do what I need to.”

  Explain your meaning, Amra.

  “Nah. You’ll see soon enough.”

  If you do not pick me up, I will make sure the girl outside this room, the one who bears your mother's name, will die alongside your lover.

  “Not really sure how you can manage that, but best not to take any chances,” I replied, and pulled out the leaf that the God of Sparrows had given me. Let it fall to the floor.

  There was a massive ripping sound, as if the very air had been torn, and the God appeared. Not as a tree, thank Kerf, but as I’d seen him when I’d talked to him, massive and muscled and fierce.

  He sent me a picture of Cherise.

  “She’s right outside the door. So is my friend. His nam
e is Holgren. I would very much appreciate it if you could destroy the thing that’s tormenting them and take both of them out of this wretched place if you can, quickly. I’ve got to deal with the rift and the Knife.”

  He nodded, put a hand on my shoulder. Squeezed until my bones ached. He looked sad.

  “You’re not going to survive this, are you?”

  He shrugged, showed me a picture of his tree. Leaves were shriveling and blowing away by the hundreds.

  “Better hurry then.”

  He showed me another picture of the city. Buildings were melting like candles. People were just dropping dead in the street for no reason that I could see. A river of blood had suddenly appeared and was washing everything away on the Street of Owls. The message was plain enough. The containments on the rift were failing spectacularly.

  “Guess I’d better hurry too.”

  He gave me another brutal squeeze. Then, he walked out of that dismal chamber to take care of the person that meant the most to him and the person that meant the most to me.

  I was satisfied. It was time.

  I’d always known, somewhere deep down, underneath all the broken glass that Aither had talked about, that this city would end me. But I’d never imagined I could take the architect of all my sorrow along on the way out.

  I reached out for the power, the possibility in the rift, and it answered me as eagerly as it always had.

  Whatever you are going to attempt, it will fail, the Knife told me. The only way to save yourself and the city is to pick me up.

  I was full of power now. My skin itched with it. I felt like a wineskin filled to the point of bursting.

  What was possible? Anything. Anything within the bounds of my own limitations in calling the power. Anything within the limitations of my own will and imagination. That’s what magic was, Holgren had told me a long time ago. The intersection of the mage’s will and power. You had to believe utterly in the change you forced on reality, and you had to have the raw power to make the change stick.

  Summoning up every shred of will and concentration I possessed, I took myself, the Knife, and the rift out of existence.

  The magic that I’d pulled from the rift left me. Nothing else, as far as I could tell, had changed. I could still feel the rift somewhere below me, immense, immeasurable. The Knife was still stuck in the Telemarch’s corpse. The room I stood in had changed not a whit.

  What have you done, Amra?

  “Good question.” I walked over to the door that led to the antechamber. Opened it.

  There was no antechamber, no creature, no Holgren, no Cherise. There was nothing.

  Literally nothing. A void, blacker than black, except for a cloud of roiling, golden light far below.

  I assumed that was the rift.

  “Kerf’s hairy balls,” I said.

  Well. I suppose it’s a good thing I do not feel impatience or boredom.

  “Oh yeah? Why’s that?” But I wasn’t really paying much attention. I was staring out into the void.

  You have torn us out of time and space. Welcome to eternity.

  “I’m stuck with you for eternity? Fantastic. I was sure we’d just cease to exist, damn it.”

  We did as far as the rest of reality is concerned. I can of course bring us back. If you pick me up.

  “I’d rather bite off my own tongue and choke to death on it.”

  The Knife had nothing to say to that.

  I knew I meant it at that moment. I’d literally rather die than return to reality with that thing in my hand. But what about a few days from now? If time and its consequences still applied in the place I’d brought us to, I’d be mighty hungry and dying of thirst. I’d be desperate.

  Best not to take a chance.

  I dug out a gold mark, flicked it out the door and into the blackness beyond. Watched it spin away from me, light from the rift below reflecting off its surface until it went further than my eye could see.

  Amra. Do not do something that cannot be undone. Think again.

  “But that’s the whole point,” I said as I walked over to the Telemarch’s corpse. “Doing something that can’t be undone so I don’t have the chance to change my mind.” I grabbed Aither by a grimy ankle and pulled him off the throne, taking care that I wouldn’t come into accidental contact with the Knife.

  I created you to survive. You will not survive without me.

  “That’s ultimately where you made your mistake,” I said, dragging the corpse, and the Knife lodged in its chest, to the door. “I am a survivor. If I pick you up, there won’t be an I any more. I wouldn’t survive you. So you’ve got to go.”

  Let us come to an accommodation then.

  “An accommodation? With you?” An image flashed through my mind. Bones stuffed under a rotting desk. “Never.”

  I got the corpse to the edge of the door and dropped the ankles. Stepped over it so that I could push it out.

  The Knife pulsed a sudden, blinding flash of blue-white light and burned itself to ash in an instant. Aither’s corpse opened its eyes, one still a bloody, gaping hole but the other now glowing with the same blue-white fire as the Knife. His skeletal hands shot up, grabbed me by the waistcoat, and pulled me down with an iron grip. I punched him as I went down, but it made no difference. He was already dead, and the Knife didn’t care about any damage done to the corpse.

  He shifted his grip with lightning speed, putting one hand on the back of my neck and pulling my head down to his. I fought it with everything I had, planting my palms on the floor on either side of his head and bracing my arms, but I was overmatched. I could hear the withered muscles in his arm tearing. My mouth was open, my teeth gritted with the strain. Our faces were inches away from each other. A bead of sweat dropped from my forehead and fell into the ruin I’d made of his right eye.

  He exhaled sharply, and the blue-white fire blinked out in his eye, exited his withered lips, and flew into my open mouth. Suddenly, his corpse was just a corpse again, and released from the struggle, I fell backward onto the stone floor, choking and gagging on the Knife’s essence.

  I lost consciousness.

  I didn’t wake for a long, long time.

  Holgren

  My name is Holgren Angrado. I am a mage and the son of a mage and a bloodwitch. I am a thief, an inventor, and a scholar. I sold my soul to a demon, once, when I was young and foolish, in order to gain the power necessary to slay the master I was apprenticed to. He deserved it.

  Eventually, I died and went to one of the eleven hells. The third, if you must know. I can’t say more about it other than the fact that it was very, very cold, vast, and strangely empty.

  Amra Thetys brought me back from death and damnation.

  I gave up my magic for the most part after I was forced to use it on her. I didn’t miss it. Magic is a fading force in any case.

  Except wherever Amra goes. Then, magic seems to fall like rain on parched earth. A deadly rain, granted, but nonetheless.

  Now, she is gone.

  She isn’t dead; I would know if that were the case. Magic still has its uses, and when it comes to Amra’s well-being, I take a very serious interest. That is what happens, I’ve discovered, when you love someone.

  She isn’t dead. But she is gone. She entered the skull-shaped door to the Telemarch’s inner sanctum. I crouched in a corner and endured blows of magic and madness, poisoned by my own well, shielding the silently crying child, and watched her go, powerless to help her.

  When it got close enough, I took Amra’s knife and stabbed the creature in the heart. I did not really expect to affect it, given the immaterial nature it had shown to Amra, but the knife lodged itself satisfyingly between the thing's ribs. I smiled.

  It screamed and took out my left eye with its ragged nails. Then, it beat me into unconsciousness.

  Time passed. I slipped in and out of consciousness. I heard the muffled discharge of a pistol. More time passed.

&n
bsp; When the door opened again, I expected Amra to emerge, but instead, a being of considerable power came and ripped the child and me free of the Telemarch’s trap. He grappled our insane torturer, enduring blows that would have killed anyone mortal, and eventually got it in a headlock.

  Then, he ripped the thing’s head free of its body and howled.

  Then, he sat down and stroked the girl’s hair until he died. His corpse blew away in a sudden gust from a window, transformed somehow into a pile of dry, brown leaves. The girl cried harder, no longer silent now, not at all.

  I tried to force the door. Impossible. Desperate, I summoned power from my well, though the last time I’d tried it, I’d almost died.

  My well was no longer tainted, but my magic was not enough to force the door—not quickly. The wards on the Telemarch’s sanctum were puissant.

  The boy, Keel, and the Philosopher that had been assisting Amra arrived not long after we were freed. I told the boy to take the girl home and went back to battering down the wards that sealed the door. The Philosopher, Greytooth, gravely injured himself, threw his weight into the effort as well. We didn’t speak.

  At some point, the boy came back with the physicker. Greytooth and the boy held me down while the man inspected my eye socket. He shook his head, packed it lightly, and wrapped it up.

  I went back to work on the door. After a moment, Greytooth rejoined me.

  It took hours to force the door. Keel watched silently. When we finally did it, there was nothing behind it but empty air and the reeking residue of massive magics. No Amra, no Telemarch, no Knife.

  “The rift disappeared hours ago as well,” Greytooth said. It was the first thing he’d said since we’d met.

  Amra was gone. Is gone. But she isn’t dead.

  I am going to find her, wherever she is, and bring her back.

  May all the dead gods take pity on anything that stands in my way, for I will not.

  Michael McClung

  Michael McClung was born and raised in Texas, but now kicks around Southeast Asia. He's been a soldier, a cook, a book store manager, and a bowling alley pin boy.

  His first novel was published by Random House in 2003. He then self-published the first three books of the Amra Thetys series, the first being The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids, before signing them and the fourth book (The Thief Who Wasn't There) with Ragnarok.