Bloodspate: A Song of Agmar Tale

by Frances Mason

  Already the guards, noticing the torches going out, went to them with their own carried brands and tried to light them. Others searched about in the shadows, expecting foul play from the thieves of Ilsa’s Inn.

  “What happens when I pull you out of the ground?”

  “The river will still hear me. The water will still flow, for a time.”

  “Let’s find that heart…and, thanks for the help.”

  “You’re welcome, little thief.”

  Corin pulled the sword out.

  The guards were discovering that no matter how many torches they put to those on the walls they wouldn’t light again. Worse, any torch they held to a doused torch itself was doused.

  Corin crept forward as the shadows deepened. As he approached the doorway he alerted Roberto with a ventriloquised bird call. Roberto acted taking offence and drew his rapier. Agmar threw off his cloak, revealing his two handed sword. Rosy and Sandy backed into shadow and Rose screamed out in panicked tones, “Rape!” while Sandy screamed, “Help! Help!.”

  The doors of the houses facing the brothel were flung open. While the side of the square closest the brothel was now completely dark, some light poured out of the opposite doors. Husbands were bravely pushed out into the street by their wives to fight the rapists, armed occasionally with swords or halberds or pikes, more often with kitchen knives or axes. The husbands, hesitant to advance against armed soldiers, yelled out the hue and cry, and other men poured out of nearby streets. A few wives followed, armed with saucepans or kitchen knives, and cursing whores for attracting lechers to the district. Soon the guards at the brothel doorway were rushing off to involve themselves with the various fights starting up around the square, and Corin eased open the door to which the proclamation had been hammered, crept through, and closed it quietly behind himself.

  He went to the stairway for Ilsa’s Inn. He moved slowly and cautiously. This was no time to be complacent. There was no telling who might be about. Given that this was the thieves’ guild, there were bound to be secret alcoves and passages that thieves could hide in. But as he descended to the tavern all was silent and dark. No secret doors opened. No thieves emerged in front or behind. It was almost too easy.

  He went into the quarters behind the common room. At the end of the passage was the room in which the mechanical woman slept. He saw her in the bed, heard her gentle snore. There was something not quite right, but he couldn’t place his finger on it. Then he realised the soldiers had come through here to clear out the thieves. If the thieves had left her there the soldiers would have tried to waken her since they were emptying out the tavern. They would have discovered what she was, and perhaps have figured out why she was there. That would have led them to the secret door. So the thieves would have removed her. The Lord of Law and his vassals were still within, at least Corin hadn’t seen them being led out. So they could have easily taken her into their secret passages. Why was she here? It didn’t feel right.

  Then Corin sensed the human presence. He couldn’t see him. His adversary was well trained in the arts of stealth, probably one of the Lord of Law’s vassals. He stood at a point just behind where two tapestries joined. He also sensed something. Corin, moved dextrously backwards and slightly to the right as the vassal stepped through the join and into the room. From here Corin couldn’t move back to his left without revealing himself in the doorway, so he couldn’t escape back down the passage by which he had approached. But the next door along this passage was further from him than the distance between him and the approaching vassal. If he ran along the passage it would be too noisy, especially given how dangerously perceptive his adversary was. He had no choice but to shrink into the shadows along the wall and make as little noise as possible. Since most of the lights were out the shadows were deep. He sensed the vassal approaching. His skill was phenomenal. Not a single sound. Not a footstep. Not a breath. He stopped moving. Waited. Corin knew the vassal was straining his every sense, combining them, as Corin did, into a kind of sixth sense. Any subtle change in the environment would be picked up.

  Corin’s hand strayed to the hilt of his sword. But he didn’t touch it. Despite this the sword seemed to murmur. Corin couldn’t be sure whether it was in his imagination, or the voice of the sword in his head, or whether the sword now spoke aloud. The vassal made a sound. He sniffed. Like a bloodhound, Corin thought. Corin restrained his breath, not holding it, but controlling it so that it made no sound. He was ready to spring. The vassal stepped through the door. He sniffed again and Corin’s hand went to his sword hilt. The vassal advanced along the passage towards the tavern.

  At that moment pain flared in Corin’s heart, so intense he gasped. The vassal span around, a blur of quicksilver all that Corin saw of the dagger as the shadow moved towards him, like a shadow beyond a flickering fire in an instant crossing a room. The dagger plunged towards his heart, too quick for him to step back or aside, as the pain in his heart spread to his whole body. In the looming shadow of the face the whites were the only part of the man exposed by a fugitive hint of light. Then the teeth, a row of grinning white. But the grin was a grimace and the eyes were blank, and they fell away into darkness, the vassal’s heart sliding off bone inscribed with runes of blood.

  The runes flowed to the edge of Blood-spate, down the edge to the tip, but never reached it, as if the sword drank the blood. In his head Corin heard the voice, not speaking, but sighing with satisfaction. And Blood-spate was in his hand. He didn’t know how. But he was alive. And the fire in his heart faded, as if washed away by an icy cool stream.

  He checked himself, and found he was unhurt. Checked the vassal. Dead on the floor. Corin reflexively flicked the blade, though there was now no blood on it, and sheathed it.

  He entered the room, moving slowly, cautiously. There was an almost invisible twine extending across the room from one wall to the bed. A trip wire. He stepped over it.

  As his foot touched the floor beyond the tripwire a shadow loomed in his periphery. The mechanical woman rose from the bed. But her movement was not the jerking of an automaton. She moved swiftly and smoothly. This time Corin felt no pain in his heart. He didn’t hesitate. Blood-spate leapt into his hand. The vassal, not automaton, crossed the room, his short blade shining eerily from the slight light coming from beyond the doorway. Corin threw Blood-spate. The vassal moved to slap it aside with his dagger. He was quick and as he did that he drew another dagger from the folds of his dark cloak. Blood-spate sliced through the blocking blade and the vassal’s eyes widened as the horn of the river god sliced into his throat, severing his spine. But not before he had thrown his dagger. And Corin had no blade to block the throw. He dodged, but the blade nicked his cheek, then tore through the tapestry behind him.

  Corin felt the trickle of blood. He touched his face and felt the warm, sticky moisture on his fingertips. He took out a flint and tinder and quickly lit a taper, then examined the blade. It bore a tell-tale stain. Poison. It wasn’t unusual for a thief to poison his blades. Already Corin was feeling the warmth, an almost pleasurable feeling. But he knew that would soon intensify, until he was wracked with pain. Perhaps it would paralyse him. He cursed his luck.

  He searched the body and found a small phial. Many thieves who used poison also carried the antidote, in case they accidentally poisoned themselves. But Corin had no way of knowing whether what was in the phial was antidote or more poison. He had to decide. He unstoppered the phial and lifted it to his lips. He hesitated.

  He searched in his pack and found another phial, larger than the one with dark liquid. He stoppered the vassal’s phial. The other had liquid in it which sparkled, even in the darkness. He unstoppered it. The warm pleasure had become hot pain, and with it the flame in his heart was lit, only more intensely than before. The pain shot up his arm and he dropped the phial. Desperately he shot out his other hand. His coordination was out and the phial spun in the air, voiding its contents. He dropped face first to the floor and licked at the nymph’s t
ears. Instantly they touched his tongue the pain was gone.

  He picked up the phial. It wasn’t empty, though half of it had spilled out. He stoppered it and put it away in his pack, alongside the other phial of poison or antidote. He would discover later which. He hefted the thrown dagger and found it was well balanced for throwing. Finding the sheath belted beneath the folds of the vassal’s cloak he slid the blade home and transferred the belt to himself.

  Stepping behind the tapestry he ran his hand around what he knew to be the secret door, disarmed the trap he had found the other night when he had followed the Lord of Law, then depressed the release catch. He heard a click and cautiously pushed. Expecting a trap on the other side he examined the space beyond carefully as he inched it open. Occasionally he would stop and wait, listening intently. Was there any hint of anyone waiting beyond it? When it was open enough he peered through. It was pitch black. He realised that if anyone was waiting beyond they would be at an advantage. They would be able to see him, but he wouldn’t be able to see them. He unsheathed Blood-spate and probed forward with it trying to find any trap mechanism before he stepped through, but also ensuring he would be armed if a human foe waited. When the secret door was far enough ajar he slid through and let it close with a click behind him.

  He waited in the pitch darkness, letting his eyes adjust, but relying on his other senses while he waited. He hardly breathed. He thought he could hear a slight breath in the tunnel. It was only the echo of his own. He hadn’t noticed the other day, but the tunnel seemed to have been designed to magnify tiny sounds. He held his breath and the echo continued. Softly. But not diminishing. He let himself breathe again. He knew he wasn’t alone. But where the enemy was he didn’t know. His hand strayed to the sheathed throwing dirk. He waited. They breathed. A diffuse, impossible to locate sound that seemed to come from the walls and ceiling. He breathed more softly. The echo diminished.

  He heard a crack, and thrust up at the ceiling above him, stepping forwards as he did so and turning. There was a thump and a clatter where he had stood a moment before. Vertical and horizontal beams lined the tunnel, and the third vassal had been clinging to one of the ceiling beams. Corin checked the body, though he knew by now that Blood-spate usually struck true. The vassal was dead. To his forearms and shins were tied grappling claws, which had helped him hang from the ceiling and wait, but even a master thief is human; one of his joints had cracked in the very movement that was intended to kill Corin. Fortunately the blade which the vassal had dropped hadn’t struck Corin. He suspected it would be poisoned like the other.

  Already Corin had killed three of the Lord of Law’s vassals. He didn’t know how many were left and he wondered why they didn’t confront him en masse. Perhaps it was just their way, sneaking and ambushing their prey. Perhaps they feared what he could do in open combat, having seen or heard of his handiwork in the South East Quarter when he had fought off hordes of thieves with the aid of Agmar. Little did they know that very little of that skill was his own. While Agmar was a true warrior poet, hardened by a hundred skirmishes and a score of battles, Corin was only a thief. The skill with which he fought was all Blood-spate’s.

  He went down the tunnel until he reached the side tunnel which he knew led to the storeroom. There he would find the Heart of Fire. A voice spoke in his head. Blood-spate. “Not that way.” “But that’s where the Heart of Fire is stored.” “I am joined by my forging with that gem. It is not there.” “Where then?”

  Blood-spate led him through the labyrinth of tunnels that made up the Courts of Law. At every turn Corin’s anxiety rose. Why had they not accosted him? Why had they not assassinated him? It was too easy. He was sure there were more vassals, but none of them struck at him. Even stranger, he encountered no traps. In the heart of the guild of thieves! It seemed hardly possible. As he went further he noticed that, though the lights were all out he could see clearly. It wasn’t that his eyes had adjusted. With no lights anywhere it should have been pitch black. But there was a faint phosphorescence in the walls. They were streaked with a slimy substance, and when he touched it and put it to his nose it smelled like mould.

  The tunnels seemed to be inclined slightly downward. Now at every turn that Blood-spate indicated Corin waited and listened. His eyes strayed up and down, side to side, searching the floors for traps, the ceiling for traps and murderers. There were none. After a while, when the air had become quite close, he found some traps. But they were small and inexpertly set, or too easily disarmed. It was almost as if the Lord of Law was inviting him in to a much larger, more subtle trap. But no thief confronted him. No ambush was sprung.

  “Here,” the sword said in his head.

  He turned once more and went along a tunnel that was almost bright with phosphorescent mould. At the end was a closed, plain wooden door. He examined it. No traps. Turned its handle, ready to step aside. No trap was released. The door wasn’t locked. It swung open.

  Within was a soaring cavern even brighter than the tunnel and all Corin’s caution was lost in a moment of awe. The radiance seemed to flow from the cavern into the tunnel, and roll along it, so that the phosphorescence of the mould was replenished. But the wonders of the glowing mould behind him were forgotten because of what was before him.

  From his feet to the far walls was treasure. Chests out of which poured gold and jewels. Piles of coins that sloped up into hills, hills that met mountains. Armour carved elaborately or inlaid with precious metals and gems. Swords of strange shape with hilts that flashed and sparkled with amethysts and diamonds. Sheaths embroidered with pearls and amber, or sparkling with inlaid grains of diamond dust. Tapestries that might fill a king’s majestic halls, rolled up, piled on each other like tree-trunks on a lumberjack’s cart. How had it all got here? This was thievery on a scale that he could hardly comprehend. He picked up a coin and found it was of alien make. There were mechanical beasts, with handles to wind them up. Some where the size of children’s toys, others were as large as a man, like the automaton which had guarded the entrance to the guild tunnels. Some were even larger, like the four silver stallions, with gemstones for eyes and reins of woven gold strands as fine as human hair, leading back to a golden chariot, embossed with patterns of silver and platinum and engraved with deep, intricate swirls, through which seemed to flow glittering light, as prismatic as a rainbow or the swirling radiance of the moon, cast from the multitude of tiny inlaid gems, individually barely larger than grains of sand. All these things seemed to tremble, their outlines to shimmer, as if the whole hoard was alive, or an earthquake shook beneath.

  And there was a sound both deep and distant, yet which seemed to be all around, like a huge smithy’s bellows, coming from somewhere deep within the cavern. A breath behind which thudded the beating of some great inhuman heart.

  He climbed the hills of coins and gold and silver. Platinum and copper, bronze and iron rolled down behind him or flowed down in waves of wealth beyond imagining. Gems in such profusion that the great river Selta might be emptied and its banks filled with inestimable value intermingled with the coins, all cast together with the carelessness of a city disposing of its rubbish. He passed chests fashioned of ivory, intricately wrought, with scenes of battle or images of gods and goddesses known and unknown to Corin. A mahogany armoire disgorged its plates and bowls, of porcelain so fine that the light reflected off of the gold coins beneath passed through it; as light as parchment, as delicate as the petals of white roses.

  Beyond a ridge of golden, triangular coins and gemstones as large as men’s fists fashioned with inhuman craft into mythical-animal shapes was some source of radiance, brighter than any other light in the cavern. Its rays shot like straight spears of light to the distant ceiling and were reflected from there in a thousand different directions, suffusing the whole cavern, making the gold glitter with almost blinding brilliance. Gaping, hardly able to see through the intense radiance he passed over the golden ridge.

  He shielded his eyes. Then he saw.
Shocked, he scrambled back in a vain attempt to hide beyond the ridge he had just crossed. A giant beast rested amidst the rolling hills of gold and precious gems. Its hide was covered with scales seemingly fashioned of those very things: sparkling golden and silver, scintillating with jade and emeralds and rubies, agate, jasper and lapis lazuli; milky pearls and rainbow opals that changed their colour from moment to moment like the swirling spectral moon. And across the beast’s peaked back, ridged with sharp bony protrusions, were folded great wings, like those of a bat, only as like to a bat’s in size as a child’s toy boat is to a great war galley. A tail extended over the further hill of gold. The beast’s rear legs, massively muscled where they met the body, extending like a lizard’s in shape, but with long claws, folded against its side; its forelegs, with huge claws also, each as long as Agmar’s great sword, folded under the jaw of the head, which was shaped like a horse’s only broader. A fiery radiance pulsed around its maw, and as it pulsed, so too did the scales of its body, sending forth a brilliant refulgence. And the eyes were faced to where he had stood. Both were like giant snake’s eyes, only they glittered, as if with gold and silver dust. They stared. And the ridged back beneath the great wings rose and fell, and the sound of bellows he had heard when he entered was the sound of its lungs as it breathed. And the thudding was the beating of its heart, a thunderous sound, with which the whole cavern slightly shook. The eyes stared at him as he crouched and peered over the ridge of coins and gems and he wondered why it didn’t move. Surely it had seen him. Perhaps it thought him little more than a rodent. He had heard of dragons, but had thought them only legends, but here was a dragon before him, sitting on its hoard.

  But something wasn’t quite right.

  He couldn’t shake a certain feeling, and he climbed back over the ridge and slid down the slope, coins and gems flowing around him. The dragon made no move. Corin sprinted across its line of vision. The eyes didn’t move. Only his reflection moved in them. He moved closer, approaching in a zigzag path. The eyes continued staring resolutely ahead. He had heard that some creatures slept with their eyes open, but he was sure there was something different here. The eyes were dead. He went right up to the dragon. Still its ridged back rose and fell. Still the bellows of its lungs sounded. Still the thunderous heartbeat quaked the cavern and its hoard. He tapped the eye with a knuckle. It rang with a musical sound, like a crystal. He checked the great teeth, each like a short sword. There were no yellow stains or decay. They were perfect. Like ivory. And like ivory they were carved with intricate patterns, swirls and vines and geometric shapes. He examined the wings and they were made of woven textile. It was another automaton. And what better guard? Most thieves would run at the first sight of the dragon, not suspecting that it was only a simulacrum of terrifying life.