He went back to the mechanical dragon’s head. He examined the teeth again and he saw a glint inside its mouth. The jaw was slightly ajar. A bloody glow emanated, from the tongue. Ruby bright. It pulsed like a heartbeat, and glowed like a dying sun. He reached for it.
“No!”
The voice was in his head.
“Why not?”
“You who have touched the Heart of Fire ask me that?”
“What then?”
“Extend my pommel towards it.”
Corin extended Blood-spate’s empty pommel towards the ruby, which lay at the centre of the dragon’s tongue. The stone slid into the empty socket, and the previously loose fittings writhed and stretched about it, closing to form a sphere of spectral filigree about the ruby, its colours flowing in hypnotic patterns like the swirls of the moon as he pulled the sword back out of the dragon’s maw.
The fire in his heart burned hotter and more painful for a moment, like a barb being drawn from a wound, and he fell to his knees, only catching himself with the sword point down, leaning his weight on it as if it was a crutch. The pain rushed from his heart along his arm towards his hand. It made his hand grip the hilt more tightly. Flames flickered along the length of his arm. As they reached his hand the flames were drawn off in glowing threads, weaving an elaborate pattern about the ruby. In that pattern runes glowed and flickered and faded, burned fiercely with almost blinding light, searing their shapes into Corin’s vision, where they vibrated, shook apart, reformed and flowed. He closed his eyes and saw them clearly, opened his eyes and they were gone.
The great mechanical dragon no longer breathed. Its clockwork clearly had been fuelled by the ruby’s power. Its scales now seemed dull and unreflective, and the cavern was plunged into darkness.
The glowing of the ruby itself faded, first at its surface, then deeper and deeper within, as if the fire was being drawn from it, and below it, beyond the hilt and elaborately wrought guard, the surface of the blade flowed with fire and water. The elements fought each other and runes of each formed and flowed, continually changing, creating patterns and destroying them. Corin dragged his eyes away from the elemental display.
But the whole cavern was now lit with the shifting shapes of the runes, brighter than the previous illumination, brighter than the sparkling gold. Corin gaped at the ceiling, where runes flowed and fought, fire bright and ice cold. He turned the hilt right way round and gripped it, raising the blade towards the ceiling triumphantly. “Now I am the greatest thief,” he said, “Greater than the Lord of Law. Now I am the king of thieves.”
And Blood-spate spoke. “Only a king.”
Finally he understood the sword’s cryptic pronouncements. “And the sword rules the river and a king rules the sword.”
“Now the sword is complete. Now I am complete. The Horn of the River God and the Heart of the God of Fire. I am Blood-spate, and I rule the river. And what will the king ask?”
“How do I get out of here?”
“I am the great sword of kings. Many are the princes who have fallen to me. Great are the empires that have crumbled in my wake. My rising is as the mountain piercing the clouds. When I strike stones themselves part. When I cut the air itself sings my glory. The great tremble when they hear of my coming. My words are as the making of the world. And you ask me, ‘How do I get out of here?’”
Corin flattered, “Well, you’re not going to defeat any armies down here, are you?”
“The little thief is right. Very well.”
Chapter 12: Sword of Kings
The return journey through the tunnels was uneventful, and with the sword in his hand Corin felt more than usually confident. None of the vassals appeared. The Lord of Law was nowhere to be seen. Corin began to wonder whether he had been down here at all. Then he thought of the vassals who had tried to assassinate him, and, despite the powerful relic in his hands, trod more cautiously. Soon he stepped out through the secret door. He crossed the room, the corridor, the tavern. All was quiet. He sheathed Blood-spate and climbed the stairs from Ilsa’s Inn.
As he came out of the stairwell into the entrance hall for the House of Delights and Ilsa’s Inn, he heard a scream. “Corin, run. It’s a trap.” There was a thwack like a side of beef being struck, then a dull thump. He dodged sideways in case a crossbow bolt was coming, crouching down into a deeper shadow.
A figure was outlined against the night in the doorway out of the entrance hall. Through a gap in the clouds a sliver of moon was shining, casting a dim spectral glow across the square. Corin couldn’t immediately tell whether the figure in the doorway faced towards or away from him. Then he saw the outline of its hands, holding something. It was facing inwards at the door. Behind it was another man shaped shadow, and a crumpled form on the ground. Behind these figures were no other men. All the soldiers had gone.
That something in the hands of the one in the doorway began to glow. It was a giant gem, and within it was an inner fire, like that within the Heart of Fire, only fainter. It reminded Corin more of the gem of seeing that Jared had lent him to navigate the Labyrinth of Leaves. The man was looking into its depths. The light in the gem revealed him to be dressed like a dandy, with scarlet cape and shining black jerkin and puffed slit breeches of blue velvet and tight green hose. His eyes glowed albino pink with a hint of flickering fire and his raven black hair hung straight to his shoulders. The Lord of Law looked up.
“Ah!” he said in his deceptively gentle voice, “The Heart of Fire. Thank you for bringing me the sword, Cor…rgh…in.” The voice choked on the name and he gasped. A grimace twisted the handsome face, and the slim body contorted with it. He reached into his jerkin and took out a silver phial, elaborately engraved and inlaid with gold, unstoppered it and took a draught. The grimace faded, replaced by an expression of relief. Now Corin understood that strange habit of his. He wondered if the pain caused by the Heart of Fire was the cause of those albino eyes. The fire within them faded now.
Corin heard the manglers coming down from the staircase that led up to the brothel and upper galleries of the theatre. Behind him he could hear the click of a secret door opening to disgorge other thieves. Soon they would come up the stairs behind him and he would be trapped.
“And I knew you would come for the Heart, Corin. Actually, I planned it. A rumour here, a false friend there.”
Corin saw the other shadow behind the Lord of Law more clearly now. Tall, slim, with laughing grey eyes. Roberto! The crumpled shape on the ground had throwing knives sticking out of it like a porcupine’s spines. Roberto’s knives. Agmar! Corin’s heart fell.
Roberto said, “You are predictable, Corin. You can’t resist any chance to show how good you are. And wanting to rob the Lord of Law? Hubris, Corin. You’d steal from a god if you thought you could get away with it.”
Corin shrugged and grinned at that accusation. It was true. He would steal from a god if he could get away with it. Even from Ilsa, god of thieves. Ilsa would understand, and steal it back. “The Lord of Law isn’t a god, not even a real priest, however much he likes to call himself Ilsa’s Arkon. Anyway, since when does a member of the Guild of Misrule submit to the rule of the Courts of Law?”
“Submit? No, when a heap of gold as big as a room is the pay I’ll play any part. You know that.”
“Ham act it.”
“I fooled you, didn’t I?” He looked down at Agmar’s corpse. “And him.”
Corin couldn’t deny that. “An honest traitor then. You did say you’d sell him out for the right price.” Corin thought he saw a smile flicker across the shadowed lips.
“Why lie when the truth is so unconvincing?”
“And I suppose Alcuin was your messenger. You never did have a taste for young boys. Maria will chop his balls off and sell him to a perverted sadistic aristocrat when he discovers Agmar’s fate. Maybe you too. Then again, maybe the King of Misrule will deal with you himself. I hope you die a messy, painful death.”
The Lord of Law inter
rupted, “You are good, I’ll give you that, Corin. You remind me a lot of myself when I was your age. I stole the Heart of Fire from a great sorcerer when I wasn’t much older than you. I had wanted you to join the guild. Your talents are wasted with picking pockets in the market.”
“Why rob merchants when you can rob kings? You must have robbed a few kingdoms to build up that hoard.”
The albino eyes smiled. “It’s a long forgotten royal hoard far beneath the palace.”
“Why bother stealing then? With that much gold you could buy a kingdom of your own, or the armies to win one.”
“You know why, Corin.”
He did know. “For the fun of it.”
“Thievery isn’t a career, Corin, it’s a vocation. And ruling the guild has its advantages. I wield more power in this city than the richest merchants. Maybe even more than the king. And you could be part of this. You could be my protégé. You have so much talent. Won’t you join?”
Corin looked sadly at Agmar and angrily at Roberto. “No thanks.”
“I thought you’d say that,” he said sighing, then his tone grew harsh, “but that’s not important anymore. The Heart of Fire is mine.”
“Stealers keepers.”
“Steal? Did you really think you would’ve reached my treasures with so little trouble if I hadn’t planned it.”
“Little trouble? I dealt with your vassals. I’ll admit they were very good. Very quiet. They didn’t even scream as they died.”
The albino eyes narrowed. “Yes, it would have been so much easier if you had just died at their hands. But then, I suspected you might win through if it came to that, so I made certain other arrangements.”
Corin said with false bravado, “I can kill a lot more of you if you like.”
The Lord of Law smiled. “Like you did the other night in South East Quarter? It’s just as well the sword’s enchantments aided you so well then. If my minions had succeeded I would never have discovered what you had. The sword would probably have been thrown away with your corpse. I would never have known you had the legendary Blood-spate if it wasn’t for Roberto here, and he only found out tonight. It’s the only cure for my…condition.”
“The fire inside.”
“Yes. I thought you were the one who had disturbed it. You didn’t rearm all of the traps. You cut the final string and couldn’t replace it. So I knew someone had touched the Heart of Fire, as I did, foolishly, many years ago.” He looked at Corin desperately then. “The blade has healed you, now that it’s made whole, hasn’t it?” He pleaded, “Would you deny me that balm? I’ve suffered so many years. You can’t imagine how I’ve suffered. Lend me the sword.”
“You expect me to believe you’ll give it back?”
The Lord of Law sighed. “No, I suppose not.” His gaze hardened. “I’ll take it anyway. All I needed was to catch you. And I have. The difficulty after discovering that you had the blade was, how to catch a master thief with a dangerous enchanted sword?”
“King of thieves.”
The Lord of Law scowled and the fire flickered in his albino eyes. He squeezed them shut and bit his lip. Then his eyes sprang open. They burned with anger now. “There’s only one king of thieves in this city.”
Corin said cockily, “And yet another could steal from you. Who’s the better thief?”
“You haven’t got out yet. A thief who dies in a trap isn’t so great a thief.”
“So you’re going to kill me?” He was stalling for time, his thoughts rushing down a hundred paths in search of a solution. Though he had fought off many thieves and manglers the other night, he had had the aid of Agmar, and Agmar’s song. And he was sure there must be at least as many thieves and manglers here tonight, probably many more. And what skills did the Lord of Law himself have? It took a lot of murder and betrayal to rule the Courts of Law.
“No. We’re going to trade.”
“Trade what? You have nothing I want.”
“Rose.”
“What, a whore?” He said it with his usual nonchalance, but inside he was torn. He wouldn’t admit, even to himself, that he loved her, but if her life was at stake, what would he do?
The manglers who had descended from the brothel stairs laughed as they closed in. The thieves from below were now on the stairs behind him. He could tell from the sound of their feet that there were scores, perhaps hundreds. Ilsa’s Inn, underground, was probably riddled with secret doors to rooms in which members of the guild could hide. The thieves he had seen escorted out were only a fraction of the whole. And those who had come out were probably back in the square, since the Lord of Law had obviously bribed the soldiers to leave. He was surrounded. There was no way out.
With the manglers from the brothel above came Charlotte, grand procuress, madam of the House of Delight, lover of the Lord of Law. She carried a lamp that shed a feeble light on the scene. Randy the mangler came behind her, and he dragged something along the floor. It was Sandy. So she was the one who had screamed to warn him. But where was Rose? In the light Corin saw Sandy’s beautiful face was now a bloody bruised mess. That wasn’t the work of a single punch. Randy was dragging her by her hair. He lifted her now, by her hair, to her feet, all the time grinning at Corin. If there was one whore who had been more of a mother to the orphan with quick fingers than Sandy he couldn’t recall. He gripped the sheath of Blood-spate tightly with his left hand, just below the hilt. Blood-spate murmured.
The mangler mocked, “Oh, little Corin, talented Corin, master at law, lover of whores.”
The Lord of Law said, “Give me the sword and I’ll guarantee the safety of that pretty young whore you love. Or else…”
He nodded to Charlotte. She stepped next to Sandy, drew a knife, and slit her throat. Randy let go of her hair and she slumped to the floor, blood pooling about her. She hadn’t made a sound as she had died. The Lord of Law turned back to Corin. Corin fought back tears. Sandy had been a whore, used with contempt by the men of the city, despised by the wives who married for money, but she had always been kind to Corin, son of a beggar, street urchin, thief. He glared at the Lord of Law, hate filling him, telling him to forget his own safety, his life, to kill this man, to avenge her. And how many others lives he had destroyed? How much vengeance would be enough? But he couldn’t see Rose. She could be anywhere in the city.
The Lord of Law continued, “You do love whores. I understand. I approve.” Charlotte, his lover, leered. “Don’t try to deny it. Your heart aches for this one.” He pointed to Sandy’s corpse. “How much more would it ache for pretty young Rose? Those sweet lips. Those perfect breasts. The shape of an hourglass. The skin of a goddess. And such a heart! A whore and yet, such a heart! To love a thief, a miserable, worthless little thief. I would love to discover its mysteries. How to discover its mysteries?” He paused as if pondering a profound question, then an evil smile spread across his face. “Perhaps I should cut it out.”
“Where is she?”
“In a safe place. But a safe place can so easily become dangerous.”
“So you don’t have her.”
The Lord of Law narrowed his eyes, and in that moment Corin knew it was true. That was why she wasn’t here. If the Lord of Law had captured her he would have displayed her with a knife to her throat. She had been part of his plan, but somehow she had escaped. The thieves behind Corin were almost within reach. Only a moment more and they would stab him in the back, or he would turn to face them and the Lord of Law would stab him in the back.
Corin grasped the hilt of Blood-spate and it sprang out of its sheath. As it did the darkness fell back. The runic flames blazed and the manglers shielded their eyes, backing away. The blade vibrated and the vibrations changed and multiplied and the room was full of a weird music. The ground rumbled beneath his feet. Behind him the thieves hesitated, unsure of their footing. But the Lord of Law approached, the runes writ across his face and the tapestries on the walls. In his eyes was not just greed, but pain. And madness. He had touched
the Heart of Fire half a lifetime ago. He had felt what Corin had suffered for a few days, but had lived with it for decades.
“I’ll have the sword. I’ve waited a lifetime. I won’t be denied. Give me the sword. Give me the sword and I’ll let the whore live.”
That weird music sounded inside Corin’s head as well as outside it, but in his head the music was a voice and the voice was his own. He heard countless languages, dead and living, and every one of them was but a line in the harmony of a language that was them all and yet was none. And he understood the language, not part of it, but all of it. It was the language of creation, the language of destruction. It created and destroyed him in every moment, it flowed through him but was him. And in his eyes the runes that flowed along the sword were seen truly, and they wrote within his flesh and upon the world its beginning and its end, and the end was in its beginning and was an ever new beginning. The runes flowed like water, but were as bright as burning fire, and they scorched and soothed in the same moment. And the moment was eternity. The voice of Blood-spate no more spoke in his head, for he was Blood-spate and Corin together, their substance flowing one into the other and back, in an endless circuit like the runes on the blade. He knew what Blood-spate knew, he saw what Blood-spate saw. He felt the river flowing beneath them and around them, and he was the river. The trickles through the cracks, deep within the earth, the torrents rushing over stones, above and below the city, the silting in the bends, the flooding in the plains, the rains and the ice from which he came, the life that he gave, and the destruction he had wrought. The destruction he could bring.
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