by Pratt, Tim
The glassy eyes of a dead owl stared up at him, and the thief turned his head away in disgust. The bird's head was twisted completely around, its neck broken. “Good Lord, woman, are you mad?"
“You'd better hope I'm not mad,” she said, her voice low again, and serious. “Because if I'm mad, you're going to eat that owl—beak, feathers, and all—on a madwoman's whim, and have nothing to show for it but stomach cramps and shit that cuts you."
She was serious, the thief could tell. “And if you're not mad?"
“Then after you eat that owl we'll get out of this hole, thief, and we will steal something grand."
“I can't,” he said, looking at the dead bird. It was huge—even plucked and beheaded and cooked he couldn't have eaten it all. “I'm sorry, I don't know why you ask this of me, but I can't."
Something tightened around his throat, like blunt, flat fingers, cutting off his air. He choked and clawed at his throat, but his fingers touched only his own skin.
“Eat it, or die,” she said.
He gasped his agreement—he had little choice. The invisible fingers loosened, and the thief rubbed his throat. “Can I have a knife at least?” he asked, dismayed by the roughness of his voice.
“Of course,” she said, and tossed a blade onto the furs beside him. He'd expected a jeweled dagger, but this was a working-man's knife, serrated on one side, sharp on the other, with a stained leather grip. He looked at the owl, at the knife, at the woman. “Aren't you afraid I could kill you with this, faster than you could stop me, hands of air or not?"
“Not at all,” she said.
He winced, nodded, and looked at the owl.
“It's fresh,” she said, her voice surprisingly kind. “As fresh as it can be. I caught it before I was trapped here, a long time ago, intending to use it myself. I've spent considerable effort to preserve it. You don't have to eat the entrails. They'd make you sick, and anyway, I have other uses for them. And you can have lots of water, while you eat.” She passed him a fine porcelain pitcher, and he dipped his fingers in to feel cold water. “We're not barbarians here."
Yes, he ate the owl, the whole thing—eyes, claws, beak, feathers. She let him grind up the talons with a stone and mix them in with water because he feared they'd cut his throat going down, otherwise. He didn't vomit, because she told him that if he did, he would have to eat what he threw up, every foul speck.
Oh, you boys love this one, don't you? You'll be telling it to your friends for months. The more disgusting it becomes, the more horrible, the more you'll eat it up. You shits.
Be gladdened, then. It gets worse.
She refilled the pitcher from the spring twice, and he drank it all. His stomach clenched, and it took all his concentration not to vomit. He'd never tasted anything so foul, never endured anything so horrible.
The woman spread the owl's gray, flecked entrails on a square silver tray. She prodded them, smiling and nodding as the thief fought his urge to gag.
“Eat a dead owl for breakfast,” the woman said, laughing softly, “and nothing worse will happen to you all day."
“Now will you show me the way out?” the thief asked through clenched teeth, arms wrapped around his belly.
“No, dear. Now you'll sleep, and then you'll show me the way out."
The thief did not believe he'd ever be able sleep, not with that pain in his belly, but the woman offered him a cup, and he drank something sweet and heady from it, and fell into sleep.
He dreamed of flying, and swooping down from the night, and listening. The world was a teeming place of flitting movements, small sounds fraught with significance, strange odors. Eating was everything. Blood was everything. Flying was not the way humans imagined it, a consuming thrill of freedom, a transcendent experience.
Flying was just the fastest way to get to the blood.
The thief woke, opening his eyes to sunlight and trees. No furs beneath him—only soil, and a root digging into the small of his back. He would have believed it all a dream, if not for the rough, thick taste of feathers still on his tongue. Not even two pitchers of water had been enough to wash that away.
“You see, you did show me the way out,” the woman. “You flew, and took me with you."
He turned his head slowly. His stomach didn't hurt so much now, but his limbs felt stretched, and his head hurt. The woman sat cross-legged in the dirt, her sleeves pushed back, the scars on her arms horribly white in the sun.
“We're free,” he said.
“I'm free, my darling,” she said. “You belong to me for a while yet. But I'll make it worth your while. You used to be the lowest of the low, but soon you'll be a master thief.” She touched his forehead, and he flinched away at first, but her fingers seemed to soothe the pounding in his skull, so he let her go on.
When she drew her hand away, he saw her scars again. “What happened to your arms?” he asked, and then regretted it instantly. What madness, to remind a woman—a creature!—like this of an old injury, and old pain!
She didn't get angry. She just said “A knife happened,” and stood up. “Let's go, thief."
“You call me thief. It's a good enough name. But what do I call you?"
“Call me Mistress, call me wench, I don't care. Come on."
He got to his feet. “What really happened? How did we get out?"
“You consumed the owl, and partook of its spirit. Part of its power became yours, and you flew from the pit. You carried me with you."
“That's unbelievable. I've heard stories, but..."
“I'm what the stories are made of,” she said. She set off into the forest, walking with long strides.
“I guess the owl energy is all used up now,” he said, a bit wistfully, following her.
She laughed. “It's not like a skin of wine. It's the creature's soul, and you consumed it. Its power is in you forever, for as long as your own soul endures.” She glanced at him over her shoulder. “That doesn't mean you know how to use it, though. You took on the properties of the beast and then you fainted. I'll expect better than that when we get where we're going."
“Which is where?"
She said the name of the thief's home city.
He stopped short. “I can't go there! I've been exiled from that place!"
“Some say Fate can be bargained with, when the wind is right. But I'm not Fate, and you won't change my mind."
“We won't make it before the snow,” he protested.
“Not by walking,” she agreed. “That's why we'll have to fly part of the way."
She didn't demand that they fly right away, just that they walk. He squatted behind a rock about noon, but saw no feathers in his shit.
He tried to make conversation. “How did you wind up in that hole?"
“I thought there was something inside it that I wanted. So I went in after it, and then someone shut the door on me."
“What were you trying to find?"
“The same thing we're going to steal, thief, so you'll know soon enough."
They reached a village just before dusk. She led him through the rutted streets to a thatched building, an inn. The sign read “Goats and Compasses” and depicted a ram's head and a compass rose. The woman nodded toward the building. “You should eat, and I should get used to people again. Let's go inside."
“I'm almost out of money,” he said. “I can't afford a night in an inn."
“I suppose you didn't notice that you were in a cavern of treasures last night, did you? I have coins. Old coins, from kingdoms long gone, but they'll still recognize silver, I wager."
She started for the door, then paused, looking above the lintel. “Oh, what's this?"
The thief peered upward. “Just a horseshoe nailed over the door. For good luck."
She laughed. “What good do they think that will do? Did you know that, in the olden days, a king passing judgement would make the petitioner pass through an iron gate, to prove he wasn't enchanted, or one of the Fair Folk? People believed that a fairy
creature would scream and burn at the mere proximity of iron, and they hung up horseshoes over their doors to keep such creatures from passing freely.” She smiled at the thief, looking not at all motherly. “It's good to see that human foolishness endures.” She strode through the door.
The thief followed, shaken. He'd been denying the obvious, trying to convince himself the woman was just a witch or a madwoman touched by the gods, but now he began to wonder if she was human at all, or actually something from the twilight realms. He'd believed that the Fair Folk would recoil from the sight of iron, if such creatures existed at all. Apparently they were sturdier than he'd supposed.
He wondered at the scars on her arms, though. A knife, she'd said, but what kind of a knife could harm the likes of her, with her hands of air and fire? One with an iron blade? Perhaps the presence of iron alone couldn't harm one of the Fair Folk ... but it could be that their bodies were vulnerable to iron's touch.
He would have to keep that possibility in mind.
What's that, snot-nose? Your father's a smith, and he told you that devils and monsters and Fair Folk flee from the sight of iron?
Well, that's as may be. This is a fable, not a true history, and fables have all manner of fantastic things in them, don't they?
And you, what is it? Oh. You thought fables all had talking animals. Well, mayhap the owl spoke before our thief ate it, hmm? Could well be.
Do you care to hear about their evening in the inn, and the music they heard, and the strange way the woman had of laughing at people and the way they dressed? Or do you wish to move ahead, on to something bloodier?
I thought so. I know boys. I used to be one.
They shared a room. The thief took the bed gratefully, though he suspected the woman was not being kind—she would not sleep at all, he supposed. She sat on the floor with a lantern by her knees, shaking bits of bone and brass onto a cloth and studying the patterns they made. Sometimes she frowned. Sometimes—and this was worse—she giggled.
After what felt like only a few moments of sleep, the thief awoke to a great pounding on the door, and someone shouting. “This is the innkeeper! Open the door!"
The woman stood by the window, her mouth turned down. The thief looked at her. “Should we go out the window?” he said, knowing the sound of trouble when he heard it.
“No. I'm curious to see what he wants. Open the door."
The thief pulled his shirt on. The door shuddered in its frame. The innkeeper was hitting it with something heavier than his fist. “Don't knock your own door down!” the thief yelled. “I'm coming."
He unhooked the lock and pulled the door open. The innkeeper stood in the doorway, his face red with fury or exertion, and he held an iron-headed cudgel in one hand.
“What is it, my good man?” the thief asked.
“This money,” he said, and flung a handful of coins at the thief's chest. “It's nothing but painted bits of wood! I don't know how my wife mistook it for the real thing in the first place, but I'm no so easily fooled. You owe—"
“Painted wood?” the woman said sharply. “It's not real?"
The thief stood aside, more than willing to let her take over. She went to the door. “I'm ... sorry for the mistake. Here...” She opened her coin pouch and shook the contents into her palm. She looked down at the coins in her hand and made a small sound of dismay.
“More painted wood,” the innkeeper said. “That won't buy you much, I'm afraid, not even mercy. You can leave, old woman. But I'm going to have your son lashed with a horsewhip. It's been a while since the mayor worked his arm."
“I have money,” the thief said, reluctant to part with his few coins—which wouldn't cover the room and their meals anyway—but even more eager to avoid a flogging.
“That bastard,” the woman said, still looking at the coins, oblivious. “It wasn't even a real treasure trove, just enchanted junk. I wonder what I was really resting on all those years, that I thought was a pile of furs?"
“Don't talk about enchantment,” the innkeeper said, fear showing beneath his anger. He lifted his cudgel. “I won't have talk of witchery here."
“You may not forbid me anything,” she said, looking into his face. “Stand aside, and we'll be on our way."
He slapped the head of the cudgel into his hand. The thief saw how her gaze followed the movement. She feared the weapon.
“Stand aside, or you'll be a puddle of blood in a moment."
He laughed aloud. “You should be whipped, too, woman. I'll see to it."
“Oh, will you?"
His arm, the one holding the cudgel, bent backward. He cried out and then his forearm bent sharply in an impossible direction, and the bone cracked. The cudgel fell from his hand, and the woman jumped back when it hit the floor.
The man opened his mouth as if to scream, but no sound emerged. His other arm jerked, and then his left leg, and he fell to the floor. The woman's hands of air and fire were at work again.
The thief stood with his money pouch in hand, afraid to move. The woman glanced at him. “Come on, thief. Follow your calling. See if he has a purse. We're not as well off as I'd supposed before. We'd best replenish our coffers."
The thief did as he was told, though he found the man's silent thrashing pitiful and disturbing. He fumbled at the man's belt and found a small purse that jingled. He snatched it away, breaking the leather thong.
The man slid into the room on his face, dragged by invisible hands. The door swung partway shut, but the cudgel was in the way, and held the door ajar. “Move that club!” the woman said. “Now!"
The thief did so, nudging it out of the way with his foot. The door slammed shut. He looked down at the weapon. Perhaps the old stories had a grain of truth to them after all. Perhaps the Fair Folk couldn't touch iron—at least, not with their hands of air and fire. They could move doors, beds, people, but nothing made of iron.
The trapdoor over the cavern had been made of iron, he recalled. And probably the walls of the cave were full of it as well. Whoever had imprisoned this woman had done his work well, until the thief came along and ruined it.
He heard a horrible, wet noise from behind him. He didn't look. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Turning him into a puddle of blood, like I promised,” she said. She did not sound angry, or pleased, just ... intent. She was a woman doing a difficult job well.
The thief kept his face turned to the wall.
Long minutes later, she said “I don't suppose it's worthwhile to eat him. His spirit can't have much of use. Stupidity and miserliness and little else."
“Can we go, now?” the thief asked, shuddering. He would not eat human flesh. Never that, no matter what she said, no matter if it gave him the strength of a giant or the mind of a scholar or the power of a king. Never that.
“We can go if you're ready to fly. I'd prefer if you did it without fainting this time."
“All right. I'll try."
They slipped out of the inn quietly, going down the back stairs. To avoid exiting through front, they went into the kitchen. They could escape through the back door.
A little boy, shirtless, no more than ten, stood by a long table, munching on a piece of bread. The thief and the woman stopped short. The boy swallowed silently, then narrowed his eyes. When his expression soured, it became obvious that he was the innkeeper's son—their features were nearly identical. “Father!” he shouted, startling the thief. “Father, people's in the kitchen, trying to leave without paying!"
“Shut up, boy,” the woman said, and stepped forward, raising her scarred hands.
“No!” the thief said. “Let's just go, we'll fly, come on! He's only a boy."
The woman glared at the boy and hissed. The boy's head rocked as if he'd been slapped.
The thief grabbed the woman's arm—it felt like flesh, ordinary flesh, but what did he know?—and pulled her toward the door.
They emerged into the wide space between the inn and the stables. “We need o
pen air,” the woman said. “Too many eaves here.” She started toward the back of the inn, and the thief followed. In the open space out back, the woman turned on him. “Now fly, you bastard. South."
“I—I don't know how—"
“You know,” she said. “You remember it in your bones and in your bowels. What's flying? Why do you fly?"
He struggled to put the concept into words. “To get to the blood,” he said, remembering his dream, remembering the strange experience of viewing the world through an owl's senses. “I fly to get to the blood."
“You remember,” she said, “you imagine, and that is but one short step from the act itself."
“Yes.” He stared past her, into the sky. Sky above, blood below. Yes.
He heard footsteps and a shout. Dimly, with a bird's disinterest for things scurrying on the ground, he saw the innkeeper's son, still holding his chunk of bread. The boy yelled something the thief couldn't understand.
The thief wondered if the boy was blood, and decided not. Too big.
Since there was nothing to eat here, the thief flew away. He felt something—a presence next to him, or on him, or beside him—but that seemed only right and natural, and he thought of it no more.
He flew South, towards blood.
After a long time, the thief stood swaying in a field, the taste of something nasty in his mouth. He spat out bits of fur.
The woman stood beside him. She patted him on the back. “You swooped down and snatched up a mouse. Sorry. I couldn't stop you."
He spat again, and gagged.
“Oh, stop that. You ate a whole dead owl, surely you can stand the taste of one little mouse. The essence might help you be stealthier, too."
“I wish I'd never fallen down your god-rotted hole,” he said, spitting again.
“That's only because you haven't found untold wealth yet. Come, we're near the city of your disgrace. It's been a long time since I've been there. I wonder how it's changed?” She glanced at him. “Do you want to see your parents or ... anything? You humans have strange ideas about such things. You've been good, I'm willing to indulge you.” She walked through the moonlit pasture, beckoning him to follow.
