The Thief Who Wasn't There

by Michael McClung

She nodded. “Excellent points all, and as succinct as anyone would have wished for. Now lie down on the street, there, if you will, and put your hands on the back of your head.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because if you don’t, the bowmen that surrounded you while we had our little debate will pincushion you, and there’s no way you could take them all before one or more of them takes you down.”

  I raised my magesight, and even then I could only just make out the veil of illusion that wove its way in and out and around and through all the nearby buildings. As for pinpointing the bowmen, I couldn’t beyond an occasional blurred movement in a window or on a roof. I looked back at Gammond and the barricade, and saw that Gammond was a mage, an extremely subtle one, and that the barricade wasn’t nearly as pathetic as it seemed.

  “Well played, Magus,” I said, and she nodded.

  “No duel, though,” I continued. “That’s not very sporting.” Mages generally respected the ancient tradition of duels of the Art, but not in a battle setting. I was just talking, trying to stall for time just as she had done.

  “We already had our duel. You lost. On your stomach, Magus. I won’t say it again.”

  I got on my stomach.

  Eight

  “I really should just kill you and be done with it,” Gammond said as two of her fellow citizens bound my hands and feet. “But as it happens, I’ve got a problem I think you can help me with.”

  “I’d love to help, really. But, well, I think I’ll tell you to go to hells instead.” I started pulling power from my well as they hoisted me up.

  “Release your well, magus, or we’ll have to knock you unconscious.”

  Reluctantly, I let it go.

  “The Chop,” she told my two guards. One hoisted me onto his shoulder, head down and staring at the stained canvas that covered his posterior. Lovely. The other followed a pace or two behind, cudgel in hand. I hoped briefly that Gammond would go elsewhere, leaving me free to call up some magic, but she wasn’t anywhere close to being that stupid, alas. She walked along with us, next to the cudgel-bearing fellow.

  “Out of curiosity, why did you kill Steyner?” she asked.

  I decided to be truthful, and avoid being provocative. “He violated my sanctum.”

  “You claim the Citadel as your sanctum? And here you were just telling me your fondest wish was to show Bellarius your heels.”

  “Oh, come now,” I said to the backside of the man who was carrying me, “you know as well as I do that a sanctum is as permanent or as temporary as a mage decides it will be.”

  “And you just decided to ‘temporarily’ put down your stakes in the Citadel. Uh-huh.”

  “I’d rather be a beggar in Lucernis than the ruler of Bellaria. Believe it or not.”

  “I don’t.”

  “That’s because politics has narrowed your world-view, I suspect.”

  She had nothing to say to that, and I’ve no idea what her expression was, since even with considerable physical effort, all I could see of her were her scuffed boots.

  Soon enough we arrived at what, presumably, was the Chop. It turned out to be a sprawling wooden building that, in some former incarnation, had been a public house, at least in part. Or so the old, deep odor of spilled ale and burnt sausages told me. Now it seemed to be the command center of the revolution.

  Lots of people were wearing the red and yellow cockades of the Just Men; or rather, the People’s Committee. There was a lot of noise, and an abundance of movement. From my unenviable physical position, it was all just a swarm of revolutionary fervor, caught in stuttering snatches and upside-down glimpses. Then I was finally stood up straight, and could see that everyone seemed to be moving with purpose. Runners coming and going at speed to one of a half-dozen paper-strewn tables, delivering and taking messages across the city. Heated arguments burned in corners, infants napped under tables in other corners. An old man was sharpening knives on a pedal-powered grinder in a rickety mezzanine overlooking the large front room, and sparks rained down through the skewed wooden railing, dying and disappearing before they touched the floor. It all looked like controlled, purposeful chaos, if that isn’t an oxymoron. And the unselfconscious blend of domesticity, military alertness and revolutionary fervor was something that took me aback. I’d never seen anything like it.

  Along one wall, a group of children had stacked up several chairs in an approximation of a post coach. Two of them had apparently agreed to or been forced into the role of horses and were hitched to the jumble, galloping in place; three more scampered around the precarious assemblage, urging them on. Gammond went and appropriated two of the chairs, to the children’s loud consternation. “For the cause!” she shouted, smiling.

  “For the cause!” they shrieked back, fists in the air. Well, three of them did. The horses neighed loudly, committed to their roles.

  Gammond put one chair behind me, and my own mount pushed me down into it. Gammond set the other facing me, and sat down herself, smoothing out her long brown skirts.

  “Now, Magister Holgren Angrado, late of Lucernis, current tenant of the Citadel, let us palaver.”

  “What, no dank cell?”

  “We both know that without constant supervision by another mage, you’d be out of any hole I put you down inside five minutes. So we palaver now, or I kill you. Now.”

  “Palaver away, then.”

  “When you killed Steyner, you shifted the balance of power. Councilor When is the one who benefits from your action. Are you working for him?”

  “I work for no one.”

  “Really? Then who was it sent you those four heavy chests from Vulkin and Bint?”

  “I sent them to myself.”

  “Of course you did. Because that’s just what a man intent on leaving a city does; he withdraws thousands in coin, in case he needs to buy some sundries for the journey. Sundries like furniture.”

  “You are well informed.”

  “Forewarned is forearmed, as they say. Of course we’ve been keeping an eye on the Citadel.”

  “Look, Gammond, we can go back and forth all day, you asking me questions and automatically disbelieving my answers. Or I can agree to submit to a Compulsion of truth.”

  She gave me a hard look. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I have no reason to lie about anything, and I have urgent matters to attend to. The sooner you’re satisfied that I’m no threat to you and yours, the sooner I can be about my business.”

  She kept staring at me.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” She put her work-roughened hands against my temples. I felt her magic spring up to do her bidding, not as strong as my own, but subtle, subtle. And confident. I did not resist.

  “Speak truth, or be silent,” she muttered. It was an archaic, unnecessary phrase; I wondered who had taught her the Art. She leaned back again, still giving me that hard look of hers.

  “Well?” I said.

  “Are you in league with Councilor When?”

  “No.”

  “His daughter?”

  “What? No.”

  “Did you kill Gabul Steyner?”

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he sent an assassin after me, one who breached the Telemarch’s wards.”

  “How did the assassin manage that?”

  I smiled, and remained silent.

  “Did you know killing Steyner would shift the balance of power in Bellarius?”

  “No. I hadn’t considered the possibility.”

  She tssked and shook her head.

  “Do you want to rule Bellarius?”

  “I’d rather have my other eye clawed out.”

  “Do you care who rules Bellarius?”

  “Not particularly, though I suppose you could say I have some slight leanings toward you lot.”

  Gammond snorted. “Oh, thanks so very much for that. How can you possibly be so self-involved as to not care who wins this war?”r />
  “Because I’m trying my damnedest to get the hells out of Bellarius and rescue someone, and this Gorm-forsaken civil war is interfering at every turn. Time is not on my side. You have your cause, Gammond, and I have mine.”

  “Yes, about that. You keep saying you want to leave, and yet everything you’ve done that we can see indicates you setting up shop indefinitely.”

  “I’m going to pretend that was a question. It’s complicated.”

  She indicated my ropes. “You’re not going anywhere anyway. Just tell it.”

  “Take these damned ropes off and I will.”

  She did. So I did, in abbreviated form. Amra’s escapades, and her disappearance. What I needed from the Girdle to track her–the rift spawn. When I was finished, she got up and whispered something to one of the horses, who was now apparently a gray urdu, stalking several shrieking toddlers. He pumped a fist in the air and piped out a ‘for the cause!’ and then disappeared out the door. She sat back down, and I felt the Compulsion dissipate.

  “All right, Magister Angrado. Your partner made this revolution possible, by taking down the Riail and the Telemarch. That much isn’t in question. I suppose you could say I have some ‘slight leanings’ towards not seeing her dead.

  “I’ll make you a deal. You can have the run of the Girdle while you try and snare your rift spawn, on one condition.”

  “Which is?”

  “Do to Councilor When what you did to Councilor Steyner.”

  “Happen to have any hair or blood from When?”

  “I do not. But you didn’t have any of Steyner’s, and still he is dead.”

  “That’s what you would call a special circumstance, actually. In addition to being a mage, I have some powers in respect to blood magic.”

  “Rare. Should I believe you?”

  “As rare as a female mage?”

  “More, for a man to have both powers, and you know it.”

  “I wasn’t consulted about my parentage any more than you were about your gender. Would you like me to prove it? A drop of blood should suffice.”

  “Ha. No, that won’t be necessary.” She drummed her fingers on her knee, and her brow creased. The silence stretched.

  “All right,” she finally said. “Here’s the problem. Councilor When is a ghost. We’ve put considerable effort into finding him, and failed. He never visits his headquarters, and his house is impenetrable. He might be there, or he might not. Finding out the hard way would cost a lot of lives, possibly for nothing, and it would leave the barricades vulnerable to a counter-attack.”

  “How is he directing his troops?”

  “All his orders come through his daughter.”

  “Where was he when the Riail came down?”

  “You’re thinking the daughter is running a bluff. We also considered that. He wasn’t there. He was with Steyner that night, no doubt taking the opportunity to plot against Meyrich while Meyrich attended the Syndic.”

  “Meyrich?”

  “The late third of the Council of Three.”

  “So perhaps Steyner did him in.”

  “No. If the daughter wanted to pretend When was still alive, all Steyner would’ve needed to do was produce a body. Or even just say When was dead, and dare her to prove him a liar.”

  “Gammond, at the risk of repeating myself, I don’t have time for all this. My partner is out there, somewhere, and I’m her only chance of rescue.”

  “Angrado, you’re talking about one person, however special she might be to you or even in general. I’m talking about the fate of an entire nation at a minimum. Perhaps the world, if our revolution takes hold. The very course of history could hinge on what happens in the next few days.”

  “While I’m no fan of despots, I’m not convinced your revolution will make things all that much better, if what you said on the barricade is really what you believe.”

  “I believe the aristocracy must be thrown down. I don’t care how bloody it gets.”

  “Yes, I heard you’d brought back impalement.”

  “It makes the enemy fearful. Fear is a weapon, and we need all the weapons we can get.”

  “You’re honest, at least. But I don’t see a lot of nuance in your position. Life isn’t so cut and dried.”

  “Well, it’s hard to be nuanced when your face is in the mud and there’s a boot stomping the back of your head.”

  The horse-urdu-boy returned then, followed by two very large men dragging a much smaller, much more bedraggled man between them. Their prisoner was shackled and manacled. He looked as though he’d been beaten regularly for a week, and worse. Someone had taken hot metal to his ears. What was left wept pus pinked with blood.

  “Magister Angrado, may I present the piece of shit known as Gentry Froy Besdil. Besdil was When’s personal secretary. We’ve gotten everything useful we can out of him. He’s yours now. Maybe you’ll think of something we haven’t; something that will help you in your chore.”

  “I’m not in the market for pets, slaves or prisoners.”

  “But you are in the market for information. Somewhere in the slimy corridors of Besdil’s brain, there might be a nugget of information that proves useful.” She stared at the man, who stared down at the ground. He seemed thoroughly broken.

  Finally she shrugged. “I think we’ve squeezed him dry, but you never know. Maybe you’ll be able to shake something loose. He’s been sentenced to death by the People’s Committee. We’ve no further use for him.”

  I rubbed my forehead, keeping my hand from the patch with an iron will. My eye socket was killing me. Maybe from being hauled around upside down. I forced my hand back down to my side and took a better look at Besdil.

  Small, wiry, slightly balding. Covered in bruises and filth, his once-expensive clothes were so many reeking rags, now. He wouldn’t raise his head.

  “What did he do to deserve a death sentence?”

  “The list is long. Longer if you include the words ‘accomplice’ and ‘accessory’. The personal secretary of one of the Council of Three is, often enough, the one who orders the dirty work that a Councilor wouldn’t want to see sticking to his own name. Trust me, this one deserves no sympathy. When you’re done with him, we’ll want him back for the execution.”

  “No.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “No. I’m not a jailer, nor am I a torturer.” The thought turned my stomach, frankly. I’d begun to like Gammond despite myself. Looking at Besdil, that incipient feeling curdled. “Do your own dirty work, Magister Gammond.”

  “The impaling stick has been ready for this one for days,” she replied. “Either he goes with you now, or he goes to his death tomorrow.”

  “That’s vile.” Impalement was a brutal a way to die as I could imagine.

  “That’s justice.”

  Besdil let out a shuddering sob.

  A sick sort of anger rose up in me. I wanted nothing to do with this. Not with the revolutionaries, or the gentry, or Bellarius in whole or in part. But I couldn’t just walk away. The only way out was through, but by all the dead gods, I would do it my way.

  I put a hand under Besdil’s chin and lifted his head up.

  “Look at me,” I told him. Slowly he did. He was broken, his eyes full of terror, on the edge of madness.

  “Do you want this to end?” I asked him in a quiet voice.

  He looked at me for a long time. I saw him intuit my meaning, and watched the resolve coagulate in his bloodshot brown eyes.

  “I do,” he grated out of his scream-torn throat.

  In half a heartbeat I pulled sufficient power to form a brightblade, and punched it into his heart. I released the blade, but not my well. The guards, already holding him up, stood in dumb shock, reflexively compensating for his suddenly dead weight, while Gammond sprang back, summoning her own well.

  “Good day to you,” I told her, and started out the door.

  “Come up with a way of locating When’s sorry carcass,” she said to my back after
a moment, “and you’ll have leave to seek out your rift spawn. Until then, don’t even think of coming back to the Girdle. You won’t enjoy your reception.”

  I walked out of the Chop, wondering if she’d change her mind and try to stop me. Subtle her magic might be, but I had the measure of her now. I waited for her to start casting as I walked. I half-hoped she would.

  She didn’t.

  Nine

  “You’re not so good at making friends,” Keel observed once I had related my meeting with Gammond.

  “I don’t give a damn about making friends. I’m losing what little patience I possess.”

  “Are you going to hunt down When for them?”

  “I am not.”

  “Then how are we going to hunt down the rift-spawn?”

  “We’re just going to go and do it. Has Moc Mien shown up yet?”

  “Not yet. They won’t like it if you defy them, Holgren.”

  “If we’re careful, they won’t know. If they find out and try to stop me, they’ll regret it.”

  His face scrunched up in anxiety. “But—”

  “Listen to me, Keel. If I get dragged into this morass of a civil war, I gain nothing and potentially lose much, up to and including my life. Which would mean nobody is going Amra’s rescue. Do you know what I say to that? I say I’d sooner see this city burn.”

  “I really don’t want to fight them,” he said, face glum.

  “Perhaps it won’t come to that,” I replied. “To that end, I’d like you to deliver a message to Gammond for me.”

  “What do you want to tell her?”

  “Say that if she gives me leave to hunt the rift spawn, I’ll agree not to ally with When.”

  “And if she doesn’t agree?”

  “She’s smart enough to read between the lines.”

  “You wouldn’t really do that.”

  “I certainly would, if it were necessary. But it won’t be. Even if she says no.”

  “Um, what? I don’t understand.”

  “The Citadel might hold a back door into the Girdle. I’ll tell you about it later, though; I’ve got things to do, and so do you. Go. And don’t forget to take one of the brothers with you.”

  I stood up from the table and went down into the kitchen. I was tired of talking. I was tired of being around people, even ones I liked. I am not what you might consider gregarious. It was one of the reasons I’d chosen to live beside the charnel grounds, before Thagoth. A minor reason, granted, but a reason. My neighbors might well have stunk to high heaven, but they were very quiet about it, and left me to my own business.