It grunted. I turned my attention back to the eye.
“Again, but slower,” I told it. “Every plane of existence, old and new, so long as it still remains.”
It obliged, showing me perhaps two realities for every one of my heartbeats. I saw things, places both wondrous and hideous, and every variation and combination of the two. I caught glimpses of things I am still struggling to forget. Some because they were horrible. Others, because their beauty was haunting.
It went on for a long time. I began to lose hope that I would ever find where Amra had disappeared to. Until Halfmoon spoke.
There.
“Stop!” I commanded the eye. “Which one, Halfmoon?”
Back three. It smells right.
“Back three,” I told the eye. It obliged.
I stood on nothing. Lagna’s corpse lay on nothing. The rock floated on nothing. Above us, a leaden sky stretched endlessly. And far, far in the distance, a fire, golden-orange.
Mother, purred Halfmoon.
“Get closer to that fire,” I told the eye. The perspective jumped. Now I was looking at a rough cube, hovering over an enormous, roiling cloud of gold and orange. The cube was featureless, except for a lighter, oblong patch on one side of it. I was still too far away to make out any detail.
“Closer to the cube,” I told the eye. The perspective jumped once more.
The rectangle was a doorway. In it stood Amra, looking out. Behind her a little brown-bronze girl with starlight eyes.
Exactly as the Telemarch’s painting had depicted it.
“Amra!”
There was no indication she could hear me.
“Make a doorway that connects us to that realm,” I told the eye. Somewhat to my surprise, it did. At least a door appeared in front of me. I released my magesight, and came back to ruined Thraxys. My badly damaged hand was suddenly whole once more, and the relief that is the end of pain practically made me giddy.
Even better, the door had come with me; a plain, featureless white thing with a plain, featureless white knob.
“Finally, something goes my way,” I said. Of course as soon as I said it, I became deeply, irrationally suspicious of the door. I was convinced opening it would spring some fresh new horror on me. But there was nothing for it but to open it.
I turned the knob. Instantly it was ripped out of my hand. The door itself was ripped off its hinges, and I was sucked through into the realm I’d glimpsed.
A realm that had no gravity, and no air, but did have the rift, and its poisonous effect on me.
Amra: Interlude Four
After those two flashes, there was nothing for a time. Finally, I turned to Chuckles.
“I’ll ask again. What did I just see?”
“Someone has reclaimed Lagna’s eye from Thraxys. What you saw was it opening, for the first time in a millennium.”
“I don’t know how that has anything to do with our current situation.”
“I do. Or I strongly suspect. We’ll discover soon enough if I am right.”
“Right about what, damn you?”
“Keep watch, Amra. What I believe happens next, will happen quickly. When it does, you will have to move quickly. If you want to save him.”
“Save who?”
“Your lover.”
A cold sort of dread crept up my spine at her words. “No.”
“Did you think he would just mourn your disappearance? From your memories of him, he doesn’t strike me as that sort of man at all. Rather, he seems the sort of man who would climb over a mountain of corpses to find you.”
“Damn you,” I whispered.
“Me? I had nothing to do with it. If you have a complaint about your love or your lover, you should address it to Isin, if anyone.”
“Was this part of your plan as well? Luring Holgren here somehow, to convince me to return to the world?”
“Not me. Fate, if anything. Though I will admit to making sure the rift would poison any mage other than Aither. Which is why you’ll have to act quickly when your lover arrives. If the lack of air out there does not kill him, the rift surely will.”
“Kerf’s balls, I hope you’re wrong, you awful bitch.”
Her eyes got bigger, and her smile wider. “Oh, look,” she said, jutting her chin toward the doorway. “A visitor.”
I turned back to face the void. A white door had appeared, maybe fifty feet away.
“Damn it, Holg—”
The door was flung open with such force that it ripped itself off its hinges and flew towards me at speed. It disappeared in flight though—it just vanished.
Holgren followed it. He didn’t vanish. He flew toward me, spinning. It looked like he was choking.
“He has no air,” Kalara informed me, “and free of its containment, the rift is already killing him.”
Holgren slammed into the door frame. I grabbed him before he could bounce away and hauled him into the room. Kerf, he looked bad. Practically emaciated and one-eyed—and that one horribly bloodied. There was no white to the eye at all, only crimson. The other was covered by a patch.
He took a huge gasp of air. Said my name. Then went into convulsions.
“You’d best hurry, Amra. What the rift will do to him will make his death in Thagoth seem like slipping into a warm bath, by comparison.”
I could just send him away— I thought, and Kalara laughed.
“You don’t have enough control over the rift to be certain where he’d go. He might end up under a mountain. Or under the Dragonsea. Or a mile above it, and sadly lacking wings. And besides, this one is likely to just come right back, if he survives. Stop hiding, Amra Thetys. You can’t avoid what will be. You can only delay it, to no good purpose. Delay much longer, and you’ll be responsible for his death.”
Damn. Damn and damn.
Not wanting to kill us both by trying to go somewhere I’d no experience of, I drew from the rift, concentrated, and put the Telemarch’s throne room back where it went. Holgren and I went with it. The rift stayed.
Kalara smiled and smiled.
PART V: BELLARIUS
Thirty-Six
I woke in a bed. Blankets were piled high on me, but my face was cold. I cracked open my eye, and realized after a moment that I was back in the Citadel. First floor. Keel’s bed, from the smell. I felt… awful.
“Awake, lover?”
I turned my head toward her voice. She was sitting at the table. She’d been reading by lantern light, if the book in her hand was any indication. She was beautiful.
“I hope so. But if not, it’s a pleasant dream.”
She smiled, put down the book and came to the bed.
“How are you feeling, then?” She put a hand on my forehead.
I thought about it. “Alive?”
“You mages, you just open your mouths and deep thoughts pour right out.” She pulled off her boots and got into the bed. It was then that I realized just how weak I was. I could barely put my arm around her. She had no trouble holding me tight, though, so that was all right.
“I walked through hells to get you back,” I told her after a time.
“I know. And I love you for it. But it probably would have been better if you hadn’t.”
“Better? Better for who?”
“Better for every living thing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ll tell you about it when you’re better. You’ll tell me all about your mishaps, too. Right now, just take it easy. Let me hold you. Rest. Heal. Get your strength back.” She paused, and hugged me tighter. “I’ll need you strong for what’s coming, lover.”
“What is coming?”
“I don’t know, exactly. But it will be a Kerf-damned lot of trouble when it arrives.”
“Whatever it is, I’m here,” I said. But sleep was dragging me down again.
“That, I never doubted,” she replied, “and never will.”
Michael McClung
Michael McClung was born and raised i
n 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.
In Michael’s spare time, he enjoys kickball, brooding, and picking scabs.
Website: http://somethingstickythiswaycomes.blogspot.com/
The Amra Thetys Series
The Thief Who Pulled On Trouble’s Braids
The Thief Who Spat in Luck’s Good Eye
The Thief Who Knocked On Sorrow’s Gate
The Thief Who Wasn’t There
The Thief Who Wasn't There Page 24
