You are going to leave me here. His voice was shot through with incredulity.
“I feel sorry for you, I really do. But the last thing the world needs is another power-mad ruler. It definitely doesn’t need an immortal one.”
Remember that I did not compel you, Amra. Remember that, and return to me when age begins to creep up on you. I will wait here, though you’ve spat in luck’s good eye.
“Where else are you going to be?” And with that I pushed open the brass-bound door and made my way out of the chamber.
I will not stop you, Amra. Athagos will have other ideas, however. My presence is your only safety.
Stairs up, a hallway, a false start down another hallway and I was at the massive double doors that led to the Tabernacle grounds. It wasn’t as difficult as it might have been—dawn had broken and there were ample windows in the granite walls. I pushed open one of the doors and walked out into the gray morning. The rain had slowed to a drizzle.
Quickly I began to make my way through the dense underbrush to the nearest wall. I was planning my next move when she knocked me flat.
I lay there, stunned, unable to breathe. Even if I’d been able to hear, I doubt I would have noticed her approach.
I scrambled to my hands and knees and my chest began to ease, the barest hint of air making its way to my frantic lungs. Eyes closed, I forced myself to take a breath. Once more. Again.
I opened my eyes and saw a pair of withered, bony feet. Slowly I raised my head, seeing desiccated flesh hanging from shins, then knobby knees, skeletal thighs wrapped in rotting cloth—heart hammering, I looked up into the face of the thing that stood before me. She was ancient, not wholly human, and very, very hungry. She looked down at me, head cocked to one side. The only thing alive about her were her eyes. A stunning, unworldly blue, they bored into mine with what appeared to be curiosity. That, and hunger.
Slowly, I stood up and backed away. She followed me with her eyes. When I began to turn my body to run, she threw her head back and her arms forward, and shaped her mouth into a perfect O. The back of my neck went cold, and the hum and whine in my ears intensified to a painful level. I kept backing away, looking for anything around me I could use as a weapon. All that presented itself was a heavy stick about three feet long and crooked as hell. Transferring the bundle of clothes to my left hand, I picked it up.
Athagos stopped gargling or whatever she was doing and dropped her arms. I saw surprise in those eyes when she looked at me. She cocked her head again and regarded me some more.
“I don’t know what you’re up to, lady, but I’ve got a feeling I don’t want any part of it. So I’ll just be going.” And I began to turn again.
She was quicker than I would ever have imagined. Suddenly she had me in a bear hug and was gnawing at my left shoulder. My left arm was pinned between our bodies. I brought the stick up against her head with all the force I could muster, and felt both the stick and her skull crack. She dropped me and stumbled away.
Like an idiot I stood there, shaking, holding the splintered stick in a death grip and staring in sick fascination at the thing that was most likely going to kill me. Already I could see her skull knitting back together. I turned and ran.
Crashing blindly through the underbrush, I stumbled away from the Tabernacle. Not being able to hear how close she was behind me put my heart in my throat and made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
I ran headlong into the gates. Not exactly where I wanted to be, but I didn’t have time to find a spot further away from the Duke. Besides, I figured he’d be too busy dealing with old death incarnate to worry about me if it came to that.
The gates were barred from the inside by a huge timber. I knew I would never be able to lift it up off the supports, but what was there to do but try? I got a shoulder under one end and heaved—and the end of the ancient, rotted timber crumbled. Frantically I searched the ground for another stick, found one about two feet long, and started hacking and punching the middle of the timber with it. Wet exterior chunks broke off, dust from the middle sifted to the ground.
On the fourth or fifth back swing the stick was plucked from my hand.
I turned slowly to face her, the thing that was about to end my life. I forced myself to stay calm, to keep loose, ready to take any advantage that presented itself. Every second I was alive was a second I wasn’t dead.
She stood with the stick in her hand, staring at me unblinkingly. It was hard to tell through all the folds, wrinkles, and crags in her face, but I think she was smiling. She tossed the stick far into the underbrush, shook one bony finger at me, and launched herself.
The impact knocked me back into the gates. They burst open. I hit the cobbles of the square hard on my naked backside, sliding a few feet on the wet cobbles. For the second time in five minutes I’d had the wind knocked out of me. I lay there, eyes closed, waiting to die. It took me a few moments to realize the creature wasn’t on top of me, gnawing me into bloody chunks. I opened my eyes and saw her standing at the gates, straining against an invisible barrier. She must be bound to the Tabernacle grounds, I realized, or else I would have been dead months ago. I took a tortured breath.
It was about then I noticed the crossbow pointed at my head.
The Duke had it aimed right at my temple, and was screaming something.
“Sorry, you mad bastard, I can’t hear a word you’re saying,” I said in what I thought was a normal speaking voice. I looked around and saw that the Duke’s men were all staring at Tha-Agoth’s sister-wife. Gnarri was there, nearest the gate. I felt the chills run up my spine, and my ears began to ache again. An expression of pure agony crossed Gnarri’s face and he clapped his hands to his ears.
They were all in the same agony, all of the Duke’s men, and the Duke himself had dropped his crossbow and fallen to the ground next to me. I sat up, dumbfounded until I looked over at Athagos. Her mouth was shaped into that perfect O, her arms spread wide. The Duke and the others started to convulse, then went still. After a few moments they all stood up in unison and started walking toward the creature like marionettes.
Gnarri was first, and even if I’d known a way to save him, I’d never have made it in time. I watched with pain and disgust as she “consumed his essence,” as Tha-Agoth had put it. She clasped him around the waist with one arm, like a lover, and put her other claw-like hand to the back of his head. With her face a few inches away from his, she began somehow to suck. A ghostly tendril of bluish light curled from Gnarri’s gaping mouth into hers, and then Gnarri’s head and body slowly shriveled and collapsed like a wine skin being drained.
In the end, all she left of him was his skin and clothing draped over her arm. Gnarri’s chain mail glinted prettily in the morning light as she dropped it and what was left of him, and called the next man to her. I couldn’t tear my eyes away as she consumed one after another of them. For the first time in months I wasn’t hungry at all.
Then it was the Duke’s turn, and I was almost too late. I caught up with the Duke in three lunging steps and snatched the talisman from the doomed bastard’s neck just as he walked into Athagos’s embrace. I stood there, panting, watching his slender form shrivel up to a dried husk as she sucked him dry. And all the while her features took on the glow of life and her body filled out into that of a ripe beauty.
She tossed the Duke’s skin away and looked at me, smiling. She ran a slender finger across her wide pink lips and giggled in my mind.
I shook myself and walked away. I walked out into the ruins, stopping only to rifle the Duke’s packs for a change of clothes. I’ve seen a lot of death in my life, and caused some, but no one deserved a death like that. Except perhaps the Duke.
At least the rain had stopped.
I returned to the deserted camp an hour later. I purposely avoided even looking toward the gates. I lay down in the Duke’s tent and slept like the dead, all through the rest of the day and straight through the night.
Next day I ate breakf
ast, rummaged through packs until I found a shovel and an oilskin, and took them as well as a mule and my god-bloodied clothes to Holgren’s grave. After I got him out of the ground, I peeled off his grave clothes and dressed him in my bloody rags. I had no idea whether it would work, but what’s a little vomit between friends? I wrapped his corpse up in the oilskin and tied it securely, managed to load him on the skittish mule, and went back to camp to pack.
I found a small fortune’s worth of gems sewn into the Duke’s fur-lined cape. Not enough to buy me a manse off the Promenade, but a tidy sum nonetheless. Enough to share with Gnarri’s widow, if he had one. I pay my debts.
As I rode out of Thagoth leading my string of newly acquired mules, I realized my hearing still hadn’t recovered. I worried about that briefly, then decided only time would tell. If it never came back, well, an honest Lucernan trader wouldn’t need acute hearing the way a thief did. Nor would a reputable fence, for that matter. But it did return, slowly. Enough that, when a few days had passed and Holgren started screaming to be let out of his canvas bag, I heard him loud and clear.
Kerf & Isin, Part the Second
Kerf and Isin lounged on divans in the otherwise empty plane of deities. Resting on Isin’s upturned palm lay a golden glowing speck: Holgren’s soul.
“I had a time finding him down there, I don’t mind telling you, Kerf. I can’t believe that lot just packed up and left. Gross irresponsibility.”
“Well,” said Kerf, “the Age is almost over, and let’s face it – they didn’t have the choicest of realms. I’d be eager to move on, as well. Besides, responsibility isn’t one of Evil’s strengths, now is it?”
“But what of all the souls still pouring in between now and the end of the Age? The weren’t being punished or even let go. They were just milling around, aimless and trapped. It’s no way to run an afterlife, Kerf.”
“Yes, well, you’ve fixed it now. The next lot can decide on a more permanent solution.” He shifted, settled his hump more comfortably on the divan. “But back to the matter at hand – and might I say it is a lovely hand indeed – our friend there is almost ready to be resurrected, and the Shadow King awaits him, and Amra.”
Isin frowned. “That one!” she said with distaste. “Kerf, mightn’t they have had enough? We can take care of the Twins, and let them get on with their lives.”
“Now Isin, the task is fairly begun. Events are unfolding apace, and I for one would like to leave this Age knowing I’ve helped a last pair of Heroes emerge. It is one of my principle aspects, hero-making.”
“Yes, Kerf, I’m aware of it.” Isin looked down at the miniscule dot that was Holgren’s soul. It shone more brightly in response. Isin made a decision.
“If you get to exercise one of your aspects, dear Kerf, then I do as well,” she said.
“Oh, that’ll be interesting! Yes, do.”
Isin smiled radiantly down at Holgren's essence. It had begun to vibrate and glow ever more brightly.
“They’re a prickly pair,” she said, “but we’ll see if I can’t get them together.” And with that, she gently blew the miniscule sun off her palm.
Holgren’s soul floated gently away, then began to fall rapidly down to the mortal plane.
“Off you go, then,” called Kerf, “and hang on to your courage. Forget what you’ve learned of us, now. Oh, and see if you can’t get your partner to swear by something other than my testicles? There’s a good lad.”
Chapter 3
My hearing had recovered enough in the course of a month’s travel that, when Holgren rose from the dead, I heard him loud and clear.
It was on a dull, gray midafternoon. Winter was well under way, a chill-wet season in this portion of the world. No snow had fallen yet, and half the trees still kept their leaves.
I was riding the Mad Duke of Viborg’s bay gelding, and leading a score of his mules across a lush sea of grass. Originally I’d started out with twice the number, but I’m a thief, not a muleskinner. I’d let half of them go once I'd got them safely away from the death lands.
The grassland ran unbroken for about five miles down to a broad, lazy river I could just make out in the distance. Beyond the river lay a dense tree line, a deep green belt of firs that girded the eastern horizon. The western expanse of the continent, which some say was the cradle of humanity, lay devoid of human settlement. I am a city woman, but I have to admit I had come to enjoy the open expanses, and the beauty of nature unmarred by civilization. Mostly, though, I was just glad to be free of the ruins of Thagoth, and on my way home.
My hearing had returned somewhat; the din of noise from my damaged ears had faded almost completely into the background. I was enjoying the melancholy sigh of wind across the knee-high, emerald blades of grass around me when I heard another sound.
First the faintest of rustlings, shifting, cloth on cloth. Then a piercing scream and the answering bray of a startled mule.
“Get me out! Get me out of here! I can’t breathe!” Raw-throated and full of panic, I still knew Holgren’s voice after more than half a year without it. Alarm turned to joy in my heart, and I rushed to cut him free of his mule-borne oilskin womb.
I had secured his corpse in a tarp, tied with hempen ropes at ankles, knees, hips, and head, then secured that around the girth of the mule. I cut all the ropes quickly and he tumbled out of his wrappings to the grass below.
He was wet, covered in what looked like nothing so much as birth waters. Steam rose off his pale, slick body. He looked like some newly hatched, gangly bird of prey. He looked wonderful. My god-bloodied rags clung to his lanky, shivering frame, shirt cuffs barely clearing his elbows, pants hardly reaching past his knees. I pulled his head and shoulders up gently, cleaned the milky-clear slime from his eyes and nose and mouth, and hugged him tight for a moment. He looked up at me.
“Amra,” he croaked.
“Welcome back, you lucky bastard,” I whispered.
That night over a roaring campfire I told Holgren of all that had happened since his death— of the Duke, of Tha-Agoth, of Gnarri and Athagos. Of my deafening, and the god's blood that had brought him back to the land of the living. I was so glad to see him I kept even the slightest hint of reproach out of my voice. I could yell at him later for getting me stranded in Thagoth, and for all that had happened after.
I'd deposited him in a nest of blankets after toweling him off, and he sat there, silent, drinking strong tea. I couldn't keep my eyes off him. I expected him to disappear at any moment, or to keel over once again. I studied that angular face of his, his high cheek bones, his thin upper lip, his full lower one. I couldn't shake the image of the ruin his face had been a month ago when I'd pulled him out of his grave. Now it was whole and perfect again, save for a livid scar on his left cheek where the creature from the death lands had bitten him, ending his life through the deadliest poison I'd ever seen.
“Well,” I said when I'd finished my tale, “that's about it. Now we only have to trek across sixteen hundred miles or so of uncharted terrain and then we're home. Simple, really, after all that.”
He nodded absently, mug clutched in his hands, eyes on some middle distance I could not see.
“Holgren. Are you all right?”
He shook himself and stared at me. His eyes had always been his most expressive feature. At that moment they were windows to a bleak landscape, and I felt sorrow for what he'd gone through. Then he smiled, thinly, and some warmth and humanity crept back into his face.
“I am all right, now. And I have you to thank for it.”
I shrugged.
“No, Amra. I was in hell. Now I'm not. You saved me.”
I've never been comfortable with gratitude directed toward me, not having much experience with it. Plus it tended to diffuse all the railing at him I'd planned to do for getting me stuck and starving in Thagoth for half a year. I changed the subject.
“What was it like, hell?”
“Cold,” he said. “Empty. Vast. I ... I don't remember
much. Let's talk about something else.”
“Of course, Holgren. I understand.”
“No, you don't.”
I had nothing to say to that. We passed another hour in companionable quiet. By the time the fire had died down to embers, Holgren was fast asleep. I settled his blankets more snugly about him, checked the mules, and went to my own hard bed.
I lay there, running my thumb across the necklace I'd taken from the Duke, the talisman that had allowed him, and later me, to cross the death lands unimpeded. It was a simple rope chain about eighteen inches long, with a cunning lobster claw clasp. It was made of some bluish metal I didn't know, and while it was magical, as far as I could tell the magic was of such a specific nature that it was basically worthless. I kept it as a memento, a souvenir—and as a reminder to listen to my gut.
Right then my gut was telling me I had missed Holgren just a bit more than a business partner should. I told my gut to shut up and go to sleep, and I followed suit.
Holgren was up before me, and had built the fire back up a bit. He'd found his pack among the mules and dressed in his own clothes. What he'd done with the rags I'd put on him I didn't know, or think to ask. Not then.
He was standing on a little knoll a few yards away from camp. It was hardly more than a swell of ground on that wide plain of grass. His eyes were closed, his hands stretched up toward the sky. He was taking slow, deep breaths of crisp morning air. A lazy smile played across his face.
“The world is a fine and beautiful place, Amra. It's good to be alive. Tea there near the fire, and jerked meat.”
I grunted at him and walked a ways off to relieve myself. When I returned, he'd unrolled the map he'd sketched and inked months before.
The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye Page 5
