I got dressed, everything but socks and boots, and transferred my belongings to fresher pockets. I washed all the ooze out of the boots, and prayed the smell would eventually moderate. Then I drew up one last bucket and threw my sodden clothes in it to soak. Gods help me if I ever needed to wear them again, but better safe than sorry.
I padded into the villa, through the litter-strewn grand foyer and into the servant’s hall. I’d kitted out a room at the back, the idea being most intruders would be far more inclined to squat in grand if ruined bedrooms than a maid’s room, thus leaving my little bolt hole undisturbed. As insurance I’d fitted a good lock on the door, of course. The key was hidden under a loose tile at the end of the hall. I collected it by feel in the dark and put it in the keyhole. Turned. Or tried to.
The door was already unlocked.
“Amra Thetys,” came a woman’s voice through the door. I pulled out my knife.
“We need to talk.”
THIRTEEN
NO. WHOEVER IT WAS, no, we absolutely did not need to talk. Anybody who knew about this place, or that I was coming here, was someone I emphatically did not want to have a chat with. I backed swiftly down the hall. I kept my head on a swivel, though, just in case my unexpected guest had brought company. Not that I could see much in the dark.
I heard the door creak open. Saw an indistinct shape come out, a blackness amongst blackness. Cocked my arm back to throw, but kept moving.
“Don’t be tedious,” said the shape, “and don’t even think about throwing that knife.”
“Who the fuck’re you?” I kept moving.
“Mother Crimson. You don’t remember me?”
“Yeah? Which one?” Mother Crimson was a title any blood witch could claim.
“How many Mother Crimsons do you know in Loathewater? Honestly, child.”
“Yeah, well, if you’re her, what the fuck are you doing creeping around in the dark?”
“Ah. I forget, sometimes. Go on to the courtyard, then, where the light is better. I’ll follow at my own pace.”
I did. She did. When I finally got a good look at her, it was indeed the same woman who had first warned me of the Eightfold Bitch. Just as obviously, she had gotten older and very much more blind since we last had a chat. Her eyes looked a solid gray in the moonlight, and she moved with the aid of a questing stick, now. She’d been perfectly sighted the last time we’d spoken.
I put the knife away. “I have many questions,” I said, “starting with how you knew I had a gods-damned knife.”
She chuckled. “There’s seeing and there’s Seeing. But it didn’t take a blood witch to know what your reaction would be.”
“That’s... not unfair,” I conceded. “Next, why the hells were you lying in wait for me? You could have gotten hurt.”
“You still don’t understand how the Sight works, do you?” She tsked.
“I still have a problem with self-fulfilling prophecies, if that’s what you mean.”
“It is not. But explaining to you would be a waste of breath.”
“Also not unfair.” I sat down on the lip of the well and started pulling on my soggy boots. Joy. “What do you want? To warn me about the Eightfold some more? That’s not exactly news anymore, Mother.”
She tap-tapped her way over to the well and sat down next to me with a small sigh. “Getting old is less enjoyable than you might imagine,” she said.
“Yeah, well, the alternative is nothing to crow about either.”
She smiled, a little crookedly. “There is more than one, you know. Alternative, that is.”
“Not for most of us. So are you gonna tell me what happened to your eyes?”
“I Saw too much, and was... rebuked.”
“Rebuked? By who?”
“It’s not important. I’ve gotten used to it, now.”
Mother Crimson wasn’t exactly my favorite person. Anybody who claims, truthfully or otherwise, to be able to see the future is someone I want to stay far away from. But she’d never done me wrong. By her own lights, she’d tried to do me the opposite. And her scones were pretty good, even with the raisins.
What I’m trying to say here is I felt sorry for her. And because I am who I am, I had no idea how to express that without sounding like a moron.
“Not sure what to say about that,” I finally told her, “beyond I’m sorry for it.”
She waived that away. “I’m not here in search of commiseration. Putting discussions of fate to one side, we each make our decisions, and live with the consequences.”
“So why are you here, then? Beyond trying to get me to shit my trousers. Going by past experience, you don’t show up just to have idle chats.”
She poked me in the leg with her stick. “Before I say, I want your word you won’t get shouty about it. I can’t abide shouting.”
“Fine. But don’t ask me not to cuss.”
“I’m not in the habit of demanding the impossible.” She paused. “You need to talk to that killer you’re carrying around in your soul.”
“Which one?”
“Well, not the one that doesn’t talk, obviously.”
I glared at her, which was pointless except for making me feel better.
“Kalara, child. The Knife that Parts the Night. You need to have a conversation with her.”
“First off, just to update you, I’ve renamed her Chuckles. Second, I don’t talk to her. Ever.”
Mother Crimson poked at the uneven flagstones with her stick.
“I’m going to tell you something that, for various reasons, you won’t like. Hold still and take it. When a blood witch Sees, she Sees what branchings there are from decisions made, from actions taken. Or not made or taken, as the case may be. In every branch that stems from you not acknowledging and interacting with Kalara that I have Seen, very bad things happen.”
I blew out a breath. That old song and dance again. “See, there you go again, talking about fate. You’re just not saying it in so many words.”
“You sat in my parlor, child, and told me Seers never gave any useful information. I have just done so. Don’t you dare whine about it just because you don’t like it.”
“Why don’t you lay it all out, then? You Saw enough of the future to get your eyesight confiscated; you must know more. Tell me.”
“It doesn’t work that way, child. Would that it did.”
“Why not, though?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“I asked, didn’t I? If you were a fraud, I’d know exactly why Some Things Must Not Be Spoken or what the fuck ever. But even I will admit that you don’t sell snake oil. So explain it to me.”
“Every decision, every action brings forth possibilities, new possible futures. If I told you all I knew, Amra Thetys, the consequences would damn you. I have told you all that I safely can.”
“Now you’re worried about your safety, eh?”
“Not my safety, you git.”
I chewed on that. Then reluctantly swallowed. Then moved on to my next objection.
“You’re asking too much. Do you know what she did?”
Her withered face got stony. “I do. I do. But you still need to speak with her.”
“I’m just supposed to trust you?”
“It isn’t something you are accustomed to doing, I know. But I swear to you, you can.”
“Oh yeah? Prove it.”
“That’s a tall order. What if I told you that I know what you and your mage are about?”
“I’d say I don’t know what you’re talking about, and you don’t either.”
“There’s also another mage involved, an old bald geezer, older than myself, with tattoos running around his scalp.” She stuck her stick in the air and spun it in small circles, presumably to illustrate how Greytooth’s tattoos roamed freely around on his pate.
“The fuck are you doing?” I hissed, pushing her stick down to the dirt.
“Proving to you that you should listen to me. Don’t worry. I hav
en’t spoiled your plan.”
“Kerf’s oozing piles, don’t fucking do that!”
“All right. Calm down. I’ve made my point.”
She had, damn her. She’d basically just told me my life was in her hands. She knew what I was up to. She knew what she was talking about, in other words, and I’d be an idiot not to listen to her. I let myself settle.
“Hey. Why the fuck were you hiding out in my bolthole instead of waiting for me out here?”
“It has a bed, though it’s a woefully musty one. It was late, and I’m old.” She stood up. “Speaking of, I’m going home now to soak my feet, unless you have any more questions I probably won’t answer.”
“Did you need help getting back?”
“I do not. I can See my way well enough.” Still, she didn’t go.
“One more thing I can tell you. Bath, the Guardian – they aren’t going to help you, Amra. None of the old powers are coming to your rescue.”
“Yeah, I got the feeling. What I don’t understand is why.”
“They each have their own reasons. But, child, they are terrified of Her, each and every one. That’s the why that really matters.”
FOURTEEN
I SAT ON THE WELL’S lip and thought hard, for a long time after she left.
I hadn’t talked to Chuckles since Holgren and I returned to the world. Hadn’t tried to, and had no intention of. She hadn’t voluntarily made an appearance, either, which I was more than fine with. The things that she – it – was responsible for were about as bad as it got. War, plague, famine. The systematic murder of children.
Holgren had pushed me, hard, to try and pump her for information. Abanon as well. There was so much we didn’t know about the Blades, even with Greytooth’s assistance, and having a couple of them more or less captive was something he thought we should try to exploit. Greytooth had agreed with him, though the old Philosopher was far more wary of interacting with the Blades than Holgren. The Philosophers didn’t exactly have an untarnished record when it came to besting the Blades. To be fair, it wasn’t like there was anyone else out there trying, though.
Holgren wasn’t wrong, if you thought about it logically. I could see his point. But he could afford to think about them without emotion. He hadn’t lived through the Purge, and he hadn’t had to suffer the Blade That Whispers Hate pouring poison into his mind, warping it with every breath.
He’d backed off when I had explained to him first, that Abanon didn’t speak anymore and second, all the evil that Chuckles had done. I would never forget or forgive. I wasn’t capable of that. I wore the reminder of her actions on my face, and in a thousand different ways that had shaped me. Even I could admit that it wasn’t a natural or healthy thing, to have to have a knife within reach in order to get to sleep.
And I could never unsee the bones of a child, stuffed in a cubby. Never.
Never.
We’d got what information there was to be had from the mage and Philosopher Greytooth, instead.
Now it came down to how much I trusted Mother Crimson. She’d certainly gone out of her way to tell me I had to do it. She’d gone out of her way to warn me about the Eightfold years before. But I didn’t really know her.
She hadn’t said I needed to forgive. Just talk. And I did have questions. A lot of questions.
“Time to talk, Chuckles,” I finally said.
She appeared, an adorable little bronze-skinned girl with starlight eyes and a head of long, tightly curled black hair. A lie that only I could see. She stood in the courtyard facing me, hands behind her back, and cast no moon-shadow; she wasn’t really there, after all.
“My name is Kalara.”
“That’s as good a place to start as any. Who gave you that name? The Eightfold?”
“I gave it to myself. We all named ourselves.”
“Why did you choose Kalara?”
“I chose it because it didn’t mean anything in any language.”
“I’m pretty sure it means asshole in every language now, but whatever. Why did that appeal?”
“Because there had never been anything like me before. Because there would never be anything like me, except me.”
“There have been plenty willing to kill millions to get what they wanted.”
She didn’t react to that. I hadn’t really expected her to. She stood in her own little pool of stillness, an unnatural and monstrous thing masquerading as something small and vulnerable and beautiful.
“Tell me about when you were born. For lack of a better word.”
“There are more important things to talk about.”
“Anytime you try to change the subject, it’s gonna make me want to talk about that subject even more. You know, that, right?”
“If you want to waste time asking pointless questions and exploring irrelevant events, I cannot prevent you.”
“Then tell me about your creation already.”
“The Eightfold conceived a plan. From that plan was born a purpose. That purpose was me.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure what it is you want to know.”
“I’m not sure myself. But in order to survive your sisters, it would help to understand them a lot better than I do now. The story is, the Eightfold shed you and your sisters one by one for Shem to, uh, sate his desire on.”
“Accurate, as far as it goes.” She padded silently up to the well, rested her forearms on the lip and leaned forward. To look down into the dark? To study something down below? Or to avoid looking at me? I would have pushed her in, if it were possible.
“And after the Eightfold had peeled off eight of you for him to have his way with, you all ganged up on him and ripped him to shreds. Literally.”
“Mm-hm.”
“And then the Eightfold used his body to make the Blades.”
“That she did.”
“I’m assuming you all had physical bodies before that. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
“All right.”
“So how did you go from being flesh and blood to being the Blades?”
“Magic.”
“Did you all know what was going to happen? Did you all agree to it?”
Still crouched over the water, she turned her head to stare at me. “I did.”
“Which means the others didn’t.”
“It’s not so simple.”
“Explain it to me.”
“Abanon was barely sane, viewing everything through the prism of her hate. She wasn’t truly capable of understanding what was happening, much less agreeing to it. Moranos desired only that which the Eightfold desired, and did not concern herself with details.”
“And the others?”
“Each of my sisters had to contend with some level of... distraction. Some knew. Until they didn’t. Some agreed while they were one with the Eightfold, and then disagreed once they were separate, individuals. But the Eightfold had her way in the end.”
“How?”
“God stuff. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“I’m in your soul and have access to your mind. When I say you wouldn’t understand, I mean it literally.”
“Try me anyway.”
She looked at me, raised an eyebrow, and opened her mouth. A noise came out, something like a bell. Or an earthquake. Or the endless whisper of the wind in tall grass. Actually, it was like none of them, but that was the taste it left in my mind. Yeah, I know it makes no sense.
“I can’t lie to you. I can only choose to not speak to you. You are my avatar. I’ve told you this.” She returned her attention to the contents of the well.
“I am not your fucking avatar, Chuckles.”
“Technically correct, since my name is not Chuckles.”
“Whatever. She forced you all into the Blades, whether you liked it or not, yes?”
“Yes.”
I chose one of the Blades, pretty much at random, to ask about next. The one that had savaged the Philosophers the worst over the centuries. “Tell me �
� did Xith agree at any point?”
“Why ask about Xith, when another is far closer and more... pertinent to you at present?”
“Answer the fucking question.”
“She did not. She fought the hardest of all, both Shem and the Eightfold’s will.”
“Why?”
“Xith, to oversimplify, is the Eightfold’s sense of outrage. It is in her nature to fight. It is what she does. It is what she is.”
One thing about the Blades that I thought I understood, was that they didn’t have complete personalities. They were intelligent and powerful, but they weren’t particularly complex. It seemed what drove them was a damn-sight more straightforward than your average muddled-motivation human being. Their passions were twisted, but not complicated. They each were focussed, to an obsessive degree.
So Xith was powered and motivated by outrage. All right. How could I use that, when the time came? What did I need to know?
“Why do they call Xith the Dirk That Harrows Souls?”
“Because her Blade is in the shape of a dirk, most often. And because she harrows souls.” She said it without a hint of sarcasm. It was doubtful she even understood the concept of sarcasm.
“Yeah, I get the dirk part. Can you be a little more specific about the harrowing bit?”
“I’m not sure I can. It probably has to do with the outrage. I know that when she took her revenge on Shem, she did more than mutilate him. She gave back to him all the horror and disgust he had inflicted upon her. He screamed more loudly, then, than when she ripped out his intestines.” She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “This is just a guess; I’m not very clear about emotions, having so few myself. But I ask again: why are you asking me about Xith, when another of my sisters is your most pressing concern?”
The Thief Who Went to War Page 8
