The Thief Who Went to War

by Michael McClung

  “You know why, Chuckles.” Because you never knew who was listening. According to Greytooth, the last time the Philosophers had tried to trap Visini, loose lips had gotten several of them killed.

  Chuckles smiled. It was sly and knowing and it said better than words that she thought I was some special kind of fool. It was a look that did not belong on a little girl’s face. I wanted to punch her in it.

  “I am going to tell you something,” she said.

  “Oh, joy.”

  “There is only one way out of the predicament you find yourself in, and it is not what you, your lover, and that Philosopher have planned.”

  “Is that so.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I should trust you, the murderous castoff of an insane goddess, over Holgren Angrado.”

  “Yes.”

  “And why is that again?”

  “Because I wagered all on you, when I entered you and abandoned The Knife That Parts the Night. Because you are now my avatar, and I am your goddess, and I cannot lie to you. Because, as clever as your lover is, he is still a fallible mortal. Because my self and my purpose are one and the same. If you die, my purpose fails. I fail.”

  “I’ll tell you once more, you little monster – I am not your fucking avatar.”

  “Until you accept it, you have no chance to defeat my sister. She will toy with you until you finally expire.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out slow. I wasn’t going to let this bitch swing me around by my emotions.

  “Funny you should mention your purpose,” I said. “Because that’s the thing that keeps me from ever trusting you. I mean, besides the mass murders and all. You want to keep me alive to do something, but you sure as hells don’t want me to know what that something is. I may be a ‘fallible mortal’, but I’m not an idiot. So I’ll make you a deal, Chuckles. Tell me what you and the Eightfold Bitch really want from me, and I’ll consider calling myself your avatar.”

  She shifted a little and looked back down the well. “You can see the stars down there, in the water. You could see more stars from the Citadel. I like stars.”

  “Kerf’s balls, but I hate you.”

  “I will tell you this: I put Abanon in your path. Through the Telemarch, I let Red Hand know where she might be found. I also pushed his servant to contract with your Fengal Daruvner to retrieve it, but I misjudged Bosch. Daemonists are unstable, less predictable. He went to Locquewood instead, and so it was Corbin that secured the Blade That Whispers Hate from the Philosophers, and not you. But it all worked out in the end.”

  I let that sink in. I wondered at her reason for telling me, but I couldn’t tease it out. Finally, I said “I didn’t need another reason to hate you, but there it is all the same.”

  She shrugged, a picture of nonchalance – and it hit me.

  “Kerf’s crooked staff. You’re trying to piss me off. You’re trying to distract me, aren’t you? From whatever the fuck the Eightfold Bitch has planned.”

  “Maybe, Amra Thetys. Maybe. Or maybe I tire of you asking questions that do not matter when there are much more vital questions before you. I will leave you with one to think on: where exactly is your luggage?”

  “What?”

  “Your luggage. Your personal effects, things like a change of clothes. You did not make the passage from Bellarius to Lucernis without any. I happen to know, since I was there.”

  Then she disappeared, and didn’t respond to any of the awful things I said to and about her after that.

  And no, I couldn’t remember where my trunk had gone. I knew I’d had one when I got off the ship, but somewhere between the docks and the Promenade, it had gone missing, and for the life of me I couldn’t remember where. The memory was just gone, and that frightened me. Usually when things frighten me, I pull a knife on them. There was no solace to be had in this instance.

  FIFTEEN

  IF MY CONVERSATION with Chuckles had somehow altered the course of the future for the better, I was fucked if I could see how. I lay my battered body down on the musty bed Mother Crimson had borrowed, and tried to tease out anything new and useful from our conversation. Mostly the words ‘avatar’ and ‘luggage’ just sort of bounced around inside my skull. That lasted about a minute. Then I fell asleep, because I was dog tired. When I woke up, I was none the wiser.

  What I was, was hungry, sore, and out of time, pretty much. Mister Hope and his employers would be looking for me in earnest after lunch, at the very least. The gentlemen from Coroune had no doubt been casting their nets all night. By now it was likely Morno had chewed Kluge bloody about getting answers as to Holgren’s whereabouts. He’d be forced to put the watch on notice to keep an eye out for me. Not that he’d lose any sleep over that.

  That was how Visini worked, according to Greytooth. She was as much a manipulator in her way as Chuckles. But where Chuckles played a frightfully long game, Visini had a considerably shorter attention span. And where Chuckles had interfered with mortals for the Eightfold’s purpose, whatever the fuck it ultimately was, Visini pushed people around like pieces on a game board for the sheer enjoyment of it. Or, rather, she treated people like beaters who scared game towards the hunter – And Visini was the one with the spear and the net, waiting.

  The truly frightening thing about the Blade that Binds and Blinds, according to Greytooth, was the fact that whoever she’d got to bear her wouldn’t even know it. She didn’t dangle herself over your head the way Kalara had the Telemarch. It might be anyone, and they would be none the wiser. It might be Kluge. Or it might be Fengal, or Kettle. It might be my tailor. Hells, it might be the king in Coroune, for all I knew. There was just no telling. Not until the last moment, after she’d blinded you to the danger. Just before she had you bound.

  And what she did after that – well. According to Greytooth, she was no more sane or pleasant than any of her sisters. The Philosophers deemed her the most dangerous of the Blades after the Dagger of Desire, based on her deviousness and the number of Philosophers she’d managed to kill over the centuries.

  As soon as I’d set foot in Lucernis, I’d had to accept the fact that anyone at all might be carrying one of my deadliest enemies, or at the least be carrying out her will, influenced by her and totally unaware of it. And I’d had to act like I wasn’t aware of the danger, while giving nothing of my own plans away. We did not want Visini going off her script; knowing how she operated was about the only advantage we had.

  In a city of nearly a million people, the only ones I could trust not to be tainted or turned were Bath and the Guardian. Any mortal slob was potentially compromised.

  Like I said, she’d set up her pieces, put her beaters in place. And now I had a bone-deep feeling she was ready for the next stage of the game: Watching me run and run as the trap closed.

  Well, that’s what I’d let myself in for. I had to let it all play out to the end. Most of all, I had to just plain survive.

  In furtherance of that, I went off to get some breakfast and some booze. I’d left a few march rations in the bolthole when I’d set it up, but even that rough fare had gone off. So I trudged down the empty, unpaved lane to the closest watering hole, an abomination known as the Dripping Bucket.

  In addition to being waterlogged more often than not, Loathewater also had its own particular, unpleasant scent; what you might call a rank, fishy, mud odor. But as I drew closer to the Dripping Bucket that smell morphed into mostly a raw sewage stench. In other words, the environs had gone even further downhill in my absence. Which was fine, since it meant even fewer random people around to be suspicious of. Well, not fine. You know what I mean.

  The tavern was a doorless shack, assembled from scavenged wood and broken bricks. From what I could tell, it remained standing solely because it couldn’t be arsed to fall apart. In other words, exactly my kind of place. The kind of place that spoke to me on a spiritual level.

  I trudged inside. It was empty except for the barman asleep on his stool, mouth open. He wasn
’t old, perhaps in his twenties, but he looked like his place of business the same way dog owners often looked like their pets.

  “Oi.”

  Nothing.

  I dug two silvers out of my purse and dropped them on the bar. The special clink of coin brought him around. He harrumphed and rubbed his eyes, then told me to name my poison.

  “You got wine?”

  “The beer’s better,” he said.

  “Didn’t ask for better.”

  “We’ve got grape squeezings that’ll get you bleary. Not sure I’d call it wine.”

  “Sold.”

  He pulled a bottle out from somewhere below, uncorked it, then passed me the bottle and a glass. The bottle was green and the glass was clear, or it had been at some point in its existence. Now it looked like it was maybe made of stained chalk. I wiped the mouth of the bottle and drank straight.

  “Why’s it smell like Vosto’s farts?” I asked him.

  “They burn the city’s sewage just down the lane, now. Call it an incinerator, some such.”

  “Well, shit.”

  He gave me a sour look. “Ha. Haven’t heard that before. Ha.”

  “I’m not trying to be funny. I’m just awful at mornings. You got anything to eat?”

  “Stale bread and dodgy cheese. Maybe some olives. I can check.”

  “Give it a try.”

  He did. There were. I paid for the lot out of the change for the wine, and retreated with a jug and a trencher to the table I judged least likely to collapse. It had been a door in a previous life, one that had apparently been kicked in more than once. As I dutifully chewed my way through breakfast, I wondered what Holgren was doing at that moment. If everything was going to plan, he was watching me eat using that dead god’s eye.

  “You’d damn well better be,” I whispered to the air.

  If things weren’t going to plan – well, hells. That did not bear dwelling on. It would mean that I truly was in Visini’s trap. That I was all on my own. The thought nearly killed my appetite. It was a lot easier to be pugnacious in the face of fuckery when you knew a mage who was death on two legs had your back.

  I wondered what it would take for Holgren to interfere, before Visini revealed herself. He’d sworn that he would only step in if I was on death’s door. But if our positions were reversed, I’m not sure I could’ve stopped myself from charging in, if Mar had stuck a knife in him. That’s one of the reasons I’d insisted Greytooth stay with him. He listened to the old arhat. As much as he listened to anyone. Holgren had agreed to the plan and had sworn to follow it, but if I was being honest, he’d pretty much hated every piece of it.

  I wondered if Holgren was eating properly, because being hip-deep in deadly games didn’t stop me worrying about mundane things, and that man had an abysmal diet.

  I also wondered who was going to walk through the door to drive me on again.

  Visini didn’t like her prey getting comfortable for long. Once you started feeling safe, that was the time to start looking over your shoulder. Or so Greytooth had told me, and I had no reason to doubt him. Therefore, my plan was to stay right where I was – until forced to flee for my life, or what have you. I figured there was no point running until somebody was actually chasing me. Laziness? Pragmatism? You decide.

  Somebody was coming. That much I’d’ve bet any number of marks on. The only real question I had was whether it would be one of the rat fuckers I’d already encountered, or some completely new rat fucker. My guts told me it’d be someone I’d already encountered, because Kerf’s matted beard, there were enough already. Right?

  True to my understanding of the way the world works, the answer proved to be ‘wrong’.

  As I gnawed on the runt end of the bread loaf, the little hairs on my arms and the back of my neck started to rise.

  I dropped the crust and pulled my knife. “There a back way out?” I asked the barman.

  “Why?”

  “Because there’s a mage coming, and not to drink.”

  He blanched. “No back door as such. But it’s not like the wall’s gonna stop you.”

  I hurried to the back, behind the bar, where the jakes were. That part of the Dripping Bucket was constructed of wattle and daub, but without the daub. In other words, the wall was just tied-together sticks. I cut a section free of its dubious support, and kicked it out.

  It landed at the feet of... somebody. My eyes refused to focus on their face.

  “So you can sense magic. Good to know.”

  I raised my arm to throw my knife, but even I know you don’t bring a knife to a mage fight. It was what you’d call a diversionary tactic. I spun around, and ran back into the Dripping Bucket. Or rather, I tried to. Suddenly I was falling through a lightless, howling void.

  SIXTEEN

  “FIRST THINGS FIRST,” said the voice. It wasn’t coming from any place in particular. Fucking magic. “My name’s Gammond. We haven’t met.”

  The only Gammond I knew was the one Holgren had told me about, a bloody-minded mage who’d led the revolution in Bellarius after the Syndic and the Telemarch took their dirt naps. But that Gammond was supposed to be dead as well. Burnt to a crisp, actually.

  “I want you to know that I don’t hold a scrap of ill-will towards you, Amra Thetys. You topped the Syndic and tore down the Riail. You made the Telemarch disappear. There really isn’t much more you could do to get into my good books.” The voice was definitely Hardside, though the words were slurry.

  “Glad to hear it. So what’s this about, then?”

  “There is one thing I need you to do, Amra Thetys. One little piece of information I need from you. Tell me – where the fuck is Holgren Angrado?”

  “Why does everybody want to know where Holgren is? It’s making me feel unloved.”

  “You don’t want the kind of affection I’ve got for Angrado.”

  I’d got a handle on the voice, now. There was literally nothing else for me to focus on, besides the pants-wetting sensation of falling forever. It was a woman’s voice, probably middle-aged, and with a slight impediment. As if her mouth didn’t work quite right, couldn’t shape sounds precisely.

  “You know what? I did kark the Syndic, and the Telemarch. And one of the Three, while I was at it, though I admit that wasn’t planned. But you should be afraid of me.”

  “Maybe I would be, if you had any magic. You must’ve, then. But you definitely don’t now.”

  “Are you so sure about that?”

  “I am, yes. Other than a couple of trinkets, there’s not a whiff of magic about you. Feel free to prove me wrong.”

  Sadly, I couldn’t. I’d left the Telemarch’s reservoir of chaos magic behind when I came back to the world. I hadn’t missed it for a second. Until right then.

  “Ah. You’re that Gammond. Holgren told me about you.”

  “Nothing good, I hope.”

  “Said you liked to make the Gentry sit on sharp sticks until the pointy end came out of their mouths. I’m no friend of anyone above the Girdle, but that’s just fucked, that is.”

  “Extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures. Or did you think the Gentry were just going to give equality to the common folk, a pat on the head for behaving? Terror is a weapon, and we needed all the weapons we could get.”

  “Well maybe you shouldn’t have pissed Holgren off quite so thoroughly, then.”

  She was quiet for a space. I kept falling. It was getting tedious.

  “Tell me where he is,” she finally said.

  “Have you checked up your ass?”

  The void became a lake of fire. I burned. I broiled.

  I screamed, and did not stop until it did.

  “Do you know the surest way for a mage to be able to cast a spell like that, Amra? The surest way is to first experience it. You just felt what I felt, when Holgren Angrado triggered the trap that cooked my army and me. You will tell me where he is, because if you don’t, you’ll suffer just as I did. And just as I did, you’ll sur
vive, but wish you hadn’t. Now let’s try once more. Where is Holgren Angrado?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, you’ll have to do better than that.”

  “I can’t.”

  “We’ll see.”

  This time I burned until the flame began to char my bones.

  “Take a moment. Collect yourself. Then tell me where he is.”

  My throat was raw from screaming. “He’s in Gol-Shen,” I croaked. “At his cousin’s house.”

  “Is he, now.”

  “No. He’s on an island due west of Korani. Only smugglers and birds visit it.”

  “You disappoint me, Amra.”

  “No, wait! Wait. I’ll tell you. He went to Far Thwyll, overland across the Anvil-”

  Burning. Screaming. Burning.

  Then the black.

  MY ADVICE TO ANYONE who finds themselves in the middle of a mage duel is don’t.

  When I regained consciousness, I wasn’t falling – or burning – anymore. I was lying in the muck behind the Dripping Bucket, and sorceries flashed above and around me. I played dead, except for my eyes.

  Above me, a whip of light was flicking here, there, meeting and incinerating these wet meat moaning... things the size of walnuts and the shape of nightmares that were dropping from the sky like the nastiest hail you can imagine. Off in the distance, half-hidden by a decaying cart that was missing one wheel, I saw Gammond making magely gestures. The air around her was pregnant with glowing, floating sigils. Her face wasn’t magically blurred, now – I guess she needed all of her power. She looked awful. The fire had taken her ears and most of her hair, and left her something like a mostly melted waxen mask in place of a face.

  Very quickly I decided to stay right where I was, only scrunched up as small as I could make myself.

  It was a good plan right up until it wasn’t.

  One of the abominations made it to the ground near my head with a wet plop. It grew legs and eyes and teeth. Well, more teeth. I whipped out a knife and stabbed it, and it oozed up the blade toward my hand.