The Thief Who Went to War

by Michael McClung

  That is what they all say. Even as the blade bites deep. Especially then.

  “No,” I said again, but not with my mouth. My mouth screamed “Kluge! Help!”

  “She is the Blade That Binds and Blinds,” Chuckles told me. I’d forgotten about her. She stood next to me now. She put an imaginary hand on my arm; the first time she’d ever ‘touched’ me. “First she blinded you, now you are bound. You will kill him, and everyone else involved in this affray. I am your only hope. Ask for my intercession, avatar to goddess.”

  She will do no such thing. She hates you, sister, as much as we hated Gyron.

  Kluge left off his hopeless task. His face was grim and frustrated. He walked back towards me.

  My hand tightened on the Blade.

  “Ask, Amra,” said Chuckles again. “There is no more time.”

  Silence, sister. You lost months ago. Visini sounded a little put out.

  Who was Kluge to me? He’d shown me cruelty. And kindness. But I was not a killer unless I had to be. And in this instant, I did not have to be. I wouldn’t be able to say that in a few more moments.

  “All right, Chuckles.” My mind said it, if my mouth did not.

  “Kalara.”

  “All right, Kalara. Rescue my ass.”

  “Swear yourself to my service.”

  SILENCE!

  Visini made me lunge at Kluge. It was too soon; he was still too far away, and I was not limber enough to pull it off. His expression was a mixture of stunned and frightened.

  “Fuck. I swear myself to your service–”

  Just like that, my body was my own, and I let the Blade drop to the cobbles. I went down as well. Out in the street, the insane scrum of people piling onto Holgren suddenly went still. I could hear him cursing from somewhere inside it.

  “–when it fucking suits me.”

  “That is cheating,” Kalara informed me with a frown.

  “That’s grammar,” I replied, panting. “I hadn’t finished my sentence.”

  “What the hells are you doing, woman?” Kluge shouted, and I raised a hand. “Sorry. Bad magic knife here made me do it.”

  “Conditional bonds go both ways, Amra,” said Chuckles. “I warn you. We will discuss it later.”

  “Somebody told me stupid should be painful, or something like.”

  “I was there. It was a boy with a bucket of worms.”

  “Well, it came from his ma, but whatever. The point stands.”

  “Who are you talking to?” Kluge asked me, confusion writ plain on his face. He was getting only my side of the conversation, of course.

  “Nobody you want to know, Kluge. Trust me.”

  While I was bickering with Chuckles, Kluge had gotten close enough to be within reach of the Blade. And now he was reaching for it, like an imbecile.

  So I punched him in the face.

  “Don’t fucking touch it, you halfwit!”

  He staggered back, crimson suddenly gushing down his upper lip. I hadn’t actually meant to bloody his nose. But it’s not like I was sorry.

  “It’s one of the Eightfold’s Blades and you want to just pick it up? What the hells is wrong with you?”

  Glaring at me, he pulled out a kerchief and tried to stanch the bleeding. “It... called to me,” he muttered.

  “Well ignore it, for fuck’s sake.” I looked at Chuckles – Kalara. It would take some doing to get used to that. “Now. How do I break this fucking thing?”

  “I have no idea,” Kalara replied.

  I stared at her, stunned. “How can you not know?”

  “You are the only person in the world with any experience in breaking a Blade of the Eightfold Goddess. You are quite literally the expert, not me.”

  I spat at her feet. “Shittiest bargain ever.”

  “But you do have to break it. You can’t just throw it into the sea.”

  “Says fucking who?”

  “Says me, your goddess, whose service you are sworn to.”

  “Who are you talking to?” asked Kluge again.

  “Kalara, the Knife That Parts the Night,” I replied. “Or as I like to call her, Chuckles. Now give me your jacket.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Fucking give it.”

  He shrugged out of the bloody thing with a glare and handed it to me. I threw it over the Blade and wrapped it up. Probably I could have handled it freely now, but fuck that. “Shittiest bargain in the history of both shit and bargains,” I muttered.

  You think you have won.

  “You can still talk, eh? Well, at the very least I haven’t fucking lost yet.”

  You may be immune to my charms, now. But they are not. None of these mortals. I can call this whole city to take me up, and I will.

  I didn’t like the sound of that.

  Run, little thief. Or hide. It will make no difference in the end.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I GUESS WHEN VISINI bound people, the greater the number she bound, the coarser her control was. All the people who’d started pouring out of the buildings surrounding Tambor’s looked and acted more or less like humans do, if they were rats-in-a-bag crazy. I mean, they looked angry-ish, if vacant and stupid. But they had not been clumsy.

  The ones who were now running down the street from further away were clumsy as hells, and slack-faced in a way that suggested they’d never moved a muscle in their face.

  They slammed into each other in their haste to get to the Blade, or tripped over their own feet, and the ones who fell just picked themselves up and lumbered on.

  I stuffed the coat-wrapped Blade down my vest and started running. Well, limping really fast for somebody with a hole in their leg. Staying in a house with a front door that couldn’t be locked seemed like a bad idea. Not that I had any better ones. Sometimes it’s best if you just let the primal part of your mind take over, especially when the logical part starts shitting its metaphorical pants.

  Kluge was not immune, and he was the closest to me. He grabbed my shoulder and spun me around, reaching for the Blade with his other hand.

  I punched him in the throat, and he let go. And gagged.

  The writhing pile of bodies that covered Holgren began untangling themselves. I was pretty sure they weren’t going to make their way home, once they gained their feet. I was pretty sure Holgren would have the same idea as the rest, too. I hobbled faster, even though it was hopeless.

  And then I heard the sound of iron-shod hooves on the cobbles, and Morno turned the corner, mounted on a big bay. Behind him, arquebusiers followed at a quick time. He saw me, and took in the situation in an instant.

  “Amra Thetys!” Morno shouted. “Close your eyes and cover your ears!”

  I gawped at him.

  “DO IT,” he thundered, reaching into his breast pocket and then drawing his hand out. He raised it high, and in it now was something small and incandescent. Actinic sparks and jags dripped from his hand, dissipating before they reached the ground. I damned well knew magic when I saw it. I did what I was told.

  The light that came a moment after was bright enough to make my eyes water even with my lids tight shut. The sound that accompanied it was deeper than the deepest bass drum, and it passed through my flesh and bones slow enough that I could track its progress. It felt as if every molecule of my being was shifted slightly and then put back in place.

  I didn’t like it much.

  When it was over, I cautiously opened my eyes. I turned and looked at my pursuers.

  They were sprawled out in the street behind me, in heaps. Holgren was in there. Somewhere.

  “Fuck! Fuck! Are they dead?”

  “They are not.

  “What the fuck is that?” I asked, pointing at the thing in his hand. It was about the size of his palm, disc-shaped, and made of some gray metal I didn’t recognize.

  “An artefact from the god wars. Translated, it is called Peacemaker. It’s quite effective for putting down riots. And whatever this is.”

  “Where the fuck
did you get it?”

  He gave me a witheringly bland look. “I won it at the fair.”

  “How long will they stay down?”

  “A few minutes. Now, if you’re done with your questions, perhaps you will explain why half of the Foreigners’ Quarter is chasing you. Or must I guess?”

  Behind him came the clatter of an arquebus hitting the cobbles. Then another. Then lots. They were coming, his troops. Or rather Visini’s troops now. Morno twisted in the saddle and raised Peacemaker again.

  I didn’t cower this time, being behind it. I watched what he did to activate it. There was no trigger word. He just slid a finger over the top edge, and the thing woke. Then he did it again, and it spoke.

  I didn’t like it any better the second time, though it wasn’t nearly as disturbing when you were standing behind it.

  All the red uniformed arquebusiers fell, puppets with cut strings.

  Vexing, said Visini, and before I could think of a response, Morno had dismounted and was walking stiffly towards me. His face had gone slack in that tell-tale way. He still held the artefact in his hand, loosely, forgotten. His other hand was already reaching for the Blade.

  “I’m really sorry about this, governor.” I grabbed him by the shoulders as he reached for the Blade, and kneed him in the crotch with all the force I could muster. He went to his knees. Apparently that kind of pain cut through even Visini’s control.

  Then I pried Peacemaker out of his hand and, with not a little difficulty, mounted his deeply mistrustful bay. Once you commit one hanging offense, there’s no point quibbling about a couple more. I needed both the horse and the gewgaw more than he did. Mounted, I had a good chance to outrun whoever Visini sent after me. Assuming I could keep my seat, that was. Horses and I never got on well. And Peacemaker would settle anyone I couldn’t outpace.

  “I don’t know if you can hear me, governor,” I said, “but again, I’m really, extremely sorry about your testicles and do not want to be hanged. I’m also not stealing your horse and your, uh, prize from the fair. I’m just borrowing them. I will definitely be returning them. If I live and such.”

  He was already struggling, unsteadily, to regain his feet. So I tested Peacemaker on him, just to make sure I knew how it worked.

  He went down heavy.

  I twisted the horse’s head around and cantered off.

  “I am well and truly fucked now, if I wasn’t before,” I told the horse. It offered no sympathy.

  VISINI TRIED TWICE more to mob me, but between the horse and Peacemaker, I had her number. I felt bad about leaving whole neighborhoods sprawled out in the street, but not bad enough to forbear using Morno’s artefact on them.

  Then she started making people fling themselves out of upper story windows to try and bring me down. I kicked Morno’s bay into a gallop, and the clatter of iron shod hooves striking the cobbles almost drowned out the sound of falling bodies and breaking bones.

  Almost.

  I was at a loss as to what to do to destroy her. At that point I was just moving to avoid being overwhelmed. I couldn’t just endlessly ride around the city. And every moment the Blade continued to exist meant people were getting hurt. Maimed. Killed.

  “Chuckles.”

  “Kalara.”

  “Whatever. Can Visini hear my thoughts?”

  “Not unless you speak them aloud, the way you’re doing right now.” The ‘like an idiot’ part was implied by her tone. She really was picking up human emotions. I didn’t know what to make of that, but if it was something to ponder, the pondering would have to wait for another day. Assuming I got another day.

  At least Visini wouldn’t know what I was planning on doing before I did it, which was something. If only I had a plan to keep from her.

  I thought hard about it as I raced out of the Foreigners’ Quarter, and into the adjacent Artists’ Quarter. I hadn’t given it a thought until now. I hadn’t had to, because I’d been convinced that Holgren would deal with Visini’s demise. I really should have twigged to the fact that Holgren cleaning up this mess was just too easy, too convenient. For better or worse, and for whatever insane reason, the Eightfold’s Blades were mine to deal with. Mine alone.

  Abanon I had destroyed by turning her own destructive power against her. Chuckles had chosen to give up her physical form, rather than be trapped in the nowhere place I had created as a prison for her and for the Telemarch’s chaos magic. I couldn’t see how either of those situations were applicable now.

  If there was a way to turn Visini’s powers against her, I just couldn’t see it.

  If there was a way to get her to voluntarily destroy herself, it didn’t occur to me.

  I decided to try and destroy the Blade that Binds and Blinds the old-fashioned way – by pummelling the shit out of it, until nothing remained but crumbs and dust. I didn’t know if it was possible, but there was only one way to find out. And there was only one place in the city, I reckoned, that stood a chance of doing it.

  I nudged the bay to greater speed, and set course for the Sanvage Iron Works – and its modern marvel, the steam-powered drop hammer.

  “You see, Holgren?” I said. “I do listen when you prattle on.”

  Holgren had gone on at length about his tinkering, back when we were people of leisure, lounging around our now burnt-out manse. I confess I listened with half an ear at best, but that half an ear always perked up when he complained about costs – and he complained about the cost of steel often. He’d often called the Sanvage Metal Works rapacious, and just as often blathered on about their ‘ingenious use of steam.’

  I’d asked him why he didn’t just go to a blacksmith, and he’d explained that that would be a good way to have a gun blow up in your face. Sanvage had the only blast furnace in Lucernis, and only a blast furnace could get the metal hot enough to burn out the impurities to a level sufficient for his purpose. They also had what he said was the only steam-powered drop hammer anywhere, which was, apparently, far superior to the ordinary triphammer if your aim was to bash things real good.

  I found myself burdened with an overwhelming desire to bash something real good.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  DON’T GET NOTICED. That’s the first thing the world taught me about survival. When I was very young, and my father was very drunk, I’d hide in the muck under the shack we inhabited. There I listened to his stone fists punish the flesh of my mother. He would not have pulled his punches for me; he barely did when he was sober. I wouldn’t have survived him in a rage.

  My mother didn’t, in the end.

  He didn’t notice me that last night, until I slammed the scaling knife into his back.

  When I was a little less young, stealing on the streets of Bellarius, I learned how to slip through crowds unnoticed, dipping pockets and pilfering from stalls and shops. Getting caught meant a beating at the very least, and being beaten to death by an angry mob if my luck was completely out. I learned to be a shadow and a whisper.

  And then the Purge began.

  They hunted us gutter children, death squads backed by an archmage. All my hard-won skill at being unnoticed was a shabby joke in the face of that. One night, chased by Blacksleeves through the alleys and across the rooftops of the Girdle, my luck finally ran out.

  The big scar, the one that nearly took my left eye, came from a wild swing of the Blackseeve’s dirk that I just wasn’t quick enough to dodge. The others that he put on my face as he sat on my chest were according to some pattern or plan that only he understood.

  He didn’t notice me get an arm free. He didn’t notice me get my hand on the little rusty stiletto I kept in my belt, at the small of my back. He was too engrossed in what he was doing to my face.

  He noticed when I opened up his neck, though.

  That’s when the world taught me the second thing: Sometimes you can’t hide. Sometimes you have to run. So, I’d stowed away on a ship bound for, I found out when we reached it, Lucernis.

  Now, Visini. I couldn’t
hide from her, and I couldn’t run from her. She had caught up to me as soon as I stepped off the fucking ship, and she’d been having her fun with me ever since.

  But I knew what to do when you couldn’t run, and you couldn’t hide. The world didn’t teach it to me. I discovered it inside me a long, long time ago. I think it was always there, a cold truth that cannot be altered by time or circumstance, that cannot be misinterpreted or wished away.

  When you can’t run and you can’t hide, when something relentless and unstoppable is trying to end you, when something is destroying the people and the things you care about, you stick a blade in it.

  And then you watch it bleed out, to make sure it’s well and truly dead.

  I never wanted a war. Maybe I had no chance – even if I managed to end the Blade that Binds and Blinds, there were still five of her sisters out there, waiting to end me. But I’ve always been outnumbered and overpowered. And if the Eightfold Bitch’s Blades thought they’d have me, then by all the dead gods, I had only one thing to say to them:

  Not if I get you first.

  I rode into the Sanvage works. There were half a dozen laborers unloading a coal cart, probably two more than were strictly necessary, since there were only four shovels and three barrows between them. They gawped at me. I smiled, took out Peacemaker, and put them down.

  “Consider it an unscheduled break,” I told them, and dismounted.

  Going to ground? That seems ill-advised.

  “It was a good story,” I said to Visini. “The one about the bear. The one the fisherman told me.” At the far side of the yard stood a cavernous building, bigger than any barn I’d ever seen. Its doors were open wide. Behind it, the giant waterwheel that powered the furnace. And the drop hammer.

  You cannot defeat me, whatever your plan is. You only delay the inevitable.

  “Maybe. But this is one handy fucking artefact the governor let me borrow, I’ll tell you that. You can bind and blind all you want, but if your puppets are all asleep, it doesn’t do you much good.”

  Will you put to sleep an entire metropolis? The whole world? You only borrow a little more time. Someone will take me from you, sooner rather than later. And then I will gut you, little thief.