“Not if I do you first.”
You have not the power.
I hobbled into the ironworks proper, out of the yard. The light from the forge was hellish; the men that worked around it were barely more than silhouettes, but I could tell that they were clothed from head to toe, to protect themselves from the punishing heat and stray sparks. But that wasn’t what I’d come there for.
The drop hammer wasn’t hard to find. It stood three times taller than me, and it was slamming down on a cube of metal that glowed orange-red and was about as big as my head, but was rapidly getting flatter. A boy sat behind it, pushing down on a lever, and every time he pushed, the hammer dropped straight down and then yanked itself back up. Heat warped the air around the block they were forging, so hot was it.
There was a rat’s nest of pipes above it. I had no clue how it all worked, and didn’t really care. I just wanted to beat Visini to shit.
That part seemed simple enough.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot, that demon bear story.”
Visini didn’t bother to reply. Or rather, she bound all the workers in the building to her will, and sent them running towards me in reply. I raised Peacemaker up once more and put them all down. I kept up my slow, decidedly unsteady pace towards the drop hammer.
“In some ways, you’re just like that fucking bear. Sneaky, a terror, cleverer than you ought to be. And now, trapped. The trouble is, there’s a whole fucking city trapped with you, not just half a mountain village at the ass-end of nowhere. And I’m not made of the kind of stuff that could burn down Lucernis just to see you gone. Even if I had that sort of power.”
You do not. Which is why you will die.
“Yeah, yeah. Keep screeching. While you can.” I heard pounding footsteps coming up from behind. Her call had reached the environs around the ironworks, and the neighborhood was now pouring in.
I had Peacemaker speak once again. And then continued towards the drop hammer.
“You’re not like Abanon. You don’t want me, or anybody, to use you- you just want to torture and destroy whoever gets hold of you. I’m not smart enough to figure out how to turn your own powers against you, I have to confess. And you aren’t like Chuckles –”
“Kalara,” said Chuckles.
“Unless you’ve got something useful to say, Chuckles, shut the fuck up. I’m talking to your bitch sister right now.”
Chuckles apparently had nothing useful to say, so I continued.
“You can’t be forced out of your form to continue your purpose, because your only purpose, as far as I can tell, is to fuck with whoever’s unfortunate enough to hold you. That being the case, I’m gonna break you the old-fashioned way.” Or at least I was going to try.
I was almost at the drop hammer, now. The heat coming off the block of iron they had been forging was brutal. I pulled the coat-wrapped Blade from my vest and carefully dropped it on top of the orange-red metal. The cloth smouldered for an instant, then burst into flame. The skin on my hand ached from just the fleeting proximity to such heat.
“How’s that feel?” I asked. “Toasty?”
Heat does not inconvenience me, fool.
I didn’t bother to respond. I was trying to figure out how to get up to the catbird seat. A ladder, pieced together from scraps of timber, rested against the back of the drop hammer, and was climbable if a travesty of carpentry. I doubted I could negotiate my battered body from the ladder into the seat itself, but I really didn’t have to. I could just stand on the ladder and pull the lever from below.
I wobbled over to it. As soon as I put a hand on the splintered wood, a brilliant light flared behind me, and I was suddenly grabbed by the collar and thrown to the ground.
It seems I cannot make you gut your lover. But I can make him gut you.
I was surprised she hadn’t thought of it before, honestly, it being the cruellest thing she could do. Holgren stared down at me for a moment, dead-eyed and passive-faced, then turned to the Blade where it rested. I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t even get to my feet before he took up the Blade. It would cook his hand, but he wouldn’t care. Still, I tried, scrambling on the ground to grab his ankle. He kicked backwards, dismissively, not even bothering to look. The back of his heel connected with the side of my head. He reached out for the Blade with his gloved left hand- the one that carried Tanglewood’s seed in its palm.
He screamed.
What I guess you would call vines erupted from the palm of his hand, and fastened onto either side of the drop hammer. And then they pushed him away from it. He struggled, dug in his heels, but the demon seed was stronger.
“If you have any chance at all,” said Chuckles, “this is almost certainly it.”
She was not wrong. No telling how long the demon seed could keep him from immolating his hand. Gritting my teeth, I scrambled back to the ladder and climbed.
I am the Blade that Binds and Blinds. You are human filth. Prey.
“Uh, huh.” I got a hand on the lever and pulled down. It was stubborn. I pulled harder, and the drop hammer fell. I couldn’t see the Blade, but I could see the sparks. I could feel the ground tremble with the blow. I could see Holgren, straining against the thing growing out of his hand. And the thing itself, beginning to splinter and shred.
I have hunted through millennia. I will hunt through millennia more.
“Just shut up and die.” I pulled the lever again. And again. And again.
The fifth blow conjured not sparks, but a blinding red light, and an ear-piercing shriek.
“Don’t stop now,” said Chuckles.
“No shit.”
After the sixth blow, the whole world began to shake. That’s what it felt like anyway. One of the vines that kept Holgren at arm’s length from Visini, the one I could see from my vantage point, disintegrated. That seemed to cut through the hold that Visini had on him. Enough for him to scream, at least.
I pulled the lever again. The hammer dropped. The ladder and I were blown backwards by a force unlike anything I had ever experienced. The last thing I saw was the iron supports of the drop hammer, each as thick as my thigh, bulging outwards, away from the Blade, and then shattering like glass. Then I struck something with enough force to draw from me first my breath, and then my consciousness.
“AMRA.”
Someone was shaking my shoulder. The one with the stitches. They needed to fucking stop. I reached for a knife, but came up with only air.
“Amra. Wake up now. Come on, woman.”
I cracked open an eye. The other one wouldn’t open. Felt like someone had poured glue on it. I saw Holgren’s face. He looked worried. And bloody. He was crouched over me. Behind and above him, there was a giant hole blown out of the roof. Sunlight poured in. My shoulder hurt. My head hurt. Everything fucking hurt.
“If you don’t stop shaking me,” I croaked, “I’ll claw out your other eye.”
He did stop shaking me, then, and pulled me up into a fierce hug that hurt even more. I minded it less, though.
“Did you check?”
“Check what?”
“Visini. The fucking Blade.”
“There’s nothing left.”
“I need to see.”
“You need to lay still while I get help.”
“Holgren. I need to see.”
“Stubborn woman.” But he got me to my feet and half-carried me to what remained of the drop hammer.
Nothing remained of the Blade, save its impression in the cooling iron ingot I’d lain it on top of.
“Chuckles, is it finished?”
“The Blade that Binds and Blinds is no more,” she said, appearing a little distance away.
“That’s not what I asked. Is Visini fucking dead?”
“She is neutralized, and can cause no further harm.”
“Where the fuck did she go, Chuckles?”
She stared at me with her starlight eyes, and frowned. “I’ve just now made a decision. I will no longer respond to ‘Chuck
les’. You need to show the proper respect an avatar owes her goddess.”
“You need to go kill yourself.”
“Amra,” said Holgren, “You are beginning to worry me.”
“I’m not crazy, don’t worry. I’m just talking to an imaginary asshole.”
“Oh, well, that’s fine then. Can we go now? I’m afraid what’s left of this place is going to collapse on us.”
“Yeah. Let’s get out of here, lover.”
We didn’t make it out of the yard before Morno showed up, with Kluge at his side and half an army behind him. He was holding a cavalry saber. He looked deeply unhappy.
Wordlessly, I dug Peacemaker out of my pocket and held it out to him.
He took it with his free hand. “Should I keep this handy?” he asked.
I shook my head, which was a bad idea and made me wince. “No need. It’s done. Your horse is around here somewhere.”
He stared at me, at Holgren, at the ruins of the ironworks. Then he put the artefact in his vest pocket.
“Kluge. Escort them to the tower. No need for irons, I think.” He looked back at us. Well, Holgren. I was in no state to be obstructive. “Will there be?”
Holgren gave him a long look. “Not at present, at least,” he finally said.
Kluge detailed one of his men to secure a carriage. I sure as hells wasn’t up to walking to prison.
“Ey, Kluge,” I said.
“What?”
“Need to stop by Tambor’s on the way.”
He rolled his eyes.
“No, really. I left my wardrobe there. We don’t need to drink, unless you want to. Actually, I’m pretty sure I’ll be barred from setting foot in there, after today.”
TWENTY-NINE
“I AM THE KING’S JUSTICE in this city, and I am neither lax nor dilatory.”
Morno was good at the speechifying. He gave each word a sort of gravity that was frustratingly un-mockable. Holgren and I stood in front of his desk. We’d just spent two days recuperating in the Dragonfly Tower. I tried to look contrite – I’d put the possibility of him having children in jeopardy, after all. Holgren looked like Holgren, which is to say, he listened politely but displayed not a shred of unease. The eye patch helped a lot with that.
“For failing to announce their presence in the city to me upon their arrival, the remaining gentlemen have been returned to Coroune. In irons.”
“Won’t that make the king, uh, unhappy?”
“I very much doubt his grace was even aware of their mission. Their return, and the condition in which they return, will send a message to other parties. We will speak more on them in a moment.
“The individual known as Mister Hope is being put to the question as we speak.”
“He survived?” I would not have bet money on it.
“While it isn’t impossible to question the dead, it’s rarely worth the bother. Yes, he survived. I have every confidence he will reveal each of the individuals he wished to keep you from identifying, magus, and more besides.”
I cleared my throat. Morno gave the blandest glare imaginable.
“That reminds me. You’ve still got a rat. In your offices.”
“The ‘rat’ was me,” he said. “I grew impatient waiting for the magus to take up his agreed duties.”
Holgren frowned. “That was a dangerous way to tell someone to get to work. My lord.”
“I wished to discomfit you, magus, to express my displeasure. But you and I both know that riffraff such as that is no true threat to one such as you. Or an I overestimating you?”
Holgren kept frowning. But he shook his head.
“However, events have proven that our previous agreement is no longer tenable. You are a danger to this city and the crown itself, Amra Thetys, through no fault of your own. And as Holgren Angrado is so emphatically loathe to be parted from you, it behoves me to request that you both enter into voluntary exile until such time as all the remaining Blades of the Eightfold Goddess are no more. When and if that condition has been met, we can revisit the topic of your oath, magus, and of your self-confessed crimes, mistress Thetys.”
I tried to unpack all of it, but there was a lot. “Could you say all that more plainly?”
“Twenty-three people died flinging themselves from upper story windows attempting to stop you from destroying the Blade that Binds and Blinds. Seven of them were children. Scores more are injured, many permanently, due to the affray. Leave the country, the both of you, and don’t come back until all the Blades are taken care of. I’ve got enough on you, Amra, to hang you, so don’t try my patience. Have I spoken plainly enough?”
“Ah, yes. Got it.”
“While I am speaking candidly, Holgren, know that while you bear the eye of Lagna, you will not be safe from the attentions of certain parties in Coroune. Powerful parties. Exile is as much in your interest as it is mine.”
“I understand.”
“How long do we have to clear out?” I asked.
“How long do you need?”
“A week? I’ve got some studying to do at Lagna’s temple.” I was an avatar, and I had not a single fucking clue what that meant. I needed to fix that in a hurry.
His face sort of twitched. “You have three days. I suspect you will find it more than enough time, after extended contact with the high priest there.”
“Oh, you know Lhiewyn too, then.”
“I have many burdens.”
I turned to leave, but was brought up short by the governor’s voice.
“There is one other matter.” He nodded to his assistant and the man disappeared into a side room, only to reappear a moment later carrying a basket that held empty wine bottles, and a folder. I recognized the bottles. I also recognized the folder. My heart dropped into my stomach.
“Be so kind as to count the empty bottles, mistress Thetys.”
“Five,” I said, not bothering to count.
“Thank you.” He opened the folder. There were the deeds to all my properties, the ones Mister Hope had put on the bar at Tambor’s for me to sign over. The top one was spattered with his dried blood.
Morno took the first five deeds out of the folder, not bothering to look at them, and set them to one side. Then he closed the folder and held it up for me to take.
I gritted my teeth and bit my tongue – it’s possible to do both at the same time, if you do it metaphorically – and took it from his hand. Truth be told, I probably still owed him money.
“We’re even, then?” I asked.
“Even enough. Let’s keep it that way, shall we?” He stared at me a moment longer, then seemed to make a decision.
“One last thing.” He opened a drawer and took out another folder, and handed it to me silently. This one I definitely did not recognize. I opened it. I did recognize my own scrawled handwriting, immediately. But I had only the haziest memory of writing the pages he’d given me.
They were... interesting pages. There were six of them. They were a confession of every crime I had ever committed in Lucernis.
Did you know you can actually feel it when the blood rushes away from your face? I didn’t, until that moment.
“That is the only copy,” Morno said. “Consider it repayment for returning Peacemaker and my horse. Good day to you, Amra Thetys, Holgren Angrado. Safe journey. And good hunting.”
THIRTY
THE NASTY OLD CODGER was still alive, all right.
Trust me when I say there’s no truth to that old saw about only the good dying young. But you would be forgiven for thinking it was a fact if you’d ever met Lhiewyn, Sage of Lucernis and high priest of Lagna. He was thoroughly crusty and acid-tongued, and from my experience, his main joy in life was making those around him feel like imbeciles. Someone as old as he was, by all rights, should have had their wits dulled down to a smooth nub, but there wasn’t a damned thing wrong with the old prick’s mind, even if the rest of him appeared to be collapsing in on itself.
Lagna’s temple was still in
the middle of the Street of the Gods, and still grimy on the outside and cavernous on the inside. I was waiting when the doors opened. The smell of old musty books hit me as they creaked wide; a scent I’ve always found oddly pleasant. It didn’t make up for having to talk to Revered Lhiewyn, though.
His acolyte, or minder or whatever greeted me and led me through the stacks, once I gave him the general idea of what I wanted. His name came back to me after a moment. Jessep. The kid was all right. If I had his literally thankless job, I’d’ve smothered the old fart in his sleep years ago.
“So is your master still as charming as ever?” I asked the kid as we walked.
He gave me a strained smile. “Master Lhiewyn is, uh, remarkable in his constancy.”
“So he’s still a prick.”
“I would never refer to the revered in such a fashion,” Jessep replied, while at the same time vigorously nodding his head.
“You poor bastard.”
Jessep just shrugged his shoulders.
Lhiewyn was sitting at a desk in the middle of the stacks, doing something to an old book that involved needle and thread, and horse glue.
“Master, we have a petitioner.”
“Joy.”
Jessep took up a position behind the old man, arms behind his back, like a soldier standing behind his captain. Unlike a soldier, the kid had no issue being fidgety and letting his boredom show. He was out of his master’s line of sight, after all.
Lhiewyn looked up from his work. He seemed to recognize me. That’s how I interpreted the heavy sigh, anyway.
“It’s you. The one who likes to stab things.”
“Yes, it’s me, you dusty old fart. I don’t like you very much either.”
“Oh, how will I ever sleep tonight? Ah, that’s right, I don’t sleep for shit anyway, between the old man’s bladder and the rheumatism. I guess I’ll just have to lie awake, despondent over the fact that I have failed to make friends with a degenerate. Woe is me. What do you want, girl?”
I sat down in the chair opposite him. “I need to become an expert on avatars. I have three days.”
The Thief Who Went to War Page 19
