Thief Who Spat in Luck's Good Eye

by Michael McClung

  “He’d never do that. There’s no way he could take all of us.”

  “Couldn’t he? He seems like the type that likes his secrets kept, and there are far too many of you to tell tales.” I tried to test the ropes that bound my hands. Useless. I couldn’t even feel my hands any more.

  “He wouldn’t even have to kill you,” I added. “All he’d need to do is leave you here.”

  “Having a pleasant conversation, Lieutenant?”

  Even over the rain and the rumbling thunder, I should have heard the Duke’s approach. The man was truly irritating.

  “Just listening to this filth try to squirm her way out of death, Your Grace.”

  “I suggest you don’t, Lieutenant. Who knows what sort of venom she might poison your ears with?”

  “As you wish, your grace.” The Lieutenant disappeared. The Duke looked down at me. I looked up at him.

  “You’ve got some hellishly disturbing eyes, you know that?” I finally said.

  “Hold your tongue, dear, or you’ll die now instead of in the morning. I like to see what I’m doing. Make me hasty, and I’ll be sure you suffer proportionally.”

  I thought about that a moment. “You won’t kill me,” I said.

  The Duke arched a brow.

  “You won’t kill me because you need me.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “You don’t know what’s in the Tabernacle, or what you’re looking for exactly—not where it is, not what form it might take. You need someone like me to get it for you.”

  “My dear, I’m a master of the Art. What could I possibly need a thief for?”

  “If you thought getting this thing yourself was your best option, you’d never have offered ten thousand marks as a reward.”

  “That was for proof of the existence of this city. Not for the artifact.”

  “You wanted someone to find the artifact and carry it out of here so you could take it away from them. It would be easier that way.”

  “You’ve strayed from educated guesses into wild suppositions now. You’re boring me to boot. Good night, little thief. I look forward to seeing you in the morning.” He walked away, back toward his tent.

  Damn.

  #

  Three o’clock in the morning? Four? The rain kept pounding down. The Duke’s men had long ago broken out their oilskin tarps. Despite the stomach-churning distaste for the dead man next to me and my fear of becoming a corpse myself, I’d managed a few minutes of miserable half-sleep when I heard someone approach. I looked up. The lieutenant. He squatted down in front of me and stared at me for a long time.

  “What?” I finally mumbled.

  “You’re going to die in a few hours. You understand that?”

  “Looks that way, yeah. If you’ve come to gloat, make it quick. I’m trying to get some beauty sleep here.”

  “I need to ask you a question, and I need you to answer it honestly if you’re capable.”

  “Anything for you, friend.”

  “Do you really think the Duke will abandon us here if we find the artifact?”

  “Yes. I really do. You must know what kind of man you work for.”

  “This is our first assignment with the Duke. He called us from the border forts to protect him during this expedition. He said he needed seasoned fighters.”

  “Lieutenant, did you just fall off the turnip wagon?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind. No, don’t never mind. Don’t you see? He did want seasoned fighters, ones that didn’t know his reputation for treachery, deceit, and murderous madness. He needed warriors he could trust. Expendable ones.”

  He was quiet for a long time. I watched the idea sink in, watched his jaw harden and his eyes go cold. He got up and stalked away.

  “Goodnight, Lieutenant, pleasant dreams. See you in the morning when I get tortured to death.” I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing.

  I heard the lieutenant’s footsteps again. I looked up, and he dropped a sack next to me. He pulled out his belt knife and cut my bonds. I dropped the dead things that were my hands into my lap, stretched out my legs.

  “When the blood comes back to them, they’re going to hurt so bad you’ll want to scream. Don’t. There’s food in the bag.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  “My name is Gnarri. Now listen. This is how I see it. The only way we’re getting out of here alive is if you get to the thing before the Duke does.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Then I guess we’ll all die here.”

  “We could take the talisman away from the Duke.”

  “I won’t do that, not until he gives me cause. I have an oath to uphold.”

  “Then you’re an idiot, Gnarri.”

  “I’m an officer in the Duke’s service.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Find the artifact, or stay here and starve. Your choice.”

  Just then, my hands came back to life. I had to stifle the screams.

  Gnarri stood up and said, “If you were really smart, you’d have noticed Vik kept a knife in his boot. You could have escaped hours ago if you were nearly as good as you think you are.”

  I would have told him six months of starvation had taken the edge off my normally razor-keen senses, but I was too busy paying attention to the agony in my hands. Besides, he probably wouldn’t have heard me. The storm had picked up again and was screaming across the city.

  #

  I dragged myself away from the Duke’s camp and hid in a dry nook where I kept my gear, devoured hard tack and jerked rabbit, and looked over my options. Nothing good. Stay here and starve, go back to the Duke’s camp again and try to steal the talisman, or raid the Tabernacle and try to steal the artifact. Damn, damn, damn.

  I pulled out my gear, dug out my tools and the grappling hook from my pack, and made my way through gale-force winds to the side of the Tabernacle opposite the Duke’s camp. I scaled the wall and surveyed the grounds below. It was a black riot of foliage, visible only in the brief flashes of lightning.

  Two choices. Either drop down into that and make my way to one of the domed buildings on foot, or try to set my hook on one of the domes and hopefully make my way in from above. I didn’t relish traipsing through that jungle. Anything could be down there. However, it was going to be difficult to get a good cast in that wind. And I remembered the hawk, and its limp fall from the sky.

  I finally decided to take the high road. I could always climb down if I couldn’t get a good cast. And hopefully, the storm would cover my actions.

  It took eight casts to get the hook set. Once it was, I hammered a small piton into the wall and secured the rope, then began to shimmy my way upward at about a twenty-degree angle toward the dome. The lashing rain mingled with my cold sweat, and I expected to die at any moment.

  The storm whipped at me, buffeted me, stung my face and hands, and tried to pry me from the rope. Lightning struck the city around me, sometimes so close I could smell it. And the further I climbed, the steeper the angle grew. The rope began to sag as it soaked up the rainwater like a sponge. My abused hands ached fiercely. It was the hardest seventy feet I’ve ever traveled. Every second of it, I expected that unearthly shriek to turn my bones to pudding and stop my heart.

  I made it to the southern dome, set my feet on the ledge, and collapsed, willing my breathing back to normal.

  I was here. Now what?

  The first thing I noticed was the dome was not merely golden. It was gold. One seamless sheath of gold, who knew how thick. It looked as if it had been cast all of a piece, which was impossible. There was enough gold on just the one dome to buy half of Lucernis outright. I couldn’t help but laugh a little. I was the richest woman in the world if I could figure out how to haul it all away.

  The next thing I noticed was what looked like vent holes at the very top, wedge-shaped, spaced evenly around the central spire
. I inched up a little and saw they were in fact windows—or had been. The glass had long ago broken out of them. A few jagged shards still clung to the edges. There was something odd about the shards. I pulled one loose and took a closer look. It was a deep blue. It must have been pretty inside during the day, before the windows had broken. More importantly, I had a way in if I could figure out how to get down.

  The windows were wide enough for me to slip inside, but the drop was a bone breaker. I cast a glance back at my rope. No help there; it was tied securely to the outside wall. No way I was getting it loose from where I was, and I hadn’t brought a spare. The interior angle of the dome was too steep for me to try to climb unassisted. I sighed, cursed myself, and put a hand on the thin rod of the spire.

  Lightning struck the spire just then, and the raw power of it convulsed my body. At the same time, a scream rose from the depths of the dome, a rising bubble of agony that was more than sound. It enveloped me and turned my own pain into a tiny corner of an agony that enveloped the world and knocked me out.

  #

  Far, far away, the buzz of a dragonfly’s wings magnified a thousand times. The hum and whine of metal being tortured out of shape endlessly. I thought I could hear Holgren telling me to wake up.

  Slowly, I opened my eyes but could not make them focus. Holgren’s voice went away. It was replaced by another voice I could hear clearly above the hum and whine.

  Wake. You must wake.

  “Wha? Done my chores, Da.” Something wrong with my voice. Muffled. More than muffled. Gone? No, that wasn’t quite it either.

  Wake, now, and do not move until you can move with purpose.

  I tried to open my eyes again. I saw only blackness. “Great, I’m blind,” I mumbled. Something wrong with my voice, and something was cutting into my waist, and my hands were throbbing, especially the right one.

  No, not blind, only looking into darkness. You have been deafened, however.

  I finally snapped back into reality. My entire torso was hanging through one of the windows of the dome. It was a wonder I hadn’t fallen through. Slowly, I inched my way back from the precipice.

  Come down to me now.

  “I don’t think so.” No way in hells was more like it. Whatever it was down there was talking in my head. I’d take my chances with the Duke.

  You will never overcome the Duke alone by stealth or any other means. I can aid you though.

  “I’ll just have to take your word on that, I guess. Now, get the hells out of my head.” I slid down the curve of the dome to the ledge and took stock of myself. Deaf except for the hum and whine that threatened to split my head open. My own words were muffled things felt in my chest and throat rather than heard by my ears. The palm of my right hand was charred. My vision swam, and muscles all over my body spasmed randomly.

  I’d never be able to climb back down that rope without falling. Maybe the canopy of vegetation in the Tabernacle grounds would break my fall somewhat.

  Doubtful.

  I ignored the voice—the presence in my mind—as best I could. Down into the Tabernacle grounds and then what? Not over the wall, not like this. Out the gate then—into the Duke’s camp, then death by torture. I put my head in my good hand and held back the tears.

  Come down to me. Amra. I swear no harm will come to you from me.

  “How do I get down?”

  Climb down the spire. It runs straight to the floor. And more.

  I climbed back up the dome, grabbed hold of the spire, tightly with my good hand and then gently with the burned one, swung my legs out into the void, questing with my feet. I found the rod and locked my knees around it and oh-so-carefully contorted my shoulders through the window to grasp the rod beneath the dome with my hands. The metal was still warm from the lightning strike.

  I thought the ascent up the rope was frightening. It didn’t compare to the descent down that pole into utter darkness. Fifty feet? Sixty? I have no idea how far down I slid, nursing my burned palm, the rushing of my blood and that awful whine the only thing I could hear.

  Almost there.

  I started at the words in my mind, lost my hold, and fell the last few feet onto something fleshy, warm, wet, and alive. I felt rather than heard a low groan of pain and screamed again. I scrabbled backward on all fours away from it, heedless of the agony in my hand. Suddenly, the stone beneath me dropped off, and I tumbled backward, bashing my head against unseen stone.

  Be still, Amra. You hurt yourself needlessly.

  I couldn’t take any more of this. No more. If only there were light—no, then I would see whatever it was that was speared on the end of that rod—

  Be still. Breathe. No harm will come to you in this chamber. Be still, be calm, or I must cloud your mind. If I do so, you will never trust me afterward. I need you to trust me, little thief.

  I tried to take hold of my unraveling sanity. I don’t know how long I sat there in the darkness, the coppery smell of blood surrounding me until I wanted to vomit.

  I am sorry, Amra, but I fear it must be done.

  And then, I felt his mind enveloping mine, gently, inexorably. It was like drowning. I ceased to exist.

  The next thing I knew, I’d awoken inside something like a dream. I was starting to hate dreams. First came a faint golden glow, so faint I didn’t notice it until I realized I could tell the difference when I blinked.

  Then, the subtle scent of incense wafted through the air, gently masking the blood smell. Some incense I’d never smelled before, gentle, not cloying. I didn’t trust any of it, but it helped. I felt sanity settle more firmly in my grasp. A question floated to the surface of my mind.

  “Who are you?” I whispered.

  Tha-Agoth, god-king, emperor, sacrifice. Tha-Agoth the Undying, the Betrayed. Tha-Agoth the Eternal Sufferer. Tha-Agoth the Fool.

  “Where are you?” came the next question though I knew the answer to that one.

  Pinned to my own altar, pierced by sky-metal, punished by the fates for besting death and building to withstand eternity.

  “Who put you there?”

  My sister, my bride. Athagos the Destroyer, Athagos Death-Bringer, the serpent’s fang, the spider’s kiss, song weaver of the sirens.

  “What do you want from me?”

  Freedom. And in return, I will give you eternal life.

  The light failed. The incense faded, as did my consciousness.

  I woke knowing my mind had been tampered with. The dark and the stench were there still, but I had something to hold on to. Anger.

  The past months, Holgren’s death, the Duke, my battered body, eating bark and grubs, the constant struggle for survival, and now some god playing with my mind—it was enough. I was getting out of this hell-hole no matter what it took, and damn anyone who got in my way.

  First, I needed light.

  Mercifully, my tinder box was still in my belt pouch. Holding flint in my injured hand, I struck steel across it until I got a spark in the tinder then a twist of smoke and a small flame. Quickly, I tore a strip of cloth from my ragged shirt tails, praying it wasn’t too soaked.

  I will supply light if you are prepared to see.

  “Shut up.”

  Slowly, smokily, the rag caught. I held the strip up above my head and looked around the room. Nothing but bare stone, the hint of doors to the left and right, and in the center a stone altar.

  You are prepared to see. And with that, light blossomed from everywhere at once. Bathed in that golden glow lay a man on top of the altar, pinned there by the rod that ran straight up through the top of the dome.

  He was the color of bronze. His hair fell in braids down the end of the altar to pool on the stone floor below. The blood from his wound trickled down the sides of the altar to do the same. There was a lot of it. The floor was awash in blood.

  The pupils of his eyes were cold, bright stars, pinpricks on the blanket of his night-dark irises.

  Help me.
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  I dropped the burning rag and approached him.

  Help me, Amra. I have lain here for a thousand years, pierced through the heart, unable to die. Free me.

  “I’m sorry. I have no idea how to help you.” I looked away from him, down at my hands. They were covered in his blood. I was covered in his blood. I’d crawled through it.

  I cannot affect the sky-metal that pins me. You can. You can break it somehow. It will not be easy, but I believe it is possible for a mortal. Do me this service, and I will grant you eternal life. You may leave if you choose or stay here with me and help me rebuild my empire. Please, Amra, do not leave me so.

  I couldn’t look at him. His situation was horrifying. I pitied him, but I didn’t trust him any more than I did the Duke.

  “What killed off all the animal life here?” I asked.

  I do not understand the question.

  “I think you do. You know my name. Root around in my brain some more, and tell me what killed the hawk above the Tabernacle.”

  Silence for a long time. Finally, he assented. Athagos. She wakes sometimes. I do not allow her to feed from me, so she gains what sustenance she can elsewhere.

  “Athagos, your sister-wife? Death incarnate? She’s still hanging around, huh?” I walked a few steps closer. “Tell me why she pinned you here in the first place.”

  Please, Amra—

  “We do this my way if we do it at all. If you don’t like it, take over my mind again, you bastard, and get me to do your dirty work that way.” I was suddenly shaking with rage. It wasn’t just toward him, but he was a convenient target.

  I knew you would resent that. Very well.

  We were born, my sister and I, with powers: she to cause death and I to defeat and defy it. As we grew, we also grew in power and together conquered half the world. Eventually, she grew jealous of my powers. She was forced to kill to sustain her youth and beauty. She had always abhorred death. There was a rival wizard-king, a man whose name I have since seen crushed to dust on the slow wheel of time. He poisoned Athagos’ mind against me, made her believe she could absorb my powers into herself. She believed him. She believed my death would be the last she would ever need cause. I suppose it was worth it to her, for on this very altar, she lay me, drugged, and performed a fearful ceremony.