Thief Who Spat in Luck's Good Eye

by Michael McClung

  I suppose it was a parting kiss, of sorts. I felt a trickle of that awful power of hers in my body, scouring my soul and making me twitch. They toppled to the ground, and Tha-Agoth’s robust, bronze flesh began to shrivel slowly. He got his hands round her neck and began to squeeze. I didn’t think it was going to do much good.

  She is crushing his heart, said the Shadow King merrily, as she sucks away his vitality. His blood may be life eternal, but only while his heart beats. That rod you hold should have stopped his heart front beating a millennium ago, but he moved just enough at the last instant. It crippled but did not kill him. She will finish him this time. Better late than never, I suppose.

  “Won’t she die, too?”

  Oh, yes, normally, she would. The bond between the Twins is unlike any other. They are tied to each other, body and soul, whether they like it or not. But of course I can’t allow her to die in such a fashion. Once they’ve died, their very essences will be trapped here. I have great plans for such power. Just as I have for you.

  I didn’t like the sound of that.

  I underestimated you, my dear. You tricked me. You caused the death of not one but two of my khordun and stole a third away from me at least for a time. You defeated my umbrals and destroyed Shemrang, a creature so old and wicked and powerful that I was at pains to make her obey me. I would be very angry with you indeed if I weren’t so impressed. You will be a valuable tool.

  “I’m nobody’s tool.”

  I believe you will discover otherwise. Think on this, Amra: If you are of no use to me, then I have no reason to spare you, do I? Too, I hold your lover’s soul in the palm of my hand.

  I suppose he had a point.

  Now be quiet, and do not bother me, he said. I have waited to see Tha-Agoth die for a very long time.

  I shut up and feigned interest in the gruesome show. Tha-Agoth was struggling and putting up far more of a fight than anyone else I’d seen Athagos slurp down.

  He wasn’t going to make it. His skin began to sag off his bones. The hands that had tried to pry his sister off him now beat feebly at her head. Blood trickled from her hand’s point of entry into his chest. All in all, I’d seen more pleasant things.

  I weighed all the options and with a little regret decided it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the Twins took each other out. Theirs was an old and apparently ugly story that had nothing to do with me.

  The Shadow King did. I hoped the rod would do to the block what it had done to Shemrang. It was all I had going for me.

  I didn’t try anything tricky or fancy. I just walked up to the block and, with every ounce of force I could muster, rammed it down onto the stone’s wide, black surface.

  I flew in one direction, and the rod spun end over end in another.

  I told you not to bother me, Amra.

  When the cobwebs cleared, it was very quiet. I clambered slowly to a standing position and took a look around. Athagos was prone on the ground, not breathing, not moving. Next to her was Tha-Agoth’s skin. It was crumpled into an untidy ball. His braids were bigger than the rest of his remains. It was a little sick-making. Or maybe it was just the pain.

  That was…satisfying, said the Shadow King. Now. Pick Athagos up, and lay her on the block.

  “Do it yourself,” I muttered.

  How soon they forget. I think it is time for another object lesson.

  I was expecting him to magically rip portions of my anatomy from me. I didn’t get off that lightly.

  Holgren twitched, stirred, then stood up. His eyes were wide, and the veins in his temples throbbed. I felt the presence of magic creep up my neck. I braced myself—the Shadow King was about to do something unpleasant to Holgren. And he did after a fashion.

  Holgren twitched, cocked his head, and screamed, “NO!” Then, his hand shot out toward me, and I was in agony. It was as if molten lead had replaced the marrow of my bones. I fell to the ground, writhed, shrieked. There was no more me. There was only the terrible pain.

  It stopped as abruptly as it began. I curled up into a ball and panted.

  Place Athagos’ body atop the block, Amra.

  If it had just been my pain, I might have held out until I died. Very, very doubtful but at least possible. It wasn’t just my pain though. It was Holgren’s as well. The Shadow King’s display of power would hurt Holgren far more than it hurt me.

  I crawled over to Athagos’ body and began to drag her to the block. I didn’t look at Holgren. I couldn’t. I had failed him.

  “I’m sorry, Amra. Oh, gods, I’m sorry,” Holgren whispered.

  Be quiet, said the Shadow King.

  I finally got Athagos up on top of the block, head lolling, arms trailing off the edges. I stepped back and sort of tumbled down to a sitting position, every bone aching. The Shadow King’s voice let out a strange little hiss.

  Finally. Freedom at last and the power of the Twins to shape the world in my image.

  Holgren collapsed then, and the stone began to melt away in an odorless vapor. It was over. We’d lost. I sat there for a moment, bitter with defeat and despair. I wasn’t going to get up again. Everything seemed pointless.

  I glanced at Holgren. I’d failed him. He had counted on me, and I’d failed him. I didn’t even have a knife to end his suffering with.

  It was about then that I noticed a subtle change in the light, a flickering. I looked around for the source and found it outside the archway. A large, flickering fire was gliding rapidly through the air toward me. I closed my eyes, rubbed at them with the heels of my hands.

  Now, my time comes, said the Flame.

  I opened my eyes again, and it was bobbing gently in the air in front of me. I tried to understand the words.

  All is not lost, Amra. On the contrary. You now have the opportunity to destroy him.

  “What are you talking about? It’s over. Tha-Agoth is dead. We lost.”

  It is doubtful whether Tha-Agoth would have been able to defeat the Shadow King in any case. Listen well. The Shadow King is in the process of transferring himself from his stone prison to the goddess’ body. He can do nothing to protect himself while that process takes place. If you strike now, you can destroy him.

  Hope flared then dimmed. My natural facility for suspicion I suppose. It was just too easy after all that had happened.

  “What’s the catch?”

  I will be destroyed along with the Shadow King, but I do not think that was your meaning. The ‘catch’ is that you will almost certainly be destroyed as well.

  “That’s a damn big catch.”

  Choose, Amra. Little time remains. Soon, the process will be complete and the opportunity lost. He is vulnerable now and only now. End him.

  “And end myself in the process?”

  I ask you to do nothing I will not do myself. Your spirit will not be consumed, at least, as mine will, and the pain will be fleeting.

  “That’s not really a great selling point.”

  I am not trying to sell you anything. Hurry. Decide. The process is nearly complete.

  I glanced over at the block and saw he was right. The block had melted away to a chunk of blackness about the size of a skull. Athagos’ body lay suspended in the air above, arms dangling, her hair rippling in unseen currents.

  Once the block disappeared, the Shadow King would have a body to walk around in and the power of the Twin Gods to wield along with his own. If that happened, the world was in for a very bad time. On the other hand, if I did something about it, my time was up. Decisions, decisions.

  Death isn’t lying down for a long nap or getting up from a card game or any of those feeble attempts to pull its fangs and make it an almost cozy occurrence. It’s the end.

  If you’ve seen someone die, especially someone you know—once you’ve seen them make the great transformation from a living, breathing person with likes and dislikes and annoying habits and pet foibles and a history and all the things that add up to make a p
erson unlike any other there has ever been or ever will be—once you see them make that great and terrible transformation into so much cooling meat, you know you will do whatever you can to keep that from happening to you for as long as you can.

  Or at least I did.

  True, I passed on Tha-Agoth’s offer of immortality, but there were too many strings attached. You can go too far the other way too. Look at what the Sorcerer King had done, and all that had come of it. You can stall death. You can cheat it for a time. But even gods die.

  I made my decision.

  I stumbled over to the rod where it had rolled next to Holgren. I knelt down and touched his ashen face. Whatever happened, I was going to make sure he got out of this. I kissed his eyelids and tried not to think about all the things we wouldn’t get to do together. I grabbed the rod and made my aching way back to Athagos. The block had melted down to a sliver, maybe the size of a fat man’s finger. Not much time left.

  Athagos’ body floated at hip level, where the top of the block had been. I put the tip of the rod against her chest, just to the left of her breastbone.

  A little further over, I think, said the Flame. He floated just above Athagos’ chest.

  “Who’s doing this?” I groused but repositioned the rod.

  It is a good thing you do, Amra. I chose well in you.

  “You just do whatever it is you have to do. I don’t want this to be for nothing.”

  I took a deep breath and slammed the rod down into Athagos’ perfect, dead flesh. The Flame dove into the opening I created, and Athagos sat up in mid-air and screamed with the Shadow King’s voice, eyes open, blazing.

  The world disappeared in pain and darkness.

  The Flame was right about one thing, at least. The pain was mercifully brief.

  #

  They fought in the space between life and death, the Shadow and the Flame. I was a spectator, trapped.

  It was a vast, empty plane, and on it, an overwhelming blackness ate away at a tiny point of light just as the light struggled to burn away the dark. I have no idea how much time passed as I watched them. I’m not sure time really had any meaning there.

  “They’ll continue that battle until the end of time,” said a voice off to my side.

  I turned and saw a shriveled-up old hunchback leaning on a cane a few feet away.

  “It isn’t all that much different from what goes on in every soul,” he continued. “Good struggles with evil eternally in each of us, doesn’t it?” He peered at me beneath bushy brows.

  I had the feeling I should know him. I shook my head. “Most people die, though,” I said. “Then, it’s settled one way or the other.”

  “Not necessarily. There are some very old souls roaming the world, you know. And the afterlife isn’t an infallible system. Take your friend the mage, for instance. He was slated for an uncomfortable afterlife despite being a rather good sort.”

  “Who are you?”

  “For someone as intimate with my anatomy as you seem to be, I’d think that would be obvious.” He smiled as I puzzled on that one. I gave up. I had more pressing questions.

  “Is this my afterlife then? If it’s a heaven, I can think of better ones. If it’s a hell, then I guess I got off pretty lightly.”

  “It’s neither. You’ve sort of fallen through the cracks, so to speak.”

  “Oh. What do I do now?”

  “Go back, Amra. Go back to your body, back to your life. The world isn’t finished with you yet, nor you with the world. The afterlife will wait.”

  “What, just like that?”

  He raised a bushy eyebrow. “Did you want it to be more difficult? I can arrange a harrowing trial or–”

  I raised my hands in a pacifying gesture. “No, no, I'm absolutely fine with not difficult. Just point the way.”

  “Just turn around.”

  I did, and there was a door much like one of Tha-Agoth’s rifts. Through it, I could see Holgren. It was daylight, and he was awake and hugging my slack body to his chest. Tears coursed down his cheeks.

  “Go on then,” said the old man. But as I started toward the doorway, he called me back.

  “One more thing, Amra: Choose what you swear by a little more carefully from now on. You never know who might be listening.” He smiled again, and then, he was gone.

  I stepped through the doorway and found myself in Holgren’s arms.

  I couldn’t think of any place I’d rather have been.

  …and Everything After

  We stayed there along the edge of the lake, too battered in body and spirit to start the trek home immediately and too intent on each other to care much about the world or the future. We said and did the things that lovers say and do, and never you mind about the details. We were alive, and we had each other. We’d won.

  We set up camp for the winter in the Flame’s dusty stone halls. Winter storms buried the land and froze the lake. It would have been hard going for us if we had tried to travel. I was far weaker than I wanted to be. My body, knowing the daily threat of annihilation was passed, simply refused to be mistreated any further. Holgren surprised me with his ability to trap game and to forage. Perhaps if I’d been trapped in Thagoth with him, I would have fared better.

  One evening over a meal of rabbit and arrowroot, Holgren told me a decision he’d made.

  “I never intend to work magic again.”

  “What? Why?”

  “As I said, I haven’t enjoyed it for years. And when I hurt you—”

  “That wasn’t you, Holgren. It was the Shadow King.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m through with magic.”

  I gave him a hug. “Fine, if that’s what you really want. But what are you going to do instead?”

  “Something will come up, I’m sure. First, let’s get home. One thing at a time.”

  I was feeling rested, and then restless, before winter was ready to turn things over to spring. I spent a lot of time wandering, poking around. Eventually, my rambling led me to the Sorcerer King’s chamber.

  #

  His corpse lay rotting in the hallway outside. Whatever had animated him for so long had finally given out. I don’t think he minded. I know I didn’t.

  The ghosts of his khordun were departed as well, for which I was grateful.

  It was behind the bronze-sheathed double doors on the far side of the room that I made my big find. I had never seen so much gold in one place save for the gold-domed Tabernacle in Thagoth. It lay in heaps on the floor, coins minted with the Sorcerer King’s likeness on both sides. No coin tosses in his kingdom, I suppose.

  We took away with us enough, come spring, to last us several lifetimes, which I was more than happy with. I was less than happy with the direction we took—back to Thagoth. I never wanted to see that city again. Holgren pointed out the fact that it was a month over familiar terrain to a place he could open a gate, or half a year crossing unknown territory and foraging along the way. Reluctantly, I agreed.

  We took our leave of the Flame’s halls on a windy day in early spring and made an uneventful journey back to Thagoth. When we arrived some twenty-seven days later, the city was once again a deserted ruin. I suppose it fell when Tha-Agoth did. At least the death lands had been destroyed.

  It was full dark when we arrived. We camped overnight, and the next day, Holgren opened a gate to home.

  #

  The Burrisses had auctioned off all my belongings for back rent. I can’t say I blamed them; I’d been gone for nearly a year after all. Were they supposed to store all my belongings in the off-chance I’d reappear? Still, it hurt not to have anything left of my own.

  There were a few items of sentimental value that I sorely missed: a tortoiseshell comb that had belonged to my mother, my first set of lock picks that Arno had given me, and the remaining bottles of Lord Morno’s Gol-Shen.

  Holgren was homeless as well. A fire had swept through the upper end of the city abo
ut the same time we’d first encountered the umbrals, destroying block after block of tenements, hovels, and shanties. It was whispered that Morno had had the fire set, or at least had not been in any great hurry to contain it. But the fact that the blight known as the Rookery was still left standing put paid to that notion in my mind.

  There had been rioting, put down by Morno’s arquebusiers in the end when the mob had tried to storm the governor’s mansion. Whatever the case, many of the poorest parts of Lucernis were ash. Beggars slept on every corner, it seemed, and Holgren’s sanctum by the charnel grounds was no more. “I was never terribly fond of the smell anyway,” was his only comment.

  As Ruiqi had said the day I met her, change is nature’s way.

  We took up residence in one of the better hostels on Arrhenius, a few blocks away from the banking houses. I began to make discreet inquiries as to the disposal of our newfound wealth. I preferred to pay a banker’s fee as opposed to the heavy tax levied against foreigners in Lucernis. And to be honest, I didn’t want to exist on any tax roll. Anywhere. It was all too possible that someone, somewhere, might make an unwanted connection. My past was spotty enough.

  I have discovered it is very difficult to be both rich and anonymous, whereas poor and anonymous go hand in hand. Very difficult, but not impossible. Once I’d converted our wealth to a more spendable kind, I went looking for a place for us to live. Naturally, I looked around the Promenade.

  I had enough money, but no one seemed to want to sell. Not to me, at least, or to the clerk I’d retained. It was an exclusive club, the owners of Promenade real estate, and money wasn’t enough to get me invited. I brooded over it for a time and almost decided to give upon the notion.

  Then, I met one Harald Artand over a game of cards. Harald was the eldest son of some Lucernan lordling. His father owned one of the smaller manses on the Promenade, down near the Dragon Gate. The father, Lord Artand, didn’t even live in the place. He just kept it for when he was in town on business. Harald stayed there in a sort of disgraced exile.

  It seemed young Harald had a great fondness for, and terrible luck with, the horses, and the cards, and the dice. And his family, however noble they might have been, weren’t made of money.