Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids

by Michael McClung

  “Don’t thank me for telling you something likely to get you killed.”

  “Fine then. But I owe you.”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then make me a promise.”

  “If I can.”

  “Don’t go alone.”

  “Fengal—”

  “I mean it, Amra. Don’t go down there without someone to watch your back. Literally. I can scare up someone capable and trustworthy if you give me a couple of hours.”

  “Who did you have in mind?”

  “The mage. Holgren Angrado.”

  “He’s busy right now.”

  One eyebrow rose.

  “He’s already helping me, in exchange for something you don’t want to know anything about. Trust me.”

  “Well he’s sensible enough to know I’m right about this. Don’t go to the Rookery without him.”

  “Fengal, I’m a grown woman.”

  “You owe me, and you promised.”

  “Not yet I haven’t.”

  “But you will.”

  And a quarter hour later, I did. I was tired of arguing. Daruvner usually gets what he wants, if for no other reason than he has the patience of a stone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I hadn’t told Daruvner why I wanted Gavon’s name, and he hadn’t asked directly. He was too polite for that. Or he knew better than to ask questions he didn’t want answers to. He suspected I planned to kill the man, to make a statement. Which had its appeal, admittedly, but it wasn’t what I had planned. Would-be assassins would certainly be put off if I killed the man who inked the contract on me, but I just don’t have the stomach for cold-blooded murder. Daruvner was right about that. Oh, I could argue the morality of it with myself all day, and make a perfect case for putting a knife in the heart of a man who made a living being the middleman for murderers and their clients, but I couldn’t fool myself. If I had to I could do it, but I hoped I wouldn’t have to.

  Instead I was going to try something a little more tricky. I was counting on the fact that a fixer, even a fixer for assassins, would have to honor any contract if he wanted to stay in business.

  I just hoped to Kerf that it worked. If it did, no one would dream of trying to cash in on the bounty that had been put on my head. If it didn’t, I’d almost certainly be dead. Either way, my problems would be over.

  But before all that, I had a funeral to attend.

  #

  The City of the Dead. From the outside it looked like some mad prince’s idea of a fortress, massive white walls stretching up and up, though there were no sentry towers. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to try and scale them; they were damned-near glassy and thoroughly seamless. Besides, against all that white I would have been a tad conspicuous, whatever I wore. Also, there was no need. The gate to the Necropolis was open, unlocked, and unguarded all day long. If I ever decided it behooved me to rob the dead, I could just stroll in and hide myself in a corner somewhere until everyone left. Gods knew the place was full of nooks and crannies.

  There was only one gate, a thing of impressive impracticality made of oak timbers a foot thick banded with iron and inscribed with arcane symbols that throbbed with power. Next to the gate in a half-dozen languages was a notice:

  The Gate Closes Half a Glass Before Sunset.

  Be Ye on the Outside Before Then.

  No Littering

  No Blood-Spilling

  No Hurdy-Gurdy Music

  No Fornication

  It made me wonder. Was all of this to keep the dead safe, or the living?

  Once in the gate I was surrounded by mausoleums. Some were little bigger than doll houses, others dwarfed my rented rooms. Headstones and statuary squeezed higgledy-piggledy in between.

  There was one gravel path. I took it, but the task of finding Corbin’s funeral was daunting. The place was a giant maze.

  “It’s over there, on the hill with the large, not terribly well done Weeping Mother statue.”

  I spun around. It was the boy in the penitent’s robes.

  “What is?”

  “Your friend’s funeral.”

  “Who the hells are you?”

  “Arhat,” he said, as if that cleared everything up.

  “What do you want, Arhat?”

  “To pay my respects. I... failed your friend, in a manner of speaking. I’m sorry.”

  “Failed him how?” I asked, but he just shook his shaved head and said “Now is not the time.” And then he disappeared. Literally, before my eyes.

  I just stood there for a second. I mean, what would you do? Myself, I blew out a big breath of air and cursed.

  “Lucernis,” I muttered to myself as I made my way up to the hill he’d indicated, “gets weirder every damned day.”

  I was a little late. They’d already had the ceremonial meal and were cleaning up from that. Which was fine; as much as I cared for Corbin, he wasn’t smelling like a flower, and despite the careful makeup he looked like what he was- a corpse propped up in a comfy chair at the head of the funerary table. It reminded me of nothing so much as some sort of gruesome child’s tea party, but like I said, I’m not from Lucernis. Where I come from, somebody dies, you bury them if you have some land or burn them if you don’t. You say a few words, and then get back to the business of living and grieving. Or celebrating, as the case may be.

  Osskil sat on his brother’s right, and three other men I didn’t know took up the other seats, except for the one at the foot of the table. The one reserved for spouses or significant others. That one was empty. I wondered if Estra knew of the funeral, or if she’d simply chosen not to come.

  The men were all of advanced age, with impressive facial hair. They looked so alike they had to be brothers. They were dressed in finery that looked just a tad threadbare. Professional mourners, I supposed. The other noble houses weren’t going to be sending representatives; Corbin was an embarrassment. They’d all just politely ignore the whole thing.

  Osskil rose and bowed when he saw me, but addressed himself to Corbin.

  “Your friend Amra has come, Corbin. I told you she would. She’s a bit late for the meal, but perhaps we can persuade her to have a drink with us?” The other men nodded and smiled encouragement.

  “A drink would be very welcome,” I managed, and Osskil made a bottle appear and filled glasses for everyone, including Corbin of course.

  “Perhaps we could persuade Amra to give us a toast, Corbin?”

  “Oh, I don’t think—”

  “A toast! A toast!” The other men quickly started up, and Osskil gave me a look that more or less said, ‘Give the dead man a toast, you mannerless savage.’ And so I did.

  I raised my glass, cleared my throat, and said “Corbin knew—” A glare from Osskil. “—that is to say, Corbin, you know that I am not one for public speaking. You, ah, are a good man. I am lucky to count you as my friend.”

  A chorus of ‘Hear her! Hear her!’ from the others. I had no idea what else to say. I cast a desperate glance at Osskil and he nodded and put back his drink, so I did as well, expecting wine.

  It looked like wine, and tasted like wine for the most part, but there was something else to it and my head almost immediately began to spin and my heart started thumping up in my ears. I looked at Osskil again and he tilted his head toward his brother.

  Corbin sat, grinning, at the head of the table. He was looking straight at me, and I knew that grin. It was one he reserved for the petty, hilarious misfortunes of others. No malice in it, just good humor. Then he looked over at his brother, and his face sobered. He raised his glass to Osskil and nodded, and Osskil did the same.

  And then the world rushed back in, and Corbin was just a corpse once more. But his cup had tumbled to the grass. Empty.

  “Well. That was... unexpected.” I managed. Seeing Corbin apparently returned to life, even if only briefly, had touched a nerve. It was an unlooked-fo
r gift, but it also brought back the rawness of his loss. I wasn't sure if the trade-off was worth it.

  “A special wine, in a special place, for a special man,” said one of the mourners. Osskil said nothing. The redness of his eyes spoke for him.

  Then it was time to bundle him up and stick him in his tomb. They just lifted him, chair and all, and walked him into the mausoleum. Put him in a patch of light from a stained glass window. Put a delicate little wrought-iron table next to him, and loaded it up with food and drink. And that was that. Or so I thought.

  Osskil was the last one out. I heard him whisper ‘Farewell, little brother’ and saw him kiss the top of Corbin’s head. Then he came out and closed the door.

  The thief in me wondered where the lock was, and said so out loud.

  “What need for locks in the City of the Dead? The dead know their own, Amra, as you have seen. You are welcome here, for Corbin has acknowledged you. And if an interloper were to dare disturb his rest, well, that’s what the Guardian is for.”

  “The Guardian? I thought that was just some kind of granny tale to keep the kids out of the graveyard.”

  “Most assuredly not. The Guardian of the Dead is as real as you are, and ancient, and hideously powerful. The strictures posted at the gate are there to keep us living safe from it.”

  “Even the one about hurdy-gurdy music?”

  He smiled. “Perhaps not that one. I suspect it’s there just to preserve a sense of class.”

  “So blood, fornicating and littering all make the Guardian upset, eh?”

  “Absolutely. Especially blood. Never, ever spill blood here, Amra. The Guardian will notice, and investigate. You don’t want to meet it.”

  “No offense, Lord Osskil, but I’m just the slightest bit sceptical.”

  “Look over there. You see that mausoleum, the one with the gargoyles doing unspeakable things to each other? That’s the final resting place of Borkin Breaves.”

  “The richest man in Lucernis?”

  “Indeed he was. Still is. Inside his crypt I know for a fact are sacks and sacks of gold and jewels. I was at the funeral when they carted it all in. I was just a boy, then.”

  “You do realize who you’re talking to, right?”

  He gave me a sober look. “Please don’t think about trying to rob Breaves’ crypt, Amra.”

  “Why the hells not?”

  “Besides the fact that it is incredibly gauche to rob the dead, you mean? Because when Breaves was put into his tomb, there were no gargoyles adorning the edifice. No adornment of any sort, in fact. It was just a big, ugly, plain marble cube. People were scandalized.”

  “Oh, please,” I said. “You’re saying the Guardian transformed those who tried to rob the tomb into that?”

  “The Guardian has a vile sense of humor. Go and take a look. I know you won’t take my word for it.”

  “Absolutely.”

  The other men had packed up all the funeral oddments and were waiting for Osskil.

  “Farewell, Amra. Thank you for coming. It meant much to Corbin.”

  “It meant a lot to me as well.” I stuck out my hand and he shook it, then held onto it for an extra beat.

  “Call upon me when you are ready to move on Corbin’s murderer. Please.”

  “All right.”

  He moved off down the hill with his group of rented mourners, and I ambled over to Borkin Breaves’s tomb. The gargoyles were indeed doing things to each other, and by the looks on their disturbingly human faces, nobody was having much fun with it. Didn’t prove anything, of course. I didn’t believe a word of it. But then I doubted there was even a single gold mark in the mausoleum, either.

  There was one gargoyle down low, half-obscured by weeds. Something about it made me take a second look. I pushed back the milky stalks and stared right into the scream-frozen face of Tolum Handy.

  Tolum Handy was a thief who worked with Daruvner, same as me.

  He’d disappeared the year before.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was well past midnight when Holgren and I arrived at the Cock’s Spur. I’d pulled Holgren away from his ‘meditation’–which to me looked suspiciously like a nap. Unless his whistling snore was actually a magely chant of sorts. If so, Bone’s rumbling, snuffling snore was the perfect counterpoint.

  I told him what I intended to do, and what Daruvner had made me promise. Holgren had agreed with Daruvner, in a bleary-eyed, grumpy sort of way.

  I’d made one stop on our way to the Rookery, at Temple Street, north of Temple Market. At the modest temple of Bath the Silent, to be more precise. God of secrets.

  Unlike its grand neighbors, there was no scrollwork, no fluted columns, no larger-than-life statuary to grace the front of Bath's temple, no maxims carved into stone and picked out in gold-leaf. His temple was built from porphyry, speckled gray and white, where others were faced with white marble or alabaster. And it was a small place, as these things go.

  It was where people went to unburden their souls, secure in the knowledge someone would listen, and never tell. Holgren waited outside, insisting his secrets were his own and that he intended to keep it that way. I shrugged and climbed the well-worn steps to the small, unassuming nave.

  A lesser-known aspect of Bath was that he didn’t just receive confessions. He, or rather his priests, also held on to valuables. Anything that could be considered a secret was safe with the Silent One.

  This was where I kept my retirement money. It earned no interest as it would with a money lender, but it also incurred no fees, and it was as safe in Bath’s Temple as it would be anywhere in the world. I certainly wouldn’t try to steal from him. What happened to the bodies of those who had tried was a secret, too.

  An acolyte met me at the narrow door, quite nondescript except for the fact that his lips had been sewn shut. I’d always wondered how they ate. Another of Bath’s secrets, I suppose. He led me through silent halls bathed in soft candlelight and faintly scented with some unfamiliar, musky incense. I had come to think of that scent as the smell of secrets, and for all I know that’s exactly what it was.

  The place was bigger inside, somehow, than it appeared to be from the street. How much bigger I didn’t know, but big enough to make me believe Bath had potent magics at his disposal.

  A short time later we stopped at a plain oak door, and the acolyte ushered me through. Inside was a small, bare white room. The only furniture was a small table, on which rested eleven chains: Long, narrow bars of buttery gold cast to break precisely into ten even pieces, or staves. Ten marks to a stave. Ten staves to a chain. Eleven hundred gold marks. Which left me with about a half-dozen marks to my name once I hauled them to the Rookery.

  No secrets from Bath.

  I loaded the chains into a satchel I’d brought along for the purpose, and turned to go. I was surprised to find the acolyte still standing in the doorway.

  “My master has a message for you.”

  The little hairs on the back of my neck shot up, half because of the magic that had flooded the room, half because him talking to me was very, very creepy. It had certainly never happened before.

  “How do you do that with your lips sewn shut?”

  He smiled, which was rather ghastly to look at. “I can’t tell you. I could show you...?”

  “Um. No, thanks. What message does the high priest have for me?”

  He shook his head. “Not Dalthas.”

  “Oh. You mean—” The goose bumps were crawling, now. I shivered despite myself.

  “Yes.”

  Bath himself had a message for me? What the hells?

  “My Master bids me tell you to beware She Who Casts Eight Shadows.”

  “Who might that be?” But I remembered the bloodwitch’s warning about the Eightfold Bitch, and her Blade.

  “My master does not say.”

  “I’m surprised he said anything. Being the Silent and all.”

  The acoly
te smiled that horrid little smile again. “Secrets are my master’s coin. And while he is frugal, he is not a miser. He spends carefully, but that is not the same as hoarding.”

  “So, not Bath the Silent. What then? Bath the Very Quiet? Bath the Extremely Reticent?”

  “As you like. But now you too have a secret, of sorts. You would be wise to keep it.”

  “Is that a warning from your master?”

  “Advice from my lowly self. Those who come here to admit faults, failings, sins... well, would they come if they knew the Silent One sometimes spoke?”

  I shrugged. “Bath chose to share a secret with me. I think I can stand to keep a secret about him.”

  He bowed his head and drifted out the door. I followed, and met Holgren on the steps. As we walked towards the Rookery, I asked him “Have you ever heard of somebody called She Who Casts Eight Shadows?”

  “A goddess. Killed during the Wars of the Gods. Why?”

  “I don’t know. I’m supposed to beware her, apparently. But if she’s dead—Did you say wars, as in more than one?”

  “Oh yes. There were several leading up to the last. Everyone tends to focus on the last one. But what’s this about bewaring a goddess?”

  I smiled. “It’s a secret. If you’d come in with me....”

  He arched one eyebrow and frowned. And let the matter drop.

  #

  The Rookery after midnight was unpleasant. Human wreckage littered the gutters, sometimes indistinguishable from all the garbage until a head moved or a hand was held out in mute appeal. I’d forgotten how depressing the Rookery was, along with how awful the stench could be in summer.

  The darkened streets fairly seethed with bad intent, along with misery and abject poverty. Bravos loitered in front of taverns and shuttered shops, passing bottles of piss ale and laughing too loudly for genuine humor. Eyes tracked us as we walked to the front of the Cock’s Spur, weighed us, judged whether we were predators or prey. Or maybe that was too easy a conceit. Everyone was meat here. It was just a question of how tough the meat might be, whether it was worth the bother of bringing it down and chewing it up.