Thief Who Knocked on Sorrow's Gate

by Michael McClung

  The youngster, whose name was Keel, directed me to a dingy, once-whitewashed cottage with the bleached bone hanging above the lintel that denoted a chirurgeon. It was dilapidated as all hells and probably one of the nicest buildings in Hardside. I banged on the door, heard snores and then muttered imprecations from inside, and banged harder. Eventually, an evil-looking, foul-smelling troll of a man poked his head out. His gray hair stood up in kinks above his sallow face, and I could tell by his bloodshot eyes and drink-reddened nose that he was more than halfway down the neck of a bottle. But once he saw my bloodied face and Keel’s ashen one, he got it together and hustled us into his lair, which was far cleaner and more orderly than I had expected.

  “You have coin?” was the only question he asked, and once satisfied as to the answer, he went about examining and then setting the boy’s arm with expert, if trembling hands. He was efficient about it, though not particularly gentle. He had me hold Keel still while he aligned the bones. For his part, Keel bit his lip bloody but did not cry out. Stupid bravado, but I knew well enough that stupid bravado could be an asset on the streets of Bellarius.

  “You’ve got a two in three chance of this healing straight and true,” he told Keel as he bound the splinted arm to the youngster’s chest, “and the Lord Councilors’ healers could do little better. As for you,” he said, addressing me but not looking away from his work, “There’s a stack of clean rags in that cabinet and a basin of fresh water on the table to your left, though no mirror. Clean off the blood as best you can, and I’ll see if you need stitches presently.”

  I did as he instructed and realized after most of the dried blood was off my face and palms that, beyond having to pull a few splinters and wearing scabs for a time, I had escaped remarkably unharmed. When the bone-setter came to look at me, I waved him off.

  “What’s your name?” I asked him.

  “Hurvus. You’ll need unguent and plaster for that cheek unless you want to chance scarring.”

  “Do I look like I care about scars?” I asked. He just stared at me. “Fine. How much?”

  “Two silver.” It was an outrageous sum for what he’d done.

  “You’ll have four, but we’ll need a room for the night. And a meal that you’ll go and get from someplace that serves edible food.”

  “This isn’t an inn, woman.”

  “No, but it isn’t exactly a thriving practice either, now is it? Five silver.”

  “I like my privacy.”

  “Don’t push it, or I’ll take my coin elsewhere, and you’ll be drinking small beer instead of spirits.”

  His lip lifted in a tick that was half a smile. He held out a drink-tremored hand, and I put down three silver into his palm, showing him two more before I tucked them away.

  “Room there past that curtain,” he said, and went out to secure us dinner.

  I helped Keel into the room, which was a narrow little space with a cot, an uncomfortable willow-branch stool, and a clean chamber pot. Keel lay down on the cot, trying to look like he didn’t want to throw up from the pain, and I eased myself down on the creaky stool.

  “Time to talk,” I said.

  “Not in the mood,” he managed through clenched teeth.

  “I know. I’ve been there. But we need to talk while we have privacy. Our landlord’s a wine-belly, and if there’s anything worth selling in our conversation, I don’t trust him not to sell it when he’s down on his luck and out of alcohol.

  “First question: Who gave you the letter to give to me?”

  “Ansen.”

  “Ansen who?”

  “The Ansen.”

  “Oh, come on. Do I look stupid?”

  “You think I don’t know how it sounds?” he got out through gritted teeth.

  Ansen. The Just Man. A Bellarian myth. A hero from centuries ago who promised to return when needed, according to legend.

  “Don’t play with me, boy.”

  “Not,” he managed, then leaned over and retched into the chamber pot. I was inclined to believe him. Or rather believe that he believed it. He was in too much pain to try and be funny.

  I went out to get a few clean rags, both because Keel hadn’t had the greatest aim and because the smell of it had me more than half on the way to vomiting myself. I hate puking. I steeled myself and went back in, breathing through my mouth.

  I cleaned up the worst of it, forcing myself not to gag. Keel lay on his good side, eyes closed, panting.

  “I’ll have him give you something for the pain when he gets back,” I told him. “Now, the man who gave you the letter. He told you he was Ansen, and you believed him just like that?”

  “No. Not just like that. He was Ansen. Is again.”

  I sighed. “Keel, Ansen lived three centuries and more ago. He was just a peasant who led a revolt that made things better for some for a time. He wasn’t a mage or a god, he didn’t have any power over death, and he certainly isn’t going to come back and save Bellarius in its darkest hour, whatever the legend says.”

  Keel didn’t say anything to that. He just shook his head then lay there and panted, eyes closed.

  “All right. That’s enough for now. Get some rest.”

  I left the room and threw the soiled rags into the low fire in Hurvus’ main room, then sat back in one of his two chairs and watched them burn. I had no idea who Keel’s Ansen might really be. But I’d bet marks to coppers it wasn’t some peasant legend come crawling out of the grave.

  I wanted to know what had made Keel believe such a fairy tale. He was obviously a bright kid. Too bright to be suckered in by such a bombastic lie, I would have bet, had I not just learned better.

  Whoever was pretending to be Ansen, for whatever reason, must’ve been very slick indeed. And “Ansen” had had a letter waiting for me on my arrival. Somehow, that was connected to the inferno the dock had turned into to welcome me home. I don’t believe in coincidences.

  “Gods, I hate Bellarius,” I whispered to myself, and poked bits of the fouled rags deeper into the fire.

  I don’t believe in coincidences, and I don’t like people knowing where I’m going to be and when I’m going to be there before even I do. I was being used in somebody’s game, and the game stank of magic. Again.

  Reluctantly, I pulled Holgren’s necklace off and tucked it into a secure inner pocket against my heart. I didn’t want to bring him into this, whatever this was. I didn’t want to be in it myself. But with the amount of magic I’d already encountered on my first Kerf-damned day back, I saw no choice but to call out for his help.

  He didn’t want to be a mage. He didn’t want to use his considerable power in the Art ever again. But he would, for me, without hesitation.

  I didn’t feel like I had the right to ask him to do so, and I didn’t want to ask him. But I could feel something in the air, something subtly, deeply wrong. Without Holgren, I was very much afraid I wouldn’t even be able to see the threat coming before it was far too late.

  A day for him to know I’d taken off the necklace. Eight days from Lucernis to Bellarius, weather permitting. Another day just to make the gods happy.

  As the light faded outside, I pondered where I could best go to ground for a ten-day.

  #

  It was full dark when Hurvus returned. He’d obviously filled his skin while he was out. His hands had stopped trembling. He brewed a willow bark tea for the boy and forced it down his throat, then put some foul-smelling plaster on my cheek and a liniment on my hands. Then we ate, he and I. Black bread, clam soup from a clay pot, a quarter wheel of a young, gray cheese. When it was plain that Keel wasn’t going to be eating anything, Hurvus ate his share of the soup and more of the cheese as well, and wrapped the rest up in cleanish linen.

  When he’d sucked the last crumbs from his graying beard, he looked up at me with those bloodshot, still-clever eyes of his and said, “People looking for you. At the public house.”

  I felt a knife of fea
r slide into my guts but didn’t let it show.

  “Do they know where to find me?”

  “No. Not from me.”

  “Why not?”

  “You still owe me two silver. Besides, I didn’t like the look of `em. Or the smell.”

  “Blacksleeves?”

  He shook his head. “No. Don’t know what. Don’t know what you’re into. Don’t want to be part of it.”

  “We’ll be gone in the morning.”

  He nodded his head then stoked up the fire a bit. With the falling sun, the temperature was dropping. After a time, he put the poker away, put a bottle of cheap stuff by his chair, and settled in.

  “What did they look like, these people who were looking for me?”

  “Two of `em. One a bruiser, shaved head. The other a weaselly type, expensive clothes, silk and ermine and lace. Looked like he looted it off a corpse if I’m honest. The both of `em smelled like the marshes. Were asking after a woman looked hard and an injured gutter boy, maybe together, maybe alone.”

  “Marshes, eh?” Smugglers? Who knew? “Did anyone else pipe up?”

  “They weren’t offering a reward, only threats. People ‘round Hardside, they don’t pay much attention to such. Unless they got a personal stake.”

  That much, at least, hadn’t changed. I sat and stared at the fire while he filled his pipe, thinking. They’d get around to checking bone-setters soon enough, whoever they were. Hurvus would be on their list. Best I moved on with Keel before dawn. I couldn’t just leave the kid. He didn’t know anything about me, but that wouldn’t stop them from beating him to death to find it out, most likely, if they had anything to do with the fire. And I still had questions to ask him. I had too many questions all around.

  They must have set someone to watch Keel, else they wouldn’t have known I might be with him or that he was injured. That they didn’t know if I was still with him probably meant they’d lost track of us in the confusion following the explosion. In any case, they had the brains to search Hardside. Which was too bad, really. I prefer any possible enemy to be as stupid as mossy rocks.

  Well, if they were looking for me low and I wasn’t ready to face them, then I’d hide myself up on high. I had enough to take a room at one of the posh inns near the top of the Girdle. And I had enough to hire a few thugs of my own if it came to it. I just didn’t want it to.

  Mainly, what I needed was information. There was too much going on, and I didn’t understand any of it.

  I glanced over at Hurvus. He had nodded off in his chair, pipe gone out and dangling from his mouth. I gently nudged his chair with a boot tip, then harder when that had no effect. He sat up, snorting and blinking.

  “I have a few questions. I’ll give you gold if you can answer them.”

  He wiped his eyes with a thumb. “I’ll answer if I can.”

  “You heard of anyone masquerading as Ansen lately, come back from the dead?”

  He snorted. “Every year, it seems. The Syndic and his Council don’t get any less popular as time goes by only because once you hit bottom, there’s no further to go. If it weren’t for the Telemarch sitting up there in his Citadel, I don’t doubt the mob would’ve burned down the Riail long ago. But it’s hard to start a revolution when the other side has an archmage on the payroll.”

  “So what’s the story of the latest Ansen, then?”

  “I honestly couldn’t say beyond slogans scrawled on walls. ‘Return the people’s power’ and such like.”

  I grunted. “If I wanted to find somebody on the quiet, who’s the best person to talk to?” I knew of one professional information broker in Bellarius, but I would much rather not use him if I could avoid it. I tried to keep the professional and personal separate wherever I could.

  Hurvus shrugged his shoulders. “The Hag; who else?”

  “Kerf’s crooked staff, she’s still alive?” She’d been ancient when I was a girl and more than half legend. But I knew where to find her. Everybody in Hardside knew where to find her. It made it easier to avoid her.

  “Let me ask you a question,” Hurvus said. “Why do you want to know all this?”

  I thought about it a long time before I answered him. Decided to be truthful, Kerf only knows why. “I was born and raised in Hardside, Hurvus. I know you know it; you can hear it in my speech as surely as I can hear it in yours.”

  He nodded. “There’s no mistaking the Hardside drawl, sure. Though yours has gone soft around the edges.”

  “I’ve been away a long time, and coming back’s not something I ever planned on doing.”

  “So why have you? I know it’s your business and none of mine, but if I were less of a wreck and managed to climb out, nor hells nor the dead gods could drag me back. But it’s too late for the likes of me.” He took a swig from the bottle as if to prove his point.

  “I have a debt to pay,” I told him, “and the marker finally got called in.”

  He looked over at me, and even drink-fogged, his eyes were appraising. “You sit there in your raw silk trousers and bleached linen shirt and dagwool waistcoat, carrying knives the like I’ve never seen except on noblemen who had no least clue how to use `em properly, wearing boots that cost what most people make in a year, offering me gold to tell you what anyone would tell you for the time of day, and you tell me you came to Hardside to pay a debt? Don’t talk rubbish. Whatever you are, however you made your moil, you could’ve sent somebody else to settle it.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not that kind of debt. And coin won’t cover it.”

  “What will, then?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe blood. Probably blood. Maybe my life.” Whatever Theiner needed, I owed. And would pay. And that, I finally admitted to myself, was why I hadn’t wanted Holgren along.

  He was quiet for a while. When he spoke, his voice was rough with drink and with some obscure emotion. “I had a debt like that once.”

  I cocked my head. “How’d you settle it?”

  He smiled, but there was nothing of humor in it, just some old, private pain. “I never did. Or I still am. Can’t decide which it is any more.” And he took a long, long drink from the bottle and stumbled off to his bed without another word.

  I banked the fire and dug out a blanket from my pack, then went to sleep there on the floor, one of Holgren’s gift-knives in each hand.

  My last thought, before sleep overtook me, was that I really didn’t want to go and see the Hag. That was the nicer of her two names.

  Her not-so-nice name was the Mind Thief.

  Chapter Four

  Morning was a gray smear in the eastern sky with the last stars still twinkling in the west over the Dragonsea. Keel was groggy and pale-faced, but he’d live. I got us moving through streets populated only by us two and a surprisingly large number of sparrows, even for Bellarius. Sparrows were—well, not sacred, exactly, but favored. There was a local god who watched over them. Had a shrine in the Girdle and everything. I had no idea why there would be a god who watched over sparrows or why anyone would bother to build a shrine to him, but it was harmless enough, and I’d heard of stranger. And much more repugnant.

  Anyway, sparrows were thick on the ground that morning. People were not. And so I wasn’t expecting any trouble.

  The thing about Hardside is that there’s no law—only a thin tissue of custom. Oh, sure, Blacksleeves might occasionally come down from the Girdle to roust a few shanties by way of making a point or to search for some particular miscreant who did a bad thing to someone with some pull, but there’s no Watch in Hardside, no authority to go running to when the bonds of civilization are tested. You’ve got your family and friends, and possibly your neighbors, who might lend a hand out of enlightened self-interest when things get ugly. Might. If they’re not too drunk, too hung over, too shattered on hell weed, or just plain worn down too far by an existence defined by deep, relentless poverty.

  Point being, when the two shit-heels H
urvus had described to me the night before appeared from around the corner of a driftwood shanty as Keel and I were on our way to see the Hag, I knew without thinking there was just me to deal with them. Keel was useless, and nobody else was going to interfere, however it turned out. No passerby was going to get involved, not that there were any at that hour of the morning. In Hardside, you deal with trouble yourself. Or it deals with you. Either way.

  It was plain they weren’t expecting to see us. The big one stopped dead in his tracks when he spied Keel. The smaller one took a couple of extra steps before he realized his partner had stopped, but it only took him a heartbeat after that to figure out the situation.

  “Been looking for you, Keel,” said the big one. “Moc Mien wants to see you.”

  I glanced at the kid. He’d turned even whiter. “Ah, fuck,” he whispered.

  “I take it you know them?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” He looked like he was going to bolt. I put a hand on his arm. I still had questions for him.

  “Let’s go, Keel,” the big one said. “Say goodbye to your lady friend.”

  “I don’t think he wants to go with you,” I said.

  “He doesn’t have a fucking choice,” said the big one. The one that looked like a dissolute merchant sniggered, exposing rotten teeth. The big one cut him an annoyed glance.

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  “Because Keel’s part of Moc Mien’s crew, though he seems to have forgotten that fact.” He wasn’t really talking to me. His eyes never left the kid’s face. “He took Moc Mien’s mark and Moc Mien’s coin, and now, he takes Moc Mien’s fucking orders. In short, whoever the fuck you are, young Keel doesn’t have a choice because he already made his fucking choice when he joined the fucking crew. Now, come the fuck along, Keel. I’m not going to say it again.”