Chapter Nine
I had to stop and ask the way several times. It was at the end of a very long alley that was more vertical than horizontal and mostly made up of steep, worn sandstone steps that were almost more easily climbed on all fours.
The shrine of the God of Sparrows wasn’t exactly what I’d expected. I’m not sure what I expected, actually, but what I saw before me certainly wasn’t it. A huge, ancient tree in the heart of the Girdle? If anyone had told me such a thing existed, I’d have called them a liar. Land is scarce in Bellarius, and any patch of ground big enough to grow a tree is big enough for a building of one sort or another. In the Girdle, growing things were confined, literally, to pots.
It was thick-boled if not especially tall, and it grew out of the slope of Mount Tarvus at a gentle angle. Exposed, gray roots as thick as my thigh formed a recess at the base of the tree maybe big enough for three adults to sit in if they were especially friendly.
The hodgepodge nature of the city’s growth had created a small, mostly level courtyard in front of the tree, maybe eight paces wide by ten long, and the rocky slope the tree grew out of climbed upwards for maybe twenty paces behind it before ending at the featureless, plastered wall of the building above. To the left and right, dry-stone walls had been erected with hundreds of nooks and crannies in each, all of which were filled with sparrows, sparrow nests, and little scraps of prayer notes. The tree itself was also chock-full of sparrows, constantly flitting hither and yon.
The courtyard was carpeted with sparrows, all in constant motion, groups of ten or twenty or more coalescing and breaking apart to reform elsewhere, flashing brown and white and black wings and bright eyes, intent on their own business. They took no notice of me now except to avoid my tread. It all seemed very natural and peaceful until I realized the sparrows made no noise at all. No chirping, not even the smallest rush of air on wing.
Once I noticed the silence, my skin began to crawl a little.
Someone was sitting inside the little root-cave. All I could make out through the sparrow-roil was that the person was small, had their back to me, and had long, black hair. I shuffled forward carefully. Sparrows darted out from under my feet. When I was about halfway to the shrine, the figure inside turned and smiled at me.
She was maybe ten years old and cuter than a basket full of kittens. Which made me distrust her instantly.
“Hello,” she said. “Are you her?”
“I suppose that depends on which her you mean.”
“Her. The one the God has been waiting for. I think you must be. He said you had some wicked scars.”
“Scars I have, certainly,” I replied, consciously keeping my hand away from my face. “And I think He’s been trying to communicate with me, your God.”
“Oh, He's not my god. He’s the God of the Sparrows.”
“But He talks to you?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re His priestess?”
She laughed. “He talks to me, but I’m not His priestess. He doesn’t have anything like that, or at least He doesn’t any more. Not for a long, long time.”
“So what are you, then, to the God of Sparrows?”
“I guess I’m His friend.” She waved her hand. “As much as He loves His birds, they’re not very interesting to talk to, you know.”
“I’d imagine not.”
“So you want to sit down?” she asked, so I squatted down next to her on the hard-packed dirt.
“You said He’s been waiting for me?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“He said He needs to tell you some things. He said there’s something you need to do, or all of us are going to die.”
I blinked. “Well,” I finally managed. “That would be bad.”
“Yes,” she replied.
I waited a while, but apparently, the girl had said all she had to say about that.
“So, does the God want to talk now? Or…?”
“Oh, yes, any time you’re ready.”
“I suppose I’m ready now.”
“Did you bring a knife?”
“A knife? Well yes, I’ve got a couple actually.”
“All right then. Just go ahead. I’ll be here; don’t worry.”
“Um, just go ahead and what?”
“Give Him blood, silly.”
“See?” I muttered. “Never trust kids who are cute as baskets full of kittens.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” I replied. “Talking to myself.”
“You shouldn’t talk to yourself. People will think you’re crazy.”
“Kid, why does the God of Sparrows need blood to talk to me?”
“Oh. He wasn’t always the God of Sparrows. Before that, He was the Blood God. But He did something the other gods didn’t like, and they made Him watch over sparrows instead. He says He likes it better now.” She shrugged. “I guess sparrows are better than human scarri—sacar—”
“Sacrifice.”
“Yeah, that’s the word. Anyway, He still needs blood to talk to you, at least the first time.”
“Did you give Him blood the first time?”
She nodded. “On accident. I was playing here. I fell down and split my lip on that root there,” she said, pointing to one by my knee. “Then, He was in my head. Or really I was in His, I guess. Now, He can talk to me anytime as long as I’m here. Though He doesn’t really talk.”
“Wait, does he talk or not?”
“Sort of. He understands what I say, but He talks back in pictures. Sort of.” She shrugged. “Talk to him and see.”
I blew out a breath and pulled out a knife. “All right. Here goes.”
I pricked the fleshy pad at the base of my thumb and squeezed until a bright drop of blood welled up. Then, I pressed my hand against the root.
The world kind of half went away.
I mean, I knew my body was still sitting there at the base of the tree next to dangerous kitten girl, but I knew it in a very distant, abstract sense. I had to concentrate to make the connection. And most of my concentration was taken up with where I now sort of was. Which was someplace very, very different from Bellarius.
I suppose it was a temple. The space was cavernous, brown stone walls stretching up and up out of sight, impossibly high. It was a long space lit by flickering braziers every twenty feet or so. A deep, dark, jagged fissure maybe a hand span wide ran the length of the floor. The floor was tiled in gold bars. As in actual, buttery bars of gold as long and wide as my foot. Thousands of them. I tore my eyes away from them. Reluctantly.
At the far end was a throne made of the same stone as the walls. At a glance, it was big enough for half a dozen giants to sit together comfortably. It, too, was cracked down the middle. One half leaned drunkenly against a wall. Some rubble was scattered around the throne’s foot. Somebody was sitting on one of the chunks of stone.
I walked forward.
He was big. Muscular, bald, bronze-skinned as Tha-Agoth had been. Naked as Tha-Agoth had been. Generously endowed and utterly unselfconscious about it.
But where Tha-Agoth had been unarguably handsome, this guy’s features were brutal, and an old, deep, furrowed scar creased his skull. He looked like a killer or, I guess, a blood god. One that had mellowed considerably though. His face showed no anger at least, and his eyes, beneath thick brows, were mild.
I got to within a few feet of him and said, “The God of Sparrows, I presume.”
He nodded.
“You wanted to talk to me.”
He nodded again.
“Why?”
An image filled my mind. Bellarius from above. Or more precisely Mount Tarvus. It was as if I were floating in the sky, a bodiless eye, seeing the whole mountain below me.
Time sped up. The sun set three times. When the sun rose a third time, Mount Tarvus exploded, taking all of Bellarius with it. The destruction was total, brutally swift, and too incre
dible to really grasp. All that was left of the city and the mount was a huge, gaping hole that the sea rushed in to fill.
Then, the vision was gone, and I was standing in front of Him again. “Kerf’s bunched back!” I swore. “In three days?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
He pointed to my hand. The one that had held the Blade that Whispers Hate when I destroyed it. Then, He showed me another vision: the Citadel at the top of Mount Tarvus. Where the Telemarch lived. And, according to Fallon Greytooth, where the Knife that Parts the Night currently was.
“I don’t really understand,” I told Him. “I’ve got something to do with Bellarius becoming a smoking hole in the ground?”
He nodded.
“Then I should get the hells away from here.”
He shook his head emphatically. He showed me the Citadel again.
“I should go to the Citadel?”
He nodded.
“And do what?”
He showed me a picture of the Citadel again then an old man with a long, dirty beard standing on a balcony. Then, He showed me a picture of blood.
“I’ve got a bad feeling the old man is the Telemarch. The world’s single-greatest mage. Am I right?”
He nodded.
“And you want me to go to the Citadel. Meet him. And spill his blood.”
He nodded.
“You want me to kill him.”
He nodded. He was good at it.
“And If I don’t? Is this some kind of threat? Why should I trust you?”
He shook his head. Then, He showed me Mount Tarvus exploding again. But this time, He showed me pictures of the kid at His tree being blasted limb from limb, and sparrows dying in their thousands, and His tree shattered into splinters.
“So. You’re not threatening me. You’re just telling me what will happen if I don’t kill the Telemarch.”
He nodded again.
“Leave that aside for a moment. Why will all this happen?”
He pointed to me, to my hand, then showed me a picture of a knife.
It was nothing like Abanon’s Blade. That one had shifted form constantly and thrown out sparks and jags of painful, unearthly light.
This one was just a little, crystal sliver, maybe as long as my index finger, with a black hilt. It glowed faintly, blue-white, and the glow pulsed like a heartbeat. It floated in the air above the Telemarch’s head, point down, slowly spinning.
“Sorry, I just don’t get that part,” I told him. He nodded, looked frustrated, shrugged helplessly.
“You can’t make it clearer than that, can you? It’s too complicated to do with pictures.”
He nodded His head.
“Why me? Why not you? You’re a god.”
He just shook his head a final time and pointed to me and to my hand. Then, I was suddenly back at the tree, next to the kid. I shuddered.
“He’s nice, isn’t He?”
“Er, He’s not mean anyway. Have you been inside His throne room?”
“Of course. That’s where I talk to Him. He says it’s His mind.”
If that’s His mind, it’s cracked. Literally, I thought to myself, which means everything He just told me is suspect at best.
“If that’s His mind, where is His body?” I said out loud.
She patted the nearest root. “He’s the tree now. That’s what the other gods did to Him. And the sparrows are His eyes, of course.”
“Of course. How could it be otherwise?”
“‘Zactly,” she replied, serious as a justicar.
“What’s your name, anyway?” I asked her.
“Cherise.”
I felt a little stab of emotion at that. “That’s—that’s a good name,” I managed. “It was my mother’s name. I’m Amra.”
“Sounds like a boy’s name,” she told me.
“It’s one of those names that can go either way.” I got up. “Well then. Thanks, kid. Cherise.” I turned to go.
“Are you going to do it?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“Save the city. I don’t want to die.”
“I’ll be honest with you, kid. I don’t know if I can. And I still don’t know why your friend the God of Sparrows thinks it has to be me.” Or if I should believe anything He’d just told me. I was leaning heavily toward crazy god talk. Or crazy god pictures. Or whatever.
She scrunched one eye up and regarded me. “It has to be somebody, doesn’t it? And it can’t be Him; I mean, He’s a tree now. And it can’t be me. I can’t even stay out after dark.”
“All valid points,” I acknowledged.
“So I guess it’s you. He’s pretty smart, you know, even if He can’t talk properly. He sees everything His birds see. And He’s really, really old.”
I rubbed my forehead. When did I go from being a thief to some sort of hero? When exactly did that happen, and how could I possibly not have noticed? And most of all, why me?
“Tell you what, kid. Let me have a good think, and I’ll get back to you.”
“All right. But you’d better hurry. We’re all going to die in three more days, you know.”
“That’s what I’ve been told, yeah.”
Chapter Ten
Funny thing. At the tree, the sky was cloudless, the sunlight gold on the leaves and the courtyard, and the sparrows, of course. But once I was in the alley on my way back to the inn, the temperature plummeted, the sky became leaden gray, and a cold wind came down off the Dragonsback range to skirl around Mount Tarvus. That miserable, chill Bellarian autumn rain was coming again.
When I got back to the inn, I was assaulted by the most delicious odor: roast beef. I realized I was ravenous and sat down in the common room rather than take my meal upstairs. The innkeep served me personally, a little white cloth on his arm and a deeply unhappy look on his pudgy face. I tore into the meat, ignorant of anything else around me until a lace-cuffed, hairy, manicured hand intruded on my field of vision. A hand that snapped its fingers. A hand attached to a man who was obviously one of the Gentry. The powdered wig was a big giveaway. He’d snapped his fingers in my face to get my attention.
“You, girl. Can you afford that meal?”
“What the hells is it to you?”
“If you’re in need of coin, you can accompany me this afternoon. Once you’ve bathed and dressed suitably.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Accompany you?”
“Indeed. I find myself at loose ends. You can amuse me.” He said it like it was a rare honor.
“I think I’ll pass.”
He stared at me as though I had suddenly started speaking in tongues. Then, some idea occurred to him and slowly seeped into his face.
“Ah. You are a lover of women then.”
“No, I’m what you might call a misanthrope.”
A slick, mean grin crawled across his face. “Mis-an-thrope. That is a very large word for such a chit of a girl. Are you quite sure you understand its meaning? I’d have said you were a bit of gutter tail myself.”
I rolled my eyes and did that trick where my knife is suddenly poking up somebody’s nostril.
“Misanthrope. It means ‘piss off right now’ in Lucernan.”
He did. The innkeeper wasn’t happy. I didn’t care. I pushed the suddenly flavorless beef away along with the dirty feeling the Gentry idiot had smeared me with and stared out the window and the low, gray sky. Rain was coming for sure.
Once it arrived, it would linger for days, maybe weeks on end, constantly inconstant.
Of course, I wouldn’t have to worry about that after a few days, now would I? If I did nothing, I’d be blown to bits. If I did what the God of Sparrows wanted me to, I’d be dead in some other hideous, magical way once the Telemarch and Kalara’s Knife were finished with me.
If the God of Sparrows wasn’t mentally damaged to the point of derangement.
If I ran away like a sensible thief—
Could I run away? Leave Bellarius to its fate? It had left me to mine all those years ago. Part of me truly believed this stinking city deserved to be wiped from the map. All of it. Every brick and shingle. It wasn’t the sanest part of me, but it was very persuasive.
I wasn’t going to save Bellarius. That was impossible. Kill the world’s most powerful mage, who happened to also possess one of the Eightfold Goddess’ Blades, all on the say-so of an obscure, mentally damaged deity? Oh, please.
So the question I was really facing was pretty straightforward.
Was I going to bugger off before Mount Tarvus maybe, possibly erupted, or was I going to ignore the conversation I’d just had and continue on looking for Theiner?
Decisions, decisions, said the voice in my head that sounded almost like my own.
“Oh, shut it,” I told the voice. “I’m feeling crazy enough without hearing voices added into the bargain. Not that talking out loud to myself is helping matters.”
#
Since my traveling chest had been destroyed along with most of the dock when I arrived, I had exactly what I was wearing in the way of clothing, which wasn’t warm enough, was rather singed, and in all truth was starting to smell. So when I got back to the Copperbark, I summoned the innkeeper and told him what I wanted. I was not going out amongst the shops of the Girdle and suffering looks down noses until I put gold under them.
Keel was nowhere to be seen. I shrugged to myself. I was sure he’d turn up. If not, he was his own man. I hoped he’d taken my message to Ansen, but if not, I wasn’t terribly concerned. I had plenty of other things on my plate. Like finding Theiner.
Within half an hour, two tailors and their assistants and baggage had arrived along with a leathersmith. I bathed while waiting for them and then met them in the sitting room wrapped in an enormous and dangerously soft towel. The innkeeper might have been a self-important little class monger, but he had taste. I reluctantly changed into a bathing robe and let them start measuring.
If the tailors disapproved of my unladylike sartorial requirements, they wisely kept their opinions to themselves. After all, I was paying triple to have my order finished by day’s end.
Thief Who Knocked on Sorrow's Gate Page 7