The Thief Who Wasn't There

by Michael McClung

  I knew I was simply delaying the inevitable, but I let go the vial and withdrew my hand. With a groan I got myself upright and walking yet again.

  #

  It was impossible to tell time with any accuracy in that realm, but perhaps an hour passed before I got my first glimpse of the Spike rising up from the unending plain. I’d been looking at it for some time before that without realizing it, so near-perfect was its clarity. For it was clear, clearer than any glass I’d ever seen, clearer than ice or crystal. It was as transparent a thing as is possible to imagine.

  The souls of the fallen entered, and disappeared. That was definitely not the situation that obtained when I last had the misfortune to visit Gholdoryth.

  With this new visual anomaly to focus on I found it easier to concentrate. The danger of collapsing, of giving in to my exhaustion retreated. Temporarily, at least. I quickened my pace as much as I dared, and in course of time, I was facing my dim reflection in the glassy structure.

  I looked, as Amra might have said, like hammered dog shit.

  I reached out one shaky hand to touch the Spike, and was repelled. By repelled I mean thrown back a dozen yards, which had the effect of bringing me fully to my senses, at least. Something like the Telemarch’s wards was at play, here. It shouldn’t have surprised me that the Spike was defended, otherwise communication between the various hells would have been much more common than my studies on the subject had indicated. I approached again more cautiously, and looked at it anew, this time with magesight.

  It was so bright as to make my eyes water. Yes, even the missing one, which was about as unpleasant as it sounds. With difficulty, my sight adjusted. I saw power there, in such quantities as to dwarf the Telemarch’s rift, and all of it flowing downward. I also saw wards, the likes of which made my own wards, and even the Telemarch’s, look like the crude scribbles of not-especially-bright toddlers.

  I tried for a long time to breach those wards, and learned the meaning of abject failure.

  “Damn it all anyway,” I muttered and, steeling myself as best I could for the inevitable agony, thrust my hand into the pocket that held the magical sink.

  As soon as my fingers touched its smooth surface my well disappeared, my warmth fled, and I was dying once again. I tore the thing out of my pocket and slammed it against the impregnable surface of the Spike.

  I’m not sure what I expected. Anything from nothing to the utter collapse of the Spike was theoretically possible. What actually transpired was this: The whole structure began to vibrate in such a way that it rang out one high, pure, deafening, unending note. The falling souls actually paused in the sky, and then began to meander, as if suddenly unsure of their destination. The surface of the Spike in contact with the amulet blackened and blistered, and that corruption began to spread outward from the point of contact. The amulet itself was not unaffected—the wards ate away at it as surely as it was eating at the wards. An indescribable agony enveloped the hand that held the sink, like nothing I’d ever felt or wish to feel again. I pushed against the wall of the spike with a strength born of desperation; the cold was killing me, surely and not slowly.

  And suddenly, as the amulet sizzled away to nothing, the rotten portion of the wall that I’d caused collapsed inward and I fell through it, and I kept falling, endlessly and blind.

  Twenty-Eight

  “Did you ever see a turtle on its back?”

  Something that felt suspiciously like the toe of a boot nudged me in the ribs. An involuntary groan escaped my lips.

  “Did you? Pathetic, absurd. Ridiculous, really. Stubby little legs waving in the air in a sort of slow, impotent panic. And yet, you can’t just walk away and leave the miserable thing to its fate. Or at least I can’t. Get up, you.”

  I cracked open my eye and saw a man standing over me. Black hair, dusky skin. He was wearing clothes that were centuries out of fashion, and stained with wine. Lots and lots of wine. Here was someone who rarely let the chance at a drink slip past him.

  “Who are you?” I croaked.

  “What, you don’t recognize your god?”

  “I worship no god.”

  “Lucky for you I don’t much care for being worshiped, then.”

  I sat up and took in my surroundings. A huge circular room, pale white, made of some material unknown to me, with a vast hole in its floor, beyond which was only utter dark. A hole I was bare inches from. With a shudder I scrabbled away from the edge until the pack on my back met the wall.

  “Right. Now that you’re out of the way I can turn this thing back on. You’d be sucked right through otherwise. Might want to avert your eyes. Eye. Sorry.”

  “I haven’t the least clue—” And then he snapped his fingers and all the light in existence, it seemed, was rushing down from above and through the hole below, a torrent, a waterfall, a mighty river whose roar was both felt and heard.

  “Something else, isn’t it?” I squinted up at him, and he was grinning, looking at the light. “Don’t see that every day!”

  “What is it?”

  “Hells-bound souls, being released back to the Ur!”

  “The Ur?”

  “The beginning, fool!”

  “The beginning of what?”

  “The beginning of everything!” he shouted, grinning.

  “If the beginning is at the bottom,” I said a little groggily, “what’s at the top?”

  He turned back to me, his grin replaced by a frown.

  “A beginning of another kind,” he replied. He stuck a hand out. I took it, and he pulled me to my feet without the least strain. By the time I was fully upright, my fatigue, hunger, thirst and injuries had all disappeared.

  “Who the hells are you?” I asked again.

  “I told you already, your god. The god of fools and drunkards.”

  Vosto. He looked more or less how I might have expected him to. Perhaps a bit short for a god.

  “Which one am I then? Fool or drunkard?”

  “You snuck into Gholdoryth and broke into the Spike. Also, you came without so much as a drop of the good stuff. Which one do you think you are?”

  I had no answer to that, beyond the obvious.

  He pointed to my left. I followed his finger and saw the bottom steps of a very narrow set of stairs that circled up and up the interior of the Spike, the furthest reaches of which were lost to sight.

  “Now piss off and don’t do any more damage to the Spike. And remember you owe me now. Fool.” Then he disappeared.

  And that is how Vosto, god of fools and drunkards, saved my life and put me in his debt.

  Sometimes I wish he’d let me go back to the Ur instead.

  #

  It was a long climb. It gave me time to think. I had been given much to think about.

  If all the damned souls were being diverted from the eleven hells, then the demons really were gone. They had to be. Without souls, they and their realms would surely die. A point in my favor, certainly; It seemed even more likely that Thraxys would be uninhabited, and somewhat less likely to be the death of me. Thraxys would be far harder to survive than Gholdoryth, demons or no.

  It also appeared that the gods, or at least Vosto, were taking an interest. Whether it was to give those damned souls another chance, or just to see the infernal regions destroyed, or both—I couldn’t say.

  Such thoughts occupied my mind, until the endless climb began to wear me out, and most of my focus was on the pain in my thighs. Luckily I’d had some practice with endlessly winding stairs beneath the Citadel, else my legs might have fallen off before I reached a simple wooden door with a little placard tacked to it that read:

  THRAXYS, FOOL.

  Gods know things, no denying it.

  With a sigh I sat down carefully on the stairs and took a rest. When I felt vaguely less unready, I stood up, took a breath, put my hand on the knob, summoned my well. And opened the door.

  It was night, and sultry with it. It was always a sultry night, in Thraxys.
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br />   The door opened onto a small courtyard, its flagstones buckled and broken. A low, vine-choked wall enclosed the courtyard, save for a small, battered, wrought-iron gate directly ahead. Beyond, darkness and the vague suggestion of an orchard of some sort. There was a smell in the air, something sweet. Too sweet. Like overripe fruit.

  I stepped into the courtyard and the door closed of its own accord. I looked back. The door had disappeared. Vosto preferred I didn’t reenter the Spike, obviously.

  The Spike itself had the external appearance of a weathered tower in Thraxys. I imagined it appeared in a different guise in each of the hells. I extended my gaze further upward, to the sky. There a huge moon hung, ten times the size I was accustomed to seeing. A portion of a moon, rather. Someone or something had ripped a chunk out of it. The rest showed some disturbingly deep cracks.

  There were no stars other than the falling souls, and not nearly so many of them as had shot across Gholdoryth. Thraxys was one of the smallest hells, but home to some of the most powerful and subtle of all the demon lords.

  It was far, far more dangerous than inert Gholdoryth, because unlike Gholdoryth, the realm itself was, in some fashion, self-aware. Or at least portions of it were. I knew I would have to deal with at least one of those regions, and likely two. I hoped no more than that.

  Thraxys was where all the old folk-tales your grandmother told you turned gangrenous. Where Gholdoryth was desolation, Thraxys was perversion. Where Gholdoryth was brute elemental force, Thraxys was subtlety. A god had been tricked into coming to Thraxys, after all, and had lost his head as a result. I hoped I would fare better.

  I took out the withered glory hand once more.

  “Which way, then?” I asked it, and it pointed out through the gate.

  “I hope you’re not trying to be funny,” I muttered, and stuffed it back into my pocket. But I knew the geography of Thraxys tolerably well. If I could find higher ground, I was certain I could orient myself towards the Black Library. I might well be able to see the Black Library, depending on where I had come out of the Spike. Thraxys really was quite small.

  I set off, ready to pull power from my well at any moment, but reluctant to call up my magesight after nearly being blinded in Gholdoryth.

  #

  Beyond the courtyard was indeed an orchard. Its trees were twisted, spiky things; their fruit corrupt and fleshy, reddish-gray in the bright moonlight, vaguely fetal, wholly disturbing. I walked down the aisle between two long rows of the things, and the sickly-sweet odor was enough to bring on gagging. I buried my mouth and nose in the crook of my elbow and increased my pace.

  Ahead of me, one of the heavy, melon-sized fruits fell from a low branch, hit the ground with an unpleasant squelching sound, and rolled out into the grassy aisle directly in front of me. I drew up abruptly, misliking the coincidence.

  The fruit began to swell, slowly at first, and then rapidly.

  “I think not,” I muttered, and disincorporated it. The force of the spell flung the fruit’s innards away from me, the pulp and juice sparkling faintly in the moonlight. It splattered against the ground, and on the boles of the twisted trees, and on their waxy leaves. Everywhere the stuff touched began to smoke and be eaten away as if by the strongest acid.

  “Inedible then,” I said to myself. “Not that I was tempted.”

  Behind me I heard another disturbing thump and squelch. And then, an instant later, several more fruit fell around me, all at once.

  I started running, and didn’t stop until I’d cleared the orchard and ended up in a field of suspiciously normal-looking, waist-high barley. Heart pounding and lungs working like bellows, I leaned forward and put my hands on my knees, and slowly regained my breath. Upon closer inspection, the barley heads looked more like some unpleasant vegetative variety of centipede than anything else. But they didn’t appear to be ripe, and only twitched slightly. Small favors.

  In the still air, I heard a sound, a rustling, coming from behind me. And a… mewling sound. Piteous and terrifying all at once. It came from the orchard.

  I’d expected the fruit to explode, spraying their acid at me. I realized that none of them had.

  I looked back and saw many infant-sized shapes crawling towards me through the rank grass under the trees. Thankfully they were slow, and even more thankfully, the leaves and branches of the orchard put them into deep shadow.

  I did not want any more than the vague knowledge of their forms that I already had. I did not want to know what fruit cultivated by demons looked like in its ripeness. I could not afford the pity.

  I looked away and saw not far off, just on the other side of the barley field, a small hill. An ancient, weathered standing stone squatted at its top, chalky white in the moonlight.

  I set off for the hill.

  Twenty-Nine

  Gholdoryth was home to demons more insectile in appearance and in manners than any of the other hells. They’d lived below the surface of their realm, in great hives, and their thoughts and emotions were generally so alien as to be impenetrable.

  In Thraxys, the demons were—had been—much more human in their thoughts, desires, emotions and culture. They were that much more terrifying because of it. As deadly as Gholdoryth had been, there was no subtlety in the peril it presented.

  Thraxys, even devoid of demons, was subtle enough in its dangers and terrors to defeat me before I even realized it had happened, because nothing announced its perversion or its danger. There were no warning signs, and everything appeared more or less normal—at first glance.

  The base of the hill was ringed in brushwood, spindly trees hardly taller than I was. In these trees roosted what appeared to be, at first glance, large, silent crows with white heads and black beaks.

  Then one launched itself from its perch and drove straight towards me, and I realized its head was white because it was nothing more than a bleached skull.

  The black wings beat powerfully, scoring the air. The cruel beak was aimed at my eye. I jerked my head away at the last moment and it raked my temple. The scratch burned, and bled profusely.

  The bird came around to try again.

  I disincorporated it. No blood or guts; only a burst of black feathers. But its end signaled the others. They rose up in a thunderous pounding of wings, and I was forced to call up a wind just to keep them from mobbing me. It kept them at bay, but they were fixed on me. I decided to climb the hill and put my back against the standing stone, then pick them out of the sky with a brightblade, one by one if I had to. So I climbed, and the crows kept after me, a malicious undead flock intent on trying to peck me to death, occasionally scoring a hit when the climb required my attention and my Art-called wind faltered.

  I reached the summit, shrugged off my pack, dropped the wind and summoned a brightblade, long and thin, spitting white and indigo light. I put my back against the ancient stone.

  As soon as I did, the murder of crows seemed to lose all interest in me. They wheeled away, silent as their living counterparts never were, and in a ragged cloud began to fly off over the barley field.

  And then came the sorrowind.

  It first announced itself by the bow wave of dread that preceded it. Then, from my elevated position, I saw the barley field suddenly blown flat and reduced to chaff as the sorrowind rushed toward me. The crows were caught by it, and folded their ragged wings, to be flung hither and yon or slammed against the ground as the sorrowind desired. No struggle, no animalistic fight for survival or escape. The sorrowind did with them what it wished. I doubted many would survive its attentions.

  There was nothing I could do to avoid it either, or ameliorate its effects, other than put the standing stone between me and it. I simply had to endure.

  I got into the lee of the stone, crouched down, put my face against the stone’s rough surface and covered my ears.

  The sorrowind roamed the eleven hells as it wished, ravaging what it wished. Even demons feared it, or at least thought it prudent to take precautions aga
inst being caught out in the open by it. Nothing I’d read had made any suggestion as to what it really was, or what caused it. It simply was, and had always been.

  The sorrowind blew across the physical landscape, but it blew even more fiercely in a mind, and a soul. And it was no gentle breeze.

  Despair, it commanded me, and I did.

  Know your utter worthlessness, it suggested, and so I knew it.

  See all the sins you have kindled and kept, thorns you have grasped, pressed to your breast and thought so much of, it instructed me, and I did, and felt again all the pains of a life not well lived.

  Understand that they are pathetic, paltry things. That you have not even the conviction to be wholly evil. That your moral half-measures damn you to insignificance.

  I saw, and understood, and had not even the comfort of my pain.

  Now take your own miserable life, it whispered.

  And then it blew past, and I returned to myself, and discovered that I was holding Amra’s knife to my own throat. I lowered my trembling hand. It was not an easy act.

  For the first time since its decapitation, Halfmoon spoke.

  That was worse than you.

  “Much.”

  I want you to die. But not here. I do not want to feel that ever again.

  “I’ll bear it in mind.”

  I came back to myself but slowly. The sorrowind’s effect did not simply abate when it had blown past. My mind, and indeed my soul, was soiled and bruised. I told myself these feelings of worthlessness, of insignificance, of self-loathing were externally applied, phantoms, unreal. I knew it to be true, but the objective knowledge was no comfort in the face of that subjective, brutal emotional violation.

  It is still there in some measure, the voice of the sorrowind, lodged in my spirit, the tiniest shard of desolation. Its edges are bitterly sharp, and they never wear down. I have learned to live with it. They say what does not kill you makes you stronger. If only that were true. What does not kill you will likely leave you crippled if you are unlucky, and scarred if you are. Survival is the only reward you can hope for, and the only triumph that matters.