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’s body lay suspended in the air above, arms dangling, her hair rippling in unseen currents.
When 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.
Once 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 person 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's 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's 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's 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.”
“Point the way,” I said.
“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 b
elongings 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 about 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.
To make a long story short I let him crawl into my pocket until only his stockinged feet stuck out, and then I buttoned him up. It took two months. At the end of three months I had forgiven his debt and bought the manse outright, though for half my original offer. I'm not rapacious but I'm not a charity, either.
Holgren, forswearing his powers and unfazed by it, rented a warehouse out by the docks and began to tinker. He'd spend hours there, absorbed in tearing apart arquebuses, examining the innards of locks, setting fire to things, and generally making an unholy mess. When he wasn't in what I came to call his workshop, he was out around town badgering smiths and tanners, bakers and tailors and tinkers and chandlers and stonemasons and glassblowers. He also seemed to attract others infected with his peculiar madness. At any time of the day or night there would be two or three men, and even sometimes women, in his shop, setting things on fire, making an unholy mess, and grinning like idiots. I had no idea what they were doing, but it made him happy. That was all I needed to know.
At the end of the day he'd come home and explain the latest theory he was exploring and I’d pretend to understand what he was talking about. I'd tell him about the latest financial endeavor I’d sunk some of our money into, be it spices from beyond Chagul or property in what people had begun to can the Charred Quarter. He'd nod and smile and pretend he was interested, and we'd eventually wander off to bed, happy just to be with each other at day's end.
Perhaps it sounds boring, but given the choice between boredom and excitement—well. I'd had all the excitement I cared to. Several lifetimes of it.
And boring was fun. While it lasted.
Author’s Note
I hope you have enjoyed The Thief who Spat in Luck’s Good Eye, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for reading it. It was originally published by Random House under the title Thagoth. By the time you read this, Thagoth should no longer be available for sale, but if by some chance you stumble across a copy of Thagoth, please don’t buy it. You’ve already read it (in a slightly different form), and I’d hate for you to pay twice.
If you did enjoy this ebook, I hope you can spare the time to leave a rating or a review with the retailer where you purchased it. Independent authors succeed (or not) largely based on the feedback of readers just such as yourself.
Finally, if you would like to read about other troubles Amra and Holgren have gotten into, you might want to turn the page. You know, if you feel like it. What follows are the first five chapters of the prequel to this book, The Blade That Whispers Hate. It’s well on the way to completion, and should be available by September (2012) most everywhere ebooks are sold.
Once again, many thanks for reading.
-Michael McClung
The Blade That Whispers Hate
(Amra & Holgren #1)
They butchered Corbin right out in the street. That’s how it really started.
I don’t have many friends. Both my inclination and my occupation make me something of a loner. Corbin was one of the few who didn’t put a hard knot of wariness between my shoulders. One of the few who could make me laugh, who had seen me cry. I knew I could turn my back to him without it sprouting a blade, metaphorical or otherwise. I trusted him, despite his handsome face and easy words. He was a rogue and a thief, of course. But then, so am I.
So when he got himself hacked up in front of his house off Silk Street, I decided somebody had to be made to pay. They thought that they could just sweep him away like rubbish.
They thought it would be easy.
They were wrong.
#
When Corbin showed up banging on my door at noon one sweltering summer day, I can’t say I was particularly happy to see him. It should come as no surprise that one in my profession tends to sleep during daylight hours. And since I tell no one where I live, I was more than a little annoyed to see him.
“Hello, Amra,” he said with that boyish smile that tended to get him past doors he wasn’t supposed to get past. He was looking ragged, though. Dark bags under his eyes, stubble that had gone beyond enticingly rough to slovenly. The yellow-green shadow of an old, ugly bruise peeked above his sweat-stained linen collar. His honey-colored locks were greasy and limp.
“Corbin. What the hell do you want?”
“To come in?” He kept smiling, but glanced over his shoulder.
“If you bring me trouble, I’ll have your balls.” But I cracked the door a bit wider, and he slipped past me into the entry hall.
“Take you boots off if you’re going to stay, barbarian. You know how much that rug is worth?”
“Depends on who’s buying, doesn’t it?” He sat down on the bench in my tiny foyer and worked his laces loose. “Nice robe,” he said with that silky voice of his, but I could tell his heart wasn’t in it. I pulled my wrap tighter, and he chuckled.
“Don’t worry, Amra. The knife sort of spoils the effect anyway.”
I’d forgotten I was still holding a blade. I don’t answer my door without one. Come to think of it, I don’t do much of anything without one. I made it disappear and frowned at him.
“You can’t stay here, and I’m not lending you any money.”
He stretched, wiggled the toes of his stockinged feet. “Money I don’t need. A place to stay, ma
ybe, but your garret isn’t what I had in mind.” He looked at me, and I could tell he had something gnawing at him. This was no social call. “You have anything to drink? I’m parched.”
“Yeah. Come into the parlor.”
I’m not terribly feminine. I’ve a scarred face, a figure like a boy, and a mouth like a twenty-year sailor. In the circles that count, I’m recognized as good at what I do, and what I do is not traditionally a woman’s profession. I was a few rungs up from pickpocket. Still, in the privacy of my own hovel I enjoy a few of the finer, more delicate things. Silks and velvets. Pastels. Glasswork. When Corbin walked into the parlor he gave a low whistle.
“Amra, this is positively decadent. I expected bare walls and second hand furniture.” He wandered around, peering at paintings, books, the tiny glass figurines I kept in a case.
“Shut up and sit down. You want wine?”
“Have anything else?”
“No.”
“Then I’d die for some wine.” He sat down on the huge Elamner cushion I used for seating. He stretched his legs and smiled. I shook my head, and went to dig around in my sorry excuse for a pantry. I came up with a couple of relatively clean glasses and a palatable Fel Radoth that was better than he deserved. But it was too early to punish myself with swill.
I poured a couple, handed him one and leaned against the wall. He took his and put it back in one gulp. I shuddered, snatched up the Fel Radoth and corked it.
“What?” he said.
I put the bottle back in the pantry and came back out with a jug of Tambor’s vile vintage. It was barely fit for cooking with. I dropped it in his lap. “Remind me never to give you anything worth drinking again."
He shrugged and began sipping straight from the jug.
“You don’t want to borrow money. You don’t want a place to stay. What do you want, Corbin?”
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