Liar's Blade

by Tim Pratt

  She shrugged. "Not that I've noticed. But then, my own magic carries a taint, so maybe I'm not as sensitive to such things as other sorcerers are."

  A splashing arose from the back of the cart, and Obed sat up. "If there are no animals, then we are near our destination."

  Rodrick winced. "I should have known. Do you care to tell us what we're in for now, then?"

  "There is a place in the mountains. I do not mean on the mountains. In the mountains. Some say it is an old dwarven fortress, though others say the dwarves merely found a much more ancient place and made use of it for a time. Its true creators, then, are unknown. Now it is a place of darkness. Somewhere in those depths is an altar of black stone, and on that altar rests our third key. You need only go into the dark and retrieve it, and we may be on our way."

  "Oh, is that all?" Hrym said. "You'll be leading the way, then?"

  More splashing. "I would love nothing better. I do not relish leaving such important tasks in hands other than mine. But because I have lost my ring, I must stay here, close to water. I do not know how long your journey into the dark will take, and if it requires more than a day...I cannot risk dying myself."

  "He'll just risk us dying," Hrym said. "Or at least you mortals."

  "That's what we're getting paid for," Rodrick said. "At least, I am. I don't know why Cilian does anything he does. So we go in, without our priest, and thus without magics of healing and protection."

  "I find that bringing sufficient powers of destruction and violence often limit the need for healing and protection," Obed said. "And you are all formidable enough, aren't you? Especially you, Zaqen. Isn't that right?"

  "Do you truly think we will face things so terrible, master? To require ...that?"

  "There are no animals in these woods, as Cilian said," Obed replied. "That is because the thing which dwells in the dark—the thing which guards my key, either consciously or coincidentally—emerges to devour all living things that enter his territory. But the animals have grown wise to the dangers of this place, and they stay away, which means the thing in the dark is probably quite hungry by now. When the four of you go into its lair, I am sure it will welcome you as a starving man would a hot meal."

  "What is this thing, exactly?" Cilian said.

  "The guardian's nature is unknown to me." Obed didn't sound too bothered by that ignorance—but then, he wasn't crawling into the hole in the ground where the mystery creature lived. "In my researches I discovered no one who had seen the beast and lived. I have only reports from those survivors who lost members of their expeditions. The last expedition to emerge from this place—looking for dwarven gold, and finding only death and stone—confirmed the presence of the altar, and the key. That is all I need to know."

  "Do you at least know what the key looks like?" Rodrick said. "I'd hate to find an altar scattered with dozens of objects—or worse, dozens of altars."

  "The third key is an immense red jewel," Obed said, "approximately the size of a grapefruit, known as the Inferno's Eye. It is said to be a bezoar, taken from the stomach of a slain red dragon millennia ago, its facets etched by the beast's burning interior."

  Rodrick whistled. "Does it have magical properties?"

  "Reports vary," Obed said. "At the very least it has the property of being worth a small fortune. That is, a small fortune by my standards. By yours, it is worth an unimaginably large fortune. It goes without saying that if you try to steal it from me—"

  "You'll hunt me down and feed my guts to a kraken, yes, I know." Rodrick tried to sound bored.

  "I suppose you can have the jewel once I've unlocked the vault and recovered Gozreh's relic," Obed said.

  "Ah." Rodrick turned in his seat to look at the gillman, but the priest's expression was perfectly bland. "Really?"

  Obed shrugged. "I will have no further need of it, one it has served its function as a key. Consider it a gift. Cilian may have the dog's skull, if he likes. I will keep the pitcher of everlasting seawater, however. It has proven to possess practical value."

  "That's very generous of you, Obed," Rodrick said.

  "It is not generosity if it costs you nothing," the priest replied. "Stop the cart. Do you see a shadow, there, on the mountainside?"

  Rodrick squinted, and didn't see much, but both Hrym and Cilian said, "Yes."

  "That is the entrance to the hollow in the mountains," Obed said. "I suggest you get moving. I will protect the cart and the animals while you are gone."

  "Aren't you worried about freezing to death?" Rodrick said. "When night falls, it's going to get cold. We could come back and find you frozen in a block of ice."

  "I am a priest of Gozreh," Obed said. "I have nothing to fear from the elements. Zaqen, there are supplies in my special bag, the one bigger inside than out, that you may use for journeying underground. How does your...condition ...feel?"

  "Restless." Zaqen shivered. "Which is how you want it to feel, master."

  "Do not forget your jar of eyes," Obed said.

  "Yes," she said tonelessly. "That would be a bad thing to leave behind."

  Rodrick and Cilian exchanged a glance, then shrugged and began their preparations for the descent.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  "Do you mind waiting?" Zaqen called querulously, and Rodrick paused in his trudge up the side of the mountain and looked back at her.

  "What are you doing that for?" he said, surprised. Zaqen was waist-deep in snow, laboriously pushing her way through the drifts, while Rodrick and Cilian stood atop the crust, walking easily.

  "I don't have a ranger's magic for walking on snow," she said through gritted teeth. "Or a magical sword giving me the power to cross ice without breaking through."

  "Hrym, are you using magic on me?" Rodrick demanded.

  "Of course, idiot," the sword replied from his place iced onto Rodrick's back. "Why did you think you weren't sinking in the snow?"

  "I just thought I was ...stepping lightly?"

  "Idiot," Hrym said again. "Take Zaqen's hand and I can extend the power to her as well."

  "Sorry about that," the thief muttered. "I really had no idea." He reached down to Zaqen, who clutched his gloved hand and began to climb out of the snow-pit she'd dug for herself. They continued up the slope, a trifle awkwardly because of the steepness of the grade and the need to maintain contact. "What other spells do you cast on me without me knowing?" Rodrick demanded.

  "Oh, right now, there's one that keeps you from going snow blind, which is why you aren't squinting like poor Zaqen. I also do a certain amount of temperature control. I don't bother to keep you all warm and toasty, since I know you like the way you look in a fur cloak, but I protect you from losing fingers and toes to frostbite. If I had magic that would make you smarter, I'd use that, too, but alas, even I have my limitations."

  By the time they reached the shadow, Cilian was crouching on the edge of a ragged circular opening, perhaps ten feet across. "There is something ancient and terrible here," he said. The huntsman could make even a comment on the quality of breakfast sound like the pronouncements of a prophet, but his voice was unusually solemn and earnest this time. A bit of snow had drifted into the hole, which slanted down at a sharp angle, but the light did not penetrate far enough to show what awaited them below.

  "It's interesting that the opening to an ancient dwarven fortress should be standing wide open," Rodrick said. "Traditionally, aren't fortresses a bit more ...secure?"

  "Do not think of it as a door," Cilian said.

  "Of course not, it's just a hole—"

  Cilian spoke louder: "Think of it instead as the open jaws of a great beast, inviting the prey inside to be devoured." The half-elf hammered a spike into the frozen ground, fixed a length of rope to the spike, and tossed the rope down the hole. Grasping the rope in both gloved hands, he began to lower himself swiftly into the dark.

  "What kind of predator feeds just by opening its mouth and hoping some prey walks in?" Hrym said. "Granted, I don't eat, so I'm no expe
rt, but it doesn't seem like a very effective strategy."

  "Whales, maybe?" Zaqen said. "Though I think they sort of strain water through their mouths and catch shrimp and bugs and things in the process. I'm not sure Cilian always thinks his metaphors through very thoroughly."

  "He's damn good with a bow, though," Rodrick said. "And he works cheaply, which means I don't have to split any profits with him, so he's in my good books. I suppose he does have a point, anyway. A place that's this easy to get into is almost certainly a trap. Shall we descend?"

  Zaqen cocked her head. "I don't hear Cilian screaming in agony yet, so why not?"

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The sorcerer took a long metal rod from her pack and struck it against the side of the tunnel as they descended, and the end of the rod flared with white light, illuminating the shaft. Rodrick eased himself down, keeping his eyes on the rope between his hands, trusting Hrym on his back to speak up if he was about to slide into the jaws of a cave-dragon or something. After about ten minutes of careful progress, the shaft angled sharply from slanted to vertical, and Rodrick slid down the rope faster, finally landing on an uneven stone floor. He stepped aside before Zaqen could fall on his head.

  "It's not so frigid in here," Rodrick noted. "One of the more pleasant aspects of crawling around in underground chambers, I've found—never too hot, never too cold."

  Cilian was there, sniffing the air, squinting at a pair of low tunnels branching off from the small, rough-hewn chamber. "My friends," he said. "Do we wish to go in the direction of the beast that dwells herein, or follow the tunnel that shows no signs of life and habitation?"

  "You sense something alive down one of those passages, then?" Rodrick said.

  Cilian nodded, pointing to the tunnel on the right, clogged with cobwebs. "Yes. Something lives there. I cannot be more precise. The beasts of this land are not all known to me. Down there—" he gestured to the other corridor—"I sense only dust and bones."

  "Zaqen?" Rodrick said. "What do you think?"

  She sighed. "I think we can't possibly be lucky enough to go into this pit without having to face whatever creature lives here. My master isn't sure if the thing that inhabits this hole is guarding our key deliberately or not, but it's a possibility. Let's see if we can surprise it and kill it. Otherwise we'll have to worry about it stalking us in the dark later."

  "Headlong into danger!" Hrym said. "Oh, the hero's life is a glorious one."

  "I will lead," Cilian said. "If that is acceptable."

  Zaqen shook her head. "Not just yet, huntsman." She handed Rodrick the rod of light. Her face was terribly pale in the harsh white glow, forehead beaded with sweat. "I have something to do first. And let me apologize in advance for the nightmares you'll probably have about this in the future."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sword and Deviltry

  Zaqen began pulling her robe over her head.

  "Oh, Zaqen, don't be so hard on yourself." Rodrick tried for a jovial tone. "I doubt seeing you naked will be cause for nightmares."

  She threw her garment onto the ground and stood shivering in the magical light. The sorcerer looked smaller without her robes, and she was terribly thin, her ribs visible, her breasts small, her hips slim and boyish. Rodrick had half-expected to see vestigial tentacles on her ribs, or needle teeth in her navel, or some other sign of her inhuman heritage, but there was nothing. Cilian looked at her with curiosity, as if he'd been promised a magic trick, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Hrym said, "She appears to fall into the acceptable range for primate physiology. Am I missing something?"

  The sorcerer closed her eyes. "Step back. He will be disoriented for a moment, long enough for me to bring him under my control, as long as you do not startle or provoke him."

  "Startle who—" Rodrick began, but then Zaqen turned around.

  She had a hump on her back. He'd known that, of course—it was visible even beneath her robes, a bulge on one shoulder ...though it did seem, sometimes, that the hump moved from one shoulder to another.

  Now for the first time, Rodrick saw her back when it was bare. The hump was the same color as her flesh, swollen like an enormous boil, and it rippled and twitched as if alive with squirming insects under the skin. Zaqen shuddered, and then—

  The hump shivered too, and opened its three dozen eyes.

  The hump did not have eyelashes, or even really eyelids: it was more as if scores of small wounds tore open in its flesh, allowing the eyes beneath to peer out. Most were the size of human eyes, though a few were larger, and one looked fit for a giant, easily as big as a fist. They were all colors: blue, gray, green, hazel, brown, gray, and inhuman hues, too—silver, gold, glowing purple, ghostly white, iridescent rainbow. The eyes did not look around in unison, but looked off in their own directions, as if operated by dozens of different minds.

  Cilian grunted, and Rodrick took an involuntary step back. The hump twitched again, and Zaqen moaned. The hump made a terrible sound, like a blood-crusted bandage being torn away from a septic wound, and then it slid down Zaqen's back, moving with the slow undulations of a snail. The hump dropped from her back to the stone floor, and small tentacles unfurled from beneath it, moving like wriggling earthworms, but pale and bloodless.

  The sorcerer's upper back, where the hump had clung, was irregularly marred by dozens of small clustered holes, circles no bigger than a fingertip, all slowly oozing blood, along with black and green fluids. Zaqen knelt and opened her bag, lifting out a jar filled with bobbing eyes. "I keep them in a brine solution," she said, voice unsteady. "It keeps the eyes fresh, and he seems to enjoy the saltiness."

  The hump twitched when she spoke, and most of its eyes turned toward her.

  Zaqen unfastened the jar's lid, reached inside, and plucked out an eyeball, one harvested from some bandit or another, Rodrick supposed. She tossed the eye through the air, and the hump leapt, straight up, easily three feet into the air. The eye struck its flesh and was instantly absorbed, as if dropped into a bowl of soup. After a moment, a new eye opened on the surface of the hump, and began staring around.

  Then the hump began to purr, sounding for all the world like a contented cat. It undulated across the floor to Zaqen and rubbed against her leg. She reached down and stroked it between a few of its eyes. "Hello, brother," she said. "I'm glad you liked your treat. I need your help, now. There is a creature in this place—no, not those men, they are my friends, they are not for you—down that tunnel. I do not know what it is, but ..." She licked her lips. "I have reason to believe it has very beautiful eyes."

  The thing twitched, quivered, and then moved with disturbing rapidity toward the tunnel, disappearing into the dark.

  "That thing does fall outside the standard range of primate physiology," Hrym said. "In fact, it may rate as one of the strangest things I've ever seen."

  Zaqen slumped, wiped her brow with the back of her hand, and then began to pull her robe back on. "I just need a moment," she said. "Releasing my brother is always a strain on my body."

  "Your ...brother," Rodrick said. "It's ...that's ..."

  "A parasitic twin," she said. "We were in the womb together. My brother could not survive on his own, so he...bonded to me. He takes after the inhuman side of the family a bit more than I do, of course. He did not awaken for many years, and my parents had various healers try to remove him, thinking he was just some sort of tumor, but ...I feel what he feels, so attempts to cut him away were agonizing for me. Finally they held me down and tried to burn the hump off my back. That operation was excruciating, but it was also successful, to an extent ...but some small scrap of my brother's flesh remained, and the hump grew back to its old proportions. When I was perhaps ten years old, my brother woke up. He didn't have any eyes, then, and while I slept he detached himself from me, and slithered through the camp where we lived, and killed almost all the cultists. He didn't mean any harm—he just wanted their eyes. He's always craved them. I don't know why." She laughed, harshly. "The amus
ing thing is, if my parents and the other cultists had realized I had a monstrous twin, they would have probably revered me, and made sacrifices to me, and fed him eyes, believing he was a sign from their god. Instead I had to flee from the angry survivors, with my twin clinging to my back."

  "And that's when Obed found you?" Rodrick said.

  She nodded. "He created the medicinal tea I drink every day. It keeps my twin from waking, though he shifts, sometimes, in his sleep, sliding his weight from one side of my back to the other. His tentacles snake into my body, and he takes sustenance from the food I eat. If I eat too much, he grows larger. In the beginning he was barely the size of a kitten, and now, he's as big as a medium-sized dog." Another harsh laugh. "Many women would be envious of my inability to gain weight. But Obed occasionally asks me to let my twin wake, and prowl, and my brother is always ravenous for new eyes when he first arises. That's why I collect the eyes of the fallen—if I have a steady supply to feed my brother on those occasions when he wakes, he will not attempt to consume the eyes of my friends or companions. At least, not immediately."

  "You carry a terrible burden," Cilian said.

  "That's true," Rodrick said, but he was wondering if her brother could be trained to, say, slip into a manor house and steal all the silverware. Probably not worth the trouble if it came back with the eyes of the householder blinking in its repulsive hide, though. "Do you think your brother can be a help down here?"

  Zaqen smiled thinly. "The acid I can spray is what my brother seems to have instead of blood. He has survived being burned, dissolved, smeared into paste, and minced into fragments. He always pulls himself back together again, or grows anew from fragments. He can move impossibly fast. He feels no pain—because I feel his pain instead. Nothing deters him. Anything my brother bothers to fight will be, at the very least, grievously injured. If the guardian of the key happens to lack eyes, that might be a problem, because my brother won't see any reason to attack the beast. I respect your skills as a tracker, Cilian, but my brother seems to detect life with something other than ordinary senses. If there is a creature here, with eyes to see, my brother will seek it."