Thief Who Spat in Luck's Good Eye

by Michael McClung

  He was hideously heavy. I had to roll him into the grave. He landed face down, and I couldn’t stand that, so I went in after him and eventually got him facing the sky. Using the bowl, I started filling in the grave but couldn’t make myself throw dirt on his face. I dithered about that for a good while and finally decided to cut a section of canvas for covering. It went better after that.

  I started to lose myself after the grave was filled in. I found myself smoothing the dirt with my hands, trying to make it perfectly level. I heard strange whimpering, realized it was coming from me. I made myself stop. I curled up there next to him with my fists pressed hard to my stomach.

  Without Holgren to reopen the gate I was trapped, the last sorry resident of Thagoth.

  #

  It rained that night, a slow, gentle rain that pattered on the leaves overhead and softened the bare earth of Holgren’s grave. The rain woke me, and I threw on a good wool cloak and sat under the tree, waiting for dawn.

  Something nagged at me as I huddled there. There was no birdsong, no rustling of animals large or small. I wondered if, over the centuries, the death lands had somehow claimed all the city’s fauna.

  By mid-morning, the rain had passed. I’d begun to poke around the ruins a bit, mapping out the city in my mind, when I saw a hawk gliding and wheeling above the city. It was the first normal animal I’d seen anywhere near Thagoth. I stood there, watching it soar, envying it its freedom.

  It turned slow circles, gliding slowly lower toward the walled compound of the Tabernacle in the center of the city. I assumed it must have seen some small movement and begun the hunt. I watched with interest, thinking there might be game behind those high stone walls.

  The hawk descended, slowly, slower, to within a hundred feet or so of the tall, golden domes of the Tabernacle.

  I heard a piercing shriek unlike anything I had ever heard before. Waves of pain shot through me, yet I could tell somehow that I had caught only the merest ripple of—of whatever it was.

  The hawk caught the full force of it. It was instantly dead. Its graceful flight turned to a boneless tumble, and it plummeted into the Tabernacle grounds. Then, there was nothing but silence.

  I decided to avoid exploring anywhere near the Tabernacle.

  #

  I was six months in Thagoth. I survived mainly on bark and grubs. Apparently the ancient Thagothians weren’t much for gardening because almost nothing edible grew in the city. There was a small date grove. I soon learned eating too many dates was rougher on my body than not eating any at all. I found and exhausted a stand of wild chok and grazed on clover like any cow. Hunger dogged me like a debt collector.

  Holgren was in my thoughts often, try as I might to push his memory away. We had met years before when he hired me to help him with a job he had been hired for. However good a mage Holgren had been, stealth wasn’t his strong suit. Our abilities complemented each other. In time, we’d made our professional relationship a permanent one. We’d even become friends. I’d lost other friends, other partners in my life, and while I suspect most of them were bound for one of the nine hells, I didn’t know it for certain. Not like Holgren. I thought about all the little things he’d do to aggravate me: the arch looks, the condescending remarks, or even more condescending silences. It only made me miss him more.

  I wandered over damn near every inch of Thagoth in the time I was there except those buildings closest to the Tabernacle. I’ve holed up in vacant houses before when I was too poor to afford a place to live or was avoiding one city watch or another. The feeling of emptiness was eerie, being surrounded by signs of life and habitation, being utterly alone. Thagoth wasn’t like that at all. It was much worse.

  House after house, building after building, stone piled on stone, all of it empty, devoid of the smallest sign of human occupancy. The only thing I found in Thagoth to show people had ever inhabited it, besides the buildings themselves, were a few shards of crockery. No frescoes enlivened any wall, no glass in any window, no furniture, no doors, no workman’s tools, nothing. Not even a child’s toy. Just building after empty building, and leaf-littered floors. Thagoth wasn’t a city at all; it was a vast stone skeleton placed there by the gods for the wind to play with.

  I slept. Sleep was freedom, sleep passed the time, and sleep conserved energy. That was the pattern of my months—sleep, forage, explore. In that order. Until sleep began to present its own difficulties in the form of dreams.

  At first, they were innocent enough. I would dream of silly things: a birthday with honeyed oatcakes, an inn I once stayed at in Elam that served barley-stuffed mushrooms in wine sauce. I dreamed of food: leg of lamb, roast hare, boiled cloudroot smothered in butter and garlic, fried bankfish… I feasted in my dreams and starved all day.

  Slowly, my dreams turned to something different.

  Murmuring, muttering, whispering, sharp cries, and long silences intruded on my dreams. I knew even in the midst of them that these things did not originate in any part of my mind or spirit. I woke sweating and cold despite the sweltering summer heat. Something was moving through my mind as I slept. I could feel its enormous power and its agony.

  Was it Holgren, somehow reaching out to me? Did it have something to do with this place, the Tabernacle, or the death lands? I didn’t know. I just wanted it to stop. After these dreams started, I began to stave off sleep for as long as I could.

  I suppose that contributed to my going a little mad. I’d been rambling round the edges of the city, never too close to the Tabernacle of course, exploring. Poking around out of boredom, finding mostly stone. People of any age think alike; they tend to hide their valuables in much the same spots—under loose hearth stones and tiles, behind thin plaster, buried in gardens. Eventually, I gathered enough to buy a fine manse just off the Promenade in Lucernis three or four times over. Unfortunately, you can’t eat gold or jewels. You can’t bribe magic-mad monsters. No amount of wealth was going to buy me out of this trap.

  One day I started flinging all that wealth out into the jungle, handful after handful of coins, gems, jewelry. I know I was screaming something, but I have no idea what. It might not even have been words.

  When the last coin was gone, I just dropped down on the cobbles and cried, letting loose great, honking sobs of despair. There was nobody to see or hear me except those malevolent, ever-present eyes in the jungle.

  #

  The seasons changed and changed again before I saw another human being. A certain type of bitter nut had come into season, and I was high up in a tree, shaking one of the nut-laden branches fiercely when a glint caught my eye from the jungle across the square. The habit of years took over, and I went still. I felt exposed up there though I was above the normal line of sight. I stayed in the tree. Most of my body was concealed by leaves and branches. I lay still along the branch and watched the wall of jungle, straining my hearing.

  Faintly, I heard cursing in the Gosland dialect. That vile death land foliage trembled, twisted. Through it broke the head and neck of a mule, ears laid flat. It lunged and stumbled onto the loose cobbles of the square, a huge pack on its back, trailing a sweating man in chain mail.

  “Stupid beast!” he shouted at the mule. Then, he stopped abruptly, looked around, and called back over his shoulder, “Here! We are here! Tell the Duke, Iorn!” I heard a muffled reply, and the man in chain mail cursed the mule further into the square. Behind him came shouts and laughter and a troop of soldiers.

  Chapter Three

  In all, some twenty men and twice as many mules emerged from the death lands. They looked tired and travel-worn. They were also remarkably alive. That fact was far less interesting to me then than the rations I knew some of those mules were carrying. Just thinking about salt pork and trail bread made my mouth water. I was afraid they’d hear my stomach rumble from across the square. I swallowed my saliva, pressed my free hand against the hollow of my stomach, and held still.

  One man stood out from
the rest. Where the others led mules, he rode a beautiful bay gelding. Where the others wore chain mail, he had on gold-washed half-plate. Everything about him screamed nobility. The Duke of Viborg, I presumed. He sat there astride his horse and took a long, lingering look at his surroundings. The back of my neck went cold, and I held absolutely still: not breathing, not blinking. His eyes slid past me. For the first time in months, I forgot my hunger.

  He dismounted, and I saw he wasn’t a tall man. He wore his thinning blond hair shoulder-length and loose, and where the others of his party were dirty and deeply tanned, he was pale, his clothing and armor spotless. I disliked him immediately.

  The party began to spread out around the square, pulling packs from mules, drinking water from skins, pulling off boots, taking a cursory look at their surroundings. Almost immediately, the Duke spoke quietly to one of the men, presumably the officer in charge, and the man began shouting orders.

  “No time to gawk and lollygag, you bastards! Keep ’em moving. We’ll camp in front of the temple, and that not a moment before the city has been reconnoitered. Move!”

  The soldiers complied hastily, if not happily. As they made their way further into the city, they passed me by without a single glance up. When they’d gone a safe distance on, I slipped out of my tree, gathered up a few nuts in the tattered tails of my shirt, and slunk off to a secure, out-of-the-way spot on the opposite side of the city.

  Six months I’d gone without seeing another soul. Here was my first and probably my only chance to escape Thagoth. I should have been thinking about these things, about how they could have made their way through the death lands—about securing some of their food at the very least. Instead, I thought about the Duke. What I’d sensed from him across the square.

  I’d felt power rolling off him in waves, power I’d only felt from Holgren when he was actively working magic. I felt another sensation gnawing at my gut as I slunk away that afternoon: fear.

  Several pairs of hate-filled eyes followed me as I paced a few yards away from the border of the death lands. They were intent, and malignant, and patient. I had no doubt that if I were to stick a hand or a foot past that invisible boundary, it would be bitten off or worse. The Duke and his men had to have some sort of protection that allowed them to pass safely through to the city. What was it? I beat my palm against my forehead, willing myself to think. What could it be? Magical, almost certainly. A spell laid on them? Where would they find anyone powerful or skilled enough to cast it? The Duke himself? Unlikely. Something to counter the death lands would be beyond even him.

  I continued to pace, ignoring the now-familiar monsters who tracked my every move. Not a spell, then. Some sort of artifact? If so, it could be almost anything, take virtually any form. Whatever it was, it was small enough to carry on a person or in baggage—I’d noticed nothing unusual. Something as important as that would almost certainly not be left on the back of a mule. They’d want it safe, defensible.

  The Duke would want it near to hand, a reassurance.

  The Duke who feared death would never let it out of his possession, traveling through the death lands.

  I stopped pacing, sat down, and finished my dinner of nuts and grubs. I usually feel better when I know who I have to rob. Not this time. I was out of my depth and knew it.

  #

  I crept through the camp toward where the Duke slept. He was ensconced in a silk tent while his men, those not on watch, lay wrapped in blankets on the ground. After the death lands, Thagoth must have seemed like an oasis of peace and sanity to them. They weren’t particularly watchful, which suited me.

  The approaching storm also suited me. Great, gray-walled clouds with lightning in their hearts already blotted out the eastern sky and were advancing rapidly on the city. With any luck, I would be able to use the breaking storm to cover my retreat if things got dicey. I just needed to get in and get the talisman before the storm woke his grace.

  On my belly, I inched my way across the cobbled square in front of the Tabernacle gates to the back wall of the tent. I pulled the knife from my forearm sheath, covering the motion to prevent any stray glint of light.

  Slowly, carefully, and most of all quietly, I parted the silk of the tent just enough to allow access. In the distance, thunder rumbled, and I heard an answering groan inside the tent. I cursed silently. Of course the Duke had to be a light sleeper.

  I slipped into the tent. I didn’t know where the talisman was or what it looked like. I did know human nature, and I knew where people tended to secure their valuables.

  Working quickly and by touch in the darkness, I went through the contents of the tent. A cursory inspection of the Duke’s packs yielded nothing. There was little else that suggested itself as a hiding place. As stealthily as possible, I crept over to the man himself, where he slept on a low, fur-draped cot.

  I didn’t bother trying to search him—I’d have needed both hands, leaving one hand uncomfortably empty of a weapon. So I just pressed my knife into the skin above his carotid artery and said, “Don’t move or speak.”

  He woke immediately—no fog of sleep in those mad eyes.

  “You’ll be gutted for this,” he said mildly.

  “What, no ‘who are you, what’s the meaning of this?’ Not even a ‘do you know who I am?’”

  He stared at me, perfectly still. His eyes were a pale blue or gray. In the darkness, they looked the color of spit. They spoke volumes, those eyes. None of it good.

  “Tell you what. Give me the talisman that allowed you through the death lands, and I won’t punch this knife through your neck.”

  He looked at me, and even in the darkness, I found it hard to meet those strange, pale eyes.

  “I can die now with one thrust,” he said, “or I can die slowly of starvation as you apparently are doing. I know which I choose, girl.”

  “I really don’t want to kill you, Duke, but I will. Where’s the talisman?”

  “Put down the knife, and we’ll discuss the matter.” His tone was suddenly soothing, reasonable. I was immediately suspicious.

  “Shut up.”

  “Really, there’s no need for this. I shall feed you, and when my business is done here, you can accompany us out of Thagoth. Put the knife down. It’s getting terribly heavy, you know. Why, you hardly have the strength to keep a grip on it much less threaten me with it.”

  “Shut up.” But he was right somehow. My forearm trembled with the effort of holding the knife. I brought my other hand up to steady it, and pain exploded in my head. Suddenly, I was on my hands and knees on the ground, and the pain was so awful I wanted to vomit. The Duke was standing over me, shaking his hand.

  “I believe I broke a knuckle on that thick skull of yours, my dear.”

  “I should have just killed you and taken it,” I rasped.

  He pulled a simple necklace out from under his shirt and looked at it, as if considering. “Yes, you should have. That’s what I would have done.” And he smiled. The next blow came from his foot. It knocked me mercifully out of consciousness.

  #

  Voices. Murmuring, threatening, screaming. Shrieks and sobs. The groan of someone in awful, terrible pain. The kind of pain no one could endure. A man’s death rattle accompanied me up out of the well of oblivion. Or passed me on its way down.

  I was wet, cold, and shivering uncontrollably. I couldn’t feel my hands. They were off somewhere behind my back, far away. My feet were tethered to my hands, more loosely. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I opened them anyway and stared into the face of a dead man. His skull had been cleaved open, and rain and blood ran down his face to pool in his open mouth.

  I knew I shouldn’t have opened my eyes.

  I looked around, anywhere but at the corpse next to me. I was lying on the cobbles of the square, midway between the gates to the Tabernacle and the Duke’s tent. One of the soldiers noticed my movement and called out. The officer came over and squatted down next to me. His
face was hard, all angles and planes, and it gave nothing away.

  “You got one of my men killed, you stupid, thieving bitch.”

  “You’ve got the wrong stupid, thieving bitch. I haven’t had anybody killed in months.”

  “Shut up. Vik was a good man, a good soldier. You sneaked into camp during his watch, and for that, the Duke killed him.”

  “What do you want me to say? I’m sorry old Vik worked for a murderous madman?”

  The man stood up and kicked me in the side.

  After I got my breath back, I said, “Who needs logic when you’ve got a hobnailed boot, eh?”

  He spat at me. “Logic? You want logic? You were going to steal the talisman and leave us all here to die. That’s logic for you, you filthy thief.”

  “Not true. After I was out, I would have hired someone to get you all.” And I might have, too.

  “Right,” he said.

  “Believe it or not, I would have. More than your Duke would have done for me.” I struggled to a kneeling position. “Look, I could have killed the Duke and taken the necklace. I’m good enough. If I’d meant for you all to die, why didn’t I do that? Why did I take the chance?”

  He was silent for a while. “Mayhap you’re squeamish,” he finally grated out.

  “Believing that would be a serious mistake on your part, Captain.”

  “Lieutenant.”

  “Whatever. Look, do you even know why you’re here?”

  “The Duke is looking for something.”

  “Well, he’s not on an afternoon stroll. He’s looking for an artifact that will grant him immortality. If he’s willing to kill—Vik, was it?—out of hand, do you think he’ll have any qualms about killing the rest of you once he’s got what he wants?”