The Flame could go to hells if I could get the necklace off. Free of it, Holgren and I could steer clear of all this and make our way home.
That damned chuckle again. “Which question would you like answered first?”
“Tell me about the necklace.” If I could remove it, the rest of my questions were mildly interesting at best.
“Come closer, then, and let me see it.”
“Why did you call me necklace bearer if you don't know what it is?”
“I know its form, but not its intent. You wear a slave-chain. I made many such in my time.”
“And that really makes me want to trust you.” But I stepped forward. I wasn’t afraid of him, but he definitely made me uncomfortable. Perhaps if he’d had some clothes on.
“Bend down. I cannot see it very well.” I did so. I didn’t like it. A delicate scent of putrefaction rose from him, more noticeable the closer I got. I suppressed a shudder.
After a time, he said, “That will do.”
I backed away. He was silent for a while. As the silence stretched on, it also stretched my patience.
“Well?”
“The Shadow King has learned to work with the material world more intricately than I would have given him credit for, and has lost no skill or subtlety in the Art. That, or he has enlisted other minds and hands to do his will.”
“I don’t care about all that, old man. I just want to get it off my neck.”
“Then you must place it on the neck of the one it was intended for.”
“What?”
“This slave chain was fashioned to bring Athagos to the Shadow King. Does he seek to complete the ceremony interrupted so long ago? But no, she alone would not suffice—would she? I wonder…” He was obviously talking to himself more than me. His eyes stared at some middle distance. Then, they snapped back to my face.
“Where did you come by this?” he asked.
“I took it off a doomed man’s neck in Thagoth.”
“Were you near Athagos at the time? You had to have been, but how could you have been? She would have consumed you.”
“She tried. She failed.”
The old man looked at me with new respect. “The Flame chose well indeed, then, when it chose you. But back to the necklace. It was meant to draw Athagos to the Shadow King. Somehow, it found you instead. It must have sensed her power when you took it.”
I remembered how it practically leapt into my hand when I took it from the Duke’s neck. Where had the Duke gotten hold of such a thing? I’d probably never know. It didn’t really matter. I had much bigger things to worry about. A dark realization came to me, and fear flowed like icy water through my body.
“So the only way to get it off is to get Athagos to put it on? But it won’t let me go back to Thagoth. It’s herding me. To the Shadow King. Kerf’s balls!”
“What will he make of you, I wonder? He’s cast his net for a goddess and caught a sneak thief. What are the chances of such a mishap?”
“Too good for my taste. What will he do if I can’t avoid him?”
“He will use you. In some form or fashion, he will turn events to his advantage. It is what I excelled at. Even more than magic, it was my true Art—using others to do my will. Such is learned early when one is crippled. In order to survive, others must be coerced or convinced to do one’s bidding.”
“What does he want? Why does he want Athagos?”
“He wants power, my dear. He is consumed with the desire for it. Any action he takes may be attributed to that motive.”
“So Athagos will give him power. How? And for what?”
“As to the how—it might be as simple as using her as an instrument of his will. Can you imagine the death goddess loose in the world, free of the restraint of Tha-Agoth? Doing the Shadow’s bidding? But I think he wants her for another purpose.”
“What other purpose? And why do you think so?”
“As to the what, I cannot speak with certainty. He may have worked out an alternate ritual to steal Athagos’ innate abilities. Or it may be for some purpose I have not thought of. A thousand years presents opportunities and new insights. I know his will, not his thoughts.”
“Why do you think he wants Athagos for something other than turning her into a weapon?” I could imagine her destroying armies, subjugating nations single-handedly. What were Holgren’s arquebuses compared to that?
“He is as trapped as I ever was, dear. He cannot affect the larger world. He is chained to the spot where I was to have been resurrected as a god. It is not enough for him to send minions out into the world; he yearns to be free with a passion only the crippled can ever understand.”
“Oh, I think I understand something of it.” I wanted only one thing: to go home. To be free of this thousand-year-old knot of intrigue, madness, and obsession. It had nothing to do with me. The gods only knew how I’d stumbled into it.
“The will of the gods cannot be fathomed,” the old man said, as if reading my thoughts, “but it is clear to me that you are here for a purpose, one of serious import. I cannot help but believe it has something to do with the Shadow King. The Flame has chosen you.”
“What exactly does that mean? I’ve had enough mystery to last me a lifetime. Tell me.”
“If I am the edge of the coin, then Flame and Shadow are the opposing faces. What good there was in me passed to the Flame, and all that was evil to the Shadow. The Flame seeks to burn away the dark. The Shadow yearns to engulf the light. The Flame chose you as its instrument.”
I laughed. “Maybe I don’t want to be anybody’s instrument. Did anybody think of that?”
“A tool has no say in what hand wields it or how it is used.”
“I’m no one’s tool, old man. Not if I can help it.”
He said nothing, only kept his glittering eyes on me.
“Is there anything else I need to know? How does the Flame intend to destroy the Shadow King?”
“I do not know the thoughts of either, only their general intents.”
“Then I guess I’d better go to the source.” I started picking my way through the corpses to the exit.
“What do you intend to do, my dear?” he called as I opened the door.
“What I do best. Survive. And I’m not your dear.”
He chuckled. “One more thing, thief. You played my game, and so I will reward you with a little extra knowledge: I did not trick Athagos into betraying her brother. She approached me. What riddles might you be able to solve with that tidbit, I wonder?”
His chuckles followed me out of the room.
#
The Flame waited for me at the foot of the stairs. I marched toward it, building up a thunderhead of harsh words to unleash on it as I went. Before I could begin, it stopped me cold with its own words.
The Shadow King begins his assault. We must hurry. It flitted up the steps, and I followed at a run.
“You said this place was safe!” I panted.
I said it afforded an escape, of sorts. It does.
“Why did you let us get comfortable, then? Holgren and I could have been well on our way.”
Your only safety lies in the destruction of the Shadow King. Only you can accomplish that. And you needed to see what you just saw and speak to the one you just spoke to.
We reached the top of the stairs, and the Flame bobbed down the corridor that led, eventually, to the great hall with its sundered roof.
“The Shadow King? You’re his enemy,” I said. “You destroy him. I never asked to be a hero.”
Which is why you are suited for it. Hurry.
I felt the slightest trembling under my feet. A little dust began to sift down from the walls and ceiling. We rounded another corner, and ahead lay an opening to the great hall, some forty feet above its stone floor.
“What is that? Umbrals?”
No. Much worse. It is a Sending, a creature from another age the Shadow King found and allied with. It wil
l tear these halls apart, if it must, until it finds what it seeks.
I ran up to the entry and looked out. At first, I saw nothing but stone walls, twisted stairways, and rubble. Two sets of stairs led down to the floor from my vantage point, each hugging the wall on either side of the entrance. Far to the left were the massive, black double doors. Nearer at hand to the right was the rubble mound. Nothing unusual, I thought, until I looked up.
Dozens of great, inky tendrils were snaking their way through the opening, feeling along the walls and the mound of rubble. The shortest was four or five times as long as me. If shadow could be made flesh, that was what these things were made of. My own flesh crawled at the sight. In a way I cannot express, I knew I looked on something wholly evil.
The thing that those tentacles were attached to pulled its way into the opening.
A servant of the Shadow King, said the Flame as the fiend slithered its slow way down into the great hall, but not his slave as the umbrals are. He will unleash worse things on the world in time. You will help me destroy him.
I barely heard the words. All my attention was glued to the monstrous shape easing its way inside. Its body must have been a hundred feet long and its thin, many-jointed legs twice that. The shadowy tentacles I’d first seen sprouted from the thing’s head, which was long and sleek and gleamed dully in the starlight. Its jaws were as long as I and lined with double rows of silvered teeth. A long, black, whip-like tongue unfurled and snaked this way and that, touching, tasting. I had taken it for a smaller tentacle at first. Its eyes were smoky, black orbs that ate the light.
But its body was the worst. What I took at first to be mere bumps pebbling its shadowy hide were not bumps at all. Spaced unevenly along the thing’s torso were hundreds of distorted faces. As I looked on them, I realized they were all moving, screaming, in silent agony. As I watched, one of the faces bloated, swelled, and popped—and out plopped a miniature version of the fiend. It fell to the floor, shook itself, and scurried off into the deeper shadows.
“Oh, this is bad,” I said. Then, I had the presence of mind to withdraw further into the corridor.
You have only the merest inkling, the Flame replied.
“What the hells are we going to do?”
There are two exits from my halls besides the opening above. One begins at the Gate below.
“Those black doors at the end of the hall?”
Yes. The other does not concern you. It is too small for you to traverse. The Sending hunts you, Amra. Or rather, it hunts the person that wears the necklace.
“It thinks I’m Athagos.”
And it will not be gentle with you if it catches you. Athagos is nearly indestructible.
“Where do those double doors lead to?”
They will lead you to your fate. Hurry. You are almost out of time.
The Sending hung spider-like from the gap in the ceiling now, secured there by its long, twisted legs. Its body swayed slowly in some unfelt breeze. It seemed to be in no hurry. Another face had popped; another small nightmare had been released. I tore my eyes away from it and looked at the Flame.
“Can’t you do anything?”
I am the small decent fraction of a soul twisted beyond recognition. I have survived this long only by hiding. It is you who must do what must be done. I can do little more than guide.
“But—” The Flame blinked out of existence, and Holgren pelted into the corridor, calling my name. I wondered why the Flame appeared only to me—was it only that it had been hiding for so long that it had become habit, or was there some stricture I didn’t understand at play?
“Amra!” Holgren cried. “Where have you been?" He took me by the arm. “We need to go. Trouble is coming.”
“It’s already here.” I pointed out to the monstrosity. It had settled in to birthing more nightmares. They fell from its torso by the dozen. The floor below was alive with them. Holgren looked down. Even in the gloom, I saw his face blanch.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said. “There’s no way we can deal with that.”
That was one of the things I liked about Holgren—he wasn’t one for false bravado. That sort of thing generally gets people killed.
“Our only way out is through those doors at the end of the hall,” I said. “We’re going to have to get around those things. Somehow.”
“What? That’s suicide. We’ll never get past that—that nightmare.”
“We have to. There’s no other exit.”
“How do you know that?” His eyes searched mine, brow furrowed.
“It’s a long story, and we don’t have time. Trust me.”
“I do, but—”
“No buts. Help me figure out how we get by that thing. And all the little nightmares it’s spawning.”
He looked at me a little longer, his hawk-like eyes searching my face; then, he turned to the task at hand. He looked down again at what lay below. “You’re the expert at stealth. What do you think our chances are of sneaking by?”
I shook my head. “I’m comfortable skulking around in shadows. Those things are shadows. Our chances are rotten.” The miniature nightmares were everywhere now, slinking into dark hallways, slithering up and down those twisted stairwells. Gravity meant nothing to them. Half a dozen clung to the very walls and ceiling of the hall.
“Well then. If stealth won’t serve, let’s try diversion,” he said. “Do you have a knife?”
I handed him the dagger I’d picked up in the corpse room. He took it—and then almost dropped it. He looked as if I’d handed him a pile of offal.
“Where did you get this thing?” he asked. Then, he shook his head before I could answer. “Never mind. There’s no time.” He squatted down and pricked his finger with the tip. Slow, fat drops welled out, more black than red in the gloom. Several fell to the floor. He smeared them into the crude outline of a man then wiped the tip of the blade and smiled up at me.
“A little trick I picked up in the Low Countries. I think you’ll like it. If it works. Your turn.”
“How can you perform Low Country magic?”
“My mother was a Gol-Shen witch. My father was a Gosland mage. Stick your hand out.”
I was tired of blood: tired of losing it, tired of bathing in it, and tired of looking at it. But I didn’t have time to grouse. I stuck out my hand and he pricked my thumb. I squeezed on it with my other hand until blood welled up.
“Careful,” he said. “Don’t mix it with mine.”
“I thought only women were supposed to be able to perform this sort of stuff,” I said as I let my blood dribble to the floor, careful to keep it away from Holgren’s.
“They are, but it’s more tradition than anything else. My mother wasn’t terribly traditional.” He used his clean hand to sketch out a female form with my blood.
“How much longer? One of those things could come in here at any time.”
“If you’d stop asking questions, it would move along a bit faster.”
I took the hint and shut up. He hunkered down over the blood drawings and began to rock back and forth. A strange, low keening came from his throat that I’d never heard before.
I took a step back. Low Country magic tended to be vicious, as befitted a region with a centuries-old tradition of vendetta. Whatever he was doing, he damned sure needed to hurry.
Holgren began carving the air with the dagger. At first, I didn’t know what he was doing. Then, something began to form before him at the direction of the blade. Slowly, too slowly for my taste, two figures began to take shape. After a moment, I recognized Holgren’s features in one and mine in the other. They were sketches at best, but they didn’t have to be much more. I knew what they were now: blood dolls. Sacrifices built of blood and magic, given shape by a mage’s mind, made to do one thing convincingly. Die.
As I said, Low Country magic tended to be vicious. Even purely defensive magic. Centuries of occupation by one conqueror after anoth
er had really had an effect there.
Holgren’s blood doll was barely more than a scarecrow. He’d given it the merest suggestion of a face, a long hank of hair, and a dark robe. The one he made for me was a bit more. Its short, brown hair was artfully if simply arranged, and its face was free of any scar or blemish. The nose was long and straight, the almond-shaped, green eyes perfectly balanced. My own thin lips were fuller on that face, and I would have needed cosmetics to get them as red as he made them. I fingered my oft-broken nose and wondered if he were mocking me or if this was how he really saw me.
I looked away from the blood doll, uncomfortable on several levels.
“Hurry the hells up, Holgren.”
Finally, he was done. He stood up and stretched and looked at his creations.
“They won’t last long,” he said, handing me back the knife.
“Then let’s get to it.”
“Step two is to divert attention from ourselves while they draw it. I’ve got something that would serve, a fool-the-eye, but I would need an hour or more to prepare it.”
“No time for that. I’ve got a better idea.”
“What?”
“Let’s run like hell.”
He smiled shakily, and I returned it.
“Ready?”
He nodded. Then said, “Not in the least.”
“Send them down the right set of stairs. With a light, if you can?”
He nodded again, and the blood dolls came to life. A glowing sphere of light popped into being above the false Holgren’s hand, and they both turned in unison and pelted into the hall and down the stairs. I counted to three, grabbed Holgren’s arm, and took off.
Fear is a funny thing. It can kill you, but it can also keep you alive if you learn to ride it instead of fighting it. Arno taught me that. It heightens all your senses. It lends your feet wings. In its grip, time slows, and you have time to read to events that you would not have normally. Or so it seems. I should know. Fear has been a near-constant companion for much of my life.
I heard it before I saw it, just the faintest scrape on stone. We had just cleared the entryway and were taking the left-hand set of stairs in great bounds. Holgren had already pulled slightly ahead of me with those long legs of his. I spared a glance back to see how the blood dolls fared and caught a quick impression of a hundred shadows racing toward their tiny light. That’s when I heard that faint scrape on stone from just above, about three feet away from my ear. I knew without thinking that not all of the monsters had taken the bait.
Thief Who Spat in Luck's Good Eye Page 9