We hit the ground hard with Holgren on top of me. The familiar, putrid stench of the death lands forced its way into my nostrils. I suppressed my gag reflex, breathed through my mouth. I pushed Holgren off me and looked back to see if anything was coming after us.
Something was.
Through the rapidly dwindling gate hurtled Ruiqi, a look of abject terror on her face. Was she trying to escape the Shadow King, or had she been sent to do his bidding? I wished that I had a knife.
Most of her made it. The gate contracted down to nothing just after her knees cleared. The double amputation was instantaneous. Her scream was a twin of the one Holgren had uttered months before in this very spot.
She fell to the ground next to us and writhed and shrieked in the dark. Blood spurted from the stumps of her legs, dark gouts spraying the hideous foliage around us as she twisted in agony. I saw the pale, fleshy flowers of a thorny shrub bend down to catch her blood.
I couldn’t leave her like that. She had tried to warn me of what the Shadow King was capable of, had tried to help in her own way. However, she had fallen under his sway, she had obviously tried to balk his will more than once with horrifying results. I didn’t trust her or even like her, but walking away from her was beyond me.
“Help me out if you can, Holgren. We’ve got to get tourniquets on her legs. Rip some strips from your cloak. I’ll find sticks or something to twist ‘em with.”
“All right.” His voice was weak but certain. He began to rip at his threadbare cloak. I searched around the area with blind hands, trying to find a stick or even a rock, something to tighten the strips of cloth around her stumps and stop the bleeding. I came across a moldering piece of canvas.
It was the remains of the pack I’d thrown down months ago in my haste to drag Holgren to safety. I searched some more with greater hope.
The contents were scattered far and wide. I found the shovel I’d missed while burying Holgren and, after a few seconds, a pickax. I rushed back over to them.
“Is she still breathing?” I asked while I fit the shovel’s handle in the loop that Holgren had left in the bandage on her right leg.
“Yes. She’s passed out, thankfully. Give me the pickax.” I did, and he pulled the remains of her legs further apart so that our unwieldy tools wouldn’t collide as we cranked down on the bleeding stumps.
The gushing slowed to a trickle as the strips of cloth bit cruelly into the flesh just above her knees.
“We’ll have to secure them now. I didn’t tear enough strips off.”
“Give me your cloak.” He handed it over. He held on to the handle of the pickax, and I sat on the shovel’s handle and tore more strips from the remains of his cloak, starting them with my teeth when they were too stubborn to be torn by hand. Then one leg at a time, we secured the handles to her thighs.
I stood up and looked at our makeshift physicking. The effect was unsettling. Where her lower legs should have been, the shovel’s blade and the head of the pickax stood out. But I thought it had saved her life for the moment. If she could die at all.
“Let’s get someplace more comfortable,” I said. “Necklace or no, I don’t like being out here.”
“It isn’t my favorite spot either,” said Holgren.
Together, we managed to hoist her up and carry her past that abrupt demarcation between the death lands and the ruins without jostling her too badly. I directed Holgren to the nearby garden where I’d buried him and spent my first night in Thagoth.
We laid her flat on the grass and proceeded with the grim task of bandaging her stumps. The remains of Holgren’s cloak served. As we padded each stump with cloth and secured them tightly to the remains of her legs, I wondered if we had truly done her a favor in saving her life. When it was finished, I sat down with my back against the garden’s yew tree and rested for a moment. I looked around at my surroundings, at Holgren’s crumbling, open grave. A thought came to me, and I smiled. History wasn’t repeating itself exactly, but it had begun to rhyme after a fashion.
Would Ruiqi die as Holgren had? Could she die? I wondered if we’d eventually have to put her in the grave I’d dug for Holgren. At least I’d have a shovel this time instead of making do with a bowl and a knife.
A knife.
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Holgren and walked back toward the death lands.
“Where are you going?”
“To get something I left here months ago. And to gather firewood. We’re going to have to cauterize her wounds.”
“What a pleasant thought.”
It was still sunk deep in the trunk of the tree out in the death lands where I’d pinned the thing that had killed Holgren. I pried my best blade loose, using both hands and eventually a foot for leverage. I’d paid dearly for that knife, had it made and weighted specifically for my hand.
The tree had begun to grow around the blade. The corpse of the little beastie was long gone, or else I would have taken its skull to Holgren as a souvenir. He was always one for picking up odd, sometimes disturbing items.
The knife was in remarkably good shape save for a bit of rust and discoloration. Maybe it was foolish, even pointless considering the types of horrors I’d seen and was likely to encounter, but just holding that blade in my hand made me feel better. It was more than a weapon. It was a link to life before Thagoth. I stuck it back into its long-empty sheath and walked unmolested back out of the death lands, into Thagoth. The necklace had its uses.
While I was out, I gathered deadwood for a fire and swung by the remains of the Duke’s camp to gather up some of the supplies I’d abandoned there when I left the first time. The Duke’s silk tent still stood in the center of the square though it had begun to sag. Various supplies were scattered all around, tossed about by more than a month’s worth of weather. It was a forlorn scene.
It was also dangerously near the Tabernacle gates and Athagos, but Ruiqi needed blankets. I tried not to think about those stumps too much. We had probably saved her life for the moment, but I had no idea whether she would survive the night. We could only cauterize the stumps to prevent further bleeding and infection. And if we got the chance, we could try to secure some of Tha-Agoth’s blood and treat her with it.
I knew a sufficient dose would probably regenerate a limb—when I’d pulled Holgren’s corpse out of the ground, not much flesh had remained. Hell, it might even heal her other wounds. The ones inflicted by the Shadow King.
Getting it would be the problem. And I still didn’t know what her intentions were toward us. We might have to kill her if it came down to it. I didn’t like the thought of saving someone’s life only to turn around and take it, but I would if she gave me cause. If she was killable.
If not, I supposed we could hack her into lots of little pieces, as revolting as that would be.
No, I didn’t want to kill her, and I didn’t want her to die for a number of reasons, not the least of which was I had a feeling in my gut that she was a key to our survival. Her knowledge alone made it worth saving her. Who else could we question as to the Shadow King’s capabilities, his plans, his weaknesses? Forewarned is forearmed and all that.
I loaded up the supplies in an oilskin as quickly and silently as I could in the dark and lugged them back to the garden with such thoughts for company. When I returned, Holgren was asleep, curled up on his side like a child. It had been a long time since either of us had had any real rest. I felt my own exhaustion, looking at him. The business of survival had kept it at bay.
I decided to let him sleep until I’d built up the wood for a fire. Then, I’d need him to start it and hold her down while I did the deed.
I eased my bundle to the ground and pulled out a blanket, covered him with it, and turned to get another for Ruiqi.
“Why did you save me?” Her voice was a strengthless whisper. I pulled out another blanket for her and a stack of tarps to elevate her legs with.
“Why?” she asked again.
“I’ve done nothing to you. Why don’t you let me die?”
“Is that what you want? To die?”
“Look at me,” she hissed. “Wouldn’t you?”
“There’s an outside chance we can get your legs healed and even the other damage. I don’t promise anything.”
“Don’t you understand? This is the only place in the world I can slip his yoke. I don’t want to be healed. I want to die here, outside his power and beyond his call. I want it to end here while something still remains of me. Before I become a mindless reserve of power for him. Before he breaks the world to his will.”
I lifted her bloody stumps up as gently as I could and positioned the bundle of tarps under them. It must have been painful, but she gave no sign. I suppose she was used to enduring pain. When I had accomplished that, I turned to face her.
“Now you listen to me,” I said. “You aren’t taking the easy way out. I don’t know how you came to be with that monster, but you’ve helped him in his plans, willingly or no. You’ve incurred a responsibility, a debt. You know what the Shadow King is, what he plans, what he is capable of. Whether you like it or not, it’s your responsibility to help stop him. You can die when you’ve helped me accomplish that, not before.”
“You’ve no idea what you’re talking about. He cannot be stopped. To even think of opposing him is madness.”
“You see? It’s thinking like that that got you where you are.” I pointed to Holgren, rage building inside me. “Look at him. He did nothing to deserve being roped in by the Shadow King, but the same fate waits for him as waits for you. I won’t have it. He doesn’t even want to be a mage for Kerf’s sake. You will help me figure out a way out of this doom, you selfish, self-centered bitch, or I’ll show you what it really means to want to die. Do we understand each other?”
She blinked at me, and I saw realization come to her through her agony and misery.
“You’re serious, aren’t you? You are actually going to set your will against the Shadow King.”
“I’m not going to give Holgren up to that bastard.”
“You love him enough for that. Remarkable. Stupid, but remarkable.”
“Just get some rest if you can. After I get a fire going, we’re going to have to cauterize your wounds. Prepare yourself as best you can. I haven’t got anything to dull the pain.”
“Pain and I are intimates.”
I looked at her and could think of nothing to say. I turned away and lay down next to Holgren, wanting just to be close to him for a few moments before I woke him and had him start the fire. My tinderbox was long gone.
What we had experienced going through the Gate—until now, I hadn’t had time to really think about it. But looking at him, I remembered and felt closer to him than I’d ever felt to anyone, any time. It was a pale shadow of the actual experience, remembering, but it was more real to me even still than the chill winter wind or the susurrus of the wind in the yew tree or even the breath in my body. I bent down to fit my body against his, stealthily so as not to wake him.
I needn’t have bothered. He woke as soon as I touched him.
“Amra?” He sat up and looked at me, and I saw reflected in his eyes some of what I felt tempered by an internal pain. I knew that pain. It had been mine as well for the short, unending moment we’d been connected by the gate.
“Go to sleep for a while more. I’ll wake you in a few minutes.”
“No. I meant to wait for you. I just nodded off. We need to talk.”
“It’ll keep. You need rest.”
“Amra. The Shadow King. He—”
“He forced you to become part of his khordun. I know.”
“A khordun,” he said, voice flat. “Such a simple word for what he did. Such a bland one for that particular kind of rape and enslavement. Such a thing has not been accomplished, or even attempted, for hundreds of years.”
“That’s not exactly true though, is it?” I said, looking over at Ruiqi. “He’s revived the practice.”
“Unfortunately. I was taken wholly unaware. It was an…invasive procedure. He has complete control of my powers outside the bounds of Thagoth, I’m afraid. And every time I use them, be it at his will or my own. I will fall further and further under his sway. It will erode my willpower, sap my sense of self, and leave me a gibbering creature fit only to do his bidding.” He shook his head and gave me a half-wry, half-bitter smile. “My powers have grown considerably though.”
“I know. Just being next to you has the hairs on the back of my neck at attention.” I rubbed at them with one hand, absently.
“I think I understand why he has no power here,” I continued. “It’s the same reason the death lands only encroach so far. Tha-Agoth’s power keeps them and the Shadow King at arm’s length. It’s why he needed the Duke and now me to get Athagos for him.” I pointed a thumb at Ruiqi, who was now sleeping fitfully nearby. “But why, if that’s so, doesn’t she die of her original wounds? She certainly wants to end it.”
“It is not the Shadow King’s power that sustains her but her own. He has etched his will into her deeply enough that she cannot help but follow his order to live.” He shook his head. “She is trapped in the prison of her flesh, and her will is not wholly her own. It grieves me. And it frightens me as well. I do not want to share her fate.”
“Then we have to figure out a way to destroy the Shadow King. It’s as simple as that.”
“I hate to say this, Amra, but perhaps it would be best if we never left Thagoth. If we deny the Shadow King what he wants, namely Athagos, we deny him the means to do whatever it is he so desperately wants to do.”
“We can’t stay here forever. The food won’t hold out.”
“I know.”
Did he mean what I thought he meant? I looked into his face and saw that he did. “Kerf’s grizzled beard, Holgren, you’re as bad as her. Why do you people think death is any solution? It’s not. It’s the end to any possibility of winning through!”
“I don’t want to die. If we free Athagos, however, the Shadow King will gain powers never before unleashed on the world. I don’t know exactly how he will accomplish it, but I know without a doubt he’s found some way to harness Athagos’ powers and direct them at his whim. He will turn the world into a charnel house, and whatever remains standing will survive only to serve him. I sensed some of that when he took me. His vision of the future is as bad as any version of hell you can imagine. You heard him—death is no bar to his will. He will destroy and enslave, and there will be no power in the world great enough to stop him.”
“You don’t know that. The old Sorcerer King failed once.”
“The Shadow King is not the Sorcerer King. And he’s had a thousand years to think about what went wrong and correct the original mistake.”
“Even if you’re right, dying here will only delay him. He’ll lure another mage to him as he did the Duke and Ruiqi, I suppose, then fashion another necklace, and the whole damned thing will only start over again with no one to oppose him.”
“Magic may fade completely before he is able to accomplish such a feat.”
“Are you willing to bet our lives on that? Are you willing to bet the fate of the world? You told me months ago that it was better to die trying to alter your fate than just to die giving in to it. Are you telling me now, after having died, that you’d rather do that again than try to get free of the Shadow King?”
He thought on it for a while, brow furrowed. “No,” he finally said. “I suppose not.”
“Good. The next person I hear talking about dying gets a kick in the head. I’m sick of it.”
He gave me a wry grin. Obviously, he thought I was joking.
“So be it. Now that we’ve decided we want to live,
the first order of business is figuring out how to accomplish it.”
“We won’t do it by hiding in Thagoth; that’s for damn sure. We have to get out of here and destroy the Shadow King.”
“Excellent goal. How do we accomplish it?”
“I’m hoping our maimed friend over there will give us a clue.” I turned to look at our now-sleeping patient. I prayed she had some kind of an answer because the sole one I was able to think of could only be called desperate.
“Like I said, it’ll keep. But her legs won’t much longer. I need you to start me a fire, partner.”
He did, and when the knife blade was as hot as it was going to get, he woke her and secured her legs.
Intimate with pain or no, her screams filled the night until she passed out. It was not pleasant. I had to heat the blade a dozen times. When it was over, I was more tired than I can ever remember being. I curled up next to Holgren and went to sleep to the rhythm of his deep, regular breathing. Thankfully, the smell of his particular, wonderful scent replaced the sickly-sweet stench of her charred flesh.
#
If I had hoped to get any immediate answers out of Ruiqi, I was disappointed. Soundlessly and without either of us noticing, she had somehow disappeared while we slept. My cursing at her absence woke Holgren.
“She can’t have gotten far,” I said. “Come on; let’s go find her.” I started off toward the death lands, figuring she’d crawled that way like a wounded animal to have those hideous creatures destroy her.
Holgren laid a hand on my arm. “Not that way,” he said. “Over there. I sense her presence in that direction.” And he pointed west, toward the Tabernacle.
“Kerf’s crooked crutch! Hurry, before she manages to crawl inside.” I set out at a dead run, Holgren trailing behind. How big a lead did she have? How fast could she be dragging herself? We might come on her just as Athagos began to consume her. If that happened, we’d be dead as well. Damn Ruiqi for putting us in greater danger.
Thief Who Spat in Luck's Good Eye Page 13