She tried to fling me away, but I held on to that tentacle for dear life, wrapping my thighs and free arm around it as tightly as I could. I didn’t want to end up in the lake again or smeared against the cliff wall.
I clung to her, burning, hoping something else would come to me.
She started pounding me against the lake.
I’d always thought of water as being soft. When you’re hurled against it, it isn’t soft at all. I suppose it isn’t as bad as being smacked against stone. It wasn’t a feather bed either.
After the third or fourth time, I knew I had to do something other than just hold on. She was hurt, but how hurt, I didn’t know. First thing’s first. I had to get Tha-Agoth’s head back, and it was inside her. I was going to have to retrieve it for Holgren’s sake.
The things we do for love.
On the tentacle’s next upswing, I took in the situation as best I could. It was going to be tricky. I’d only get one chance.
It is amazingly difficult to judge distances and angles when you’re clinging to a lashing, writhing monster of a tentacle. Try it sometime; you’ll see what I mean. The tentacle flew downward and smacked me into the water again. I was getting very tired of that. On the next upswing, I launched myself, hoping I would get it right. I very much doubted I’d get a second chance.
I’d planned to land behind her head so that I could drive the rod into the base of her brain. It would make everything else so much easier if I didn’t have to deal with Shemrang’s writhing. It didn’t turn out that way. My vault carried me up over her half-cleaved, screaming head.
I landed down around the middle of her back, among the faces that pebbled her flesh. I stuck my hand in one of the mouths unknowingly. It gnashed down, and I nearly lost a finger. I pulled my hand away and began to slide down her slippery back toward the water. That wouldn’t do.
Tha-Agoth’s head was somewhere inside, so I went looking for it. The rod parted her flesh with a terrifying ease. Black, viscous blood welled up immediately, and her shrieks took on a new urgency. She began to flail around her back with the tentacles that ringed her head. They buffeted but did not dislodge me.
“Hurry up and die, you bitch,” I muttered. And I dug deeper, clearing great gobbets of flesh as I went. And all the while, I tried to figure out where she kept her stomach.
I don’t have words to describe the foul stench of Shemrang’s innards. It was worse than the death lands if that gives you any indication. It was distilled essence of corruption. The vomit I choked out as I made my way through the meat of her was a sweet smell in comparison. Somewhere along the way, she collapsed and was still, save for a twitch, a tremble that felt like an earthquake as I mined my way through her putrid body.
I have never been afraid of enclosed spaces—my profession had put me in tight spots many times over the years. As the foul meat of Shemrang pressed in all around me and I clawed my way into stench and darkness, though, I felt an unreasoning fear begin to creep up on me. She was dead, and clawing through her carcass had me more terrified than when she was about to snap my head off.
The workings of a mind are strange indeed.
I was all the way inside her corpse and running out of breathable air when I finally hit her windpipe, or gullet or whatever. It was large enough for me to crawl through in a prone position, and air and lake water trickled in from her mauled mouth. It was also coated with an acidic slime that stung my eyes and ate away at my skin. I headed south toward what I assumed would be her version of a stomach, or maybe womb.
I found Tha-Agoth’s head lodged in a crevice just before the passage opened up into a place I really didn’t want to go. Dead or not, I’m certain Shemrang’s stomach was not a healthy place to be.
It wasn’t difficult to find Tha-Agoth. His head still glowed faintly. He’d gotten hold of the slimy wall with his teeth and was hanging on with a tenacity that, while admirable, was also gut-splittingly funny in a horrible sort of way. Maybe it was just me. He certainly didn't seem amused.
I picked his head up by the hair, looked into his face, and said, “Do you have any idea how deep you are in my debt now?” His only response was a slow, shuddering blink.
I carved a way out for us with the rod, straight up from where I’d found the god’s head. I slithered out of the monster’s corpse not unlike how I’d seen her children born. Once free of the vile meat of her, I collapsed on that nasty hide and took in great gulps of relatively fresh air. None of the faces that dotted her torso moved any more. They were all slack and gray. I hoped they’d been released with her death.
Shemrang floated on the surface of the lake like some immense bladder. Roughly a third of her bulk was above the waterline. I could tell she was sinking, slowly. I had to figure out what to do next. I glanced over toward Holgren. He was still lying on the stones of the quay, undisturbed by the battle that had just taken place. I couldn’t tell if he was still breathing from this distance and in the dark, but he wasn’t moving.
First thing’s first. I had to get Tha-Agoth his body back. I figured it would be easier to bring his head to his body rather than the other way around. The only trouble was I didn’t know exactly where his body was. That and the whole not-being-able-to-swim thing. I held the god’s head up and looked him in the face. He was hurting. He’d get over it.
“Hey, Tha-Agoth. Do you have any control over your body right now? Blink once for yes, twice for no.”
Blink-blink. Scowl.
“Any bright ideas as to how I can find it?”
Blink.
“Can you tell where it is from here?”
Blink.
“I’ll call out directions. Blink when I get it right. West?”
Nothing.
“East?”
Nothing.
“North? South?”
Nothing. Nothing.
“I’ve run out of directions, my friend.”
Blink-blink. Scowl. Then he mouthed a word: down.
“It’s underneath us. It’s underneath her.” And she was sinking fast.
Blink.
I took a deep breath then another. It was time to jump back in before Shemrang’s bulk buried Tha-Agoth’s body. I got a good hold of Tha-Agoth’s long braids and the length of rod. Before I could think too much about what I was doing, I jumped back in the foul lake. The water hadn’t gotten any warmer or any more breathable, but at least it washed most of Shemrang off me. I was able to hold on to my breath better this second time, and the weight of my waterlogged clothes, Tha-Agoth’s head, and the rod made sure I found the bottom rather easily.
I took a second to secure the rod in my belt again, wishing I’d thought to do it before I dove in, and began to search by feel along the muddy, weed-choked lake bottom. If I occasionally dragged Tha-Agoth’s face through the silt, what can I say? It was dark, and I’m no swimmer.
I felt the bulk of Shemrang’s corpse pressing down on me, figuratively if not yet literally. My lungs began to burn with the desire for fresh air. With the threat of immediate, horrible death removed, I was able to control my emotions and my lungs a little better this time around. Still, time was trickling away, and my fear was mounting. I was going to have a hard time just getting back to the surface. Once there, I wasn’t sure if I could make myself go under again.
When the ache in my lungs became a clawing beast, I gave up and planted my feet on the bottom to kick up—and I felt the rubbery give of flesh under my ragged boots. Quickly, I found what I’d stood on—a thigh—and followed with my hands the way bodies are usually put together, along buttock, back, and shoulder to get to the neck. Briefly, I wondered what would happen if I stuck Tha-Agoth’s head on backward, but the need to breathe was overpowering. I shoved his head down on the stump and fled toward the surface, using Shemrang’s body to claw my way up.
Sweet air waited for me at the surface. I imagined Tha-Agoth would follow shortly. I clung to Shemrang’s slowly sinking corpse and wille
d my limbs to stop shaking, but once the fear subsided, the cold took over.
It was maybe twenty yards to the quay. I figured I could make it. I’d mastered up and down in the water. How hard could across be? I never got the chance to find out.
I clung to Shemrang’s side, eyeing the quay and judging distances. Then, I noticed movement above. I glanced up at the ledge, and there she stood. Athagos.
The little mouse has wicked teeth, she said and began to descend the stairs. I do like you, thief, yes I do. You are the very definition of surprising.
“Stay away from him,” I chattered. I meant Holgren, but she misunderstood me. Or maybe chose to misunderstand me. It’s hard to say, what with her being stark raving mad.
Oh, he’s no threat to me, that one. I led him by the nose when he still had one. Now that he doesn’t even have a nose, how could he trouble me? The king of shadows. What a poor kingdom that is, always dependent on the brilliance of others for your very existence. She’d reached the bottom of the stairs now and was walking out onto the quay.
“Whatever you say. Why don’t you just run along then and do whatever it is you plan on doing?” And get the hell away from Holgren.
Oh. I am. I just wanted to leave a message for my brother. You’ll be so kind as to pass it on?
“Whatever you want.”
Tell him I look forward to our meeting on the other side. We’ve put it off long enough.
“I’ll make sure he gets the message.”
See that you do. With that, she ripped a hole in reality much as Tha-Agoth had done repeatedly to get us here. I’d never seen it from the other side. I don’t know what I expected. Darkness, perhaps, or the pearlescence of a gate. It was neither. It was—nothing. Not blackness, just…nothing. When it disappeared, if that’s the right word, so had Athagos.
So had Holgren.
“Tha-Agoth!” I screamed. “Hurry up and re-capitate, you sorry excuse for divinity!” I knew he couldn’t hear me. Sometimes, screaming isn’t about that.
Finally, Tha-Agoth broke the surface a few feet away from me, graceful as a fish. I kicked out wildly toward him, obscenities boiling out of me all the way and water leaking in.
Be still! he finally roared and got an arm around my chest. He lifted my head out of the water and went easily, gracefully, toward the quay.
Now, tell me what has happened. I did, including the message Athagos had asked me to give him. He went very still.
“We’ve got to hurry,” I said. “There’s no time left. Work your damned magic, and get us over there.”
I…can’t, he said and continued on to the quay.
“What do you mean you can’t? You’ve been obsessed with getting your sister back, and now you say you can’t? What the hells are you saying?” We made it to the quay. He lifted me out of the water, and I climbed up. He followed.
I can’t. I won’t. It’s over.
“I clawed my way through that monster’s belly to get you back. I saved you from a fate literally worse than death. You owe me. Don’t you dare tell me it’s over.”
You don’t understand. If I continue after Athagos, it may mean my death. It may mean both our deaths, hers and mine.
“What are you talking about, mister ‘I can’t be killed?’”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Answer me, damn you!”
There is a way. It will destroy us both. I hid it from her. I kept it from her because she desired it so badly and I so much wanted to live. She has puzzled out what it is. That is what her message means.
“Too bad.”
Don’t you understand? I could die.
I took a deep breath and forced down my frustration. Talking to him was in some ways like talking to a spoiled child. A powerful, deadly, spoiled child that I couldn’t take over my knee.
“Look,” I said. “I don’t really care what sort of problems you two have had in the past. I don’t care whether she wants to die or if you don’t. It’s this simple: She’s gone to the Shadow King. She’s taken Holgren. You owe Holgren, and you owe me, us poor mortals who deal with the very real possibility of dying every single day. If you think I’m going to be sympathetic because there’s an off-chance you might kark it, you’ve got to be out of your mind.” I shook my head, turned away. “I figured you for a lot of things, Tha-Agoth, but a coward wasn’t one of them.”
You dare call me a coward?
“When you run away from your fears? I certainly do. They wouldn’t call it courage if it was easy.”
I owe you nothing.
“If you really believed that, we wouldn’t be standing here having this conversation. You’d be high-tailing it back to Thagoth.”
He stood with his arms crossed, looking out at the lake. I was silent, letting him make his own way toward what had to be done though every fiber of my being wanted to scream at him to hurry the hells up.
At last, he dropped his arms, took a deep breath, and said, Let us pay a visit to the Shadow King, then.
I let out a deep breath, and took stock. I was sopping wet and freezing. I’d lost my best and only knife for the second time, and I’d lost Holgren for, what, the fourth time? How many times could I twist events in my favor?
As many times as it took, I told myself firmly. You keep trying until you’re dead, and then, you try some more. We were going to get out of this mess. We were going to destroy the Shadow King and free Holgren.
I ignored the niggling little voice in the back of my head that said, “What if Athagos has already sucked him dry?” I had Tha-Agoth at least. And near three feet of monster-killing metal. It would have to be enough.
“The Shadow King’s stone is about a hundred yards east of the lake,” I told Tha-Agoth. “We’re fairly certain it contains his power. It might even be him in a sense. After dark, it’s behind those walls.” I pointed toward Shadowfall where it rose up against the stars, faintly glowing, massive.
They will afford him little protection. He stared out toward Shadowfall then glanced at me. Stay behind me, little thief, during the battle that ensues. I will protect you as I can.
“I’ll take care of myself. You take care of the Shadow King.” But I was begrudgingly touched. “Let’s get to it. Remember, you must destroy the stone, Tha-Agoth. Everything else will sort itself out if you do.”
I will do what I must.
He gestured. A rent appeared before us, and I followed him through, heart in my throat.
#
We came out on the wooden dock on the far side of the lake. I expected to be attacked immediately. Everything was still and silent. Shadowfall clawed its way to the stars ahead of us, through a thin screen of trees. Pale starlight, a newly risen gibbous moon, and Shadowfall’s faintly glowing bulk were our only illumination.
I clutched the oddly warm rod with both clammy, shivering hands and followed Tha-Agoth into the tree line. He moved as silently as a wraith. I wasn’t exactly noisy myself. Perhaps the Shadow King had exhausted all his troops. Maybe he just didn’t give a damn whether we came calling or not—or he wanted us to. In any case, no night-spawned monsters came out to greet us as we made our way through the evergreens.
I was strung tight as a wire, waiting for the ambush that had to come.
It never came.
When we followed a bend in the path and came upon an open archway into Shadowfall’s courtyard, it was almost disappointing. Almost.
Through the arch, I could make out the square, black stone in the center of the courtyard. Just to the left stood Athagos, one hand on a hip, the other pressed lightly against her mouth in a contemplative, philosophical manner. She was regarding a heap on the ground that I recognized immediately as Holgren.
He was between Athagos and the stone, hunched over and face-down, knees to his chest. The palms of his hands were fitted against the sockets of his eyes. There was no way he’d been positioned like that. He was conscious, then.
Welcome, Th
a-Agoth. Welcome, Amra. We’ve been waiting for you. The Shadow King’s voice rolled out from no particular direction, pleasant, amused.
Please, don’t stand out there in the cold. Enter.
Tha-Agoth strode into the courtyard as if he owned the place. I followed, looked around for the Shadow King’s manifestation. It wasn’t here this time. I looked back at Holgren, but he hadn’t moved.
“The stone,” I whispered to Tha-Agoth. “That’s his power. Destroy it, and we’ve won.”
Tha-Agoth glanced at me then made a beeline to his sister, ignoring the stone completely, damn him. I think I knew then that we had lost.
He put his hands on Athagos’ shoulders. I moved to one side to keep all the players in view. This was not how it was supposed to go. At some point, I was going to have to go for the block myself, but I had a feeling if I just went up to it and started whacking on it with the rod, I wasn’t going to get very far. Something told me—the Flame?—that things had to fall in line, and they hadn’t yet. It wasn’t time. I only hoped I would know when the right time came around.
Come with me now, Tha-Agoth told his sister. Back to our city, to our people. All is forgiven, and the future stands before us. Come.
She stared into his eyes for a long time then put a gentle hand to his cheek. He sort of leaned into it and closed his eyes. Which is when she spat in his face. He took a startled step back.
All is forgiven? No, brother. I have forgiven you nothing. I’ll not go back to your city and imprisonment. I will not return to our children, the fruit of forced union. I am free of your yoke, free of your attentions. I will remain so. Forever.
My love—
I’ve never seen anyone move as fast as her except Red Hand, the King of Assassins, and technically I suppose I hadn't actually seen him move at all. He'd moved too fast for the human eye to follow, when he wished.
One moment, the two godlings were standing there, Athagos airing their soiled laundry, and the next moment, Athagos had her hand inside his chest and her mouth locked on his.
Thief Who Spat in Luck's Good Eye Page 21