The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye (18 page)

“
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's 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.

What remained of Thagoth's streets radiated out from two squares on either end of the Tabernacle, something like a double spiderweb. There were only two main thoroughfares that ran straight from those squares to the edges of the death lands, one north and one south. We were at the extreme eastern edge of what remained of the city.

I didn't bother to keep to the streets. I led Holgren through broken buildings and over mounds of rubble, through smashed courtyards and roofless towers on a direct route to the Tabernacle. I'd learned those old stone bones better than the city of my birth during the half-year I'd spent there.

As we approached the Tabernacle's high wall I slowed and motioned Holgren to do the same. “Where is she?” I whispered, and he pointed dead at the Tabernacle.

“
Damn her.” I moved to the edge of the wall and took a peek. The gates stood slightly ajar. There Ruiqi lay, half in the Tabernacle grounds. She was not moving. I pulled back and tried to think of what to do.

She might already be dead, but Athagos hadn't gotten to her if she was. She wasn't a deflated skin sack. I thought long and hard about leaving her there. If she was already dead, I would risk myself needlessly trying to save her. If she was alive, then saving was the last thing she wanted.

But I didn't really care what she wanted. There was a chance she knew something that would help us destroy the Shadow King. Was it important enough to risk my life trying to save her, that chance? I looked over at Holgren, and decided it was.

“
Is there any way to make someone temporarily deaf?” I asked him.

His brow furrowed. “I've never tried. I suppose I might be able to, given time...”

“
Time we don't have. Listen to me. If something happens, don't come after me. There'll be nothing you can do. I mean it. You'll be the only one left to oppose the Shadow King. Promise me. Promise, Holgren.”

I didn't think he would. He was silent for so long. Finally he nodded.

“
Good.” I leaned over and kissed him. Then, before I could change my mind, I jumped up and sprinted for the Tabernacle gates.

As I ran toward her, I took in the situation as best I could. The gates were open outward into the square, though they were only made to open inward. There was about a three-foot gap between the gates. The right-hand one hung at a slightly drunken angle. The massive bronze hinges had pulled away from the rotting wood of the gates when Athagos had hurled me through them. Ruiqi was on her side in the gap between them, one hand curled up near her face and the other stretched forward, into the Tabernacle grounds. Blood had begun to pool around the stumps of her legs. She had lost her bandages along the way, dragging them across loose cobbles. Twin trails of blood stretched back out of sight toward camp.

But she still seemed to be breathing. I had to give her credit; she was as stubborn in her way as I was in mine.

I didn't want Athagos to even suspect we were there. She couldn't leave the temple grounds, but she damn sure could draw us to her. I didn't know what her range was, and didn't want to find out. I brushed aside the memory of Gnarri deflating like a speared puffer fish, and Athagos's mad smile. It wouldn't be my fate. Not if I could help it.

I altered my route, angling away from the narrow opening in the gates just a bit so as not to present a target to anything inside. I was waiting for that bone-chilling shriek of Athagos's to catch me in mid stride, Waiting for it to strike me down and take control of my body and deliver me to her so that I could be sucked dry. Some people say fear of the unknown is the worst. They haven't seen anything truly worth fearing.