The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye (31 page)

I have discovered it is very difficult to be both rich and anonymous, whereas poor and anonymous go hand in hand. Very difficult, but not impossible. Once I'd converted our wealth to a more spendable kind. I went looking for a place for us to live. Naturally I looked around the Promenade.

I had enough money, but no one seemed to want to sell. Not to me, at least, or to the clerk I'd retained. It was an exclusive club, the owners of Promenade real estate, and money wasn't enough to get me invited. I brooded over it for a time, and almost decided to give upon the notion.

Then I met one Harald Artand over a game of cards. Harald was the eldest son of some Lucernan lordling. His father owned one of the smaller manses on the Promenade, down near the Dragon Gate. The father, Lord Artand, didn't even live in the place. He just kept it for when he was in town on business. Harald stayed there in a sort of disgraced exile.

It seemed young Harald had a great fondness for, and terrible luck with, the horses, and the cards, and the dice. And his family, however noble they might have been, weren't made of money.

To make a long story short I let him crawl into my pocket until only his stockinged feet stuck out, and then I buttoned him up. It took two months. At the end of three months I had forgiven his debt and bought the manse outright, though for half my original offer. I'm not rapacious but I'm not a charity, either.

Holgren, forswearing his powers and unfazed by it, rented a warehouse out by the docks and began to tinker. He'd spend hours there, absorbed in tearing apart arquebuses, examining the innards of locks, setting fire to things, and generally making an unholy mess. When he wasn't in what I came to call his workshop, he was out around town badgering smiths and tanners, bakers and tailors and tinkers and chandlers and stonemasons and glassblowers. He also seemed to attract others infected with his peculiar madness. At any time of the day or night there would be two or three men, and even sometimes women, in his shop, setting things on fire, making an unholy mess, and grinning like idiots. I had no idea what they were doing, but it made him happy. That was all I needed to know.

At the end of the day he'd come home and explain the latest theory he was exploring and I’d pretend to understand what he was talking about. I'd tell him about the latest financial endeavor I’d sunk some of our money into, be it spices from beyond Chagul or property in what people had begun to can the Charred Quarter. He'd nod and smile and pretend he was interested, and we'd eventually wander off to bed, happy just to be with each other at day's end.

Perhaps it sounds boring, but given the choice between boredom and excitement—well. I'd had all the excitement I cared to. Several lifetimes of it.

And boring was fun. While it lasted.

Author’s N
ote

I hope you have enjoyed
The Thief who Spat in Luck’s Good Eye
, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for reading it. It was originally published by Random House under the title
Thagoth
. By the time you read this, Thagoth should no longer be available for sale, but if by some chance you stumble across a copy of
Thagoth
, please don’t buy it. You’ve already read it (in a slightly different form), and I’d hate for you to pay twice.

If you did enjoy this ebook, I hope you can spare the time to leave a rating or a review with the retailer where you purchased it. Independent authors succeed (or not) largely based on the feedback of readers just such as yourself.

Finally, if you would like to read about other troubles Amra and Holgren have gotten into, you might want to turn the page. You know, if you feel like it. What follows are the first five chapters of the prequel to this book,
The Blade That Whispers Hate
. It’s well on the way to completion, and should be available by September (2012) most everywhere ebooks are sold.

Once again, many thanks for reading.

-
Michael McClung

The Blade That Whispers Hate

(Amra & Holgren #1)

They butchered Corbin right out in the street. That’s how it really started.

I don’t have many friends. Both my inclination and my occupation make me something of a loner. Corbin was one of the few who didn’t put a hard knot of wariness between my shoulders. One of the few who could make me laugh, who had seen me cry. I knew I could turn my back to him without it sprouting a blade, metaphorical or otherwise. I trusted him, despite his handsome face and easy words. He was a rogue and a thief, of course. But then, so am I.

So when he got himself hacked up in front of his house off Silk Street, I decided somebody had to be made to pay. They thought that they could just sweep him away like rubbish.

They thought it would be easy.

They were wrong.

#

When Corbin showed up banging on my door at noon one sweltering summer day, I can’t say I was particularly happy to see him. It should come as no surprise that one in my profession tends to sleep during daylight hours. And since I tell no one where I live, I was more than a little annoyed to see him.

“
Hello, Amra,” he said with that boyish smile that tended to get him past doors he wasn’t supposed to get past. He was looking ragged, though. Dark bags under his eyes, stubble that had gone beyond enticingly rough to slovenly. The yellow-green shadow of an old, ugly bruise peeked above his sweat-stained linen collar. His honey-colored locks were greasy and limp.

“
Corbin. What the hell do you want?”

“
To come in?” He kept smiling, but glanced over his shoulder.

“
If you bring me trouble, I’ll have your balls.” But I cracked the door a bit wider, and he slipped past me into the entry hall.

“
Take you boots off if you’re going to stay, barbarian. You know how much that rug is worth?”

“
Depends on who’s buying, doesn’t it?” He sat down on the bench in my tiny foyer and worked his laces loose. “Nice robe,” he said with that silky voice of his, but I could tell his heart wasn’t in it. I pulled my wrap tighter, and he chuckled.

“
Don’t worry, Amra. The knife sort of spoils the effect anyway.”

I’d forgotten I was still holding a blade. I don’t answer my door without one. Come to think of it, I don’t do much of anything without one. I made it disappear and frowned at him.

“
You can’t stay here, and I’m not lending you any money.”

He stretched, wiggled the toes of his stockinged feet. “Money I don’t need. A place to stay, maybe, but your garret isn’t what I had in mind.” He looked at me, and I could tell he had something gnawing at him. This was no social call. “You have anything to drink? I’m parched.”

“
Yeah. Come into the parlor.”

I’m not terribly feminine. I’ve a scarred face, a figure like a boy, and a mouth like a twenty-year sailor. In the circles that count, I’m recognized as good at what I do, and what I do is not traditionally a woman’s profession. I was a few rungs up from pickpocket. Still, in the privacy of my own hovel I enjoy a few of the finer, more delicate things. Silks and velvets. Pastels. Glasswork. When Corbin walked into the parlor he gave a low whistle.

“
Amra, this is positively decadent. I expected bare walls and second hand furniture.” He wandered around, peering at paintings, books, the tiny glass figurines I kept in a case.

“
Shut up and sit down. You want wine?”

“
Have anything else?”

“
No.”

“
Then I’d die for some wine.” He sat down on the huge Elamner cushion I used for seating. He stretched his legs and smiled. I shook my head, and went to dig around in my sorry excuse for a pantry. I came up with a couple of relatively clean glasses and a palatable Fel Radoth that was better than he deserved. But it was too early to punish myself with swill.

I poured a couple, handed him one and leaned against the wall. He took his and put it back in one gulp. I shuddered, snatched up the Fel Radoth and corked it.

“
What?” he said.

I put the bottle back in the pantry and came back out with a jug of Tambor’s vile vintage. It was barely fit for cooking with. I dropped it in his lap. “Remind me never to give you anything worth drinking again."

He shrugged and began sipping straight from the jug.

“
You don’t want to borrow money. You don’t want a place to stay. What do you want, Corbin?”

He sighed, reached into his voluminous shirt—I’d thought he’d looked a little lumpy—and brought out something smallish, wrapped in raw silk. About the size of my two fists put together. He held it out to me. “I need you to hold this for a while.”

I didn’t take it. “What is it?”

“
Ill-gotten gains, what else? But I earned it, Amra, and a lot more besides. This is all I managed to come away with, though. For now.”

I took it from his hands. Reluctantly. I was surprised at the weight. I knew without looking that it was gold. I unwrapped it, discovered I was right. It was a small statuette, one of the ugliest things I’d ever seen.

I held a bloated toad, two legs in the front and a tail in place of hoppers in the back. Pebbly skin. Two evil little emerald eyes, badly cut. It was devouring a tiny gold woman. She wasn’t enjoying it. The artist must have been familiar with torment, though, because her small face was the very picture of it despite the crude overall rendering. All but her head and one arm were already in the belly of the beast. Her hand reached out in a disturbing parody of a wave. I don’t think that was the effect the artist intended.

“
Where did you get this ugly bastard?” I asked him.

“
Doesn’t matter. The place collapsed around my ears as I was leaving anyway.” He leaned forward. “It was part of a commission, Amra. There were a dozen other pieces. I got them all, and it wasn’t easy.”

“
Where are all the rest?” I asked.

He scowled. “The client double-crossed me. He’s got the others, but he wants this one bad. Bad enough that I’ve got him by the balls.” His face brightened and he chuckled. “I’m getting my original commission, plus a bad faith penalty. All told, it’s three thousand gold marks, and I’ll give you a hundred just to look after this thing for a few hours.”

I frowned. I’d known Corbin for three years; he was a good thief and a good man. Thin as a blade, with one of those faces that sets girls blushing and whispering to each other behind cupped hands, and prompts women to cast long, speculative glances. He had the longest lashes I’ve ever seen on a man or a woman. He was an easy drunk, and so drank little, though he was free with rounds. He had fine-boned hands and honey blond, wavy hair, and when I told him ‘no’ one night when his hands got too free, I didn’t have to back it with a blade and I never had to tell him again. Maybe once or twice I wished I hadn’t been so firm, but as regrets go, it was a mild, melancholy one. The ‘what if’ game isn’t much fun to play.

That said, Corbin was not the smartest man I’d ever met. Not stupid; stupid thieves don’t live long. But his cunning was situational. When it came to people, he seemed never to really understand what they were capable of. Or perhaps he just didn’t want to believe what people were capable of was the rule rather than the exception.

“
Amra? It’s easy money.”

“
Too easy,” I replied, taking a sip of wine.

“
Gods above, woman! I thought you might want a little extra moil, and I need somebody I can trust. But if it’s no—” He reached for the statuette, and I slapped his hand away.

“
I didn’t say no.”

Corbin smiled, showing his remarkably straight, remarkably white teeth. It made me want to throw the ugly thing back in his face. But a hundred marks wasn’t something I could walk away from. I should have, of course. Just as he should have cut his losses.

“
One condition,” I said. “Tell me who you’re squeezing.”

He didn’t like that. The customer was supposed to remain anonymous. It’s the closest thing to a rule there is in the business. He frowned.

“
Oh, come on, Corbin. You said yourself they tried to screw you out of your fee.”

“
True. Why would you want to know, though?”