The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye (6 page)

I tried to take hold of my unraveling sanity. I don’t know how long I sat there in the darkness, the coppery smell of blood surrounding me until I wanted to vomit.

I’m sorry, Amra, but I fear it must be done.

And then I felt his mind enveloping mine, gently, inexorably. It was like drowning. I ceased to exist.

The next thing I knew, I’d awoken inside something like a dream. I was starting to hate dreams. First came a faint golden glow, so faint I didn’t notice it until I realized I could tell the difference when I blinked.

Then the subtle scent of incense wafted through the air, gently masking the blood smell. Some incense I’d never smelled before, gentle, not cloying. I didn’t trust any of it, but it helped. I felt sanity settle more firmly in my grasp. A question floated to the surface of my mind.

“
Who are you?” I whispered.

Tha-Agoth, god-king, emperor, sacrifice. Tha-Agoth the Undying, the Betrayed. Tha-Agoth the Eternal Sufferer. Tha-Agoth the Fool.

“
Where are you?” came the next question, though I knew the answer to that one.

Pinned to my own altar, pierced by sky-metal, punished by the fates for besting death and building to withstand eternity.

“
Who put you there?”

My sister, my bride. Athagos the Destroyer, Athagos Death-Bringer, the serpent’s fang, the spider’s kiss, song weaver of the sirens.

“
What do you want from me?”

Freedom. And in return, I will give you eternal life.

The light failed, the incense faded, as did my consciousness.

I woke, knowing my mind had been tampered with. The dark and the stench were there still, but I had something to hold on to. Anger.

The past months, Holgren’s death, the Duke, my battered body, eating bark and grubs, the constant struggle for survival, and now some god playing with my mind—it was enough. I was getting out of this hellhole no matter what it took, and damn anyone who got in my way.

First I needed light.

Mercifully, my tinder box was still in my belt pouch. Holding flint in my injured hand, I struck steel across it until I got a spark in the tinder, then a twist of smoke and a small flame. Quickly I tore a strip of cloth from my ragged shirt tails, praying it wasn’t too soaked.

I will supply light, if you are prepared to see.

“
Shut up.”

Slowly, smokily, the rag caught. I held the strip up above my head and looked around the room. Nothing but bare stone, the hint of doors to the left and right, and in the center a stone altar.

You are prepared to see.
And with that, light blossomed from everywhere at once. Bathed in that golden glow lay a man on top of the altar, pinned there by the rod that ran straight up through the top of the dome.

He was the color of bronze. His hair fell in braids down the end of the altar to pool on the stone floor below. The blood from his wound trickled down the sides of the altar to do the same. There was a lot of it. The floor was awash in blood.

The pupils of his eyes were cold, bright stars, pinpricks on the blanket of his night-dark irises.

Help me.

I dropped the burning rag and approached him.

Help me, Amra. I have lain here for a thousand years, pierced through the heart, unable to die. Free me.

“
I’m sorry. I have no idea how to help you.” I looked away from him, down at my hands. They were covered in his blood. I was covered in his blood. I’d crawled through it.

I cannot affect the sky-metal that pins me. You can. You can break it, somehow. It will not be easy, but I believe it is possible for a mortal. Do me this service, and I will grant you eternal life. You may leave if you choose, or stay here with me and help me rebuild my empire. Please, Amra, do not leave me so.

I couldn’t look at him. His situation was horrifying. I pitied him, but I didn’t trust him any more than I did the Duke.

“
What killed off all the animal life here?” I asked.

I do not understand the question.

“
I think you do. You know my name, root around in my brain some more and tell me what killed the hawk above the Tabernacle.”

Silence for a long time. Finally he assented.
Athagos. She wakes sometimes. I do not allow her to feed from me, so she gains what sustenance she can elsewhere.

“
Athagos, your sister-wife? Death incarnate? She’s still hanging around, huh?” I walked a few steps closer. “Tell me why she pinned you here in the first place.”

Please, Amra—

“
We do this my way if we do it at all. If you don’t like it, take over my mind again, you bastard, and get me to do your dirty work that way.” I was suddenly shaking with rage. It wasn’t just toward him, but he was a convenient target.

I knew you would resent that. Very well.

We were born, my sister and I, with powers—She to cause death and I to defeat and defy it. As we grew, we also grew in power and together conquered half the world. Eventually she grew jealous of my powers. She was forced to kill to sustain her youth and beauty. She had always abhorred death. There was a rival wizard-king, a man whose name I have since seen crushed to dust on the slow wheel of time. He poisoned Athagos’s mind against me, made her believe she could absorb my powers into herself. She believed him. She believed my death would be the last she would ever need cause. I suppose it was worth it to her, for on this very altar she lay me, drugged, and performed a fearful ceremony.

The outcome you see before you. I did not die. I cannot. The ceremony drove her mad and the wizard-king attacked, decimating the empire and destroying my capital. To this day his foul magics cling to the edges of my power, seeking to destroy that which cannot be destroyed. Are you satisfied?
He closed his eyes and turned his head away from me.

“
I wonder what her side of the story is?”

You could ask her, but I doubt she would give you a satisfactory answer. She would be far too busy consuming your essence.

“
And if I free you, you’ll build up your empire again.”

You never knew the empire. No famine. No plague. Little warfare that affected the populace. It was paradise.

“
While it lasted.” I wiped the blood from my palms onto my pants. And stopped. My hand was healed, the skin neither raw nor blistered. Even the scar from a deep cut when I was a child was gone.

My blood is life. It will heal your wounds, and in time grant you immortality. More quickly, if you drink it.

Panic washed over me. Had I gotten any in my mouth? I stripped quickly, scrubbing myself with the blood-free portions of my clothing.

That is not what I would call a normal reaction.
Was that amusement in his voice?

“
Look, I was never the one who wanted immortality. I just want to get out of this cemetery of a city, past that mad bastard outside your gate and through hell’s nine acres beyond, and back to civilization. Getting my hearing back would be nice, too. You can take immortality, though, and stuff it. Look what it got you.” I threw down my bloody clothes and made my way to the door. Then an idea hit me, and I went back and grabbed up the bundle of rags I’d been wearing.

You are going to leave me here
. His voice was shot through with incredulity.

“
I feel sorry for you, I really do. But the last thing the world needs is another power-mad ruler. It definitely doesn’t need an immortal one.”

Remember that I did not compel you, Amra. Remember that, and return to me when age begins to creep up on you. I will wait here, though you’ve spat in luck’s good eye.

“
Where else are you going to be?” And with that I pushed open the brass-bound door and made my way out of the chamber.

I will not stop you, Amra. Athagos will have other ideas, however. My presence is your only safety.

Stairs up, a hallway, a false start down another hallway and I was at the massive double doors that led to the Tabernacle grounds. It wasn’t as difficult as it might have been—dawn had broken and there were ample windows in the granite walls. I pushed open one of the doors and walked out into the gray morning. The rain had slowed to a drizzle.

Quickly I began to make my way through the dense underbrush to the nearest wall. I was planning my next move when she knocked me flat.

I lay there, stunned, unable to breathe. Even if I’d been able to hear, I doubt I would have noticed her approach.

I scrambled to my hands and knees and my chest began to ease, the barest hint of air making its way to my frantic lungs. Eyes closed, I forced myself to take a breath. Once more. Again.

I opened my eyes and saw a pair of withered, bony feet. Slowly I raised my head, seeing desiccated flesh hanging from shins, then knobby knees, skeletal thighs wrapped in rotting cloth—heart hammering, I looked up into the face of the thing that stood before me. She was ancient, not wholly human, and very, very hungry. She looked down at me, head cocked to one side. The only thing alive about her were her eyes. A stunning, unworldly blue, they bored into mine with what appeared to be curiosity. That, and hunger.

Slowly, I stood up and backed away. She followed me with her eyes. When I began to turn my body to run, she threw her head back and her arms forward, and shaped her mouth into a perfect O. The back of my neck went cold, and the hum and whine in my ears intensified to a painful level. I kept backing away, looking for anything around me I could use as a weapon. All that presented itself was a heavy stick about three feet long and crooked as hell. Transferring the bundle of clothes to my left hand, I picked it up.

Athagos stopped gargling or whatever she was doing and dropped her arms. I saw surprise in those eyes when she looked at me. She cocked her head again and regarded me some more.

“
I don’t know what you’re up to, lady, but I’ve got a feeling I don’t want any part of it. So I’ll just be going.” And I began to turn again.

She was quicker than I would ever have imagined. Suddenly she had me in a bear hug and was gnawing at my left shoulder. My left arm was pinned between our bodies. I brought the stick up against her head with all the force I could muster, and felt both the stick and her skull crack. She dropped me and stumbled away.

Like an idiot I stood there, shaking, holding the splintered stick in a death grip and staring in sick fascination at the thing that was most likely going to kill me. Already I could see her skull knitting back together. I turned and ran.

Crashing blindly through the underbrush, I stumbled away from the Tabernacle. Not being able to hear how close she was behind me put my heart in my throat and made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

I ran headlong into the gates. Not exactly where I wanted to be, but I didn’t have time to find a spot further away from the Duke. Besides, I figured he’d be too busy dealing with old death incarnate to worry about me if it came to that.

The gates were barred from the inside by a huge timber. I knew I would never be able to lift it up off the supports, but what was there to do but try? I got a shoulder under one end and heaved—and the end of the ancient, rotted timber crumbled. Frantically I searched the ground for another stick, found one about two feet long, and started hacking and punching the middle of the timber with it. Wet exterior chunks broke off, dust from the middle sifted to the ground.

On the fourth or fifth back swing the stick was plucked from my hand.

I turned slowly to face her, the thing that was about to end my life. I forced myself to stay calm, to keep loose, ready to take any advantage that presented itself. Every second I was alive was a second I wasn’t dead.

She stood with the stick in her hand, staring at me unblinkingly. It was hard to tell through all the folds, wrinkles, and crags in her face, but I think she was smiling. She tossed the stick far into the underbrush, shook one bony finger at me, and launched herself.

The impact knocked me back into the gates. They burst open. I hit the cobbles of the square hard on my naked backside, sliding a few feet on the wet cobbles. For the second time in five minutes I’d had the wind knocked out of me. I lay there, eyes closed, waiting to die. It took me a few moments to realize the creature wasn’t on top of me, gnawing me into bloody chunks. I opened my eyes and saw her standing at the gates, straining against an invisible barrier. She must be bound to the Tabernacle grounds, I realized, or else I would have been dead months ago. I took a tortured breath.

It was about then I noticed the crossbow pointed at my head.

The Duke had it aimed right at my temple, and was screaming something.

“
Sorry, you mad bastard, I can’t hear a word you’re saying,” I said in what I thought was a normal speaking voice. I looked around and saw that the Duke’s men were all staring at Tha-Agoth’s sister-wife. Gnarri was there, nearest the gate. I felt the chills run up my spine, and my ears began to ache again. An expression of pure agony crossed Gnarri’s face and he clapped his hands to his ears.

They were all in the same agony, all of the Duke’s men, and the Duke himself had dropped his crossbow and fallen to the ground next to me. I sat up, dumbfounded until I looked over at Athagos. Her mouth was shaped into that perfect O, her arms spread wide. The Duke and the others started to convulse, then went still. After a few moments they all stood up in unison and started walking toward the creature like marionettes.