Thief: A Fantasy Hardboiled (Ratcatchers Book 2) (35 page)

Garth stopped talking, he was looking at Heden, but not paying attention to him. The count lay gasping on the floor at his feet.

“Fuck it,” Garth said, and dropped the marble, letting it fall into the count’s mouth.

The count gagged on it. Before he could spit it out, Garth stood over him.

“For the Black,” he said, and kicked the count in the jaw.

The marble exploded in the count’s shattered mouth.

The count squealed in pain, the sound a high-pitched whine coming from his closed lips.

“Black gods,” Aimsley said, looking from Heden to the count. Witness to one of the most ruthless executions he’d ever seen.

The count breathed in, and the night dust went into him.

His body thrashed. He gibbered, as the night dust began ripping him apart. Aware of what was happening. Unable to stop it.

“Cavall’s nutsack!” Dom said.

The count lurched to his feet, pulled by unseen strength.

Everyone in the room was trying to stay as far away from him as possible. Domnal stood in the doorway, ready for instant flight, but unwilling to leave Heden behind.

With a supreme act of will, his last, the count plunged toward a crate stuffed with straw, dug his hands into it, and pulled out two fistfuls of night dust marbles. Lifted them up over his head.

“Fuck,” Heden said, too late.

The count crushed the marbles in what was left of his hands, and let the dust run down his face.

The night dust, two dozen doses of it, pulled the count’s body apart. Bones cracked, skin went black, cracked, and then boiled. The thing he was becoming was unlike any deathless Heden had ever seen.

“Nikros and Cyrvis preserve us,” Garth whispered. The revenant was between him and the exit.

“Heden!” Aimsley said. “Should we run?!”

Heden spoke a prayer, a layer of black smoke burned off the thing that was the count, but no more. It would take ten priests to stop this thing.

Garth drew
Apostate
and stabbed at the revenant. The blade did nothing, but the thing that had been the count reacted. It reached out a long-fingered, black-clawed hand and grasped Garth by his leather armor, lifted him effortlessly and slammed him into the ground with such force the assassin was momentarily stunned.

The count, or his corpse, distracted by Garth, Heden dashed forward to the star elf. He put his hands on the creature and prayed to Cavall.

Nothing happened.

Aimsley stabbed the revenant in the back with his twin dirks. The creature ignored him.

Heden turned his eyes to the heavens and called out.

“Lynwen!” Heden shouted, and prayed again. The manacles dissolved.

The eight-foot tall elf fell to the floor. A moment passed while the battle raged behind Heden. Garth and Aimsley both trying to hold back the count long enough to give Heden a chance.

The elf rose from the floor. It didn’t stand, using arms and legs to push itself upright, it needed no such mundane instruments. It merely floated upwards, until it was standing, naked, but magisterial. Its violet hair moving in an invisible breeze.

It’s skin was utterly black, a void. Looking at it, you saw stars burning. Heden recognized constellations. They moved and shifted as the figure moved, as Heden’s head moved. It was like looking through a window.

The elf turned its black-on-black eyes to Heden.

“That is the man that bound you!” Heden shouted, as the revenant attacked Aimsley. The polder danced back but the ghoul was faster and stronger. It grasped the polder by the throat.

The celestial’s eyes scanned the room. Its mouth opened and the sound of wet glass being rubbed by a finger came out.

The revenant went rigid. Its eyes swollen and filled with black blood. Ash-grey bone ripped through tattered skin. It dropped Aimlsey, who quickly bound backward out of reach.

The star elf drew his hand calmly into a fist, and the night dust was pulled from the count. His body was restored, flesh and bone knitted back together. When the star elf released his grip, the body fell to the floor in a heap, dead.

More glass-sounds from the star elf.

“What’s he saying?” Aimsley said, rubbing at his throat.

“He said the count does not deserve so neat a death,” Heden translated.

“Neat!?” Aimsley said, unbelieving.

The celestial reached out a hand, and Aimsley watched as the priest was lifted from the ground by an unseen force.

Twin dirks appeared in the thief’s hands and he lunged at the astral celestial.

“Don’t!” Heden gasped to the thief. The polder skidded across the floor, his motion stopped, as his head darted back and forth between the nine foot tall celestial, and the man suspended and strangling before him.

The polder watched as Heden’s voice made a noise that sounded like singing without words, just pure tones modulated by the shifting shape of his jaw and mouth.

The celestial frowned. Opened his hand. Heden gasped for breath normally again, but was still suspended three feet in the air.

the celestial said in his own tongue. Aimsley only heard the high pitched sound, almost a melody, as of a wet finger rubbed along the edge of a wine glass.

Heden said, turning and stretching his neck, unable to move his arms.

The celestial’s eyes went wide. He released Heden. The priest stumbled as he hit the floor, quickly righting himself.

“Heden what the fuck is going on?” Garth asked.

the elf said, and Heden noted he did them the favor of using normal terran grammar even as he spoke celestial.

The elf turned, a fluid motion, as he regarded Garth, Domnal, and the polder. His gaze lingered on Aimsley.

the celestial said, in its bell-chime language.

Heden glanced at Aimsley. "That's probably true," he said in tevas-gol. Heden wasn’t sure where Polder came from and was willing to take the demi-god’s word for it.

the celestial continued in his own language.

Heden asked, turning back to the demigod.

“Heden,” Dom said from the doorway, his voice shaking, “can we please get the fuck out of here?”

"What's he saying?" Aimsley asked.

"He's saying he could kill everyone in this city," Heden answered.

"Could he?"

"Maybe," Heden said to Aimsley. The polder, Dom, and Garth all watched Heden negotiate with the Celestial.

“We would be easy,” Heden indicated himself and the others. “But there are powers in the city who would stop you. Our knights and wizards, our saints. And there is a dwarf in the city,” Heden saved the best for last.

"This isn't getting us anywhere," Heden said, allowing himself to seem impatient. "We knew what you could do once freed, and we did it anyway. That should count for something."

The elf stared at him with silver eyes.

“You could start by speaking our language,” Heden said. “I know it’s easy for you.”

"Why did you release me and invite my wrath?" the elf asked, this time in heavily accented tevas-gol.

“Cyrvis’ thorny prick,” Garth hissed at the sound of the Celestial’s voice.

"Because it was the right thing to do," Heden said. This, in the end, was his only armor against the astral celestial. Aimsley held his breath.

"Morality," the dark elf sneered. "A terran thing."

"It’s a good thing. It's the reason you're still alive."

"You bound me out of fear, and released me out of fear, thou insect."

“I do fear you,” Heden admitted. “I released you anyway. Knowing it was very likely you would kill the first Man you saw.”

The elf seethed.

“I have not taken your life yet,” he pointed out.

“I know,” Heden said. “I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t really have a plan after this part, I just knew it was wrong to leave you like that.”

Aimlsey made a squeaking noise in his throat. It sounded like: “eep.”

One corner of the astral celestial’s mouth curled in a sneer.

"I require satisfaction," it said, and looked at the body of the count.

The count’s body heaved, his eyes flew open, and he gasped in a breath, alive again.

"Black gods," Aimsley said, taking a step back. He was tensed, ready for battle. He looked at Heden, judging how worried he should be by the priest’s demeanor.

"They're made of godstuff," Heden muttered to the thief. "What they think becomes real." He could hear Aimsley breathing heavily now.

The celestial looked at its hands as though seeing them for the first time.

“Val,” the elf swore, looking at his hands in marvel. “It is accomplished. The great endeavor.”

This was not the first time Heden had heard that term.

“What?” he asked. “What is accomplished?”

The celestial ignored him, marveled at the resurrected count. “I willed it, and it happened.”

“Gods please,” the count said. “Please let me die. Not again, gods, not again.”

“What was the great endeavor?” Heden pressed, fear replaced by a burning need to know.

“Heden,” Aimsley warned.

Garth looked at Aimsley. “We need to get the fuck out of here,” he said. Behind them, Domnal nodded furiously.

“I bestride the boundary between life and death,” the elf looked down at his body in awe.

His gaze snapped back to the count, and he sneered. The count’s body went rigid again. He howled.

His body was being turned inside out again. The effect of the night dust, but in an instant.

When the screams ended, a ghoul stood before them again.

“Hhhuuurr,” the body of the count moaned. It seemed different from the deathless Heden had encountered before. There was something in there. Some spark of spirit that radiated despair.

“I command the forces of the undying,” the celestial said, and gestured again at the undead count.

The count’s body twisted and writhed in pain, it screamed and Heden was certain something of the count was still in there. This was no normal deathless. Heden couldn’t stand by and watch.

“I will rack you back and forth from life to death,” the elf said, “until your mind is broken. Then I shall rebuild you and begin again.”

"No," Heden said, and drew
Solaris.

I need you
, Heden thought.

A betrayer,
the voice of the sword echoed in Heden's head.
For countless cycles I have yearned for such a one. Leave him to me.

A light glowed from the blade, sunlight. Warm, reviving. But like a detonation, the count’s body exploded into dust, destroyed by
Solaris

The celestial spun on Heden.

“You dare!” it said, and a cloud of inky darkness oozed from its skin like smoking, searching tendrils. “You doom is inevitable! Always you turn back to sin! Only thus could you have bound me!”

Solaris
thrust itself into the air. A beam of pure white light struck the dark elf.

Instantly the star elf leapt back, placed a hand over his eyes. The dark cloud vanished.

the dark elf cried out.

"
I serve only the light
," the sword said, its voice heard not by ears, but inside their heads.
"I care not for blood, only will. And the will of the Astrals was always twisted to darkness.”

"Heden!" Aimsley gasped, holding his head in his hands, trying to shut the voice out.

The sword aimed itself at the elf. Heden was not entirely happy with this, but unsure of his options.

“Long have you evaded punishment for Kalas Mithral,”
the sword said.
“Justice must be satisfied!”

The celestial fell back in fear.

the dark elf cried, now on his knees.

Fate spared you, but I shall not!
came the booming reply in their minds.

A searing light shot from the sword and smoke rose from the dark elf’s skin as his form was boiled by molten sunlight.

The elf screamed as smoke burned everyone’s lungs.

“Stop!” Heden said, and dropped the sword.

The light stopped. The voice was silenced. The sword lay on the ground inert.

“You can’t act on your own,” Heden said to the blade as it lay on the ground. He knew it could hear him. “Someone has to give their consent, that’s the pact, that’s the check against your power and I do
not
consent!”