The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye (10 page)

You have survived
much,
said the flame suddenly in my head.
You will live to survive more.

When I c
ould talk again. I asked a question. It helped take my mind from the wreckage of my body.

“
Hey Flame. What the hell are you?”

I am what the Sorcerer-King discarded when he attempted to become immortal.

“
That's about as clear as mud.”

All your questions wil
l be answered, in time. For now, save your strength. Dawn comes, and with it your hope of rescue.

“
Flame? Hey. Flame?”
But there was no answer.

It
was
getting lighter, though nearly imperceptibly at first. After a time the pale morning light filtered down enough for me to make out more of my surroundings.

From my nearly upside-down position on the rubble hill, everything took on a crazed perspective. I knew exactly where I was and it would have been just as crazed if I were right side up. The mammoth hall was still mostly intact. Staircases still beggared gravity, hallways still stood at impossible angles and at random spots in those cliff-like walls. At the far end of the hall I could just make out those two huge, black double doors. I looked to my right. A few yards away rose the spiral staircase that the Flame had descended.

High above, one of the shadowy monsters was speared through the back on the jagged tip of the stair's central support. Its limbs hung limp, boneless. It might have been a huge ugly doll. Eventually, when the sun rose high enough to shine straight on the corpse, it sort of dissolved, leaving behind a tiny, shrivelled husk.

The rising sun also illuminated more of the hall below me. The pyramid had just been the tip of a vast madhouse. I couldn't imagine what it had taken to build such a thing, or why anyone would have bothered.

“
I suppose it will make a good tomb,” I muttered. As the light grew, my consciousness dimmed.

It must have been close to noon when I woke again, this time to a massive shift in the rubble. I was far gone. I didn't know where I was
anymore, and was none too certain of who I was. I only knew I was in pain, and that I was thirsty. I opened my eyes, but couldn't focus properly. I saw a wavering silhouette above me, coming closer. Slowly it came into focus. It was Holgren. He picked his way down to me, carefully, taking forever. Relief flooded through me. He was alive. He was here.

“
Where the hell have you been?” I croaked. He just smiled, thinly, and said “Hush now.”

My mind wandered far and away, into the deep recesses of memory. It's one way to escape pain.
And Holgren couldn’t help but cause me pain as he freed me.

I awoke to distant birdsong.
I smelled winter rye, felt the weak sun on my face. I tried to move and found I was wrapped up much like an infant in swaddling clothes.

I was lying in a makeshift bath made from an oilskin tarp supported by cut saplings. Pinkish water covered me to the chin. Something was different, besides that. It took me a while to think of what it was. Then I remembered
. I was supposed to be half deaf and in agony. I was neither. I looked around. Still in the clearing. The yawning pit that had been the Flame's pyramid was some distance off to my left. The sun was brushing the treetops behind it, on its way to bed.

“
I didn't know if it would work,” Holgren said from behind me. “The blood was old and dried, and I had no idea how much potency was left after my own resurrection. I thought it best to return it to a liquid state.”

Tha-Agoth’s
blood. Ugh.

“
Can you hear me,
Amra?”

“
I'm not particularly fond of blood baths, Holgren. Can you get me out of here, please?”

He pulled me out of the bath, undoing the strips of rag that bound me. I found I was shaky and weak, and had to lean against him during the whole procedure. He felt my right arm, tenderly at first.

“
Any pain?”

I shook my head.

“
Excellent.” He held me away front him, at arm's length. “Look at you,” he said. “Not a scratch, not a scrape.”

I shivered. “Not a stitch of clothing, either. I'm cold, Holgren.”

He looked at me again, then, with different eyes. He blushed and turned his head. “Yes, of course. Sorry. Let me set you down and I'll, ah, get your things. Here's a blanket.”

“
What happened to you after the pyramid collapsed?” I asked him as he collected my clothing, which was in a tidy pile near the bath.

“
I woke as I was being thrown through the air. You'll have to tell me just what happened to cause that. The remaining raiders set on me, drove me back into the woods. I didn't have a thimbleful of power left.” He handed me my clothes and took my hand.

“
I'm sorry I left you for so long.”

“
Don't be an ass. What good would you have done me dead?”

“
I should have done something.”

“
What? Jumped in after me, broken your legs? We'd both be down there dying right now. You did the right thing, Holgren. The only thing.”

I tried to pull my hand away, to start dressing, but he held it firm. Those eyes of his searched my face. “When I saw you fall, Amra, I...” He let go of my hand, raised both of his in a helpless gesture. “I don't want to lose you.”

It was my turn to blush.

“
Turn the hell around so I can get dressed,” I growled. I explained to Holgren how the pyramid had exploded as I dressed. It was a slow process. I was healed, but I didn't have much strength or coordination. My fingers fumbled on buttons and ties. I strapped on the knife sheaths, though I no longer had any knives to go in them. Without their familiarity on my body, I'd still feel naked.

“
How did you escape the creatures?" I asked him.

“
I didn't, really. They would have gotten me eventually. When the sun rose, they just melted into the ground. Their power is limited in that way, at least. Gods know they're powerful enough.”

“
What are they, Holgren, and why did they attack? You can turn around now, by the way.”

“
And will they attack again? I don't have any answers.”

I also remembered what the Flame had said when I'd been dying down below, about being what the Shadow King had discarded. And there was that shrivelled corpse of a raider still speared on the jagged tip of the staircase down there. Not enough answers, too many questions.

“
We need to get going ourselves, before those bastards show up again.”

“
Let me just collect some of your bathwater before we go.” He poured out the contents of water skin and then submerged it in the pink water I'd been soaking in.

“
Do you think it will be any good anymore?”

“
Only one way to find out. I can't imagine it will hurt, at any rate.”

“
Did you find Dandy, or any of the mules?”

“
Yes. Dead. I'm sorry. I’m also sorry to say that we’ll be eating mule for the foreseeable future. It’s all there is.”

“
Damn.” I was going to miss our beasts of burden, and not just for sentimental reasons. I’d have been hard put to outpace the monsters fully rested. I had no chance to, weak as I was.

“
What do we do now?”

“
For now, we go to ground.”

It was a long way down to the mound of rubble I'd been pinned on. Holgren and I made it down with the aid of a rope. He lowered me, then climbed down after. From ther
e we carefully picked our way across the floor of the Flame's dismal foyer.

The –umbrals, hadn’t the flame called them? –
hadn't liked the pyramid's blue fire one bit, but it was out now. Would they hesitate to chase us down here? I just didn't know enough about what was happening to guess. One thing was for certain—if they came again that night I didn't have the strength to fight or to run.

Holgren and I made camp in one of the empty rooms
. He brought down firewood and started a fire, then he pulled out canvas wrapped chunks of meat and began to roast them over the fire.

“
You
need to eat something, Amra. You can't do much more tonight, I think.”

Mule steak. Great. But it was true. My stomach was a
gurgling void, and if the umbrals showed up just then I'd barely be able to crawl away. As the pieces cooked, he doled them out and I ate mechanically, bite by tough bite.

When we were done, I
lay back on one of the blankets Holgren had salvaged from our packs. We were in a high, nearly inaccessible chamber deep inside the Flame's labyrinth. I didn't feel terribly safe. The shadow raiders weren't exactly smart, but just then I could only think of one thing that frightened me more: Athagos. I remembered how she had sucked all those men dry, and shuddered.

“
Are you cold?" Holgren asked, and I shook my head. "No. Just thinking unpleasant thoughts. I'm fine.”

“
Do you want to plan now, or in the morning?”

“
What are our options? We have limited supplies, we can only go where the necklace lets me, and these shadow creatures could set on us any time from sunset to sunrise."

"It will work out. You survived Thagoth. You can survive this." A thought crossed his face. "I just realized, I never got a chance to ask you what happened with the flame."

“
Nothing I care to talk about right now.” I didn't want to go into the details. Killing your father is a very personal thing, no matter how you look at it.

“
As you wish,” he sighed. “I’m going to scout about. Get some rest.” And he was off into the labyrinth.

I
stifled a yawn, bunching up a blanket to use as a pillow. I made myself as comfortable as possible on the cold stone floor and settled down for desperately needed sleep.

It was deep in the night when I woke with a start. I looked around the dim chamber, trying to figure out what had woken me. I stared at the dying fire in the
center of the room for a while, and Holgren’s snoring form on the other side of it. I closed my eyes again.

Wake. little thief I hav
e something to show you.

The Flame. I sighed. “What do you want?” I whispered.

As I said. I have something to show you. Come.
A tiny golden flame popped into being in the air above my head, and floated toward the corridor.

“
This better be good,” I muttered, and rose from my makeshift bed.

I followed the bobbing flame out into the corridor, around a corner, and down another corridor that I didn't remember seeing on the way in. From there, it led me down a set of dusty stairs.

Those stairs went on and on. They finally ended in a long, high chamber lined with twisted pillars. The Flame stopped at the base of the stairs. At the other end of that chamber was a simple wooden door, about six feet high by three wide.

I m
ay go no further. The answers to many of your questions are behind that door.

Something about this felt wrong. Part of being a successful thief is relying on your instincts. That innocuous door was making mine very nervous.

There is nothing inherently dangerous to you beyond. But there is much that is ... unpleasant. What you feel is much like a stain, left over from the past.
The Flame actually seemed uncomfortable.

“
Why don't you just tell me what's in there? That way we can both avoid any unpleasantness.”

I cannot. T
his you must see for yourself. No harm will befall you in these halls.

I took the last few steps down into the chamber and started walking toward the door. I was sick of mysteries and riddles. I wanted some answers. As I approached the door the small hairs on the back of my neck tried to rip themselves out of my skin. The entire underground labyrinth practically radiated magic, but whatever was behind that door was something else again.

I began to have third and fourth thoughts about what I was doing. I kept walking. A sort of pressure began to build, gently at first, like a friendly hand trying to turn me aside. A few steps later and I was walking against a strong wind. A few steps more and I was trying to push myself through a stone wall. I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes, and put one foot in front of the other, straining with all my inconsiderable might. Just as I was about to give up, the resistance vanished.

I opened my eyes. The door stood in front of me: plain, unadorned, innocuous. There wasn't even a lock. I had no tools to probe with, but I inspected the frame and flagstones around it as best I could, searching for any tell-tale signs of alarms or traps.

Nothing else guards the door. You are free to enter.

“
I guess I'll just have to take your word on it.” I put one hand on the knob, turned, and pushed. The Flame was right. Inside was much that was unpleasant.

Chapter 5

I suppose it could have been called a throne room. It could also have been called an abattoir, or a mausoleum.

The room was about forty feet long by thirty wide, low-ceilinged, dressed in pale marble. It was lit by four blue-burning braziers, one at each corner. Walls, ceiling, and floor were all spattered with old, dried blood. Desiccated corpses strewed the floor.