The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye (13 page)

“
How much longer? One of those things could come in here at any time.”

“
If you'd stop asking questions it would move along a bit faster.”

I took the hint and shut up. He hunkered down over the blood drawings and began to rock back and forth. A strange, low keening came from his throat that I'd never heard before.

I took a step back. Low Country magic tended to be vicious, as befitted a region with a centuries-old tradition of vendetta. Whatever he was doing, he damn sure needed to hurry.

Holgren began carving the air with the dagger. At first I didn't know what he was doing. Then something began to form before him, at the direction of the blade. Slowly, too slowly for my taste, two figures began to take shape. After a moment I recognized Holgren's features in one, and mine in the other. They were sketches at best, but they didn't have to be much more. I knew what they were, now: blood dolls. Sacrifices built of blood and magic, given shape by a mage’s mind, made to do one thing convincingly—die.

As I said, Low Country magic tended to be vicious. Even purely defensive magic. Centuries of occupation by one conqueror after another had really had an effect there.

Holgren's blood doll was barely more than a scarecrow. He'd given it the merest suggestion of a face, a long hank of hair and a dark robe. The one he made for me was a bit more. Its short brown hair was artfully if simply arranged, and its face was free of any scar or blemish. The nose was long and straight, the almond-shaped green eyes perfectly balanced. My own thin lips were fuller on that face, and I would have needed cosmetics to get them as red as he made them. I fingered my oft-broken nose and wondered if he were mocking me, or if this was how- he really saw me.

I looked away from the blood doll, uncomfortable on several levels.

“
Hurry the hell up, Holgren.”

Finally he was done. He stood up and stretched, and looked at his creations.

“
They won't last long,” he said, handing me back the knife.

“
Then let’s get to it.”

“
Step two is to divert attention from ourselves while they draw it. I've got something that would serve, a fool-the-eye, but I would need an hour or more to prepare it.”

“
No time for that. I've got a better idea.”

“
What?”

“
Let's run like hell.”

He smiled, shakily, and I returned it.

“
Ready?”

He nodded.

“
Send them down the right set of stairs. With a light, if you can?”

He nodded again, and the blood dolls came to life. A glowing sphere of light popped into being above the false Holgren's hand, and they both turned in unison and pelted into the hall and down the stairs. I counted to three, grabbed Holgren's arm, and took off.

Fear is a funny thing. It can kill you, but it can also keep you alive if you learn to ride it instead of fighting it. It heightens all your senses. It lends your feet wings. In its grip, time slows and you have time to read to events that you would not have, normally. Or so it seems to me. I should know. Fear has been a near-constant companion for much of my life.

I heard it before I saw it, just the faintest scrape on stone. We had just cleared the entryway and were taking the left-hand set of stairs in great bounds. Holgren had already pulled slightly ahead of me, with those long legs of his. I spared a glance back to see how the blood dolls fared, and caught a quick impression of a hundred shadows racing toward their tiny light. That's when I heard that faint scrape on stone from just above, about three feet away from my ear. I knew without thinking that not all of the monsters had taken the bait.

Before I'd even decided to, my arm shot out and plunged the dagger into the thing's head.

Would a normal blade have worked? Probably not. That one did. It still held a residue of powerful magic. Awful magic. It pierced the thing's skull as if it were an eggshell, and the creature fell from the wall to land behind me, dead. That was the good news. The bad news was that one of its tentacles brushed my hand. It was the briefest of contacts, but my whole arm went numb for a moment, and I lost the dagger. At least I was alive.

We reached the bottom of the stairs and high-tailed it toward the double doors, which stood some twenty yards away. The blood doll’s light had gone out, by then. It didn't matter. We were almost free. Besides the one I'd slain, there were no shadow creatures on our side of the hall that I could see.

I had forgotten the mother of all bad dreams above us.

A tentacle as wide around as a Borian pony slammed down in front of us, cutting off our route to the double doors. It could just as easily have crushed us. I guess it liked to play with its food. Holgren, just ahead of me, skidded to a halt and backed up, muttering and gesturing. I doubted whatever he was preparing would be any more effective against this thing than his previous attempts to kill the raiders.

I looked up at it. It looked down at us. With a voice like wind whistling among tombstones, it giggled.

“
What's so damn funny?” I shouted. “Whatever you're going to do, do it.”

“
Amra—” Holgren muttered. I ignored him. Holgren wasn't much for bravado, but sometimes it had its uses.

The tentacle coiled around the two of us, drawing tighter, threatening but not yet touching. That awful giggling continued all the while.

“
Be prepared to make light,” I murmured to Holgren. “Some bright light.”

You ask me what I find amusing, little one? I was Sent to snare a goddess, and instead find an alley rat and a hedge mage. Is that not amusing?

“
Not particularly, no.”

I am amused, though the master will not be. Your skulls will make fine wombs for my beautiful children.

“
Out of curiosity, how does that work, that skull-womb process?”

It's quite simple, actually. I bite your heads off and ingest them. You won't die, though. Not immediately. My babies need a host still able to experience torment, you see.

“
I do see. Thank you for clearing that up. I've got one more question, if you don't mind. What blind excuse of a cross between a giant squid and a spider would have the poor taste to impregnate you? Judging by the stupidity and sheer ugliness of your children—”

With a snap, its tongue retreated into its mouth, and it lunged.

“
Now, Holgren!” I screamed. I closed my eyes and waited for those silvery teeth to descend and rip my head off. I had gambled our lives on the fact that these were creatures of shadow. The spell that Holgren cast wasn't deadly. It was in fact one of the simplest spells I'd ever seen him perform. The power he invested it with, however, was awesome.

Light blossomed from his fingertips and engulfed the fiend's head, but to call it simply light is to say a sea contains a little water. It was as if a heatless sun had sprung from his outstretched hand. Closing my eyes just wasn't enough. I threw my arm over my face, and still my eyes pained me.

The mother of monsters wasn't giggling anymore. She was shrieking. The light began to fade, and I risked a squinting glance up. She was pulling herself back out of the hall, her long, vicious head no longer visible, hidden behind the brilliance of Holgren's spell. I couldn't look at her directly.

I looked down at the floor around us and saw with satisfaction several black, shrivelled husks, tentacles now only wavering piles of ash. The little ones had been more susceptible to the light.

“
How long will the spell last?” I asked, surveying the damage.

“
Not much longer. Hurry.” His voice was strained.

We bolted toward the doors. His spell was already fading. The hall had begun to groan and tremble. The mother of shadows was going to tear the place apart.

I spared a glance back. I immediately wished I hadn't. She was thrashing through the opening above, ripping stonework away in her haste and fury. She made no sound now, except for the violence of her passage. Ichor dripped from the great black orbs that were her eyes.

We reached the doors and pushed for all we were worth. Each door was massive, and made of black basalt. We groaned, sweated, cursed. Nothing, nothing—and finally, mercifully, movement.
The door had moved enough for us to slip out. I grabbed Holgren's arm and yanked him through. Beyond was a cavernous darkness.

"Let’s go.” I started off.

“
Wait.” he said. “Help me close the door.”

“
No time. Let's move.”

“
I'm going to set a Binding. It’s worth the delay.”

“
I hope you're right.”

We shoved the door closed and he worked a quiet magic. Time stretched. Impatience is hardly the word for what I felt, but railing at him would only break his concentration.

“
It's done,” he finally whispered. “It will buy us more time.”

I didn't waste time on words. I started running. My eyes were not adjusted to the dark after Holgren's light show, but it was a huge hallway. Our footsteps and our panting echoed back from the matte black walls. It was mercifully free of obstacles, but still one or the other of us would stumble. Holgren created another light, but it was a puny thing. I suppose it was all he could muster.

If the Sending caught us this time, we were worse than dead. And she was coming. She pounded out her fury on those doors; booming, shuddering blows that made the very air tremble. I found an extra bit of speed.

Time is impossible to measure when you're running in abject terror. The booming grew fainter, after a time, until it was barely audible over our gasps. For a fractured moment I began to think it possible the doors might hold indefinitely. Then Holgren abused me of the notion.

“
The binding weakens,” he panted. “Faster, Amra.” I went faster.

We didn't get much further before the doors gave. When they collapsed, her shriek echoed down the passageway before her, a chilling howl that voiced her triumph, and our doom. I felt it as much as heard it, and my imagination tormented me with images of the monster and her progeny coming for us, swarming over the rubble of those giant slabs to hunt us down.

The most maddening thing was the silence. She said nothing more after that one shriek, and shadows make no sound when they move. I spared a glance back and saw a boiling darkness rushing down the tunnel toward us. It overtook Holgren and me before we'd gone three more paces, and when it did, it became near pitch black. Holgren's magelight cast no more illumination than a glowing ember.

“
Just keep running,” he gasped. Holgren had pulled ahead of me with those lanky legs of his, so it was him that smacked into the wall at the end of the passage. I heard the meaty thud of his body connecting with solid stone in time to pull up before I repeated his performance.

“
Are you all right?” I asked.

He grunted. And I took that as a yes. I began to run my hands along the wall, praying there was a door. If not, we were finished and the Flame had a very odd and distinctly unfunny sense of humor.

At first I felt only stone, and panic washed over me anew. Had we missed a door or a passageway in our headlong flight? Then my fingers brushed past stone into an opening. I explored it with blind hands, and found it big enough for two abreast.

“
Thank you,” I whispered.

I helped Holgren to his feet, and pulled him after me through the opening. The Sending at least would not be able to fit through, though her children would. She would have to tear open a hole big enough for her monstrous bulk. That would take time.

I was barely a pace in when my foot encountered a step. Up, thankfully. If the stairs had led down, we would have taken a tumble and broken our necks in the dark.

I hauled Holgren up the steps, holding him by the waist and guiding him. He seemed dazed by the run-in with the wall. His light had disappeared completely.

“
Faster,” I urged him. “We have to go faster.”

I smelled it first—that algae-ridden, vaguely fishy smell that large bodies of water tint the nearby air with. We were close to an exit, and fresh water.

We were near an exit. Hope flared, then died down. If it was still night, we were probably still doomed whether we made it outside or not. Daylight was our only hope.

The stairs went up and up. I could hear them, now, behind us, the faint skittering of claws on stone. I spared a glance back, but of course could see nothing. I looked up—Merciful gods. High above us, made small by distance, stood the faint outline of a doorway.

Fear is a powerful motivation. Fear mixed with hope becomes a grand sort of magic. I thought I had given my all before. Now, even hindered by a groggy Holgren, I fairly flew up the stairs. There was light beyond that door.

Two hundred yards or more separated us from escape. I couldn't be sure how much distance separated us from the Shadow King's creatures, but that gap was shrinking by the second. I kept my eyes on the approaching exit and did not look back again. Gray dawn filtered through the doorway and as we approached, it illuminated our steps. I was already going as fast as I could, but the simple fact that I could see where I placed my feet was a relief. We narrowed the distance, second by second, step by step.

I could hear them swarming up the stairs now, and it was only with an act of will that I kept from looking back the way we'd come. Either we'd make it or we wouldn’t. I refused to waste any time looking back.